Gate: Four of Cups
I entered the vision gate and found myself floating on my back down a fast-moving stream of water that was so clear I could easily see the river rocks on the stream bed. As I struggled to sit up, trees passed by on either side, their branches reaching towards me in the stream as I was moved forward relentlessly by the current. Things continued in this manner until I went over the edge of a tall waterfall, but instead of continuing downwards with the rest of the water I floated above the spray among the dancing sylphs of the air.
I shielded my eyes against the bright sunlight as I looked around, trying to get a feel for where in the Inner Worlds I had landed. Past the churning of the waterfall and its perpetual misty spray, I beheld an island sitting serenely in the midst of the river. My curiosity ignited, I flew to the island and landed on its beach, seeking its true nature and the disposition of those who dwelt upon it.
The sand of the island beach was as soft as silk and filled with tiny shells worn smooth by the passage of the stream. I reached down and ran some between my fingers, marveling at its texture. As I did so, the sand was picked up by a light breeze and formed itself into the shape of a woman with long, flowing hair. “Hello, Heidi,” said the figure. “Welcome to my home.”
“Hello, Island Dweller,” I said. “You know my name but I don’t know yours. How did that happen?”
“You don’t remember me? Strange since you’ve been here so many times, but no matter,” the spirit of sand and wind said. “Let us pretend as if we’re meeting for the very first time. My name is untranslatable in your tongue but it means ‘Wind Against My Face’. You may call me ‘Zephyr’ if you wish, forgetful Heidi.”
“I’m pleased to meet you again, Zephyr,” I said. “Thank you for forgiving my memory issues which are a matter of some embarrassment to me. I come from another world seeking the true nature of those who dwell in realms other than my own. What manner of life are you?”
“I am a living breeze and accustomed to blowing in and out of the minds of the mortals I encounter, though I honestly thought you would remember me,” Zephyr said. “Let us have fun as you remember all that has passed between us. Follow me and I will show you one of the many wonders of this island, Heidi.” As Zephyr moved past the beach and among the trees, the sand that she was composed of returned to the ground and her body became particles of dirt from dust among the branches and leaves that waved in her passage.
Zephyr brought me to a clearing in the trees within which stood an enormous statue made of black, shining stone. The statue was in the shape of a man with a crown on his head, his right hand lifted in blessing and his left holding an unsheathed sword across his knees. “What is this place?” I asked as I wandered around the base of the seated king.
“You see before you, the Sleeping King. He sat down one day to contemplate his kingdom and how best to rule it and he never rose again,” said Zephyr. “As he sat, his flesh changed to stone and none now remembers how to wake him.”
“How long has he slept?” I asked. “Perhaps this will give us a clue as to what must be done.”
“Ages and ages of men,” said Zephyr. “Less of an age for the zephyr but time passes differently for my kind than yours.”
“Surely, he must be dead rather than simply asleep,” I said. “No one could possibly live that long, no mortal at least.”
Zephyr swirled around me, stirring my hair. “Who said he was ever a mortal?” she said with a laugh. “Life used to be quite different from the way you know it now. He is composed of living rock and his spirit can easily be felt by those who know where to look for it. I promise he is not dead, merely asleep.”
“Do you think he will ever wake?” I said. “And would we want him to?”
“I believe he stirs this very moment,” Zephyr replied. “It is no longer a question of our will but that of the one who moves the zephyrs and stone alike, fierce Nature and her eternal servants among the worlds.” As Zephyr spoke, an earthquake began to shake the island, causing me to fall to my knees as the statue lowered his raised hand and opened his closed eyes.
“Who comes before me after all this time?” said the Sleeping King in a powerful baritone. I pushed myself to my feet and stood trembling a little before him.
“My name is Heidi and Zephyr brought me here,” I said. “I come from another world seeking the nature of this place and yourself. Welcome back, Great One.”
The awakened statue began to move slowly but deliberately. He took the sword from his lap and stuck it into the ground next to his throne. Then, with a grinding sound of stone against stone, the Sleeping King stood from his chair where he had slumbered for so long and moved towards me and Zephyr.
