The purpose of this journey is to travel to the Lower World and ask to be taken to see and explore spirits of the sea.
So, I go into my hollowed-out tree trunk with the portal in the floor. There’s like an energetic activation, with light and movement, and I slip through and find myself, as I usually do, way up in the darkness of space.
I’m going to be descending slowly and slowly to the Lower World. In this way of descending, the Lower World often looks like another green area below.
I keep putting up my request that the purpose of this journey is to travel to the Lower World and request the spirits to take me to see and meet, if possible, spirits of the sea.
Usually, as I go over the Lower World area, I’m seeing the green of the land and the features of the land. There’s the hippo lake, which I often go to, and I immediately get told that the hippo—or a hippo—will take me to the sea.
So, I go down to the lake, and I’ve got a very strong feeling of good connection with Hippo after all these journeys.
I’m on the island which is in the hippo lake, and quite an enthusiastic hippo says, “Let’s go.”
I climb on its back, and I understand that there’s some way of going from this lake out to the ocean. I’ve always thought of this as a—
We’ve gone over some beaches and mangroves, and now we’re actually on a very nice beach. Beautiful beach colors—archetypally beautiful blues and whites.
The hippo says to me, “This is where it begins.”
I had an expectation that I would be on the hippo’s back and go into this sea, this ocean, but it seems no. The hippo says the sea is not its primary place. It’s not where it really belongs. It belongs in the lakes and other freshwater places.
So, I’m going to stay here and see what happens.
Hmm.
I’m a little bit apprehensive about the ocean—the unknowns of the ocean.
Hmm.
Very strangely, a canoe shows itself—a long canoe, as one would think indigenous people who were at the ocean used. There are two people in front and two people in the back. They say I must sit in the middle of this long canoe, and they’re going to take me out into the ocean.
This is like an introduction that is gentle. They understand I’m apprehensive about the ocean. I like to feel safe on the ocean.
They remind me. They say, “Neil, you’re perfectly safe. Remember, this is the Lower World, and we are spirit helpers.”
I say, “Yes, I needed that reminder.”
They’re pointing out the birdlife, and I’m seeing turtles.
They’re saying to me, “Remember when you went to the Galápagos, how abundant in life that was? The spirit-world version of the ocean is very abundant.”
They know that I feel safer if I’m on something of substance, so I’m on the canoe, which feels safe and substantial.
Then a very large whale shows itself nearby. These—I’ll call them indigenous, for want of a better word—these islanders, if that’s correct, are very respectful of this whale. They gently bow their heads.
They say that a vague analogy is how, in ordinary reality, you have the elephant—especially the matriarch, but also the bulls—who are so powerful and have such a presence. In the ocean, in the spirit ocean, a whale is similar.
The whale explains that I have to be willing to go under with the whale. Although I’ve had similar experiences previously, there’s always a little bit—as I said—of apprehension, and of course wondering, “How am I going to breathe?”
The whale says, “Let’s make it easy. I’ll be like a submarine.”
This is very interesting. What the whale does is, I go into its mouth, and it starts pushing out a bubble of air which doesn’t completely go out of the mouth, but is forming like this large, rounded window which I can look out of.
So, I’m in the whale, and I’m breathing the air inside the whale’s mouth. I’m able to look out and feel that this is completely safe.
The whale says, “You know that you have to learn not to bring your fears into the spirit realm.”
Ordinarily, that is absolutely the case, but because of the strange or unfamiliar underwater setting, I clearly have brought fears—Middle World fears.
The whale says, “Yes, the big lesson here is to identify your Middle World fears and know when they are intruding where they don’t belong.”
The point that’s being made is certainly about bringing Middle World fears into the spirit realm of the Lower World or the Upper World, identifying them, and knowing that they don’t belong.
But I think the big message here is being able to identify, in the Middle World—in ordinary reality—when one is letting one’s fears intrude into a situation.
There’s a lot of affirmation that I sense to that statement: that absolutely identifying one’s Middle World fears and recognizing—noticing—them intrude into the Middle World is really, really important.
They say, “Remember, a fear is a thought that has become an emotion.”
I know that’s quite profound: a fear is a thought that has become an emotion.
The background information that’s being reminded to me is: remember how crucial it is not to believe your thoughts. Not to believe your thoughts.
Now we’re going down and down, and in a very sort of almost cartoon-like way, I’m being shown a treasure chest—like one might see in a cartoon aquarium or a cartoon rendition of under the ocean.
The information here is that this area—this area of the Lower World, of the spirit realm of the Lower World, to which I am bringing fears—is an area where treasure can be accessed.
It’s quite childlike, this scene, and almost the feeling that I have of, “Oh, I wonder what the treasure is.”
I used to love seeing aquariums that had treasure chests in them. Usually, the aeration system of the aquarium included bubbles coming out of the treasure chest. The treasure-chest lid would open and close, and bubbles of air would come out.
They’re saying the treasure can really be thought of as whatever one needs. Not in the sense of riches and gold coins and jewelry, but what one needs. That’s the treasure one wants to access.
So, it becomes very useful and important to know what one needs.
There is also a sidebar of what one wants, but the priority is: what do you need?
Again, this is not the context of, “I need riches, gold, diamonds, gold coins, jewelry.” It’s not, “I need food.”
This is a really important question that we have to consider, each of us: what do we need?
A: Is there something at all that we need?
And B: If so, what is it?
This is a huge topic, I think, for everyone, and I know it is for me—to identify: what is it that I need?
There’s another understanding bubbling in the background, saying, “In the spirit realm, you’ll get what you need. You can get what you need.”
Actually, in the Middle World, in ordinary reality, you can get what you need. You just have to be very, very open to the form that it takes.
It’s a real investigation. It’s actually an important part of one’s—call it one’s spiritual evolution—to investigate: is there anything, and if so, what is it that I need? And in what form could it be experienced, in both the Middle World and the spirit realm of the Lower World or Upper World?
They’re giving me—I say “they”; it’s coming to me as I’m in the whale, looking out of this bubble portal—just an emphasis that this really is important.
They’re giving me another statement: “What can you give yourself?”
The whole emphasis so far has been on looking into the treasure chest, or wondering if I could get something that I need from this treasure chest at the bottom of the ocean in the Lower World, the spirit realm.
Then there was the reminder that you could get what you need in the Middle World, but that all had an external orientation. That’s how I was thinking about it: I’ll get something from the outside.
But they’re saying to crucially remember: what can you give yourself that you need?
Hmm.
They’re playing me an extract from a Led Zeppelin song, where, in a very haunting way, the singer Robert Plant is singing, “I need love.”
The spirits are all clapping. I’m not sure who’s clapping, but there’s clapping—this appreciation, saying yes: to give yourself love; to get the love that you say you need from yourself.
Hmm.
Then, in this Robert Plant song, the word “love” gets drawn out in this very long, emotional call of, “I need love.”
Very, very powerful.
Hmm.
The spirits say that if you experience love in the Middle World from outside yourself, A: you have to recognize it, and B: you have to appreciate it.
Hmm.
There may be so much love that you are not even noticing or recognizing. So, that’s crucial in this topic of love.
Then there is this crucial idea of giving oneself the love one needs.
Hmm.
They’ve been very melodic, and they’re singing. There’s another song being sung, and this is applicable—I was thinking this is more applicable to the spirit realm, but maybe it’s applicable to both the Middle World and the Upper World—which is the song with the words:
“Love is all around you. Love is in the air.”
I must go and look up the actual lyrics and, just out of interest, see who sang this song:
“Love is all around you. Love is in the air.”
