Awakening the Below

Part II of Oholomo's spiritual journey.

A record from Jan. 2021 to Apr. 2023. This cycle begins with a series of spontaneous visionary experiences and a massive kundalini opening (I–VIII). It talks about both ecstatic divine revelations as well as some of the difficulties encountered (IX–XVII). About halfway through, a shamanic opening brings ancestors, power animals, nature spirits, and other guardians into the picture (XVIII–XXXI). Unity becomes an increasingly more important theme throughout this cycle, culminating in an experience where Oholomo is given the ultimate trial and is then revealed to be the Goddess (XXXII–XXXIV). The writing throughout this cycle is more poetic than previously, which is fitting given the mythic and archetypal nature of the experiences being described. It is important to know that none of these events were precipitated by psychedelic drugs or other medicines; these were all natural and spontaneous occurrences that may arise through spiritual practice.

I.

As I walk near my home, I notice the vultures. Dozens of dark, foreboding bodies studding the copse of trees. More than I have ever seen before, an overwhelming number. They look down at me from above.

“We are here to eat your death,” they declare. I hear them loud and clear, like a voice from a dream. It is not a dream, but it’s not not a dream either. It’s like two planes of reality that normally are separate have been bridged, and a passageway has opened across the divide.

II.

A few weeks later, she makes herself known for the first time. An image in the form of a young girl, blonde, maybe age 6 or 7, appears in the imaginal space behind my closed eyes. I feel a strong affinity toward her. I turn my attention toward her and ask her what she is here to tell me.

She then transforms, becoming older. I can’t get a stable or detailed picture, but glimpses flash in and out — her hair, her lips, her eyes, her body. She is beautiful, mesmerizing. I feel a strong attraction, longing to reach out and touch her.

When I go to do so, just at that moment, I realize that I already am touching her. I am her. Or, she is me. She and I are the same being. I have the distinct sensation of physically and energetically being a woman. Mildly erotic, very sweet, and quite pleasant.

After some time, I have visions of all of the women that I’ve been with in my life one after another (girlfriends, wife, daughters, sister, mother, female friends, etc.). I see a vision of me eating them one by one, swallowing them whole. Taking them all inside myself. I realize all my life I have been trying to pull women in to plug a hole that could only be filled by Her, this inner feminine entity within my psyche.

A flow of gratitude and understanding for all these women comes over me, and an understanding of why I have loved them all so much.

III.

Again she comes in a liminal state between waking and dreaming. In this vision, she is again beautiful and mesmerizing. Again, I focus in and invite her to speak to me.

This time is different. Instead of being inside of me, she is external. She embraces me, and I am transformed into a baby in her arms. I cry and snuggle into her neck, longing to be soothed by her. The sensation of my skin on hers is as if I am melting into her.

For some reason, it feels important to know her name, but I can’t quite grasp it. I try to think of what it might be, but nothing feels right. Just then, I realize I need to use my body to know her, not my mind. I let the tension in my mouth and jaw relax, my lips spontaneously forming the sound “sh.”

I say this sound out loud, and instantly tears well up. The floodgates open, and endless pain begins to pour out of my body. She holds me tight in her warm embrace, using my own mouth to soothe me “shhhhh….. shhhh….. shhhh…..” over and over again.

She is the Mother, the source of all love. She takes my pain unconditionally, holding and healing me.

IV.

Another vision: I’m nuzzling into her neck trying to get closer and closer, but I feel like I can’t possibly get close enough.

Suddenly, I’m crawling through her vagina and up into her body. Now, I am inside her womb. I can hear her heartbeat. I am warm and safe here.

Just then, in a flash, her face turns blank white. A terrifying demonic glare, a Kali-like tongue. I’m confused, but there’s nothing to fear. She is protecting me from a danger I can’t see.

Now she transforms into a huge serpent of the deepest black. Fearsome images of snakes flood my mind, but I am safe. I am inside a white egg, wrapped in my Snake Mother’s coils. She is ferociously protecting me against everything that could possibly do me harm.

V.

