Gate: Three of Swords
I walked through the vision gate and found myself standing on a polished surface like glass. A bright light shone from above and passed through the material, revealing colors that emanated forth from it and swirled in rainbows and patterns beneath my feet. For some time, all I could see was this hypnotic, reflective surface and the light shining down upon it.
Then, a being made entirely of flame appeared and floated in the air before me. “I am a genie and a creature of legend,” the spirit of living fire said. “I will guide you through this place, the realm of the Mother, for I am her servant in all levels of creation.”
“Thank you for your assistance, Genie,” I said. “Without your help, I might have been stuck here, admiring the entryway for time untold. My name is Heidi and I’ve traveled this path before but the Realm of the Mother looks different since I was last here. I remember a pumpkin patch with faerie attendants but now there’s only this beautiful glass floor and rainbow light.”
“The Mother has an infinite amount of aspects and may appear in any way that she wishes,” the genie replied. “Her ability to change appearance applies to her seat of power as well. This variety and endless offering of forms helps others comprehend her in the way best suited to them. There are also various worlds where the Mother holds sway, perhaps you visited one of those. At any rate, welcome back, wandering Heidi.”
As the flaming figure spoke, he floated towards an enormous egg that had appeared while we were talking. It was made out of the same eye-catching material as the ground. The light shone upon the glass egg and colors moved beneath its surface, hinting at some extraordinary treasure that was concealed within its walls.
“Welcome to the Temple of the Divine Mother,” the genie said. “Herein live the sisterhood of those who sing the Mother’s praises and carry her forms throughout the worlds. They are the brave warriors who shepherd the children through the gates of existence and towards their promised destinies.”
The genie led me up some glittering steps and through an arched doorway with an ornately carved frame set within the surface of the egg. Then, with a flourish of his fiery arm, he invited me to enter the sacred space. I passed the threshold of the egg and discovered an enormous domed room with pillars set in pairs along a path leading towards a dais at the far side. A crowd faced this dais and sung praises while dancing with their hands lifted in the air in a display of ecstatic devotion.
The Mother’s devotees wore robes of red with intricate embroideries of flowers, trees and other natural symbols, as well as adorning their bodies with golden bracelets, nose rings, and necklaces, the mineral wealth of the world on proud display within the temple. The throng chanted, sang and swayed in time to a primal song I didn’t recognize but the power of the music caused my body to move along with them. I traversed the central aisle of the sanctuary, moving among the worshippers in the rhythm dictated by the Mother’s servants.
As I viewed the finery and enormous wealth demonstrated by the bejeweled status symbols of the sisterhood of the temple, I had a fleeting thought: “I am not dressed for the occasion or worthy to be in this place.”
But a powerful, female voice immediately answered my insecurity: “All who find me are worthy to be here. Welcome, newcomer, to my inner sanctum.”
The shining light from outside the temple shone down from the ceiling directly onto a figure who reclined on a dais at the front of the room. She was made of light as well and gave off a radiance of her own even within the bright beam. The energy from the temple’s devotions poured towards this spirit and added to the overall glow, making the entire place so bright that I could hardly see. I shielded my eyes with my hands and kept my eyes on my feet as I continued down the sanctuary aisle towards the dais.
When I finally stood at the end of the aisle, the goddess suddenly rose from her pillows. Rather than displaying legs like a mortal woman, she had the lower body of a spider which glowed just as brightly as the rest of her. I only had a moment to feel some surprise at her appearance because the Divine Mother moved swiftly towards me on her many legs and gathered me in her strong arms, lifting me effortlessly off of the floor. Two of her forelegs spun the light coming from the ceiling into a delicate web and she ascended this shining ladder in the blink of an eye, taking me with her into the heights of the temple’s dome.
“Mother, where do you take me?” I asked, shutting my eyes to protect them from the blinding light as well as to avoid perceiving how far I would fall before I hit the ground if the goddess dropped me. “I just arrived and would like to hear more of the music dedicated to you.”
“You’ve heard the songs of my temple many times before, Heidi,” the goddess replied. “If you wish to do so, you can always return to hear them again. It is time for you to see another aspect of myself to comprehend more of my eternal nature.” Together, we exited the sacred space through the opening at the top of the egg where the light came in and everything became incredibly bright so that I couldn’t see anything else.
