Search Results for 'shoulder'

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  • #3668
    F LoveF Love
    Participant

      “Will someone get rid of that old woman with the horrible accent?” hissed Finnley, ungraciously.

      “What on earth for? She is doing a splendid job. I must say though, Finnley, just as a side note, it is good to hear you sounding more like your normal ungracious self.”

      “I found dust,” muttered Finnley, glaring accusingly at Haki.

      Elizabeth look unaccustomedly thoughtful. “Do you think you need a break, Finnley dearest? You really must be exhausted after all the splendid proof reading you have been doing for me this year. Why don’t you go home for a while, on full pay of course.”

      Finnley burst into tears. “Where is my home though?” she snuffled. ”I am not good with descriptive details. I just found myself in this stupid story doing your stupid cleaning. And now I have a Bulgarian sister, to boot. And,” she looked witheringly at Elizabeth, “ proofreading is one word”

      “Crikey, matey,” said Norbert patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Christmas is a killer, in’t? Family coming out of the woodwork like blimmin worms. Keep ya chin up though, eh. Ya can’t be letting things get to ya like this. Ya wouldn’t be able to carry on like this if ya were in bloody China ya know. Like bloody robots they are there. I don’t think they know the meaning of the word feelings over there.” He shook his head in wonder at their philistinism.

      “And ya right about that one,” he added quietly, with a conspiratorial raised eyebrow and a slight nod of his head towards Haki.

      Elizabeth leapt up and rushed to the bookshelf. “I know what you need! some Lemon Juice! I will pick one at random; they are all absolutely superb.” She opened the very small book and closing her eyes stabbed the page dramatically with her finger.

      ”Let’s not be overachieving fucks.”

      “Wow,” she mouthed, awestruck. After taking a moment to recover herself, she looked sympathetically at Finnley.

      “The oracle has done it again. Do you hear that Finnley? You are an overachieving fuck.”

      Finnley rolled her eyes.

      #3630
      DevanDevan
      Participant

        I found Joe near the fallen bridge. He was sobbing. I approached silently and put my hand on his shoulder.
        “Are you alright, mate ?”
        “Yes I’m alright”, he snorted. “You remember when we used to play there ?”
        Of course I remembered, we called it the bridge to nowhere. I’ve never really understood why Bert had built that bloody bridge. Jasper told me after the blast that the old man also made sure nobody could use it again. That was no surprise. Old Bert was a tight as a duck’s ass when it came to his craft. That’s why he never could make it in his trade, if he didn’t like what you did of one of his creations he’d rather smash it up so that no one could use it afterward. Always the sneaky one.
        “I remember”, I said. “Your face looks like a Panda.”
        He snickered. “You know my father. He’s got a liking for China.” He laughed, but it felt forced. Anyway, I laughed with him. There was no point in bringing up the gloom, we needed fun.
        “Let’s take a dive!” I said. Hoping to change his mind. He tried to smile but cringed as his face must have hurt badly. When he removed his shirt, my heart sank as I saw the dark marks on his chest and back. No pushing him in the water.
        “Last one to reach the other side of nowhere!” he shouted before jumping in the cold water.
        “That would be you!” I roared. Naked in the wild, at least as close to the wild as you could have here, I felt like a lion, full of strength, dangerous.

        #3606
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Finnley got a book out of her bag and started reading, rather rudely, Elizabeth thought.

          Liz leaned over so that she could read over Finnley’s shoulder, in the absence of anyone to talk to as all the characters had been written out of the script.

          “…full of misinformation and wrong opinions.” she read.

          “Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.”

          (A point worth bearing in mind, Liz thought)

          “But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people’s.”

          “Ah, but, sir, it is precisely by passing judgements upon other people’s work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one’s own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one’s theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.”

          “Hmm, you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place.”

          When Elizabeth had had enough of reading, she wrote Godfrey back into the script.

          #3539

          Aunt Idle:

          My hands were shaking so much I could hardly light a cigarette after reading the note. I got it lit and sucked in a lungful, exhaled right into the shaft of sunlight and froze. And I don’t mean cold, it’s hotter than hell, I mean I quit shaking and couldn’t move because that smoke was doing some very peculiar things in that sunbeam. Looked like Penmanship with a capitol curly P, written in smoke by an invisible hand, loop the loop of joined up writing and I could see the words, but damn, two seconds later I couldn’t tell you what I just read and by then the first part had wafted apart. So I sat there reading the smoke until the last of it dispersed, and without thinking took another drag of the cigarette. I’ll be honest, I wondered whether to blow the smoke over my shoulder instead, but curiosity got the better of me, and I leaned forward a bit and screwed my eyes up ready to focus and started exhaling slowly into the sun. Not a damn thing this time, nor the next, and I almost lit another cigarette right off the butt of that one. Just to delay looking at that note again I suppose, but I didn’t, I stubbed it out and picked up the note. The smoke distraction did me good, I was over the shock of it and now I was curious.

          The note was written in letters cut out of a map, by the look of it. Or maps, hard to say at this stage. The letters were pasted onto a yellowing sheet of stationary paper with a heading embossed on the top: Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Nothing else, just that, no address or phone number, or indication of who they were. There was a brown ring stain, which might be a clue, and a short message. Made me jump when I saw the name at the bottom, because the H was so tiny compared to the ILDE it caught my eye as Idle, which is what the twins call me, and the D I D letters were much bigger than the I E R, making me think it was Dido, which is what the others call me. It’s Delilah but nobody’s ever called me that, although Prune called me Dildo once and got a clip round the back of the head for it. So the note came from Hilde Didier, and I’m ferreting away in my mind and I can’t think of anyone of that name, but it might come to me later.

          Mater’s acting strange, Aunt Idle,” Corrie burst into the room giving me the most unpleasant jolt it made me think I was having a heart attack until I remembered the note in my hand.

