Gate: The Lovers
I stepped through the vision gate and found myself standing on some unfinished timber floating down a fast moving stream. I was in the midst of many other cut tree trunks and they bumped and pushed against each other as we slipped down the waterway. Then, quite suddenly, the stream reached a tall waterfall and the armada of trees and I careened over the side and fell into an enormous pond at the waterfall’s base.
As we fell from above, the wood smashed into each other and mixed with the water so, by the time we finally reached the pond, the once-mighty tree trunks were reduced to large splinters of wood and little else.
I floated above this pond for a moment, avoiding the rapids and observing the steadily falling cut trees, their destruction, and remnants floating in the pond. After some time, I realized something was in the pond itself, pulling the splinters down from the water’s surface into its murky depths.
I dove into the water and discovered a swarm of undines plucking splinters from the wreckage at the surface and then taking the wood back to their watery abode. I decided to follow the water spirits to their destination to further understand their true nature.
As I journeyed downwards towards the underwater kingdom, a bubble filled with light appeared at my elbow. “Hello, Heidi,” the guardian spirit said. “What are you up to today?”
“Hello, Bubble, nice to see you again,” I answered. “Today I’m following the undines! Where am I?”
“You are at the base of the Fall of Knowledge,” the spirit said. “Did you see the mysteries descending from on high to feed the dreams of Poseidon?”
“I saw something going on up above but to me it looked like a bunch of cut trees coming down a river,” I replied. “What are the dreams of Poseidon?”
“Come and see. It is far simpler to show you my meaning than to explain it,” said the Bubble and led the way down into the waters. The guardian took me deep underwater to the place where the undines were rising and falling continually with the splinters of wood. The focus of their attention appeared to be an enormous golden starfish.
The undines raced back and forth from below the water and back again, feeding the wood from the cut trees to the starfish. As I watched an undine delicately place a single piece of the wreckage into the starfish’s mouth, he bit down, chewed once, then opened his mouth again for another morsel. Another undine with yet another splinter was always waiting, sometimes queueing up in a short line to feed the starfish again.
“There you have it, Heidi, a great mystery that lies at the base of the Fall of Knowledge. What do you think of this dream of Poseidon?” the Bubble said.
“I think the starfish is huge but his mouth is rather small for his size,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
“A starfish? What a funny way of viewing reality you have,” the Bubble said. “You should be kinder to others about their appearance. Why shouldn’t his mouth be small? One can only take in so much unknown at a time.” My guardian began to glow, shining an inner light ahead of us and I saw, instead of only one enormous starfish, we were gazing at fields and fields of starfish. Each had undine attendants who swam back and forth from the surface of the pond, bringing the splinters of the trees to feed the undersea creatures.
All of the starfish were connected together by their arms creating a sort of wall out of their forms. Because it was so dark underwater, it was hard to perceive where the starfish ended and where a wall made of grey stone began beneath them. I pulled my sight away from the starfish fields and realized I had been viewing reality at a microscopic level of being.
“We must grow larger to explore Poseidon’s realm further. Don’t you think, Bubble?” I said.
“It’s simple thing for a spirit like me to walk among the molecules or dance with the stars in space,” the Bubble said. “How about you?”
“No problem at all,” I said, envisioning myself growing larger until I was my customary size. As I adjusted to my usual way of moving through reality again, I found myself at the doorway to a castle made of an infinite number of tiny starfish. The undine attendants for the living bricks of this palace were so small my eyes dismissed the crowds of them as tiny bubbles in the shadowy water.
“Wow, think of how many spirits of water are supporting this structure,” I said. “It is really an impressive enterprise.”
“If you like it already, I can’t wait until you see what it holds,” the Bubble said. “Come on!”
The Bubble and I approached the living structure, the home of the gods beneath the sea. A large front gate made of pearls and intricate swirls of shaped metal stood open with no guards of any kind.
“I’ve rarely entered a fortress of this size unchallenged. Is this another dream of Poseidon?” I said. “An open door in a realm of complete safety?”
“No, silly,” my guardian spirit replied. “This is the sea lord’s castle which lies deep within his sphere of influence. One would have to be entirely mad to enter these halls with malice in their heart. You’re not mad, are you? Let’s go in.”
“I think my madness is up for debate, Bubble,” I said. “But I don’t wish ill on any I meet in the Inner Worlds.” We passed the threshold of the gate together as I marveled at the beautiful construction of the underwater kingdom.
Within the castle’s walls, long hallways made of shell dripped with seaweed from the ceiling and walls. Living clams covered the floor and as I walked upon them the clams opened up startled by my steps, then closed again to become the floor once more.
Snippets of music drifted the Bubble and my’s way from further within the castle but I could not see the source of the sound no matter how far we traveled through the halls. Shadows began to dance on the edges of my vision but when I looked directly at them, they faded into the waving seaweed or walls of pearlescent shell.
“This really is a beautiful place,” I said. “But why do so many shadows dwell within the Castle of Poseidon? Their presence is not something I was expecting to discover today.”
“The Sea Lord dwells within the waters of your subconscious mind in a castle created of mystery that literally fell out of the forest of your psyche,” said the Bubble. “Is it any wonder there are things here even you did not expect to see?”
“I suppose not,” I said. “I never expect to see anything though so really the entire journey is one big surprise to me.”
“I didn’t know that about you,” the Bubble said. “You always seem so nonplussed by whatever goes on in the myriad worlds, I just assumed you were expecting it.”
