Gate: Five of Cups
I stepped through the vision gate and was standing on packed dirt in an empty field. All was silent and still until, quite suddenly, I perceived a commotion like the tread of many feet upon the ground, the approach of a massive army. At first, I thought the sound must be caused by a group of spirits all moving together but as I looked closer towards the disturbance, I realized the source of the noise was a huge, brown centipede.
The centipede was massive, so long that I could not see his beginning or his end, and his head was the size of a car. I went close to this creature with some trepidation because he was so much bigger than me.
“Hello!” I said, waving a hand in greeting. “My name is Heidi and I have come to this place seeking your true nature.”
The spirit did not respond in words but waved his various legs at me in what I assumed was a friendly gesture. Then, far quicker than I would have imagined possible, the centipede darted at me, lifting me off of my feet with his head like a dog tossing a toy into the air. I landed upon his back and grasped at his sectioned body before we shot forward at a tremendous speed.
“Nice to meet you too,” I called to the centipede as we hurtled through his realm like a comet moving upon the surface of the Earth.
Suddenly, a tree branch came out of nowhere and I was swept off the centipede’s back, tumbling to the bare, packed ground. Around me, tall blades of grass appeared, each as thick around as a small tree trunk, and they had human faces. They bent towards me, murmuring unintelligible words like a living forest.
“Hello, spirits of the field,” I said, pushing aside a few blades of enormous grass so that I wouldn’t be smothered by their attention. “My name is Heidi. Who are you?”
As I waited for a response, the grass blades moved and swayed in a sudden fierce wind that came and went with storm-level intensity. For a time, I observed nothing but complete silence and the hypnotic motions of grass rippling like a sea of plant life.
“We are the Blades of Eternity,” the grass suddenly whispered in unison. Then, another gust of strong wind bent them backwards and forwards as if in a graceful bow.
“Be welcome among us, Heidi,” whispered a single blade of grass. This wish was echoed by a dozen other blades of grass nearby. The wind gusted, the grass danced in the breeze and, once again, they settled into peaceful patterns of predictable motion.
“Blades of Eternity, I am very pleased to meet you all,” I said. “What is your purpose in this world?”
“We move in the breath of the giant and cut his thoughts down to size as required,” sighed the grass blades. Then, they bent and swayed with the intermittent winds once more.
“Cut thought?” I said, finding myself moving with the grass in the next breeze as if I was part of the field myself. “How is such a thing possible? Thoughts are not physical things, at least where I come from.”
“Sharper than steel, stronger than the earth, the Blades of Eternity stand against that which is unmanifested,” said the blades of grass. “That is our purpose for being. We fear neither time nor decay or death.” Again and again, the grass moved with the gusts of wind and returned to their upright positions.
“The wizard of the wood called unmanifested thoughts, ‘progenitor thoughts,’ but we found those sparks within our hearts, not moving in the wind,” I said. “Can I see these untested thoughts? I don’t see anything happening in this field besides your dance.”
“Anything is possible,” the grass sighed and suddenly a giant appeared, towering above where I stood among the waving blades. He paused now and again as he neared me and kneeling down, he puffed out his cheeks and blew gently across the grass. Despite his gentleness, his breath came from his lungs like a hurricane blast, scouring the fields, and causing the repeated swaying motion of the tree-like grasses with human faces.
After a final out breath, the giant spotted me upon the ground and scooped me up with an enormous hand. “Hello…,” I started to say but before I could speak another word, he popped me into his mouth and swallowed me whole. I fell for a time and my vision blurred so that I could perceive nothing other than my progress down the giant’s throat.
When I could see again, I found myself in total darkness within the belly of the giant. “We need some light in here,” I said and imagined a lit wax candle in my hand. It appeared as quickly and simply as a thought. Using its calming, flickering light, I began to explore my surroundings which appeared to my eyes as craggy interconnected caverns made of stone. Just beyond the circle of my candlelight, shadowy spirits approached the edge of the light until I could dimly perceive a flash of bright eyes, but they would come no closer.
“Is anyone there?” I called, moving towards the shadows as they darted away into the further depths of the cave. “My name is Heidi and I come from another world seeking your true nature. I won’t hurt you; I just want to know who you are,” I said. After some time spent in a fruitless game of chase with the shadows, I sat upon the cave floor. “If you’re shy, that’s fine,” I said. “I am too. Is there a guide in this place, preferably someone with a voice who can speak?”