          Coriander, darling!” I gushed, admittedly uncharacteristically but I didn’t have time to think, swiveling round to her while slipping the note out of sight. I stood up and hugged her, deftly spinning her around while scanning over her shoulder to make sure the note was hidden from view.

          “Bloody hell, not you as well!”

          #3515

          In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

          TracyTracy
          Participant

            impression: continued write story.
            sun deep, showing shoulder wings ~
            silently parrot strong mother:
            tunnel anywhere!

            #3493
            AvatarJib
            Participant

              Soul loss and soul recovery
              Whenever you are in a situation with intense pain, grief, loss, or intense joy, excitement, you may lose part of your soul, or vital energy, it’s also called dissociation by the psychologist. You usually do it to make it stop, or it is an automatic action to stop the intensity of what’s going on.
              You separate yourself form an aspect of yourself, and you are not aware of it, most of the time. It can manifest as chronic fatigue, depression, feeling numb, addictive behavior, etc.
              In order to get back this energy, you have to reclaim it. And as a shaman, you do it through the process of soul recovery. Today you’re going to learn how to do it.
              It is relatively simple. First, you are going to go in the lower world, find your main power animal. Thank it again for all that it does for you and ask them if they are the one to help you in the process of soul recovery. If not, ask them to lead you to your soul recovery animal. When you get acquainted to this new animal, you can ask them their name, and how you can call them when you need them. Thank them for their help and presence with you.
              When you do a soul recovery, you may not know what you are going to recover. You may not really know what you have lost, or you may not be aware of symptoms. Just tell your Soul Recovery Power animal (SRPA) that you want to recover a part of your soul that you are missing at the moment. They’ll guide you through the process. Follow them, trust them.
              They may take you through different places or spaces and times to go find that lost soul piece. It may be from your childhood, from another life, or dream situations.
              You are going to be presented to that piece of your soul and you have to ask them what happen. Most of the time they are frightened and don’t want to come back. You have to convince them, and ask them what you have to do to show them that you’ll not do the same “mistake” that make them leave in the first place. It may require you change something in your behavior, in your attitude toward certain things, it might be simple or huge. Depends on what you find. And it’s up to you to see if you’re up to the challenge.
              you can also take some time with your power animals to get to know them better and learn from them.
              If you don’t know how to manage the situation with the lost piece of soul, you can ask your soul recovery power animal to help you do the “negotiation” part
              but you’ll have to do what’s required by the soul so that it comes back definitively sts
              If you still have time, you can go on a second recovery.
              And remember, this is not a race, take your time, don’t rush, enjoy the journey.

              Eric
              Before the music starts, I have the feeling of “Nagini” my snake power animal: it’s looking patiently at me with golden eyes. I also get the first impression of a spirit panda as a soul retrieving power animal. There are two aspects of it, a docile and friendly one, and another more fearsome, they seem to shift depending on his mood. As the music starts, I sift through few fleeting impressions (one of a lemur), then some stronger.
              The panda comes back but I also have other animals who seem to present themselves in order, as if in different directions, and I remember there are no rules as their number, so I let myself welcome them. The panda is on the right, it seems connected to childhood memories, (call it “Panda”) then, on middle right, there is a spider (“Anansi”), it connects to the jumping spiders I’ve seen a few times the past days, and
              one this morning I put outside instead of letting it drown.Middle left, coming from above and perched on a tree, there is a firebird/phoenix (“Fawkes”). There is another one, I remember a bit later that appeared further left, as if from the direction behind me, it’s an ape (“Hanuman”).
              The serpent circles around them. I have the impression I can choose any of them, and they will lead me to different realizations, and I have the impression of the buddhist emanations, where enlightened being manage to split themselves into many as one. So I decide to ride them all at once. Actually, I start with the first three ones, and as I ride on the land, I suddenly remember the ape which was very discrete initially,but seems to be willing to show me stuff too.
              The land we ride into is dark, almost volcanic in nature, as if scorched. There are trails that spread to different directions, and each ride goes down one of them. There are various visions, moments and memories from the past connected with strong emotions.
              At one end, there is a little boy that shoots magma out of his incandescent body. It irradiates the land through veins of lava, and as it cools down it darkens the land even more. He seems to be caught up in a circle of rage or fear, fear of never seeing the light again. I listen to him without words, and realize he’s afraid of letting go.
              I’ll show him the light is covered by his own cinders, and he needs to cool down and let nature grow back again around him, and I’m showing him I’m willing to help. It seems to resolve as light opens in the sky, and a tree starts to grow again… At the end, I seem to connect the scene to certain memories.
              There is another one that comes in, where the ape is doing a certain pose where it walks on its hands. The posture catches my attention, as if to remind me of something. I’m encouraged to turn around to see the world as it sees it. As I do it, the world changes and spins, and the music starts to indicate the end of the trip. I thank the animals and finish with the snake before leaving…
              the end
              well, it’s very condensed, there was lots happening
              It’s like I was doing many stuff at the same time

              Flove
              (no recollection)

