This started out as a somewhat guided meditation that began when I sat down to channel and asked, “Who would like to come in that wants to have fun with me?” I was in the mood for an adventure.
I heard, We are here! There is a light above you. Do you see it? I had no idea who was speaking to me, but I could feel their joy.
“I’m imagining it.”
Good enough. What does it look like?
“Like a small sun right above my head.”
Good. Now, rise into that light.
Huh. “Okay.” I imagined levitating up into that orb. “Done.”
What do you see?
“It’s bright. But it doesn’t hurt my eyes.” In my imagination, I was completely surrounded by the light, no longer aware of my surroundings otherwise. Then the light began to fade, as if a mist were clearing.
A scene began to appear. “I see a landscape, like a quaint village of old. Mostly rolling hills and green, green grass. Blue skies. Little houses. Maybe a Swiss village? That kind of quaintness. There are mountains in the distance, I think. Low ones. Or very distant ones. A small river, maybe a stream, runs through. Not a lot of trees. Some trees, but more like fruit trees. Intentional trees.”
Turn around. See the scene from all sides of you.
So I turned. Behind me was a forest. Except…it didn’t look right. I frowned. “There’s no color. It’s as if the village and the rest of the landscape are in full color and the forest is in black and white. It looks creepy.”
What do you think you’re looking at?
“You want me to engage my human mind?”
Yes. We do.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It kind of feels like an enchanted forest, but one that’s been cursed. Maybe there are monsters in there, or maybe it’s just devoid of light. I wonder why the village is nestled so close to it?”
Why do you think?
“Well, I suspect that either the forest holds no danger to the villagers, or they can’t see the darkness like I can.”
I continued to gaze into that unnaturally colorless space. “It makes me wonder about the trees. I also wonder if they are two separate worlds, if perhaps they’re not aware of each other. Maybe only I can see them both?”
Very good. Now, what would you like to do here?
Do? “Beats me. Well, I admit to being far more curious about the forest, than the village. But I wouldn’t want to spend any time there unless there’s something I can do to heal it.”
Is there something you can do?
“Possibly. I have some ideas. Let me feel into it, see if this is for me.” I tuned into my body, for it always tells me. If I’d felt a knotting in my gut I’d know it was a ‘no’. Instead, I felt a lightness in my chest that signals a ‘yes’. “Let me see what I can do.”
I turned toward the village, on a hunch, and said in a normal voice, “I ask for those who’ve been trying to heal this forest to come forth. I’d like to help you.”
Within moments, a team of elves appeared on the path from the village, looking like they’d walked off the set of a Lord of the Rings movie. There were six of them, all quite tall. Their expressions were wary, although I didn’t think that wariness was aimed at me, but at the creepy place behind me.
“I take it you’re aware that this forest has a problem?” I asked as they drew close.
The female at the head of the group nodded. “Oh, yes.” She sighed. “The energy is very, very low, and stuck. We’ve tried everything.”
“How did it get like this?”
“It’s been a dumping ground for low emotions, and worse, for a very long time.”
“Do you mean it’s been a place of wars, battles, violence?”
“That and more. But not here, exactly. Well, not just here in our realm. It’s what we refer to as a hot spot.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “What’s a hot spot?”
One of her companions stepped forward, an elf that I could not easily assign a pronoun to. “I’ll try to explain. Imagine you have a small stack of thin plastic sheets lying on top of each other, and someone walks by and presses a lit cigarette onto them.”
This was a weird analogy coming from an elf who lived in what looked like a medieval village, but I’ve come to understand that all channeling, whether I call it that, or call it imagination, uses my own knowledge base to create analogies.
“I suspect it would burn through the top layers of the stack. Maybe all of them?”
“Correct. And that hole has now fused, melting together all of the sheets – in this case realms – in that spot.”
The female elf took over. “The lowest, densest energies of at least a dozen realms have collected in this hot spot that connects us.”