There was a slight movement at my feet and a tiny golem rose from the rock of the cave. “Hello,” he mumbled and I bent closer to hear his quiet words. “I am Inspiration. Who are you and how did you come to be in this place, flesh and blood being?”
“The giant in the field swallowed me as I stood among the Blades of Eternity, spirit of rock,” I said. “Thank you for answering my call. None of the shadows in here have voices to speak and I feel like I’m terrifying them with my presence when I’m only trying to communicate. Where am I?”
“You walk among the unmanifested spirits in the Cave of Thought,” Inspiration said. “It is a sacred place of beginnings, first steps and generally silence because no one here has a form. Usually this cave contains shadows and nothing else. Chance smiled upon you to bring you to this realm and into my presence, Hi-Dee.” As the golem spoke, a strong gust passed through the cavern and some of the shadows were pulled from the gathered crowd beyond the light of my candle and whisked away in the breeze.
“I have been very fortunate in my travels. I can’t deny it, though I wouldn’t have usually considered being eaten a stroke of good luck,” I said. “What is happening here, Inspiration?”
“The giant conceives his creations and thoughts within his caves then moves them among the Blades of Eternity through his breath,” the golem said. “Some thoughts are cut to ribbons by the guardians of the field, others, if deemed worthy, are allowed to pass on to the worlds below. It is a similar process to separating wheat from chaff.”
“Wheat from chaff?” I said. “Don’t all creations have some good that they can contribute to reality?”
The golem sat in the small pool of light from my candle. “I can see why you would like to believe that all that emerges from the giant of thought are helpful and beneficial to existence because it is such an automatic creative process,” Inspiration said. “But, sadly, some of the formless ones merely repeat patterns they learned in previous lives rather than going on to self actualize into their greatest potential.”
“Is this a painful process for them?” I said, watching the shadows dance upon the cave walls.
“Most aren’t even aware of what is taking place,” Inspiration said. “Self awareness is a step within spiritual evolution as well. You could say, ignorance is bliss.”
“But you and I know that they could be sliced into tiny fragments and returned to this cave to brave the passage again,” I said. “Don’t you feel any responsibility to help these formless ones reach a point where they can make it through the sorting fields?”
“What do you think I’m doing here, Hi-Dee?” the golem said. “I never give up on Potential. She is one of my oldest friends and a prolific creator. Look at all of her children running around like seeds made manifest as living and moving shadows.”
“The giant of thought appeared male to my eyes,” I said. “Was my sight altered to teach a further lesson about this world?”
“All spirits contain aspects of divinity of either gender, for expression without form goes beyond this natural division,” Inspiration said. “Thus may a traditionally male god be both mother and father to his creations and a female god the same. Gendered roles are another trapping of physical reality that may be dismissed in this world. Within the cave of the giant of thought, there is no requirement for any of that. Formless spirits may be all, both, or none.”
“What freedom,” I said as I considered all that I had seen with the giant of thought, the field of dancing grass and now the numerous shadows of the unmanifested cave. “Where are the thoughts conceived within the giant’s caves?” I asked at last. “He has so many potential spirits contained here. I would love to see their point of origin.”
“It is not guarded or defended from the curiosity of the form-filled worlds. Follow me to the giant of thought’s crucible of creation,” said Inspiration and led me deeper into the cave. As we moved, the shadows stayed close but remained out of the light, giving me the feeling of being surrounded by a large, silent crowd. Occasionally, winds passed through the cave and removed a few of their number, but there were ever more shadows emerging from the walls and deeper recesses to take their place.
After traversing more twisting and labyrinthian stone tunnels, the golem brought me to a part of the cave that pulsed with bright light and I extinguished my candle in its greater glow. “Behold, Hi-Dee, the heart of the giant called ‘Thought’,” Inspiration said. “Each beat, he brings forth another unmanifested creation. See his vitality at work?”
During each pulse of the light which streamed from the heart of the giant, I saw, for a brief moment, something that looked like a human figure of living shadow emerge from the stone of the cave but then the potential was gone, blended into the crowd of gathered shadows. This happened again and again as regularly and as quick as a heartbeat.
