Chloe Goodchild’s haunting melody reverberates, inviting me to remember ‘a place I know’ ... and to have the courage to explore, because ‘no one else can go there for me.’ This is the mystery of the multiverse, a cosmic expanse that is more immense than any human imagination ~ the place that becomes an entry into seeing life through a mythopoetic lens of awe, wonder and magic that reaches out to touch the essence of self.

In Seeing With New Eyes and in Portal One: Inner Landscapes we have seen the material world speak to us through our physical eyes, reflecting our current waking awareness. Dreaming ourselves into being through Portal 2 then took us a step further with an expansion of the porosity of the liminal space between conscious and unconscious. Here in Portal 3 we come to Inner Vision, exploring the images generated from within, interwoven in trans-rational spaces beyond thought ~ word ~ and time, surpassing our limited understanding of cosmic consciousness.

What does ‘beyond space and time’ really mean? How do we begin to understand these phenomena? How can we create a model of life that includes this trans-rational wisdom and experience as a rich source of understanding of consciousness and the mysteries that guide us on our human journey? What would a map of the transpersonal look like? ... this is beyond opinion and ideas, a knowingness much bigger than the human mind can comprehend.

Perhaps we need to follow Rumi’s suggestion to work in the invisible world at least as hard as you do in the visible.

For me, part of appreciating that unseen world is exploring images of the cosmos that are only visible through the Hubble, and now the infrared James Webb space telescope circulating through the cosmos, a million miles away from Earth. It is startling to see the “Cosmic Cliffs” image side by side with the splendor and mystery of this image of Courtney’s from our swimming pool, the sunlight and color of the surrounding nature reflected in the movement on the water.

The uncanny similarity of these images reinforces to me that the unseen world is much more available to us than we ever thought possible. How do we place this mystique in the context of a life on Earth? It leaves me speechless at the wonder of it all ... and in the future, how much more we might see of what is said to be ‘invisible,’ when we have even more powerful technology at our disposal, which will eventually come – images like this were unforeseeable even a few years ago before the advent of the infrared James Webb Space Telescope. I am intrigued that NASA names their endeavours after mythological figures such as the spacecraft Orion, the ancient Greek hunter immortalized in the starry constellation, and Artemis 2, the upcoming mission for the 240,000 mile journey to the moon, echoing the goddess who, in one of her manifestations was ruler of the stars. NASA says it is about being bold, and pushing frontiers. I love the congruence of the notion of wisdom in the name of OWL: the Other Worlds Lab, which is engaged in exploring the possibility of life outside our galaxy. Perhaps scientists are more tuned in to the metaphysical than we give them credit for. To me this indicates an ability to turn ordinary thinking into the realm of the extraordinary, where the spirit blossoms.

I also wonder what inner human technology might be revealed and sculpted in the future, but in the meantime, we can continue to explore and hone the power that we do have. Since 1987 His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, has brought a spiritual viewpoint into an ongoing dialogue with renowned scientists, resulting in the expansion of the understanding of the nature of ‘reality’ for all participants. He has facilitated scientists to study advanced Buddhist practitioners to better understand their inner methods, minds and emotions. Many scientists are beginning to walk in step with the mystics -- perhaps they might one day lead the way to a model of human consciousness that combines the material viewpoint along with transcendent experiences.

Honored institutions are making great strides in focusing a scientific lens on these metaphysical and paranormal phenomena. The University of Virginia Department of Perceptual Studies has a fifty-year history of ground-breaking work on remote viewing, and now on near-death studies. The Institute of Noetic Sciences, Science and Non-Duality, the Galileo Commission, and the Windbridge Center are all moving with similar levels of curiosity, peeking beyond the materialistic paradigm and adding a sense of wonder and awe into a scientific framework. It is timely that in 2023 the Institute of Noetic Sciences is asking questions like: Could consciousness be even more fundamental than the physical world? Is there a more comprehensive framework than scientific materialism for describing the full range of human experience? -- while funding major studies that include Seeing Without Eyes, and Conscious Agents and the Subatomic World. These are major steps in expanding beyond the materialistic model of consciousness as a product of the brain.

