September 16, 2023
It’s been a while since I’ve written in here because I haven’t been called into the Imaginal much. This isn’t because the realm is inaccessible, just that it hasn’t felt appropriate to go there. My attention has been focused on the Pearl Body and the ego. For a couple weeks, the Pearl Body had been foremost in my experience and then my ego had a reaction to it. It’s no big deal - it’s common for the ego to freak out. It knows on some level that its reality is fragile and based on concepts of self and other. It uses the physical body as a proxy for the support of Being, holding onto the body very tightly and out of fear of losing it.
The ego isn’t separate from Being–or the Pearl Body for that matter–but its awareness is limited. It’s useful for the Pearl Body to arise and for the perception of the ego as not separate from it to arise as well. After a while, though, the ego begins to wake up to its tenuous nature and this brings a lot of reactivity. Memories from childhood surface when I felt unsupported and terrified, memories after the knowing of Being receded receded and I was left seemingly alone and at the mercy of the adults and other children in my environment.
This gives me insight into the reactivity the ego will have when my physical body begins to die. It’s hard to imagine experience without a physical body while one is still alive but I have deeply ingrained impressions of this experience from the past. Back then, it was intolerable. Now, it’s unpleasant but tolerable. I can feel the visceral fear arise and take hold but I practice letting it be there and not doing anything about it. This, I imagine, will be my practice after death. I’m sure that my practice will be sorely tested at times. Not having the body to return to is very disorienting and the tendency to panic will inevitably set in. I wonder how long I will be able to tolerate it? I think it depends on how much experience I have of the ontological support of Being. I’m sure familiarity with nonduality will help as well.
This morning, as always, I didn’t seek the Imaginal; it found me. I had the sense of being on a foggy moorland. I was seated next to a stone barrow. It was cold and the wind was chill but it was also beautiful. After a while, I realized that the entire experience was of an Earthlike presence. It reminded me of experiences with Earth consciousness I’ve had in the past. This wasn’t the Earth per se but it was connected to the Earth.
As I sat, my experience shifted and encompassed everything around me. Nothing was separate. And then I realized that there was a feminine but not human presence. It was inseparable from everything around me. I knew that it wanted me to allow it to take over my form and I allowed it to do so, turning my soul body over to it to use as it needed. My soul body became like a woman’s but my skin was transparent and beneath my invisible skin, the sparkling force of life flowed as if through veins. It was beautiful and ethereal.
This ‘woman’ who occupied my body got to work immediately. She started digging and digging until she had unearthed the bodies of countless people. Men, women and children emerged from the soil. There were old people, young people, people of middle age. They were all dead, though. Their bodies were much like mine; i.e., mostly transparent and life still flowed within them but they were unmoving as if they were asleep.
I had no role here other than to loan my body to the woman. I was curious what she was up to, even if it didn’t really have to do with me. After a while, she must have been satisfied that she had extracted all of the bodies because the left the bodies behind her and headed up a nearby hill. The bodies were arranged from smallest to the largest, lying in a line behind her.
The hill was forested. Conifers grew thickly along its flanks, growing even thicker the higher she climbed. After a while, we reached an altar. It was ancient and made of stone like the barrow had been. The surface was carved into a shallow bowl. I knew that it was intended by blood sacrifice and, sure enough, the woman picked up a stone dagger and, clasping it between her wrists, pushed the hilt down against the basin. The movement opened small wounds on her wrists and her blood–clear blood, I should note–trickled into the basin.
This blood sacrifice did not injure the woman. It was meant only as an offering and it had the desired effect. An immense, male forest deity emerged from the mist and towered over her. I recognized him immediately as the father of my spirit. I don’t run into him very much but he’s always recognizable. He possessed a complex, ancient, wild and very powerful kind of magic. Who he is and he does are unknown to me at this time.
I knew he recognized me even though the woman was possessing my body. Further, I knew that this was why she called me here. She needed my father to help her with her task and she knew that he wouldn’t turn her down if she occupied my body.
She was right.
He accepted her sacrifice, allowing her to use the altar and agreeing to open a portal into another realm. She thanked him and got busy again, descending the hill and retrieving the bodies of the people she had unearthed, one by one. She stacked the bodies neatly on the altar, building quite a mound by the end. At that point, I saw that there were four torches on the corners of the altar. Their flames were ghostly blue. As I watched, the flames grew in size and intensity. She reached up and picked up one of them and used it to light the pile of bodies on fire. They blazed up with ghostly light. Ghostly light that was something more than light.
I realized that I could see another realm beyond the burning bodies. It appeared to be a great temple of intricate and complex workmanship. It reminded me of both the temples of ancient Egypt and some old mosques I’ve seen in pictures. We stepped through the fire and entered the temple. The spirits of the people followed us. They were free to roam now that they had been liberated from their bodies.
A god emerged to meet us. He took the form of a half-bull, half-man and his skin was blue. I recognized him as a relative of other blue-skinned deities I’ve met in the Imaginal. He seemed more Egyptian than Hindu but what do I know?
The woman bowed before the god. He bid her to stand up and she did, presenting him with the host of spirits who had followed her through the portal. He bowed to them and I understood then that he was a god of the underworld. The blue of his skin and blue of the ghostly flames were clues. I’ve noticed that frequently the water of the river to the underworld has a ghostly blue hue.
The god motioned for us to follow him and he led us down a steep stairway into deep blackness. We had descended a ways into the blackness when he stopped and raised his arms. At that moment, the woman’s body–which was my body–became radiant. It glowed so brightly that it illuminated the cavern below us. The cavern was incredibly vast, beyond big, and filled with black souls. These were souls of people who felt lost and the light at first was terrifying to them because it exposed everything.
The walls of the cavern exploded with light as if catching fire and soon the glow was spreading outward and down as the entire cave system began to glow. As the light spread, the black souls changed, becoming transparent and glowing softly blue light the souls of the dead that the woman had led here.
We followed the bull god down into the underworld, eventually reaching a black barrier. It was like a huge, round doorway that was shut and the door was made of the impenetrable black of the Absolute. At first, I thought I was meant to open the door and that we would find ourselves on the other side in the Crossroads.
I was mistaken, though.
I don’t fully understand but here is my takeaway: When I approached the black gateway (still in the form of the woman who was possessing me), I entered back into my own physical reality. The difference, however, was that all of the souls that the woman had ‘raised’ followed along with me. They had successfully traversed the underworld and were now ready to be reborn, here in my reality. I understood then why the woman who possessed me had seemed so familiar: She was the Woman in White. She had used my soul body in a way that hasn’t been possible until now. The original misty realm had been the Crossroads or something akin to it.
It may be hard to believe but I’m not getting anything out of these experiences to feed my ego. Other than having applied myself in doing spiritual work for a long time, the rest has nothing to do with anything I’ve done. It’s more related to what I am: I’m descended from a lineage of mysterious and ancient beings. Once my soul developed to a certain extent, this heritage rose to the fore once again and I ‘remembered’ who I am. I’m still the same and still have the same problems and challenges of any other human. There’s just a little something extra added to my awareness, a remembering that helps me to locate my experience in an overarching sense.
And, who knows, it could all just be a brain fart.
For that reason, I don’t let any of it go to my head and focus instead on developing as a person of Being.
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