When I could perceive my surroundings again, the goddess and I were on a mountain so high that it overlooked the whole world. The Mother appeared beside me as a glowing mortal woman with hair that streamed behind her impossibly far, covering entire mountain slopes in its waves. She carried a star-filled woven basket and began to reach in, taking out the shining stars, and throwing them out into the air beyond the mountain where they descended to the earth far below. She scattered the stars from her ever-full basket in all directions, again and again, as I wondered at the beauty and grace of her motions and creations, losing all sense of myself in that timeless moment.
“Divine Mother, what are you doing?” I asked when I suddenly remembered I was a woman and could speak.
“I am giving forms to the world for ideas, creations, children- whatever is needed at a particular moment in time, I give it,” the goddess said. “Only a small percentage of my forms ever reach fruition but they are there for the dreamers and creators of your world to realize one day all the same. I answer every prayer, every need, every desire.”
The Divine Mother walked forward through the air, ascending the peak of the mountain and moving ever upwards into the skies above. She crooked one finger at me as she did so, indicating that I should follow. I flew off of the mountain to levitate in the heights beside her and the goddess kept flinging stars about us as we went, leaving a trail of blinking and shining brilliance in our wake.
“Mother,” I asked as I flitted about the goddess and danced with her stars as they fell. “Do you ever tire of giving forms since, as you said, so many are unrealized?”
“Do you ever tire of breathing?” she replied with a laugh. “This is what I am, a Giver of Form. I could never stop giving my creations to my children as you cannot cease breathing. It is my purpose and I delight in both its realization and not. For you see, Heidi, in the fullness of time, all forms will find their place in creation. It is part of the promise of the one who set this all in motion.”
“Do you speak of the male god, your counterpart?” I asked. “The Giver of Energy?”
The goddess paused with her hand in the basket. “I speak of a one beyond even him, though he is mighty indeed,” she said. “The Creator of All is a mysterious figure who moves everyone, even I, through the eternal dance of existence, both in the embodied and disembodied worlds.”
“Perhaps if this being were less mysterious, we’d all be better off,” I said, ceasing my endless twirling in the sky about the goddess. “It’s so hard to remember that there’s a purpose to existence for everyone when times get dark or obvious power imbalances assert themselves into my reality. Speaking of power, Mother, do you ever feel less than the Divine Father, the Giver of Energy?”
She paused in her efforts of form distribution once more. “Less than? I could not possibly be less than because he is me and I am him. If he and I were part of a mathematical equation, there would be an equal sign between our two numbers,” the Divine Mother said. “Also, we are never separate though appearances can be deceiving. Can you not see how he is with me even now, Heidi?”
I looked intently into the skies about us and saw a spirit made of shadow hovering at the goddess’ right hand. Then suddenly, the god glowed with light and the Mother became the shadow that stood at his side. My sight reversed again and the Mother embodied the divine light and the god walked in shadow beside her once more. As their forms settled again, the goddess reached out and took the shadow figure’s hand. “He is the very world I walk in and I am his world,” she said, raising the hand to her lips and kissing it. “We are equals in creation’s dance.” Then, the Mother embraced the figure and he disappeared from my sight.
“I too believe in the equality of the male and female aspects of consciousness though I often see inequality between the two in the existence of my waking world,” I said. “I would like to become one of those who balances the scales of power between the sexes rather than falling off of the dream into hopelessness or fear. Mother, how may I bring more of your energy into my life to aid in this balancing act?”
The goddess started scattering her stars from her basket onto me where they were absorbed into my spirit. “Understand forms feel real, Heidi, but are an illusion in the inner worlds,” she said. “Observe.” The Mother’s body broke into countless tiny particles of light and disappeared. Then, a thousand Divine Mothers appeared around me in a thousand different bodies of all shapes and sizes. Then, all of the various bodies started to change form again and again, creating a stunning display of nature’s variety and beauty.
When I pulled my eyes from the goddess and looked down at my own body, I found that I was changing too along with the other aspects of the Mother. Now we were a tree, now a flower, a star, and on and on we changed. Then, as suddenly as it started, the transformations stopped and I was myself and the Mother was herself again with all of her other forms reabsorbed into her being.
