Gate: Nine of Swords
I passed through the vision gate and found myself standing on a crushed granite path with a sliver of a waning moon shining overhead. The howling of wolves came from all around the path, lending an air of desperation and despair to the world. “Aarrroooooo,” came mournful cry after mournful cry. I searched the shadows on either side of the path with my vision but could see nothing moving beyond the minuscule patch of moonlight in which I stood.
“It sounds like a member of their pack is lost,” I said to the Wisdom in my heart as I began to make my way down the granite path. “I wonder where they may be.”
“And I wonder where I am,” I continued. “Is there anybody out there who can show me where I must go next?”
“We know someone,” Wisdom whispered. “She walks with you always.” In response to our summons, my own shadow rose from the path ahead. She waved enthusiastically at me, a vaguely female shape wrapped in darkness and shade. When she pantomimed a forward gesture by pointing down the path with both hands, I followed her directions unquestioningly.
“Nice to meet you, Shadow,” I said. “I’d introduce myself but I think you know me well already.”
In comfortable silence, Shadow led me to a brick mansion with many dark windows that stood at the end of the long path beneath the moonlight. We passed through tall double doors into the stately building where an ornate fountain with opaque water sat within the foyer. The statuary in the fountain depicted two leaping fish with water spraying out of their mouths in a crisscrossing pattern. Shadow leapt into the dark water of the fountain and started to splash and play, throwing some of the fountain’s water my way.
“You so rarely let your shadow out,” Wisdom whispered. “Look at how harmless she is.”
“I didn’t know I was keeping my shadow in,” I said. “I wonder how she feels about letting me wander around the Inner Realms and if this is her usual manner of moving through the world. She seems so childlike to me. I’ve never climbed into a fountain like that in my life.”
“Never?” Wisdom said. “What a sad thought. Want to join her now?”
“I can’t,” I said. “Grown ups aren’t allowed the absolute freedom of the shadows. I’ll just experience the fountain through her eyes, I don’t think there’s any harm in that.”
“Suit yourself,” Wisdom said. “We’re going in!” The curious energy that composed Wisdom’s form came out of my heart and began to dip in and out of the fountain’s waters, swooping around Shadow like an enormous fairy. She clapped her hands in joy and danced with Wisdom as if she didn’t have a care in all the worlds.
As I observed Shadow and Wisdom splashing in the water, a strange feeling came over me. I felt like the shadows of the mansion that contained the fountain had eyes and they weren’t focused on my bathing Shadow and dancing Wisdom, they were fixated on me. I started to feel a profound sense of embarrassment as if I was revealing a part of myself that should remain bound within my spirit. Intrusive thoughts began to wash over me in waves of knowledge and realization as I stood at the fountain’s edge. This type of freedom was, if not inappropriate, then potentially dangerous. I could not protect Shadow or myself against the watchful eyes of the mansion. With that thought and my mother’s instincts triggered by an outside threat, I quickly moved from embarrassment to fear.
“Come on, Shadow, get out of there,” I said as a mother would to a young child. “We have to explore further on and further in this fascinating realm. Come on, Wisdom, let’s go!” Shadow completely ignored me but Wisdom returned like a shot to my heart and I felt their energy buoying my courage against the nameless fears gathering in the shadows.
“I’m serious now,” I tried again. “You belong with me as you are my own shadow and I won’t just leave you wandering around some stranger’s home and splashing about in their foyer. Let’s go.” Shadow turned her back on me and continued whatever it was she was up to in the fountain.
As I stomped my foot in frustration at my inability to steer my own shadow, Wisdom came out of my heart once more, resuming their form as a fairy or will o’wisp, glowing with a brilliant inner light. They shone more brightly than before, almost like a star in that dark place and at first I had to shield my eyes to even glance at them.
“Turn down your lights, Wisdom,” I said. “If those in the mansion didn’t know we were here, they certainly do now.”
“What are you afraid of, Heidi?” Wisdom whispered. “She’ll be perfectly safe there until you need her again.”
“You don’t leave children unattended,” I said. “Someone will come out of the shadows and take her far away. I’d rather have her at my side.”
