Path of the Personal Divine Meditations

“Lewis Carroll-style Meditation I ”

"Finding the Ananda"

by Lucien D'Couer

copyright 1998, all rights reserved.

first performed 10/15/97

[This group meditation, performed in the fall season, is written in the style of Lewis Carroll. It explores various parts of the psyche and includes some dark images. The words will be unfamiliar. The idea is to have someone read it to you first. Simply listen to the sound the words create in your mind -- don't try to understand them. After the Meditation, you can read through it yourself, and then check the glossary for their definitions]

I want you to get as comfortable as you can, you may lie down, if you wish. Now, I want you to close your eyes, relax, breath in slowly, deeply, fully. Hold it a moment. Now release, deeply, fully. Allow your breathing to become the only thing you are aware of, for now. (We'll do this a minute, maybe two.) Listen to my voice & relax. Let my voice paint the darkness that you see...

At the edges of the darkness, glaisne fog, encroaches with an effleurage of its tendrils upon your eyelids. The etherial fingers, laughingly, playfully, entwine first your face, & then cascade all around you, until you gently float in its cloudesque warmth & comfort.

You slowly open your mind's eye to the lands of Gemynd's Troum. You have visited this place at other times, in other guises, by different names. You lie within a glade of Umbra trees, by a gurbleing crook. In the soft gloaming you feel the starry night pavane above your Sacellum.

This is a sacred place, one of your own portals to another world. The limpid water of the crook, smells so inviting, it seems to say, "Drink Me!". Which you fain do. At its touch upon your lips, you hear a Satori bird cry out from the trees above. But it cannot be seen, as it is hidden in the umbra of the trees.

You realize you can find your missing Ananda slithering somewhere in the Carrollinian Empire. Fortunately, your Ananda is different form anyone else's.

It is time to call your Fugle. It may take a moment, but it will come to you here, in this sacred place. It comes to you, eternally patient, eternally expectant, on your desire for Gnosis. With your Fugle's arrival you feel whole, or rather, more complete. You are ready to seek your Ananda.

Following your Fugle, you step over the crook of the Satori bird, & out of the Sacellum. Under the Umbra tree's skuggi leaves, you weave your way eastish. On paths darkly, you travail until Aurora peers over the horizon.

"Company! Harsh!!!", you hear. A stinging at the end of your nose brings tears, to your eyes as a Make-bate fluzzes before you, riding crop saltant. At the mini-martinet's orders, the loam bursts open & the air is thick with make-bates. Tiny individually, thier one voice, a cacophony of censure. "Stop right there! Yes, I mean You! I trust you just Must have better things to do! You should leave at once! Who do you think you are!? Why should you be happy? This time you've gone too far!". "You must follow the rules & be like us; Now stay where you are & don't make a fuss...I promise to God, this won't hurt. Much."

Gesticulating wildly, with four little arms, the Make-bate leads his army of zillions to swallow you whole. Until there is almost none of "You" left to be seen. But the make-bates cannot see your Fugle, & while they try to crawl into your mind to attach thier marionette webs, your Fugle mimics the cry of the Satori & all the make-bates fluzz off post haste, as the charivari of its songs are as painful to them, as thier noise is to you. You find yourself...much more, You now. In ways you didn't realize before, as you find the dangling ends of cut cords.

You travail on until mid-day, & stumble upon a rath. Tall greeds line either side of the rath. It is seldom travailed but heads past you, in your direction. A large Phaeton, with hooves like suns, glissades up to you. "Where do you leave to?", asks the Phaeton, as it cavorts - to keep from burning too many greeds in any one place.

"Leave to?", you reply. I'm hunting my Ananda & think it is on this rath."

"Hrmmm. You're probably right. But you walk too slow, I've six legs more & know where to go!", grins the golange Phaeton. So you scrambre up the soleil Manes of the Phaeton, who takes off like the wind. In a more or morer westerly direction. "Oh, No!", you cry, "You're taking me the wrong way! This is where I came from!". The Phaeton stares, with tell tale eyes & laughs an evil laugh, "You trust to another, that which you must travail for yourself, & this is where you leave to!"

You have long since passed the Umbra trees. You see the fiery land of Muspel coming up swiftly before you, & look back to see your Fugle giving chaise. The Fugle begins an eerie, three-toned glottaled note.

From over the horizon raises arabesque, the huge, argent, Python with falcate horns. Between her horns is tiny Mantis, who speaks for her.

