She came to my Shamanic Dreaming workshop because (she told us) she was seeking to find and follow the paths of her soul. She embarked on all our journeys with courage and high enthusiasm. What was quite unexpected, and life-transforming, was what happened when she accepted an invitation to visit the Magic Library.
This is a real place in another order of reality, one I often call the Imaginal Realm. It is a realm of true imagination. Palaces and temples and schools and pleasure gardens are constructed here through creative interaction, and they may be visited by prepared and invited travelers over centuries or millennia of human time.
In the Magic Library, access to any form of knowledge is possible. So is contact with master teachers in any field. In introductory workshops, I often invite participants to use their life memories to open the portal. Think of a favorite library or bookshop, museum or gallery where your imagination came alive in the presence of fresh images and ideas. Picture yourself at the threshold. When the drumming begins, step through the door. You'll find yourself in a deepening space. Its contents and possibilities go far beyond the memories you used to come here. Information may be stored here in many forms.
The traveler I wish to celebrate picked a used bookstore that she loves, in her native city in another part of Central Europe. When she went inside the bookshop (as she told me) she found that a wall of books "peeled back", revealing a garden behind.
She stepped out, with delight, into the garden, and then into the wood behind it. She paused at a certain tree because someone up in its branches was throwing sticks down at her. When she examined the sticks, she recognized Celtic designs that had been carved on them. Maybe they were Ogham sticks.
She looked up, and saw a druid perched in the tree.
She remembered one of the assignments I had suggested for this group journey. She told him, "I am looking for the story I am now living. Can you help me?"
"Your story is about a Lost Girl," he responded. "When you were very young, a tree faery took part of your spirit because you world was not safe. Ever since then, the tree faery has kept that girl safe, inside a tree you know." The druid proceeded to identify the tree, and the park where it stands in her native city. She remembered the tree, and the park, very clearly from childhood.
"You must go to that tree and retrieve your Lost Girl," the druid instructed.
She promised she would do that, as soon as possible after she goes home. We discussed how, in Celtic folklore, people often sing to bring a soul back home, sometimes from a tree where it has been sheltered is is perching like a bird. She readily agreed she would sing for her Lost Girl, at the tree from her childhood, to entertain the faery and prove that she was ready to be a lively host for her child self. I am eager to hear the next installment.
For instructions on how to access the Magic Library, which I sometimes call the Secret Library or the Dream Library, please see Dreaming the Soul Back Home.
photo (c) Robert Moss