“What makes you think that? Are you a child, Heidi?” Wisdom said. “She is your shadow and therefore as capable as you are to safely navigate the Inner Realms.”
“I’ll only come with you if you promise she will be alright,” I said. “I can’t shake this feeling that we don’t belong here and she’s trespassing in someone else’s domain. I can’t protect her from the unknown if she won’t follow me.”
“If you truly feel she needs guidance, then a part of us will remain with her and shine our light upon her,” Wisdom said. “Does that help?”
“Please do that,” I said. “Then, whatever happens, if I’m imagining dangers or not, at least she won’t be alone and you can help me find her again if anything goes seriously wrong.” A small piece of energy and light broke off of Wisdom and returned to dancing around Shadow but the majority of the spirit was shining so brightly still that I couldn’t really mark the change.
Leaving my frolicking shadow, Wisdom led me down a long hallway with many wooden doors that were firmly shut and locked when I tried the handles. Lights of various hues came from the gaps between the doors and their frames, and disquieting sounds as well. As I passed a door with a flickering blue light, someone moaned and cried out in fear which created an answering fear in my own heart. I hurried past this door in a minor panic, trying to block the cry from my mind but there was no touching the fear that now brushed my heart.
“Maybe we should go back and check on Shadow,” I said, pausing next to the door with the blue light. “Do you think we should?”
Wisdom noticed me struggling and stopped to float by my side. “Are you alright, Heidi?” they asked. “Do you need to take a break? There’s nothing untoward about pausing in the journey now and then to catch your breath.”
“Now that you mention it, I am having trouble breathing,” I said. “It feels like this hallway is getting smaller. This whole building is going to collapse on us, isn’t it? Why did I ever follow Shadow here? There’s nothing in this place but more shadows and hidden eyes.” I clutched at my chest and neck in an attempt to soothe myself.
“You’re having a panic attack, Heidi,” Wisdom said. “Not unheard of for this particular hall but we need to calm you down or who knows what will emerge from the rooms, called by your fear. Sit down for a minute and let’s put your head between your legs.” I did as Wisdom instructed and I felt as if someone’s invisible hand was stroking my back up and down in a comforting manner.
“What’s calmed you down in the past?” Wisdom said, after we had been breathing together for a few moments. “Oh I know. Each time you breathe in, tell yourself, ‘I love you’, and when you breathe out do the same. Like a mantra, Heidi. You know what mantras are, don’t you?”
“Of course I know what mantras are, and that one especially because the fairies gave it to me who knows how long ago. No need to patronize me,” I said, my temper flaring behind the panic within me. “I am not some mouse of a person that I don’t know what soothing words are or how to conquer my own fears and shadows. I forget important things when I’m afraid and it really infuriates me. Thank you for the reminder, Wisdom, but I’m going to need you to step back for a minute as I reign these emotions in.”
Wisdom gave a short laugh and then stood as a silent sentinel beside me as I offered deep breaths and love to my enraged and fearful heart and slowly the irrational fear and blinding anger began to subside. It took a long time, ever so long in that dark hall, and I knew this was a hurdle that I was going to have to face again someday. That knowledge led to anger flaring up once again, almost like a threatening serpent from my spirit, and I spent more time soothing myself. “Breathing in, I love you,” I whispered fiercely, almost in an open challenge to the shadows. “Breathing out, I love you.”
When I felt some measure of peace and calm returning to me, I pushed myself up from the floor by placing my hands on the wall and leveraging my body weight against it. “There you go,” Wisdom said encouragingly. “Ready to continue?”
“I was born ready!” I said, perhaps a bit more optimistically than I felt, and Wisdom and I began our journey anew.
I felt like it took much longer than it should to move through the mansion but, after much walking and mantra whispering, we finally reached the end of the terrifying hall and Wisdom vanished behind a wooden door that appeared there. Though the handle was locked on this door as all the others, I took a deep breath and passed through it as well, pretending I was as incorporeal as Wisdom or a shadow, and found myself in a new place.
