#3 - The Wanderer

[wren]

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving”
~ Lao Tzu

The traveler in the underworld might be known – in a soul-oriented community – as a candidate for initiation, a seeker, an aspirant, an exile, a pilgrim, a solitary… a Wanderer. This is the time in life when a person is most intensely in search of her deepest self, a self she knows she will not find reflected back to her from within the familiar arenas of her merely human culture. She searches for the seeds of her destiny in the more diverse, wild and mysterious world of nature. She no longer confirms to nor rebels against society. She chooses a third way. She wanders, beyond the confines of her previous identity.

The Wanderer crosses and re-crosses borders in order to find something whose location is unknown and unknowable. He will conclude he has found it not by its location in a certain place or by its matching a prior image but by how it feels, how it resonates within upon discovery. He doesn’t know where or when or how clues will appear, so he wanders incessantly, both inwardly and outwardly, always looking, imagining, feeling. In his wandering, he makes his own path… and it is rarely if ever a well-traveled one.

The Wanderer discovers his unique path by perceiving the world with imagination and feeling. He senses what is possible as well as actual. He sees into people and places and possibilities and he cultivates a relationship with the invisible realms as much as with the visible. He is in conversation with the mysteries of the world, on the lookout for signs and omens. He attends especially to the edges, those places where one thing merges with another, where consciousness shifts and opens, where the world becomes something different from what it initially appeared to be.

Of the four windows of knowing (thinking, feeling, imagining and sensing), imagination is the Wanderer’s most potent tool, his way of seeing into the dark, of illuminating the shadows, of digging deeper into the soul. The Wanderer cultivates this ability to see into the dark. He learns to access and retrieve the images waiting for him in his soul, the images he was born to make manifest in the world, that identify his soul gift to the world.

The Wanderer creatively ventures into the dark depths, like Orpheus looking for Eurydice, to bring back to the dayworld what is yet unknown. The rules and conventions of society are not going to help the Wanderer do her work; new possibilities and patterns must be tapped. She allows her inner vision to take precedence over tradition.

The task that lies before the Wanderer – retrieving the soul – is truly daunting. Although it lies at the very center of oneself, the soul is, at the outset of our wandering, something about which we have little or no conscious knowledge. The elders have explained that this is an unavoidable feature of being human, that it is in fact part of the rich drama that makes us human, a king of hide-and-seek with the soul that prepares us for the challenges inherent in our individual destinies. By the time the ego formed, at age four or five, the Wanderer, like everyone else, had misplaced the image with which she was born. During childhood, she needed to learn how to become part of the human community and family with their needs to define her in a more or less limited way. Now, years later, having secured a good place in the village world, she strikes out on her own in search of her lost soul.

We use our senses all the time: we feel, see, hear, smell and taste and touch. But, in reality, they only tell us a little of what we could experience. If we live shamanically, we will learn to hear words that others cannot, to smell the scents of the Otherworld, to taste the pure waters of the Well of Dreams, to touch into our selves more deeply than ever before and to dance to the music of the Oran Mor.

Learning to ‘see’ is one of the primary functions of a shaman. In the West, we are conditioned from birth to see what we have been told is there: the ‘real’ world which can be perceived by the five senses. The shaman is not taught in this way; they seek to free themselves of such conditioning, to see and feel with their inner senses. For them, there are seven senses, not five, as Taliesin well knows:

One is for instinct
Two is for feeling
Three is for speaking
Four is for tasting
Five is for seeing
Six is for hearing
Seven is for smelling…

Thus you must learn to do the same. Once you have succeeded you will become aware of a wholly different kind of reality, the Otherworld. Once you become aware of the experience of such alternative states of being, you will find this beautiful place and all the dimensions of creation, opening up around you more and more fully.

You are already aware of ways of tricking your conscious mind to see beyond the manifest world. You do so every time you read an absorbing book, during which time you enter an alternative frame of reality which is just as vivid to you as anything else. Sometimes this can linger, for a few moments after you put the book down. If you work hard, you can begin to extend those few moments into hours, and then whole days, weeks, months and years. This is not, of course, to suggest that you enter a realm of fantasy in which you lose contact with the mundane world. Simply train yourself to be aware of other possibilities at any and all moments, alternate realities which exist alongside the daily round of being.

One of the most common ways of accomplishing this is to enter an altered state of being in which neither time nor space, nor indeed reality as we have been taught to view it, has any existence. The best known method is a form of meditation called visualization, which we utilized in the Cave of Learning exercise. This kind of meditation is really a matter of placing oneself into a passive state and then allowing a series of directed images to rise in the mind. Initially, this is a difficult thing to accomplish for more than a moment at a time. We have to learn to rid ourselves of our constant mundane thoughts and to concentrate into what some mystics call ‘one-pointedness’. The most trusted way to do this is to sit perfectly still, for a varied length of time every day, in a quiet place and with a specific intent. Gradually the duration can be extended and the complexity of the meditation increased.

What follows is a visualization drawn specifically upon the Celtic tradition. It takes you to the Otherworld and permits you to see how it functions. Along the way, you may learn something new about yourself. The ancient Celtic shaman would have prepared himself for days before undertaking such a journey. This exercise allows you to omit those steps which we will cover in later exercises. For the time being, the most practical way to experience the visualization is to read the text aloud into a tape-recorder and then, with eyes closed and sitting comfortably on a straight-backed chair, breathe deeply and steadily until you have stilled the furious pace of daily time and space. Or, set up your Cave of Learning, with the stone on your belly, and attempt this exercise in complete darkness.

Then, switch on the tape and listen. Try hard to ‘be there’ in the scenes as described, and take note afterwards of any significant realizations which come to you. You many not fully understand all that occurs at this stage, nor be necessarily conversant with the figures you encounter. Simply note anything you experience at this point and remember to ground yourself when the exercise is completed.

