Part I: Mermaids

All women have the capacity to become mermaids and all men have the capacity to become mermen. This capacity is built into our nervous system and is waiting to be activated. The idea of a mermaid obviously involves some sort of contact with water.

Water as it is expressed in different forms in nature—a wave breaking, a river, lake, or sea—has different feelings or emotional life within it. A woman who internalizes a mermaid within herself has taken on some of this special feeling of water—its beauty, serenity, peace, love, empathy, receptivity, responsiveness, vivaciousness, sparkling life, healing magnetism, purifying, and renewing power. In all cases, a mermaid woman has the ability to flow something of her own emotional life in and through those around her.

There are obviously many wonderful qualities possessed by women. The mermaid woman’s contribution is that being in her presence is like being in nature—out on the open ocean, floating on the surface of a lake, sitting beside a mountain pool, drifting on a raft down a river, sitting in a stream, or feeling fog and mist flow over your skin.

Empathy, affection, tenderness, kindness, caring, nurturing—she possesses these things. But she adds to them the elemental force and presence of nature itself that serve to enhance and add depth to the normal range of human feelings.

To develop this in yourself, temporarily set aside your ego. The women I study who have mermaid souls do not have a human ego. And their subconscious is different. Their inner subliminal or hidden desires and instincts are water itself—they are free like water to adapt in a unique way to any situation or relationship they enter. They do not bring the past with them into the present.

But being here among us, they have to interact in a normal way. Consequently, they "invent" an ego. They pretend to be human and they say exactly that—"I try to act human." They learn from experience about protecting themselves from predators, from people who are mean (something they cannot comprehend—being mean), and they learn about how human beings bond—that people lay claim to each other and seek to bind and constrict each other’s freedom.

They pick up on this and they try to act in appropriate ways: respecting personal boundaries, not revealing that they know exactly what others are feeling, pretending that they need others and showing appreciation for the effort others make to give something to them.

Yet there are advantages for women to become more like mermaids. One advantage is that you can actually feel what is going on inside of other people, even before they know themselves what they feel or what is motivating them. This allows you to read others and so establish more quickly a balanced relationship with them. It allows you to "direct" or "guide" others toward what they need to be doing with themselves.

We all acquire boundaries and defend our interests. But mermaid women recover quicker from bad experiences as well as from extremely serious personal attacks. They are not mean, vindictive, jealous, hateful, gossipy, or negative. They rarely feel sorrow, dependency, regret, shame, guilt, or loss. And they are uninhibited beyond human understanding. They can become extremely wise about human behavior, but they never lose their spontaneous sensuality and their innocence.

This is because, like water, they are in the moment. And being in the moment for them means that when they relax their default mode of awareness is feeling, not a part of society or history or some cause or movement, but rather they feel a part of nature. This empowers them to have a nearly incomprehensible level of detachment—they sense themselves as being a part of nature more than a part of human society even as in the same moment they can feel others’ feelings as if those feelings are their own.

They give constantly if the situation permits it. But love is not a rare commodity for them. They feel united to love as they feel united to the sea.

The most basic meditation for entering mermaid consciousness is to imagine that you are surrounded by the sea. Sense and imagine watery sensations. Then change the sensations into the feeling that this sea is a sea of love that encompasses the planet.

Then, as the sea, flow your love through another person of your choice, this love that encircles the planet. Search inside the other’s body for his or her deepest needs and then dream them as being already fulfilled right now in this moment.

This psychic intimacy allows you to speak as the voice at the core of the other’s being. As a force of nature—pure magnetic love—you have the ability to contain and transform another person’s will and power. And this enables you quickly to tell when another person is off course from becoming who he is meant to be. This intuitive ability is protective. It is hard to deceive someone who can tell from feeling when something is wrong.

There is no limit placed on this feminine power. It is heart to heart and soul to soul. This is the mermaid’s gift to you when you find her inside yourself.

Chapter 1. Four Steps Toward the Realm of Mermaids

There is a difference between a human being and a mermaid even when they have the same degree of empathy. The difference is that the mermaid has no ego. She has no attachment to a specific identity. Instead, she is united from within to water in nature and this water—lakes, rivers, and oceans-- sustains and renews her. Consequently, she never uses her empathy in a selfish way. She uses it only to serve the purposes of love.

How might we develop such a connection to nature or learn how to feel as mermaids’ feel?

The process can be broken down into steps. Put briefly, learn to perceive without thinking. Put aside your ego or identity when you meditate on nature. Develop a sense of wonder—an awareness that there is something new and unknown occurring within every moment. And finally be aware of when you are perceiving and feeling the way an actual mermaid might perceive and feel.

Step One: Perception Without Thoughts Interfering

The first step occurs when we experience a delight of pure sensuality so enchanting that the ego is overcome and we completely let go into feelings and sensations. This occurs, for example, when rafting down a river such as the Little Colorado. There are no signs of civilization. Time is measured in the rock formations of cliffs stretching back through geological ages. The river has flowed for millions of years, and you are part of that flow. Your social identity is still real, but it is on hold, like a shirt or a coat you hang up in the closet when you come home.

Here, drifting, floating, flowing, you can just let go. It is a set of sensations—and the entire environment is arranged to amplify your feelings.

Or who has not as a kid jumped into a puddle or when older went for a walk knowing you would become soaking wet in the rain? Here again the sensations take over. In a sense, the rain makes you part of the cloud that reaches down to the earth. Thoughts are secondary to the experience. The sensations and feelings vary, but hidden within them is the awareness that the body and nature are not separate.

How about floating in a lake at night? Can water amplify feelings? If you feel fear, you can imagine drowning. If you feel relaxed, the entire lake spreads out around you relaxed and at peace. If you try for serenity, your body, the lake, and the night sky of stars begin to blend, flowing in and through each other like a dream that has no end.

You can reflect upon your own experiences with water. But this is the first step toward the gate into the realm of mermaids. You will know that you are at this point when you can relax, close your eyes, and imagine some scene from nature. And then you feel that the energies of nature are flowing through your body, extending and amplifying your sensual delight and the feeling of being alive.

Step Two: Nature Becomes A Part Of You

The second step in moving toward the gate of the mermaid realm is to embody in some way the experiences of the first step. Sensual delight and feelings of release may come and go. But these things can increase until they become a permanent presence inside of us.

They are found in works of art—in Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or the Ninth Symphony with its Ode to Joy; in Van Gogh’s Starry Night; and in songs such as “all is calm, all is bright” in “Silent Night.”

They are in a negotiator who places himself amid a dispute because he loves resolving conflicts. He loves the act of creating peace. It can be found in a relationship where there is “a secret sharing heart to heart” or it is in sitting in an asana and feeling a peace like a pool of still water in a cave beneath a mountain. The inner feeling within oneself reaches a level of strength in which it is no longer dependent on the events of the external world to nurture and to sustain it.

I sometimes meet individuals who have a sense of well-being that has reached this level. Their inner feeling of peace shapes their lives. Past, present, and future flow together and are joined. The events of the outer world do not interfere with the feeling of being whole and complete that already exists inside of them.

Their identities are not shaped by their relationships, by their careers, or by the social roles they assume. They use their role in society as a way to express themselves, always sensing that what they feel inside is forever independent and free of these outer activities.

You will know when you have reached this second step toward the mermaid gate in this way. If you sit still and relax, you will be able to sense in a way that is effortless and spontaneous that you are joined to nature from inside yourself.

In some practices, the individual imagines walking through woods or down a path until he or she comes to a clearing, a grove of trees, or a stone circle. But in this step you are the grove or the stone circle, a lake, a waterfall, a sea, the moon, the stars above, the rain falling, and so on. The vibration of nature in some way is in you and a part of you. It is there in a permanent way.

Step Three: Your Sense of Wonder Does Not Diminish

In the third step, you see the light from the realm of mermaids shining through the “gate” leading to that realm. You are witness to the existence of another spiritual world. When you see and experience this, you are standing free of human history and civilization.

This is called transcendence. You are outside of time. The human world is still present, but you view it from a completely different perspective.

Great writers sometimes have a feel for this. They focus on the most difficult situations in life in which individuals are at their wit’s end. They study and concentrate on every little detail. They want to understand why people hold on with such strength to their self-images.

The individual’s self-understanding is like a reflection in a mirror. It appears briefly shaped and illuminated by circumstances as arbitrary and malleable as a dream. But people do not realize this. They cling to these images as if without them nothing else would exist. They do not realize that they can cast them off and become something completely different—with different feelings, thoughts, and actions.

So the writer takes his observations and makes it into a play, a drama, a movie, or a poem. He tells a story and says, “Look, see what I see—human beings make choices based on these influences. But they forget that they are the ones choosing which influences to accept and which to reject.”

In the third step, when you look out your window at bright snow lit by the full moon, you may see “radiant beams from God’s holy face.” Or you may see shining in the light an inner peace with the universe. When the entire world is wrong, you can still feel an inner peace and joy welling up from inside of you in spite of the destruction caused by human beings. Something from the Other Side, the Next World, is alive inside of you.

You will know, then, when you reach this third step because there are moments when you feel outside of time, looking at the human world with the light of another realm. And you also feel a sense of wonder touching you. It conveys to you this message: you are meant to take the person you are and create something new from a dream or vision you find in your heart.

The light from the realm of mermaids conveys this message: the universe exists to fulfill the purposes of love. When you feel this energy, you feel the part of yourself that was missing is now restored.

Step Four: The Gate to the Realm of Mermaids

How do you know when you have made it to the gate? Mermaids appear right next to you. You share in common with them the way they feel and perceive. They accept you because you have their vibration.

You can communicate mind to mind with thoughts. But this connection is more a matter of embodying a watery vibration. Let us do a test.

Take a few minutes and slowly move with your awareness through different images of water in nature. Become a mountain stream, a waterfall, and a pool. Become a lake, a river, and the sea. Become an iceberg frozen in an arctic bay or a small bay in an island in the tropics. Drop your mind down into an ocean trench. Become the sea.

Notice the different vibrations produced in your body as you identify with each of these ways in which water appears in nature. If you meet or imagine a mermaid next to you, match her vibration. Let her energy flow in and define what you feel inside of you. Learn from the other. Extend your senses and feelings through the way the other perceives and feels.

Long ago when I first met women with a profound sense of well-being inside of them, it took me decades to learn to produce those feelings inside of myself. But now I go to the source of such feelings as they derive from the energies underlying nature and as they exist within the astral plane. We are meant to learn from each other. We are meant to flow in and through and give birth to each other from the gifts we give and from the love we share.

To share in common the way mermaids and mermen perceive is to feel that a sea of love is flowing through your body. You can sense that everyone is a part of this sea—the same love is within each of us striving to fulfill our dreams. To feel what they feel is to be able to give all of yourself because the source that replenishes you is never exhausted.

Chapter 2. Caelius Aurelius Luscus and the Mermaid

A woman called me one day. She had read my essay “Traits of Mermaid Women,” and she wanted to know how I could describe her so well. A mermaid I consult with informed me that this woman was once a mermaid and subsequently acquired a human soul. In this story, I describe how this woman, basically one in a hundred million people, had the other four elements united with the water element in her mermaid soul so that now she has the soul of a human being.

The Mermaid’s Perspective

In the beginning was an awareness. There was no “I” or identity within it. Unlike you, environment and self are not separate. But to be eloquent and concise, put it this way, “I was and am an awareness of the oceans encircling the planet—North, South, East, and West, surface and depth.”

Human beings have trees that they make into wood to build tools, furniture, weapons, fences, and homes and to plant and harvest orchards. They walk on dry ground and breathe the air.

You have words you use to record events, to communicate either in writing or by speaking aloud. You have five senses that operate, for the most part, in a solid environment.

You shape earth. You drink water and use it to cook. You control fire and metabolize food and oxygen in your bodies.

Your environment is your test—you use your wits and your courage to test its boundaries and to extract from it knowledge. With that knowledge of how nature works—its routines and patterns, its appearance and its hidden, underlying mathematical matrix—you rise and ascend, reaching for the stars.

My environment is not a test I master in order to ascend. But this does not mean that I do not evolve. I am aware of ocean currents and how they affect the rest of the world. Weather and climate, ice ages come and gone, species when they appear, fish, animals, birds, human beings—the presence of your ships and fishing industries is hard to miss.

When a human being is curious, he invents a car, an airplane, or the means to transmit electricity. He fills in for what is missing in an overall pattern—the periodic table, subatomic particles, the motion of celestial bodies, the evolution of the species, geological ages, the creation and distribution of wealth, racial types and medical classification of disease and treatment.

I too am curious. It is not like the curiosity of human beings: “I will invent this in order to solve that problem or answer a question.”

My curiosity is the curiosity of nature itself: What species will replace Homo sapiens when they are gone? When will the next ice age come and for how long? How will the next asteroid that hits affect the oceans? How will changes in cosmic or solar radiation alter the climate? These questions are not all that different, are they, from what your scientists ask?

But how about this? When will an “advanced” civilization embody the love that exists within the ocean? When will the dreams within the heart of the Goddess that is this planet become the dreams within the hearts of living beings?

Your race is known for its pursuit of knowledge and its technological advances. I think you are asking the wrong questions. The human heart, for all its capacity to wonder and to quest, contains a vacuum within it. You have an emptiness within, and you do not know how to fill it.

I am the power of water with its capacity to flow, to let go, to be in the moment without prejudice or attachment. My way of knowing is different.

To be as me? Imagine you are the sea encircling the world. Imagine its surface and its depth. Imagine the shores, the islands, and the rivers feeding into it.

Come down into the ocean trench. Sense the mountain ranges and the valleys, the volcanoes, the hot springs, the accumulation of silt, the temperature falling, the light and darkness, the salt and fresh water flowing, the heat exchange at the surface, and the icebergs drifting.

Now overlay this with life in its vast variety. Mammals and fish, amphibians and algae, plankton, amoebas, and microbes too.

Now take a day in the life of the sea, now a year, a century, or a million years too. Sense in that defined period of time one feeling, one energy, one vibration, one common denominator for the diversity. Sense how that quality is flowing and changing.

Imagine further that this energy of the sea, this state of being and love, is flowing through you endlessly.

What do mermaids do? I have just told you what I do. Beyond the ability of the human brain as you know it, I am an awareness of nature and of life as it unfolds.

I am relaxed. I flow. I am in the moment without worry of how the next moment will go.

To be specific so there is no confusion, I share in common with you the delta brain wave configuration. I am the awareness that you meet in deep, dreamless sleep.

My curiosity got the best of me. For reasons I will not go into, I wondered about humanity. It was not, “I wonder how the human race is doing.” It was more like, “What is water in human form? Can the bliss be as intense? Can they hear the songs of the moon? Can human beings feel one with the sea? In their hearts, have they learned to be free?”

In the depths of the ocean, in a deep, dark trench, I sat at the edge of a cliff, my tail dangling over, and asked these questions. And then, as easy as it is for me to sense an ocean current as it rubs against a continent to the north or to the south, I let my awareness drift. I found myself in the body of a woman sitting in a bath in ancient Rome.

She had dozed off and was in a deep, dreamless sleep. Though her mind was turned off, there was still plenty of awareness to be found. I felt the moisture on her body, the open pores of her skin, her heartbeat, and the way her body leaned against the marble. I felt the mosaic tiles beneath her toes and heels.

I heard the sound of water dripping and felt the vapors forming where the heat from the water met the cold air. There was the scent of skin, towels, linen, and crushed flower petals in the air. With the scent came pictures of flowers from gardens, fields, valleys, and mountains.

Her body, when asleep, was in a state of peace. There were no needs. The vibration of deep, dreamless sleep is almost exactly the same as the vibration of the ocean deep. Pressure and metabolic activity in the body are different, but there is water and salt, and my consciousness can move between the sea and her body without effort.

And then she woke up. She was not aware of me. Her brain waves retained unconscious vibrations for five minutes since waking up is a gradual process. Even so, it was obvious that this person was plagued with unhappiness. She felt shame, hatred, animosity, fear, repressed desires, and barely controlled passions. She was a disaster waiting to happen. In her self-loathing, she had declared war on herself.

If she could, she would have preferred one final battle—victory or defeat. Winner take all. But her life offered no such opportunities, no definitive confrontations, no capacity to clarify her personal boundaries. She hated being dependent on anyone. She wanted freedom, freedom from need and freedom from society, and that was never going to happen.

She finished waking up. She started thinking about the arrangements for a party and what she would have each servant do. She arose from the bath, dried off, and dressed.

I did not follow her long. I returned to the sea where there is indeed peace and freedom from need.

Three months later I came back. She was lying in bed on her back. She was content to remain in a void without consciousness, beyond thought or perception.

And so I opened her eyes and looked at the wall of the room and out through the window at the morning sky. The light was citrine and magenta with a hint of crimson and violet. I dropped my eyes down and looked at the man lying next to me.

He was still asleep. I entered his dream. He was talking to the captain of a ship in his fleet that sailed the Mediterranean Sea. He had far-reaching commercial activities.

In his dream, a storm arose. Rain and surging bow waves, spray and lightning were all about. “Reef the sail. Steady! Hold the helm! Bear off. Ride the storm out,” he yelled at the captain in the dream. The ship was nearly lost.

I changed his dream. The ship rode the storm out, and now it was dawn and the winds were gentle. The mast was unbroken, and the sails were full.

***

The Roman Senator

Caelius Aurelius Luscus is a distinguished Roman senator. Skilled as a negotiator who works with men who feel fear, greed, and passions of every kind, Caelius can often read someone’s mind with but a glance into his or her eyes. For him, desire is a function of situation, personal history, expectation, dreams, and market conditions. If survival is not an issue, then the rules are fairly simple: you enter the other’s thoughts and look around until you find something to trade that is of equal and fair value.

But at this moment, as Caelius gazes into what should have been his wife’s eyes, he is overwhelmed. He forgets the fact that this is his wife who hates him, her life, and everything else. Instead, in this moment, as if ensorcelled by some vision, he falls into another dream—he is on a beach at twilight cooking a fish he just caught. And across from him sits a woman. It is his wife’s body, but it is a different soul inside. And then he falls asleep again.

That evening, Caelius sits on a balcony of his villa. And as the moon rises, he writes these words about that moment he shared with an unknown woman who gazed at him from the eyes of his wife’s body.

I remember the sea and how she came to me

Like a wave breaking on the beach,

The water reaching and then receding,

Soft, slippery, and tender, caressing my fingers

And then slipping back

Intimate yet detached

Like images on the surface of a mirror

Receptive, responsive, enfolding

A man lost at sea, found by an island,

Crawls upon the sand

He faints from exhaustion

Waking, he finds a peach in his hands

To taste, to eat

Her eyes deliver me from my pain

When I gaze into them

Every single time.

Caelius, though an excellent judge of men, is not lucky with love. As you must realize by now, fortune does not always smile upon him. So when a moment of tenderness appears, like a flower blossoming in a desert, he knows how to cherish the gift when it is given, no matter how fleeting.

It happens again a few days later. His wife is brushing her hair as she looks into a mirror. Caelius enters the room. She puts the brush down. She turns and looks at him.

The wife is gone. It is a different woman, the woman who changes dreams, who takes away pain, and who inspires poetry. Caelius turns and leaves the room quickly in order to hide his tears.

Later that same day, Caelius is startled by the arrival of his friend Marcius Quaratus, who has rushed to the villa with news from the senate. There has been some commotion. An issue has to be resolved, and Caelius is often called upon to find a solution.

Sweat is on his brow and his breathing is still rapid as Marcius explains. “We vote him the title of Princeps, and what does Tiberius do? He refuses! What is our next move?” Marcius asks with irritation, feeling the emperor has made the senate look like fools.

“I’m coming. Storms often blow themselves out soon enough,” replies Caelius.

As he is about to leave, his wife approaches him. With a voice Caelius has not heard her use before, she says, “There is danger here. The senators feel they must act. The emperor will be more receptive in a few weeks. Wait until then to discuss options.”

She then kisses him on the cheek as he leaves. This is clearly not my wife, Caelius thinks. What spirit strives to possess her? he asks himself. But matters of state push themselves to the forefront of his mind this day.

Several days later, Caelius ponders his problem. Not one to wait when action is required, he does what anyone in a position of power does when important issues must be weighed. He decides to consult with a professional in order to understand what can be done.

There is a seer, a wise man gifted with vision. The seer has no association with any cult, temple, or deity, though he is from a family line of soothsayers, augurs, and astrologers. He lives by himself in his own villa attached to a large farm outside Rome.

The fact that he has his own estate is testimony to the services he provides the wealthy. Though Caelius has had several referrals in the past to this seer, the seer is not well known. It is as if this wise man and freelance prophet prefers to live quietly and without recognition. The man is a contradiction.

Caelius visits him one evening and explains his problem—namely, that he thinks his wife might be experiencing some sort of spirit possession. The man looks at Caelius and senses that Caelius is holding back. The seer then asks, “The first time this other woman appeared in your wife, what happened?”

Caelius explains about how his dream had changed as he opened his eyes and looked into hers. “Anything else?” the seer goes on.

“That same night I wrote a poem,” answers Caelius.

“Quote me this poem,” the seer says, stroking his chin, looking up, and closing his eyes as he prepares to listen.

After hearing the poem, the seer reflects as if recalling myths from long ago: “This is not without precedent. The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, had Egeria, a nymph of fountains and flowers as his consort and advisor.

“You will need to go to the temple of Apollo, the one erected by Augustus on Palatine Hill. Apollo had trouble with water nymphs. Don’t you see, he sent a muse who inspired your poem.

“You will need someone to speak on your behalf. Apollo is Cicero among the gods. Daphne escaped Apollo by praying to her father, a river god, and Castalia fled, also blending into a spring of water at Delphi. The priests of Apollo will aid you in order to placate their god; Apollo would like to see a man win a nymph, especially this one who gives her love willingly.”

Pausing for a moment with a frown and tight lips, the seer says, “Wait. I take it back. Everything you do from this moment must remain hidden. We dare not involve more than one party. Forget about the temple of Apollo.

“I know the high priest of the temple of Jupiter. He will suffice. Your situation requires the highest authorization, the right words spoken, and the intent confirmed through ritual transaction.”

“I don’t follow you,” Caelius responds. “What is all this about temples and rituals?”

“Oh, yes, of course. You, a man who knows the Mediterranean Sea like the back of your hand—you are not familiar with these other things of the sea. For reasons beyond human understanding, a water spirit most profound has taken an interest in you. I will say it again: this is no ordinary water nymph being chased by a god in some story told by Greeks.

“In fact, she has two sisters who walk among us, having joined their souls with humanity. Now she prepares to come over as well.

“Love is the bridge. Both realms must agree. On her side, she is free. But for her to stay, to play it safe so the love you give does not fade, she too must be brought over.

“The two of you must swear an oath at the temple of Jupiter on Capitoline Hill using the Iuppiter Lapis, the Jupiter stone. There are a few daily rituals to be followed. But the priest will assist you with the details. What is important is that you do not hurry. You must proceed in accord with her nature, for she is of water—her movements are fluid and without effort. You must act the same.”

“What about my wife?” asks Caelius.

The seer replies, “I will not speak on this matter other than to say that you should wait a year or so. She has her own fate, and you have no part to play in what unfolds.”

The seer goes on. “I must insist again: do not tell anyone else about any of this. And do not consult with the priests of Neptune. I know it seems obvious that the god of the sea should be your patron. But his priests will question the propriety of your actions just to be annoying. The sea is not losing anything here. The gift has already been offered. When it is time to choose, you must do so without doubt or hesitation.”

“I have not contemplated any of this,” replies Caelius. “Speak simply—what are the options in the case of spirit possession?”

The seer waits patiently a few moments, staring calmly into Caelius’s eyes. He then says, “This is not a spirit possession unless you are ready to say that those who love are slaves. You are on the verge of sharing a love that appears only once or twice in each century.

“You have three options. Do nothing, and you risk losing this creature of nature imbued with divine grace. In any moment, without explanation, she may return to the sea. I, dear friend, am no Orpheus with the power to enter another realm and have a spirit follow behind me as I return to our world. If you lose her, she is gone forever.

“Second, if you desire her, there are ways to entice her to remain. You may give and receive pleasure. You may share love. But when either of you dies, the love will only be a memory, like a dream, that fades away. She returns to her realm beyond human reach.

“Third, you are free to invest her with a human soul like your own. In this case, she will be bonded to humanity. The love you share in this life will remain part of your soul forever. Not only that. She is a gift from the sea to humanity. A new love shall take root on earth. It shall grow and flourish down through the centuries.

“No one can tell you what to do. An empire is founded and maintained by power. But the choice you make can only be guided by the love in your heart. But if I were you, I would look at the poem you wrote.”

“Is that everything?” Caelius asks.

The seer says nothing.

“Is there something you are not telling me?” Caelius restates the question.

“Because of my vows, I must answer when a serious question with good intentions is put to me. But you must refrain from sharing this discussion with anyone.

“As we speak, in the East a great world teacher has appeared; he promotes a new religion of love. Yet even he who embodies the light of heaven is not permitted to share with humanity the love you taste. In a distant future, these things shall be spoken of openly. But for now silence must reign.”

Over the next year, from time to time the mermaid would appear even as his wife disappeared. Was his wife aware? When she was not being mean to servants, drinking too much, or shopping for a Greek vase, Egyptian goblet, or some other work of craft or art, she did notice the way Caelius was alert around her. He behaved as if whatever she did could no longer bother him. In her presence, even when she spoke with a tongue of poison, he was patient and tolerant.

She let it go by. His comings and goings were of no real interest to her. Affairs of the state were only good for gossip and entertainment as far as she was concerned. And it was distasteful to her that her husband was involved with the commercial activities of shipping and trading. Such interests brought her no social status.

Late one night after a party has ended, Caelius’s wife is in the kitchen intoxicated and screaming at the cooks. She throws glasses and plates against the walls and floors. And then she comes out, sits on a couch, falls over, and goes to sleep.

Caelius lets out a sigh and walks out into the hall. The next thing that happens is that the mermaid’s hand has taken his as she whispers into his ear, “Come with me.”

She leads him out into the gardens of the villa. Like other patricians’ estates, his has paths among trees and a fountain with flowing water. Holding his hand, she smiles as she steps into the fountain and draws him to sit down beside her in the pool. Ripples from the falling water curl around their waists.

She then slips his toga off of his shoulders and arms. She does the same with his tunic underneath. Then very gently with her fingertips she begins stroking his upper arm and chest. The touch of her fingers is as soft as a feather, barely moving during the length of a breath.

After ten minutes she says, “I know you like this.”

Caelius replies, “My body loves it, but my mind is perplexed. What are you doing? It is neither a massage nor a caress.”

She replies, “The skin is a second body with its own language. The muscles say, ‘Release my tension so I can relax and feel happy.’ But the skin says, ‘Touch creates love and the feeling of connection.’

“Touch such as this is heart to heart and soul to soul. It is love without being possessive. It is being sheltered by another’s heart. But you must probe the sensations; otherwise the feelings are lost and the thoughts without definition.”

Caelius then slips her stola off as well. For the next hour they sit in the bubbly water softly caressing each other. With only the faint light of the moon reflected off of the garden walls and through the trees, you would have had to look very carefully to determine whether two people were sitting in the pool or two statues were frozen in an embrace.

A year later, Caelius’s wife falls asleep while taking a bath after a heavy bout of drinking. She slips down into the bath, wakes up briefly, looks up at the surface of the water above her, and struggles to stand up. But then she decides, as if all of this is happening to someone else, that the effort is not worth making—and she drowns.

A moment later the mermaid steps out of the bath. She dries off, dresses, and goes to assume her new duties as the wife of the senator. Having found the body of the wife abandoned, she brought it back to life. Whether she remains now depends on Caelius.

Though the mermaid had sometimes fallen asleep with Caelius, she was never there in the morning. Other than the first time, it was always the wife who woke up next to him. The next morning is different.

When she opens her eyes, Caelius looks into them and asks, “Are you here to stay?”

The mermaid replies, “As long as you want.”

Caelius, following the seer’s instructions, makes an appointment with Lucius, the head priest of the temple of Jupiter.

The temple of Jupiter is the foremost temple in Rome. The head priest, accordingly, is a member of the ruling families, highly educated and well-trained in religious doctrines and practices. An astute observer of human behavior, he knows the activities of Rome and follows significant events across the empire.

The priest is also a man of power. Though he rarely acts outside of the boundaries defined by traditional rituals, in a pinch he knows that rituals must adapt to circumstance as a town has to adapt to changes in the course of a river.

Previously, the seer informed Lucius about Caelius’s situation. Lucius considered the problem complex but not beyond the range of his power. The temple contained in its archives the spiritual history of Rome. There had been many unusual requests and rituals performed over the last few hundred years. Some were equal in magnitude to this one.

Lucius explains to Caelius that the main difficulty is that this is not a problem that can be resolved by performing a ritual. The resolution requires that a special bond be created between Caelius and the mermaid.

Caelius is not an initiate of the mysteries, so this stands against him. On the other hand, Caelius has a highly skilled mind and an imagination that he uses to weigh every option in a crisis. In any situation, he knows how to negotiate and how to formulate a fair exchange.

There are times when experience with life outweighs the significance of religious observance and knowledge of the inner planes. As Lucius sees it, Caelius can act as his own priest to intercede with the divine.

Lucius designs several customized rituals for Caelius and the mermaid to engage in during the new moon and the full moon each month. He also has Caelius construct an outdoor bath with gods and goddesses placed into the mosaic representing the four elements of nature—earth, air, fire, and water. These elements can be drawn down into the bath and invoked or evoked to accomplish what is needed.

The real problem lies with the fifth element of spirit. This will have to be transmitted directly from the soul of Caelius to the mermaid. Just before dawn, whenever Caelius is at home, he is to sit in the bath with the mermaid before the sun rises.

The priest explains to Caelius, “It is not the light itself but the spirit you put into the light that makes the ritual effective.”

Caelius asks, “How do I place into light the power of boundless spirit?”

Realizing a Muse will have to assist in the process, Lucius writes for Caelius a short petition to the divine that he is to speak aloud. The words call out to the light of heaven and also speak to the heart of the mermaid. They are to be spoken just as the first rays of dawn touch their skin:

From darkness, light

Behold the sun upon the horizon

As its rays draw near

Witness love’s transformations

The child’s first breath

The lover’s first kiss

The seed within the earth awakens

Rising

Unfolding

Until the flower blossoms

By the power of love

The two of us are one

Neither life nor death

Shall separate us

What I am is now part of you

Equally as what is within you

Is now part of me.

Over the course of the next decade, Caelius and the mermaid meet many times before dawn and wait for the sun’s light as they perform their ritual. During this time, the mermaid’s hold on the woman’s body never fades. Instead, the mermaid acquires new abilities to enhance the soul she already possesses.

There are other interactions of a magical nature that occur between the two of them. When Caelius has time, he sits with her for an hour each day without moving. Sometimes they sit next to each other at his villa overlooking the sea. Sometimes they face each other and hold hands. During this time of quiet repose, he feels free. Nothing else in the world matters. Time dissolves.

All the same, he can feel her aura as it gently surrounds him, taking hold like a mist that flows down a valley or a fog that rolls in from the sea. He feels her around him, and gradually she flows into and through him.

If tenderness can take the shape of moist air—cool and refreshing, gentle and embracing—then her aura is tenderness similar in sensation, caressing him from within. The temperature around him drops five degrees. There is no chill.

After sitting in her aura, he feels he can see the entire Mediterranean Sea before him. He can tell how each of his ships is doing, its progress and the weather around and before it. But he cannot communicate with the captains or give them directions or warnings.

It is the oddest feeling, he thinks—he feels like he can sense the waves moving in their myriads of patterns across the Mediterranean: the huge waves rolling with storms; the cliffs where these waves break; waves continuing to roll on a thousand miles after the storm is gone; waves caught off guard with whitecaps newborn struggling to rise as a storm crashes down; the gentle waves circling in a bay; the ordered waves of a steady wind and the crisscrossing waves among the islands of the Aegean Sea. In some places, the waves are wild, and in other places the sea is calm. In a few places, the sea is a mirror where barely a ripple appears.

He knows it is heresy, but in truth he feels at such times that he has been transmuted into the god Neptune. He watches over the oceans from a state of great peace. The storms and waves obey his will. The sea is his servant, like a bride who yearns in her heart to please and to unite. These are feeling that do not belong to mortals but only to gods.

And so one day without violating the specific directions of the seer, Caelius stops by the temple of Neptune. One of two in Rome, this is the Basilica Neptuni, dedicated by Agrippa in celebration of the naval victory at Actium. The temple stands on the area of Rome referred to as the Campus Martius.

Caelius quickly gains an audience with the highest-ranking priest. After preliminary greetings and honorifics are exchanged, and after a donation that the priest finds to be quite interesting, the priest asks, “Senator, have you a question or a petition?”

Caelius replies, “You understand, I have ships at sea all seasons of the year. Your temple is obviously of great importance to my work. But my question is more of a personal nature. If you could speak informally to me about a question that has captured my imagination … ?”

“Hmm. Then I’ll take off my robe if you do not mind. Would you like some wine?” asks the priest.

“Yes. Thank you,” replies Caelius.

“Go ahead, then. What is your question?” asks the priest while settling down onto a couch.

Caelius asks, “Other than the normal responsibilities that accrue to a god who rules a kingdom, what activities occupy Neptune’s time? What does he do during the day?”

“A day in the life of the god Neptune?” The priest laughs wholeheartedly. “Perhaps you would like a referral to a poet or storyteller?” he asks rhetorically.

He continues, “As priests we perform rituals, sacrifices, libations, and ceremonies, and we preside over festivals. In brief, we give something to the gods, and they give something back in exchange. Honor and respect are common currency in all realms mortal and divine, as Odysseus learned the hard way.

“When a supplicant is desperate, I sometimes recommend that he cut himself and place a small vial of his own blood on the altar. Then he prays and meditates. And finally he takes his blood back and anoints himself with it.

“Having mingled his blood with the inspiration of the god, the same life force and vitality flows through each. And so insight arises naturally from sacrifice and spiritual union. In this case, the life force in the blood is the medium of exchange.

“But this example does not apply to you. You want my expertise, the insight I possess as Neptune’s priest. What you ask is most curious. I would never have thought to ask this question myself.

“To answer you, What does the god Neptune do? The question leads to other questions: Can a mortal ever understand the mind of a deity? Do a god’s actions known or unknown ever reveal what he can do if he were to choose something new?”

Waving his palm from left to right in front of the face of Caelius, the priest says, “Give me a moment. What I now do is not forbidden, yet it is not part of our religion. I shall put aside my mortality and my guise as a priest. I shall imagine that I have become Neptune. Now then, what am I, a god, doing right now?” the priest asks himself as he falls into a trance.

It is the priest who continues to speak—the same voice. But the intonation and pitch, the pace and emotional tone, are altogether different.

“With a simple glance, I can see into the waters’ depths—every fish and sunken ship, the hills and valleys, the caves and mountains that become islands—all of this I can easily survey. The storms, should I ignore them, go their own way. But should I choose, the storm clouds can express my rage and the peaceful sea my tranquility.

“When I take my ease, the wind is my consort at night and during all hours of the day as she caresses the seas that for her are my body, forming waves upon waves. She is one with me and knows my ways. And when it rains the rain is my moist fluids nurturing the earth, satisfying thirst and the desires of fields and flesh. I am water in the springs and lakes and rivers—they are my bloodstream. Lightning is my heartbeat. In all seasons of the year, whether you see it or not, I am always near.

“The outer forms of nature cloak and conceal yet also reflect and reveal my innermost essence: I am the lord of water, salt or fresh. Its mysteries and treasures are mine to possess or to protect. I have an interest in horses, it is true. But the nature of my being is to nurture and to dream.

“Though I helped found Delphi, what is not well known about me is that I have a gift for prophecy. Like water, I nurture the seeds of the future. All that shall be passes through me. In the depths of my heart are found the sites and sounds of civilizations long gone and of civilizations unknown that belong to the far future. You see, I get around.

“The time displayed on your calendar is by necessity an illusion. It keeps you busy and engaged in productive activities. But for me, the moment ‘now’ encompasses the past, present, and future. It may appear that on occasion I doze off and lose interest in military campaigns, noble deeds, which emperor sits on the throne, and whether his borders are sound. But I assure you, when I relax, my awareness increases geometrically.

“People may think of me only when their needs pertain to the sea. Yet the great men of your race, the heroes and explorers, your sages and seers, have yet to chart the open spaces of my heart.”

And then the priest chants in a deep, resonate voice completely unlike his own. There is a faint intonation reminiscent of thunder pounding a distant horizon:

There are those among you who dream my dreams.

Listen carefully. These are my children:

They feel what others’ feel

They have the power to heal

When they love

They neither take nor possess

For like me,

They are one with the sky and the sea—

The waters of the earth flow through their souls

Each moment is both sensual and divine

And their vision transcends the limitations of time.

There are a few moments while the priest remains silent. Then, opening his eyes, he looks at Caelius with a spontaneous smile lighting up his face and asks in his normal voice, “How was that? Have I answered your question?”

“Yes,” replies Caelius.

The priest goes on, “Good. I am glad. Perhaps you might send me your best recollection of what I just said. The reason I ask this is because when I imagine myself beyond human form, I can never recall what I say. It is most annoying. In order to speak from another place, my memory is the sacrifice.”

“I will write down what you have said and send it to you this very day,” replies Caelius. And this Caelius does.

One evening, in the fall of AD 30, Caelius steps into his bedroom. There the mermaid stands naked, her silhouette outlined by the rising moon. She turns to him, taking his hands into hers. She says, “Do not align yourself with Sejanus or the house of Julii. The emperor will turn against them. In my dreams, I see many bodies being thrown into the River Tiber.”

“How do you know these things?” Caelius asks.

She says, “I can sense the soul of anyone on earth. Sejanus is like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse—he is all predator, tight, vicious, with claws extended.”

“And how do I avoid becoming his prey if I refuse to support him?” asks Caelius, now grasping her upper arms as her arms circle his waist.

She responds, “It is my nature to affirm life and not to harm, so I do not involve myself in the affairs of state. But I will protect this family. If Sejanus even thinks your name, I will erase the thought from his memory.”

Caelius looks at her. He sees the moonlight luminous in her hair. He wants to kiss her lips and feel her body against his. He wants to sit with her quietly as they do every day when he is with her, to feel time dissolve and the worries of this world fade away.

Her body has the scent of orchards and the flowers of spring. He kisses her lips, feels her response, and feels deep inside that their bodies are already joined.

To touch her skin is to find new kingdoms of the heart waiting to be explored. But in her eyes he sees great waves from the sea ready to flood the world if need be in order to preserve the things she loves.

He says to her, “It is best not to send a fleet to sea in winter. The winds can be dangerous.”

He goes on, “You alone can understand my prophecy and how long it will take before it is fulfilled: one day a few men and women will use your power to establish peace on earth so war is no more. They shall do this without destroying or taking away but by turning malice into nobility. Wars will be fought not on land or sea but in the heart. And in that day no one will seek to cross swords with those whose hearts are as deep as the sea.”

In the spring of AD 31, Caelius is summoned to meet with Tiberius at the emperor’s retreat, Villa Jovis at Capri. When Caelius walks into to the emperor’s hall, Tiberius is laughing where he sits at a table on the balcony. The emperor is reading for the second time Caelius’s summary of the priest’s channeling of the god Neptune. The head priest of the temple of Neptune had taken it upon himself to give the transcript a title: A Day in the Life of the God Neptune.

Tiberius stands up, gesturing wildly at the sea, and says, “I wonder, will anyone ever write A Day in the Life of Tiberius Caesar Augustus?

“I do not see into the depths of the sea. I have no winds that comfort me. I have no knowledge of the far past or the distant future. What I do see is my own civilization destroying itself. I am sure many other civilizations will destroy themselves in the future just as easily; no warning I could send could postpone those events by even a day. My senators are the same. There is no wisdom in them.

“What is my day like? I mope. I rant. I rage. I grieve. I sleep poorly. I have indigestion. I drink excessively. Some accuse me of debauchery. And I worry about betrayal by my consul Sejanus and his supporters.

“I am no god. But here is true delight—that one man is curious enough to ask what a god does with his spare time. If the gods have not struck you down for your hubris, then, like me, they must delight in your uninhibited curiosity.”

Caelius replies, “I had no desire to offend.”

“On the contrary,” replies Tiberius, waving the paper in his hands, “Your concept is pure creativity—you put a god on display to entertain.”

Tiberius sits down suddenly. He points his index finger at Caelius’s face and speaks slower and with suppressed rage, “You know, if it were not for you, I would have ordered the execution of the entire senate. In my night, even a dim light appears bright. I know all about you—your accomplishments and your equanimity. And so I ask for your advice: what do you do when you lose as much as I have?”

Caelius answers, “What is lost shall be found. It shall come again unexpectedly, in a new form.”

Tiberius responds, “Spoken like a sailor who trusts the winds, tides, and the sea to bring him safely home. No one ventures into the unknown without trust or faith. In the face of my pain, you assert that a new day will dawn with hope reborn.

“I have lost my faith. But you, Caelius Luscus, are touched by the hand of the gods. Some benevolence hidden within nature holds you in its embrace. Even an inferior emperor such as I notices these things. I would make you tribune except I like you just as you are. In this way I will know that at least one person in the empire has peace within his soul. I find that concept comforting.”

With a bleak look, Tiberius waves Caelius away with his hand and then leans his chin on his palm. This strange encounter with the emperor over, Caelius returns to his villa in Rome.

Caelius and the mermaid survive both the coming purge led by Sejanus and the one that the emperor initiates in response.

Chapter 3. The Mermaid Queen Isaphil—the story of how she became a mermaid queen

Introduction

The mermaid queens have auras that are a magnetic field of energy. The queens are more developed and skilled in magic and possess a broader range of abilities than other mermaids. They tend to embrace water in all aspects as it exists on earth.

Some of the mermaid queens possess qualities that we might describe as divine missions. Their very existence represents a treasure of spirit or an offer to become transformed in a way that only the divine world could have conceived.

In this sense, they are more than nature—or, to put it more accurately, they embody secret purposes hidden within nature. Isaphil is one such mermaid queen. This is her story, and it has taken me twenty-five years to focus on the details and grasp the implications.

To understand Isaphil’s aura, first imagine all the waters of the earth—the oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, and the icy poles too. After all, she says of herself, “All the waters of the earth hear my voice when I speak.”

Then you blend in the soft, luminous, silvery, white light of the moon. That is, for a moment, imagine all water on earth as being lit up from within with soft, silvery light. Then you sense within this light a profound peace so vast it has not yet found anyone on earth who can embody it. Isaphil says of herself, “No being is as much a part of the peace of the earth as am I.”

Like I say, some mermaids embody treasures hidden within nature. These are divine gifts. And surely if we do not claim these gifts as our own, another race will follow after us that will succeed in incorporating these wonders into their hearts.

To summarize, Isaphil says, “I reveal paths of spirit that are nothing more than discovering how to be in your soul free and at peace with the universe.”

This is a brief description of who she is. There is much more. To put it simply, Isaphil embodies a divine mission whose task is to unite the spiritual aura of the earth and moon so they become one.

The earth is electric and dynamic. By comparison, the moon is receptive and magnetic. The aura of the earth invites life to take charge and to be in command. It insists you accomplish something of value while you are alive. The world should be a better place for your having been within it.

The spiritual imperative of the moon is to establish within yourself a peace that is in harmony with the universe. Be still, clear, and calm so that you perceive the beginnings and the ends of all things.

For every desire there is satisfaction; for every longing there is completion; for every dream there is manifestation; for every purpose there is fulfillment; for every quest there is attainment; for every ideal there is the ideal made real; for every path there is perfection.

The moon has the enchantment of a fairy tale. It does not tell you how to make things happen. But having a dream that is radiant with vitality, sensual and graphic in imagery, it anoints you with grace that captures and directs the most powerful emotions and instincts in life. This inner expansion of vision exercises a power over fate.

Each advanced civilization in our galaxy is free to choose what part it wishes to play in the unfolding of the universe. Considering developments over the last three hundred years, the human race has become obsessed with the outer world. It is probably fair to say that humanity has decided to pursue science and technology, industry and invention. This is the main thrust of human civilization.

Yet there remain many other paths and choices we could make. The mermaid queens offer unknown paths of spirit no religion or culture on earth has surveyed, defined, or considered. Isaphil could easily say, “You will accomplish more than you can dream or imagine if within your souls you feel one with the universe.”

The Problem

Long ago in Lemuria, before even Atlantis flourished and then sank beneath the waves, there was a priestess called to our world. She was not a mortal but wore a mortal disguise. She was commissioned, that is, fully empowered and authorized, to fulfill a sacred task. And her task was this: to reveal to the human race the great treasures hidden within lunar serenity.

But as a mortal she became enchanted with human desires (not wrong in themselves), and she fell from the light. And so it has been true without a shadow of a doubt that we lack the gift she was to bestow on mankind. It has been missing from the human soul and heart for all these long ages and aeons.

As the divine may choose to do according to its own will and time, the gift offered was not lost. Rather, it was hidden within nature—in the soul of a mermaid most fine. Though the human race may fail to grasp what is offered, the gift waits for those whose hearts are strong enough to claim it.

For me, these things are impossible to miss —it is in the feel of moonlight, in the touch of skin upon skin (I have felt it); it is in the dream of peace that I dream. I hear it in her voice as she speaks to me as she does in this very moment. But alas, I myself do not possess the strength of will or the nobility of spirit required to fulfill the mission written into her being. Let these words inspire another to accomplish these things.

To summarize, there was once a divine mission to unite the spiritual qualities of the earth and the moon. One individual was designated to accomplish this task. That person failed.

As a result, the divine gift was withdrawn. If that mission had been accomplished, wars would be no more. We would have attained our present science and technology tens of thousands of years ago. And the civilization resulting would have continued its development without interruption.

Occasionally, my genre of fairy tales ventures into science fiction. After all, the kings and queens of the four elements know many things about nature that our scientists have not yet discovered. The ecstasy in the wind known to sylphs is an expansion of the brain’s capacity to dream and to imagine.

The ecstasy of silence in the earth is a knowledge of immortality that as yet remains a secret hidden in our genes. The ecstasy in fire is a light so bright it recreates itself from out of its own vision. (Neither in our particle accelerators nor in our fusion reactors have we attained such power.)

And in the ecstasy of water is the love that enables us to become one with all beings—the magnetic field of the entire planet becomes a medium that extends our sensory perception—our scientists as of yet know nothing of such things.