A figure as white as chalk with red eyes of living flame and no mouth stood behind the door. I stood face to face with this spirit as he gazed at me in unnerving silence. “Who are you? Friend or foe?” I said but he ignored me as if I wasn’t even there. “Hello?” I said, waving my hands before his eyes. “My name is Heidi. I mean you no harm.”
“This is the bosun,” said Wisdom. “Your male counterpart upon the seas.” At their words, flesh and clothing covered the red-eyed figure and he took on the appearance of an English sailor from some previous era of time.
“Upon which seas?” I said. “What do I know about sailing?”
“You know as much as we do about the Seas of Consciousness,” Wisdom said. “Don’t you remember, Heidi?”
I blinked and found myself on a boat at sea which rose and fell in a dark and misty ocean under a full moon and clear skies. Many sailors dutifully manned the ship in complete silence as none of them had mouths to speak their truths. “Hello, my name is Heidi,” I said. “Who are you? How did you come to this place?” I wandered here and there among the crew, attempting to communicate, but giving it up eventually as a lost cause as none of them seemed to see or hear me even when I stood right in front of them.
I gave a sigh and sat on the deck of the ship near the bow where the spray from the waves occasionally touched my hair and face. I listened to the cry of dolphins in the water and seagulls in the air as the ship cut through the waves like a knife. Wisdom joined me in my observations after a time, their light illuminating all within a few feet of us. “Where are we, Wisdom?” I asked. “I feel like I don’t belong here as much as I did in the mansion.”
“We’re sailing the Seas of Consciousness,” Wisdom replied. “Aren’t you having a good time? You always have before.”
“I suppose the moon is beautiful and it’s hypnotic to observe the passing waves,” I said. “But I wish I could talk to the sailors who are traveling with me. I feel so alone and friendless in this voiceless crowd. Who is the captain of this boat? Maybe they’ll talk with me or, if not that, at least be able to see me.”
“You are steering this ship,” Wisdom said. “This is all you, Heidi.”
“How could that be true?” I said. “I’m simply a visitor to this place and time. The sailors can’t see or hear me so how could they be following my wishes.”
“Who says they can’t see or hear you? They’re just busy with their work. At any rate, everyone sails the Sea of Consciousness whether they are aware of it or not,” Wisdom said. “You may as well embrace it and enjoy your time in command. Look, Heidi, look at all of the sailors awaiting your word. They wait for you.”
“They do?” I said as I stood from my seat on the bow and the spirits gathered from all parts of the sailing ship to stand before Wisdom and I. The white cloth sails fluttered merrily in the breeze while the living flames danced in the eyes of the sailors’ pale faces.
I gazed back at the crew curiously. “Can you all see me now?” I asked. The gathered spirits gave no audible reply, but clicked their heels together and stood at attention. “I suppose that’s a yes,” I said. “Well, let’s give this journey our best effort. My name is Heidi and I come from another world seeking the true nature of this place. Put your backs into it, friends, we sail for the nearest island.”
There was a burst of activity as sailors ran up and down the rigging. The great white sails were adjusted and creaked as the burgeoning wind filled them. As my crew and I moved forward through the shadowed sea with its foam-crested waves, the red-eyed sailors did not call out to one another or sing. All of their tasks were completed in efficient but eerie silence.
We sailed for a long time as night turned to day then all at once the motion of the boat ceased and as quick as a flash, the sailors moored it off of a modestly sized desert island. I leapt off of the ship’s bridge onto the golden sand with Wisdom floating at my shoulder. “Good work all. What is the location and nature of this place?” I said. “Does anyone wish to go with me?” In response, one of the sailors from the ship silently handed me a filigreed map that was handwritten on what appeared to be lambskin.
“They’d love to go with you but the sailors must stay on the ship,” Wisdom said. “They don’t mind, it is their home after all. You have your treasure map and you’ll have me with you for company, Heidi. Your crew has made interpreting the map simple enough for the most novice treasure hunter which you aren’t but they were unsure of what your memory would be like at this point in time. You just have to remember that X marks the spot.” I studied the map and found a dotted line that did indeed lead to an X somewhere in the center of the island.
“It’s nice that everyone has such faith in my abilities,” I said. “I wish I believed in myself too. What are all of those blank spots around my path on the map?”
