Dear Friends,

This is a time of glorious light and glorious living. What do I mean by that? I mean that the light is growing greater all around us, not just sunlight but also the light within us.

What does light mean to you? Does it mean illumination? What is the illumination of your spirit, of your soul?

“As darkness comes, the mirrors of your spirit reflect different images. It is the time when the world changes and your being begins to glow. Reflect on the new vision that has been living on the perimeter of your consciousness. An idea is stalking you and awaits your invitation, a place within you to begin life. The totality of your creativity comes after you have begun work on the sacred painting of your life. It is then that the muses of inspiration surround you like eagles and cheer you on to illumination. Take responsibility for your work and your life, and then illumination will follow.” “Illumination” card, The Power Deck.

I would like you to take a journey with me, if you would, please. Close your eyes and see yourself walking in a field of wildflowers. There are trees nearby, and a running stream. You lie down on a blanket you have brought with you.

Feel the sun through closed eyelids as it warms your body. Feel your very cells awaken to dance with the light. Your entire body is humming with loving, uplifting energy.

Now you hear Agnes say to you, “Come and join us,” and you drift into a dream.

You find yourself in a kiva underneath the earth. You are wearing a white ceremonial dress of soft doeskin. You are sitting across a stone table from Agnes Whistling Elk and Ruby Plenty Chiefs. You are completely safe, and even though you are underground, you see light all around you. You see crystals reflecting what appears to be starlight from the ceiling, from the floors, from the walls. There is light everywhere.

Agnes and Ruby ask you to place your palms on the surface of the table. As you sit there studying your hands, you notice a greenish-white glow coming up from somewhere. It seems to be radiating up out of the very tabletop, itself. You look all around you, and then you discover that the tabletop sits on a stone pedestal, and that there is a large cone-shaped crystal sitting in the center of the pedestal.

Agnes asks you where the glow is coming from, and you answer, hesitantly, “From the crystal?”

Ruby chuckles and says, “Look again.”

You look down at the table top and you realize that all you can see is your own body. Your feet are glowing. Your hands are glowing. Your entire body is glowing and you realize that you are the light. The source of light is within you. As you look around, you realize that the crystals which you thought were reflecting some mysterious starlight from inside the cave are actually reflecting your own light!

Agnes and Ruby stand up, and so do you. Ruby hands you a torch and gestures for you to follow her. Agnes walks behind you, holding a bundle. Ruby takes you to a room where petroglyphs and ancient sacred paintings have been carved onto every surface, and you remember that you are indeed inside the earth, inside a cave.

Ruby begins to smudge the room, offering cornmeal and tobacco, and Agnes motions for you to sit on a soft cushion in the center of the room. As you hold the torch, Agnes rubs your face, your throat, your arms and legs, the backs of your hands and your feet with paint and begins drawing designs. When she is finished, Ruby takes the torch from you and gives you the cone-shaped crystal from the table to hold in your lap. Then both women step into the shadows and extinguish the torch.

You sit in the sudden darkness, and you realize that it is like sitting in outer space. The walls of the cave begin to twinkle, becoming like stars all around you. As you sit among them, you realize that they have been there since you entered the room, waiting for you to notice them.

Suddenly, you see a flash of prismatic color. Different figures begin to glow, showing themselves to you. You see several images, but a few stick out for you: a sacred child, a wise elder, a power animal, a sacred dream that you know is for your life, and one monster! As you shudder at this latter image and look away, you hear Agnes’s voice, calm and reassuring.

She tells you that these all of these figures, everything you are seeing, the stars, the sacred child and wise elder, the power animal, even the monster, all are reflections of you. She tells you that the monster can’t harm you; it is only your own pain being reflected back to you. She reminds you of what you already know, that it is what you refuse to look at in life that ends up controlling you; that it is darkness which defines the light; and that when you feel pain, it is a lesson showing itself to teach you something important on your pathway towards enlightenment. Then she grows silent once again.

As you sit there in the silence, amid the stars twinkling all around you, you feel the crystal that you have been holding in your lap begin to warm up and glow. You look down at it and are amazed to realize that the warmth and the light you are seeing is in fact coming from within you! The crystal is but reflecting the brilliance of your light out into the world.

Stay within this inner glow all of the time. Carry it with you even as you approach the darkened tunnels of your life. They are but passageways from one experience to another. When you awaken to the light that you are at the center of your being, that has always been within you, waiting for you to notice it, you begin to see the world in an entirely new light. Now you are ready to begin work on the sacred painting for your life illumined by all that you are, the brilliant light of your true god or goddess self.

Great Mother, help us on our journey of discovery. Give us power to continue to seek. Help us to find joy and courage as we navigate through the dense fog of confusion.

Help us, Great Mother, to understand your needs and what it takes to heal your precious body. In our commitment to you, we make a commitment to ourselves, to our own enlightenment, to our own process of forgiveness and wisdom.

In this forgiveness, I make a pledge from my heart to find an end to this weakness and pain, to find a harmony and a balance so that we may more successfully walk with a foot in the physical and a foot in spirit.

Oh, Great Mother, I humble myself to your power. At this moment, I visualize golden white light surrounding me and enabling me to move into my shaman center, into my place of power and the light within me, a perfect reflection of your innocence.

I see the shield that you carry shining like a beacon in the darkness. Your shield is made of trust and faith: trust that each and every one of us will build a rainbow bridge across the abyss of darkness; faith symbolized by each of us crossing that bridge, held forever in your light.

Great Mother, we give thanks for your blessings.

In love and spirit,

Lynn