“Are you still you, Heidi? Do you retain your individuality even though you embodied other forms?” she asked and I nodded, not yet regaining the use of my voice after the rapid changes. “Despite being a myriad of different forms, you are always in essence you. Know this and remember this moment of spiritual experience with me.” Then, the Mother upended her basket of stars over my head and they fell about me in a bright cloud.
The goddess gestured and her basket disappeared, then she reached out and put her hand to the middle of my chest over my heart. “I sense a deep sadness in you,” the Mother said. “You believe this emptiness and pain is a hole in you that you must fill, which is a mistake made by many in the embodied world. Don’t you know that part of you is your connection to me? That space, that empty feeling that vexes you so, is the womb of the Mother within your spirit. In that space, despite any suffering you may feel in your perception of it, you have the ability to create extraordinary things.”
The goddess’ words touched me deeply as if her hand sat upon my very heart instead of my skin and I started to cry, my tears falling down my cheeks to join the twinkling stars of the Mother in the sky.
“Do not shed tears for this revelation was not intended to bring you further suffering,” the Mother said. “Rejoice instead that you can perceive the empty space for it is the presence of me in you. Not everyone can experience the truth that you are never apart from me. As the Father and I are one, so too are you and I one. I am with you always, in all things.” The goddess embraced me in her shining arms and I found myself standing on the glass floor in front of the glowing temple egg of light. “I am with you,” I heard once more, the voice of the Divine Mother coming from every surface around me that reflected the light.
I prepared to exit the vision gate to take the wisdom of the Mother back with me to the waking world but then the goddess spoke once more. “Turn around, Heidi,” she murmured.
I spun in place upon the glass floor and beheld a wall made of darkness and shadow. Beyond the wall, directly opposite from the Mother’s Temple of Light, there stood an enormous egg made of shadows. Red energy occasionally moved across the surface of this other temple so that I could perceive its shape, but it was as dark as the other egg was light. I took a step forward into the shadows to explore this new space.
“Hail and be welcome, wanderer,” I heard as I parted the shadow wall. Beyond the boundary, a genie floated in the air but instead of being composed of flames like the previous guardian, he burned with a shadowy energy, emitting darkness instead of light.
“What is this place?” I asked, pushing through further shadows to stand beside the spirit.
“The Temple of the Divine Mother,” he said and led me towards the dark egg temple’s entrance. “I am a genie and servant of the goddess in all the shadow realms of creation.”
“But that’s the Temple of the Divine Mother, back that way,” I said, gesturing behind us through the shadow wall to the egg of light.
“You’ve seen with your own eyes that the goddess can take as many forms as she desires,” the genie of shadows said. “Why should her places of worship be confined to one form either?”
“Ah, good point,” I said walking into darkness which was made deeper and more impenetrable by the being traveling at my side. “I suppose the Mother’s temples are as infinite in their expression as she is. Genie, why does the Divine Mother appear as half-spider to my eyes? In my waking world, spiders act as small pest controllers and aren’t necessarily what I would consider god-like or goddess-like as the case may be.”
The spirit floated beside me silently for a moment. “I’ll answer your question with another question,” he said finally. “Perhaps this way we can arrive at a new truth together. Tell me, wanderer, how many legs does a spider have in your world?”
“Eight,” I said, stumbling a little in the darkness. The genie caught me by manipulating the air currents around my body so that I didn’t tumble to the ground.
“Does the number eight have any special meanings for you, seeker and wanderer of the inner worlds?” he asked.
“Well, eight corresponds to the worlds of the mind,” I said. “I’ve seen the Great Library within the worlds of the mind which is one of my favorite places of anywhere that I’ve visited. But beyond the simple association with the mind and its attendant thoughts, the number eight could also represent the number of realms outside of the realms of Unity and the Divine Father where the Divine Mother holds sway as an interdimensional being of primal energy.”
“Curious,” said the genie, leading me ever forward into the shadows. “I’ve never heard the goddess described as an interdimensional being by anyone visiting one of the seats of her power. I wonder if she’d describe herself as such.”
“Maybe she’s more concerned about simply being than labeling herself within any system, even natural ones,” I mused. “Beyond the number of the legs of a spider, another unique aspect of their abilities in my waking world is their web creation. I’ve read a number of scientific articles not just about the patterns of the webs they spin but also the production of the substance that they use to create the webs. Apparently, spider silk is one of the strongest known fibers in existence.”