              Jib
              I have difficulties stabilizing my attention first, there is this kind of veiled perception I’ve been having lately. As I call my power animal for soul recovery I have a strong impression of a bear and then a raven. There is a kind of snake too, and I also feel a wild boar. I refocus back on the whale and say I’ll come back later. The whale leads me in the depth of the earth to a magma chamber. It becomes scrambled again and I just take a moment to refocus on my penguin.
              First soul recovery
              I ask him to find the piece of soul that would be best for me to recover now, and we go fly above something. The penguin flies like a rocket, super fast. I soon find a kid feeling presence. I have no real visual, and I keep having visuals of lemur, or raccoon interfering.
              Then I feel that the presence is also camouflaging behind projections to be left alone. He left me when I was little, around 8 because the world seemed to disappointing. I have some difficulties at first to convince him to come back with me, and I show him what I’m already doing that’s fun and that’s worth doing and exploring. After a while, he agrees and I feel a nice warm feeling inside my belly as he is reintegrating me. I thank him for coming back. The only thing I need to do is take the time to reassure myself when the world seems too dangerous.
              Visiting the bear and the raven
              Then I decide to go back visit the bear and the raven.
              I’ve already seen them before and they seem to be there for me. There is an impression of power with the bear and also mother here for her kids. With the raven, it’s more a mystical stuff, and the power of observation and seeing through things.
              I am offered a kind of raven skull symbol of power and energy manipulation staff or something like that. I take it and it feels quite powerful, I have the impression the energy or the “spirits” would follow it when I demand it. Like make blocked energy move.
              Second soul recovery
              I decide to do a second soul recovery and ask the whale to lead me. I have the impression of changing plane, the focus is different, I am more on the middle world, and we go somewhere icy like Antarctic. Maybe near a shipwreck. There is a man, depressed and gloomy. I begin to ask him why he’s here, but he seems to want to come back and don’t ask anything. I feel very warm and loving. The drums begin to beat the return and I thank everyone for participating and come back. Saying I’ll take time to assimilate.
              Eric’s account remind me of a few stuff
              that reminded me a few stuff too because at one time I had to follow a spider and with the raven I flew over a magma land and the raven became a phoenix to be able to fly because it was so hot
              thanks I forgot that

              Tracy
              went down the stone steps, the unicorns on the left looked up as I passed. Zebra joined me from the right, said thanks but forgot his name! Then a white bear joined me, said his name was Waldo (or at least that name would do for now, impression)
              He was huge but was very light on his feet the whole time. Came to a tall tree with a single very red apple on it. The white bear scampered up the tree and I followed. Various other fruit but mainly the red apple stood out.
              At the top of the tree leveled out to a large plaza with gameboard design, the white bear demonstrated frolicking from one part to another playfully leaping in lightness.
              Flash to me as a small child being woken up in the night by concerned parents for nasty medicine for chicken pox.
              Same house but in the field behind, me as a small child alone by the wigwam of sticks dad made, frowning, alone. Next door to the neighbours pond, frozen over. White bear kept dancing on the thin ice part that we didn’t skate on, huge heavy bear, such a light step didn’t break the ice
              Zebra was hanging around incidentally, kept feeling reassuring warm breath and muzzle on my shoulder. Breathing restrictions started, left the pond, down a path in the woods, came to a fork. Went left ~ papers everywhere, letters, words, snowed under with words and letters, monkeys pulling sheafs and sheafs of letters and papers and words.
              Then a school of tiny silver fishes swan inside me and started chomping at all the letters in my solar plexus and spewing out coloured threads and ribbons from my mouth.
              Breathing difficult. (several times just sank into intense colours for awhile with no imagery, plenty purple and green). I started doing sort of swimming motions with my arms with the breathing and fishes, had a sudden blast of energy in the chest and then later a much stronger one just before the video ended.
              I should add the impression of less thinking/intellectualizing, less buried under a mountain of words, in favour of more purely physical expression

              #3488

              “How very strange” said Igor, when they eventually reached the waterfall.
              “What?” asked Mirabelle, who was paying more attention to the parrot perched on her shoulder. She tickled him under the chin. “Who’s a pretty boy then? muah muah muah pretty parrot, where have you been?”
              Igor rolled his eyes at the kissing noises. “Look!” he said, pointing at the waterfall.
              “It’s a fucking waterfall, yes, I see it!” snapped Mirabelle. Finding Huhu had distracted her from the discomfort of hunger, thirst and an aching body, but Igor’s questions brought her back to the reality of their situation.
              Then it dawned on her. The waterfall plummeted downwards, in a seemingly infinite series of cascades and pools. It was impossible to see the bottom with the spray and mist, especially in the fading daylight.
              “But we are still at sea level, Igor! The waterfall should be going up, not down. I mean to say, we should be looking up at the waterfall flowing down. This isn’t making any sense. But look” she said, pointing to the first pool on the right. “There is a little hut there and some people. Fat people.” she added. “I bet they will have some food, let’s go and ask.”
              Igor stepped cautiously to the edge and and peered over, looking for a way down. He looked down, then looked back at the little stream they had followed from the sea, and then back down again.
              “This water is breaking all the rules!” he cried. “It’s flowing in both directions!”
              “Don’t be silly Igor, are you delirious? Everyone knows that water flows downhill towards the sea.”
              “See for yourself then, look!” he put a stick in the stream and they watched it flow gently back the way they had come, towards the bay. “Now watch,” he said, as he tossed another stick over the edge of the waterfall. It quickly disappeared from view as it rushed downwards, in the opposite direction.
              “Where is the source? Where is the water coming from?”
              “Those fat people might know. Have you found a way down yet?”
              It appeared that the only way down to the pool of the fat people was via the waterfall itself. There were sheer cliffs of malachite and rose quartz on either side of the waterfall as far as the eye could see.
              “I think we will have to go down the waterfall itself, Mirabelle.”
              She gasped and took an involuntary step back.
              “We will have to steer ourselves towards where we want to go, that’s all.”
              “Oh no, not me, if you think I’m going to just throw myself over a waterfall…Oh! Huhu come back!”
              The parrot flew down to the pool of the fat people, and settled on a banana tree, watching Mirabelle above looking down at him.
              “Fucking parrot,” muttered Mirabelle. “I’ll clip your wings when I catch hold of you, I swear I will. For your own fucking good! Well?” she said, turning to Igor. “Are you coming or what?” and she launched herself over the edge and into the waterfall, with one thought in her mind ~ the bloody parrot.
              With a great splash, she landed in the rose coloured pool, bobbing to the surface like a cork. Disgruntled silvery fish leaped out of the water, one of them landing on the barbecue. Mirabelle waded out of the pool, oblivious to the fish, and the looks of amazement on the faces of the fat people, and walked over to the banana tree.
              Huhu ripped a banana off a ripe yellow bunch and dropped it, squalking in delight as Mirabelle caught it in her hands. When Huhu saw that she was focused on peeling it and eating it, he fluttered down and perched on her shoulder. She gave the parrot the last bit of banana, and then turned her attention to the fat people and the barbecued fish.