However, the obstacles confronting me are far greater than merely trying to describe a realm of spiritual beings to those who do not perceive the unseen. There is a greater problem. Isaphil’s aura—the vibrations within her inner etheric, astral, and mental bodies—cannot exist within the aura of a mermaid. Nature spirits are of nature and lack a divine component, the element of akasha, that all human beings possess. Yet Isaphil’s aura embodies not only the akasha of our planet but also the vibration of the realm of spirits surrounding the moon.

And so my task is to tell you a story that goes far beyond science or human history. Even in accordance with the rules and regulations of hermetic magic, the mermaid Isaphil violates all norms and standards. Her very existence is impossible according to the laws of magic.

Though truly a mermaid queen, she is not of nature but a created being assigned a divine task. She waits for that moment in time when a race shall arise worthy to taste and embrace the wonder she has yet to reveal. And at that time, the world on which we dwell will be transformed forever.

53,000Fifty-Three Thousand Years Ago

A child was born who was from the Other Side. She was empowered from birth to accomplish a sacred task. Soon she became a beautiful young woman. She was like a stream of water flowing through a valley—pure, refreshing, and renewing. She was kind, nurturing, serene, and soothing. She was the newness of spring unfolding.

Though born with a high calling, she appeared to be completely human. In the beginning, there was nothing divine about her. She was nature at its best in human form.

But as she grew older, there came a time when she saw the world with the eyes of the lunar sphere and the divine combined. It is like this: she could see and feel what other people were thinking and feeling; and she could just as easily perceive what the divine was thinking and feeling—

She saw the world as if looking into a mirror that reflects clearly the events of history as they unfold; but history is surrounded by a timeless dimension filled with countless opportunities, quests, and endless gifts. As the saying goes, “There are no limitations placed on what you may accomplish.” She could see this clearly.

Life is pageantry—there is repetition and growth and also ceremony and celebration. Those who possess the strength and the daring are free to taste the ecstasy offered in the union of nature and divine, human and immortal being. Here was a priestess called to our world whose task it was to reveal the mystery awakening inside of her.

When you can perceive with ease what both human and divine are thinking, you realize in that moment that you have a mission to accomplish. It is not that she did not enjoy being a young woman. She loved being alive, feeling happy, and being in tune with life and nature too.

It is just that the needs of the divine were greater than the human part of herself. It is like a girl being married. She gives her body and heart to another and leaves behind what she once was to enter a new world of relationships in which her role is now completely different.

There is a trade-off. Some women who marry end up with a bad deal. Other times, the rewards and the depth of love that accrue more than justify the sacrifice. The same occurs in joining with the divine. You leave part of your humanity behind in order to assume the privileges and prerogatives of a divine being.

There are two requirements for this marriage of one’s conscious self and one’s inner divinity. These are a sense of wonder and an ability to give of one’s self to what one loves without limitation. These things she possessed to an extent that could not be measured.

Of course, the human part of oneself experiences hesitation and a tinge of regret over what is left behind. But soon enough you get into the part. It is after all still you—it is just that now your awareness is expanded a thousand times beyond what it was before.

The young maiden slowly disappeared and was replaced by her other self. She was becoming a great world teacher. But her ministry was not to the human race. It was on behalf of the earth and to the far future in which humanity would come to appreciate the powers she had brought with her from a distant spiritual realm. We could say that the uniting of the lunar sphere with the earth was the first stage of a series of gifts that were yet to be.

At that time, near where India now lies, there were cities of eighty thousand people. There were great temples and royal buildings of marble with embedded lapis lazuli and gold illustrations.

But she did not visit these cities. She walked about the land celebrating the beauty of nature. Even so, a lone woman on a hillside path? There were those who as she approached fell down and worshiped her. It is as if she shone with the light of the moon and time no longer existed in her presence.

There were attempts by fanatical followers to form religious movements around her. But she possessed a purity seemingly incapable of corruption. The insatiable craving for power by those who wish for a cause in which to believe dissolved in her presence.

If you wanted to think words or phrases like “must,” “should,” “have to,” or “do not,” you would have to be a hundred miles away before your brain could formulate a morality that attempts to bind others to this or that belief. Her aura, so steeped in natural energy, did not support religion, rituals, priests, or temples. Why would one need to designate a sacred site, place, action, or time when each moment reveals the depths of sensuality and the divine combined?

But now we come to a great mystery that has plagued all of our world teachers on earth down through the ages of history. It is more than a simple test or temptation. It is designed by Saturn and engineered in the heart of the sun.

It goes like this: on our planet, before you can rise to the level of the divine, you must first master your human side. And here is the test governing all world teachers as it is stated in the training manual of Saturn:

If you would fulfill your mission, first teach another to feel what you feel and share your innermost dreams so that the two of you become one, for the perfection of love is not achieved until you create in another the essence of your own being.

Second, demonstrate that your love is free of attachment. To shine like the sun on earth you must first master and then transcend human need.

You may originate a world religion, but fail this test and the gift you offer mankind—the essence of your being—shall remain unseen.

The rise or fall of a religion, its vision, purity, or corruption, depends on the degree of the teacher’s success in sharing all that he or she is with at least one person. And so like other world teachers who would later appear in human history, this priestess faced the same challenge. It came in the form of a great warrior who was about to found a mighty empire.

Savaan was a military genius even before he had an army to lead. His gift as a leader was being able to tap into others’ deepest instincts, draw them to the surface, and then direct them according his will.

Part of Savaan’s acumen was that he could take unrelated fields of knowledge and bring them together with new applications. As odd as it may seem to us, Savaan made a careful study of unusual women. Whereas other men typically view a woman through the eyes of desire or love, Savaan studied women in order to sharpen his intuition so he could grasp the unexpected. After all, one of the most effective principles of war is the element of surprise. You do what no one else can imagine.

For Savaan it was like this: you take an attractive woman, and it is possible to translate that attraction into plans of action, visions, dreams, ideals, or something to make real. There is a biological desire to reproduce. But there is also in the woman the power to amplify a man’s will. Exposing oneself to a woman’s beauty is not only a way to stimulate and to heighten your imagination; it is a way to re-create yourself. We could say that Savaan knew things fifty thousand years ago that we still have not learned today.

Savaan sought out the priestess as soon as he heard the rumors about her existence. He went to see her unescorted and unarmed under the guise of a poet, for in poetry he was also gifted.

He found her at dusk one day where she was at work amid a tall, thin outcrop of red sandstones lying next to a lake. She was doing what she had been sent to do—impregnating the lake and the rocks with visions of the moon. At the touch of her hand, the rock held a song, and the lake was invested with the power to create dreams.

When he first saw her, he was a quarter of a mile away. He did not approach but chose to wait and to watch, doing reconnaissance using silence and skilled observation. But she had sensed him the moment he had formed the intention to seek her out. She knew he was there watching.

A day later he approached and sat down ten feet from her. Again, he just observed as she went about her meditating and quiet singing to nature. Later in the evening she came over and offered him some food. After he ate, she spoke, “If you want to understand who I am, spend a few days here while I am gone. What I am and the things I care about are found here in the rain, the wind, the rock, the water, and the light of dawn.”

He did as she said. He sat meditating where he had seen her sitting. For him, it was like slipping into a dream. Time is gone. The far past and the far future are joined.

On the one hand, his body felt weightless. And on the other hand he had no desire to move. He felt part of the sky, the lake, the wind, the rising and setting sun, the moon, and the stars.

It was clear to Savaan that the priestess was changing nature, imbuing it with a song of transformation through the power of her inner peace.

The next day she returned and sat next to him. She took his hands and held them. She said, “I pass into you now my innermost essence that you might feel what I feel and see as I see.”

For a little while, three hours or so, they continued to hold hands. He entered a trance. He felt her body as if it had become his own. He felt her soul as if the two of them were now one.

And in this moment, during this brief time, the full power of a man of great will and a woman of great love were joined. And during this time, he saw not only through the priestess’s eyes. He saw through the eyes of the Goddess of the Earth and understood Her dreams. She wished to have children “who see through the eyes of the stars; who join all opposites, the constellations themselves into one song of love.”

He saw that the Earth was waiting for her children, for a race to appear that would share the mysteries of Her heart, the feeling of being one with the universe.

The feminine embodies the ideal. The task of the masculine is to find the means for making it real. Oneness with the universe is an inner state of awareness. But the outer world has its own requirements. Every obstacle is a challenge to be mastered and to overcome. While pondering these things, Savaan fell asleep.

During the night, the priestess left. Just before dawn is when his enemies found him. When it became known that his bodyguards were not with him, small bands of assassins had been sent out.

The six men closed in. At any other time, Savaan would have easily dispatched them. On a good day, Savaan could catch an arrow in his hand during its flight. He could stop a sword between his palms. He knew the trick of looking into another’s eyes and sending an electrical spark so the person thought Savaan was in front of him when Savaan had already moved to the enemy’s side.

But the meditations, the inner peace, the tasting of the essence of the priestess had slowed his reflexes. He would have sensed the men approaching simply from the pulse of their life force and the buzz of their thinking. But he had failed to observe the obvious.

It was their scent that finally caught this attention. But at that moment they were already upon him. A thrown spear glanced off his scapula. A sword sliced his arm near the elbow. A war hammer smashed into his upper leg.

In spite of this, Savaan was able to stand and counterattack. He leaped at one man and was behind him. And then Savaan began to spin in a fighting style he had invented. He used the force of throwing one man in one direction to hurl himself into, behind, or beneath another man.

In less than five seconds it was over. The six were dead. Savaan lay on the ground breathing fast and deep, trying to keep from blacking out. He bandaged his wounds and lay down to rest.

In the evening, the priestess returned to him, sensing at a distance his distress. She stayed with him for over a month.

During this time, something very odd happened. The priestess was master of the energies of water and moonlight. But she realized that to heal him she needed the life force of the sun. She took a breath, drew vitality into her body, and then passed that life force into him.

Instead of soft and lunar, serene and receptive, she began to embody in herself dazzling, brilliant light. Looking down at her body, she could see herself light up so that her body felt as bright as the sun above. And this solar vitality from breath she passed into him until his body acquired the strength to sustain its own recovery.

The treatments took away his pain and dissolved the scar tissue. The huge black bruises on his body faded away. Torn ligaments began to find ways to work again.

After the first two weeks, Savaan began to get his mind back. An injury to his head interfered with his ability to think. Gradually, he began to distinguish the difference between himself and the priestess. He had entered her heart and mind, tasted her inner essence, felt and experienced the vision that had brought her into existence. But now he began to respond to these things from his own point of view, though still illuminated by her inspiration.

Savaan spoke, “There are four holy sites—the stars in the night sky, dawn’s light before the sun rises, the oceans, and moonlight. In your eyes all four are united. The beauty is beyond what the human heart can endure.

“We build towns, cities, kingdoms, and empires. We make things. We imitate nature. We invent. Doing these things is who we are. The mysterious purposes of the earth are not inscribed in the playbook of the human race.

“Here is our great strength—a relentless desire to take hold of the world and subject it to our will. For this purpose, we explore and adventure. We test ourselves against our environment. We observe the wolf, the hawk, the tiger, and the fish. We study their routines. And then we make their instincts and perceptions our own.

“When it comes to penetrating and mastering the secrets of nature, our curiosity is insatiable. We look upon the world with a wonder that derives from a lust to know and the desire to make its wealth our own.

“Yet we are ravaged by our desires; our actions arise amid struggle, strife, and every imaginable craving; we can barely separate a noble purpose from our passions. Darkness and death are before us and behind us and surround us on all sides. In every generation, you will always find among us at least one individual with an indomitable will, for we know that unless we move forward and achieve, we will die.

“The earth has many children. She loves them equally. She nurtures and abides their presence. If She is lucky, one of her children will share the dreams in her heart.

“The human race is not that child. We learn not from the inner but from the external world. We are here first to imitate and then to rule over nature. The energies underlying nature that are seen by the eyes of the soul are outside of our normal modes of perception. The human race, with all its poets, seers, wise men, prophets, and sages, will never discover the incomprehensible beauty that is hidden in this planet.

“The divine uses me so to teach you about your humanity. I understand your mission. But there are choices to be made that you have not considered.

“As I sense the innermost dreams in you and in the Goddess too, I see that each race that appears on earth is free to fashion purposes that it alone envisions. Ultimately, to be alive is to have the choice to recreate oneself from out of the deepest longings within one’s heart.

“But I ask you, what world teacher shall appear whose light is so bright and whose compassion is so deep that he could inspire mankind to share the dreams that are in Her heart? Who can ever learn to do what you do—unite with the universe from inside?

“Your love is very deep. It derives from the waters of the earth and the light of the moon. But while you were healing me, I saw what you have not considered—the will to create oneself anew hidden in the power of the sun.

“Your love awakens in me the desire to become that light and that will. If I had it, I would love you with the same love with which you love me. But it is beyond my reach.

“Here is the problem with your mission as you are pursuing it. You intend to imbue nature with lunar serenity. Though the human body shall remain, the souls that are born after you do this will no longer be those of humanity. The souls that enter the newborn children will be from a more advanced race and from another planetary realm.

“Humanity is focused on the external world. Our senses seize and take hold of things. The design of our lust and love creates separation rather than inner union with nature. It is who we are as a race. Change nature on earth, and we will no longer be able to enter this world.

“And so as a result of your mission one of Earth’s children will no longer be able to be here and experience life in the time period presently offered to it. The inner awareness that you create undermines the concentration that we need to focus on the external world if we are to survive.

“Perhaps after ten or twenty world civilizations rise and fall we will have enough experience to turn within. We must learn through experience that willpower without inner illumination inevitably destroys the world. When we learn this, we will then be ready to join the inner and outer worlds.

“If you give your gift to the world at this time, you will destroy an entire race. Tens of thousands of years of human history will vanish without a trace. It will cease to unfold because you have prevented it from happening.”

With a voice soft and gentle, yet as deep as the stars at night, the priestess asks Savaan, “How do you suggest I proceed?”

Savaan says, “On this planet there are spirits who embody the wonder and beauty of nature. Let your mantle, the full scope and power of your spiritual mission, be hidden within the soul of one of these beings. If and when the human race is ready, a man will bring her back to our world so that she can continue your mission at a future time.

“In this way, one of us will initiate the mission and thereby weave it into the destiny of our race.”

The priestess says, “But the act of impregnating a spirit with my mission would damage and destroy the spirit.”

Savaan replies, “Then you must wait until a woman is born who senses as the spirit within you has sensed that something profound and astonishing is missing from this world. And she will volunteer to bear your gift, transforming into a mermaid until that day when mankind is ready to unite the realms of human and fairy.

“If my love were stronger, my will greater, my spirit more noble, the two of us could accomplish this now. But the earth must wait for another man and another woman whose love is more complete before the world you envision can come into being.”

And so it was that the priestess hid her gift from the world. Instead of pursuing her mission, she married Savaan. She made a choice to preserve the human part of herself rather than to fulfill the mission designed by the Other Side.

Before she died, she bequeathed her gift and powers into the hands of the divine.

41,000Forty-One Thousand Years Ago

Talking to Isaphil one day, I asked her what she was like before she had been anointed with this spiritual mission that joins the earth and the moon. I expected that she was once a remarkable mermaid whose aura was somehow similar to that of the priestess.

But in the very moment when I asked the question, the two of us realized that she had not always been a mermaid queen. Instead, we saw what had been previously hidden—that she had once been a human woman. Isaphil is not as other mermaids. She was once a woman who had changed into a mermaid queen, and this occurred 41,000forty-one thousand years ago.

Her name was Reem. She lived on an island in the ocean. The culture was not so different from that that existed on Easter Island. Writing about this woman is somewhat strange, even for me. When I think about her, it is like she is sitting right here next to me reading what I write, wanting to make sure I get it right.

Reem explains, “I liked to wander by myself. I explored lava tubes, mountain streams, and caves, and I swam alone out to nearby islands. I would float in a tide pool for hours, sometimes until the sun went down. I would float in a mountain pool waiting for the first rays of the sun to warm my skin. I was restless. I never fit in.

“But I had social obligations and strong family ties. I was in the royal line, and yet I also did what other women did in those times.

“All the same, once when I had hiked to the top of a mountain, I watched the stars slowly circling above. I looked out at the moonlight as it shone upon the ocean. And I prayed to the gods. I said, ‘This world is wrong; I want to bring back what has been lost.’

“You have to understand something about me. The passion in my heart was as bright as the sun. And this I knew: that joy should rise up from the depths of everyone’s heart.

“There are many desires and experiences that human beings share. But when I looked into the soul of every single person I knew, no one had a light in her heart that shone like the sun.

“And so my prayer I repeated again and again. With each repetition my will became stronger until I cried out with the fire of the stars resonating in my voice.

“I received a reply. The voice spoke from the stillness inside of me.

“It said, ‘The soul of humanity is incapable at this time to bear the gift we have to give. But if you persist we can bring the gift down from where we are so it is closer to your world.

“‘To do this, your human soul must be dissolved, and as an mermaid queen you shall reign until that day a great master of the earth finds you and makes you human again. Through love with another, a mission long ago lost to the world shall return.

“‘If you are willing to play this part, our gift shall be given to you. The very thing you sense missing from life shall then be fully alive within you. But it shall be a time and a season until the world is ready to receive it.’

“My response? I replied, ‘Grant me this gift and this task. With all my heart and soul I would make the world into what it is meant to be.’”

Years later, when Reem was a grandmother and had fulfilled her social and clan obligations, they found her body sitting against a tree. Her eyes were open as she stared out at the sea. But her soul had departed. She had become a mermaid queen.

Summary

I have to say that I consider the mermaid queen Isaphil to be as dangerous as she is magnificent. To touch her aura is to feel her gift—an absolute contentment in which the inner self is at peace with the universe.

In this state of mind, it is easy to forget that one has social obligations and tasks to accomplish. There is no longer a you—no name or social identity—that you feel you need to identify with.

There is no linear time—no birth or death. The limitations under which you live do not define or shape who you are. The serenity and peace are so deep, the empathy so perfected, that you feel within and a part of everything that exists. In other words, her gift is so bright and luminous that life appears dim by comparison.

The advantage of internalizing this gift is that you are on the verge of attaining perfect, complete, and absolute enlightenment. You see the world as it is, and you see it as it is meant to be; and in you the two melt together and fuse as one.

The disadvantage is that you still have to solve each and every problem in life as it arises. There are no free rides. You have to seize opportunities when they appear. You have to take command of the limitations of life with a will that is worthy of and equal to the love and beauty that are Isaphil.

Or to put it another way—one day may we all have the skill and the will to embody and to apply this love so it transforms the world!

Part II: Sylphs

Introduction

What is it like to be a sylph? You know the wind, from where it arises, how it moves, and where it is going. A thunderstorm in your mind is like a pleasant daydream—it is entertaining like watching a puppy chasing its tail or watching a cat climbing down cautiously from a tree, its claws clasping and scratching the bark as it descends. And as with a playful puppy or a frightened cat, a sylph can carefully grasp a thunderstorm and move it somewhere else if she wants.

Many scientists have a surcharge of sylph in their astral bodies. The result? The birth of an original observation is for these men and women exquisite pleasure—the mind expanding its clarity and understanding of the surrounding universe are their passion—“There is no greater pleasure than the thrill of scientific discovery.” The scientist who said that was anointed with the ecstasy of the air element.

Artists and poets also dabble with sylph magic: when a tornado of whirling desire or a hurricane with its upheaval and wild, raging emotions passes through them, they do not run for cover or hunker down to wait out the storm. No, they ask, “Now how did this happen?” as they try to sift through and express every nuance and variable within the phenomenon.

If a sylph puts aside its her mastery of the winds and its her passion for uniting with the sky, it she might easily come down and dwell among us. Putting off its her near immortal form, the sylph she might easily pass for a human being. mortal woman.

Growing up, As a woman, she such an elemental might show great enthusiasm for art, music, poetry, or painting. Or it She might turn to science and spend its her life researching some area of forgotten or yet to be discovered knowledge. In these pursuits, it she might in fact be so preoccupied and relentless as it she pursues its her goals that it she ends up being aloof and distant from others.

Sylphs women, then, like balance, clarity, and open-mindedness. They have an incredible ability to establish rapport. Some of them seem to read your mind understanding what you want better than you do. They can pursue your thoughts as if hidden in them are forgotten experiences that reveal who you are.

Sylphs in human form or those with this airy temperament have walked among us. As human beings, they may be such prodigies that it becomes difficult to distinguish if these individuals are human or of another world. But their characteristics can easily be seen in familiar historical figures. We witness their delight, creativity, and brilliance of mind in the works of We have seen them wearing the disguise o f men such as Mozart, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Newton, Einstein, Socrates and Plato. And we might see them among historical women such as Aspasia of Miletus—one of the teachers of Socrates, Isadora Duncan—an original teacher of dance, Marie Curie—the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and Amelia Earhart—holder of numerous flying records And note: if a woman ever casually says to you, “We can do that again if you want. Just have lots of jokes to tell me so I feel entertained.” Sylph women love feeling light and free. It might be that this woman who stands before you is a sylph in disguise.

Chapter 1. The Sylph Parahim—who loves those who love the sky

Sylphs, by nature, are aloof and distant from mankind. They desire neither to possess nor to be possessed. They cherish independence and freedom above the need to conform or to connect.

This could be because sylphs are hypersensitive. They can detect the smallest incremental changes in temperature, moisture, or air pressure. True, there is movement in the sky. But this movement moves towards balance and the equilibrium of opposing forces—hot and cold, wet and dry.

When you love harmony, it is easy to distrust those who are disharmonious. And being sensitive, it is easy to sense far more than you want to know about those with narrow minds or those whose primary desire is greed. Consequently, sylphs, like human beings of similar temperament, enjoy being in their own space. They appreciate peace—being left undisturbed to pursue their own ends quietly yet with the concentration and rapt attention those activities require.

Parahim is a sylph of great ability who dwells in the sky. She is not only beautiful. She has a profound sense of harmony. For Parahim, music and tones are magical. Being in her presence is like sitting beside a harpist whose songs are of peace and passion.

Yet unlike many other sylphs, Parahim has an unusual sympathy for certain human beings. She is acutely aware of those whose minds are like the sky. This interest of hers is unmistakable. When you concentrate on her, she notices and turns her attention on you. She immediately scrutinizes the strength of your brain waves. Since the air element fosters telepathy, it is easy for her to attune herself to the vibration of others’ thoughts. This is one of her skills.

I draw Parahim’s sigil in the air. This is a magical diagram representing a spirit’s qualities. Parahim’s sigil symbolizes her ability to move freely between the mental vibrations of mind, the astral realms of feeling, and the energies that we perceive as wind, weather, snow, and rain.

I pause for a moment and contemplate the source of Parahim’s inspiration that endows her with beauty and life. I sense that Parahim’s highest ideal is the mind that has become pure light, self-existent, autonomous, and without limitation. But this is not a religious ideal or cultural concept. Rather, Parahim worships the mind, whether human or divine, that can sense the entire atmosphere of the earth. Such a mind, of course, has attained enlightenment and cannot be defined or described by any religion, creed, or philosophy.

Parahim enters my room. Walls, windows, and doors do not limit her movement. She smiles at me in a way no woman has ever done. Her smile reflects the willingness of her soul to stand naked so nothing is hidden. Her openness is part of her creativity—she has many magical songs that penetrate the heart. They are more subtle than wind, breath, or a lover’s caress.

With her tones she can trace the course of passion from beginning to end—capturing its dance, its hunger, and its gratification. As she sings she evokes both yearning and the sea of peace in which yearning drowns because she perceives the innermost fibers of your being.

The gaze of her eyes is most remarkable. She can see the haunting desire that arises in an unknown place within your soul. And in the same moment she can sing a note of freedom and release so that you let go into a serenity which satisfies every need. I see clearly how these qualities and abilities exist within her as I touch her aura with my mind.

She reaches for my hand as our minds reach for each other’s. She seems compelled as if captured by a memory. Looking into my eyes, ages of time dissolve and she is transported into a past that has suddenly become alive.

She speaks to me like a poet at a seminar recalling her first inspiration. She says, “In ancient times, there was a religion on earth that worshiped the sky. The practitioners had taken an oath that for at least on hour every day they would concentrate on the sky allowing no other thought to enter their minds. They sat on balconies, on rocks, by waterfalls, or at the tops of trees just staring at the blue expanse. Their minds were like sponges soaking in the light. They could not get enough of it. If a cloud passed by, they would see the cloud and become the cloud in their minds. But they also continued to concentrate on the sky above the cloud.

“It was at that time that I fell in love with the human race. You cannot imagine the joy it gives me to find intelligent beings whose minds are clear, luminous, and self-aware.”

Then gazing at me intently Parahim reads a question in my mind. She says, “Your mind conceals a ferocity of will that would trouble the hurricane if it saw you standing in its way. For you the mind is as vast as the sky. It is designed to capture the light of the stars as a poet seeks to capture a woman’s beauty and her heart with his enchanting metaphors.”

“But the difference is,” I point out to her, “that your priests kept their minds luminous and clear day and night. I can only visit you when I am in a meditative trance. The rest of the time I am blind. The affairs and concerns of daily life leave me little time for mystical visions or monastic chanting and meditations. But you dwell within the sacred in each moment—for you, each wind is a note or a song sung within the heart of God.”

“My heart has not always been open,” she says. “Most of my will and spirit have been developed by associating with human sages and wise men. For example, these priests. As they gazed at the sky, they fell into a trance. Then their minds became a limitless expanse. As they did this, they opened the gates between the realm of sylphs and human evolution.

“It was at that time that I came down and sat next to human beings as they meditated. I learned from them there is no limit to the power of the mind, the amount of light it can contain, or where it may penetrate. During their sacred festivals, they would sit for three days practicing their concentration—their minds joined as one light and one consciousness. It was as if the entire sky was filled with their presence. There was nowhere a sylph could go—neither into the jet stream, the thunderstorm or whirlwind, nor to the North Pole or into a desert’s desolation and not feel that mental emanation.”

“And what was that like?” I ask.

“At such times, the inner and outer worlds were joined. The sea of wind and sky was vibrant with dreams of peace and harmony. The air was thick with feelings of honor and nobility from those who are committed to serving the highest light.

“But the peace was not complete. The priests had a secret hunger buried inside of them. On the outside, they were gentle and kind, in action as innocent as doves. But on the inside, in their hearts, they had the hunger of wolves who celebrate the mystery of life in the sacred rite of devouring another’s life. The wolves and the priests believe that through the act of absorbing energy into oneself the heart is joined to the universe.

“When that civilization ended, the lineage of those priests also came to an end. But I believe the sky shines brighter and the human race is more curious and desires to uncover every secret in nature because the illumination in that religion lingers and continues to inspire. The air element was imprinted and still echoes with the vibration of their chants, meditations, and mantras.”

“Did any of those ancient priests talk to you as I do?” I ask.

“They could all feel my presence. Many of them could see me. But only two of the high priests paused from the solemn duties of their monastic life to inquire into the nature of my being and the powers I command.”

“And what did they learn, if I may ask?”

She says, “Oddly, both priests had a marvelous sense of humor; they were voracious in their curiosity and they were very intelligent. Like you, both knew immediately that to attain understanding of my being they had to become one with me.

“When I first met one of them, he entered a trance that went on for a week in which he did not move his body. During that time, I was the only thing that existed within his awareness—me, that is, and his curiosity. His presence was like a gentle wind flowing and dancing around me. He never uttered a word that entire time. But his silence was itself eloquent—a spell-binding concentration constantly listening to my every mental action as if he were asking:

The way you caused that storm to hold back and then to rain on—how do you do that? And the way the wind obeys your will as if you are the source of its breath and the place where it seeks to rest—how did you acquire this ability? How can you see so far that you can measure the wind’s strength and velocity over an entire continent?

And this ease with which you live. It is an unknown bliss and no poet has ever spoken with its voice and no woman has ever worn its fragrance. How can you be at the same time so sensitive, receptive, and vulnerable and yet so incredibly free that you have no need except to dwell in harmony? Who has granted you this gift? What divine mystery does your existence reflect?

“The touch of his mind was always relaxed and light. There was never an instant in which his intent was to interfere. But for all his inquiry, he never asked the right questions. He never asked, ‘What are your dreams? What passion holds you in its sway?’”

“And the other priest?” I ask. “What was he like?”

She replies, “He was more playful. He liked to tease me. He would say, ‘Are you whipping the winds into shape today? Are you teaching them to obey the sacred ordinances as I must constantly remind my novice monks not to stray? Or have you been wandering through some mountain chain or tasting the foam where the waves break in some exotic bay?’

“And another time he said, ‘Sweet thing, presence of delight, child of the sky, what song of enchantment can I play on my flute so that ten thousand years from now you will still remember my name? You will recall the sound of my voice and say, He shared the secrets of my heart and his love still shines from my face.’

“Later in his life great destruction wreaked havoc on his land and he was appalled at the needless suffering. For years, he and other priests had to flee the invading armies in order to survive. Once for several months he hid in a deep valley framed by tall cliffs which lacked a mountain pass.

“In that place of refuge, he reached out for me. Though he was never tempted to compromise his human limitations, he cherished being able to travel through the realms of fairy and into the higher astral plane. There he would renew himself by entering a place of absolute relaxation.

“He called out to me and I came to visit him. He said, ‘If you were a mortal woman, I would leave the priesthood. I would renounce all vows and man-made religions. Your body would be my altar and your heart would be the temple where I worship. To hold a woman like you, to kiss and touch you, to bathe in the luminosity of your soul is a joy the human race will never know until its mind attains liberation and its heart becomes as vast as the sky.

“‘Child of the winds, daughter of sacred dreams, I will find you again in another lifetime when I shall have the power of will and the wisdom to call you into the form of a woman. Then our two evolutions will be joined forever and mankind will make beauty, harmony, and the truth of the universe its religion.’“

“The funny thing is,” Parahim says, “he was just on the verge of creating a dream in which we could both live.”

And then she asks me, “Why are human beings so afraid of feelings? Why do they not hear as I hear the song in every wind? How can you not notice that every note and tone conceals a dream waiting to awaken? When will your race realize breathing is a magical action? And when will you finally learn that consciousness is the light it embraces and it creates?”

“It sounds to me,” I reply, “you long for a lover to search for and discover the secrets of your heart. You wish for another to transform you through his art.”

“And I will change him forever as well,” she says. “But do not get me wrong. I am not discontent. Other sylphs with whom I associate are gentle and kind. But they are mostly busy and preoccupied with weather control. Only a few are haunted, as am I, by the beauty of the sky, the enlightened mind free of limitation, and the mysterious, divine presence that shines within everything that exists.”

“Do you still come down to sit and meditate with the human race?” I ask.

Parahim replies, “There are more than a few like you who search for my essence. I am always ready to share who I am with those who quest in search of enlightenment.”

“Parahim,” I ask, “take me into the dream the ancient priest was unable to enter.”

She says, “You must put aside your human nature. Let us become opposite polarities through the power of love and will joined. Let us call the divine into our minds and drink its waters of inspiration. The beauty within unity is the sound of the enlightened mind that all of nature celebrates in a passion that has neither beginning nor end. It is the voice speaking in the center of every heart. It is the stillness drifting through every thought. The five senses and the breath cling to it and yet know it not.

“In my dream, I am above the earth where I can see both dawn and sunset, day and night. I enter the contemplation of the fixed stars. And I watch the earth turning beneath me as if the earth’s rotation and the light breaking on the peaks of mountains are the movement of prayer beads in the hands of a goddess. The sun and the moon with their fire and delight are sounds arising within her mantra. And the stars above chart the depths of her heart and yet cannot find the still center of her meditation. But she does not meditate alone as a presence unknown. Another shares with her his passion.”

And then Parahim turns to me and asks, “Can you give voice to the beauty I see?”

I reply, “When she contemplates the depths of the night, he is the light within her dreams. The longing within her heart is the song his voice sings. Her breath is love joining with his body and joy rising within his soul. And he is the secret desire at the core of her being—the dream of a friend and a lover whose touch empowers her to be one with all things. Together they partake of a cup of wine made from light and all that is divine. In a dream such as this, in a love in which the mind and heart completely join, is the liberation of the world and the enlightenment of mankind.”

After we were done meditating together, Parahim says, “Come back another time when you have three hours to sit and meditate with me without distraction. I perceive in you more than the desire to play a flute that haunts the soul with its sweet fragrance. Your quest is for perfect knowledge—truth, freedom, and illumination. To this end, I will show you what it is to wear the body of a sylph and to feel the sky is but a small part of your mind.”

A few weeks later I again meet with Parahim. As she appears, almost instantaneously, my mind enters her body. I am astonished and amazed as I enter the astral realm of the sylph. It is like leaping from a high diving board but there is no pool in which to fall, no movement at all. Perhaps this is what the astronauts feel when they are outside the space shuttle—just drifting weightless with the vastness of the earth suspended in space beneath them. But to be in this sylph’s body is to be completely still, silent, and quiet. There is no drifting. The weightlessness is a relaxation so great it is beyond the power of mind to define or of imagination to forge an image.

And I am aware of Parahim’s mind as well. For her, the forces shaping and determining the course of our lives seem like images appearing in a mirror. We cling to them or flee from them, delighting in them one moment and then hating them the next as if they have the power to shape our feelings and to bless or curse our lives. But for Parahim the mind is both the mirror and the light appearing within it. The mind of a sylph does not lose its spacious openness though storms appear and whirlwinds rage nearby.

In addition to the relaxation and the mental clarity, there is a pure feminine energy that Parahim circulates through my body. How can I explain?

Long ago a woman kissed me goodbye. She put her whole body and soul into that kiss as if it was her wish that when her life was done she would be able to look back and say, “I was never more alive, never more a woman or more fulfilled than in that moment when we kissed.”

If I may be so bold, if you will indulge me for a moment, it was as if in that kiss, in that giving, the soul within all women unveiled itself to come forth and to share in that moment of farewell. The free flow of love that defies the restrictions of time and that destroys all that binds us is what it is like to be within the body of this sylph.

Chapter 2. The Sylph Capisi—who fell in love with a poet

When I was young, I raced sailboats for ten years. I observed wind shifts. I watched breezes stir on distant waves. And for hours on end my eyes were fixed on the edge of a sail.

After years of training, the body instinctively responds. Observations sink down into the unconscious. Judgment and perception are automatic—a touch on the hair of the neck, sounds softening or rising in pitch, subliminal testing of scent—a change in moisture or temperature. And above all else, there is the feel of air flowing around the body, the higher and lower pressures, the eddying and palpations of the wind.

For me, the wind is a song without end. It is a humming in the ear more peaceful than a Gregorian chant, more inclusive than Avalokiteshvara’s compassion mantra, more free than the shout of children playing in apple trees.

The wind occasionally speaks to me. Its invitation is clever, even seductive. It bids me to push beyond the boundaries of empirical observation that meteorologists favor as they speculate and guess. The wind has whispered to me, “Nature is more than a force to harness for travel, for work, or for sport.” For years the wind has spoken softly into my ear, “Send your mind into the sky. Come meet me here.”

The sky is mythology on display. It does not matter what you believe. The most well-formulated, analytical thoughts carry no weight in this domain. Empirical tests of veracity count for nothing. W e are no longer subject to rationality when we gaze on high.

We are guided by a greater light—a path within the heart. And it is the heart which, in the end, claims sovereignty over the universe. Where we are about to tread, reason and faith are not in conflict. They are but the twin servants of love. All their powers, all their motivation and drive toward productivity, exist only so that life may be bountiful and fulfilled.

How did my curiosity with these things begin? It is not so difficult to understand. There is the feeling a young man has right before he is called on a quest. A silence whirls in the air about him. He asks, Does life not have more depth and wonder than what I have been taught?

We have all felt that prickling sensation on the back of our necks when we are being watched. And there is the feeling that we are about to meet someone who will change our lives. There are times when we have felt a greater power guiding us. And if we listen to the wind, the sounds of a forest, the waves on island shores, we may hear an enchanting song speaking to us from our deepest longings.

The heart knows of these things. It is left to us to find the means. Dreams not only beguile and confuse. They enliven and renew the life we have lost or left behind us in our struggle to grow up and become responsible and independent.

This discussion has brought us to the question at the center of this tale—What part of our hearts must we commit to being responsible and what part must remain free if human will is to have any significance. Choice requires that we be able to stand back and consider our options if our choices are to be valid and decisive. The sylph Capisi knows something about this difficulty.

The sylphs? You are not quite sure about them? You say, “They didn’t teach me about sylphs in Sunday school or kindergarten. In bedtime stories and fairy tales, they are absent or ignored.” And you may notice that even New Age teachers barely breathe a whisper about the existence of sylphs.

The airy substance that composes the bodies of sylphs makes it uncomfortable for them to drop down to the earth for anything more than a few moments. Normally, they would feel uneasy and put off being near to the ground—well, that is to say, unless they have a very good reason for their visit.

Consider Capisi’s aura. I can feel it with my hands. She is buoyant, weightless, and floating. Her body exudes subtle rays of whitish blue light that connect her to wind currents and to the thunderstorms far in the distance over the horizon.

She is very aloof, but it is easy to see why. It is because she is so vulnerable and sensitive. She is nearly naked, wearing a mere wisp of a garment. She likes to feel the air and wind directly on her skin.

For Capisi, freedom and harmony are her essence. She strives to balance the natural elements while she herself remains completely at ease. She blends contrary impulses, mutually exclusive desires, the whole hierarchy of purposes striving to gain an edge one over the other.

Freedom—that is what she chooses as the highest organizing principle. And she embodies a harmony that never loses its poise or balance amid any of the urgent negotiations between the instincts.

I have seen her set a cloud rolling upon itself like a mouse on a treadmill running round and round but remaining immobile. I have seen her raise her hands with her palms facing each other, wave her fingers, and then a cloud dissolves before her in moments.

And from what she can do with a wind, well, imagine twenty different winds moving in twenty contrary directions all stacked up above and below each other. She can hold them all in the net of her hand. And at the same time with her other hand she stifles a yawn—such is her power of aloof, cool, and detached, sky-styled concentration.

With a gesture of one hand, she can change air pressure and temperature over the Grand Canyon so clouds drop down within it while the sky is clear overhead. And with her other hand guiding a gust of wind she can knock the hat off a state trooper hundreds of miles away in Albuquerque. And this she can do without even rustling a leaf in a tree nearby. Such is her command and ability.

Though each of the four elements in nature has its own unique beauty, human women have the challenge of combining all four within themselves. For love and beauty to shine through women, they must balance these opposites within nature. Sylphs are not constrained by having to piece together fire and water, air and earth.

You have seen the sylph in women when the air element shines through clear and unfettered. There is that sweet smile, the sanguinity, the carefree and lighthearted laughter. There is the capacity to be totally relaxed and familiar. And there is the way they touch you so casually when they are talking to you as if affection spreads around the way wind glides over the ground.

It is not uncommon for a woman to let out the sylph within herself for an hour or two. Then a woman listens so well that every word you speak is felt within her heart. The rapport is instantaneous and approaches a hundred per cent. And her eyes shine with that first radiance of morning promising that there is love enough to make the world new.

But then she returns to her human limitations—she concerns herself with how she is coming across or if there is any foolishness occurring. She wonders if she is going to regret any of this latter on, if she is going to fall flat on the ground having let her defenses down. Woman can disguise their fears with grace and charm, but their caution about opening themselves up is always lurking there in the background.

But after all, the air element is only one of four elements in their nature so naturally the elements work in shifts. The airy rapport alternates with the need to be assertive, to be true to her feelings, or to be practical and down to earth. How else could it be?

The difference is that with a sylph the rapport never ends. Her identity does not place a boundary on communication or harmony. Friendship with a sylph means being fully attuned to each other and in complete sync. The sylph is totally open with nothing to hide. The rapport is automatic and complete.

But then this is the nature of the air element. Air is all around us and we draw upon it in each moment and in every breath. We do not have to analyze or plan to insure our lungs are functioning.

Capisi has the beauty of a sylph pure and unvarnished. You can see something of her in the very drama the sky plays out as we watch it day by day. Not much imagination is needed to enter her domain. Consider that breeze you encounter from out of nowhere on a hot day. It nuzzles up to your cheek and caresses your hair. If you can imagine for a moment that the wind has personality, that it moves with will and intelligence, then you can imagine a sylph standing nearby wondering why you are not listening to what she is saying.

Today Capisi is wearing a transparent cape with a ribbon of a scarf fluttering around her neck. Her body is almost transparent. She appears to be made out of pure light though I dare say you might not want to think that she has no substance. In a gesture with the back of her hand, which emits an electro-magnetic pulse, she can knock the roof off a house a hundred miles away.

I am sure you will understand when I say she does not like to be touched! As I have mentioned, sylphs can be oversensitive. Capisi can feel the leaves of a Cottonwood tree shaking thirty miles away. On the back of her legs she can feel the sounds and vibrations that ripples make on the surface of a lake a half mile beneath her—even the vector and momentum in those ripples as they sail toward the shores.

Though her capacity for rapport is profound, Capisi resists forming bonds. Yet in spite of being aloof, she knows an entire spectrum of pleasures! To the human who can see her, to the one who knows how to enter her domain, her touch is pure bliss. Her touch suspends another within a sweetness so vast it banishes everything that burdens or weighs the soul down.

Come! This is not so difficult. You do not need to learn to skydive or to float over the earth in a balloon. Here is a simple way to enter her domain.

Warm-up Exercise

Notice the chair on which you are sitting. Note its weight and how it rests on the floor. Look about yourself. Imagine that everything in the space around you has disappeared and is replaced with a sky blue color—the light blue of a clear and sunny day.

Now relax. Take a breath. That’s it. We are not journeying anywhere further away than the air you breathe. You are in control. Take your familiar setting and augment it with a three hundred and sixty degree view of clear sky.

Now we will play a little virtual reality game. Visualize that in this moment you happen to be about forty thousand feet up in the sky. This is a little taller than a skyscraper I admit, but it is not much more than jet airplanes usually fly. Do not worry. This is just an act of imagination and concentration. It is something to enjoy.

By the way, did I mention that my mother used to watch the Wright Brothers practice at Kitty Hawk when she was young? You remember them, Orville and Wilbur? Their sister, the school teacher, financed their engineering venture. I can imagine that back in those days quite a few people thought it outrageous that someone was trying to invent a way to fly.

I can hear the neighbors’ gossiping: “Those good for nothing brothers, taking their sister’s money and wasting it like that! Anyone who respects morality would know better than to spend their time stealing secrets from nature long forbidden to mankind.”

But think about it. Since then, a lot of engineers have been busy at their drawing boards. They no longer rely on bird wings for their designs. The lines they draw and then fashion from titanium and alloys are perfected in wind tunnels with computer simulations.

My father also witnessed new events occurring in the air element. He held six world records for altitude and distance in various airplanes. It must be something that runs in my family, this attraction to the wind.

I remember one time when I was nine years old my father and I were flying north into Canada. He showed me a few dials on the control panel of his Cessna 180—altitude, compass, wings horizontal, things like that. We were up about six thousand feet. And then he climbed into the back seat and fell asleep for three hours leaving the plane in my hands.

No doubt this was one of those rights of passage mythologists like Joseph Campbell like to talk about—some sort of ancient ordeal cleverly disguised and hidden underneath the hustle and bustle of technological civilization. That is, when my father turned the controls over to me, there was a transmission of power. Something mysterious and non-verbal was passed down from father to son, from generation to generation going back into antiquity.

Think of it! In one lifetime, the dream of flying which has haunted mankind with longings for a hundred thousand years has been stalked, captured, and completely mastered. And now, almost casually, without premeditation, that dream was passed down to me as part of my inheritance.

The thrill of flying, of being in control and soaring free within the sky, ran through me in that moment. My arms became the wings of the plane. The plane’s tail was a part of my body. I could fly at my discretion above or through the clouds. Freedom is within the sky—no stop signs, no red, amber, or green telling you when to pause or move on.

So when I engage you in a little mental exercise, maintain a perspective. Look at the big picture. It is from the creative power within our minds that we have learned to conquer the sky surmounting its winds in accordance with our designs. Draw upon this creative power now. Make the essence of the sky a part of your self.

Returning to our exercise. Give your attention to the chair. Visualize around the chair a soft, relaxed, and clear sky. Look off in the distance. The horizon is about three or four hundred miles away. Look above you—just clear blue. Look down from about forty thousand feet. Notice the beauty of the world beneath you.

The chair, who needs it? As for your body, imagine it is empty inside. See it filling with blue light as if your body is a hologram and you are now weightless.

Explore this image for a few moments. See, you are here! This is where I come to meet Capisi. Weightlessness and the vast expanse of the sky—these two perceptions are the keys that unlocks the door to the domain of the sylphs.

Just a moment while I concentrate on being in Capisi’s presence. Ah, here she is now. I greet her. She touches my arm in response. This is the feeling of liberation. This is what yogis dream of experiencing one day after many decades of striving to tame their breath with a “ha” and a “tha” and a mantra and a hundred asanas. Her touch forces me to smile back at her with the same smile she gives to me. This place to which I have come is where cheerfulness and freedom are contagious.

There is no depression here, no feeling of weight on the chest, no burden to carry. There are no muscles lining the ribs that are tight and constricted. Air flows through the lungs unhindered and with exquisite pleasure.

Her touch is a wine from a vine no one on earth has yet learned to cultivate, an elixir no one has yet learned how to refine. It is something sweeter than mead and more lovingly kind than a mother holding an infant to her breast.

Her touch? It reminds every cell in my body to sing. Her touch is the caress of the sky. It is the power of movement that is boundless, buoyant, and breathtaking. Her caress combines the exhilaration of the jet stream with the lover who whispers intimate secrets in your ear with a sweet, warm breath.

I glance at her hair and see images of tornadoes whirling and storm clouds forming. When her hair swings about her neck, I see lovers stealing away into groves of pine and birch trees to have their bliss. Somewhere on earth perhaps there is a harpist with fingers so nimble, so magical, her songs could echo the play of Capisi’s hair in the wind—each hair is a separate song about a place where the heart has found true happiness.

Capisi knows about pleasure—I see her dancing now before me, leaping, spinning, jumping without any constraint of gravity. Updrafts of wind, she rides on their crests. And where winds meet from opposite directions, she twirls, driving them into a frenzy. And on that rare occasion when she sleeps amid the sky, the clouds know it is not wise to disturb her peace.

