I wrote of the following and posted on another forum I visit earlier this year. A post I read here recently reminded me of the experience and I thought I'd share it here as well.
2 months ago, I had prepared for a full moon sweat lodge ceremony held a few hours drive from where I live. I started attending earlier this year and find it a very spiritual experience.
As part of the preparation, I'd fasted for several days.... well, fast may be a bit of a stretch... I used the lemon juice/grade B maple syrup/cayenne pepper/water cleanse to help clear my mind and
cleanse my body.
As I usually do, the night before the sweat, I spent time in the medicine wheel I have in my back yard. I follow Native American ritual when using the wheel, so I did traditional ceremony, entered with proper intent, drummed for a while and then just sat in silence.
This was just before night fall. The shadows were dark in the surrounding woods but the sky was still a light blue overhead. As the old saying goes... it was the time "when the crack between worlds is widest".
I don't want this note to get too long (and it already is) so I will attempt to get to the point.
As I sat there in the stillness... focused only on my breathing... a form began to appear in the small field between where I sat and the woodline beyond. It first seemed a faint mist or fog and gradually
as I watched it began to take shape.
It was floating what I'd guess was 3 or so feet above the ground and was perhaps 8 or 10 feet tall. As the sun continued to set and just before the night drove the last remnants of light from the sky... the misty, foggy shape became clear... it was a doorway... or better said, a door frame... if there was a door, it was open and it hung of the side opposite where I sat. I could still see patches of sky
through the trees beyond the field where the doorway was. Yet, what I saw when looking into the opening of the doorway was complete blackness... there were no patches of sky and there should have been.
I've experienced visions before while meditating in my wheel. Sometimes they are strange and otherworldly... a few times there have been strange beings or what some might call beasts... things that could easily make me afraid, but so far, I've not been afraid. Though I admit I was uncomfortable at first... uncomfortable until I heard what I call a silent whisper from Spirit... a whisper explaining that if I
approach what I see with due respect and do not interfere with anything or anyone, no harm will come to me. I hold to that promise in moments like this.
As the "door" floated there... an unspoken invitation slipped into my thoughts... an invitation to step through the doorway and into whatever lay beyond.
I sat there wondering what this was about... the doorway.. the invitation... wondering what lay beyond... in the blackness...
I wrote above that I had not been afraid before. Tradition says that the wheel is a place of Medicine... a place of power... a place.. a circle, where you are protected. I have always felt that when spending time in such moments as this.
The invitation though... was to step beyond the circle of the wheel, step into the field, and step through the doorway into the darkness.
And I was afraid.... damn.... it is hard to type it as it was hard not to take that chance and step into the void beyond that doorway.
When the fear slipped in... the doorway began to dissolve... in a few moments there was nothing there but the field and the woods beyond.
It seemed a literal doorway... I don't know if it was a figment of my imagination.... I do know, in those moments... it seemed very real and I believe I could have stepped through...
This is the second time I could have stepped into the black void and I was too afraid to do so. Once before, several years ago... I stood on the edge of a precipice.... nothing but blackness beyond and
below me... and I was afraid to take that step.. and I pulled back.
Has anyone here taken that step?
