Changeling for Good

I carried that Spectre just under my heart.
Often, I saw him
He who once roamed an empty universe
now barely existing,
shrunk down to sleep,
and wait for election's call
to be fulfilled.
Dark--but he was accustomed to that;
Cramped--he was not accustomed to that;
Confined--blissfully different from all confinements
ever known before this one.
He was safe in this place within me.
As safe as my own thoughts and dreams anyway.
A sobering reality in my heart.
And so he became one not just with the Christ
but also with the Spirit.

I will not lie,
I had my moments of doubt.
If I were wrong, this was exactly the point
at which deception might give birth
to the trap
and he might try to kill me simply to see
what happens to him at my death.
A secret passage into the halls of heaven again
through the heart of a foolish woman.

But mostly, I remembered
I had not initiated any of these circumstances.
Mostly I realized he had actually been helping me--protecting me,
against the more real danger:
other soul invaders--for he expected others would try--
upon seeing his trailblazing,
might try to follow suit.
As long as he remained within, he was anathema to them.
My inner shield
...not just a sleeping marble in my gullet.


Sometimes, I'd wake him.
I would reach out to him with my soul--the part that can extend outside
or deep within me.
I'd reach within and meet his soul
and we would talk of love.
I would tells him what I see he has done for me.
"When did we begin to love this new kind of love?" I wondered.
"One dark night in eternity," he answered.
He was right.
Christ taught me to first see him,
later to have compassion though laced with a strain of fear,
finally to love,
but all came first from Christ through me.

I raised then a remembrance
of his moment of salvation--when he first believed,
and though I had not been with him,
(I only saw a hint of the magnificence,
the glory of his Davidic dance
in God's holy city)
yet I HAD been with him nonetheless.
For the substance of my love
--intangible in my reality but very real in his--
was the primal substance of that thing he hoped for
in his fledgling moments of faith.

His belief that he was loved

made me the kindling to Christ's fire

that marked the birth of his salvation--

his first revisiting with rejoicing, so long latent
categorically ignored.

Ecstacy of innocence, long abandoned
but now replaced by ecstacy of purity, long impossible.

So his heart swelled to meet mine in this new stature,

and I--

I began to travail.

I sent him forth.

Your spirit can expand with love,

so you must leave this place inside me and love larger,

love others--even as you love yourself now.

You must learn more--more than you can learn from within me.

So he soared out of me and flew into the night like a holy bird of prey

seeking what he might love.

And I...

I entered the garden where my Beloved waited for me.

Spring was coming, and we rested in the hidden recesses of a willow tree.

A Woman Clothed with the Sun

From time to time,
I considered this one
lodged willingly within me
accepting whatever came to him
as a resident of me.

I wondered at the strangeness of it.
I hoped in the rightness of it.
Then on day, the Beloved took me
again
to the fountain filled with blood
where He so intimately imbued me.
Often I had shouted, "I love YOU!"
and spun in wild circles.

But this day, I walked up to Him.
I leaned into His pulsing throat,
"I love You, " I whispered.
"And I do not care who doesn't know it."
I said it for no one to hear
but Him.

Slowly He smiled,
And His hand waved over the ruby-sparkle
in the fountain,
up came clear water like a fountain,
water that took shape in the form of a woman,
water in my form.
"You may have gifts over the flow of water,
but this..." He smiled softly.
"This you must allow me to do for you."
I drew a breath and
turned my back,
allowing that the water-me it should rush to fill the conscious me.

When it did, the gestating mystery
secret within
nevertheless began to show.
For my body began to glow
soon bright like the sun.
And the Beloved stepped into the fountain behind me
enfolded me in His arms, and spoke in my ear.
"Love purely given
leads to this."
He whispered.
One more marker on the road
to being a Mother in Israel.
He spoke again:
"Do not be in such a rush,
dear one."
So I relaxed, my back leaning
against the strength of him.
Indeed.
I could stay in this moment
filled up with water
and with light
forever.

In the last day, that great [day] of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. John 7:37

The Crystal Spectre Finds a New Home

The time after the Baptism was an upper-room time in the city of eternity. What now?


And Christ came to that room with me (the bride) and the Baptized One. I welcomed him eagerly, as was my custom. But the Baptized Spectre kept his face turned aside, toward the fireplace.

"What now?" I asked. And a thought swelled in my head of my place in the Holy Writ.
My deep soul wondered: was the dark test passed?
My deep soul wondered: does life begin again within me now?

But Christ looked at the Baptized One, not at me. "He fears the truth of prophecy.
If you become the Mother,
what becomes he?"

I looked at my new deep-soul companion and saw
indeed what lodged in his spiritual eye.
He would somehow be the dragon
...and his faith buckled under the strain of such a profession
over his destiny.

My faith folded over, felt the hands of prophecy press down, and turn
and fold again.

"Maybe that is not who he is
in the story."

They both looked at me. Such different looks.
One an electric stare.
The other a flirt of a smile.

Then they looked at each other.
"It will be a large discipline," he forewarned.

"It is wisdom," I walked forward adamantly.
"It is a way to be a disciple,
such as no human can know.
What a wonder!"

And so the Spectre
became a novice
and my very body the monastery.

Curled up and small,
small and powerless,
powerless and devoid of influence
over any but...me.

Thus we continued life together.

