Portals – Day 995

Two of Wands – Rider, Waite, Smith deck – Photo: L. Weikel

Portals

A friend asked me the other day about the concept of portals and the number 11. After I mentioned the connection between the two in a recent post, she wondered whether the connection between 11s and portals is consistent between astrology, numerology, and shamanic work (where traveling between realms is an essential aspect of the tradition).

As an artist, she could easily see how the number 11 resembles the two sides of a doorway. But her question plumbed far deeper than the superficial observation.

In my experience, two pillars, but possibly two of almost anything depending upon context, often evoke the energetic desire of the observer to go through or between them. There’s an etheric barrier implied, an energetic tension between the two columns, that beckons to be pierced.

Maybe it’s the tendency for us humans to be fixated on duality that fosters this sense. We tend to see duality all over the place: in/out, up/down, male/female, black/white. So of course if there’s a threshold in front of us, there’s the tendency for us to think in terms of here/there.

Where?

A doorway intuitively leads us from here to there. So it’s a significator; it announces to us that we are leaving where we’ve been and entering new or different territory.

I can’t remember where or from whom I first learned that 11s are portals. I think it was probably more of a symbolic association than anything else. But as soon as I began my metaphysical studies almost 40 years ago, I realized how prevalent is the consideration of 11s as something special.

Tarot

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, it took me a long time to feel comfortable exploring the tarot. But once I realized its value as an amazing means of accessing psychological and spiritual insight, the symbolism – when I gave myself permission to free associate – seemed to just fall into place intuitively. Although when I reread that sentence, I wonder if it was the development of my confidence in my ability to intuit symbols that finally helped me appreciate the value of the tarot.

Hmm. A thought for another time.

All I can say at this moment in time is that pondering this question has made me pull out a bunch of 11s in just one tarot deck. I want to use them as examples of how they lead from one state of reality, understanding, awareness, or experience to another.

But it’s taking me down a rabbit hole and I realize I don’t have nearly enough time to explore this and have some fun with it.

11s

Suffice it to say for the moment that I have a special relationship to 11s. Not only do I have 11s showing up for myself numerologically, but of course Karl died on 11/11/11. I’ve always felt he couldn’t resist all the portals that showed up in front of him – so he went through and didn’t return.

For now, I’m just going to comment on how the Two of Wands, pictured above, shows a person on the brink of moving out into a whole new world. He just needs to go through the doorway formed by the Wands on either side of him. It’s his choice. The world is in his hands.

And there’s a lot more for us to explore.

(T-116)

You Tell Me – Day 552

Liminal Cat – Photo: L. Weikel

You Tell Me

Just up the road from the illustrious Woodpecker Condominiums, there’s a barn that both shelters a few horses and is home to at least a couple of cats. One of the horses has already proven to be a bit on of a flaky sort. You tell me whether the cats are of this world or not.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you thinking. What in the heck? Of course they’re ‘of this world.’ What are you talking about, woman? And what in the world does that even mean?!

Well.

Take a look at the photo at the top of this post. You tell me whether it’s photo-shopped or not. I swear it is not. Which begs the question: if it is not photo-shopped, why does it look entirely as if someone lifted a photo of a healthy happy cat and airlifted into a barnyard setting – and placed an aura of gold around said feline? You tell me it doesn’t look like it’s just ‘playing’ at being in this reality. “Yup, I’m here, human. Don’t look away! I might disappear. Heh heh heh.”

This particular four-legged beast has been elusive to my enthusiastic and loving, if prying, eyes for quite some time. Perhaps my affection has been mistaken for stalking as a result of my annoying efforts to snap a shot of it (and steal its soul?). It’s been over a year since I stepped up my walking and added a whole new route to my repertoire. All this time I’ve been thwarted in my efforts to capture this here now gone again tease.

But today was different.

Am I really here? – Photo: L. Weikel

A Game

Today felt different. It felt like this furry phantom was ready to give me proof that it’s a magical cat. A feline from elsewhere, if only just the liminal region of a parallel reality. Either that or it was just messing with my head, playing games with my emotions. Taunting me.

I must admit, I started getting suspicious when it moved not one jot as I kept up an appreciateive chatter while snapping photos. It refused to move. It just sat there, looking at me, turning its head only just slightly enough to maintain eye contact with me as I moved from its left to its right, all the while maintaining that odd projection of placid boredom, with just a hint of amusement on its face.

Playing Coy – Photo: L. Weikel

What Is Real?

There was the appearance of another ‘tell’ that might lend credence to the possibility that I’d entered into the universe of photo-shopped barn cats. A rainbow dog on the horizon that was eminently more visible to the naked eye than to the best close-up efforts of my iPhone.

You tell me. What is real?

Both? Neither? Am I making it all up as I go along?

You bet I am.

And so are you.