But she is also serious. Her aptitude is for air pressure—for perceiving where there are highs and lows and where air currents collide and disappear. She senses the shifts between moving fronts. Adjusting them just so, she creates a harmonious pattern within the atmosphere, setting boundaries in which weather patterns move.

Ah, that touch again on my arm. The only thing that limits my awareness in this moment are the stars above and the earth below.

An Astral Disturbance

As I spend more time with Capisi, I notice that part of her mind is purely reflective—it is shining and clear like a crystal ball. As I gaze into it, I can see reflections of the past, present, and future. I feel times when her life was subject to strange enticements. Her life has not always been full of good cheer and songs of freedom.

There is another note here. I sense the faintest trace of a humming sound like an echo still sounding from long ago. Capisi has been touched by elements other than air. There is a lingering, bitter taste like a smoke ascending from a memory of another time when a mortal once sought her out.

There, I feel it again. Something stirs within myself. I have the impression of an ancient hunger pulsing with emptiness. There was once a craving, a desire to devour. A will once sought to bind Capisi. It wished to swallow her into itself. It wanted her freedom and her playfulness. It wanted her wild joy dancing wanton within the sky. It wanted total control over her.

The oddity and contradiction of this impression are overwhelming. What wizard in his high tower patrolled the sky with his mind’s eye trying to track Capisi down? How did he intend to bind her? What power did he possess that was greater than her freedom to rule over the winds?

Could a human mind be so powerful and yet so barren and stricken to have such devouring needs? How isolated mankind is with its bondage to body and its narrowness of mind! How cut off human beings are from nature and love that there are those who must dominate others to feel free.

Imagine a wizard who, for all of his power, was still unable to attain liberation from his own dark passions. Then one day he catches a vision of a creature so fair her very being is as bright as the dance of light on the edges of clouds or rainbows reflected in water.

Who set Capisi as the bait in a trap this well designed? Who could take this wizard’s mastery of mind and unhinge it by confronting it with pure innocence? And who was this wizard possessing forbidden knowledge left over from a more ancient civilization—one that destroyed itself with the wrong kind of ambition?

Capisi notices my train of thought and seems happy to talk about the past. I ask her, “Tell me of this man who once sought to bind you in order to distract himself from his own painful delusions.”

The Wizard Hasan

Capisi answers, “In the beginning, he had only a vague intimation that I even existed. Then one day when I passed by he felt a disturbance in the air—a rippling effect, a riptide moving contrary to the prevailing winds. His senses were keen. He detected my presence. That set him off like a jackal on the track of a rabbit.

“He followed me through the sky. He sniffed the air. He noticed every sign that an intelligence was operating nearby. I think he could actually taste with his tongue the light my skin radiates.

“He tracked my vulnerability. He sensed my essence: my constant need to extend my energy to encompass the warm air rising in canyons and the moist air flowing in from the sea in the evening. He followed my desire to gather the vast distances of the sky within my heart. He locked in on my thought patterns in which I play the weather like a director conducts an orchestra urging wind and cloud to attain a harmony envisioned by my interpretation.

“Then, once his clairvoyant vision spotted me, he used his power of will to call me down. I felt boundaries of pure power closing around me. I was caught in net of his design. I looked for an escape route, but wherever I turned I found only the vacuum and emptiness within his heart. I was held at the center of a whirlpool of insatiable lust and unending craving.

“Finally he reeled me in. I floated a foot or so in front of him right there in the air by the balcony of his wizard’s tower. If he had known how to put me in a bottle or jar I think he would have done it immediately, so great was his desire to possess my freedom.

“Imagine that! To put me on the table in the center of his laboratory and to pump up his self-esteem and pride without limit—to gaze at the very freedom of the sky in feminine form bound within a glass! If eyes could salivate and lick, his could accomplish more!

“Well, I knew I had to bargain fast for his mind was a jar worse than one made of glass and he was nearer than he knew to doing me harm. I felt like I was cuffed with my hands behind my back. Ugh! This wizard, such a pathetic excuse for a human being who would master the secrets of nature!

“Though his mind like a vise could crush another’s will, the weakness in his soul was obvious. I know birds of prey, the vulture, the eagle, and the hawk. I know the clarity of vision that shines in their eyes. This wizard had greater ferocity than they, but in his heart there was no purity.

“It was transparent to me how his hunger concealed fears he was unwilling to face. I saw what he needed. It was precisely what he had surrendered in his quest for power and independence.

“He needed to be a child again, to go out and play with his friends. He needed to experience total innocence—to be caught between wonder, amazement, and fun—like waves splashing against each other, exploding in little jets of spray into the air and then falling back and going at it again without any thought or plan. That was the remedy for his disease of soul and the antidote for being so mental, so compulsively adult.

“But he had cut himself off from the child’s ability to taste and feel. He had locked his childhood away on the other side of an abyss—he would not allow light to pierce the darkness. The dreams of youth were lost to him. He would not return to where he was stuck and so find the treasures of spirit locked away within a dungeon of his own making.

“For the sake of the hatred he bore himself, his self-loathing so well concealed, he was going to use me as a salve for his pain. I was to ease it. His pain was to break and wash over me and so dissolve. He would put aside his own limitations in this way, by momentarily feeling free each time he smiled to himself and said,

Ah, I have this beauty, the wind itself caught in my spell!

This demonstrates my power and my will.

As she submits to me, her femininity is naked and revealed.

I taste her vitality. Her life flows through my veins.

Oh, the satisfaction! The feelings unleashed

As I devour her freedom, as I absorb her essence into my being!

“Ugh! I did not need a curse or did I need to call for help—forbid I should ever need help from any other spirit!

“He could in fact hold my very being with the power of his mind. But I knew his own magical name better than he did himself—I knew the secret behind his craving for me.

“And so I struck him a bargain, my freedom for, shall we say, a gift? If he would let me go and never again bother me, I would teach him how to call the great spirits who command the four winds. I would teach him the words to be spoken—the power to raise from the dead! This was not necromancy, calling a lower astral entity to possess and reanimate a dead body. No, I do not engage in sorcery. My magic is as pure as the sky.

“What I offered him was the spell which would weave the breath of life back into the lungs of the departed. He could call the soul so sweetly with harmonics of such skill, the soul itself could not resist. It would come stumbling back. As if drunk, it would lie down and then wake up within its former body with barely a hangover as a reminder that it had crossed over.

“Wizards, you see, are like anyone else when it comes to needing attention and sweet affection. And like other mortals, they have a weakness for flattery. All those years they spend alone mastering their craft leaves them feeling numb and lonely. They sometimes need to put down their wands and acquire a little fame, a touch of glory, a sprinkle of prestige to make palatable their solitude.

“I knew I had him. Ha! Which of us was reeling the other in? I wove a trick he would not soon forget. It was very hard, I tell you, to stifle a smile as I whispered the details into his ear of how to acquire this magic.

“Wizards everywhere from now on would know through the faint murmurs in the air and the nudges from their own conscience to stay away from the sky over which I preside—better to imagine a fence with a sign what says, ‘Keep Out: Unknown Dangers Lurk Here.’ Beware mortal or wizard if you would try to bend the sky to your will!

“I told him this: the song and essence of each bird are like strings on a instrument. He had to collect and master the songs, that is, the magical names, of specific birds that roam the sky. Then he would be able to sing such subtle and beautiful notes that the winds themselves would gladly come to his side!

“Little did he know the fate awaiting him.

“I called a few birds. The nightingale, of course. And the hummingbird, the owl, the blackbird, even a vulture, a swan, a sparrow. I had each bird sit on his balcony as I taught him how to sink his mind into its heart—

“The hummingbird, he had to visualize and hold its life within his mind. He had to comprehend its design, its environment, and its behavior patterns. Then, he had to subtract from the bird’s existence its form while retaining the very quality and essence of its spirit.

“The hummingbird is a high pitched sound. This is a sound like a whistle, maybe a piccolo. It adores certain flowers. And though its wings beat rapidly, it pulses with a great stillness. In its eyes, each moment is divided into tiny pieces. That is why it can move so quickly.

“And we studied the owl. I taught him how to cloak himself, to become pure stealth and to embody the silence of the night. Blending into wind currents, patrolling in quiet, his mind learned to strike with blinding light.

“His mastery of the owl was superb. He loved working with this bird. Constructing an image of the owl perched in a tree, he delighted in surveying the habits of his prey. For example, he studied the mice, knowing their desires—timidity alternating with harmless greed—better than they.

“Yes, he learned how to observe, staking out a territory and memorizing all of its life. First he did the accounting before harvesting in appropriate measure. That is why the owl is so wise. It spends all the time it needs learning the ways of its prey. It has detachment more than sufficient for its feeding habits. Claws concealed within darkness, the owl strikes from the blind spot and is the supreme mouse trap!

“Hasan was enjoying himself. And despite his purpose, to learn a very rare spell, he nearly became like a child at play. But our bargain was for my freedom. I knew he would not let me go until he had drained me of all the knowledge and joy within my soul. And so he lost the one opportunity in his life to be guided through the darkness within his inner self.

“Too bad human beings are so haughty. He would have made a great student. If he could have allowed himself to be more childlike, more innocent, I could have called him a friend one day. Actually, it was his despair—weeping tears denied turn to acid that burns the soul away—he did not believe love would ever find him. The human race has an unusual propensity for this lack of faith.

“Still, I had his trust and confidence. He learned many new sensations, songs, feelings, and qualities of mind. He took each task I gave him, devoured it, and locked it away in his memory.

“Then I set my trap. It took place when we moved from the hawk to the dove. The hawk you can guess for yourself but I will tell you this. I called the dove to his balcony and I said to Hasan, ‘Now this bird is different from the others. You must capture not only its song but open your mind in a new way.’

“‘You must hypnotize this bird so that you center your will within the light of its eyes. You must devour its essence, possess its song, and dominate its spirit even as you have done with me. Normally this would be a great challenge but, considering your power and might, you should accomplish this with ease.’

“That did it! He opened his mind and thrust the full power of his will upon the task—to become master of the eye of the dove. What a fool! Everyone knows that the song in the eye of the dove is infinite! It has neither limits nor boundaries. Neither man, mage, nor sylph can contain it.

“Excuse me for my laughter. I can’t help myself. That little trick did him in. It was so funny. This devouring leech trying to swallow the beauty of peace—what a contradiction.

“Well, he tried to chew on that song like a rat scurrying around a large piece of cheese. He prodded it like an ant with mental mandibles nipping at a drop of honey. And finally he opened himself totally and took the song of the dove into the core of his being—into that vacuum and emptiness that drives the force of his will.

“Now there is a proper way to learn how to sing an infinite song of peace. You gradually open yourself. Listen for its echo and harmony as it sings within all things. You hear it first where love has touched you your life. Then you see the entire world shining with its own inner light. You perceive all things in their unity. This is a very good point of departure and a first, tentative step.

“Not Hasan though, no. He was so used to exercising his force of will he forgot about the power hidden within innocence and purity. The bands binding his astral and mental bodies were stretched to the limit. They became unglued. The part of his mind that was pure greed got lost in a boundless peace—Hasan stumbled into a dimension that we sylphs bask in as we fly everyday through the sky.

“The result was predictable. The wolf turned into its opposite. He became docile and taciturn. He became like a child who had forgotten where he had left his favorite toy and his security blanket to boot. He had that look in his eyes.

“Shall I explain this in terms you can understand? What normally occurs over years happened to Hasan in a few hours: He suffered from what your doctors would call frontal temporal dementia. The front of his brain was cut off from the instinctual part. The blood flow was restricted. The brain actually shrinks in the head. And the mind is lost because it can no longer track the connection between action and consequence.

“No more was he going to be standing on the heights of a wizard’s tower. Never again would he reach out and summon beings from the four elements and beyond. The childhood he had imprisoned and locked away took over. The inner child, like a genie finally released from its jar, took possession of the adult.

“I am not called a queen of the sylphs for nothing. I know things. Such as for every magician, Divine Providence has ordained that there be at least one demon he can not bind with will, power, or mind. It usually approaches disguised as the love he has been denied or else as precisely the thing his heart is afraid to find.

“There are constraints that bind us all whatever form our journeys take. The wisdom hidden in childhood and infancy is among these. There are times when, if we wish to move beyond our present stage of life, we must return to our beginnings and lay a new foundation. When Hasan confronted the forgotten magic of childhood, the adult got the worse part of the bargain.

“Hasan never came around again. The dreams of childhood dissolved his power. Long ago he had forsaken the journey to the core of his being. Confronted with the immensity of his loss, will power no longer had any meaning.”

The Poet Amir

I say to Capisi, “You seem to know a lot about human beings. How did you learn so much? Did you once come down and walk around disguised as a woman?”

Capisi replies, “Why yes, yes I did. Do you want to hear about this?”

“Please, tell me,” I beg her.

Capisi says, “It is unusual that I feel free to discuss these things with you. Humans are mostly a bother—toxins fill their bodies and flood their cities. They talk in staccato rhythms about their woes and miseries and give no attention to the great harmony that surrounds them. How can beauty be known by a civilization that flirts with self-destruction?

“But talking to you—there is something hypnotic—it is not your words. It is your concentration. I see myself as a reflection on the surface of a mountain pool at night. You voice vibrates with lunar mysteries. My feelings stir, my self-image blurs. I almost forget about the sky—

“You reveal what is hidden in others. What is hidden in myself? I want to go away, on a journey. I want to awake again within the dream that held me long ago in its arms. You remind me of that time when I assumed the form of a mortal woman. I slept in a bed. I washed my hair. I was content to walk slowly with my feet upon solid ground.

“There was once an Arab poet and a bard. Similar to you. But he was so much happier. Your songs are bittersweet. You explore endlessly the moment of mystical release when separation, loss, and sorrow are overcome. You are the song of loneliness dissolving into the ecstasy of love.

“But the songs he played overflowed with mirth and joy. He often sang of the serene bliss possessed by flowers whose beauty was not designed to bait birds or bees. They call out instead to the sun to come caress and fertilize them with its mysterious rays.

“Ah, Amir was so gentle, innocent, and yet so skilled. The very air itself begged to enter his instrument to ripple and stir within the notes he played!

“It began in this way: There was a subtle irritation in my ear, a discomfort in my mind as if I no longer felt satisfied. I ignored it for a long time. The source of this disturbance came from the earth below. I reminded myself that there are things it is not good to know. I pushed this distraction away from me, far off in the distance like a painful memory. But it persisted.

“As you know all too well, some things are so sweet you are forced to pay tribute to their charms. One day I followed the invitation down to within a mile or so of the palace where Amir played—he was a distant relative of the Calif.

“Ah such songs in the night! Every note unfolded a vision: silvery mists ringing mountains blended the moon’s light, shifting it through the color spectrum, stirring in a little pink, lilac, violet. And then he dropped down to another octave and did it over again—a mist, a fog like a wave weaving its way over a mountain pass, immersing itself in trees, coating their leaves, and then turning upon itself in a sacred dance. The dim light in the mist amplified dreams until they weso substantial they were strong enough to swallow reality whole. re

“And then again another shift. Now his song caressed and entered the flowers. Each blossom spoke with the voice of the Earth singing in a hundred thousand songs—the scents themselves he translated into notes: stirrings, sighs, murmurings, soft breathing, a hush, a sniffle, a cry, each scent loose on the wind. The passion of the Earth overflowed from flowers as he awoke the soul within.

“His notes were incense ascending in spirals unknown to air. They folded in myriad patterns, circles, and swirls. The curving brush marks of an artist upon a canvass were his notes upon the wind.

“And then, as his song concluded, he wove all three octaves together in a vision of sound: a still lake reflecting mountain and cloud, tree and flower, and a mist walking and then dancing upon its surface as it too yielded itself to the rapture of the moon.

“Oh, my goodness! If a sylph could have a mortal lover, this man was surely it! It is not uncommon that the gods, though remaining silent and invisible, will walk upon the earth. They will sit down and listen when the music a mortal plays has beauty this profound.

“Even so, once every two or three thousand years, I am tempted to yield to the same instinctual need: to cross over the well-demarcated boundaries separating the realms and the inner and outer worlds. Even I am drawn to surrender myself to the note of Love which is the sovereign Lord of the universe.

“The sky is my home. And though I reign here high above the mountain peaks and have command over the winds, I feel the call to join with another heart and to participate in the act of creation!

“His songs were so sweet! I was compelled. I focused my will to accept all the responsibilities and consequences such a joining would entail. My wish became the desire to taste and share the bliss that grants release from all that has gone before.

“And so I asked myself: ‘Would it not be perfect, an ideal made real, to go down and to study with such a master? This poet weaves chaos and moments of spontaneous discovery into new harmonics. Would it not be another side of freedom to empty myself of the sky to learn more about his smile so bright like the sun on a clear day—rising majestic, unbound, and calling out in joy during his whole journey above the horizon?’

“I made up my mind. I would do it. I would go and become his student. I would find that place within his heart where such beauty is born!

“And so yes, I took on mortal form. It took four days, but I accomplished it. After all, am I not one of the eight heads of the air element on earth? Am I not an agent of creation, independent, autonomous, and self-directing, born within the heart of the Lord of the Winds? There are certain privileges that attend such rank, skill, and experience. I possess a discretionary power and authority befitting my commission and it is mine to exercise according to my own volition!

“However, actions such as these always possess an element of risk, a degree of uncertainty. But for the most part, it was just a matter of heightened concentration and attending to details. The air and the liquids in a human body are no problem. I can call moisture out of thin air.

“The DNA molecules, the synapses in the brain, and the procedure for binding five senses to physical organs—that took some doing. But I know the pattern. Elemental beings of high rank can follow blueprints and diagrams, I assure you. I understand the basic elements in human nature. I can see your whole body as if from inside in this very moment.

“It was, however, the density of bone, sinew, and tissue which were my bottleneck. That took effort. Human women can give birth to a baby and may even manage the process well, controlling their breath with skill or will. For me, becoming incarnate is not much more difficult than that.

“No one witnessed this magic of spirit assuming form, shape, and weight. The place where I worked was magically shielded, hidden from mortal eyes.

The air wept. Winds wove. Light was bent. From thin air solids flowed.

“From my inner essence, I gave my spirit into matter to hold. My breath entered lungs, light my eyes, sound my ears, taste my tongue, and touch my skin. I entered the perfection of the feminine form that embodies the mystery of the universe as receptive love.

“As a mortal can awake fully conscious within a dream, I altered my focus and attention. I awoke within a body designed by my mind and yet it was what you call reality. I opened my eyes and took a step and then another.

“I had a few of my serving spirits borrow suitable garments for me to wear. They whisked them to me from over the desert as well as a little gold for my purse. And so, my feet bound by the laws of gravity, I walked one fine day into the city where Amir dwelt.

“It was not as dangerous as you might think. I had Omar go with me—a giant of a man, a real mortal, who had lost his mind a while back. I returned him to lucidity using a spell that sylphs can distill from the light of dawn blended with sky blue. Human biochemistry and neurological processes always have been very responsive to the dazzling images one mind can place within another.

“Omar’s mind was now clear. I gave to him gifts in return for his loyalty. He could hear my telepathic commands with ease. And from his fierce countenance and his scimitar of a sword with jeweled handle, no one was going to bother me, not unless they wanted to discover the boundaries of mortality.

“I strolled about the town. My eyes danced upon the sights of street vendors, taverns, and homes. I stared at them within the human color spectrum. I put aside my clairvoyance and sipped and drank images and forms as they appear within the brain waves that humans command.

“Then I turned my concentration on finding Amir. I sensed what direction would lead me to him. I listened and I followed the song overflowing from his heart. It took a real exercise of will to keep from dancing through the streets as I drew near.

“He began singing his songs in a tavern as twilight fell upon the city. I stayed all night listening to him. Behind my veils, I pretended to be the companion of the fierce warrior Omar.

“Toward dawn, I approached him, unveiled, and smiled my sweetest smile. It is fair to say that I am aloof and prefer keeping a sizable distance between myself and humanity. It is also fair to say that I have a smile so sweet no bee on earth will ever produce a honey to match its golden radiance. No taste of any liquor on any tongue will ever free the mind of its troubles as does my smile.

“My lips are the dream of freedom offering an invitation to taste ecstasy. Amir was ravished by my beauty. I explained to him that I was from a distant land and under my body guard’s protection. I said that according to my family tradition it was my task to apprentice to a master musician. Traveling merchants had told my father of Amir and so I had journeyed from far to become his student. In spite of the implausibility of my explanation, Amir accepted me without a second thought.

“At first I thought it was his songs that drew me to him. But after being with him, I decided it was his eyes that captivated my curiosity and desire.

“His eyes! Gazing into them was sweeter than bliss! I saw in them small whirlwinds dancing on the circumference of the horizon. Four separate suns were reflected in their depths waiting to rise when he nodded his head and said, ‘Yes.’

“His eyes were like jewels that had their own sunlight inside! They changed colors with his moods. First they were blue sapphires of cold fire burning within the songs of Rigel and Saiph.

“And then in another moment, green emeralds were his eyes. He sang of sacred journeys and the one true love who would accompany you to make those journeys worthwhile. His song could hover over an abyss. He could sing into existence a floating bridge out of nothingness to cross over to the other side.

“Then his eyes turned black as obsidian. They recalled at first hauntingly and then with startling precision the first note of the first song that sang the world into existence. I was glad I had taken the trouble to find my way here. Looking into his eyes, I could let go. I could float upon his breath as it wandered and wove its way through the air, joining wind and song in one flow from his lips.

“Ah, his eyes, I still cannot forget them. Will I ever? They opened to a place where sand dunes tumble down to the sea—sand dunes covered in one instant with wintry snow. The next instant a glacier’s run-off crisscrosses them in small streams. And then, the setting sun stares down upon them with a volcano’s fiery intensity.

“Gazing into his eyes I knew that I loved him—I love all things pure and clear, open and free. His eyes reflected treasures hidden in eternity. And from his heart he could cast a net out into the sky and capture a rainbow in his song. He could dance with the tiger and the dragon as they raged in a thunderstorm. Or, as if sporting in the rain, he could persuade a parched desert to spout flowers at dawn. Such were the range with which my feelings took flight each day.

“Though I know much about optics and light oscillations, with imagery I am not so skilled as was he. The images in his eyes gave birth to new distances in each moment. They unfolded new places of wonder, places worth traveling to in order to be reborn. This is why I choose to camp so near to him, to pitch my tent within his heart.

“As I said, there are risks in ventures such as these, I admit, for both of us. I was the gentle wind penetrating into the guarded treasure rooms of a castle. I was the gentle caress awakening the deepest memory as the hand glides across skin and loops hair between its fingers.

“One evening walking in the royal gardens, he took my hand and turned and kissed me. The world fell away. I almost forgot I was in the shape of a mortal woman. I wanted to take him away with me into the sky! I wanted to sail with him upon the winds and watch the sun set from above the highest mountains. I wished to show him the heights eagles fly as they glide between white peaks.

“When I was with Amir, time was suspended. I had forgotten why I had assumed mortal form. But in that moment, I understood it was neither his songs nor his eyes which had ensorcelled me. It was his heart I sought.

“I could feel his heart pulsing within my heart—in that kiss the boundaries between our worlds dissolved. We were no longer separate. Our passions flowed together. Feeling his heart within mine, I could see his vision of the world: the sun was no longer harsh and overbearing above the desert.

“The sun was an elder brother, kind, generous, and wise. And the moon became my sister, full of laughter and joy. She was willing to share all her treasures of serenity and her blissful dreams without end.

“The Earth also, She was no longer hidden in silent mystery. She became my mother. With my feet and hands I could feel her skin. She responded to my touch, the life force in her body flowing into mine. She listened to my longings and offered me hope. She promised that my dreams will one day be fulfilled, each and every one.

“I pulled slightly back from him as he kissed me and then I cried. He was not startled nor did he show surprise as I gazed back into his eyes through my tears. He only said, ‘Your tears are so precious. I would catch every one of them and seal them within a glass locket—to worship them each morning to show Remembrance for all that is sacred within the world.’

“And I said, ‘I only cry because your heart is so beautiful.’

“He said, ‘You are a dove sent by God, a dove who has taken on human form. You have come to teach me that the beauty of the Unmanifest is not to be captured by song. It is by grace alone that I hold you within my arms. It is a wonder beyond all words that I can dissolve into the sea of your love. What miracle is this that the world can contain beauty as yours?’

“And as he took my head in his hands and kissed me again, I remembered my birth from out of the dream of the Creators—I floated in the sky cloaked in the color of light blue. Then a Voice sang my soul into existence. I dreamed. The twelve winds caressed me and spoke softly. I awoke, my body reflecting the sky both by day and by night.

“The air element condensed within me, giving me form and substance. And then I was given a commission to rule within the sky. But in the moment Amir kissed me, I no longer knew which was the greater act of creation, my birth as a sylph or the kiss that joined his heart with mine.

“Amir must have had a hundred questions about who I was. He had already come close to guessing my secret. But he was like a master thief who comes to steal only one thing and ignores all else. He focused and opened himself so that his heart was expansive enough to contain me within it.

“We walked for many hours without saying a word. We kissed again and the moon and the stars bore witness to our love. Then I felt him pause and perform a ritual within his soul. As if taking a piece of pure silver, he inscribed my face and essence upon it.

“And then he placed it on an altar at the center of his heart. He did not do this to hold or to possess but to remember through all eternity the honor the universe had shown him. The touch of my hand, a kiss from my lips opened for him the gateway through which his soul could dissolve into divine ecstasy.

“Shortly after this, we were married and lived together for three and a half years. Of course, as you can imagine, a strange woman without history sets rumors adrift. And I was cause for more than a little envy. But in assuming mortal form I had not surrendered my magical powers, only toned them down to acceptable levels.

“When I concentrated it was easy for me to hear what others said about me anywhere in the city. I could read thoughts as I wished. I could attune my spirit to receive the most subtle of mental vibrations. I managed and maneuvered and planted a few well-chosen thoughts of my own. It only takes a carefully designed suggestion or two to resolve a conflict.

“But in spite of occasional intrusions, our lives were solitary. There was time to hold each other and to surrender my being and merge my dreams with his. I walked as the moon through his visions when the sun slept. I walked as dawn through his desires when passions awoke. I walked as twilight when he sought to traverse the pathways connecting the inner and outer worlds.

“I remember one night, there were so many like it. We were in a tent out in the desert. Amir held a golden goblet in his hands and said: ‘What is this wine that I can drink it with you by my side? How is it that before your beauty this wine is not ravished and undone?

“‘I imagine this: Before I can bring the cup to my lips the wine is overpowered by your presence. It substance deteriorates. It lapses back into grapes upon a vine. And further still, the grapes, as I reach to grasp them in my palms, they transmute once again—into falling rain and minerals beneath the ground. My identity dissolves before your beauty. All that is left within me are sacred sources of inspiration wrapped in silence and hidden in the secret mansions of eternity.’

“And I replied, ‘We have spent two years together. And yet I ask each day, “Who are you my love that every time I see you or feel your touch all motion stops, the world is stilled?” I am hurled into a realm of dreams where love is sovereign.

“‘Your eyes penetrate the caverns of my soul. They invade my secret places of darkness. They steal treasures hidden beneath sorrow and aloneness. Yet I yield to you willingly. The light in your heart bids me to come forth, to stand unashamed and naked before your eyes.

“‘Your eyes were designed by the hands of stars. They shine with such excellence. Your voice is so fine. The winds draw near, longing to be reborn through your breath, to be taken and penetrated by your songs. Your touch renews my world. Your caress satisfies me more than the taste of pomegranate, tangerine, or wine. Like them, I would give you all that I am to satisfy your needs.’’

At this point in the story, Capisi cries as she speaks to me. Her tears flow down her cheeks—tears born from the longing within the sky to find and celebrate love. I feel her sorrow like a rain that falls without replenishing the earth. It is the rain of flash floods and torrential storms.

Gazing into her eyes, I see the reflection of a sky filled with violent thunder. The air is split by the jagged pageantry of lightning’s wild danced. Vacuums collide and crash. Shock waves sail across the peaks of mountains.

Love penetrates the soul until it overflows, but when love retreats the heart is torn. When hearts unite, the world transforms. Mysteries beyond mortal reach are born. They come forth from kingdoms unknown in any legend to share songs of bliss and rapture blended. Then the season of separation returns to haunt the soul with visions and dreams seen only through bitter tears.

One of Capisi’s tears falls on the back of my right arm. I feel her tear is the song of a traveler journeying alone through dark mountains, the soul companion gone. What heart can bear this pain? Love once filled the entire sky. The light of the sun and moon were joined in every kiss, in every caress of the palms. Now the winds whirl out of control and the clouds are saturated with tension. They prepare to explode.

With the moisture of Capisi’s tear resting on my skin, I understand her vulnerability. How rare is the lover who can so open his heart to let a sylph like Capisi in! But from time to time in history there appears a mortal whose soul is free enough to call the vast expanse of the sky his home.

And if he accomplishes this, can he remain at peace with his own mortality and personality? Must he become an ascetic, a sojourner? Must he be a pilgrim among other human beings, separating himself from humanity? Is this the price to be paid for loving the sky, for calling a sylph down? Where is the man whose sense of humor is so carefully designed he can keep in balanced his own significance and insignificance when he is touched by the heart of the winds and songs so sublime?

Capisi goes on, “Mysterious dreams continually sought to be celebrated on the altar of his heart. Within that sacred space, I was his acolyte and his consort. I knew his moments of inspiration. I knew his moods. I knew his memories better than he. But who can swim upstream toward the source when the river flows from out of eternity?

“I could dwell with him and share his love. I could attune my heart to his. Our hearts were like one harp. Together, the two of us played one song of love.

“I loved Amir more than I love the sky. I loved him more than life itself. I found what I had sought—the spark at the heart of the celebration of love.”

At this point in the story, Capisi becomes silent. I sit with her quietly. She is like a bard who suddenly comes upon the greatest of magical harps. But she is forbidden to touch it. Its powers are too great and the human race is not yet ready to hear its sounds. It is silence, then, which is left to play upon these strings.

Capisi takes a breath and sighs. She goes on, “But in the end his intuition was his undoing. He discovered who I am. Though he might have suspected all along, he had no need to speculate when he held me in his arms. Still, it happened. He learned that I was not a mortal woman at all, nor, in his mind, a gift of grace sent from God.

“He finally realized that I was an elemental being. And though a high queen of the element of air, I had assumed mortal form. I was his mistress and his lover, but only in part was I human.

“I could have born him human children had he so wished—I had all the anatomy and physiology to accomplish this. No, in truth, it was neither my form nor my spirit that bothered him. He fell into the quagmire of narrow-minded beliefs that blind the eyes of humanity. Clouds settled in to conceal the beauty in his heart. Doubts arose from hungry shadows to steal the magic from his voice and the wonder from his eyes.

“It happened like this. One night an ancient master from his tradition appeared within his dream and confronted Amir with questions of conscience. The master calmly reasoned and carefully weighed Amir’s options. The master spoke these words:

Amir, this is not a human being whom you love. With human love, there is always sorrow. Have the two of you even had one fight? Have you ever had to make up? Have you ever seen the faintest trace of jealousy or fear within her eyes, even once?

(The master spreads his hands apart in a questioning gesture and goes on.) It is not that I object per se to such a mating. It is just that your gifts need to be sharpened like a diamond by the suffering that accompanies love of mortal women.

As it is now, your music is intoxicating and takes the listener into a delirium of pleasures. They forget their concerns. Their worries are banished and their sorrows vanquished. When your audience leaves your presence, they walk down the street as if their feet are no longer touching the ground.

Tell me, what do you want to do, make a nation of poets and dreamers like you? What are your plans? Do you want to end up ruling the world? I tell you, without a doubt, your disciples will if you dare to teach others the beauty that you feel. Then others too will learn to sing these enchanting songs of fairy realms that are hidden and concealed behind every image in nature.

I tell you, your successors will call forth golden dreams as healing as sunlight. They will sing so sweetly they will bewitch and call down the silvery visions of serenity hidden within moonlight. You know full well of what I speak.

Amir, the magic hidden in your mating with this sylph is neither love nor art. It is the power to rule the nations. You already wrestle with this question within your heart. That is why I have come to you—Is the human race ready to erase the boundaries separating the human world of history from the fairy realms with their immortal songs of ecstasy?

The fate of the world is within your hands as you play upon the strings of your harp. You have known this all along. You stand at the crossroads. You must choose wisely. Your actions will fashion the charts mankind will use as it searches for its destiny. No one else can make this decision for you or bear the weight of your responsibility for deciding on behalf of humanity.

Without a hair of doubt, the love you share with this woman is the stuff of fable and dream. This love competes with Divine vision and with the sacredness within Remembrance. It rings with and echoes and binds the light that shines within all that is holy. But I think you know deep down that this love is not a part of anything the human race is meant to be taught during this phase of history.

You must choose as all others have already done before they were born, before they incarnated. You must choose now if you are going to join the human race or not. To be born a human being is to accept all the suffering as well as all the love that is in life. On the path you are following, there can be no suffering, no sacrifice when love contains this much bliss, the touch this much ecstasy.

And Amir asks the master in his dream, What would you have me do?

And the master replies: Do not decide on the basis of my authority. I am not here to command you. There are many paths leading into the house of wisdom. My son, let us explore your options.

It would not be inappropriate for you to keep this sylph—as your wife, of course. But consider developing enough distance so that you remain a man who can love but who loves without sacrificing his identity. No man or poet should yield the entirety of his being to the feminine charms of a woman, no matter how great her beauty.

I am not saying you should love her less. I am only saying this: keep the inner core that makes you a human being intact so that your soul does not become an artifact displayed on a pedestal in a castle constructed from fairy magic.

Understand, Amir, though you two are joined as one in love, I won’t deny it, you still belong to separate realms. She is immortal and you are not. You have but a few decades of life remaining which is the nature of your fate. Upon your death, she will return to her own sphere of wind and air. She will once again ascend into the mysterious heights of the sky. There she will reign perhaps longer than the human race will exist on this planet.

Therefore, continue to love her. Give her her due, but for the majority of your time you must blend your songs with more pathos. Darkness must be united with light—this is our situation, the human condition. Our mortal limitations combine sorrow and nobility. We only perceive vague images cloaked in darkness as we gaze into the crystal of Divine vision.

You can discover for yourself whether my words speak the truth. Listen again to the songs singing within the hearts of nobles and the masses. See if the human heart does not live and breathe under these limitations I have described.

It is through sharing with your own brothers and sisters that you will accomplish your greatest work. Do not forsake us. Sing your songs. Set them ablaze with inspiration. Yet let the pleasures of which you speak remain within the reach of humanity. Offer guidance, entertainment, joy, tears, poetry and beauty too, but do not divert and undermine the work the human race has spent countless ages achieving.

Let the beauty within air which you reveal be commensurate with the light humanity is able to endure. With Capisi as your guide, you have the power to bring back to mankind magical treasures from luminous kingdoms of the soul hidden within wind and sky. But this work is not why your talents were bestowed upon you. Mankind must first grow stronger before these wonders can be shared. For this reason, those of my order have kept silence about these treasures since before God called Abraham to leave Ur. Therefore, choose wisely otherwise you will rend the fabric of history and tear into pieces the soul of humanity.

Capisi turns to me and says, “Quite a long dream, huh? Yet Amir recalled it word for word. Well, needless to say, a dream like that was persuasive. It contained all the classical arguments.

“It set forth the doctrine priests have proclaimed since the dawn of time: the boundaries separating the realms of nature, fairy, human, and Divine must be carefully guarded. Only in prescribed rituals can those boundaries be suspended. If your lover is a sylph, human morality is worse than any wizard who would bind, confine, and devour the beauty he cannot find in himself.

“When Amir and I awoke the next morning, I could tell something was tearing Amir apart from inside. To his credit, he spoke to me a few hours later and told me the whole dream. At first he laughed about it. But then I could tell by the way he pressed his lips together a few times near the end of the telling that he was deeply disturbed.

“Humans. It is part of their saga that they bear these conflicts between the different elements. They improvise their priorities as they go along. They shape their destinies according to which pain they wish most to avoid or the fear they cannot face. Their mortality forces them to encounter despair in the very moment their highest ideal is attained.

“Not long after that, I saw Amir crying one afternoon. The dream had stolen my light from his heart: I wasn’t a vision sent by God. I was something less than human—that was the moral barb with which the master pierced his conscience!

“The feeling of betrayal was secondary. Part of his art was knowing how to harmonize discord. In art, he was free to draw upon the full color spectrum of feeling, vision, and inspiration.

“When the problem was reduced to a choice between irreconcilable principles, his heart was battered against a rock. He was unable to untangle his love for me from his apprehension. Alas, as the struggle proceeded, he began to long for reassurance. He wanted to feel there was something solid and unshakable he could rely upon. He wanted the certainty of knowing he was operating according to the laws and within the limitations governing human history.

“Amir traded his singing for discussions lasting all night with the wisest men he could find throughout the land. Then one day he told me he had been called to fast and to pray in the desert. He went off by himself into the wilderness. There the master from his dream initiated him into secret traditions reserved only for those who expose their souls to the desolation woven into deserts.

“Women are not permitted to enter into these mysteries. Amir learned of the power of the jinn, the spirits of nature and of the wilderness of the spirit. He learned to chant the sacred names of God.

“No doubt, he was taught about sylphs as well. However, I would just point out for the record, no mortal has ever mastered me. Even your own seer, a mighty magician, bypassed the realm of sylphs. He turned to higher spheres of the spirit to learn weather control.

“When Amir returned from the desert, he was stronger in appearance with his rough beard and that ascetic, haunted look in his eyes. Yet his strength derived not from a greater union with nature. Rather, it was based upon separation and differentiation—he was learning words of power for controlling different aspects of nature by the divine principles governing their existence.

“But love cannot touch a soul as deeply as it had touched Amir’s and then be shoved aside. The soul will eventually rend of its own accord under the strain and tension. I felt the pain growing within him. I knew it would eventually overpower his will.

“Recall that Hasan’s magical will broke when he came face to face with the child in himself which he had long ago sacrificed. Amir’s will broke when he tried to substitute human wisdom for the celebration of love. Amir forgot that God is present in every taste of bliss and in every moment of intimacy.

“There was a great abyss separating us and he would not use his bardic voice to cross over it. The very air around us became charged with the tension of this pathway waiting to be sung into existence. Amir bore the full brunt and burden of all that limits the human soul. How long will it take the human race to discover that the realms of fairy are the foothills of eternity?

“There is an ancient pathway. It steals neither from the fairy realm, from mortals, nor from the divine. Through it, sylphs and mankind are free to travel along side by side. To have followed this path, Amir would have had to take all the wisdom within his own tradition and transmute it into a greater light and a higher love.

“And he would have had to enter fearlessly into my own realm of the sky. He would have had to drink in its essence and its hidden sources of illumination. And then, drawing them together at the center of his heart, fuse them into one. The heart opens pathways of spirit that do not exist until love calls them into being.

“This task was within his power to accomplish. I did not ask of him more than he could give. I did not mislead him into giving me his love so that confusion and doubt could rob him of his spirit.

“Amir’s mistake was that he wanted to validate his decisions by referring to external sources of wisdom other than those found within the heart. He had the power in his voice to call, to command, and to bind the mysteries of nature and to reveal their treasures of beauty in his poetry.

“But he chose to see himself first as a human being in need of a historical identity. This choice rendered him impotent. He was no longer the man he was when I first heard him sing of a Lover in search of the Beloved. He forgot the Celebration for which the universe was created.

“And so Amir did himself terrible harm. Again, I could have lived out a full life with him. I could have been a mother and his companion in all his journeys. I could have grown old as he did.

“I had come forth into the world to walk side by side with Amir. Together, it was our journey to enter the source of love that flows from the union of humanity, nature, and the divine. It was our task as we embraced, loved, and guided each other to enter the place where all that separates is overcome, where all realms are joined as one.”

Capisi turns to me as she catches one of my tears in her hand and says, “Don’t cry for me young bard. There are times when the paths we follow suddenly end in sadness and sorrow. My journey has not ended. Your words open the pathways for recapturing what was lost and for joining again what history has forced into separation.

“The journey to the heart of love is the only true journey in the universe. Neither history, religion, science, nor sorrow, nor loss can change this destiny. I know that you and others like you will come forth and meet me again and again here within the sky. What I lost in Amir will be found again. Even I, a sylph, can feel in my heart that it is love that binds the universe together through its might.

“Ah, Amir, Amir. First loves are so endearing and powerful. As his master said quite correctly, I am a sylph. I am immortal. But I knew all along what the master did not know—what his mind would not permit his heart to feel. The mystery of love is not revealed by holding in place familiar boundaries. Love is not a business in which two managers negotiate the complexities of a relationship. Love does not set trip wires which go off when your partner is discovered to be other than what you had anticipated.

“The truth is, my journey into mortal form was a gift to Amir from the Unmanifest. I was the song whispered in his ear of the longing of the universe to be complete!

“My love and the inspiration that flowed from me into him was a gift to mankind, something which only occurs once or twice in every millennium. His need to move within acceptable boundaries did not arise from my deceiving him as to my origins. Rather, his own heart stood in the way of the unfolding of the universe. The joining of opposites is at the heart of creation. Love honors this act.

“Not long after this, because of this overpowering soul conflict, Amir died of his grief and sorrow. In the end, he called me to his bedside and asked for my forgiveness. Of course, I forgave him freely.

“He said on his deathbed, ‘Capisi, if you ever choose to love another mortal, explain to him in the beginning the risk he is taking—that if he forsakes his love for you he risks betraying the mystery of life. Your heart is part of the song of harmony that holds this planet in its orbit.’

“In response, I prophesied for him. I told him that this city in which he lived and all the great families and even the river itself would be as dust in the wind before I would consider another lover.

“But, yes, there will be another time—in a future in which the eyes of mankind shall see with greater wisdom and purer perception. Then I will not need to cloak myself in flesh and bone. My presence will be perceived and welcomed and my conversation honored when I am invited to come down and dwell within a mortal’s home.

“Just before he died, Amir regained his strength briefly. He sat up in bed and took me in his arms and spoke these final words:

Hold me.

Love me again with all of your heart.

I no longer wish to think or judge or reason

I surrender the knowledge of who I am

Of who I was meant to become into your safekeeping

Let me once again be suspended within your love

And sheltered by your heart

I want so much to put aside my shame

I want to sit on a hillside once again,

In the stillness of night, in its warm embrace,

And look down from far above at an ocean bay

I want to watch my shame depart

Like busy merchants loading their ships before dawn

Hurrying to meet their deadline

The tide is in, they sail off

Their sails vanish over the horizon

Never to return.

When I hold you

My pain is gone,

My hands upon your skin

And a luminous light

More serene than moonlight

More sweet than the ecstasy of starlight

More healing than dawn’s first light—

The part of myself that is afraid

Willingly dies now within your arms,

I return to the source of life

Which I have never known.

May all your journeys take place

Within the circle

Where one heart is joined with another.

“When he was done speaking, he smiled at me. He closed his eyes. He shook his head once, laughing and crying in the same moment. Then he let go of his breath.”

Since writing this story, I have met with Capisi many times. It is somewhat difficult as you can imagine to translate these mystical experiences into poetry and stories. But I would note for the record, I explain to my children the principles of meteorology. And I also teach them to see and understand the spirits that govern the hurricanes which move across the Atlantic and the Pacific. It feels like the right thing to do.

Chapter 3. The Sylph Cargoste—who oversees the atmosphere

Since World War II, scientists have tried to develop a planetary model of weather prediction. With the benefit of supercomputers and weather satellites, we now have predictions of major weather systems anywhere on the planet for up to fourteen days in advance. These predictions are fairly accurate in so far as global weather follows consistent patterns. There are, of course, exceptions based on the butterfly effect in which a minor shift in one place alters the weather elsewhere.

In other times, fairies and magical beings were thought to control winds and storms. Weather was a local affair. People did not think much about what lay beyond the boundaries of their own kingdoms. But now we must unite together to protect the ozone layer, reduce carbon emissions, and act to prevent climatic changes resulting from human activities. Are there sylphs whose commission and area of expertise are equally encompassing? And what wisdom can they offer us that complements scientific knowledge?

Consider the sylph Cargoste. Cargoste can sense the cold, frigid air over the north and south poles, the trades winds moving SE over the Pacific, and the jet stream a little higher up racing at two hundred miles an hour from Japan to California. He can sense the remnants of a hurricane moving West from Baja.

He can sense humidity and see the arrangement of electrical charges in clouds anywhere over the Pacific or the Atlantic. He is aware of the weather patterns on the other side of the planet since the atmosphere, for him, is one fabric and matrix. And this he can do all at once without any transition in his mind from one thought to another and without changing his mental focus.

The difference between Cargoste and a meteorologist studying planetary weather is that Cargoste perceives weather and winds from within his own body. And the body of a sylph does not end with his skin. His nervous system has greater reach than the radar of an AWAC plane. But if you observe a meteorologist, you notice how his conclusions depend upon massive amounts of data freely exchanged and communicated instantaneously from all over the world. The scientist with his computer and weather satellites is learning to map every aspect of a sylph’s imagination except the oneness and the love a sylph feels for the winds and atmosphere of the earth.

Preliminary. In preparation to dialogue with Cargoste, I condense the air element and the light of the blue sky through force of imagination into and around my body. There is a shift in my consciousness as my nervous system switches focus from the external to the internal world of mental imagery. And then my room disappears and I am within the sky. I see nothing but the color blue in all directions around me.

Oh, there is some flickering and the visualization takes an effort to maintain. But after a while it becomes automatic as some ancient part of my self joins in. Though I live in a house with floors, walls, and a roof, I sometimes think of the sky as a second home. That is to say, when I meditate, there are moments when the sky feels like it is part of my self. On such occasions, I imagine I could even convince Cargoste that I am a member of the race of sylphs.

Cargoste’s Domain.

As silence is to sound, a still heart is to harmony. Cargoste’s domain is a pure, clear stillness. Here it is possible to sense the interconnection of all forces and phenomena within the atmosphere.

Cargoste’s Sigil.

This sigil reflects a mastery of the divine virtues of the air element especially on the etheric plane. The way to imagine this is to visualize yourself about seventy thousand feet above the earth and surrounded by blue sky. Open your mind so you feel your mind and this blue sky are the same space. Add to this Cargoste’s ability to sense the atmosphere over the twenty-four thousand mile circumference of the earth.