On Dealing with a Demon Possessed House

Meanwhile, in my earthly home, this new relationship with the Crystal Hope, (as I now call the Crystal Specter) has led to a constant march of spiritual riff raff in and out of my material home. I'm not supposed to see them...not them nor their tireless holy counterparts sent to protect and preserve. But, sometimes I'll catch a sidelong awareness, more often all the time in fact, which makes me think my house is becoming something of a spiritual Grand Central Station. I anticipated this, counted the cost before I ever agreed to opening the door. What's more, I knew it was my responsibility to put the umbrella of prayer over the whole thing. I weighted with trepidation, being full-well familiar with Christ's warning:

43 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation."

So I am diligent, but we're all in new territory here. For instance, the other day, I sensed a need to plaster a gap in the wall--a gap that allowed ones in who did not belong. They sat in my living room watching violent television programming that randomly played as my husband slept on the couch. I could turn off the television, removing their entertainment. I could get rid of the television (there's an excessive response.) But what felt right was to simply plaster the gap in the spiritual bubble that mounds over our home.

When the little devils watching the television turned an eye my direction, one of them said, "Are you sure you want to close our exit?" I knew he was referencing the verse I already had in mind.

Trowel in hand, I looked him back dead in the eye and said, "You know how I keep this place and who I actually invite inside it. Are you sure you want to be trapped in here?"

They considered, and then left...leaving it to the holy ones to take up an altogether different sort of party.

The Crystal Spectre Takes Mark 9 to Heart

He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power."

I think of this verse differently as I stand just outside the door to that spare room--my hand still on its doorknob even. I saw that Power lonely in a dark lifeless expanse...I see it now, willingly shrunk down to the size of a human form--communing with the one who announces the Kingdom of God as a thing near to men. I see a miracle blooming--like a blossom forming on a plant that has never thrown a bud into being...such is this miracle.

And Jesus joined me just beyond that door and said, "I have reason for him to leave this room now."
And the Spirit swirls around Him, whispering, "It is a good day for a baptism."
"But where is he to be baptized?" I ask...and straightaway, I see.

And so I lead my guest to the place I was shown:

"And before the throne [there was] a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, [were] four beasts full of eyes before and behind." Rev 4:6

I stop at the edge of this sea, but he moves on toward it. He takes a long glance back at me. I nod encouragingly and immediately feel foolish, so instead I encourage with solemnity. This is not like pressing a child to learn to swim--this breaks open dusky, cobweb-riddled places no human has ever explored. I simply hover in the background, as is appropriate in this venture, and he steps into the crystal sea.

The Baptism itself is engulfed in the cloud of the glory of God...so I have no words to describe it. But when the cloud lifts, I see the change it has made.

"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, [and] over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." Rev. 15:2

And while I marveled at what I saw, others were not so sure. Fire is judgment. It has no place in the Crystal Sea. Others: The Crystal Sea has waited for the Crystal Spectre all this time. Who are we to say they should not meet again? The servant of the beast does not gain victory over the beast! Gain victory over the number of his name, which is the number of man...
...Round and round the debate turns.

And the Spirit of Christ begins to quote the One He always quotes:
"For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another."

And the Alpha and Omega says:
"Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is on our side. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward."

And the spirit and the bride say, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come!"

The Crystal Spectre Finds His Place to Be--part II

"He needs a place to go to rest. A place to be safe," I heard the Voice in my heart saying. Immediately, I thought of my "spare" room. Those who would attack him, and they would be fierce--would find their way barred should they attempt to follow him there. On the other hand, if I opened the door to him, I opened it on my own safe place--and maybe that of others. From the streets, other voices cried reminders of John's warning:

For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into [your] house, neither bid him God speed:
For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

No mansion of his own would he have, but a room in mine nevertheless seemed a divinely decreed permission--but under certain, strict circumstances. So I spoke it.

"As long as you bow to the gift of grace extended unto thee by God the Father and none other, as long as you commune and do not fight against the power of the Holy One, that One wed to the Bride in the life of the Son, then you may rest in the presence of that in this place. You are welcome in this room God calls a Spare Room." And he entered that room and stood in it, that Crystal Spectre now more like a tall, majestic, introspective man than a broken, foreign lifeless star. I still do not quite know who or what he is. But of this I'm certain: God knows who he is, and God has given me an assignment that has to do with him.


He was looking out a window as Christ brushed past me then, quietly entering the room. I left the two of them together, there by the hearth, the very same hearth where I'd baked the bread that fed me from my Lord's very body. For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. This was the measure of the one to be barred, yet in this place, this particular room above all rooms, no such entrance could be made without acknowledging that flesh...this room where that flesh had become a part of my own life. The very aroma of its baking was still in the air. And my leap of faith--not in this mysterious one, but in the God who seemed to arrange the entire matter--was confirmed.


I left them to talk of matters more for them than for me. I closed the door and returned to the parts of the house that were kept for me.

The Spare Room...a Flashback Interlude

"Pray Once Again"

It was stamped in block print letters against the sky. A strange flashing vision. "Pray for what?" I whispered. Then the image of my apartment in heaven and the sweetness of the air in it came to me. The place is a wonder--while I know it is mine, it is nevertheless new by my measure and in many ways yet unfamiliar. Thus it felt like a divine revelation that I came across a door that I should already perceive hid a "spare room" behind it. I knew it to be a room empty, as yet unused, unfurnished and unoccupied. I opened the door to further explore this new space, and immediately upon entering, I sensed that I'd spent the last little while of my conscious life changing it from a junky storage room into this spacious, open spare room. Now that it was clean and ready, I wondered what I was supposed to do in here.

