Gate: The Chariot
I entered the vision gate and found myself on the back of a white horse. My mouth was open in a scream of defiance and I held a shining spear as I led the charge of a legion of warriors on fleet horses and we raced across a barren plain towards a towering giant made of shadow. Before we reached our destination, the mounts and their riders changed into water and soon it was as if I rode my stallion upon the foamy crest of an unstoppable ocean wave. As water, the legion and I crashed into the giant, but could not pass through the being of flesh and blood as if he were a wall rather than a spirit.
“Warriors of Light, we must rise like the tide and grow like the mighty redwoods to defeat this shadow!” I said to the waves about me. “As we are, we are too small to make a difference. We will pull back, regroup and try again. My legion are you with me?”
“Where are you, spirit of water?” came a voice from above and the giant reached down with a shadowy hand, raking the waves with his fingers. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” In a flash of insight, I realized the giant was seeking The Light Congress and I, and I knew a moment of intense fear and panic that I would be taken by the shadows. When the giant reached down unerringly in my direction, sensing me somehow even though I was tiny compared to him, I transferred my consciousness into the numerous bubbles upon the waves. My vision shattered into pieces and, for a time, I knew nothing else.
When I could perceive my surroundings again, I found myself staring blankly into an inky fog made of coal smoke rather than mist from the ocean. I had a sinking feeling in my heart because my soldiers had just vanished in civilization’s smoke and I was all alone. As I observed the shadows closing around me as surely as doors on a cage and considered what I should do next to find the lost legion, some arcane energy swirled within the darkness, forming a doorway where there had previously been nothing at all. I grabbed the door handle as the shadows had left so small a space to exist that I couldn’t breathe without its joy-stealing presence entering my spirit and passed through the door into another place.
The second I had established myself in the new world within the coal smoke, an enormous sword, wider than my body, came pushing down into the space where I had just entered. “Where are you!” came a scream and the sword was withdrawn. I had only a moment to run a few steps when the sword fell again, exactly where I had been standing. “You are ocean scum!” screamed the voice. “Surrender now, you fishy bastard!”
“What a rude thing to say,” I murmured to myself as I began to run, dodging the attacks from what I assumed was a malevolent giant of some sort. “I wonder who has vexed him so from the water worlds that he’s after a harmless wandering spirit like me?”
I raced onwards into a world as empty and lightless as the void, dodging one sword attack after another until I came to a place where the shadow was manifest as a sticky substance like tar. This substance dripped down upon me from above and not only could I not shake it from my spirit but the lines of darkness sticking to me changed into chain-like threads the size of my wrist. “I’ve got you now, water sprite,” said the voice as I found myself trapped in a web of shadow and darkness. “Haephestus’ net always captures the best fish for my table and you are no exception. Let’s get a look at the size of you and see how well I’ll be eating tonight.”
I was lifted from the void into a realm above by the shadow net and found myself gazing into the face of a giant with thick black hair and eyes so blue that they were nearly neon. “Well, what do we have here?” he said as I stared into the giant’s eyes, wordless with terror. “What a pleasant surprise to catch a daughter of water instead of a son. You will be much more tender than their stringy warrior flesh and far less fishy. What fruit shall I pair you with?”
“You can’t eat me,” I said, finding my voice at last. “I am a messenger from the Creator of All and I come from another world. I’ll vanish from this reality long before you get around to carving me up.”
“Is that so?” the giant said. “You may find it difficult to move between worlds if you aren’t conscious, mouthy fish.” Before I could respond, the giant smashed a fist into the side of the net and my vision dissolved into particles of light and shadow.
When I opened my eyes, I discovered I was in a dank dungeon made of stone and chained by my hands and neck to the wall. Across the cell only a short distance away, there was a spirit in the shape of a man made entirely of shadow. He was bound as I was but entirely conscious and studying me with eyes made of flame as I returned to my senses.
“Hello, Shadowman,” I said when the silence became unbearable beneath the weight of his attention. “What’s the game today?”
“It’s not a game, I’m afraid,” the Shadowman said. “What’s your name, spirit of water? Tell me and I’ll tell your story after he eats you for his supper. Your loss will be avenged in time and your part of the forgotten knowledge will live on in me.”
“No one is going to eat me because I’ll just open my eyes in my waking world and end this vision,” I said. “My name is Heidi and I come from another world seeking the true nature of all I encounter and carry that knowledge back with me to the worlds I know.”
“Gigantus hit you really hard, didn’t he? I’m sorry for it,” the Shadowman said. “Hold onto your dreams and fantasies, Heidi of the Waves, until the carving knife touches your throat and you’ll be the happier for it if dead all the same.”
“It’s neither a dream or fantasy but a fact that my body is in another place while my spirit is here,” I said. “What is your name? I will write it down when I return home and use it to come back and execute a rescue plan if I can’t find a way to free you today from this awful prison.”
“I’ll play along with your pretend, silly sprite, just to pass the time. We both know no one is coming to free us from this hell. Tell me my name,” the Shadowman said. “It’s easy. Who do I look like from the world you know? The spirits of this place always make me look like well-known people from the worlds above to keep my cellmates calm until it is time for their harvesting.”
“Ummm,” I said, peering into the darkness across the cell. The Shadowman looked at me expectantly with the flames dancing in the place of his eyes and, no matter how hard I squinted or blinked, his shape remained exactly the same. “I’m really sorry, but you just look like a man-shaped shadow on the wall to me. Is that someone famous from your world?”
