06-13-2003, 12:00 AM
This is what happened when I did a visualization of Serket before trancework last Sunday morning.
Saturday night I had intended to do a lot of respectful things before doing a ceremonial meeting with Serket, in visualization,
but instead found myself caught up in reading and writing and thinking and wound up with no time left for ceremony. So I
set the whole idea aside and thought I'd do it another time.
All night I had dreams that were vague and cloudy, about work and the people I work with there, nothing seemed to make
a lot of sense and the circumstances were not real, too many things that didn't fit. Now and then a moment of clarity broke
through the haze but not often. My dreaming had been like that for a few nights, a couple of things happened that I didn't
have time to write about. I had a dream about the Drumming Master who taught me a little conga method. He was using
snare drums, a big set like in a modern band, and that surprised me. But he was Indian, looked like he might have been
from Mexico or South America. And his drumsticks were very odd, like fractal patterns that terminated in the balls that fit
on the end of the sticks you play xylophones with. When he played drums he held the sticks still, over the main bass drums
in front of him, and sent his energy down the fractal wands to set individual strikers moving. Each drumstick had about
twenty strikers, some on short wands and some on wands long enough to reach even the little bongos and cymbals around
the edge of his drum set, and his energy got each of these wands moving in their own beats. All this while he sat in
meditation, pretty damned impressive, the fellow was a whole orchestra of drums.
I digress. That night, nothing much, just cloudy dreams where now and then a patch of clarity breaks through. Towards
morning I was wakeful and dreaming while half conscious, finally woke up enough that I tinkered with the Serket
visualization but I didn't do a very good job of it and it was like the pilot who trained me in a dream last week was saying
about the question I missed on the license exam, that if I could not remember the words or the patterns precisely I should
go with the emotional intent and that would be enough. That's what I tried to do, I couldn't remember the whole speech but
I remembered the emotional content and I was perfectly truth speaking about that part. It was all visualization, though,
imagery that I could manipulate, the kind of thing lucid dreamers think is the end product. To me it's just a tool.
After that I did some energy meditation and decided to try some trancework even though I didn't feel like it, I was kind of
depressed and serious, feeling there was something I should be doing but not knowing what. I laid back and tried to relax
and went into some fitful half conscious dreaming, the same thing again. I was at work, cleaning up building fronts, and
every now and then I'd get a glimpse of the sky and it would bother me. Something itching at me, something pulling that was
kind of scary. Used to be I was terribly afraid of looking at the sky in Dreams because it would cause UFO's to appear
and then I'd be in some kind of battle with them, or a hole would open up and try to suck me into outer space and I'd
spend some time clinging to the tops of trees with my teeth and my fingernails and both legs waving in the air above me.
Scary stuff. I'm supposed to be beyond that now but I still have some reluctance to do these things.
But that sky still bothered me, it was the only really clear thing in my dream, and when I say that I mean it was the only
consciously clear thing there, the only high level experience there, the only thing that really spoke of Dreaming. Finally I
excused myself from the work crew and laid down on the gravel bed in front of Building Three, relaxed myself totally in
order to enter trance, and opened my eyes to the sky.
The sky was a bright clear powder blue, and the first thing I saw was a rainbow of clouds, the shape of a rainbow but
formed of white clouds in a pattern that was too perfect to be natural but was natural anyway. It arched from the north to
the south, my feet were to the east. Anybody who wants to do trancework should align themselves in that position and
that's something I forgot to mention, I usually do a three stage OBE now and I do that alignment in the second stage, in
Dreaming, if I haven't already done it. Otherwise it's kind of eerie because the first thing that happens when you exit the
body is that you start to spin like a compass needle until you get oriented correctly.
The arch took on a little bit of rainbow hue, seemed like that was in response to some doubts I had about whether it was a
good thing or not, a way of saying, Hi, this is Rainbow Central speaking. Seemed like some laughter behind that flicker of
color. That relaxed me a bit, and as I relaxed deeper into the trance the archway condensed and drew closer until it settled
around me clunk! like some kind of cloud belt. It had the feeling of heavy iron snapping into place, made the ground
underneath me bounce, but it wasn't frightening. Nice to have a seat belt, I hate falling into the sky.