“Hardly,” I said, brushing an errant strand of seaweed out of my way. “What you’re observing is silent surprise, Bubble. I allow the worlds to freely enter my consciousness and have no idea what’s coming our way next. Life is such an adventure. Why spoil it with expectations?”
“I like walking the worlds with you,” the Bubble said.
“Likewise,” I replied as my guardian and I went deeper into the castle. We eventually came to a hallway shaped like a spiral shell that led into a deep darkness and many more shadows. A wind came in and out of this hall, blowing the water past my face like the current of a strong river.
“What’s down there?” I asked, feeling a moment of trepidation. “The moving water reminds me of the breaths of a giant. They always eat me when they catch me, which isn’t such a trial but I want to explore this place more before I have to return to my waking world.”
The Bubble came close to my ear. “It’s the Kraken,” he whispered. “He sleeps in a fitful slumber, hopefully one without dreams. Don’t wake the monster or we’ll have to face the consequences!”
“What is the Kraken?” I said. “And why should we be afraid of him? The Divine Mother says I should fear no shadow and I take her advice very seriously.”
“The legendary creature is a weapon of Poseidon and one of great power,” the Bubble murmured in my ear. “He unleashes the beast when the subconscious is threatened. The Kraken vanquishes all interlopers.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, entering the dark hallway. “First of all, how could the subconscious be injured by something that comes from within? All within us is ourselves. Secondly, what need would Poseidon have of a weapon with that sort of capability when he leaves his fortress gate wide open so that any passing spirit can enter? If you’re not going to take the most basic precautions to defend your people, I have trouble imagining that you’d have a need for a weapon that could banish any spirit that could truly threaten the Inner Worlds.”
“Hold on, Heidi. Speaking of basic precautions, allow me to armor you before you go racing into a monster’s lair. The depths of this subconscious sea hold creatures you could not even imagine,” the Bubble said, floating to my left shoulder where he joined my spirit, changing into a suit of bright blue armor. “Trust me, Poseidon has his reasons for keeping a powerful weapon on hand.”
“I would know his reasons and see this Kraken,” I said as we reached the end of the hall. “I fear neither shadows nor self knowledge.”
“Either do I,” whispered my armor. “But there’s no need to be reckless.”
“He left his gate wide open!” I said. “I think the dangers are entirely in your mind. Come on, Bubble.” I marched down the hallway into the increasing current until I arrived at an echoing room within which I could see nothing definitive through the murk and shadows. Though my vision wasn’t discerning anything at all, I knew in my heart that the space contained a living, breathing void.
“Hello!” I called into the darkness. The skin prickled on the back of my neck as I felt something immense move through the water and place itself between me and the exit to the hallway. “Is anyone there? My name is Heidi and I have come to know your true nature. Show me who you are and I will take the knowledge back with me to the worlds above.”
Out of the silence and stillness of the underwater void, a giant eye appeared and at first I thought it was the dancing Now moment, coalescing out of the shadows beneath the sea with his brilliant light. But I immediately realized this eye was not the Now, because he was completely blind, his large pupil was sealed with a greyish light and clouded with cataracts. Despite his blindness, the sea creature’s eye twirled in a gross parody of the dance of the Now, bumping and slamming himself from side to side within the space, smashing into my body and then back out again into the darkness.
“Thank goodness I was wearing armor or I would have been smashed to pieces,” I said. “Be still, Kraken, and let me get a good look at you.” The next time the creature passed nearby, I reached out a hand and a power beyond my own moved through me, causing a bright light to explode from my palm. “See with the eyes of Love,” spoke an otherworldly power through my own throat and the pupil of the eye suddenly cleared, healed by the light I had carried with me from above. Cleared of the shadows, I observed the creature’s pupil was formed like the eye of an enormous cat. The eye glowed red and glared malevolently, freed from his long blindness.
As I considered what to do next, laughter came from the deeper shadows of the room. The eye blinked and I found myself gazing into the face of a golden-skinned cyclops. From the waist up, the Kraken was shaped like a man with arms like tree trunks, built powerfully and strong. From the waist down, the cyclops had the many legs of a hermit crab. He scuttled and slithered his way towards me.
“Now you’ve done it,” whispered Bubble from my armor. “I think we should have let the monster sleep.”
“Blindness or ignorance isn’t sleep,” I said. “We did whoever this is a great favor.”
“You did indeed, small fish,” the Kraken hissed through pointed, shark-like teeth. “I can see you now and it has been long since I’ve had a morsel like you. Poseidon kept me blind to control me. You are the dumbest fish to swim these halls in ages that you didn’t know that.” The cyclops opened his mouth and came towards me, maw opened wide to devour and consume.
Just as I resigned myself to entering the world within the Kraken’s belly, a flash of blue light came from behind me at the entrance to the hall. “Back, creature!” someone yelled. Then, a spirit in the shape of a man with skin as blue as the seas and bearing a mighty trident came running through the doorway. He was covered in well-formed armor made of fish scales, which glittered iridescent in the small amount of light from my own armor. “How dare you threaten a Messenger of Love! It is back to the void with you.”
A slithering tongue as versatile as an octopus’ limb came out of the cyclop’s mouth and he licked his lips in anticipation. “She came to me,” the Kraken hissed. “Waltzing into my lair as if she belongs here, a trespass which practically begs me to end her existence. She visited me before you, oh great Poseidon of the deep waters and passing streams. My call was stronger than yours and she is mine by right of discovery if not yet conquest. Stand aside and we shall have both.”
