The Judgement Card

The smell of earth is loamy and deep. There is damp wet earth all around me now and I stretch my arms ever so slightly as I bump into its cold dampness. I retract my arms, chilled and white, and huddle deeper into myself. My own being is dark and my eyes are closed and I am only aware of sensation without sight. These closed eyes won't open and I feel murky and foggy, and sluggish and slow. I wonder what my mind is trying to wrap itself around. I feel as though I have heard something. There was a sound that has called me from this stupor. And I ask myself how long have I been in this half curled position lying on my side. It was comfortable a minute ago but now I feel aware of the wet and the cold and the hard points pushing against my frail and thin body. I am unable to rise it seems and I languor a bit more in this dark haze of forgetfulness. It is quiet here if I can just let myself slip back again. Slip into these dreamless sleeps that call me once more.


But there it is again. Some sound seems to vibrate deeply thru these clods of dirt and I feel like it is brighter and still more uncomfortable than even these brief moments just before and I find myself annoyed in this place and vaguely restless. And suddenly I feel this rumbling growing underneath me and I feel my heart quicken. Was it beating before? Or did my heart just now start it's stampede in my thin and bony chest? I push again with my arms and find myself with hands to claw away the dirt in front of me. I create this tiny space in front of my nose and draw a breath of stale and moldy air. I push again and then more and more and I find myself suddenly rising without having made a choice to do so. I hear a loud pop as a lid springs open above my head and I am immediately drawn up and standing but without my muscles causing me to do so. It's as if some unseen force holds me in this now upright position and I realize my eyes are open and everything is so blurry and indistinct. I blink harder and brush at my naked body with sore and water sogged fingertips. I am so dirty I realize. Mulch and clods of dirt speckle my gray and uneven skin. My eyes are clearer now and I try hard to brush at this dirt and cause it to fall away but it is damp and I only succeed in smearing it further into my cold and lifeless skin. I realize my skin reflects who I am. I am dead.


And I startle to realize that my body is frozen and no blood moves thru me. I realize that my pallor is further enhanced by the fragments of dirt and decay lying heavily upon my shrunken body and frame. But somehow I can think and somehow I am realizing the murky qualities are quite lifting as I try to use these long shadowed limbs. They have sat still for centuries and in so doing have atrophied and decayed more than I wish to admit to myself in this startling horror that I am a cadaver. My sunken eyes...they seem to move and they seem to have a life the rest of me doesn't yet. I raise them just a little and notice I am standing in some sort of long wood box. And I raise them further to notice that the box I am in, seems to be floating on this grand space of water. The sun shines bright and yellow in harsh contrast to the gray and dark wood of my tiny ship. And still further - I am not alone!! There are others just like me. And I realize just how ghastly I must appear. These bodies all stand at strange angles unsupported by their own muscles, men and woman and children and half beings move their gray heads and dirt smeared arms in jerky gaits and struggle to understand as they blink against this harsh light.


And suddenly a bright and horrific peal of thunder breaks the hazy quality of this scene before my eyes. I notice all of us jump collectively and our small coffin boats rock precariously in the ocean water. I feel something slide off of me and I glance down hurriedly to watch a great swath of dirt slide from my body to hit the coffin bottom with a dull thud. And below that is this pink and lively skin. I lean to brush at it and am at once startled by yet another blast from some place far above. But this time the sound is more distinct in that it sounds less like thunder and more like a deep and throaty brass instrument. I strain to see out of my still watering and unfocused eyes. But I am distracted by yet again noticing dirt and grime sliding off of me and my own limbs beginning to feel stronger. I try to help the process by continuing to brush myself off. But to no avail and I look over to see others the same as I am with strips of soft pink alive flesh against gray deadly pallor. It is a strange and unworldly sight and I find myself wishing to dive into the ocean to complete this process more readily. But even as the strength returns to my limbs, I seem suspended against my will by some force field holding my head and spine up straight and tall. And now my eyes rise. I realize the color is slowly evolving into creamy peaches and golds and warm yellows. I find myself drinking in that light with all of my being and craving it and leaning into it. I feel as though I have never before been warm and I yearn for the gold comfort I feel emanating from these pillowy clouds and yellow sun rays.


As I watch, the clouds part slightly and the large bell of a solid warm brass instrument comes into view. I find myself realizing this is the source of the great sounds that woke me from a deep, deep sleep, that was deeper than death itself. Already I wonder at that time and how alive I feel in comparison now. My skin is fully pinked and I raise strong arms to the golden light of the sun. I notice as I do that on the instrument is tied a large flag of white and red. Color!! Color!! I find myself reaching higher for it and wanting to wrap myself and once and for all rid myself of these dark shadows and these murky gray dead parts. But I am becoming as the clouds and I glance at myself to notice I am beautiful and radiant and as I once was. I can remember now. I was once as alive as these clouds that dance and billow and stretch and live. And I feel myself drinking in their beauty and filling myself with all the radiance they emanate. I sway and I double over with tears filling my eyes. My knees fold beneath me finally and I find so much feeling coursing thru my blood and my now living veins. And again I reach my hands up and feel that there is a grand presence above us all. And we all reach as one into the heavens and begin to ascend as a collective being.


Larger than I can even imagine looms a being without distinct form but I feel this comfort in feeling this warm presence. I feel no fear now as I am rising with everyone around me. Coming closer and closer and our hands touching until we are as one. And I realize that this being is all of us together now. We are the ones blowing the horn and my eyes are this being's eyes. My hair glows orange and yellow and everyone next to me seems to be myself. I am them and they are me. We have become one in this collective place. The water is so far below and I realize all the coffins have been swept away and only the fairest of blue waters dances and shimmers in our golden light. The past is just that, the past and it is barely a memory in my heart. I feel peace and calm and lightness and so much hope. I have come thru the death of my past and I have been reborn to follow what I was meant to be. My body has been shed. And I realize that gray self is no longer even a small part of me. Transformation.

