Gate: Judgement
I passed through the vision gate and found myself in a field of wildflowers under a bright, midday sky. Spirits in the shape of young women in old fashioned bonnets moved here and there in the field, picking flowers.
“Hello, my name is Heidi and I come from another world,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“My sisters and I pick the flowers of the field for ourselves, to please our eyes and nose with their pleasant colors and smells,” one of the women said.
“But when you pick the flower, it begins to die,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be better to let them grow so others could enjoy them too?”
“At the moment of birth, everything begins to die,” said the maiden. “Let us have our enjoyment while we may. There is no harm to it.” She called her sisters and the women rushed towards me. They began to pile their flowers into my arms and laughed at how many they had been able to collect.
As a group, they turned and ran from me, laughing and dancing among the remaining flowers in the field. “At the death of the bloom, there is a release of fragrance beyond the norm,” called the maiden. “It is our gift to you, Heidi from another world.” Then, the dancing sisters disappeared from my sight.
I lifted the blossoms to my face and inhaled deeply. Then, with a flourish, I tossed the flowers over my head where they changed into a golden cloud of light and this cloud descended around my head and shoulders, trailing the delicious fragrance of the flowers and making the whole valley appear to shine with gold. As the cloud reached the ground, it gathered around itself into the shape of a powerful man swathed in shining cloth.
“Who are you?” I asked in surprise. “I have never heard of an armful of flowers changing into a god.”
“I have many names,” the god said, as his features crystallized into those of an older man with a flowing white beard. “But you may know me as Zeus. Why shouldn’t a god emerge from flower blossoms?”
“Well, it’s not that one ‘shouldn’t’ do something,” I said. “I’ve just never read a myth that goes that way before. Anyway, Great One, my name is Heidi and I am pleased to stand in your presence, however that may have occurred. What are you doing here?”
“I enjoy the laughter of the maidens,” the god replied. “Their play and innocence reminds me of what it was like to be young and vital, and in remembering I embody that aspect again. It is an ability one receives when you exist in the timelessness of the moment as I do.” As he spoke, his hair changed from pure white to the deepest black. His beard disappeared and instead of being clothed in a robe, Zeus wore a hunting outfit made of brown leather and green cloth.
He reached up into the sky and seemed to touch the bright sun. “This isn’t right,” he said and twisted his wrist. “The path ahead requires some concealing shadows.” Under the god’s influence, the sun changed to a full moon shining in the night sky. Zeus gestured that I should follow him so we moved together through the fields of wildflowers in the sudden darkness.
“Where are we going, Great One?” I asked. “Despite the briefness of my visit, I was enjoying the fields of wildflowers. Could we not stay a moment more?”
“We’re off to find an adventure,” the god replied. “Left to your own devices, Heidi, you might stay in the field for ages. It is time to take another step down the path to self knowledge. Don’t worry, you can thank me later.”
“I would thank you now, Zeus, because I never know when I’m going to run into someone again in the Inner Worlds,” I said. “My future is in your hands. Maybe some day when my journey is through, I can come back here and spend more time among the flowers until I learn their secret language and then we can talk to each other.”
The spirit laughed. “And you thought a god emerging from the blossoms was strange,” Zeus said. “It’s not nearly as bizarre to my mind as a woman who chats with flowers.”
“I think all in creation has knowledge to impart if only we knew how to communicate with the intelligences they embody,” I said. “I know my ideas are somewhat odd, Zeus. Thank you for walking the path with me despite them.”
The god and I finally came to the edge of the almost endless field of wildflowers and moved into the darkness of a forest filled with trees. Ahead, a bright, raging bonfire appeared. “We must move silently now, Heidi,” Zeus said. “The pixies do not allow outsiders to observe their rituals. Allow me to clothe you in further shadows.” He waved his hands over the two of us and we disappeared from sight. I moved towards the fire again, unable to see or hear my companion or my own form, which was slightly disconcerting at first until I got the knack of traveling as consciousness without a body.
Before long, I reached the edge of the clearing in the trees where spirits in the form of tiny people clothed in leaves, moss, and flower petals danced around a bonfire. They sang and chanted, moving in complex patterns around the forest floor and, those who were winged, cavorted above the fire. As they danced, the pixies tossed flowers, dried powders, pine cones, and other fragrant materials into the blaze.
These were the words they spoke in that sacred place:
Awake the trees, awake the night, awake the shining moon.