“She is here to fix the problem that you and I could not,” said Poseidon as he waved his trident at the creature. “Time to go back to your prison and dream of the days when you were yet valued by the powers that be and feared by my enemies. Those days are long past. I call you now by your true names: Kraken, Shadowarm, Darkspear, Dream Devourer. I call you and bind you, scourge of the ancient world. Go back to sleep.”
The god held up a black pearl in his fist and the Kraken hissed one further time in his vast rage. He reached out with one clawed finger and scraped a long mark upon my armor above where my heart beat frantically in my chest. A whirlpool swirled into being, summoned by the god and it was as if a great wind moved beneath the waves, steering the whirlpool like a net which washed over the Kraken and bound him within its swirling currents. Silence reigned as the monster vanished into the pearl in Poseidon’s hand which was now marked with a single red slash like the pupil of the Kraken’s evil eye.
Poseidon placed the black pearl into a crown of coral that appeared on his brow. The living coral took the pearl and held it fast, making it a part of its structure and form. “He’ll be safe there,” the sea god said as he turned to me. “Welcome to my home, Messenger Heidi. Though you are free to explore wherever your interests lead you in my kingdom, there was no need to see the shadows first. But now they have been seen, so let’s go see some light to banish any further terrors you may feel from beholding my secret weapon of the deep waters.” The god gestured towards the exit and I followed Poseidon out of the Kraken’s lair and deeper into his castle.
“How do you know my name, Great One?” I said.
“The undines whisper their knowledge and wisdom to me as the spirits of the air communicate with the ruling powers in their spheres of influence and so on,” the god said. “You’ve made many friends in the Inner Worlds, Heidi. Please consider me in their number.”
“I am honored to stand in your exalted presence, Lord Poseidon,” I said. “I humbly request that you consider me an ally as well.”
“Done,” the god said. “Shall we seal the pact with a handshake?”
“I prefer to share a cup of fellowship with you,” I said, pulling my cup from my spirit. “It was a gift from Love herself and I’m certain the goddess would desire me to share her blessings with you, a fellow Olympian and family member.”
“From Aphrodite, you say?” Poseidon said, reaching for my cup. “It has been quite some time since she left the waves to walk upon the land. I shall drink to friendship, Love, and the forces of light in the Eternal War.” With those words, the god drank from my cup and passed it to me.
“May the paths ever open themselves to you and may you find all that you seek and desire until Love walks into the waves again,” I said and drank as well.
“The undines said you were fair speaking,” the god said, turning to continue down the hallway. “I am pleased to find they spoke true.”
“It was a gift from a king of the skies whom I found in a flower above a mountain lake,” I said. “Allow me to tell you the tale.”
While walking through his underwater kingdom and sharing my history with Poseidon at my side, the shadows in his halls revealed themselves to be laughing, playing undines who waved and giggled as we passed, flicking their fins at us, and tumbling through the seaweed.
“How marvelous that my pact with Paralda led to such a happy result in your travels,” said Poseidon when my story was through. “Knowing the Song of the Undines as you do, I thought you would follow the music through my halls to here first. No matter. See now, Messenger of Love, one of the great wonders of my domain.” With a bright smile, the god opened a door made of thick wood and led me into a room filled with flickering light.
We entered a cavernous hall filled with rainbow light pouring out of a living coral bed that took up more than half the room. Sea creatures such as fish, crabs, sea serpents, tiny seahorses ridden by even smaller undine and glowing jellyfish moved through the coral. Bubble removed himself from my form as armor and joined the throng, dancing among their number as if he belonged there.
“What a lovely place,” I said. “What do you call it, Great One?”
“My people call it, The Seaward Wall. This coral represents your subconscious mind,” said the god. “See how it lives and breathes. Like the coral from your mundane world, it grows slowly outwards, providing structure to the energy that comes from within it. In this manner, it has a protective function in addition to its beauty and grace.”
“I love it,” I said, reaching out a hand towards the swarms of undersea folk moving through the wall. A swarm of seahorse-riding undines came from the coral and danced around the god and I as if we stood at the center of a mini whirlpool.
“Go on now,” Poseidon said, batting the dancers away from his eyes. Then, he took my hand and moved around the edges of the coral, pointing at one wonder after another. “By contemplating the construction of this wall, I see your spirit and all the burgeoning dreams therein. With this foresight, my people and I guide the internal processes towards the greatest good for all,” he said. “I also see potential threats and help eliminate them, sometimes before they even manifest but I have been unable to address an issue that has arisen over here.”
The sea god led me to a distant section of the coral which consisted of an overhanging branch which was jutting out from the rest. Underneath this secluded area, skeletons of once living coral clung to a blasted surface within which all was gray, crumbling and rotten.
“Oh no!” I said. “It looks like the footsteps of wintery Jormunda or an infestation by Moss except under the sea,” I said. “What are we going to do to return the wall to its former glory?”
“I believe the decay originated from this growth here,” Poseidon said and indicated one small, black barnacle. “I entered the space but could see nothing so I sent in the Kraken to drive out the demon, but when he emerged, laughing and dripping with shadow-charged energy, the darkness was even worse than before.” Poseidon looked troubled. “I fear I made a mistake using him against whatever this is. Would you be willing to go within and heal the imbalance? I left the gate intact with the hopes that you would one day pass through my kingdom.”
