The Heart Fountain

 
On the Edge of Somewhere
My body aches and throbs as I awake.

I’m lying on something cold and hard.
I open my eyes, but I can’t see.

Where am I?
I turn my vision to the energy world.

What is this place?
I’m in the middle of an energy sea, on a platform that rises high above it.
The platform is covered with a blue crystal half-sphere.

I rise into the air, within the dome.
And look down.

There on the floor of the platform is my unconscious body.
I feel that it’s mine, although it looks strange.

The answers lie outside the safety of the dome.

My energy body wants to move.
Strands of light spread out from me in all directions, dancing and twisting to music that grows louder.
I let the music fill me.

Then I fly up and through the sphere.

Somewhere, someone is watching.

 
The Well of Selves
I’m standing at a well in Ireland that I visited many years ago.
It’s a quiet place by the side of an ordinary road.

Few visitors come here any more.

I look down into the well.
Floating on the surface of the water is a photograph.

I feel an overwhelming desire to see that picture, and reach my hands down the well.
The photograph rests in my hands.

It’s a favorite photograph that was taken of me in California.
I’m wearing a robe, and my hands are crossed on my chest in the way of the Egyptian mummies.

The sun shines in my eyes in the photograph, and my hands seem to radiate strength.

I drop the photograph back into the well.
I hear twigs cracking, and three copies of me are walking away from the well in three different directions.

Each of us takes a different path for the next few months.

One stays in Ireland, and learns about intuition and fire.

The second goes to Finland, and learns about quiet mountains, cold stone, and ice.

The third goes to Greece, and lives by the ocean.
He learns to move like the waves, and dream.

The fourth remains a traveler, and travels through Europe.

A few months later the traveler is walking near a temple in Luxor, Egypt at night.

The first three selves arrive at the temple, moments before him.
They join hands, and melt into a jackal that walks nearby.

The traveler sees the jackal.
They stare at each other.

It is a magical moment.
The traveler feels some change, as the essence of his three selves enter into him.
He doesn’t understand what has changed, but he feels that it’s a different world.

The jackal walks calmly away.
When it’s out of sight, it disappears in an unseen burst of light.

 
Eyes of Darkness and Light
I’m hovering in the air.
Below me, I see my younger self and a friend walking along an unlit road at night.
There are no towns and no moon.
Nothing, but the darkness.

I seem to be revisiting the events of a night in California, almost 30 years ago.

To their left is a steep hill that rises into a dark and dense forest.
To the right is an area of brush that extends for 100-200 yards and ends 20-30 feet before the ocean.

Something comes out of the brush and into the road about 30-40 feet ahead of them.
They can’t see it, but they can feel its presence.

They shine a flashlight on the creature, but the light dulls the feeling of its shape, and shows nothing.

It feels to them about the size of a dog, yet seems more like the shape of a deer.

They stand together with the “spirit” for a few minutes.
Then a car comes around the bend and the animal/spirit disappears back into the brush, invisible within the car’s headlights.

So far, it all happens as I remember it from that night.

They walk on up the road.

I leave them, and go in search of the creature.
I find it by the ocean.

“Why did you appear to them, and what form did you take?” I ask.

He laughs.
“You’ve changed a little,” he says, “but you’re still waiting for life to happen to you.”
“I was curious what two men were doing in the darkness.”
“More than that, I was drawn to you. We’re connected somewhere or sometime.”

“My form flowed between two forms: the form of a jackal, and the form of a small deer, both with eyes that shine with darkness, and do not reflect light.
“That strange deer-like creature appeared in a story you wrote, and the jackal appeared to you in Egypt one night.”

“What should have happened on that road?” I ask.
“What should I have done?”

“It was a moment of possibility and power.”
“You should have walked forward and met me.”

“Everything would have changed for you. How, I don’t know.”

“What are you?” I ask.

“That’s not really important now,” he answers.
“The main thing is that to you, I seem to live in darkness.”

“I live in a world of light, and your world seems dim in comparison.”
“But you don’t have the eyes to see my light.”

“In an hour your younger self and his friend will reach the town.”
“Do you remember what happened there?”

“Yes. I felt that the world is an image, projected on a thin, fragile surface like paper.”
“I felt that if I could just reach out, I could tear an opening in that paper, and see the deeper reality behind it.”

“I gave you a small gift tonight,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

“I gave you a touch of eyes of darkness,” he says.
“Not enough to see the light clearly, but enough to be curious and haunted by our dark light.

“The darkness will return in your life.”

“In the desert you will be given the black teaching stone.
“Then you meet me in Egypt as a dark Jackal.
“And finally, your watchtower calls you with its black room and black column, and the dark creatures of black stone.

I reach down to the ground and find a white stone. I throw it at the ocean.
When it touches the water, the seawater flows around it, and becomes a silver handled dagger with a blade of white stone.
I glide the knife along the energy web to my hand.

I grab his left arm, and put the knife in his right hand.
“Here,” I say “is a present for you.”

He takes my left hand and makes a superficial cut in the palm of my hand with the dagger.
Then he makes a thin cut in his right palm.

Through his cut I see a wild light, not blood.
He presses his palm to mine and then puts his palm over both my eyes.

I feel that my eyes are black obsidian, and with them I can see the light of the darkness.
And I see the visual equivalent of thunder.

Power surrounds me within the wild dark light.
Great waves of energy pulse through it.

I reach my awareness towards it and my energy body is filled with a powerful light.

After a few minutes I make a conscious effort to return to seeing the beach and the ocean.
The creature is there, but now he looks more human, with normal skin and clothing.

“Do you have a name?” I ask.

“Call me Nival.”
There is a great light as he jumps, straight up into the sky, and out of sight.

 
 «Read Part 2: The Apprentice