Then the energy took charge of what happened and I just rode along, allowing instead of fighting. The power drew me into
a sitting posture and would have pulled me into the sky I'm sure, if not for my astral seat belt. There was a constant surging
flow of energy through me, it made me shake like somebody in an electric chair but it was OK, it was nice and I didn't
resist it so I came to no harm. Suddenly I had a clear vision of the crater on Mt. Erebus, and it retreated and condensed in
front of me until it was sort of replacing my navel. I curled forward like a stream of energy, doing an impossible thing, and
dove headfirst into my own navel. There was that same feeling of incredible energy and impossible mass, and I arrived in
the clouds over Mt. Erebus with an audible Whump! I don't recall ever traveling like that before.
The clouds parted in front of me and on the rim of the crater I saw the stone steps of the ancient pathway leading to the
rectangular temple platform, the real version of what I had imagined in my Serket visualization. It looked ancient. It looked
Mayan, a laid stone courtyard surrounded by a chest high stone wall, a pathway leading in and on the other side, a pathway
leading out. There was a dais or at least a symbol in the center of the platform, something from one of Bardon's books and
I knew it was the symbol of Mt. Erebus. I landed on my feet on one side of the courtyard, whump! Raised a little dust, I
think.
My attention was split, like in the high level combat methods of Tai Chi where you exit the body and devote your attention
to the battlefield from a bird's eye point of view, allowing yourself to react to everything in the battle and not just your
enemy's visible movements. I knew myself as being there physically, and I knew myself as the Eye of Horus riding above
the courtyard. I was dressed in ancient armor, a kilt of metal plates, ceremonial armbands, very much ancient Egyptian in
appearance. Metal leggings, a simple metal breastplate that covered my heart, very practical. My sword was in my hand
and I had no shield. My sword was a shorter weapon than the one I have now, and it had a heavier blade, it was obviously
a soldier's weapon. I was alone there for just a moment.
A warrior exploded into existence on the other side of the dais and I mean that literally, I came in with a Whump! and he
came in with a Boom! There was a flash of light and a peal of thunder and he was there, shaking off the thunderclouds that
clung to him, dressed in golden armor with a sword of light, and he didn't waste a moment. He held his sword lightly in front
of him and marched forward.
We had a wonderful but brief combat, I know that I can't describe the perfection of it, it was an ecstatic experience.
Whirling, dancing, thrusting, parrying, all of it in perfect harmony and all of it perfectly lethal had either of us made a mistake
or stopped to think or harbored any fear. Probably it lasted two or three seconds, a long time for a fight in real terms. Then
I was standing near the exit of the platform and he was standing where I had entered, and we were sheathing our swords
with beaming smiles on our faces.
I remember thinking, with intense joy, Ah, but it's grand to be home!
Then the clouds moved in around us, took me up in their soft arms, and deposited me back in front of Building Three. No,
I'm wrong, it was Building Six and I always get those two mixed up. It took me awhile to come out of trance, I was pretty
deeply engaged in that. I kept shutting my eyes against the sun because it was hard to focus again, too much light, and when
I would open my eyes I'd catch a glimpse of something like falling leaves coming through the air toward me from the north.
But not quite leaves, the shape and the color and the movement was different, fluttery. One hit me on the cheek lightly,
pausing there an instant before continuing on its journey. A butterfly, one of thousands upon thousands, part of a huge cloud
of butterflies traveling south.
Then I woke up at home, feeling great.
In retrospect I realize I made some misinterpretations of what happened, firstly because I had some silly notion that a
person who was my equal in combat would be male. I remember a very shapely and smooth thigh emerging from that
armour at one point and I have no reason to think this person was not Serket. The hat was correct. I didn't see the
scorpion but in those circumstances I think I would have also chosen to be under the hat where it was safer, that would
have been the sensible thing. And of course this wasn't what I expected from Serket but if it had been what I imagined it
would have been no test at all. Since then my dreams have seemed to always include some facet of Serket's teachings, and
I'm being led in an interesting direction, back to some unfinished business from the last journey of my Seven Gates
adventure two years ago. That'll take a lot of telling and I'll try to jot it down soon, because the story is getting ahead of the
telling very quickly now. Maybe it's important, maybe not, I won't know for a while yet. Serket does teach us courage, and
this unfinished business does concern the last thing of which I am terribly afraid.