“I am the foundation. I am the living rock of this realm, and I rule the Kingdom of Shambhala and all who seek its mysteries,” he said. “Come, Seeker and Companion, and see its wonders.” The Sleeping King turned his attention from me then strode forward into the thick forests of the island, breaking the ground with his feet as he moved, and pushing aside overgrown trees and vines with his massive hands.
With a final sweep of his stone arm, the Sleeping King cleared the encroaching trees revealing an open glade covered in the remnants of a lost civilization. In some places, the ancient city appeared to be merely broken boulders and rubble. In other corners of the glade, I saw beautifully fashioned towers that had fallen and remained entwined with the vines and branches of the island for eons untold. The Sleeping King allowed me to see all that I wished in the ruins, then he began to pound on his chest with his hands, creating the deafening sound of rocks smashing together.
“Awake, my people. Awake!” he cried as I covered my ears, but there was no shutting out the summons of the Sleeping King. “Awake Shambhala, builders of civilization, my people, my kin!”
As Zephyr and I walked away from the king among the ruins of his city, the very walls, towers and fallen stones began to move and come alive. Suddenly, a crowd of stone giants, composed of living rock just as their king was, were rising from the ground. I realized that everywhere I had beheld inert stone, lay the form of one of the giants of the Sleeping King and I had actually been walking in a graveyard rather than a ruin.
As the giants awakened from their long slumber and began to follow their king as they had in the time before, the sound was so loud that I ran from it to the farthest edge of the glade in an effort to find some peace. The Sleeping King strode to a platform in what would have been the city center and around which an ever-growing crowd of giants gathered, banging against their own chests, raising their hands to the sky, and cheering. Zephyr stood with me and protected me by blowing the rising dust from my face so that the giants’ awakening did not blind my sight.
“A wanderer from another world has come and we again have a purpose,” the Sleeping King said. “Rise up, builders of civilization and create the city of her dreams for her and those who follow in her footsteps!” The giants dispersed in every direction and started ripping up the ground, making dwellings and paths from the stone of their own forms.
“Great One, what are they doing?” I asked as Zephyr blew me back to the king’s side.
“We are the bedrock of cities and the spirit of kingdoms as I declared myself to you,” the Sleeping King said. “You will know the truth of my words for now we give you yours.” The king removed the stone crown from his head. Then, before I realized what was happening, he placed it on my head and the rock shrank so it fit perfectly.
The moment the crown touched my brow, the stone giants turned into a crowd of human-appearing spirits of flesh and blood who miraculously built a city of hanging gardens and sparkling arches in a matter of heartbeats.
“This is not why I have come to your realm, Great One,” I said. “Seeking the true nature of creation is not an expression of a desire to rule the same. I have not the training nor temperament for such a calling.”
Rather than respond to my protestations, the Sleeping King’s form blew apart, turned into particles of stone dust and sank into the ground of the rebuilt city. With the ancient crown upon my brow, Zephyr appeared to my sight as a woman of flesh and blood instead of a collection of airborne particles.
“My queen of Shambala,” she said and bowed to me. “Shall we observe your kingdom? Though they make it look easy, a tremendous amount of work went into rebuilding the city from its ruins.”
“My kingdom?” I said. “I am only a messenger to this place and many others. Who knows if I will ever return this way again.”
“Be that as it may, you awoke the Sleeping Giant and now all you see is yours,” Zephyr said. “Enjoy it while you may like all other blessings that rise up and fall in their appointed times.”
The zephyr and I wandered through lush gardens and sweeping buildings composed of sparkling marble. As we walked, I found myself clothed in shimmering garments that trailed behind me like a flowing robe of state. Though I still felt out of place in that enchanted realm, I marveled at all that the builders had accomplished in what seemed to me to be mere moments of time.
“What a beautiful place. I would dwell here in peace if I was allowed a respite from the pressing demands of reality,” I said with a sigh. “Perhaps my time will come one day.”
“There are some here who need to speak with you,” Zephyr said and led me through the corridors of a stately palace made of columns and arches covered in the island’s thick vines. “Their presence calls to me and we must answer.”