The radar operator sits in an AWAC’s plane at fifty-five thousand feet and simultaneously tracks hundreds of airplanes moving beneath him. The principles of radar tracking planes, infrared heat signatures, etc. are fairly straight forward. Similarly, it is not unusual for a sylph, with its extreme sensitivity to vibrations within the air element, to sense storms anywhere on the planet. In addition, Cargoste can read the mental vibrations we call thoughts. These too are forms of radiation and electro-magnetic vibrations that are open to his scrutiny. All these abilities are represented by Cargoste’s sigil.

Cargoste’s Inner Source of Inspiration.

Cargoste’s inner source of inspiration is the ideal of becoming fully conscious of and one with all aspects of the air element on earth. He would know every wind, the jet stream, the ozone layer, the Northern Lights, and every meteorological event. He would be within every breath and even the air frozen in stone and ice. His vision is astonishing in its breadth and depth. And though Cargoste does not possess the power to accomplish this, it is what inspires and guides him.

When we look at the natural world, we notice the beauty. We appreciate the harmony, the diversity, and the rich sensory stimulus it offers. But it is rare for us to cherish nature as something sacred and as a reflection of divinity. We do not usually conceive of nature as containing a path which unfolds the mystery of life. Yet this is exactly what Cargoste perceives.

Cargoste’s Outer Aura.

Cargoste’s aura is a reflection or a miniature replica of the atmosphere surrounding the earth. His consciousness extends over vast distances. He possesses immense clarity. He can easily control great winds.

In fact, you might think of Cargoste’s relation to the atmosphere as similar to the way Allen Greenspan, or now, Bernanke, is related to the U.S. economy. As chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke sets the rates on which money is loaned to banks. This in turn influences the stock and bond markets, borrowing, production, and the unemployment rate. Bernanke’s decisions act to speed up or slow down the economy so as to prevent inflation and also to stimulate growth.

Cargoste exercises an analogous influence over the earth’s atmosphere. He can change the strength of El Nino or the snow fall at the North Pole. He can cause hurricanes to appear or disappear and shift the onset of fall and spring forward or backward.

You may wonder how a sylph can do these things but Cargoste is not your traditional sylph or even a normal magical being. For this reason, Cargoste is not in the tales of the Brothers Grimm and Homer makes no mention of him. There is at present no tale or myth that could capture his essence. Let me ask him to present his credentials.

I ask Cargoste, “From where do you come and what is your commission?”

Cargoste replies, “The voice that would create must have breath to speak; the heart that would soar free must have wings to fly; the mind that would be enlightened must be as clear as the sky.

“You ask what it is like to be me. I will tell you. I am the movement of winds without beginning or end. When I lay my head down to sleep, the total configuration of the earth’s atmosphere is in my dreams—the waves of the sea and the clouds that roam free, winter’s cold breath and summer’s heat, spring’s newness and fall’s release—I keep them all in harmony.

“But I rarely think about myself. Though the name Cargoste refers to me you will have a hard time defining my identity. I have no more personality than frost when it coats a leaf with white or rain changing into tiny crystals of snow. Is there excitement in the heat released as ice forms on ponds? Is there desire in the gust that carries the Milkweed seeds above the ground?

“My longing is to sail beneath the stars at night at eighty thousand feet. The bubble of air locked inside ice as countless ages roll by, the calm eye of the hurricane so still the leaves of trees are undisturbed, and the eyes of a bird searching the reaches of eternity for the cords of forgotten songs—all of these are within my mind.

“I am my work. The tides in the sky and the streams of wind, the weather conditions, and the cloud formations—these capture my imagination. The sky of the earth is the circumference of my passion.

“Do I recall my beginning and how I came into being? The sky was not always blue. It was more red with a purplish hue and great fiery wastes were the earth’s face. I was placed here to clear the sky so the stars could shine. My task is obvious. My commission is to preserve light and life and to maintain balance between fire and ice. What makes me different from other sylphs, as you can see, is that the entire planet and every living being, every wind, every season, and every weather condition flow through my dreams.”

As I listen to Cargoste’s voice, I get the impression I am hearing a master playing a great organ. In the timber and resonance of his voice I sense an expert blending sound and vibration. I suspect Cargoste could reproduce any sound or note played by any instrument on earth as well as any bird call that has ever existed.

If you can imagine a voice that can order the winds to spin and produce a hurricane and then make it fall asleep again, Cargoste’s voice is like that. And yet his voice is soft and the hypnotic power is hidden though no wind can resist his spell. His soul knows what makes air flow and what is required for air molecules and atoms to alter their vibration.

I have the feeling that I have met Cargoste before. There is something so familiar about him. Perhaps it is just my Aquarian inclination that craves to see the whole picture. And I have that desire to create a path of harmony even when the elements of nature and life are at their worst. This seems to me to be what Cargoste is all about.

Cargoste’s Inner Aura.

Like his inner source of inspiration, this is almost an omnipresent sense of oneness with air. Mozart could listen to a piece of music he had never heard before and then play it back note by note on a piano. Cargoste can do something similar with weather and storms. He can remember what happened and every influence that produces a given weather condition.

Akashic Plane.

Elemental beings by definition do not possess akasha, the fifth element. But there can be exceptions. Cargoste is charged with a divine mission in regard to maintaining balance within the planet’s atmosphere. Even though he may not possess the akashic power to create from out of nothing, nonetheless, he possess wisdom so vast that for practical purposes it functions as akasha.

For Cargoste, awareness is clear, open, and luminous. It has no divisions or separation. It is consciousness and perception occurring without the need for thought and yet thoughts in no way hinder or limit its expression. It is void of confusion, darkness, or abstraction.

Everything that has form and shape, everything that appears, arises out of a great harmony—its being and nature can be perceived and understood from a state of perfect clarity. This clarity is as receptive and accurate as a mirror’s reflection.

But unlike a mirror, it has its own source of radiance and light which it uses to illuminate whatever is near it. You can look into a mirror and see the images reflected. But this awareness is more. It is like space that holds within itself whatever exists and it is free from the tendency of ego consciousness to manipulate or distort

I ask Cargoste, “Where did you learn such wisdom?”

He replies, “You cannot have power over the winds of the sky and comprehend their fluctuations and harmony without being united to cosmic wisdom.

“This wisdom exists within each of us and yet no thought can comprehend its origins, no theory can describe its movement, no metaphysics can define its essence, and no formula can predict its influence—

“For energy in its very nature is not separate from mind. And mind is continuously creating and originating from out of itself, moving according to its own volition, illuminating its own essence and designing what shall manifest.

“Though mind and energy are not separate, we all witness the opposite: energy binds itself in the oscillations of light and cloaks itself in the vibration of elements. It condenses taking on shape and limitation—weight, form, and mass result subject to the laws which we perceive governing space and time.

“Yet even the rocks and strata of geologic ages are born from cosmic space and exploding stars. The physical world originated from cosmic particles scattered light years apart. Original mind perceives clearly even the spell of the gravity well granting mass and form to the world.

“But pure awareness sees also that all things are close to each other and interacting. They form one indescribable pattern. Nothing is separate though we may also observe how each thing is individual, unique, and distinct.

“It is not that time, space, history, and separation do not exist. It is that these things are like notes in a song of pure bliss. The universe is on the verge of exploding because of the joy it contains.

“This is why suffering is at times so unbearable—because suffering hides and illusion conceals the wonder vibrating at the center of every being. Throughout the universe, the stars burn so furiously in order to bear witness to the beauty that will one day awaken within each of our hearts. This perception of the division, distinction, and uniqueness of all things that simultaneously comprehends their unity and oneness is the wisdom I celebrate.

“This is the source of all my powers and of my absolute mastery of the sky and winds. I demonstrate this when I speak with barely more than a whisper and the hurricane or an ice age takes birth. This ability arises from what I have learned to do—I hold the world within my heart.”

I turn my attention again to Cargoste. Cargoste says to me as I study his qualities, “You are holding back. You hesitate in exploring air without developing the other elements in equal measure. But the time for hesitation is past.

“Enter my dreams. Experience my peace. Leave your human personality behind. The mind, inherently and intrinsically, is complete freedom. The blue, luminous dome of the sky—claim its radiance as your own.

“I watch the mountains rise, erode, and fall. They become dust in a storm, the deserts’ dunes, and layers of silt upon the ocean’s floor. The lightning bolt, the thunder’s clap, and the volcano’s explosion—they flash, echo, and pass as ash in my awareness without tarnishing my radiance.

“The hurricane, the tornado, and the storms that rage for a decade—I welcome them all without strain or tension. There is no trace of desire within me which they can find or bind. Yet every wind shift, change in pressure, or gust I can measure. By virtue of the wisdom I possess, I have been given complete authority over the winds of the earth—North, South, East, and West.

“One day your race will be ready—when you can hear the songs each wind sings, when you can taste complete freedom and feel it pulse within every cell of your body, and when your passion is to be as open and transparent as the sky at night.

“Then I shall teach you to foresee and to alter the onset of an ice age. I shall teach you to mold, change, and to shape lightning with your mind. I shall teach you the bliss in sensing the winds are your breath and your mind is the sky.

“All of these things I can do. I stand watch. I wait. I sustain the harmony of the planet. And I guide those who would comprehend my mind and access my memory.”

Mental Plane.

I sit for a while meditating on Cargoste’s consciousness when it is arrayed on the mental plane. Cargoste’s awareness is sensitive to all storms and weather conditions. He can take air molecules and cause them to expand and press against themselves and so change the air pressure. Or he can take molecules and slow the vibration down so the wind dies. And this he can do over very large areas. The winds obey his will responding to the thoughts within his mind.

If this mental capacity were expressed through a human personality, we could still understand and recognize it. This would be an individual whose mind is so clear and steady it dissolves any negativity that comes near it. It can force others to put aside confusion and hidden agendas because suddenly clarity becomes the first priority.

In this state of mind you are free of personal need. You are complete. Your actions proceed from a sense of freedom. You are never separate from the great pattern of harmony that holds this planet in its grasp. Your will and actions are a reflection of Divine Providence. They sustain, watch over, and nourish every creature on the earth.

There is no striving or obsession and yet you are full of action. Your work is a turning of discord into harmony and of conflict into beauty. And this you are capable of doing because within yourself is a boundless space of pure light radiant and full of delight. Your awareness is the original mode of perception from which the words “clarity” and “purity” arise.

January 15, 1997. I ask Cargoste, “Could you place a thought directly into my mind so I can experience its vibration?”

I wait a few moments silent without thoughts of any kind. A holographic picture appears in my mind. It is of the atmosphere of the earth with air rising from the warmer equator and the trade winds flowing by. But I not only see the winds’ larger pattern. I feel the air currents as if the winds are flowing through my body.

This is a dynamic model of the atmosphere with visual and kinesthetic sensations sustained by direct psychic perception. I feel like driving down to the university bookstore and buying a graduate text on meteorology so I can better describe these perceptions.

A little while later I ask Cargoste to transfer another thought from his mind to mine. I immediately see before me a low pressure area with thunderstorms moving over a large area of land. Again, this is not just pictorial. I feel the thunderstorms as if their charges of electricity and winds are within my own body. I feel the pulsing, flickering, and throbbing of electrical and polar charges generated by the earth and the clouds interacting.

Cargoste comments, “Though the power in this storm front is great, it no more affects my mind than the lightning affects the mirror in which it shines.”

I ask Cargoste, “Can you share with me the clarity of your mind for a little while?”

It takes an effort to make room in my mind for the energy Cargoste sends me. On a cable channel on my television, NASA broadcasts a picture of the earth as seen from a camera on the space shuttle. I am seeing the earth below me in the same way but there is a lot more. It is like one hundred such cameras are relaying information at once showing the entire planet as seen from above the atmosphere. It is a little hard for me to take this perspective in.

I shift my attention to the vibration of Cargoste’s mind rather than the image as Cargoste says, “Again, the nature of my mind is like a mirror. It simply reflects all the weather patterns that appear without commenting on them or categorizing them.”

My mind is a poor mirror. I try another way to align my mind with what he is communicating. I imagine the sky filled with blue light and the weightless quality of the air element and then I condense this energy into my body. This establishes a better medium through which Cargoste’s mental vibration can be present.

What I notice is that Cargoste’s mind is aware of the atmosphere and weather without referencing events with spatial coordinates. His mind is non-linear. Apparently Cargoste relies heavily on an akashic state of awareness as he perceives the atmosphere.

This is similar to the identity I assume when I stand at the center of a magic circle. I evoke a state of trance in which space and time are suspended. I am connected to everything and everything is near to me. I am a penetrating awareness that has no need to reply upon form consciousness.

If I look at a specific person, I perceive not just the present moment but the past and future as well. The other’s entire history is open to my scrutiny. That is the idea anyway. You assume an akashic mode of perception to perceive as a divine being.

From this perspective, Cargoste’s mind senses the air element north, south, east, and west as a sound and a vibration. Cargoste’s mind is the silence that is listening. He has a kind of omnipresence that is designed to sense every molecule of the air element on earth.

I ask Cargoste: “In the history of humanity, have you found anyone who could understand your mind? The magician Franz Bardon has stated that the great sylphs are shy and not at all pleased with mankind. He says it is better to consult with higher spirits in order to gain the same information. I think perhaps he underestimates the beauty of your race.”

Cargoste replies, “During the ages of Atlantis, there were a number of individuals whose minds were like the sky. They did not seek knowledge like your race that tries to comprehend every atmospheric influence. They studied the sky but they did so with greater reverence. But if you are asking me if I have ever been friends before with a human being, the answer is yes.

“One man consulted with me on a number of occasions. I could materialize in his room and be as physical as you without feeling any discomfort. The light blue vibration in his mind was the equal of the higher spirits to which Bardon refers. Perhaps this Atlantean was the incarnation of a divine being. I do not know. But there was nowhere his mind could not go.

“The purity and vastness of his mind were a hypnotic trance. It took an effort on my part to avoid becoming drowsy and falling asleep in his presence. There is a difference between an enlightened being and a magician. The enlightened one accomplishes actions without the exercise of conscious volition.

“When a magician calls me, there is a compelling force drawing me. But with this man in one moment I was in the stratosphere and in the next moment I was in his tower standing before him. The transition was instantaneous. The means he used to do this was beyond my ability to detect. I could not perceive movement. The boundaries separating the planes had vanished.

“He was gentle and kind. He was friendly and full of understanding. He wished to know what I envisioned to be the future of the planet’s atmosphere. He absorbed my thoughts without effort. His conversation left me with the impression that the mind has no limits and that even a sylph can attain enlightenment.”

Astral Plane.

Again, I change my orientation. I focus on the way Cargoste’s consciousness operates on the astral plane with its richer texture of feelings and sensuality. I sense the moist wetness within clouds and the temperature gradations within and around them. I sense the wind at play within a rolling cloud as it swirls, whirls, and folds upon itself. Water combined with air is pliable, receptive, and yielding.

The cold temperatures at higher altitudes feel refreshing. There is a satisfaction in the way the atmosphere retains its resilience as it receives the energy of the sun, absorbing and drawing it in. The atmosphere captures, transfers, and transforms some of the sun’s power.

Though we may see the weather at times as wild and raging, to Cargoste it is quite different. Storms and winds are blissful and gratifying expressions of the forces of life. There is a continuous interaction between the radiant energies of the sun and the receptive energies of the earth. For Cargoste, the atmosphere of the earth is a majestic expression of love. It is something wonderful. It is full of passion and beauty.

Cargoste’s aura vibrates with the tantric imagery of male and female in embrace. To illustrate, Cargoste calls two sylphs. They appear briefly in front of us. Both sensitive and electrical, they seem impatient to get on with the business of monitoring atmospheric conditions. They fly a ways entering a storm front of dark clouds on the horizon.

The female sylph is the embodiment of everything soft, receptive, and nurturing about the winds and clouds. Her perfume is the smell of fresh air at dawn, of flowers and forest leaves and pine cones. She is the feeling of a cool breeze on a summer night caressing your forehead and neck. She is the cat’s paws on a still lake rippling on the water’s surface and the nudge of air against your face. She is moisture forming on flower petals and a brief rain in the afternoon. She is the feeling of joy and peace in knowing that you are free.

The male sylph embodies the dynamic power within the atmosphere. He is the jet stream, the thunderstorm, and the hurricane or tornado. He is the electrical potential and lightning streaming down. He is the wind sheer and also the storms caused by El Nino. He is the periodic adjustments and alterations occurring in the weather patterns every ten or fifteen thousand years.

But it is possible to see these two joined as one in love. Watch carefully next time you see a storm coming or hear thunder. The passion builds. The pressure alters. The winds pile up on top of each other or whirl about a calm center. Power and the nurturing forces of life draw upon each other.

They unfold together and are never far apart. Rain and water replenish the earth. The winds invite the evaporation and conceal a gathering place where clouds form. We often take clouds for granted. But each cloud is a taste of the feminine essence—a receptive, sensuous fluidity—held in the power of air’s embrace.

There is an artistic quality to the astral plane. Here desire wishes to be felt, touched, and expressed. Wind and clouds sing and dance together. Separate personalities seek to join as one cord in a song. Passion seeks to be felt so others can share the beauty.

I say to Cargoste, “Teach me to feel as you feel.”

He replies, “Receive my vision and the transference of wisdom from my heart to yours.”

Now, when I watch the thunderstorm, I see not just clouds, rain, and wind. I see a man and a woman making love. She is completely receptive to her beloved—her awareness is within the particles of water, pliable yet resilient, responding continually to temperature, moisture, pressure, wind, and the terrain of the earth below. She feels light, floating, drifting, held secure and firm in his strong arms.

And he is the electrical potential, dynamic, mighty, and explosive. He feels her yielding her very being and every cell of her body into his embrace. Together, as the clouds flow, through the core of their being, the lightning releases repeatedly. The sky is illuminated in gigantic flashes of light. The thunder rolls over the earth. Over and over, as they embrace, the charge builds and is released.

Yet through all this, in spite of the excitement, she remains utterly relaxed, tender, soft, and at peace—the particles of water, the moisture, the rain, enfolding, drifting, falling, and the wind blowing, they separate and reunite in countless ways.

He is joined to every drop of rain and every ion of charge flowing through her being—no movement, turn, nudge, caress, or breath does he miss. Their love is complete and separation is overcome.

They have become one soul of immense power yet totally yielding and responsive, like a diamond shining in the light. Their love is lightning flashing in the night. Their passion is the thunder riding wild and furious amid the winds. From this perspective, the thunderstorm is two separate beings who have learned to be free and yet choose to fuse as one in love.

Physical Plane.

I am not so good at materializing a spirit. My forte is mental contact. In spite of this, I work at giving substance to Cargoste’s form so that he appears to some degree on the physical plane.

As I work at calling Cargoste into the physical world, the power within air feels present and real. There is a physical sensation of Cargoste’s body being joined to the atmosphere of the earth. At the same time, gravity seems suspended as if we are levitating.

Imagination and psychic perception are stimulated. Watching a bird flying, it seems I can feel the air flowing around the bird’s wings. That tiny turbulence feels as real as if the air is pulsing over my own body. The gentle breeze that flows through the tree nudging the leaves—I feel like I can track every path and survey the surface of every leaf the wind touches.

This is just a sylph’s mode of perception. Whatever goes on in air registers in the sylph’s consciousness as an impression. Depending on how far a sylph can extend his aura and how developed his concentration, a sylph can also take command of the wind and fashion weather conditions.

We breathe without thinking. It is an involuntary process. We also can control our breath and use it as part of various yogic and magical practices. Similarly, a sylph can control the winds.

Again, in terms of human personality traits, the airy influence in an individual’s aura grants a sense of being open, free, and harmonious. If there is an emotional conflict, this temperament remains clear and receptive like the sky that holds the storms within itself but is undisturbed by them. There is buoyancy and an uplifting quality present. There is also a rapport and telepathic sensitivity to what others’ are feeling and thinking.

You might imagine yourself walking along with a group of students next to Socrates and Plato during one of their dialogues. With these two men, there is a keen interest in a discussion topic but also a remarkable detachment and astute observation. There is a continuous desire to rise up and see the overall pattern as the primary mode of understanding. Air elevates and clarifies.

More specifically, if you embody some of Cargoste's energy in your aura, you feel cloaked in the blue of the sky. Freedom is an aroma in your breath and a resonance in your voice. Who could strive against your calmness and peace when the winds of a hurricane stand guard beside you and in your eyes is the icy, blue purity which causes lightning to strike?

Part III: Gnomes

If you think like a gnome, perceive like a gnome, act like a gnome, feel like a gnome, and have the inner silence of a gnome, then you are gnome. Welcome home!

Introduction

How do you get in contact with a gnome? Is it like having a favorite stone you call your own? You go for a walk out of doors and come upon a stone that captures your attention and cries out to be picked up. Then for a few minutes each day you hold the stone between your palms and meditate. Through the contact, you and the stone invoke the silence and the beauty of the earth. Then, like the crystal in a short wave radio you have switched on, you can send and receive—you sense the vibrations and hear the songs in mountains, minerals, and geologic ages long gone.

Each nationality, culture, and set of folk legends has its own variety of gnomes, dwarves, and earth elementals. We hear about gnomes and dwarves in children's stories. They are friendly and charming or spooky and horrible depending on the legend. Some individuals with a flair for astral perception may see gnomes in their peripheral vision. Racial memories are like footprints that are still fresh on the ground. You can follow the tracks to meet these beings even though whoever told the original tales are long gone.

Another route is called mental wandering. This method is preceded by practicing concentration exercises for six months to a few years. Then you drop your mind down into the ground and wander around.

The procedure is to use your imagination to increase the sensation of weight so you feel dense, solid, and heavy. You also reorient your time frame. Imagine for a moment you are the roots of a Redwood tree growing downward for four hundred years. Gnomes enjoy games like that. This kind of relaxing and slowing the tempo down is a gnome's form of recreation.

You might also try scanning the ground beneath you as if you have x-ray vision. Out my window is Koko Head Crater standing eight hundred feet tall. Occasionally parts of the ridge circling the caldera break off and tumble down to the floor of the valley below.

But to see this crater as a gnome is to feel the ground still rumbling. It is to sense that sea of magma that tunneled up from the depths with immense pressure squeezing and striving to press forward. A gnome sees the caverns where the magma is baked black and the labyrinth of corridors created by tendrils of molten fire. And a gnome sees the lava exploding into the sky and the cinder cone growing. When a gnome touches a stone or lets black sand slip through his fingers, the memory comes back so real it feels like it is still happening.

If you prefer a more academic approach for gaining rapport with a gnome, you might try studying geology. Then write a story as if you are the thing you are studying—become the process of erosion, an underground stream, a volcano refining gold and sulfur, or a geologic strata recalling when it was first laid down, etc. In the same vein, try writing a journal as if you are a gnome magician. Make an entry each day for what you—the gnome—did to occupy your time.

Shall we give it a try? Imagine you have a little lamp that illuminates your path through the ground. It is very quiet, so quiet I can hear, if I listen carefully, the groaning of an earthquake that occurred twenty years ago not far from Tucson, Arizona.

Are you still with me? Today I send my mind into the sands of White Dunes in New Mexico. Walking through these grains of sand feels very sensual. There is not much to see except the way the sands are arrayed by the wind. Constantly swirling and shifting, the dunes move like waves.

There are layers within the sand folded with precision the way a snake coils its body and places its head at the top. But I am looking for something new. Ah, here is a sand dune that is different. It is lighter and delicately balanced. Its form is fragile. Its slopes are poised to fall down. Its ridge is like the curving hips and thighs of a woman ready to yield to the wind as if that touch were a caress. Its center of gravity is fluid and open to suggestion. At another time, I would wait around until something happens but not now.

I am off to Yosemite and into one of those granite cliffs carved with a different form of beauty. I am here now. As I walk around, the quartz in the granite sparkles in the light of my lamp like fire flies switching off and on in the dark. But what interests me are the fractures in the rock. Though the cliff is solid, if you change the way you look you can see that the fractures form different rooms in the granite. Here geologic events have written their memories on stone.

Though the sand dunes are sensuous like waves on the ocean, this granite is also in motion. It is like an iceberg that has broken free to drift on the sea. I can feel it eroding like ice melting. It shifts and turns. It shakes and vibrates with the earthquakes and with the mountains rising. And the rain, like the river nearby, is relentless and unending as its fingers press into any crevice searching for a place to take hold, a brittle edge to snare and to break off.

But the granite does not really care. The quartz and crystals in its structure have a tone of their own. You can almost hear a humming sound like the slow, deep notes in the song of Enya called Boadicea. These granite cliffs are singing. The song is not about being old or enduring. The song is about having inner vision, of the light that appears when you gaze inward long enough. The quartz glittering before my lamp's light has the cool and quiet solemnity of the stars shining in the night.

Well, these are a few entries in my journal that I write having taken on the form and perspective of a gnome. You get the idea. When you learn to think, feel, and see as a gnome, you make the earth your home. The mountain, the valley, the limestone, and sandstone—they are full of songs and poems and their memories become your own. Minerals, metals, and gemstones—the light within them illuminates your soul.

Gnomes have already invaded our realm. They are here among us as geologists, Warren Buffetts, the architects of the pyramids, great chemists and all of those who love the earth and who love building things that enduring through the ages.

Chapter 1. Dialogue with a Cottonwood Tree

Shaman often perceive nature with the still, penetrating eyes of gnomes. I once knew a Hopi Indian shaman who would not teach Caucasians. I asked him to meditate with me for a few moments. I then created in my aura the vibration of the planet earth. This he could not resist. When he opened his eyes after meditating, he immediately began to teach me about herbs—“Take the root of the Cottonwood tree and make coals from it ….”

As an example of how a gnome or shaman might interact with a Cottonwood tree, I give the following meditation.

I approach a Cottonwood tree and raise my hand to feel her energy. I then say, "I ask for your permission to work with you." I feel a very rich, vibrant energy returning to me in response as the tree opens her aura to me.

Next, I contemplate the life of this tree. I visualize and sense all aspects of its life, from its birth as a seed, through its years of growth, and its experiences during those years—days, nights, winds, storms, rains, droughts, and the seasons. In my mind I follow the seeds it has released into the wind.

I enter into a period of silent communion with the tree as it exists both inside and outside of space and time—I am focused on its being, its experiences, and its way of working with energy. In doing this, I bring into focus a whole constellation of sensations, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and energies.

I extend my mind also downward into the ground and feel the lay of the land, its richness, moistness, its compilation of organic material—the soil, rich in the memory of fallen branches, leaves turned to dirt, streams flowing, fields bare and waiting beneath the snow.

And deeper beneath the topsoil, the pathways of ancient rivers, large rocks, the presence of forgotten ice ages, mountains come and gone.

I focus again on the tree. Touching her is like touching a living, breathing being.

I travel with my mind down into the ground again and pause among the tree's roots and feel how they surge and uncoil in strong growth during springtime. Here, there is so much life in the soil between the roots I feel like dancing a dervish—while the roots dig deep and are welded to the earth, above, the stars spin circles in the sky.

And there it is again, I have heard this song before: the roots of this tree hear the silence deep in the earth—the near groaning and reverberating, the mantra the earth sings to the stars and planets. Listen. Though Tibetans chanting in saffron robes high in the Himalayan Mountains faintly echo this sound, it comes from far deeper than the roots of mountains or the voices of men. Scientists would call it the gravitational pull of the planets, but it is far more subtle, multifaceted, and full of life and energy.

At the surface, the land is quiet and still. Yet I can sense deep in the earth the fire and the will that moves continents. In currents and tides, this fire stirs ceaselessly in mysterious cauldrons.

I ascend with my mind now into the branches of the tree and linger in the cold stillness amid the silvery touch of the moon and the occasional brush of the wind. Like the infant bird in a nest, I lie on the branch swaying with the wind and feel myself embraced by both the earth and the sky. I feel too in the trunk strength and stability.

I now lift my hands up to collect energy. Between my open palms, I gather together the life force, the energy of earth and sky, of light and darkness, and the elements into one shimmering ball of energy. I shrink then shrink this ball down into the size of a grapefruit.

I gently guide this energy and it floats into the trunk of the tree as a gift. Immediately, the tree awakens. A tall, thin woman appears in front of me. She is fragile and gentle. She is both distant and near. She is the light that casts shadows in a dream. She is the cry of geese over water and beneath clouds lit by the ascending moon. Her eyes touch me from an inner space as silent as winter and the quiet longing of the Earth.

I join with her and we become one. With the fluidity of a dream, I enter her body and form and join with her mind. And now I look out at the world through her eyes. Although a part of my brain remains familiar and can still think human thoughts, I see with the eyes of the tree spirit.

My body is as still as a rock and I feel the earth sleeping beneath the cover of the snow. I have entered into a place between thoughts, not a silence, but a satisfaction and contentment that is more than human will can know. I feel her smile upon my lips and the fire burning within her eyes.

She then speaks to me in my mind. Her words, somehow bearing sound and weight, say, “Come with me further, to the Center.” And with her, without hesitation, I go. This place is the heart of the year, of the cycle of time. And I see the seasons are a necklace she wears.

And too, I feel the passion rise within her body, the warmth in her hands, the blush in her cheeks. This ...it is the passion of Life joined with perfect stillness—a knowledge that is one with the flow of time. And now her voice sings this song:

Oh you, Sun above me,

You who awoke me when I was a seed

Hidden in the womb of darkness,

And you Mother,

Out of whom is woven my body and my soul,

With the Seasons are my seeds and leaves born,

And with the Seasons do they give birth and die,

And yet ever do I grow closer to You (the Earth and the Sky)

And turning again to me she says (with the vision of passing seasons, a vine adorning her words) “Receive my gift. Your tongue gives voice with human breath to my song. Know and be a part of this: in my heart, the heaven and the earth are joined and round about me play their offspring and children, the Seasons.”

I stay here for a time, sheltered in her heart and in her love, a traveler carried by and drifting on an ancient river of the soul.

And from this space I now depart.

As we separate one from the other, I hold her hand and touch her cheek. And in each other's eyes, a mirror reflecting ourselves. We separate without sorrow or loss.

As I feel again my human blood flowing within my body and not the sap of the tree, her presence slowly fades. And yet something clearly still lingers within me—her wintery, still contentment, the sheltering protection of her heart, and her passion for the Mystery.

Chapter 2. The Gnome MuscarMusar—a friendly gnome who loves silence

Franz Bardon says of MuscarMusar, "In the kingdom of the element earth, MuscarMusar is one of the most respected of spirits. He may be called a genuine magician of the earth." As a specialist in the magic of the earth, MuscarMusar studies the electro-magnetic drifts moving through the ground. These energy movements are caused by storms, geologic formations, and the orbiting moon. MuscarMusar knows how to attune himself to these energies and to direct them to practical ends.

MuscarMusar feels that the fault lines and mountains talk to him and answer his questions about their origins. He perceives the history of a mountain, its internal stresses, its erosion patterns, and the forces that have shaped it and that will wear it down. MuscarMusar can dip his finger into a subterranean stream and instantly identify the minerals' present, their concentration, and the sources of the stream. He senses forests and the evolution of trees and plants and how they affect the earth. You could say that MuscarMusar is a master of Feng Sui, the Chinese art of understanding how space and energy are related.

MuscarMusar's hearing is as sensitive as high tech equipment. Analogous to a bat or dolphin, MuscarMusar emits something like a sonar pulse. But no echo is reflected back. Rather MuscarMusar feels energy in the far distance as though his aura is capable of scanning and determining what exists many miles away. What he senses translates into visual images that define for him the structure, quality, and composition of geologic formations.

If you meditate with masters from different wisdom traditions, you may notice that one of the things they share in common is their level of internal silence. If they are good at what they do, at any moment and under any circumstances they can stop all thoughts from entering their mind. They can put off to the side their concerns and their assumptions about life.

In this state of complete receptivity, they can observe what is in front of them without being swayed by personal bias or illusions. When they speak they take great care to see that their words are accurate and true. This is not to say that they are solemn or grim. Such acute sensitivity and inner silence does not exclude being funny or vivacious.

MuscarMusar is like this. He can sit watching the stars moving through the sky from dust to dawn and feel no more than a moment of time has gone. He can gaze into past ages and epochs of time and not feel in the least old or weary. For MuscarMusar, everything that has shape, form, and weight is fascinating and full of wonder.

Unlike a mountain or a plateau, MuscarMusar never grows old. He is constantly full of enthusiasm. For MuscarMusar, there is no need to hurry; there is no need to worry—each moment is satisfying; each moment is a treasure of the heart. The silence in which he dwells is a magic well from which he sips and drinks the beauty of the earth.

Warm Up Exercise

Let us pause briefly and discover the part of ourselves that appreciates the earth in a manner similar to a gnome like MuscarMusar. Sit comfortably and notice the weight of your body. Notice how gravity has hold of you and connects you to the ground. Imagine your body now is growing slightly heavier. As your weight increases, feel even more relaxed.

Feel also that your physical body has an energy connection to the earth—your body is wrapped in the earth's energy. This energy is cool, magnetic, and grounding. The top soil, the roots of trees, the flowing streams, and geologic formations also contain an energy you can feel. Like Solomon the next morning after God had granted him wisdom, imagine you too can hear what the blades of grass are whispering to each other and the stories the stones have to tell.

Feel now the earth's silence and the vast ages of time it encompasses. Consider the time frame which raises up a mountain, gives birth to a sea, and calls ice ages to come forth and then to depart. Consider how the earth in its enduring presence shelters, nourishes, and supports all life.

Now imagine that your consciousness has become subtle and penetrating. With your mind you can pass into a rock. As you do so your body attunes itself to the rock's atomic structure and mass as easy as the shadow of a plane flies over the ground. With ease you can travel into limestone and pass into granite with its crystalline structures, into coal with its dream of ancient forests, and into diamond with its symmetrical arrangement of carbon atoms.

Now visualize the land which surrounds you. Feel that it spirit flows into you—that you are not separate from it. This is no more difficult than relaxing and letting the beauty in a Celtic song resonate within your heart.

Feel the earth now—its mountains, its valleys, its forests, and its trees. There is a peace here in the silences of the land—deep, rich, wondrous, and magnificent. The mind that contemplates the earth does not enter a cold, desolate, or lonely place. Rather, it approaches one of the sources of compassion that never fades away.

MuscarMusar

It is time to ask MuscarMusar to appear. I have the feeling that he ascends a great distance from beneath the ground like a miner riding an elevator up from a deep cavern. MuscarMusar now stands in my room six feet in front of me. He looks like a middle aged man who is robust and active. He is about five feet tall, sturdy, and strong. His muscles seem to be made of steel though they are not at all bulky.

There is also something about MuscarMusar's presence that is reminiscent of a Nordic king. His poise is that of royalty. You can sense a power present that is hard to identify. He is one of those gnomes who can be absolutely still as well as completely engaging. His personality is warm and friendly yet he radiates dignity and virtue.

MuscarMusar's voice is deep and resonate as if the rocks of a mountain were given a voice with which to speak. I have the distinct feeling that MuscarMusar spends a great deal of time walking down ancient pathways on the inner planes or through subterranean caverns. When MuscarMusar speaks it is like he has a speech already prepared—a speech he has developed and delivered to other magicians with whom he has spoken in other ages.

MuscarMusar says to me, "The earth knows my voice and reveals to me its secrets: its past and its future, the nature of its transformations, and its changes. I know the peace in which mountains rest, their histories, and what is hidden within their inner recesses. I know the force and life that gave birth to them and the forces that will erode them and wear them away. I know the strength within their cliffs and their journeys through time.

"I am a silence so deep and complete that when I gaze upon a rock or geologic strata, in comparison to me, it is busy chattering with thoughts and emotions. Its memories are still vivid and being replayed—memories of its birth and of the past, present, and the future to be. You see,

I am a listening silence!

I am consciousness without form or thought

Moving underground.

I both reveal the earth's secrets

And I am where treasures are hidden so well

Only the eyes of a seer

Can divine their location.

Time and age do not burden me.

I am constancy amid change.

I have made sketches of mountains

As they rose steep and new

But which are long since gone

Now but dirt beneath your shoes.

In my time frame

The Himalayan Mountains and the Andes are but the tents

A great warrior has pitched in the night

And packs up again

When he breaks camp at dawn.

If you want to attune to me,

To match your moves to mine,

Whether to party, chat,

Discuss, linger, lurk, or socialize,

Then be still and open

Such that the stars are no longer distant and cold

But young again—

Children playing a game of ball,

Dancing, singing, full of laughter and delight,

So excited you notice them shifting

Their constellations

As they run through the night.

Then you will hear me whisper in your ear—

Your race has dreams

Like the dreams of the earth Herself

Like the songs that stream from the stars

Ah, but so few of you listen

To your dreams

Or bother to enter

The gates that lead into the silences of the heart.

But I feed on silence.

It is who I am.

It is my home and my dwelling.

And its transformations are my wisdom.

So, where to find me?

My paths lead to the philosopher's stone

And of nature's quintessence

I have many trade secrets to share.

The conversations I hold with your race

Have been going on

Since before you learned to build towns

You bet I have a few stories I could tell!

So when you are weary or in despair

Feeling lonely or discouraged,

A soul in need of repair

Come round and see me.

I can be most entertaining.

I love parties which celebrate the seasons!

I love the songs of ancient bards

Who train for seven years

In caves of dark isolation.

I love alchemists who spend a lifetime of refining

To hold in their hands the red lion!

Though once we meet

I probably won't miss seeing you

For a century or two—

You see,

My first love shall always be

The earth beneath your feet.

At a later date, I again meditate with MuscarMusar. On this occasion, I orient myself to the spiritual principle that the greatest gnomes seek to master. They probe the densest aspects of matter in search of a gate that leads to the enlightened mind. The awareness they seek is virtually limitless in its scope of inquiry. No culture, priesthood, doctrine, or wisdom of any kind can determine or influence its movement or chart its countless discoveries. Great gnome magicians are attuned to the rhythm and the movement of the universe.

Immersing their awareness directly in the atomic oscillations of the elements, they see matter as empty of solidity or substance. For them, the material world is transitory and continually transforming. Everything physical, every object with shape and weight, appears and then disappears as if it never existed.

As before, I again focus on MuscarMusar. I draw neither draw a sigil in the air nor with care do I inscribe a magic circle on the floor with astheme or sword. I neither pronounce a divine name nor strive through prayer to join myself to God to assume His attributes in order to sanctify my room. The mind that is open, the heart that loves—what could be a greater wand of evocation than this?

MuscarMusar appears within seconds. He notices my effort to understand his source of inspiration. He says, "The geologist measures the geologic ages, but I experience their changes. I am the ears and the eyes of rocks and stones. I know how the sun and moon shined a billion years ago.

"So when I examine a mineral, element, or, say a diamond, my tongue can taste its molecular vibration, its quality and purity. I copy and reproduce the energy field of the diamond within my mind. The diamond responds to me like a woman who has been forced to conceal her sensuality because her passion is so intense. She will only give herself to the one whose desire reaches into her depths. This power I possess.

"Do you wish to hear more? A diamond is full of secrets, hidden pathways linking matter and spirit. When I encounter a great wonder such as this, I search for the source of its beauty. In this quest, no effort is too great and no obstacle can turn me away.

"Can you taste with your tongue what I taste? Matter is not separate from spirit. When you take a substance, examine the roots of its existence, and then strip away its shape, weight, form, structure, and density, the essence that remains is pure light. And this light and the mind that comprehends the light interpenetrate.

"Let us walk a ways together into the depths of the earth where I roam and into the mystery of silence that is my home. My awareness is underneath the mind's images, thoughts, and feeling sensations, even those within dreams. I am where they cannot go. If you want to work with me, shift your awareness into a stone, a rock, a block of lead or amethyst, a mountain, a granite cliff, a limestone formation, or Precambrian schist.

"In such places as these you can get to know me—I am patience embracing the ages. I listen and see how the hands of time have shaped the world. In dirt and dust, I can feel the wind and rain, the hot and cold, the stone when its fossils were still living and breathing. And in my eyes I see quite clearly what has been and how things will one day be.

"But do not think I am an introvert or that I prefer solitude to company because I can wander for centuries without the desire to talk, compare notes, or say hello. It is just that I have many projects to accomplish and the earth is full of wonders I am constantly contemplating.

"Think of the ground beneath your feet as filled with gnomes wandering about busy pursuing their crafts or the research that commands their attention. Unlike your race, gnomes are not confused, vulnerable, or in need of constant reassurance. And we do not mine for coal, oil, or precious stones. For a gnome, every mineral and stone is full of mana and soul—the earth has that much wealth hidden within it!"

Chapter 3. The Gnome Erami—who enjoys alchemy

As a gnome, Erami lives within the earth. Naturally, it is easy for him to sense the energies within minerals, rocks, trees, topsoil, and geologic strata and how these interact with each other. He is considered to be a powerful gnome magician

Erami's specialty is being aware of the energy within the earth over a wide area. Erami is aware of the electro-magnetic currents and other energies moving through the earth.

For Erami, physical matter has a light glowing within it. That light can be released. It is freed by gravity waves, by magnetic tides, by thunderstorms, and changes in temperature. The way we can feel a static charge of electricity when we place our hand in front of a computer monitor, Erami can feel the energy or electronic vibrations being emitted by physical matter.

The Chinese art of Feng Sui describes the accumulation and effects of earth energies according to the lay of the land. You could say that Erami, like the gnome MuscarMusar, is a Feng Sui master. It is my impression that Erami is very good at fertility. He would make a great master for a Beltane ceremony if it is the fertility of the fields and nature which you are after.

Erami reminds me of the feeling of a tree. He is very rooted and his vitality is organic. There is no feeling of ego or competition about him. His aura is a celebration of earth energy. It continuously flows through him. Erami is very relaxed and friendly. He seems completely accessible.

I ask Erami, “Tell me something about alchemy?”

Erami replies, “Transformation and change are everywhere in nature. It is natural to ask, ‘From what source do these transformations arise and what is their perfected course? And in what way can they all be brought into harmony and unity?’ I have asked and pursued these questions for many long eons and countless centuries.”

We all seek, on some level, to be whole and complete and also to attain union with others. The most notable thing about Erami is his profound love of nature. I hope to be able to express something of his sense of wonder.

Exploring Erami's Thoughts

The four elemental beings are already a part of us. They think, feel, and perceive in ways that just outside of our normal ways of doing things. Let us pursue how Erami might teach a seminar if the seminar title were “Getting to Know Erami.”

Gnomes are of the earth. Let us follow an example of what Erami might do with the earth.

First we observe and memorize all we can about a large or small area of land. Second, we develop our intuition and imagination so we gain a feeling for the energy of this land. Third, we sense the one vibration underlying and integrating the various energies within the land. And fourth, we then arrive at the dream within the land, that is, the way this specific land energy reflects in some way values, qualities, aspirations, or strengths of a timeless nature. This last step is important because gnomes are not passive or inactive. They like to bring things to perfection.

Step 1. Become acquainted with a small or large area of land. This could be the dirt in your flower pot, a garden, a field, a grove in a woods, a valley, a forest, a set of hills, a desert, or a mountain. Choose whatever holds your interest and appeals to you. The idea is to observe and to memorize the details of the landscape so it becomes part of your imagination. Notice the land's slope, its erosion, the forces which have formed it, and its vegetation.

American Indians have special places in the wilderness which they visit during sacred rituals. They have done this for many centuries. There is a lady here in Hawaii who regularly visits the sacred Hawaiian sites throughout all the islands. She is like a spiritual guardian of the legends and history of her people.

Even the geologists on the Big Island of Hawaii are constantly studying the land. They use laser beams, chemistry, seismographs, and rock samples to chart the internal structure of the hills and mountains. They map and reconstruct the land's history and the forces which have made it the way it is.

Of course, if you are a gnome, you have all sorts of advantages in this area. You are clairsentient and possess psychometic abilities. As you walk through a valley, you can stop and stand as still as a stone. You can feel the water table beneath your feet, the layers of earth, and the properties of the top soil.

Erami can gaze at a tree and tell from its trunk the weather that shaped it during the years of its growth. The aura of the tree vibrates with the energy of its tree rings and Erami has the eyes to see this. Erami can place his hand on a stone and tell you its origin, the moment it separated from where it was formed, and how long it has been above ground.

For Erami, the land is a living being. It flows with energy. It is full of memories. And it is always undergoing transformation. To put it simply, the land has a soul that we can come to know.

In the beginning, however, it is sufficient to notice everything that you can as you go for a walk through the land. Notice the weight, shape, density, the history, and the kind of energy that is within each thing around you. Think about the changes that have occurred in the last day, week, month, year, century, millennium, and geological epoch. Smell the air and listen as if you can sense through these different periods of time what has occurred.

Erami has a profound attraction to the land and its energy. To imitate this form of attention we would need to make our study of the land into a hobby or even consider it like a temple that we enter to expand our consciousness. Attuning our mind to the land then becomes second nature—a natural and effortless endeavor.

In the first step, we study and visualize an area of land. We spend some time contemplating its appearance and the forces acting upon it. Slowly we are coming to sense the energies within it.

Step 2. In the second step, we extend our awareness into the land. Last night I had a dream. In the dream, I walked around. I met other individuals and I made choices. Was the dream in my brain? Was my body involved? Did I perhaps in some way gaze upon the astral plane? Did I interact telepathically with other individuals? Did I perceive something of the future or of the past? Consciousness is within but also able to extend outside the body. Through thought, imagination, and contemplation, we can interact with the energies of nature.

The elementals have a closer tie to nature than do human beings. When we perceive, we add a rational component to interpret our sense data. We filter our perceptions through reason placing a label upon everything we experience. But if we eat bread, do we perceive the wheat fields where the grains ripened? When we drink, do we perceive the clouds from which the rain fell, the rivers where the waters flowed, the water table or the lake where the water was gathered? When we breathe air, do we sense the leaf or the kind of tree where the O2 molecule was formed?

Though the elemental beings have etheric, astral, and mental bodies as do we, their bodies exchange energy directly with the energies of their element. Erami can extend his aura into the stone, the tree, the seed, and the caverns and crevices beneath the ground. His mind is full of sensations, pictures, and feelings but these do not mesh with human ways of thinking.

If you asked Erami if he has studied the periodic table of elements, he would reply that as a gnome magician he is interested in wisdom just like human beings. He would say it is hard for a gnome not to notice a race that is so attentive and busy constructing things made out of synthetic materials. He would note the human fascination with mathematical and nuclear physics and the technology it inspires. But he would point out that we have barely begun to understand the inner essence of the elements in the periodic table and the energies which move beneath the ground.