“Can I speak to any of them?” I asked, running my fingers through a thought’s fleeing shape. “I produce progenitor energy from my heart too but I’ve never tried to communicate with them in their unmanifested state. I didn’t even know you could.”
“You have to call one of the formless by name to speak with them,” Inspiration said. “It is as simple as a wish, Hi-Dee.”
“How will I know their names to call them?” I said.
The golem rearranged the stone of his face into the approximation of a grin. “Say the first thing that comes to mind and you will have upon your tongue the identity of an unmanifested form from this cave,” he said. “Their presence is indicated by your ability to call them to mind.”
“Can it really be that easy, Inspiration?” I mused.
“I assure you, it is,” the golem said.
“Well, let’s give it a go. Feet!” I called out, feeling rather silly. As soon as I said the word, one of the human-shaped shadows stepped forth into the pooled light of my candle which had suddenly reignited in my hand.
He danced around Inspiration and I for a moment, then a voice came from his darkness. “I move beneath you on the ground. Bearing, holding, keeping sound,” whispered the shadow. “We run, we walk, we dance, we play. Feet are with you every day.” I opened my mouth to ask the formless one a question but as I did so, one of the frequent gusts of wind moved through the cave, grabbed the shadow and he was whisked away to brave the Blades of Eternity.
“This method of communication isn’t going to work,” I said. “How can I talk to any of these spirits if they are here one moment and gone the next?”
“Naming the formless one gave them substance,” Inspiration said. “That speeds up their development and fated exit from the cave of the giant of thought.”
“Are there no spirits in this place that are more permanent?” I asked. “Other than you and me, I mean.”
“Yeah, I know one,” the golem hopped down from my shoulder where he had perched himself while we chatted. “This way, Hi-Dee, this way.” Once again, the golem led me through the cavern until we came to a place that glowed with the same light that had pulsed at the birthplace of the formless. But, instead of a small area on the cave floor, this bright light emanated from a six-sided cube that floated in space. Inspiration leapt from the ground into the cube, joining his form with theirs, and the light grew even brighter.
I shaded my eyes in the spirit’s brilliant glow. “Hello, unmanifested one, I am Heidi,” I said. “Do you have a name that you could share with me without causing your presence to depart the caves?”
“I am Organization,” the spirit said, lights of various pastel hues glowing from their smooth sides. “If the giant is the father of these thoughts, I could be considered the mother of the same. I give them the merest suggestion of forms so that they are not all lumped together in their formless existence like unformed clay.”
“It doesn’t seem very motherly to allow your children to be blown across a field of swords, risking life and limb for manifestation,” I said. “How can you bear it?”
“The journey across the fields does not cause injury or suffering of any kind,” the cube replied. “You are empathizing about formless existence from the point of view of one who inhabits a physical body. Any spirit whose time hasn’t yet come, just returns to our cave until it is their time. It is a completely natural and painless process of spiritual evolution and manifestation.”
“Do you allow chance to decide which formless ones pass through the Blades of Eternity and which return to you?” I asked. “Who decides when a spirit’s time has come?”
“This is not a matter of chance,” Organization said. “It is destiny. This is how the process works, Heidi.” The cube turned one of their flashing sides into a television screen and I saw a formless one pulse into being at their birth place, the heart of Thought. Then, a wind moved through the cave and the shadow was whisked away by the breath of the giant.
Next, I saw the giant blow the formless ones from his mouth across the Blades of Eternity. Some of the potentials from the cave were dissipated among the cutting blades of grass but one human-shaped shadow continued on across the fields and into the skies above the guardian spirits upon the ground.
Finally, I saw myself lying at home in the waking world in meditation on my mat. The formless one entered my third eye and the cube’s television screen disappeared. “That was how you were given the vision of this place,” Organization said. “The giant gave birth to the formless one within his heart and manifested them through his breath. Then, once separated from their creator, they survived the fearsome gauntlet of the Blades of Eternity and found their way to you. You are experiencing a visionary gift from a formless one right now.”
“I had no idea that shadows contained such potential,” I said. “Wisdom from the fountain told me that shadows and their garbled messages were nothing more than figments of my imagination.”
