Gate: Eight of Cups
I entered the vision gate and was briefly surrounded by thick, impenetrable mist, but then a breeze moved across my spirit, clearing the air somewhat, and I perceived furious movement all around. Loud booms filled the air as gouts of living flame exploded from the Earth and soared into the sky and the ground shook in this demonstration of power. The mist cleared completely and revealed an army of giants and the cause of the cacophony. I levitated into the air and seated myself on the shoulder of one of these soldier spirits.
“Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through,” I said when the giant startled at my appearance. “My name is Heidi and I’ve come to this place seeking its true nature and yours. Where are you going with your brethren and why do the salamanders expend their innate abilities for you?”
“You are awfully small to be on the field of battle, little Heidi,” the giant said amiably. “We go to war with the spiders, the scourge of the Shadow Realm. The salamander soldiers fight on both sides of this conflict. Their mercenary spirits love a good fight and that is what is coming.” I noticed all of the giants had gnarled wooden clubs on their shoulders and marched in lines like an army on the move.
“Why go to war at all?” I said. “How have they wronged you? The only spider I’ve encountered in my journeys thus far was an emanation of the Divine Mother and she’s benevolent in my experience. No, beyond benevolent, language doesn’t suffice when talking about gods and goddesses, so let me try again. She’s one of the two primal powers in the worlds of the spirit, matched only by the Divine Father. Fighting against universal forces seems like a complete waste of resources and spirits to me. Her forms are unlimited, you know.”
The giant peered closer at me, a fleeting emotion dancing across his features. “You, little one, spoke with the Great Shadow Queen and lived to tell the tale?” he said. “What manner of spirit are you?”
“To be fair, only the spider aspect of the Divine Mother dwelt in shadow,” I said. “Her other aspect was formed of the light of creation itself. In both aspects, she taught me about the illusion and variety of form she provides within the myriad worlds. She is the Mother who opens your eyes, closes them, and gives love unconditionally to all in existence from the first to the last.”
The giant began to laugh. “You do not fool me with your wild stories, clever sprite,” he said. “The Great Shadow Queen consumes all who approach her because she uses their energy to spin her infernal traps throughout the realms and builds her influence that way. Everyone knows this is so.”
“It is not so and I speak the absolute truth of my experience to you, giant soldier,” I said, feeling somewhat miffed. “Another aspect of the Divine Mother dwells in a pumpkin patch made of starlight with an ever-moving cloud of fairies who come from her being and carry her wishes throughout the worlds. It is this blood-thirsty “Shadow Queen” story that is the myth, not my words.”
“You are confused by the Queen’s illusory shadows and do not understand what you saw, little Heidi. Don’t worry, it’ll pass as do all dreams and nightmares in time. For now, all you have to know is that the giants fight the spiders because it has always been so and we are guardians of light and truth. They are the forces of shadow and lies,” he said. “Now, I must leave you. Have a care where you wander in the future, small one. I would hate for the inner worlds to lose a storyteller of your caliber to the shadows. There’s enough misery in the worlds without that.” The giant shrugged to remove me from his shoulder then rushed forward, vanishing into the ranks of the marching army.
“Why wouldn’t he listen to me?” I asked a gout of flame that exploded from the ground into the air beside me. The salamander’s bright energy diffused with a sigh and a sparkling pattern that denoted confusion in the language of the fire spirits. “And why are you guys involved in this? Fire injures those who are not of your element and the giant said you fought on both sides,” I said, but the spirit’s fiery energy had been spent and I received no further reply.
In some frustration, I rose higher so that I could see the realm more clearly and beheld a valley filled with beings of both light and shifting shadow. Into the valley, the giants charged; row upon row of them disappearing into its gaping maw. From the other side of this world, a wave of shadowy figures shaped like spiders marched in opposition to the armies of light.
Looking to either horizon, I could not see the end of the marching giants, just as I could see no end to the shadow spiders entering the valley. The clash of the two opposing forces in the middle must have been terrible but I was too far away to hear it above the noise of the marching giants and their volleys of living flame. I hovered above this nightmarish scene for a few moments until I heard a squeak on my shoulder. I turned my head towards the sound and discovered a grasshopper the size of my palm.
The grasshopper clicked and whirred in my ear, and, after a few moments of incomprehension, I began to understand speech beneath the sounds. “Behold, wanderer, the thoughts of your mind at war in Ginnungagap,” he said. “The giants are the beneficial thoughts and the shadows are what you judge to be the problematic thoughts.”
I stared in horror for a time. “My mind at war? What an awful metaphor for cognitive processes,” I said. “Two armies slaughtering each other endlessly at the creation of the world. I suppose this is good news because if it is my mind then I can definitely do something about it. Tell me, grasshopper, what makes a beneficial thought beneficial and a problematic thought problematic?”