Botanists, geologists, and naturalists would be good at visualizing and reconstructing with their imaginations an area of land. If they thought about a rock, a tree, or a plant, their imagination could conjure up a picture as if the object were right there in front of them. They can do this because their line of work emphasizes careful observation and detailed examination. But to understand Erami's mode of perception, we need to be more like the American Indian, the shaman, the poet, the mystic, and the druid too.

Consequently, in this second step we use more empathy. We even imagine that the land is a part of our body. We hold it within our imagination so we forget about ourselves and are only aware of its presence.

In Taoist yoga, the masters sometimes say that as you inhale you can draw earth energy into your body through your feet. This energy is sometimes felt as being cool, blue, and magnetic. You might try breathing in this manner. Consider that not only blood but also energy flows through your body from the air and from the earth.

For our purposes, we can begin by entering a dream state in which we free associate moving among the memories and sensations we have of the land. Explore your senses of sight, touch, smell, taste, sound, and the feelings the land generates. Reason will tell you that these experiences are within your mind. But the gnome will tell you that if you relax and extend your mind your consciousness enters the land. You can see it, feel it, and experience its energy flowing through you. Try doing this now with the land which surrounds you. Search for a sense of the land's soul and vitality.

Step 3. In the third step, we seek and then unite with the one etheric vibration underlying the land on which we are concentrating. You may recall that odd story from Carlos Castaneda's experiences with a Yaqui sorcerer. Don Juan had Carlos crawl around on the front porch of a house until Carlos found the one spot which gave him the most power. Carlos spent a long time trying to find it and finally fell asleep in just the right place. It was his body rather than his mind that found the location.

If you are sensitive to earth energy, you may be able to find places of power in nature. In certain locations, the energy is stronger, more healthy, and creates different moods and feelings. You may sense energy running along the ridges and how that is different from the energy moving along a stream bed. The trees and plants also have a vibration and life force. Some boulders are said to have strong mana.

In this third step, we want to sense a vibration and a state of consciousness underlying the area of land we are contemplating. You may say, "There is no one energy that contains all of this within itself." Ah, but we are not just dealing with an ordinary gnome, the kind who draws distinctions but does not seek unity. Erami is a gnome magician. Erami does precisely with the earth what a Taoist yogi or a psychologist practicing focusing does with the body.

The Taoist will place his mind within the water energy of the kidneys, the wood energy of the liver, the fire energy of the heart, the metal energy of the lungs, and the earth energy of the stomach. He will then, through his various methods of gathering and blending, join these energies until they are one. He then circulates the refined energy up the back and down the front of his body to promote health and to attain a greater harmony.

In the psychological method called focusing, the individual focuses his attention on one area of his body. He then opens up his entire body and all his chakras to interact with that one part of himself. The part becomes joined with the whole. In doing so, energy flows more freely. This method enables an individual to extend his awareness through his whole body in order to generate the insight that leads to transformation.

In the third step, we feel the energies within the land. Then we search for one vibration that underlies or encompasses all of them. In a sense, this is discerning a pattern. It is looking for a refined essence that vibrates in harmony with all the other energies. It is a creative endeavor. It is fashioning out of your spirit something new the way you would ask your body—"What is behind, underneath, or the essence of what I am feeling?" As in focusing, you wait in an open state of mind and heart for the answer to come to you.

But even if you are not psychic or particularly empathic, you can still make progress in this area. Review with your imagination the trees, plants, rocks, soil, rain, streams, erosion, and shape of an area of land. This activity will produce sensations and feelings within you. This will suffice in the beginning to take you through the third step.

As with our memories of the past or our experiences in life, there is a way of thinking and perceiving which unites all our sensations and feelings. We embrace all we have undergone and then see it from a distance, from a place of illumination and insight. We apply this same process here so we can learn to appreciate the world upon which we dwell with the enthusiasm and sensitivity of the great gnome magicians.

If I ask Erami what he is doing in this third step, he replies, "I am looking for the inner spirit of the land. I am awakening the dreams within it. I am uniting with its beauty."

The impression I have of Erami's motivation is again similar to the reason for entering a temple. He worships the land through prayer and meditation. It is not unlike the way a man has feelings and love for a woman. You can see this attitude reflected in the alchemical tantra Erami describes for human beings. In that set of meditations, the woman's body becomes a way of amplifying the couple's connection to and ability to transform the energies of the land.

Erami's attitude toward the land around my house is quite interesting. His sense of the inner energy underlying the land is similar to looking at a sand castle on a beach. Sand can be shaped and given form very easily but it also erodes rapidly. The land around me is saturated with and dominated by water. It is porous and easily eroded.

In a few million years or so, this island will become an atoll barely rising above sea level. Even now, waves erode the shores. The windward side of the hills are nearly vertical because the warm, moist air forms clouds that rise over the hills and rain more on the windward side than on the leeward. Beneath the ground you can sense the water table and further down is the brackish salt water from the ocean. Erami sees this island as being under the influence of water from all sides. It shape is transitory. It is quickly passing away.

Step 4. To discuss this fourth step in familiar terms, we can say we are pursuing the sacred that exists within the land. The earth has dreams within it that we can help awaken. The land, through the power of imagination, becomes invested with mythology.

The sylphs perceive the atmosphere as providing natural support for those seeking the enlightened mind. The undines perceive the waters of the earth as a reflection of omnipresent, all-embracing love. The salamanders perceive the fires of the earth as inviting a search for absolute power—the will that creates from out of itself.

How then do gnomes perceive the earth? The earth encourages and supports consciousness to seek endurance, stability, integration, immortality, and nobility. It inspires and nourishes a wisdom that outlasts the ages.

When Erami finds the one vibration that unifies the land and holds it within his mind and heart, he is giving the land sentience—the ability to feel and to respond. The land then becomes a reservoir filled with inner dreams. That is to say, there is something of eternity that Erami would find within the land and awaken into consciousness.

The tour book says of the tiny Isle of Iona off Scotland that those getting off the ferry often notice immediately the presence of a timeless peace. It is a place where you can go to reflect and gain insight into the depths of yourself. Christians claim this island from St. Columba's arrival in the sixth century. Druids say they were there first. It was the location of one of their universities.

But the land has a vibration predating human history. Its timeless quality reflects eternity. It is a place where you can go to meet the unknown part of your soul. When a gnome has put himself into the land, there is often this presence of peace and well-being that is left behind as a result of his activities.

I would suggest that gnome magicians and human beings share in a similar quest. We are both interested in finding and making a home in this universe. We are both interested in giving—of extending our awareness beyond ourselves and, in the giving, of becoming transformed—of becoming part of a greater reality, of something timeless and whole.

An individual asked me last week if it was possible to find inner peace. I told her yes but I also recalled my first experience with peace. I remembered running into a few individuals decades ago. Each of these individuals has a remarkable sense of nature. You can feel the mountains, the forests, the deserts, and the streams of the earth within their auras. There is an openness and acceptance of life and the world the way it is.

This is not to say that they are not busy solving problems and making life better. It is just that they do not forget their connection to the earth. Oh, they get divorced and have difficulties just like everyone else. But there remains something extra. They have a profound feeling of being supported and of well-being. For example, anxiety does not stalk them. It cannot seem to find anything in them to hold on to.

Time for individuals with high levels of well-being is not like the flowing of a stream. It is like a sea that surrounds us. We are already where we need to be. These individuals exude a feeling of being at home. It is a quality within their auras. They have an inner connection to the earth.

And what about this sand castle of an island on which I am living? What does Erami perceive as its inner dream and the eternity reflected within it? For Erami, the land here is very receptive to gathering and storing energy through ritual, chanting, and pageantry.

The land is dancing as it gathers, sustains, and celebrates its strength in this isolated location at the center of the ocean. Here is the dream within the island of Oahu—to be fully alive like a fruit that is ripening and ready to be picked and also full of an inner strength that time can not diminish.

This dream the native Hawaiians have captured in their rituals, magic, and mythologies. And yet, dreams like these are alive in all of us. Studying and sensing the spirit within the land is a way of discovering and finding this truth within ourselves.

Chapter 4. The Gnome Mentifil—a master of earth magic

Mentifil is a powerful gnome with many qualities and powers. These include a knowledge of medicinal herbs and the secrets of alchemy. Mentifil can change the molecular structure of an element and control natural processes within the mineral kingdom.

With Mentifil, there is also present the clairvoyance of an ancient druid whose observance of nature leads him to know every tree and plant in his land by a touch of his hand upon the bark or the smell of the flower. That is, he has a great empathy for nature similar to a priest or shaman in the nature religions.

I think in my mind the name "Mentifil" and in an instant the gnome is present in my room. I can see him standing several feet to my right.

Mentifil's aura shines with a brownish black light. It is as if silence has taken on a color that glows in the air. This light embodies endurance and patience. When you look at Mentifil's face, he looks academic like a scholar. He looks shrewd and clever like an inventor. He is detached and questioning like a scientist engaged in an endless series of experiments. But still, the aura remains.

It is as if you could take the essence of a mountain chain and boil it down, distill, and refine it so that the result is a silence enduring through the ages. Mentifil's aura is a magical space. If you get close enough you see the events of thousands of years flickering before your eyes, passing by in a few moments of time.

Mentifil is robust, friendly, and entertaining. Meeting him is like encountering the soul of a forest walking down the road toward you. You smell the trees. You see leaves on the ground, branches rustling in the breeze, the roots, the soil, and the ages through which the trees have been growing. Mentifil has a deep sense of peace and an animating zest. These energies are reflected in his aura.

I imagine a gnome like this never gets lonely. His interest and curiosity never die. Sights and sounds from eons before are still fresh in his memory as if ancient events happened a few hours before. But Mentifil does not mourn or feel attached to the past. And though he is very busy, you can see it in the way he stands—he looks like he has a lot to attend to and is ready to get back to it the instant we are through. Still, he is, always was, and always will be captivated by what is happening in the present moment. His concentration is that complete.

There are stone circles I have entered that were set up five thousand years before. The energy in them is still strong. You can sense the various rituals which have been practiced in them at different times in history. But there are also a few stone circles that do not belong to the past at all. They are carefully designed for a future time. They await the right person to enter them and say the right words so that they may be activated and release the treasures sealed within their granite.

Mentifil's aura is like that. He is an embodiment of great treasures and mysteries of the earth. And like those stone circles, he is waiting for that time when a race of beings on this planet will come forth. And saying the right words, comprehending his mind, and seeing through his eyes, ancient and unknown wisdom shall be released and celebrated through all the world.

The Irish bards of old trained for seven years in darkness. When they came out of their caves, the darkness and silence remained with them the rest of their lives. In their eyes and ears, images and sounds were wrapped about with enchanting delight because of the austerity they had endured.

If Mentifil's aura were a dark cave of silence which you entered to practice the bardic arts, seven years of training would barely give you a taste. No, a different procedure is required. You have to learn to think like a gnome—become the solidity and silence of a mountain, immerse your mind in a precious stone, or join your consciousness to an element in the periodic table so that there is no remainder of yourself to be found.

But I will tell you a short cut that avoids austerities involving sensory deprivation and the use of occult techniques. You only need to love the earth. And then the darkness and the silence become luminous and full of songs of wonder, endless beauty, and delight. Mentifil will then see in your aura a light more precious than gems and more valuable than the quintessence of nature's elixirs. He will make working with you his first priority.

As I sit here next to Mentifil, his aura begins to blend with mine. In a strange way, I feel at home. I think of the poet who said of his God, "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed or as a watch in the night." I do not mean any disrespect to the psalmist's view of God's qualities when I say—in Mentifil's mind, a thousand thousand years is but a moment though he can recall all that he has seen of it. But this gnome's mode of perceiving is best approached in your own time when you feel comfortable and are ready to work with it.

Mentifil's Domain.

As with other elemental beings, Mentifil's domain is as much a state of mind as a location on the astral plane. It is like a town or a small, industrial complex. There are many gnomes present and they are all busy. There is organization and there is a division of labor. Everyone is attentive to their work and enjoys what they are doing. And what are they doing?

There are gnomes who specialize in the refining processes of alchemy and raising the vibration of matter. But this is not just busy work. This is not the Protestant Ethic where the objective is to work hard, to be productive, and to make money. No. These gnomes are upgrading their abilities and increasing their powers of intuition. Work is an activity in which both matter and spirit are equally employed.

There are gnomes who work with gemstones. It would appear they actually cut stones but they too are engaged in a spiritual endeavor. They are investing the stones with magical powers. Diamonds, rubies, amethysts, and so forth not only take and break light into beautiful reflections. They serve to preserve and amplify consciousness. A gnome can place some of his own spirit into a stone which then can be used to benefit others.

Some gnomes work with trees and forests, with topsoil, herbs, healing, and fertility. They know about roots, bark, leaves, and seeds and the active chemical ingredients within these. As any druid knows, trees have consciousness and gnomes have a role to play in observing and increasing this.

Some gnomes are interested in mineral deposits, rock formations, and mountains. For a gnome, matter is not void of spirit. Everything physical has an inner secret and mana present within it. It might even be possible to sense where a gnome has been active.

Consider the buttes in Monument Valley. Climb up the rocks sliding down from the side and put your hand on the stone wall reaching up to the sky. If you have a little clair-sentience or a gift for psychometry, you might detect the memory within the stones—of how they were formed and the pressures and stresses which have been brought to bear upon them. If you meditate longer placing your mind within the butte, you might sense a vibration like a man asleep waiting to wake up. But in this sleep there is not even dreaming.

However, if a gnome has made this stone his home, you can detect the results of his efforts. The stone is in the process of becoming conscious. For one, it is aware of you being there. In this awareness is an acceptance that you may experience as peace and well-being. The physical world and the unseen are sharing in common a dream and you are also a participant. So the next time you hear a native American refer to a mountain as being sacred you might think about who has or who is still working on it.

I could go on. Mentifil's gnomes are engaged in quite a few activities. They are interested in salts, the structure of the earth, earth energies, and all sorts of things only gnomes know something about. But over all of this is Mentifil. His inner silence and his perception comprehend all that is occurring.

Inner Source of Inspiration.

Mentifil is inspired by the akasha of the earth element. Recall that akasha is considered the fifth element and that the other four elements arise from it. As a gnome magician, Mentifil has access to akashic states of awareness though not as freely as do human beings. But given millions of years of research and experimentation, Mentifil has acquired a great deal of knowledge about the transformations of physical matter.

It is natural for Mentifil to have an interest in alchemy. He seeks to refine and to purify a physical substance so it can embody as far as possible the qualities of akasha. This is the legendary philosopher's stone.

Traditionally, the practice of alchemy is not just a study of chemistry. There is a spiritual component. For Mentifil, the philosopher's stone is something wonderful. It is the integration and perfection of all the energies of nature.

The accomplishment of this work is not just something physical. The philosopher's stone has an etheric and astral vibration. This vibration or energy is something alchemists must be able to produce within their own consciousness. As in all things, a magician is not only after the external ability to change and transform the physical world. He is also after the inner light and the spirit, for this is the source of his magical will and power.

And what are these qualities the philosopher's stone and akasha share in common and which a magician hopes to find and master within himself? They are the ability to transform and to bring things to perfection. To change lead to gold is a process analogous to changing base desires into enlightenment. As in the images of the Celtic cauldron of wisdom and the Holy Grail, there is a joining of matter and spirit producing wisdom and blessing. And there is an inner stillness that accepts and embraces all opposites and envisions their union and fulfillment.

Since love contains the highest magic, we can compare Mentifil's methodology in probing physical matter to the alchemy of love as it relates to human lovers. In fact, Mentifil is emphatic in pointing out the connection: We can imagine a man and woman loving each other in a way that the universe is reflected in their love. In other words, their love is a divine celebration and the highest ecstasy is present within it. Such love automatically embodies healing power and the ability to transform the world. But what would it require to pursue such an endeavor or embody this ideal within ourselves?

To begin with, the man has to put aside his ego and desire for gratification, his dominance, and his attachment to the external world. He needs to embody the strength of his inner spirit—absolute will and conviction. His motives need to be illuminated by divine wisdom.

The woman has to leave behind her girlish dependence and desire to be safe and protected. With great determination and commitment, she must oversee and monitor every aspect of her partner's actions. And the woman needs to embody an aspect of her feminine spirit—to offer her body and soul as a sacred vessel for the sake of a new creation.

In this process, the man becomes one with the body, soul, mind, and spirit of the woman. And the woman embraces and enfolds with a divine love every aspect of the man. Is this too much to ask, too much for lovers to understand?

After all, how many men love their wives with the power and light of spirit in their eyes? And how many women love their husbands with the love the Goddess freely bestows upon the whole earth? Yet this is just the beginning of the alchemical process for transforming and imbuing matter with the power and qualities of akasha.

As you can see, then, there is a high degree of difficulty involved when it comes to appreciating the inspiration of a gnome magician. Very few human beings are this free in their hearts to probe the mysteries of love. And yet this divine pageantry of love and transformation is a part of our lives. Mentifil is the custodian of a power that we will find in ourselves when we are ready to make the earth our home.

Sigil.

Mentifil's sigil indicates that he has spent a great deal of time contemplating and investigating gravity and density. The weight of a mountain pressing into the earth—Mentifil can sense that. How a mineral deposit was formed—Mentifil can track that down. But there is something more. What we do with an electron microscope—reveal the relation of atoms—Mentifil can do with his mind.

But a sigil is something more than a character profile. It is like a door with a motion detector at a supermarket. The door opens automatically when it senses your presence. Occasionally, someone speaks to me telepathically when I am dreaming. I hear the voice clearly enough that I wake up even when the person is not present. I may hear a request and I say, "yes." A sigil has that kind of rapport built into it.

The Three Four Planes

On the mental akashic plane, Mentifil is a genius at alchemy. He is aware of a vast range of herbal remedies. And he embodies the intuition which tracks every aspect of refining and extracting from nature its highest vital essence.

On the mental plane, Mentifil's mind is silent, still, and open. If you wanted to learn Zen by studying nature rather than sitting in a monastery, then Mentifil is the right gnome. His koans are not derived from the paradoxical encounters of masters and students of a lineage. Rather, he uses the minerals, plants, and trees to produce direct perception into the inner nature of the mind.

On the astral plane, Mentifil has a deep awareness of organic processes. Even in ancient times it would be challenging to find a druid with Mentifil's appreciation of trees—their vitality, their qualities, their spirit, and the way they resonate in harmony with the universe. For eons, Mentifil has been wandering through the forests of the earth studying trees and celebrating the life within them.

When I first read in J.R.R. Tolkein that the elves woke up the trees and gave them voices with which to speak, I thought that was a marvelous concept. When Mentifil finds a tree that interests him, he goes right inside of it. And then he sits there and senses every aspect of the tree's life—its roots, trunk, branches, leaves, blossoms, fruits, chemistry, and electromagnetic fields. When Mentifil meditates inside of a tree, his aura blends with the tree so that you can barely distinguish between the two.

Human beings separate trees into species but for Mentifil this is not correct. Every tree is unique. Each tree has its own secrets and wisdom in a way analogous to the heart of each human being.

On an etheric/physical level, Mentifil's energy is similar to the stone in a stone circle. Mentifil is very solid and grounded. Even stone outcrops two and a half billion years old in the Australian desert would have a hard time saying they are more patient and enduring than Mentifil. Mentifil has already meditated within them and made their essence his own.

Personal, Collective, Global, and Cosmic Consciousness

In ancient times, the seven planets were each associated with a different metal. Mentifil seems to agree with this concept. Associating planets with elements in nature seems appropriate for a gnome who practices alchemy. Though I could probe the planetary metals without assistance from a gnome, working with Mentifil increases my concentration and sensitivity to these elements in the periodic table. The procedure I follow is to imagine myself inside of a ball made of each metal. I concentrate so the sensation of the metal is dense and solid.

Meditating with Mentifil is a journey into the dark, impenetrable realm we call physical matter. It is a path for discovering that underneath the elements of the periodic table is a vast and limitless awareness. This awareness is luminous, autonomous and self-existing. It is a light so pure it is within and a part of all that exists.

Remember, Mentifil is not a typical gnome you might run into as you drop your mind down into the ground. Mentifil is one of the greatest magicians to be found within the earth element. His wisdom is profound and his insight penetrating.

For Mentifil, physical matter is not heavy. It feels light and free. When a gnome meditates on metals, his consciousness does not feel cramped or restricted. He feels at ease like light moving through empty space—he does not feel any hindrances.

The first effect I noticed after meditating with Mentifil was that I stopped getting depressed. If I can state it this way, it is as if depression became afraid of me. It is no longer willing to come near me.

From a psychological view, depression is energy being drawn out of consciousness down into the unconscious. It is suffering a loss of feeling restrained by the weight of circumstances. In some therapeutic methods, you follow the energy to discover where it is leading you. The energy is still a part of yourself. To be whole, you need to discover the feelings and insights hidden in those depths where the energy flows. This is like going on a spiritual quest to recapture or renew part of the spirit you have lost.

But more may be required. What if you need to go beyond an understanding of your personality and your life circumstances? A magician does not seek personal happiness so much as being in harmony with the universe. The gnomes have a great deal to offer in this quest. In the realm of gnomes, it is possible to place your mind within the densest substance and discover freedom and boundless light. The universe is then seen as one interconnected field of energy.

Our goal is learning to say to the mysterious energies that move within us, "I know you well. I have already met you. I know your magical name. Your spell which diminishes hope and tears the soul can find no hold upon my heart. I can take all that you are and turn it into something wonderful because I celebrate the beauty of life."

Mentifil's procedure is to meditate on the planetary metals one by one spending some time on each until I could see where the metal's molecular and atomic vibrations dissolve into the pure light of akasha. Mentifil has a very developed power of concentration. It is hard for me to imagine a human master in any religious tradition having Mentifil's ability to concentrate with such intensity.

Still, the reason Mentifil insists on mastering a wide spectrum of metallic energies relates to Jungian psychology. To upgrade the quality of the life force within your body, you have to gather all aspects of your psyche. No significant part of the self can be left out of the process of refinement. Otherwise, at some point your concentration will weaken and the energy you are trying to refine will become contaminated. A gnome alchemist seeks to embody within himself a miniature version and a reflection of the larger solar system.

By meditating with Mentifil on the planetary metals, I am offering a description of the rivers of energy and the depths of feeling that flow without beginning or end through our souls. Having a strong and positive personality is important. It is equally important to know the paths, stages, and the steps that connect our personalities with the spirit within us. In each of these meditations, Mentifil stood by my side and served as my guide.

The Planetary Metals

Silver—the Metal of the Moon. Silver contains a serenity—a letting go into the inner flow of life. Silver is a magic mirror reflecting the unfolding of time, the rhythms of change, and the forces which give birth to all living beings. The light in silver reveals each of us in our totality so that nothing is hidden.

Within silver, then, is a remarkable feeling. Like the moon sliding in the sky, movement is gentle, slow, and indescribably peaceful. Even in a smallest gesture of affection, you can see the light of eternity—you sense that all the good that will ever come to you is already shining within you. Your life is blessed by a wholeness in which you feel an intimacy with all the beauty and treasures life can bestow.

The sage who says, ‘Contentment is the greatest wealth there is,’ tastes the light hidden in silver when he meditates. Such a man is not distracted by cravings for pleasure or the need for reassurance. He does not forget the part of himself which is transcendent even amid the struggles and conflicts of life.

In silver, there is no tension between desire and satisfaction, between need and fulfillment. You see how they arise together and cannot exist without each other. Desire can only appear because the pleasure it seeks is hidden within it. The sage who says, `To everything there is a time and a season,' has found this wisdom. He sees how the past and the future are joined to each other.

Take any personal need that exerts an influence over you. Then enter a dream. This is not the ordinary dream you have each night. This is a dream on the level of an archetype, that is, a dream full of power.

Now, within the dream, imagine you have an entire lifetime to live in a way which satisfies all your desires and needs. Silver is this vision in which you perceive with perfect clarity when, where, and how life will grant you fulfillment. Yet as you dream you find there is no gulf of time separating who you are now from what you desire. In silver, you feel other lifetimes alive within you. This feeling of completion is as real as the world of waking reality.

I am told that there is a civilization on a planet in another solar system where everyone has attained enlightenment. The race that dwells there has discovered that the light of consciousness is an ecstasy that dances in harmony with the universe. On that planet, there is no need to seek wisdom through prolonged or solitary quests. You only need to sit still and open your heart and you become overwhelmed with bliss. But the light in silver already contains all the wisdom and bliss those enlightened masters have ever found. Silver is that profound.

When you meditate in silver, the minds of great masters from other stars are no longer distant or hidden. The reason is that the ecstasy they use to attain liberation is woven into silver's atomic vibration. Nuclear and theoretical physicists will not tell you this. They study the universe—space, time, matter, and energy—as external phenomena.

But for a magician nature has innumerable gates opening to the paths of spirit. Silver is the gate of serenity in which time is suspended. Through the vibration of silver, you see the specific conditions governing each thing's existence and you also perceive the oneness underlying the universe.

Brass (a mixture of copper and zinc)—the Metal of Mercury. The consciousness brass shapes is forthright and direct. In speech, it is clear, concise, and exact. The mind brass develops is masterful and in control. Its actions are specific and commensurate with situations and events as they unfold.

Brass does not need to be sheltered or protected. It is not vulnerable. Brass always bonds well because it is fully present in the moment. No part of the self is sequestered away in a private space nor is there any inner life which remains unexpressed.

Brass is outrageously engaging. Its force is dynamic. Its presence is commanding. It consumes every detail and nuance of an interaction always searching for movement and progress without handicapping itself with preconceptions.

Brass is sharp, alert, and ready to respond. When you go into a trance meditating on brass, you realize there are a number of levels to being awake. You can take in a small part of the world around you by observing the familiar. You check to see if your comfort or security is threatened. And you spend your time affirming that who you are and what you know are the best way to go.

To this first level of being awake you can add a voracious curiosity and an expectation that something wonderful or special is about to happen. The part you play is to detect it and offer it welcome. You take the unknown and make it feel at home.

In this way, your world is constantly expanding. This second level does require you defuse hostility and overcome distrust. And your mind must have a little acid so that illusion dissolves at your touch. But because you observe your environment with such enthusiasm and objectivity, inconsistencies or incongruities in a person or situation reveal what is deceptive or dishonest.

But the real power to engage life comes when you take in everything. When you are awake like this you have nothing to hide and nothing escapes your gaze. Light radiates from you. Others feel comfortable and safe being near you. You communicate not only joy and excitement. Your presence is a catalyst and an invitation to be fully alive.

And what is it to be fully alive? It is a willingness to bring all of yourself into every situation and relationship. It is a receptivity that registers with uncanny accuracy the opportunities each moment provides. It gives its total attention. And it is a will that steps forward with courage and complete confidence. It uses each experience to test its conviction that the best is found when you want it, look for it, and make it happen.

Brass is the metal of the planet Mercury. In Greek mythology, the god Hermes (called Mercury by the Romans) was a master of persuasion. He convinced Demeter, the goddess of the earth, to put aside her grieving and release winter so spring could return to the world. And with his story telling he caused Argus who possessed a thousand eyes to close them all and fall asleep. Trail lawyers and psychologists understand this principle: imagination is more powerful and convincing than observation or facts when your words and images are carefully designed to synchronize with another's mind.

But whereas gods of truth and communication are often tricksters and masters of illusion, brass is more pure. It is the clarity where truth appears. It is the commitment to make truth a part of reality. If there is a window of opportunity revealing your highest destiny, brass is the decision to take hold of it and make it happen.

Copper—the Metal of Venus. Copper has a tremendous conductivity. Being persuasive and assertive are not its primary activities. Rather, the bond it creates takes place on a deeper level. It does this through the way it receives and transmits energy. Copper is a riotous celebration of the flow between opposites that creates a new energy system.

When another is receptive to you, there are a multitude of signals occurring on a nonverbal level. This is seen in genuine flirting. Without even moving and without any eye contact, one person's body is dancing with another.

The light goes out in the eyes of an individual who is obsessed with possessive love. The mind is fixated. The body is held captive by desires starving for satisfaction. But for those who genuinely love, their faces light up. They feel more alive than ever before. The exchange of energy between partners is so complete they cannot understand but only respond with wonder and awe.

The problem with electricity moving through a copper wire is that unless the flow is well insulated it can burn you. And if at any point there is a short in the circuit, then the energy stops flowing. It is easy for the nervous system to burn out when the emotions are too strong. Fear and misunderstanding result. And it is easy to get hurt when the connection to another is lost. Lost love is a special kind of desolation.

Gnomes are cautious with copper. It is not so much that they lack the romantic instinct. Seeking to be something more or different than what you are seems to them artificial or, at best, a brief and unsatisfying experience. This does not mean that gnomes are not skilled at analyzing electronic phenomena or understanding the dynamics of sexual alchemy. Copper just does not reach to the core of their hearts the way it does with human beings.

But I will say this in favor of gnome magicians. If human lovers were as skilled as gnomes in attuning to the vibration of copper, then just holding hands with your partner would awaken greater ecstasy than what lovers now experience through eroticism. The balancing of masculine and feminine energies is so total that when two individuals are touching they are only aware of their oneness.

When this experience happens to them, individuals often shun it or cast it out of their minds forthright. It is a relief to pretend it never happened. After every visitation, they feel so lost they struggle to regain their individual identities. Oneness is a muse who torments with ecstasy and terrible beauty. If you say to this muse, "Why do you haunt me with visions that have no place in reality?" The muse replies, "I am the voice of love, the fulfillment of life, and when you call me I will come."

I have met individuals who radiate the vibration of copper. But they try to conceal it locking it in a secret chamber of their psyches. The oneness feels natural to them. It is just that they do not know how to get back to everyday life after the incredible rush of energy occurring in this form of bonding.

There are others who use copper's conductivity in their professions. They become great con men, covert agents, rock musicians, actresses, or super models. It never really enters their minds as to why they are so attractive or charismatic. All they know is that when they enter a room or present themselves in a certain way other people cannot take their eyes off of them. Some enter a dream just being near them.

But unlike human beings who are often upset when they lose another's attention, there is nothing lacking or absent in copper when there is no connection. Copper is like a mirror in a dark room or a great violin in its case. It is neither diminished nor is its beauty less when it is not being played. When there is no exchange of energy, copper retains its excitability and its ecstasy. It is like a party that has no ending. Even after everyone has gone home music is still present as if an entourage of elves and fairies are ready to materialize the instant the air becomes silent.

The inner light in copper is a secret most people know but hide from themselves. With copper it is OK to be aware of your deepest passions. It is OK to feel the hunger in your darkest desire and the longing in your wildest dream. Copper perceives how the need brings about what shall be. Oneness with another is possible but the connection must be total. Only those whose will and desire are strong enough give so that in the giving they attain completion.

Gold—the Metal of the Sun. In gold is found the key to being in harmony with the world around you. It is the art of life in action. Gold sees with the eyes of eternity—you understand the universal laws that govern human experience. This enables you to feel so independent and autonomous you are able to give yourself without hesitation. You serve the highest ideals and the most noble purposes. You design your work in life so it has enduring results and is of lasting value.

When you immerse yourself in the metallic vibration of gold, you are attentive to the little things in life that need your assistance in order to grow. You are generous and magnanimous. You delight in empowering others to step forward and embrace the best that life has to offer. You do this because you are filled by awe and overwhelmed by the beauty of the life force that is within you. And you see how this same life force is alive and desiring to unfold within everyone else.

As the metal of the sun, gold is radiant with light and the source of life. Its power arises from the heart. It is the ability to bind all things through the strength of love. This is not an exaggeration. When you meet someone with the quality of gold, they know you better and see your life more clearly than anyone else. And when they speak with you, they remind you of your own dreams and the things you want most.

They do not bring force to bear or pressure you to comply with their will. They offer you an opportunity—the chance to become your better self. Gold is a mirror reflecting the treasures hidden in the depths of soul. By responding to it you gain access to an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Such inspiration enhances all your abilities. You are more than the person you were before its light touched you.

There is nothing like the sense of freedom that exists on the denser levels of gold's vibration. Gold understands that all laws and limitations of nature, society, and the divine are subject to a higher authority. This authority is the will that creates out of joy.

Like the sun, in gold we meet the wisdom of divinity joined with the innocence of the child. In gold we meet the teacher who says to us, "Come my brother, my sister. Enter the light, for eternal light is the essence of who you are."

And even when this teacher experiences great suffering and tragedy, his voice is clear and calm as he says, "In the kingdom of the heart, there is neither sorrow nor sadness. This is because the love we share reaches everywhere. It joins everyone. It never diminishes. It never retreats. It is never fades or loses its taste for the wonder and magnificence of the universe it proclaims."

The reason the stars shine so bright is to fill the universe with light. In a similar way, the purpose of the heart is to fill the universe with love. Yet just as each star is individual and unique, so too each of us has our own work to accomplish. Gold exists to remind us that for every void and abyss, there is a creator whose bliss can fill that emptiness with the song of life, the illumination of wisdom, and a love that has neither beginning nor end.

To meditate in gold on a molecular level is to taste in your heart the fire of the sun. It is to be wrapped in the arms of an inspiration that endures forever. It is to see that selfishness, jealousy, and greed are the fabric of a bad dream. But now you awaken and those illusions vanish into thin air. They cannot weaken an individual who hears and knows himself to be part of the song of the universe.

What is the inner light in gold? It is the discovery of the unique treasure you have to share with others. The Sufi song says, "Every soul desires to transform the world through love." Gold is the realization that each moment of time offers this opportunity. To know the source of life within you is to be granted the power to ignite love and renew the life of all who draw near to you.

Remember the gnome Mentifil? He is meditating with me every step of the way as I write these descriptions. Mentifil now says to me, "When I meditate where the atomic bonds within gold break down and lose their identity, I encounter a great stillness which is an omnipresent awareness. It is part of everything that is. But you see another light shining here which is invisible to me. But I can read your thoughts and see it in your eyes. You see a light which shines not only from the past and present but the future as well. It reveals what needs to be so the universe can unfold with harmony and beauty.

"And this is the advantage you have over me. You can enter and embrace the tension in the abyss where the future waits formless and unknown. Your voice transverses this space. This alchemy of creating something where there was nothing is beyond my ability."

Iron—the Metal of Mars. Iron awakens the desire to attain absolute self-mastery. This involves being able to focus yourself without any distraction. There is no hesitation. There is no doubt. There is no uncertainty to be found in your actions. You are in command of yourself.

Iron teaches how to increase your concentration so you have the strength to solve any problem. Iron guides you to shape your will so it is implacable. If circumstances require it, your strength can become superhuman. And if more is required to finish your task, then iron will grant you that as well: the power of divinity manifesting in human history.

No, iron does not hold back. The fibers of your being—your thoughts, your feelings, and the cells of your body—they fuse and become inseparable so you can follow your path. For each of us there is a destiny that calls. Iron embodies the part of us that responds to this call.

Of course, there is a cost when you delight in the vibration of iron. You are decisive because you are so severe and brutally honest with yourself. There is no room for self-pity or illusion. If you talk to those who follow this ideal you will notice that they are all deficient in one thing: they lack the ability to complain. They take the world as it is and they move forward without attachment to the past. This is not to say they are not aware of pain or of the pleasures they have sacrificed. It is just that there is an entirely different principle governing their actions.

Occasionally we run into individuals radiant with the vibration of iron. If we ask them, "How can you give up so many pleasures and comforts that others take for granted?" They may not have the words to answer. Their motivation may come from a source too deep to express in conversation. But I will tell you what is reflected in their eyes.

You will see a courage that does not arise from the desire to outdo someone else, to be victorious, or to conquer. Their courage arises from a source more primordial and which the religions of our world have nearly forgotten. Iron celebrates the wonder and the bliss out of which the universe was created. Those with the courage of iron seek to be a part of this song. That is why in their eyes you will not see sacrifice but a fire burning so hot it melts the chains that bind the heart.

In the Heart Sutra it says that Avalokitesvara saw that the five senses and all the forms consciousness assumes are empty of inherent existence. With this realization he attained freedom from suffering. For the enlightened mind, there is only energy in motion and this energy is never obstructed in its movement. If Avalokitesvara were meditating on iron, if he saw its electronic oscillation and molecular vibration dissolve into emptiness, then he would have seen this as well: when you are free of fear you just go and do what you need to do—there is nothing that blocks your path or that can interfere with your will.

What of the forces of nature? They are hypnotized by your conviction. But what if you are confronted by those who are malicious and committed to destruction? They faint when they draw near the abyss your breath flies across and your heartbeat fills with songs. Such might iron celebrates. It is a delight forged with a will that has mastered every dark place and every mysterious desire hidden in the self.

Then what is the light of mind, soul, and spirit of which iron is a material manifestation? To enter this light is to sense that the forces of creation saturate the air—power is everywhere, in the sea, in the mountains, in the stars, and in the emptiness of space as well. It is inexhaustible. It is full of outrageous exuberance. And yet, like a woman, it is feminine. It commands our attention and asks of us that we find the way to join with its beauty. It seeks to unite with a will so masterful that works of love and justice fill the world.

Tin—the Metal of Jupiter. The mass of the planet Jupiter is more than all the other planets put together. The sun's orbit sways back and forth by the movement of Jupiter around it. And Jupiter emits more light than it receives from the sun.

Tin is like Jupiter. It embodies the experience and oversight characterizing true leadership. It makes possible and sustains the life of a community. It is the philanthropist who, in accumulating all forms of wealth, takes it upon himself to make the world a better place in which to live.

Tin is magnanimous and noble like gold. Though scrupulous and attentive to detail as an accountant, its generosity has no match. It is bold and engaging like brass. It demands that truth and justice prevail. Like iron, it accepts any challenge that develops strength and will. And it honors loyalty and rewards the courageous and those who accomplish sacred missions.

Like copper, tin would know the secrets of the soul so that will is never weakened from lacking satisfaction. And like silver, it sees reflected in our deepest dreams the ideal of being fulfilled and of coming home—of taking a world that is hostile and indifferent and transforming it into a land where peace, love, and harmony prevail.

Tin does not have the wild, single-minded, and all-consuming passion of copper. But tin is the friend and confidant of many great lovers. When it comes to intimacy and sharing heart to heart, the love within the vibration of tin is most likely more loyal, lively, and enduring.

The reason is not so difficult to understand. Tin radiates the nobility of spirit men and women will die for. It captures the heart not with the offer of bliss or the promise of oneness. When tin vibrates in your aura, you end up having such deep and satisfying connections to so many other individuals that you are overwhelmed. You are astonished by the depth and breadth of life's pageantry that holds you in its arms. You cannot help but feel generous in return.

To be more specific, tin finds you a place in life where everything begins to come together. You engage in activities that are not only challenging but which maximize your talents. Those whom you benefit value what you do and respect who you are. Your coworkers share your commitments, your interests, and with them you form bonds of friendship lasting a lifetime. You can tell when tin has touched your life to this extent. As the years pass you feel it is the hand of wisdom which has placed you where you could acquire those experiences through which you grow the most.

When it comes to changes in the life of an individual or of a community, tin represents continuity and smooth transitions. Whenever possible, tin builds upon the work of the past. It cherishes great traditions. Tin loves the performing arts. It loves whatever calls forth the spirit that has motivated the great accomplishments of past ages.

When parents have a tinge of tin in their auras, the result is that the children make a smooth transition from the home to their places in society. The parents introduce their children to the world as it is, as it was, and as it is meant to be. When the children complain, the parents say, "Our task is to teach you to become independent and self-determining. Part of this comes from our love and part comes through experience and wisdom. When our job is accomplished, you will no longer be our children but our best and life-long friends."

Instead of penetrating this metal so we see it as empty or speaking of it as a light within our minds, let me use a different format. If tin were a commencement speaker or someone initiating the youth of a society into adulthood, it would say this in its speech:

"Find and follow your path of greatest beauty, harmony, and peace. If you know in your heart you seek this, darkness will not be able to touch you. Love will flow through you. Even your enemies will wish they were your friend.

"Make the most of your opportunities. But whether your paths be easy or supremely difficult, you all remain equal in one way: your main accomplishment in life will be something you forge within and from out of your heart. It will shine in your eyes. It will resonate in your voice. It will be like a fragrance and a spice for whoever you touch.

"This is because there is something which your spirit, the greater spirit, and life itself ask of you. They ask you to remember the fire burning within your heart is the greatest treasure in all the earth. Do not allow it to go out. Use it to transform the world. Use its power to heal the wounds of your soul and to cross the wildernesses of your spirit. Use its strength to do what you need to do even if no one else goes with you, understands you, or offers you support.

"And even when you are isolated and alone, which is a gate through which everyone must pass, do not hold back. It is the love in your heart that will enable you to survive the unknown. When and where others despair, you will be strength and hope. Where others live a nightmare, you will be a new beginning and the path that freedom unfolds.

"You might ask, `How does anyone know when they have finally grown up?' This is my answer. You will know maturity when you live your life sensing the inexhaustible spirit that dwells within you. This is when you are free to use its wealth to renew and enrich all that you touch. Then all your actions will be like a rare and great work of art—you take the world as it is and, with skill and mastery, reveal the beauty within it.

"How is this done? Live a life you cherish because you put all of your heart and soul into it. Build your courage. Nourish and protect your sources of inspiration as if your life depends upon them. Do this and in return life will honor you with unique opportunities and extraordinary gifts."

Lead—the Metal of Saturn. Lead speaks of the Saturnian mysteries of time, limitation, change, and transformation. If you want detachment, join your mind with lead. Its treasure is patience. Down among the labyrinthine corridors of the atomic vibration of lead, time slows until it halts. In this space of consciousness, the deepest cravings and the greatest desires lose their grip on you like the claws of an animal that can no longer hold on because the breath in its lungs is gone out.

Those who sip the essence of lead are so enchanted with the taste they no longer care if they are living or dead. It is not that compassion, kindness, or the zest for life is absent. Instead, these individuals no longer see the boundary separating the material world and the world of spirit. Lead destroys false attachment. The active agent in lead is a medicine so potent that sorrow cannot endure its presence.

The Buddha saw detachment as the remedy for suffering. There are great stone statutes of Buddha on a hillside in Cambodia that have sat gazing into the distance for thousands of years. If you imagine sitting there among them waiting patiently, you learn tranquility. Your mind becomes pure and open. The loss of identity, of friendship, and of community means nothing in comparison to the feeling of overcoming all limitation. You discover your consciousness is no longer bound by any form of attraction. This may sound rather morbid, but for Saturn and for lead enlightenment and cosmic love are made of the same substance.

The prisoner on death row awaiting execution—he may need a priest to attain inner peace but he only needs lead to let go of the life about to be taken from him. As with Saturn so with lead—every parting, separation, and good-bye is a sacred rite within its eyes. The reason is not impossible to grasp. As you say farewell to your beloved for the last time, the spirit in lead is already on the other side of the gulf of separation you must cross. Lead knows that nothing can diminish the power of love—neither time, space, matter, historical limitations, nor suffering.

This may be very hard to comprehend, but with lead you already see quite clearly that there is no separation. We are all of us already one. You see, love possesses a special magic. Its heart embraces the universe.

Walls, barriers, and boundaries, jails, chains, and locks, oppression, domination, and manipulation—all that binds, limits, and confines—lead understands every situation and institution, its origins, its power, and its conclusion. Hidden in lead is the will to overcome all opposition.

And the awareness that is underneath lead? It is not as mystical or exotic as some might imagine. Businessmen often have a feel for it and also a few sages. It is to count the cost of what you want so that you pay a fair price and never suffer loss.

Though lead contains the mystery of being free of personal need, we can also describe its mysterious qualities in another way. Individuals often turn to magic to speed things up, to get what they want quicker and with less effort. But the magic in lead does just the opposite. It slows things down. You understand the value of limitation and appreciate what you already have been given. You discover that your situation in life is the best place for learning to exert your will and to find your inner strength. Your limitations are the training ground which prepares you for attaining your destiny.

Note: The next two metals—zinc and strontium—have no tradition. This is in part because the planets—Uranius and Neptune—and the metal—strontium—were only recently discovered. It is not my intent to present them with any kind of authority. The following spiritual meditations, however, are a part of Kabbalistic tradition.

As an alternative, however, there are other ways we can find other associations of metals or gemstone with the planets Uranus and Neptune. Uranus has been associated with radium and uranium. The stone aventurine is related to Uranus as are stones associated with the sign of Aquarius such as blue sapphire, aquamarine, lapis lazuli, and amethyst.

For Neptune, we might consider the element neptunium, lithium, and platinum. Also, stones such as fluorite, opal, and aquamarine.

Zinc—the Metal of Uranus. When you attune your mind to zinc, you notice its power and its momentum. It is a force that nothing can resist. Old forms, traditions, and historical institutions—they crumble and fall when this light enters the world.

When you meditate on zinc, it may seem that Uranus is whispering in your ear: "My commission is to make all things new. To do this, you must view life from a great distance. And yet I am the passion at the dawn of a new world. You may have never met, seen, or dreamed of me. But I am the change in the ages of history. I am the turning of the wheel of time. I am the spice in the seasons of life.

"You may ask, ‘What mortal can hold in his hands the powers of creation?’ The answer is simple though not easy to understand. It is a matter of being relaxed and at ease, whole and complete, still and free, noble and at peace. So much so that any form, action, or physical manifestation obeys your voice when you speak because you are the tension between the opposites that shape it. You are the power at the source of its being.

"To the warrior, I am divine will. To the lover, I am the union of God and Goddess—they have appointed me their agent and the bearer of their love in creation.

"To the scientist, scholar, and sage, I am knowledge, truth, and wisdom. I am the impulse to search and to discover. I am the courage of the explorer. I am the mind so refined illusion is annihilated by my presence. I am the freedom that originates and upholds the laws of the universe. I am the inspiration that guides all paths of life. All destinies are my design.

"Is this so difficult to comprehend? I am your friend. I am in your breath, your eyes, your ears, and every sense: I am darker than darkness and brighter than light. I am the joy from which they take their life. I am more empty of sound than silence and yet overflowing with more songs than all the songs ever sung. I am the delight that originates life.

"But do not consider me inscrutable or aloof. I am the desire of the artist to create. He knows my name. He searches for me behind both pleasure and pain. The birds who inhale morning light and exhale songs—their rapture is my harmony. The release hidden in all desire and need speaks of me, worships me, and celebrates my essence. Happiness, satisfaction, contentment, serenity, peace, and tranquility—these are the fragrance of my heart.