The flames of his countenance stopped dancing and the spirit’s eyes became two steady beams of light like stars descended from the night sky. “How about now?” the Shadowman said, a challenge in his voice.
“Well, now you look like Father Time,” I said. “But he is definitely not of my waking world. I met that spirit in the realm of Unity once long ago.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” the Shadowman said. “The giant must have scrambled your brain like an egg. Where I come from, everybody knows the face I am presenting to you.”
“Now I really want to know your name,” I said. “And my brain is perfectly fine, thank you very much.”
“My name matches my face which I can’t see but you can,” the Shadowman said. “This isn’t supposed to be difficult. Help me help you, Heidi.”
“There is no one in my waking world who looks like a man made entirely of shadows,” I said. “The only ones you look like are spirits from The Light Congress like Father Time, my vision of the Animus, or a male version of my own Shadow who is a force of Nature and a constant nuisance to my Inner Worlds. I’m sorry I can’t see past your concealing shadows but that’s the truth.”
“Light Congress?” the Shadowman said. “No one outside of the brotherhood is supposed to know that designation, especially a woman embodied. Who are you?”
“I told you, my name is Heidi and…” I said.
At that moment, the door to the dungeon was thrown open with a bang and the hungry giant the Shadowman had named Gigantus came stomping into the cell. “Time to die, tasty fish,” he said and reached towards my chains with his massive grasping hands.
As I began to panic, I felt a tremendous power outside of my own entering my spirit. I opened my mouth to command the giant to release me and the Shadowman but instead of words only a thick mist smelling of the salt of the ocean came out. The giant moved his focus from my chains to my throat, preparing to throttle me to stop the concealing mist that poured unstoppably out of my mouth.
“Is your name really Heidi?” the Shadowman called from across the cell. “Tell me, please!” Hidden from Gigantus and his prisoner by the unexpected mist, I found myself changing from a woman of flesh and blood into a vaguely humanoid shaped collection of water, slipping from my chains and the giant’s hands as easily as a shadow. I raced across the floor of the prison as water and stood as close to the Shadowman as I could while the giant raged across the cell seeking me.
“I will come back for you,” I wrote in misty letters before the Shadowman’s dancing eyes of flame since I still lacked a voice to speak.
“Never make a promise you can’t keep,” the prisoner murmured.
“Come back here, tricky fish! You’re my dinner!” the giant roared as I fell as ocean water between the cracks of the dungeon’s stones and into another place.
When I could perceive my surroundings again, the giant, Shadowman and prison were gone and I found myself standing on the edge of a tall cliff with a sheer drop at my feet. A wind came from the gulf beyond and blew my hair back from my forehead. “What a frustrating entrance to this vision,” I spoke into the breeze. “That chained spirit never told me his name so how am I supposed to find him again?”
“As the sun rises and sets and seasons change as the years pass,” whispered a voice upon the breeze. “All names and secret associations will be revealed in the fullness of time.”
“Yes, all is well within my spirit and without, but I worry all the same. I hope the prince in the dungeon does not suffer while he spends his hours and days in Gigantus’ prison, spirit of the air,” I said. “The form he was presenting to me should not have been able to be chained. No one can capture or contain a shadow, not really, even hungry giants.”
“Even you, little shadow?” whispered the winds. “Are you bound by forces outside of your control?”
“I’m no shadow,” I said, turning away from the cliff edge. “I am of the Light and shall ever be so.”
“Prove it,” sighed the wind.
“I grow tired of proving myself and true nature to those I encounter in the Inner Worlds,” I said, moving down the path and away from the oceanic view.
“I am too,” whispered the wind. “Why don’t you fly to places unknown with me and we can forget our troubles for a little while?”
“I would love to escape my current circumstances,” I said, changing my descent into an ascent once more. “The Eternal War is such a spirit-sapping enterprise. Why can’t we accept our shadows as our own?” When I reached the end of the path above the ocean, I opened my arms and cast myself off the edge of the cliff. The spirit of the air caught me in his invisible arms and bore me above the ocean waves into another world.
As we traveled, my body began to dissolve into particles of light while my traveling companion remained invisible and unseen. Soon, we were just a collection of lights, soaring along the upper air currents into a great unknown.
Other beings made of light appeared in the skies with us and we flew onwards, together but separate. Again, a great shadow appeared on the horizon but this time it took the form of an enormous wall rather than a living giant. The questing lights and I collided with it again. This time, because we were particles of light rather than beings of water, the shadow wall intermingled with us, and began to dance and spin with the light we had carried within ourselves to that dark place.
We flipped and spun together, darkness and light spinning and forming ourselves into a tunnel-like path of light and shifting shadows. I found myself pulled to this tunneled path, forced from my form as a particle of dancing light held by a spirit of the air into my waking world body of a woman of flesh and blood, and I slipped down this tunnel as if upon a child’s slide to the ground below.
As I reached the earth, the spinning funnel of light and shadow became attached to the back of my head and held me in place. I could move neither forwards nor backwards because of the enormous confluence of light and dark particles that were flowing into my spirit from the sky above. I tugged fruitlessly at the path that had become a prison, desiring to explore the world but caught by circumstances outside of my control.
“I require a guide and some serious help,” I said aloud, struggling to pull away from whatever was holding me in place. “Light Congress? Are you there? Anyone?” I finally gave up the fight and sat on the ground in a meditative posture when a whisper emerged from the earth below me.
“Echo… Echo… Echo…” the voice said, and my old friend Echo appeared. She was formed of darkness and shadows rather than her customary mirrored body and waved to me excitedly in greeting.
