My life is spent between the veils of the seen world and the unseen worlds. What I mean by that is that I see and need to navigate both, often at the same time.
The world shimmers around me as a I walk, sometimes quite vividly and others barely noticeable. But the veil is always there.
In my workplace the walls of the corridor become the walls of my Patron Deity’s temple. I see the stone, smell the incense, trace the designs with my mind’s eye as they shimmer in the torchlight before blinking back to being office walls.
Driving means being very aware of the road in the here and now and of other traffic, despite perhaps seeing houses change to forest with faces staring out from behind the trees. Grounding and aligning are practices that I do daily; sometimes several times each day. I use my tools to help with this navigation so that I remain aware of all worlds.
Navigating the worlds as a Seer (which is how I choose to label myself) has its difficulties.
Raised in a Western society that views the unseen as imagination or as madness, I was fortunate to have people around me who patted me on the head and attributed my difference to the former. Even so, I learned to be careful about engaging with the unseen in ways that might upset the others around me. I could not disguise the fact that I was ‘different’. Nor could I escape the consequences.
I remember vividly my first ‘vision’, which happened when I was a teenager on a train packed with my fellow class mates. We’d been on a field trip, it was late and dark outside, and I was tired. I remember drifting in a way that I had developed instinctively during class-time when I had to pretend that I was there when I really wasn’t. Eyes open, but unfocussed, picking a detail to stare at and then look beyond.
The air shifted.
Picture book Jesus was there before me, in white, with black neat beard and long black hair. He was very bright and shinning with an inner radiance. Around him the sky was rose coloured. He smiled at me and held out his hand. I was filled with such indescribable joy that it overwhelmed me. I held out my hand and reached toward him. We spiralled around each other as the sky changed colour from rose to blue. The light became stronger.
I blinked.
And returned to a sea of faces staring at me.
It was many years before I confessed my vision to anyone. I held it close. I did not identify strongly as Christian – my family were not church-goers, at least not at that time, and I really only knew some vague stories about Christmas and Easter.
I was careful about when and where I decided to drift from that moment on.
To say ‘I hear voices’ or even ‘I see things’ is to be open to ridicule and be in danger of being designated ‘looney-tunes’ by the others. There was a hospice for such people near to where I grew up, and a strong negative association with being assigned that particular label. So I allowed others to perceive me as something of a dreamer, someone who may not be ‘all there’ but was largely non-threatening; a little naïve, and a little stupid.
I made myself invisible.
I shackled myself and told myself that the things I saw and heard were not to be noticed in any ‘real’ sense; they were characters in a story I was writing that had become a little more vivid (as story characters often do).
I began to write.
I am no longer shackled, and have embraced my true nature. Being able to see, to sense, to feel is a gift, and like many gifts, one that is not always wanted. But it comes with responsibility and purpose. It can be grown or ignored (at your peril, usually). I chose to grow mine. I have never regretted that decision. Sometimes the gift that is not wanted becomes the one you most prize.
Zooming forward in time to the present, I know that it was my Fetch-mate and not ‘Jesus’ who held out his hand to me. Jesus was just a mask he wore because it was a spirit being that my brain had words for.
A way of engaging.
A doorway, if you like, to which I am a key.
© AM Hunter February 2019
Green and Grey 