Gate: Death
I stepped through the vision gate and saw an enormous serpent made of light, spinning in space, chasing his own tail. The serpent spun closer and abruptly swallowed me.
I opened my eyes and was standing in a graveyard. A giant moved among the graves, placing flowers by the headstones.
Suddenly, a small voice came from behind me, “Get down, don’t let him see you!” Unseen hands pulled me behind a grave marker. I turned to see who was speaking to me and beheld a huge, anthropomorphic mushroom.
“Why are we hiding?” I said. “I don’t think the giant would hurt us. See how he tends to the graves?”
The mushroom said, “The giant, who tends the eternal graveyard, believes there is a time for the living and a time for the dead. If he sees you, he’ll make you leave.”
“But I’m only passing through,” I said.
“Even so,” said the mushroom. “Follow me, I’ll take you to a safer place.”
Together, we moved quickly from headstone to headstone, hiding from the view of the graveyard guardian. We came to an open grave where the mushroom took a leap into the hole and I followed.
I hung for a moment in complete darkness, but then the sun began to rise over a distant horizon. Disembodied music came from the sunrise.
The bright morning light revealed a paradise. Flowers, trees, and verdant hills seemed to go on forever into the distance.
Then, I heard laughter and discovered I was on the shore of a huge lake. Men and women stood where the land met the water and greeted travelers who came across the lake.
The travelers themselves seemed dazed initially because of the distance they had traversed, but were soon engulfed by the enthusiastic greetings of the crowd that they instantly became more awake and aware.
“You see the moment of death,” a voice said. I turned to see a being who was made of the waters of the lake. He was only vaguely human shaped.
“The living cross the water and are reunited with their loved ones who have gone before them,” said the river guardian. Together, the being and I watched these interactions for a time.
“What comes after death?” I asked.
“I’ll show you,” said the guardian and sloshed to the ground where he became a serpent. The snake guided me farther into the forests of a paradise beyond death. In that peaceful, extraordinary place, I continued to hear music coming from the sun.
Occasionally, we passed groups of celebrants who moved through this world. There was laughter, smiles, and stories being traded back and forth.
Then, the living water serpent took me to a place beyond the forests, a barren spot at the base of a cliff dotted with many caves. I could not hear the music from the sun in this place. Instead, I heard groans and cries of distress.
“Sometimes, ideas and dreams are separated from the persons crossing the lake,” explained the snake. “These are the caves of those who became confused while crossing the threshold of death. I thought you may be able to help these lost ones find their way.”
“I am always willing to try to help,” I said. “What do you suggest?”
“If I knew what to do,” said the guardian. “I would have done it already.”
“Hello!” I called out. The wailing ceased and an eerie silence took its place.
“Those in the caves, can you hear me?” I asked. The silence continued. Suddenly, I multiplied so there was one of me for every one of the lost ones’ abodes.
I focused so I was only perceiving one cave, rather than the many, and I knocked at a doorway made of carven wood. Small whimpering sounds came from the darkness beyond the door.
“Is anyone there?” I asked and entered without invitation. A shadowy figure was clawing the rock at the back of the cave.
“The way out, the way out, the way out…” the shadow said and scrabbled at the stone.
“If you would just turn around,” I said. “The way out is behind you.”
“There is no way out,” said the creature.
She was covered with dark, furry hair and had tusks coming out of her mouth as well as two small horns on her head. Her claw-like hands were bloodied with her struggle.
“Give me your hand,” I said and, tremblingly, she did. As she touched me, her fur disappeared and, surprisingly, the hand that appeared was rather small and delicate.
“Can’t you see the sun shining through the doorway?” I asked. I encouraged the shadow towards the door.
She reached the threshold and the creature with the bleeding claws turned into a young child. I saw the child was myself.
“They told me I had to grow up,” she said. “And I didn’t know how.” She took two steps through the carved doorway and was gone.
