An Instrument of Power

From time to time I notice a certain troublesome unease on the periphery of my awareness.  It isn't serious or spiritually debilitating;  it is simply a movement that leaves a certain sadness, and a wanting, in its wake. Most of the time I don't even notice it because my other activities, such as preparing pieces for posting here, produce enough 'noise' to mask the discomfort. Nevertheless, it will still remain, gently haunting me and refusing to go away.  In the more distant past, I would have brushed that unease away with annoyance.  Not any more.  I have learned to trust these discomforts, to approach and investigate them before they develop into something more demandingly uncomfortable.

It was whilst undergoing one of these periods of slight discomfort that I found myself preparing for a morning meditation.  There seemed to be no problems, except that the occasional thought would intrude and distract.  I find that thoughts, however, are obvious when present and can be summarily, if only temporarily, dealt with.  On the other hand, emotions and feelings are far less obvious for me, and cannot so readily be dismissed.  Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to be aware that a feeling is even present. On this particular morning I noticed that now familiar sense of unease, but this time I decided to approach it and determine the cause of the problem. Immediately, I recognised the cause as a pervading sense of spiritual aridity.

My most recent posts have been concerned with my first meeting with my internal Druid, my Voice of Authenticity, and my interpretation of the symbols that arose.  Lying in the background was an awareness that it has been a long time since the Druid and I have obviously travelled together.

"Has he abandoned me?"  I asked myself.  "Am I doing something wrong?  Am I not working hard enough?  Am I being too lax?"  These and other questions of a similar nature, arose to plague my uneasy mind.

Of course, all such thoughts are the product of an over-zealous and dictatorial ego.  The real cause of the aridity is a joyous one, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.  It is the perfectly normal response to an inner journey going ever deeper, a journey which my consciousness cannot be privy to.  Patience and faith are needed.  It just so happens that I am a little short of both commodities.  Once the problem had been addressed, I could once more return to my meditation, and that was when I received a massive surprise.

..........I found myself sitting on a log of appropriate proportions, looking into a fire outside a cave on a mountaintop.  I felt no need to immerse myself in its flames as I had done on a previous visit. To my right, closer to the mouth of the cave and still remaining in the shadows, sat the Druid. Somehow, I had been plucked from the conscious state of my meditation room and brought here to the mountaintop.  We sat awhile, enjoying each other's company, slipping into that familiarising process that floods the heart with joy. Yes, it was good to be back. 

          I sensed a movement from the Druid, but only a slight movement, but it was enough.  I found that I was holding an ebony wand in my hands, a black, polished instrument of great power. It was incredible. Here, in my hands, rested something so beautiful and potent that I could see no way that I could carry it to a lower level of consciousness.  It would have been as if I were trying to live a peak experience for the rest of my life, or manifesting the divine in an environment unsuited to its presence. How different this experience from that of the rock chippings that had turned to amethyst.  On that visit, the rock chippings had been ordinary, run of the mill. This wand was anything but that.

          As I felt the slick smoothness of the gift that had been placed in my hands, I began to feel, to become aware of, something else.  It seemed as if a secondary presence existed within the wand. That inner presence seemed to indicate that it was akin to a stick of charcoal, that it had an inner, hidden purpose, and that I was required to draw with it.  That made no sense to me.  How could I draw a sketch or a picture with something so obviously unsuited for the task? I was receiving no apparent help from the Druid; this was something I had to sort out for myself.  

          Then something seemed to click into place.  I wasn't required to draw pictures with this wand. I was to draw up, or draw down, something, energy or power perhaps, from some place deep within me. Or maybe I was to do nothing, that whatever was needed would, of itself, be drawn from my psycho-spiritual being, for some purpose yet to be disclosed. Maybe that process of drawing on the spiritual realm was already happening.  As that realisation dawned, the Druid stood and clasped my hands in his, and I knew the rightness of my conclusion. 
          It was then that I received my second massive surprise. 'His' hands were unmistakeably female. Even after all the slight hints in the past, I had always imagined the Druid to be male.  I looked up at her, longing to see her face so completely hidden in shadow.  And the thought spoke to me, 

"Why should it be otherwise?  Have I not already opined that there is a spectrum of Truth of which Wisdom, or Sophia, is a part?  Why then should not my Druid also be female?"............

                                                                                      (Extract from my current diary)

Somewhere, deep inside me, I sense a block has been removed, a kink ironed out, ........ and yes, a rough place made plain.  Now the quote from Isaiah 40:4 makes sense for me.

           "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low:  

           and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places made plain."

I have been lifted.  Can unease wear a smile on its face?  I prefer un-sadness to sadness just as I prefer happiness to unhappiness, but I accept the need for both.  Without the one I will never find the other.  I am a living creature, therefore I react or choose to respond to stimuli. Those stimuli do not always need to be severe;  a little unease on the periphery of awareness can be enough. Meditations and contemplations do not always go to plan, or as my ego so readily reminds me, even go very well at all. But I no longer need to compete, to win, or even get things right.  I am that I am.  It will suffice.