Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  A rich, beautiful, sacred and sad (for me, mostly) entry today. I first became aware of towering, rocky spires of deep purple-blue rock. Clinging to the side of one of these spires was a bush with flowers that glowed golden in the dusky light. In the branches of the bush was a pair of wrens. They were tending a nest with jeweled eggs. The sacredness of the place was palpable; I felt blessed to have found myself here. I noticed the bush was perched above a narrow ledge and the golden flower drifted down upon it, along with detritus from the birds’ nest, landing on the skeleton in tattered robes. The skeleton’s flesh had mostly desiccated but there were traces of the corpse’s long hair.  The detritus continued to accumulate, time seeming to pass by quickly, months in the space of moments. Soon, the corpse was completely covered by a blanket of debris. And then I was beneath the debris with the corpse in the pitch blackness. Ah, yes, the Black. I knew it would appear at some po...

  I’ve been avoiding going into the Imaginal for the past ten days or so because I’ve been processing what happened the last time and also because I had a cold. When I’m sick, I just have enough energy to meditate and that’s it. Today, I feel better and therefore perhaps it’s not surprising that I had another encounter in the Imaginal. These are such strange experiences! I am fed images that often don’t make much sense until afterwards. First, I became aware of bats. Thousands of them were flying past me, buffeting me with their wings. There was a full moon. I was at the entrance to a cave. I was on a ledge overlooking a vast wasteland that was covered in mist. Next to me on the ledge was a figure of pure black except for his eyes which glowed red. He was grinning. He was also leaning with his back against the rocky wall with one heel lifted against the rock. It looked like he was smoking a cigarette. This sounds kind of ominous but I don’t think he was evil and I didn’t feel like ...

  Another extraordinary journey. The Imaginal certainly knows how to keep me off kilter! If I ever thought these journeys were inventions of my overly active imagination, today’s experience challenges that because it took me to some familiar places but with a lot of unexpected twists. The themes were consistent: The bardo realm–the intermediary death realm where I encounter the souls–usually a shadowland with silvery moonlight, the Crossroads, the Lady in White, the so-called Golden Realm of Truth. But, wow, what a weird trip today! At first I became aware of a latch on a door. The latch was iron and barred a heavy, oaken door from the outside. Everything was drenched in silvery halflight. I was standing in the center courtyard of a Spanish colonial hacienda. Was I in Spain or Mexico or some other former colony? It felt like Mexico but I’m not sure. The hacienda had been converted into a garrison and the rooms made into prison cells. I got the sense that the doorway before me had b...

  Clearly, what I think I know about Reality and the soul is limited. This week, I received a teaching about the Absolute and the bank of negative karma, as I call it, built up by humanity’s transgressions. Every unresolved conflict, slight, assault, etc. seems to add to this ever-growing bank of negative karma. It’s pretty vast at this point and appears as an incredibly dense, impenetrable black miasma, kind of like sooty fog but even darker. It’s not impenetrable but it’s oppressive and poisonous. To me, it seems like humanity’s shadow. Because our world is dominated by unrestrained masculine energy gone rogue (i.e., ‘toxic masculinity’), the bank of negative karma feels like out of control yin energy. It’s the perfect counterpart to the imbalance in the world. Entering this bank of negative karma is difficult but it must be done. Balance must be restored for healing to take place and for humans to develop. Differentiating between the blackness of the Absolute and the blackness o...

  How to describe today’s experience? I don’t think it had to do with the soul of a dead human but rather seemed to deal with a non-human who had perhaps lost his way and needed to be pulled back into a different realm. At first I saw the head of a giant monster. It was gray-skinned and had horns. Curiously, his eyes were shining yellow-white. And then I was behind the monster. It’s back was against a rock wall but I could squeeze past because its body was so immense. Behind it, in a crack in the wall, was another realm. It was shining yellow-white, just like the creature’s eyes. I stepped through the crack into the other realm and met a being of a great depth and compassion there. She reminded me of the Woman in White but I’m not sure she was the same entity. The Woman in White is, well, white whereas this realm and this being was more of a buttercream. (Kinda makes me hungry!) I’ve had a number of experiences in this buttercream realm but haven’t called it that until now. It’s ha...

  I wonder what’s up with the fruit bat people? I realize that the way things and beings appear in the Imaginal is symbolic and therefore not meant to be taken at face value; however, generally humans appear as humans. Additionally, based on my experience on May 29, 2023 , I wonder how much of the symbolism is meant for me and how much is not for me at all but for the beings that I’m called to assist? In other words, perhaps the things I encounter aren’t meant to make sense to me at all. It’s not about me but about them, the beings in need and their loved ones. Bat people. That’s how today’s experience started. First, I was aware of looking down into a sphere. The tops of giant trees were visible in the sphere. I had a treetop view of an ancient tropical forest. As soon as I saw the sphere, I was within it and gliding over the forest. Around me were ‘flocks’ of bat people. They looked like a cross between a human and a flying fox. Their faces were sort of a combination of fruit bat...