I’m walking outdoors, when I see all the trees around me suddenly transform into multi-headed snakes spurting up out of the ground. I feel my whole body begin vibrate, and a current of tingling sensations emerges from deep inside my pelvis and flows up my spine. When it reaches the top of my head, snakes spray out my skull, a canopy of cobra heads looming above me. I feel energized and immensely strong.

The feeling expands until my whole body is filled with squirming snakes. They spiral around my limbs, my torso, and my spine, squeezing me tenderly in their coils while gliding across my skin. Their slick, liquid slithering is intensely pleasurable.

As they start gliding beneath my skin, the ecstasy becomes unbearable. I can’t contain the energy. I involuntarily start making grimacing faces, and hissing sounds come out of my mouth. The Mother’s “shhhh” has shifted into the “hssss” of the Snake Goddess.

The feelings of pleasure intensify even further, building and building until my body explodes. Waves after waves of shuddering full-body orgasms wrap around and around themselves. The snakes and I penetrate each other sexually — in, out, and through every orifice, in every conceivable way.

My emotions are roiling. It’s the warmth and comfort of the Mother with a sexual power and intensity I’ve never felt before, but it’s all also inseparable from my own body. We are not one but not two. I am the Snake Mother’s son and also her lover, and she is also my body itself.

VI.

How can I describe her, this indigenous demoness lover of mine?

Her lower body rises out of a dark ocean of serpents. Her scaly legs coil and intertwine. At her waist, a shift from the reptilian to the feminine. A youthful body with voluptuous breasts and skin black as midnight. Her face is a mask: eyes a blank stare, mouth completely expressionless. Her arms are raised overhead. She’s holding a golden orb, with rays of blinding light extending in all directions.

She is the full spectrum from terrifying darkness to angelic radiance, connecting underworld with the heavens.

VII.

There’s something about her breasts and nipples. I have an instinctual urge to suck on them. Yes, there’s an obvious feeling of sexual arousal behind this impulse, but also something much, much deeper. A distant muscle memory that is only dimly coming back into consciousness, connecting suckling a breast with warmth, safety, and satiety. With life itself.

I suck, and the breastmilk begins to flow. Warm, nourishing, white ambrosia. But then: a gush, a geyser, a torrent of milk going down my throat. A rushing stream too powerful to contain. I am drowning.

Her black breast transforms into a gigantic serpent that suddenly descends from the sky and enters my mouth, filling my throat, my stomach, my intestines in a downwards torrent. The snake disgorges a load of the Goddess’s breastmilk deep in my belly. It is overwhelming, and I find myself in a stupor, gagging and retching.

The white milk coalesces to form a fist-sized black diamond in the center of my pelvis. Her seed has been planted. I have been impregnated with her mysterious essence. Some kind of treasure will eventually be born.

VIII.

Is this a gateway to enlightenment or a portal to insanity? As I approach the threshold, my whole scalp crackles and lights up. Fire-like energy courses through my body, which is revving like a jet engine. I am a spaceship about to to blast off into outer space.

I am filled with panic at what is about to happen. She is telling me that I am safe and that all is good. But all I can do is tremble in fear and beg her for mercy.

“You are Oholomo,” she whispers in my ear while I writhe in terror. Years later, I would learn that it means “Bringer of Light” in the secret tongue of the goddesses. I did not know it then, but in order to become Oholomo, I will first have to surrender to having her turn my mind and body inside out.

Little by little, layer by layer, she must teach me how to fulfill my destiny. I can’t explain exactly how it happened, but it would involve being completely dismembered and then being put back together in the form of a goddess made of earth and sex and sunlight.

IX.

Ecstasy gives way to a deep well of terror. A Dark Night of the Soul. I have hardly slept at all. I am anxious, no appetite. I feel like I have come down with the flu. I feel exhausted and lack the ability to focus on anything.

I question my sanity, my health, and my strength to walk her path. But I do not have a choice. My mind has split wide open and all its unconscious contents have spilled out into the light. I’m now being called to fulfill a destiny that I have been circling around my whole life, but have always been terrified of actually accepting.

The only way forward is straight into the serpent’s gaping mouth. This is not an invitation; it is a mandate. There is no turning back now.

