Gate: Eight of Swords
I passed through the vision gate and walked onto a black and white chessboard. A man in a chariot with horses pulled up beside me. “Ride with me,” he commanded. “For I have been sent here just for you.”
“Only if you speak your name,” I said. “Where I come from, ladies do not accept rides from complete strangers.”
He flicked his whip at his utilitarian leather boots, knocking off a bit of earth it carried to the ground. “I am Mercy,” he said. “I assure you, you would rather come with me than the one who follows me.”
“My name is Heidi,” I said in reply. “I appreciate the offer of a ride and most humbly accept your choice of chariot, Mercy.”
Proper introductions completed, I climbed aboard the conveyance and Mercy encouraged the horses forward to the limit of their ability with a few encouraging words and the sounding of his whip over their heads but never upon their backs. Glancing back, I saw a dark figure approaching along the path Mercy and I traveled. The shape of the shadowed man was hard to make out through the clouds surrounding him but the horses pulling his chariot breathed fire.
Suddenly, the chariot I was in halted beside a forest with blood red leaves. Each tree had a sullen face on its trunk and their leaves blew now and again in a breeze that occasionally danced through the place.
“Where are we?” I asked, wrenching my attention from the approaching darkness of the mystery driver as well as the dancing red leaves.
“This is the Forest of Woe,” Mercy said. “You must pass through here and quickly, lest the shadow catch you.”
“Thanks again for helping me outrun the Shadow to these woods,” I said as I scrambled down from the chariot. Mercy continued onwards with a single backward glance towards me as I entered the forest. As for myself, my eyes were on the shadows beneath the trees and the difficulty of the path ahead.
Pushing aside reaching branches and cutting leaves in a growing panic, I stumbled into a clearing in the woods where an enormous red and white spotted mushroom grew. It had a door in the side and a chimney that emitted a thin stream of gray smoke. After I knocked, the door opened under my touch. “Enter!” a voice called. I hesitantly did so.
The interior of the mushroom contained a chemist’s workshop where bubbling vials of liquid smoked and pots boiled. An older man with a pointed blue wizard’s cap on his head and a burning pipe in his hands moved among the chemistry equipment.
“Hello,” I called. “Forgive my intrusion. There is a shadow following me and I need a moment to catch my breath.” The wizard serenely puffed on his pipe as he took a good, long look at me. For some reason, I found his attention unnerving. “Who are you?” I asked finally in order to break the silence of the room.
“I am Nobody,” he said with an air of resignation. “Constant interruptions, that’s my life.” The wizard blew a single, perfectly formed smoke ring towards his chemistry table and then returned to his work, ignoring me completely.
As I puttered about the room watching the wizard at work, I tapped the side of one of his glass vials upon the table with my fingertip and listened to it ring. “What are you doing, Nobody?” I asked when even that small distraction lost its charm.
“Watch, wanderer,” he said. “And I shall reveal to you a great secret of the universe. This, my dear, is how you turn thoughts into things.” Reaching into his ear, he drew forth a shining thread of light which, in that enchanted place, was clearly a thought made manifest. The energy of the wizard’s powerful mind appeared quite delicate as he gently coaxed it into a chemical vial.
As the living light of the mind moved through the glass equipment on the table, it changed, growing brighter, then darker, coalescing and dissipating by turns. Then, as the light reached the final vial, the wizard’s mind energy turned into a piece of delicious dessert.
“Oh my goodness, it’s chocolate cake, my favorite treat!” I exclaimed. “How did you know?”
Nobody turned tired eyes in my direction. “Cake for you, is it? I expect the results might be different depending on who observes the final result. You see, wanderer, I am running experiments in consciousness,” he said. “People really don’t know how powerful thoughts can be or what they can be changed into.” He took another pull of his pipe, his eyes shining brightly in the semi-darkness of the mushroom. “Just a note for future seekers, a manifest thought is definitively not ear wax.”
“Tell me, do you know what is at the center of the universe?” the wizard continued. I shook my head negatively. “The thoughts and emotions of God’s imagination. They twist and turn and become everything and everyone in existence.”
Nobody’s pipe was finished and he emptied the ashes into a ceramic dish shaped like a large golden fish that sat on the table beside his chemistry equipment. “If you’re quite recovered from your ordeal,” the wizard said. “I do have more work to do. That being said, if I ever see you again, perhaps we could talk more. My door is open to you whenever you would like it to be.”
“Thank you very much, Wizard of the Woods and Red Spotted Mushroom,” I said in reply. “I have very much enjoyed my time here observing your work. Maybe next time I can even sample one of your thought form treats.”
Nobody put his pipe into a pocket on the front of his garments. “The shadow will not follow you deeper into these woods. It is my home and I have some say over who passes here,” he said and turned back to his chemistry equipment. “You must continue on, seeker. Good luck to you and good fortune as well.”
I crossed the threshold of the mushroom, puzzling over the wizard’s words and actions. “What a kind older gentleman,” I thought to myself. “I certainly hope I encounter him again. One can never have too many friends when moving through the Forest of Woe.”
As I continued through the trees, I came to a wall of blue-tinged water extending from one horizon to the other. As I approached this curiosity, I saw a reflection of myself emerging from the water. My reflection was far taller and slimmer than me, more like a shadow being cast upon the ground than a true reflection in a mirror.
As I got closer to the water wall upon the horizon, I realized I was seeing an actual being contained within the water rather than a reflection of myself. She started to move in ways that I was not though some of the directions in which we moved our limbs were the same.
In some ways, watching the lady beneath the water reminded me of a goldfish serenely swimming in a fishbowl. “This spirit has far more room to roam than a child’s fish,” I thought to myself. “Why, her bowl is as large as a world. I wonder where she goes when she wants to explore her environment.”
Now that I stood next to the water wall, I could clearly see this spirit was a mermaid who had long flowing hair that trailed behind her as she swam slowly in circles. In addition to her ease and grace in moving through the water, the aquatic lady appeared to be heavily pregnant.
Swimming to the boundary of the wall of water, she reached through for me and I touched her shapely hand, finding it surprisingly dry. “Come through and swim with me,” she said. “Come, seeker, and learn the song of the undines.”
“Undine, is it?” I said. “My name is Heidi and I would be pleased to learn both your song and dance.” So saying, I took her hand and passed into the wall.
The pregnant undine pulled me into a circle of mermaids, dancing clockwise through the water, chanting a song. I had trouble adjusting to their watery medium at first because I was accustomed to keeping my feet on solid ground. The spirits did not mind my occasional stumbles and guided me through their way of being by taking my hand and allowing me to trail in their wake for which I was grateful.
“Thank you for allowing me to dance with you and your sisters,” I tried to say when the mermaids’ dance had ended but, in that watery place, all that emerged from my mouth was a stream of bubbles.
The undines laughed so hard at my inability to communicate that the vision broke apart and ended.
The Light Congress 