Gate: Four of Swords
I passed through the vision gate and found myself walking on water in the middle of an ocean. Great waves moved back and forth beneath my feet and made it difficult to stay upright. I laughed as I slipped and slid over the uneven surface.
Undines were monitoring my progress over the water and they found my antics amusing as well. “You guys have the right idea staying under the surface,” I said as another wave made me tumble to my knees. “Being on top of the water is for the birds.” As the water elementals giggled, bubbles rose from their mouths to break on the waves that kept coming at me no matter how I tried to escape them.
After much struggle and merriment with my friends, a shining city rose from the sea before my wondering eyes. It was made of crystal and the sun shone through the crystals, producing rainbow colors of such radiance, I could hardly look directly at it. The crystal city also transmitted sound waves from the ocean floor through its walls so it hummed with a life of its own.
“Have you all been hiding that city this entire time?” I asked the undines, becoming mildly annoyed at their propensity to laugh at me rather than with me as I fell upon the surface once more. The water spirits nodded their heads enthusiastically and waved goodbye as they returned to the deeper ocean waters. “Well, don’t worry about me, save yourselves,” I said sardonically as I pulled myself to my feet once more. “I’ll face the humming alien city without my friends, shall I? What could possibly go wrong.”
I levitated from the ocean’s ever changing surface and floated towards the city. “If they only had a modicum of organization and wings of their own, I believe the water elementals could take over the world one day,” I mused to myself, dodging the increasingly tall ocean waves which batted at me like a huge cat at play the closer I got to the shining city. “Maybe it’s better for all of us that they are the way they are. Far be it from me to criticize the seabound Fae.”
Suddenly, a huge gray fish broke through the waves in front of me and leapt high enough that his tail slapped my chin before he disappeared beneath the sea once more. “I said ‘far be it from me to criticize the seabound Fae’,” I yelled at his retreating figure. The only response I received from the hidden undines was an increase in the foam of their watery giggles upon the waves.
After what seemed like hours of flying but which was probably only a matter of minutes, I finally reached the boundary of the crystalline city upon the waves. I flew over its towering walls to discover its inhabitants wandering to and fro along shining streets. I tried to engage some of them in conversation but they ignored me. “Hmmmm,” I said to myself. “These people are making me miss the company of the undines. That doesn’t speak well for their manners or hospitality.”
I flew in front of a young man pulling a cart of round fruit like cantaloupe but the rinds of the melons were as shiny as the crystalline walls. I put my hand up in entreaty. “Stop, potential friend!” I said. “I would like to speak with you!” I landed in his path but he continued on and through me as if I were no more corporeal than mist.
“Huh,” I said, reevaluating my situation in light of my non-existence in everyone’s reality. “I wonder if I’m dead and somebody forgot to tell me that I am. Good thing the undines can’t see me right now, I’m sure they’d find this hilarious.” I clapped my hands together and heard the slap of my palms as usual. “Well, I can still produce sound. That’s comforting. Maybe I’m not dead yet. Maybe these folks are?” I zipped above the street-going spirits’ heads, drawing no more attention than a passing shadow.
As I took in the sights and sounds of the realm, I noticed one of the crystal spires at the city center seemed much taller than the others. My curiosity awakened and I floated even higher into the air, heading towards it.
I tried to reach the top of this tall tower but it seemed to never end so I continued to float upwards along its humming walls. Finally, after a journey of many hours, I reached the very top where I discovered a doorway with a small balcony and I entered.
The interior room continued impossibly far. Outside of its walls, the building was a simple cylinder. Inside, it was the size of a world. “How on earth did the builders of this city manage that?” I said, darting in and out of the window to see the tower from two different perspectives again and again. “This place makes me doubt my own sanity.”
Trees, flowers, vines and bushes flourished inside the crystal walls of the tower which I surmised acted as a sort of greenhouse for the plant life within. I alighted from the air and crept forward through the thick undergrowth which began where the balcony’s crystalline floor ended. There were small rustlings beneath the flora and fauna all around me as I did so. “I can hear you but I can’t see you,” I told my unseen companions. “You can come with me but you have to promise to be a lot quieter than that.” After a moment of complete silence, the leaves crackled a lot less.
