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 myself 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?”
“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.” 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?” 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.”
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 one 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 within the myriad worlds. She is the Mother who opens your eyes and closes them.”
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 build her influence that way. Everyone knows this is so.”
“I speak the absolute truth of my experience to you, my friend,” 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 “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. For now, all you have to know is that the giants fight because it has always been so and we are guardians of light and truth,” 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.” The giant shrugged to remove me from his shoulder then rushed forward, vanishing into the ranks of the marching army.
I rose higher so that I could see the group 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,” I said. “Two armies slaughtering each other endlessly at the creation of the world. Tell me, my friend, 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 one 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.”
“What a tremendous waste of energy and spirits on both sides,” I said.
“The giants and the spiders do not see it that way,” said the grasshopper. “Each side believes themselves to be good and righteous in their eternal cause. It is only you who see any difference in their forms whatsoever. I see scores of grasshoppers of light and shadow in this place- only grasshoppers, nothing else.”
“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, why can’t these groups have a conversation and draw boundaries in a civilized manner instead of ceaseless slaughter? Isn’t there some other more pleasant way to view this place?”
“There is always another way,” squeaked the grasshopper. 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 less upsetting.
“That is so much better, my friend,” I said. “Thank you for the assistance with the forms. What is in the center where the two forces meet?”
“It is the crucible of existence,” he said. “There is tremendous pressure within but also a place of change and potential transformation if one wishes for it to be so.”
“I will see it if I may, for I do not fear either change or transformation,” I said. Gathering my courage, I flew closer to the valley and was able to see the exact point where the fire and water combined with great violence, steam, and noise.
“I wish I could go with you but you must venture in there alone, Heidi,” the grasshopper said, alighting from my shoulder. “As one is born and dies crossing the threshold of existence, so too must one enter Ginnungagap.”
“Then that is as it must be,” I said. “See you on the other side, friend.” I gave the grasshopper a quick wave, then levitated downwards until I was on top of the central point of the valley and I entered it.
Below the surging streams of water and fire, I discovered a square room hewn out of living stone. Above, the forces of nature continued to meet and struggle, but below was solid rock. 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, reminding me of the children of war before they regained their sight.
“Why are you here, why are you here, why are you here…” my own voice came from this being’s stony throat and echoed throughout the room.
“I have come to know the nature of this place and you,” I replied, my voice holding none of the echo of my mirror image.
“You have no other reason, no other reason, no other reason…?” she asked, continuing to stare straight ahead with her blank eyes.
“I have come because a feeling 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. Delays aside, that is why I am here- to seek the truth. What message do you have for me, spirit of Ginnungagap?”
The stone flesh of the being started to smolder from within like lava 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?” she asked, all echoes gone from her voice.
“I used to fear death,” I said. “Now I feel that it is a transformation and a simple return to the place your spirit emerged from. My thoughts on that subject have changed because of my experiences with The Light Congress.”
“How about the death of your loved ones?” my 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.”
The fiery figure 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 asked. “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, 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 music 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.”
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 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.
“I experienced a meeting of opposites,” I said. “It is a place of powerful transformation and evolution of consciousness, as you said, but with great conflict.” I frowned. “I didn’t like it very much.”
“Let’s see if there are other more pleasant realities to view in this realm,” I said and turned my face from the valley. The grasshopper agreed to the plan so we tried to fly away from the vision of fire and water, but we couldn’t. As we flew above the warring factions, 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 separation, I was pulled back again into the room with the stone floor and perpetually roiling ceiling within Ginnungagap.
I sighed in disappointment that my friend and I could not yet go to a more peaceful place but waited in silence and shadow for the room 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. Then, she turned into an older version of me who became youthful, changed from a child into a baby, and disappeared as if she had never existed in the first place.
As I looked around the room seeking further evidence of the skeleton, my partner appeared in that place holding my daughter’s hand and I smiled as I recognized my loved ones. Before I could greet them, they both began to age as rapidly as the skeleton of myself had moved through time in reverse.
My love died first and decomposed, then as my daughter turned into an old woman and skeleton herself, I cried out and ran to hold her in my arms. But as quick as I was, I was too late in that place 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.
My voice came from the stone floor of Ginnungagap as I was overwhelmed by waves of sorrow: “All those who are born will one day die. You know this. You have accepted it for yourself but not for those you love.”
“It’s true,” I said, picking up the dust of my family and spreading it on my face and arms in grief. “God help me, it’s true. Through hidden connections, perhaps at a quantum level 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 of these connections. I struggle with this concept all the time because it feels so final in the moment.”
“You cannot keep your child from dying, but you can raise her so that she lives the music that is in her own soul,” my voice said. “You and everyone you know will one day die. How many do you know who have truly lived?”
I found myself rising from the crucible once again. I watched it 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.
Then, the vision ended.
The Light Congress 
Wonderful ♥️
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