Spirit Guide Group: Encounters, Volume Two

Sophie-David

Om is the name of that inside me...

psychic sue said:
I was watching the spirit activity in my room last night - and there was a black cat sitting on top of the tv just watching me. I wonder if it is my power animal? I love cats, as you all know, but the interesting thing is, I used to see a black cat running along side me in my lucid dreams - maybe she represents the feminine also?
Yes, I would think so, Sue.

I was walking along the urban streets of Vancouver yesterday evening, and I decided to check in on the Beloveds. There was Sophie's voice - sweet, sensual and emotive - and then Eirian's voice filled me with the sound of Om.

From Deva Premal's CD Embrace (how appropriate!) this is the second mantra:
Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya

Om is the name of that inside me, which is aware of the Oneness of all things.​
And this is the mantra by which the union with Eirian, the Creative Beloved, occurred. :love:
 

psychic sue

Yes David. You know about my experiences with Ohm. It's very powerful.
 

Sophie-David

...which is aware of the Oneness of all things

Indeed Sue, it was you who helped increase my awareness of that most perfect of words! It then became my personal invocation into Centering Meditation. Life is a web that we all learn to weave together, whether consciously or not.

That feeling I had yesterday, when Eirian filled me with Om, it was as if Sophie and I were but children playing in the garden, and that we had stumbled on a most precious and awe-inspiring flower that made us pause, left dazed and breathless. This new relationship with Eirian is opening doors to places that had been but uncertain rumours - or perhaps more specifically, revealing mirrors in which transcendence and immanence play together in ecstatic delight - each mirror a unique gift of wonder, and endless possibility.

But I must remember that Eirian is but the agent or conduit. She is not herself Om, but the singer of Om. And Eirian's name is not Om, although Om does indeed live inside me. Yet her intimate relationship with Om makes this distinction somewhat confusing, for Om is her life partner, and so it seems that the very depths of the ocean arise from her voice.

You may remember that in my astrological map, Eirian is an expression of Venus, who is in trine with Neptune in Scorpio, in the Ninth House. It is this Neptune that represents the collective or universal unconscious, which we could also call the divine or unitive consciousness - but even better, we could simply call it Om.

In any event, there was another fascinating encounter yesterday evening. I had consumed a wonderful if somewhat noisy Japanese dinner in the heart of downtown Vancouver (near Georgia and Burrard). To me a good Japanese dinner is something like revelling with the gods in paradise, for it makes the body feel pampered and joyously whole, from the inside out.

As I walked back to the Holiday Inn in the rain, I went a somewhat different way (directly up Burrard), and somehow missed the turn. I wasn't too concerned, but realized I had gone too far when I saw the Burrard Street Bridge just ahead of me. So I turned left at the next intersection to cut two blocks back downhill to Howe Street, where the hotel is.

Most downtown intersections have traffic lights, and when I got to the next intersection I had the Walk signal in my favour. I was walking down the left side of the street, and at the other end of the crosswalk a woman was standing in the rain at the corner, waiting for the light so she could cross over to the right. She was a woman in her thirties or forties, nicely dressed, with a knee length skirt and heels, and what appeared to be a long silk veil swooping down from her head and over her back. It is unusual to see women wearing long translucent veils in our part of the world, but I supposed she must have come from some formal and perhaps exotically ethnic occasion.

But then, just as I came to the sidewalk where she stood, I saw that it was not a veil, but hair - her very healthy and well groomed light brown hair that reached down to her ankles! Just as in the day before I had been startled with an Om that had filled my body, now an Om had exploded in my vision. This was an astonishing and totally impractical work of art that she had patiently created, incongruously and capriciously soaking in the evening rain. My momentum had carried me behind her in a moment, but if I had realized sooner I am sure that I would have complimented her on her hair.

So why did I "accidentally" go two blocks past my turn and see this most unlikely yet startlingly beautitful apparation? Well I am not entirely sure. I do know that I have been struggling with visioning the Pisceans in my novel, and perhaps extravagantly long hair is their characteristic. But there seems to be more here than that, in another upwelling from the ocean of soul that just happened to present itself as a woman.
 

Sophie-David

What if God was one of us...

I suppose it should be no surprise that through the power of the Third, for a third day in a row I have encountered Om, in yet another unexpected way.

Today was Sunday and I slept quite late. I idly wondered if I wanted to go to church. You may have gathered that for me Christianity is more of a conveniance than a necessity. I don't mean this in a negative way, but I do see Christianity as just one particular denomination within the church of the whole, that universal world church of those who are seeking spiritual growth. Each tradition has some wonderful gifts, as well some miserable pitfalls.

