DIMENSIONS
 

HOLES

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Near a series of smooth holes
in the rock, we sat quietly
for hours, not catching
anything. In one hole, a butterfly edged

on the slick surface toward stagnant water.
In another, two butterflies hung frozen,
wings open, the web
barely visible against gray stone.
 

You died a week later. Twenty years,
and the butterflies are here again.
The stone is cool and smooth,
almost comfortable enough
 

to sleep on. In another twenty years
I will wake, the same
age as you,
the water still flowing
 

into the deep pool as we gaze
at the buckeyes, the butterflies
rising and falling, our bodies
still shadows in the flowing water.


 

   When the Fool was a boy, he discovered that he could experience absolute bliss when he stretched out on a rock next to a stream as sunlight glittered on the water and the rocks and the leaves. He could experience a bliss that cleansed his mind, a kind of heaven on earth as he immersed himself in nature and tuned his mind to the subtle spiritual energies that exist in the physical world and other dimensions. His family members would sometimes make fun of him, but he didn't care. Years later, as he hiked next to a river, the Fool remembered that when he was a boy, one morning his father woke him up early, and they went fishing together for the first time. The Fool had stretched out on a rock while his father silently fished. His father died a week later. Thanks to that memory, as the Fool gazed at the river, he sang a song about "holes."
 

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Infinity Symbol

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   As he was growing up, the Fool was forced to conform more and more to the hierarchical structures and systems of power in his society, and he became more and more negative about the people and the world around him. He eventually realized that this negativity was destroying his sense of well-being, and because of his blissful experiences as a youth, he understood that he needed to cleanse his heart and mind. He began by purifying his chakras, the energy centers in his aura. One day as he was meditating, he had a vision of a gray infinity symbol above his head. He envisioned the symbol so clearly that he thought he was seeing it with his eyes open, and he blinked. The infinity symbol disappeared.

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The Magician: Mercury

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   A few days later, the Fool visited a bookstore. Normally he would search for a good novel or book of poetry, but that day he was inexplicably drawn to the New Age section. He found the Universal Tarot Deck and an insightful book about the Tarot. The cashier stated while ringing up the purchase, "I've been thinking about getting back into the Tarot myself."
  "Synchronicity," the Fool replied.
  The cashier smiled and handed the Fool his receipt.
  As the Fool was driving away, he wondered why the word 'synchronity' had popped out of his mouth. "I don't even really know what the word means," he muttered out loud. He was running errands, and he parked in front of another store. He decided to check out the book and the Tarot deck before going inside the store. He turned immediately to a page with an old black and white photograph of a dignified man. The caption identified the man as Carl Jung. The Fool skimmed the page and soon noticed the word 'synchronity.' The Fool read the paragraph and discovered that Jung had coined the word synchronicity to describe how two or more related events are often connected by meaning, not just causation. The Fool then opened his new Tarot deck. The second card in the deck, known as The Magician, depicts a gray infinity symbol above the Magician's head, exactly like the one the Fool had envisioned during meditation a couple of days earlier. "A perfect example of synchronicity!" the Fool thought. He soon discovered that The Magician card is associated with the Logos, a words that denotes 'meaning,' in other words, the meaning that has continued to unfold every moment since the beginning of creation. He also discovered that the Tree of Life is an expanded version of the primary chakra system. The Fool had spent many months purifying those energy centers in his aura. He had eliminated the negativity from each primary chakra, but he often still discovered darkness in one or more chakra during his meditations since the world is so full of negativity.

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Golden Equal-Armed Cross

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   During meditation, the Fool kept having a vision of a golden balanced cross with an angel at each end. One angel wore a yellow robe, another wore a red robe, another wore a blue robe, and the fourth wore a white robe. He soon discovered that his vision symbolized the structure of two important occult rituals, one known as The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, the other known as The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram. Both of them are based on the balanced cross. In the ritual, an archangel stands at the end of each arm of the cross, Archangel Raphael, representing the element of Air, in a yellow robe; Archangel Michael, representing Fire, in a red robe; Archangel Gabriel, representing Water, in a blue robe; and Archangel Auriel, representing Earth, in a white robe. "Another synchronicity!" the Fool blurted out. "Either that, or I see the symbols in the spiritual dimension and soon discover their meaning in the 'real' world." The Fool soon began incorporating related Tarot cards in The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, and with a purified heart and mind, he began feeling bliss again. He even began having sustained visions of a golden balanced cross on top of a golden pyramid in his mind's eye while hiking through the forest.

