May 7, 2023
Perhaps now more than ever, I question these experiences during meditation. I have no idea how much credit to give and, if you’re reading this, you should, too.
Yesterday was Saturday and I had an experience near the end of the meditation. At first, I was in darkness but slowly became aware of light emanating from within my chest. It illuminated the surroundings.
I was in an old chicken coop, the kind that is on a raised platform and has doors/windows that can be raised and lowered. Outside, it was a cold and rainy springtime. Inside, the coop had long been abandoned but it was still relatively dry. There was a man lying on the floor of the chicken coop, older and not in great shape. He looked sick. He reminded me of a vagrant, an old time vagrant. I wondered where this was supposed to be and what time period it was.
Even though I knew the man wasn’t dead, he didn’t seem to be moving. There was a hopelessly about him. I crept up to examine his face. He was unshaven and dirty. When he opened his eyes, I was taken aback because they were all black, all pupil. I recognized this darkness; I encounter it on nearly every visit to the Imaginal.
There didn’t seem to be anything I could do for this man. I knew from the blackness of his eyes that there was something to do here but I didn’t know what so I left the coop, emerging into a wet, cold spring morning. Everything was sodden. So much rain! The land surrounding me was open meadow broken up by stone fences. There were only a few trees here and there but mostly it was pasture. The sky overhead was leaden, heavy with rain.
I shivered in the cold. For some reason, I was drawn to the south (I think) across the empty pasture. There were trees along a river that was running over its bank. I forded it, wading through chest-deep water filled with trailing weeds. On the other side was more pasture. The land to the south rose up a long incline. I could see a tree on the far horizon and then my meditation was over.
This morning was Sunday and it became that in the literal sense. I found myself exactly where I had been the day before, looking up the hill. I became aware of a woman wrapped in a light green shawl. She was standing beside me. I knew she was not human or at least that she was no longer human; she was saint in the Christian sense but I knew she was far older. She had been a spirit of this place long before Christianity but now willingly served Christ.
A moment and we were standing in a small chapel at the top of the hill that I had been staring at. Inside, it was stone. There was a small, simple stained glass window over the altar. The woman in the green shawl was standing beside me. We were facing a crucifix on the wall.
I turned and at the entrance to the chapel stood a group of people. They were all gray shadows but I could tell they ranged in age from young to old. I didn’t recognize them. I wondered why they were just shadows but then became aware of warm sunlight streaming inside the chapel. Curious, I looked for the source only to realize that the sunlight was shining through me. I looked down and saw that my body had become a doorway, a doorway of light. The doorway opened into another land, a land of bright sun that was full of color and bursting with life. The people, now illuminated by sunlight, were likewise now living in full color. They moved toward me and through me into this new land. I knew that the land led to Christ.
It’s interesting, this intersection of paganism and Christianity. It’s traditionally been conflictual but I don’t see it that way. I wonder if Christ exists long prior to Christianity or even Judaism? Did he change and evolve from something far more ancient? That would make sense because their seems to be no tension between the ancient ways and the Christian ways.
There was an enormous oak next to the chapel. Its roots, I could tell, run deep, deep, deep. It has seen many, many things and many, many changes. And yet somehow it is eternal. Rooted in the eternal. This is the way and the light.
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