Feed the plants, free the life that dwells within the bloom.
To keep the forest growing tall, the pixie people sing,
We bring the song and dance the call to wake the Forest King.
Awake the night, awake the moon, awake the powers old,
We’re the ones that call upon the Spirit of the Fold.
Dance the dance, sing the song, to make the forest wake,
In our stead, these plants have fed the Thirst that Never Slakes.
The song reached a fevered pitch. Within the bonfire, serpents made of flame burst into being and moved in coordinated circles with the pixies. Some of the winged beings flew too close to the flames and their wings caught fire, adding to the heat and light of the dance. With a final, ululating cry, the chant ended and all the dancing spirits threw themselves to the ground, heaving with the effort of the ritual. A living silence engulfed the glade and I found myself holding my breath in anticipation.
Then, from far away, I heard thunderous footsteps approaching as some mammoth spirit pushed his way out of the deepest part of the forest. Zeus appeared at my elbow. “He comes,” the god whispered. “We must show ourselves to the pixies now because I cannot hide you from his gaze.”
“Who comes?” I asked. “Should we run and hide?”
“It is far too late for that, Heidi. The Spirit of the Woods is an ancient power but also an oracle,” the god said. “If we do not reveal ourselves to the summoning host before he arrives, he will refuse to speak to us because that is the way of those who dwell beneath the forest eaves. It has always been thus.” Zeus grabbed my hand, causing my form to reappear, and together we moved into the glade. The pixies saw us immediately and we were soon surrounded by a crowd of tiny beings, bristling with spears, arrows, and all manner of weapons as the ponderous footsteps moved ever closer.
Then, again, there was silence. A living darkness gathered at the edge of the light, then a god moved from the shadows beneath the trees into the gathered crowd of the bonfire glade. At his presence among them, a sigh moved among the pixies and they all raised their hands in supplication. The forest spirit appeared as a living collection of leaves in the shape of a man with eyes that glowed with an inner flame. “My children, I have come in response to your call,” the god declared. Then, he turned towards Zeus and I. “Yet I find those among you who are not mine own. Who disturbs my sanctum with their polluting presence?”
“Great One,” I said, not moving as tiny spears hovered inches from my eyes. “The sky god and I mean no harm and have only the greatest respect to those who dwell within the forest and know its secret heart.”
“You are not welcome here,” said the forest god. “If you, though you carry the unmistakable scent of other worlds, did not know this place was forbidden to your kind, then the sky god who travels with you knew absolutely. Begone from my presence and trouble my children no more.”
“You are correct, Great One, that I come from another world,” I said, raising my empty hands in entreaty. “I swear by the love I hold in my heart for creation, we mean no harm to you and yours but only wish to learn the true nature of this place. Please reveal yourself to us and we will be on our way.”
The leaves surrounding the god shuddered and fell from his form in one motion. Now, in front of the fire, the Horned King stood with a wound freely dripping blood from his side. “We have met before, wandering spirit called Heidi,” he said. “Also under a full moon. You bring unexpected blessings in your wake, traveler. Because of your innocent heart, I will allow your companion to ask his questions for your sake, not his.”
“Thank you for your beneficence, Cernunnos,” I said, bowing my head as deeply as the guarding pixies allowed. “I will repay whatever debt is incurred by our intrusion into this time and place.”
The pixies relaxed and sheathed their weapons. Zeus smiled brightly and approached the Horned King in the light of the bonfire. “Well met, friend,” he bowed with a flourish. “She has lovely manners, no?”
“We are not friends, you and I,” responded the forest god. “You, Thunderer, are a nuisance and a plague to not just my people, but many others. This audience is for Heidi, not you.”
“Be that as it may,” replied Zeus, the playful smile never fading from his lips. “Your servants successfully drew you here and now you will speak to me. As it is written: For two will come beneath the moon to the place of the children of the forest. One will be a god,” he bowed again. “The other a seeker and walker of the worlds. The questions carried by both will be the same. Hear them, oh Forest King: Where does the fire burn but not consume? Where is the spirit unmasked? Where barks the hound without sound in the hunt that cannot be seen?”
The pixies began to murmur amongst themselves. The Horned King silenced them with a motion of his hands. “You speak of hidden truths that you do not understand, Zeus, philanderer and rogue,” Cernunnos said. “It is not your place or time to know the answers.”
