Gate: Four of Wands
I stepped through the vision gate and found myself standing on a grassy field beneath the bright sun on what felt like a day in late summer. In the distance, a medieval castle with turreted towers and crenulated walls rested on the side of a mountain. As I gazed at the landscape around me, the ground started to shake, the land heaving as if a living thing itself. A giant made of earth and the stone of the mountain rose from beneath the distant castle and carried the fortress upon his head as if it was a crown. Then the world around me disappeared, so there was only a giant with a crown floating through nothingness and myself.
I followed the giant through the void, my footsteps remaining behind me like white-hot coals through the darkness, and he led me to a long wooden table around which other giants made of earth were seated. They were all featureless with mere indications of where their faces would be and composed of brown soil and stone, except for one. The giant of a different element was made of black earth like peat or compressed coal dust and tears of sadness fell from his eyes in a steady stream. My guide to this location in the void, the giant with the castle crown, took his place at the head of the table and I seated myself on the other end.
“Welcome to the Meeting of the Giants of your Inner Worlds, Heidi,” the being at the head of the table rumbled. “We are the archetypes. We are the personifications of the living spheres. You have been traveling through us and we are now awake.”
As one, all of these spirits looked at me and nodded. I felt the weight of their regard upon me like a thick blanket descending upon my sight and I could see nothing outside of the giants and their table.
“What an honor it is to be among your august company,” I said as I bowed my head in respect. “I did not expect my explorations through the Inner Realms to have an effect as far-reaching as this meeting. I apologize if my appearance caused any distress in your worlds.”
The giant at the head of the table waved his hand in negation. “We sleep and wake on a predictable cycle, small Heidi,” he said. “This meeting was destined to take place with your presence or not. As mighty as my brothers and sisters are, we too bow to destiny throughout our timeless existence.”
“What is your purpose beyond living out your destined roles?” I said. “I find the reasons spirits name for their existence and place in creation can be quite illuminating when one considers what their true nature may be.”
“We provide communication with your inner mind to your outer mind,” said the leader of the giants. “We are the translators of source energy, the igniting power of the spirit upon the forms of the embodied and disembodied worlds. We are your inner worlds as well. Our bodies are living representations of the spaces and functions of the upper realms.”
As the giant spoke, the featureless spirits of earth and stone changed into real looking people of flesh and blood. To my left, I beheld a woman dressed in silver cloth with long, flowing hair as black as the night sky. She had a diadem with a moon that rested on her forehead above her left eye.
“Hello, Heidi of the wandering spirits,” she said. “I am the Moon or the sphere of the imagination. I reflect the light of the sun upon your world and ignite the dreams and intuitions of the sensitive spirits the worlds over. The tides are drawn to me because I shift the seas of the subconscious throughout the Inner Realms.”
“You are one of my favorite worlds, Great One,” I said, blinking as the Moon’s bright diadem flashed in my eyes. “Viewing you from upon the earth always gives me hope for the future and plants new dreams in my heart. Thank you for your many gifts.”
As the silver lady nodded once regally in response, the bookish looking man with glasses seated across from her drew my attention. He was frantically turning the yellowing pages of an ancient book bound in leather and as he turned one page after another, he wept inconsolably.
“Who sits across from you and weeps?” I said. “Could we not give him a new dream to supplant whatever it is that causes him to suffer so?”
“He is the Mind energy and Mercury,” the Moon replied. “Always seeking, always upset, his is a world that allows for no rest. I have trouble exerting influence upon him because he is so powerful and always on the move. My dreams chase him but rarely catch him and when they do he dismisses them as whimsy, weakness or childish fantasies.”
“Perhaps something might be done while I’m here,” I said. “I have a unique way of viewing reality that blends the childlike with the surreal and may appeal to his sensibilities.”
“We shall see, Heidi,” said a woman clothed in shimmering green silks with hair and skin the color of grass who was seated to the Moon’s left. “I am the sphere of Venus. I am your emotions and the world of the fairies and elves and many of the spirits of fantasy who walk freely through your mind and heart. With my help, the Moon’s innate abilities and your unclouded lens of perception, Mercury may find some respite from his long melancholy.”
“But doesn’t depression come from you, Great One?” I said. “Why can’t you simply take the emotion back into yourself and spare him from his nightmarish existence?”
“Free will doesn’t work that way, dear one,” Venus said. “I can suggest new emotions to Mercury as he can present new thoughts to me, but there is none in creation who can force a change that isn’t welcomed by the giant it is presented to. Thus is the balance of power maintained throughout the worlds.”