"But if you would share in my work, see through my eyes, and speak with my voice, then know this: the earth is my university. Master the energies within matter and the desires of life and then you will have my graduate certificate. On this point, I will neither yield nor compromise. I require absolute commitment. To lay the foundations for new civilizations, to originate new destinies, to hold in your eyes the light of dawn so the spark is ever bright—this is my work and my art. I am the bliss that originates, oversees, and fulfills creation and each of you is my apprentice.

“‘Still,’ you ask me, ‘What is it you do that grants you the right to lay claim to the most sacred treasures of life?' My method is within the reach of everyone though, I admit, it takes a lot of practice to get the hang of it. In a nutshell, this is the formula at the heart of knowledge, science, wisdom, magic, and love: anything that exists that has weight, shape, density, and mass or breath, soul, life, and spirit—I study its energy and become one with it.

“Then even where there is nothing—no love, no wisdom, no justice, no harmony, no beauty, no order or life—I speak, create, and accumulate energy, shaping it and naming it, until the vision within my eyes manifests on earth. And so you see why I am both utterly transcendent and passionately imminent—these two are like desire and life, like a lover and the beloved, like a creator and his or her creation. They are forever joined.”

Strontium—the metal of Neptune. The atomic vibration of strontium evokes a trance. This trance is the secret ingredient that the great prophets of history sprinkle on their cereal for breakfast. It is very human but it produces a special outlook on life.

It binds thoughts, feelings, and sensory perceptions into a hypnotic concentration. Awareness of the external world is temporarily suspended. You enter a dream that is every bit as real if not more so than anything you have ever experienced. This dream shines with an inner light. It is the place of sacred beginnings. It is a vision and a conversation with the guides and guardians of the earth, with the world teachers, and with all the human heart can ever seek, imagine, or hope to accomplish.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna does not take part in the fight. He carries no bow, fires no arrows, and throws no spears. He speaks calmly with serene transcendence right in the middle of a battlefield between mighty enemies. In speaking to the warrior Arjuna who has lost his courage to fight, Krishna replies, "I have already defeated all these armies."

Strontium is the part of our awareness fire cannot burn, water cannot drench, time cannot hide, acid cannot etch, and illusion cannot touch. It is indestructible. To enter it is to taste and experience the fulfillment and completion of all that exists.

Let us contrast Zinc and Strontium. Zinc is Moses appearing in the court of the Pharaoh wielding powers that control heaven and earth. Strontium is the voice in the burning bush asking Moses to liberate an enslaved people who have forgotten their divine origins.

Zinc is George Washington crossing the Delaware in a surprise attack on the British on Christmas night. Those actions of courage and bravery gave birth to a new nation. Strontium is the Declaration of Independence. It declares for all time the inalienable right of a people to be free and to determine their own destiny.

Zinc is Mikael Gorbachev setting into effect a course of events leading to the fall of the Berlin wall. Strontium is Isaiah the prophet saying two thousand and seven hundred years before, "They shall beat their swords into plow shears....they shall not learn war anymore." Zinc is the manifestation of a destiny, the force of history nfolding. Strontium is the vision behind it and its ongoing source of inspiration.

When you probe the densest levels of Strontium, you see that life, even amid its limitations and constraints, is charged with boundless energy and limitless possibilities. All the earth is sacred and everything within it.

And the inner light shining within Strontium? For the Hindu, it is the thousand petals of the crown chakra shining brighter than ten thousands suns. Buddhists perceive the mind to be an infinite space filled with boundless light.

And bardic magicians who study the magic of each star in the sky? They experience the heart as being so vast it holds within itself the two hundred billion galaxies and the countless forms of life existing throughout the universe. Each star and solar system is a separate note in the song the Creator sings—and this song, I tell you, is but the prelude to the beginning.

Poems

There is a philosophy which states there is nothing in human experience which cannot be transformed through an act of love. If Mentifil’s silence and wisdom were expressed by lovers, they might write a poem like this:

When the stream falls asleep and dreams of rain

When the mountain forgets its mass and weight

Its cliffs towering

It roots running deep

And walks among the stars

Listening to their songs in the night—

I sit against a redwood tree a thousand years old

The smell of the forest drowsy in my bloodstream,

I sit within a circle

My back to a stone placed five thousand years ago

I reach back with my palms

And feel its tough endurance

The lichens clinging to its rough surface

The stone rests so comfortably

Within a quiet peace

Its pulse throbs faintly

To the temperature changes of day and night

The seasons, the ages, the eons,

It still holds conversations with other times.

I dream with the stream, the mountain, the tree, the stone

Till I awake within your heart to discover—

For this purpose was I created:

To love you

And to celebrate together

The stars giving birth to light

The dark womb giving birth to the stars

I am no longer alone

By your grace

My doubts are vanquished

My illusion dissolves

My confusion is gone.

The gust of wind

Its ebb and flow

Holding its breath and letting go,

The waves of ancient seas

Memories sinking down

Into limestone

Metamorphic and igneous rock

Outcrops twisting and blending,

Driven by the winds of time—

These transformations, as are my own,

Are woven into one Song

In the silence of the night

By the beauty within your heart.

Recollections: I recall the first time I attended a seminar with the druid chief Philip Carr-Gomm. I went out and touched a tree during the break and the touch felt like I had placed my hand on the arm of a woman.

I speak with trees.

They answer my questions.

They share with me their secret dreams and visions.

They are not without passion.

Do not your roots

As they probe and search the earth

To quench their thirst for nourishment

Find peace and satisfaction?

Even as lovers taste and celebrate each other.

Do not your needles and your leaves

As they drink in the sun's light

Delight in the interaction

Joined to such power and might?

With lips and fingers

The lover searches the beloved's skin

In bliss they fuse

Their hearts merge

The joy is rapture.

Do you not stand alone

Firm and enduring amid the changing seasons

Because in you a greater will has found its home?

Fire is woven into wood

As are water, earth, and light

I am not afraid.

In my soul is the song of creation.

Is this why your seeds

Depart upon wind and breeze

Risking death and annihilation

Because of the song that has called them?

Isolation and pain fade with the night

As birth and new light sing ecstasy into life.

Every season is the flower of beauty unfolding.

Part IV: Salamanders

Introduction

Salamanders explore the mystery of power. Here is hidden the ability to strengthen and amplify one’s will by working with the element of fire as it exists in nature on our planet.

Fire can be positive or negative: it is hot, burning, expansive, dynamic, intense, powerful, and explosive in sensation. It has the capacity to produce great light. But this light can blind. If the light lacks purity and clarity—the vision is distorted and twisted.

In an individual, fire as a burning and consuming passion may seek to dominate the wills of others. It can torment and torture, haze and subjugate. It can absorb others’ wills into itself by considering other people as an extension of its own ego. It can utilize every means possible to corrupt, divide, undermine, and enslave others in order to accomplish its purposes. For negative fire, the faith and conviction are there but are often expressed in a degraded form as arrogance and self-righteousness.

In its positive expression, fire in an individual becomes exhilaration, excitement, enthusiasm, conviction, and a profound sense of purpose. The individual feels his will is aligned with the deepest forces that drive life. You feel the momentum unfolding the universe is flowing through you.

Fire expressed as love enables two to fuse as one so their love shines as bright as the sun. The task in dealing with any of the primal powers in nature is to use deep meditation to transform these powers from an impersonal force into something that expresses the desires of our hearts. Indeed, to feel radiant as the sun, that noble and bright, is a goal the fire element reveals.

Chapter 1. The Salamander Amtophul —a sea of fire meditation

The salamander Amtophul is higly skilled in understanding fire in nature as well as the ways fire can be used in magic. In other words, he understands things like volcanoes and magma chambers beneath the earth. And he understands how fire can be used to increase an individual’s will power as well as how to avoid any dangers fire might present to an individual in the outer and inner worlds.

Amtophul’s Outer Aura

Typical of salamanders, Amtophul's aura is intense, very hot, and burning. Just through concentration he can create fire. He has the power to get inside of something and transform it from within—this magic is in his ability to see the most hidden things that compose or are the fundamental building blocks in whatever he is viewing; and then he puts forth the power to realign them, transform them, or make them into something different.

Amtophul's Inner Aura

Imagine far beneath the ground a sea of red, purple, and dark, ultraviolet fire. The flames rise up continuously before you, extremely hot. This is a place where you go to meditate but not on how to see the future; rather, the meditation is about how to create what is to be.

Mental Body.

TThink of this salamander spending millions of years dwelling within fire and concentrating on it so that his awareness of fire is ages old; he knows fire inside and out.

Astral Body.

Amtophul likes to change his astral body so that its vibration is the same as the feelings and sensations of a sea of fire. It is like he imagines a vast vault of magma beneath the earth in concrete detail as to form, substance, strength, history, presence, etc.

Etheric Body.

There is a great pressure and the expansive power in his body that is again like an immense sea of fire beneath the ground. In the presence of some mermaids, you feel you are in the presence of the ocean. With some sylphs, you feel you are floating through the sky. With some gnomes, you feel the gnome embodies the spirit of a mountain. With Amtophul, you feel you are standing before a vast magma chamber beneath the ground.

Amtophul’s Inner Source of Inspiration

Fire creates light. You can reverse engineer the fire also from the light—if you have the light you can figure out the fire it rises rom. Astronomers do this. They study the spectrum of light from a star to understand the star's makeup and elements.

Amtophul's inner source of inspiration is a light that is so intense that it no longer arises from fire but is self-existent and can destroy and remake anything it touches. This inspiration guides his work and is what he hopes ultimately to accomplish.

A Tip from Amtophul.

Fire is in motion. Study and imagine how fire originates, its movements in time, and where it is going so as to strengthen your imagination in regard to the sensations of heat and expansive power.

We can compare the way Amtophul embodies masculine power to the way mermaids exist within a sea of love. When mermaids love, they do not reply solely on the feelings they possess as an individual. Rather, they are always joined to a vast expanse of love. A mermaid cannot stop loving. To stop loving would be to stop being a mermaid.

A mermaid does not experience loss or sorrow, because the love she expresses is not a function of her will or of a relationship. She simply opens up and allows the immense and incomprehensible beauty and love that is in the energy underlying all the waters of the earth to flow through her. All mermaids experience love that is everywhere and in every moment.

When I interview mermaid women, they often use the exact same words: “Love is everything and I can never stop loving.” When they love another, their feelings and energy touch and pass through another person without fear or need or greed. This is quite different than the love we normally encounter in human beings.

In a similar way, the salamanders offer to the human race a sense of power and will derived from the fire element in nature. Most people would not be comfortable with this following exercise. However, when you touch the divine in nature, whether it is feminine or masculine, it is always about the power to create.

An Exercise

Imagine far beneath the ground a sea of red, purple, and dark, ultraviolet fire. The flames rise up continuously before you, extremely hot.

Franz Bardon in chapter three of Initiation into Hermetics already has his students working with the fire element. Bardon says, “…. imagine yourself in the center of the fiery element which, in the shape of a ball, envelops the whole universe.” Imagine the sensation of heat within fire and its expanding power.

Bardon’s primary intent is for the student to develop the ability to concentrate on this sensation of heat. For Bardon, without this mastery of the fire element through concentration and practice, spiritual work is doomed to failure. Later on in another book, he details many different qualities of fire.

In this exercise, we use the image of a sea of fire. This image is metaphor, physical sensations, and feelings. In terms of metaphor, fire generates light and from light you envision the future that you wish to come into being, fashioned from the deepest longings and dreams in your heart. But the power to accomplish this depends on the expansive energy in fire.

There is a fire so pure and clear

The thing you envision draws near

My power is the perfection of desire

I do not take what I want

I create what is sought

I do not bend, twist, and nullify

I blend, fuse, and fortify

I am the strength of the sun

Dancing on the horizon

I am the song of the stars

And the will of Mars

I am faith and conviction

Beyond the knowledge of priests or prophets

What others call magic

I call energy moving freely

Manifesting your destiny

When creation arose out of nothing

I was first on the scene

Whether visible or invisible

I hold the keys

There is nothing hidden from me

From light envision the future

From fire, manifest vision using will power

A Navy Seal may take great personal pride in being on a mission. But what is important is not his personal feelings but his commitment to the mission. The martial arts contain a specific kind of ecstasy. This is from giving one hundred per cent of your being to the purpose you seek to accomplish.

This is the masculine mystery. It is not about ego or abusing power or dominating others. There is no patriarchal abuse present since this power is not derived from or found within human civilization. It is about recreating the world, even when you have to become absolutely nothing, unknown, and unappreciated and without support during the process.

In other words, when you join your consciousness to this sea of fire, you are uniting yourself to a nearly divine power hidden within nature after the manner of a high ranking salamander; this is exactly analogous to what the mermaid queens do with the element of water.

Imagine you are this entire sea of fire, intense, hot, burning, flames rising without end, the power and intensity without limitation. There is no central point, no form of your body; no image of you; nothing to indicate your consciousness is present. You are the fire itself.

Contemplation

This is a contemplative approach. Hold in my mind this or another image of fire in nature. Notice the way this image of fire affects your body, emotions, and mind.

Next visualize something you wish to accomplish. Visualize it in front of you all aspects of what you are interested in. Allow your mind to stay focused on these things without analyzing or thinking. Just hold them in your awareness with an open mind.

Now imagine the image of fire or a sea of fire in the case of Amtophul. Imagine you are this vast expanse of fire. Then do both at once. Contemplate the thing you want to make real while you also feel you are a vast expanse of fiery power. This kind of exercise evokes within oneself the elemental force of fiery energy that the salamander realm embodies. The fire illuminates, penetrates, purifies, refines, and imbues you with the fervor and exhilaration that fire embodies on an emotional level.

The masculine mysteries, at their height, create from out of nothing. They take the world as it is and envision something possible that has never existed before and then they bring that vision into being so it is concrete, real, and enduring.

The feminine mysteries, by contrast, take everything that is and unite to it in love. Because the feminine can turn within and nurture, it can reveal the deepest dreams and visions within an individual's heart. These two mysteries, the masculine and feminine, obviously only reach their perfection through each other.

Young men, like young women and like humanity in general, almost never touch these levels of creativity hidden within them. Even as mermaid empathy is hidden from the world, the masculine power in its full intensity and creativity is likewise hidden. Our religions barely hint at what is possible when it comes to genuine faith and conviction not to mention love and empathy.

All the same, our entire world civilization is electrical and fiery in nature. Our science is unfolding the mysteries of fire, electricity, and nuclear fission and fusion even though in our wills we know next to nothing about aligning our purposes that nurture and protect.

In every century there is a Julius Caesar, an Alexander the Great, a Genghis Khan or, in our age, a Napoleon, a Hitler, or a Stalin seeking to take over the entire world. But these individuals use a negative, low grade form of will power and conviction. Though their charisma is based on the level of astral fire they possess, they are all hopeless extroverts who cannot imagine changing oneself first from within in a way that leads inevitably to the transformation of the outer world.

In summary, if a man masters the actual sensation of heat with its expansiveness and intensity, then the mere presence of such fire in one’s aura leaves a deep impression on the world you are in. It is subliminal and invisible. But whether seen or unseen, the presence of this charisma is unmistakable.

To others, you appear to possess and you also act with great will, resolve, conviction, and a seemingly boundless energy as you move toward your goals. Young men should all have the chance to be initiated by their fathers into such a vision of how to live one’s life with such dynamic conviction and with access to this level of astral energy.

By contrast, all young women should be taught by their mothers a love so deep “it flows like a stream from the dawn of time to the ends of eternity,” “that never suffers loss and gives all of itself in every moment,” and that “creates a sacred space where two separate souls may unite and join as one.”

But we all have both these masculine and feminine creative powers within us. We do not need to wait until another embraces us with such love or infuses us with the power of the sun above. Through diligent practice, we can create these energies within ourselves.

Chapter 2. The Salamander Itumo—lord of lightning

Itumo's understands all aspects of electricity—its origin, development, applications, and mastery. To meditate with him is to visualize and to feel electricity within nature. This results in an understanding of the weather conditions that create electrical storms.

Itumo also possesses a calmness like a clear eye of a hurricane around which opposite charges can accumulate. And Itumo has the feeling of becoming the storm in the sky, the charge in the earth below, and the electrical flow between the two.

Evocation of Itumo

January 9, 1997. A sigil unlocks the gates between the worlds. It is a code that activates a connection. One way to use a sigil is to visualize it in front of you, contemplate what it represents, and feel the energy with which it vibrates. Then, with an open mind, allow yourself to receive the impressions which come through it.

Itumo's sigil represents an electrical charge growing stronger. The sigil is yellow and I draw it in the air in front of me. Even as I begin to draw the first of the intersecting angles in the sigil, the tip of my finger begins to tingle with an electrical sensation. The air pressure in the room seems to have increased as when your ears pop when you are riding in an airplane dropping down from a higher altitude. Off and on during this evocation, I sense an invisible electrical storm whirling about me. Itumo seems to radiate the energy of a storm the way a sailor carries with him the vastness of the sea or a nomad the desolation of a desert.

As with the other elemental beings I work with, I also enter the astral realm where Itumo dwells. As I enter his domain, he appears before me as a young man. His aura is white tinged with yellow. Sparks fly off of his hair. I sense a powerful magnetic field—the kind that exists around a horseshoe magnet five feet wide and ten feet tall. I notice also that my hand that drew the sigil feels slightly numb. It is the kind of numbness you feel when your hand falls asleep but before a prickly sensation sets in.

Itumo says, "This is what magic is for me: like lightning, it is the force moving between opposites. You take the world as it is—the earth. You take the image of what you wish to be—the future—something tenuous and without form like a storm. Then you encompass past, present, and future in your awareness. You do this in such a way that your desire for what you want becomes so strong it builds a bridge between what is and what you wish to be. Lightning is the force unleashed that crosses the gulf. It is the power to make a dream reality."

Itumo smiles in a friendly way and then says with humor, "There is something touching in the human phrase, ‘To wish upon a star’—to fix your desire upon a cold flame eternally burning so your hope can never be lost. But what if like me your entire being could become a stream of lightning? All that tension and power, all that desire is concentrated into a microsecond that feels like hours. What if in your mind you could become lightning—vibrant, radiant, and burning hotter than the sun. Is such an image so unnatural for human beings to consider?

"There are those who take a candle and enchant it with a wish so that as it burns the wish calls out for realization. There are those who coordinate their wills as a group to raise a cone of power. Their intent is to use invisible power to change the visible world. There are those who open the gates to the inner planes and command the guardians of the watch towers. They would bind the four elements to obey a higher law and order.

"There are those who pray as an entire congregation requesting divine intervention. There are those who fashion an idea so pure and clear that when it is spoken it commands a host of followers. There are leaders whose oratory conceals words of power that speak to the deepest desires and in so doing they allocate the resources of a nation to fulfill their agendas. But the magic I am speaking of fulfills your destiny. It unites the full power of nature with a vision originating within akasha. I am a mentor for those among the human race who wish to acquire this ability.

"Study with me the origin of electricity and its mastery. Become as me, an open space of sky where a storm may appear and disappear without a ripple on the surface of your serenity. And know as I know the intimacy of joining with your opposite—wild passion approaching chaos and yet emerging triumphant as an act of creation."

As Itumo speaks, there is an image in his eyes of lightning striking on the horizon—a pulsing of flashes between the earth and the sky going on not for a microsecond but without stopping. And yet for all of this electrical energy racing about him, Itumo is remarkably peaceful.

Itumo senses that I am seeing through his eyes. He says, "I am closer to the secret you conceal within yourself than any other being on earth. Oh, from others you will learn more about wisdom and love. But within me is the dream of your unknown destiny. This is why you have sought me out"

"The positive and the negative charge—the force within the shells of atoms—hear my voice when I speak. My power to command rises from who I am. Even the wind hears my call and rises to form thunderclouds or calms and is still according to my will. Fire is present even when it is invisible, unmanifest, and air cannot sense its influence.

"I can expand my aura to encompass a thunderstorm as easily as you can command your fingers to form a fist. But you want to know, don't you, how I create lightning where no electricity flows, where there is no polarity or differential in potential charge? It is very easy. I just imagine what I want and then it comes to be."

"Yes, yes, but how did you learn that?" I ask. "After all, to develop a magical will you must already have been aware of the magic within you. Where did you start? What was your beginning?"

Itumo replies, "There was a time long ago when I was small and insignificant. Causing lightning to strike was beyond my ability. I was so weak I could not cause a spark to leap. Neither atoms nor molecules would listen when I spoke. The attraction they felt for each other was beyond my perception.

"Yet even then I was still what I am now—an intelligence with the will to master electricity. My commission was also the same as now: to forge paths where none exist between mind, matter, and spirit. I conceal the mystery of how to gather strength in silence until the power that is unleashed is great enough to cross every gulf so the desires of the heart can be fulfilled. The silence that cloaks my will is the same silence woven into the sky that holds the stars within a vast embrace of stillness."

"Then did you develop your power on your own?" I ask.

Itumo replies, "There are times when you must act alone for there are no guides provided."

Itumo and I just stare into each other's eyes measuring the depths and how we have explored silence in our separate ways. Itumo says, "Because something is simple it does not mean it is easy. I am saying you already know how to enter a place of silence where the only thing that exists is your vision and the power of your own imagination."

"Yes," I reply with a slow, questioning intonation, "but what is that precisely?"

Accepting my challenge, Itumo says, "Come with me." He takes me back in time to when his mind had no power other than the ability to observe. He says, "Even in my mind at that time I could see quite clearly that everything has an electronic oscillation. The leaf on this tree—" Itumo places my hand with his on the leaf of an oak tree.

Itumo goes on, "You can feel, can't you, the minerals in the soil beneath the tree vibrating within the leaf. You can feel the process of photosynthesis—the leaf energized by the sun with a riotous enthusiasm to transform light into chemistry. You can feel the carbon and the oxygen being realigned with more zeal and determination than a production line."

And then Itumo laughs at me knowing he can read my secrets. He says, "And look at this. We each feel in our own way how the liquids within the leaf animate the tree. The tree is nourishing, giving, yielding, and receptive. But for you, touching the tree is like holding the hand of a woman. The tree is a living being and responds to your thoughts. You are like the elves of old who sought to teach the trees to speak."

Itumo pauses and then says, "You awaken the tree and imbue it with personality so she can share with you her secrets."

Itumo searches my memory looking for something. He says, "You and I have had similar beginnings. We have both stood in the same place when we first gazed into the empty void of spirit. For you, this occurred during the loneliest moment in your life. It was not derived from the cold numbness of despair or the sorrow of being an outcast. It occurred when you realized that the one you loved the most was gone from your life forever.

"This is a solitude where even fear and terror have no significance. This is why we are so close. We share this willingness to keep the heart open when nothing reflects who we are. In this moment when you knew all that you loved was lost you took the darkness and studied it. You searched it for its secrets and turned it into a path of light to honor the beauty that touched your life."

January 12, 1997. This time as I draw Itumo's sigil, I feel the air pressure has been increased by several atmospheres. As if to accentuate this mood and make it more electrical, Itumo appears suddenly. He says, "It is easy for you to visualize my sigil and to use its energy to connect to me. But let me tell you about this sigil from my point of view: I am a hurricane whirling invisible and unseen. I am a mountain of electricity. I am the will of spirit when it is perfected and ready to act—nothing can hold me back.

"The flashes of light seen from over the horizon and the lightning strike so near it shatters your windows and clasps you with a jolt of fear—I am not insubstantial. I exist to remind you of who you are—will and might strong enough to accomplish any mission."

Itumo offers me his left hand to hold so I can better understand what he means. At the touch, I travel with him and visit one by one various thunderstorms occurring around the earth. I see high cumulus clouds drifting like an armada of ships over the jungle, the savannah, the mountain pass, the ocean, the forests, the deserts, and river basins. And then he shows me that he can perceive all these storms in the same moment and that he monitors them continually.

Itumo says, "Still, you do not see it. You are looking on the outer form of nature and missing the spirit that dwells within it. Join your mind with mine."

In my mind, I assume Itumo's form and body in order to see through his eyes and dream his dreams along with him. And here I find the vision which is within his heart. I see a vast thunderstorm the size of the sky descending from outer space. The clouds are blue and black in color and outlined in dazzling white.

Itumo says, "The power within all the thunderstorms of the earth is but a dim reflection and faint image of what I seek. I gaze into the heart of the Divine and it speaks to me through my own experience. This storm you see—enter it with me."

In an instant we are within the raging storm that seems in this moment far more than a vision within his mind. Itumo asks, "Do you see what is here?"

I sense an intelligence, a vastness without definition and one of the original powers of creation. It is like an archangel but one whose power and majesty are so great no prophet has been willing to speak its name or share it with the human race. There are spirits of inspiration who watch over and guide mankind. But this presence is more cosmic. Its commission encompasses many evolutions in addition to the human. I say this because this degree of potency has never appeared in human history or left a trace of its presence in the physical world.

Itumo says, "What I seek is this—the power to create without limit. But this power has no feeling of force or will within it. It is nothing else than a sea of ecstasy. It is as refreshing as a gentle rain. It is the smell of flowers blossoming. It is beauty revealing itself as innocence and, at the same time, as the embodiment of all power and authority.

"But the nature and the heart of this storm resist my mind's probe. This is as far within it as I am able to go. I am not as you. I cannot dissolve myself into the light so that nothing remains of my consciousness but pure spirit. Therefore, since you have come willingly this far with me, continue on now. Proceed, if you will, and then return and tell me what you have found."

Itumo stands back and waits for me to act. As I enter Itumo's vision of a divine thunderstorm, I am transported beyond the sphere of the earth and into that of Uranus. The elemental kings and queens of the elements are bound to the energy field of the earth. Their experience is limited to nature as it exists on our planet. But the mind of a human being is not so restricted. We are free to project our awareness into any spiritual dimension.

A spirit of Uranus speaks with me from out of the thunderstorm within Itumo's vision: "When the human race is ready, it shall receive our magical keys to wisdom—the ability to create from out of nothing, to see with the eyes of eternity, and to dream new worlds into being such that nothing can prevent them from manifesting—because they arise from love overflowing from the heart.

"The cycles of time, the stages of history, and ancient and modern civilizations—to each is granted a portion of our wisdom and such treasures as they have the will to find. But those who enter this temple of light and who taste the bliss in this air are welcomed to create without restriction or any limitation.

"There are no barriers to wisdom here. For us, imagination is a sacred art for sharing love and power in all its aspects. The divine majesty is known by its creativity. The delight that you perceive and breathe now within our domain is the fusion of the light from the constellations, the sun, the moon, and the stars—here they are all joined.

"Those who share love within this sphere celebrate the beauty of creation. Even now we wait for humanity to gather its strength, to open the gates, and to celebrate with us the sacred art of love. Master the light in the full spectrum of its vibrations, visible and invisible, and then you shall become this gate."

When I return to tell Itumo my experience, he says, "Then the vision that has been in my heart for ages speaks of my longing for what shall be—power, freedom, and love are finally united as one within this dream."

January 13, 1997. As I focus on Itumo, I notice again his inner stillness. He holds in his mind the tension between opposites—between the knowledge of nature and divine illumination, between desire and satisfaction, between dream and reality, between electric and magnetic forces, and between the masculine and the feminine.

He says to me, "Within my mind, I can slow time so lightning is nearly frozen and the blast a ripple slowly moving. The lightning is then a pulse within my spine. My consciousness is in the cloud, the earth, and the charge moving between them.

"Even when I was nothing I knew ecstasy such as this existed for me to find. Even when I was unknown and without influence, I knew I would master this divine gift. Though I stood in front of an abyss, I knew I would find a path across it. But you do not need my keys to nature's mysteries to learn this. Each moment, each heartbeat, and each breath conceals the entire power of a thunderstorm within it. Passion encompasses the forces of nature, human experience, and divine illumination. I taste this passion. It is the wine I sip."

March 3, 1997. As I focus on Itumo's aura, I notice that for him the thunderstorm begins with the sea as invisible shrouds of mist rise from its surface. It begins with water evaporating from the leaves of trees. For Itumo, the moisture in the air is like an ocean of currents and tides taking shape, form, and weight in the rolling waves of clouds. And within the cloud is a constant pulse and whirlwind of electrical charges. They are engaged in furious play like children on a playground running every which way forming groups and then dispersing with no obvious pattern.

I ask Itumo, "Tell me how you can be so open and receptive? Even though the fabric of your soul is composed of fire and electricity, you are perceptive with water."

Itumo replies, "As a magnifying glass focuses the light of the sun until it is so hot fire ignites, tiny drops of water condense electrical power until lightning comes and takes the charge away. I am not the water. I am the electricity within the water as a man is within and united to a woman when he makes love. The cloud is already an electrical storm. But I guide the currents moving within it and amplify the charge. The thunderstorm with its wild rage and turbulent winds is an ideal place to search for a love that is at the core of power."

"When you enter akasha, your aura blends and then vibrates with the source of all that exists. Human beings have this amazing gift. From time to time I witness it blossom like a century plant in the wilderness or the seed of a redwood tree that only sprouts after a forest fire. But when you discuss akasha, you miss something I hold dear and also honor. The fifth element empowers me to seek and to dream. It is the song of my being and all I would be: bliss united with wonder expressed as gentleness revealing absolute power."

March 11, 1997. In the physical world, Itumo's presence is an awareness of lightning like a thread joining the sky and the earth. There is no reference to human experience. I sit imagining lightning and the polarity of opposite electrical charges building and then releasing over and over again. Several things come to mind as I do this.

First I hold out my hands in front of me so my palms face each other. Then I associate with one hand the electrical charge of the cloud. In the other hand, I associate the opposite electrical charge of the earth. Since I have spent some time projecting my mind into thunderstorms, it is fairly easy to transfer these sensations directly into my hands.

Next I feel the opposite electrical charges building to a peak and then releasing. This feels like a tiny flash of energy streaking between my two palms similar to a thunderstorm emitting lightning. As an exercise, the idea is to feel the hands develop a charge of energy and then to notice the distinct sensations that occur as energy moves between them. At the same time as you do this you also imagine an actual thunderstorm drifting over the earth. You correlate the electricity in the thunderstorm with the electrical polarity in your two hands. If you have a vivid imagination, you might even feel an occasional sharp sensation as when you walk across a rug and then a spark jumps between a piece of metal and your finger.

Itumo mentions that one of the psychological aspects of lightning is that it holds your attention. If, for example, you want to alter your behavior or emotional state in some way, you can use this exercise. As you contemplate an actual thunderstorm and imagine that lightning in a small way is passing between your palms, you concentrate into this sensation the picture of how you want things to be.

The sensations within the electricity and the polarity of opposites uniting are so strong they animate your picture and bring it to life. This is often what is needed to make changes: the feminine receptivity—the acceptance of what is—and the power of penetrating, masculine energy—the will that alters reality—these two in complete cooperation and union.

This combination of opposites is used by successful individuals. They assume a dynamic stance by exerting their conviction and saying, "This is what I am going to accomplish." And they also remain receptive and open. They are attentive to each step they must take and focus on every problem that arises until it is mastered.

They are commanding but also sensitive and nurturing. Because their faith lacks insecurity or doubt, they can be detached while investigating each problem from several angles at once. They do not entrap themselves by buying into a narrow-minded or distorted points of view. And because they believe in the value of what they are doing, they remain committed. They are tenacious and unyielding when it comes to mastering the four elements within themselves and within nature.

March 12, 1997. Again I notice that being in Itumo's presence is like being within a hydro-electric plant surrounded by turbines spinning within magnetic fields generating electricity. After hurricane Iniki hit the island of Kauai, the island's electrical power plant needed an outside source of electricity in order to restart. So they brought in a submarine with its nuclear power plant to jump start the plant on shore. Itumo has that feeling about him—immense power held in reserve until it is ready to be unleashed for a specific purpose.

When I join my mind to Itumo's, this is the poem that arises:

Do you know what it is like when lightning strikes?

In an instant the earth and the sky unite:

The tree, the flowing stream, the hilltop, the rock—

Their hearts burst so that the thirst of the cloud for the earth

Might be satisfied.

Do you know what it is like inside a thunderstorm?

A sea of rain, froth of mist, and vapors churning

Electricity building

Passions locked in a frenzy, intensifying,

Power exalting in strength and beauty

Uncoiling within itself

Until, unable to be contained,

Ecstasy takes flight upon the wings of freedom.

Do you know what it is like to explode

From the core of your being—

To be a flame of white light

Reaching down from the sky

And up from the earth

And to celebrate this art within your heart?

I will tell you:

It is bliss unafraid of emptiness

It is love unafraid of loss

It is desire burning so hot

It annihilates the shadows within the lover's heart.

Wherever there is an abyss, a chasm, or a gulf

Within nature, between one heart and another,

Or separating mankind from the divine—

My joy and delight will suffice

To pierce and shatter the darkness of any night

So you may find the path across.

Chapter 3. The Salamander Pyrhum—perhaps the greatest of all salamanders

Pyrhum is a powerful salamander, extremely dynamic, and quite difficult to engage in conversation. Within the sphere of the element of fire, Pyrhum has the rank of a mighty sovereign with innumerable fire spirits under his control. Pyrhum can teach about every aspect of fire as it exists within nature or as it relates to magical practices.

If a supernatural being exists within that sea of flames at the center of the earth and if it had sufficient desire, after a billion years or so, it might come to identify its own consciousness with that abyss of fire. And if it refined its will and expanded its power so it could command the depths, the currents, the tides, and the heat within that sea, then we would be speaking precisely of the salamander named Pyrhum.

Pyrhum is like a man in appearance, but the air around him is blurred as if heat distorts the image of his body or as if his aura is pulsating with its own internal light. Pyrhum's eyes are like doorways through which can be seen the fires burning inside the earth. His voice, when he speaks, is grating and impatient. It was like the voice of Alexander the Great shouting to his troops, "This is how to fight," as he plunges into the enemy line with his sword drawn. And there is a resonance in his voice, something altogether subterranean and plutonic, like the deep, dim rumbling of the earth's mantle as it splits and rubs against the edge of a continent.

Now most magicians engaged in an evocation of a salamander like Pyrhum might find it scary the way the outer edge of Pyrhum's aura meets the cooler air in the room. There is a physical sensation of discomfort. It is like the rapid increase in heat when you get into a car that has been baking too long in the sun or you enter a sauna that almost shoves you back through the door because its vapors are too hot to endure.

And for some there is a brief moment of terror that lingers at the edge of your thoughts—a pressure on your chest, the blood rushing to your head, and an instinctual battle of wills—you feel almost like you are wrapped about by a boa constrictor timing the pulse of its contractions so they synchronize to the beat of your heart.

It takes an effort to remain calm and avoid becoming paralyzed. But, on the other hand, for someone trained in the martial arts, this is just the kind of fire you want under your control. It is the type of power you would like to exert should someone try to mug you in an alley or a wild dog try to attack you in the woods.

I ask Pyrhum, “What do you suggest for how a human being can generate an energy field of fire in a safe way?”

Pyrhum replies, “Imagine you are in a place that is very hot. But it should not be unbearably hot. Rather, learn to distinguish between what is uncomfortable and what is too much. And now, within this vivid image created by your mind to which your body begins to respond, learn to relax so every muscle fiber and nerve ending are free of tension. Then slowly increase the intensity of the heat sensation with which you concentrate. But do not be impatient. Learn to enjoy every physiological sensation and mental quality that heat generates. And savor the imagery—within it is the expansion of your will and the skill that leads to mastery over your spirit."

The story goes of how long ago a mage in Atlantis once evoked Pyrhum. Mages then were sometimes very powerful, having far more command over forces of nature than are typical in our civilization. One such mage summoned Pyrhum to appear before him.

Pyrhum appeared before him and said, “Who bids me enter this place that is alien to my race?" Pyrhum spoke with a haughty yet cool and melodic voice. He was genuinely curious as to who might attempt to measure his power and probe the depths of his will.

The mage answered, “I have called you so that I might comprehend the power you bind with your mind and understand the force behind your will. I will not dwell upon this planet without tasting its beauty and opening my heart to its mystery. In you the secret wisdom of fire and light burn primordial and bright." When it comes to melodic, enchanting, and commanding, the voice of the mage could match the voice of any created being.

It was not the words he spoke, however, that impressed Pyrhum. The salamander had been flattered before. No, it is different with spiritual beings than with humans. When their auras touch they can tell automatically who is superior and whose power rises from greater depths. Pyrhum felt the aura of the mage break upon his own like a set of waves from a distant storm on a sea he had never seen before. The mind of the mage was like the rippling edge of a whirlpool whose currents are so strong they have begun to reach out and absorb the fire within the heart of stars.

Pyrhum went on, “Less than a handful of mortals have ever walked by my side and survived. And only one or two were willing like you to enter the domain where I reign without having to disguise their fear and trembling. I oversee all fire on earth and I care not much for your race. I am not arrogant. I just have no respect for human beings because they have not sought to discover the power hidden in their hearts. They think power is external to the self, that it is found in the ability to bind matter or subject other living beings to their will.

“Those who sojourn into my domain are enamored with faith—they want something for nothing without offering anything in exchange. They attempt to enchant me by pronouncing fearsome and terrible names of gods, goddesses, and deities from various religions. What nonsense! Do they think they can badger me when I can command a sea of magma to stretch out its hand in a strand rising two thousand miles until it punctures the surface of the world and forms mountains three miles tall? These magicians cannot even command their own body to pump blood to the part of their heart muscle that is suffocating because an artery is clogged.

"Do they expect me to get down on my knees and obey their command? They vainly imagine they are united with God as they babble on raising their voices higher in pitch till it breaks into a shriek. They think by speaking the words of God or by pronouncing His name that somehow their voice is magically transformed into His Voice or their authority into His own. Wizards are often more entertaining than jesters or clowns.

"If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can sense all the seas, lakes, and streams of magma that exist within the earth. Oh, I have tried to share my wonder and the inferno of my exuberance with those who dwell on the surface of the world. But it is useless. Their minds are too narrow. Their hearts are too closed.

“They see the stars at night. The feel the heat of the sun by day. They melt metal with their fires and cook meat on the hearth but they are afraid of the fire within the earth. It is too close, too fierce. They push it out of their minds. They do not allow their feet to reach down like the roots of trees into the silence and the depths lest they discover in the darkness beneath them a passion greater than they can imagine.

“The great bards will not speak of me in a song lest they risk being drowned in an abyss without entrance or exist. And so even at night when your race falls asleep I am unable to appear in your dreams. Even the tongues of flame with which dragons speak in your fairy tales and myths neither hint at nor reveal a trace of my existence. I dwell within a realm well-hidden beyond human reach or belief.”

When Pyrhum was done with his harangue, he quietly gazed into the mage's eyes and then spoke with a casual, familiar voice, yet curt and sharp, like one old drinking buddy, slightly impatient, saying to another, "Tell me what you want."

The mage replied, "Share with me the essence of your being and this also—the secret treasure hidden within fire at the center of the earth."

Pyrhum replied, "What mortal could comprehend who I am or what mind fathom my mystery? Listen and watch carefully."

As Pyrhum spoke, the mage did not hold himself at a distance from the salamander. He attuned his mind to Pyrhum's and he began to think Pyrhum's thoughts and see through Pyrhum's eyes. He began to feel the different layers of force wrapped around the core of Pyrhum's will. And he began to sense the countless ages that have shaped Pyrhum's outlook.

Pyrhum said, “The essence of my being is fire turning within and upon itself, becoming hotter, denser, more intense, growing in power, expanding and reaching out, striving to cross every boundary, seeking to create a flame more refined and pure, more full of might than any other that exists.

“Shifting, twisting, pulsating, and throbbing with an implacable hunger, burning with an unquenchable thirst, I have mastered fires as old as the earth. They contain powers so ancient no god or goddess has ever sought to explore or command them.

"The ancient domes of flame where I dwell and the seas of fire I watch over thrust up mountains and move continents. Yet this fire within the earth also exists to forge the will of those who follow the path of spirit. Those who would explore beyond this planet and taste the mysteries of the cosmos can first sojourn here, take nourishment, and be replenished by the powers that have shaped the earth before continuing on their journey."

As the salamander spoke, the mage saw the vast expanses of fire and heat within the earth as Pyrhum perceived them—as part of his own body—part of his breath and the fabric and fibers of his being. Fire, for a salamander, is a house made out of delight. A sea of magma and molten rock, crushed and pressed upon by gravity and the mantle of the earth—it is a safe haven, a paradise for the spirit that wishes to refine and purify itself.

Here, scorched gasses, hungry for freedom, will one day crack mountains in two as they rise up through great vents and explode. When they finally escape through the mouth of a caldera, they will ascend in clouds of ash fifty thousand feet and enter the jet stream circling the earth.

“I tell you that fire, in its essence, is neither selfish, jealous, nor self-possessed. And the dream of destruction is not found within it. Quite the contrary. Fire testifies to the power of spirit to give birth to light, to create without limit, and to make the world beautiful—this is the source of its inspiration and the will it conceals within.

"There is a wonder so great, a bliss so magnificent, and a love so mysterious that the physical universe has been created to cloak and shroud its existence. Were we to enter this gate too soon we would find ourselves consumed by a presence and a light unimaginably bright. Nonetheless, I am free to speak of what I have witnessed—the secret treasure hidden in the core of the earth is a song which resonates in harmony with the universe.

"For each of us there comes a time when we are invited to give breath and voice to this song: When all fear is gone; when power means nothing at all—merely a cloak we put on or take off like the mantle a king wears who has no cares of his own, no desire for a throne. We are ready when our will has tested itself by striving to cross every boundary separating nature and spirit.

"And when the joy within us is so great we are ready to explode—because we discover within our hearts there is no separation or limitation or enclosure which can contain or shape who we are. Then this song is free to sound its cords within us. And we, in turn, become part of the power unfolding the universe."

And then Pyrhum sings this song in homage to that note in the bardic language which is named "SH"—and which is the original source of all fire in the universe: With the voice of a tenor—haunting, passionate, melodic, and incredibly solitary—he sings:

I hear this song

It has been with me all along

It calls out my name

I burn with its flames

My hunger and this light are the same:

In me you find the place

Where matter and spirit embrace

I annihilate darkness, fear, and hate

I am the power to take fate

And reshape the world even as the shadows of night

Dissolve at the touch of the first light.

January 3, 1997. I start my meditation in the usual way by drawing Pyrhum's sigil in the air. Then I imagine a space as vast as the sky. Next, I visualize a red flame filling this entire space with fire and heat.

I call to Pyrhum and, because of our previous association, he immediately appears. From meditating on his aura, it is clear to me that one of his primary interests is alchemical fire—it refines and generates the highest health and vitality through its purifying influence. I ask Pyrhum, "How did you become interested in this fire that burns without consuming?"

Pyrhum replies, "It is easy for me to notice the way different substances burn. According to the pressure and the expansive or explosive power, each fire has its own intensity and qualities."

At this point, Pyrhum shows me how he can produce at will many different kinds of fire between the palms of his hands.

"These are the fires which exist within the earth," he says. "When you dwell within fire, you do not look at it as a detached observer. You perceive the fire as though it is burning within yourself. You become sensitive to the hunger within it—fire's strength is it intensity and its ferocious, expanding power. But fire's weakness is that it needs fuel. It devours and craves that which enables it to exist. And yet it has other limitations besides fuel. It is controlled by the density and gravity of its environment.

"Fire, like will, attempts to overcome whatever constrains it. Through relentless probing and ceaseless discovery, there came a time when I asked myself, 'What would it be like to be free? What if fire's eternal hunger were gratified completely? And what would it be if fire became autonomous and independent, free of the need for fuel, free of the desire to control, and free of gravity and density?'

"Or, to put it more simply, 'What kind of will envisions what it would create and then brings it into manifestation so that all of its desires are accomplished?' These questions nature poses to anyone who probes its secrets."

Pyrhum says, "The questions I asked are obvious. But, in my experience, the one who would create must enter an abyss if he wishes to have absolute power over time, space, and matter. There is a realm of nothingness in which you must dwell where even the fire and light within nature provide no illumination.

"My questions require I pass through this gate. The answers are not forged from intellect and language. They arise from the heart. They must be part of your breath, flow in your blood, and synchronize with your heartbeat. No metaphor, image, or analogy can offer a glimpse because this is the place where thoughts and images are born and where will recreates itself.

"The fire that burns without consuming is united with its opposite. It embraces all that its opposite is without casting a shadow or in any way binding or constraining it. In this process, it loses none of its clarity—it neither flickers, grows dim, nor is it absorbed. Yet it absorbs all experience into its meditation.

"Such is the nature of consciousness. Its search is relentless as it uncovers and discovers. The great theme of life is not sacrifice to appease what cannot be seen. The stream of life that flows through nature, soul, and spirit follows the theme of separation and reunion. Spirit places the unknown within us. And then it sets before us the universe so we may discover who we are."

Pyhrhums concludes, "For me, fire is pleasure and you have barely begun to enjoy it. Practice meditating within this flame I give you that burns so hot and yet is pure and relaxing. Consider this gift a token of my respect for you even as you honor me by searching out the secrets of my heart."

I bid Pyrhum farewell as he returns to his own realm and I focus my mind again on my room. Though I close the gates separating our two worlds, Pyrhum is no more distant than a thought that envisions what it wants and then fashions a path to take hold of it.

Chapter 4. The Salamander Tapheth—a study of eight images of fire

Tapheth says to me, "I can see from your aura that every fiber of your being hungers and thirsts for the power to create something from out of nothing and to celebrate the birth of light that shines forever. In this way, you are like me. There is no end to your curiosity or your tenacity in searching out the mystery of matter and energy transforming.

"The power to purify, to heal, to rejuvenate, and to transform are part of this art. There is a fire that takes matter and refines it so that its substance and outer form shine with its inner spirit. This fire is so original and commanding it makes all things new by the quality of its light and by the intensity of the spirit it exudes—this I pursue the same as you."

Studying Tapheth's aura, I can sense how he operates. He observes, investigates, and contemplates every kind of fire. He studies the processes in chemistry—how bonds form and dissolve, how substances change and reunite, and the part heat plays as a catalyst. He pursues this theme through the entire kingdom of nature—

Magma in the earth, volcanoes exploding, the charge of electrons in lightning, the release of heat in water evaporating, trees capturing light in photosynthesis, fires burning from carbon and oxygen, animals digesting food, gathering their strength, and their desire to merge and to unite to preserve their life.

Tapheth goes on, "Sooner or later you move from the chemistry of molecules and the urges of life to the forces of fission, fusion, and radiation where the energy contained in the nuclear bonds is more potent and intense. But in all of these processes great or small, chemical or subatomic, living or inorganic, wherever you begin you arrive at one place in the end—at the edge of form is emptiness and within the emptiness beyond even the spectrum of visible and invisible light is the power of spirit to ordain and to command what shall be. This will or divine creativity is the secret mystery hidden in the heart of fire.