“Guess you’ll have to go exploring and find out,” Wisdom said and zoomed from where they had been floating around my shoulder and into my heart. “We are ready and waiting for the next adventure.”
“Well, at least I won’t be going alone,” I said and turned my steps towards the island which immediately began to fill with fog, obscuring the path ahead. Out of the fog, voices sounded, strange inhuman voices and I was reminded of the mournful cry from behind the door with the blue light in the mansion’s hallway where I had left my shadow.
“Here we go again, Heidi,” Wisdom whispered. “Prepare for the incoming shadows. They approach.”
I clutched the treasure map more tightly in my hand. “Shine as brightly as you can, Wisdom,” I said. “I’ll try to shield my heart from fear as well. What do they want? The treasure?” In response, Wisdom blazed out of my form as brightly as they had before the fountain.
“They are here to keep you terrified and lost in the mist, as far from the X on the map they can manage,” Wisdom said. “Listen carefully to their words and ask yourself why do the words of the shadows make me afraid? They are just words, Heidi. Words can’t hurt you and, if you can process the emotions they draw out of you, the shadows give you inadvertent clues to what it is that they don’t want you to remember and acknowledge.”
“Beyond the fear and anger is knowledge, check,” I said as the fog wrapped about us so tightly that I could hardly see far enough ahead to put one foot in front of another even with Wisdom’s guiding light. “I’m scared already and nothing has happened yet. Breathing in, I love you,” I whispered. “Breathing out, I love you.”
All of a sudden, a voice other than Wisdom’s and my own came from the fog around us. “The blood, the blood,” someone whispered. “I can’t wash away all this blood. Why didn’t they tell me my hands would never be clean again?”
“It feels wrong,” another said. “I can’t do it like that. Why would you ask that of me? I hate you.”
“Who speaks?” I asked, flailing about in the mist as panic filled my heart again. “I’ll help you. I can help you, I know I can if you just give me a chance. Where are you?”
Someone else screamed without words. That voice was far away, but their tone contained agony beyond imagining. When I heard the scream, I lost my composure entirely and started to run in the direction I thought it came from.
“Heidi, what are you doing!” Wisdom said from my heart. “Remember my words. Hear with my ears.”
“They’re suffering, Wisdom, I hear the shadows and they’re suffering and I can’t do anything about it,” I said. “Where are they? Let’s find them together.”
“Listen, just listen a little longer before you act,” Wisdom said. “Please listen, Heidi.”
I stopped in my mad flight through the fog and felt my heart racing in my chest. “If I can hear them, I can help them,” I said. “Why won’t you let me help them?”
“Do the shadows need saving, Heidi? Is that why they’re here? Please pause for one moment more,” Wisdom said. “Listen, there’s a new voice coming our way.”
Then, drifting out of the concealing fog, I heard a child humming. There was nothing frightening about this voice but she sounded so young, far too young to have a voice among the other tortured shadows. A small section of fog cleared before me and Wisdom’s light shone upon a child who sat upon the floor of some distant location. She was coloring on a blank page, drawing her crayons across the sheet and creating a lopsided rainbow, humming absently to herself as she did so. All at once, the child looked up from her work to gaze directly at me and the spirit wore my face.
“Heidi?” I said to the child who looked like me. “What are you doing here? Are you alright?”
The child smiled, not at me, but at the light streaming from Wisdom. “Hello, I’m coloring and I don’t want to play,” she said. “Go away, Shadow.” The next thing I knew, the fog wreathing my steps was blown away by a passing cloud of fairies and the nebulous opening through which I saw my childhood self disappeared. As their diaphanous wings brushed my face, my racing heartbeat began to slow. “Breathe in, we love you,” they whispered as they passed, taking all the shadows and my fear with them. “Breathe out, we love you.”
“Thank goodness for the fairies,” I said to myself as the sun came out again above the desert island. “I forgot my mantra again. It really does help drive the nameless fears away.”
“You have passed through a place of doubts and fears thanks to the winds of change,” Wisdom said from my heart. “We hit a rocky patch there in the middle but overall you did alright in the passage.”