Caer Arianrhod

Let yourself sink deeply into meditation. Breathe deeply and regularly and, as you do so, allow your consciousness of the room around you to fade into a distant background. Now, imagine that you are standing on top of a green mound. It is twilight and the sun is setting behind you, casting your shadow long upon the ground. Over your head the great arch of the heavens stretches, darkening to deepest blue and already pricked out by the first faint shimmering of stars.

Below you on the flat green plain which surrounds the mound you see a figure moving, coming nearer. He begins to ascend the mound, climbing swiftly on his long legs. As he approaches you see that he is tall and thin, with dark hair worn long and bound about his brows by a circlet of bronze. He is dressed in dark green and carries at his back a leather bag from which he now takes a small, intricately carved harp. He bows before you.

“I am Taliesin, Primary Chief Bard of the Island of Britain and Guardian of the Summer Stars. I am come to conduct you on a journey to the Court of Arianrhod, there to seek a vision of that which is to be. Hearken now to my words and follow where I lead.”

He begins to play upon the harp, striking chords and small flourishes of notes from the small instrument, which yet produces a sound which enters into you so deeply that you lose all track of time and place and are not at all surprised to find a silvery stairway has risen before you, leading upwards into the star-strewn sky. Like a shepherd with his sheep, Taliesin guides you onto the stairs and you begin to climb, the bard following behind, still playing the deep and magical music which holds you enthralled.

Far you climb and still further, until the earth is way below, and the immensity of the night sky extends on all sides. And, now, ahead of you, you begin to see a great silvery light which you soon realize is coming from a doorway opening in the sky. The stair on which you stand leads directly to this door and you enter and find yourself at the entrance to a vast hall. The walls and roof, distant though they are, seem to be made of light, golden and silvery and shimmering. And you see that the same light now shines from the brow of Taliesin, whom is also called ‘Radiant Brow’. And, though he has ceased to play upon his harp, yet the music continues, greater and richer and more beautiful than before, as though his playing was but a dim echo of the true music you now hear.

Silently, the bard directs you forward and you walk upon a floor that seems all gold and yet somehow translucent, filled with swirling shapes too marvelous to interpret, yet filling you with joy.

Indeed, from the moment you entered this wondrous place, you have been filled with great buoyancy, well-being and clarity. All your senses feel sharper than ever before – you see, hear, smell, touch and taste everything more intensely than previously, for there is such a sweet savor about the place and a gentle breeze touches your face and the music seems like a golden light within you. Ahead of you is the furthest end of the hall and it seems that the light of the place originates from there. Yet strong as it is, it is also gentle, and you are able to look without fear of being dazzled.

At the end of the hall is a vast mirror how great you cannot say, it is set in a silver frame, the sides of which are cast in the shape of huge and ancient trees. At its top cluster seven brilliant points of light, emitting rays which form the shape of a crown.

“Behold the Crown of Arianrhod in the Court of Stars.”

Taliesin’s voice rings our in the great hall and the seven starry lights seem to become brighter as he speaks. Then, as you watch, the mirror begins to grow opaque; you no longer see yourself reflected in its depths but instead a new shape begins to form there – a figure that seems garbed in light and from whom radiance streams. The figure appears as a woman of great beauty and delicacy that she seems almost transparent: light shines from her and through her and her face is as perfect as a crystal rose. Again, you hear Taliesin:

“Behold the Queen of Stars – Arianrhod, the Silver Wheel.”

A voice speaks to you, in words that you hear not with your ears but in your mind. It is a voice as clear and bright as crystal, neither harsh nor gentle, neither loving nor unloving, the voice of one so far removed from our world that it can know nothing of our being.

“You are come to seek that which is to be.”

Until this moment you perhaps knew of no reason for coming to this place, nor of any need beyond that of your everyday life. Yet as these words, conveyed directly to your innermost self, enter your thoughts, you at once know, with absolute certainty, that this is indeed your true purpose for coming.

Though no question has been asked you answer at once in affirmation that is whole-hearted, and you are answered in turn, not with words or even sensations, but by a burgeoning and shimmering within the presence of the shining figure which you somehow perceive as approbation.

“Then behold that which you seek!”

Again the words are experienced rather than heard and you marvel as the mirror changes once again, the figure fading to allow a new form to shape itself therein. No words can convey what is revealed to you – only within you is the form truly revealed. Beyond personal need, it is rather the desire of all creation, given form by your wish and your need…

PAUSE

At length that which you though unknowable has gone and with it the figure of the lady. The mirror is clear again and you see your reflection with new ideas. The image you saw within the mirror stays within you, glowing slightly, so that you never forget. Taliesin stands beside you, his bright glance seeing the reflection of your aspiration where it still flickers, aflame in your innermost being.

At last he bows his head and he turns to lead you back through the great hall and through the door and down the silvery stair, towards the top of the green mound, shimmering far below you.

Once there, the bard bids you farewell, and taking out his harp once more, begins to play. As the music surrounds you and enters you, the mound and the player begin to fade until there is only the music left in your consciousness. You can still hear it faintly as you return to normal waking consciousness… Remember to ground yourself as you sit quietly and record your experience in your journal.


This is a small beginning. For a certain time – and for how long, exactly, were you away? – you have inhabited another reality, another dimension which as its own rules and where certain realizations were experienced which derived only partly from the outer world. You have stood for a time in the presence of the Great Ones who, if you allow them, will have a vast influence on your life. For the moment, however, you have taken an important step on the shaman’s path to the inner soul: time and space are what we make them, and in the Otherworld they have another kind of reality. You have taken your first steps as a Wanderer…