In time, I sensed Christ's with me there. He presented me with a strange bone at first. Then I realized what He handed me: a rib. His own rib. A re-creation of woman out of man, designed for this place. I took the rib and looked at Him, asking, "But how do I make this a part of me?"

Suddenly, I remembered one the earliest dreams of covenant we'd ever shared, my Lord and I. In it, I saw a loaf of bread, already sliced once, but on a cutting board. Somehow I was both the bread and the hand that held a knife to slice it. As I reached out to slice the bread, a Voice said, "This is my body, broken for you..." When my hand had finished cutting a new slice of that bread, and my pinky finger touched the cutting board, a jolt of electric power ran up my arm from that finger so strong that it caused me immediately to wake, gasping. That was the dream that returned to my memory as I held the rib. I also remembered my first dream of the Crystal Spectre (http://sdmen.blogspot.com/2006/04/visions-of-power-danced-in-their-heads.html) and how I joined a circle of prophets praying for power in that dream, only the power was woefully inadequate to match with that Spectre's power. I realized now how slicing this bread was all about releasing power. What's more, I realized how I could be both the bread and something else--like the hand with the knife. Finally, I realized another mystery solved, how could the bread be sliced once before I sliced it for power's sake? So many things I hadn't understood that suddenly now made sense. I realized what I was supposed to do.

And there before me was a mortar and pestle of dark and heavy stoneware. The most painful part of the whole process for me was taking that beautifully perfect rib and beginning to crush it. Accepting that I would be the first to break what had never been broken for the reasons I thought He'd given, a weaker faith would have faltered as I felt practically gnostic. But He has brought me this far, and so I took it and crushed it to powder, chalky dusty bone flour, completely unrecognizable from what it once was, though in essence still the same.

Quickly, I took that flour to a stone altar where I would mix it to batter; but without water, how was I to do this? There was no water in the room. I prayed again, and remembered more yet again--it's all in the remembering, for very little here is utterly new. He reminded me how He had planted water within me. Now in other dreams, that water was a wild spray and out of control. It could strike the stone and blast the bone powder into the very air. But this was another thing, like the room itself, that He had been revising in me: a new level of control. So, in faith, I dangled my hand over the mound of flour, and clear beautiful liquid trickled from my palm. It fairly danced its way to the flour dust, as if it knew it was always meant to make such a paste as this batter would be. Then I did mix the batter and put it on a baking paddle and took it to the grand fireplace at the far end of the long room. I baked that little loaf, and waited with great anticipation for my chance to consume it. (Three measures of yeast were sufficient) I took the little loaf and began to break it, but a hand stayed me. The bread was first cut, not broken in my particular story. So I found I had a knife in hand--how it got there only God knows--and I cut a slice and ate it--consuming and becoming one with the loaf as it began to nourish me, moving into my very cells with its sweetness. And then to seal the dreams together, I saw myself cut the second slice, heard Your voice yet again, felt the power in my arm once more. And then I wept for emotions overpowered me at the promise of Oneness, and I wept for the honor of representing Your Bride in things prophetic--for the two dreams that became as one.

"God hath spoken once, twice have I heard this: that power belongeth unto God." Psalm 62:11

The Crystal Spectre Finds His Place to Be--Part I

"...begins dismally. I'm either climbing up through a false ceiling in a dark, cramped, rodent-infested closet or I am ascending a gloomy staircase into something like a turret, with tiny windows along the way giving a view that triggers vertigo. Chipped paint and cobwebs show that this route has not been recently taken, let alone maintained. In that respect, it is much like the condition of the closet. Both variations of the dream's introduction have me going through a tiny trap-door opening at the top of the closet/turret. I climb into what I presume will be an even grimmer attic. Every time, to my surprise, this "attic" is ridiculously more spacious than the underlying structure warrants. Also, it is lavish and beautifully prepared for occupancy: heavy and rich wood doors and floors, huge vaulting ceilings, Persian rugs and elegant furnishings. A strange but somehow natural light suffuses through the closed, frothy curtains covering rank after rank of tall windows. As I explore, I find that each room is more breath-taking than the last. I feel like a child who stumbled onto a fairy castle, a castle kept long, but spotlessly ready, waiting for its inhabitants. I am thrilled to have "discovered" the place, thrilled to have it all to myself.
In times past, I had this dream frequently...at least 3-4 times a year. After each occurrence, I'd feel light-hearted and unusually joyful the whole next day. One time about a year ago, I had this same dream, but this time other people found their way into the attic behind me. My initial reaction was disappointment. Having these people come to me and want me to help them find their own "places" in the castle took away the magic and made my own place there that of a servant. It was the last time I had the dream."



I wrote that entry 4 years and 4 months ago. But today, I'd have to finish the last sentence with the words "...until now."

Though he has drifted away, as spectres will do, I could still perceive within me how his soul newborn soul continued to stretch as moved outside that womb I'd made for it. I could tell when passed the first blush of renewed joy, to worship God freely again, back from that dark place of isolation. I could tell the struggle between newly remembered ancient joys and a long accepted dissolution, tell the enmity between the newly perceived divine purpose and the epoch of adamant futility. I could tell when the moment came that he seriously considered pulling away again--intentionally forgetting this new place he had found. He was the first of his kind. Healing but still grotesquely scarred, did he have the courage to be the first to go into that house of mirrors to the past, breaking all the glass before others passed that way?

