Preface
Many believe there is a world happening around us that we simply cannot see. It can feel like your existence is such a minute detail in the greater cosmos, interconnected to every living thing in creation. Parallel realities? Astral travel?
The astral plane in ancient traditions was an intermediate world between Heaven and Earth. It was comprised of various dimensions, spirits, and the like. In religious traditions, these dimensions were called by different names, depending on the state of the soul. In Christianity, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians mentions astral travel or an alternate reality. “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know. God knows.” Most people have the ability to leave their bodies and travel the astral plane without even knowing. However, there is a group of individuals who do this consciously.
Cultures referred to them as Spiritwalkers, beings who can transcend time and space and interact with the spirit world and unconscious states of humanity. They have influence through privilege in the world of spirits as well as in this world. Spiritwalkers are said to be intermediaries or “empaths” for the seen and unseen. They can enter into alternate realities to gather information and healing medicine to impart upon the wounded soul or living creature. They work in many alternate realities at once to effect change. It can be challenging to distinguish a dream or a vision from another existence as the Spiritwalker embodies that other existence in totality through empathic means. Physical manifestations, emotional consequences, spiritual knowledge, they all become an integral aspect of the Spiritwalker’s life at any given moment in time.
That moment in time may be lifetimes. The Spiritwalker might be eating breakfast at the same moment she is acting as a psychopomp and crossing a spirit who just appeared in front of her over to another world. Also in that moment, she may be having a vision of what will happen in her life the next day, a week from now, or years to come. She is exhausted yet euphoric at the intense energetic matrix she is a part of. Deciding which moment, or lifetime, to focus on, and what is needed to work through them all needs to be initiated while she is sitting at the table with her breakfast getting cold.
She might be acting as a telepath, communicating for someone who is laying unconscious, maybe even dying, and passing along those messages to their loved ones. At the same time, she is helping this soul begin the transition, acting as a medium to the other spirits in the room that are waiting for this to happen. She watches her own body as it begins to manifest symptoms of the dying person. While this is unfolding, sweat pours down her face as she gets glimpses of her own dying process in her past that has similar threads to the person she is helping. As she assists, by the kindness of the spirit world, the trauma her own body has suffered is being released.
She is present in every moment of every reality that she can possibly be, held up by some force or energy that is unexplainable at best. She comes across beings and elementals of all kingdoms. Speaking to spirits becomes a vast paradigm. Once she connects to one spirit, if granted those privileges, she has access to communicating with those spirits of every living thing, from humans to animals to the natural world. She is propelled into a world of good and evil and learns to distinguish by necessity the difference between human will and divine. A boundary system is learned that most people cannot comprehend or relate to as learning to live separately from others becomes key to her survival many times. As she assists in the healing of others and nature, similar threads will continue to pass through her. There is no time continuum when living the life of a Spiritwalker. The past, the present, and the future is an open door, continuously occurring until there is a shift.
Repetition in the spirit world and in the life of a Spiritwalker is normal. A vision, a message, or experience might need to happen many times, until the lesson is learned. Also, there might be myriad perspectives within that lesson. Prophets in various traditions will be seen telling the same story over and over. They have their reasons.
Since so much happens for the Spiritwalker in each moment, she must learn to detach. The reactions and responses to things that would incite an ordinary person would not affect her in the same way. It cannot, or she would lose ground. The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. With that, I invite to you become a part of a Spiritwalker’s journey.
FEAR
It is nearly past sunset as Mariella sits in the silence of her living room. Her body trembles with fear, her mind races with escalating thoughts of impending doom, her hands clenching the elegant wooden Buddha statue given to her so long ago. Visions pass through her eyes of a parallel reality. She observes her shallow breaths as she cowers toward the golden-hued carpet, her hands in a prayerful state as she drops the Buddha statue and begins to pray.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” She repeats this phrase until it echoes throughout the room. That cold, still feeling that both entrances and encumbers Mariella when the spirits take over her world is unrelenting.