“That seems to be a reoccurring pattern of my existence,” I said. “I don’t begrudge sharing of my time and attention, but I’m always asked questions that I can’t remember the answer to. Why should anyone care what I have to say? I pop in and out of realms as quickly as a passing breeze and just as harmless.”
Zephyr smiled as we continued through the palace. “Not all passing breezes are as gentle as you and I, Heidi,” she said. “There are some among my folk who bring entire worlds to their knees when they emerge into existence. Thank heavens you are not one of those.” We continued on in silence until we came to a throne room where Zephyr helped me sit upon the ornate chair within and arranged my robes about my feet with a gesture of her hand and a touch of her innate power.
As I turned my attention to the room which appeared empty to my eyes but felt as if a crowd of unseen spirits hovered in patient and watchful silence, a dark-haired man appeared before me. He was covered with dirt from the long path he had traveled to reach that place and time, and carried a walking stick that wasn’t carved but shaped somehow from a living tree by his own will and power. At his side, there stood another spirit in the shape of a man, who was similarly dressed with a pack upon his shoulders and implements of science and other tools tied to a thick belt which wound about his waist.
“Oh, Queen of Shambhala, radiant spirit of light and truth,” the traveler with the walking stick announced. “My companion and I have traveled far to stand in your presence. I have come seeking the nature of this place and of you.”
“My nature?” I replied. “Usually it is I who do the seeking of true natures. I am an explorer of the Inner Worlds and a messenger for the one who put the stars in motion. The very walls of this palace are my thoughts and its halls are the paths of my heart. It is a living representation of the interior of my nature and you are welcome to wander through it as you will.”
“This is very generous of you, Queen of the Furthest Reaches,” the traveler said. “Why do you grant this boon to me? Who am I to you to merit your favor?”
“First of all, these are not the furthest reaches, seeker of true natures,” I said. “There are many worlds beyond this one and modes of existence that you and I have never dreamed of. I do not claim titles and honors that are not representative of the reality which I know exists for I have seen it with my own eyes. Secondly, all may wander this city at will for if they find their way to this time and place, it is not for me to deny them entrance.”
“My apologies, Queen of Shambhala,” the traveler said, bowing deeply. “No offense was intended by my words, I merely give you a window into my own reality. For the journey to reach this place was arduous to me and quite far from the world I know.”
“You are a visitor from another world,” I said, a feeling of kinship igniting in my spirit at the realization. “As am I. I did not ask the Sleeping King for his crown. He gave it to me entirely unexpectedly and the honor was undesired by me. I feel as if I don’t really belong here, like everywhere else I’ve walked and explored. I eternally seek my place in creation, bringing wisdom and knowledge back with me from the Inner Worlds to the waking world, and the sharing of these mysteries is my true nature.”
The traveler lowered his eyes for a moment then looked up and I felt as if he could see through my spirit to my secret heart. “When one embarks on explorations into the other worlds,” he said. “One must remember that they bring all that they are, all they have been, and all they wish they will one day be. Time is fluid and of little meaning to eternal beings in the realms outside of our own. You belong wherever you wish to belong, Queen of Shambhala. One day you will understand the meaning of my words and I will rejoice when that day comes for you.”
I left my throne and approached the traveler and his companion as if drawn by an unseen force. “How I have desired to meet someone who moves through the dance of existence like me, a seeker and explorer of the Inner Worlds,” I said. “If you share the tales of your journeys with me, I will share mine with you. Together, we may get a more complete picture of the mysteries of creation than if we continue forward on our separate pathways alone.”
The spirit with the pack put himself protectively between me and the traveler with the walking stick. “Not all who come from his world are mere seekers as you claim to be,” the companion said. “Why should we believe you when you say you do not desire power nor the rule of this city when you sit so comfortably upon its throne, granting audience to those who find it? Seasoned travelers that we are, we are very familiar with shadows and their truth-tinged lies. Are you, Great Queen, a shadow of someone else?”