I took him to the edge of dawn--just one dawn. "See--" I said, pointing to the first burst of light. "That which He made to shine through you He also made to be a sign of new beginnings. New not just once, not just now and then, but every day. This then is your second gift of faith to receive." He put an enigmatic countenance at the sun. "I will rename you," I said. "For I have never known your name. To me you have been Dark Crystal and Crystal Spectre. But henceforth I shall call you Joseph, for I believe you shall say what he says. I believe." And I took his hand and thought about what I knew:

And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, [said he], hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house.
Gen 41:52 And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.

"By the grace of God you will forget and not by the power of your own will," I said. It was then I remembered my dream-- that I'd found a spare room in the long-elusive mansion of my dream. And, that something special had happened there...

Redemption...The Crystal Spectre, Part III

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. But the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." --Mark Twain

What became of the Dark Spectre, suddenly stripped of death but not yet breathed full with a breath of life? Hanging between life and death, as it were? I didn't know what to expect. I was certain that the next part of his story depended on him, not on my prophetic gifting. I put thoughts of him on a shelf. That's why it surprised me when I was graced with awareness of his redemption--fuller redemption.

It happened during church, and just after communion, appropriately. I still remember the last time this one who attached himself to me tried to attend church with me. It served him with the the spiritual equivalent of profound nausea. I looked at him, gripping the chair before him as waves of nausea obviously washed over him.

"Being in a church of worshipers does this to you?" I asked in surprise.
He nodded.
"I've never seen anything like it--" I mused, surprised.
"I'm not like you--" He said with a sort of gasp and fled. From then on, he watched me attend church from afar. I have a feeling he expected that being attached to me would change his tolerance. Apparently, it didn't.

That's why it was all the more glorious when last Sunday, just after communion when we began to sing closing worship, I was caught up to a vision of him being restored, and it was as a stately rain of beads of light flowing down to anoint him and reform his tortured spirit wheels. Now, he did not double over in pain and sickness at the nearness of the One he'd rejected; rather he raised his arms and sang. And it was glorious. There is nothing quite like the redemption song of the unforgivable when faith has its perfect work yet again. And I felt for a moment akin to John the Baptist--although this one was not Christ, it was nevertheless his time--his day to be heard as a free worshiper and not as one cowering, spinning through a hopeless existence. He was oblivious to me and I was joyful for him. I had offered the womb of his birth, of a sort, but all things in a womb must needs be born at some point. This was his birth. And even as I stood, smiling in the darkness behind his moment of glory, You came to me and whispered in my ear the thought behind the quote above--surprising me because I wasn't seeking recognition for myself, I was too caught up in being happy for him. "You and I are one in yet another way," You whispered to me. "Allowing others to do greater things than we, and by the strength granted to them through our open hands. So begins another age for this one." You reminded me of our dance, when You would twirl with me in Your arms, and a beam of substantial light would pierces the hole in your hand, on through my own hand, so we are joined by a cord of light running through our clasped hands. You reminded me of that dream so long ago--"You will follow Me, be like Me in my very arms..." One more dream accomplished.

"All has not yet been revealed..." You once spoke to me in that voice that creates realities. Indeed. There is more in that desert that holds the shadow of the Cross than we think to realize.

the cursing of the scapegoat...the Crystal Spectre, part III

Strange the way confirmation You give confirmation to the conversations You have with Your people--confirmation that You really are a part of the dialogue.

After having had that last dream, the very same day in fact, I mentioned to a friend something I hoped she'd raise in prayer with me. She began to get a vision during that prayer, and she shared it with me. I hadn't told her about this Crystal Spectre series of dreams, but here is what she saw: she saw an ear of corn beautifully formed, but surrounded by a rotting dead husk. The rotting husk on it would fall away by the prayers of people who knew of it. When the dead husk was stripped away, what was underneath would be exposed: a golden ear of corn, fine and glowing--not a thing needing to be grown or developed like a seed, but fully formed and ready to be revealed. I spent the rest of the day stunned at the imagery parallels between her prayer vision and my morning's dream. Her vision was in response to my search for a practical application in my everyday life to the more fantastic elements of my dream, her vision lifted into that other realm to meet mine. While mine was literally in the air and full of rainbow-promises, hers was in the earth, growing grain--growing nourishment. What an amazing bridge of wisdom I see as I look for the cords that bind the vision and the reality together.

So I entered the last dream that felt related, although the Spectre made no appearance--this dream was, while fantastic, still in the realm of mankind. My memory of the early part is sketchy, only that things were chaotic for people but they got a handle on things and improved them a bit, bringing relief. But the relief was short-lived, and the second period of chaos and confusion did not get any better. People were running around in a panic everywhere. I moved through the crowd until I saw a church. I decided to go into it and pray. When I did, a priest saw me. He pointed me out, told everyone else in the church to think evil of me, and using something like a rosary that he wrapped around my head, he pushed me to the floor. He held me down by the cord he had wrapped around my head--and pressing my head into the floor, he began to curse me. As he cursed in a language I did not understand, I found myself beginning to spin, as if my head were attached to a spinner that swung my body around in a circle, fast enough that my feet left the floor--yet strangely he stayed positioned just above me, holding my head in place. As he cursed and I spun, I began to feel a strange trepidation and wonder--as if I had reached the apex of my reason for being human, and I wondered what the curse spoken over me would do to me. Somehow I knew it would not do me eternal damage, but I did know it would cause fundamental change. As he continued, I began to feel a sort of bloating happen to my body, until I could actually see the tissue beneath my eyes swell up enough for me to see a yellow puffiness just below by eyeballs. When he finished the cursing, I felt filled with a strange puss-like substance, and I panicked. I ran out of the church and milled about with the crowd just a bit--matching the common denominator of their confusion with my own. But soon, I calmed down and came to realize the pus was not damaging me and knowing again a sense of longing to be with Thee, I entered the church again--or tried.