"This power that reigns supreme, this will of absolute sovereignty cloaks itself and hides its treasures in matter offering boundless energy to those who master its nature. This same essence, hidden in the hearts of human beings, is the ability to take a dream and turn it into reality. The darkest desire, when thoroughly refined, reveals a light that is divine and a vision that commands the cycles of time. This process requires a fire that burns without destroying and whose essence is healing and transforming."

Meditation, Evocation, and Transpersonal Psychology.

The following meditations do not require any contact with Tapheth or other salamanders. It can be pursued using only your concentration and imagination. In this case, you are never outside the framework of your own mind. As a consequence, you can proceed in a safe manner and gain experience with what it is like to be a salamander or to explore the nature of fire within yourself.

In transpersonal or spiritual psychology, different images of fire are symbols of archetypal aspects of human personality. The following steps are a metaphysical exploration of human will and the powers of creation. Whether we are magicians or seek only to know ourselves better, we can proceed and reproduce within ourselves—our own microcosms—the energies and powers in the larger world surrounding us—the macrocosm.

Begin by studying fire in the external world. Observe it, concentrate on it, and contemplate its nature. Imaginatively explore and attempt to reproduce in yourself fire's intensity and expansive power. Consider the ability of fire to move quickly and also interact chemically to dissolve all barriers and to transform whatever it contacts.

Scientists are active in this way. They study and try to master the powers of fire and they pursue every conceivable application. In the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, some of the Dalai Lama's disciples can increase their body temperature 17 degrees at will. You can measure this. Here again we are after the psychological and spiritual development of will.

Tapheth has a temperament that embodies determination and implacable will. He exudes an intense, unyielding, and impersonal force. These qualities can also be found in us. But since a large part of human development involves socialization and learning to cooperate with others in a harmonious way, a pure fiery temperament in human beings can be a disaster in terms of the problems it creates.

For this reason, it is wise to include in this first step an accounting of how you have developed and exercised your will power during your life. Consider your strengths of character and the lessons you have learned. Consider your successes in reaching for and achieving your goals.

Review your weaknesses in this area. Note any ways in which you have been hurt by or have in turn injured others. What have been the psychological and spiritual costs to you and to others for your actions and your success? What spiritual debts have you left unpaid? In net, have you given to others as much as you have received or are you using the sacrifices others have made in a selfish way?

Let us focus on specific kinds of fires that exist in nature and discover the feelings that underlie them. To pursue this, I will review briefly a sequence of eight kinds of fire. Some individuals will be uncomfortable with these images of fire. This is fine. There is no need for anyone to engage in meditations that do not increase personal harmony and feelings of well-being.

On the other hand, it is important that we do not miss the opportunity to experience both the beauty and the power in the world around us. Since my purpose is to indicate something about the nature of Tapheth, it is only natural that I present the psychic domain and the range over which his consciousness roams.

The human race seeks to master every aspect of the world around us. A great salamander is the same. He seeks to master every aspect of fire that exists on earth. These eight kinds of fire are a small part of what Tapheth has studied in depth.

In brief, fire can be treated both as a scientific study and as a symbol. A symbol engages and stimulates our imagination granting us new insight. A good symbol goes on giving because it is inspiring no matter how many times we return and try to understand it.

Using science we can ask questions about different kinds of fire. What is its source? How does it move and expand? What fuel does it draw upon to sustain itself? How is it contained? And what are its constructive as well as its destructive effects?

As a symbol, we can ask similar questions. Except now we are approaching fire in terms of human will and power. How do you develop will in an individual? What does that look and feel like? What are the various kinds of will power we need to succeed in life? What are the kinds of power that human beings have used in the past when they have shaped history?

Contemplation unites science and a study of energy, human nature and the powers of salamanders. You can contemplate a cinder cone, visualizing it in front of you with a clear mind free of distraction. As you do so, the rational mind can review all it knows about cinder cones.

And yet something else is occurring. There is a vitality associated with the cinder cone—your body may feel warmer and more radiant. And there is a feeling, an emotion as well. This feeling contains a sense of an expanding power, a raw exuberance, and exhilaration. Contemplating an image of fire in nature brings about a change in ourselves and this is what we are after.

1) A Forest Fire. Start with something familiar. Visualize a fire in a fire place, a bonfire, or even a candle. Then visualize a forest fire as if you are right there. Become its inner essence and the energy underlying its outer manifestation: a ferocity and devouring hunger expanding with wild rage seizing whatever it needs to grow stronger. It is a conflagration but also it is like a passion that has waited a long time to find expression. It satiates itself in wild abandon celebrating its new found freedom and then it is gone.

The seeds of red wood trees only germinate after such conflagrations. The seeds require this heat to break down their shells and begin the process of germination.

We see the energy of forest fires sometimes in soccer championships when the crowds are wild. The crowds shout, yell, and are sometimes violent. We see it in the actions of a mob or at times at a meeting where someone vents pure emotional rage. We see it in a pack of wild dogs attacking their prey. This image of fire in nature is similar to emotional energy.

The energy underlying a forest fire is like a vacuum that gains power the more it can grasp the fuel available at its edge—the process of wood changing into fire, smoke, heat, and light are but side effects. Underneath a forest fire is the desire to exist, to persist, and to grow stronger though destruction is a major effect.

The wood fire in your fireplace that is cozy and romantic has a glimmer of this strength. A larger, outdoor bonfire is barely strong enough to reflect its presence. Even when a house is on fire and the rooms become hot enough so that furniture, carpets, and couches simultaneously explode into flames, the power we seek has still not awakened.

During a Rose Bowl game or world soccer championship, the crowd is riotous with an enthusiasm seeking satisfaction. One time when I was in college during a basketball playoff, the game went into overtime and sudden death—whichever team scored first would win. Four of us raced in a car over to the basketball court so we could yell, shout, and jump up and down with everyone else. The emotions were contagious. The crowd was a cataclysm of fiery energy.

My track coach in high school was a former Marine captain. He had just won the state championship the previous year even though his team had none of the best athletes in the state. But his emotions had this energy—a forest fire under his control. Occasionally, you could see it in his body language, in his voice, and his face. There was a violent, consuming passion burning inside of him. His gift was that he could transmit some of this fire to others under the right conditions.

Once when I was pole vaulting I was attempting to match the high school record. But I was on my last try of three jumps. He yelled my name from across the field as I was on my way up. His voice spoke directly to my adrenal glands bypassing my conscious mind. My body responded and I sailed over the height. But he did not always know what he was doing. The fire within him had its own will. It would come out when it saw an opportunity to express itself and make its influence felt.

Some individuals have anger like this. They are psychic wild fires. When they are angry, others' aura explode with raw emotion because of the intensity they emit. They will deny their own power by saying they were provoked or that they overreacted because they were so concerned about defending someone else.

But if you carefully observe their behavior they act with calm calculation. They unleash a nearly hysterical anger to accomplish a specific result—to haze and dominate those around them. Because most individuals cannot name this power when it appears and are unfamiliar with its effects, these negative individuals often go unchecked.

Forest fire energy is cultivated by some cults, evangelists, and also in some sales' seminars. They use a variety of techniques to overcome the group members' individual identities. Their purpose in doing so is to develop a dynamic enthusiasm and unity in the group. When this is done well and with discipline, power is sustained from within. The drawback to this approach is that, like a forest fire, it has to consume new sources of fuel. Enthusiasm depends on recruiting new members, converting others, or simply tricking others into buying their products. Such activity is forceful but it does not come from the heart.

In summary, contemplate the positive and negative versions of the emotions associated with forest fires. There is the kind of charisma that can lead many people in a positive direction. And then there is the darker, less pure motivation that plays upon the fear and greed in others to sustain its momentum.

In the positive version, you feel charged up and motivated to undertake new beginnings. Old, brittle, and dry thoughts and feelings are discarded. In the negative versions there is a vacuum striving for power—someone draws on the dark side of emotions, treating everything around as fuel to sustain his life and feed his ambition.

2) Coal Fires. Coal is formed from ancient forests. A coal fire is like a miniature forest fire refined and distilled. For example, a coal fire in a steam engine is not wild and volatile. Its intensity is steady and its power is easy to control.

An individual who enjoys hard work is like a coal fire in your fireplace on a cold, winter's night. The fire provides heat and light. It is hot and it endures. Similarly, an individual with this energy is fully responsible for and in charge of his life.

Some individuals drink a cup of coffee in the morning to get the fire within their bodies burning. But if you do something you really enjoy, such as start a vacation you have been planning for a long time, you may not need the coffee. Your enthusiasm is enough to get you going.

However, to see the full force of a coal fire as in a steam engine or a large furnace beneath a building, you have to look a little further. You can run into this emotion of fire in the upper management of industry, say an Iacocca who leads his company out of ruin to recovery. You can see it in a great coach who through constant discipline, attentiveness, and force of will consistently motivates his team to reach their best performance.

To put it another way, the essence of this fire is like the tension in the muscles of a world class athlete. Performance is at a peak. The intensity is complete. It is where it needs to be to accomplish a mission.

Coal has become very important in the last few centuries. It helped start the industrial revolution. Take a few moments to contrast forest and wood fires and the uses to which we have put coal. Recall and visualize the steam engines and factories in which coal was once so important.

Imagine the many places around the world and the many men who gave their lives to mine coal from the earth. And imagine the ancient forests whose trees became the coal we have mined. Imagine a wood fire and then a coal fire in a fireplace in front of you when winter is at its height. When we deal with fire we are always working with power. Yet it is just as important to work with these energies within a relaxed mind. Become familiar and comfortable with these powers that exist in the world around us. They are also part of ourselves.

3) Coke. Our next image is of a coke fire used, for example, to melt steel in a foundry. Coke is a hard, grayish substance made from soft coal heated in an airtight oven. It is usually made from pulverized or powered coal. It is 87 to 89 per cent carbon, hard, and porous. It produces intense, smokeless heat upon burning.

If you start with bituminous coal, for example, you have to bake out the tar, oil, ammonia, and gases. The temperatures in the open hearth furnace used in this process may reach 3000 degrees F. The coke then becomes valuable in smelting (melting) iron ore.

When coke is placed in a blast furnace, the air is heated to about 1600 degrees F and then blown in to burn the coke. The coke gives off intense heat and large quantities of carbon monoxide gas. The gas combines with the oxygen in the iron ore and passes off as carbon dioxide, leaving molten iron metal that collects in the bottom of the blast furnace.

This kind of fire is very special. It is just the sort of thing you need to get an industrial society really rolling. In other physical applications, coke is used to separate oil into its liquid and gaseous components. The equivalent of coke in psychological terms or on the astral plane is single-minded determination.

On the down side, this is the kind of fiery will you see in a dictator who ruthlessly exploits his country. He is shrewd enough to produce a highly trained secret police force and to use advanced mind control techniques. On the positive side, this fire is like a brilliant scientist whose intensity of concentration burns away every obstacle preventing him from discovering the knowledge he seeks.

A very intense fire is needed to accomplish certain purposes. In a blast furnace, a lot of factors are combined to increase the heat coke produces. Similarly, there are certain times in life when we need to concentrate and dedicate our wills to accomplish the purpose we are pursuing. We need an intensity of will which is already purified like coke and that burns without by-products or smoke. It needs to be free of contamination from misplaced emotions or out of control passions. In this case, we are at a level of dedication where we can no longer afford the luxury of indulging ourselves.

In summary, coke is coal heated in a confined, air tight space so it is freed of its impurities. This is like taking desire and refining it until all that remains is pure dedication. Then you add to the coke superheated air. This air is like a powerful level of concentration and a highly refined mind. Then you get the power that can shape the materials or provide the motivation needed to build a new society.

Try visualizing coke as it is used to melt and refine iron in a steel foundry. Notice the controlled and successful application of power and all that it accomplishes. Then consider such fire within yourself. Visualize clearly the power that can refine and transform blind desire into the achievements of a great will. Internalize the steel mill. Find and feel this fire and power within yourself.

We are now utilizing a fire and power of will that builds ships that land on other planets and that probe the depths of the seas. Are we ready for this freedom? Is the power we have achieved being used to build a better world or is it in the service of terror, fear, and domination? We must ask these questions of ourselves again and again at each stage of our journey. But the bottom line is always the same: Either we serve mankind and bring harmony to this planet or we serve ourselves and plant the seeds of destruction.

4) Lava as in cinder cone. The temperature in a cinder cone is around two thousand degrees. Hot magma rises from within the earth to flow as lava to the sea. Like a geyser, hot molten rock spouts hundreds of feet into the air for hours or even for days at a time.

Take a few moments and visualize a cinder cone. As magma rises, the pressurized gases expand and the water within the gases explode as steam. The lava is finally free to transform and to be reborn as fields of black, volcanic rock.

What is the energy underlying a cinder cone? Here there is celebration. This fire plays an important role in forming the surface of the world. It is a feature of global history and its presence is as old as the earth.

Obviously, volcanic eruptions can destroy cities. They have no sympathy for human needs. We see this force at work in ethnic and religious wars and the politics of genocide. Somewhere deep within the human soul passions uplift from primordial depths. The raw and untamed energies that are unleashed devour whatever they touch.

At such times, the rational mind is suspended. Morality and ethics are thrown out the window. This is not the instinct of self-preservation or the desire to survive. These are actions performed under war conditions. People give into this primordial power and then commit horrendous acts. They do not realize this is something you have to flee from. An individual cannot cooperate with it, ally with it, or turn it to productive ends.

Of course, there is geothermal energy but this is not used with cinder cones or the flow of lava from volcanoes. In Hawaii, it is sometimes said that you can change the course of a flow of lava by placing tea leaves in front of its path. There are examples where the lava turned aside and spared a house protected in this way.

In Hawaii, every Hawaiian priest or kahuna has met with the goddess of the volcano named Pele. Even visitors to the islands run into one of her manifestations from time to time. Whether you consider such deities "real," this energy exists within ourselves. It can be found in meditation. And you can find it at times within your life when hot, molten passions explode from deep inside and pull you along as they flow down the path of least resistance.

But if you can overcome the destruction and the blind rage flowing inside these energies, you can see the lava flow and cinder cone from a different side. It is full of beauty, wonder, and ecstatic songs of virility, celebration, and passion.

It is important to understand volcanoes if we wish to understand the earth upon which we dwell. With this fire, unlike the previous three, we enter geologic history. We discover the power underlying the movement of the earth's tectonic plates. We encounter a power that raises mountains to fifteen thousand feet, thirty thousand feet from the bottom of the ocean. With this fire, we return to the early history of the earth. This energy, like our deepest dreams, comes wrapped about with the primordial powers of creation.

5) This is another volcanic phenomenon—the heat and force of a mountain exploding like Mount St. Helen. On May 18, 1980, Mt. Saint Helen in the state of Washington exploded in a lateral blast. Two hundred and thirty square miles of forest, millions of trees up to six feet in diameter, were flattened by the shock wave.

The shock wave moved at nearly supersonic speeds—670 miles per hour. It contained temperatures as high as 1500 degrees as the raging cloud of gas and rock fragments flowed down into the valleys. Storms of lightning were ignited by the blaze. This sort of thing—a mountain exploding—happens every ten or twenty years somewhere on earth. The ash, caught in the jet stream and blocking the sun's rays, may even drop the temperature of the planet by few degrees.

What is the essence of this fire? It is hard to express it in human terms. It is impersonal like a deity in some ancient religion, the Roman god Vulcan, or a titan who awakens on occasion and then goes back to sleep after the destruction.

But when it comes to destruction, the human race also possesses this skill. What kind of mind, heart, or will can burn alive at the stake millions of people in the name and for the sake of the God of love and then pretend it never happened? What kind of nation can vent its rage by pursuing a war that leaves fifty million people dead and large numbers of cities in ruin?

Hitler reflected the primal energy of a pyroclastic flow and surge—the lateral blast of a mountain exploding. He could take all the repressed rage, shame, and guilt of an entire people and use it to build his power base and then redirect it into his war effort.

Hitler's generals had the energy of coal and coke fires. Rommel had the white hot fires of a blast furnace melting and smelting steel for ships and tanks. His will could direct power with precision and mastery. But none of Hitler's generals ever understood the man they were serving. Hitler was not a politician. He was not a commander in chief of the armed forces. He was an ancient power exploding and shaking the earth with his rage.

If you want to deal with men like Hitler, with tyrants who would consume entire nations and bind them to destruction, contemplate a Mount St. Helen. Then you can understand the forces you are dealing with. Your adjectives, metaphors, and psychological terminologies can avoid impotence and ignorance. You will be able to discern each quality and parameter of the power you are confronting.

Will, in its negative aspect, does not care about ethics or morality. It is an uninhibited expression of the impersonal forces shaping the physical universe. And so it will split a mountain in two and destroy a forest in a matter of minutes because this is what it needs to do to assert domination or to free itself of limitation.

Have we seen a more positive side or at least a more human face to this force of nature in human history? The Roman Empire had power like this well harnessed. It established order and stability offering treaties and subordination or else annihilation to its enemies for a number of centuries. The Roman Empire established the most advanced judicial system in history which served as the model for later societies.

In summary, recall that magma, depending on its chemical content, will tend to be viscous and flow like water or else it will form plugs in calderas where it will later explode. As the pressure builds up before an eruption, there are tiny earthquakes occurring every minute. The acid content of the water table changes. The landscape actually pushes up by inches or sometimes by two or three feet.

People who live nearby will say, "There has been no activity here for hundreds or thousands of years. Life will go on as it always has." But they are quite wrong. The volcanologist can study the signs and the phenomena. He can speak about probabilities. His basis of comparison is global in nature. But even he does not know the day or the hour.

Sometimes minor events, like tiny earthquakes, ripple through a society. The engineers who designed and built the space shuttle Challenger had argued and yelled at their managers the night before the shuttle was launched. They had insisted that the O ring was too brittle because of the ice and that there would be loss of life. But NASA ignored this phone call of warning that came late at night. The shuttle was launched and then it blew up.

Sometimes yelling and shouting because you are right are not enough to save human lives. You have to speak with the voice of a mountain exploding. The effect of your words must travel around the world. Others will take a second look at their situation because they will see the lightning and feel the blast unfolding. This is because your words make the future possibility real in the present moment. Others will then understand their best course of action.

To put this another way, finding the salamander in ourselves requires us to recognize that there are times when a lateral blast seeks to pass through our lives. There are signs and indications of what is coming. But unless we capture with our imagination the powers moving underneath the outer events in our lives, we will be driven by fate and fail to make our best choice. On the other hand, if we meditate and comprehend within our souls the powers of our planet, then we become wise.

To do this, we must go down into the unconscious. We enter the reservoirs of fire and passion that have been repressed and hidden for ages. Sometimes the power is older than the human race. No individual or society has yet reconciled itself with the cravings that lie dormant and wait to awake.

The volcanologist steps out of his helicopter and walks right up to the lava in the caldera. He takes a sample to determine the chemical content—the silicon, sulfur, and water. Such action is not without risk.

In a similar way, at times we need to observe and decide on what we are dealing with. History has its own pyrochastic flows. Fortunately, our world had a Churchill willing to oppose Hitler. Churchill could have left Hitler have Europe and keep England out of the war. But instead he chose to put his nation at risk in order to do what was right.

Churchill's personality was designed for war. But when peace came, he lost his support and the opposition won control of the government.

(6) The image of vast lakes of magma at the center of the earth. In the upper regions of the earth's mantle, the fire is so hot it melts rocks and finds a way to the surface. Here toward the center of the earth there is far more pressure and the heat is extreme. To take the salamander's point of view, visualize and imagine miles upon miles of magma around yourself.

The thing I notice right away is that there are not any people down here meditating with me. When there is a volcanic eruption on the Big Island of Hawaii, tourists fly in to the island to see the show. Occasionally, you can see the local people regarding the lava flows with deep reverence since this fire is a part of their religion.

But it is hard to find anywhere in fairy tales or mythology a discussion of this fire at the center of the earth. This would seem to be a place where you would not want to get lost, not even in a dream. And so world literature is strangely silent having avoided an essential part of this planet on which we dwell.

Of course we have fire on the surface of the world in fifty megaton nuclear explosions. During my teenage years, I heard men like Senator Edward Kennedy saying nuclear war was unthinkable. Had he forgotten the Cuban missile crisis and that we practiced in school to duck under our tables in case the bomb fell?

I never had any difficulty visualizing cities annihilated by flames. I had regular dreams of these things when I was young. Back in those days a majority of people believed nuclear war was inevitable.

What is the feeling or vibration underlying magma at the center of the earth? For Tapheth, this is where you come to develop a pure spirit. The fire here is analogous to Jupiter—its inspiration is huge and its nobility endures down through the ages like the legends of King Arthur and Camelot.

Legend has it that men like King Arthur would create a just society reflecting the harmony underlying the universe. Those who are in touch with the dreams of the earth have a passion that overcomes the limitations of mortality. You cannot help but be inspired by their presence. They possess a stillness and the fire of starlight shines in their eyes and their hearts. For Tapheth as with some other salamanders, the fire at the center of the earth has the brilliance of the sun. They have found here one of the secret dreams of the earth—to become independent, harmonious, and self-radiant forever.

If you enter a genuine temple of the spirit, you will notice your problems are illuminated. You feel energized. You see things from a new perspective so that now you are ready to move forward.

The present moment is seen as the place where the traditions of the past and the unknown future greet each other in warm embrace. The power at the center of the earth flows through your veins. Within, you feel the throb and pulse in the heart of life that has fashioned our world and that moves in harmony with the greater universe.

Try this. Drop your mind down into the ground toward the center of the earth. Imagine a huge lake of magma the size of the Pacific Ocean except with a much greater depth. See yourself at its center.

The sensations you may feel are again extreme pressure, heat, highly compressed gases, and a massive ocean of fire extending around you in all directions. Expand your mind as if you can sense, perceive, and feel for miles and miles. Claim this fire as part of yourself. Sense the presence of this energy in your vitality as if there is warm radiance you exude.

As I meditate at the center of the earth, I feel that I have become a part of the universe. The energy that moves the tectonic plates and raises mountains is vibrating within my body. Though the light of the sun is distant and hidden, this fire once raged on the surface of our planet and it is still strong and vibrant. It is part of who we are. It contains the will and the dreams which will carry us to the stars. This is because the primordial powers of creation burn within our hearts. Our home is the entire universe.

7) This is nuclear fission where atoms divide as in a nuclear reactor in the process of melting down. There is something of Pluto and Uranus in this and so we have the names plutonium and uranium. Previously, we have been working with fire in terms of chemical reactions. The periodic table has remained undisturbed or only subject to minor changes during all the fires and explosions we have studied so far. Now, however, we approach the place where matter and energy start to transform each other. There is more going on than the electro-magnetic bonding that takes place in the outer shells of atoms. Now we enter the nucleus of the atom to explore energy sources of greater power.

Atoms are decaying in uranium deposits all over our planet and this process may also be responsible for some of the heat at the center of the earth. When we talk about fission, about splitting atoms, we are also discussing akasha and spirit—the fifth element of the magicians. Akasha is like emptiness where space and time dissolve. In fission, atoms also dissolve.

It took Einstein's theory of General Relativity to understand how this process could be applied to technology. Think about this. To understand the theory of making an atomic bomb or nuclear reactor, you need a theoretical scientist whose theory predicts that gravity can bend light and space, that black holes exist, and that the age and origin of the universe can be measured.

But now we have Chernobyl and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant with their full meltdowns. The fault is not in theory but in human beings and their governments that failed to put in place adequate safeguards. With fission reactors, we confront a systemic problem—does human nature as we know it have the ability to be responsible for holding in its hands the powers of creation? Is it possible to actually regulate an industry when the revolving doors between government and industry are so unbearably attractive? Is there anywhere on earth that nuclear waste can be stored safely?

With our minds we have been inside a cinder cone, a mountain exploding, and magma within the earth. Let us go further into a fission reactor. The temperature inside the core of a nuclear reactor as it melts down is five thousand degrees. But guess what? A salamander is not afraid of the heat. Tapheth specializes in nuclear fire. For him, the Chernobyl reactor seems somewhat primitive though still a genuine example of applied technology.

I realize radiation can destroy the body, but we are only present with our minds. The mental wave length on which we travel is not influenced by neutrons and alpha particles. We can observe the heat and study its qualities without being affected by the exposure.

Take a few moments to imagine a nuclear reactor. Sense the heat and the process of fission in which atoms divide. All is supposed to go well. Everything is done within the parameters of "acceptable risk," just like the space shuttle Challenger when it blew up.

But look here. The power plant is melting down. Cover ups only last so long. The neutrons are out of control. The heat released is now more than any man made structure can contain.

We are after the energy underlying this external event of a nuclear meltdown. We want the sense of what happens when atoms divide. To put it another way, there is a presence within which matter cannot survive. The strong and weak forces binding the protons and neutrons of the atom no longer have anything to hold on to. To escape disintegration, the atom divides separating into two parts that flee in different directions.

Fission is like a circle where emptiness and matter embrace. Around the circumference burn nuclear fires. To understand this first hand, imagine you have become an emptiness so intense that matter cannot survive in your presence.

When scientists describe a vacuum that exists out far beyond the reaches of any galaxy, they say that this empty space is highly volatile. It is full of quantum changes occurring constantly—electrons, quarks, electrical and magnetic charges, and other subatomic particles are appearing and disappearing spontaneously. The emptiness of space is charged with unlimited possibilities.

This ability to change one element into another or exchange matter for energy is also an aspect of consciousness. It is a state of mind and awareness we can find within ourselves.

Occasionally we meet individuals who work with this fire. They have the power to destroy. They offer gifts that transform our world making life so much easier. But the cost of their gifts are the destruction of everything nurturing and satisfying in life. Their egos are toxic not just on a personal level. They poison the world for the future as well.

Uranium and plutonium are a part of nature. A fission reactor is possible if adequate safe guards are in place. But it is not possible to find any human beings who are trustworthy enough to think ahead for fifty thousand years about how to keep fission and its products from destroying.

8) This is the process of fusion as in a fusion bomb, a fusion reactor, or, more clearly, the fires that burn within the sun. Fission splits atoms and leaves a lot of toxic waste. Fusion is the opposite of fission—it joins atoms releasing energy in the process. Perhaps soon we will design and operate fusion reactors that produce no radioactive isotopes and automatically shut down whenever there is a malfunction. No cooling down period required.

Fusion offers us unlimited supplies of energy, light, electricity, and heat. It is what you need to start a new civilization on Mars or in another solar system. It will help move the human race forward into the next century without having to rely on fossil fuels. Fusion places in human hands the energy source that created the conditions giving birth to life on earth.

Fusion involves a will of cosmic stature and power. What is the inner essence of fusion if we turn this image of fire into a source of inspiration? Fusion joins things together the way a song takes different notes and tones and weaves them into a pattern of cords, movements, and harmonies. The fire and light in this form of fusion does not burn and destroy. Like a star, it does not consume its planets. It maintains them in a course around a center so there is a balance and each planet retains its own unique nature.

But there is a dark side to nuclear fusion. We can find dictators and nations threatening each other with nuclear weapons. We have men who wish to force their way of life upon others. We have men who are like the forest fire—they just want to consume and dominate others' wills the way the forest fire consumes and destroys the trees it feeds upon. But they do not consider the consequences of abusing this incredible power. Until the sun at the center, they offer no nourishment or light.

It would nice if our religions offered young people the encouragement to take a few years and mediate. To practice the “be still and know that I am God.” Such inner knowledge and vision would encompass the power of fire in nature. The natural universe and its beauty would be part of this stillness. In a practice such as this, there would be room for a radiance that can transform the world through love.

My perspective is derived in part from meditating with Tapheth, a salamander who specializes in nuclear fire. As a salamander, Tapheth cannot project his mind into the sun as can a human being with a trained mind. But look at what Tapheth can do.

He can enter a trance and concentrate on the light of the sun. He can use his imagination to see great solar flames reaching out hundreds of miles into space. He can imagine the five thousand degree heat of the sun's surface. And he can imagine the 80 million degrees within the sun where matter is exchanged for energy.

For Tapheth, the energy of fusion is something sacred. It is an ideal. It is his highest vision. When Tapheth meditates upon fusion, his aura changes dramatically. He reflects what we might consider to be the aura of a genuine sage whose wisdom transcends history.

Imagine a ball several feet across in your room made of radiant nuclear fire—dazzling bright. In this image, we visualize the light of the sun in front of us. Then you imagine you are inside of this ball with your mind. Try this.

Work with it slowly at first.

In working with Amtophul, we imagined contemplating on a problem or project while being a part of a vast expanse of fire. The fire serves to heighten our energy, enthusiasm, and vision. With Tapheth, we can do the same practice. Except in this case, we contemplate a problem in all aspects from within a dazzling sphere of light radiant as the sun. The fire, the fusion, and the light stimulate our imagination and insight. It gives us a chance to step outside of our lives and view the world from a cosmic perspective.

Is there a downside to working with the fire of fusion? When the light is too bright, it drains the life out of all other human activities. Natural and healthy ways of developing and growing are downplayed. Satisfaction and happiness are ignored. The purity of vision becomes an obsession just as some individuals become obsessed with their ideals. And so our journey involves becoming familiar with many kinds of fiery energies.

In summary, I have presented a spiritual psychology centered on the element of fire and derived from the nature of the salamander Tapheth. Many refuse to develop their psychic powers because they consider this action void of spiritual purpose. Many decline to develop their spiritual will because they consider this path easily corrupted and subject to abuse.

But those who serve the purposes of love seek to reflect within themselves this marvelous universe in which we dwell. At some point in our evolution, in order to love effectively and with wisdom, we must come to grips with the powers that exist within nature and also at the core of our being.

Chapter 5. The Salamander Orudu—who oversees volcanic explosions

Orudu is a king within the realms of fire. He is not a god. And he is not known or recognized by any religion on earth. He is a salamander: one element alone—fire—composes his being. The accomplishments of the kings of the four elements are not beyond the reach of human beings. Our science often matches some of their achievements. But what salamanders embody—their powers of mind and the elemental force within their astral bodies—is perhaps beyond what the human race will ever attain.

Orudu governs those fires that confront mankind with fear and dread such as volcanoes exploding.

The name Orudu translates:

Continents slide obeying the powers over which I preside.

Orudu senses the mass, the weight, and the balance of mountains and continents as they move. He is authorized to act on his own initiative according to his own insight. He builds according to his own designs. He strives to perfect his work and to accomplish all that he plans.

Orudu perceives the web of forces, no matter how obscure, that shape mountains and continents. There is a Jovian element in his nature—Orudu is expansive. His perspective is global. His work encompasses the planet and he has a great number of servants. He is coordinator, mediator, and the architect of shifting continents.

There is no fire on the surface of the earth or under the earth that cannot be influenced by Orudu's will. And though his plans are his own, he is neither arbitrary nor capricious. He has a profound and intricate understanding of how his actions influence the rest of the planet.

Orudu adds this about himself: “A blacksmith heats metal, hammers it on an anvil, and shapes it according to his needs. A master fashions a sword intricately weaving the metal into a more perfect form. A steel mill blasts molten iron with oxygen to burn up the carbon so the metal can be hard and endure. Even so I lay hold of the world, bending mountains and moving continents to comply with my will.

"I take into account the erosion of winds and rains. I consider the cooling effect of water as my volcanoes rise from the seas. I take into account gravity, ice ages, and the shifting poles.

"I study the resiliency of rocks, their cracks, and fault lines. I foresee and initiate earthquakes with my mind. Vegetation, rivers, water tables, and deserts—these too I overseeview. I am a craftsman and my work encompasses both the depths and the surface of this planet."

When it comes to engineering and the preservation of the biosphere, Orudu's skill and knowledge are surely centuries ahead of mankind. And yet, we might also learn something from Orudu in the area of love. Surely, as an individual or a race grows wise, there comes a time when it is essential, if we are to be at home on earth, to draw power and love into one embrace.

Introducing Orudu

Let me now introduce Orudu. I create with my imagination a circle of flames, intense, condensed, and dynamic. This circle is a pillar of fire carefully contained. There is also a feeling in the air reminiscent of tectonic pressures, volcanoes exploding, and massive fires. In other words, I contemplate the fires of the earth—gathering and distilling their essence into my room.

I suggest to Orudu that he and I meet in this place of intense heat. Orudu is not as far away as you might imagine. He never distant from a purpose that originates from spiritual will and that concerns itself with the fire element.

Actually, I have spent months attuning my mind to Orudu's.

Consequently, I do not check off each component in a long list of ritual procedures. When you know something well, working with it becomes second nature.

Ah, here he is now. Orudu appears. He is seven feet tall and of massive build. Look at him. Red colors radiate about him like lakes of fire alongside a lava flow.

Orudu has a very strong forehead and a square chin. His back contains incredible power. There is a sea of fire within his strength. It might be easy to become disoriented if I were not familiar with his personality. There is a terrible and fierce will present, a will that both destroys and creates.

When Orudu speaks, his voice echoes in loud and thunderous words. I imagine I could hear him easily twenty miles away. His very breath carries a force like magma under great pressure breaking free.

His eyes are a cross between a blow torch and a welding torch. They are dazzling and their power is a great reminder, as if you needed any, that this is a being from another realm—looking into his eyes is like looking into the mind and heart of a volcano.

It is difficult in the presence of this being not to begin to see and feel whirlwinds of flame, exploding volcanoes, and massive earthquakes as if you are standing in the midst of them. Yet Orudu has a purpose, a commission, and a work. By his will, magma moves from deep in the earth to form a volcanic mountain fifteen thousand feet above sea level. There is little that can oppose him.

Take a moment to contemplate Orudu's nature. Of course, when we witness a Mount St. Helens or a Mount Ruapehu hurling ash, steam, and dust into the atmosphere we might feel overwhelmed by the sight of such raw power. An entire forest of trees may be destroyed in moments. Lightning storms thunder. Shock waves rage over the surface of the world like the eye of a titan awakening and blinking after millions of years of hibernation. Red, angry, burning clouds of pulverized rock travel downwind for hundreds of miles.

The resumes of scientists who study volcanoes do not read: "Possesses high levels of empathy." Rather, they study each other's published research and strengthen their theories in response to criticism. But they do not master dreamlike states of awareness that attunes their hearts to the subject they are mastering. Evocations are not part of their curriculum. And it would it never occur to them to engage in conversations with the energy that underlies natural phenomena.

I am not writing about Orudu because I am obsessed with fire. I am not driven to master occult or arcane techniques of hermetics because I am fascinated by the forbidden. My motivation derives from this: if we would master the barriers separating human beings from each other, we would do well to remember that we are not separate from nature. The fog rolling across the meadows and the dawn light breaking through, the trees drinking in the sunlight—we can feel these too. The devouring hunger, the seemingly inhuman throbbing and pulse within fire—there is nothing within nature that does not reveal something hidden within ourselves.

Orudu, for all his immense power, is but a passion burning within our own souls. He represents a responsibility for the earth we have yet to assume. He is a power and a might lying dormant within our own wills.

Of course, others will argue that a salamander such as Orudu only belongs to fairy tales or, at best, to a supernatural order of the world—to a spiritual dimension. They would insist that the kind of empathy I employ is best left in the hands of God.

Science, by contrast, they argue is legitimate. It deals with truth because, in the end, all of its claims are established on an empirical basis. What we think as individuals, our own beliefs and spiritual awareness, is not a part of that verification process.

However, my position is that it is too late for leaving the knowledge of our souls in the hands of God alone. We, and not God, have invented and built nuclear arsenals armed with the powers of fission and fusion. We are the ones who use the heat generated by radiation to produce electricity. It is our own human will that has already unlocked three of the four basic, primordial powers which sustain the order of the universe.

Still, it is a great leap of imagination to envision how intelligence can interact with matter. Our world culture is focused on the external world. It seems perfectly ordinary, for example, that a team of scientists and technicians would spend fourteen thousand man hours in planning and launching the Voyager space probe.

Yet as we gaze into the fiery caldera of an erupting volcano, it is another part of our mind and imagination that responds rather than what science understands. It is not so strange to imagine a being that stands behind this force of nature—a being whose apprenticeship spans a billion years, a being whose commission is to watch over the movement of continents and the equilibrium of the planet earth.

Of course, this is what you might expect someone to say whose interest is not just in philosophical understanding. I am interested in the wisdom that underlies all scientific knowledge and all power which human beings may attain. Concerning Orudu, I am not someone taking others into an unknown world and revealing its mysterious treasures. I am not crossing over spiritual boundaries at the peril of my soul. We, the human race, are already learning to see through the eyes of stars and to utilize subatomic particles in our industries and technologies. We already scrutinize, experiment with, and apply the powers of creation.

Perhaps, then, we have much in common with Orudu. When our scientists study volcanoes and try to predict their eruptions, we have already invaded Orudu's own thoughts and dreams. After all, Orudu himself would smile in agreement when scientists say, "Like individuals, each volcano has its own unique behavior pattern."

You see, linkage between minds becomes inevitable. Our thoughts are not so different from his. He senses and studies magnetism, electrical conductivity, and the structures of volcanoes as do we. In fact, issues concerning the ozone layer, global warming, the level of the ocean, and the next ice age—which is already overdue—are concerns of his as well.

Perhaps it is time we added another academic discipline to our universities along with environmental and ecological studies. For a billion years, Orudu has been doing biosphere planning, architecture, and engineering. Perhaps this is something we should do as well if we wish live in peace on the earth.

Orudu's Consort

It is difficult to find a place to sit among these volcanic rocks. Even though I am standing where the sea washes the shore during high tide, the rocks are still jagged. The tides and surf have not yet worn smooth their sharp edges.

I am below the cliffs of Makapu'u on the island of Oahu. This area is deserted. Even fishermen rarely come here to sit the night and fish from the shore. I find a rock to sit on and settle down listening to the splashing waves and the howl of the wind. I reach out with my mind and begin contemplating the islands of Hawaii.

I feel the entire island of Oahu around me. I feel the waves breaking on its beaches. I feel a number of small pools that gather the water of the Ko'olau Mountains. I see them. I hear their sounds. I taste the water. I feel the sensations of the water flowing around my body.

I gaze into the small valleys hidden away at the crests of the mountains. I gaze also at the bays and sense the fish swimming within them. I feel the island mass as it descends down to the ocean floor.

As I contemplate all of this, Orudu and his consort appear nearby. Both are in human form and are sitting five feet from me. We are next to a tide pool which is about thirty feet long.

Orudu is virtually beaming with happiness and joy. He has that radiance that can still be seen in some Hawaiian men as they walk upon the land which is saturated with the energy of their ancestors.

Orudu turns to me and says, "Greetings. I am not surprised you have found us. This is a place of sacred power. And there is a story to be found here which has never been told. Gaze upon us, why don't you, with your clairvoyant vision. See if you can feel as we do the beauty of this place. Use your voice that searches for all that is hidden and fashion for us a poem.

The energy in the air is full of a wine fermented in a world where love and power are joined. I compose this poem for Orudu and the beautiful lady who sits by his side. I take the liberty of speaking with Orudu's voice:

The Pools of Makapu'u.

Three to six feet deep, ten feet

From the razor sharp, rocky volcanic shore

The crests of the sea's pounding waves

Nourish these pools

This is where I come to worship

Memories of what has been and what shall be

Cupping your head in my hands

You float naked

Ripples running from your body

Across the mirror like surface

Returning again

From the edges of the pool

Striving to reach across your hips

To swirl in the crease

To circle and curve

As they embrace your breasts

Set like a diamond in an emerald sea

Your body lit

In each drop of water

Raging and sparkling with solar flame upon your skin,

The bottom of the pool

Blue-green over saffron and rust sands,

Manini, aholehole, humuhumu lei and a-pua'a also

Linger in the crevices

Cast here upon the surge at high tide,

Your arms float by your sides

A pod of whales, two adults, two calves

Frolic off shore

Breaching and spouting

Your legs slide beneath the surface

Following the moon diving beneath the horizon

The high tide lets go its hold upon the shore.

The water is thick in these pools

Yet here the moist tongue's tip—

The taste of salt

On your skin

The taste of desire

Light dipping into water

The glow of fire

Water yielding

Rippling shadows

The dancing heat stroking

The sun caressing your skin

Once each century

I journey to these pools in mortal form

Just beneath Makapu'u's cliffs

But older than this island of Oahu

I have risen from beneath the waves

Exploding, unfolding, flowing

From beneath the mantle of the earth

Yielding to my hunger

To build new islands

To expand from fiery depths

Concealed in mammoth lakes of fire

Who am I?

No bite, sting, tear, or puncture

Can match the devouring hunger

Flaring and imploding within my mouth,

When I cast off

The garments concealing my shoulders

My strength appears:

I am the one

Who rivets the land masses

To the continental shelves,

I am the one

Who twists in his palm

The folds and valleys in the oceans' depths

Every last one of them

They surrender before my power:

The tidal waves

The titanic force rippling through the earth

When but for an instant

I touch them in their sensitive place

As this woman

Who, in freedom, returns to me again and again

Yielding her love to me

Once each century we appear here

In mortal form to celebrate

The beauty of these islands where we first met

I, a god of fire, one of eight elemental kings,

And she, once a mortal woman,

She floats again in this pool

Held steady by my soft touch.

The fire in our love for each other

Is unmatched by any other lovers on earth.

When I am done, they smile at each other. Their faces shine with

ddark passion and power. I wonder if it might not be safer for me

if I was not here—the air is suddenly thick with static electricity. But the woman stands up and embraces me.

She says, "We have met before in your dreams. I see your heart has been healed of the wound it once had. And I see you have grown to love these islands. They shine in your aura."

I ask them, "Will you tell me the story of how the two of you met and fell in love?"

Orudu says as he glances at his consort, "Why yes, I think we can do that."

And then laughing he says, "And furthermore, I think you would keep pestering me forever until I finally gave in. But another time would be better to tell you this tale. Just now I am under the spell of the light in my lover's eyes. I do not care to venture beyond the boundaries of this moment."

Several weeks later I was camping alone in Haleakala Crater. It was just after dawn. The night winds were bitter cold. I got up before dawn and did a little jig outside my tent in a feeble attempt to get warm. Just then the sun began to rise above the clouds to the East. Over to my right, I saw Orudu walking toward me. I felt his warm aura bathe my skin.

Orudu sat down near to me. We talked for a while about the crater and the island of Maui. Orudu then spoke, "I promised you a story. This is a good time and place to begin."

And then turning his gaze inward for a moment as if looking back through time, he said, "This is how it was. I was surveying these islands. The actual process is not easily translated into human language.

"Put simply, I was feeling the land with my soul. Even though these islands have taken shape by the power of my will, any act of creation is always charged with wonder—and the art inspired by wonder is independent and shines with its own life. My soul and the soul of the Earth blend and speak with each other through the energy flowing within the land.

"I felt a pulse in my right arm. My muscles suddenly felt weaker, my strength being siphoned off—something was distracting me from attending to my task. There was another spirit here who was disturbing my concentration. Of course, it did not take but a moment to locate the source.

"I rose up from out of the earth to the surface.There was a woman, a member of your race, sitting on newly formed volcanic rocks not very far from the ocean.

"I drew near to where she sat. The ocean waves were breaking nearby, the tide was in. Occasionally, sulfuric fumes, white and wind driven, drifted through the air. Paler and coarser than clouds or mist, they floated over the black landscape as if being nourished by the heart of the rocks.

"I turned my full attention on this woman whose presence seemed to undermine my will. She, like me, was sensing the land with her mind. She was meditating on my craft and the works of my design. She asked herself, What spirit shapes the land with his hands breathing his soul life into its forms and calling it with a voice of power to rise from the sea floor?

"Even as she was asking herself these questions, her mind, with the ease of a spider weaving a web, was cleverly constructing an image of me. Through some mysterious art, she had begun to create my face in her heart. I was almost certain that if I waited a little while longer, she would begin singing an incantation or weaving an enchantment to call me forth.

"This moment was like no other I have ever known. I began to feel her hands caressing my body, her heart seeking mine, her mind a clear crystal inviting the light of my spirit to enter it and shine within its radiant purity.

"And so, in this first impression, I was shaken to the depths. As an earthquake cracks the rocks, its fingers searching into every crevice and secret place, this woman's heart slipped inside my soul.

"I stepped back for a moment and pondered on this. The mind that forms tools is goaded on by pressing need. The mind that fashions a craft to sail the seas is drawn by longing and curiosity. The mind that seeks the herbs to heal disease desires to link the body and soul in harmony. The minds of humans flash bright and brilliant or carry darkness and sorrow. But rarely do humans ever journey past the boundaries of their own mortality. Their thoughts and lives, whether preoccupied with the practical or the theoretical, are chained to their own desires and destiny.

"The eye receives light into a dark place, shapes images, and then cloaks its visions in form and substance. The ear captures sound in a net of silence, tracks harmony into the innermost lair where it hides to fashion new songs.

"The faintest touch and the nervous system is saturated with life in the form of these opposites: The sun is dazzling with all the potentials of life; the moon barren, cold, and yet her silvery light guides all passions to places of delight; and the earth is a womb where time and space put aside their war for supremacy—they make a truce and build a home so that life can flourish in countless forms.

"These three, I declare it: the sun, moon, and earth are one system of energy, one field of life. The sun's boundless source of power is easily captured, contained, and toned down by its opposite—serene lunar mansions that sing in the tides and the seasons of the earth. And the earth nurses from her breasts all life, all seeds take root within her and find a place of birth.

"These three are neither incompatible nor separate as your religions on earth imagine. Oh, I have watched the human race and considered its search for ideals. Some religions make the moon the mother of life, worshiping her outside at night, reverencing her lunar light.

"Others raise high steeples in praise of the solar Logos that shines by day and orders the world with reason. Such would build and dominate the earth without a thought of how to nourish or to heal.

"Some attune themselves to plant and tree, animal, mineral, and the seasons. And also, there are religions that seek to master pure awareness without any reference to the external world or to nature—as if the Mystery could be discovered without studying its manifestations. You can imagine what I think of that!

"Yet none of these read gravity waves or sense the tides that move the continents. Each tries to deny the truth the others see. Their hearts are not big enough to embrace reality.

"The sun has its seasons and tides flow upon its surface and currents through its depths. The moon, a magic mirror, reflects the future and all that exists. Her soul unfolds cycles of time in ways the sun cannot imagine.