To enter the mystery of the unseen, we must unlearn what we think we know from our perception of the material world, and become what Peter Kingsley calls servants of the numinous.

This is echoed in Rilke’s wise reminder that, at this mysterious point in life, work of the eyes is done, now go and do heart work on all the images imprisoned within you.

And so, we shall continue in that realm of the occult, exploring with our inner vision these hidden wonders, entering into the richness available beyond our physical eyes.

I was puzzled by these unexpected physical responses, twice, with such sharp and unanticipated emotions ... and was left with a yearning to understand the ‘something’ that cut so deeply into body and psyche. I was tapping into the sphere of invisible imagery and the corresponding mystery embedded in it. I didn’t know until much later that it was an awakening. I have subsequently witnessed this in others in the presence of this energy, a powerful emotional release bringing some people to their knees.

Having been activated by the spiritual energy carried by these Black Madonna figures, over subsequent years I was led into the works of  Jungian teachers Marion Woodman and Ian Begg, as well as authors like China Galland and Margaret Starbird. Their writings address the desire of so many women (and men) to find a face of divinity they can identify with, that speaks to the deep primal spiritual perspective that is found in the archetypal energy of the dark goddess as the Divine Feminine.

The Black Madonna brings layers of experience ... mythic, religious, spiritual, energetic. This tradition is ancient, found in all the names of the Divine Mother Goddess figures of India, Egypt, Africa and the Far and Middle East. She is represented in indigenous psychospiritual traditions worldwide, in myths and shamanic practises of the Inuit, Sami, and original peoples of Siberia, North and South America, Mexico and Polynesia. She is the archetypal Mother embodied in the land and in ritual. All this exploration helped me to understand my nostalgia, as I pursued this connection further in my writing for Visions of the Goddess, the book Courtney and I produced in 1998.

All my experience and subsequent writing on the Black Madonna led me to a spiritual path of meditation and IST ~ the inner space techniques of the Clairvision school. This intense work with inner images allows me to reach and explore metaphysical spaces and to know spiritual connections such as the Black Madonna. More than that, IST provides a navigational tool that is precise, reliable and repeatable. A letting go of ordinary mental consciousness leaves me at a threshold that allows me to both witness and to participate in these transcendent spaces. Like Janus, the god who looked both ways, I can envision into the past and into the future, through images that come to me from those otherworldly realms. I feel this as a deepening of the enantiodromia I was reminded of in my dream of opposites recorded in Portal 2 ... but here, I am at the bottom of the pendulum, with visionary experiences arriving from all directions as I swing through the fluid spaces toward the non-dimensional in the continuum of consciousness. I am reminded of Sarah King’s map to heal intergenerational trauma by recognizing that we are the nexus between the dreams of our ancestors and the memories of our descendants. Half of our human inheritance is from past incarnations. My inner vision spaces offer me experiences of my ‘self’ in the constellation of all of those figures that I carry, a Janus-faced self beyond our notions of time and space, past and future. Then it becomes my challenge to explore these aspects of my consciousness, the ancestral memory of my Higher Self that I am being shown, as well as to accept the opportunity to integrate those ‘selves’ into my life today.

These are beautiful examples of how seeing objects and feeling physical sensations are talismans that can lead one into and through traumatic experiences, to healing. Saint George is a figure associated with guiding humankind in the development of consciousness. He is said to slay impulses that lie in both the physical and unconscious realms, to awaken humans to create a more spiritual awareness in the universe. There are many possible layers of meaning that could be explored here, but for me, the first awareness was a reminder to let go of ‘soldiering’ and to disconnect with ‘war’; I am called to awaken to the spiritual path that I already know at some level, as I recognized in the session, that it is ‘unfair’ to kill me -- that I am bearing the flag and riding away from battle. It may also reflect my essential nature, in my ability to see problems, and possibilities, and thereby my penchant of taking ‘the world on my shoulders’ – of being at ‘war’ with myself and the world, ‘soldiering on’ as I take on too much responsibility for things I cannot, or should not, be doing. This has been a lesson in discernment that is a life-long ongoing practise!