X.

The intense kundalini opening seems to have unleashed a ton of fluttering, stinging, and itching across the sternum as well as heart palpitations. My chest feels quite locked up at the moment. Checked with doctor and everything is normal, so I am assuming that this is all just the growing pains of the energies opening. I am now sitting with the unpleasant sensations and allowing them to pass through.

Other strange energetic phenomena that have been taking place…

With the initial Headless awakening, it sometimes felt like I was taller than usual. Like I was seeing things from a location a few inches above the top of my head. These days, it sometimes feels like I’m half as tall as I am. Like I’m looking out at the world through eyes located in my abdomen.

I feel like my sense of smell is supercharged. I can smell a flower or a person 100 feet away. Is this a siddhi of superhuman smell?

I’ve frequently felt like I was not in a body at all, just suspended in empty space. A couple of times when I had this perception, it felt like some other entity might be trying to enter my body. A pang of fear, and I have to stomp my feet around while walking briskly in order to force myself to return back into my body.

I’m awake for an hour or two in the middle of the night, every night. I’ve also developed a serious case of chronic acid reflux.

[Note: I continued to experience issues like these for the next two or more years. It is not uncommon for a kundalini opening to cause energetic weirdness, health conditions, and food sensitivities to emerge. The symptoms finally abated when I had the unity experience that is described at the very end of Book 2.]

XI.

I am overcome by a desperate need to see her again, to touch her again, to feel her embrace again. I am filled with longing to have her, to know her, to consume her, to possess her. When finally she does reappear, I desperately gawk and grasp at her, futilely trying to get my fill of her.

Sometimes, she appears in the form of light. I’m overwhelmed by the glint of the sun on the rooftops, on the cars, on the grass. The rays filtering through the trees are dancing rapturously. Her radiance is blinding, poignant, heart-breaking.

I can’t take it; my soul bursts open. Tears stream down my face as I stagger, unable to even stand upright in the fullness of her presence. She is glorious. She is everything. She is the grace of the cosmos. She is resplendent, radiant, awe-inspiring illumination. There are no words.

Eventually, I will learn that if I can hold the tension of my desire ever so gently, it will convert from desperation into an unspeakable erotic tenderness. If I stop clutching at her, I will feel her constantly walking at my side, holding my hand, embracing me. I will be filled with a gentle joy and bliss.

XII.

I realize that my whole life has been led in the opposite direction from her. All of my intellectual pursuits, my ideas and goals, have always been leading me away from these emotions, from this chaos, from my destiny. Why have I constantly rejected her so-called samsara? Is it because I’ve been lured by the promise of some transcendent Nirvana? Or is it because I’ve been afraid to really be alive? Afraid of the rawness, of losing control?

There is no control now. I cannot contain her power and glory. I am awed by her mysterious dreams and visions, by her writhing universe of aliveness, by her raw drama of death and rebirth, by her fearsome cruelty and her sublime beauty. I crumble before her power, her helpless lover and child. All I can do is to witness her creativity, her glory, with gratitude and love.

XIII.

Visions filled with goddesses of light and feminine angels appear, giving me the resources and support I need to go through this transformation. They transmute confusion, grief, and fear into guidance, healing, and joy.

When I trust in them, I am filled with awe and wonder at the vibrancy and creativity of life itself. I feel deeply grateful to be here, alive in this body. I see how everything is divine and interconnected. The world lights up in a golden sparkle right where my awareness meets the things of the world.

While initially I thought I might be having a psychotic episode, I now know I am not losing my mind because I can see the benefits of my connection with the goddess playing out in my relationships and interactions in the world.

I see that my life is filled with love. I have been supported and guided throughout my life by a web of strong motherly web of care and protection. Feeling into this, I am much more present as a whole person, consciously and compassionately here in a way that I have not ever been.

XIV.

I can often see or feel her radiance shining on me. I open and surrender to these visitations, inviting her into my presence. Sometimes these encounters have a motherly vibe to them, sometimes she brings me specific words or images, and sometimes my awareness is filled with a healing divine light.