I continued on until I found a large tree with a small clearing around it. I settled myself on the ground with my back against the tree’s trunk to see if I could spot the spirits making the sounds.
I didn’t have to wait very long. Hundreds of little, spotted red mushrooms emerged around the tree and entered my clearing. They had arms with hands and no faces. The mushrooms rushed towards me and lifted me in their tiny arms without proper introductions of any kind.
“Whoa, stand fast, mushroom army! My name is Heidi and I came to this place from atop the ocean waves. Whom do you serve and where are you taking me?” I said, more curious than alarmed.
They answered as one with tiny, nasal voices: “You’ll see, Wave Walker. You’ll see.”
We moved through the trees in a bumpy procession until we reached a natural rise in the building. On top of this hill, a golden lion wearing a crown sat regally upon the grass. “The king, Wave Walker, the king!” announced the mushrooms and ceremonially lowered me to the ground then threw themselves down in front of the lion in an approximation of a kneeling host.
“Hello, Great One,” I said, bowing my head in respect. “I don’t suppose you can see me, can you? I’m having the worst time with that today. My name is Heidi and I’m very pleased to meet you even if you can’t see me. It’s not every day one gets to stand in the presence of a king.”
The lion chuckled deep in his chest, emitting a sound like an enormous cat purring. “Yes, silly Heidi, I can see you very well,” the lion said. “Can you see me?”
“Yes, great lion and king of this puzzling crystal palace, I see you,” I said. “I think your realm is quite extraordinary in both its uniqueness and presentation to my sight. What is your name, sire, so that I may spread the word of this place throughout the worlds?”
“Jorman is my name of the moment,” said the king, purring again in amusement. “There are few in the worlds who do not know of this place, Heidi, but I appreciate and accept your compliment all the same. I look like a lion to your eyes today?”
“Yes indeed, King Jorman,” I said. “To my eyes, you look like a fearless lion with a luxurious mane of gold and a crown that shines with the same light as your fur. I wish I had known about this place because I would have visited sooner. I have to say, the engineering is quite impressive when you enter the tower from the balcony.”
The lion rose to his feet and moved in a stately manner towards me through the mushroom patch, not crushing any with his giant paws because the mushrooms rearranged themselves under his feet as he walked among them. “Be welcome to my kingdom, Heidi. This place is not just a world, it is an ark, the ark of my family,” rumbled the lion. “It took ever so long to put together, you can’t even imagine. Walk with me and I will show you some of its wonders.”
The mushrooms put themselves beneath my feet like rollers on skates and, with their help, I found myself gliding effortlessly next to the king over the emerald green grass. “You have to be careful when you say challenging things about the power of imagination around me, Sire,” I said, following the lion deeper into the realm. “I haven’t found an end to my imagination yet and I’ve looked for it, I really have.”
Jorman paused in his procession to gaze seriously at me. “I believe you, Heidi,” he said. “Sometimes I think your imaginative journeying might even be slightly problematic.”
“In what way, Great One?” I said, the gliding mushrooms beneath my feet causing me to circle the king like an ice skater around a central point. “I never intend to be a problem in my vision work. My intentions have been misread at times, I think, because there is an enormous communication gap between the worlds and the ruling powers in each. Perhaps one day this issue will be remedied.”
“From your mouth to the Creator’s ears,” Jorman said solemnly and we continued on our way without a further word.
The king led me towards the center of the tower and a hole opened up in the crystalline floor. We gazed down into successive levels of the building and my breath caught in my throat at the sight.
Each floor of the crystalline tower held a different environment. Jorman and I stood on a wooded floor and, directly below us, there was a desert. The floor beneath the desert depicted the interior of a volcanic flow and the levels went on as far as I could see. Every type of natural environment that could be imagined was contained within the tower and even some that appeared unnatural to my eyes.
“Behold, Heidi, the realms of the known and unknown universe,” Jorman said. “Each has its own ruler or king. Translation between the areas has been difficult in the past but we’re finally making some headway into that particular issue. Thanks for the help with it, by the way.”
