Soul Matters, Book 2: Wrath of the Goddess
Prologue

Remember to welcome strangers into your homes.

There were some who did that and welcomed angels without knowing it.

(Hebrews 13:2)

Don’t wake up. Just hold yourself here in the dream world. Use passive awareness. Just listen and watch while I play around with your dreamscape.

You’ve been absent from my patio for months, Phil, and our project isn’t even part way finished. Your guardian angel informed me of your current shenanigans and asked me to intervene. It’s why I’m here; although, I must admit I’ve enjoyed your absence. But we are obliged to sacrifice our personal desires for the greater good. At least, it’s what we’re told by those evolved souls who get quoted all the time. How my sacrifice promotes goodness in your case, I haven’t a clue, but they also tell us we learn to do the right thing sooner or later. I think there’s some part of my mind not working as well as it should. I have trouble getting these things everybody up here seems to get, but why bother you with my troubles?

I did tell Sariel I planned to visit you in your dreams, so you don’t have to worry about internal affairs. This is an approved visit from your friendly, neighborhood Archangel Manuel.

Your guardian angel told me you’ve reverted back to the placid comfort of your renowned stupidity. Now it’s time you forsake it for the adventure of the Real.

In service of the lengthy project it’s bound to be, let’s dispense with your comfort zone first. Apparently, you’ve back with those literalists -- those who think the Bible is the infallible word of God. They hold the prophesies of the Bible will come true in a literal way, and those prophesies outline God’s firm purpose to give Man ample time to get it right before the end times: the Rapture, the Tribulation, Armageddon, the millennial Kingdom of Christ on Earth, and the final transformation of everything into the New Jerusalem.

You know why their agenda is stupid? Because it assumes fallen angels can’t read. Nor do they have free will. Really, Phil, why would any dark-side angel sign up to wage a war against heaven when it’s already a rigged game? When it’s already decided they will lose? When their sure destiny is to end up in a lake of fire for all eternity? Why, oh, why would they sign up for such a preordained plight?

Well, they wouldn’t do such a stupid thing. But the fuller answer is you, my recalcitrant friend, do not get to stay snuggled in your security blanket of fixed certainty. The future is nowhere as predictable as your goof-ball fundamentalist friends would have it. Now, there is a probable future you humans are working towards. It’s a remarkably ugly future to be sure -- right up there with the predictions about the Tribulations -- but there won’t be Christ’s return to save your sorry asses.

You’ll have to save yourselves, and I already told you how to do it. Compassion, social justice, commitment to the evolution of consciousness, taking care of Mother Earth and all her relations -- sort of obvious stuff, I know, but you seem to have a short-term memory problem. Let me hammer this simple fact home with an example. We’re going to dredge up a dream for you of something that happened a long time ago. By ‘we’ I mean your unconscious mind and me....

There we go. There’s the scene. We’re in ancient Israel during the time of the Prophets, specifically Jeremiah. See him. He’s the tall one in the gray robe walking alone through the hills of Judea. He was among the first to come into life trailing Clouds of Glory. It’s a euphemism meaning he didn’t fully succumb to reincarnation amnesia. He remembered where he came from. He took this to signify he was destined to be a Prophet. He took the job seriously. You can see it in his face -- all craggy and stern and whatnot.

During Jeremiah’s life, Babylon would conquer Assyria and the Jewish State. Of course, the Jews were in denial about the coming catastrophe, so Jeremiah spent a lot of time in jail for predicting it. The destruction of the First Temple occurred in 586 BC. After its destruction, he was dragged off to Egypt, instead of going into exile in Babylon, and there they finally killed him for what he had to say.

Today, though, it’s in between sieges of Jerusalem, and he’s running for his life again. The Jews think the Babylonians have gone home, which they have, but they’ll be back. Jeremiah has been telling them so, but they don’t want to hear it. He also told them there’s three things they must do to return themselves to God’s protection: 1) keep the Sabbath; 2) protect the weak; and 3) free slaves after six years. Making a treaty with Babylon wouldn’t hurt either.

Even so, his grander message is even scarier for folks to hear. He preaches individual responsibility. Each man is accountable for what he does, rather than blaming his fate on the sins of his father or whatever. Humans still have trouble with the whole responsibility thing. In fact, your escape attempt is fully bound up in running from your responsibility to yourself and to those who hold you in some kind of esteem. You, too, have a responsibility to the weak, the infirm, and to the remembrance of the Divine within each and every human being. But, no, you run full-tilt to the placebo of salvation. Just declare yourself a born-again Christian and -- poof -- you’ve trumped the whole game. You get a free pass to heaven, a get-out-of-hell free card, and to hell with everybody else. But I digress....

