| the first step |
[10 Feb 2012|04:20pm] |
...Whoa.
All right, time to take notes.
This absolutely wore me out and it's very blurry in some areas, so it's going to be a mess of disjointed notes and I apologize. However that's what it feels like in my head, so I can't exactly do much else.
So, this is what happened to my headspace group today, when we tried to reach my inner room, the blood lotus cathedral.
- Started the phase-in around 2:40, I believe. Ended around 4:10 due to burnout.
- me, chaos, genesis, laurie, leon, julie, and josephina went over together.
- We got together in central headspace and i was able to phase us in. we had no trouble getting there. it looked like i remember it, dark and red and ominous. also for some reason my hair turned white instead of red when i showed up there, it stayed that way for a while. anyway laurie immediately took my hand and led me off to the side, to that black structure. turns out it was a giant black spire. behind it was a red ocean, as i thought, but behind us (across from the cathedral), everything just faded into this white fog. i wanted to go see if there was anything there but laurie said no, if it was unstructured she didnt want to risk anything bad happening. she then said we should check out this spire first, there was a door on it and we wanted to know what the heck that thing was.
- laurie then tried to open the door to the spire, it sent an energy shockwave out, flung her like 20 feet backwards, thankfully she gained her footing so she didnt get hurt. julie tried to attack the door too and the same thing happened. julie got mad and used shadows to try and tear it open, josephina tried to cut it open with his scythe, wasnt working.
- we asked leon to warp us in but he hesitated, saying he didnt think it could be warped into. and he didnt want to try, it felt very bad, like we werent supposed to go in.
- at this laurie just tore the door open, immediately inside was all red glare, all these weird red 'specters' came out and spiraled up to the sky, it was scary, i spontaneously sent out light threads after it, it quickly retracted back and tossed us out of the mindscape with force, we were back in central mindspace
- laurie asked why i did that with the light threads, now would we be able to get back in? i said the red specter things just felt wrong and i wanted to stop it. i tried to just phase back in but it wasnt working. so i think we got leon to warp us over. the door to the spire was closed again, no sign of what had just happened
- this next part is a bit blurry. i think laurie flung the doors open again, either way we did reopen the doors but this time something came out, a living thing, all red and sharp.
- it was the manic red voice from 2008. i am dead serious. it immediately started attacking us brutally, the fight was crazy, it kept turning itself into this razor-edged thing and running at me. leon shot at it point blank one or two times, caught it by surprise, but nothing could kill it, it kept coming back.
- it leapt at me at one point, i held out my sword like a shield and it burst with light, sent the razor voice flying backwards to hit the lotus cathedral. it left blood where it touched, but got back up and kept trying to hurt me. chaos jumped into the fray here with his own sword and for a while we were just trying to hold it off, keep it from slicing anyone open because it was trying to
- julie managed to hold it still with shadows and jo put a scythe to its neck, but it laughed, said cutting it or damaging it would make it stronger.
- it said it was me. or at least, it was the old mask i wore. it looked kind of like me when i first cut my hair at first (it always did), but then its appearance warped so it looked like the old 2002 me, with the hat and long hair and everything. it was very disturbing because i couldnt deny that, it felt so obvious to me, i had always viewed 'myself' as a separate person back then and this was the result or cause, maybe both.
- i think laurie tried to open the door again here, i remember she was trying to force it closed but it was full of blood, it wouldnt close, the razor voice kept laughing at us
- the door burst open and blood started coming out of it, with the ocean rising to meet it, we were standing in a few inches of it. i forget how i got rid of it, i think i tried to open up the ground or something
- after a while of trying to deal with this manic-paced fight, i spontaneously shot the razor voice with a gold arrow, it fell to the ground, pinned there, couldnt get up. it was hissing and growling. laurie, julie, and jo were yelling at it for a while, it kept trying to get back up and attack us, at one point leon just took out his gun and shot it in the head like five times. laurie was shocked, this thing was a bloody mess now, leon fell to his knees and almost threw up but couldnt from shock.