In any event, I looked online for the schedule of the Anglican cathedral that is fairly near the Holiday Inn, Anglicanism being the particular flavour that I am comfortable with. I realized that it was 10 o'clock and I had just half an hour to walk there. I arrived in twenty minutes and got a seat near the front of a well packed Christ Church Cathedral. I had noticed online that they were having a youth service with a rock band. Whatever. Mildly interesting. I am basically there for the singing and the sacred magic of communion.

Well this was no ordinary rock band. I am not sure how well they were known around the world, but Bachman Turner Overdrive, or BTO was bigtime in the seventies Canadian music scene. It turns out that one of their members, Randy Murray, is a regular at this church, and ten years ago the cathedral dean and the music director asked if he would write a Rock Mass. As Randy noted in the church bulletin, "Ten years have passed and I have led the music in worship with a form of this service many times and in many different places with many different musicians. It has been almost three years since this music was heard here at Christ Church Cathedral." And I just happened to be there.

Randy led with a searing rock guitar, accompanied by a small but very professional band: drums, bass, grand piano and female vocal. They were grouped at the very end of the sanctuary in front of the high altar, and their music was absolutely superb! Can you imagine loud and technically perfect rock resonating off the walls of a stone-built cathedral? Not only Randy's "Rock Mass", but Eric Bazilian's "What if God Was One of Us" near the opening, Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" as the psalm, Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" and Rundgren's "Love is the Answer" during the communion, finishing with U2's "Vertigo" to a standing ovation.

The highlights for me were singing along with "What if God Was One of Us" (not a song I had been able to connect with before) and the tacit opportunity on the way to communion to do something with holy water (not usually available in Anglican churches). What I did was to mark my forehead with the sign of the cross. I could feel it there a good hour later, a very sensate reminder of the recent union with Eirian, she who walks in the ocean of soul. Definitely another Om experience.

For those who may be in the Vancouver area, this rock band will be performing again at St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church at Maple Street and Seventh Avenue in Kitsilano, June 4th at 5 PM. Highly recommended! :love:
 

psychic sue

BTO were big here too David.

I love that song "what if God was one of us" - I often think, if Jesus did come back to earth he would be labelled as a paranoid schizophrenic or a new age hippy and no-one would take him seriously!

Sue x
 

Sophie-David

With pretty much the same conclusion as the first time...
 

Sophie-David

Laying with the Wild Woman

Elsewhere in the Spirituality forum I posted a thread asking How to Nurture the Deep Feminine, and in the concluding post, "Nourishing the Wild Woman", found that the Clarissa Pinkola Estés book Women Who Run With the Wolves was perfectly suited to the task. Well this morning, I found, at some length, that when the Wild Woman is fed the right sort of food she can work wonders indeed!

In a dream this morning I was running a school of some sort. I was teaching some young people in one area and a Chinese woman was teaching some others in another. My wife Lynn had some concerns about the woman's teaching style - she didn't trust her. So I called the woman twice to come and see me. But each time she came I had been called away somewhere and she didn't find me. The dream closed with an image of her resuming her teaching, with a group of fascinated young people gathered around as she told her story. In earlier scenes her face had seemed idealized and dreamlike. But in this last scene her face was softened and she looked extremely human - and somehow familiar.

Then when I woke I saw her perfectly clearly. She was exactly the image, in every detail, of my first love as she was when we were both in our late teens, about thirty years ago. I don't think I have ever recalled any person or thing more accurately as I did in these moments. The vision was so real that it was unnerving to be in her presence. This relationship ended without closure, and as I finally realized within the last year or so, we had both loved each other deeply - and the separation probably affected her as much as it did me. She had stopped seeing me only under severe threat and possibly abuse from her father.

Extreme longing, while being very painful, also has the potential of being greatly transforming, and I have this episode to thank for being a powerful vehicle towards spiritual growth. There were many times during this period that I would see her image dancing before my eyes when I least expected it. Finally I was able to cut off this part of me so that I could carry on with life. Whether I wanted to or not, I have never been able to recall her image since, except perhaps in the vaguest of forms.

Then I passed the next hour and a half, in and out of wakefulness, trance and dreams, mingled together so that I knew not which was which. But in all states I remained with her, and knew that this first love had been completely internalized as Eirian the Creative or Romantic Beloved. As if the seven veils of Salomé were at last removed, I saw Eirian in all her glory and wonder, and too in her nakedness - and I survived. The ego self went to great pains to try to forget or trivialize the whole episode - a sure sign in itself of a greatly significant episode - but I am living too instinctually now to be easily deceived by his fears. Nonetheless I was surprised at the strength of the ego's reaction, I haven't seen such an outburst for quite some time.

