Gate: Four of Wands

I stepped through the vision gate and found myself standing on a grassy field beneath the bright sun on a day in late summer. In the distance, a medieval castle with turreted towers and crenulated walls rested on the side of a mountain.

As I gazed at the landscape, the ground started to shake, the land heaving as if a living thing itself. A giant made of earth and the stone of the mountain rose from beneath the distant castle and carried the fortress upon his head as if it was a crown. Then the world around me disappeared, so there was only a giant with a crown floating through nothingness and myself.

I followed the giant through the void, my footsteps glowing behind me like white-hot coals through the darkness, and he led me to a long wooden table around which other giants made of earth were seated. They were all featureless with mere indications of where their faces would be and composed of brown soil and stone, except for one.

The giant of a different element was made of black earth like peat or compressed coal dust and tears of sadness fell from his eyes in a steady stream. The giant with the castle crown took his place at the head of the table and I seated myself on the other end.

“Welcome to the Meeting of the Giants of your Inner Worlds, Heidi,” the being at the head of the table rumbled. “We are the archetypes. We are the personifications of the living spheres. You have been traveling through us and we are now awake.”

As one, all of these spirits looked at me and nodded, welcoming me to their number. I felt the weight of their regard upon me like a thick blanket descending upon my sight and I could see nothing outside of the giants and their table.

“What an honor it is to be among your august company,” I said as I bowed my head in respect. “I did not expect my explorations through the Inner Realms to have an effect as far-reaching as this meeting. I apologize if my appearance caused any distress in your worlds.”

The giant at the head of the table waved his hand in negation. “We sleep and wake on a predictable cycle, small Heidi,” he said. “This meeting was destined to take place with your presence or not. As mighty as my brothers and sisters are, we too bow to destiny throughout our timeless existence.”

“What is your purpose beyond living out your destined roles?” I said. “I find the reasons spirits name for their existence and place in creation can be quite illuminating when one considers what their true nature may be.”

“We provide communication with your inner mind to your outer mind,” said the leader of the giants. “We are the translators of the igniting power of the spirit upon the forms of the embodied and disembodied worlds. We are your inner worlds as well. Our bodies are living representations of the spaces and functions of the upper realms.”

As the giant spoke, the featureless spirits of earth and stone changed into real looking people of flesh and blood. To my left, I beheld a woman dressed in silver cloth with long, flowing hair as black as the night sky. She had a diadem with a moon that rested on her forehead above her left eye.

“Hello, Heidi of The Light Congress,” she said. “I am Levannah of the Moon or the sphere of the imagination. I reflect the light of the sun upon your world and ignite the dreams and intuitions of sensitive spirits the worlds over. The tides are drawn to me because I shift the seas of the subconscious throughout the Inner Realms.”

“You are one of my favorite worlds, Lady Levannah,” I said, blinking as the Moon’s bright diadem flashed in my eyes. “Viewing you from upon the earth always gives me hope for the future and plants new dreams in my heart. Thank you for your many gifts.”

As the silver lady nodded once regally in response, a bookish looking man with glasses seated across from her drew my attention. He was frantically turning the yellowing pages of an ancient book bound in leather and as he turned one page after another, he wept inconsolably.

“Who sits across from you and weeps?” I said. “Could we not give him a new dream to supplant whatever it is that causes him to suffer so?”

“He is the mind energy and Mercury,” the Moon replied. “Always seeking, always upset, his is a world that allows for no rest. He is a powerful spirit and always on the move. My dreams chase him but rarely catch him and when they do he dismisses them as whimsy, weakness or childish fantasies.”

“Perhaps something might be done while I’m here,” I said. “I have a unique way of viewing reality that blends the innocent with the surreal and may appeal to his sensibilities.”

“We shall see, Heidi,” said a woman clothed in shimmering green silks with hair and skin the color of grass who was seated to the Moon’s left. “I am the sphere of Venus. I am your emotions and contain in my bounds the world of the fairies and elves; and many of the spirits of fantasy who walk freely through your mind and heart. With my help, the Moon’s innate abilities and your unclouded lens of perception, Mercury may find some respite from his long melancholy.”

“But doesn’t depression come from you, Great One?” I said. “Why can’t you simply take the emotion back into yourself and spare him from his nightmarish existence?”

“Free will doesn’t work that way, child,” Venus said. “I can suggest new emotions to Mercury as he can present new thoughts to me, but no one in creation can force a change that isn’t welcomed by the giant it is presented to. Thus is the balance of power maintained throughout the worlds.”

“You speak of the mysteries of my world, the sphere of the heart and soul consciousness,” said a spirit seated across from Venus. He was dressed in robes that glowed like the sun with bright red hair, eyes of molten gold, and sparkling features so bright I could hardly look at him. “In my realm, the individual personality separates him or herself from the collective influences of the primal forces. Mercury weeps because there is a voice within him that moves contrary to the rest. If you can single out this voice and allow the spirit to communicate with you, this may move him along the path of healing and peace.”

“His mind is at war with itself,” said the warrior seated next to Venus. The soldier of old was dressed in ancient armor of metal and leather, and I recognized the spirit who had called himself, Samson. “As the personification of the world of war or the sphere of Mars, I am drawn into his nightmarish world more often than not. What battles my warriors and I have fought in the name of causes that flash through his spirit as quickly and devastatingly as lightning.”