I moved between the feuding gods and stood within the flames of the bonfire of the pixies. “Please, Great One,” I said. “Then answer for my sake and not for his. For as we can all see in this glade, the fire burns but does not consume me so the answers to his other questions must be in this world as well.” Zeus began to laugh at the sight of my form clothed in flames and the circling dance of the elementals of fire.
“Yes answer her, Forest Spirit,” the god paused to wipe tears of mirth from his eyes. “She is wiser than either of us and should know the truth. If my presence is the cause of your enmity, then I shall remove myself from the equation.” Then with a whisper of sound, Zeus changed back into a golden cloud and became a shower of wild flowers upon the forest floor. The pixies began murmuring to themselves again as I moved out of the flames of the bonfire and gathered the fallen blossoms in my arms.
“I bring these as a gift and apology to you, Great One,” I said and placed the flowers about the Horned King’s cloven feet. “I am sorry the companion who brought me to your threshold was so offensive to you. Those who guide and guard me have their own histories separate from my own and I am not always privy to their past transgressions or associations.”
“Flowers from the Meadow of the Sun and Moon,” breathed the god. “Your gift is richer than you know.” He leaned down, picked up one of the blossoms and some of the blood from his wound dripped to the ground. As he stood, Cernunnos held the delicate blossom between his finger and thumb and it changed into a glowing star and then back into a flower once more. “These bring some relief to my pain,” he said and rubbed the flower on his side where it was absorbed into the wound. Then the Horned King sighed as if coming to a decision at last.
“You are forgiven for coming to me in the company of a god of the sky, Heidi,” Cernunnos said. “Perhaps your openness of heart for all those in the worlds beneath the sun is a lesson for us all. Here is the knowledge the sky god sought: the answer to the first riddle as you demonstrated so adeptly is my glade and fire.”
“In the mind and in the heart, fires burn with desire and passion but do not consume any material other than the spirit,” the god continued. “These are the wounds that fester but are not seen, injuries that maim but do not kill such as the one that I’ve carried since time immemorial.”
“Allow me, Great One, to heal you,” I said. “I believe all even the deepest hurts may be made right and whole through the natural passage of time.”
“Some wounds may not be healed,” Cernunnos replied. “This is not my opinion on the matter, but a universal truth.”
“But I have had my eyes blessed by Love herself and drunk deeply of the waters of the goddess’ cup,” I said and the god’s eyes widened in surprise. “If there is anyone who can heal your wound, I suspect, Great One, that it is I and those who walk the paths with me.”
“How could this be?” he asked. “No one has seen the grail in ages of men and Love is not in the Inner Realms, at least not anymore.”
“Far away within the clouds, Cernunnos, there is a shining castle. Within its walls, hidden by desires and shielded by forgotten dreams, is the cup for those who would seek it. Love has hidden it well but not impossibly so. I swear this is true for I have walked there and seen its treasures with my own eyes,” I said. “As for Love herself, she shines with a light that comes not from others but from deep within herself. I have seen her calm the Halls of War with her mere presence and best Mars himself in battle. She is as real as you or I, Great One.” I moved closer to the god and put my hands on his side. “And the power she represents can heal all wounds and change all hearts. I give this gift to you in the name of Love and the one who set the universe in motion.”
A shudder moved through the Horned King and a great light burst from beneath my hands. He gave a loud cry and I echoed it as I felt the wound move from his side and appear on my own body. “I am healed!” the forest god announced and I fell backwards into the bonfire in a stupor.
My eyes closed as my consciousness fled from me. When I came to my senses, I found myself laying in the ashes of the bonfire of the pixies. Blood dripped from my side and my mouth as I groaned and pulled myself to my feet. As I moved from the ashes, flowers bloomed where my hands and feet touched the earth. There was far too much blood coming from my injuries so I put my hands over my side and the cut healed beneath them, but the wound of Cernunnos immediately reopened when I pulled my hands away. Abandoning my attempt at self healing, I struggled forward through the now empty glade into the dark trees. Flowers continued to appear in my wake.
“Hello,” I called into the woods. “Is anyone there? I need some guidance and a healer. Please help me.” A mist appeared and wrapped itself around me so that I could see neither where I had been nor where I was going. “Hello? Badger? Are you there?”