- i think this is when i tried to do something with the spire, i mentally reached up and split it in half, immediately all this blood came out and hit me, leon warped us out immediately
- he warped us into a cathedral again, he was crying and actually started trying to get the blood out of my hair. i was in a state of mild shock and my mind was trying to shut off. chaos asked leon what he was doing, more out of concern than anything, but leon was a total mess emotionally and just said he was trying to help me out. he was wiping the blood on the floors and it was just 'dissipating,' into sparkles. i vaguely said i was afraid it had absorbed it, like a sponge, leon said no. if it had done that it would have been a shadow cathedral, that would have been lethal.
- we realized the spire was what didn't belong-- it was a 'second' soul room and a false one, formed for the false me. so it was trying to literally override what i believed i was in a way. so we figured we had to get rid of the spire, maybe. it was all still very confusing and we were all horrifically shaken up from the fight that had just happened, julie was very distraught
- laurie was freaked out about the blood in the spire, she and i were afraid it had something to do with the graves, but we didn't know how that could be true or why
- we stayed there for a minute or so to calm down, i told everyone very sternly that we should not fight that thing unless it was inevitable, the tar was the same way. then we decided we had to go back
- the black spire ended up looking like it 'exploded' after this point, but it was weird, it was bloody and it looked like bone was sticking out or something, like a wound
- the corpse of the red voice was still lying there, blood everywhere, apparently the arrow was keeping it from regenerating, so we just walked around it, still freaked out.
- the sky was weird now, a bright red with a huge weird 'streak' in it, like the shape of a broken rib cage stuck up there, except it was just a warping of the sky. it was hard to explain but it was freaky, it made everything feel high-strung and foreboding instead of the quiet malevolence of the blood sky
- we got into the spire this time, it opened up into another 'cathedral,' it was all black, very bizarre. the center had no floor, it just dropped down, surrounded by stairs going down slowly. the inner walls of the dropoff were covered in huge spikes, at the very bottom was this lurid red glow. julie and jo stayed outside, leon came with us, we walked down the steps until they broke off and wouldnt go any farther. then we realized the place we were standing on was moving down slowly, into the glow. i told everyone to hold on, it would be okay. we went through the glow and kept going.
- we started coming down through the ceiling of a 'polar opposite' of that cathedral, it was stone white, full of vegetation, i think butterflies too. there was a huge tree in front of us and instead of a dropoff in the middle, there was a large rectangular pool of water, perfectly still.
- we got off the step thing and walked onto the grassy area with the tree, i realized our footsteps were leaving glows, mine were white i think? lauries were violet, leons were dark blue, etc. it was really cool.
- i forget why but i walked over to the lake and knelt by it, looking down into it, and suddenly it 'warped' somehow and became more like a mirror, although it wasn't reflecting? and it began to talk to me. it was extremely wise and was reassuring me of who i was, etc. it said it was me, in a way, i understood it was my 'higher self' or something. it talked to me for a while, reminding me of the truths i already knew, there was no doubt in me at all, it felt amazingly clear.
- when it was done talking it told us to 'go back outside' because our friends needed us. then it turned back into water and something floated up to me, it was a silver-gold helmet, like an angel helmet. i put it on and apparently it caused a major transformation, i know i had rainbowy light wings or something but i couldnt see. but it felt really peaceful. i took it off and told leon to warp us back outside.
- julie and jo were fighting the razor voice again, which had come back to life, it was very angry. chaos told me to give him the helmet so i did, then he became angelic, i remember he had these oddly silvery green-blue wings. he then said he'd hold them back, and for laurie and leon and i to go into the cathedral. he told genesis to stay outside and help.