Phaeton rears & throws you, its rider to the greeds. After the heat of near disaster, the comfort of the greeds almost enslaves you with their aromatic allure, when you "hear" the tacit "voice" of Python, through Mantis. "Child, you've asked for me?". Your Fugle gently draws you away from the soft & comforting greeds. "Yes Mother.", you reply. Mantis flies down from Python & alights upon the crown of your head. "I've taken the rath of another & am further from my Ananda than I've ever been before."

Mantis casually plucks out & eats a stray web or two before replying. "You are always where you need to be, in order to become the person you are."

You see Python "swim" like a great eel through Aether, chaising Twilight with her scintillating hair, chaising Phaeton. You feel silly talking at the top of your head but say, "I need your help in finding my Ananda."

(I want you to repeat that to yourself three times.)

Mantis replies, "Do you know what your Ananda is called? The first thing you must do is give your Ananda a name, before you can see what it looks like. But I warn you, it will bite you when you've named it, & its venom will be a fever in your blood, for the rest of your days. Sickness will descend upon you, if you do not get bitten often enough. So make sure you are willing to pay the price, before naming your Ananda."

After awhile of thought, your Fugle, carries you above the greeds & sets you beside the drivers seat of the chaise. "It is time to wend our way home.", says your Fugle. "If you follow your Ananda long enough, it will lead you to the Afflatus. After that, they will lead you to sacred Samadhi.". Mantis nods her head in agreement, while eating one of your hairs like spaghetti. "Those are journeys for another time."...says Mantis, "Blessed Be, my child.". Mantis flies into the vaporous, sapphire sky, & is lost as a mote in the great argent glow of Python.

The Fugle chaises you down the rath until you draw along side of the Umbra wood. Its helps schlep you past the skuggi leaves, that would drink your chi, in the cold of Dawn, until you break into the Sacellum.

There are many beings & creatures, arriving & lying down, just as you are.

Somewhere, a Bandersnatch begins to frume. A sleepish, magical darkness swallows the picture whole. There is just you now, the darkness, your breathing & my voice. I want you to follow the sound of my voice & as you do, I want the darkness to fade away. I am going to count from ten to one, and as I do so, I want you to ease yourself back into the Here, & Now. 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3....2...1.

Dah-neh hoh.

GLOSSARY:

compiled by Guide Lucien D'Couer

(Complete with, & cluttered by exraneous, Id escapees.)
Words appear in order of their appearance.