Disembodied voices emerged from the mist, wrapping me in their whispers. “The fire that does not consume. Where the spirit is unmasked… where the hound barks unseen… where the wounded god is healed… some wounds cannot be healed… cannot be healed… cannot be healed…”
I fell to my knees, my hands clasping my side. “That is not true,” I said to the mist. “All wounds can be healed.”
“What makes you so sure?” whispered the mist. “The evidence sits before you yet you deny the reality of your own experience.”
“Because Love conquers all things,” I said quietly. “I know this truth even though the shadows may try to prove it otherwise.” Once more, I asked for help from a higher power, light glowed beneath my hands and the wound upon my side disappeared. In my hands, a staff made of wood appeared. I used this staff to stand, feeling greatly weakened by taking on the Forest King’s wound.
The mist began to lessen around me. “After the confusion, fear, and doubt is banished,” the voices whispered. “A path appears.” I looked down and a white path made of crushed rock appeared beneath my feet. Whole in body again, I stood upon this path and prepared for the journey onwards.
“I require a guide for this place,” I said and Zeus burst from the ground. “Thank you for answering my request, Great One,” I said. “But I thought I left you behind in the Horned King’s glade.”
“I am a god, Heidi,” Zeus said. “There is no leaving me behind when I wish to move forward.”
“If only I had your strength of will,” I said. “Where do you think we should go now?”
“To visit my brother,” Zeus said and began to stride confidently away. The path started to circle itself and move downwards instead of forwards. With each step, Zeus and I moved more deeply into the ground.
“Which brother?” I asked. “If I remember the stories from the time before, I understand you had quite a few.”
“Hades,” he replied. “The Lord of the Underworld, Death, et cetera and so forth.”
“Oh, how nice to visit someone I’ve already met. I’ve had the pleasure of his company once before,” I said.
Zeus glanced in my direction. “I bet that was a dreary experience. My brother is not known for his ability to entertain,” the god said. “I find him to be a wet blanket upon the pleasures that move reality.”
“On the contrary,” I replied. “We sat at a kingly table and then Hades summoned the shades of the dead so that we could speak with them and absorb their wisdom. It was a learning experience for me, one that I will not soon forget.”
“Hades did that?” Zeus said in disbelief. “I wouldn’t have thought him capable of it.” Ahead, there was a growl in the dark. “Cerberus, I fed you as a pup,” the god said. “You remember me. Now quiet down and let us pass.” The growling ceased and we continued through the ground and observing shadows unmolested. Finally, we came to a gate made of bone set in a wall of darkness. Zeus banged on this door with a clenched fist.
“Brother! It is Zeus. Open up, you King of Bones and Rot.” There was silence. Zeus knocked on the door once more. “If you do not let us in, my companion can’t give you the gift she brought you,” the god said. “It is something that you desire very much.”
There was a whisper of motion and a dark robed figure stood next to Zeus before the gates to the underworld. “There is nothing in heaven or earth that I desire,” said Hades. “Begone back to the sky where you belong.”
“Not even your spear? The one you lost when the world was new?” Zeus said as his eyes twinkled with mirth. “You’re lying to yourself as well as I.”
“She has my weapon…” Hades’ dark hood swiveled towards me and skeletal hands reached towards the staff in my hands. “It belongs to me by right of conquest as well as birth.”
“Now brother,” Zeus laid a restraining hand on Hades’ arm. “You forget your manners. She is our guest and found your weapon hidden in the mists of the Forest God’s realm. Offer us the salt and cup as is our due or we will leave and you will never see your treasure again.”
Hades stood in silence for a moment but then waved his hands and a small bag of salt appeared in his right hand and a dark cup in his left. “Be welcome to my home, brother of my blood and companion of the path,” he murmured so quietly that I had to lean towards him to make out his words. “As you drink of my cup and taste of my repast, I extend to you my protection and succor within my realm and all the dominions that sway beneath my power.”
“Much better! Isn’t it lovely to speak the old forms once more?” said Zeus as he took a pinch of salt and a sip of water from the hands of the god. I did the same though I could taste nothing upon my tongue and felt the draught from Hades’ cup as a cool mist going down my throat rather than water.
Hades waved his hands again, causing the cup and salt to disappear as the gate opened before us. “The Realm of Death awaits your presence,” he murmured and we strode through the door into a world of caverns set deep beneath the earth. Two thrones appeared at the end of a walkway which ran between two deep chasms and Hades and Zeus moved towards these seats. I remained standing upon the path between the void, gripping the staff to steady myself upon the narrow way.