- we went in and there were all candles in the entrance this time, laurie asked if that was how it should look. i wasnt sure. this part is horribly blurry... it looked like an actual church this time, with pews and an altar, there was also a chandelier up top i think. either way it kept warping, unstable environment, i reached up and pulled the chandelier down but it caused the ceilings to start bleeding again, i think, whatever it was leon hurriedly warped me out as soon as it started. we ended up in a red cathedral this time, it was weird, it had all these thin spiral crystal spires in it. laurie was getting anxious, why does this cathedral keep warping. maybe its a red herring, maybe this isnt your soul room at all, and we're being held back from reaching the real thing somehow. i said that made sense so i told leon to warp us back to the blood lotus room. the altar was there, with the statue of me, i stood in front of it and tried to imitate the pose, but after a second i just decided to stab my sword into the floor, it made the ground shatter and almost reset again, laurie caught it and asked what the heck i was doing. i said it still didnt feel right, i was trying to figure something out. the place kept warping though, it felt so bizarre.
- i really, really cannot remember what happened now or whether all that was in the right order... either way our group got all back together outside, i think i had to hit the razor voice with an arrow again to get it to stop, but we did stop it somehow, i remember jo trying to stab it with his scythe
- all i remember after this is that we went downstairs to the tar room, i cannot remember how, i think leon warped us in there.
- the tar was there, so was the razor voice alive, yes it was down there waiting. it said it was part of the tar. we were trying to fight but it was scary because they wouldnt stop. julie turned into this huge shadow thing and was fighting with it directly for a while, she was the only one of us with abilities that large. josephina was helping her though, but we werent getting anywhere. at one point i desperately reached out and 'froze' time, like aradia does. i had to release laurie, chaos, genesis and leon from it though so they could move and talk. laurie was apparently still aware while she was frozen, she could move very slightly and she could tell i had frozen time. however julie and jo were mid fight so i couldnt unfreeze them. laurie asked what i was doing. i said trying to buy us time, i didn't know what to do and it was terrifying. i think laurie just told me to let go, so i did.
- suddenly there was a shield and i looked to see lynne had showed up, said she figured she should step in as she was getting very concerned, she began helping us
- chaos kept staying by me, not letting anything come near me, when laurie wouldnt let us fight he just held my hand, genesis did too at one point
- laurie jumped in front of chaos and i to take an attack at one point, but it was brutal and she doubled over a little, fell to her knees. i realized it had nearly gutted her. i was really scared and put my hands around her, trying to heal her. she insisted she wouldnt die, it would be okay, but i had almost lost her before and i could feel her energy slipping. then i kind of 'let go' and just focused healing to her, but she asked 'jewel what are you doing' because the energy was doubling somehow, it lit us both up but it didn't just heal her, it gave her this incredible energy enhancement somehow-- she turned all white and gold, and felt like the total opposite of a black hole, all boundless and bright. she also had these huge wings or something, her presence just expanded. she summoned a huge light axe after this and swung it at the tar, it drove it into the ground, where it 'fell in' to a huge crack in the floor, the environment was sucked in too like a drain. the tar moved like a snake though, actually escaping down through the hole. there was some blood following behind it.
- now as the tar room was torn away, i realized we were in my edited inner cathedral, but as soon as the tar drained through the floor completely, it cracked more, and a big hole fell through. lynne hurriedly put a circular 'magic seal' on the ground around it, but it didnt quite work, the floor fell in all around it behind us, so it was just this floating ring left of the entire cathedral floor. genesis could luckily float so he didnt fall, but chaos nearly fell in, i had to catch him, same with leon but julie got him. either way now we're all standing on this ring of floor, everyones like 'what happened with laurie,' she just shrugged it off and said not to worry about that, either way i think this is when i realized that the cathedral still didnt feel like me, i didnt know why.
- so we started trying to build a cathedral space that 'felt like me' on the spot. it looked like a basilica. laurie was editing the space mostly, making it bigger, then told chaos 'there should be some plants in here' so he joined in. it looked close but didnt feel quite right yet. there was a big open circle roof in the middle with flowers around it. laurie and i flew up through it and noticed the building was still unmanifested on the outside. noticed were were on what looked like the beach by our cityscape, then decided to check out the water. there was a sudden dropoff in the seafloor about 10 feet in, very sudden. underneath it was a cave, as we swam in it opened up on the other side, went back to the surface and we were back in the red-sky area. the ocean was kind of bloody when we stepped out only, it was creepy. as we walked ashore laurie's gold enhancements kind of shimmered off, she said not to worry about it.