Then, I saw myself in another cave with a different lost one. This shadow-like figure was screaming and drawing her claws over the cave wall. Again and again, she raked her bleeding paws over the rock, creating a spiral pattern from her own blood.
“Wait,” I said and reached into my pocket. I pulled out a crayon made of light. “Try this,” I said and gave it to the shadow.
She gave a cry and scribbled a doorway into the rock of the cave. This doorway came alive with light. As the creature went through the doorway, she turned and I saw the figure was again myself.
“I knew there was a way out,” she said.
“Why didn’t you just leave from the front door of the cave?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t want to go that way,” she said. “Everyone goes that way. I am going this way.” Then, she too was gone.
I blinked and was at yet another cave. This shadow creature stood at the very threshold, gazing out into the forest beyond the barren cliffs. She stood silent and still, looking outwards.
“Would you like to leave this place?” I asked. “Only a few steps and you will be in an entirely new world.”
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered.
“Believe what?” I asked.
“I don’t believe my eyes. I don’t believe there’s a sun rising. I don’t believe in any of it,” yet even as she said these words, the creature continued to stare at the heavenly landscape beyond the darkness. “If I exit this cave, I will disappear into nothingness.”
“Not true,” I said. “I am as real as anything here.”
“If you are real,” the shadow said. “Then you can come into this cave with me.”
So, I entered the watcher’s cave. Unlike the other, rather shallow caves I had experienced, this one continued on, deeper into the darkness.
I asked, “What’s down there?” But, I had lost the being’s attention. She was looking away from the cave into the worlds beyond death.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered once more.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
And, with a pat on the monster’s shoulder, I moved deeper into the cave.
Red flames flickered on the walls to the sound of sinister laughter. I saw crowds of people, fighting and running in panicked waves from each other in a large cavern. They fought, screamed, and ran around like rats in a cage.
Uncontrolled fires burned. The people ran from the flames and each other. They ran and fought and ran.
Above it all, on a throne of darkness, sat my shadow self. She laughed at the chaos before her.
“You’ve chased me out of other places, but this is my cave. I will not be moved,” she said.
A throne of light appeared behind my shadow’s throne and I sat to contemplate the situation. Where the light from the throne touched, the fires went out and the mob ceased its wandering. The people changed into water and the cavern was filled with a peaceful, clear lake.
My shadow looked at the changes in her cave. “You ruin all the dark places,” she said. “Why can’t you just let me have a little bit of fun for once.”
“I’ve never seen anything beneficial come out of the shadow,” I said.
“I’ll show you!” she exclaimed, and flew off of her throne and dived into the lake.
There was a roiling of waves and a creature emerged from the depths. A whirlpool whipped into being with the monster at its center. Shadow laughed and flew around this monstrosity.
“There’s a perfect example of why I don’t let you make anything,” I said. “Who would want a swirling, whirlpool of death?”
“It’s perfect for a Cave of Doubt!” Shadow pulled me towards the whirlpool.
I waved a hand over the hideous vision. It disappeared beneath the waves as quickly as it had risen.
“Can’t you make anything that doesn’t consume, ruin lives, or break?” I asked.
Shadow turned away from me in a huff. “I don’t have to prove anything to you,” she said and gestured once more.
From the ocean, there arose an enormous, black pearl. Shadow went to a doorway in the side of the pearl and I followed.
Children made of darkness ran out of catacombs built into the sloping walls of the pearl. “Mother, mother!” they yelled.
Some embraced my shadow and joined her darkness, becoming one with her, while others touched her arms and legs, became more substantial and ran off, back into the black pearl.
“My dear ones,” she said, kissing their foreheads as she went. “See all of the little anxieties, fears, doubts, and nightmares I’ve created? They make me so proud.”
Though her shadow children were very small, Shadow lavished attention on them all.
Finally, we reached the very center of the black pearl where a bright light shone into the darkness.
“You can’t have the father of my children,” Shadow said and she threw herself between me and a man made of light who reclined on a couch at the pearl’s center.