To my surprise, the tip of the staff which had appeared as twisted and shaped wood to my sight in the forest now shaped itself into a sharp point and fresh blood dripped continually from it. “I found this in the forest of Cernunnos after I took the god’s wound upon myself,” I said and bobbed my head respectfully as I handed it to Hades. “If it belongs to you, Great One, you are welcome to it. My weapons are those of the spirit and not the physical and I have no need of it.” As the god’s hand touched the spear, it disappeared from my sight.
Zeus cleared his throat loudly and looked expectantly at Hades. “Yes, yes,” said the darkly robed god of death. “I will give her a gift worthy of the one she has given me. You needn’t remind me, brother. I do remember the ways and forms of the living even though I have rarely demonstrated such knowledge.” His bony hand moved to the crown that was fully concealed beneath his shadowed hood. Then Hades brought forth a dark sapphire, the size of my fist. “Take this stone, Heidi. For your actions on my behalf, it is yours.”
“My thanks, Great One, but what is it?” I asked, accepting the gem from Hades’ hand. It sat heavily in my palm and weighed far more than my eyes estimated it should.
“Raise it to your eye and tell me what you see,” responded the Lord of Death.
I did as he requested and saw Hades, not as a skeleton clothed in a black robe, but as a young, vital man with chestnut colored hair and the features of Zeus, his brother. To his right, where Zeus had been seated, was a skeleton. I moved the stone from my eye and saw Zeus sitting next to Hades once more. “I see you within the stone, Lord Hades,” I said in wonder. “You are young and alive and your brother sits in your place as a god of the underworld rather than the sky.”
“I give you one of the Dreams of Death, a stone of the wise,” said the god. “Through it, you may view the world as I do, to see the spirit unmasked and the true nature of those whom you desire to understand.”
“Thank you, Great One. I expect I shall find much use from your dream in my travels,” I said and the vision dissolved around me into deep shadow.
When I could see again, I was laying once more in the ashes of the fire of the Horned King’s glade. Blood flowed from my side as before, but in my hand I grasped the dark sapphire of Hades, evidence of my recent sojourn to the underworld. In memory of that visit, I brought the stone to my eye and looked around the glade to see what I was missing outside of the Dream of Death.
Invisible to my unaided eyes, the stone revealed a blood hound prancing in excited circles about me. The hound’s mouth was opening and closing in a spirited bark but no sound reached my ears. When I brought the sapphire down, I could not see the hunting dog. It was only when I held the Dream of Death to my eye, that was I able to perceive the creature at all.
“How strange,” I said and knelt to pet the animal. She allowed me to rub her head and ears. “You must be the Hound that Barks Unheard and Unseen,” I said. “Where is your master?”
Feeling a premonitory fear grip my heart, I spun in a circle with the sapphire to my eye and directly behind me I came face to face with a snarling spirit in the form of an elf. He had a wooden spear raised and was ready to drive it into my side, exactly where the wound from the Horned King kept reappearing.
“I see you!” I cried and the hunter paused his assault. “Why do you attack me? I have done no harm to you or yours.” The elf moved his lips and his angry voice came from the stone in my hand.
“No living thing has ever seen me,” he said, his tone filled with menace. “I am he who strikes unseen and returns again and again to hunt. You are my prey, foolish forest sprite, as are all who walk beneath the eaves of this wood.”
“I am no sprite, but a woman from another world,” I said. “How dare you hunt the children of Cernunnos and the Green Lady. What is your name so I may speak to them of your unwelcome incursions?”
“They know my name well and have no power over me. I am Doubt. I am Anguish. I am Fear,” he growled. “Others have called me, Anxiety. Long have I walked here and none may send me hence.”
“I see you, Anxiety, through the lens of one who dwells far beyond your power,” I said. “Now go and trouble me no more or I will ask the Lord of Death to remove you from this world to dwell within the shadows of his.”
“I will return to break you,” snapped the spirit. “All the living are within my power, even those who share a dream with Death himself.” Despite his threats, the spirit obeyed me and moved away into the forest with the friendly hound at his heels, seeking easier prey.
“And I will be ready for you, Anxiety,” I said. “God willing.” I put the sapphire from Hades in my pocket for safe keeping.
And my vision ended.
The Light Congress 