Gate: Ten of Wands
I entered the vision gate and found myself standing in a mighty forest. The ground shook with rhythmic bangs underneath my feet and the trees swayed back and forth in the percussive blasts of energy. Then, in a particularly loud explosion, a giant burst into existence from the forest growth and picked me up as if I was no more substantial than a wildflower. I caught a glimpse of a hairy body covered in a green material like grass, but the vision was fleeting because the giant moved so quickly.
The giant lifted me gently and deposited me on a cloud, high above the forest floor with a view that revealed the entire realm to my sight. I heard him mumble, “There you go, small one,” and he disappeared from my reality.
As I stood on the puffy white clouds, a castle made of the same material appeared before me.
“I wonder if this is the castle of the sky giants I visited before or somewhere new?” I mused to myself. “I’m sure someone knows the truth of the matter but that person is not me. Is there anyone around who could act as a guide for me in this place?”
There was movement from air currents within the cloud that formed the ground I stood upon and a small being made of its material popped out. He appeared to be a snowman made of cloud at times and then a humanoid figure at others. This spirit came close and flew quickly in circles around my head, enclosing me in some of his sky energy through his presence.
“Hello!” the sky spirit sang in melodic tones. “Who are yoooooooou?”
“I’m sorry I don’t know your song or I would sing it with you, my friend. My name is Heidi and a giant of the woodlands brought me to this place,” I said. “Who are you?”
“I am Cloud and a guardian as well as guide for this realm. You find yourself before the Castle of the Southern Wind,” Cloud said, abandoning his song for more pragmatic speech. “Would you like to go within, Heidi?”
“I would like nothing better, Cloud,” I said. “Thank you for responding to my request for help.”
“My pleasure, forest spirit called Heidi,” the sky guardian said. He completed one more circle around my head then took off towards the castle gates. I followed the easy path formed by his energy through the sky towards the Southern Wind’s seat of power.
The castle, though formidable and strong from a distance, seemed as if it would be blown away by the slightest breeze when I stood next to its walls. As my guide and I passed through the gate, we emerged into a courtyard filled with the golden light of the sun streaming from another place. Once my eyes adjusted to the brilliance of this courtyard, I could see a room from whence the light came. Cloud took me directly to the threshold of the source of the light.
We entered a throne room and at one end sat a being who glowed with shining golden robes that moved about her constantly as if in a light breeze. Her impossibly long, blonde hair flew from her head in every direction and it was from these strands that the light flowed from the goddess to fill her courtyard. As I stood gazing at this figure in admiration, some of the wandering strands brushed my cheek and I felt as if a warm breeze from the tropical realms of my waking world had caressed me in that far realm.
“Hail, Southern Wind,” I said, the touch from the strand of hair breaking my reverie. “Forgive my rudeness and silence, I have rarely beheld a spirit with your innate loveliness and it took my voice away.”
“Who comes into my hall and presence?” the goddess said. “I treasure my solitude and the stillness of my palace in the sky. Do you have a good reason for intruding upon my sacred retreat?”
“My name is Heidi and I’m here on a very important mission, to learn more about your true nature and the state of this place,” I said. “I bring you greetings from those who live and thrive in your breezes upon the ground and thank you for excusing my intrusion into your arena of influence.”
“There is no need to thank me, Heidi, for I am the Southern Wind and I act according to my nature. I bring growth and change to stagnant reality,” the goddess said. “I am warmth untold and an abundant gift of presence from those who dwell in the sky to those who walk upon the ground. I bring life as well to those who require the energy of the sun to exist throughout the worlds.” The spirit rose from her throne and came towards me, her hair filling my vision and the throne room. “Come with me, Earth-bound seeker. I have something to show you that shall demonstrate my nature beyond mere words.”
The Southern Wind led me from the seat of her power and through the cloud hallways which formed a maze of sorts through the sky. As we walked, the goddess was in front of me one moment and then halfway down the hall the next, shifting through reality and the gaps in between as if she was a formless shadow rather than a being with a body of light.
“Great One, how are you moving through the spaces within reality?” I asked. “I would learn this secret from you to walk that way myself.”
“It’s a simple matter, Heidi. Thought takes me where I want to go so I can move on a whim,” the Southern Wind replied and disappeared from my sight into another space between the worlds.
“I need someone more tied to this reality to get me through this maze,” I said to the cloud walls of the hallway. “If I follow an errant thought to speed me on my way, it’s going to take me somewhere else and I’ll never learn more about this resident deity.”
The guardian Cloud flew out of the walls of the castle at my summons and floated around me again as he had before. “I know the way, Forest Spirit, for this is my home and the goddess calls me to her,” he sang. “This way, Heidi, up, up, up and away!”