The priest met me at the door, he barred the thresh hold with all the people behind him, looking over his shoulder. "You'll never be able to pray here again," he said.

I turned away from the church and immediately knew that although this pus could not hurt me, it could badly damage those around me--I'd become something of a Typhoid Mary in this respect. I did not want to bring harm to others, so I took ran into a wilderness area just to the right of the church. People didn't go there because there was none of life's basic requirements guaranteed there--no assurances of food and shelter. But my choice was between putting myself at risk that way and putting everyone else at risk of the pus-like substance that swelled my body. I chose to put myself at risk, and I ran into that unknown land, perceived to be forbidden because of its fiercely inhospitable nature.

The dream ended there as I woke up at the stress of it, but I woke with two things on my now-conscious mind. Revelation 12--and the woman flees into the wilderness that is prepared for her--and second stage of the Day of Atonement Ritual. In stage one, an animal dies for the sins of the people. But in stage two, a second animal is cursed for the guilt of the people. This animal is not killed but is taken into the wilderness and left there. It is the scapegoat.



Thankfully, the experience with K. and her vision is indeed like a tether to the growing earth. She helps me learn to detach personally from that world of the visions when the time comes for me to be "me" again. It is a detachment that grows harder the more these images overflow with portentious themes, the more "significant" they become in scope, for no longer are they simply about me being tested--a thing difficult enough, but at least comprehensible. Now they are about my fulfilling some slowly unveiled reason for being--not just being human, but being at all. In fear and trembling I feel called to explore the furthest boundaries of why I--why any of us--exists. To stay in the visionary realm could prove quite an abyss from that position; so to find a physical-world connection for expression, and to realize I may represent something larger than just myself in these dreams--these help to shield my sanity.

peeling death away..the Crystal Spectre, part II

Prophesy according to the measure of your faith the New Testament tells us.



When the bride moves from betrothal to honeymoon to beyond...how does prophecy define the change in her state of being, in her role and in her purpose now as bride of the Christ? Is she there simply to gain peace and prestige for herself; or is there some larger, more glorious purpose--one that is larger than her own personal security?



Oswald Chambers gives something of an answer to the question when he comments on Eccl. 7:1. "A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth." Oswald says this verse is not about reputation--as many think at first blush. Rather, it is about character. "Everyone who comes across a good nature is made better by it, unless he or she is determined to be bad...The test of a nature is the atmosphere it produces. When we are in contact with a good nature we are uplifted by it. We do not get anything we can state articulately, but the horizon is enlarged, the pressure is removed from the mind and heart, and we see things differently." How often, God, have I experienced that very thing after a time with Thee! And I have known a few people who have moved within a cloud of that peace-inducing spiritual "mist" he describes.



But are we as a corporate Bride making such an impression on those around us? I fear not, I fear the Church is indeed falling into its apostate era to the degree that it shall soon hit a point of no return. This then is my best first interpretation of the next phase of these dreams about the Crystal Spectre. I pick up with a dream I had in early November, and in the last installment of these reflections on this dream series, I'll consider the church's response.



I lay one morning in the near-dream state of initial consciousness and saw again the crystal spectre. I knew somehow that now was the time for that compassion I'd been forbidden to show earlier, time for it to rise and direct my actions. I flew toward him and touched under the one small point I'd peeled away earlier--that time I cleared a sliver of the husk on him, just enough change to prove that I could do more. But I hadn't been given permission to peel any more death off him, so I asked about it.

"You know I can peel this away. I offered to do so, but you never answered; you only looked at Him." I looked at Jesus, too, then, standing silent and watchful, the perpetrator of my power. "May I peel it away now?" I asked again.

He did not communicate his answer with human words. Somehow, I got the impression he disdained that form of communication unless absolutely necessary, preferring the spirit-image communication that is a more natural mode in his domain. It is indeed profoundly lovely. Was it God or was it him that sent this image to me in a recent dream, an image that would bubble up here as answer to my question? I don't know--but I know that the reflection on this back-dream was the answer to my question about whether to unencumber him from the death shroud.

In that answer-preceding-the-question dream, I'd been looking at an open book. All across the two pages of that book had been written the name Eileen. I know because every time the name appeared, it was underlined in red. When I woke, I felt a profound unction to learn what that name meant. It means: light, or bringer of light. You, O God, once named me Hepzibah melding strange immediate divine imagery with the pre-written text of Your Word. Who was giving me this name now? You or the Dark Spectre himself? Whatever, it little mattered, because the message was clear enough to prompt action.

