The Door That Always Opens

Dear Readers,

First! Because this piece is a journey into our collective inner world, I highly recommend listening rather than reading it. If you want to read the introduction and listen to the rest, the journey starts at 4:06. If you listen, there are notes at the bottom of this page that may be of interest.

Thank you for being here, for listening, and engaging with my work.

The piece I’m about to share is a little different. I had the initiating vision for it just this Monday, June 30th, and in an effort to complete it as an offering to the soul of my country I pushed to finish it by July 4th, which is the day that I’m recording this.

I love my country, this land, her many peoples, and the spirit of freedom that is in her soil. But this Independence Day is filled with grief. After writing this I felt that grief alchemize into determination and courage. I hope it does that for you, too.

And thanks again for being here.

Stephanie

I have this stone, a beautiful little stone, speckled and smooth from the shores of Lake Superior. I made a pastel of it many years ago, as an illustration of a stone for a poem I had written. But in the process of making this little portrait, the stone charmed me and I’ve since kept it tucked away in a box with other small treasures. In this box I also keep my passport. Recently I went to retrieve said passport and the sight of the stone gave me a soft shock of awareness, as if the stone was greeting me.

This little jolt of recognition, this small reverie, is just one example of many other experiences, some extraordinary, where my sustained creative attention has created a threshold in my consciousness through which other beings can enter. Once made, that threshold never ceases to exist. It does not close. It is a door that is always open.

Writing about these peripheral experiences for the rational mind feels like trapping something as wild and fragile as a butterfly, so that I can study it. Which is kind of a shitty thing to do to a butterfly, and also to yourself. So, to introduce what comes next, I’ll just say it’s an experiment, and one that does not involve caging butterflies.

♦︎

Also, as I’m writing this Congress has just passed a bill that is a betrayal of Americans and an obscene rejection of our shared humanity. This experiment is an affirmation of our shared humanity. You could call it a guided visualization, but I think of it more as a journey into our collective inner world. It unfolded as I wrote it, active imagination style. I didn’t plan it out. We could say then that it is an engagement with the unconscious.

So, if you can, get in a quiet place where you can sink into this experience. At the end there is a space for you to engage with the unconscious, or the Otherworld, or your sacred imagination.  If you feel like you want to engage with it, you can do so at any time. It’s a threshold created in your consciousness, and the door is always open. 

Above all, trust your imagination. It is your doorway into the soul of the world.

It is night in Washington DC, but it’s a strange night. It is utterly dark, and still. There is no traffic, no airplanes, no human-made noise whatsoever. There are no lights, only the skim of light from the stars.

You are standing at the East front of the US Capitol building, the immense stairs rising up in front of you. And when you look around, you see that you are not alone. A vast crowd of people stands with you, in profound silence. You feel a collective charge of grief, deep and pervasive, and an undercurrent of bone-deep determination.

High up on the steps, the one massive bronze door to the Capitol building opens. Two women walk out, holding candles. They stand on either side of the door. Then two more women emerge from the door. In their hands they hold large white conch shells. With solemn grace they lift the shells to their lips. A triumphant, calm, even tone moves out over the crowd, as if the Ocean herself had made the sound, a great, soft, holy sound that reverberates in the darkness, that reverberates in your bones. It breaks something apart in your psyche, cleansing  you of despair.

People begin climbing the steps, slow and stately, and you do the same. The door is massive and foreboding. It is dark inside. The women with the candles and conch shells stare straight ahead. You step through the door.

The line of people turns to the right, and goes through a small, nearly hidden door, a door no one would have ever noticed. Beyond it is a passageway lit with the soft glow of candlelight. When you enter, you see there a staircase going down. At the landing another flight of stairs, and another. The gentle shuffling of feet on the marble steps is all that you hear as you follow the line of people and make your way down.

The deeper you go, the rougher the walls and steps become, until the walls are that of a cave, the steps cut from rock. The passage feels alive, and breathing. You sense that it is aware of the procession within it, and that it is allowing it. Yu are deep, deep within the Earth, you are not afraid. You know that you are being guided.