“What was the Mother’s web made of when she took you to the mountain top to scatter her forms?” the genie asked.
“Light,” I replied. “The goddess ascended to the heavens on a web spun from light.”
“I think you will find her web made of something else in the place I take you now,” my guide said. “Are you brave enough to face a few of the shadows from the void of creation?”
“Do I have any choice in the matter?” I said and steeled myself for the trial ahead.
I nearly lost my courage when everything faded from my sight except the flickering red energy of the shadow egg temple. I had just made up my mind to turn back when I heard the Mother’s voice arise from the path before me. “I am with you,” the goddess said and I took courage from her words and demonstration of her presence even in the absence of light.
When the genie took my hand to lead me safely through the shadows of the darkest part of the path before the temple, I realized he could hear the voice of the Divine Mother as well. We traveled together in companionable silence until he deposited me at the egg’s entrance and dissipated into the waiting shadows.
In contrast to the last temple where I discovered a crowd of dancing and singing worshippers, the shadow egg was filled with dark shapes that moaned and cried as if in the throes of deep suffering. As I moved among the shadowy spirits and looked more closely at the figures, they turned into hollow reeds. The energy of the temple moved ceaselessly through them, causing the reeds to sound with mournful wails and sighs creating a twilight realm of perpetual sadness and grief.
I hurried my steps between the pillars and ran through the room towards a dais where a great darkness was gathered. A red light crackled through it and the shape on it appeared like the spider mother from the other temple, but this time made entirely of shadow instead of light with only the hollow reeds for company. If I had not encountered the goddess of light before beholding this new aspect of the Divine Mother, I was not certain I would have had the courage to face the terrifying feeling this form and her worshippers caused to arise in my heart.
As before, this being took me in her arms when I reached her seat of power in the sacred temple space.
“Mother, where do you take me?” I asked, shutting my eyes tightly so I did not have to see her shadowed visage or eyes that shone with red fire through the gloom.
“To another aspect of myself,” the goddess said. “Remember, Heidi, even the gods have shadows and within those shadows walk the empty forms of beings and ideas whose time has passed or not yet arrived.” Her forelegs rubbed together in the air about us creating a strand of shadowy web which we ascended into the deeper darkness of the temple’s domed ceiling. For a time, I could see nothing but shadows or hear anything other than the whistling of the hollow reeds.
When I could perceive again, I found myself on a canoe moving smoothly across dark water. Stars sparkled below the water and rose to the surface, bobbing gracefully in the darkness. A figure robed all in black rode in the boat with me at the opposite end of the canoe. She brought out a large net from her robes, scooped the stars from the water, and put them in a basket in the boat. It was not long before her basket was full but it disappeared and then an empty one took its place. Then, the process started all over again.
“Divine Mother,” I said, after a time. “What are you doing?”
“Gathering the forms that have been spent,” she replied. “I am an entrance. I am also an exit. I am Life. I am Death.”
The goddess drew back her hood and for a moment I beheld a fleshless skull within its depths but then I saw the face and hair of the Divine Mother of light as she had appeared on the mountain top. She smiled at me and then quickly covered her face again in the shadows.
“People fear their ending but it is just as natural as the beginning,” she said, dipping her net once more into the water. “I am with you at the first and the last. I am the Mother who opens your eyes and then closes them. I am the creation and destruction of form; I am the womb both empty and filled.”
Then, the goddess took one of the stars from her basket and put it in my mouth where it sat like a smooth stone. I felt a burning heat upon my tongue that faded as I swallowed it. “You embrace the energy of the Mother in your life by not being afraid of beginnings or endings but by embracing life in its myriad of forms,” she said. “You honor me by remembering that all forms have their proper time and place.”
She raised her hand in benediction and I felt a flare of energy from the star that she had given me in my very soul. “I bless you now and bid you know that you are never alone even among the shadows of your world or the forms that have not yet come to fruition. I am with you always in success or failure, celebration or mourning, music or silence, all things.”
The robed figure took her basket and poured its spent starry contents over my head. I shut my eyes upon their lingering brightness and when I opened them I was laying on the glass floor between the Divine Mother’s temples of light and shadow. The right half of me was in darkness and the left side of me lay in the light. I was divided exactly in half- one being with two existent natures.
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 