Gate: Five of Wands
I stepped through the vision gate into a blasted landscape. The world was a barren wasteland composed of dust and waiting shadows. Suddenly, across this empty realm, there was a rumbling sound like thunder and energy swept across me in a rush. I looked towards the source of the sound and perceived a great mass of charioteers riding straight towards me. Then, just as I considered the danger of being trampled by the army, I was swept up by one of the riders and placed on the chariot with him.
“Hello, warrior,” I addressed the one who had saved me. “My name is Heidi and I come to this place seeking your true nature. What is your name?”
“I am Samson the Undefeated and the leader of this host,” the great warrior responded as I studied him. He was clothed in the now-familiar burnished red and fiery armor of the war gods whom I had thus far encountered on my journeys. Long black hair sat upon his shoulders and he carried a long spear tipped with a wickedly sharp point made of the same metal as his armor.
“What are we doing here, Samson?” I asked. “This world has been ravaged by war. I miss the sight of green and growing things.”
The warrior gave a short, rough laugh. “So do I, Heidi, but sometimes my presence is required in realms such as these for we are the Warriors of Light,” he said. “We ride against the shadow wherever it may be found and the loss of natural beauty about the battlefields can be a sacrifice on the altar of Mars like all the others.”
I looked ahead to where our passage was taking us and beheld another great host gathering on the horizon in opposition to my current company. “You ride towards more conflict with the shadow,” I sighed and held on as the chariot rattled over an errant stone.
“We are always in conflict with the shadow,” Samson agreed. “It is why we exist. Why do you exist, Heidi?”
“Good question, Great One,” I said with another sigh. “Maybe I exist to dream up new modes of moving through reality. Do you think there could possibly be another way to handle this confrontation with the shadow? It seems like a pointless struggle and waste of resources to me since it never ceases.”
“What other way might there be?” the warrior said. “The banishing of shadow is never a waste of time or resources for our actions benefit all the worlds. The result is worth the sacrifice.” The chariots of the army halted as they reached their destination, a strategic spot some yards distant from the gathered shadow forces. Samson gestured for me to leave his chariot as he and the other soldiers raised their spears to their shoulders. “For the light!” the warrior screamed and in a great rush, the armies raced towards each other across the desolate field.
I found the ground rising under my feet and looked across the battlefield from my new vantage point. On the far side of the fighting armies of light and shadow, I saw my shadow self standing behind the warriors of darkness and observing as I did. Ridges of earth rose beneath both of us causing Shadow and I to move higher and higher above the battlefield. As mountains began to form beneath my feet, I found myself floating off of the ground and among wispy clouds wreathing the heights of the new earthen formations.
From this immense height, the warriors with Samson appeared to my eyes as a shining, white liquid. The shadow army formed a point of darkness at the center of the warriors of light. The mountain ranges of earth on either side of the battlefield moved briefly over the light and the dark and I realized that I was gazing into the eye of a giant made of red earth. The battle with its attendant warriors was his eye. The giant seemed transfixed by the struggle in his mind and his mouth gaped in a perpetual scream of conflict and pain between the light and shadow of his being.
I kept moving further away and I found myself holding a crystal ball with the suffering giant of war in its center. I realized I was back in the Treasure House of my Imagination and carefully put the artifact back into its chest upon its standing pillar. “Michael,” I called as I shut the treasure’s lid upon the nightmare. “I need your help please.”
“Back again so soon, Heidi?” Michael said as he materialized at my side and took my arm in his. “What realm are we exploring today?”
“Geburah, the worlds of war and conflict,” I said. “Not my favorite sphere nor my realm of greatest influence.”
“Ah, you are seeking the mysteries of Mars,” he said. “What is it that you find so difficult to understand about this sphere? Perhaps I can help you reconcile the more problematic elements of its influence in your mind if I can understand your viewpoint.”
“Anger is so active here,” I said. “I have always perceived anger to be a gut reaction to fear and find myself being resistant to both its unpredictable appearance and resulting actions. Spirits are capable of terrible things when they are blinded by anger.”