“The help with what, Great One?” I said, stepping off the mushrooms and dangling my feet over the edge of the forest biome. “It?”
“Yes, ‘it’,” Jorman replied, leisurely lowering himself to the ground beside me. “The Great Endeavor, the Eternal War, and so on and so forth.”
“I really have no idea what you’re talking about but you’re welcome all the same, Sire. My memory is still coming back to me of all that has gone before,” I said, gazing down at the unimaginable depths of the tower below. “In the meantime, everyone I talk to in the Inner Worlds seems to give me back a piece of my past as I learn their true natures and reasons for living. As I assist and serve others, somehow they assist me right back. It is a great mystery and I don’t know that I have much more to say about it at this time but maybe in the future I will. Back to the present moment, how was this ark constructed, this incredible preservation of life?”
“The Atlanteans have control over nature and summoned all forms of the natural world to this tower,” Jorman said. “Once the habitats were in place, it was just a matter of finding the right vibration to make the flora and fauna flourish.” The lion gestured towards the hole in the tower. The mushroom army of his realm followed his paw and threw themselves over the edge, releasing tiny parachutes as they did so, carrying their king’s wishes through the air to the varying layers of the tower.
“Be well, brave mushrooms! Thank you for carrying me to meet the king!” I called as they departed. “King Jorman, who are you really that so many in your realm follow even your unspoken desires? You moved the mushroom army with one single gesture and not a single word of command crossed your lips. How did they know what you wanted them to do?”
“Despite their semi-comical appearance in your eyes, they are my people and we share a genesis of spirit. Words are not required for communication between those who share a common spirit and purpose. I am the son of the primordial spirit of the lion and Nature herself,” he said. “My mother can be quite changeable as Nature sometimes is but she has always been kind to me and I count myself among her favored sons in creation. I am grateful that this is so.”
As the king spoke of his true nature, Jorman’s shape began to waver in my sight so, instead of a lion, I now walked beside a golden haired man with piercing blue eyes. He clicked his tongue and summoned a dappled gray horse from the shadows around us. “Come, Heidi, I will show you how to commune with my mother. She wants to speak with you,” he said. “She told me as much if you ever came my way.”
“She wants to speak with me?” I said as the king and I climbed onto his horse and rode back through the woods of his realm. “Of course I will speak with Nature but she doesn’t know me from Adam. Or perhaps I don’t know her. Things have been awfully confusing lately. Have we ever traveled together to speak with your mother before? I feel like we have but as I said my memory has been playing tricks on me or remaining completely blank.”
“I bet it has. Do not concern yourself with what has come before, Heidi. You and I are here now, riding through the woods to speak with Mother, and that is all that we need to know,” replied Jorman and we continued on together in comfortable silence.
We passed through an area of thick, concealing mists and then ahead an enormous tree with a doorway cut into its base appeared. “This is the way to the Temple of Nature. Now that you have come here with me, a son of Nature, you should be able to find this place again whenever you desire,” said Jorman and he helped me down from his horse then led me within the trunk.
“Thank you for the waypoint, Sire,” I said. “The daughters of Nature have different sacred spaces. In return for your help here today, I will take you there someday so that you may meet and know the other side of the equation.”
“That would be quite helpful, Heidi, and I look forward to that day,” said the king. Together, we ascended the stairs and entered the ancient tree.
The tree was like the crystal tower in that its outer appearance did not match its interior space. There were rooms within the tree that were the size of small houses and I marveled once more at the enormity of the temple. Jorman led me from the doorway towards a pool of silvery water which bubbled from the trunk of the great tree as if from a natural spring.
As we neared this pool, the tree began to vibrate rapidly beneath our feet and I heard a voice speak in my mind. “Who are you? What do you want? What are you doing here with my son… doing here with my father… doing here with my king? Do not dare to injure my son… my father… my king! Do not dare. We will end you before you begin.” The overlapping voices grew in intensity and strength the closer I moved to the pool. I fought the urge to cover my ears to try to protect my sanity as Jorman reached the pool and cupped some of the water in his hands. He spread it over his face and body.