Okay, look at the folks Jeremiah is meeting with. They’re some of his friends who have come to smuggle him into town. He will be hiding for a while, but he can’t keep his mouth shut for long. In fact, he’s telling them what I want you to hear.

The dreamscape sharpened. The hills of Judea offered scant underbrush for the group to hide behind. Even so, they hurried toward a walled town.

One bearded follower, in a light yellow robe, says, “Master, your sermons are arousing the entire population against you. Even the king’s men are after you this time.”

Jeremiah answers, “We are a hard-headed race of men, but they must be made to listen.”

Another man says, “I cannot bear the persecution you endure. Please come with us so we may hide you until the mob calms down.”

“I do need rest,” Jeremiah’s voice is heavy.

The group of four walks in silence for a while, following the wall around the town to an unguarded door.

Presently, the third man, somewhat older than the other two, speaks, “Why is it our fate to be the Chosen of God?”

Jeremiah’s smile shows through his graying beard, and he answers, “Because we can hear the Voice of God. It is our lot to cultivate the conditions so all men can hear His Voice within themselves.”

“And when this condition is fulfilled, will Israel be free of this burden?”

Jeremiah stops and turns to them, “The Angel of the Lord said to me: when the heavens can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath us, then the children of Israel will be free of their burden.”

You can check this out for yourself in the Bible. The language is more stilted than it was when we were talking. But the citation is: Jeremiah 31:37.

So, Phil, that time is now. Modern science can do those things: map the sky to the edges of the Universe, and plumb the earth to its core. Mankind has fulfilled what the Prophet intuited. Reason has triumphed over Myth.

You see, Jeremiah was an avatar. He reached a much higher state than his fellows would for decades, even centuries, to come. He worked out the details and knew there must be an Age of Reason somewhere in Man’s future. What he failed to see was Reason would come with its own problems.

Those problems are the ones you struggle with, and lately you’ve given up the struggle by regressing back to the comfort-zone of fundamentalism. Sorry, but I can’t let you stay there. We’re bound together in some goofy way -- I think God likes messing with me, to tell the truth -- so I will be a plague on your dreams until you come back.

Phil stirred out of his passive witnessing of the vivid dream of the Judean hills, replete with the angel’s running commentary. He didn’t stir enough to wake up, however, but he was able to communicate with Manuel, “You were the Angel of the Lord that day. You told Jeremiah there would be a time when we could map the sky and the Earth.”

What’s that? You’re developing the ability to lucid dream? I didn’t think you had it in you.

“You were the Angel of the Lord who spoke to Jeremiah,” Phil charged as his awareness struggled to replace the right mix to capture consciousness in the dream state.

What if I was? It was still a true prophecy. He knew what I was talking about and interpreted it correctly, which is more than I can say for some of the other Prophets.

“Somehow, Manuel, I know you did this just to confuse me.”

You don’t need me to keep you in a confused state. You manage it well enough without my help. Besides, you weren’t even a gleam in your ancestor’s eye when I was walking with Jeremiah. Get over yourself, already.

Phil willed himself awake. His bedroom was dark. Betty snored softly beside him. Slowly he slid out from the satin sheets and tiptoed to the lavender-hued bathroom. A night-light provided him with enough light so he could hit the oval target of the commode without too much over-spray. Then he headed for his study.

The house was cool, and he grabbed a terry-cloth robe as he exited the bedroom. By the time he tiptoed down stairs and entered his study, he was sufficiently warm to perch himself on the large, black leather pillow across from his walnut desk.

Sitting cross-legged, he monitored his breathing for a time to calm his mind. He switched to his TM mantra to calm it further. Then he settled on the comforting internal resonance of, “Ah-um.”

His consciousness dropped further into a much deeper meditative state. Once there, only one reality was left to him: the Archangel Manuel’s garden in the world of Spirit.

He stared at the darkened doorway in his mind. Once he stepped through it, he was in the only place his meditations would now take him. For some inexplicable reason, he and Manuel were joined in the world of Spirit. Manuel, at least, did have a reason in their relationship, Phil remembered. The angel wanted desperately to get Phil out of his patio. To which end he taught Phil how to navigate in the realms of Spirit.

However, it was during those adventures Phil finally decided the better course of action was to never meditate again.

And now Phil was back, bullied into returning. He stepped through the singular door into Manuel’s patio.