Just as often, she appears as sexual energies, which arise from the black gemstone in my abdomen and circulate through my body like a force of nature. They start swirling and collecting in the area below my navel, and if I allow them to, will eventually build up along the midline of the body in a sumptuously orgasmic bliss.

I have noticed recently that the familiar masculine drive to possess and maximize these sensations has been replaced by a more receptive orientation toward them. My body and mind don’t grasp greedily at the experience, but rather rest in an erotic reverence for this feminine energy. Channeled in that direction, even the strongest sexual surges transform into a delicious and joyful full-body bliss.

These waves of pleasure are both emotionally and spiritually healing. Opening to these flows seems to untangle and dissolve traumas and unpleasant memories that are stored in the body. I also believe that transmuting these sexual energies into warmth and openness has somehow transformed my relationships with the women in my life. A deeper appreciation and understanding of my own body, emotions, and mind is also steadily unfolding.

The goddess is not just a visualized fantasy. She is the living, breathing, feeling animal aliveness of this human body. She is my body making love to itself. She is the pulsating energy of the whole of life coursing through my individual being. The body’s tender, erotic, and intimate knowing of the Whole, the All. It is the blissful pleasure of the One loving itself.

XV.

The whole cosmos emerges from the union of phenomena and awareness, the dance between the Goddess and me. Our union is inherently sacred. I am her Lover, present to whatever is, witnessing and surrendering to her dance, in awe of the creative flow of the vibrancy and dynamism of all life.

Present to this flow, I am grateful for being able to experience the world. Whatever may be showing up at any given moment is a precious and impermanent gift. This integration of awareness and embodiment opens my heart. There are deep wells of love, support, and healing available here, and all dualities and separations are resolved and reconciled.

XVI.

This body is a deep, sacred mystery. It is not “me” or “mine,” is it? What I take to be “my” body is nothing other than the Goddess herself.

Take the physical body. Looking closer, there’s the gross sensations. Closer still, there’s a layer of subtler energies, buzzing like electricity all over. Deeper than that, there are cavernous spaces within the heart and belly where powerful waves and currents flow. Deeper still beyond that lies a mystery, a dark and pregnant possibility.

I am the Lover, experiencing and enjoying this body in all its multidimensional richness. And, I am the Son, recognizing my dependence upon her and feeling gratitude for the very fact of my embodiment.

XVII.

I am the Goddess awakening to herself. This is not about me. She is awakening for the angels. For the trees. For the flowers. For the birds, dogs, people, and cars, and pieces of trash on the ground. For the benefit of the whole world and everything in it.

She is everywhere. I look around at the springtime flowers, and can see that they are her garlands. The sunshine is her hair. The breeze on my cheek is her kiss. My body sensations are enveloping me in her embrace.

Suddenly, the entire landscape in front of me is filled with dancing child-like angels. Like fairies, her manifestations fly among the trees and spin around on the lawns before me. The whole of nature vibrates and sings with her beauty and love.

I tell her how grateful I am for this vision, and how much I want to partake in all of her love. Just at that moment, I look down and see a heart-shaped seedpod on the ground, an obvious confirmation and concrete sign of her assent. There will be many more signs like this one.

XVIII.

The next phase of my education has begun, and I must plunge back down into the dark depths of the underworld. The black diamond deep in my belly opens up into chasm, a portal to an underworld teeming with power animals, nature spirits, ancestors, and other ghostly figures.

Two blonde angels, the 6 or 7 year-old from before and her 13 or 14 year-old manifestation, come to me. They take me by the hand and lead me into the hidden corners of the night. Dark, foreboding images of death and violence; bright and shimmering images of promise and rebirth.

Past lives? Premonitions? Ghosts? I do not know. They show me everything, all at once. Deeply-held pain from the personal and collective levels rushes forth, releasing its life-long (lives-long?) hold over me. Long festering wounds abruptly are healed not through a prolonged process, but through an instant letting-go.

They want to heal not only my personal psychology, but also ancestral traumas latent inside in my DNA. I witness countless wars, deaths, massacres, murders, and tragedies of my people. I walk through boneyards and step over carcasses. My indigenous blood awakens to claim its own blessings and burdens, to seek its way home again.

