Gate: Six of Cups
I stepped through the vision gate into a desert where the sun shone brightly down upon shining golden sand and scrubby desert vegetation. Beneath my feet, a path of cobblestones made of marble rose through the sand, marking a way forward through the endless dunes. I followed this path, moving from one stone to another while shading my eyes from the brilliance of the sun which was so bright it was almost oppressive.
“I seem to end up in desert regions quite a lot,” I said to myself as I continued forward. “I wonder if that has any meaning, beyond the obvious, for me.”
After a long hike through the monotonous landscape, a tall monolith that was made of the same stone as the path appeared, unearthing itself from the shifting sand. The monument rose high into the air and sparkled with embedded minerals. At its base, a dark doorway appeared, leading into further shadows.
“That looks rather ominous,” I said. “It would probably be a good idea to take a guide with me into the depths.”
As I spoke, an enormous serpent rose from the sand to my left and arched his huge body over me. Then, he drove his head into the sand on the far side of the path, creating a tunneled walkway with his bulk and shading me from the sun. The desert leviathan’s scales were emerald green and shone with an inner light that emanated from him and made the lifeless sands around the path come alive with a springtime hue.
“Hello, my friend,” I said. “My name is Heidi. Thank you for answering my summons. What is this place?”
The leviathan’s head rose from the sand to gaze at me steadily from outside of the marked path. “Welcome, wanderer,” the serpent rasped. “You see before you, the Plinth of Resurrection, the birthplace of the god Osiris-s-s-s-s.”
I sighed. “Not that guy again,” I said. “He was so unfriendly.”
The serpent’s reptilian eyes bored into mine. “It is not incumbent upon a god to be welcoming to those who stumble into his seat of power,” he said. “Nor should such things be expected.”
“It’s one thing to be aloof,” I said. “It’s quite another to threaten someone’s bloodline with eternal domination and suffering.”
The serpent’s coils moved more tightly around me, narrowing the tunnel forward. “Not all who walk the paths of the inner worlds have good intentions,” the leviathan said. “Until a seeker declares themselves, it is wise to exercise some level of caution, don’t you agree?”
“I suppose this is wise,” I said. ‘If not welcoming or bridge building. What will I find within Osiris’ plinth?”
“Expect change, evolution, and growth within the sacred space of the resurrected god,” the serpent replied. “Those who enter this place are never the same ones who exit. As life challenges change a person’s spirit, so too does this place alter the perceptions of those who may have been wandering in the shadows of ignorance and fear.”
“I hope this alteration is for the better. I will enter the monument for I do not fear change,” I said. “Though I dislike being alone. Will you travel this path with me?”
“Yes-s-s,” the desert guardian said. In moments, the emerald serpent shrank in size and became a normal-sized and patterned cobra who slithered easily on the stones next to me. Together, we approached the glimmering monolith. A chill breeze, in stark contrast to the desert heat, emerged from the plinth as I ran my fingers over the frame of the open doorway that was richly carved with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Beyond the entrance chamber, we discovered a hall which was also carved and decorated with writing that I could not decipher.
The cobra and I traversed this hall, the hieroglyphs along the walls lighting up in our passage. After some time, we arrived at a large, echoing chamber, at the center of which a beam of light descended from high above and illuminated a precisely carved stone table in the middle of the room. A dark stone statue with the head of a bird and the body of a man lay on this table.
As my feet touched the floor of the chamber, my cobra guide disappeared in a bright flash and the statue upon the altar began to move. With a loud grating sound, the stone statue sat up and turned into a spirit of flesh and blood. The resurrected god wore a white linen tunic with brightly colored embellishments along the neckline and sleeves. He held symbols of power tightly in both hands which he uncrossed from his chest as he rose to his feet.
“Hail, Great One,” I said. “I apologize for disturbing your eternal rest. My name is Heidi and I’ve come to this place seeking your true nature and wisdom.”
“I am Osiris, who was dead and now alive,” the god said. “I remember you well, seeker named Heidi, though it has been ages since I saw your face.”
“It hasn’t been that long, for me at least,” I said. “Merely a handful of weeks of lived time.”
“Weeks?” Osiris said, placing his staves upon the altar. “No, Heidi, it has been lifetimes.”
“Be that as it may,” I said. “You seem very different from the last time we met. Perhaps the time spent in this place has changed you as the serpent upon the path told me it changes all who enter its influence.”
“I change each time I arise anew,” the god said, turning his attention upon me. “It is a rebirth of the spirit as well as the body. It can actually be quite refreshing to abandon old grudges and hurts in favor of a renewal of spirit and purpose.”
“I imagine it is,” I said. “Great One, do you remember the important parts of your previous existence while forgetting the problematic issues that deserve forgetting? I would like to understand how a rebirth such as you describe could be performed without losing one’s identity over eons of existence.”