"And the two together, their gravity waves pulse in the land, the mountains, the seas. Electro-magnetic currents, solar winds, the North Lights, the North and South poles, the aligning of ions and energy fields in rocks and trees, these intermingle and taste each other's breath.

"I have watched this for countless eons: power exploding from the source, flowing back upon itself, and then flowing forth into the receptive. The gentle waves and the absorbing seas drink in this heat inviting the raging hunger in solar winds to offer even more. The land and seas respond with passion to every desire within fire and yet never surrender their own depths of tranquility and peace.

"Why then, I asked myself, if this is the order of the universe, why should I exist without a complement? Is there no opposite of myself, no one whose passion matches my own? Is there not a soul that shines with such light that I can find rest within her arms? Is there no mate whom I may seek whose needs I satisfy in a way that is unique and complete? These questions were born within my mind like heat lightning in an empty sky when I gazed upon her face."

"As I watched this woman, I realized she did not make me feel weak. Rather, I just felt young again. As she contemplated the origins of these islands, I recalled my own birth billions of years before—

"When I awoke, the world was volcanic, fiery, and wild. I knew that my task was to bring meaning to chaos—to provide order and harmony. I was to watch over the forces separating the lands and seas. I was to shape and arrange the continental land masses. By my will, mountains arose or crumbled back into the seas.

"It is I who uncorked volcanoes and left them raging for a million years. It is I who spoke to them with my voice and bid them sleep again. Such is my power—it is I who designed, laid the foundations, and then compartmentalized time so it took on the form of geologic ages.The rays of the sun shining clear or shaded, the ice poles and ice ages, the jet stream and the trade winds, the climate of the world obeyed my will.

"I recalled my youth. I was free to explore the world and to discover who I was and the nature of my powers. It was a time of unbridled passion and delight. The exhilaration was immense when I closed my hand into a fist and watched a land mass buckle and twist. How exalted I felt in fanning magma with my breath, pressing it up through the faults and cracks until a mountain exploded when I shouted `Now.' I felt all of this as I watched her sitting there, as I watched the workings of her spirit."

“This is how I found my consort. Over the course of a few years, I finally revealed myself to her in human form. Others of her race thought that I was a god even though I hid my powers from them. But she was not deceived. She was in love with me. She loved me not because of my radiant form. Her love was first and foremost for the planet earth.

Once every few thousand years a human being appears whose passion embraces the sky, the sea, the mountains, the forests, and the fires that shape the planet and that have caused it to come into being. This love of hers, this ecstasy at the core of her being, embraced me.

It was not that I found her. Rather, I was already a part of her heart. So for these ages of time, she has not dwelt on the astral plane as have other human beings when they die. Rather, immortal like me, she is my companion and the one who shares my secrets and dreams. She left behind the human race to be with me—to attain a greater love and a greater harmony, for love and power should always walk side by side and unite with each other in order to make a better world.

Conclusion

How do we fall in love with nature so that nature becomes a part of us? I spend a lot of time pondering that question. Perhaps part of the discovery process is just appreciating those who live among us who embody one of the five elements.

But again, there is something about loving water in nature—the lakes, rivers, streams, and seas. There is something magical about the earth element and the planet earth—in the mountains, forests, flowers, and trees.

Fire lights on our skin almost every day with the sun. A faint ray of sunlight passing threw a break in the curtains and you have photons that spent a million years rising from the depths of the sun and in a little over eight minutes they make their way to earth and fly through your window to touch you with warmth. Light itself is ecstasy if you can feel the vibration.

And as for the fifth element of akasha? We see akasha in the blue sky as the enlightened mind and as the starry sky at night as cosmic wisdom. We have the stories of the great world teachers who descend from a realm of light and cloak themselves in human limitations to dwell among us. Their stories are the stuff of mythology. We know these stories well. Each world teacher chooses one element and then unfolds a dramatic life story to capture our attention and to reveal the divinity within an element—wisdom, harmony, justice, compassion, etc.

And yet the element of water is the great mystery. There are almost no examples in human history of mermaids who have dwelt among us and who have also revealed their nature to us. Almost every mermaid woman I interview has kept her true nature secret. It often then takes me a year or two to even get them to talk to me. Hopefully, their true nature will become well known as will the love they embody and that flows endlessly through them.

Appendix A: The Four Planes of Consciousness

The elemental beings exist on the astral plane. Because they embody the energies underlying nature, it is also easy for them to interact with our physical world. Should they incarnate in human form, they usually have a stronger tie to the physical world than do human beings. They often possess telekinetic abilities in that they are able to affect weather or sense the nature of physical matter.

The astral plane of awareness is important because without strong elemental energies in the astral body, nothing spiritual—no angels, no visions, no divine intuitions or illuminations, no “toward the one” or “peace” or “light”— actually appears on earth. Or if it does appear, it is unstable and has no enduring effect.

The Akashic Plane

A simple way to view the planes is to say that there is a “higher” spiritual plane called akasha. You can throw in as many levels or dimensions as you want to akasha but it simply has one set of functions. The akashic plane creates and dissolves the four elements on each of the “lower” planes; it oversees their operations and balance; and it creates, designs, and ordains what purposes are to be fulfilled and when those purposes are completed.

The akashic plane is formless in consciousness. It is outside of space and time. There is no need for thought, ideas, color, substance, energy, or anything. It can be conscious and operate without these though it is also free to use them whenever it wants to fulfill its purposes. In its essence, the akashic plane is a formless awareness that encompasses everything, everything that was, is, and that will or can be.

If you stop here in akasha and rest, you get cosmic wisdom, all power, all-embracing love, and a nice sense of eternity. But without experience with the “lower” planes, you really have nothing at all.

Like a stone statute sitting on a hillside in a Burmese jungle staring into eternity, there is a nice look about it, a nice countenance, but no result—no connection, no effect, no expression or compassion, no manifestation, no experience, no sharing, etc. There is nothing creative going on. All the same, from the akashic plane, you can get a sense of purpose. Then the mental plane kicks in.

What is a really nice sense of akashic purpose? Create a planet in a solar system enabling a great civilization to appear in which sentient beings arise and learn to create love where love does not exist.

In the process, through experience with life in every aspect and variety, this race shall ascend. Through mastering all limitations from being in physical form, they shall attain a consciousness that is no longer in any way dependent on matter, form, or the physical world.

In so doing, they shall mark the way for countless other civilizations to appear in this galaxy enabling them to resolve all conflicts, create peace amid war, love amid hatred, and wisdom amid ignorance. In this way, they shall discover that the experience of any one creature can be and is to be shared equally with every other living being. In the end, they finally realize that we are all one.

Our solar system has this unique vibration of the heart chakra—through the attraction of opposites, through the sharing heart to heart and through becoming one is found the highest learning curve and the revelation of the greatest cosmic wisdom. This love vibrates within every photon emitted by our sun.

The Mental Plane

The mental plane is in essence a plan of action—it answers the questions, “Where, when, and how will the purposes of spirit be expressed?” All thoughts, thinking, philosophies, ideologies, doctrines, theories, etc. have value only to the extent they respond to a “higher” purpose by seeking to give it expression in the realms of space and time.

The problem with the mental plane is that ideas have a survival instinct. They compete with each other for supremacy. You can see this in any ideology. An ideology by definition says that what it asserts is right and that everyone else is wrong. Ideas in an ideological system are all about attachment and the pursuit of power.

But in its essence, the mind itself is free of all attachment. It is open, clear, luminous, and self-existent. That is a simple Buddhist definition of the mind. But that is the mind without a plan of action.

For action, you need to set up a time frame. You ask, What resources are available to get things done? What problems will we need to solve? What is our back up plan if things go wrong?

In the civilization of Atlantis, things went wrong. They misused both their science and their magic. And so that civilization was destroyed before it could damage the astral plane of the entire planet.

What is the back up plan? Give Homo sapiens a new beginning, say twelve thousand years to start over from scratch reinventing technology and science, rediscovering how to work with bronze and iron. Above all else, forbid them contact with the inner planes and the use of magic in combination with technology. In fact, forbid them the use of magic altogether except on a case by case basis. In this way, as a totally extroverted civilization they will have a second chance to learn how to be responsible for the consequences of their actions without quickly repeating the same errors they made before.

Will they be given another chance if they screw up again? This is iffy. It might be better to start over with a new and different race of beings.

After all, no one who has designed and operates nuclear reactors has anticipated that both the primary system and back up systems for cooling the reactors down would fail at the same time. And yet the consequences of such failure—say from a major solar storm—would affect the planet on a global scale releasing radiation into the environment for tens of thousands of years.

In this sense, the meltdown of the reactors in Japan is a god send. It is a wake up call to human beings to get them to take a hard look at their own actions. But corporations and governments do not want do this. We can well ask, Are there any human beings who are trustworthy enough to insure that the radioactive wastes of fission reactors will be stored safely for tens of thousands of years? Clearly, the human race is incapable of being responsible for using such deadly forms of energies.

This is all a mental plane discussion. It is about learning how to work in a safe manner with new technologies. It appears that human beings may have to learn the hard way from experience about how to acquire wisdom.

The akashic plane is like a sovereign king. The king oversees his kingdom assigning to each person his task and purpose to fulfill for the greater good of the whole. The king has the authority to do this because in effect he is aware of what motivates each person from the core of their being.

By contrast, the mental plane is like the king's counselors. They offer advice on how, when, and where to do things to fulfill his plans. They are the architects and administrators. They do the accounting, review, and make management decisions as to how to get the various projects to actually work.

The Astral Plane

The astral body or the soul is what empowers us to respond to life with sensitivity and appreciation. It enables us to feel and to be receptive to what is actually in front of us. It is where we literally experience “living life to the fullest” and “being fully alive.”

The astral body delights and is enlivened by interacting with concrete situations. It celebrates direct sensory perception. It is not abstract thinking. It is in the moment, this moment right now.

The astral plane contains the emotional force and the ability to respond with life and feeling so that “higher” purposes, ideals, plans, goals, etc. actually manifest in our world.

The astral body sustains motivation like a cheerleader; inspiration like a great bard or musician; and prophecy like a genuine sage who senses or perceives the future, because the future is already within his dreams—he is sensitive to and can feel what shall come to be in specific and concrete details.

In terms of our metaphor of a king and his kingdom, to get results you turn to the captain of the guard (or commander of the king’s armies)—a man who is all action. He possesses charisma—the power to motivate, to inspire, and to move others to action. He is the one who actually goes out and insures that the borders are not violated and that security is not compromised.

And to extend our metaphor of kingdom further, we might also say the astral plane is queen to the king. She is the feminine presence. She senses nuances and subtitles in what the king desires and suggests options he may not have considered.

In other words, akashic authority and mental plane orders actually manifest on the astral plane as courage, righteousness, overwhelming energy, exhilaration, and also tenderness and nurturing affection. The astral plane is not as abstract or generalizing as the mental plane. It does not do the analytical theory and testing of science.

The astral plane is where ideas get applied in concrete situations. The astral experience, then, is personal, graphic, and concrete. On the astral plane is found every kind of emotional attraction, enthrallment, desire, and way of interacting, bonding, or uniting with another.

But the astral plane is not subservient or secondary or lower. It has its own akashic light—this light is dazzling and bright as the sun. It has no form. It is a vibration that is the unity and perfection of all the endless variety of attractions and desires that move human and all other beings to action. It embodies the complete fulfillment of life in every conceivable way.

In order to express the greater overriding purpose of this solar system, our planet possesses four elemental sets of beings. The sylphs embody perfect freedom and their passion is for harmony.

The mermaids/undines embody the perfection of love not as an abstraction, ideal, or divine vision. Rather they are the concrete embodiment of an inner peace with the universe; and a love that is one with all of the waters of the earth and with every living being whom they come in contact with. For this reason they are not empathic but empathy itself—they can literally feel what others feel as if the astral body of the other has become their own.

No world religion has the faintest clue as to the existence of the mermaid realm. This realm of sensual bliss, ecstasy, and love has been barred from the human race in the past because human beings have been too immature to touch such purity of love without abusing it.

The salamanders are all about the pursuit of power, but there is no evil or desire to destroy within the kings of the fire element. They seek the fire that is so pure that it no longer needs to be fed with a fuel from any external source. Anything it touches it transforms purifying it so it reaches its highest attainment.

The gnomes possess a quiet ecstasy embodied in silence that enables them to pursue their work without being concerned about how much time or effort is involved. They too like the salamanders seek to take matter and transform it so that it is united to spirit. A gnome is a workman who takes whatever he is working on and seeks to make it more perfect.

These four elemental beings, then, embody astral energies that serve as motivation, inspiration, and the desire to turn dreams into reality. Only by working with the astral body and astral plane can we possibly experience and then learn to bless others in turn so their lives are fulfilled in every conceivably way.

The Physical World

For some the physical plane and for others the astral plane is called Malkuth—the Kingdom. This domain receives the highest emanation from Divine Providence. It is where we learn the most, meet the greatest variety of people and spirits, and where we have the best opportunities for helping others.

The physical world forces us to learn. By undergoing experiences of great limitation, we learn to overcome those limitations, master them, and then and only then do we transcend them.

The king with his authority ordains purposes. The counselors and managers set forth the plans and time frames. The bards, poets, artists, healers, and people with passion, inspiration, and motivation actually set those plans in action.

And then in the physical world, if the other three planes are functioning, something of great value appears on earth and endures through all ages of the world. When some vision is brought down so it actually manifests in its fullness on earth, a great many other people may experience it. The wealth of the inner planes then becomes a wealth in the “real world” that enriches all our lives.

The physical world is not lower. It is a support system for all spiritual journeys and ventures. It is also the end product—here is where the highest visions and forms (or formless) of consciousness are free to manifest. As a mermaid queen once said, “If you are free in your soul, then it does not matter the form you are in or the realm in which you live. In your heart, you remain free.”

It is possible to learn in the physical world to get your aura to shine as bright as the sun. There have been those whose auras are so bright they literally light up a dark room in the night. In the physical world, you can also take a small amount of hydrogen and fuse the atoms so they shine as bright and as hot as the sun.

The physical world contains immense amounts of energy stored in physical form. Neither of the above skills—to release the energy in matter or to create the vibration in one's aura that fulfills life in every conceivable way—can be learned on the inner planes. You have to journey to this world to acquire these abilities. A civilization must exist within the physical world and master this world before it accomplishes the purposes originating from the akashic plane.

Appendix B: Astral Immortality and the Five Elements

When one of the four elements becomes so much a part of a person that the energy in the individual’s aura has the same vibration as that element in nature you can say that the individual has attained astral immortality—at any age in life or in any future life, the individual’s astral body does not deteriorate. The individual revitalizes and renews himself from within.

If he reincarnates, usually from birth the individual has the wisdom and energy of the specific element. This embodiment of the element is so strong that the signs of the Zodiac in the individual's natal chart do not shape, reduce, or modify it. These individuals transcend astrology and psychology.

Furthermore, these individuals do not have to engage in magical or spiritual training to reactivate their elemental powers. The element is fully alive within the individual independently of events in the outer world. In some cases, the individuals originally acquire these abilities without any formal training. They simply fall in love with some aspect of nature and nature in turn unites with their souls.

Astral Immortality with the Water Element

For the element of water, the individual's astral body remains forever new, young, innocent, vivacious, purifying, self-renewing, and life giving. When this individual relaxes, the aura has the vibration of nature such as a waterfall, a mountain pool, a stream, a lake, a wave breaking on a beach, an arctic bay, or an entire sea.

According to the mermaid queen Istiphul, the Chaldean astrologers got it wrong. Women in particular are not earth, air, fire, or water. They are primarily water. Within a woman's soul is the one ocean that gave birth to life on earth; the stream that nurtures and brings life to whatever is by its side and that can dream others dreams effortlessly without loss to herself; the water fall that knows how to let go and embrace the air without fear; the lake that reflects from its face the beauty of the universe; and the wave that always is in sync, always rhythmic, always a part of so much more than this world that we see.

For one woman, it is like the stillness of the sun blazing in clear ice—the present moment shines brighter and is more full of beauty than anything else the mind can think of or contemplate.

For another, she is totally in the moment and receptive. She is beyond the capacity to even think a mean thought ever; and she radiates watery vitality more than any master or guru on earth. In this sense, these individuals are more alive than other human beings.

In this particular definition of astral immortality—of having developed one’s astral body so it is a direct embodiment of some aspect of nature—one's energy is continuously being exchanged, recharged, and united through the element of water in nature.

As one woman says, nature is embedded in my very core. To be in their presence is to feel like you are out in nature. The very touch of their aura on you tends to vitalize you and make you feel twice as alive as you are without being around her.

The main trait of mermaid women, women who actually have or embody the souls of mermaids in a woman’s body, is that they feel the reason they exist is to love. This is not an intellectual idea or a belief. It is something they actually perceive in each moment of time—that they are within a sea of love and that this love flows through them to those around them.

The simplest way to tell when you are with a mermaid woman is that when you are with her she focuses on you as if nothing else exists—as if she is a stream and you are gravity—every move she makes is shaped by your presence. They are literally that giving. But you may have to look for this. They can easily disguise themselves and appear to be very vivacious and friendly. But in fact, like water flowing into different environments, they are responding in a different way with each person they are with.

Astral Immortality and the Air Element

Again, the air element is self-renewing and independent within the individual's astral body so that it does not deteriorate. This may express itself in various ways.

The most simple is an artistic appreciation of life—a desire to touch life with tenderness; and there is a sense of wonder—that in each moment the universe is revealing itself in a new and unique way. The individual may have a lightness, a buoyancy, and a feeling of rising up above circumstances free of anything that weighs him down.

The lightness may turn toward curiosity joined to a sense of harmony. Expressed through science, this is the sense that there is no greater pleasure than the thrill of scientific discovery. The passion is to seek knowledge. That quest arises from the person's depths.

Expressed in a search for wisdom, there may be the sense that some sylphs possess—the universe is on the verge of exploding because of the joy it contains. We could call this cosmic wonder. Life itself, regardless of the horrors and suffering, is about to reveal some great mystery.

Expressed in personal love, the individual establishes a rapport that is unbearably sweet. Lovers become like two pitch forks vibrating in sync. In the presence of such an individual, you may feel that beauty and harmony wrapped themselves about every cell in your body. There is a sense of total relaxation and perfect freedom as in the song, “Loving her was easier than anything I‘ll ever do again.”

If you want to imagine a sylph in human form, attend a Shakespeare play, listen to Mozart, or pick up a book by physicist and cosmologist Steven Hawkin on the nature of the universe. That is, sylph nature is well known among us even if not always easy to understand.

Astral Immortality and the Earth Element

An individual who has attained astral immortality with the earth element has an inner silence that sustains his strength under all circumstances of life. This inner silence is like a quiet ecstasy. Such individuals always feels close to the things they love. Place this individual in any environment and he will make the world around him more valuable and himself more valuable as well.

To have inner silence is never to be separate from your ideals, your dreams, your visions, your hopes, and all that you would make real. It is to have these things alive within you in every moment. It surrounds you and when you speak you speak with its power.

The gnome personality or individual who has attained astral immortality with the earth element is already familiar to us. Warren Buffett might be considered such an example. Warren Buffett is is one of the most successful investors in the world.

He is the primary shareholder and CEO of Berksihre Hathaway. He usually ranks among the top two or three wealthiest men on earth. And he called the “oracle of Omaha” and is noted for his wisdom in investing over the long term in solid, down to earth industries. His great skill is in buying companies with reliable, trustworthy managers which he has a flair for picking. He has given ninety-nine per cent of his wealth to charities.

Buffett lives in the same house. He does not surround himself with lavish treasures. And he likes to remind his managers to be content, that they already have all of their physical needs in life met far beyond what any king in past history might have imagined.

Gnomes love to build things that endure. They love to work. And they love the earth. Place a high ranking gnome in a human body, and if he does not go into geology, archeology, botany, or some other earth science, you just might find that he likes finding the best use for physical resources.

If a gnome king wished to bless you, he might say:

May silence fill you with infinite light

May the heart of life dwell within your heart

May the peace that embraces the universe and all its stars

Abide with you and guide you wherever you are

Astral Immortality and the Fire Element

We might speculate if we know of any individuals who are born with the full power of fire operating within them. What would they be like?

For the salamanders, each moment presents the opportunity to purify, strengthen, and expand the power of will. And for a human being with salamander fire inside his aura? He would be born with a sense that there is something important for him to accomplish. He might ask himself as he grows up—What is greatest problem, obstacle, or enemy that no one else can overcome? And then he might decide to position himself in life so that he is the one able to overcome that obstacle or defeat that enemy.

We might look at General Patton who felt he had a destiny to fulfill in helping to defeat Germany in World War II. In 1944, Patton assumed command of the U.S. Third Army, which under his leadership advanced farther, captured more enemy prisoners, and liberated more territory in less time than any other army in military history. In the Battle of the Bulge, Patton rallied his army and came to the rescue of the 101st Airborne troops in the besieged city of Bastogne.

Or consider Churchill. All his advisers counseled him to accept the German offer to leave England alone if England would allow Germany to control Europe. But this Churchill would not do. He rallied England to fight Germany before the U.S. and Russia entered the war.

Oppenheimer was the architect of the atomic bomb. He oversaw the largest and most expensive project the human race had ever accomplished. Salamanders of course love fire. A salamander in human from might do exactly what Oppenheimer did—move systematically step by step toward harnessing the powers of the sun.

Those with astral immortality in the fire element have the positive qualities of fire built into their auras. These are exhilaration, excitement, enthusiasm, conviction, and a profound sense of purpose. They have a charisma that enables them to command or to lead others. Will power is associated with fire. Individuals with this will power strive to master themselves so the creative powers of the universe can flow through them.

Astral Immortality and the Fifth Element—Akasha

The elemental beings do not possess the fifth element of akasha.

Akasha is found in human beings who embody all five elements and it is found in higher spirits such as angels. Yet akasha is present or represented on all the planes of consciousness.

On the astral plane, it manifests as a brilliant astral light bright like the sun. Different people attach images to this light and try to grasp it in terms of the ideals and deities of various religions. But the astral light itself has no form.

What is astral immortality of the fifth element? This is fairly simple. You sense at the core of your being that you are here in this life to act as a guide for others. You are a gatekeeper, a custodian of secret wisdom, a greeter to those moving into and out of this world or else making major transitions in life.

You look around yourself and ask, What is missing from life? What needs to be revealed that my life and the life of human beings as well might attain fulfillment and completion? This could mean that you then seek to offer some gift to mankind that enriches one of the other four elements—something again that is missing.

Like fire, you might look at the weakest area in human experience—the problem no one else can solve and seek to solve it. Like water, you might seek to reveal the love hidden within and beneath nature to demonstrate that this love can reach even into the world of human beings. Like air, you might seek to reveal new knowledge or wisdom long forgotten or not yet known to mankind. Like earth, you might seek to put in place new works that shall endure though all ages of the world.

You do not have the immortality of these other four elements—earth, air, fire, or water—but you have the authority to find and to reveal new treasures and gifts within the four elements to mankind.

Sometimes akasha or the Mysteries chooses to shut the gate to wisdom because the human race is not yet ready for this knowledge. Other times it reveals new things from a seemingly infinite source of wealth. Opening and closing the gate to wisdom are both equally sacred. But in times of great upheaval or danger, you appear to warn mankind and to intervene so that the disaster can be less and the recovery process much quicker.

In a nutshell, you hear the voice of Divine Providence speaking to you. You take the time to listen to that message. You hear what is said. And then you do a life time of searching, investigating, and building until you set in motion the causes that will change the world.

It is not that other people do not do these things. It is rather that you are born with these innate abilities, gifts, powers, intuitions, and purposes. You have entered the world to serve. At some point in your life, you become fully aware of that there is a mission for you to fulfill. Unlike those who embody the other four elements, you write the script and execute a plan of action for the mission you choose to fulfill. Few are born with this awareness, resourcefulness, and divine commitment.

Astral Immortality: Summary

The five elemental beings exist on the astral plane and have a strong connection to nature and to the physical world. Many religions consider the astral plane to be inferior to “higher planes.” But it is not inferior at all. It offers unique treasures for anyone who wishes to experience life and to feel alive.

The essence of the astral plane is experienced in refining and combining the five elements so as to attain astral immortality. Your very presence then makes others alive, heals them, and anoints them with beauty.

For the fire element:

There is an electrifying

Enthusiasm and conviction

Such that when others see you

They see an ideal that is now real

For the air element:

There is good cheer free of all fear--

Walk through life with freedom

Delight and rapture illuminating

Your every sensory perception

For the water element:

There is a love that with complete ease

With another becomes one

You will know when you have it—

There is no end to your giving

For the earth element:

There is an inner silence so complete

So filled with peace

The unknown universe uses your voice

When it wishes to speak

Or, you find things to work at

That you can put all your heart and soul into.

And what of the fifth element?

The fifth element

Sees past the outer form

Of every being

To the inner core

And finds a way

To manifest

The others deepest dreams

To feel fully alive is to be able to step free of ego at any time and to embrace whatever you are viewing as if it is not outside but inside of you. Nature, for example, is not just physical. It has energies underlying its outer forms and these energies are filled with inspiration, beauty, and wonder.

With the air element:

My mind is the sky--

Pure, clear, and open

Its air flows through my chest

Its winds are my breath

For the earth element:

My body is the Earth--

In me, Her Silence and endurance reach consciousness

Like Her, I shelter and I protect

I am one of Her fruits

I am the strength and nourishment upon which others thrive

For the water element:

The oceans are my magnetism and love

Rivers my bloodstream

Rain my moist fluids

Lightning my heartbeat

Thunder my voice

I am life sustaining and giving birth to life

For the fire element:

The volcano and magma at the center of the earth

Are my will and power unfolding

I burn, I consume, I destroy

Yet I heal the broken heart

And bring joy and excitement to life

Appendix C: Elementals in Human Form

Throughout this book, I give examples and describe how elementals can assume the form of human beings and live among us. In the story, Caelius Aurelius Luscus and the Mermaid, I mention two ways a mermaid can assume human form. She can revive the body of a human female who has just died and continue to live in that body. In this case, after the body dies later on in life, the mermaid returns to her own realm.

However, as in the story of Caelius, the mermaid acquires a human soul, that is, the other four elements are added to her own elemental nature of water. Upon death, she will later on incarnate in human form again just like any other human being.

A mermaid’s first contact with the human race may occur in a situation where she endeavors to love a human being. Mermaids enjoy loving and healing others. But the actual motivation to acquire a human soul arises from outside of herself.

Some say that elemental beings are highly impressed by the fifth element of akasha or spirit that is within us. In my experience, this is not exactly true. They love the fifth element since in fact it is the source that creates their own element of water. But they do not in particular long to become a human being. Mermaids feel they are doing quite well by themselves possessing only the element of water. They have their own learning curve and a sense of curiosity that derives from their extreme empathy. But, unlike human beings, they do not do engage in experiments or pursue purposes that threaten their own survival. Mermaids feel that human beings are not fully alive and it is often completely beyond their comprehension as to how or why a human being can be mean or cruel.

In the story of the mermaid queen Isaphil, I give the example of a human woman who transferred her soul into the mermaid realm and how she now acts as a mermaid queen. In the story of Orudu, I tell of something similar where a human woman put aside her human nature and became a salamander. And also in this same story, the salamander Orudu disguises himself taking on human form to interact with the human woman.

From my interactions with the elementals, this shifting from being a human being to becoming or acting as an elemental being is extremely rare. It is possible of course to simply die and enter an elemental realm attempting to become one of these beings. This would be much easier to do within the realms of the gnomes, salamanders, and sylphs. But the mermaid realm embodies such pure love that it would be extremely difficult for a human being to refine his or her aura to the extent necessary to remain for long in that realm. At some point, the strength of the water element in the individual’s aura would fail and the person would again begin to incarnate as a human being with all five elements functional.

In the story of the sylph Capisi, I give the example of a high ranking sylph who basically conjures up a human body out of thin air through the force of magic. It is much more likely an elemental being would temporarily or even for a lifetime take over the body of a human being if that body were “available.” Or, if the elemental is sufficiently motivated, it could be born in a human body as a baby.

These bodies that we as Homo sapiens use do not belong to us. We did not create them. The human form belongs to the planet earth which evolved these forms. Many other kinds of spiritual beings are free to incarnate using these bodies as well.

So far in my research as a spiritual anthropologist, I have met three women who are sylphs. They are extremely psychic, successful in social activities, and can easily pass as a human being. But their nature remains the same—they are sylphs inside of human bodies and their auras are composed of the one element of air and there is no fifth element present.

I have met several salamanders in human form both of which are women. Since the fire element is so dangerous, these particular individuals are permitted to incarnate but only under the condition that they place themselves and remain under a human being’s authority. That is, someone outside of themselves has to be available to act as a conscience for them so they do not go around harming others through the force of their power and will.

I have not had a chance to interview any gnomes in human form as of yet, but I imagine they can adapt very easily to human life.

On the other hand, I have roughly fifteen videotaped interviews with mermaids inside of woman’s bodies. In some cases these mermaids have acquired a human soul. This action, however, does not seem to change their temperament or preference for water—they remain mermaid through and through. They possess unusual and at times extraordinary psychic powers. And often, irrespective of whether they are physically beautiful or not, they all exert amazing powers of attraction over men.

On the other hand, it is quite possible for a human being to strengthen one or more elements in his or her aura such that, for all practical purposes, he or she perceives, feels, and thinks as one or more of these elemental beings. I know human women whose auras are identical to mermaids. The mermaid queens consider these women to be their sisters even if these women have had no direct contact with the mermaid realm. For the kings and queens of the elements, if you embody their one element in yourself so it is sufficiently strong, then they feel and perceive you as being one of them. They do not seem to care what other qualities you may have in addition.

I have interviewed two mermen. They seem to have the most conflict being in human form. This is because the social task assigned to a male in a human body—to find a career, assert a consistent social identity, and develop some sort of support system like a set of friends—these things have absolutely no meaning to mermen. Being incarnated in a male body, they are forced to do what goes against their own nature—develop a human ego which involves setting up personal boundaries, defending them, and taking care of oneself first. Nonetheless, mermen like mermaids have an amazing power of attraction. As one girlfriend describes her merman boyfriend—“Everyone is attracted to him—straight women, lesbians, straight men, gay men. It does not seem to make any difference.”

Glossary

Akasha: Akasha refers to the fifth element in nature alongside earth, air, fire, and water. It also refers to a plane or level of consciousness, as in the physical, etheric, astral, mental, and spiritual or akashic planes. In both examples, it is formless and timeless; it is a state of awareness penetrating through space and time without restriction.

Although scientific questions may arise concerning the notion of an “ether,” akasha as used in this book is primarily a physical sensation. You can approximate this sensation by imagining that your body is emitting a dark violet light that penetrates through space and time. And then imagine that you are this vast space. The idea is that with sufficient training, anything anywhere in time or space that you concentrate on can be perceived as being immediately in front of you.

Akashic body: The akashic body does not need thoughts to think, emotions to feel, or concrete sensations to perceive. It acts through intuition. In its awareness, it can penetrate through space and time.

As intuition, it can simultaneously be completely detached from, completely one with, and aware of all relationships of whatever it is focusing on. Spirit or akasha incorporates into itself all experiences on the physical, astral, and mental planes without being subject to the limitations governing their perceptions and activities.

Spiritual or divine ideals are often associated with the akashic plane or akashic body. In terms of the water element, we might encounter universal experiences or ideals such as cosmic or all-embracing love. On this level, we learn to feel one with all beings and also to develop an inner peace in which we feel one with the universe.

Astral body: The astral body is in the shape of the physical body but is made of a subtler substance. The astral body pertains to the realm of the soul, to feelings and emotions. It is receptive, responsive, and impressionable. It gives a sense of being connected to and appreciative of others. It is this sensitivity to the present moment, our immediate environment, and our sensory perceptions that enables us to feel fully alive.

Astral plane: The astral plane surrounds and penetrates the physical world. Sometimes referred to as the “other side” or the “world beyond,” the astral plane pertains to the realm of the soul. As feeling and soul are to the body, the astral plane is to the material world. Undines, as well as many other conscious entities, exist on the astral plane. Sometimes we enter this realm in our dreams. Some individuals who are naturally sensitive or clairvoyant can perceive the astral plane directly.

Bard: A bard is a poet who has trained extensively in meditation. In the Celtic tradition, a bard trains seven years in complete darkness. A bardic magician is someone who both creates poetry and performs magic. I consider myself a bardic magician.

Clair-feeling or clairsentience: This is the ability to extend the sense of touch or feeling beyond what is physically present. This includes feeling what others feel as well as sensing the auras or the energies that compose the life in any being, whether in physical or spiritual form.

With clairsentience, it is often the case that a specific part of an individual’s body is unusually sensitive. The neck, hands, chest, stomach, or thighs, for example, have extrasensory perceptions. People say the hair on their neck stands up when someone behind them is staring at them. Or another person may get a twinge in his stomach when something does not feel right. An individual may feel heat on his face upon entering a room that has a strange feeling.

There are a number of ways in which I am clairsentient. I can feel energy with my mind, my eyes, and my body on the outside or inside. I am unusually sensitive with my hands. I can feel the energy, vibrations, or auras of any person or of any spiritual being. There is no limitation on my ability other than having to figure out the meaning of what I am sensing.

Clairvoyance: This is the ability to use the sense of sight so as to perceive things of a nonmaterial nature. This may include auras, spirits, things not physically present, and also the past and future.

Cosmic language: This language is composed of twenty-seven “letters” in the Hermetic tradition of Franz Bardon. Individually and in combination, these letters constitute words of power. They represent the building blocks from which matter, energy, life, time, and space are constructed. The Hebrew Kabbalah is a historically based but limited version of the cosmic language. Other religions and masters in history have also had access to the cosmic language.

The cosmic language represents the powers and qualities by which angels and deities engage in the act of creation. As such, the cosmic language predates the birth of mankind on earth. It is not and has never been the exclusive possession of any group of individuals.

In this book, I employ two-letter combinations that constitute words of power. The E-M and E-J formulas are specifically useful for connecting to undines because they embody the very ideals and ecstasies that undines cherish. For one presentation of the cosmic language, see The Key to the True Kabbalah by Franz Bardon.

The sounds spoken in the cosmic language have absolutely no meaning in themselves. Rather, specific sounds are combined with a color and a physical sensation through concentration. To be effective, the cosmic language must be understood intellectually and then empowered by imbuing it with energy created out of the magician’s will and imagination.

Electric fluid: The electric fluid is the essence of the masculine spirit. It is similar to but not as material as actual electricity in nature. In brief, the electric fluid is hot, burning, expansive, dynamic, intense, powerful, and explosive in sensation. It has the capacity to produce great light. In psychological terms, it is commanding, full of faith and conviction. It reaches for sovereign power in search of absolute control. It annihilates and destroys obstacles that stand in its way. In more spiritual terms, it seeks to manifest its vision using all the previous qualities—with certainty, with dynamic will and expansive power, and with implacable dedication and electrifying conviction.

We could say that independence, strength, courage, conviction, faith, will, determination, dedication, self-reliance, self-mastery, uprightness, clarity, order, adaptability, practicality, planning, productivity, excitement, exhilaration, creativity, and vision are qualities that are present when the electrical fluid is operating successfully.

There have been a lot of complaints about the abuses of masculine energy in our world. Indeed, the electric fluid can be very destructive. It can be a burning and consuming power that acts to dominate the wills of others. It tortures and torments, hazes and subjugates. It absorbs others’ wills into itself. It utilizes every means possible to corrupt, divide, undermine, and enslave others to its purposes. In this negative version of the electrical fluid, the light is there, but it lacks purity and clarity; the vision is distorted and twisted. The faith and conviction are there, but they are often expressed in a degraded form such as through arrogance and self-righteousness.

But in either the positive or negative forms, the electric fluid is willing to put itself at complete risk to accomplish its mission and manifest its vision. In its most positive form, the electric fluid embodies the will of a creator, who stands amid a void and creates from nothing according to the vision he finds within his or her heart. And then the creator puts forth the energy required and oversees the process until the vision manifests on earth.

Etheric body: The etheric body is similar in shape to the physical body. The metabolic and biochemical activities of the physical body produce a subtle field of energy that relates directly to health and vitality. Systems such as acupuncture or practices such as pranayama focus primarily on the etheric body. They seek to balance and increase the quantity and quality of the life force or vitality in the physical body. In the examples of pranayama and acupuncture, they do this by adding imagination to breath or interacting with points in the body where the etheric and physical are closely aligned.

Gnome: In this book, a gnome is an elemental being composed solely of the earth element. Franz Bardon, the Czech magician, describes gnomes in his book, Initiation into Hermetics, as “very tiny sprites, similar to brownies described in the fairy tales. Generally, they are portrayed as dwarfs with long beards and caps, with long hair, bright eyes and garbed in little cowls.” He goes on to say that they carry little lamps of luminous force in order to find their way through the earth’s subterranean kingdom. The kings of the earth element, like the mermaid queens, are able to appear in a form similar to human beings.

Hermeticism: This tradition appears to have begun with the writing of Hermes Trismegistus. In his Emerald Tablet are found statements like “As above, so below.” Put simply, each individual is a microcosm that reflects the greater macrocosm or universe. In this tradition, you proceed step by step in mastering yourself by mastering the energies of nature, of life, and of the greater universe that you find outside of yourself. The writings of Franz Bardon are one example of this tradition presented in a modern context.

Magician or mage: As opposed to a stage magician, a magician or mage in the context of this book seeks to transform himself so that he brings his body, soul, mind, and spirit into alignment with the laws of the universe. In this endeavor, he strives to develop to an equal extent his will, intellect, feelings, and consciousness.

In some traditions, a magician might choose to utilize various ritual implements to aid her concentration. These include pentagrams, hexagrams, sigils, talismans, magic mirrors, magic circles, robes, magic belts, a wand, incense, and lanterns. In this book, a sigil, or magical diagram, is occasionally used, but it is visualized rather than inscribed on something material, such as a silver plate.

Magnetic fluid: The magnetic fluid is the essence of the feminine spirit. Analogous to magnetism in nature, it is cool, cold, and contracting. It is attractive, soothing, and calming. It is receptive in that it is utterly empty of form and completely open—able to receive and contain anything in itself and preserve, nurture, and animate it with life.

In psychological terms, it is empathic, sensitive, and responsive. It draws together, bonds, joins, and unites. It accepts and affirms. In spiritual terms, it reaches toward an all-encompassing, all-embracing love. We could say that peace, repose, calmness, happiness, contentment, serenity, tranquility, well-being, delight, kindness, gentleness, affection, empathy, tenderness, sensuality, pleasure, bliss, ecstasy, compassion, and love are qualities that are present when the magnetic fluid is operating successfully.

What are the negative aspects of the magnetic fluid, of the feminine spirit in its dark aspects? In brief, the negative aspect of the magnetic fluid is that it absorbs and contains without releasing or giving birth. It shelters without enabling growth. Instead of healing, it poisons. Instead of nurturing, it denies. The negative paralyzes, seduces, wastes, and numbs consciousness. It induces insanity—that is, it destroys consciousness with guilt, shame, fear, terror, illusions, delusions, obsessions, fascinations, depressions, nightmares, and false visions.

In the I Ching, the Great Yin, mother, or magnetic fluid offers an individual continuous support that nurtures and serves to integrate the inner self of the individual throughout his or her entire course in life. The negative magnetic fluid, by contrast, acts to undermine, dissolve, and reabsorb into itself the inner life of the individual throughout his or her entire life.

But whether positive or negative, whether life-giving or life-destroying, the magnetic fluid is the guardian that reveals the deepest feelings and mysteries within the depths of the self.

As I have mentioned many times, in the past our world may not have been ready to endure the beauty of the mermaids and still develop rationality and science. I have not encountered anything negative in my experience with the mermaids described in this book. But beauty itself can be terrifying, and love can demand more than we can imagine. It is wise to be prepared when encountering the mysteries of beauty and love that the mermaid queens possess. Their very presence is magic beyond the knowledge of mankind.

Mental body: The mental body is in the form of the physical body but is more refined or subtler than the astral body. It relates to ideas, thinking, and analyzing. Unlike the astral body, with its sensitivity and response to concrete images and situations, the mental body works with abstractions. We size up situations and solve problems with our minds. The mental body is rooted in concentration and attention. We choose when and how we focus our attention. Forming plans, setting priorities, and determining time frames and means for fulfilling our purposes are mental-plane activities.

Mermaid: The word mermaid is from Old English mere for sea and maid for woman. The words mermaid and undine (from the Latin root unda which means “wave”) both refer to water spirits. In folklore, a mermaid might be encountered on a beach or by a sailor at sea. The word undine is used by individuals such as Paracelsus or Franz Bardon to refer to a mermaid that appears before them through evocation or through force of magic.

A mermaid, in her natural element, usually has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish. The mermaids described in this book are water spirits who possess great magic. They appear in the form of beautiful women when interacting with human beings.

Franz Bardon describes mermaids as “not only fascinating and dashingly beautiful, but also very obtrusive and sexy.” He also warns to beware of them lest you become captivated by “their incredibly beauty, charm, and intoxicating eroticism.” When mermaids assume the form of human women, it is not their physical beauty but their magnetic auras that enchant human beings. One such mermaid woman I often interview tells me she has stalkers from every country in Europe.

Nature spirits or elementals: Traditionally, sylphs (air spirits), mermaids (water spirits), gnomes (earth spirits), and salamanders (fire spirits) are composed of one element. Nature spirits referred to in folk traditions come in a vast variety of forms. The elemental beings mentioned in this book represent the greatest masters of their respective elements. Rather than belonging to an earlier, naive age of the world, they guard spiritual realizations that the human race has not yet attained.

Planes: I discuss five planes in this book: the physical relating to the body and the physical world; the etheric relating to health and vitality; the astral relating to the world of feelings, dreams, and inner visions; the mental relating to the realm of thoughts and the processes of thinking, analyzing, and clarity of mind; and the akashic relating to a timeless and spaceless state of awareness or corresponding to pure spirit.

Salamander: Salamanders are elemental beings composed of the one element of fire. Franz Bardon describes salamanders as having a certain likeness to human beings, but they have a smaller face and longer and thinner necks. They are restless and move about constantly and appear to be nervous and fidgety.

Salamanders dwell on the surface of the earth, for example, in volcanoes, in magma chambers deeper down, and also at the center of the earth. The greater the power of the salamander, the more it resembles a human being.

Sidhe: The Tuatha Dé Danann, who worshipped the goddess Dana, were defeated by the first Gaels who arrived in Ireland. According to lore, they were driven “underground” and occupy the hollow hills or Sidhe mounds. Each mound has its own king and queen. They are spoken of as not growing old.

Legends also describe distinct Sidhes such as spirits of air, water, and wood. They are also referred to as the “fairy folk” who dwell in the Otherworld. The nature spirits in this book are not associated with the Sidhe or any other tradition of fairies.

Sigil: A sigil is a magical diagram. If drawn in a magical manner (i.e., using great concentration), it places an individual in direct contact with the spirit associated with the sigil. Another way of putting it is that a sigil is like a spiritual phone number—it puts you in contact with a spirit through telepathy or by using a high level of empathy.

The sigils of the spirits mentioned in this book are found in Franz Bardon’s book The Practice of Magical Evocation.

Sylph: A sylph is an elemental being composed of the one element of air. Most of the sylphs are female and possess beautiful, dashing figures. Unlike the mermaids, however, the sylphs are shy and detached. If it is the nature of mermaids to love, the nature of sylphs is to pursue balance and harmony.

Telepathy: Telepathy extends the sense of hearing so as to perceive thoughts and impressions from sources that are not detectable as auditory signals. Some individuals actually hear frequencies of sounds that are outside of normal perception. A blind person may demonstrate that he can locate objects by the way echoes are reflected through the space around him. Another person can detect the low-resonance frequencies preceding an earthquake. This “hearing” is not telepathy but rather a very high level of acoustic sensitivity.

Telepathy simply picks up the activity occurring in the mind of another person or spirit. Since the two minds are different, what is transmitted through telepathy will always depend on the state of maturity and experience of those involved.

From the point of view of this book, in the instant you think of something, your brain has already established an electronic connection to it. Telepathy is simply a matter of learning to make these very faint impressions conscious.

Undines and mermen: Undines are a nature spirit composed of the water element. Undines are often pictured as being half female and half fish, especially when called by the alternate name mermaids. The undines/mermaids in this book, being highly evolved spirits, choose to appear to me in the form of human women and are extraordinarily beautiful. Mermen are the male version of mermaids/undines.

Conclusion

How do we fall in love with nature so that nature becomes a part of us? I spend a lot of time pounding that question. Perhaps part of the discovery process is just appreciating those who live among us who embody one of the five elements.

Bibliography

Bardon, Franz. Initiation into Hermetics. Salt Lake City, UT: Merkur Publishing, 1999.

_____. The Key to the True Kabbalah. Wuppertal, Germany: Dieter Ruggeberg, 1986.

_____. The Practice of Magical Evocation. Wuppertal, Germany: Dieter Ruggeberg, 1984.

Note: These books are readily available from online vendors as well as from www.merkurpublishing.com.

About the Author

After graduating from Wheaton College in Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, William R. Mistele began studying esoteric oral traditions, seeking the oldest, intact lineages from around the world. For his field research, he lived in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Berkeley, California, and later studied Hopi culture and language at the University of Arizona, where he received a master’s degree in linguistics. At that time he became the only student accepted by a Hopi shaman.

While living in Tucson, Arizona, Mistele began studying the Western Hermetic traditions and nature religions of Wiccans and Druids. He also worked with a number of gifted psychics and parapsychologists and practiced evocation with a Sufi master. Mistele moved to Hawaii in 1982 to study with a Chinese Taoist master, a Vietnamese Zen master, and one of the foremost Tai Chi Chuan masters of China. Since 1975 he has been a student of Franz Bardon’s teachings on Hermetic magic, a system of training that includes the evocation of and communication with nature spirits. Calling himself a “spiritual anthropologist,” Mistele is devoted to integrating the wisdom of all spiritual traditions, along with transpersonal psychology, into Bardon’s system, which seeks to maximize the power and creativity of the individual.

In ancient oral traditions, the transmission of wisdom is not characterized by knowledge that leads to control over the world. Instead, the goal is the transformation of the inner self. However, in our age of the world, survival may depend on joining the inner and outer worlds in equal measure.

Send comments to williammistele@yahoo.com

Sites: youtube.com/emedetz

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