I’m staying overnight at a mountain cabin retreat center, where the owner is a kindred healer spirit, whose abilities came to her after a car wreck caused severe brain trauma and many years of recovery. After having a meal of soup and cornbread with her and her husband of forty years, she and I sit in front of the fire and talk for a while. As we’re speaking, I can’t help but notice that, out of the corner of my eye, the shadow of her chair resembles the one, the only: Jar-Jar Binks.
You know in scary movies when shadows take the form of ghosts or spooky creatures? I think there’s something to that phenomenon, because when I saw this shadow, it was more than just an optical coincidence. It was a visitation, a quick but clear Hello! from my friend the Jar-Jar spirit. I noticed this, but kept it to myself, knowing that if he and I were meant to communicate, it will happen when the time is right.
After a long sleep and a morning of yoga, meditation, and releasing many tears of nameless grief, I went outside to ground and be warmed by the Sun. Seated on a concrete garden bench, overlooking the scenic pine tree line, I close my eyes. You’ll never guess what happened next.
…Okay, you might. In my third-eye vision, I see Jar-Jar again, his long lizard face and jutting eyes looking at me up close and personal. I’m feeling peaceful and quiet, so I decide to figure out once and for all if this being is actually worth talking to, or if it’s just an annoying stalker that I should eradicate from my field. I call upon Archangel Michael to vet the Jar-Jar (Michael is the bomb for protection related needs), and I ask him to let me know if the spirit is cool to communicate with. Michael gives me a clear yes. I take a breath. Okay. Let the mental conversation begin.
“Why are you here?”, I inquire.
“To help you see clearly”, he says.
Clarity. It’s exactly the intention I came on this retreat for.
“How?”, I wonder.
In his words: “Open your eyes. What do you see?”
Opening my eyes with careful observation, I begin to take inventory of my surroundings: late-Fall garden plants, mulch, fallen leaves, granite walking stones, the corner of a cabin. I direct my thoughts to the spirit guide: “I see shapes. Colors. Light, darkness. Movement. Patterns.” I’m seeing this setting as a collection of texture and visual contrast, rather than leaves, plants, earth. No labels, simply seeing, with physical human eyes.
I close them again. He asks, “What else?”
One more open-eyed inventory, silent yet deep. Nothing significant comes to mind, though I sense a revelation on the horizon. Closing my eyes, I hear him say, “Let me show you something.”
An almost indescribable scene plays out before my mind-screen. The shapes are a bright pink with some white and light blue. Vast black space as the backdrop, I watch patiently as this being shows me a flush of cosmic movements and imagery. I see what could be interpreted as canines running, lava flowing, worlds being destroyed and built, wormholes opening and closing. Timelines of unknown length passing before my eyes, and I the cosmic observer. Then the shapes morph into bumps, hills, valleys, warps in space-time. I ride these waves, which are like the template upon which matter may form; I sense a message in them. Without words or any clear reason, I begin to understand. Again, I open my eyes.
This time, instead of simply seeing what’s on the surface – colors, shapes, light, dark, patterns; leaves, bushes, mulch, stones, cabin – I slowly integrate the wisdom subtly bestowed to me by this mysterious spirit being. Every thing, person, or place that I “see” is built on a template of meaning. We have the capacity to look deep within imagery, symbolism, physical objects, to extract the meaning behind their existence. What do the mechanics of a thing betray about its true nature?
I observe a crispy fallen leaf, probe it with my new eyes. The outer shape is a mask to be interpreted. The same applies to human beings, whose personality and even the shape of their body is a hint of how their energy flows, which experiences their Soul has accumulated throughout lifetimes. The meaning goes deeper still, until something more tangible is reached: a core. A heart. The Heart. Yes, the Heart of something. That is where the meaning lies.
I’m transfixed by this process unfolding within my mind and before my eyes. For me, these messages are incredibly helpful for learning how to process psychic information, both for purposes of healing and communicating with spiritual guides. I then begin to apply this knowledge – seeking the heart of the meaning within an image – to unravel the conundrum of the Jar-Jar Binks imagery. I realize that, at some point along the way, as this being was attempting to contact me, my logical mind had made an association with the Star Wars character based on the shape, pattern, etc. of what I was perceiving. This association, or assumption, however unconscious, interrupted the natural process of receiving information about what this spirit guide actually looks like. He kept appearing to me as Jar-Jar because this is how I remembered him, and for whatever reason the confusion his visitations have caused has helped me to learn a valuable lesson in psychic perception. It’s not so much about what I see, but the meaning behind it, the heart of the matter.
I can feel the heart of this being connecting with mine, and I also begin to see him more clearly. He has an orange-tan robe which flows as if he is floating in a cosmic breeze. His head is not so much Jar-Jar shaped as it is globular, like some sort of alien. He shows me a magician’s hat – “you are a magician?” … almost correct, but he hesitates. “A mage?”, I clarify. Yes, that’s more like it. He is some sort of mage, 542 (or was it 542,000?) years old in age, apparently. As I tune into his face to see it more clearly, I realize I don’t have any sort of reference for what he looks like, so I find it hard to make out his features. For now, I take time to digest the image of this new form, so that I can recognize him more clearly when he visits next.
Stay tuned for Part 3…
Ethereal Ecology 