“I have come to believe that gods are not defined by our ancestral enemies or what happens to us throughout existence,” Osiris said. “But, instead, we are defined by those we love and assist in their evolutions through our and their timeless existences and repeated life experiences. It is through both the embodied and disembodied lives that this learning takes place. Through this new understanding of reality, I have set my feet upon a path that I never expected and its requirements of rebirth have changed me for the better.”
“You seem to have spiritually rehabilitated yourself,” I said. “I hope to walk this path you speak of as well because, I believe, all in existence eventually reach a place where they understand that the past is passed and, to build a better future, we need to forgive ourselves as well as each other. I’m sorry if I was rude the last time I encountered you. I still have trouble kneeling in penitence, but if that is what you require for further healing, perhaps I can give it a try.”
Osiris waved his hand at me in negation. “No need to kneel at this point in time, Heidi,” he said. “All is forgiven between us. Be welcome to my inner sanctum.”
“What is this place?” I asked.
“This is the womb of my mother,” the god said. “The attendants of my temple bring me here when I cease to breathe and I leave only when I am alive again. This process can take very little time when a life spent was peaceful and full of love and laughter. It can take much longer for the reverse.”
“I confess, I know very little about the Egyptian gods,” I said. “Though I am quite willing to learn more. If you could teach me one thing, great Osiris, what would it be?”
The god began to pace the resurrection chamber in a complex pattern. “Know, Heidi, that death of the body is not the end, as birth of the body is not a beginning.” Osiris moved in circles about the room and traced concentric shapes in the air with his arms as he did so. “Physical existence, in its entirety, is a constant cycle, a becoming, an evolution. This reality could be depicted as circles within circles- a never ending glyph contained within and without of time.”
Osiris moved back to his altar and raised his arms above his head, sending the power he had accumulated in his motions throughout the room up into the skies. The massive stones of the sacred chamber’s ceiling lifted away and the desert sun shone directly down on both of us like a spotlight.
Osiris then held out his hand to me in a welcoming gesture. “Come, Heidi,” the god said. “Let us leave this place. It is time for the experience of further existence for your betterment and my own.”
“Where do we go?” I asked, moving to the god’s side.
“I must let my family know that I live again,” he said. “I do not know how long I slept in this cycle and they may be concerned for me.”
“You have a family?” I said.
“Famously so, Heidi. All who are born have a family, even gods,” Osiris said, amused. He made a complex gesture with his hand and we rose into the sunlit air and continued up into the sky until Osiris and I entered the sun itself, causing a surge of energy when our spirits merged within it.
I blinked in the impossible brightness of the sun and found myself in a room with a large square-shaped table and numerous spirits. The air rang with the everyday sounds of conversation and dining. All manner of beings with heads like animals and the bodies of people sat along the table in the midst of a great banquet.
A dozen different voices greeted our appearance. “There he is again,” one said. “The prodigal son returns,” declared another. “Welcome back!” was echoed by numerous gods and goddesses. Osiris smiled and waved at the assembly in greeting, then he took my hand.
“We need to say hello to my wife,” he said. “I suspect you two may get along very well.” Osiris led me past the feasting host towards a raised dais at the far end of the room.
“Who is she?” I asked, as I stole a fig from the gods’ table and popped it in my mouth.
“She is the Lady of Light and Lilies,” the god said. “Behold, my sister and consort, Isis.” On the dais, there were two thrones, one of which held a numinous being who shone with a bright, inner light. Osiris ran to his goddess and embraced her enthusiastically. She greeted him in return with a gentle kiss.
“Welcome back, brother,” the goddess said. “I have missed you more than life.” Then, she turned to me, moonlight emanating from her face. “Who is this who comes into our home?”
“My name is Heidi, Lady Isis,” I said and bowed my head in respect. “I have come to learn the nature of this place and yourself. If you could teach me one lesson about existence, what would it be?”
“Every time my brother dies, I mourn. Every time he returns to me, I celebrate,” the goddess said. “I would teach you that both emotions have their time and proper place. It is the contrast between the two that makes them so powerful.” She clapped her hands and the room quieted. “My family, Osiris has returned to us. Now is the time for celebration! Bring in the dancers and begin the music once more!”
Doors opened in the walls of the room and a crowd of female dancers wrapped in silks the color of the sun entered. A song whose notes I vaguely remembered rose into the air and the dancers writhed around me in concentric circles in the pattern Osiris had traced out in his resurrection chamber. They spun and circled the gods present with their arms raised in celebration and triumph. I found myself rising in the air above the ecstatic and wild scene, and fell out of the sun to walk the desert sands once more and stand before the Plinth of Resurrection.
The sand beneath me began to boil and move revealing a veritable lake of serpents within its hidden depths. The cobra who accompanied me into Osiris’ sacred space appeared and wrapped himself securely around my arms. “Who are these spirits?” I asked.