“You speak of the mysteries of my world, the sphere of the heart and soul consciousness,” said a man seated across from Venus. He was dressed in robes that glowed like the sun with bright red hair, eyes of molten gold, and sparkling features so bright I could hardly look at him. “In my realm, the individual personality separates him or herself from the collective influences of the primal forces. Mercury weeps because there is a voice within him that moves contrary to the rest. If you can single out this voice and allow it to communicate with you, this may move him along the path of healing and peace.”
“His mind is at war with itself,” said the warrior seated next to Venus. The soldier of old was dressed in ancient armor of metal and leather, and I recognized the spirit who had called himself, Samson. “As the personification of the world of war or the sphere of Mars, I am drawn into his nightmarish world more often than not. What battles my warriors and I have fought in the name of the causes and concerns that flash through his spirit as quickly and devastatingly as lightning.”
“There are many ways to fight battles that have nothing to do with violence or domination,” I said.
“There are many who back down from a righteous cause because they are afraid, weak, or bullied into silence,” Samson said. “Mercury need never fear this sad outcome for my legions and I are at his beck and call.”
“Maybe your unwillingness to consider other ways to settle disputes is part of the problem,” I said.
“I would say the same to you, mouse-like Heidi,” said Samson. “Words are not always enough to drive away the shadows of existence.” Venus turned to the warrior and put a calming hand on his arm.
“This spirit walks my paths often, my love,” she said. “Please don’t ask a servant of love to break her heart in your service. Her strengths lie outside of your own.”
“Others fight battles while she seeks allies in the endless war between light and shadow,” Samson said. “She should hear the truth from me at least once, for the sake of those who went to war because she asked it of them.”
“We asked it of them too, Mars,” said the being seated across from him at the great table. The spirit appeared to my eyes as a man with skin the blue color of deep waters who had a crown of ivory or bone upon his head. “Should Saturn sit quietly by while the shadows rule the worlds both above and below the sun?” he said. He quietly gazed across the table into the eyes of the warrior who sat just as still, holding his spear in one hand and the goddess of love’s hand in the other.
“I did not say it was not a worthy war, simply that she allows others to fight her battles for her, Saturn,” Samson said. “Why does she not take her weapons upon the field of battle? Where is the courage of the messenger?”
“She fought on my personal battlefield and comported herself well once upon a time,” said the Divine Mother who was seated to Samson’s left and appeared as a figure made of darkness and stars. “My wars are not like yours, Mars, but just as vital for the progress of civilization and the fight against the Great Shadow. How many of the enemy have been created from childhoods rife with conditional rather than unconditional love? There is a quiet courage in her of endurance and fathomless love and it is enough for me and mine. Is it not, my love?”
The Divine Mother reached across the table and took the hand of a figure made of brilliant light, the presence of the Divine Father in creation. He didn’t speak in words but in response to his partner, the god released a wave of light and energy that swept from him and infused all who sat at the giants’ table. A peace of a magnitude that I have never known filled my heart for just a moment and I found myself longing for that feeling again when it departed.
Where the hands of the Divine Mother and Father met at the far end of the table, another figure of light appeared. They bore both the Mother and Father’s symbolism, a genderless being of light outlined in the void of creation and wearing a crown of stars with a single black stone that shone with a dark energy.
“We are the realm of the One, the first world of the Creator of All,” whispered Unity. “What does the Creator require of us, Heidi, that you appear among us today? What is the message?” The table of giants all looked at me, waiting for me to say something.
“Friends and giants of the Inner Realms,” I said. “It is an unexpected pleasure to meet you all face-to-face. I was brought here today by a power outside of my own and have no further message that I am aware of. Despite this lack of illuminated guidance, I am greatly concerned for our member, Mercury. He is the only one of our number who weeps though all at this table know suffering and fear. I would like to free him from suffering, if such a thing is possible.”
The scholar of the mind continued to dig through his book and shed tears of frustration or sadness throughout his search. I couldn’t tell which emotion was more prominent within him for they moved and changed far faster than I could perceive them.
“I propose that we all join together to address the imbalance in the mind,” whispered Unity. “A messenger of the Creator of All has spoken and we will answer.” The other giants indicated their consent and support for the proposed endeavor by placing both of their hands flat on the table. As they did so, I felt the wood of the table begin to shift and change into something else.