              #3481
              AvatarJib
              Participant

                Second Journey ~ August 24th, 2014

                Duration 24 minutes

                Directions : Meet with your power animal, ask them to lead you to the upper realm to meet with your guide. Ask the name of your guide and what they will be likely helping you with. Ask them for your personal symbol and how you can use it. Then follow your power animal into showing you the potential development for the stories.

                Accounts

                Eric
                My snake animal guide appears very fast, I see its eyes first. It shifts into a powerful cobra, and fans out its hood into multiple heads, like Ananta (Shesha Naga), and says I can call him Nagini (like in Harry Potter, that’s also the playful name I give to the plush snake at our doorsteps).
                It wraps its multiple heads around me like a ball, and we woosh into the ground to what I guess is the underworld, it seems like a long coiled path around a sort of vortex, after a few moments in a sort of crystal cave, I’m a bit skeptical what we’re doing there, I catch a glimpse of a white horse from the back, so I guess Jib’s Conan is checking on us, and restate my intent.
                I go though the light of one of the brightest glowing crystals, and the travel resumes, this time like the giant snake wraps ourselves in coils around a column of rocks, and we climb that high mountain very fast. It reminds me of Mt Meru in Buddhism or the Immortals palace in the Chinese Buddhist tales (like in the 2014 movie The Monkey King).
                The place is like a beautiful platform/palace of giant proportions, with a golden light. When we arrive, the snake becomes much smaller, and golden too, and wraps itself around my left arm. It guides me to explore different places, a temple, a place over the clouds where there are dances, etc. I decide to rest under a tree and meditate and be open to possibilities.
                The snake shifts around in various forms as if to reflect the nature of my mind, a giant parasol, or a stream of many paths at my feet. It connects me to a picture I saw of a Buddhist painting where the mind represented as an elephant is led by the monkey brain around a snake-like path. I realize the person I saw briefly earlier is the guide that helped Sunwukong (the monkey king) and seems to be the guide I’m looking for.
                (I find the name later is Puti or Subhuti).
                When I mentally ask for a name, the name Pachacamac comes strongly. He shows me many things related to my symbol. As a spinning cube with the floating feather in the middle and the arrow pointing towards the heart. The spin of the cube creates illusion within illusion, the arrow wobbles but stays towards the heart.
                He shows me a chasm and how to create a bridge over the clouds, by showing me the mirror image in my heart chakra. The bridge is built inside. At the same time, I was trying to focus on the music to deepen the trance, and realized outside (one storey below) was Jib’s music played on the speakers, aligned with the one playing in the headset, although a few seconds off, the rhythm was perfectly in synch…
                He also shows me another image, of a deep well deep inside the mountain that we can see from above the clouds. The image inside is dark and fluctuates with the water’s surface, and also reflecting quite a small portion of the beautiful landscape around.
                He explains that the well is the world we create, the mind and the perception is the water’s surface. It’s the external world, while the heart is all that we perceive as we discuss.
                There are other things shared at a subjective level.

                Francie
                After I connected with my power animal, we went to the upper world. We went through water to get there until we came to land.
                I asked for my main guide.
                I think I took on the characteristics of my guide. by that I mean I felt myself become a different being, and then switched back and forwards between myself and the other. It was very clear. The other was masculine, strong, very alert, very watchful, powerful.
                I asked for the guide’s name and received the answer, Carlos.
                I asked for the area which the guide would work with me. I have had a sharp pain in my left abdomen under my rib for half an hour. I felt my guide reach in and do something energetically in that area. The pain left and has not returned.
                I asked for a symbol and saw what looked like a key-hole shape.
                There was a key too.
                It was a very particular shape.
                There was a door. And the key hole was up very high in the door.
                I had to reach up high to get to it. And I put the key in.
                I wasn’t sure if those were symbols.
                The key hole and the key were shapes.
                I was tracing them with my hand.

                Jib
                I settle in myself and arrive directly in a kind of lava world. There are stalagmites and magma puddles, it’s very fiery and earthy. Then I call my horse who just nudge my left shoulder, he was already there.
                I ride him first and take time to bond with him. Then ask him to take me to the upper realm to Michel. Without much transition I am there, I feel a definite difference of feeling and texture. I say hi and ask Michel if he can show me the use of my personal symbol or particular aspects to it.
                The he focuses my attention to the octagon and the connection with the number eight. He shows me how it connects with the musical octave and sounds as a resonator. It can also be used like the shamanic drum. The coil inside is connected with the circle, the spiral and the labyrinth. My symbol is a kind of labyrinth with the diamond representing the central room where the graal is, so to speak.
                He shows me other stuff that I don’t recall at the moment.
                When I realize that it will be all, I ask my guide if he can introduce me to another guide that can help me with the use of my symbol. He sends me in a direction that goes up in a cave world. There are faceless figures, I don’t pay much attention to them. When I arrive, the guide sits me on the ground and a journey inside my symbol begins. With the octagon connecting quite strongly with the lava and earth again. I am in a lava world again, which is strange. I ask the guide what is his name and I suddenly understand it is Athumbra the Dreamwalker from whom I’m fragmented.
                He shows me the connection of my symbol to the fire and earth, and the depth of the world. He suggests me that instead of focusing on the shape of the symbol I connect with how the different parts connects together and to other aspects of consciousness, and how they are representative of my own energy personality. Not try to look outside for an answer in a way at the moment.
                So I begin to experience the shapes, and it turns like a clock, take different colors, etc.
                This will be something I’ll have to do again.
                Then I ask my power animal to show me what would be interesting to me to explore in the story now.
                He shows me a nest and I connect it with the stork nests I’ve been talking about in the last comment and that I used in the quote of the week picture. Without consciously connecting the two. I’ve written the comment before making the picture.
                It will have to do with how the nest is comfortable but don’t make you learn much about life and your potentials.
                Then he showed me something related to ants and colonies, that I connected with Mars, the colonies of Mars. There is something about community and social network for me to explore.
                Then I asked him to help me decipher the energy transmission Eric sent to me the other day, and it had something to do with networks again and how we create a space of something through our relationships, the space of love, the space of friendship, and we create fields and connective tissues that we nourish through experience and attention and involvement.
                At some point in the beginning I briefly wondered what was happening with you guys and felt propelled into something like water and impression of struggling with current, there were two moon crescents holding together by their “backs”, and purple or pink colors.