The stairs end and you walk into a vast cavern lit with candles. The cavern is so vast that the candlelight does not illuminate the whole ceiling; at the apex it is pure darkness. You know this cavern is a holy place, deep underneath the Capitol building, a cathedral of the Underworld, a place so holy, so endowed with the numinous that you are can do nothing but surrender to it.

At your feet is a long dark pool of water. Water droplets fall from the ceiling of the cavern into the pool. You feel each drop is endowed with a pure emotion—courage, sorrow, love, fear, joy––and the sound of each drop falling into the pool carries that emotion into your body. The sound is your own humanity sung back to you by the Earth.

The line of people splits organically to walk along both sides of the pool. You walk along the edge, gazing into its depths. You can see beyond the soft ripples into the darkness, and as you gaze deeply your vision shifts. There is something in the water.

It’s as if the pool is all that stands between your world now and another realm, where all the men and women who have sacrificed much for their land have gathered, to meet you here. They are not just visions. You can feel them, their presence, their power, their sacrifice: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Black Elk, Harriet Tubman, soldiers from the great wars, nameless to you, but whose sacrifices are evident in their eyes. You feel them all the same, their unwavering conviction, their absolute dedication. As you walk further you go further back in time, until at the end, there are only the great indigenous peoples of this land.

They are all transmitting their energy to you. They are reminding your body of the great truths. That this is a land of freedom, that the land herself demands freedom, demands equality, demand reciprocity, demands justice. You feel how you are one with the land, and realize that you are deep within her now, and that she is transforming you.

And then at the end of the pool, there is an immense table heaped with conch shells. You take one in your hands and move to make space for all the other people who are still entering the room. You hold the conch shell in your hand, feel its heaviness, its rough knobby exterior, and the smooth pearly interior.

Without warning or introduction, someone blows their horn, the sound once again shifts the energy of the people. Another horn joins. You put the conch shell to your lips, take a deep breath, and blow. Your body knows exactly how to do it, your breath even and strong, pushing into the conch shell, and it resounds with your breath, as horn after horn joins, until the whole cavern is echoing with a great and mighty sound, a beautiful thunder that fills the Underworld, a song from the ocean, from your body, from the depths of your lungs and the lungs of all who are with you, a sound so immense that the surface of the pool dances, a sound so great, so strong, so numinous, that it rises up the stone walls of the earth, through the realms, into the Crypt of the Capitol, into the Rotunda, further and further the sound travels, the sound that opens the gates, the sound that destroys falsehoods, the sound that rises from the land, from the people, the sound of freedom, the sound that transforms the world, rising up from the depths, tearing down the old world, the deceit, the greed, the sound of freedom, born from your own body, born from the depths of the land, heralding the way for the new day that is coming.

And then ceremony is over. You place your shell on the table, and move up the staircase, flight by flight, back the way you came. But as you near the top, you see another door. It is slightly ajar, and a soft light comes from the space. You push against the door and walk through.

Now stay here. Let the room you’ve entered take shape before you. Wait and see if there is some movement— something or someone here—waiting for you. Something as fragile as a butterfly. Let the experience unfold softly, follow its lead. Trust your own imagination.

A few notes

After I wrote the first draft of this piece, which I would call an active imagination exercise (Carl Jung’s term), I went to the internet to get some clarity on the architecture of the US Capitol building. I had a pretty clear image in my mind of the front of the Capitol building but I wasn’t sure which direction it faced. A little zip on google maps and I knew it was not the west face that I was envisioning, but the east face. There is only one door on the East face. It is a massive bronze door known as the Columbus Door, and it is used only by the President on official business. It is known as “the door that never opens.”

Also, this little stone! Many years ago I wrote this poem that is very much along the lines of this post, an inner journey, which I recorded and posted on my website. I made the image of it for that post, and like I said, it really did charm me. This little stone reminds me very much of the thunderous presence I felt when I first stood on the shores of Lake Superior. Something happened to me there that I may never be able to articulate. I think the stone feels the same way.

My piece The Age of Repair Is Beginning and the one that followed it, The Light That Runs Through Everything, about my experience of Helene, explore the extraordinary experiences cultivated by creative attention.