“Hello Echo, I’m stuck,” I said and tried to pull away from the funnel again, but without success. “Do you have any idea what this chain is? It’s on the back of my head and I only glimpsed it as I fell from above.”
“That’s the greater part of your consciousness and maybe you should visualize it as a path and not a chain,” whispered Echo in an approximation of my voice. “You’re not stuck; you’re growing. See how it gathers into you?”
“Greater part?” I said. “What does that mean? Why is it all light and shadow mixed together?”
“It represents your conscious and subconscious spirit entering your waking world form,” she whispered. “Isn’t it marvelous? Look at the sheer size of it. What a gift.”
“It may be marvelous, Echo, but I can’t move because my spiritual life is so vast and my conscious life is not,” I said. “Could you help me learn to be a being of two worlds? I’m totally unprepared for this calling or path as you say.”
“What you ask is beyond my ability,” whispered Echo. “But I will call someone who can help you in your present circumstances.” She raised her shadowy hands above her head and bent at the waist, slapping them on the ground where they made the sound of glass shattering. “Mother!” she called out as she sank into the earth. “Your daughter requests your exalted presence!”
A rumble filled my senses and a goddess made of the night sky and stars rose from the ground where Echo had disappeared. She saw my predicament at once and began to laugh, emitting dozens of fairy thoughts from her form as she did so.
“Oh Heidi,” the Divine Mother said, laughing still. “What are you doing? You look ridiculous.” The fairies from the Mother gathered about me giggling with the sound of miniscule bells and bumping into each other as they fought for the best places to touch my light and shadow path from the sky.
“Thank you for answering Echo’s call. I’m exploring consciousness, Mother,” I said, standing from the ground in the goddess’ cloud of fairies. “But I’m stuck in one place. How do I walk a path that starts on the back of my head?”
“You’re not going to get very far unless we can assimilate more of your greater being into your light body,” she explained, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “I’m sorry to laugh but you look so silly, all spread out like that from the ground to the skies above.”
“I’m sure I’d find it funny too if I could move from this one spot,” I said, giving another experimental tug at the ties that bound me. “As it is, I feel caged. Which reminds me, have you ever heard of a spirit called Gigantus?”
At the mention of my previous jailor’s name, the goddess’ aspect changed from a robed woman formed of the night sky and stars to a female warrior shielded in thick armor and armed with a spear made of starlight. “We know that giant for we fought him when the worlds were new and will fight him again now to save our children from his ceaseless hunger for their flesh,” the goddess said, a chorus of voices flowing from her throat. “Where is he so that he may die at our hand once more?”
“He pulled me from the waves with a net made of inescapable darkness, Mother, and struck me, blinding me with unconsciousness so that I couldn’t see the hidden path to his realm,” I said. “When I was about to be cooked for his dinner, some unknown power changed me into water so I was able to seep into the ground and escape but there is a man of shadows in his dungeons who I swore I would return to free.”
“He holds another of our children? It is well you were able to bring us word of this. That crafty monster knows spirits of the same element draw each other through the worlds and used the presence of one of our sons to pull you from the deep seas. You are fortunate that the powers that be helped you escape but if we do not rescue this chained spirit the same fate can and will befall another, it is only a matter of time,” the warrior goddess said. “The solution to our problem is simple. How did you come to this place? I will retrace the steps of your journey to find Gigantus’ lair.”
“One of the spirits of the wind brought me hence,” I said. “We were dancing through the skies with friends but when we attempted to scale a wall made of shadow, the wall became one with me and changed me from light into a woman. Then I fell from above and became as you see me now, a bridge between the earth and sky.”
The goddess’ aspect began to change again from her warrior shape back to the robed woman of sky and stars. “The children of the air are unbound so you may have come from anywhere throughout the worlds,” the Mother said. “Let us address your unincorporated state first. While we do, I’ll send my thoughts up above and they will skip back to where you started your dance and then we will concern ourselves with battling the giants. Don’t worry, Heidi, we will find the spirit in the chains eventually.”
“Thank you, Great One,” I said as the fairies of the Mother began to climb the path of light and shadow from my spirit to the skies. “I bow to your superior wisdom and understanding as always.”
The Divine Mother shrugged her shoulders, sending thousands of her thoughts from her form into existence and, as she did, her dark, star-filled hair danced into motion around her as if each strand was a living intelligence. Then she began to gather the strands together and braid them into a single plait with three parts. As the goddess shaped her hair into an intricate knot, she began to sing:
Gather the energy, gather the wild,
Gather the light, into my child.
Take her and make her into the divine,
A body of light with her essence combine.
As the Divine Mother braided her long tresses, I stepped outside of my own form and saw all of the light and shadow that was trapping me in place begin to draw together and come down through the path into my spirit, filling my mind and heart with its blended particles as the fairies continued to travel along the way created from the earth to the heavens.
After glimpsing what was occurring all around me, I was pulled back into my body. The goddess continued to sing and, as the last of her thoughts made their way into the skies, she reached the end of her braid with these words:
Mars and Venus, Earth and Moon,
All planet energies start to commune.
Unite greater knowing, unite greater part,
Here is your body. Here is your heart.
The Divine Mother removed her hands from her braid and I found myself filled with a numinous radiance. I was finally able to move my physical limbs and I walked towards the Mother, expressing gratitude from my heart with every step I took for her succor.
I found words falling unbidden from my lips:
First steps along the path divine,
Towards one another, his and mine.