I put a comforting hand on Poseidon’s arm. “Of course I will walk into this shadow, Lord Poseidon. Perhaps this is why I was sent to you today, for just this purpose. At any rate, you did what you thought was best when you sent your banishing weapon into the shadows and I wouldn’t concern myself a moment more about the result,” I said. “Has the Kraken ever successfully balanced the subconscious light and shadow for you in the past?”
The god nodded affirmatively. “Whenever deep sea creatures of unknown complexes and fears emerged, he was always strong enough to consume them or drive them back into the void. This one though,” Poseidon shook his head slowly and negatively. “This one is different. The hurt must be something more primal. Something only you, the dreamer of this place, can fix.”
“You give me far too much credit, Great One,” I said. “If the Inner Worlds are anyone’s dream, they belong to everyone and are therefore part of a collective dream rather than one of a single individual.”
“Wise words,” Poseidon said. “I would expect nothing less from one who navigated the Fall of Knowledge with nary a scratch.” The god reached into his coral crown and pulled out a tiny, bright jellyfish. “You will not attempt this feat unprotected. I give you this talisman, Heidi, to take with you into the darkness and shadow. Any who view it will know that you speak with my authority in the subconscious realm you are about to walk into. My influence is yet mighty in the realms beneath the seas.”
“Thank you, Lord Poseidon. What is it?” I asked as the blue jellyfish floated into my palm and became one with my spirit.
“One night, I slept and had the most beautiful dream,” said Poseidon. “I dreamed of music, laughter, fresh water and growing coral. I dreamed of a child who never aged from whence all of this beauty flowed. Then, when I woke, this small creature, this jellyfish, was laying on my pillow.”
Poseidon looked down in remembrance. “I believe the jellyfish is the dream, coalesced into something tangible, out of the waters from which he emerged,” the god continued. “Keep him close to you. He is a token of great power here as I said, one of my own dreams, and he will keep you safe from whatever shadow haunts this portion of the wall.”
“You honor me with one of your personal dreams,” I said. “Some day, Great One, I will return the favor.”
“Heal this wound, Messenger,” the god said. “And I will consider it a dream come true.”
Where the jellyfish had merged into my palm, he began to glow with a soothing blue light. “Until we meet again, Lord Poseidon, may Love herself give her blessings unto you,” I said, took a deep breath and placed my hand on the shadow-wracked barnacle. A whirlpool issued from it at my touch and I was pulled down into darkness.
When I could perceive my surroundings again, I found myself standing on the ocean floor next to a subterranean crack through which lava flowed deep beneath the surface of the world. Sighs of grief and sadness came from the molten rock as it touched the cold waters. All around this meeting of fire and water, there was shadow, deep and impenetrable to my sight.
Suddenly, a voice came from the dark waters around me. “Welcome to a dream that has died,” the spirit announced.
“Who is there?” I said, seeking the source of the voice but seeing nothing. I held up my hand to shine further light into the shadows but Poseidon’s jellyfish flew out of my palm and threw himself into the molten lava, and was gone. “Well, that dream didn’t last long. Who calls me?” I said again, speaking into the void.
In response, a long, snaking tongue made of shadows and darkness slashed out of the waters and wrapped itself around my upper arm. Another came from the other side and grabbed my other arm. Tongues flew from all sides and I found my arms and legs held and bound by living darkness as strong as any chain.
“My name is Heidi and I have come to know the true nature of this place,” I said, feeling the pressure of the tongues trying to pull me in all directions. “I am not afraid of you or any shadow in existence. Let go!”
“Do you wish to know the nature of the dream that died? Allow me to enlighten you,” came the voice again and I saw someone dragging themselves along the ocean floor on two human arms. The binding tongues which were causing me such grief came out of the creature’s broken legs, which dangled uselessly from their torso. The spirit was surrounded by a cloud of long, entangling hair that flowed out of their head in every direction, filling the water with their shadows and influence. This nightmare came ever closer to me and I felt a coldness emanating from their presence.
“Who are you and what do you want?” I said, fighting against my chains.
“I am Disappointment, Heidi,” the abomination said and pulled on their tongues so I felt the fabric of my being stretched by their unavoidable pressure. “You go looking into your Inner Worlds again and again. You look and what do you find?”
I felt one of the shadow’s tongues enter my ear and their voice manifested in my experience even more clearly. “More disasters, more demons, more situations that need to be fixed and balanced,” the creature moaned. “Aren’t you disappointed? Aren’t you tired? Don’t you just want to lay down and die? What is the point of it all?”
Disappointment dragged theirself closer while I felt their collective shadows entering my mind and heart. “Did you think that you were going to find something worthwhile?” the shadow said. “How sad, how very, very sad indeed. We weep for you, Heidi. We really do. Do you weep for us?”
The creature was so close now, I could feel their hissing breath against my face. Tears, unbidden, were falling down my cheeks. “Leave me alone, shadow fiend,” I said. “You weep crocodile tears which don’t fool me. What do the shadows know of grief and loss when they’ve never loved any but themselves?” Despite my brave words, Disappointment’s many tongues wrapped themselves around my mind and I could think of nothing other than the truth-tinged lies they were continually whispering to me.
“You dreamed a dream of making the worlds a better place for all and now it has died,” Disappointment said. Dark claws reached towards my face. “We claim this moment and your eyes, Dreamer, for the shadow. We claim you in the name of the one who makes the stars cease their motions. Thus begins the end of all things.”