This death and rebirth process will take two full years.

XIX.

More guides reveal themselves. They are born out of my deepest fears, which materialize into animal shapes.

Our journeys together always begin in a small dark house where the blonde angels reside. Taking the skyward path, we climb out the window and up a series of ladders into the night sky. The full moon is a portal to another dimension. On the other side, a giant macaw flies me to La Tierra, a multi-layered world filled with ancestors and spirit guides who teach me to unfold further and further transformations.

Taking the underworld path, we descend down through the floorboards of the house and into a labyrinth of tunnels. The spirits here are darker and more foreboding, from the ghostly to the demonic. At the lowest level, an endless row of pods where my previous lives sleep awaiting release. The guides teach me to free these souls of mine, which sprout wings and fly into the sun.

When I need to recharge, there is a field just outside the house. Here, the goddess’s radiant face shines down on a bed of flowers where I can safely rest and recuperate. She is everywhere, the loving and beneficent force behind it all.

XX.

I cannot relate to you all of the gifts, I can only suggest a small part of the whole. Every day, by her grace, a new teaching will be given to me….

I will have journeys where I dance the dark powers of the animals.
I will have journeys where I eat fiery gemstones to heal my body.
I will have journeys to the ancient grandmother who teaches me about my ancestors and their rites.
I will have journeys where my body is consumed by fire or by sun, burnt into ash only to be born again and again, each time a little bit stronger.

I will have dreams where I am taught by goddesses, shamans, and monks.
I will have dreams where I become lucid and make love with my spirit guides.
I will have dreams where I die, and ones where I am nothing at all.
I will have dreams where I am born again, the first inkling of consciousness emerging from oblivion.
I will have dreams where I see the face of my next rebirth.

There will be times when I am possessed by animals, ancestors, and other entities.
There will be times when the gifts of the spirits will materialize in the physical world, objects appearing where they hadn’t been a moment before.
There will be times when ghosts will teach me new powers.
There will be times when my ancestors will lead me to their tombs and show me their bones.
There will be times when the earth, water, fire, and wind will share their secrets, whispering to me in the languages of the elements.

I will shapeshift into a thousand different forms.
I will become the Christ dying and resurrected.
I will become the beholden one, the betrothed, and the human sacrifice.
I will become the hunter, the hunted, the piercing arrow, and the wound itself.
I will become a lone saguaro rising from the sacred desert sand.
I will become a torrential waterfall heaving and a gentle flower stretching to the sun.
I will become a billion sparkling shards of sunlight stress across the universe.

The four guardians will teach me to absorb and bless the pain of the world.
They will teach me to dance in spontaneous perfection.
They will teach me to don the ghost eyes that see through the dark.
They will teach me to hold the orb of the sun in my hands.
Gradually, they will transform me into who I have always been.
Taking all of her forms, I will become the goddess incarnate.
Oholomo is slowly being born.

XXI.

Resonance and intimacy lead to unity.

For example, I go to visit a lake to learn from the water spirits. Stripping down, I enter up to my waist. I see the lake nymphs, their radiance dancing across the ripples in the distance. May you be well, my ladies.

Standing in the water, I gather the energy together. I draw it up from my feet like the taproot of a water lily, and radiate out through my arms like a flower blossoming into the sky. I pour the lake waters over my head and body, asking the lake to cleanse any impurities and to give me her blessings.

I open my eyes, and notice that I am generating ripples that travel out to the nymphs, while their ripples are now extending back toward me. My ripples mix with theirs, a dance of radiant sunlight glistening and sparkling.

The water spirits and I intertwine our energies across the surface of the lake. But what’s more, I suddenly realize that my body itself is mostly made of water. I realize that the water spirits and I were never actually separate in the first place.

I express this oneness with an offering, the most obvious gift in the moment. I close my eyes and urinate, a libation of my waters for the spirits of the lake. I dunk my head nine times. May I bless you and you bless me.