He was fast asleep, in a glass coffin built up from the floor, like a mythical Sleeping Beauty. Black roses grew from the base of his coffin and wrapped around it.
Shadow leapt over the thorny mess and put her hands lovingly against the glass.
“He doesn’t wake very often, but when he does, he belongs to me,” she said. Shadow drew her fingers over the glass, wistfully.
Michael, my angel guide, appeared.
“You remember the balance of the light and dark?” he asked. “If she has an animus, then you, Heidi, must have one too.”
“Please take me to him because I don’t remember the way,” I said.
Michael led me back down the hallways of the black pearl where the lost shadow children snarled in the darkness.
We passed through the door of the black pearl and I saw, resting atop the waves, another shining pearl.
Children made of light swarmed from every corner of this pearl. “Mother!” they cried. Smiling, bright children kissed my hands and hugged me as if they knew and loved me though I did not recognize them.
“Your burgeoning ideas, dreams, and hopes,” Michael said. “They dwell here too. The balance of the light and the dark is in all things.”
“I had no idea there were so many,” I said as the crowds of children continued to pour towards us. Michael gently encouraged the children to each side so we could pass further into the pearl.
We came to the center where shadows emanated from a sleeping form. He was as beautiful in his darkness as Shadow’s man was in his light. He also slept in a glass coffin, raised from the floor. Around this coffin, instead of thorns, there were ropes of green ivy.
On the side of the coffin, written in letters of gold, it said: From out of the darkness, there will come a great light. I knelt and traced these words with my fingertips.
“One of the sources of your creative energy,” Michael said. “Together, you create the children of light you bring into the world. When that happens, your pearl and Shadow’s splits open, and your light and dark creations stream forth.”
“They fight in your mind- a clash of light and shadow,” he continued. “When the creations are strong, so too is the struggle with the dark.”
I gazed at the male beauty within the glass. “Do I fear this man and the shadows he casts?” I asked.
“He is thine own self,” Michael said. “You do not fear what or who you are.”
I blinked and found myself sitting back in the Cave of Doubt with the shadow who gazed perpetually outwards.
I was holding a white and black pearl, miniatures of the versions I had just passed through.
“Do you believe in anything?” I asked the watcher.
“I believe in the progress of the logical mind,” she replied.
“Do you believe in medicine to cure illness?” I asked.
The being gazed at me, speculatively. “I believe in this, yes.”
“Take these pills,” I said. “I think they will cure you.”
Without hesitation, the shadow swallowed the pearls with a gulp. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, all of the fur fell off the creature and she transformed into a beautiful, naked woman. The pearls caused instant pregnancy and she went from non-pregnant to very pregnant in a matter of moments.
She gave a great cry, fell to the ground, and gave birth to twins. One of the boys was made of light and the other of shadow.
She held them in her arms for just an instant, then they grew, punched each other playfully and ran out of the cave.
“Wait for me!” she cried and ran after them without a backward glance. The shadow had found a reason to believe and to leave the Cave of Doubt. I was relieved for her change of heart and happy to watch her escape.
I exited the cliff with its many caves and a version of me exited from all of the other doorways at the same time. These various versions of me fell out of the rock tunnels and collapsed back into one being. The cliff crumbled into dust after their exit. Grass quickly covered the barren space and turned into a field of blooming wildflowers of assorted hues.
The serpent made of living water reappeared. “You saved them,” he said. Then, he shaped himself into a small lizard and skittered onto my shoulder. “Do you remember me?” he said. “I’m Lickspittle. You must remember me, of course.”
“Lickspittle,” I said. “Are you dead since you dwell in the lands beyond death?”
“Death is merely a doorway into another form of existence,” he said. “I’m as real as anyone here.”
After exchanging a grin, Lickspittle and I gazed into the sun, which, as long as I had been in that place, seemed perpetually rising. Then, the light in the sky changed into a serpent made of flame. The sun came closer and opened his mouth wide. He then swallowed us and my vision ended.
The Light Congress 