Thanks again for reading. Please subscribe, comment, share if you can. I’m just a little colorful fish in a big ocean. 🐠

Dear Readers,

First! Because this piece is a journey into our collective inner world, I highly recommend listening rather than reading it. If you want to read the introduction and listen to the rest, the journey starts at 4:06. If you listen, there are notes at the bottom of this page that may be of interest.

Thank you for being here, for listening, and engaging with my work.

The piece I’m about to share is a little different. I had the initiating vision for it just this Monday, June 30th, and in an effort to complete it as an offering to the soul of my country I pushed to finish it by July 4th, which is the day that I’m recording this.

I love my country, this land, her many peoples, and the spirit of freedom that is in her soil. But this Independence Day is filled with grief. After writing this I felt that grief alchemize into determination and courage. I hope it does that for you, too.

And thanks again for being here.

Stephanie

I have this stone, a beautiful little stone, speckled and smooth from the shores of Lake Superior. I made a pastel of it many years ago, as an illustration of a stone for a poem I had written. But in the process of making this little portrait, the stone charmed me and I’ve since kept it tucked away in a box with other small treasures. In this box I also keep my passport. Recently I went to retrieve said passport and the sight of the stone gave me a soft shock of awareness, as if the stone was greeting me.

This little jolt of recognition, this small reverie, is just one example of many other experiences, some extraordinary, where my sustained creative attention has created a threshold in my consciousness through which other beings can enter. Once made, that threshold never ceases to exist. It does not close. It is a door that is always open.

Writing about these peripheral experiences for the rational mind feels like trapping something as wild and fragile as a butterfly, so that I can study it. Which is kind of a shitty thing to do to a butterfly, and also to yourself. So, to introduce what comes next, I’ll just say it’s an experiment, and one that does not involve caging butterflies.

♦︎

Also, as I’m writing this Congress has just passed a bill that is a betrayal of Americans and an obscene rejection of our shared humanity. This experiment is an affirmation of our shared humanity. You could call it a guided visualization, but I think of it more as a journey into our collective inner world. It unfolded as I wrote it, active imagination style. I didn’t plan it out. We could say then that it is an engagement with the unconscious.

So, if you can, get in a quiet place where you can sink into this experience. At the end there is a space for you to engage with the unconscious, or the Otherworld, or your sacred imagination.  If you feel like you want to engage with it, you can do so at any time. It’s a threshold created in your consciousness, and the door is always open. 

Above all, trust your imagination. It is your doorway into the soul of the world.

It is night in Washington DC, but it’s a strange night. It is utterly dark, and still. There is no traffic, no airplanes, no human-made noise whatsoever. There are no lights, only the skim of light from the stars.

You are standing at the East front of the US Capitol building, the immense stairs rising up in front of you. And when you look around, you see that you are not alone. A vast crowd of people stands with you, in profound silence. You feel a collective charge of grief, deep and pervasive, and an undercurrent of bone-deep determination.

High up on the steps, the one massive bronze door to the Capitol building opens. Two women walk out, holding candles. They stand on either side of the door. Then two more women emerge from the door. In their hands they hold large white conch shells. With solemn grace they lift the shells to their lips. A triumphant, calm, even tone moves out over the crowd, as if the Ocean herself had made the sound, a great, soft, holy sound that reverberates in the darkness, that reverberates in your bones. It breaks something apart in your psyche, cleansing  you of despair.

People begin climbing the steps, slow and stately, and you do the same. The door is massive and foreboding. It is dark inside. The women with the candles and conch shells stare straight ahead. You step through the door.

The line of people turns to the right, and goes through a small, nearly hidden door, a door no one would have ever noticed. Beyond it is a passageway lit with the soft glow of candlelight. When you enter, you see there a staircase going down. At the landing another flight of stairs, and another. The gentle shuffling of feet on the marble steps is all that you hear as you follow the line of people and make your way down.

The deeper you go, the rougher the walls and steps become, until the walls are that of a cave, the steps cut from rock. The passage feels alive, and breathing. You sense that it is aware of the procession within it, and that it is allowing it. Yu are deep, deep within the Earth, you are not afraid. You know that you are being guided.