Those who have crossed from this world into the next, whether they belong to the human, animal, or plant kingdom, whether they are fairies, divas, angels, demons, those who have died recently, or those who have died long ago, they all clamor for her attention. They have since she was a child—a gift and a curse passed down through her family.
Not only do they vie to speak to her and through her, they long to be near her to communicate and help those who are still living. They come to protect her tenfold, and many times they come to do her harm. Many spirits who live in the light take joy in Mariella’s presence and because of that many who live in the darkness try to prevent her from doing the work she was born to do.
As she sits on the floor still enveloped in the Hail Mary, she is reminded of her gifts and burden. Her body writhes with pain as she focuses not only in this world but also in the other and asks for a vision to clarify what is befalling her.
The chill in the air becomes stifling, the lights flicker, and Mariella’s vision blurs as she waits for an apparition or a voice. She hears the empty footsteps in the air around her, the stalking energy becomes apparent, and the death-like breath from the spirit world begins to break through the ethers.
Just a few minutes feels like hours.
Unbeknownst to her, she begins to tremble more. She grasps her ears as the screeches from the outer worlds enter her world, screeches unheard by most humans. They writhe enough to frighten even the most ignorant of souls, and the gentlest of animals. Her diaphragm tightens as she gasps for air. She loses control of her thoughts, the terror taking hold as she realizes she is about to be attacked by a demon.
She has encountered thousands of them throughout her lifetime. In varying forms and intensities, they come when Mariella assumes she is always protected. Some are so strong their powers reach far into this world, once causing a traumatic car accident that almost took her life some years ago, and many times wreaking havoc in her relationships. They had caused mysterious illnesses that doctors could never find the origins of, and in some cases, the cures. The screeches grow louder as these voices begin to swirl through her mind.
She recalls the lineage of psychic powers that has passed from great-grandmother down. She pictures their instructions on protection when a demon of this nature draws near. She wants to know why she is being attacked but asking the demon will only strengthen it. Instead she waits, letting the attack work through her. The visions come and go as she monitors her breath and works effortlessly to breathe a little more deeply.
The demon doesn’t have a name. Its scathing darkness is germinating into a form large enough to hinder her from seeing the very room she is stuck in. The veil between the worlds is so transparent that her living room no longer looks the same. It appears ice cold, and Mariella’s extremities mirror that coldness down to her bones. At this point the demon is so close Mariella loses sight of which world she is in. Is she still protected?
The demon enters her mind. She shudders, trying to understand why he is there because any move she makes or precalculates is already known by her enemy.
She recognizes him, the same one she had fought a thousand times over. She is surprised that those who protect her have allowed him to threaten her again.
What is the reason? Has Mariella broken any of the spiritual cardinal rules? Did she cross any boundaries in the spirit world she wasn’t supposed to? She doesn’t care about the answer. She just wants the tormenting to stop.
The demon meanders through her mind’s eye, the stench of his invisible form permeating Mariella’s home. The rage of this demon is unstoppable. She continues praying, all the while hearing the voices cursing her. She knows she is getting stronger.
This demon’s fury is incomparable to anything she can recall. His previous forms in this lifetime and in others were not as vile. His insidious snarls threaten to destroy any hope of salvation. She waits for this to end as it has so many times before. His form changes before her eyes, his breath caressing her neck. He wants to devour her.
The screeches begin to dissipate, then a silence, a deadening silence. Slowly but surely her heartbeat slows down. Her breath lightens. The abhorrent stench slowly begins to transform to the scent of roses. She lets out a deep sigh and raises her head gently to see angels, fairies, and the good spirits as a shield. These spirits are very familiar to her. The demonic form is gone; the voices leave her head, and she once again feels safe.
The angels are slight in form and color, the animal spirits embracing, the fairies effervescent, and some of Mariella’s guides from Native Americans to indigenous healers and shamans of the world’s cultures are abound. Whenever she is attacked like this, many come, and they always will. Glancing around her living room, she recognizes that she is unscathed.
She only has one thought about the demon, that it returned with a vengeance to take away the good she had created in her life. If she can figure out a way to rise above its nature, the curse will be broken.