Fairy children lend your might,
Take us safely through the fight.
The goddess smiled at me and raised one hand in benediction. “Walk the paths in service to the Creator of All as you always have and fear no shadows, Heidi,” she said. “My thoughts will return to you when they find him.” The Divine Mother’s form expanded into a cloud filled with fairies which flew in all directions, becoming a misty fog but with a material weight like cotton that filled my vision. I began pushing aside fluffy swathes of it to move forward through the world in an effort to see where I was at the present moment in time.
“Hello!” I called into the shadows. “Is anyone there? I require some guidance!” There came a sound like cloth tearing and a rip appeared in reality. A hand reached through and took my hand, then I was pulled through this doorway into another place.
“Welcome to the Other Side of the Mirror,” said the owner of the hand. I looked into the face of my rescuer and discovered Echo. In this new world, she had her own voice and a real body of flesh and blood like my own. The embodied Echo was a beautiful woman with black hair so long it trailed down her body and dragged on the floor. “Welcome to my father’s kingdom, Heidi,” she said, giving me a hug. “I was unsure if you’d ever be able to make it here or if I’d be forced to spend our entire life gazing at you through the glass.”
“If it wasn’t for the Divine Mother’s intervention, I’m not sure I would have been able to travel anywhere in the Inner Worlds ever again,” I said. “Anyway, I didn’t know there was another side to the mirror. What fun to explore your world!”
“Come on,” Echo said. “I can’t wait until the others get a good look at you. They all said you were a figment of my imagination and didn’t exist in any world.”
“We’ll show them,” I said as she took my hand and began to lead me through a gray stone castle. After a time, we came upon a long banquet hall lined with mirrors. Lords and ladies wearing clothing from many different eras feasted at marble tables within this space as well as upon red and gold Roman couches lining the wall opposite to the mirrors.
“This is my family,” said Echo, gesturing at the crowd. “We are the spirits of every mirror on Earth, gathered to commune in my father’s house.” As we began to walk the length of the hall, the revelers paused in their merriment to wave enthusiastically as we passed by. “This is Heidi. I told you she was real,” Echo called out as we moved through the crowd and an excited murmur began to follow our steps.
“It’s Heidi!” came whispers from the feasting spirits as well as the mirrors. “It’s Heidi Wiechert!”
“Seriously?” said one of the mirrors. “She doesn’t look anything like I thought she would.”
“That’s not her,” said another. “She looks like a troll.”
“I knew she looked like that,” came another whisper. “I told you so and shut your stupid mouth. You’re the troll, not her.”
“Ignore them,” Echo said as we continued down the hall. “They’re obsessed with how spirits look.”
“Reminds me of when I met you in the realm of Narcissus and I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment,” I said, waving blithely back at all who had their attention upon me. “Does every mirror have a guiding spirit?”
“Everyone and everything in existence has a guiding spirit,” Echo clarified. “But not everyone can speak with them as directly as you and I.”
“Without The Light Congress, I don’t think I would have survived the passage to this place,” I said and Echo squeezed my hand.
“I know,” she said. “I don’t like to think about what could have befallen you because it makes me sad. Let’s get away from this judgemental crowd and visit my father. He is a great power here in his own realm and much kinder towards visitors from the other side than these revelers.”
“If your father is who I think he is, I believe he is a great power in my Inner Worlds too,” I said and together Echo and I left the hall of feasting mirrored spirits. We moved through another stone hallway with our steps echoing in the sudden stillness.
Echo’s long black hair trailed behind us as we passed deeper into the Other Side of the Mirror’s realm. “I’m unaccustomed to traveling the slow way outside of the mirrors,” Echo said as the hall went on and on. “But I will not risk losing you to the other side when we’ve just succeeded in getting you here.”
“I don’t mind it,” I said. “My waking world existence has made me quite used to walking from place to place. After a while, you begin to forget there’s any other way to travel.”
“What a nightmare,” Echo said with a shudder. “Take heart, we’re almost there.” Finally, we reached the end of the hall and arrived at another doorway with a frame and lintel of burnished red metal. Once we had passed through the doorway, I beheld steps leading up to a throne upon which sat a spirit whose face I had last seen within the Mirror of Shadows.
“Father, King of Mirrors and Reflective Worlds,” Echo said. “Here is Heidi. She has come to visit you, at long last.” As we reached the base of the stairs, the shadowed king bowed his head to me in acknowledgment.
As I bowed back, I saw for a fleeting moment, a bright light shining around the back of the Mirror of Shadow’s throne, outlining it in a brilliant glow. This new energy looked like a person made entirely of light, who was shining too fiercely to see in any detail. Then she was gone, hidden behind the throne once more.
“Welcome to my kingdom, the Other Side of the Mirror,” said the king solicitously. “I hope you did not find the passage too arduous.”
“Great One, King of Reflections and Mirror of Shadows,” I said. “I have never had a chance to thank you for your creation of portals in my inner worlds. With your help, I have traveled with ease to places that I never even dreamed of. Thank you for that.” The king smiled, waving away my thanks as if it hardly mattered.
“My daughter Echo made the task as simple as breathing,” the king said. “It is she who deserves the lion’s share of your thanks, not I.”
“Be that as it may,” I said. “If there is any way I can repay a small part of the blessings you have bestowed upon me, I would know it and return the favor to you.”
The king gazed into the distance for a moment as if listening to a voice from very far away. “Grant unto me permission to communicate with you through any mirrored surface in existence and your debt shall be repaid,” he said.