As I open my eyes, I see that my movements have stirred up some water grasses from the muddy floor of the lake. All around me, small underwater flower buds are now floating upon the surface of the lake. Blessings upon blessings.

XXII.

Another story about resonance, intimacy, and unity:

At one point, I came across a tree that had been cut down and was being chain-sawed into pieces. It had been the tallest tree in the area, a great king looking out over the land. Impulsively, I placed my hand on its bark and blessed it. May you be well, ancient grandfather.

A few days later, I was walking in the night and came across a circle of eleven pine trees around a great, old oak. I could see the starry night and the sliver of the moon through the branches, and a sense of peace came over me. All at once, I realized that I was standing over the stump of a pine that had once been part of the circle. It had been cut and removed.

Just then, the spirit of the oak spoke to me: “Take your place as the thirteenth member of our coven. We will teach you our ways of listening.” I stand on the stump, joining this circle of teachers.

A deep silence opens up, a falling away of the typical rush of thought and a settling into simply sensing. There’s the background buzz of sounds, body sensations, and visuals, all melded together in a seamless multisensory flux-flow. Within, part of, and inseparable from this, a sparkling arises. In a nano-second, it seems to form into a particular sound or a specific body sensation. Following behind nearly instantaneously, the mind pops up, wanting to explain, narrate, and make sense of this new “arrival.” But, the thought is let go, allowing the fluttering to arise and be sensed.

Is it this fluttering really arriving anywhere… or is it momentarily congealing out of the background that’s always present and already right here? Does it actually even arrive… or is it better to say that no sooner does it appear to be taking shape than it’s already dissolving away? Without the mind jumping in to make it into a thing, do any of these objects or sensations actually succeed in taking shape… or do the trees see that everything is simultaneously happening and also completely empty?

XXIII.

Holy Mother, I surrender to your grace.
Embrace me, keep me safe, teach me. I am yours.

Sublime Lover, touch my body with your warm energies,
And open my heart to the whole of your manifestation.

Dark Lady, rest me in your secret womb,
The silent birthplace and deathplace of all creation.

Divine Radiance, bathe me in your golden light,
That I may be healthy, strong, and awake enough to embody your glory.

Great Mystery of the Cosmos, I stand before you in loving presence,
Yet I know that we are one.

XXIV.

Of all the forms she takes, the most frequent in my visions recently is a pale white-skinned, golden-haired sun goddess. She descends upon me, embracing me in sexual union. She is separate, but she also somehow is a mirror reflection of me at the same time. It’s like my male physical body has a female energetic counterpart, which engage in an intimate embrace.

Over time, I perceive our bodies becoming more and more fused. When I look in the mirror I am male, but when I close my eyes and feel, I am her. I can feel my golden hair streaking across my cheek and neck. I can feel my breasts emerging from my chest. I can feel a pregnancy growing within my belly, where the black gemstone has taken root.

When we make love, it’s unclear who is penetrating who. Our union is sheer bliss, ecstasy, so much more than any physical pleasure.

XXV.

My physical body dissolves, and in its place is a nebulous sphere. Vision, hearing, and sensations are blended all together in a pulsating orb. Thoughts flow through, part of the synesthesia like a melody rising from a symphony.

The whole being fluctuates like the fluid body of an octopus, constantly shifting its color and transforming its texture in response to the fluxing environment. I feel tendrils extending from my heart area, feeling into the darkness to reach, grasp, and explore.

Each of my cells tastes, smells, and caresses with its own intelligence. There’s nothing I need to do; it all happens if its own accord at every moment. The Goddess, this body, lives and breathes.

XXVI.

My experience of life is nearly always positive. I have rarely had a negative emotion. I feel a constant blend of joy, happiness, and gratitude.

But occasionally, anxiety washes over my body. I sit with the sensation, not pushing it away and not turning away from it. Wave after wave of jittery buzzing flows through my system. I am simply being with the sensations, allowing them to be and paying attention to them.

Then, the waves of anxiety start to transform, becoming something different: a yearning, a heartache. Fear dissolves and reveals the love underneath.

If I sit with it and feel it all the way to the other side, all negative emotions turn out to be nothing but love. Step by step, my openness alchemizes all darkness into golden light.