I laughed at the absurdity of the companion’s words. “I am no shadow. I am called Heidi, I was sent a vision from beyond which I desire to know the meaning of, and I know my own heart and its attendant shadows as well as I know my inner strengths,” I said. “Here is the proof of my words and true nature as a spirit of light rather than shadow. I wish to continue on in my explorations of the Inner Worlds for the betterment of all. If you desire, you can create a kingdom of your own to explore in this time and place. I give it to you, whoever you are, and wish you well in the pursuit of it.”
With those words, I took the stone crown off of my head and placed it on the traveler’s. “May you find what you seek and share your unique message with those who may need it back in our waking world,” I said. “And please, allow whoever desires to observe your city to explore it. We are defined by those we help in our travels just as much as we are by those we meet and what happens to us there.”
“No matter how much time passes, I will always remember you as a queen,” the newly-crowned traveler said. “May you also find what you seek and always be a messenger of and for the light. Until we meet again, Heidi, walk in peace.” He and his companion wandered away without another word, lost in a vision of their own city of thoughts and dreams.
Zephyr swept beside me, once again appearing as particles of swirling dust outside of the magic of the Sleeping King’s crown upon my sight. “Your reign didn’t last very long,” she teased. “How appropriate for a passing breeze.”
“I do not need the physical trappings of royalty to rule my own mind and know my own heart,” I said. “I have seen and moved through a fantastical city built just for me by giants of living stone. A moment in time is enough for it to live in my memory forever while I live out the rest of my days wherever it is I am going.” Zephyr and I moved together to a window that looked out of the throne room across the shining city of Shambhala.
As we gazed upon it, the city of my dreams began to crumble and disappear. I felt a sweet sadness pierce my heart at its destruction and words poured forth unbidden from my lips while tears fell from my eyes:
“Shambhala, oh Shambhala. City of my heart.
People of hanging gardens and shining streets of art.
May you ever live in my mind and in my dreams.
Shambhala, oh Shambhala. City of my heart.”
A few moments more and the city was gone. Once again, the spirit of the air and I were alone on an island filled with ruins and surrounded by untamed trees and overgrown vines.
“Zephyr, what shall we do now?” I said. “I gave my dream for this place to someone else and it is time for us to move on, but I don’t know where to go.”
“I will take you to see my father,” Zephyr said. “He will know what to do for he has lived for ages and ages of men like the Sleeping King and knows many of the patterns of creation.”
“Who is your father?” I asked as we drifted up into the air and moved at the speed of wind across the quickly changing landscape.
“He is the North Wind. Come, Heidi! Now is not the time to mourn,” Zephyr said. “Now is the time to explore the worlds and rejoice in our freedom to do so.” Together, we flew above the trees and the land below us changed into wind-swept, barren fields. We continued on until everything was covered in snow and finally, we came to a mountainous palace of tall towers and shadowy stone. A strong wind blew out of the fortress and we could get no closer, repelled by the power of a force of nature himself.
“Father, I have come to see you and have brought a visitor from another world. Please let us in!” Zephyr called out and the blizzard winds subsided. We went side-by-side through the dark halls and the zephyr brought me at last to a throne room where a spirit shaped like an elderly man sat on a throne ornately carved with snowflakes.
The North Wind’s white beard and hair blew wildly around his face and head as he sat completely still in his place of power. His eyes were the gray color of storm clouds and in their very center they glowed with an unearthly bright light. “At last, my long-lost daughter Wind Across My Face, comes home to visit me!” he said. “How long have I waited for this day.” The god rose eagerly from his chair and embraced Zephyr in a tornadic burst of energy that nearly pushed me out of the throne room.
“Father, I am sorry that it has been so long. I prefer Mother’s calm breezes to your stormy bellowing,” Zephyr confessed. “But that does not mean I love you any less well than I love her.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” the North Wind said. “The Southern Wind does have her charms and her soothing presence is welcome in all the worlds. But you are also my child and I too deserve your time and affection.”
“You have it,” she said and gave him one last embrace. Then, Zephyr turned and found me where I had been blown back into the wall of the room. “This is my friend, Heidi,” she said, extending a steadying hand in my direction which I gratefully took. “She desires guidance on where to direct her next steps. You are one of the wisest I know, Father. Would you offer her your counsel?”