I shut my eyes tightly against the approaching shadow. “Please Creator of All, help me,” I said. “I cannot fight the collective shadow as only one point of consciousness. Please if there are any ruling powers out there who care about the small warriors of light of this world or any other, please save my sight. Ever after, if any asks me, I will say my eyes belong to the one who freed me from these chains and this great, blinding Disappointment.”
“Prayers are as useless as you,” hissed the collective shadow. “Now be a good little soldier and open your eyes one last time so that we may pluck them from your worthless face.”
“If you take my eyes, I will be given others,” I said quietly. “None may injure a messenger while they are on mission, carrying the words of the Creator throughout their worlds.”
“If you truly believe that, then open your eyes,” Disappointment taunted. “Just a crack will be enough, foolish sycophant.”
“I am neither a sycophant nor unbeliever like you, shadow,” I said.
“Prove it,” Disappointment whispered and two of their tentacles began to exert pressure on my eyelids, forcing them open whether I willed it or not. “Prove it, you worthless fish.”
“I will prove it,” I said, anger turning my words into living flames that came from my mouth to consume the portion of the shadow that dared to lay a finger upon me. I opened my eyes and bright light came from them as well, shining directly into Disappointment’s face which I saw had been shaped by the great shadow to appear as my own. “As will the Light Congress.”
Disappointment screeched and covered their face with a few grasping tentacles as beings made of living fire and energy began to pour from the place where the lava met the ocean seas. The first out of the breach was the shining blue jellyfish of Poseidon’s dream. Through my fierce anger and the flames wreathing my form, I could hear the legion of my Inner Worlds, calling my name and rushing to defend me from the manifestation of the collective shadow.
Here was Odin and Merlin, the Divine Mother and the Oak tree and ancient tree spirits, the Lion and the Coyote and all of Nature’s children, my Snake, the ravens, Hecate and Dionysus, my Badger, all of them exploded from beneath the sea and raced towards me, slicing through the countless tongues of Disappointment with their light and shadow-banishing presence. “Light Congress!” Badger rallied the soldiers as they emerged from beneath the earth. “Light Congress! There is the great shadow! Take them down.”
Disappointment’s form expanded, becoming huge as their hair changed into a grasping cloud of octopus limbs with a claw made of pure darkness at the end of each. “We knew you’d come for your mascot, you fiery sardines,” said the shadow. “Now your eyes will also be ours in addition to hers.”
“Who are you calling a fish, you squid-faced ink blot,” said the jellyfish, changing into a spirit in the shape of a knight clad in identity concealing blue armor. “If you want my eyes, you’ll have to come and take them.” The knight drew a long sword with a serrated edge from the belt at his waist. “But you’ll have to get past my claw first!” The great shadow hissed and went on the offensive, sticking one warrior after another with their fearsome tongues made of the void from outside of creation.
While the jellyfish knight and a squad of soldiers fought valiantly against Disappointment, taking wounds which whispered to them of their past failures and departed dreams, Badger and another contingent cut through the grasping tongues to my side. “Are you alright, Heidi?” Badger said when he reached me. As my anger continued to pour from my form in the shape of flames beneath the seas, he shielded his eyes against my growing light. “I can see you are not.”
“How dare you menace my friends,” I said. “To threaten the Messenger is one thing but to scar the warriors of light is something else entirely.”
Disappointment laughed and the sound brought shivers of dread to any who heard them. “We are something else entirely,” they said. “You and this legion are naught but bubbles. Bubbles of polluted sea water that dream of the day they are to be washed out to sea or blown away by the breeze. You are the dream that has died.” The jellyfish knight raked his sword through a thick cloud of the collective shadow’s tentacles but detaching the limbs from the main body didn’t remove their vitality. They wrapped themselves around him in an inescapable living net like a whirlpool of the void made manifest.
“Get her out of here,” the jellyfish knight called to Badger. “The god will defend me from this nightmare while you take Heidi to safer waters.”
“Come, Heidi,” Badger said quietly. “You are free of Disapointment’s clutches. The sea-bound knight is made of dream stuff as much as the monster so you needn’t fear for him. Let’s retreat while we still can.”
I discovered my tears had dried in the face of my growing anger and manifest flames of rage. With my friends’ courage on full display for all the worlds, I found my voice once more as well. “There is no need to run from the shadows, even that of the collective, for they are not real,” I said. “This creeping thing revealed by the light of my Inner Worlds is nothing more than a shadow on the ground created by our presence here today.”
“Feels pretty real to me,” the jellyfish knight said as his armor began to crack beneath the strength of Disappointment’s tentacles.
“Words won’t win this fight, Heidi,” Badger said, laying a paw on my arm. “It calls for an army of light when we are only one legion.”
“My dream is not dead, in fact it has only just begun,” I continued as if the knight and Badger hadn’t even spoken. “And you Shadow, Demon, Nightmare, whatever you are, shall reveal the universal truth you are concealing in your all-encompassing darkness. You are going to reveal it to me now.”
“Says who?” Disappointment hissed, banging a tentacle into the jellyfish knight’s armored head.
“Says the one who put the stars in motion,” I said, the words coming to me from somewhere else. I felt a tremendous pressure in my chest and light began to shine from my heart as brightly as if a star had descended beneath the waves. The Light Congress shielded their eyes as my love for them came unstoppably from my spirit to shine upon a shadow sent from the collective to end our existence in creation.
Disappointment wavered for a moment, their tentacles dancing in the sudden light almost like seaweed caught in a current and then disappeared with a final angry hiss. Where the nightmare once crawled, a doorway constructed of gray stone appeared and all became silent and still beneath the waves of the subconscious seas.
