August 20, 2023
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 cartoon-like creature. It was a cyborg anthro-lion. I say ‘it’ on purpose because, like a children's cartoon, the creature was neutered. There was a furry bulge at its crotch but nothing more. Further, I realized the lion skin covered an iron-like skeleton. The creature’s eyes glowed ruby red. Not blood red, ruby red. I felt like the distinction was important.
Seeing the red of its glowing eyes, my heart center became activated because I could feel this creature’s suffering. He was in excruciating pain and it was clear from its lion-like form and iron skeleton that this form had been engineered specifically to isolate the soul trapped inside from its suffering. Of course, we all know that such strategies never really work, although they mitigate the suffering somewhat by putting us to sleep to its presence. We pay a price for this numbing because we lose contact with our hearts.
In hindsight, I understand that I was called here by an avatar of the Red Essence. Further, all of the clues pointed toward this trapped soul being a boy who was not yet an adult and probably hadn’t experienced puberty yet. He had a boy’s desire for toughness but was as yet unable to access his sexual power. In some ways, this is a mixed blessing because the Red expressed in its full form, complete with the potency of sexuality, can be a lot for a soul to handle.
Seeing the Red in the creature’s eyes, I was transported inside the ‘head’ of the beast and found a limp, gray-skinned form collapsed on the pulsing red floor before me. This was clearly a dead soul, one drained of nearly all life and in a state of ‘decomposition.’ What could I do but cradle him–for this was obviously a boy–in my arms. My body was a curious mixture of black and gold at that point and I could see the warmth of my golden glow radiating out from within me. As he touched me, the gold spread to his body, enlivening him once again. In a matter of moments, he was completely revitalized and became a radiant golden being much like myself.
It was time to leave. Where, I had no idea. I don’t get to decide that. I helped the boy to his feet and we walked out his constructed ‘head’ and through a wall of blackness, appearing on the other side in the golden realm, the one I sometimes call the Land of Truth. It looked different today, though; oh, it was still golden, dripping with honey, but it appeared as an African savannah rather than a temperate climate.
A lion-man was waiting for us. He was standing in the golden grass, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a rich mane and a lion’s head. He held out his hand to the boy and the boy ran over to him. I watched them, crying silently with happiness. It always feels so good when there is a resolution to a soul’s suffering.
I thought I was done but looked over and saw a ruby-eyed frog-man standing beside me, watching them…and me. He grinned, a slightly gruesome sight because frog mouths are already a little gruesome as they are. Despite this, I could sense he was friendly. More than that, it was clear he was an avatar of the Red Essence. The red eyes gave this away; they glowed ruby-red just like the eyes of the anthro-lion cyborg I’d first met.
He turned and, tilting his head, indicated that I should follow him. We walked back into the red room I had just vacated with the boy. Or at least I thought it was the same room; however, I was wrong. When I looked out, I realized we were standing in a room drenched in the scarlet rays of a setting sun. The sun–a ruby orb on the horizon–was both beautiful and alive, imbuing everything with the vibrance of the Red Essence.
The room looked out from a cliff overlooking the ocean. Everything was stained red by the rays of the setting sun, including the waves and a small craft bobbing on the surface of the water. I blinked and I found myself standing on the deck of that boat. I realized quickly that it was sinking or, more precisely, had already sunk, taking the lives of the people on board with it. Before me was the boy of a young girl, her dead body blood red in the sunlight. I knelt before her, tears running down my face, as I reached out and touched her shoulder.
She stirred at my touch, turning to look back at me with wonder in her eyes. I don’t know exactly what she saw but, whatever it was, it touched her. It touched me as well because I couldn’t stop crying. I knew that this was the sister of the young boy I had just transported to the Land of Truth. Further, I knew that it was my duty to take her there as well, to reunite her with her sibling. I extended my hand and she took it, the blood disappearing from her body as she did so. I lifted her to a standing position and we walked off the boat and into blackness.
We exited the blackness into the golden realm where the boy and the lion-man were still waiting for us. The girl gave a shout of delight as soon as she saw her brother and took off running towards him. They met, hugging for a long time, before they walked off into the golden sunlight of the savannah with the lion-man.
The Red Avatar was beside me, watching. I knew then that he was an angel of sorts. Had he once been human? It’s possible based on what he said next. “Well done, Black Brother,” he said, smiling. All traces of frogginess had vanished from his face but he didn’t appear human at all. I can’t really describe what he looked like.
Noticing my confusion, he explained, “We all have our affinities. No doubt you’ve noticed that yours is the Black. You take after your mother in this so in some sense you were born into your heritage but you’ve also developed it. You have many, many siblings so, in some sense, you’re not unique. However, very few of you have developed as you have. Good work!”
“Thanks,” I said. “But I feel like I have a lot of growing up to do yet. This is all so new and it keeps changing. Everytime I visit here, I’m called upon to do something different, something I didn’t know was possible. And, at the same time, I find it completely unsurprising. Like part of me has known all along.”
“Ah, destiny!” he breathed, still smiling. “We all have it. And yet it’s still a mystery.” He sat down in the grass and assumed the lotus position to meditate. “You and I are fellow travelers, fellow avatars. We aren’t exactly brothers but we are related. I have harmonized with the Red Essence and you with the Black. We will work together again, I’m sure.”
With that, he commenced meditating and I joined him, closing my eyes into blackness until my timer went off.
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