“Thus they are and are not. They are figments, they are reality, they are a mysterious state in between the two. Once a formless one survives the cutting blades of grass, they can travel anywhere in the myriad worlds that they need to,” Organization said. “That is why the sorting function of the field is so important, to cut through the innumerable potentials to find the ones that are most helpful at the present moment. Without this Organization, Inspiration, and safety precautions of the field, there could be potential chaos and intrusive thoughts beyond measure in the manifested worlds.”
I rubbed my own forehead, imagining that I could physically feel the newly manifested thought within the cavern-filled recesses of my own mind. “Thank you for the lesson about the formless ones and all the rest,” I said. “I wish Merlin could have walked here with me. He would have loved this place and its progenitor energy production.” Organization glowed serenely in the darkness, issuing no judgement whatsoever on my wish, and I found myself caught up in the next wind that passed through the cave.
I emerged from the giant’s mouth and was blown through the Blades of Eternity where I dodged every cutting blade but before I could be sent to another world, I landed on the back of the running centipede once more. We rushed forward again with tremendous speed when, suddenly, the centipede burrowed into the ground. I was thrown from his back onto an empty field of dirt where a blood red sun shone down, bathing everything in a red-tinged light. Behind me, the Blades of Eternity waved in their eternal dance with the breath of the giant. Before me, there was nothing but dust and space.
Then, in the middle of the empty field, a castle made of black stone held together with glowing red light erupted from the ground. It looked very similar to the Castle of Skye except where that castle was light and mist, this was shadow and darkness. I gazed at the fortress with a mixture of admiration and fear because of its tall gates and bristling armaments lining the walls. “I bet a great warrior lives there,” I said. “I wonder who he numbers among his enemies that he requires such a fearsome castle for his protection?” An uncounted amount of time passed while I observed the shifting red light’s patterns before there was movement at my feet and Inspiration rose from the dirt of the field, but this time he wore a small iron helmet and carried a tiny spear.
“Hello again, Inspiration,” I said. “What is this place? It reminds me of somewhere I’ve been but the shadows are far more prevalent here than there.”
“This is the Earth-Bound Palace of Mars, Hi-Dee,” the golem said. “He admired his goddess’ Castle of Skye so much he built one like it for himself and his warriors of light. Shall we go within?”
“If you think the god will allow us entrance, I will walk his halls as I did so long ago,” I said and Inspiration led me across a dark drawbridge to the threshold of the armored gates. Unlike the guarded and contested Castle of Skye, this door was wide open and I moved within its red-lit shadows with no challenge. A desolate breeze moved through the empty halls which were filled with nothing I could perceive but shadowed stone and red light.
“Hello!…hello….hello….” I called and my voice echoed eerily back to me. “Where is the master of the castle, Inspiration, and his warriors of the Inner Worlds?”
“You seek Mars,” said the golem. “This palace seems empty to your eyes because the god doesn’t understand Venus and her messengers as much as he thinks he does and the reverse is also true. This way, Hi-Dee!”
The golem ran towards a doorway at the base of a dark tower, which we entered and ascended many spiral stairs until we were high above the rest of the castle. At the very top of the tower, Inspiration pushed open an ornately carved wooden door and we emerged into a throne room where a god in the shape of a giant swathed in shadows and armor sat on a dark throne. As he reclined in his place of power, the god sharpened a spear upon a whetstone and wore an iron helmet that covered most of his face. His eyes shone from the depths of his helmet like two stars in the night sky as he looked up from his labors towards me.
“Hello again Lord Mars, god of war and ceaseless activity upon the fields of battle,” I said. “I think this castle is far superior to your old long hall in both its construction and defensibility. Thank you for allowing Inspiration and I entrance.”
When the god responded, the tower shook with the power of his voice. “Who are you and why do you act as if you know me?” he said. “I do not permit overly familiar wandering spirits in my halls, only the brave and true warriors of my legions.”
“Don’t you remember me, Great One? When last we met, I called you ‘Ares’ but we decided in the future to use the appellation of the Roman god instead,” I said. “You called me ‘Eirene’ though I felt you greatly honored me with the name which is far beyond the nightmare reality of my waking world. It is no big matter to my mind either way and I shall simply introduce myself again. My name is Heidi and I come seeking the nature of this place and you. I am brave and true, Mars, and I hope to have the opportunity to prove this to you in the future.”