“You must show me how you do that,” the jellyfish knight said, sheathing his sword as The Light Congress waved to me and, one by one, leapt back into the lava beneath the subconscious waters. The crack in the earth drew itself together and was soon gone, as if the split in the foundation of the ocean had never been.
Badger placed himself between me and the anonymous knight. “Love conquers all things,” I said. “It is as simple or complicated as that. We greatly appreciate your assistance, warrior of light. My name is Heidi. Who are you?”
“I was once called ‘Jerry’ by those who loved me,” the knight said. “But that was a dream from the time before this existence in the Inner Worlds.”
“Jerry, you shall be,” Badger said, changing into his human form in order to shake the knight’s hand. “Welcome to the ranks of The Light Congress, soldier.” As Badger and the knight exchanged further pleasantries and news of the Eternal War throughout the worlds, I moved to the gray stone arch that marked the entrance to another realm.
The symbols marking the blocks which constructed the arch were new to my eyes and not in any language from my waking world. I traced my fingers over a few of them and when I did, they immediately lit up with a light as bright as the one that had come from my heart to banish Disappointment.
“What are you doing, Heidi?” Badger said, his attention drawn by the light. “The collective shadow is gone. We should return to the sea lord to report our success and accept his gratitude on behalf of all those beneath this ocean.”
“We will in time. There’s no hurry required in realms of the spirit,” I said, removing my fingertips from the symbols. “I desire very much to see what’s on the other side of this door. Do new gates through the Inner Worlds ever appear to you, Jerry?”
“Often, but mine are made of metal and written in the codified language of the sky lords,” the knight said. “This underwater experience is a new one to me and quite welcome. Eternity gives such time for exploration of various forms of existence, doesn’t it?”
“Heidi insists on taking every door and path,” Badger said with a sigh. “Banishing one shadow today wasn’t enough? The legion already went back to the worlds we are more familiar with.”
“It’s not about overachievement, Badger,” I said. “When you conquer a long-held shadow in your spirit, sometimes you are given the opportunity to discover the reason behind the shadow’s appearance, a one-time opportunity if you will. Those are some of my favorite places to explore because they offer such a unique chance at self knowledge. Anyway, I have never seen a gate with markings such as this.”
Jerry raised the visor on his helmet in order to peer more closely at the arch. He gazed at it for a moment only and then shut his helmet again with a snap. “I have seen this language and know it well,” he said. “You look upon the writings of the Eternal Youth throughout the worlds. They have also been called ‘the Cupbearers’ though none of them accept this designation among themselves.”
Badger smiled. “Oh, I know that group,” he said. “They’re such fun to play war games with but not so amusing when the threshold of adulthood must be braved. Some don’t survive the passage, poor little mites.”
“How do you know soldiers of light that I do not, Badger?” I said. “Aren’t you a part of me?”
“Of course I know them for I was a child once myself,” Badger said, changing back into his animal form and taking a leap into my heart. “You know them too, Heidi, but I think you called them ‘The Lost Ones’.”
“The Lost Ones?” I said, an unexpected ache arising in my heart. I rubbed my chest where Badger’s energy gradually became one with my own. “I really don’t remember anything about them which makes me sad. What else do you know about these children, Jerry?”
“You make a mistake if you dismiss these aspects of the archetypes as human children such as you and I knew from our time on earth,” the knight said. “In spirit, youth does not mean inexperience or as-yet undeveloped personalities. The beings who choose to walk in the ranks of the Eternal Youth are seasoned warriors, each and every one. They have to be.”
“Spirits don’t ‘have’ to be anything at all,” I said. “Do they have a good reason for appearing as children?”
“It is a great mystery, Heidi,” Jerry said. “Seekers throughout the ages have looked for the Fountain of Youth. These warriors claim not only to know where this fabled place lies but also benefit from its waters as often as they desire it.”
“I have walked in a hall with endless fountains once upon a time,” I said. “I should think one is much like another.”
“The Eternal Youth say you are wrong,” Jerry said. “Their unparalleled and powerful influence upon existence throughout time proves their words. If one of their number merely enters your dreams, let alone manifests in your conscious existence, your life is never the same. You are blessed with spiritual gifts beyond price but these blessings come with a cost that not all are willing or able to pay.”
“Well, I have never been one to walk away from a mystery when it comes to learning the patterns of creation,” I said. “Would you explore this gate with me, Jerry? Know I intend to bring the knowledge of what I find back to my waking world to share it with those who value such information for their spiritual development and the betterment of all the worlds.”
“I think I was brought here today for just that task,” the knight said. “It would be an honor.” With those words, the knight changed back into the form of the blue jellyfish of Poseidon’s dream, alighted on my shoulder and together we passed through Disappointment’s doorway into another reality.
My vision dissolved into separate particles of light and shadow. When I could perceive my surroundings again, I found myself in the backyard of my childhood home on a bright, sunny day. I stood like a shadow outside of my body and watched myself as a child, no older than five or six, running, laughing, and playing in the sun with my sisters. Then, I saw, as if in fast motion, time passing. The child I was grew taller, navigated puberty, went to grade school, matriculated through college, aged some more, and had a child of her own. It was like watching a recording of my life in fast motion for it all occurred in the blink of an eye.
When I reached the present moment and watched the knight and I pass through the gate into this world, all became dark in my sight. “You grew up, Mouse,” said a voice that sounded like my own. “You promised not to.”
