I had recently posted one of my dream-visions in my online forum, The Shaman's Rattle - an entry which also appears here until the heading Raven Angel.  In response to that post, a good friend commented that she hoped I wasn't getting bored or tired out from all the shennanigans of life.  What follows is my response to her - and my thanks to her for posing the question.

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Every day, I cannot help but marvel at the true mysteries of life, the world, the tonal and the nagual.  Last night, as we drove home from Big Bear, we came down the opposite side of the mountain from which we are accustomed to traveling - down Hwy 38.  It was dusk when we first started the trip, with the sun already long since set, leaving behind a peculiar mix of deep purple/fuschia horizon scarred by a bruising of thunderheads which appeared oddly sinister.  Not even sure what I mean by that - except that I normally feel an affinity with storms, and yet the Intent of this particular bank of clouds seemed almost sentient.  Words fail.

We paralleled the lake briefly, and I couldn't help noticing that the water levels have finally risen.  For the past 4-5 years, even the fishing docks had straddled nothing but parched earth, yet now, in the aftermath of the winter rains & summer thunderstorms, the lake was still low, but at least much healed from the last time I had seen her; and the purple sunset reflecting in black waters was like some upside-down doorway into the otherworld, standing open just a crack.

But as we left the town of Big Bear and began the long trek down the mountain, we found ourselves in an area of twisting switchbacks, and the absolute silent darkness of the nagual itself.  Massive pines pressed close to the road, and though the sky was still light, the sheer blackness that had enveloped the forest itself was at the same time comforting and foreboding. 

Don't know if anyone here was or is a fan of David Lynch's old t.v. series, TWIN PEAKS, but it used to be a fun pasttime for me years ago, and though I hadn't thought of it in ages, I suddenly found myself knowing exactly what Lynch had been attempting to convey when he spoke of "the black lodge".  For those who never saw the old series, that will mean nothing, but essentially "the black lodge" seemed to be a space/time/continuum of energy that might be somewhat akin to what Lucas called "the dark side of the force".   There, in those dark woods, was a presence of the nagual that was tangible, visceral, and entirely real in a way most people choose to never see.  It was all around us - and the fact that we were in an SUV moving at a relatively high rate of speed would be no protection at all if it chose to manifest.

Perhaps that sounds like the ravings of a loonytick, but I mean it literally.  Seldom have I experienced the sheer power of "the black lodge" or "the dark side of the force" or "the sinister muse" or whatever it is that has inspired writers to attempt to capture with words what which must simply be experienced.  Perhaps it is some concentrated energetic field from which we may call forth anything we could imagine, or perhaps it is a sentient force unto itself.  No way to know.  But one thing was certain - I knew I was passing through the netherrealms of the nagual, brushing the doorknob of the black lodge, in the midst of the same force of energy that has the potential to create or destroy.  And, for what it's worth, I felt it was examining me in the same way I was examining it. 

Alas, it's not as easy as saying that it was "evil" and therefore I turned my back on it and walked away.  I personally maintain that good and evil are only human points of view based on human choices.  There was "evil" in the black lodge, but only if I chose to manifest it as evil.  Ultimately, there was only power.  Some power may be experienced as the wind pushing a magnificent sailboat gently across a sunny sea, while other power may be experienced as a cold and unseen breath of Spirit blowing across one's neck in a dark room in the middle of the night.

The truly amazing thing to me was the absolute sense of mystery that accompanied these perceptions.  I know now what prompted David Lynch to write Twin Peaks, for I feel I have been to the black lodge and discovered, in being there, that it is all around us all the time.  Sometimes we see it.  Most of the time, it is hiding in plain sight.

Being an experience junkie, gotta say it was rather like a brief but fiercely passionate love affair with the unbending power of the Nyght.