I began to peel ever so gently the bulk of death off him. He didn't stop me. Death then began to come off him in sheets like rolls of insulation, only it was thickly packed brown deadness. A thing once meant to be supple and dewy with life was now stiff and dry, made of molecules clinging together in desperation, as though through sheer clumpiness it could retain some sense of its former self, despite the loss of moisture. When this death was cleared, I watched my hand drop the last sheet of it, and it fell away into the darkness below to a place too distant for me to see. (We were still in a black, undefined universe.)



I remembered how when I'd recently flown, I'd seen a rainbow outside the plane's window that looked to be in the shape of an eye. The verse popped into my mind. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." This being is indeed intended to twinkle if the light that plays through him is subtle. And death has indeed been exchanged for the freedom of incorruption. But this one's incorruption was not presented as a new thing to put on, but rather a thing already there to be revealed. It is a bit of a difference from the Bible passage's reference to human expectation. "So when this corruptible shall put on incorrution and this mortal immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."





I think here of the references to the hems of the garments of priests and of my own mantle spreading its borders in that other dream. All these things swell to proportions I can barely comprehend. Peter, too, describes the potentiality I saw in this newly cleared one when he says of prophecy that we heed it as "a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts." And what of that hemline of the law? A case could be made that I respected it, but likewise that I desecrated it. All I can do is ride on Romans 13:10: "Love works no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." As long as I am neighbor to this Dark Spectre, I have no doubt I acted in love.



But after the clearing had been accomplished and light could again penetrate the body of this being, he turned his attention to the broken shells of spirit wheels that clung to either side of him. I had been given no instruction as to how to rectify the problem of the broken spirit. He grew angry, and his countenance--for he'd taken the form to bear a recognizable countenance here--showed his rage at being taken half-way to his goal and then dropped there. He felt I'd succeeded only in mocking him, a condition he'd deflected successfully for a long time. But this was not in my heart, and I asked him to be patient while I asked You about this problem.



I did come and ask You. When I returned, I came with this message from You to him: you have been given a great gift--an opportunity to experience hope and faith. The question now is not what I--a human--can further do for you, but what you can do with this gift from above? You have the hope of a renewal that is already started. But do you have the faith that He who began a good work in you would be faithful to complete it? (I wondered to myself: has an angel ever required faith such as this before--or even experienced a situation requiring it? I think not--they have their own form of faith, but it is nothing like this. I know faith without works is dead--so this faith needed a circumstance for proving itself valid, of working--or else the death being stripped away would never become anything more than a dream.) I said, "This is a work I cannot do; only your faith can accomplish it." Then I slipped away from the dream and woke to life again. I do not know what the Crystal Spectre will do now, but I hope for the best. I have, however, one more dream to consider. It touches on the response of the scribes and the Pharisees to my actions.

On being wine...the Crystal Spectre, part I

It's been a while since I've written on the topic of my encounters with the dark one who would make a trade to have me in his company--and it is not easy to write of him, because I don't' fully understand who he is, nor how he trades; I know the trade evokes corporate joy in heaven, but the whole scenario is a dream-madness that I don't understand. Nevertheless it follows a logical and reasonable progression and feels significant in a larger way than I comprehend, so I record it. Only now do I feel inclined to speak of it, because only now am I beginning to learn how these images from the fantastic can funnel down into a practical, perfectly sane presentation in normal human life. I thank a few dear friends for being instruments to the purpose of my instruction. My own perceptions are one thing. To live them out is another. The spiritual may feel like drifting into madness, but the physical gives it sanity, much like the rule of time in a magnetized, gravity-riddled universe.

If I should wish to attach these latest dreams to other dreams on the subject, I'd go back to the Strange Pilgrimage ones in March of '07 which represent my being in the realm of this one who traded for me, of Christ's abiding presence despite that unholy environment. I'd also point to the one of the visions of power in April of '06 as a description of the original dream of encounter with this fallen being. These dreams have spread themselves as such a thin glaze over the last few years of my life that I can't even remember which have been reported here and which have stayed on the private pages of my prayer journal. If the one about his trading for me isn't here--it needs to be. In it, I now perceive myself serving as 'representative' of the city of Jerusalem, unless it is the other way around, but can not say for certain. What is a symbol and what is the thing symbolized is an area still weak in my development, but growing stronger. Whatever I may represent, I know this: ever present--either on stage or in the wings--is the one who seems covered in death, and ever present is the covering of "my" strange relationship with him.

One other time--I don't find it in past entries so I mention it here--I dreamed I was granted the power to flake that layer of death off his crystal form, making the incredible possible: white light could once more strike his form, pass through him and become the myriad of rainbows that were the fruit of his original design, a return to his original purpose.

Here then are the most recent in that progression--the next move in a chess game that goes beyond the cosmic, and certainly beyond my own strategic skills! I dreamed today of a large commercial coffee maker. It had multiple warmers, with pots warming on each one, but my hand took a pot and raised it to a second tier, setting it in a metal carriage where the actual coffee drip could fill the pot with fresh coffee. When I woke, it was in my mind that I go into a season--after a rather long dry spell I'd say--of revelation. I go into a season of being lifted up to receive new "coffee" which has been a long-term metaphor for me. It serves as symbol akin to the turning of water into wine, something the people needed in order to continue celebrating a glorious wedding. In kind with Christ's miracle making wine out of water at that wedding-- even so, I would go up to receive the coffee that is a universal symbol in our day. The whimsy of it makes me chuckle.