The High Priestess

I stand at the base of these white marble steps. Above me looms the façade of a grand temple. A temple caught in mist and stars stands with so many pillars at the top of these overwhelming stairs. I feel tired as I begin to climb this flight of steps that is somehow suspended above and not deeply embedded in the dirt below. I reach the top and notice I am at the entrance of a long shadowy hall of sorts. This hall has pillars on either side. On the one side, each pillar is black velvet and on the other, each pillar is creamy white. Starlight and soft shadows catch at the pillars giving them an ethereal glow and I stand in wonder at their almost luminescence.

A gentle wind comes to me from the end of the long hall and I feel my hair falling back and my loose dress flowing behind me. I take a tentative step forward with one bare foot and as I do, I look up and notice at the end of this long hall sits a woman. She is already looking at me with the most intense of gazes. I feel riveted by her deep eyes and unable to look away. They seem to see right thru me. I am not close to her, but the power I feel radiating in that glance draws me forward and I feel as though I am floating toward her and I give myself to that drawing. She is so magnificent and yet almost frightening in the subtle strength I feel in her being. 

And now everything seems to be a contradiction of sorts. On my left it is night and I notice the flaming stars thru the pillars as I am carried forward. This is the universe and I am looking at it from the vantage point of the moon. The milky way swirls and ebbs and flows thru the sparkling stars. And on my right, it is a bright and sunny day. I notice dessert sands and radiant heat. I feel deep coolness on my left side and I notice a slight wind not at all of this passage that is pressing me and I notice the stars are orbs hung as if they could be touched. I am so close to the universe as I glance this way. I am in the solar system but on my right I am on the earth. My body feels without gravity on my left side and on my right I am very aware of this grounding and weight I carry. And yet there is this balance in the two sides of this passage.

Now I stand in front of this mysterious being. She is so radiant and flawless like the sun and stars I have just passed. Her skin shines with lights from within and her eyes are mercurial in their depths and I cannot plumb what her thoughts may be. She wears a gown made of flowing water. It rushes over her legs and over a glowing crescent moon under her foot. But the water does not run anywhere but around her. The water flashes as if with diamonds and gurgles like a brook dressing her in the most shimmering and cool waves. I see her hand slightly hidden under the water but clutching this scroll that is drawn by the waves and the eddies. The scroll likens unto a skin. alive somehow and untouched and unharmed by the rushing water that is her raiment.

And my eyes are drawn directly behind this priestess for a brief moment and I notice the garden of Eden. It is so lush and cool and I am aching to feel those beautiful garden breezes and smell the deep brown loamy earth and feel the dappled sunlight on my body. I am jolted to realize I am now naked in front of this woman. And I am not ashamed. She reaches out and somehow I feel this coolness that is comfort begin to surround me. And I am covered in this same water now. Is this dress blue? It is clear but it isn't. And raise my eyes to her chest to notice a cross of perfect proportions. This cross seems made of sunlight. and moonlight. One beam is so yellow and bright and the other is so luminous and pearlescent. This cross is completely balanced and I feel myself relax in looking at it. I feel my heart beat more slowly now. I didn't even know it was beating so fast. And finally I find the courage to raise my eyes to hers. I am quickened by this liquid intensity. I am once drawn and compelled and also deeply aware of my own flawed self. She seems to know me completely in that one look and I am terrified. I don't know how to be or even how to stand. And I feel these tears escaping my eyes and yet that water blends with the water already flowing around me and I am washed and I feel this radiance and luminescence begin to become me. Her eyes are still so intense but she is warmer now as if with that one penetrating glance she has given me all clarity and all knowing and has gifted a part of herself into my own. She hasn't judged but rather she has found what was lacking and given me that which completes me. I am now as she is in that moment. And I find myself not prideful but very sure of these things. I am now her and she is now me. We are the same but facing each other.

And I glance down at the records she holds in her hand. They are the grand Akashic records and I long to read them. I long to know my past and my present and my connection and my deep, deep unknown fibers. And she smiles a tiny half smile with one corner of her mouth and slightly shakes her head. In time. In time my lovely. You will know and you will find but for now it is enough to trust that your intuition is flowing - you are dressed in water as you never were before. And you have been washed clean and you have been accepted and loved for who you are and you can trust this deepness and this knowing that you will contain from this point on. And now she slightly moves aside and beckons to the garden that lays so perfectly beyond. It is a grove of pomegranate trees. And I wonder at the large fruits that weigh the branches so heavily. And she asks me to take and eat and I pluck a pomegranate which seems suddenly right in front of me. I haven't moved and she still sits firmly between these two pillars of night and day. And yet I am pealing back the skin and seeing these plump and lovely seeds. And I eat one and feel this woosh of fire descend all the way to my toes and I feel so alive and so empowered and I am FIRE and WATER and I am EARTH and I am AIR. I am balanced and I am evenly weighted. And suddenly I notice I am outside this temple again. I am now face out to the world. There is this vastness in front of me. It is so hot and yet I am cool in this water that continually swirls over my being. And it is the desert radiating these waves of heat and density and I am comfortable. I will water and I will replenish. No longer will I doubt this voice and I realize the high Priestess's voice is inside of me and she has blended perfectly with mine. I am in awe of this and I refuse to doubt the voice of intuition inside of me. I am become this high priestess in my own realm and no longer is the temple behind me but I am in the center of this grand circle of dessert and I am illuminated and I illuminate - radiating truth and knowing. Bubbling rays of light and sparkling stars fill the raiment of water I wear.