“Land beneath the Land”
“The Landscapes of Legend”
2006 – “Academy Year III”
January 16, 2006
My studies in the tarot continue at the Academy, with daily divinations inquiring into the circumstance of my life. As this is going on, I am noticing a common conversation, the idea that we live in the outward reflection of our inner world. Sometimes about this teases at me, hinting at treasures below the depths. I consider, how does this relate to my journey deeper into the Mythica, into documenting my journey into the real magical world.
It was clear that the tarot were a means of understanding the archetypes of our stories, yet how did this relate to the nature of our manifestation? How did the archetypes of the cards relate to the actual manifest world?
I contemplated this deeply as I moved through the forests, trying to make sense of the overwhelm of sensations that was my daily challenge.
The Land was speaking to me. Whispering secrets hidden in plain sight. Like my relationship with the deva loci of New York, I could feel the essence of Tahoe, of Tahingaard herself. The spirit of the land, what I had heard referred to as the ‘aina’ in the islands of Hawai’i. Like the stormclouds that had been my closest kin as a child, there was a resonance, an awareness of the intelligence of the land herself, one that was only growing stronger with my studies, helping me to make sense of the rhythms and flows of the Earth plane.
The lake mirrored us in our movements, the waters within reflecting the world without. They were the constants, the snowfall, the lake and the forest, more constant than the shifting tides of human stories. There was a stillness there. Speaking of something to do with mirrors. With the lake and the land and how they defined our stories.
As I contemplated this, I had the sense that we were like islands in the water. Living inside the mirror of ourselves, within the forests and territories of our own reflection. This paralleled what I was learning from my mystical studies, that we lived in the outer manifestation of our own inner world. In the mirror of our mind.
I considered, if one’s outer world was a mirror of their inner world, then it followed that wherever one went in the world, they would encounter that vibration in the field.
Yet how did this relate to the archetypes of our stories?
If what was within expressed without, what were the energies of that inner world? And how did they express themselves in our outer reflection? What was the nature of the characters in our lives and their relationship to that inner expanse? Who was the “King of Cups” in our life at any given moment? Who was the Fool, the Magician, or the Lover? And how did these things relate to our healing? How did they relate to my desire to travel to a more magical reality?
The Rainbow beneath the Road
There was something there. The Land was showing me something, teasing at the edges of my awareness. The road was not just a road. There was something beneath it … something that it was made of. And it relates to what we were learning in divination. I could sense it … there was a rainbow beneath the road.
It wasn’t a solid understanding. Not at that time. Yet even then in the resolving incoherence I could sense it, the relationship between the inner and outer landscape of our lives. Over time, such would become my highest invocation, to discover the landscapes of legend and make my way to a more heavenly earth.
