If you know the photographer of the beautiful picture to the left, please let me know so I can give credit. I have seen similar but have not found one exactly like this one that has been credited. This is the Glory Window at Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas, symbolizing the Divine reaching down, or so I’m told. The stained glass is the creation of artist Gabriel Loire.
If you’ve missed my previous writings on “metaphysical houses,” I’ll repeat a little bit for you from one of my books about my meditation experiences to give you an idea of what these are. They are part meditation, part lucid dreaming, always accidental, and always insightful. If I ever wonder about what’s really going on with someone, an invitation into their “metaphysical house” will show me.
Background:
Over the past couple of years, I’ve noted that my meditations include “metaphysical houses,” which are
representative “structures” of the inner workings of a person, community, partnership, or situation. I didn’t set out to visit such places but rather, I just landed there and explored the territory, often without the owner being present or available at that moment.
I’ve wandered through my ex’s 3-story mansion with the heavy furniture and picture-perfect rooms but with a huge secret house of cubby holes in the back, mostly occupied by his mother but opening out onto a back patio of pleasant snapshot-posters of the girls and me many, many years ago. My ex was never present on those visits but the girls and his mom were.
Once I was invited into a dark, damp, dangerous place filled with basement rooms and spiraling staircases that seemed to devour anyone who stepped inside more than a few feet. I’ve stayed far away from her “house” since then and from the cruel little girl with dead eyes.
I’ve landed a few times at a cozy house on a cul-de-sac with a stream nearby and been told that the place belonged to The Treat. I’ve wandered through and talked with his mom (mothers seem to occupy the back rooms of so many of these metaphysical houses!) and smiled over his eclectic mix of pop culture furniture and ancient artifacts, all in a cozy home that was behind a busy office and reception area in the front of his home. Sometimes he wasn’t home and other times he was in his office and too busy to notice the steady trail of visitors—sometimes by the bus load. But he did reciprocate by visiting my own “house” more than once.
I’ve discovered that my own “metaphysical house” is based on the house I grew up in but it encompasses a huge portion of the family farm. So a “metaphysical house” is more than just a building. So many of my own memories reside there, as well as people I knew from long ago who have passed over.
So that’s the background for these…excursions. I assume I would be blocked somehow if I were not allowed in as sometimes I’ve found that I could go no farther into a house, even after a direct invitation from someone to try it sometime, or that the rooms were dark or somehow “off-limits.” I have never once begun a meditation with the intention of exploring a “metaphysical house” of someone or trespassing (another word, I suppose, for psychic spying). There is almost always some form of invitation, though with a few, I have gone deeper than the invitation issuer realized I could. Deeper than I realized, too. There is usually some close bond with the person. These excursions do not happen with people with a lot to hide from me or with strangers or adversaries. They are a deep form of bonding and understanding, a sort of letting down walls and letting me in.
I have not had one of these odd types of meditations in over 3 years. The last time–before this week–was a former boyfriend. I experienced his metaphysical house as a tiny cottage of no more than 600 square feet, run-down. There was no one inside. A few people wandering around outside. Some of the shrubbery outside was overgrown, though the grass was trimmed a bit. It was a startling revelation for me. The energy of the place was one of impoverishment. That was probably the best clue to what was going on in his heart when we split up. He did not have a sense of abundance and resented those who did. I visited his inner realm several times and it was always the same. I didn’t want to understand it at the time, but I always felt a sense of sadness as I walked barefoot around the house he called his heart.
After that, I dated another man for a year and never once had a dream about him, let alone any deep meditative experience. Now I realize that that made sense, as he had much to hide–both illegal and unetchical–and worked damned hard at keeping those shields up around me so that I wouldn’t find out the truth of who he really was. My experiences with him and my lack of lucid dreaming about him lead me to believe that being allowed into a metaphysical house is certainly the equivalent of being “allowed in” on an emotional and spiritual level. There was never an emotional bond between us. I wonder what I would have seen if I had been invited in….
After three years, I thought I’d lost the talent for these things. Not so.
Last weekend, I had a lucid dream about someone I thought I knew well, and the insights floored me. In fact, I thought there was very little I did not know, but I was astonished. He was not inside the house itself but in a vast softball field, playing with family members, teens, people in the community. His metaphysical house reminded me of my own–much larger than a house and including surrounding woods, pastures, ponds, and natural areas. Lots of green and Nature.
Inside the house were a few pieces of art I’d seen before. Or at least, whatever it was they represented, I’d seen before. They were exquisite, prominently displayed in his house, particularly in the outer rooms and kitchen/living room/social areas. It’s hard to explain what these pieces of art looked like to me–some were like big carved spirals of colored glass and gemstones, some mixed with wood or metal. Outside of these dreams, I have never seen anything like this but the photo above reminded me by feeble comparison.
I was struck by how full the house was. People were ambling around. Some were family members. Others were colleagues and friends. I understood. This is how my own metaphysical house looks–populated by people I care about and by people I have obligations to. Not necessarily people of my heart or people on my mind but people I have a bond with, like it or not (which explains some relatives who have taken up residence in my inner realms!). These were all people he takes care of in some way.
Okay, really, no surprises so far. Extreme interest, yes, because it was such a perfect reflection of this dear friend.
Then someone there in the house– an angel or spirit guide or…Jesus?–asked if I’d seen the inner rooms. A rhetorical question. He immediately pointed out that I hadn’t and led me into the core of the house. These rooms were generally not populated at all, even though they had been arranged for many to lounge comfortably and socialize. The ceilings were plastered domes ending in the stone floor, but they were covered in the most equisite pieces of art. Colored glass, spirals, circles, mosaics, gemstones, different textures and material fuzed together and encrusted in the plast of the walls and ceilings. They were bright and fantastical, such that no human eye has seen anything so magnificant. Each of these was a treasure, but hidden away. Willing to be shared, but the rooms housing these precious galleries were empty of all the people wandering through the rest of the house. It made me wonder why they didn’t take a few steps out of the way to explore these treasure troves. It was as if they weren’t interested in what was beyond the kitchen table.
Most of what I saw on this excursion matched what I know of this person. What surprised me was just how many unknown treasures are deeper inside, untapped, hidden away except for those who would seek them out. And that…that bears remembering.
So the gift is back. Whether I like it or not. This time, I liked it a lot.
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