SOUL WALK
A blade of grass.
A splinter of obsidian.
A trillion stars.
A hundred million Children singing in unison to the One.
A moment in the Crux.
A mighty range of snow-capped mountains.
An ancient city burning.
A short soul walk may reveal to the soul walker a wealth of information regarding important or insignificant events; everyday happenings or moments in time which will change history, or a soul walker may see nothing at all in an eternity of walking in the spirit realm. Soul walks are unpredictable. But even soul walks which at first seem to reveal nothing of import may have hidden gems of wisdom nestled within them. This is why, for a few days after every soul walk, most soul walkers will sit in quiet reflection, hoping to discover any information they may have missed.
In the soul walker’s visions, the blade of grass, and the millions of its companions growing tall in the meadows at the foot of the towering mountains, were being trampled by legions of Tlalocan bound-undead.
The obsidian splinter was but a small shard from a row of obsidian teeth on a huge macuahuitl blade, which had shattered upon impacting the skull of a brave Inca Cuzco warrior.
The trillion stars were the last sight of the dying Inca warrior as his soul rose to join the others rising all around him from the field of battle upon which they fell.
The myriad of voices risen in song became much clearer as the dead warrior’s soul rose above his mangled body, which now laid on the blood-soaked grass of the battlefield. They were singing of the Way and in honor to the One.
These moments and details of the battlefield were not the direct experience of the soul walker now travelling in the Crux, but instead, were glimpses of events which flashed across his field of vision as he traveled through the realms of the One. The soul walker’s visions were like a mirage, glimpsed in the distant horizon on a hot day while walking through the desert, but these visions were endowed with much more clarity, and focus then any mirage.
As always, the joy of the One filled his heart as he walked through the spirit realms. Typically, the visions actually helped him feel the sacred Balance being fulfilled, but on this soul walk, a dark cloud was now spreading over his feeling of joy and was slowly covering all of the light which shone from the One.
The spreading darkness was also getting thicker. Not just blotting out the light from above but the light radiating from the spirit world itself. Spirit light could only be directly witnessed by those who could walk upon that ethereal world of the Crux; soul walkers. That ghostly, golden light is the force that makes possible all of the children’s dreams and when the spirit world’s soul light is clouded over in darkness, dreams turn to nightmares.
To the soul walker, the growing darkness felt like a spiritual manifestation of the black tar that boils up from the ground in certain places deep in the deserts that surround the mountain-top village he and his people call home. The darkness was beginning to choke his soul. With a growing sense of impending danger, he began to walk back towards his physical body; seeking the safety that reality would provide from the spiritual darkness now bleeding all around him.
The more hurriedly he walked back to his waiting body in the real world, the slower his going became. He began to worry that he was being trapped inside the darkness. That his soul would get lost in the oblivion it represented. But then he felt a soft wind upon his hair. At first it was barely noticeable, but then it grew in intensity, and as it did, it blew small holes in the enveloping darkness. Through those openings he could see his apprentice, Acapucho, kneeling next to his prone body. Acapucho was chanting. There was urgency in his song. There was an almost manic-speed to how he wove the smoke emanating from his blessed pipe through the air above his master’s entranced body.
With a start the soul walker broke out from the spirit realm. He opened his eyes and looked up into Acapuchos’s worried face. After a moment his apprentice smiled and looked somewhat relieved. The bright morning sun was shining down upon them, warming both their faces, but then a dark cloud began to spread over the sky above, and with the lessening light of the sun came a chill wind. Acapucho’s face lost its new-found sense of relief and once again took on a worried, even scared, demeanor.
The growing cloud cover began to get thicker and more ominous until there was no more sunshine, and until the sun and its healing rays had been vanished. Only darkness remained. As in the soul walker’s soul walk, the darkness also began to rise out of the ground all around them in wisps of black fog. Soon both the darkening earth and sky were moving towards each other. If Acapucho and his master remained in the area when the sky’s and earth’s darkness met, both men would simply vanish in that blackness, never to be seen again.
Acapucho helped his master to his feet, and together they began to go as fast as his master’s unsteady state would allow. They headed towards their village. Acapucho felt sure they would make it to the safety of their homes. They said not a word to each other while they walked, but both master and apprentice had come to the same conclusion; someone, somewhere had done the unthinkable, they had managed to disrupt the One’s eternal Balance.
Such an event had never happened. And here, high in the Andes, both Inca men knew that helping to restore the Balance would be the only endeavor left to them for the rest of their lives. Not doing so would surely mean the end of all.
This, they also knew, was The Way.