- we all gathered around in front of the spire and lotus cathedral, at a loss as to what to do next, i think we asked leon to warp us back to the normal beach for the time being, he said he was learning to use teleportation normally and not just for cathedral-jumps
- back on the beach, it was empty now, nothing there that we had built. we wondered why this was, laurie said it was because it hadn't really manifested anyway, it faded out, we hadn't really made it stable and besides why make something new? we knew the blood lotus cathedral was my inner space, we just had to figure out how to stabilize it.
- laurie brought up the angel helmet. i asked what it was for, said how peaceful it felt to wear it for some reason, laurie figured it was a 'centering' item to keep us from absolutely freaking out here. also she said it tied into 'love is blind' somehow. i remember asking her to wear it, to see what it did. i put it on her, it made her all gold and white again like i had, but there was a violet sheen to her, it was gorgeous. but i noticed she was looking at me with this kind of sad expression the whole time. when i took the helmet back off, she was crying. i asked why and she said that just made her really understand what i was feeling, and how it related to her and everyone else, i dont remember the exact words but with that she could understand it clearly. at this i decided the rest of us should wear it too, to get that feeling. we were trying to decide order but i remember them all telling me to put it on again first, i did and laurie said i looked different now, she laughed and said i was like a peppermint stick. i still couldnt see myself though, decided it didnt matter really.
- then i gave the helmet to everyone else, genesis was all amber and cobalt of course, regal looking, but he didnt wear it long. the helmet actually 'reformed' a bit for him to fit around his crown. lynne was crimson and scarlet, kind of 'swept back' look. leon was all dark blue with a bit of light gold i think? his wings swept up. i remember he laughed a little and said he didn't feel scared, it was surprising for him. josephina was light yellow and lilac, very fancy, i laughed and said he looked like a digimon, he said that was awesome. julie was all white gold and light pink, wings up and very defined, she looked really pretty. she was moved by it though, still having trouble believing she could do this.
- then we decided to get natalie and spine too, because it would be fair if we didnt. lynne called them in, they asked where we were, we just said it was the beach by our cityscape of course. then i handed nat the helmet and said to put it on, he was all green with silver reflective bits, was really shocked, asked what in the world that was. i said it was a presence helmet or something, we needed to wear it so we understood what we needed to hold on to despite all the fear going on. the helmet 'reformed' a bit for spine too, she put it on, but her transformation was all bony, with some 'phantom feathers' here and there, despite her having dragony wings. but she was so at peace with it, it was really inspiring to see. i think she got the most from it in that sense. she took off the helmet and asked what we were going to do now. laurie said we should go back to the blood lotus cathedral, all of us. she just wasnt sure how to get back there, she didn't feel like swimming through the bloody ocean again.
- genesis said he had an idea, he ran over to natalie and took his hands, said to manifest a mirror. he did, and genesis took hold of it and ran backwards, 'expanding' it to this huge rectangular mirror, like the one my higher self spoke from. then he told natalie to just 'warp it through' or something, and they pushed it down to the ground. somehow this pushed the mindscape through with it? and it pulled it 'through' the mirror onto the flipside, so we didn't move but the space around us 'flipped' so we were now on the beach by the cathedral and spire. that was pretty awesome.
- the weird thing was that the sky here was blue now, with clouds, instead of red. we took that as a good sign. we went inside of the lotus cathedral, and it was now the cathedral chaos and i built on july 7th. this was a surprise because it finally felt like me, i assumed it was because we were all centered in ourselves now, not lost. chaos and i went and stood in the middle, talking about the cupid/psyche myth and its symbolism, how it was different for us. i put on the angel helmet but i looked very simple compared to everyone else, just goldsheen wings and a red ribbon around me, the helmet itself was almost like glass. chaos reached over my shoulder and grabbed an arrow, as apparently i had some, then held it out to me and said we should both 'use the same one.' as in both being struck by it, even a little. so we held it together and it turned almost glassy, blue and red, and chaos said we needed to use it, on the razors. i took the angel helmet off but the appearance i had stayed, i asked the rest of our group how i looked because i couldn't see, natalie summoned a mirror and put my perspective in it so that's how i saw it.