I was trying to understand. “So the violence didn’t happen here, in your realm?”
“Some of it did,” she said. “It was a long time ago, but it was quite awful, which is how this hot spot formed in the first place, connecting with similar places in the other realms.”
“And the trees grew over the battlefield?” I asked.
“The trees are an illusion that we created, so that it doesn’t look quite as terrible. I’ll show you.”
I turned. As I watched, the forest disappeared. In its place was a land of pure devastation, as if a bomb had gone off and wiped out everything.
“How do we heal a hot spot?” I asked. “Is there something we can do?”
She sighed. “We’ve tried everything. It’s too heavy.”
The non-pronoun-specific elf said, “We were told to wait for you.”
I looked at them with surprise. “Me?”
The female elf nodded. “The angels said you could help us. We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Oh.” Huh. “Well, I’m here. Do you have a plan?”
She shook her head. “Nothing we’ve tried has worked. We’re out of ideas.”
I nodded. Okey-dokey. Now what?
I turned toward the hot spot, but as I started to step forward, the elven female grabbed my arm. “You can’t walk in there.”
“Why not?”
“There are monsters. Well, they’re energetic thought forms, but they can snuff out your light.”
“You’ve seen them? You’ve seen that happen?”
“Yes, over and over. We’ve tried to heal this place many times, in every way we can conceive of. But any elf who has gone in has come out changed. Without light. Without heart. Good people turned cruel and violent.”
Yeah, that wasn’t good.
I supposed that I needed to start by calling in my own etheric team. I closed my eyes and asked for all who could help me to come into my awareness. As I opened my eyes, I saw a small group gathering around me – Archangel Michael, the Divine Mother, Grandfather, and Golden Eagle Woman. There were others, but these were the only ones who came clearly into my awareness.
“So I’m thinking I’m just going to walk in there and try spinning up the energy,” I told them. “Yes? No?”
Archangel Michael shrugged. “You can do anything you believe you can do.”
I smiled, then snorted. “It’s my dream. I can make it happen however I want, right?”
He smiled at me. “Theoretically, yes. You can.”
“Just theoretically?”
“You have to believe.”
“Okay. Well, since this is all happening in my imagination, I’m quite sure I’m going to succeed.” I was, wasn’t I? Hoo boy. “I ask for any support and help that you, or others, can give me, please.”
“Sounds like you need us, then, Goddess.” Jag’s voice rang out from the path to the village and I turned to find the eight Ferals striding toward us, plus Lyon’s mate, and their Radiant, Kara.
“We’re going with you,” Lyon said.
I ran toward them, Kara in my sights. Kara and I met halfway in a huge hug before the others surrounded us and greeted me in the same way.
“How did you know to come?” I asked them.
“Hawke,” Lyon said.
I glanced at the hawk-shifter, who gave me a shrug. “Michael and I have formed a connection.”
“So you heard the voice of an Archangel in your ear?”
“More like in my head. But yes. It’s a common occurrence these days. And often involves you.”
I wasn’t surprised by this.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, and briefly relayed what the elves had told me. “I need to walk in there, close my eyes, and concentrate on raising the energy. I don’t know what those monsters really are, but…”
“We’ll keep them away from you, Goddess,” Lyon assured me.
“Thank you.”
“Should I go in, too?” Kara asked. “Hawke felt like I was going to be needed.”
I shook my head, even as Lyon pulled his mate protectively against his side. “If we need you, I’ll call for you,” I said. “Or Lyon will. But I think it may help if you go radiant and power them up before we go in.”
Kara nodded, then began to glow with a bright, beautiful light as if she’d swallowed that small sun herself. The energy she pulled from the Earth was specifically designed to empower the shifters. In fact, it was crucial to their survival. And while I wasn’t sure we were exactly on Earth, I chose to believe her radiance would work just as well here.
As Kara glowed, the eight shifters gathered around her, touching her on the hand or neck, or the top of her head.