“That was more than a rocky patch,” I said. “Wisdom, those voices in the fog belong to spirits who need my help. I’m not going another step until you tell me who they are and what they need to be at peace. My child self was in there! You should have warned me.”
“Oh Heidi, how do we make you understand?” Wisdom said. “The voices were figments of your mind, no more or less real than a figure in the mist and sent by the shadows to make you doubt yourself.”
“But they sounded so real,” I protested. “As real as you or me.”
“Doubts and fears always do,” Wisdom said. “Remember their words and learn from their twisted mutterings. The shadows wrap their lies in warped truth like customized poisoned darts aimed for your heart alone and that is why they are so difficult to dismiss. But we cannot let them halt our search for the treasure this island contains. Shall we proceed?” I had nothing to add to this pronouncement but it seemed to me that there was something or someone still out there in the mist. I made a secret promise to myself to return at a later time to explore the mystery further.
“Very well, Wisdom,” I said. “Let’s be on our way.”
Wisdom and I soldiered on in our island exploration. Day turned to night as we traveled further and further inland, guiding our steps down the dotted path indicated on our map which was helpfully signposted with unique trees, rock formations and other landmarks that were impossible to miss even at night. Finally after much searching, the area indicated by the X on my map was just ahead, brightly lit by moonlight. An iron shovel appeared in my hand and I heaved the sand aside, revealing a small box with iron studs shining brightly from its dark, varnished wooden surface.
“I hope we don’t require a key. I really don’t want to walk through that nasty fog again,” I said and was relieved to find the treasure chest was already unlocked. Within, nestled upon a red velvet pillow, I discovered a vial labeled with the words: “For Heidi.”
“Well, that’s my name,” I said, reading the gold letters of the label. “I guess we found the right place, Wisdom! Well done us. Bottoms up.” I downed the clear liquid of the vial like a shot of liquor and found myself enveloped in a brilliant light.
When the surrounding brightness dissipated, I stood before the basin of water of the Horned King within his ancient glade. The water in the basin reflected the moon above me as silence seeped like mist from between the watching trees of the sacred space.
“Cernunnos?” I called into the woods. “My map led me here. Are you here too? Green Lady, are you here?”
At the sound of my voice, the goddess unearthed herself from the ground next to the basin in a small explosion of plant growth. “Very nice to see you again, Great One,” I said, bowing my head in respect. “I neglected to learn your name on our last visit maybe because I was distracted by your children in the woods and then the walk through the god’s basin. Would you care to share it with me now?”
“I have no name,” she said, nodding her head regally in response. “I am Nature and I am you.”
“How could you be both?” I asked, puzzled. “I am not you.” I did a basic jig beneath the moon. “See, Great One? If I were you, you would have danced too.”
“Everything here is you, Heidi,” the goddess said. “Maybe I danced your jig inside my heart while you danced it with your feet.”
“I find this metaphor very confusing,” I said. “If you are me and I am you, why do we move and act as we wish and not mirror each other like true shadows?”
“All move through the dance of existence at their own pace and with their own will,” the goddess said. “The motions do not have to be synchronous to be the same dance and can still be observed by those who see the big picture of reality with their hearts rather than simply their eyes.”
I paused for a few seconds of silence to absorb the goddess’ words but found myself just as puzzled as before. “Dancing aside, Great One,” I said, giving up on true understanding for the moment. “Where is your antlered king?”
The goddess gestured to the moon above our heads. “When the moon sails through the skies in any manner other than full light, the god sleeps in a fitful slumber beneath its beams,” she said. The Green Lady waved her hand over her god’s basin and the water it contained reflected Cernunnos, fast asleep upon a bed of moss and leaves. “He rests and I walk our woods in guardianship until his awakening.”
“Fascinating. May he find true healing upon whatever seas he’s sailing now and return to your arms refreshed and ever young,” I said, gazing at the peaceful sleeping face of the Horned King. “I would know more about you, Great One,” I said after a quiet interlude had passed. “Would you lead me to a place that reveals more of your true nature?” The goddess nodded in acquiescence.
Together, we moved through the sacred glade that surrounded Cernunnos’ basin in the forest. Suddenly instead of tree trunks, I was passing doors that lined a hospital hallway as normal in appearance as any I’ve seen in the waking world.