I followed Cloud through the cloud maze until we came to a spiral staircase that wound tightly around itself and ascended into unimaginable heights above. At first, I took the stairs one at a time but it was tedious and I was inspired by the speed and effortless motion of the Southern Wind. So, taking her advice, I saw myself ascending through the air up the middle of the spiral and, in that enchanted castle, it was so.
I came to the top of the stairs and found the Southern Wind in a room with a spinning vortex at its center like a small tornado. Within this vortex, a large drop of water was suspended above the floor of the space. The force of the air kept the droplet steady so it moved neither up or down with the breezes, but always remained in one fixed place and whole.
The Southern Wind held out her hands over this large droplet and it emerged from the vortex to hover before her countenance. “One of my many gifts is sight,” the goddess said. “I shall now gaze into your future.”
“I am honored by your attention, Great One, but nervous to know the future,” I replied. “It seems to me that all fates find us in their appointed time. What purpose would knowledge of the future serve?”
The Southern Wind’s gaze was completely fixed on the water and it filled with the light streaming from her hair so that the water droplet glowed in that place like a tiny sun. “My husband, the North Wind, makes loveliness out of cold and dark things,” she said. “That is one of his myriad gifts: beautiful creations out of the void.”
“I, on the other hand, invite warmth and energy from everything that I touch and interact with,” she continued. “The warmth from these beings speaks to me and whispers of their possible futures and growth. The purpose of this knowledge and foresight is conscious preparation, if you allow it. I think, timid Heidi, you should allow me to give this gift to you.”
“I struggle with the creation of concrete plans because existence pulls me first one way and then another,” I said. “But far be it from me to refuse a priceless gift of the sort that you are offering to me now. Let it be as you wish, goddess.”
The drop of water reached the height of her face and the Southern Wind threw up her hands, summoning her matchless energy from the sky. Beneath the shaping influence of her power, the water flattened and shaped itself into an oval. The goddess gazed into this water like looking through a mirror made of the sky and sea.
On my side of the room, I could see only shifting water but, from the Southern Wind’s side, a golden glow emanated from the water mirror. It shone into her eyes which had turned the color of the energy, a shining gold like the sun’s surface within her spirit.
“Heidi, hear my words and attend to their meaning. I see promised growth in your near future. You have planted the seeds, many, many seeds of the spirit, and you shall soon see the results of those labors,” the goddess said. “It will be more than you ever imagined possible. You must be ready for this change, this massive out-pouring of life and growth.”
The Southern Wind leaned closer to the water, the energy pouring out of her and imbuing the mirror with her own being in addition to the sky’s power. Through the goddess’ mirror enhancement, I started seeing shapes on my side of the oval as if I was seeing with her eyes. Within the water, I saw a snake swallowing his own tail and the shadow of a badger who stood as silent witness to his endless transformation.
“You have nothing to fear at this time though you may not know it, Heidi. There are powerful friends around you,” the goddess said. “A serpent walks on your left and a badger to your right on all the paths. They will ease any transitions and discomfort that you may feel throughout your journeys.”
As I observed the vision in the water, the snake continued to swallow his tail and in the center of his movement an egg appeared which he shielded safely within his coils. To his right, the shadow of a badger began to run in a circle around another egg and they moved in perfect unison to each other, more like one being than two separate existences.
“Heidi, hear my words and know their meaning,” said the Southern Wind. “Do you know the purpose of fear?”
“Could it possibly have a purpose?” I said. “Fear always makes me run and hide so that I have the strength to continue on through the shadows it casts in my mind and heart.”
“Know now the purpose of fear, Cautious One,” the goddess said. “Fear wakes us from our endless sleep in the Inner Worlds. Fear prepares us for change in the waking world. Fear is the shadow of Love herself.”
“We may confront Fear again and again throughout our timeless existence. It always returns but that need not concern us,” the Southern Wind said. “This cycle of the appearance of fear and its absence can be a gift. It can provide contrast to the experience of eternity. Fear provides clarity as we seek its opposite ruling power whom you know quite well, Heidi.”
The mirror of water moved closer to me as the goddess spoke so now it floated before me, providing me with a clear-sighted view of the evolutionary spiritual journey of the badger and snake. What was once a fight for dominance had become a dance of existence.
“Prepare yourself for growth,” the Southern Wind said. “For I will come to you again in the appointed hour.” The circling badger and snake filled my vision as I fell into the water mirror, pulled by a power outside of my own.
