Passageways
I’m walking down a dark hallway, lined with smooth stone, the irregular bumps press against my feet. The darkness presses in with comfort tinged with a speck of fear. Where does this hallway lead?
I don’t know how long I have been walking, isolated in this tunneled stretch. The air is fresh though I cannot discern from where. I sit down in the middle of the pathway and close my eyes. I settle in to my body and extend my senses beyond it. What do I feel?
Beyond the stone encasing I feel void. Just blackness stretching in all directions. Is this a gateway, a wormhole of some sort? I can’t recall how I got here to this timeless place. I reach forward and backward through space and just feel the same endless maze extending on one plane. I bring myself back to my body and bring attention to the web of energy around my body. I feel the pulse of life cascading around me. I reach deeper into that pulse, feeling the throb of energy disorient my perception. Like tumbling down a rabbit hole over and around myself.
I reach deeper still, beyond the tumbling into that quiet place within, where the spark that innervates my awareness resides. I breathe it into life. The tell tale pin pricks of sensation spread from my core as each of the cells awakens to this surge. I grab hold of the energy produced, mentally shaping it like clay, forming it into a circle in front of me. I thread lines of the energy through it creating a complex geometric pattern within. It glows like the color of molten metal.
I continue pouring my awareness into the symbol, feeling the color against my skin and embracing the radiating force that shimmers from it. After I have checked my work, to ensure the symbols are in a placement that feels correct, I extend my perception through the circle, willing it into form, sparking it to life with the breath of my own pulsing core.
As my awareness reaches in I feel the circle waver as I see beyond. What was a circle with complex lines running through it, the endless passageway continuing behind it, I now see this passageway for what it is. The circle is now golden sparks, the lines have vanished and within this hole in reality I see an open vista, green grass and hillsides dotted with groves of trees grasping for the horizon. The air is serene and fresh, sunlight streaming through clouds of incredible volume and luminosity.
As I take in these sights I feel the Truth and Calling spell waver. It begins to slowly fade and as it does so the overwhelming scene is slowly replaced with the stone hallway until there is no trace of it left.
I slowly bring my awareness back to the surface and open my eyes, looking around. The walls still surround me with the smooth worn stone I have become so familiar with, though I now know where the fresh air is coming from. I am trapped in an illusion. An endless loop of hallways with no beginning and no end, beyond the illusion is the real world with crisp wonder and possibility.
How did I get here? Can I escape from this strangely comforting yet limiting illusion?