“Why did you bring me to a hospital, Great One?” I asked. “It is sterile by design and removed from the natural world, a haunt of those who put their faith in medicine and technological advances to shield the body and reverse the inevitable advance of nature.”
Gesturing towards the ill people laying on the mechanized beds that appeared in the rooms around us, the goddess replied, “I see much of nature here. In fact, I would say that this is one of the places where nature is most evident, dancing with the doctors in an eternal cycle of what they would describe as triumph and failure but what I call life.” The Green Lady moved into a side room off of the main hallway and I followed to discover a nightmare from my past.
On the bed, lay my grandfather appearing as he had been to my eyes the last time I saw him before he passed away. He struggled to breathe from the pneumonia in his lungs and his mind was haunted by hallucinations about pills. As in my memory, my grandmother and I stood around the bed, trying to draw his mind out of whatever world it had retreated into and back to our own with casual conversation between ourselves. My eyes filled with tears as I remembered all that had gone before. I moved to stand at the foot of the bed as I watched grandma and I try and fail now as we had then to meaningfully communicate with our dying loved one.
“Grandpa, I’m here for you and I love you,” I said, but he could not hear me anymore than he could hear the women who stood on either side of him. “I’m here, I’m right here,” I said again. I broke down in tears as I watched myself kiss his forehead and leave the room with my grandma, as I had done in real life. “You will never see him again,” I whispered to myself as I passed by. “Wait a moment more Heidi, this is all the time you were given.” But my presence and future knowledge changed nothing in the memory, so I gave up trying to communicate with anyone in the hospital just as I had with the mouthless crew of my ship upon the Sea of Consciousness.
I gazed at my grandpa in sadness and silence as he closed his eyes and fell into a painless sleep, watching his chest peacefully rise and fall beneath his hospital blanket. “Why do people die?” I asked the Green Lady who had never left my side. “Why was this slow descent into an aging body and mind the manner of his death?”
“It was his nature that brought him to this threshold,” the goddess said. “Nature dancing through time, a process as natural as the sun rising and setting. Do you think, Heidi, he could have chosen a different way?”
“I do not know if a person can change their essential nature or reverse the effects of time lived upon the body,” I mused. “Maybe a different way of being nurtured would have helped him learn positive preventative steps he could take as he aged? Maybe being born in a different time would have given him a more advanced understanding of his own health or his doctors superior weapons in their fight against illness and age?”
“These things you suggest may have helped prolong his life a little,” the Green Lady said. “But even changes that large can only do so much. For you see, my child, nurturing in any time period casts a shadow that follows the earth borne throughout their existence. Before you arrive, you know the number of your days and you live them to the best of your ability though you forget this essential truth while you’re alive. This leads to a lot of nameless fears and needless suffering not only for the afflicted but for those who love them and grieve their inevitable departure.”
My shadow suddenly appeared in the hospital room beside me and she waved cheerily in an effort to cut through my sadness. “I see you finally left the fountain,” I said. “I hope you had a good time. Things on my end have been somewhat trying.” The piece of Wisdom’s energy that I left with Shadow came from her form and entered my heart. A pleasant memory of splashing about in the dark waters of the mansion filled my mind and it was as if I stood in Shadow’s place and felt all she had felt. “Thank you for the once-in-a-lifetime experience,” I said. “Now I can no longer say that I haven’t frolicked in a fountain.”
“Who are you talking to, Heidi?” the Green Lady said, her eyes ever on my grandpa in his hospital bed.
“Myself, Great One,” I said. “My Shadow and I have a complicated relationship.”
“Thus it is with all in existence, Heidi. Despite the echoes of nature and nurturing throughout one’s life, everyone ultimately chooses who to listen to and emulate,” the goddess said. “This was his choice. This was his destiny. This was his shadow.” She turned from my grandfather and gazed at me speculatively. “I wonder, Heidi, where will your choices and shadow take you?”
I sighed and gave a sad wave back to my playful Shadow. “I wonder that too, Great One,” I said. “Oh how I wonder about that too.”
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 