“You should agree,” Echo whispered in her father’s voice beside me. “If he can speak with you in this manner, I can too. I like talking to you, Heidi.”
“I like talking with you too, Echo,” I said, considering the request for a moment only. “I can’t see the harm in it. Permission granted, Great One, and I hope this begins a dialogue between your world and mine that is of benefit to all in existence.”
“May the powers that be grant your desire,” the king said solemnly and we sealed our pact with a moment of silence and complete stillness.
“If I may ask you a further question,” I said, breaking the silence at last and the king nodded his permission. “When I entered your throne room, I saw a bright light in the shape of a person behind your seat of power. Who dwells in your shadow, Great One?”
“We were unsure you would be able to perceive her; how happy that you can. You glimpsed my wife and queen,” said the king. “She is the Lady of the Mirrored Light and Echo’s mother.”
“Echo called her mother to help me when I became stuck between the earth and sky. She appeared as the Divine Mother to my sight for I have a rather unique way of viewing my Inner Worlds,” I said. “I owe her my thanks as well. Why does she not sit beside you if you rule this world together?”
“Our polarities are opposite so it causes her great discomfort to dwell closely,” said the king. “She sits behind me, facing reality the other way, so that she is not troubled by my shadow nor I by hers. It is a compromise that allows us to exist in the same world.”
“But neither of us are content with the situation,” he continued with a sigh. “We are together, but apart. I am sure you understand for it is quite like viewing your reflection in a mirror. Would you like to speak with her?”
“I would, Great One,” I said. “Very much. But first, I desire to further understand your wisdom. If you wanted those in my waking world to know one message from yours, what would it be? Tell me and I will take the knowledge back with me when I depart.”
The shadowed king rose from his chair and raised his hands in a complex form of benediction. “Look deeply into the darkness. Look deeply into the light,” he said. “Do not fear either. For within these dreams of reality, dwell self-knowledge and freedom. This is true for my world and yours and all the others.” The king’s eyes changed into silvered mirrored surfaces, then his face, hands, and body transformed as well.
For a moment, I found myself gazing into the Mirror of Shadows, a giant spinning mirror standing in a golden gilt frame, but then he became more. Where the king had once stood, now there was a doorway at the top of the steps. “Give my Queen my love and express to her my undying devotion,” the king said. “Tell her to expect a visit from me on the next new moon.”
“I will do so, Great One, with pleasure,” I said. “Thank you for allowing me to act as a messenger of Love for you.” Then, Echo took my hand and together we climbed the stairs, and passed through the door into another place.
We found ourselves at the bottom of yet another set of stairs. At the top, a being made of shining light sat on a glowing throne. “Mother!” said Echo and she practically flew up the steps. “It has been too long. I missed you!”
“My child, my Unity with the shadows, my dear Echo,” whispered the Queen. She reached out and gently touched Echo’s face with her fingertips. I came closer and saw the Queen had dark gray eyes with no pupils and appeared to be completely blind.
“I’ve brought a friend,” said Echo, moving to stand beside her mother upon the dais. “Her name is Heidi,” she continued. “Our father knows her well from previous adventures and now she has come to learn about you.”
“Is that so? Heidi, come closer, child,” said the Queen and her voice echoed around me, coming from all parts of the space at once. “Come closer and speak so that I can perceive your brave heart through your spoken word. One must be very brave to venture not only to the other side of the mirror but all the way to my corner of its domain.” I climbed the steps and stood in front of the Lady of Mirrored Light. She reached out and touched my face as she had with Echo.
“Great One, Queen of the Reflected Worlds and Mirror of Light,” I said as she gently caressed my eyes and cheek. “I bring you greetings and pledges of love and eternal devotion from your king. He bids you know he will come to you on the evening of the new moon. Forgive my curiosity but why are you blind? The spirit is perfect and is ever thus so I am surprised to see your infirmity.”
“My eyes invite comment and there is no need for forgiveness for I am used to it. I see the energy behind physical reality, Heidi and Messenger of Love,” explained the Queen quietly as she removed her hands from my face. “Which is a form of blindness, I suppose, but I also say the reverse is true. Physical shapes aren’t as real as some think and not being able to perceive the energy behind the form is another type of blindness if far more common than mine own. I call my eyes a gift for the energy animating the form is a true and lasting expression in the worlds of the Tree of Life, even when the physical body is returned back into the dust from whence it came.”
“You, just like the Mirror of Shadows, and like most of humanity, only observe the physical and call it the ultimate expression of the divine,” she said. “So, sweet Heidi, perhaps I should ask you why you and those of your world are blind, not me.” The spirit reached out her hands again and passed her fingertips lightly over my eyes and the center of my forehead. As she touched me, her body began to take on more solidity and I saw less of the blinding light of the queen and more of her form.
“May you see reality as I see it,” she whispered in blessing. “May you see the energies within the forms as simply as the form itself. May you realize the universal truths hidden therein as if they were your own.” Then, she kissed my forehead. “Gaze into the Mirror of Light, Heidi. Gaze deeply and well. Then tell your world what you saw and what that means to you.”
I blinked and where the Queen had sat, there was now an enormous shining mirror, standing in a frame of gold. Light exploded from its surface and at first I could see nothing but blinding light.
But then, as I continued to gaze into the mirror, I saw moving patterns of gold set into a grid or net-like configuration, where in a regular mirror I would have seen my physical body. I observed these patterns forming themselves into the Tree of Life within my spirit, a map of my Inner Worlds.