“All children grow up,” I replied. “I am no exception to that particular rule.”
“No, we don’t,” said the voice. I blinked and found myself standing in a space made of the gray stones of the archway. In this empty room, a child lay on the floor, coloring a page. She hummed to herself, completely engrossed in her work and I sat down beside her. To my astonishment, she was drawing a perfect copy of the blue jellyfish who was currently sitting on my shoulder.
“Child called Mouse,” I said. “What are you doing?”
The child paused in her work to look up into my face and I saw the girl was me. “I’m bringing it to life,” she said. “You don’t remember anything at all. I wish you would.” As the child picked up a new crayon and went back to her jellyfish, I suddenly remembered a game I used to play when I was her age where I’d pretend that coloring pictures awakened whatever was depicted on the pages when the crayons touched it.
“I forgot I used to do that. How funny,” I said, picking up a crayon myself. “Thank you for the reminder, Mouse. Do you have any extra paper?”
“No,” she said. “They only give me one at a time.”
“That’s no fun,” I said and I felt my form beginning to shrink until I was a mirror image of myself from long ago. “Why do they do that?”
“Adults are boring,” Mouse said and I nodded my head in agreement.
“And loud,” I said.
“Why do they act like they know more than us?” Mouse said.
“Well, they do,” I said, coloring a corner of the jellyfish paper with my crayon. “Don’t they?”
“If they know so much,” Mouse said. “Then they wouldn’t need our help.”
“Help with what?” I said, starting on another corner of the page.
“They asked for warriors,” she said quietly. “So I brought them all to life.” The child pointed and I followed her finger to discover colored pages lining the walls of the gray room, picture after picture of The Light Congress standing like silent sentinels in that lifeless space. All of my friends were there from the first to the last, illuminated and preserved in a child’s scribbled artwork.
“I know those spirits,” I said and all of the memories I had forgotten when I started coloring upon the child’s page came back to my mind. “My name is Heidi and I come from another world,” I murmured to myself, grasping first one memory and then another. My form started to flicker between my waking world body and the child’s form who still lay blissfully upon the floor, coloring her page. “I have a child of my own,” I said. “Her name is Willow and I love her.”
“Shut your trap, Mouse!” came an inhuman growl from beyond the room’s walls. “Don’t make us come in there!”
“They really don’t like dreams other than their own,” the child said. “We better be quiet now or they’ll take all the colors away and I’ll have to stare at the wall and think happy thoughts until they bring them back.”
“Stare at the wall?” I said. “You should be playing with your friends, not generating armies for the shadows.” Mouse maintained her silence and as she shifted to color another portion of the jellyfish, I saw she had a chain around her neck that led to a hole in the wall behind us. “Child,” I said, touching the chain with one finger to verify its reality. “I assume The Eternal Youth, like other spirits, may not be held to any one time and place outside of their express will. What is this that is binding you in this room or do you want to be here?”
“Oh, I’m not giving up anything because my friends are here too,” she said, totally unconcerned. “Every once in a while, we all get to color together but only when we’ve been really good.”
“You chose to be here?” I said. “Then what’s this chain?”
“What chain?” Mouse said. I tapped on it to draw her attention. “That’s not a chain. That’s my umbilical cord to Mother and her fountain. The monsters pull it sometimes and try to keep me from coloring. I’m a good soldier so I don’t let them bother me.”
“Do these monsters have names?” I said, a quiet anger taking root in my heart. “Tell me, Mouse.”
“They whisper to me,” the child said. “One monster is Duty, another is Responsibility, but the worst is Disappointment.” Mouse looked up from her art at me again. “She pulls until I can’t breathe sometimes. Mother went away the monster says and doesn’t love me anymore. You don’t think that’s true, do you?”
Tears began to fall down my face. “It’s not true. Mother loves you as much as any in existence,” I said. “Thank you, Mouse, for coloring a whole legion. That was an enormous accomplishment. On behalf of The Light Congress, the jellyfish knight and I have come back for you to take you from this room to anywhere in the worlds that you would like to go.” I laid my hands on the chain and it vanished into a wisp of smoke.
“Jellyfish is here?” the child said, raising her eyes from her page. “Where?”
I looked to my shoulder where Jerry had once hovered but he was nowhere to be found. “Well, he was here but I seem to have lost him somehow. I’m so sorry, Mouse,” I said. “I didn’t know you existed. I would never have let the monsters hurt you if I had known.”
The child saw the chain was gone and smiled as undisturbed by its disappearance as she was by having it around her neck. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Mother,” she said. “You grew up. That’s all.” Mouse rose from the floor and took my hand. “But grownups can’t stay here. It is for kids like me only. Would you play a game with me before you go?”
“Anything you want,” I said.
“Let’s pretend for a moment,” said the child. “That I am you, a grownup, and you are me.”
“Ok, I’ll play your game,” I said and found myself shrinking down to the child’s size as Mouse grew to be me. I picked up the crayons to finish coloring the picture of the blue jellyfish.
“Once upon a time,” said my Inner Child. “There was a little girl who could hear whispers in the wind and perceive the energetic reality behind the world. This child watched the reality behind reality to the point where her parents and teachers were afraid something was really wrong.”
“Was something really wrong?” I asked in a child’s voice.
“No, but she wouldn’t engage with them as if they were the true reality behind reality, just silly whispers in front of it,” the child continued. “So being the caring adults they were with their mature view of the worlds, they taught the girl to pay more attention to what they thought was real instead of what she thought was real.”