                Tracy
                The Zebra walked towards me across a grassy plain then I circled him, floating, and we went down a slope through the trees, an old road paved with stones. We wound down and came to a great expanse of metallic pink water, like a wise (typo! wide) river.
                There was a guy in much heavy stone coloured rough clothes on with a very old face who didn’t look at me, he was on a raft with a long pole for steering. Asked his name and got Frudo. (was slightly skeptical that I got the name right) The symbol was like a clubs of cards, 3 circles interlocking with an in flow of the stem part. Domain was water, flow and fluidity (and dams, apparently).
                We went down with the raft on the wide pink river, and the pace increased and there were people of all kinds lining both banks, watching. The wide river came to an immensely steep and deep waterfall, but there were pools and much smaller waterfalls on either side of it. All the water was pink.
                We navigated from pool to pool on the right of the waterfall mostly, each pool had people, some of the pools were dammed, and some were more open and easily flowing to the next pool. Some dams were high and some pools had people looking over the edge at the waterfalls below their pools.
                In a pool on the right, a very fat pink baby was sitting in the middle, I picked him up and held him and asked his name and it was Ezekial.
                Then a fly landed on my right shoulder and I looked to the right and saw a scrunched up face of my mother, with a tight smile. My breathing started to get constricted and I saw mustard yellow mangle of tubes like intestines in that pool.
                Then there was a lot of fingers stroking and pulling threads out of the dam around that pool, like pulling soft pink wax. Breathing continued to be restricted, and some becoming vapour or mist stuff that wasn’t very clear or droplets leaping from pool to pool as an alternative route to surface pools and waterfalls….
                Then went down down down into a vast pool of pink water, faster and faster towards a narrow tube at the bottom, and then flipped over onto my back and saw the sun far above and rose slowly floating towards the surface.
                Several times I saw purple and light green.
                The breathing thing was interesting if not so pleasant.
                The personal symbol may be connected to the flow from pool to pool somehow.

                #3469

                Fanella was riding her new zebra friend in a big dry meadow. Something she had never seen before. There were other animals with them and it was delightful. The flight of the cranes transported her up to the clouds while the crocodiles would clap in unison in the marshes.
                The zebra had told her his name. Rene he was, and glad he’d met her before it was too late. He also said something that she didn’t quite understand. “Other friends are coming, you don’t have to worry.” Why worry when she was with Rene ? Other friends ? Lisa was coming back for her with Sanso ? “We’ll meet soon”, said Rene. Now she was having hallucinations. He was a tall man, half an ebony skin, half white and black zebra stripes. But he was already fading away.
                The return back to reality was harsh. She gagged and disgorged sea water on the beach. It felt as if she had been torn inside out.

                “There, there. Welcome back young Miss. You’re safe, now”, said a man. He was wearing a smile but she felt it was just a facade.
                “Are you okay ?” she asked. Even in the midst of drowning, her maternal instinct was stronger. Surprised showed up on the man’s face.
                “What do you mean ?”
                “You’re all yellow.”
                The man laughed. “I’m quite normal, young lady. Quite normal.” He put his jacket on her shoulders to help keep her warmth as social rules demanded. It was relatively dry, whereas he was drenched. He must have took it off before rescuing her from the sea.

                “We should have left her to the barracudas”, said another man. He wore a blue turban, casting a shadow on an already hard face. It was marked by a circular fresh scar around his nose, made by countless small sharp teeth. The flesh seemed to pulsate painfully. She shuddered when she saw his hook-leg, the hook half burried in the sand. She didn’t want to imagine what he could do with it.

                “Don’t pay attention to Berberus”, said the first man, “We have no business in hurting young beautiful ladies.”
                Something in his smile told her that it wasn’t always true. She forced herself a gracious face, as she had learned to do with the noble men back then in Versailles.
                “Thank you for rescuing me, Sir.” She pulled on the edges of the jacket as if she needed warmth. “My name is Fanetta”, she added, lowering her eyes.

                #3465

                Lazuli Galore in the shape of the mandarin duck looked over his shoulder, grinning mischievously at his passengers.
                “Fasten your seat belts!” he shouted.
                “What bloody seat belts?” asked Lisa. “Hey! Steady on!”
                Lazuli the duck accelerated like a speedboat, ripping across the tops of the swelling waves and performing eye watering figure of eights, tilting the passengers first this way then that way as they held on to the feathers with all the strength they could muster, fearing for their lives, yet wildly exhilarated.
                Lazuli whooped with the exuberance of wild abandon, failing to notice that Fanella had slipped off his back into the brine, and unable to hear the cries of the others amid his own gleeful shouts and the roar of the wind rushing past.
                Fanella rolled and flailed in the backwash, eventually surfacing and gasping for breath. In vain she looked for the duck but it had disappeared from sight. The shore looked too far to swim to, but she knew she must try to reach it. Holding down the panic as best she could, she started to swim towards the mangrove trees lining the beach, barely visible in the descending fog. The striped shadows shimmered in the mist; was it an optical illusion of stripes and mists that it seemed as if a section of shadows was heading towards her? The zebra waded into the breaking waves, and calmly and purposefully swam towards the drowning girl.