-Heyoka
Saturday night I had intended to do a lot of respectful things before doing a ceremonial meeting with Serket, in visualization,
but instead found myself caught up in reading and writing and thinking and wound up with no time left for ceremony. So I
set the whole idea aside and thought I'd do it another time.
All night I had dreams that were vague and cloudy, about work and the people I work with there, nothing seemed to make
a lot of sense and the circumstances were not real, too many things that didn't fit. Now and then a moment of clarity broke
through the haze but not often. My dreaming had been like that for a few nights, a couple of things happened that I didn't
have time to write about. I had a dream about the Drumming Master who taught me a little conga method. He was using
snare drums, a big set like in a modern band, and that surprised me. But he was Indian, looked like he might have been
from Mexico or South America. And his drumsticks were very odd, like fractal patterns that terminated in the balls that fit
on the end of the sticks you play xylophones with. When he played drums he held the sticks still, over the main bass drums
in front of him, and sent his energy down the fractal wands to set individual strikers moving. Each drumstick had about
twenty strikers, some on short wands and some on wands long enough to reach even the little bongos and cymbals around
the edge of his drum set, and his energy got each of these wands moving in their own beats. All this while he sat in
meditation, pretty damned impressive, the fellow was a whole orchestra of drums.
I digress. That night, nothing much, just cloudy dreams where now and then a patch of clarity breaks through. Towards
morning I was wakeful and dreaming while half conscious, finally woke up enough that I tinkered with the Serket
visualization but I didn't do a very good job of it and it was like the pilot who trained me in a dream last week was saying
about the question I missed on the license exam, that if I could not remember the words or the patterns precisely I should
go with the emotional intent and that would be enough. That's what I tried to do, I couldn't remember the whole speech but
I remembered the emotional content and I was perfectly truth speaking about that part. It was all visualization, though,
imagery that I could manipulate, the kind of thing lucid dreamers think is the end product. To me it's just a tool.
After that I did some energy meditation and decided to try some trancework even though I didn't feel like it, I was kind of
depressed and serious, feeling there was something I should be doing but not knowing what. I laid back and tried to relax
and went into some fitful half conscious dreaming, the same thing again. I was at work, cleaning up building fronts, and
every now and then I'd get a glimpse of the sky and it would bother me. Something itching at me, something pulling that was
kind of scary. Used to be I was terribly afraid of looking at the sky in Dreams because it would cause UFO's to appear
and then I'd be in some kind of battle with them, or a hole would open up and try to suck me into outer space and I'd
spend some time clinging to the tops of trees with my teeth and my fingernails and both legs waving in the air above me.
Scary stuff. I'm supposed to be beyond that now but I still have some reluctance to do these things.
But that sky still bothered me, it was the only really clear thing in my dream, and when I say that I mean it was the only
consciously clear thing there, the only high level experience there, the only thing that really spoke of Dreaming. Finally I
excused myself from the work crew and laid down on the gravel bed in front of Building Three, relaxed myself totally in
order to enter trance, and opened my eyes to the sky.
The sky was a bright clear powder blue, and the first thing I saw was a rainbow of clouds, the shape of a rainbow but
formed of white clouds in a pattern that was too perfect to be natural but was natural anyway. It arched from the north to
the south, my feet were to the east. Anybody who wants to do trancework should align themselves in that position and
that's something I forgot to mention, I usually do a three stage OBE now and I do that alignment in the second stage, in
Dreaming, if I haven't already done it. Otherwise it's kind of eerie because the first thing that happens when you exit the
body is that you start to spin like a compass needle until you get oriented correctly.
The arch took on a little bit of rainbow hue, seemed like that was in response to some doubts I had about whether it was a
good thing or not, a way of saying, Hi, this is Rainbow Central speaking. Seemed like some laughter behind that flicker of
color. That relaxed me a bit, and as I relaxed deeper into the trance the archway condensed and drew closer until it settled
around me clunk! like some kind of cloud belt. It had the feeling of heavy iron snapping into place, made the ground
underneath me bounce, but it wasn't frightening. Nice to have a seat belt, I hate falling into the sky.