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Lotus

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   One day during the purification process, after dumping garbage out of his crown chakra for hours, the Fool envisioned a brilliant white flower with four petals. Suddenly in his vision the flower bloomed into a gleaming white flower with innumerable petals. He thought at first that the flower was a white rose, but a voice in his head clearly stated, "Lotus." The Fool did a little research and soon discovered that the thousand-petaled lotus is a symbol associated with the crown chakra. "Another sychronicty," the Fool chuckled. He decided that the four-petaled flower in his vision represented the four elements of the wise, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, like the balanced cross in the occult rituals he had discovered. Each of the elements is associated with a triplicity of the zodiac and their related planets, and he concluded that the balanced cross and the Archangels together represent all of the subtle energies of the Tree of Life.

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Spirit of Place near a Stream

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   The Fool even began feeling the energies of overarching spirits of place, especially in pristine areas of the forest. In one place with a small stream, the Fool felt a loving, almost maternal spirit of place. Based on her energy, he could tell that the spirit loved all creatures in her domain. The Fool was an intruder, but she seemed to emanate a strong feeling of affection for him. He couldn't figure out why until he found a Native American pounding near the stream. The Native Americans must have revered their spirit of place, possibly for thousands of years, and the spirit no doubt retained extremely positive memories of them. The Fool did some research on 'spirit of place' and discovered that the Romans called the spirit of place 'genius loci,' and often depicted the spirit of place holding a libation in one hand and a snake, symbolizing rebirth, in the other.

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Angry Spirit of Place

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   Occasionally the Fool would encounter an angry or resentful spirit of place, especially in places disturbed or ruined by humans. Other times a spirit of place felt terrifyingly wild or primeval as it protected its territory. The Fool realized that humans need to recognize the spiritual dimensions of nature and establish a reverential connection with each spirit of place. The Fool could understand how some spirits might have a negative reaction to human beings, given how the human race has disrespected and despoiled the natural world for so many centuries, in so many places.

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Mountain Lion

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   On one hike, the Fool began to feel like he was being watched, and he unbuttoned the sheath of his buck knife. Suddenly the Fool envisioned a mountain lion in his mind's eye. He took a few more steps forward and saw a mountain lion next to the trail about to pounce on a squirrel. The Fool stepped back slowly and returned to his car, wondering how he could have known that he was near a mountain lion. "Perhaps I connected with the spirit of the mountain lion in some other life. Perhaps the mountain lion was once my power animal," he thought to himself as he drove home.

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Ghost

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   One day, the Fool went hiking with a couple of other people. They eventually stopped to rest on a rock near the river. Suddenly a pale, spindly man with a rifle walked right by them. The man was wearing clothes that seemed to be from the late 1800's. The man didn't say a word to any of them. "Did you see that man?" the Fool inquired. Both of his friends claimed that they hadn't seen any other people during their hike. "But he just walked right by us," the Fool replied.
  "Maybe you just saw a ghost," one of his friends chuckled.
  "Maybe so," the Fool replied. "I just can't believe you didn't see him!"

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Gnome-like Creature

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   Another day, the Fool was hiking by himself through a pristine area and suddenly came upon what at first seemed like a large raven, but the creature didn't move. It just stood there, blinking one eye, then the other. Suddenly the Fool could tell the creature was a small man, less than two feet tall, who was wearing a cloak of raven feathers. The Fool wanted to communicate with the gnome-like creature, so he took one step forward, and the gnome rushed at him and ran around him three times and then vanished into the woods. The creature seemed ancient, but he was as fast as any wild creature that the Fool had ever encountered. The Fool was standing in plants with huge leaves that he had never encountered before. The gnome hit the stalks of the plants, making them shake, as he circled around the Fool. Perhaps the creature was only trying to scare the Fool, but the gnome could have done some serious damage. The gnome might have been inviting the Fool into the faery world, or perhaps he was signaling that the Fool should leave his territory. The Fool never returned to the area.

