Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  I didn’t think anything would appear today because it’s been such a long week and I’m tired out from work. Nonetheless, near the end of my meditation, a vision took shape.  I was in a forest of pine trees. It was humid and cool. I was pushing through the wet branches, they left moisture on my face and body.  Ahead, there was a clearing. In the center of the clearing was an enormous, glowing white orb. I approached and touched the orb, realizing it was the egg of an insect. A very large insect. The egg was beautiful with an interlaced, intricate webbing that created the soft shell. As I touched it, it broke open and a big, slimy larva slid out, landing on the forest floor in amidst a pile of glowing goo. I know the picture I’ve painted doesn’t sound pretty but it was the opposite. Oh, sure, the larva was ugly in a way, having a big, mushy body with a rather ferocious looking head, complete with a pair of big pincers. However, its body radiated a soft white glow with a la...

  Today, it took me a while to understand that I was experiencing another man’s memory fragment. My mind kept thinking that the experience was mine but it quickly became clear that it had nothing to do with me and was only being provided to me as context. The emotional affect surrounding the experience, too, was neutral. Usually, my heart is engaged when the experience is personal but this time my heart felt neutral. I was merely present in someone else’s body and seeing things from his perspective. The person was definitely a man. From what I could tell, he was young and strong. Later, I came to understand that he was a warrior priest. He was seated on the ground near the top of a hill that overlooked the rainforest. The sun was setting. The orb of the sun was orange at first but became redder as it sank toward the horizon. When it was an intense blood red, “I” got up and turned to ascend to the top of the hill. There was a copse of trees before me. They were unlike any trees I’ve...

  Today, the experience was similar to the last journey…but also different. I first became aware of someone sitting crosslegged in front of me. This time, the creature was male and appeared like an anthropomorphic lemur. He was small, lithe, furry with large eyes and ears. He appeared to be an adolescent. His face, unlike the rest of his body, was bare of hair much like the ‘troll girl’ from last Saturday. Like the troll girl, he was extremely excited to meet me. I was seated, also crosslegged, facing him. The ‘firefly bees’ were back, this time forming a crown of sorts around my head. The lemur boy reached out to touch me, his big eyes filled with wonder. I noticed we were sitting inside a ‘tent’ of green leaves. They folded over the top of us, illuminated in the soft, gold light emanating from within me and from the firefly bees. The boy stood and pushed aside the leaves, leading me out into a primeval forest. This forest was tropical and filled with immense, fat-trunked trees ...

This morning I was meditating and became aware that the blackness surrounding me had subtly changed and I knew that I was back in the Imaginal. I thought I was sitting before a campfire but then realized the soft, golden glow was coming from within me, not from an external source. In front of me was a humanlike creature. It was grinning in an amusing, lighthearted way. It’s features reminded me of the troll dolls with wild hair and glowing eyes that were somewhat popular in the U.S. in the 1990s. However, this creature did not have glowing eyes and, while obviously friendly, did not appear caricatured. She–I believe it was female–smiled, watching me. She seemed fascinated not so much by me but by the glow around me and something else. She reached out with a small, chubby hand and touched me. Her fingers came away dripping with honey. She tasted the honey, delicately lapping at her fingers with a pink tongue, and, realizing it was tasty, grew excited and licked it all off before reachin...

  As I was thinking over today’s experience I could have sworn I’ve had a similar experience in the Imaginal Bardo before. I looked through these entries, though, and didn’t see anything. I must be imagining things..  I know there are risks to trying to read too much into these experiences; they’re symbolic, after all, and only point toward the reality. They are never meant to be taken literally. Given this, I take only the bare bones of today’s experience and distill this out of them: A wife and a husband buried in the same general vicinity. Perhaps the wife was Buddhist or even Hindu. The husband seemed to be Sikh or possibly Muslim. They didn’t have a close relationship but it must have been close enough for them to still be connected after death. Additionally, they appear to have shared the same male lover. At first I saw a red godlike being, either Buddhist or Hindu. It took me a minute to realize that it was only symbolic; i.e., it was a statue and this statue was standi...

  I wasn’t intending to visit the Imaginal this morning but it happened anyway. I first became aware of an underworld ‘monster’ that was obviously not a monster. As you no doubt have gathered if you’ve been reading these entries, monsters are very rarely monsters in the Imaginal. Generally, they are beings who have been deluded into believing they are monsters. Sometimes, they are beings of compassion disguised as monsters. I, ahem, might know someone who does this at times. ;-) This monster was more hideous than usual. Its ‘skin’--if you can call it that–was a mess of bloody, pustulating flesh. It reeked of every substance that can possibly be extruded from the body. In short, this thing was not pleasant in the slightest. The appearance of the monster was one thing but its inner nature was also obvious to me; this was a human soul. He was male, probably in his thirties when he died. He was also full of guilt, which I suspect was the reason he’d adopted a monstrous form. I couldn’...

  It’s not news to anyone who has been reading these entries that I carry my own racism–and plenty of other -isms–-with me on my journeys into the Imaginal. This is part of the reason I feel uncomfortable with some of the cross-cultural experiences; I’m extremely mindful of the ‘white savior’ myth.  I get the sense, however, that race isn’t the determinant for the experiences in the Imaginal. Rather, the selector seems to be, “We need someone with your development and you’re available, so please come and lend your assistance.” Most of the time, it doesn’t matter that I’m a white, middle class, middle-aged male from the United States. There are some circumstances, though, when my race, gender and privilege from the physical world do make a difference, either positively or negatively. Sometimes, it’s important that I have that background, mostly for the benefit of the person I’m assisting. Other times, it’s a bit like sandpaper and I can tell my presence is grating to the one I’...