I turn to my spirit guides and seek connection. Tomas steps aside, so does Medea. The curtain of spirit friends steps back to reveal one I am not so consciously aware of. She seems soft, almost demure at first, but as I step closer, I see fire in her hooded eyes. A ‘she-cat’ with claws, her spirit animal is a wildcat, a were cat, a lynx. I see both of her forms, human and cat, head off in different directions. I decide to follow the cat first.

We run, run and leap. Now we are on a stone wall, looking around while pretending we are just washing our claws. Seeming to pay no attention at all when in fact, we are drinking in every over-turned stone, every bent blade of grass, every shift and scent in the air. My whiskers are quivering and I’m feeling strongly drawn to some smell in the west. We jump down, bounding, stalking, sleeking…. oh it is bliss to move like this!

I have found a black, smelly river in the earth. Not really a river: more like a crack, a seam. I step on it’s surface with my paw and it is hard like unbroken glass. I can see my own reflection and suddenly I am turning, twisting in the air, arching my back and extending my claws and teeth because I can see a shape looming over and above me. In mid turn, I realise it is him and go limp as he catches me in his large hands. My dohmey-re… king-father, magician, liberator, teacher. I claw my way up his thick coated arms and climb onto his back, watching as he extends one finger, meowing a little in fright and awe as I see the finger penetrate the hard black surface, as though it were nothing but oil. A river that looks like water but shuts itself up like glass for me, becomes true water at his touch.

He pulls me down off his back and pushes me down through the oil. I am hissing and tensing, more out of fear than complaint, because I trust him. It seems as though he rides my back and jumps in after me. I have become a large beast in another land, much like a horse but my claws seem sharper, and I have beak and wings. Very nice! I am admiring my strange coat of blue-black feathers and fur, wondering why my dohmey-re rides me as though I were some kind of vehicle. He leans down to stroke my neck, whispering in my ear… “Hush! We will take turns in this place. We must pretend, and not stand out. You will ‘ride’ me later. Let me guide you.”

I notice his feet using gentle pressure, pushing a little first one way and then the other. I have a strange urge to snap around and eat him but many remembered times of love stop me. He chuckles, as though aware of my conflicted feelings. “Hush”

We ride for sometime and I see all kind of wonders. Strange buildings and people. Some stare as they pass, but none challenge us. We reach the citadel and he climbs down from me, rummaging in a sack attached to a saddle around my girth. He pulls forth a beautiful crystal and puts it in a divot in the centre of the square. “It is time”, he says “Time for the turning of the spheres, the changing of the season. Now lets reverse the cycle.”

I am myself again, all dressed in finery and soft flowing cloth, strange tattoos snaking their way up my arms. I am riding my steed and my steed is my dohmey-re in disguise. I would recognise that distinctive smell anywhere. But we ride backwards, as though moving backwards in time. And we pull the crystal energy with us from the centre of the citadel…. beautiful streamers of light flowing from the crystal to my bejewelled arms, which I hold high above me.

Now all are stopping to watch, and they are joining us, walking backwards in time, many hearts and minds joining us in light. We climb backwards together out through the crack in the earth and these beautiful lives, these beautiful volunteers…. they form their bodies like glue into the crack, like bridges of light darning a hole in the sole/soul of the Earth herself. We are weeping and rejoicing, for the darkness can be no more and yet the darkness had it’s own gift to give: a new time of connection, awakening and wholeness. We are One.

I thank the dohmey-re, and walk back to the dividing path, now hurrying after the spirit lady who went in the other direction. I catch her and she turns as she feels my hand on her shoulder. Her face. She is me but not me. Her name is Calliope. A lady of the stars, a resin of the earth, a white lilly that fills the air with heavy scent. We travel now together, one leap-frogging over the other and I know not where we go but she is fine, and I am fine if she is me. We dance and laugh…. and then, there are her claws and sharp teeth again. “What do these represent?”, I ask her.

“This is the power you refuse to own”, she says. “So I carry it for you, finding new and beautiful ways to weave it into the fibre of Who You Are to Become.”

“Do I do you a disservice, that you must carry it for me because I will or cannot?”, I ask.

“I am growing old” she says, “And soon this load-gift must be your own. Will you try it on for size?”

I am strangely reminded of the boots that came for me in the mail today. Italian vegan boots, so beautiful! Her load becomes the vegan boots; sleek, glamorous, chunky but light, tough and free, earthy and bold, practical and inviting. I pull them on with delicious anticipation, enjoying every tiny millimetre as they slide into, over and throughout my being. I am gloved and booted. I am toughened and free. I have claws with kindness and teeth to bare when I smile. I can roar and laugh, I am fire and pain, burning with liberated flame. I sink my teeth into her and we become one. We are devoured by the light of our love for another. I love her and she loves me.

Blessed Be

Post-journey research:

Calliope : Looks like she is a creative muse, a muse of epic poetry… which might explain why I have suddenly fallen obsessively in love with the reading and writing of poetry. She has also been called the goddess of music, song and dance- which i can also relate to given that I have been dancing the last few days. Every time I do yoga, it morphs into a dance. I went to the opera on the weekend, a fund-raiser for a recent singing teacher, and yesterday I listened to the CD of my first first song-muse, the lady who first inspired me to sing when I was about 14 years old. Beautiful Lori. This was the first time I have listened to this Cd since she passed and while listening I gave thanks to her for the gift she gave me. Listening to her made me remember why I fell in love with singing and why I like the kind I music I like (jazz blues)

Must be more to this though- i get the nagging feeling about stars. I’m going to search Calliope (or with a K?) and stars…..No. Can’t find anything. I will ask her.

Calliope: “I am a star, your guiding star… or one of them at least! My sister placed us in the heavens, so that our light may gather all the magic of the universe and then be shone down upon you, are charges, who look to us for inspiration. Never forget, stars are hope.”

I like that! Ok, so the other reference, I was curious about, was the wildcat… or Lynx, more specifically. I noticed that it was said Calliope was lover to Ares the war God… so perhaps some fire in her was attracted to him, or he rubbed off on her, because she certainly wasn’t all peaches and cream!

Here are some Lynx sites and the quotes I like from them:

http://www.universeofsymbolism.com/lynx-symbolism.html

She knows the power of silence (I am perfecting the fine art of biting my tongue!), the power of words, and uses words like a magical potion.

She can craft her words into powerful chants and healing ceremonies…she is a spiritual healer

The ability to see through solid objects into other dimensions (like in the story, where we were able to go through the black ‘glass’ into another world)

http://morningstar.netfirms.com/lynx.html

The Lynx person can watch someone walk straight towards an open manhole and sensing that to try to warn the other person would be fruitless, they must sit back and allow the other to carry on as they will, even if that means the person ends up going straight into the hole!

I spoke with a client today who said that she has just emerged from an experience she was immersed in and has been recalling very accurate things I said to her at the time that she simply couldn’t absorb because the experience had such a strong hold on her. People hear when they are ready.