Faint whisper of a rainbow dog – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-559)

Water Over the Dam – Day 455

Dam at Lake Nockamixon – Photo: L. Weikel

Water Over the Dam

This expression is often used when something has happened and it can’t be taken back.

In the past when I’ve heard this expression, I’ve often imagined the water slurping over the top of the dam, a slosh of water sort of escaping the confines of the dam that’s holding the majority of the water back.

But when I look at the photo of the dam at Lake Nockamixon, which you could argue is ‘holding back’ my favorite local body of water, the Tohickon Creek, you can see that the water is not slurping over the barrier.

No, it’s cascading. It’s rushing headlong, determined on its course.

Reality and Metaphor

It’s fascinating to me how Spirit brings us messages much more frequently than we realize.  Sometimes we find ourselves looking for messages everywhere we turn, searching our surroundings for signs that might give us a clue as to how we should decide to respond to a situation or what kind of choice we should make when facing a dilemma.

And sometimes there it is: right in front of our face.

Yes, the eagle flying high overhead could easily be suggesting that we should rise above a situation and look at it from a higher perspective. Try to see the question or issue from more angles than might be obvious to us from our particular vantage point.

But perhaps the message isn’t the eagle flying high above our head.

Maybe the message is in the storm clouds gathering on the horizon, getting darker and darker each moment as we try to focus on the beauty of the lake or the sound of the rushing water rejoining and feeding the Tohickon.

There’s definitely darkness on the horizon – that is quite obvious.

But there’s sunshine in the distance as well.

I only just realized this evening that the answer was staring me in the face:

It’s literally water over the dam. It’s a rush of water, dashing itself on the rocks below.

The thing is, it’s reality: it’s not just a metaphor. It’s water over the dam. It’s done. It’s over. And nothing will get that water back into the lake.

Some blue sky coming – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-656)

I Got Nothin’ – Day Fifty Nine

I Got Nothin’

I’ve shown up every night for 59 days, trusting I would have something to write about. But tonight? I got nothing’. I know I said at the very beginning of this 1111 Devotion journey that there might be days when I would write one sentence and that would have to suffice.

But I hoped it wouldn’t actually come to that.

And I guess it hasn’t literally come to that today, either, since I’ve obviously written more than one sentence. (Umm, yea for me?)

Get Out Of Jail Free Card

So I’m in the clear. I’ve saved myself from using my Get Out Of Jail Free card tonight.

Which makes me wonder: How many GOOJF cards do I get in the 1111 Devotion? Since I’m making up the rules as I go along, I’d say 111 seems fair. Ten percent. What do you think?

In the grand scheme of things, that might appear reasonable (10%). But wow. Looking at it from the perspective that 10% would give me 111 whole, actual, days of only writing one sentence seems crazily over the top. That’s just shy of four months if I strung them all together.

Funny how perspective can shift everything, isn’t it?

That’s the cool thing about shamanic work, actually. (Bet you didn’t see that correlation coming out of left field, did you?)

Perception and Perspective

But it’s true. So much of what we experience in our day-to-day lives and in our world in general is rooted in our perceptions. And as we learn and grow more adept at shifting our perception, we actually gain the ability to begin shifting our reality in ways we might never have imagined.

And part of how we perceive anything is the perspective from which we look at it. But obviously, before we can shift our perspective, we have to realize what our present one is. How are we looking at something? Is it from a place of fear? Of feeling magnanimous and abundant? Is it from a place of feeling centered and at peace?

There are those varying perspectives we can consider, and then there are different levels of perception we can employ to shift our reality. But again, we first have to train ourselves to become aware of the different levels so we can identify what one we are looking at or perceiving from at any given moment.

So here I am, starting a conversation on how important both perspective and differing levels of perception can completely influence our experience of ‘reality.’ And I’m also suggesting that shamanic work can result in dramatic shifts in not only our perceptions, and perspectives, but also our realities.

That’s some pretty heady stuff to be contemplating right around midnight. Or the crack of dawn, if that’s when you’re reading this.

Checking Our Perspective – Occasionally

Just think about it. If you were told you had only one more month to live, would you look at anything the same way as you are in this present moment? That’s a radical question to ask any of us to contemplate, even if it might be some people’s actual reality. And we might be inclined to judge it as just a dumb intellectual exercise, since it can feel like we are bullshitting ourselves if we really try to imagine looking at ourselves from the perspective of knowing we only have one more month (or week, or day) to live.

But I do think it is helpful, sometimes, to take a personal re-set. To really sit down and think about how we are choosing to perceive our life, our circumstances, our relationships, and even our world, at any given time. Are we looking at these things from the default perspective that ‘things will never change?’ That, it seems to me, is an even greater bullshitting of ourselves than the former.

Ha ha – maybe I should’ve stopped at that one sentence and let things be.

Naaah. I still have 111 in my back pocket. Or do I?

(T-1052)