Through the mirror, I found myself falling down the spiral staircase of the wind goddess at a tremendous speed. My form and consciousness was contained within a drop of water and around me, other living drops fell in a flurry of energy and presence from the sky. In our collective form, we formed a storm that descended from on high, bearing a sacred and secret message of the raindrops from the Southern Wind to those who dwelt on the surface below.
I only had a moment to consider the meaning of the goddess’ message before I hit the earth and sank within, all knowledge of her message, my purpose and path vanishing from my mind as I began a new mode of existence.
Suddenly, I was no longer a drop of water of living consciousness, but a seed of potential and promise. I used my latent energy from the sky which I retained in my new form to push from my shell and force my head through the earth to the surface. Once I broke through the formidable barrier of the ground, I gazed at my new surroundings and discovered many other tiny, green shoots emerging from the Southern Wind’s storm.
Though we were as-yet new and untested by the elements of our new home, I somehow knew we were the beginnings of a mighty forest upon the earth and part of the fulfillment of a sacred promise that had been made once, long ago.
My consciousness was pulled from the tiny tree and I was myself again, standing above the new life of the forest floor and viewing it in my human form with Cloud floating at my shoulder. “What a trip that was,” I said, reflecting upon my recent descent from the sky. “Do you know where we need to go now, Cloud? I would stay in this peaceful place and grow with my companions but I feel like my presence is required somewhere else; otherwise I would have remained a plant rather than resuming existence as a woman.”
“Of course, Heidi,” said my guide from the sky. “I know the mazes of the earth just as well as those in the clouds. Climb aboard and we will take you where you need to go.” Cloud changed into a wooden platform and landed at my feet so I stood on his back. Then, we were flying at the speed of the wind through the forest and towards a gap in reality that appeared through the trunks of the ancient trees in a more established portion of the woods.
“Where are we going?” I asked, brushing aside an errant branch that threatened to unseat me from Cloud.
“A thousand years into the future, Heidi,” he said. “A thousand, thousand years!”
“That’s an awfully long time,” I said. “No one will remember us then.”
“The gods and goddesses have memories like you wouldn’t believe,” Cloud said. “Have no fear on that account.” As we soared through the gap in reality, I experienced a stretching sensation in my consciousness and the light broke into rainbow colors around us, filling my sight with all of the hues of nature. Then, Cloud and I crashed through some unseen barrier, the light faded, and all was silent and still within my spirit and without.
Cloud put me on the ground in front of the largest tree I have ever seen in the midst of an ancient forest which looked like the place we had just departed but felt entirely new to my heart. The tree had an archway on its front and I climbed some steps that had formed naturally in its trunk as Cloud changed from wood back into mist and then dissipated up into the sky.
An otherworldly light shone from within the tree and I heard the light calling my name, demanding my presence within her reality. “Heidi, where are you?” said the light drifting from the tree’s inner space. “Where are you now? Why do you not come to me?”
I entered the tree’s trunk through the lit doorway and encountered a glowing being of light at its center. Her legs were connected to the trunk but she had an easily discernable torso and face. The human part of the tree appeared to be me and she called out again in some distress as I entered the space. “Heidi, Heidi, where are you?”
“Don’t be afraid for I am here,” I said. “Who calls me? I hear you and would know your true nature.”
“Heidi? Is it really you? You planted yourself with us and left us for so long we thought you were not going to come back,” said the spirit of the tree. “Where were you?”
“I was with you at your inception and mine,” I said. “And came directly from then to this moment upon the back of a wandering Cloud because I heard you calling. We took no detours that I am aware of.”
The tree with my face blinked slowly as she absorbed my words. “My earliest memory is falling from the sky. Now that I think about it, you were there, weren’t you?” she mused. “No matter that I felt so alone, I was never alone because my brothers and sisters were with me in your absence.”
The tree spirit reached out her human arms and multiplied so that the trunk was filled with a myriad of beings of light and nature just like her except their human selves appeared as varied as those who walk the surface of the earth.
“We grew strong and quickly. Though we appear to be many, we are connected at the roots and are one being,” they said in unison through a multitude of voices. “Welcome back to your Tree of Life, Heidi. Welcome back, wanderer! We have grown and we have much knowledge for you to learn.” The many beings changed back into one globe of shining energy and they sank into the trunk of the tree.
Where the tree spirits had disappeared, a fountain of light, glowing with the power of the sky and forest, pushed up from the wood. “Drink and remember. Drink and know. Drink and grow!” the water whispered.
“Well, I have come all this way…” I said as I hesitated at the otherworldly fountain. “I will not deny the will of the Creator or whoever is involved in this matter just because I’m feeling fear at my new situation. What harm could come of it?” Strengthening my resolve, I stepped forward, cupped my hands, and drank of the spirit of the trees from the Southern Wind.