“A Pax called Heidi, is it?” the god said. “Be welcome but know I grow tired with this place, formless spirit. I do not understand those who can build a home and remain in it indefinitely, counting the hours as they pass by observing the shadows crawling over the walls. It is so dull. I crave action! Allow me to provide you with an opportunity to prove your worth to my armies and earn your form.” Mars rose to his feet and descended from his throne, the castle shaking beneath us with each step. He waved his arms in a summoning gesture and the room filled with ancient soldiers who screamed at each other in a fury and ran towards their opponents with weapons drawn.
“Stop this madness! I already have a form and function,” I cried out and raised my arms, mirroring the god’s gesture. The warring soldiers vanished as if they had never been. “Great One, your idea of how to prove my worth is quite different from my own. I neither seek physical combat nor invite it into my existence. My innate talents lie along another path entirely. If you are bored, why not invite some engaging entertainment or musicians in? Why is your castle empty and echoing?”
Mars turned his countenance upon me and I felt the weight of his regard as if it was a physical presence upon my skin. “My halls are not empty, unwilling combatant and warrior of peace,” the god said after a few heartbeats. “They ring with the sound of combat and conflict. I find the constant noise soothing like others might listen to waves breaking upon the shore. My peace sits in the heart of conflict and thrives on its inherent chaos.”
“I heard and saw nothing on my way to your throne though Inspiration walked with me,” I said. “To me, your palace is empty and filled with only formless ones and their world-shifting breezes. Their potentials enter your home and leave with nothing to show for their experience but noise and a few moments of blind terror.”
“You saw nothing, really? One must be nearly blind and deaf to perceive nothing in my halls,” Mars said. “Or walking in another world of their own creation. Come with me, Pax of Heidi, or should I say ‘oblivious spirit’.” With thunderous footsteps, the god led me to the exit of his tower.
“I have been accused of moving through reality in a different manner than others. This is a fair assessment,” I said as Inspiration gave me a final salute and vanished into the stones of the palace to join the other fighting and formless spirits. “Where do we go, Great One?”
“To find your conflict,” the god said. “All in creation have their struggles be they of the physical world, mind, heart, or something else. We shall get to the truth of your personal conflict. This is a gift I will give to you in return for sharing your unique vision of my world with me, as boring as it may be to my mind.”
“One might be as active as they desire during times of peace,” I said. “It is the war eras that rip our choices and fates from us as surely as the Blades of Eternity cut the untimely formless ones outside of your gates.”
“You speak of universal truths that you do not understand,” the god said. “Walk with me and know the worth of my contribution to the Eternal War.” Mars led me through the doorway across a bridge high above his dark fortress that led to a tower that glowed like it was made of light and mist, a piece of the Castle Skye attached to his own palace. The god banged with his gauntleted fist on the door to this tower. “Venus, I have one here who doesn’t understand my essential nature or her own,” he said. “Please attend to us and help us sort this mess.”
The door opened under its own accord and a goddess who glowed with inner light emerged. As Venus’ feet touched the bridge to Mars’ palace, it changed from black stone to the white stone of her tower. She gave a carefree laugh and kissed the helmeted cheek of the warrior god.
“No one understands you completely, Mars, least of all me and those who walk in my footsteps,” Venus said. “However, let me see if I can help you both. I believe attempts at greater understanding are never a waste of time and benefit everyone involved, those in active battlefields and those standing in the blessed fields of peace. Despite appearances, there are more similarities than differences between the two groups if you look for them.”
Venus took the god’s hand and led us back across the open sky bridge and down the spiral steps of the tower. I followed closely in their footsteps and observed as the god and goddess passed through the halls of the warrior’s castle, the side that Mars was on remained shadowy and tinged with red, but the left side where Venus passed the building blocks of the fortress turned to polished marble and glowed with the brilliant light of Love herself.
I followed the transformative deities back to a large empty room I had passed through on my way to the god’s tower. “Do you still see nothing, Heidi?” Venus asked. I nodded in response. Then, the goddess pressed her palms over my eyes and I perceived a flash of bright light. “May you see with the eyes of love,” Venus said, removing her hands. “Now what do you see?”
When I opened my eyes again, a crowd of feasting, arguing giant gods and goddesses were present in their myriad forms. Some sat at tables and ate, drank, played dice, while others danced and sang. Others were holding animated conversations that bordered on shouting matches but their words were lost in the general din of the party and conflicting songs and voices.
