Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  These visions are, I don’t need to tell you, very strange but also quite poignant. And I can tell that my soul’s abilities continue to evolve as I have more experiences. For example, the theme used to almost always be going into the Absolute blackness and finding a lost soul. Now the presence of the Absolute is more implied than seen. In fact, my soul seems more often than not to be the purveyor of the Black Essence. Like light is both particle and wave, so the soul is both entity and portal/avatar. This morning at first I thought I was just imagining things. (The distinction between imagination and Imaginal is pretty easy because imagination doesn’t originate from the heart center; it’s more of a mental seeing. Sometimes, though, things start out as mental visions without an obvious connection to the heart center. As time goes on, they become clearer and resolve through the visioning sense of the heart. The heart brings fullness, feeling and depth to the visions.) I saw a cartoo...

  It’s been a quiet week on the Imaginal front, not because it’s not available to me but because I’ve been working on stuff related to the heart and perhaps the sexual instinctual drive. As students of the Diamond Approach know, the three instinctual drives require a lot of work and clarification. In fact, they require a lifetime of dedicated work to clarify and I’m not sure if we ever completely clarify them. Maybe after several lifetimes? I’m most familiar with the self-preservation instinct because I’m a Three on the Enneagram and therefore my Soul Child is a fearful Six who has very little experience with what the Diamond Approach calls Basic Trust. (Basic Trust is the soul’s ability to trust in the benevolence of True Nature, that Reality–if we are attuned to it–will naturally provide us with the inner stability and knowledge to deal with whatever comes our way.) The other instincts, the sexual and social drives, are territories I haven’t explored quite as fully. I’ve been awa...

  Annnnnd just when I think these Imaginal journeys are a figment of my imagination, I have an intense experience like this morning. This one was really quite epic and has left me reeling. It started out with me seeing what appeared to be a cottony spider egg case, a very large egg case. I could tell something living was inside of it but couldn’t tell whether this was an egg case containing millions of babies, a single creature or perhaps it wasn’t an egg at all? It turned out that it wasn’t precisely an egg, more like a giant fruit. However, there was something living within it.  It was sort of fig-shaped and this turned out to be closest to the truth because, as I watched, it opened up. I crept forward and peered down inside. Inside, it was like a very large fig but also much more than a fig. It was like staring down into the whirling arms of a galaxy. Billions of stars swirled together to form an intense purple-blue. Out of this swirling cosmos emerged a transparent centipe...

  Make what you will out of this morning’s meditation. I first became aware of the sun. It was a huge orb on the eastern horizon, drenching a dewy meadow with its golden light. A form emerged from the sun and approached me. He was male and appeared to be wearing a white robe. He had long hair and a beard. I know what you’re thinking: Sounds like Jesus but this wasn’t Jesus. I don’t exactly know who he was.  He wanted me to follow him so I did. As we walked across the sunlit meadow, the scene changed and we were now on a desolate lunar plane. The pale light of a moon illuminated the place. It was barren and had no vegetation. The place reminded me of the barren ‘soul lands’ that I sometimes visit during these encounters.  There was a blue pyramid in front of us. Its side glowed a ghostly, pale blue that was familiar. It’s the same color as the rushing ‘soul river’ that I’ve written about here. The man led me to it and then stopped. I knew I was meant to enter and so I push...

  It’s hard to tell what exactly to make of this morning’s experience. I know what it seems like to me but whether I’m right or wrong, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a thread of truth in it? I first saw an enormous red sun. It was setting and I was in the clouds on an alien world. I was riding on the neck of an immense reptilian beast. It was like a dragon but also unlike a dragon. Its wingspan was immense and it was flapping its huge, leathery wings languidly over the top of a forest. The forest was both like and unlike anything I’ve seen on Earth. The trees were deep green, purple and blue. The canopy below us was alive with life…very alien life but also somehow similar to Earth. I looked around and saw that I was amidst a ‘flock’ of these dragon-like creatures and there were humanoid beings seated upon their necks as well. These human-like creatures resembled the dragon-lizards with bony crests and armored skin. Neither they nor the dragon lizards seemed particularly welcoming, alt...

  It’s been a while since I’ve been called into the Imaginal realms. I’ve been busy with work and also feeling blocked around my heart center. Yesterday, while meditating, the reason for the blockage appeared before me. My Soul Child–i.e., the early structure in the soul formed during childhood (in this lifetime, I assume)--had been triggered by something a friend of mine did. My Soul Child had it rough and learned early how to close down and shut everyone out. I learned at a young age that I couldn’t trust anyone, even my parents, and the only reasonable way to survive was to seal everything out. Periodically, this structure gets triggered by something that happens in my current life and I find myself retreating within that protective barrier. Of course, the barrier blocks everything, including access to my heart and to Essence. And it doesn’t really protect me from anything because, well, really nothing can protect the heart. We can toughen up and go to sleep but our hearts still...