“Do you feel that anger is never justified?” asked Michael. “Many emotions can blind the receiver of them to their reality. This is a universal truth and not something that can be wished away simply because it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I believe there is a time and a place for righteous anger and the application of justice resulting from this emotion,” I said. “It is just such an unpleasant emotion to experience in the moment, a type of suffering for both the person experiencing the anger and the target of their rage. I so prefer the feelings of love, understanding, and patience in the face of the shadows of the world. Do you suppose, Michael, that there is a way to respond to conflict with love?”
“So, you’re saying that anger is an active form of fear and therefore suffering,” Michael mused. “Shall we look for an active form of love to battle the darkness that arises in creation? For there is always an occasional shadow, Heidi, even in the best of circumstances and one must be prepared for this occurrence no matter the source or reasons for this preparation.”
“Yes! I like your suggestion very much,” I said. “Michael, please take me to the place in my mind where conflict may be answered with love for this is an emotion I am both familiar and comfortable with. I fight my battles with love.”
“I have an idea where to find such a place. This way, my lady,” the angel said as he led me to a lighted doorway within the Temple of the Imagination. “Go ahead and enter,” he said, when I hesitated at the threshold. “Court is already in session.”
I passed through the doorway and discovered a circular chamber with steps leading down to a central area. Many beings of light sat at desks gathered around this room and were all focused on two figures at the center of the space. One of the figures was the warrior of light, Samson. He was dressed in his red armor and circled a shadowy figure whose hands were bound with chains. Though her features were difficult to perceive because of her innate darkness, I knew immediately this was my shadow self.
“Shadow, you stand accused of many crimes against the light,” Samson said, smashing his fist angrily upon the table in front of my Shadow. “Do you deny this, fiend?”
“You have no right to judge me,” Shadow hissed, the fire in her eyes rising as her anger grew within her. “Only shadow may judge shadow.”
“You have attacked Heidi, multiple times, with illusions of the mind. You have sent anxiety and fears to haunt her dreams. Do you deny this?” the warrior said, pausing to gaze about the room at the observing guardians.
My shadow struggled against her heavy chains, clinking them against each other. “I was only defending myself, which is a right of spirits the worlds over,” Shadow said. “If Heidi had kept her light out of the shadow, I would have kept my darkness in myself. The boundaries between us were clear and yet she menaced me and mine anyway.”
“Existence does not imply menace, shadow fiend,” the warrior said. “You lie as all the shadow do. Everything out of your mouth is one pretense after another.” Samson held his spear to my shadow’s throat. “There is no need for further deliberation for your own words have demonstrated your guilt. This court sentences you to justice and penance for your nefarious actions against the light. You shall pass through the doorway into the light and relinquish your claims on reality through annihilation.”
Shadow began to laugh derisively at the warrior’s pronouncement. “This court? This is not a court,” she said. “This is a travesty of justice and a platform for you to parade me around as if I am your personal shadow and not someone else’s. Stop pretending that you are wiser and mightier than you really are, Samson. I know you and I have known you for ages. Your shadow is far worse than I have ever dreamed or acted. This court is not a court at all, is it, blind warrior?” As she spoke, the other beings of light in the room disappeared and soon it was only Samson, Shadow, and myself left in the circular space.
“This court is a sham and, worse, an attempt to foist an illusion of your shadow upon me,” Shadow said. “Be honest with yourself. It is only you, Righteous Anger, sentencing me to destruction. You should know, fool, that as you sentenced me so you sentenced Heidi. If I must enter the light and be consumed within it, then she must enter the shadow and give up her existence to the ones who dwell in the deepest darkness of creation.”
Samson lowered his spear and seemed to see me for the first time, hovering at the edge of the room of judgement. “Is this true, Heidi?” he asked. “It is so hard to tell with your shadow.”
“I am not aware of the past actions of this court or the results of its decisions,” I said. “But I have discovered through my own life experience with my shadow that what happens to one of us seems to happen to both. I believe she speaks as true as she’s able. To be fair, I think that of everyone but, in this instance at least, I believe Shadow.”
“Then I will free this one,” Samson said. “Rather than risk losing you to the darkness.”
“I am not afraid of shadows large or small,” I said. “I will walk into the doorway of darkness if it means that my shadow will see the light. She and I have faced worse and can handle ourselves appropriately.”
“Are you sure?” the warrior asked. “You run the risk of losing yourself. It is a great chance that you take with your sanity which is a battlefield that not all return from and those who do are never the same.”