It is not easy to portray the appearance and pass the space and the quality of this healing blue light that appears so often ... it feels like being anointed and caressed, coming in waves that open my heart and flood my inner visual space – it carries a penetrating physical warmth that enlivens my etheric energy, and at the same time, leads to a loss of reference to my physical body ... to an ‘out of body’ experience. This luminosity is a connection to high and powerful noetic forces that are immense, and indescribable – but knowable. I am reminded of a comment from Christin Lore Weber talking about death: we had drained out of language all we could – we now had to face realities where language, once our great solace, could not help. I could just as easily say this about the incapacity of human language to explain my inner experiences in any elegant way.

The closest I can see the quality and mystery of this light in the physical world is this image of opalescent blue water at Crater Lake, Oregon, the deepest lake in North America, made sacred in the creation story of the local indigenous Klamath peoples. The inner sheen has a luminosity that feels like it is penetrating the veil from another world.

Why do these images come to me, and especially at these times? I know it is not for me to question metaphysical timing. At times the images have a powerful direct impact on my awareness, and at other times they carry a subtle learning that I might not have noticed if I hadn’t experienced these sessions. As with dream symbols and figures, I follow these opportunities to glean what might be meaningful in my waking life. Reflecting the first session, in this life I have long been intrigued by items such as wisdom books, red stones and illuminated manuscripts. The sense of being able to reach into some sacred knowledge also resonates, along with a certain unease in being charged with the responsibility to protect and pass on these secret traditions.

Like many women, at a very occult level, I have a vague and mysterious resonance with lifetimes as a persecuted healer or ‘witch’: women with secret and powerful abilities that have literally driven me into hiding -- or for which I have been killed. The images of being pursued, imprisoned, killed or persecuted because of the secret knowledge I carry has a resonance in this lifetime, not in physically threatening situations, but in perhaps not speaking out as much as I could, not feeling confident of what I know, sometimes creating a certain reticence in the progression of my spiritual studies, or minimizing a recognition of connection to a profound spiritual thread. This echoes even now as I write this section, feeling uncertain about how safe it is for me to be transparent about these and other spiritual experiences and the knowingness I feel at a lot of levels, both through intuition (such as Inner Landscapes readings - see Portal 1 and More Ripples) as well as higher spiritual practises. I am now ready to let that uncertainty go, and share my world.

The appearance of a woman in blue or the blue light supercedes any vestiges of reluctance ... these blue elements have become frequent in my inner vision sessions, feeling like an angelic presence coming to assist ... and sometimes I recognize that energy as the Black Madonna. The blue light is a constant visitor, a healing presence that is indescribably and breathtakingly beautiful, and a powerful force in my body. My shoulder pain has gone.

These spaces are magical, other-worldly, filled with effervescent energy, and feel luscious – I am in them, as well as watching this. I include the above photographs not as an illustration of the experiences, but as an example of how some of the images generated from my earthly sensory and visual experiences resonate with my metaphysical experiences (and vice versa) and sometimes intersect with dream images. I visited this decorated underground passage grave at Gavrinis, France, years before any of my inner vision experiences – in fact, it was the time I first encountered the Black Madonna. The physical caves held a magnificence, mystery and thrill that stayed with me, easily pulled up in the memory of my mind’s eye. The incised rock patterns are attributed to Megalithic peoples who used these underground passages for death and burial rituals. The gold, the obsidian, and the sacred texts in my sessions are like talismans or portals. I recently sat on a volcanic obsidian flow near Paulina Lake in southern Oregon which echoed this sense of deep vaults of connection running through my body. These inner vision experiences feel like openings to after-death spaces, expanding my understanding of the vastness of this life -- and the next. I am full of wonder and awe that this human me can know this.

Over the years I have had a sequence of IST experiences in caves and underground passages that connect me with spiritual beings, symbols and rituals:

Many years before these inner visions, I was awed by the walls of this earthen cave (below), the so-called Ghost Cave at Pictograph Cave State Park in Wyoming. It is a temple-like place, the cave wall embedded with shapes that look like a gathering of ancestors witnessing and protecting the memories of all that has gone on here below the earth. The lavender and gold-colored crystalline rocks below seem to glow and vibrate.