While the Ferals prepared themselves, I walked over to Grandfather and gave him a hug. He’s Native American, has been one of my guides for years now, and is very special to me.
“Any advice, Grandfather?”
He stroked my cheek. “You go where angels fear to tread.”
I glanced at Archangel Michael, who just shrugged as if to say, He’s not wrong.
“You can do anything you put your mind to, Granddaughter. We have utmost faith in you.”
“Thank you. Wish me luck.”
“I can do better than that. I infuse you with the power of my love for you.”
I smiled, kissed him on the cheek, then turned to where the Ferals stood waiting for me.
“Let’s do this.” I said, and walked into another world.
The air temperature dropped twenty degrees between one step and the next as something began to rise up out of the ground. Many somethings. Hideous beasts, part snake, part gargoyle.
“Can these things steal our souls like they did the elves’?” Fox asked.
Wulfe raised a pair of knives. “They can try.”
Paenther’s hand went to the back of my neck, a knife flashing in his free hand as Kougar, Lyon, and Hawke made a circle around us, their backs to us, ready to make sure nothing reached me.
Jag shifted into his jaguar form, Tighe into a fifteen-foot Bengal tiger. Sometimes their animal forms were more effective against magic and other weird energetic expressions.
“Can you do your work from here?” Lyon asked me. “Or do we have to go deeper inside this place?”
“I think this is fine.” If it didn’t work, we’d have to try something else.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and then consciously opened my heart.
Immediately, I felt a rancid energy crawling over my skin, and shuddered. Oh, this was not going to be fun.
I imagined the light within me, within my heart, growing brighter. Then brighter, still. But I feared my light was no match for the thick density of the energy here.
Around me, the sounds of battle erupted in shouts and roars.
“Everyone okay?” I asked without opening my eyes.
“Focus, Goddess,” Paenther said, his hand still firmly on the back of my neck where he could move me out of harm’s way in an instant.
I heard Michael’s voice in my head. Your Ferals love you fiercely. Use that.
Of course. My light might not be enough on its own, but all light is, at its core, love.
“Send me your love,” I told them, an admittedly weird request to make of warriors in the thick of battle, but it’s what I needed – the high vibration of their love for me as well as mine for them.
Somehow, they managed it, because I felt a powerful wave of high emotion slamming into the low, rancid soup. Suddenly I found it far easier to shine my light, so I did so, focusing, intentioning myself shining brighter and brighter.
“That’s it, Goddess,” Paenther breathed. “The creatures are growing agitated.”
I turned inward, tuning out the battle raging around me, and instead focused on the feel of Paenther’s warm hand on my neck, his powerful body standing protectively at my side, as his Feral brothers surrounded me.
I thought of Michael and Grandfather and the others watching nearby, cheering me on, and I felt utterly safe, infinitely loved. As I focused on, and fed, that beautiful feeling, the light within me grew and grew until I wanted to laugh, to shout with joy.
“The creatures are growing weaker,” Lyon said. “Keep it up, Goddess.”
The creatures are just the guardians, the low energy protecting itself, Archangel Michael reminded me telepathically.
What I was doing was weakening the monsters, but perhaps not transmuting the low energy itself. And it was the latter that was required.
I needed to spin up the energy, a technique the Archangels taught me years ago that required me to open up and let it all in. All of it.
So I did, and immediately felt like I’d been slugged in the stomach.
I gasped.
Paenther pulled me back against him, his arm going around my shoulders. “I’ve got you.”
“I’ve never felt anything like this,” I admitted. Silently, I asked my etheric team, What do I do?
Grandfather’s voice sounded in my head. Do not open fully to it, for it will be too much. Imagine taking a sip at a time, Granddaughter, as if through a narrow straw.
So I imagined a small straw between my lips. I took a small sip of that rancid energy and could almost feel it burn my mouth, and burn a trail down my throat, before it hit the light within me and dissolved.