“Light always triumphs over darkness though sometimes the fight can take longer than others,” I replied. “I will walk this path. Have no fear for me, Great One, because, though I may not look it, I have fought against the shadow in my time too and am as veteran to its terrors as you.”
My shadow glared at me as the chains on her wrists dissolved and she stood from her chair with a speed that I found disconcerting. “You have sentenced us to death, you wandering fool,” she said. “I do not relish my end as you seem to do yours.”
“No, Shadow, this is not where our story ends,” I said. “I have sentenced us to greater self knowledge which is only another small step on the path to eternity.”
On either side of the chamber, two doorways appeared out of the nothingness of the space. The doorway to the right glowed with soothing light and a sweet music came from its depths. The doorway on the left emitted a complete absence of light and the rumbling growl of a monster or other form of nightmare sounded from it. Samson stood between the two doorways and watched my shadow walk towards the light as I moved towards the dark, our actions mirroring each other in all ways through our connection as one being.
“I will never forgive you for this,” my shadow hissed over her shoulder as she moved into the light. “Either will the worlds. You’ll see what I mean in time, you silly, stupid dandelion fluff of a being. By all means, let’s blow away on the winds of existence. I am far more accustomed to chaos than you and shall suffer not a whit as you cower in the shadows.”
“I know,” I sighed. “And I’ll see you on the other side, Shadow.” Samson put his hand on my shoulder before I passed through the doorway that I had been assigned by the court of light.
“Take this, brave warrior,” he said and handed me his own spear. “You may need it in the realm that stands before you.”
“I have no use for your weapon, Great One,” I said. “Nor the strength to use it as you do. Keep it for your own defense and I will fight with my words and heart as I am accustomed to doing.”
“Take it anyway, Heidi,” he said. “I feel that I have brought this calamity upon you with my ignorance of the workings of the great shadow and you may need my protection. Take it for my sake, if nothing else.”
“As you will it,” I replied, took the warrior’s spear and entered the darkened doorway. The shadow I encountered within was a living being who moved, whispered, growled, and roared around me. It spoke with many voices and pressed upon my spirit with energies from all the worlds at its beck and call. I was a mere spark of presence in a void that was far stronger than I could ever hope to be.
“Who are you… who are you… who are you,” it screamed at me in every language ever spoken through the mouths of an unseen host.
“My name is Heidi,” I said into the void. “I bring light to the darkness. I bring hope to the weary. Lay down your burdens, great Shadow, and take a rest.”
“Our name is Heidi,” the darkness spoke back to me, mirroring my energy with their own. “We bring dark to the light. We bring despair to the hopeful. Pick up our burdens, great Light, and carry them until you disappear.”
I raised Samson’s spear, the pointed end shining with the god’s fearsome red energy like a lit match in the darkness. “I do not fear you, great Shadow or anything,” I said. “Reveal yourself to my eyes and I will have more than words in response to you.”
Disembodied eyes glowing with the same energy as my spear appeared out of the darkness. There were so many eyes that I felt as if the world was suddenly made of eyes, nothing else, and they all focused on me. “Do you threaten us, Light?” they screamed and out of the pupil of each eye, a spear as fear-inducing as my own was directed at me. “Declare yourself or die.”
The world stood still for a moment as the eyes of the void and I mirrored the anger of each other. I made a decision in my heart at their hopeless, cyclical existence and dropped my weapon, resting the point upon the ground and leaning upon the spear, praying for strength from the one who gave me his armament.
“No great Shadow, I was afraid that you were threatening me,” I said. “I am one and you are many. To fight you would not only be foolish but a waste of the light I have harbored inside of myself in the hopes of sharing it with all of you in the fullness of time. Don’t you want to experience all that the other side of creation can offer to you? Mirror my love and let me see your true nature rather than a masking fear.”
The threatening spears withdrew into the many eyes as I spoke into the void, calming the furious energy of the shadows with my words and simple presence. The spirits blinked in unison and the pupil of each eye turned into a creeping spider of dark energy. All of the spiders rushed towards me through the emptiness of the space, creating a thick blanket of darkness and movement where there had previously been nothing but anger and threats of violence. “We are your ego. You are us,” they said as they approached. “We are your ego. We are one with you.” I held very still as the spiders covered my form, hiding my fear deep within my heart so that they did not feel it and respond in kind.