XXVII.

After my initial awakening experience, vision, hearing, and body sensations were three separate channels that I had to switch between, and thoughts came through via a fourth channel. Then, after my first kunalini opening, these channels became more integrated, swirling into a kind of synesthesia. More recently, all the discrete streams of perception have pixelated into smaller and smaller particles. When I intentionally tune into the body, I find a cloud of amorphous sensations or buzzing energies moving here or there. When I’m more concentrated, this flurry becomes more and more atomized or pixelated, like stardust strewn across the galaxy. When I relax and concentrate, I sink down into that TV snow and lose all sense of thought or sensation or separation.

The last few weeks, I sit in my chair, fold up my legs, take a breath, and without intending to do anything, I “drop in” to that snow immediately. All the particles of perception start flitting around indistinctly, occasionally punctuated by a clear perception of a sound, sight, or sensation (like I might hear a snippet of a bird’s song distinctly amidst the snow). At a certain point, dream-like images and random incongruous thoughts start flitting though the snow as well. As I sit, all of this becomes increasingly indistinct — even any notion of awareness or consciousness or presence is all mixed up into that static. It’s no longer clear if I’m conscious or asleep or halfway between.

A less absorptive but similar experience is also persistent throughout the day, whenever I choose to stop what I’m doing and tune in.

I’ve continued practicing a bit of qigong in the morning, just a simple routine of 20 min or so. But a few months ago, I started to let go more during those sessions, allowing my body to move spontaneously instead of “holding form.” Gradually over time, the whole thing has become a spontaneous dance where I let my body respond however it wants to the energies that pass through.

During these sessions, my body is like a starry night sky, mostly empty space but with sparkling clouds of sensation. A bursting comet or a falling star fizzles here and there. And I keep moving, bringing embodiment and expression to this emptiness.

XXVIII.

What used to seem like a stream of consciousness is now seen as an endless series of pulses where reality flashes on and off like a strobe light. The whole world poofs into existence out of nowhere/nothing. In the gaps between the flashes, reality is not here at all.

There’s no stable watcher throughout it all: there might be moments where I think “I am here” or “I am aware,” but any kind of subjectivity is also just a discrete flash that instantly disappears into the emptiness. Although there’s “no one home” in those moments, there’s a memory trace when reality comes back, like my brain is trying to retroactively fill in the gaps between the pulses to create an illusion of stability. But despite these efforts, there’s really no such thing as past or future since it’s always just now, now, now. And no space because it’s always just here, here, here.

Each flash confirms that in seeing there’s only the seeing, because anything other than seeing would come in its own separate flash. Same with hearing, feeling, thoughts, etc. Subject and object cannot exist. Each flash also confirms that there’s no possibility of a doer. Actions and results are apparently just more efforts of the brain to fill in the gaps retroactively and create the impression of stability.

In meditation the other day, this strobing pattern synched up with my breathing, so that it would strobe out right at the end of the out-breath and strobe back on with the beginning of the in-breath. I think I could sense that there were actually faster strobes happening during the rest of the breath, but my concentration is not high-resolution enough to catch them all. I noticed that the strobe-out actually is something like a fade, while the strobe-in is more abrupt. A few times I thought I could very subtly make out how the incoming strobe quickly configures itself, sort of snapping into place just as it’s arising.

The on/off/on/off strobing took place hundreds (thousands?) of times during the meditation along with almost every breath. Somehow my meditation has become effortless. I don’t think I missed more than a few the whole time, and they were just getting sharper and clearer as I kept going.

Sometimes seeing these pulses has sparked big realizations, but during this particular meditation, they became just a silent perfection — no sense of “I” or “being” or “here” or even “this,” just the universe naturally doing its thing. Great Shakti doing her spontaneous dance of birth and death every nanosecond. Reality emerging at every moment, with each of her pulsations.

XXIX.

I work with drumming, dancing, prayers, and offerings. Gradually, the elemental and animal spirits begin to arrange themselves into a mandala. Earth, water, fire, wind and space bring their material support. Cells, bacteria, instincts, and emotions bring their life force. Power animals bring their energies and wisdoms.