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Nature Spirit

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   The Fool has often encountered nature spirits that he personified as faeries in his mind's eye. He began to realize that the mind has the tendency to personify unseen subtle spirits as people, which is why gods and angels and faery folk and demonic forces are so often depicted as human-like beings. "We can feel their energy if we are open and free of negativity, but we anthropomorphize so that they appear as people or animals, as something we can understand," he thought to himself. "The imagination deals with energies in the unseen spiritual realms through personification."

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Native American Village

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   The Fool developed a sixth sense as he was hiking through the mountains. He could often sense when he was near a Native American village site. Sometimes he envisioned the village in his mind's eye, almost as if he was seeing the past, then he would find pounding stones and house pits, sometimes even pestles on the pounding stones. "Am I actually experiencing retrocognition or am I sensing an ancient presence that remains here?" he wondered out loud.

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God of the Hunt

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   One day, the Fool was standing in a Native American house pit and unexpectedly felt compelled to run after something. Suddenly he heard a deer crash through the brush near him. The Fool turned and saw in his mind's eye a god of the hunt. "I'm way too out of shape to chase that deer," the Fool muttered, and the god laughed. "The Native Americans must have connected with spirits who would help them and personified the spirits as gods in human form. Those spirits are still here even though the people long ago vanished," the Fool thought to himself.

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Thief

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   One day the Fool left his car parked on the side of a mountain road and hiked into an isolated foothill valley. After he had hiked several miles, he suddenly knew that a thief was breaking into his car--even though he was too far away to perceive the break in. The Fool plopped down on a stone and mourned about all the evil in the world. He returned to his car and discovered that a thief, or a disgruntled landowner, had broken a window and rifled through his glove compartment. The Fool was extremely pissed off as he drove home with chilly wind circulating through the car, thanks to the broken window. Later, he realized that his physical senses could not have possibly perceived the break-in since he had been so far away, which meant that the mind through intuition can transcend space and time. "Perhaps our minds are not imprisoned by the physical senses," the Fool thought.

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Singer

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   Another day, the Fool hiked along a stream with a friend. They stopped to rest on a sandy bank, and she began to read out loud a passage about how people live as if they are traveling through a tunnel, and they might hear and see something other people don't perceive. Suddenly the Fool could hear a singer close by. The singer's voice was so loud that the Fool could barely hear what his friend was reading. As the singer was belting out songs in a different language, the Fool occasionally exclaimed, "That's amazing!" and he decided to search for the singer after seven or eight songs. The Fool searched the area for awhile until the music ended. He couldn't find anyone. Soon he and his friend returned to the city.
  The Fool and his friend returned to the same place about two months later. "Wasn't that singer amazing?" the Fool asked his friend.
  "What singer?" his friend asked.
  "You know, that guy who sang so beautifully while you were reading to me. His voice was so loud I had trouble understanding you sometimes," the Fool replied.
  His friend gave him a funny look. "I have never heard anyone singing by this stream or any other stream. I have no idea what you're talking out!" she blurted out.
  "You didn't hear him? That's impossible!" the Fool retorted.
  She didn't look at him or talk to him for the rest of the day.

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Shiva

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   One day while the Fool was meditating, he had a vision of Shiva dancing by the sea. Shiva began twirling around so fast that the Fool could no longer see him. Then the Fool suddenly found himself floating among the stars.

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The Cosmos in the Blackness of Space

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   Suddenly the cosmos collapsed into one bright light floating in the blackness of space and grew smaller and smaller until it was only a tiny point of light. Though Shiva is considered a God of destruction, the Fool felt a sense of liberation, realizing that from one perspective the entire cosmos is just a point of light.

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River Spirit

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   As the Fool continued to encounter other spirits and other dimensions, he realized that humans are connected with all things on many different levels.

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All stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.

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