“Out of love for you, my daughter, I will do thus though I am ill-inclined to speak to strangers,” the ancient spirit said, then disappeared and became a chill wind that circled around me. Then, he appeared as a human again, seated on his stately throne. “Though I detect no malice in you, you are no child of the winds, Heidi. What are you doing in this place?”
“I come seeking your nature, North Wind. I am a traveler and a messenger of the Inner Worlds,” I said. “Your daughter and I come from the island of the Sleeping King, but he awakened and things took a turn I didn’t expect. Now, I’m not sure what is required of me or where I should go next to continue upon the path of spiritual evolution. I feel a little lost and down at heart for I gave up a crown of foundation stone in exchange for my freedom to keep moving onwards. Perhaps I acted foolishly but I could only do what my heart demanded I do to remain true to my own nature.”
“The Sleeping King awakened, you say?” the god said. “You truly are blown by the winds of change and fortune to find yourself on my doorstep at this time. I shall share with you my nature though you may not enjoy the revelation of it, for I am not gentle nor forgiving.” He turned again into the wind and blew past me, and his voice came out of the air. “I carry change and storm. I bring the cold so the animals sleep and the mortals cower in their homes, huddling together for warmth in my chilling presence. I am cursed for my nature but it is only through the rest and rejuvenation I bring that my wife is able to create growth and welcome warmth with her blessed breath. I am part of a great cycle.”
The North Wind moved through his halls as a chill breeze, drawing Zephyr and I along with him in his mighty passage.
“I shall take you to see my greatest creations,” he said. “Take heart, Heidi, in the beauty of all that surrounds you in the Inner Worlds and think no more upon what has been lost and forgotten in the fullness of time. You are part of a great cycle as much as I. Crowns and civilizations come and go. Nature’s progeny are forever moved in the dance of seasons and time. This is a lineage and method of living as honorable and glorious as the traditional rule of gods and men.”
The North Wind carried Zephyr and I into a room with an enormous glass globe in its center. He entered this space and snowflakes exploded into being within it. They swirled and moved in the glass like a huge, living snow globe filled with the raw power of the god.
“My snowflakes are all completely different and unique. Aren’t they a wonder to behold?” said the North Wind.
I pressed my face and hands against the glass to admire the snowflakes moving within. “They are marvelous,” I said. “Thank you for sharing this loveliness with me, Great One. It is like a healing breeze upon my sore heart. North Wind, if you could teach me one further lesson about reality, what would it be?”
The god exited the globe and changed his form into that of a man once again. “Be yourself, Heidi. You bring a uniqueness and an inner beauty that only you possess like a snowflake,” the North Wind said. “Through your presence, you make the world more beautiful than it was before. No matter what anyone else thinks or counsels you, simply be yourself and make your natural existence within the passage of time and its seasons another of the messages that you share with your waking world.”
The North Wind reached towards me and his palm glowed with the gray light of his storm-filled eyes. This energy revealed itself to my sight as the shape of a snowflake. As the god pressed his symbol to my chest above my heart, I turned into the snowflake that was shining from his hands, becoming a unique frozen molecule of water and expressing a pattern that I didn’t even know I possessed.
With a great roar, the god turned into a punishing wind again and swept me and all of the snowflakes from the globe into his wake. We moved across the surface of the earth as a snowstorm and unstoppable force of nature. My fellow snowflakes and I rolled and flipped in the power of the North Wind, driven this way and that by a primal power outside of our control. Eventually, we fell from the sky and I landed on the ground among the other snowflakes.
As I lay in the snowbank, I felt the presence of other spirits of winter laying upon the ground with me and, beneath us deep within the earth, I felt the promise of renewal and new growth that would come with the return of spring. But in the meantime, the snow and I would stand like a wall, protecting that promised future through our presence and steadfast existence. All in creation had their place in the cycle of nature, seasons and time. I was exactly where I belonged and where I was meant to be.