“Echo, are you seeing this?” I said, pulling my eyes away from the hypnotic vision of the mirror. But Echo was nowhere to be found. At some point, she had disappeared and I stood before the Mirror of Light all alone. “Maybe someday we can come back here together,” I said softly, turning my face back to the shining light. “I’d like to see how our patterns interact with each other.”
“Me too,” came Echo’s whisper from the mirror.
“Oh, you’re in there!” I said, smiling into the light. “Let’s see what our energy looks like in relation to each other.”
“I’m game,” whispered Echo. In response, I moved what should have been my hand and for a moment I could only see a hand made of light rather than flesh in the mirror, moved by the golden energy. I waved at Echo and she waved back, not in unison, but with her own power.
“Curious,” we said at the same time. “Very curious indeed.”
After a few more gestures and silly faces into the mirror, some of which Echo mimicked and others which were reflected in a manner that was all her own, I realized that I didn’t even have to move to observe the energy zipping around my reflection in the mirror. I stood completely still and Echo did as well as the liquid gold energy moved up and down through awakened centers of energy within our bodies which were connected to the myriad worlds by shining paths of light.
“It’s like viewing a real-time map of my part of the Inner Worlds,” I said. “Echo, did you know about this?”
“How do you think I find you during your visions, Heidi?” Echo whispered back. “This is how you look to me all the time.”
“No kidding?” I said. “Your sight is far superior to mine. I only ever saw your form as the reflective surface of a mirror.”
As Echo’s chiming laughing rang in my ears, I continued to watch the moving, shifting energy. My sight became even clearer when I began to perceive tiny forms moving on the golden paths between the energy centers. I brought my face very close to the mirror’s surface and saw a tiny Holy Grail moving down one path towards an energy center, only to observe it emerge from the other side of the center on yet another path.
Spirits from the myriad worlds that I have seen and interacted with in my visions were all represented in the mirror, traveling from path to path and center to center within my very soul. I felt overwhelmed for a moment at the sheer immensity of the Inner Worlds and the complex relationships between my point of consciousness and all the others for even the tiny glowing figures contained their own working energy grids. There was movement on both a macro and microcosmic level.
“Isn’t reality a beautiful thing?” Echo whispered. “My mother shares her view of reality with me as much as my father for I am allowed to walk in both the light and shadows of the other side of the mirror.”
“Isn’t everybody allowed to walk through light and shadow both?” I said.
“No,” Echo said quietly. “They are not.”
“Why?” I said. “All in creation have something of value they can share with us, some secret portion of the patterns of the Creator of All which only they possess.”
“Not all are blessed with parents such as I have,” Echo whispered. “Their proficiency in their respective spheres of influence give me some immunity to the unbalanced ruling powers of both light and shadow. Without them and their bridge of love which spans all worlds, I would be forced to remain on one side or another. Such is the nature of reality.”
“I wish reality would change,” I said. “And that all could share in the gifts which you enjoy.”
Echo remained silent as I took a step to the side of the Mirror of Light in an effort to try to see the universal truths from a different angle and noticed additional movement in the glass. In my reflection’s shadow in an unending line, I saw further collections of glowing, golden energy paths and centers.
I blinked and the living energy changed into the forms of men and women in clothing from different time periods. I knew intuitively at that moment these men and women were part of myself, past lives revealed to me through their energy patterns and the echoes they left behind upon the earth. My glimpse of their physical bodies of flesh and blood faded as quickly as it came and afterwards I could clearly see the glowing energy they embodied as well as left behind. They all had tiny figures moving upon their grids as well.
“There’s no end to the revelations that may be known by viewing this mirror,” I said as softly as an echo myself. “I wonder what is the best way to utilize this knowledge for the greatest good of all the worlds?”
“I was hoping you’d have an answer for that,” Echo said in response. “Welcome to my way of viewing reality.”
If I stood directly in front of the Mirror of Light, the various bodies of light lined up with mine exactly and their cumulative glow added to my current existence. Though I couldn’t separate their energy from my own, they didn’t overpower my view of reality. It was simply the historical energy pattern of my spirit and yet it was more.
“We are glimpsing eternity, Echo,” I said in awe.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said. “My view is the reverse of yours. You see the past incarnations behind me and I see your future incarnations behind you.”
“It’s too much for one mind to handle,” I said, sinking to my knees as the potential ramifications of what I was seeing in the glass overwhelmed me.
Echo remained standing. “That’s why you have me,” she whispered. “I will help you bear this gift as much as my parents have helped me throughout my existence.”
“Why would you do that for me?” I said, a tear falling from my eyes.
“Silly Heidi,” Echo whispered. “There’s a reason I reflect you. I am you.”
Within the glass, Echo’s form shifted from her energy-filled grid form back into her body of flesh and blood. She opened her mouth and the Mirror of Light’s voice came from her throat. “See as I see. See your energy now; see your energy as it was. See your evolution; see how your energy may become,” Echo said in the voice of her mother. “See beyond the physical, Heidi. Look and see, look and know, look and be.”
“I will do my best to embody this truth,” I said. “As well as bring the knowledge of this vision back to my waking world. I promise.” I reached out my hand reverently to touch the mirror and as I did so it shattered into pieces so numerous and small that it appeared as glittering dust. “Oh my goodness,” I said, my mouth falling open in shock. “I broke the mirror!”