                #3450
                AvatarJib
                Participant

                  Accounts of the Journey to the Lower Realm

                  Eric
                  I was at a steppe first, like I was meditating in the desert, then went through a forest entrance, and stayed under a tree. There were lots of sounds and animals life, flapping wings sounds, deers, ants, but the most vivid presence was that of snake, and I was a bit suspicious, but it came back very gently, inviting, and after I recognized it, it made me journey, travelling like a dragon or feathered multicolored snake to an ancient place.
                  The snake analogy with shedding old skin comes to mind, after accepting it, it makes a lot of sense.
                  I saw green and purple at times.
                  I felt a horse too but it was just a hooves’ sound.

                  Flove
                  I went through the entrance to a cave. I asked my power animal to come. An ancient tortoise came up to me. I asked if this was my power animal but i felt such love for the tortoise that i felt that was my answer. We explored energetically what the tortoise wisdom i need is. I put my hand around the tortoise neck and we swam in the water.
                  I wanted to cry, I loved the tortoise energy so much. And the protection of the tortoise shell.
                  I saw a snake.
                  The horse was the first animal I felt, right as I went in the entrance. I stroked the horse as i went by.
                  I saw a unicorn too, [and ]was surprised by the unicorn.
                  I didn’t sense many creatures. just the horse, the snake and the unicorn.

                  Jib
                  First I saw little white skulls, whistling like the shells of the guy in the video.
                  Then I become my shaman self and I have my magic cape. I find the entrance [to the lower realm,] which was kind of difficult at first as if there was some distracting energy.
                  I finally enter the lower realm and find my horse right away, he’s very excited and I ride with him for some time, just for the pleasure of being with an old friend.
                  Then I ask him to lead me to Abalone and show me whatever is interesting.
                  He leads me to see an old shaman, man or woman I don’t know.
                  The shaman makes me sit in his room and offers me tea, then tells me to relax and wait.
                  So I relax and I begin to project to Abalone as the Giant beanstalk, I begin to grow and grow and grow and have the city built on top of me. I am the whole island.
                  I have the impression that the beanstalk is in the center of Gazalbion or very close to it
                  Then I come back to the place and have the impression the Shaman wants to delay me, so I say thanks and ask my horse to show me the rest.
                  We go the the old Temple and I feel that there is something special there, once again he tells me to relax and just allow not look for things.
                  So I wait and feel that the time and space is weird that it flows around the stones in a particular way, like when you follow a certain path or corridor, you may go forward in time and another way lead you back in time. If you take a wrong turn you can end up in a loop.
                  Then the signal for the return begins, so I go back from where I come from and thank my horse.
                  It was cool and fun to be there again.
                  I projected at some point to check if everyone was ok, and felt like it was fine.
                  I saw a unicorn too.

                  Tracy
                  That was interesting, about half way through a zebra started follwing me, well on my right. I saw all kinds of animals, but they were all doing their own thing or turned away, except for the zebra, until the change of tempo and then I was swept up in a flock of cranes I think (or herons or storks but I think cranes), but then the zebra was waiting at the top. I could feel his warm muzzle sort of on my right shoulder.
                  First was a field full of unicorns on the left but they were just grazing, then a bison head who turned away, then the group of deer I thought, but the zebra walked over to me grazing. Me and the zebra waited for goats to cross our path.
                  The feeling of being in amongst the cranes was amazing and the zebra fell back while that was happening, but then at the end he was waiting.
                  I was surprised by the unicorns cos I don’t even think about them usually.
                  There were lizards sucttlign around under the cranes.
                  A couple of times I strongly saw purple and green, and thought of Jib.<i> not really ask [the zebra if he was the power animal] in words, but his presence calmly walking beside me with the feeling of his muzzle on my shoulder was comforting.
                  When the cranes distracted me from him he fell back, but he was waiting at the top.
                  The cranes feeling was marvelous, really, they were all flapping gracefully all around me on the ascent. So cranes and zebra stand out the most.
                  [At some point] I started going down old stone steps, at first me and FP were kids holding hands, with jib and eric behind us, then I thought, wait, I’m supposed to be doing this alone.
                  The unicorns in the very beginning were in a castle courtyard type place but they ignored me.
                  Then a bison head who turned away these were in niches in the stone walls
                  I ended up in a stalactites type cave, but there were mostly old old stone steps with stone walls along the sides.
                  There was a crowd of people, well a small gathering, towards the bottom, but they were, er, faceless. Innocuous.
                  I am quite amazed at how great that was! and how many creatures actually popped up
                  and how the feeling was of the zebra and the cranes.
                  The zebra was stoic and steadfast and comforting, the cranes were exhilarating and uplifting.</i>

