mandalaofsoul

At some point we each experience “the call.” Our higher self moves in a way that makes usaware that we are more. That experience occurred young for me. In the following, I explore a morespecific “call” that invited me into my archetypal reality.The CallIt was a warm summer night. I was fifteen years old. I stared up into the night sky, trying to see angels; Ibelieve I conjured a few. However, this began a process. This was generally my way. I would experienceand experiment. What I call a seed practice, or event, would later evolve into or precipitate anunderstanding, wisdom or spiritual skill, often with a corresponding academic pursuit. In this case thefocus and intent was a basic spiritual practice that eventually opened a nexus to expanded states ofconsciousness. Seek and you will find/knock and the door will open/when the time is right the teacherwill appear is a classic archetype. Throughout the ages, we felt the call and we responded by looking toouter representations like icons, statues, trees, flowers, mountains and the stars and reflective points ofattentions for transcendence. Eventually, we turned inward to points of light, or created harmonicimagery that transferred our awareness to internal realities. Increasingly, our direction opened inwardly,awakening our senses in our unconscious archetypal realms. That warm summer night was, to me, anarchetypal moment that continues even now to deepen my sense of self and reality. The archetypal andspiritual worlds are fluid and morph consistent with our depth of alignment. The measure is always howfar you are ready, able and willing to go. In our teens we have a natural call to spirituality that JosephChilton Pearce believed was a developmental imperative. In our teens we want to test eternity. Whenhealthy, we find a greater kinship and connectedness with all that is. When unhealthy, we take fatalrisks or injure others, sometimes fatally, to find initiation into something greater.I was in a sensory deprivation experience when I was nineteen. Interesting word: deprivation. Inthis archetypal world view, deprivation is synonymous with deconstruction, similar to fasting orabstaining. In such activity, we challenge the conditioned continuity of the status quo. I was in a bodytemperature cubicle for three days, pitch black and insulated from outside sounds. Three days in silentvelvet darkness, with a bed, not much space and Metracal to live on. Metracal was a ‘60’s nutritious dietdrink in a small can. After about a day and a half, wondrous illuminations began to permeate the space Iwas in. I had out-of-body experiences in which I flew over the Southern California landscape and circledmy neighborhood. I can still recall the oak-clustered brown hills and the aerial view of my house. I alsofound myself on at least two other dimensions, in which everything radiated its own light source.Geometric forms floated in space radiating light. The colors were incredible and far more brilliant andbeautiful than the physical colors that we see as reflected light. The distinction of reflected and sourcelight intrigued me. I was easily reminded of reading of such realities in the Bible in which light emanatedfrom forms and beings in the heavenly worlds. There was another realm that took the form of anaqueous environment of glowing plants and creatures that glided through the space as a fish would inwater. Again each thing, each creature, had its own light radiating from an inner source through itscomplete form; they were glowing. I was not dreaming. I was awake in an archetypal realm, an innerdimension of self with its corresponding environment. Later, in my academic world, I called the process10