“How they make you feel is a strong indication of how your thoughts are sorted in your mind,” the grasshopper said. “Emotion places a thought in one camp or the other.”
“Curious,” I said. “So, the giants of thought war with the spiders of thought because of how they make me feel?”
“No, wanderer,” the grasshopper said, clicking pleasantly. “They war with each other because that is their nature. They live to spread their viewpoint throughout existence to the detriment of the other side. Light opposes shadow. Thus it has always been and thus it shall always be.”
“What a tremendous waste of energy and spirits on both sides,” I said. “I won’t allow it to continue.”
“As long as you are breathing and thinking thoughts, there is very little that you can do about it. Don’t worry about it though, the giants and the spiders do not see the Eternal War as a waste but a reason for being,” said the grasshopper. “Each side believes themselves to be good and righteous in their cause. It is only you, the observer of the conflict in the mind, who sees any difference in their forms whatsoever. I see scores of grasshoppers of light and shadow in this place, only grasshoppers, nothing else. What does this teach you about my perspective versus yours?”
“Are you serious?” I said, peering more closely at the armies marching into the Ginnungagap. As hard as I stared or squinted my eyes, I still saw giants and spiders at war. “I honestly can’t see this conflict any other way. I’ve never had that kind of trouble with my imagination before. Despite what they look like or what you perceive them as, why can’t these groups have a conversation and draw boundaries, demarcating their territory in a civilized manner and ruling their peoples as they please instead of ceaseless slaughter?”
“They didn’t ask to be created,” the grasshopper said. “Or where in creation they were placed. They fight because they believe they were born to do so.”
“Ah, like the children of war from the Great Warrior King’s world,” I said, some comprehension dawning in my mind. “I helped those spirits see with my peaceful eyes and find a new way to approach their conflicts over resources. Isn’t there some other more pleasant way to view this place? I imagine there is.”
“There is always another way,” squeaked the grasshopper. “Let’s take a note from the natural world. I suspect you’ll appreciate that vision more.” He gestured with one of his legs, then the marching giants turned into rushing water and the shadowy spiders on the other side changed to a fast flowing stream of lava. The place where the two sides met still seethed as violently as before but I found this nature-based vision of conflict to be far less upsetting.
“That is so much better, grasshopper, but not entirely accurate as spirits of fire are on both sides of the conflict,” I said. “But thank you for the assistance with the vision anyway. Fire cannot exist peacefully with water not because they hate each other but because of their essential natures. What primal flame can live without air? What flowing water can exist in the temperatures of the salamanders’ world without evaporating?”
“What insect can ride on the shoulder of a sky bird and not fear his end?” said the grasshopper.
I laughed. “I’m no sky bird but even if I was, I’m not hungry for grasshoppers who have the power of speech. I think it’s disgusting to consume spirits who have the capacity to share their true natures with you like Prometheus and his tormenting god bird. It is a taboo in my mind along the level of cannibalism,” I said. “Enough about diets and demons, what is in the center of this realm where the two forces meet?”
“It is the crucible of existence,” the grasshopper said. “There is tremendous pressure within but also a place of change and potential transformation if one wishes for it to be so.”
“Have you ever been there?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Where do you think I assumed this form?”
“What were you before you became a grasshopper?” I said.
“A sky bird,” said the grasshopper and I laughed.
“You’re teasing me,” I said. “That’s not how spiritual evolution works, is it? I would think a sky bird is far more advanced than a grasshopper.”
“Why would you think that?” the grasshopper said. “I still have wings but now I have six legs instead of two and antennae for perceiving subtle vibrations that I could not comprehend before. I like this form.”
“I’m sorry, grasshopper. It is not for me to say which form is higher or lower than any other,” I said. “If there is anything I’ve learned from the Divine Mother, it is that your spirit is the same no matter what form you embody whether a bird, insect, flower or otherwise. I wonder what will happen if I go to the crucible? I will see it if I may, for I do not fear either change or transformation.” Gathering my courage, I flew closer to the valley and was able to see the exact place where the fire and water combined with great violence, steam, and noise. It looked somewhat like a whirlpool of natural forces which descended into the earth at a single point.
“I wish I could go with you but you must venture in there alone, wanderer,” the grasshopper said, alighting from my shoulder. “As one is born and dies crossing the threshold of existence, so too must one enter Ginnungagap. I hope you transform into something interesting like an aphid.”
“So that you could eat me?” I said. “I think not but nice try, hungry grasshopper. See you on the other side.” I gave the grasshopper a quick wave, then levitated downwards until I was on top of the central point of the opposing forces and entered it.