Before my guide could reply, an answer came from the living pool of desert beings. “We are the serpents of transformation and change,” said the snakes in rasping and hissing whispers. “We represent spiritual evolution. Walk among us, one from the sun, and we will accompany you upon the surface of the earth once more.”
From deep within the heaving sands, an enormous hooded cobra, the size of a small house, raised his head. He opened his fanged mouth wide and put his head down on the sand beside Osiris’ temple, turning into a stone cavern with carved steps that led down into his throat. The smaller serpents burrowed under the sand and were soon gone, leaving only the cavern which, with its mere presence, seemed to call out to me to enter its waiting darkness and shadows.
“That seems like the place for us to explore next,” I said to the serpent who unwound himself from my arms and landed on the sand beside me. “I didn’t catch your name last time, friend. Thank you for meeting me here again.”
“I am S-s-s-sobek,” he hissed. “Though others have called me, Lickspittle.”
“Come on, Sobek,” I said. “My curiosity demands that I know what is within. Let’s go see, shall we?” As we climbed into the cavern’s mouth and went down into the dark, a single shaft of sunlight descended from above and illuminated a lamp on a rock column at the bottom of the tunnel. I approached the lamp cautiously as the shadows writhed in repeated patterns around it within the secret depths of the desert cave.
“Release the being in the lamp,” Sobek encouraged me. “I haven’t seen him for some ages and one has to wonder if his mind has survived his long sleep.” The ornately decorated oil lamp burned with a bright blue flame that cast very little light in that shadowed place. I picked the artifact up and gently brushed its sides with my fingertips.
Smoke emerged from the lamp and Sobek and I were soon surrounded by an opaque mist. “Who summons me?” a deep voice came from the fog and echoed all around us.
“My name is Heidi and this is Sobek,” I said. “We have come to know the nature of this place and yourself.”
“You may enter,” the voice said. “Your desert friend must remain here.”
Before I could say farewell to my guide, the fog enveloped me and I found myself shrinking in size and drawn into the lamp itself. Then, I blinked and was standing on a sandy shore looking out at a wide ocean. The mist that had been in the cavern swirled and gathered into a being with blue skin who floated in the air in front of me. He had long black hair gathered into a ponytail on the back of his head and his eyes shone with alternating shadows and a red gleam like lit coals.
“This is my nature and home, Heidi. I stand between the earth and sea. I am fog, mist, a clouding of the mind. I am eternally both and neither,” the being said. “For releasing me, I will grant you a boon. Have you no requests of me?”
“I ask for nothing beyond further knowledge and understanding of you,” I said. “What is your name so that we may have a polite conversation?”
“You could call me Blue Mist, Blue Fog, or Blue Flame,” the genie replied. “But none of those names truly encapsulate what I am.”
“How interesting to find you here, Blue Mist,” I said. “I last encountered a being of your nature outside of the Temples of the Divine Mother in a realm far from this one. Are you any relation to those guardians?”
“I was hidden within the sands below the Plinth of Resurrection as both a guardian and a reward for intrepid seekers,” the genie said. “Some might call the birthplace of Osiris a Temple of the Divine Mother as well. We spirits of the living air serve the ruling powers of this place and many others. I was once free to roam where I willed it, but that freedom is no longer mine.”
“Do you feel you are a prisoner in this place?” I asked. “If you cannot leave as you will it, then you are within a prison of sorts and I would spare you from this fate.”
Blue Mist’s body dissipated so that he was the mist again rather than a swirling humanoid shape. “A prisoner? No. Though I was bound to the lamp and cavern, I am no prisoner,” he said, his voice coming from all around me. “All requests that are brought to my doorstep have such space for personal interpretation built into them.” His voice swirled through the fog and I felt his presence come closer to whisper in my ear.
“Say, for example, someone asks me for a car, and I must respond, but he didn’t specify that it has an engine,” the genie murmured. “Someone asks me for the woman of his dreams, and I must respond, but he didn’t specify that the woman loves him in return.” The voice moved away from me towards the surf. “I have such power in the finer details of the seeker’s requests.”
Then, the fog curled and the voice circled closer once more. “I am no prisoner,” Blue Mist said. “The ones who bound me, bound themselves though they did not know it. I pity them and their false visions of possession of me and my unique abilities.” The mist thickened and completely surrounded me so that I could no longer see the ocean. “What is the secret desire of your heart, Heidi? Surely there is something you want that I can give. There always is.”
I laughed. “You tell me you corrupt every wish that you fulfill, Blue Mist,” I said. “Knowing that, why would I ask anything of you?”
“Because I can give you anything you want,” the genie said. “Most can’t resist that sort of temptation even with my free will thrown into the mix.”
“Has anyone ever asked you the desire of your heart?” I said. “I would like to know that.” The mist became even thicker so that I could hardly see my hands when I waved them in front of my face.