“Anoint yourself and my mother will speak with you,” he instructed, seemingly immune to the insistent voices from the pool. “Is something wrong, Heidi?” he said when I hesitated.
“I think, Great One, she may already be communicating with me,” I said. “I suspect few daughters of Nature have approached this pool and the ones who have may have harbored ill-intentions in their hearts. I sense the shadow of the Servants of Fear. Not to worry, I am not one of those.” I put my hand to the trunk near my feet and sent out these words with my heart. “I would never hurt this spirit beside me, Nature, Mother, Sister, Queen. Never. I am a Servant of Love and seek the mysteries of the Creator of All in order to make their unknowable will known in my life. This I swear to you upon my own life, the life of my beloved child, and the lives of those I love. Please do not harm me or my family. I ask for only your goodness and mercy and return to you only that which you send unto me. Your son brought me here so that I may know you and you may know me as you requested. He seeks to do your will for he loves you. In this way, he is a Servant of Love too.”
Then I moved to Jorman’s side, leaned forward over the pool, and put the silvery water on my face, arms, and neck as I had observed the king doing. The water continued spreading without any effort on my part and it covered the rest of my body in a shimmering, silver layer of brilliance. The whispers from the pool started again but this time the multi-toned voices were expressed as one single voice and I felt love emanating from the tree rather than fear.
“We are the sap of the World Tree, the waters of far-seeing,” said the voice. “We are Nature. We are Mother. We love our children. Our roots reach countless worlds below into the past and our branches continue to the worlds above and into the future. The vibrations of the universe speak through us. Would you know your future, Child of Love?”
I felt myself rising into the air, suspended within the trunk of the tree. Time and nature were bound together in the living tree in an unending stream of light and growth. The sap was this passage but also the tree itself. The two could not be separated.
“I am so pleased to make your acquaintance, Mother of King Jorman and Waters of the World Tree,” I said. “As tempting as a glimpse of the future may be, I have come to this time and place to ask for your help in embodying my greatest purpose in my life and assisting others to do so as well. Do you know a way this may be accomplished?”
The tree’s sap shone with brilliant light upon my skin and in the pool beneath my feet. “Continue as you are and you will fulfill all that was promised,” whispered the Mother. “As for others, though you desire to help them as much as they help you, you may not live nor shape their lives beyond what they will allow for themselves. Continue down this path and you will hold up a mirror for them to emulate as well as a torch to light their way through the shadows. You do remember what a mirror is, don’t you, Heidi, and how it differs from a torch?”
I smiled at the comment. “Yes, Great One, I remember how mirrors and torches work in my world,” I said. “I shall bear one in each hand and respond to life’s demands as required. How did you know my name when we are only meeting now? At least, I think we’re meeting for the first time right now but perhaps this isn’t as true as I believe it to be.”
“You’d be surprised what I know about you, Heidi,” whispered the Mother and World Tree. “Your name was the easiest to divine of your secrets. If you do not injure my son and king as you promised, I will in my turn reveal our hidden connection at the proper juncture and in due course of time.”
“Thank you, Nature. I look forward to further illumination under your exalted instruction,” I said, pausing a moment to consider my next words. “In the course of living, I have noticed that many of us become injured in spirit and we lose sight of our purpose as well as hope for the future. Is there a way, World Tree, that those who feel that they are injured in spirit may be made whole again?”
The sap on my skin grew brighter still. “Just ask for wisdom. Just ask for understanding. Just ask for forgiveness,” whispered a hundred voices in reply. “You will find your healing therein.”
“I will ask for all these things, Mother,” I said, shutting my eyes so that I was not blinded by the power streaming through the tree. “But who do I ask?”
The light around me grew blinding even through my closed eyes. “Ask for these virtues and mercies from everyone you meet, Child of Love,” whispered the singular voice of the Mother. “Ask and you shall receive all and more. This is a promise from the one who put the stars in motion.”
A power outside of my own took hold of my body and I began to ascend higher into the air towards the tunnel of the future contained in the trunk of the tree.
“The Mother loves you and so do I,” said a new, quiet whisper. “So do I, Heidi.”
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 