“That worked,” I told Grandfather, speaking out loud this time. “But this will take a long, long time.”
One sip at a time, Granddaughter. As it weakens, you will be able to take more.
Michael said, We’re helping to boost your light so that you can transmute the darkness more quickly.
The next sip burned slightly less than before, and the sip after that, hardly at all. I received the knowing, like a mini download, that my team in spirit had added some kind of etheric coating to the dark energy, like an energetic Pepto Bismol, to keep it from affecting me physically.
I sipped again and again, the sips longer and longer. Imagining the straw growing larger, wider, I began to draw in that low, dense energy quickly now, spinning it up, transmuting it into light.
But it kept coming, and coming. There was so much of it! I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up.
As if they’d heard my thoughts, which of course they had, someone on my etheric team said, If you need help, ask for it. Even in this place, we cannot help unless you ask.
“Help, please,” I said out loud.
“What do you need, Goddess?” Paenther’s voice was sharp with concern.
“Oh, that was a request of spirit, not you. I was asking for a boost of light. A big one.”
Even as I spoke, I began to feel a massive surge of high energy lifting me, empowering me, and suddenly it was all so easy.
I imagined a tornado inside of me, sucking in the density from all of the desolate places that formed this hot spot. But I also called to me the light in each of these realms, the love and beauty and joy, along with the powerful love of my teams. I spun it all together, transforming it into pure light, and then sent that re-formed energy up and out the crown of my head to shower down upon all of these realms.
“The creatures are breaking apart!” Fox called.
Jag whooped. “They’re dust!”
As I continued to transmute the darkness to light, I began the next phase of the work – visualizing what I wanted to create. In my mind’s eye, I saw a brightly lit forest filled with healthy trees and happy forest creatures. I imagined the elves happily strolling through the sun-dappled woods, laughing.
In my mind’s eye, breathtaking beauty replaced the desolation in all of the realms. Beauty, kindness, compassion, joy.
“That’s it!” Fox shouted. “They’re gone.”
As he said the words, I felt the last of the heaviness that I’d ingested disappear. It was gone. The darkness had been destroyed.
As a cheer went up, I opened my eyes to see dozens of elves had surrounded us. In the woods. I laughed. In the beautiful, green sun-dappled woods that looked just like what I’d imagined.
“You did it, Goddess,” Paenther said, hugging me tight. “Look at this place.”
“Everyone okay?” I asked. As the other Ferals gathered around us, I noticed a few of them had wounds that were quickly healing.
Wulfe grinned. “That was weird as hell, but fun.”
Kara joined us and slid into Lyon’s arms, reaching for me and squeezing my hand.
Archangel Michael joined us, as well.
“Mission accomplished?” I asked him. “Is there more for us to do here?”
Michael shook his head with a smile. “Well done.”
“Come celebrate with us,” the elven leader said, beaming. “All of you!”
I could see Tighe’s hesitation, which was easy to read. “Are their wives invited as well?”
“Of course! The more the merrier.”
Tighe grinned, then looked at me with a question. “How do we get them here? Can you…?”
“Write them into the scene?” I laughed. “Of course!”
With the snap of my fingers, the Feral wives appeared around us, Delaney and Natalie each with a toddler on her hip. Skye held a bouquet of wildflowers, and Melisande a box that I knew contained the finest chocolate the Feral’s realm had to offer.
I greeted them all with hugs, then held back as the Ferals and their families started towards the village with the elves.
Grandfather came to stand by my side. “Well done, Granddaughter. You have learned well.”
“I’ve had good teachers.”
“Over many, many lifetimes. Most of what you are ‘learning’ in this life is simply remembrance.” He kissed my forehead. “Go. Enjoy your party. You’ve earned it.”
I said goodbye, then ran to catch up with the others. Kara linked her arm in mine and we laughed with relief, and joy, as we headed for the elven village for one heck of a celebration.