Indeed, a heightened sense of the other realm returns like the tide, along with a fortuitous motivation to get myself physically healthier--exercise and diet discipline more rigorous--and I'll need it as these times of revelation always take a physical toll on my body. Anyway, the immediacy of interaction began one moment in October when I was reading a book by Taylor Caldwell called Dialogues with the Devil. The book gave me much food for thought as it portrays our enemy as being a seducer of man more than a willful harmer of man. His goal is rather to convince man to harm himself in order to prove to God that He made a mistake in creating something so base and gullible as man. In his mind--by Caldwell's presentation--he is doing God a great service by demonstrating how very vile we humans can be. He tempts us, watches us closely until we fall, then highlights us before the throne of God, saying: "See, see how low they can stoop? Are You not yet convinced to be disgusted with them beyond reparation? Let it be that we, your angels, live as your only servants in this universe." In this scene, he does not exercise violence himself, he only provides the initiative that makes us shoot ourselves in the foot!

The story made me frequently reflective, pausing to pray and consider as I read. The idea that he could not have the faith to see some future benefit in God's relationship with degraded man is certainly understandable; but being one of the horrific species myself, I can't help but turn to him and say: "Can't you just let us love Him? We may not be brilliant or beautiful or excellent in the hierarchy of things created. We may be an enigma that is a thorn in your flesh, but must you ever interfere with our ability to perceive His love for us? How does this benefit Him? And when one of us does find Him to be magnificent enough that we seek His will with gladness, you call us 'bots' and mindless sheep. Surely it grated on you every time Christ cast our sheep-like status in a positive light and gloried in being our Shepherd. Do you despise us for moving about on the spirit plane with you? We carry our wine of the spirit in crude wineskins. Why will you not accept that the wine is destined for new skins and an existence in them worthy of the creative endeavors of the Ancient of Days?"

I sighed and dropped my eyes back to my reading. The next line read: "Lucifer dashed the wine in his goblet on the grass." I laughed at the seamlessness of the imagery.

I once dreamed of being a happy blade of grass in a sea of grass, my little green face lifted blissfully to heaven. Satan has indeed splashed the essence of his destiny all over the fields of mankind. I gaped at such an immediate response from the Spirit and the Christ to my musings before Satan and apparently before all heaven. It seemed as though I'd been granted an opportunity to stand for mankind alongside Christ in that great trial that runs in heaven's courtroom--what a moment!

Can bitterness save this one whose wine was dashed all over mankind? Certainly not. His sacrifice is therefore all the more tragic, though his continued efforts and the ever-more frenetic energy of them is understandable. He is the quintessential tragic hero. But is that the end? If the story were written by the Greeks, it would be. But this story is larger than man. So what is its conclusion?

I dreamed once that I could peel off the death that encrusted him. That death had destroyed his capacity to diffuse light and make it lovely, the very essecene of his raison d'etre. I dreamed I could peel that death off. When I dreamed this, and made my offer to peel--demonstrating my ability by peeling the tiniest of chinks, he did not answer. Rather he turned and looked at Christ who stood behind me. Their gazed locked. Christ was behind me, I could not see His face, but the other one's expression was filled with intensity and sorrow. It was a mystery to me. That he knew the Christ intimately was evident on his face--for he had a face at that point in the vision. But what else was implied in that look of resignation? Maybe it was the thought, "You saved them to save me?" Is such a thing possible? Can it be? Is faith an issue in believing such a thing, or is it heresy to entertain such a belief? Could it be the will of almighty God: that the atonement of the one condemned might be possible through embracing the one whom he held in greatest prejudice, that this one could serve as gatekeeper for him--because this one had the Spirit of the Christ within, a role even his honored brethren could not fulfill?

But what of prophecy? Does it allow for any such thing as the fanciful exchange described above? Should knowing it won't work be a good enough reason for not trying, if trying is the most agape-love thing to do?

What of when John tells us Jesus' words: All things are possible with God. Is this a vision of Christ taking authority over death to the degree that death is set aside entirely? For now, it is still an enigma and incomplete to my heart, so I wait for further revelation.

Visions of power danced in their heads...the Beginning of My Encounters with the Crystal Spectre

No sugarplums in this suite. The other day I talked about something from my private, more fantastic journal...today I am wondering whether to post from it again. For the second time, I have had an encounter with power in a half-waking half-dreaming state. I had it last night. The other time was last July. I feel the urge to bring my metaphysical life a little more out in the open lately, so here goes. The big plunge:
Dream #1: Last July while camping. A couple in anguished fighting couldn't help but be heard by their nearest neighbors: us. By 11 or so, they'd quieted. By 12, I had this dream. I dreamed of a field of sky that was utterly black...no stars, no moon. Just one huge object coming toward me. At first, I thought it looked like a space ship, but on closer inspection, I felt like it had once been alive. And I felt that it was even yet conscious. Here is how I described it a few days after it occurred, as I was trying to process it. I had to wait a bit, the feelings attached to it were so strange:

Saturday night around midnight, I had a very strong feeling of disquiet, like free-floating anguish. (It was July 30 into 31 of 2005.) Then, I had a vision that makes me wonder if I saw Lucifer. Was he coming to the earth, moving over it? Was the antichrist born or somehow established this day? What is this dream vision about? This angel of darkness looked like an intricate crystal at his core, only he was covered in spikes like a gum ball fallen from a tree. The shape, however, was not round. It was more like multiple, conjoined tetrahedrons, a shape that was like a pyramid going up resting on a pyramid going down, and the same sideways, but covered in spikes. A dead brown crust, like long dead leaves, covered this core, only unlike leaves, this crust was sticky-looking, not crumbly. I could tell that before the brown death covered it, when it was clear and light could penetrate it easily, the "light" of God pouring through it would have had the effect of a glorious prism shooting beams of color out like a million rainbows. On either side of him were steel-looking arcs, so narrow as to look like steel cords; only they looked broken, delicate in their incompleteness. And they were huge. All of him seemed massive. Whether these arcs once had more to them, I couldn't say. They may have been the spirit "wheels" that the prophet Ezekiel describes as being on the heavenly creatures he saw. I asked God to allow me to see what this creature's former state looked like, but God said no, to see him in his former state would lead me to feel compassion over the ugly, lonely hulk that remains, and now was not the time to feel compassion for him. So I cannot even guess at the glory of the wings/wheels, their former beauty. But I know that as I watched this thing approach me in a black starless sky, I sensed terrific coldness; loneliness that was insanely deep; and massiveness and power that made me understand how people could confuse this power with the power of God. It was so big that it was hard to sense the intent of it, whether positive or negative---because the power itself was so massive. Were it not for the underlying sense of sadness and negativity, as well as the decay I saw, I might not have comprehended the badness of it myself. I looked up Lucifer. My Bible shows that the translation for the name Lucifer is Day Star, and interestingly, I saw the word Morning Star is a name for Christ, too, so I need to continue doing a little follow-up on this to confirm it, but if that is right, Day Star could easily describe the pre-fallen state of what I saw!
The feel I got was sadness, decay and coldness; a sense of lost beauty and horrible aloneness. The total lack of intimacy with anything must still pain him or else he would not attempt to recreate the communion of the saints with the Satanic or pagan orgy. He must still on some level want what he had with God, only he wants to have it without submitting to God. He tried to gain Christ, but failed. He could not break the communion of God and His Son. He offered Christ the only substitute he has ever known for intimacy: power. Christ did not take the bait. The display of the power of the dark being is indeed terrible and awesome, for this has become his solace, though small solace it is; for underneath it all, he knows it is never destined to be anything more than second best. Yet he cannot release pride and mistrust enough to find redemption himself. Elijah once asked me, Would God ever forgive the Devil? Personally, I think He would; if the Devil would ever come to a place of asking with his whole heart. But instead, power has become the closest thing to an intimate companion that he can find...no, the closest thing that he will accept. He won't humble himself to pay the price to have more.
Dream #2: Last night, as I prayed for clarity. Standing in the gap for so many as I see them walking in a relationship to You, Lord, that does not have that intimacy and open communication that we have. Wondering why I have it...why my husband has You leading him so pointedly through dreams...wondering as You tell us that You've already answered our question about the next step, and yet feeling like we still aren't sure what You want. Praying...praying last night that the restraint You show would move out of the way, that Your essence would become apparent to everyone. Feeling like you knelt to grip my shoulders as I slumped at Your feet. Hearing you say, "for now we must hold back." Then I ask: "but when the appointed time comes, You won't hold back, right?" Then the moment of power exposure. For the first time ever, I got a glimpse of what the ancient prophets saw that caused them to describe spirit beings with other than human characteristics, for you morphed into the lion I've heard You can be. Oh my vision was very limited. We are not in an age where such revelation is easily received, but even in that misty place, your face changed. The color went to a red similar to this, but not...I couldn't describe it really. The nose became enough like a snout to make me think bear, your "form" as it will be for that moment of battle, but mostly it was in your lion-eyes that startled me. The eyes had sufficient ferocity of power to match the devil crystal, yet You let him think he'll outsmart You, catch You in the net of Your own infallible law. His power you can easily match, the question is what strategy to employ while staying within the rules of the game. How amazing that You care to show us any of this. How can we matter enough for You to reveal this amazing game that is so much beyond our comprehension? How silly that we think we know so much. You were kind to me in that You only showed me Your warrior self for an instant. It was enough, I am confident of what can be there--what will be there--when the time comes.

When I think of these two brief encounters with power and how one day they will go head to head in plain view for everything that ever has or will be a living being, in front of the very earth itself...which has more sense than we do, for it aches and longs for this battle to be accomplished, as it will then be "healed"...when I consider these things, now that I've see both the good and bad power potentials that are currently hiding themselves to a degree, leaving us to make our decisions, I stand in awe. We go along obliviously, even going so far as to say that the higher reality is a sham and this image-place is the real world. One day we will all, like Neo in the Matrix, wake up to the truth. And like in the movie, there will be those who do not have the raw courage to face anything but life in the dream world. That, however, will not serve as an excuse. With our false senses of power we make the beds we will ultimately lie in, but not really so oblivious are we. We know good and bad as they are made evident in the uses of power. We know good from evil in the realm of force and justice, no matter what we may embrace as truth or falsehood. We all know when injustice happens, we recognize good and bad in the way power is wielded. When I think of the day when the greatest powers from beyond this universe will come out in the open, I laugh. What an ironic moment it will be for those who consider themselves to sit on "thrones" and reign over other people's lives in this day. To come into the presence of powers that--both the good one and the bad one--are so great that you can literally only collapse and hope that the right one catches you up...I feel like we play games with power like little kids play house or cops and robbers...Now my prayer has changed--instead of quit holding back--it is, Oh my God, get us ready before You do whatever You have planned to do.