“I am not the shadow,” I told the spiders. “I am light. Shadow is in another place but I can take you to meet her if you wish. You and she share a common language whereas you and I act more as mirrors than separate consciousnesses.”
“We are you. We are you. We are you…” the shadows chanted together as they began to dissolve into my spirit. Soon, the spiders were gone but if I looked at my form using the light from Samson’s spear, I could see the shadows moving beneath the surface of my skin like a deep current through a river’s channel.
“It seems that I am never free of the shadow,” I said to myself. “Maybe that is the way they demonstrate their love.” As I considered this possibility, a faint glow began to shine in the darkness. It coalesced into the shape of a large egg, glowing with light. I walked closer to this new apparition and one of the sides lowered itself to form an entryway. I moved through the wall into the egg’s center as the shadows beneath my skin perpetually scurried and shifted within my spirit. The door to the egg closed behind me and I was encased in light within the void and took immediate comfort in its protection against the darkness.
“Heidi! Are you there?” A voice came from the walls of the egg.
“Yes, I am here,” I said. “Be forewarned, I bring many with me.” On the wall, the face of my shadow self appeared as if on a television screen.
“You finally found the light in the darkness,” she said. “Took you long enough considering how many times we’ve done this.” Shadow looked strange and curiously vulnerable as light moved and shifted beneath the surface of her skin, banishing her accustomed darkness.
“Where are you?” I asked. “You don’t look like yourself.”
“In the darkness of the light. I could not leave this place until you found the other egg,” she said, impatiently. “Your stupid animals hounded my every step until I got in this safe space. Spiders filled with light entered my skin and now I do not feel like myself so it’s unsurprising that I look it too.” As my shadow spoke, I felt my egg begin to move smoothly sideways like a subway car moves in an underground train station.
“My animals?” I said. “You mean my friends and companions. Do not reduce their meaning to me through your cruel labels.”
“I’ll call your badger and snake what I wish. They’re moronic, short-sighted, underdeveloped and unevolved,” Shadow hissed. “I can’t believe you allow them to walk beside you.” The egg that I was in gave one last jolting movement and stopped. The door to the side opened and I emerged from the egg of light to see my shadow emerging from an egg of darkness. We walked towards each other in unaccustomed attire, my shadow sparkling with light and me shadowed with darkness.
As we met in the center between the two eggs, the darkness from my form was pulled back into Shadow and the light came out of her to be assimilated back into me. We both sighed with relief at this exchange of energy, resuming our usual modes of existence. Our shoulders brushed as we walked past each other towards the opposite eggs. “I hate you, Heidi,” she spat over her shoulder as the side of her egg conveyance closed. “We never have to cross this threshold but you always bring us here and it’s so painful and unnatural. You’re the absolute worst.”
“Thank you, Shadow, for your words of wisdom and kindness,” I replied. “I’ll consider them carefully until we meet again, by which I mean I will try to forget them as quickly as possible. Farewell.” Then, my egg thankfully was shut, giving Shadow no time to insult me again. I felt myself moving through space, then again the motion halted as before. The side of the egg opened with a clang and I almost fell into the mouth of an enormous serpent who guarded the place where the occupant of the egg of darkness would emerge into their new reality. “Whoa…” I said and stepped backwards, dodging his fangs.
“Oh Heidi, it’s you!” the guardian said. Then, the gigantic serpent shrunk and turned into my friend, Lickspittle, in his human form. “We chased the shadow here and told her we would consume her if she dared to come into the light again.”
“Wise course of action,” I said. “She’s happier in the shadows anyway.”
Badger leapt to Snake’s side and, also in his human form, held out his hand to help me from the egg. “She wasn’t very nice,” he said. “She called me a brainless hero worshiper and other worse things that don’t bear repeating.”
Snake leaned in as I stepped into his reality and confided, “She accused me of forcing humanity to leave Eden. Whatever that means.”
I laughed in relief that the current trial was over and my companions had returned to me. “Don’t take what she said to heart. It is only the whispering of the shadow,” I said. “I am so glad to be back with you all again. I feel as if my joy will spill from me because I can’t hold a happiness this unexpected and true.”