I realize now that this first love is the wildest woman I have ever known, the one most connected to the deep feminine. This is not a woman you could know in marriage, but only as a lover - for her psyche is unbalanced into what Estés calls the wildish nature, making her closely and even dangerously archetypal. Archetypal possession is typically extremely self-destructive. A whole man or woman is one who successfully balances the archetypes.

No wonder then, that Eirian should choose this memory for me to experience a deeper level of purity within this archetype - and yes, there are always risks in questing towards the Great Work. Only in balance with the opposing principle of femininity embodied in Sophie could there be a marriage with Eirian. Nonetheless there is much to be learned through laying with the Wild Woman - in experiencing the essence of the deep feminine.

She asked me to surrender to her, to die in her arms. This the ego self could not do, there was an impenetrable wall. But before this time was over, I learned of her by another name, Death, which happens to be my card of the week. And she left me her number too, 72, so that I might easily contact her.

In the Two I see another reflection of the High Priestess, traditionally connected to Sophie - but this is in a deeper duality yet.

In the Seven I see the Chariot bringing a great release of the libido, for in returning that image of my first love to consciousness, a part of me which had died has returned to life. Not only is its psychic energy made readily available, but the energy used in suppressing this memory is released also.

In the 7 and 2 together, the number Nine brings the promise of healing transformation through further inner work and contemplation. Nine also evokes the "Nine Hours to Rama" and the end of the reincarnational cycle in the Ninth Form - all further images of the withdrawal of the old soul into transformational Death.

So today I furthered the relationship by driving to the University of British Columbia that was the centre of my early longings, and in particular walked through the classical Japanese Nitobe gardens, a place sacred to the memory of my first love. Then I drove up Seymour Mountain to 1000 metres of altitude and the snow line, and then coming down somewhat, hiked on the steep mountain trails for two or three hours until I again reached the snow line. Here again in the west coast rainforest there was the sacred enclosed garden of the Lovers, but it was a wildish garden among the roots and rocks and streams of old growth forest. And so I dwelled in centering meditation on the wooden bridges over cascading streams, remembering the Japanese theory that the waterfall represents the masculine, and the quiet pools the feminine. And like Chief Dan George, I heard "the owl call my name".
 

Sophie-David

An Uncanny Revelation - and a Regret

As I described in "Nourishing the Wild Woman", I tend to read a book until I instinctively stop at a place where I need to learn more through practical experience before I can continue with the theory. In Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, I read about half the chapter "The Mate: Union With the Other" and then had that wonderfully disturbing encounter with Eirian as my first love, as described above.

Recall that yesterday
Sophie-David said:
She asked me to surrender to her, to die in her arms. This the ego self could not do, there was an impenetrable wall. But before this time was over, I learned of her by another name, Death
(BTW, a cute little aside, just after she gave me her number she said, "And you did buy the right vehicle, my vehicle", referring to the Subaru Forester, definitely a car of wildish nature).

In this chapter, Estés describes how in both the inner and outer worlds there is civilized woman and man, and too a wild woman and man. Using a folk tale, she told how a man who wished to win the love of two maidens had to guess their names and tell them to their father. The two maidens represent the duality which exists in every woman, and with in a man's Beloved. His conscious self could not do so, but his wild instinctive self, represented by a little dog, kept going back to spy on the women to learn their names. But each time the little dog tried to return with this treasure to his master the dog gave in to some temptation or another and forgot. Finally, after a trial to the death, the little dog returned home successfully. When the young man went to claim his brides they were already dressed in the finest clothes and oils, ready to join him in the marriage feast.

Well today I resumed reading from Estés with the words, "So men, as much as women, must name their dual natures", and when I got to the bottom of the page I was astounded at the deep synchronicity of these words:
...there is yet another aspect to naming the dualities, a more fearsome one yet, but one essential to all lovers. While one side of a woman's nature might be called Life, Life's "twin" sister is a force called Death... [then continuing into the next chapter] But in order for humans to live and give loyalty in this most fit manner, in this way which is most wise, most preserving, and most feeling, one has to go up against the very thing one fears most. There is no way around it, as we shall see. One must sleep with Lady Death.
Um, yes, that would be it. Too bad I missed my opportunity due to fear. :(

Yes, it is true I have in effect united with her during a mantra chant about a month ago, a living love deepens as it progresses. Either love grows or it dies. In a futile attempt at egoic control, followed by feeding my love with Women Who Run With the Wolves, there had been some valuable growth. But when it came to the critical moment, I lost my nerve. It may not be so easy the next time.

BTW, there really was an owl calling in the forest yesterday, even though it was mid afternoon. Owls do call out quietly when something disturbs their rest during the day. The owl is another symbol of the dark feminine.
 

Milfoil

Hmmm - very interesting Sue.