  1. Glaisne: An Irish word, meaning "grey"; I thought of it because my daughter is playing an elf Ley Line Walker, in our "Rifts" campaign, named Glaisne. Glaze-knee.
  2. Effleurage: Derivative of a French word, meaning "to stroke, as one would a flower"
  3. Tendrils: From medieval French, meaning "shoot, sprout, cartilage"'; It is used here as if it meant slender, delicate, outstretched & reaching tentacles. (P. S. I am not a Rishi... 8P )
  4. Rishi: From Hindu, meaning "an inspired sage or poet"
  5. Etherial: From Latin, meaning "light, airy or tenuous"
  6. Gemynd: From Old English, meaning "memory, remembrance, mind"; it is used here as Mind
  7. Troum: From Old High German, meaning "dream"; used here as Dream
  8. Umbra: From Latin, meaning "shade, shadow"; used here as a shadowy apparition
  9. Gurbleing: Carrollinian, a composite of gurgleing + burbleing
  10. Crook: Carrollinian, a composite of creek + brook, with the implication of being twisty
  11. Gloaming: From Old English, meaning "twilight, dusk"
  12. Pavane: French derivative of an Italian word, referring to a specific 16th century dance, in France, but used here to mean "a stately dance"
  13. Sacellum: Derivative of the Latin, meaning "shrine", used in its ancient Roman meaning of "a shrine open to the sky"
  14. Limpid: From Latin, meaning "clear", used here with the connotation of purity as well.
  15. Fain: From Old Norse, meaning "happy", used here as "willingly &/or gladly"
  16. Satori: From Japanese, meaning "to awaken", used by the Zen as "sudden enlightenment"
  17. Ananda: From Sanskrit, meaning "joy, happiness", used in Hinduism as "perfect bliss"
  18. Carrollinian: "like the works of Lewis Carroll", It doubles as a pun on Mangy Charles's Carolingian. But you Knew That. ;>
  19. Fugle: Derivative from German, meaning "flank" but translates as "to act as a guide or model" Too, I really like that Fugle rhymes with bugle...don't know why... *Chuckle*
  20. Gnosis: Derivative of the Greek meaning "a seeking to know" & used as "a knowledge of spiritual matters; mystical knowledge"
  21. Skuggi: From Old Icelandic, meaning "shade, shadow" & used here as "primal soul"
  22. Aurora: From Latin, meaning "Dawn", She is the Roman personification of the Dawn
  23. Make-Bate: Derivative of the Medieval English word, "baten", meaning "to fight, strive" & used as "a person who causes contention & discord"
  24. Fluzzes: Carrollinian composit of flies + buzzes
  25. Saltant: From Latin, meaning "dancing, leaping & jumping"
  26. Martinet: From French Gen. Jean Martinet, meaning "a strict disciplinarian, esp. a military one"
  27. Loam: From Old English, here meaning "rich soil", implies soft & black
  28. Cacophony: From Greek, meaning "harsh discordinance of sound"
  29. Censure: From Latin, meaning "strong or vehement expression of disapproval"
  30. Gesticulating: From Latin, meaning "to make or use gestures, esp. in an animated or excited manner with, or instead of, speech"
  31. Charivari: French derivative of the Greek word, which seems to have had the same meaning as Cacophony. I recall seeing this word used to describe, "a light & musical, tinkling, like unto that of bells " & that is how I am using it here. Willy Nilly, regardless of seemliness. :P
  32. Rath: Carrollinian composite of road + path & from Old Norse, meaning "quick, active" (of growing plants) used as "blooming" & Old Irish, meaning "fort(ification), town, or home"
  33. Greeds: Carrollinian composite of grass + weeds, meaning "self-absorbed temptations"
  34. Phaeton: From Latin, a variation of Phaethon, meaning "a light four wheeled carriage"
  35. Phaethon: From Greek, meaning "to shine". Phaethon was a son of Helios, who borrowed the chariot of the sun & drove it so close to the earth, Zeus had to strike himdown to save the earth.
  36. Glissades: From French, meaning "to slip, slide", used here as "a sliding or gliding step"
  37. Cavorts: From North America, meaning "to prance or caper about"
  38. Golange: Carrollinian composite of gold + orange.
  39. Scrambre: Carrollinian composite of scramble + clamber.
  40. Soleil: From French heraldry, meaning "like the sun", as represented by a Sun surrounded by 8 wavy rays, the Cardinal points of which are 3 times longer than the waves pointing NW, NE, SE & SW"
  41. Manes: From the Roman word manus, meaning "good", & used here as "the souls of the dead; shades"
  42. Tell tale: Edgar Allan Poe allusion, meaning here, "cold, dead, & watery blue, eyes".
  43. Muspel: An allusion to Muspelheim, Norse land of Fire Giants (which for them is in the south).
  44. Chaise: From French, meaning "chair", used as "a two wheeled, light open carriage"
  45. Glottaled: From Greek, meaning "tongue", used, (loosely) as "from the back of the throat"
  46. Arabesque: From French, meaning "in the Islamic style", used as "a sinuous, spiraling, undulating, or serpentine motif"
  47. Argent: Derivative of Latin, meaning "silver", here implicating with moon-white aura too.
  48. Python: From Latin/Greek, meaning "prophetic", used here as "a spirit or demon" & as "a person who is possessed by a spirit & prophesies by its aid" & as "a large dragon who guarded the Delphi chasm, from which prophetic vapors emerged" (Please Note: Python, as presented here, has the form of an Iroquois Serpant person.)
  49. Falcate: From Latin, meaning "sickle shaped"
  50. Mantis: From Greek, meaning "of a soothsayer, prophetic"
  51. Tacit: From Latin, meaning, "to be silent", used as "understood w/o being openly expressed"
  52. Aether: From Greek, meaning "burning", used here as "the personification of the clear upper air of the sky"
  53. Scintillating: From Latin, meaning "to send out sparks", used as "animated; vivacious; effervescent" & (loosely) multi-colored.
  54. Afflatus: From Greek, meaning "a breathing on", used as "divine communication of knowledge"
  55. Samadhi: From Sanscrit, meaning (in Hinduism & Buddhism), "the highest stage in meditation, in which a person experiences oneness with the universe"
  56. Schlep: From Yiddish, meaning "to trudge, to carry, or lug"
  57. Chi: From Chinese qi, meaning "breath", used here, not only as Vitae, but "Vitae concentrated & made accessible by Will"
  58. Frume: Carrollinian, meaning "grumbling, growling & smoking" (smoking like Morticia Addams)
  59. Dah-neh hoh: From Iroquois, meaning "That is all", & traditionally said at the end of every story.
  60. Drivel: From Old English, meaning "childish, silly, or meaningless talk or thinking; nonsence; "twaddle", used here as "this entire meditation"
  61. Masochist: From L. von Sacher-Masoch, meaning "gratification gained from pain etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification", used here as "Any of you still reading this Glossary!"

Created by Guides Chandonn, Hypatia X, and Sophia X Pharou

Last modified: 06/20/2009