I colored one of the arms of the jellyfish on my page a neon blue as the Inner Child’s story unspooled.
“They taught her to ignore the whispers in the wind and to listen to their voices instead. They taught her to call her visions just “dreams” and to use her imagination to finish her homework and work assignments for the Eternal War rather than see the truths behind reality to find her unique part in them,” she said. “In essence, they taught her to grow up and assimilate into the collective nightmare of the great shadow.”
The Inner Child leaned closer to me and smiled in approval at the now completed picture of the jellyfish. “But you know what, Mother Heidi?”
“What?” I asked, admiring our artwork. “He’s so pretty!”
“We’ve fooled them all for a part of the girl never grew up and never will,” she said. “The part that brings forth dreams from the void and releases them into the waking world will always dwell here in the Inner Worlds, safe and protected from anything that happens on the outside. This was a promise from the one who put the stars in motion.”
“Who’s that, Mouse?” I said, manipulating the coloring page with my hands so that it was as if the jellyfish was moving even though he was still only crayon and paper.
“We call him ‘Love’. He told all of us who agreed to dream the collective dream of the warriors of light that nothing can bind this part of our spirits,” said the child with my adult voice. “No monsters whispering or pulling chains of various metals will ever bother us or our friends. Did you remember that?” The Inner Child took my hand and led me past her countless drawings on the wall to a toy chest that sat in the corner of the gray room.
“What’s in the box?” I asked, itching with a child’s impatience to open it.
“Let’s open it and see, Mother Heidi,” she said. I struggled with the heavy lid so the Inner Child stepped forward to help me. “It takes both of us to dream this big,” Mouse said. “On the count of three!” Together, the Inner Child and I heaved opened the toy chest and an enormous gossamer jellyfish, far bigger than Poseidon’s dream but otherwise the same, floated up out of the box and past the gray walls of the room which vaporized into bubbles as he passed.
I found myself stretching, growing, and returning to my previous form. The Inner Child shrank and became herself again as well.
“What fun! We released the Dream Maker,” she said. “Look!” As the huge jellyfish moved into the waters of the subconscious seas, he released a cloud of tiny jellyfish just like him. Every moment, more and more dreams poured from the jellyfish’s lighted body to enter the oceans and shine his ever-growing light into the darkness and deepest shadows below the water.
The child took my hand. “It is time for you to go home now, Mother Heidi. Tell Poseidon to keep the Dream Devourer bound now his lighter half has re-entered the oceans,” she said, very seriously for one so small. “Tell him the Inner Child is unchained and unchanged in my desire to serve on the side of light in the Eternal War. Tell him his dream was true.” As Mouse finished speaking, I found myself sucked up in a whirlpool that came from the open and empty toy chest, and found myself emerging from the coral wall in the sea lord’s castle once more.
Poseidon and I looked at the formerly decaying coral which now grew and thrived as much as the rest of the Seaward Wall. “You have done it!” he exclaimed and the sea folk of the wall started a dance of celebration, swirling in bubbly waves over the newly restored section. “Thank you, Heidi. That was well done.”
“I had lots of help,” I said, lifting the god’s bright jellyfish from my shoulder where he had reappeared. “This dream belongs to you and he saved my eyes from being taken by Disappointment. As such, I owe my gift of sight to him from this moment forward and will allow either of you to see through my eyes whenever you find need of such. In addition, I come from a hidden realm of the Eternal Youth bearing a message for you from one of their number,” I said. “The Inner Child says to keep the Kraken bound because his lighter side has been released to the seas. She is unchained as well as unchanged in mission objective and your dream was true.”
“My dream was true! I knew it,” Poseidon said with a laugh and reached up to his coral crown where he withdrew the black pearl that contained the Kraken. “Send this monster back to the void where he originated, soldier.” The god tossed it into the air and his blue jellyfish moved as quick as lightning and swallowed the pearl in one gulp.
“I will tell you a great secret, Heidi,” the god said and leaned close. “When the Kraken wasn’t able to banish this Disappointment, I was secretly afraid that the whispers the undines carried to my ears from the shadows realms were true. They claimed that the Inner Child had perished and her light had been extinguished from this world as well as all the others.”
“How pleased I am to discover that fear was made only of shadow,” he said quietly. “How the oceans will flourish now the Dream Maker swims once more.” The god moved away from me, waving his trident at the guardians of the Seaward Wall. “To the celebration, my friends!” Poseidon announced. “Then, we shall talk of serious things like battle plans and worlds to recapture and defend. But first, we celebrate the rebirth of a Dreamer.”
The blue jellyfish came from the coral to resume his form as a blue armored knight and offered me his arm. “Would you like to accompany me to the feast, Heidi?” Jerry said. “There’ll be only fish food on offer but the drinks beneath the waves are unmatched in all the worlds.”
“I shall, Knight of the Seaward Wall, and thank you for the privilege of your company,” I said. “Your armor looks so familiar. Have you ever met Michael of the Treasure House of the Imagination? You remind me of him very much though his preferred element is fire rather than water.”
“How is that old rip?” Jerry said with a laugh. “I haven’t seen him for ages. To be honest, it has been so long since I walked beside him in the armies of light that I thought he had joined the Fallen.”
“As if an angel of his stripe ever would,” I said and began to relate the tale of Michael and my’s quest into the Timeless Realm as the whole ocean started to come to life with music and light.
There my vision ended.