Below the surging streams of water and fire, I discovered a square room hewn out of living stone with no doors or windows leading to anywhere else. Above, the forces of nature continued to meet and struggle, but below was solid rock and the stillness of a foundation made of earth. I sat on this bedrock and waited for an answer to the enigma of the place to appear while watching the shifting light and shadows on the walls.
Suddenly, a mirror image of me, made of the rock of the room instead of flesh, rose from the floor. She sat as I sat in a cross-legged, meditative position. When her eyes finally opened, they were shockingly white with no pupils, exactly like the children of war before they regained their sight.
“Why are you here? Where are you from? What are you? When are you from?” my own voice came from the spirit’s stony throat and echoed throughout the room. “Who are you?”
“I have come to know the true nature of this place and you,” I replied, my voice holding none of the echo of my mirror image. “I am Heidi and I come from another world at a time when the powers that be strive to harness the technology of the future for the greater good but seem to be failing in their endeavor to be embodied spirits with the kind of unbridled power that the upper realms innately possess. They call themselves gods and goddesses or princes and princesses, but they are fallible men and women who will pass away at their appointed times, just like me.”
“You have no other reason, no other cause, no other opinion, no other identity?” the spirit said, continuing to stare straight ahead with her blank eyes.
“You ask a lot of questions of me and I will answer but first let me ask one of you,” I said. “Why do you, spirit of stone, look like me?”
“Why do you, spirit of fire and water, look like me?” the being echoed. “I do not answer questions. I ask them.”
“I suppose that’s an answer in and of itself. Anyway, you look like me because I am the one who has the embodied form back on earth that appears as I do so therefore I do not look like you, I look like myself,” I said. “Unless you have a body too that looks just like this? I have heard of people who have no connection through family who look startlingly similar. Are we doppelgangers?”
The spirit stared straight ahead as if she didn’t hear me. In the quiet of the stone room, I heard an echo of the Divine Mother’s voice. “Do you retain your individuality even though you embodied other forms?” the goddess whispered through the bedrock of the earth. “Despite being a myriad of different forms, you are always in essence you. Know this and remember this moment of spiritual experience with me.”
“You’re a servant of the Divine Mother,” I said, the knowledge breaking over me in a wave. “Of course you can take any form you desire. Up above, I probably would have seen you as a spider which would make me a giant in this scenario but here I see you as myself like grasshopper only saw other grasshoppers. I think he helped me with this trial more than I realized at the time.”
“Who is the Divine Mother?” the spirit asked. “Who is grasshopper?”
“I have no idea and I’m trying to learn about everyone’s true natures as I go. But to answer your previous questions, I have come to this crucible because a feeling and an unknown driving force within me has brought me to this moment,” I said. “If I am guilty of anything, it is not following that feeling’s urges for inner exploration sooner, but I did not know the way or method. Delays aside, that is why I am here now, to seek the truth about existence and the mysteries of creation. What message do you have for me, spirit of Ginnungagap? I will carry it back to my waking world.”
The stone flesh of the being started to smolder from within like lava was igniting at her center. I looked down at my own body and discovered I was turning into clear, running water.
“Do you fear death, seeker of truth?” the spirit asked, all echoes gone from her voice.
“I used to fear death because it is an unknown horizon for those who walk upon the surface of the earth,” I said. “Now I feel that it is a transformation and a natural return to the place your spirit emerged from. My thoughts on the subject have changed because of my experiences with The Light Congress.”
“How about the death of your loved ones?” my fiery mirror image said. “Are you as accepting of their eventual deaths as your own?”
“I know they will go through their own transformations,” I said. “I know it is as natural as the sun rising and setting in its appointed time and yet that knowledge still pains me. I do not like feeling separated from those I love even if it’s only for a brief period of time in the grand scheme of things.”
The spirit stood from the floor and came so close that the water my new form was composed of began to smoke and steam. “What is your biggest fear, woman of water?” she said. “You can trust me for I am you and I know the answer already. I need to know if you know it consciously or leave all that knowledge with me.”
I bore the heat of my mirror image’s flames stoically, even though my body was evaporating because of her proximity. “I fear dying with my potential unrealized, spirit of fire,” I said. “I fear dying with my stories, music, and patterns of creation still inside of me. But, I know that this could never happen because even at this moment I am living my purpose and I am embodying my potential realities. It is a fear that is not real but whispered by the shadows who want you to believe that they can sway you from your appointed path. There is no one who holds that power over your life experience except yourself. If you are truly me, then join with me in spirit and we will answer all of each others’ questions without words but by mere presence.”
I reached out to the fire spirit and embraced myself in an expression of unity in that conflict-ridden place. Both versions of me screamed as we came together in one body. Our new form, the impossible simultaneous combination of fire and water, turned into solid rock and fused with the floor.
Then, I found myself rising from the stone statue and out of the crucible. The grasshopper reappeared on my shoulder and we looked down at the confluence of fire and water from above in companionable silence.