I reached out with my consciousness towards the other snowflakes around me and to my surprise I felt answering spirits among the other water molecules. I sent my presence through the frozen water as if it was a flowing stream rather than solid ice and found myself laying within a room contained within a snowflake, gazing up at a spirit in the shape of a man with blue skin who sat in a meditative pose at the center of his own space.
I pushed myself up from the frozen floor to sit in meditation with the spirit as he did but as I did so, the spirit’s eyes opened and he gazed at me with the gray eyes of the North Wind. “Why are you here?” said the spirit of the snowflake.
“I wanted to speak with the others who have voices in the snow bank,” I said. “Why sit in silence and stillness when we could communicate and learn from each other during our period of rest?”
“Because we’re supposed to be channeling and learning from the powers from above, not each other,” the spirit said. “You must not have been paying any attention in class at all.”
“The only class I had was a crash course on transformation from the North Wind,” I said. “Badgers don’t like to sit in one place and turn our faces to the sky like legless plants or voiceless stones.”
The spirit of the snowflake started to laugh. “Badger? You’re no badger because I’ve walked among them and never saw your face, not once,” he said. “What on earth are you? Are you an undine who lost her water source?”
“I’m no undine though they have allowed me to swim among them from time to time. I’ve walked among badger-kind in my time too and they never had a spirit of winter in their number either,” I said. “Maybe we were there at different times. Concepts like time are so fluid in the Inner Worlds, aren’t they? Like water down a fast moving stream which we can dip in and out of as we wish to.”
“Inner Worlds?” the spirit said. “You’re a currently embodied mortal with a physical form?” He unfolded his legs from under him and stood in some excitement. “Who are you and from what civilization do you hail? I am called Jack, Jack of the Frost.”
I opened my mouth to respond when the world within the snowflake pulsed with light and I blinked my eyes against the blinding brightness that began to pour from the spirit of winter. When I was able to perceive my surroundings again, I found myself standing on the beach of the island of the Sleeping King again with Zephyr by my side.
“Where’s the snowflake spirit?” I said, gazing up and down the island beach. “Zephyr, what happened to the snow bank?”
“Welcome home, Heidi,” she said. “I see you remember my name this time.”
“Of course I remember your name,” I said. “I was just here like an hour ago and then we went to meet your father.”
Zephyr’s winds picked up, swirling the sand from the beach up and down her form like a mini tornado. “You traveled with me to the North Wind’s fortress in a previous era,” she said. “You really must show me how you skip in and out of time’s stream like a leaf upon the breeze rather than a fish in water.”
“Be careful what you wish for. Things get very confusing when you don’t live time in the usual straightforward manner,” I said. “Whenever it occurred, thank you for introducing me to your father. What a fascinating spirit. I will always be grateful to him for allowing me to travel in his retinue, even for a brief moment in time. If we ever return to his realm, I’d be interested to reconnect with a certain spirit whom I visited once inside a neighboring snowflake.”
“That could be tricky because Father makes all his snowflakes one-of-a-kind but with his help, we can find anyone in existence,” Zephyr said. “Though he claims to have an uncaring heart made of ice and snow, Father has a soft spot for his children and those who have weathered his fateful storms. I much prefer visiting my mother in the south but my father does have an undeniably powerful magnetism to him. He’s the reason why all of the compasses point north.”
“Curious, I thought magnetism was due to something else entirely,” I said. “Is it difficult being the descendant of an easily misunderstood power like the North Wind?”
“Not at all,” Zephyr said. “He forms us and then lets us live out our natural lives like he forms and releases his snowflakes upon creation. He is a benevolent force who fosters effortless transformation like all parents could but sometimes do not, for they seek to mold children in their own image rather than allowing them to embody the pattern that Nature designated just for them.”
“Speaking of ruling powers, shall we go see what the traveler has made of the island of the Sleeping King in our absence?” I said, rising from the sands of the beach in preparation to explore once more.
“The new king, you mean,” Zephyr said, levitating with me. “Let’s not be denied entrance to New Jerusalem for a lapse of manners just because we were present at his crowning.”
“You are as wise as your father,” I said with a smile. “Thank you for reminding me of my current place in time.”
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 