Snake and Badger took my hands and led me to the edge of a clear pool with a torrential waterfall that fed into it from high above. We sat at the water’s edge and admired the beauty of the place until there was movement beneath the water and an undine emerged from the very center of the pool. She came towards us, holding aloft a small, golden harp which she released into the air and it floated from her hands to mine. I began to pluck its strings and glorious music came from it with little effort on my part as if the harp was playing itself on my behalf.
As the harp played beneath my fingertips, I saw memories of other trips that I have made into the worlds of the Tree of Life, dancing and moving in my mind’s eye so that I lived them again with my friends beside me rather than experiencing them alone. I remembered being in the waterfall that I was only observing now and relived the fairy king Paralda showing me how to play in the water and how I was drenched in its spray to his unending amusement. Then, I saw us descending into the clear pool where he gave me the gift of his people. I saw him offer this gift to Badger and Snake as well. Whether they accepted this gift or not was beyond my sight.
That memory changed into another. I saw myself walking in a forest glade and now Badger and Snake were there too. A unicorn, the union of Bertaxus and his love, stood before us, we climbed on it, and together we ran into and through the side of a mountain where the goddess Hecate instructed us in her mysteries and knowledge. As the goddess was three in one, so too were my companions and I three who were one. Upon this second visit to Hecate, we remembered far more together than I was able to on my own. I felt gratefulness filling my heart at the mercy of whomever allowed me to relive my journeys within the safety and company of my heart’s companions.
Next, I saw myself standing before Cernunnos and his green goddess beneath the full moon of his sacred glade. I saw him drip the blood from his wound into his basin and I saw Badger, Snake and myself fall into its still waters. We asked for conscious evolution together and placed our hands upon the living heart of the god of the forests of the world. We emerged from the basin to ascend into the moon together, becoming more like one being than three separate consciousnesses. This happened again and again until I could not find a memory where I walked alone through the Inner Worlds anymore.
I felt tears falling from my eyes at this new realization but then they dried and my spirit found peace in sharing my experiences through the infinite realities of the spiritual realms with those I love. We were now evolving and learning together as we had always been, but I could not see until that moment, because Shadow had hidden the truth from me for reasons of her own.
The visions faded as the music from the harp ceased and I found myself again sitting at the side of the pool with Snake and Badger. “Heidi,” Badger said. “You didn’t tell us you finally learned the Song of the Undines.”
“I didn’t remember I had or I would have shared it with you sooner,” I replied. “What does it do?”
“It is memory. It is emotion. It is a combination of the two into a greater reality,” Snake said. My dearest companions helped me up from the ground and the next thing I knew, I was emerging from a hallway that led back into the Treasure House of the Imagination. Snake and Badger had disappeared from my side but I held a great, glowing egg in my hands. Michael stood at the doorway of the hall, welcoming me back into his world.
“This place is new,” the angel observed. On the left side of the doorway, the frame was carved stone in the shape of a fanged serpent, preparing to strike. On the right side of the frame, there was a carved badger that rose on his hind legs, claws extended and teeth bared at a threat only he could see. The egg floated out of my hands and placed itself on the lintel of the doorway between the Snake and Badger depictions where it merged with the stone carvings to become a permanent piece of the building.
Through the door, we could see other animal statues standing opposite to each other in carved frames, connecting both sides of the hallway. Two by two, they lined the hall until it went farther than I could see into the distance in the impossible reality that is the space of the imagination. “It’s a very nice addition to the Treasure House, I think,” Michael said, breaking the contemplative silence. “What do you call it, Heidi?”
“This is the Hall of Companion Spirits,” I said and I took my angel’s arm once more. “I wish I had time to walk its distance and see who belongs with whom but maybe there’ll be time in the future for further exploration. Is there anything else I must do before I return to the world I know?”
“This came flying out of the door that I sent you into earlier,” Michael replied and held up Samson’s great spear. “Perhaps you should return it to him.”
“Ah, must I?” I asked, tired of the realm of war and its ceaseless struggles.
“It is up to you,” Michael said. “But if you are to understand Mars, his servants and attendant shadows, you should do this final thing.”
“As always, you are right and I bow to your peerless wisdom,” I said. “Please, guardian spirit, take me to Samson so I may return his great gift from a time long past.” Michael silently led me to one more door and I passed through it into mist.