There is a sacred resonance between these caves of the physical earth and the caves of my inner vision. In the metaphysical experiences, I have a feeling of certainty, a surety and a recognition of what is happening, and the ultimate sense of ‘yes’. I see the details of the rituals, I am that figure or in that space, I know what is going to happen next, and know the meaning behind that. This kind of recognition and knowingness in non-rational states feels profoundly true. Did the decorated stone passage grave somehow presage my metaphysical experience? Or perhaps it works the other way around, that I ‘recognized’ the physical caves because I knew them -- or sacred caves like them -- from another timeline or lifetime. I am reminded of that non-linear, non-local, multidimensional aspect of what we call ‘time’ – a coexistence of spaces at different levels, Earth time and Kairos time intersecting ... the past, present and future interwoven as in Aboriginal dreamtime or other cultural or mythic accounts.

I have long been entranced by this image of Courtney’s (below) from the winter pool. In physical reality it is a closeup of fractured shards of ice glinting in the sun on a background of sodden leaves floating in the open water. I didn’t understand why it was so thrilling until the above sequence of IST sessions (over a year) repeatedly showed me the similar geometry in my inner vision. The repetition is mysterious, leaving me wondering what wholeness it might be reflecting from an archetypal realm.

Triangles and other geometric shapes are seen in many traditions as archetypal symbols that carry energetic forces. I might compare them to sacred objects in the physical world that link us to a spiritual feeling or experience, but the interior geometries here are sacred structures that can take us into metaphysical spaces. They may act as anchors or portals into inner vision experiences, and can also reconfigure the energetic structures in our body. These visionary figures exude a sense of clarity, power and decisiveness. I can feel they are holding certain values and are willing, and geared into, leaving this lifetime for higher principles. They know what needs to be done and what they can do ... yet another lesson in discernment for me.

I often receive these experiences reluctantly, but I am compelled to honor and allow their indications of knowingness and ability to strike my curiosity; I want to avoid hubris, and be open to exploration and experimentation. I keep my humility in line by again remembering Courtney’s Vision for his work: to reveal the unfolding mystery ... not to try to solve it.

I am then drawn into yet another cave of transformational symbols with spiritual guides:

I feel this as a symbol of ‘the sword in the stone,’ a Grail-associated mythic object that holds and transfers power to the one who can release it from the stone. I feel the fiery effect on my subtle bodies, especially my heart and belly – a yin-like softness, like a womb feeling of aliveness and expansion. It feels like being encapsulated in a huge warm ‘egg’, all of my subtle bodies expanded and held, my root/charge energy softer than before, but also more powerful in its holding below. This is accompanied by a wave of emotion, with another sense of nostalgia and recognition ... and a feeling of ‘belonging.’

Imagine my surprise, more than a year later, seeing a television program on Derinkuyu, an ancient underground city in present day Cappadocia, Turkey. This concealed place is a multilevel labyrinth of temples and tunnels thought to have sheltered up to 20,000 people, from the time of the Hittite tribes in 1200BC to early Christian colonies seeking refuge from Roman entrapment in 17AD. But for me, what is so startling and intriguing is the resonance with the underground spaces I have experienced during IST, and the quality of the underground light - seen here as electrical light - but with a luminescent quality similar to the light in my vision.

This next sequence of IST experiences portrays a level of transformation that is quite frankly almost without words ... a sense of disbelief, but also a knowingness ...

The light-filled horse guides me past my castle home, the place of worldly nobility, of elite human power and prestige, of defense and protection from the outside world. I no longer need this ... both my horse and I are carrying the light of our spiritual quest – the horse takes us up the hill towards a tower which then turns into a golden temple ... the gold of the tradition ... the gold flame of the lost tradition of the ancient Christ ... where my spirit-horse then transforms into a unicorn, the feminine aspect of Christ on Earth ... the unicorn’s single midline horn resonates in my Third Eye, my energetic antenna that links physical and phenomenal worlds, connecting my subtle energy bodies with Spirit. Our spiritual forms have overcome the illusions of the physical world ~ in the light of grace.