Then the energy took charge of what happened and I just rode along, allowing instead of fighting. The power drew me into
a sitting posture and would have pulled me into the sky I'm sure, if not for my astral seat belt. There was a constant surging
flow of energy through me, it made me shake like somebody in an electric chair but it was OK, it was nice and I didn't
resist it so I came to no harm. Suddenly I had a clear vision of the crater on Mt. Erebus, and it retreated and condensed in
front of me until it was sort of replacing my navel. I curled forward like a stream of energy, doing an impossible thing, and
dove headfirst into my own navel. There was that same feeling of incredible energy and impossible mass, and I arrived in
the clouds over Mt. Erebus with an audible Whump! I don't recall ever traveling like that before.
The clouds parted in front of me and on the rim of the crater I saw the stone steps of the ancient pathway leading to the
rectangular temple platform, the real version of what I had imagined in my Serket visualization. It looked ancient. It looked
Mayan, a laid stone courtyard surrounded by a chest high stone wall, a pathway leading in and on the other side, a pathway
leading out. There was a dais or at least a symbol in the center of the platform, something from one of Bardon's books and
I knew it was the symbol of Mt. Erebus. I landed on my feet on one side of the courtyard, whump! Raised a little dust, I
think.
My attention was split, like in the high level combat methods of Tai Chi where you exit the body and devote your attention
to the battlefield from a bird's eye point of view, allowing yourself to react to everything in the battle and not just your
enemy's visible movements. I knew myself as being there physically, and I knew myself as the Eye of Horus riding above
the courtyard. I was dressed in ancient armor, a kilt of metal plates, ceremonial armbands, very much ancient Egyptian in
appearance. Metal leggings, a simple metal breastplate that covered my heart, very practical. My sword was in my hand
and I had no shield. My sword was a shorter weapon than the one I have now, and it had a heavier blade, it was obviously
a soldier's weapon. I was alone there for just a moment.
A warrior exploded into existence on the other side of the dais and I mean that literally, I came in with a Whump! and he
came in with a Boom! There was a flash of light and a peal of thunder and he was there, shaking off the thunderclouds that
clung to him, dressed in golden armor with a sword of light, and he didn't waste a moment. He held his sword lightly in front
of him and marched forward.
We had a wonderful but brief combat, I know that I can't describe the perfection of it, it was an ecstatic experience.
Whirling, dancing, thrusting, parrying, all of it in perfect harmony and all of it perfectly lethal had either of us made a mistake
or stopped to think or harbored any fear. Probably it lasted two or three seconds, a long time for a fight in real terms. Then
I was standing near the exit of the platform and he was standing where I had entered, and we were sheathing our swords
with beaming smiles on our faces.
I remember thinking, with intense joy, Ah, but it's grand to be home!
Then the clouds moved in around us, took me up in their soft arms, and deposited me back in front of Building Three. No,
I'm wrong, it was Building Six and I always get those two mixed up. It took me awhile to come out of trance, I was pretty
deeply engaged in that. I kept shutting my eyes against the sun because it was hard to focus again, too much light, and when
I would open my eyes I'd catch a glimpse of something like falling leaves coming through the air toward me from the north.
But not quite leaves, the shape and the color and the movement was different, fluttery. One hit me on the cheek lightly,
pausing there an instant before continuing on its journey. A butterfly, one of thousands upon thousands, part of a huge cloud
of butterflies traveling south.
Then I woke up at home, feeling great.
In retrospect I realize I made some misinterpretations of what happened, firstly because I had some silly notion that a
person who was my equal in combat would be male. I remember a very shapely and smooth thigh emerging from that
armour at one point and I have no reason to think this person was not Serket. The hat was correct. I didn't see the
scorpion but in those circumstances I think I would have also chosen to be under the hat where it was safer, that would
have been the sensible thing. And of course this wasn't what I expected from Serket but if it had been what I imagined it
would have been no test at all. Since then my dreams have seemed to always include some facet of Serket's teachings, and
I'm being led in an interesting direction, back to some unfinished business from the last journey of my Seven Gates
adventure two years ago. That'll take a lot of telling and I'll try to jot it down soon, because the story is getting ahead of the
telling very quickly now. Maybe it's important, maybe not, I won't know for a while yet. Serket does teach us courage, and
this unfinished business does concern the last thing of which I am terribly afraid.
-Heyoka