“What did you see in Ginnungagap, wanderer?” he asked after a period of reflection. “You’re disappointingly still yourself.”
“I experienced a meeting of opposite natures and the embodiment of fire and water in one form,” I said. “The combination was unbearably painful so I changed again to become a spirit of immovable stone. The crucible is a place of powerful transformation and evolution of consciousness, as you said, but with great conflict and suffering because of this.” I frowned at the memory. “I didn’t like it very much at all.”
“Should have taken my advice and tried the aphid route,” the grasshopper said.
“I can’t steer my visions at all so we’ll never know if you were right,” I said. “Let’s see if there are other more pleasant realities to view in this realm beyond the eternal war of the collective mind.” I turned my face from the valley and tried to fly away with the grasshopper from the vision of fire and water, but we couldn’t. As we flew above the eternally warring factions, trapped in their struggling world like two spirits in an inescapable net, I found myself drawn out of the air by an unseen force and the grasshopper was blown from my shoulder as simply as one extinguishes a candle. After our untimely separation, I was pulled back again into the room of stone and perpetually roiling ceiling of primal natural forces within the heart of Ginnungagap.
I sighed in disappointment that my new friend and I could not yet go to a more peaceful place outside of the war, but swallowed my feelings as I sat in meditation and waited in silence and shadow for the crucible to again reveal its meaning to me.
As I meditated, a being in an orange, hooded robe rose from the floor. I looked down at my own body and discovered I was now also clothed in an orange robe. As I moved my arms, the being across the room moved hers. I took my hood off and the being took off hers to reveal a grinning skeletal skull, then she ran directly at me. I went to embrace this skeleton as I had my mirror image of fire but she passed through my body as if I was made of vapor rather than flesh and blood.
I turned to view the skeleton, who now stood on my side of the room, and flesh covered her face. At first, the spirit appeared as an older version of me who bore my image in every detail. Then, she became youthful, aging in reverse, changing from a young woman to a child to a newborn baby, and finally disappeared as if she had never existed in the first place.
As I looked around the room seeking further evidence of the skeleton, my love from the waking world appeared in that place holding my daughter’s hand and I smiled as I recognized my family. Before I could greet them, they both began to age as rapidly as the skeleton of myself had moved through time in reverse.
I cried out in despair and ran to hold them in my arms but my love died first and decomposed, then my daughter turned into an old woman and skeleton as well. As quick as I was and I could move as speedily as a thought, I was too late in the crucible of Ginnungagap and they were both only dust on the ground by the time I made it across the room. I threw myself onto the dust and tried to embrace them even in death but they slipped through my fingers as I began to weep in distress.
“Hear me, Creator of All. I will fight in your eternal war,” I said, smearing the dust on my face and mixing it with my tears of grief. “Give my love and daughter back to me and my abilities such as they are will be yours to command. Please, I beg you, give them back to me and all I am now and in the future shall belong to you.”
A voice came from the stone floor of Ginnungagap as I was overwhelmed by waves of sorrow, sitting in the dust of my family. “We hear and accept your offering to eternity, Heidi. All those who are born will one day die. You know this,” the voice said. “You have accepted it for others in creation and yourself but not for those you love.”
“It’s true,” I said. “God help me, it’s true. Through hidden connections perhaps at a quantum or as-yet unknown levels of reality, I believe we are not ever truly separated from those we love, even as they travel their appointed paths through the myriad worlds. Separation, even for short periods of time through death, feels unnatural because it seems to deny the reality and power of these connections. I struggle with this concept all the time because it feels so final and real, as real as an eternal war between giants and spiders or spirits of fire and water.” I sifted some of the dust from the floor in my hands. “Or acknowledging the earthly remains of those who made such a mark upon your heart that it was as if they kept the stars in motion for you.”
“You cannot keep your love from dying. He will live the days given unto him and not a moment more but you can walk in his shadow and learn from his existence until that hour. You cannot keep your child from dying, but you can raise her so that she lives the story, music and pattern that is in her own soul, adding her unique voice and notes to the song of creation,” the voice said. “You and everyone you know will one day die. How many do you know who have truly lived? Go in peace, Heidi, and serve.”
I found myself rising from the crucible once again. I retained my waking world form but I began to grow, becoming a giant whereas before I had been someone of a size with a grasshopper. Throughout my transformational growth, I watched the crucible that contained my deceased loved ones get further and further away so that from a great distance it appeared to be a portal to the void of creation with fire and water being sucked inexorably into it.
“I wonder who will speak with me now that all I have known and loved is gone,” I said, tears building in my eyes again as I remembered my most recent losses.
“There you are, Aphid,” said a new voice at my shoulder. “Where have you been so long?”
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 
Wonderful ♥️
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