“We send you, Heidi, to the realm of the Mind,” said the group in unison. “We give you our gifts, our strengths, our weaknesses. You speak with our authority and you move with our volition.” In daze at the influx of raw energy I felt emanating from the giants, I placed my own hands on the table and it turned into a doorway made of light. Mercury and I fell through this doorway together.
I landed in a world of darkness and shadow. There was a ticking sound coming from the shadows as if a mammoth clock was turning its gears, just out of sight. I wandered through this realm, my purpose for existence forgotten until I heard a mumbling voice say, “I must find it. We’re running out of time. Where is it? I must find it before its too late.” When I heard the voice speak, my memory returned to me in a flash and the forgotten power of the giants of the Inner Worlds filled my steps, steering me unerringly through the shadows towards the one I had traveled all that way for, to free from suffering.
Mercury appeared, weeping as he had at the giants’ table, and he was sitting in a library filled with books. As I approached the giant from out of the void that surrounded him, he turned page after page, discarding one book after another, reaching for more on the innumerable shelves around him. “Hello,” I called softly when I thought I was close enough for him to hear me, wishing not to surprise him and cause further emotional distress. “Mercury, I am here for you. Tell me how I can help you and I will.”
The giant looked up from his endless search for a moment and his glasses flashed with the furious energy that was contained in his restless spirit. “It’s no use. There’s too much to go through,” Mercury said. “I’ll never find it. We’ll never find it.”
“Find what?” I asked. “What is the object of your search?”
“The meaning of life!” the giant said. “I don’t have time to deal with spiritless echoes when there is so much work to do. Return to wherever you came from and bother me no more.” As I finally reached his side, Mercury looked at me desperately and I was close enough to see that behind his glasses his eyes appeared red and bloodshot from lack of sleep. I could feel his despair as his tears continued to fall and wet the pages he turned and I mourned at the endless well of sadness that I discovered in him.
“You seek the meaning of life?” I said. “I too explore the Inner Realms and consider the mysteries of creation. Maybe my experiences could be of great service to you.” I took the book from Mercury’s hands and went to close it, but he yanked it back from me and started ripping through the pages again.
“Stop tormenting me with the memory of your presence, seeking spirit,” he said. “I promised you, I’d never stop until I found it. I will not let you down nor forget the words we spoke in the time before so there’s really no need for you to be here.”
Suddenly, a name floated into my mind, whispered in the voice of the giant of Unity. “William?” I said. “Is it really you?” The giant of the mind finally put his book down and sat back in his chair to take a long look at me.
“You are not a mere echo of a higher power,” he said. “How do you know my name?”
“It’s Heidi, don’t you recognize me?” I said, memories flooding my spirit, a gift from the giants of the Inner Realms. “Any promises that you made to me, I’m certain you’ve kept them for I’m here with you now and that was the sign we had agreed upon. I’ve been spending my days seeking, as always, though my memories for my purpose have been elusive to say the least. Today, I was sent from the giants’ table to discover why you are distressed. Talk to me, please.”
William reopened his book. “You arrived too early, Heidi, or I took too long to give you the information you needed,” he said. “Do not worry for I will find it. I will find it for you. I just need a little more time.”
I put my hands over the giant’s hands and we shut the book together. “Eternal beings will never find a final purpose,” I said. “Our search must become one of exploration rather than a destination as we once dreamed.”
“I wanted to find the meaning of life for you,” William said. “I’ve searched and searched but I’m so tired. I won’t let you down so I can’t stop looking until I find it. I can’t rest until our task is completed but it seems like it will never be done. All journeys have an ending so why can’t ours as well?”
I felt tears fill my eyes at his devotion to our stated reason for existence. “You seek perfection and that doesn’t exist outside the spirit,” I said. “I asked too much of you, we asked too much of ourselves, if we demanded the one answer to everything. Everything that we need to know is within and will be revealed in the fullness of time.” I took one of William’s hands and put it over my heart. “Feel my heartbeat, Mercury, and have faith that all is as it should be. Maybe the meaning of life is being, not doing.”
We sat together in silence and stillness, and as we did so I allowed the feeling of peace I had experienced in the presence of the Divine Father flow from my heart and fill the library space around us. The giant of the mind closed his eyes as the feeling washed over him and so did I. My heartbeat with its steady, even pace filled our senses and replaced the frantic ticking of the clock that hadn’t abated until that moment.