As the liquid passed my lips, the fountain sank and disappeared within the trunk while the water contained within it spread until the floor became one large puddle of glowing water. Then, I sank into the new pool and emerged from its surface into the upper room of the Southern Wind’s cloud palace through the water mirror. The water changed back from a shaped oval into a droplet and returned to hover above the vortex of energy at the center of the room. The Southern Wind was nowhere to be seen and the palace was much darker without her illuminating light.
“Cloud! Are you there?” I called and he appeared beside me as quickly as if he had been there the entire time. “Where did the lady of the castle go? I saw such visions in her presence and would like to speak with her about them.”
“The goddess had to attend to her duties as dictated by the patterns of existence,” Cloud said. “She is the Southern Wind, you know.”
“True,” I said, swallowing my disappointment. “I should count myself fortunate that she allowed me into her presence in the first place.”
“Maybe we can find other companions for you in her absence,” Cloud said. “Take the staircase down and I’ll see if anyone is about who can walk the path at this time with you. If I cannot find any available spirits, I will travel with you, Heidi. Don’t be sad, I won’t allow it.”
“Thank you for your consideration of my feelings, Cloud,” I said. “I am unaccustomed to it in my visionary work.” Turning my back on the goddess’ vortex of swirling energy, I went to the top of the staircase and began to gently float down through the spiral. As I did so, the stairs around me changed into the writhing coils of an emerald green snake. At the bottom of the stairs, a badger’s shadow momentarily appeared then whisked away down the cloud hall before me.
By the time I hit the floor, both of my guardian spirits had turned into their human forms and waited for me at the base of the stairs. Badger walked on one side and Snake on the other, just as the goddess had foreseen. “Friends, I have had a vision of a possible future from the Southern Wind,” I said. “She has given us a sacred mission to fulfill from the powers that be.”
“Which powers that be?” Snake said cautiously. “You talk to everyone indiscriminately, Heidi, so you must understand why I ask.”
“I experience all energies as one,” I said. “Therefore, I believe this vision to be from the Creator, whoever that may be. Wish they were around to ask for sure.”
“If you believe this quest to be from the one who put existence into motion, then I believe it too,” said Badger. “What must we do to make the vision a reality?”
“We need to plant some seeds to create a spirit forest which appears to be many but in reality are one,” I said. “But I’m not entirely sure where to get the seed. The Southern Wind’s seeds were once raindrops, but I do not know her method of alchemy to change water into potential. I really needed more time in her presence than I received, but we shall make do with the time we were given.”
“If this visionary forest was truly the will of the Southern Wind or the one who put her into existence, then they will have given you everything you needed to make their will a reality,” said Snake. “This is a question of faith, not creation. Look within yourself, Heidi. You have the seeds with you, yes? Well, hand them over, and Badger and I will handle the rest.”
I looked down and to my surprise discovered my hands were filled with glowing, golden seeds shaped like small acorns. “It appears I was given the genesis of the forest,” I said, hardly believing the evidence of my own eyes. “When on earth did that happen?”
“Best not to think too hard about matters of the spirit and fate,” Badger said. “It gives me an awful headache when I do.”
“Whereas I thrive on such cognitive dissonances,” Snake said. “Come on, let’s not waste any more time bandying words about when there’s work to be done.”
My friends and I floated down together from the sky upon a breeze and I gave large handfuls of the seeds to Badger and Snake. Keeping a single acorn for myself, I dug a hole in the ground, gently placed the seed within the hole and covered it with soil. Then, I knelt down, breathed across the ground and whispered, “In the spirit of the Southern Wind and the one who created her, grow and thrive! I have seen your future and it is so promising that I can’t wait to meet you once again. Please grow as fast and safely as you are able.”
Badger and Snake moved in hypnotic circles around me, spreading the other seeds in patterns centered on my own acorn. Time altered as I watched my friends’ progression for as soon as the seeds hit the soil they sprouted and within moments we were surrounded with the abundant forest growth of the Southern Wind’s vision.
Then, the ground moved further away from my sight and I saw Badger and Snake were planting a forest on what itself was a glowing golden seed like a small planet or the golden water mirror of the wind goddess. They had created growth within growth and seeds within seeds, an impossible amount of potential stemming from one whose existence would be undeniable upon the creation’s fruition.
“It will be more than you ever imagined possible,” the Southern Wind whispered as I watched the visionary forest she had seen in my future take shape before my wondering eyes. “I will return to you at the appointed hour. Await my arrival, Heidi.”
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 