The next magic appeared a year later, in the form of a winged horse and a secret codex:

The spiritual evolution of horses are powerful symbols of transformation and connection with other realms. Archaic and contemporary traditions acknowledge the intuitive nature of the horse, and its ability to understand human needs ~ modern-day equine assisted therapy is based on those principles. Anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner talked of the spiritualization of the horse whose intelligence, he said, was a necessary forerunner to our human intelligence. The Hindu Vedas symbolize the horse as a spiritually evolved creature of purity, beauty and speed, often pictured with wings and linked to many deities in the Hindu wisdom pantheon.

Ancient stories tell of the flying Pegasus and other immortal horses who carry heroes into battle and move between the mythic realms of the gods. In the 2nd century AD the Greek astronomer Ptolemy immortalized Pegasus as a constellation of stars in the northern sky. Tradition also portrays the Prophet Muhammed travelled on a winged mythical creature (half mule, half donkey) from the holy Ka’bah, the sacred meteoric rock in Mecca, to the Al Acqsa mosque. This rock in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is said to hold the footprint of the Prophet where he then began his journey to Heaven on his winged beast ...

Crusades were religious endeavours entwined with temporal power to bring glory to humans in the name of God. In both of my visions of returning from a successful quest, the knowingness of the horse leads the way. In the first, the horse arrives at a tower which transforms into a golden temple, where he then transforms into the unicorn, a spiritual creature holding the purity of a different realm. In the second, the magical winged steed carries the tiny uniformed figure, but the military stance is surpassed as the gold buttons resonate with a magical entry key, suggesting a connection with higher principles. The codex is an interface, a threshold to entering a secret sacred space. I am once again being shown ‘keys’ that magically unlock a ‘kingdom’ that offers life at a different level of being and awareness, as did the other keys I have seen in vision, in dreams, and in physical reality. The clarity and knowing earned is part of the initiation into a different octave of knowing. This gave me entry into this special space, where the grace of knowingness prevails.

Pilgrimage is about metaphysical change. It is not just a physical endeavour, but an intuitive inner spiritual transformation that happens when intention and aspiration are carried across a physical distance that culminates in an arrival at a sacred place. My IST images as leader and warrior are a reminder of abilities known, perhaps to be recovered and acknowledged in this lifetime in the form of the courage to share my achievements and understandings. This level of meaning finds a way of emerging, of creating images that work with one’s consciousness, from different spaces of awareness and through different energetic and spiritual mechanisms. These different angles of experience all offer a connection with higher spiritual forces and knowledge.

Some of this is recent experience for me and remains an enigma ... but I am certain it will reappear, in Kairos time, for me to receive the ongoing insights.

Such recognitions and understandings enhance the fullness of my self-awareness: the power of this work is to reveal the Higher Self essence that is trying to come through in this human life – the values, principles and knowingness of who I have been, and who I really am ... or can be. These experiences are a reminder that at some level I know these sacred structures. I have had these spiritual connections, experiences and understandings before, and I can have them again, through direct personal interfaces with non-physical layers, and perceptions of non-dimensional worlds beyond mental consciousness and the body. I ‘know’ them ... they have life in this participatory universe ... if I pay attention. They move the psyche in unseen but felt ways ... and in those ways, can operate in my life.

For some, a woman sweeping might be seen as a menial task. Women have always swept ... the hearth, the dwelling, the temple ... it is their way of connecting with Hestia, goddess of the hearth, the center of home, where the fire is; to the spiritual ‘fire’ in the temple, to Hekate the torch-carrier through the darkness. It is a simple, silent task, a sacred task full of emptiness and knowing, removing what is unnecessary ... a dedication much like my woman in blue preparing medicinals ... the power and knowledge of the deep feminine spirit.

This feels like a disentangling with my earthly ego. I could compare the function of the repetition and recurrence of images to the physical world of somatics and myofascial massage, where the therapist holds the areas of the body until a physical (and often emotional) softening and release starts to happen. It is like the alchemical principle of waiting for awareness to be ‘cooked’ (as in my ‘Uncooked Chicken’ dream in Portal 2), until it has matured to the point where it can be ‘digested’, or integrated ~ with an enhancement of consciousness. It is almost like stepping over the raised threshold of a temple, passing through the liminal space, leaving behind the world of the temporal and profane, entering sacred space.