“No one has ever asked me the desire of my heart,” Blue Mist said. “I will grant your wish and gladly. Walk forward, Heidi.” I gingerly moved through the mist with my hands outstretched in the direction of the ocean. After a few moments, I felt cold metal at the end of my fingertips and discovered a bronze statue of a mermaid which lay on the edge of the sand and water. As I gazed at the mermaid’s stunning metal beauty, the fog cleared so I could see the ocean again.
“Who is she?” I said. “She’s lovely.”
“The lady of my heart,” Blue Mist replied. “She is a creature of land and sea as I am a creature of land and air.” Beyond the statue, out in the water, a spirit rose to the surface of the sea and made its way rapidly closer. When she neared the shore where I stood, I beheld the beautiful mermaid who was memorialized in the genie’s statue.
The mist that contained her lover gathered about the mermaid, caressing her and whispering endearments. The water spirit beached herself near me with her tail curling in the foaming surf.
“Hello, land spirit,” she said and I nodded in return.
“Well met, water spirit,” I said. “My name is Heidi. Who are you?”
“You may call me, Blue Wave, Blue Sea, or Blue Current, though I am more than all of these things,” she said. “As the genie is related to thought, I am emotion. We are tied together but forever apart because of the nature of what we are.” She raised her hands to the mists, gathering it from the air and pressing it to her mouth in a gentle kiss. Her tail rose from the water as she did this and splashed down again, sending droplets of ocean water in my direction. “But this is our home and our sacred meeting place. Why are you here?”
“I am here to learn whatever lesson it is you have to teach me,” I said. “Sobek guided me to your love Blue Mist and he has revealed to me the dangers of attempting to contain eternal beings in one place and for a single purpose.”
The mermaid grinned wickedly, revealing sharply pointed teeth. “I will share with you more of the same. Come with me beneath the waves,” she said. “To see a sight that will amaze.”
Blue Wave dived easily into the waves and I followed her with an awkward splash. Though the murky water concealed where we were going, it was easy to stay on the path because the mermaid glowed with an inner light, impossible to lose in the dark.
We continued onward and downward until two enormous pearls appeared, lying side-by-side on the ocean floor. One pearl was made of gossamer light, the other was shadowed darkness, and they sat so close together they seemed attached. Blue Wave led me towards an entrance in the base of the white pearl.
I floated within the pearl and discovered precious treasures scattered on the floor and beautiful pictures adorning the walls. The water spirit accompanied me into the spherical chamber. “This is the treasure house of your conscious emotions,” the mermaid said, gesturing about us. “You will see all the things that you prize and delight in here.”
I spent some time exploring the space. Many pictures of my daughter and family were on the walls and I smiled as I saw them, reliving the memories that they recorded. I felt incredibly peaceful as I ran my hands along the smooth surface of the white pearl and the shining gold, silver, and bronze coins that overflowed from chests in the room.
On the far side of the lighted chamber, a darkened doorway stood silently within the pearl’s wall. I contemplated it for a moment before approaching the shadows. “What is in there, Blue Wave?” I asked.
“That is the entrance to your subconscious emotions,” she said. “The black pearl contains those things which you prize that you are unaware of.”
I gazed at the dark door with some apprehension. “Is it safe to travel within?” I asked. “It seems like a place that is meant for my Shadow and not me.”
“It is your own mind,” the mermaid said and giggled. “I don’t know if those who travel in their own mind would call subconscious exploration ‘safe’ or not. You may enter, of course, if you choose to do so. I will neither prevent nor accompany you.”
“I choose to do so, so alone I go. Thank you for bringing me to the threshold,” I said and floated through the doorway into the shadowed pearl.
At first, it was as black as night in the other pearl. Then, a light exploded from my spirit and illuminated the interior. I couldn’t see anything but the inner walls of the black pearl and it began to disintegrate around me, falling onto my body and ocean floor in splinters of shadow. I was soon coated in a second skin of shining, black particles and I sighed in frustration at my inability to see through the darkness to the secrets contained within. “What do I unconsciously treasure?” I asked the shadow.
I heard an answering whisper: “Illumination.”
The black pearl crumbled to dust after this revelation and I found myself rising through the water to the surface of the ocean. Covered in remnants of shadow, I climbed out of the surf on my hands and knees but my limbs began to grow stiff and, as I reached the sand, I couldn’t continue forward anymore. The shadow pearl’s remnants became like stone upon my skin, trapping me where I lay.
I saw my spirit rising from the shadow’s prison, leaving behind a stone statue of myself behind upon the sands. It captured the moment I emerged from the ocean and rested in the surf next to the bronze statue of the mermaid who was loved by the genie. I continued to rise into the air above the two figures memorialized in the place where the land met the sea and thought mingled with emotion.
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 