                  #3444

                  In an effort to shake off the troubling feelings that lingered long after she awoke, Mirabelle went to find Jack to tell him about her dream. She found him hunched over his computer, frowning.
                  “Ah, Mirabelle, pull up a chair and let me tell you about the strange dream I had last night.”
                  Intrigued, Mirabelle listened, saving her story until after he had finished relating his.
                  “There are too many coincidences for this to not mean something ~ something important. The parallels are everywhere! Look!” he said pointing to the screen.
                  “Crumbling cities, structures smashed to smithereens and clouds of dust, facades of houses blown off revealing ordinary objects and furnishings in hideous juxtapositions, and crazy angles. And look here” he said, “ nothing as far as the eye can see but rubble, but one wall left standing, almost intact, with the map still hanging on the wall.”
                  Jack turned to Lisa with a tear in his eye, and with a shaking voice he said, “I dreamed of a city like this last night, with all the facades blown off the constructs, and all the people were faceless as if they were wearing masks, but no! not like masks, there were empty holes where the faces had been, like bottomless black holes that made me dizzy to look at them.”
                  “But it was just a dream Jack” replied Mirabelle, wondering if she was reassuring Jack or herself. “It doesn’t mean anything, probably that cheese you had for supper.”
                  Lisa was in the dream” Jack replied. “And Ivan, and Fanella.”
                  Mirabelle shivered. “They’ve been gone a long time, do you think something’s happened to them?” she paused and then added, “I had a disturbing dream too. It was my parrot, HuHu. He was calling me, oh! he was calling and calling, but I couldn’t see him in the fog, as I tried to follow the sound of his squalking in the swirling mist, I’d hear him behind me ~ no matter which way I turned he was always behind me, as if I was always facing the wrong way.”
                  “Well” said Jack, squaring his shoulders. “Faced with these two dreams, and with the delayed return of Lisa, Ivan and Fanella, I think we should face up to it and send a search party to the island. Now, enough of that long face, Mirabelle! Run along now and find Igor, and tell him to prepare for teleporting. He can go with you.”

                  #3381

                  Lazuli Galore looked back over his shoulder to make sure that the three travelers were following him. He retained his shapeshifted elephant form for the time being for high visibility purposes in the fog, and so as not to confuse the new arrivals with a sudden change of appearance. The first thing was to gain their trust and ensure that they followed him. His job was to monitor new arrivals and escort them inside the walled city of Gazalbion before they could start any more settlements in the free zone. The problem of new arrivals had escalated post 2014 as more and more people developed the art of teleporting, and the island to many was considered a promised land, a land of wine and cucumbers, attracting the world weary and the bored, the adventurous explorers, as well as the merely curious day trippers. Had they all been regular tourists of the old fashioned kind, who came for a determinate short stay and spent lavishly on the resident occupants provisions, it would not have been a problem, it would have been welcomed. But these people were staying, leaving only for brief trips back home to attend to their responsabilites there, and returning, bringing ever more people with them to settle in the free zone. They were arriving in droves, and it was of paramount importance to contain them, and shield the free zone from their incursions.

                  Lazuli Galore was pleased to see that the three travelers were running to catch up with him. The other one would have been more trouble, and Lazuli knew he was right to despatch him to the elsespace arrangement with a perfectly executed parachute drop. It was the first time he had tried the novel approach of a parachuting elephant and was pleased with the result. It would not be long before that guy found his way out and came looking for his companions, but Gazalbion wasn’t far and Lazuli was confident that the three would be safely locked behind it’s walls before he reappeared.

                  #3365
                  AvatarJib
                  Participant

                    The room numbers were framed in a golden disc carved with what looked like zodiac animals and a circle of eights.

                    Linda observed the man walking in front of her. As soon as the effects of the lust gas had dissipated, she had been able to focus on something else than his butt. He’d been watching over his shoulder, and it was not to see if she was keeping with his pace. He had been frowning ever since she’d met him, and you could say his whole attitude exuded wariness. Despite her Happiness Training and the meditation practice at night with Sadie, she was beginning to feel some bowel tension. Not good for her digestion.

                    He stopped in front of room 57. He knocked, didn’t wait for an answer, instead used his magnetic key to open it, and entered. She followed. He looked one last time on both sides of the corridor, then locked the door.

                    They were in a big yellow lounge. Linda addressed a silent prayer to the Good Taste Goddess, sympathizing with the pain She must have endured each time an interior designer had expressed such lack of sobriety. It wasn’t just the color. The furniture seemed to come from Hart to Hart, except the sofa was in a dark yellow leather, and the cushions in a bright magenta.

                    “Wait here ‘till I call you”, he said. He left through a door on the right, taking his frown with him.
                    Linda heard him talk to someone in the other room, certainly a bedroom. A feminine voice answered him. They argued for some time. The woman was the last to speak. Then the silence.

                    Linda hesitated to seat on a jumping armchair with yellow and brown stripes. It was as if every cell of her body, and even the molecules of her clothes were repelled by the choices of the interior designer. She would have sworn her platform shoes were trying to levitate from the carpet.

                    The man’s head appeared at the door.
                    “Come in, she’s ready to see you.”

                    Linda could see emotions struggle on his face.

                    “But I warn you”, he said, his fists clenched, “she’s been sick since we have arrived. If my wife is tired, I’ll ask you to leave.”

                    “Oh!” Linda said.

                    #3342

                    “I don’t know!” Jeremy shouted at the guy with the round spectacles and the Chinese traditional garments full of intricate Chinese button knots.

                    The guy showed no sign of losing patience although they’d asked him the question whole morning long.
                    “That is unfortunate, Jeremy” the guy in charge said slowly. He was stroking Max in long broad stokes, flattening the ears with his palms, while the cat was purring like an engine oblivious to the danger in the room. “As you know, there are many ways to skin a cat…”

                    “Don’t you dare harm Max!”

                    “So let us recap from the start” the Chinese man said. “You told us you don’t know the man, or his companion. That they appeared and disappeared in a rag, to destination unknown.”
                    Jeremy nodded, trembling of rage at the way the man was holding his cat.