These transcendent spaces carry me ‘up,’ like the alchemical mists I have experienced in the cauldrons or flasks in earlier experiences ... to connect with presences/Beings in the space ...

In the second session I had a sense of my dream butterfly cape, but here, this ‘tinkly’ garment was even more delicate, like a wisp of breath ... the alchemical quintessence, more subtle even than the Grail essence. This sense here of being given another spiritual jewel (as in the Recurrant Gold section above) to protect or a task to fulfill does not feel onerous, but more like a gift of grace. I await, wondering what transformative power it carries, what it holds for my life ...

I envisioned a photograph of frost that might portray this crystalline delicacy – and instead, I discovered this image of Courtney’s from the pool, with a delicate sheen of ice sculpting gossamer creations against a backdrop of gold ... how perfect can this be?

This multitude of experiences involve golden spaces, being coated with gold, transforming into a golden mist, or sacred gold objects that are precious beyond the sense of this world. I see all of these as emanations of the traditional gold of spiritual essence, the transformation promised by many traditions, of the New Jerusalem ... these metaphysical spaces keep calling me ... to continue to open to the mystery.

There is a part of us that can know this – we call it miraculous because we can’t see it, or measure it, or understand it with the mind ... but it is an inherent ability that humans have ... this part of us that can know these spiritual Beings and spaces, and the layers of the Self that are quietly operating within and through this lifetime ... and concurrently in other lifetimes. This is not the ego that we know as the individual personality in this world, but a higher octave of Self ... a precious repository of knowing, variously called the Higher Self, or Soul.

John O’Donohue reminds us: there is no loneliness like the loneliness of having your light unmet. We just need to get our little personal ego-mind out of the way, and follow our images to connect with this deeper knowingness, the part of us that knows what to do.

Morning light and mist over Lake Solleron, Sweden — image by Sherrill

Sacred places are interactive spaces where we can more easily experience this interiority and connection. Throughout history, millennia of years of pilgrimage to sacred landscapes or human-built religious centers around the world give testament to that, many of which Courtney and I visited as he photographed for The Sacred Earth book. In his Foreword to the book, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, affirmed how the experience of sacred places can meet our human yearning for inner peace, which he believes is crucial for humankind to survive. This is sacred geography -- places of intersection with the Divine, packed with spiritual knowledge offering portals and connections that allow us to penetrate the unseen structure of the metaphysical – places for deep spiritual practises ... non-physical temples embedded with cosmic principles.

They make us feel good, prompting our subtle energy bodies with healing frequencies, offering a sense of peace, effervescence, light, sound, voices in ritual, an experience of time out of time ... primordial landscapes in the flow of Kairos time. They hold a knowing of the sacred fabric of the landscape, physical structures and elements of nature, visitations with creatures in the physical and non-physical spaces. Our presence brings life to them ... they bring life to our presence.

This is the mythopoetic landscape. It carries the memory of the world. It is not unusual for people born on land surrounding these places of power to feel physically unhinged, and emotionally and spiritually bereft when they move to live in other locations. The land speaks a lament to them as they leave. Their bodies remember ... and grieve.

These experiences fit with many indigenous spiritual perspectives on the interconnectedness of all life -- human, vegetative, animal, mineral: a shared consciousness that we can know through our inner vision and a mythopoetic approach to life, as the world around us reveals a reservoir of wonder to be gathered through our multi-dimensional senses.

My felt experiences with the sentience of the land and the interaction with the more-than-human creatures like Hawk and Owl are testament to the vitality of that filagree weave of life.

My teacher Rosa says that something really sublime is indescribable -- we just need to feel it .... Courtney’s image of ethereal light in the pool echoes this, resonating with Emily Carr’s words of longing ...

I am looking for something indescribable, so light it can be crushed by a heavy thought, so tender even our enthusiasm can wilt it, as mysterious as tears.