I felt the giant of emotions moving my body as if it were her own and she placed my forehead against the giant of the mind’s. “Do you think that you could rest now, Mercury? You and I have been searching for such a long time,” I said. “In every great quest, there are moments for rest. I think that this is one of those places.”
As William looked into my eyes and I shared my heart with him, I heard the sound of chains breaking. Though I could not see it before, the giant had been bound to a chair in the library. These invisible bonds fell off and now, instead of sitting in a chair, a bed of mist and starlight appeared beneath him. I gently moved the giant’s head down to rest on the pillow that lay there, waiting for him.
“I can’t stop looking,” Mercury murmured in protest as his eyes were already closing with exhaustion.
“You have kept every promise that you have ever made to me,” I said. “Sleep and be well.” I laid beside him and the giant was deeply and profoundly asleep before my head touched the pillow.
I fell through the soft bed coverings and found myself sitting at the table with the giants from the Inner Realms once more. They all looked towards the giant of the mind and his head was cushioned on his book. He was fast asleep.
“An improvement over the tears, I think,” said Samson.
“Said the warrior, who knows nothing of emotion,” Venus said.
“We shall discuss this later at our leisure,” the warrior replied, raising the giant’s hand to his lips.
“No disagreements,” whispered Unity. “Heidi has soothed the seeking of the mind. This is a great day for all at this table, no matter the world of origin.” The giants banged their hands on the table in agreement and rose from their seats.
In the waves of energy that came from the giants as they prepared to depart my reality, the table itself began to change again and turned into a huge mirror that reflected each of us. I recognized the frame at once.
“Your table is the Mirror of Shadows,” I exclaimed. “There were more friends present than I knew.”
“Of course he walks among us,” whispered Unity. “The Mirror is a portal into your Inner Realms as well as a being of great power in his own right.” Suddenly, the giants were pulled into the mirror, returning to their spheres of influence and I found myself all alone, looking at my own reflection.
“Mirror of Shadows,” I said. “Are you there?”
“I am always here,” murmured the Mirror and he began to spin. The shadowed face of his presence came to the forefront of the glass and hovered behind my reflection. “Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened. But, silly Heidi, once the door opened then what did you do?” the Mirror said. “Seek and seek and more seeking, but it is ultimately your choice I suppose.”
The mirror ceased spinning and Shambhala upon the island of the Sleeping King appeared in his frame. “Go within and look some more, Heidi,” the Mirror said. “It’s what you always do and I will join you there.”
“Thank you, Mirror, for opening the door to Shambhala,” I said. “Perhaps you could send me to a portion of that city where I could find some rest? I think I put too many demands on my mind and forgot the need for internal peace and quiet, opening the door for dreams and intuitions to enter from the worlds beyond.”
“I can take you wherever you wish,” said the Mirror. “You only had to ask…” The scene within the glass changed to one of an endless hallway with sparkling water fountains within it. “Behold, the Hall of a Thousand Fountains within the paradise that is Shambhala,” the Mirror said. “Go within, Heidi, and find your peace.”
I entered the mirror as if passing through a doorway and found myself barefoot upon a marble floor between endless fountains. The water flowed and burbled, filling the space with a constant, peaceful sound. I held out my hand and let the spray from the myriad fountains fall onto my skin, delighting in its cooling presence.
The ceiling of the hall was made of one large mirror so that all of the fountains were reflected both above and around me. My own reflection appeared there as well. Suddenly, she moved by herself, waving and winking at me as walked down the long hallway.
“Echo!” I said. “Is that you? Have you come to visit me?”
“Echo… Echo… Echo…” she said and my reflection melted off of the ceiling and began to walk beside me. She moved like a shadow among the fountains, jumping in first one, then another.
“How have you been, Echo? Doing well?” I asked.
She grinned mischievously then changed her form to look like the fountain she was standing next to. Echo leaped back into the mirror on the ceiling and sat right above me as a fountain. Her water fell directly on me like a freezing, cold shower, putting an end to my dreamy reverie among the fountains. “Why must you be so cold!” I said and laughed. “Ok, Echo, I’m very awake now! What brings you my way?”
“Very awake,” she said as if in response to all of my questions.
“Well, being awake and aware is good,” I said. “The giants of the Inner Realms taught me this truth.”
“Good… good.. good..” Echo murmured and she changed back into her shadowy, mirrored form as we resumed our journey through the hall of fountains.
Forms and other echoes began taking shape in the midst of the hallway between the fountains and I heard brief bits of sound and music coming from these shadowy figures. “What is this place, Echo?” I asked. “You dwell in Shambala far more than I. Is this some sort of storehouse of memories?”
