There are recurrent images in my reverie. As these become more familiar with each experience of them, I become more adventurous in exploring them. Each time they come around again, I become more excited by the prospect of learning something new and meaningful. They take on a power of their own in my inner landscape.

One such scene is of a cave in the side of a mountain. The mountain itself is rocky and barren and golden brown in the sunlight in which I always find it. I may get there through any variety of means. I have flown there on the back of an eagle or in its talons, approached up a long path on foot or arrived on the ledge before the cave with no preamble whatsoever. The most appealing transport has been by using my own wings. At such times I have found myself a creature quite non-human and intensely feminine (but that is another tale altogether). I have even found myself inside the cave after traveling through a tunnel with various starting points.

However I arrive, the cave itself has such a strong attraction to me that I cannot even hesitate to enter. Each walk through has shown a different scenery, with many cavelike features but the journey always leads to a central chamber. The rock walls are irregular and multicolored and glow with what seems to be a light of their own. The chamber itself comes off of a large empty dark space and so presents a blank face to one direction. Entering the chamber from this blankness, the wall on the right holds a single scribed form which has revealed itself as the signature through which I can call the vision of the chamber at will. This cursive form has no meaning even to me, so it remains a mystery to all. As I gather more experience here, even the feeling of this space can be bidden by calling forth this symbol.

The two other walls have proven blank so far in my travels here but I have the feeling there is more here to be revealed. Something to look forward to. Maybe!!!

In the center of the chamber is a pool. It looks and feels on the surface to be water as black as crude oil and as reflective. Images in this pool are both reflected and refracted as if by both water and oil at the same time. Each time I approach this pool, I hear a command. This is where the fun begins.

My first visit to this place inside myself was as vivid as any dream image could be. As I stood beside the pool and gazed into it, I heard the voice in my right ear tell me, "Look for the bucket beside you". No surprise, there it was and full of a glowing green sludge.

"This is the results of your interactions with others", I heard as clear as day. At the time I thought it meant that this is the energy that I pull into myself from other people and went on in the scene as though that were true (I can be pretty obtuse sometimes).

"Pour this stuff into the pool."

OK, in it goes and I figure I was rid of it. As I was just learning this new journeying skill, this was only a short visit and off I went to some other scene. I am happy to report that since this scene, I have discovered that what I was doing was dumping my repressed response to my interactions with others here. They would have to be dredged up in order for me to release them. Leading me to...

My next visit I was told "jump in!" as I faced this pool. At first I stood there in fear. It was dark in there. In fact I had the knowing that it was the darkness inside me that this place held. Emotions long buried and fear always bubbling to the surface when I least wanted to know about it.

"Go in THERE?" I would ask knowing the response I was due. "Why would I want to go in there?."

"You can pay me now or you can pay me later", was the response. I had to stop to wonder at the snarky words from whatever guided me there. Who needs guides with a sense of humor in a place like this? As I stood trembling at the lip of the pool, I saw a number of large sluglike things come to the surface. Half a meter long and black and slimy looking, I was not attracted particularly (tongue firmly in cheek). I had the presence of mind to remember having seen these things on a Star Trek episode some time before and that took some of the charge out of the sight.

I thought, "I am making this up as I go along after all. Why not go for it?" Getting here in the first place was a function of trusting my imagination and the spirit which sparks it so I jumped in with both feet.

Keeping Good Old Star Trek TNG firmly in mind, as the slug came to me, I grabbed hold of one and clutched it to my chest. I could feel the electricity of contact go through my body both there in the pool and back in my physical body in the easy chair in my living room. A wave of emotion passed through me which reeked of sorrow and grief. Even though I recognized these feelings as my own, there was a strange detachment as though I watched them instead of felt them. For the first time, I was able to let the energy of these emotions pass through dispassionately and accept them as they were and not try to change them or make them more palatable. The thought occurred to me that not being in my body at the time might be the reason they didn't seem to touch me here. Just as quickly as I thought this, I heard, "Take it to the surface."

Up I went with no effort but the thought of it. Rising out of the water entirely, I noticed I was not even wet. Only then did it occur to me that it had not felt like water at any time. I hadn't even thought to wonder why I could breathe in there. Before I had a chance to wallow in that speculation I heard the voice say, "Find the LIGHT."

Not even having time to be snarky about such a cliché, I looked around at the walls of the chamber and only as an afterthought I looked up. Yup! There it was! A hole in the roof of the chamber filled with white light. "Simple minds!," I thought and up I went. The slug thingy in my arms faded as I rose into the column of the light and before I reached the hole, if there is one, and it was gone.

"Back you go!" Oh boy! And down into the pool once more. "These are your fears in their various forms. The first was loneliness," my mystery voice proclaimed. "That was easy. Are you ready to grapple with rejection?"

I was feeling rather full of myself and the success of this journey so I jumped right in. Sometimes I amaze myself with how stupid I can be! I launched myself at the first slug that came my way and grabbed hold, cocksure it was what I was there for. As I clutched it to my chest and started to rise out of the pool, I was surprised to see it and the vision begin to fade. I was totally unaware of how this experience would begin a new cycle in my daily life and how the FEAR of REJECTION (yes I am shouting), would take over my awareness until it was through with me and I was drenched in my own juices with the work of processing it. (But that is another journey altogether.)

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