“Samson, awake! The Philistines are upon you…” I heard a woman’s voice saying and the mighty warrior, Samson, rose from his sleeping couch in the dark of night and the shadow realm. He reached for his spear and it wasn’t in its customary place for he had given it to me though he had forgotten he ever did so. Undeterred from the fight, the warrior of light threw himself at the spirits who surrounded him, but without his weapon he could not fight effectively for the shadows were armed with the best and latest technology their worlds had to offer. I saw the soldiers bind the ancient warrior’s hands, blind his eyes with a reflection of his past glory, and tie him to a mill to grind grain to feed into the cogs of their unending civilizations of shadow and darkness.
In the departure of the tormenting shadows, the warrior wept and spoke softly to himself as he labored within the machinery of the dark. “It is my fault,” Samson said. “I am the greatest fool who ever lived. I should not have loved or trusted her, she was with the enemy from the start. I have only myself to blame for my trust and belief in her goodness. God has turned his favor from me and rightly so for I might have ended this war before it began if I had not loved her.”
“That is enough sacrifice, Great One! No more pain, no more darkness, I forbid it!” I cried out, flinging myself out of the mists with Samson’s spear in my hands. I cut the cords that bound the warrior to the mill and pulled him up from the cowering crouch his enemies had reduced him to.
“It is too late. I am punished for my anger. I am punished for my love,” the warrior continued to weep. “I cannot fight the shadows without my sight or my weapon. They are lost to the ravages of time.”
“It is never too late,” I said. “I apologize for my delay in arriving for I walked into shadow and I do not know how long they held me in their power. Samson, I bring your spear back to you, see it shine? And, with your ancient weapon, we can restore your sight and your strength from the part of yourself that you sent into the darkness with me.” As I spoke these words, I touched the flat of the spear’s pointed tip to Samson’s ruined eyes and they were immediately whole again. The warrior’s eyes widened in astonishment as I handed him back his weapon. “I am so sorry that I was gone so long. I am sorry that the shadow tormented you in my absence, I did not know they would. I am sorry that you gave up your spear so that I could face my own darkness. I was unaware of how great a sacrifice this was for you until now and I would not have allowed you to make it if I had known.”
“Heidi, you came back for me,” said Samson and as he stood with his weapon at his side, his famous armor covered his body once more. His chariot appeared beneath our feet and we were again standing on the plain with his warriors of light, facing a shadow army. “You triumphed over the darkness? Did you strike it down? What did you do?”
“I allowed it to become a part of me then I offered the shadow unconditional love,” I explained. “There is no final banishing of the shadow for those who dwell in the worlds beneath the sun. We can only make the choice, again and again, to offer love instead of hate and anger. That is how I choose to handle conflict. What do you choose, great warrior?”
Samson looked at his army. Then, he looked at the shadow army, waiting for his response. His warriors of light began to vanish one by one until only he and I stood against the dark. Then, as we stood quietly and peacefully together upon the field of battle, the shadows also began to disappear until only one figure wreathed in darkness stood opposite to us.
I did not recognize this spirit’s form, but the great warrior knew her at once. “Delilah?” Samson called out in disbelief. “Is that you?”
“Samson!” the shadow of a lost love responded. “Forgive me. In my greed and fear, I gave you up to your enemies because they promised me the sun and moon in exchange for you. But nothing in creation could fill the space you occupied in my heart. In the name of Love, I ask you to forgive me for I will no longer walk the paths of the world without you by my side. No treasures are worth that fate and I was blind to not understand that simple truth.”
The warrior threw his spear to the ground and left his chariot. “Oh my Love, of course I forgive you,” he said. “I forgave you the moment it happened though I did not know that until now.” Samson and Delilah ran towards each other and met in the middle of the field of battle. There was a great flash of light from both the sky and the earth, and two different figures appeared upon the plain. Instead of Samson and Delilah, Mars and Venus were embracing in that timeless place.
“Haven’t we done battle long enough?” Venus whispered as Mars gathered the goddess into his arms. “What must I do to regain your trust?”
“Eternity isn’t long enough for conflict with you, goddess of my heart. Mark this day, Venus,” he said. “On this day, I laid down my arms before your beauty and conceded this war to the power of your unconditional love.” The warrior god leaned down to kiss the goddess in his arms and my vision ended.
The Light Congress 