                    The Chinese man gave a brush of hand, which all the goons in the apartments took as a cue to leave them two alone.
                    When they were all gone, he tightened his grip around the cat’s soft neck, and leaned closer to Jeremy:

                    “My friend, the trace we left in our fugitive’s stomach led us to your place, so there is no doubt he was there. How he disappeared again is a mystery you will help us solve, whether you want it or not.”

                    Jeremy looked at him quizzically “so why don’t you use your trace to locate him again?”

                    “The problem is, by now, either he’s digested and dumped it somewhere in a hot steaming pile of shit, or he’s managed to cloak the signal. Those things were to be expected. I guess he went to you for a reason. He wasn’t able to locate our thief’s location without your help. So now, you will help us do the same.”

                    Jeremy protested “But we tried it already, with the cucumber and all, but it didn’t work!”
                    Somehow, a thought came with brief and intense clarity to him. The Chinese man noticed the glimmer in Jeremy’s eye and smiled thinly.
                    “What is it?”
                    “The map was working for him, as well as the cucumber, for some unexplainable reason. But not for you or me, it doesn’t mean anything! Of course! We have to try something different, focus on finding the person or thing you want, and let me draw another map.”

                    Cheung Lok was starting to feel closer than he had been in months. He untied Jeremy, and gave him the cat. “Do it, do it now.”

                    Jeremy lifted Max, tenderly wrapping the cat’s soft body like a scarf on his shoulders. He reached for the wall and took a coloured pin off the cork-board.

                    While the Chinese guy was busy calling back his goons, Jeremy quickly started to draw on the skin of his arm a symbol with swirly lines, and going in a trance, started to dance into a swirling vortex.

                    “He’s escaping!” Cheung Lok shouted in Chinese to the others, “Catch him!” he said, striving, but only too late, to catch the youngster who had just disappeared with his cat inside the vortex which was already rapidly closing around them.

                    #3266

                    When Lisa eventually came out of her altered state, she was tired and perplexed. The last words she had heard had been “ I’m sorry I’ve led you to believe it was important, but it’s not, not really. It’s just a ordinary object to lead the philistines astray.” How depressing! she thought. How unutterably depressing! If nothing was important, then what was the point ~ of anything? If being led astray wasn’t an opportunity for another voyage of discovery, then what was the point? If everything was wrapped up and tidy with no mysterious paths to explore, then where did Story fit into the picture? A dull story indeed with no tentacles.
                    “We may as well just go home and water the garden. Come on Mirabelle.” Lisa’s shoulders sagged dejectedly and she sighed deeply.
                    “Oh no, not so fast! This doesn’t sound like you, Lisa! Has someone put a spell on you? Snap out of it!” Mirabelle considered whether slapping Lisa soundly would help break the spell, but decided to throw some bottled water in her face from a safe distance instead.
                    The shock of it, welcome actually, cool and revitalizing, made Lisa laugh at the absurdity of ~ well, everything.
                    “Oh fuck it, we may as well go and get some octopus tapas while we’re here. Let’s just pretend we’re ordinary people on an ordinary holiday and go to the beach.”

                    #3261

                    But Lisa didn’t hear Mirabelle’s tart retort. Another image was appearing, of a man with a bright orange wig. He was smiling widely, and dancing up a storm (so to speak), and another fellow was gyrating wildly next to him, wearing a top hat and a long curly black wig. Another fellow in a big blonde wig appeared in the scene, and the dancing stopped. “Call out to 2020, emergency mission in the Algarve” he said, tossing his bright pink feather boa over his shoulder.

                    #3258
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      The curly beard of one of the men caught Lisa’s attention, and she tuned in to what he was saying, her focus fully on the windscreen reflection now, the car and it’s concurrent timeframe having faded from view. “It’s an honour to be killed by a bull , Intu ,” he said to the woman walking beside him. “Your grandfather’s death is heroic, you will appreciate that in time.”
                      “Perhaps in time, Balthazar,” she replied, “But I wish he was still here.”
                      Balthazar patted her shoulder, and Lisa noticed his ring ~ two dolphins leaping. With a flash she understood that Intu’s grandfather had refocused as a dolphin, many centuries later in the silk like sea off the shores of Faro.
                      “You can write a story about him on a stone tablet when we get to Almodovar. And I promise I won’t give you a hard time about continuity.”
                      Intu smiled weakly. She did enjoy writing random stories on stone tablets, often wondering if the people of the future would be able to make sense of them and put the pieces together. She had left tablets of stories here and there as she traveled, sign posts to elsewhere and elsewhen, imprinted with the energy of adventure and mystery, laden with clues for imaginative voyagers to unravel in any way their fancies led them.

                      #3086
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        “she felt some security as her companions seemed composed about the journey.”
                        hire car drivers ~ city driving
                        “The ocean was not as deep as she had anticipated. Even though the water eventually came up to her shoulders, she found she was able to walk the whole distance.”
                        shallow ocean waters of Sanlucar

                        #3082
                        F LoveF Love
                        Participant

                          After leaving the parcel in the capable hands of the Post Office staff (and while she was there remembering to send a cute birthday card with kittens on it to her friend Trove and a note to Jove and Erove saying how nice it was to see them recently) Flove was ready for her next assignment.

                          She was stationed in Rotorua and although the exact nature of the assignment had not been explained to her she believed herself to be there in a journalistic capacity. She found herself standing in the ocean with a group of people, strangers, watching a game of rugby. The rugby game was also in the ocean. She had some brief interactions with her companions and had to move away from a rather unpleasant man who was annoying her. After the match, they all walked back to a small town — via the ocean. It was dark and Flove was initially hesitant because she was not a good swimmer, but she felt some security as her companions seemed composed about the journey. The ocean was not as deep as she had anticipated. Even though the water eventually came up to her shoulders, she found she was able to walk the whole distance. At one point she noticed the fins of a shark swim by in the inky darkness of the water, but she regarded it with childish delight, rather than fear.

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