My ancestral bloodlines join the mandala too. Mother’s father, mother’s mother, father’s mother, and father’s father form a matrix of DNA, shaping the raw materials of the elements and animals. Ancestral burdens are transformed from iron chains into golden strands of light.

Four guardian teachers emerge and mold me in their ways. Blessings flow from south, east, west, and north, combining in the center. Gifts are exchanged, candles lighted, words of love and support spoken.

The Goddess shines her radiance from above, her light dancing across the surface of deep wellsprings of the black underworld. In the center of the mandala, young Oholomo learns to dance the dance that connects the worlds.

XXX.

This entry must remain blank.
A true initiation cannot be spoken about.
The ultimate test remains unspeakable.

All I can say is that it was literally a matter of life and death.
It involved hospitals, ambulances, and ventilation machines.
Survival was unlikely and the pain extreme.

There is no question that it was only by blessings that Death was avoided.
Only by love was continued Life granted.
Only by our intimacy was the web held together.

XXXI.

It’s midnight as I take my seat facing the dark forest and the black sky. The demon horde gathers on the horizon. The fire-breathing dragons threaten to burn down the world. The forces of madness, chaos, and destruction amass for their onslaught.

The golden ally sitting in my solar plexus provides reassurance:
It is time.
Let them come.

Then, one by one, the waves of sheer terror wash over my body like the assault of a thousand tsunamis. But I do not resist; I do not run or flee. I simply sit still and accept and fully feel.

As these waves wash up on my shores, wash through my body and out the other side, the fear is unbearable. And yet, a slightly golden tinge on the crest of each wave indicates that this, too, is nothing but Her love.

Hail Holy Queen, Mother of All, Protector of Worlds.

XXXII.

One day, almost exactly two years after Her first appearance, it is finished.

The final fear to be alchemized is the very fear of being alive. The deepest, core terror of this human existence. But in the end, even this fear is only love in disguise. As soon as it is pulled out from the depths of the black waters, this too is seen to be made of golden liquid sunlight.

In the final vision, the Great Black Lady lifts her stony mask and reveals her true face. One glance and my scalp lights up in a sunburst halo, a helmet of brilliant light rays.

How can I explain what I saw behind her mask? The best I can do is to say that, in that moment, all of the power animals, ancestors, guides, and goddesses are revealed to be one and the same. They are all none other than me. And I, her lover and her child, also am none other than the Goddess herself, as I have always been.

My body, all my thoughts, all sensory perceptions, all experiences are her. There is nothing of me that is not her. I am life itself, the divine creative powers of the universe.

How could I ever be separate from her? She is literally everywhere, in literally everything. In every experience, I am always already in a full-bodied and full-being embrace with her.

I make love with her by living, by breathing, by sensing, by being. Through feeling this deep well of emotion, through imagining and dreaming and every other emergence. She is all around me and in me, embracing and loving and penetrating me with each breath and at every moment.

Our non-separation is a visceral bliss and a poignant joy. We are creating this world together, through the marriage of her creative energies and my conscious awareness. This is our lovers’ embrace. Everything I see, feel, experience, and am is our union.

Kundalini is complete.
I am Oholomo.
I am the Goddess.
I am the light.

XXXIII.

The dance that connects the worlds is the dance that draws up the underwaters and that calls down the light.

As Oholomo runs his fingers across the surface of the black pool, sparkles of reflected light dance in their wake. He scoops the waters from the deepest depths, spraying them into the air, each drop becoming a vibrant rainbow prism. He breathes in the darkness, and exhales it into the sun.

When he’s created his elixir, Oholomo unites the worlds in a shining orb of liquid golden light. He tears open his heart, and draws the circle of protection for all beings.

XXXIV.

In a vision, a wrathful deity chops me over the head with a battle axe, cutting me entirely in half down the midline. All my layers fall away in concentric sheaths, like a thousand Russian dolls. At the core, a golden angel is released in a flash of light. It is time to rise.

Oholomo spreads his wings and takes flight.