I recently took part in some extra-curricular meditating. It’s the best kind. During one of my Nature meditation groups one of the participants had once though she saw a door outlined in a rock face as she was meditating. The ace meditation teacher John David Kirby [Facebook page] had been really taken by this idea, and had suggested that anyone interested in doing a meditation on “The Portal” should hang around after out meditation session and we could explore this potential way into The Otherworld. So we arranged to do that.
Out of the group, there were four of us who stayed for the meditation, and coincidentally it was on the evening of a full moon.
What’s through…The Arched Window?
We lit a small controlled fire to take the chill off. Once this had died down and the chatter had subsided we naturally got into a meditative posture. I had dowsed around for the best place for me to do this work, and had offered my dowsing rods for other to use do the same. Now we all had our ideal places in front of the rock portal.
Minutes later I turned my meditative state of mind to the door itself. The outline of the door’s edge seemed to glow as the flames gently subsided to a flicker. A wire-frame shape formed – it was like a 3-D arch – the poles of a small camping tent. Then the door opened up and I stepped inside.
In the portal was a space big enough to hold me standing. As I stood there the floor disappeared revealing a stairway down inside the bole of a tree. I recognised this image from previous meditations, and I walked down the stairs going deeper into The Otherworld with each step.
At the bottom of the stairs was a small door. Somehow, like Alice In Wonderland, I shrank to fit through the tiny door that was carved into the base of the tree, and as it opened a fantastical cartoon world appeared before me. I knew it well, as I had been here many times before. But what would be waiting for me this time?
I was met with the sight of a fluffy white cat sitting on the sturdy low-lying branch of a cartoon tree. As the cat glanced up to see who was arriving it’s face became that of the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll‘s stories and a broad grin greeted me.
“A cat?” I wondered, “and a fluffy white one at that? What IS the significance?” – and at the moment that thought arrived the cat grew and transformed into Merlin – the cat becoming his beard, but the smile retained. He didn’t even ask if I was surprised.
Before that question could be considered Merlin approached me until his face was close to mine. I was looking into his eyes now, and I realised that the pupil of his right eye was actually the Merlinite crystal ball that I had recently bought – my new scrying tool.
The name “Merlin’s Eye” came to me, and I knew at that moment that this was a way to travel in Time.
My choice was to go into the future. I had been venturing in the past for so long that I had no vision of what the future could look like. I was interested to see what visions may arise.
The Future
Out-take moment. Relevant rant…I get piqued by films that use the naming format “The {Noun}” – as though to say that their film is somehow definitive and all-encompassing for the subject matter. It annoys me.
So, with that in mind, here is “The Future”. There can be only one, right? And my version will be all that needs to be said on the matter, ok?
I am propelled forwards in Time. I understand that this is merely a visual metaphor employed by Merlin to orient me to the concept that this is somewhere “ahead” of me in my usual frame of reference.
The rushing blurring effect slows to a halt and I am standing exactly where I stand now – in the same quarry but now it’s daylight, and as I look around I am scanning for what is different. I see that everything which was previously there has subtly changed.
No longer are there slender birch trees dotted at random, and clumps of bracken and uneven ground. Now the space has been … cleaned up! The trees there are of a more formal structure with even branches and trimmed or bred to have perfect length, definition and shape. The ground is even and tidy. In the distance I see the fields that were once filled with bushy hedgerows, a ragged tree line and different crops – they have all been changed to be perfectly “in order”. Colours co-ordinate. Lines are crisp and regulated. The colours seem … artificial….
I can feel my brow furrowing. It was just a bit…Stepford Wives.
In my vision of the future all of Nature has been tamed, manicured, made artificial and rendered safe. There is no natural landscape left – no wild spaces at all.
Recoiling from this I was taken by my Arthurian escort back to the Time machine that was Merlin’s Eye. I asked if there was a different vision of the future to this one, which I wholly rejected. In answer to my question I was once more whisked forwards through Time and found myself back in the same space again, but this time presented with a completely different vision.
In this vision of the future the land has been allowed to be reclaimed by Nature. The spaces required by Mankind are maintained (roads, towns, and houses) but even these have been co-inhabited by plants and wildlife. In this vision, Man is a custodian of the space, with better things to do with the time than battling with the forces of growth and trying to contain artificial boundaries. In this vision Nature is accepted, to the point where co-habitation is expected and encouraged as being normal.
This future feels more comfortable – less hostile. There is no tension of battle. In my mind I hear the phrase (the instruction) “Further the re-wilding“. I can only agree to that. I must play my part in shaping this future, my very small role.
Return to Recap
We all seemed to return to wakefulness at pretty much the same time. The spell had been broken, and now the darkness had taken a deep hold of the space. The fire was a mere glow of embers and suddenly the chill could be felt.
We discussed our adventures and there were so many coincidences that it became one of those magical moments where people look at each other going “Wow – you too?”. Of the four, three of us had met with a tall white-bearded old man who had guided us inside the Otherworld space. Two of us had the concept of custodianship of the land as the theme. All of us had seen the Portal open as two doors rather than one. There were many other small coincidences too.
On reflection the meditation reminded me that I had a plan to push for a wild garden space at a local piece of waste ground. Maybe this was the push to finally get that project going?
