The Journey to the Palace of Light upon the World

Pârâul Rece, Romania

"You cannot heal the body without healing the soul." The first time this statement is recorded is in a dialogue of Plato called the Charmides. The source of the quote is Zalmoxis, described as a "Thracian" god king who had established a unique school of soul healing. Zalmoxis was actually Dacian, and for the past four days we have been building a temple of soul healing in his country, now called Romania. We succeeded in journeying as a group on Saturday to his "palace of light upon the world" in an extraordinary collective experience that brought through tremendous light energy.
     The journey began when I invited the members of our circle to go on a walk in the woods, up the steep slopes of the mountain behind our villa. I told them they would find a wounded animal along the trail. They would follow it through the mountain mist to a blue lake where the animal would be healed in the waters. They would follow its example and plunge as deep as they needed to go for their own healing. They might find that the blue lake opened into another world.
    At the end of the drumming, a woman named Gabriela electrified us with her travel report.
    She started out up the forest trail, in the dappled sunlight. She saw something sparkling among the fallen leaves, then realized it was blood. She looked for a wounded animal and saw in the distance what she thought was a white eagle, a bird that had been her ally in the past. The message came, "Look closer, please." She looked again, and found the animal was a black mountain goat. She found it was injured in many places. The deepest wound was in the heart. When she reached out in an effort to help, her hand came away dripping with blood.
    Despite its wounds, the goat ran up the mountain, and she followed it, into deep fog in which she lost her bearings for a while. When the fog cleared, she saw the goat hurling itself into a blue lake. It was submerged for a long time, and she became worried it would not come up again. At last it surfaced and bounded away on the far side of the lake, apparently healed.
    Gabriela jumped into the lake. She feared she was drowning, then found she could breathe underwater. A guide she had met in previous journeys appeared to her and asked, "What do you want?" She replied, "I want to see." "Then open your eyes."
    She opened her eyes, deep underwater, and saw a clearing in the forest, in another world. Drumming sounded from the clearing, and she approached the source. She found shamans in animal masks and skins drumming and dancing around a great fire. She joined them for a time, then understood that she must go into the fire.
    When she stepped through the fire in the lake, she found herself in yet another world. She recognized Sarmizegetusa, the ancient capital of the Dacians, not in ruins but as it may have been at its apogee. She was drawn to the temple of Zalmoxis. It was blazing with light. She approached an immense being of light, and knew she was in the presence of Zalmoxis. "I knew him by his righteousness, by his light energy, by his endless desire to heal."
    Zalmoxis asked her, "Why have you come here?"
    "I have come to be healed."
    "Why do you wish to be healed?"
     The question shook her. She thought for a moment, then said, "I want to be healed so I can draw and make art. My drawings are my way of traveling."
     She felt that her response was accepted.
     She felt him encouraging her to step outside herself and look at her body from another perspective. She felt compassion, observing her body and noticing what it had endured.
     The god told her, "You must bring a gift to your body."
      She did not understand how to accomplish this until he gave her a further instruction, "Bring colors to your body."
     She felt a rain of light descending and saw it entering her body, streaming to the heart, where it coalesced and became a shining green crystal. From the green crystal at the heart a rainbow of colors radiated out, bringing specific but uncalculated healing energy to every part.

We were all seized with excitement by Gabriela's vivid report. With her permission, I took the key elements from her journey and turned them into a travel plan for our whole group. We would journey together to the city of Zalmoxis. We would find our personal responses to the question, "Why do you want to be healed?" - and they would need to be creative responses. We would seek the source of that tremendous light energy, and bring its gift to our bodies in a rainbow of colors.
     The group journey was extraordinary. I was now able to understand why Mircea Eliade told me (in a vision the previous day) that what is written about Zalmoxis in the Charmides is more important than the world understands and that even in his own immense research he had only began to scratch the surface.
      I believe we succeeded, as dream archaeologists, in traveling to the city of Zalmoxis and in experiencing something of what became available in his school of soul healing. The etymology of the name of that city, Sarmizegetusa, is uncertain. There are at least three versions. I like the version that gives its meaning as the Palace of Light Upon the World. That is where we found ourselves in our group journey. 
    After the final drumming, we stood in a circle, letting light energy flow hand to hand. We became a great wheel of light, as light burst from our hearts and streamed to the heart of our circle. We called down more and more light to the heart of our circle and sent it out to those in need.

Photos: (1) Ruins of the ancient Dacian capital of Sarmizegetusa by Ionut Vaida (2) Our neighborhood by Robert Moss