Neptune dripped with sea water and accidentally got some of it onto the dinner plate of Mercury who sat next to him at the dinner table. The god with the winged hat shoved Neptune away. “Watch what you’re doing, brother,” Mercury complained loudly. “Now my dinner tastes of your salted ocean depths, you old codfish.” Neptune pushed him back and they semi-seriously started an epic food fight, drawing the other gods and goddesses into the joyful fray.
I turned to Venus and Mars who were still leading me through the raucous gathering, dodging the bits of food that came their way. “I could not see this at all before, Great Ones,” I said. “What was blinding my eyes?”
“You forgot to look for the love underlying conflicts in your attempts to realize lasting peace, Heidi,” Venus said. “Families like ours both above and below your waking world fight but forgive. It is not something to be feared above all things and hidden away in the shadows.” The goddess directed my attention to Neptune and Mercury who had finished throwing food at each other and were now drinking goblets of wine as they toasted each other and their worthwhile exploits throughout time. The cupbearers who filled their glasses were still engaging in the food fight, balancing their jugs of wine while chucking bread rolls at one another like soldiers throwing grenades.
“The inevitable conflicts between a parent and a child can be viewed the same way,” the goddess said. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself arguing with my daughter back in the waking world about what clothes she was going to wear to school. “There is a meeting of disparate wills, a push back, but then resolution if both sides are open to it. Always try to look at disturbances in your life with the eyes of love, Heidi. It may be easier on you to deal with conflicts that arise in your life if you remember this essential truth. There is a reason you fight and that reason is that you love. If you did not love, then the struggle would be the pointless nightmare you paint all wars to be in your imagination.”
I bowed to Mars and Venus as they seated themselves at the head table, joining their family in the feast. “I still do not fully understand the nature of Mars, the constant craving for action and conflict-filled relationships, but I will do my very best to remember the lessons that you have taught me today, both of you,” I said. “When Love passes through the halls of conflict, her formless presence changes everything and everyone she touches for the better and makes the fights worth the discomfort and sacrifices of the moment. Thank you for your timeless wisdom.”
“Timeless but not untimely,” Mars said. “Soldiers of Mars, I command you to let this presence walk among you as she desires.”
“Yes, sir!” came enthusiastic voices from the deep shadows standing around the perimeter of the feasting gods and goddesses.
“Oh my goodness, I didn’t even see your warriors there,” I said, putting a hand to my chest to still my racing heart. “Their voices made me nearly jump out of my skin.”
“Then they were fulfilling the purpose I stationed them there for,” Mars said. “My legions are the silent watchers on the edge of creation, voiceless until required as well as tireless as they go about their duties.”
I opened my mouth to reply but before I could form a response I was pulled by an unseen force out of the halls of the Palace of Mars and placed beside the tunnel where the mammoth centipede had disappeared into the ground between the Blades of Eternity and the dark castle. “I really should thank the centipede for bearing me throughout this realm to the places I needed to go,” I said, peering down into the ground. “Let’s see if I can find him again.” I threw myself down the hole and found myself falling as uncontrollably as I had down the giant’s throat.
“Centipede!” I called as I fell. “I would like to offer you my thanks and gratitude. I could not have managed to cover the distances required in this vision without your assistance.” My fall was suddenly arrested and I was suspended in the air in almost complete darkness but then I perceived an insect’s great head rising towards me out of the shadows.
The centipede had grown during my time with Mars and Venus, and now appeared larger than a house to my eyes. The spirit nodded to me in acknowledgement and waved his appendages again in what I assumed was a friendly greeting. “My name is Heidi and I come from another world,” I said. “A place of both form and formless ones who dance in conflicts and peace simultaneously. If you have a voice, I would very much like to know your name.”
A deep rumble issued from his mouth. “I am Time,” he said. “My legs span eras and my will is unbound throughout the worlds.”
“I hope we meet again, Time,” I said. “Maybe the next time I walk in your presence we can have a proper conversation about your function rather than a pell-mell flight through reality from one formless concept to another.”
“All things come in their appointed time,” the centipede replied gravely. I shook one of his forelegs, sealing our agreement with a handshake and a smile.
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 