- we went back over to the group, i was back to normal now, we told them about the arrow, then i pointed out that there was an entrance to a dark stairwell directly across from the door. so we went down the stairs, but i realized they werent ending, so i 'pulled' the mindscape up quick and we just 'landed' in the tar room, it and the razors were waiting.
- they didnt attack us straightaway, we were all centered from the helmet. i remember the razor voice was spitting blood at chaos mockingly. however it saw me with the arrow so it started trying to attack, julie and laurie were forcibly holding it back, trying not to damage it as that would make it worse, but it was scary. lynne was trying to shield everyone. laurie eventually yelled for me to just shoot, but it wouldnt slow down, lynne caught it in a bubble shield and i shot the arrow into it
- this was weird, the razor voice froze and then collapsed inside the bubble, the arrow phased away, then the razor voice just melted into blood. it started dripping through the bubble, lynne tried to hold it shut but realized there was no crack, she said it was just leaking out. all the blood pooled out onto the floor. nothing happened for a minute, we thought it was over, and then it merged with the tar and formed into the 'old me' again. it was very angry this time, i was legitimately terrified, it came after me, started screaming at me, 'why do you hate yourself,' things like that. it was very angry. i tried to explain that i didnt hate myself, but it insisted, and i realized that it was trying to get me to identify with it. it was the hatred, if i 'hated myself' then i was disassociating from myself, i was splitting in half, thats what it did to me.
- it kept bringing up the 17th, then it turned into the celebi form of my old self, still made of tar, it felt very frightening. lynne put a shield up between us because it was getting dangerously close, but after a while of it screaming i walked through the shield, said it was something i needed to deal with. this made me turn into eros form, like in the cathedral. the tar laughed and said i was more vulnerable then ever now, i was scared it would abuse me, but i stood strong. laurie was terrified for me though.
- this next conversation was CRAZY, so tiring and scary. ultimately it was telling me about the dichotomy between us, how i used to think it was 'me' on a shallow level, and i hated it, i would abuse myself to abuse it specifically, the 17th was the culmination of all that, it was inner suicide. i realized this but now i could recognize that i hadn't done it, i wasnt the dark hatred that caused that.
- i remember at one point here i reached out and touched the tar, it tried to stick to me to infect me, but it fell to the ground. i formed a flower out of it and offered that, saying i forgave it and could we just leave this in the past already? but it said no, it lashed out at me, furious. it said it was my fault, it kept trying to make me disassociate from myself like this, i realized the conversation wasnt going anywhere and it was just trying to get me to 'hate myself' for doing that, there was nothing to hate though.
- i cannot remember how this ended as my body was starting to shut down. but i think laurie had to step in to get the tar away from me, it kept getting more and more violent. either way we got the heck out of there, went back up to central headspace, said we'd discuss this later because really that was FAR too much to take it at once.
- laurie said there was a lot we had to do yet. i assume she will be talking to us about that later today.
- we still don't know if this is what we were supposed to find or not. but we found something. if nothing else, its a place to start.
All right, I really hope that is everything... this was so completely exhausting that I could barely remember the details after I phased back here.
If I remember any events more clearly-- or can fix the event progression, because everything with the blood lotus cathedral was maddeningly vague-- I will do so. As of now there's just a catastrophe of words, sorry about that.
I seriously doubt we'll return to the cathedral anytime very soon; I need to recharge from this badly, and we still need to discuss the events of February in a Xanga before we tackle this. So there's a lot to do and I don't want to wear myself out. Heaven knows I'm close enough already.
As for now, I seriously need some sleep.
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