Before I could begin to panic, the dust liquified and changed into a moving, reflective surface which shaped itself into a man made of living mirrors. The mirror spirit reached out a hand to raise me to my feet which I accepted gratefully. “You have to try harder than that to banish me,” the spirit whispered in the voice of the Mirror of Shadows.
“I wasn’t trying to banish you,” I said, dusting a few particles of broken mirror off of my hands. “I was trying to know the true nature of the Mirror of Light and Echo’s both.”
“Next time, try to understand such things without touching the glass,” said the spirit. “My queen and sister are far more delicate than I.” Then, the spirit who had the voice of the Mirror of Shadows stretched and changed into a doorway.
“If Echo is your sister, then you are a Prince among the mirrors. I apologize, Great One,” I said. “Your mode of existence is so different from my own. What are unspoken boundaries among your people are as yet unknown among my own.”
“I know,” the Prince of Mirrors said. “Be on your way, you mirror-shattering menace. She’ll return to us but first we’re going to have to put her back together again. It’s going to take so much time; you have no idea.”
“Again, a thousand apologies,” I said as I moved through the new door into another reality.
I found myself walking on a surface made of water. From the edges of this vast lake, crickets and cicadas chirped and sang in the dusk of another day beneath the sun of existence. A giant goldfish broke the surface of the water like a whale and leapt over my head, crashing into the water behind me.
Above this pond relaxing on a branch, enormous butterflies of every color imaginable fanned their wings in the fading light. As their wings lightly fluttered, the breezes they created swept across the water, causing small ripples and distortions to its surface.
“I have been here before,” I said in realization. “This is the Pool of Destiny. Once upon a time, I fell off that branch and found Merlin in the belly of a fish.”
The water started to speak to me. “Welcome Heidi to this place and time. Do you know how a mirror and a lake’s surface are the same?” whispered the pool.
“No Undine, I don’t know. Please tell me,” I said. “Though this seems like a riddle I should have known the answer to.”
“Both reflect reality,” said the water. “Both are a doorway to another dimension.”
“That’s a good one, spirit of water. I have a riddle for you, which I imagined up just now,” I said, moving upon the surface of the water. “Would you like to hear it?”
“Have at it,” said the water.
“How are a woman and a door the same?” I said.
“If they open themselves unto you, you enter a new world?” said the water.
“No,” I said, laughing at the guess. “The answer is they aren’t the same except in the imagination. Only in the imagination may a woman or man be a door, window, or other inanimate object.”
“Your riddle needs work,” the water said, rippling beneath me and causing me to stumble. “Because if a man or woman can be an object, then they are not inanimate; they are awake and aware.”
“I didn’t say it was a good riddle, just a new one to my mind,” I said. “Help me improve it.”
The spirit of the water and I traded ideas back and forth as I walked on the water beneath the fluttering wings of the butterflies who filled the whole of the sky. Our reverie was interrupted when a geyser suddenly shot up from the pool. Water flew high into the air as if ejected from the blowhole of a mighty beast of the deep or a gushing fountain. Then, the droplets fell and the water inverted itself, forming a whirlpool. The water was sucked down, then explosively shot into the air again.
I moved a safe distance away and watched the Pool of Destiny go up then down in an observable pattern again and again. Day turned to night but I didn’t notice for my attention was entirely held by the droplets of water falling upon the pool and the manner in which they formed patterns but never repeated themselves, demonstrating eternity in their spread as much as the Mirror of Light had shown the same in her reflections of the energy beneath form.
“What causes this disturbance?” I said to myself. “The water wasn’t behaving this way the last time I visited this pool.”
“Eternity breathes,” came a whisper out of the air beside me. “Just breathes and this is the result.”
“Is Eternity someone I could meet?” I asked the spirit of air. “For they leave quite a footprint on reality. I would know more about their true nature.”
“Anything is possible,” sighed the spirit and a spiral staircase made of water formed down into the pool, swirling around the eternally shifting geyser and whirlpool. I traveled down these stairs, feeling as though the spirit of air traveled with me though I could not see him.
At first, I descended past clear water lining the stairs on either side, but then as the light from above faded I moved through complete darkness which felt more like the void rather than a pool of water. I kept my thoughts about the nature of the pool to myself as I went down and down into darkness. When I finally reached the bottom of the stairs, there was nothing to perceive at all for all light was absent. The darkness was so complete I felt as if I was blind though my eyes were still wide open.
“Hello?” I tried to say, but I was unable to produce a sound. Instead, my spoken word wrote itself into the air in front of me in shining letters made of golden light. “Hello?” I tried again and the letters appeared again. “Is anyone there?“
“HELLO,” someone finally wrote in response. His expression of presence was demonstrated in capital letters of blinding gossamer light, next to my own written word.
“Who are you?” I wrote with my spirit. “Why can’t I speak?“
“I AM ∞ AND YOU ARE SPEAKING,” came the reply. “WHO ARE YOU?”
“I am Heidi,” I wrote. “This is a curious way to communicate, through light rather than vibrations in the air.”
“LIGHT IS VIBRATION IN THE AIR,” Eternity said. “YOU ARE VIBRATION IN THE AIR.”
“Well, perhaps this is true, but I am accustomed to a far more solid vibration if that is what bodies are,” I said. “I am intrigued by this method. Eternity, please instruct me as to your nature and I will bring your knowledge back to my waking world.”
“THIS IS YOUR WAKING WORLD,” Eternity said.
“It isn’t,” I said. “If I were to walk through a void in my waking world form, I would implode or die from lack of heat and oxygen.”