The stairs end and you walk into a vast cavern lit with candles. The cavern is so vast that the candlelight does not illuminate the whole ceiling; at the apex it is pure darkness. You know this cavern is a holy place, deep underneath the Capitol building, a cathedral of the Underworld, a place so holy, so endowed with the numinous that you are can do nothing but surrender to it.

At your feet is a long dark pool of water. Water droplets fall from the ceiling of the cavern into the pool. You feel each drop is endowed with a pure emotion—courage, sorrow, love, fear, joy––and the sound of each drop falling into the pool carries that emotion into your body. The sound is your own humanity sung back to you by the Earth.

The line of people splits organically to walk along both sides of the pool. You walk along the edge, gazing into its depths. You can see beyond the soft ripples into the darkness, and as you gaze deeply your vision shifts. There is something in the water.

It’s as if the pool is all that stands between your world now and another realm, where all the men and women who have sacrificed much for their land have gathered, to meet you here. They are not just visions. You can feel them, their presence, their power, their sacrifice: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Black Elk, Harriet Tubman, soldiers from the great wars, nameless to you, but whose sacrifices are evident in their eyes. You feel them all the same, their unwavering conviction, their absolute dedication. As you walk further you go further back in time, until at the end, there are only the great indigenous peoples of this land.

They are all transmitting their energy to you. They are reminding your body of the great truths. That this is a land of freedom, that the land herself demands freedom, demands equality, demand reciprocity, demands justice. You feel how you are one with the land, and realize that you are deep within her now, and that she is transforming you.

And then at the end of the pool, there is an immense table heaped with conch shells. You take one in your hands and move to make space for all the other people who are still entering the room. You hold the conch shell in your hand, feel its heaviness, its rough knobby exterior, and the smooth pearly interior.

Without warning or introduction, someone blows their horn, the sound once again shifts the energy of the people. Another horn joins. You put the conch shell to your lips, take a deep breath, and blow. Your body knows exactly how to do it, your breath even and strong, pushing into the conch shell, and it resounds with your breath, as horn after horn joins, until the whole cavern is echoing with a great and mighty sound, a beautiful thunder that fills the Underworld, a song from the ocean, from your body, from the depths of your lungs and the lungs of all who are with you, a sound so immense that the surface of the pool dances, a sound so great, so strong, so numinous, that it rises up the stone walls of the earth, through the realms, into the Crypt of the Capitol, into the Rotunda, further and further the sound travels, the sound that opens the gates, the sound that destroys falsehoods, the sound that rises from the land, from the people, the sound of freedom, the sound that transforms the world, rising up from the depths, tearing down the old world, the deceit, the greed, the sound of freedom, born from your own body, born from the depths of the land, heralding the way for the new day that is coming.

And then ceremony is over. You place your shell on the table, and move up the staircase, flight by flight, back the way you came. But as you near the top, you see another door. It is slightly ajar, and a soft light comes from the space. You push against the door and walk through.

Now stay here. Let the room you’ve entered take shape before you. Wait and see if there is some movement— something or someone here—waiting for you. Something as fragile as a butterfly. Let the experience unfold softly, follow its lead. Trust your own imagination.

A few notes

After I wrote the first draft of this piece, which I would call an active imagination exercise (Carl Jung’s term), I went to the internet to get some clarity on the architecture of the US Capitol building. I had a pretty clear image in my mind of the front of the Capitol building but I wasn’t sure which direction it faced. A little zip on google maps and I knew it was not the west face that I was envisioning, but the east face. There is only one door on the East face. It is a massive bronze door known as the Columbus Door, and it is used only by the President on official business. It is known as “the door that never opens.”

Also, this little stone! Many years ago I wrote this poem that is very much along the lines of this post, an inner journey, which I recorded and posted on my website. I made the image of it for that post, and like I said, it really did charm me. This little stone reminds me very much of the thunderous presence I felt when I first stood on the shores of Lake Superior. Something happened to me there that I may never be able to articulate. I think the stone feels the same way.

My piece The Age of Repair Is Beginning and the one that followed it, The Light That Runs Through Everything, about my experience of Helene, explore the extraordinary experiences cultivated by creative attention.

Thanks again for reading. Please subscribe, comment, share if you can. I’m just a little colorful fish in a big ocean. 🐠