Burning Man poster by Cory and Catska Ench.

“Occasionally something will capture your Dreammaker’s heart and you are given a numinous dream. You awake knowing you have come into contact with the presence of divinity. It’s important when receiving such a dream to take a step in the direction of its prompting, offering physical gratitude or a leap of faith, inviting the symbol to come on stronger. Soon, those numinous moments turn into hours, eventually days and, with enough fidelity to your path, a new life is born.” ~ Dreamwork with Toko-pa.

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I stumbled upon this powerful image and its accompanying text on Facebook about the same time I answered a question about Storyteller here on the Chrysalis website. (You can see the exchange here.)

In the above poster we see an embryo being transformed through a Third Eye experience by what we could call spiraling liminal energy. That would be the “energy of liminality” experienced in a hypnagogic state such as deep meditation or in a dream. It’s hypnagogic because experience of the numinous or divinity is considered a threshold or liminal experience. In the Chrysalis scheme of things, divinity is synonymous with your own Higher Self (destiny), or your transcendent Divine Child (sacred inner voice).

Regardless of terminology, the point is that such liminal states, whether they be sleeping dreams, waking dreams or dreams experienced during deep meditation, all originate in the same place. In Chrysalis, we call this originating place the Otherworld in order to simplify terms and grant weighty religious fiddle-faddle a wide berth.

The Otherworld is what was once known as the aether before general relativity came along. The Sanskrit word for aether is Akasha. The Otherworld, therefore, can be described as a quantum field or network of interdependent energy (information) possessing an infinite number of nodes and nexuses located throughout the cosmos that are capable of communicating with and inspiring all sentient beings, not through words but through symbols, archetypes, power animals, memories and imagination, etc. (Plus other people!)

That’s why we believe it’s important when using tarot to allow the ego-oriented conscious mind (self with a little s) to wander off and commune in the darkened forest with egoless unconscious intuition, imagination and inspiration (Self). That’s where “numinous moments turn into hours” and consciousness gracefully morphs into Higher Self.