Echo nodded as she sped from fountain to fountain. “Memories,” she said. “Forgotten ones.”
“Is there one that you would like to take me to at this time?” I said. “I’m looking for peace and understanding. Rest would be nice but I desire peace above all else for now.”
Echo grinned and ran ahead. She jumped into a fountain that looked the same as all the others to my eyes and turned to face me, changing from her own face into mine once more. “This memory will bring you peace,” Echo said in my voice. “I swear it.”
“Thank you, my friend,” I said and jumped into the waters of the fountain.
Through the fountain, I found myself laying as a baby in my mother’s arms. I heard her singing and cooing to me, holding me close as she warmed me with soft blankets and the heat from her own body. I held her fingers in my tiny hands and experienced a moment of complete and utter belonging. Then, I became smaller and smaller. Suddenly, I wasn’t being held in my mother’s arms, I was within her body, listening to her heartbeat as I grew. Time went in reverse until I was only a cluster of cells with the knowledge of the form I would one day embody. Then, I was nothing and returned to the void of creation for a timeless moment.
When I could perceive my surroundings again and regained consciousness, I found myself standing at the edge of an enormous book as if I was preparing to step into its pages. I was holding on to the hand of the giant of the mind whom Unity named William.
We were looking excitedly at each other with silly grins on our faces as we prepared to take the first steps of a new life journey. “One last thing,” I was saying. “You have to promise me that you won’t stop looking for meaning here while I’m gone. Each time I go down there, I forget my purpose and what I’ve promised that I’m going to do. I will come to you and let you know when I understand and remember.”
There was a movement in the room and a giant badger rushed through the library behind us and leapt into the pages ahead of me. In the memory, I didn’t appear surprised by this in the least and neither was William. “I will never stop helping you remember who you are or why you are there,” he said. “I will never give up on you. I promise. Never.”
A light flashed between our clasped hands, then I seemed to split in two. One version of me stepped into the book and was gone, the other version moved further backwards in time, combing through the walls of the library and sharing books with William.
William and I went through book after book, laughing, reading, sharing, and learning. I watched us interact for a very long time until I pulled my attention away from two seekers for the meaning of life. “Echo?” I spoke into the shadows around me. “How long were the giant of the mind and I researching for this life experience?”
Echo appeared beside me. “Time doesn’t exist in the place where you come from,” she explained in my voice. “But I would say, it took some ages as they describe it in your current world.”
“Who is he really?” I asked. “He has many names and his form keeps changing in my sight.”
“He is you. Souls can split themselves if they want to do so,” Echo said. “Sometimes they chose to do so to experience more, to learn, and to become more together than they could as just one being.” I continued to watch as the giant of the mind and I existed peacefully in a great library until he eventually stepped into my own form and we were one being once more.
“Why was he crying before?” I asked as the memory of the giant and me faded and I found myself gazing at Echo standing in the fountain. “If we are two who were once one, then I was crying too.”
“He wept because he wanted to be perfect for you. He wept because he promised you to eternally seek,” she said. “He wept because he forgot that a component of seeking was knowing. A component of knowing is being. He forgot to be and had become seeking. You helped him remember.” Echo stepped out of the fountain towards me.
“Remember what, Echo?” I said. “He helped me remember too. What did we remember together?”
“To seek, to know, to be,” Echo whispered in the voice of Unity and stepped into my spirit. I blinked and instead of standing in the Hall of a Thousand Fountains in Shambala, I was seated again with the giants of the Inner Realms, around the table that was also a mirror and a doorway to other worlds.
The giant of the mind was awake now and his tears had dried. He smiled at me in recognition as all of the giants turned their attention in my direction. The Mirror of Shadows spoke from beneath our hands, reminding me of his presence as well. “To seek, to know, to be,” the Mirror said. “Do not forget to be, Heidi.”
“To seek, to know, to be,” the giants said in unison and began to chant it over and over. “To seek, to know, to be. To seek, to know, to be.” Then, they fell silent.
“Finding truth and the meaning of life is a process but also a way of being,” I whispered to myself as Unity gazed at me in silence from across the table. “I will not forget this time. Thank you for lending me your strength so that I could continue on.”
I fell backwards from the table, pulled by a power that was not seated as the other giants of the Inner Realms were. I was drawn out of my gate through reality, back into the world I knew and loved, and the vision ended.
The Light Congress 