“I DID NOT SAY YOU WERE IN YOUR BODY,” Eternity said and the symbol for eternity exploded into being, filling my vision with its light. As the symbol came from the void and entered my heart, a voice spoke directly into my mind rather than etching words made of light into the air. “I contain all things,” the spirit said. “From the first to the last, everything that exists within time is a part of me for I am Eternity.” The symbol came back out of my heart, twisted and spun in the void, filled with living light and taking up my lens of perception so that I could see nothing but the symbol.
“Most people within time see Death as a final ending,” Eternity said, their voice still speaking in my mind though they were occupying a form separate from me. Then the symbol broke into particles and reshaped itself into a vision of a skeleton dressed in orange monk’s robes standing above a glowing hour glass which was laying on its side. With his great scythe, the skeleton cut the hourglass into two halves.
“The embodied in time see living existence and non-living existence as separated from each other with Death as an untraversable canyon in between,” said the skeleton in Eternity’s voice. “But it is not so. See now, Heidi, a great secret.”
As I watched, the two halves of the separated eternity symbol reconnected themselves and then flipped so instead of laying on its side, the hourglass of Eternity was now standing up. The two newly aligned portions of the hourglass shaped themselves into the form of a man.
“Thou seest Adam Kadmon,” said Eternity. “Thou left him in the garden but he has emerged for he desires to speak with thee again, Eve Kadmon.”
I sighed. “Not this again,” I said. “I am a woman but my name is Heidi, not Eve.”
“All women art Eve,” said Eternity. “As all men art Adam.”
“If this is so,” I said. “Then why can’t we all communicate with each other at this level of spirit? Existence and presence devoid of anything except the same?”
“We do,” Eternity whispered. “We are. We shall be again.”
“I still don’t understand this message,” I said. “But I bet there are those in my waking world who do so I will carry your words back to them, Eternity. Is there anything else you desire me to convey to those with forms back on earth?”
My vision shifted again and the shining form of a man changed back into the skeleton and the split hourglass. Death moved between the two circles and stood at the point where the sand passed from one part of the disconnected hourglass to the other side. “See the connection? See the doorway?” Eternity asked from behind Death’s mask. “There is no severing of Adam and Eve, male and female, the first and the last, Heidi. I promise you, there is only continual existence within eternity as you walk in the Garden of the Creator or outside its protected walls. Anyone who says otherwise speaks with a voice from outside of creation or a place of deep shadow. We are one being. We are Unity in two forms. Know the truth of my words.”
Eternity’s separated hourglass sent the sand it contained forward and back again and again through the portal of Death. “What is mine is yours also,” Eternity whispered. “There is no difference between us.” Finally, the vision shifted again, changing back into ∞ .
“Are you a god?” I said. “Who else would know a truth such as this?”
“I am Adam and in this form am a god and man both,” Eternity said. “Now look into my eyes and see how I view you.”
I gazed carefully at the symbol floating in the void and began to perceive the pupils of two eyes forming in its loops. “Ok, I’ll play your staring game,” I said. “Know, Adam, that I am a master at this challenge, especially without the physical limitations of blinking.”
“No one would know that better than I,” Eternity replied and the game began. It is hard to say how long I gazed into the eyes of one who knew me as well as I know myself. However much time passed, I looked into the face of Eternity for so long that the symbol and eyes started to change once again. When the spirit next spoke, he was using my voice.
“I contain all things, even Time within my limits,” Eternity said. “I am the creation and destruction of form. You know me by another name, sweet Heidi.” Two bright eyes were still gazing at me through the center of Eternity’s loops but the eyes were set in a female form made of the night sky and stars and I suddenly realized the Divine Mother was looking at me through Eternity’s mask.
“Hello, Mother,” I said in some surprise. “What happened to Adam? Did I stare him into non-existence? That would be a trick and the first time it has happened that I’m aware of.”
The goddess started to laugh. “You are seeing yourself through his eyes, my dear one,” the Divine Mother said. “My child, Adam asked that I come here today to give you a message from him and those in the garden you left so long ago. ‘I love you,’ he says. That is the entirety of his spoken words. I add to those my own message. Tell all you meet in your waking world that you are pleased to see them again for once, so long ago that it is now legend, you were all one. Also, that I love you too.” She spread her arms and I saw contained within them a blinding ball of organized light and energy that was all existence, all time, all life and all death.
“Tell me you will deliver this message though I know you do not fully comprehend it,” the goddess said.
“It shall be as you desire, Great One,” I said. “I swear it upon my existence as a Messenger of Love.” The Mother enveloped me in her embrace, combining all that I was with the light flaring in her arms, and my vision dissolved into light.
When I could see again, I found myself flying through the air, expelled from the Pool of Destiny and contained within the waters of the geyser. Then, I was sucked down into the pool and expelled again. Utilizing a wish, I managed to break away from the raw power and patterns of the pool and saw a sleeping giant at the bottom of the lake through the crystal clear water.
Upon closer inspection, I saw that this giant was myself. The geyser and whirlpool were caused by my breath passing in and out of my own lungs as I slept. Raising the stone of the philosophers which sat upon my fingers to my eyes, I looked through the stone at the giant. Within the stone, I saw a spirit in the shape of a man made entirely of the night sky and stars.
“I do not yet understand this part of the mysteries,” I whispered, lowering the stone from my eyes. “But I shall carry the message back all the same.”
Bubbles floated from the surface of the lake on the next outbreath of the giant and formed themselves into words in front of my eyes. “THANK YOU,” Eternity said, voicelessly.
There my vision ended.
