It was the evening of the cross-quarter day, the first new moon between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, when a powerful vision came to me. It marked the celestial clock as fall was winding down and winter gearing up.

I spent all day at the house with divine inventions. I had already cleansed, aligned, and staged my home with beeswax candles, delicate libations, and flowing music. I had smudged incense of sage throughout every room with my holy feather. The fire and stone circle I built still flamed outside in my yard; its wooden logs formed a point to Deneb, the bright star of the constellation Cygnus, the great Swan, gateway of souls to the northern realm of the immortals.

As my holy soma tea percolated with mint and barley, I journaled my thoughts, then crafted a prayer requesting only truth from the great force of existence, or to whoever could hear my prayer from the great realm from which all of life manifests.

Then, after some time, as the drum beats immersed me and the sound of the flute drew me into connection with my sacred space, the sun melted into red and orange ribbons behind the mountains, and the last light faded from my windows. 

Then, as I laid clean and quiet on my bed, a great stillness paralyzed me, I could not move. But I had no time to worry. My body went numb in three flashes when a buzzing gathered around my head like bees circling the crown. And beneath it rose a deeper sound, like the thunder and might of a roaring waterfall. Its vibrations began to swallow the room, the music, and every thought I tried to hold. And then a great force of wind pulled me out of my body and lifted me up. But strangely, I began to move inward into a dimension from which the material world emanated. Into a realm that preceded the physical earth we know, a kingdom that existed before the world was.

It was as if objects were somewhat dense around me, but mystical and translucent and shining full of colors, and many more colors, not all from our world. The wind bore me through a hidden passage, and two beautiful messengers of pure light and love appeared to accompany me. They communicated without words, and yet I understood them more clearly than speech. Their thoughts engulfed me as complete impressions, whole and shining, leaving no doubt in their message.

I saw the whole world and solar system from above, or from inside. And I hovered above it as one of the gods. And the two messengers with me opened my eyes to this realm while our planet glistened with seven colored seas and sacred clay.

They did not tell me why I had been brought there. But instead, they only requested me to observe, and so I did.

But it was not our world, though it was the same heavenly globe. It was our world before its name was Earth, the world before our world, in a time before a great destruction had taken both the lands and seas. Whether it was fifty thousand years ago or two hundred fifty thousand, I was not told. I knew only that it belonged to a time lost behind a curtain. A far land of temples, sea cliffs, rituals, old queendoms and kingdoms bound by sacred law, watched by stars, guided by rituals whose meanings our modern customs have forgotten.

Its overall nature was feminine. She was clean and blue, green and breathing, crowned with the love of eternal light and crystal clean waters. She glistened to my sight from inner space, with all of our stars and more, cleansed and nubile in an age long forgotten in a time far away.

And there on the face of the world was a lost ancient civilization standing in the last light of a golden age. It spread across the lands and world with superior technologies, simple yet more complex, organic in nature. 

But this world and its knowledge were evaporating behind a veil as I watched, soon to be lost to humanity. A prophetic atmosphere glowed through their lands. It was one of preservation for truth, fading as a barrier of destiny slowly pinned it away. There was a wall of ignorance building between mankind, and the eternal truth of the cosmos. But there was still hope of salvation for them, held in a single city. 

In the last holy city, where the celestial harmony of heaven and earth was still preserved, lived a beautiful young princess... the final heir to a civilization standing in the last light of a golden age.

It was as if the people's memories were fading, and they were becoming more a part of the land and less a part of their true cosmic nature from this inner field of consciousness. The field I watched from. 

As if a certain survival of knowledge was at hand in a fragile civilization, now headed for great change.

It was then that I understood all the religions of my world to be true at once, and yet every one of them, also false.

Then the beautiful messengers of light opened my sight further, and below me, I saw closely a beautiful young princess. And I knew her thoughts as if they were my own.

And I could see what she could see, but I could see much more. I could see around her with more clarity, sometimes reading into the thoughts of others she interacted with. And in rare moments, I knew what actions she would take before she took them.

As the princess sat before her vanity, perched on a beautifully carved wooden chair, finished in fresh black velvet, tufted with buttons, she spoke,

“This cuts deep, like a laceration to my heart. And to leave my life here is to die, and I would rather die, Goddess.”

The beautiful Princess lifted a finely carved ebony letter opener in prayer, its blade gleaming sharply, and admired her profile in the dresser mirror. Young Princess Vah, once adored, never imagined her parents would give her away twice. At age eleven, she was dedicated to the sacred mysteries. Now dwelling away from home, among priestesses in the holy temple, burrowed mountainside of majestic glass and heavy stone.

However, after just three years, they were sending her off again — in the midst of a rising pillar of horrid black smoke stretching to the sky’s ceiling, dividing like gods of chaos over the noble citizens. This second parting carried a heavier sorrow, one that felt colder and more final. Deep in her heart, feelings she couldn't name began to storm like wild horses.

She crudely slit the shoulder of her gardening jacket, where a small tear had begun to form. Setting down the tool, she ripped the sleeve open further with a tug of her hands and fingers.  

Voices of servants, townspeople, and volunteers rose that early morning from outside her chambers. Princess Vah soon caught echoes of distant shouts and murmurs as they climbed the hillside path, marching past the corner of her quarters. 

“We must escape, Goddess. You must help me,” she whispered to a pillar figurine resting on the dresser against the temple’s ancient stone wall. Clasping it tightly and to her lips, she continued, “Escape here, so we can stay here! It makes perfect sense. I need to find a scribe in the city, lover.”

A growing assembly of worried people now lined the slope to seek the King’s courtyard and next decree. 

The wise ones paused at the courtyard altar on her grassy knoll for a short breath or prayer grooming their thin silver hair and long thick beards. Some donated gold to the temple from deep pockets in their midnight purple robes. Each heavy coin clanked as it dropped into the rose-quarts depository.

​They continued faithfully beyond the priestess temple as they trekked along the winding, dusty, coarse-granite road. Its copper hue collected on each sandal and clung to their toes and ankles as they extended upward, and onward.

It wasn’t a hard journey, but a long one, up the hillside with effort.

At the top of the mount stood the royal Palace of Alcyone — all robust and commanding, it carried a powerful balance of feminine curves and masculine corners. Standing tall in endless fog, its godly soaring arches vanished into the clouds, a teasing illusion to the senses that seemed to prove its divinity.

Her gardening clothes would be necessary to disguise herself as a commoner, for the temple of the Goddess opened its courtyards to the people in great public rites of renewal held on many special days and nights throughout the year.

Such as every new and full moon, and certainly during the equinoxes, solstices, and their cross-quarter days.

​

The townspeople had gathered in the temple’s outdoor courts to witness the sacred dramas of life’s renewal—wedding rituals affirming that fertility and cosmic creation were divine forces moving through all things.

​

Everyone in the city knew her face well. She was their princess, their priestess-in-waiting, the one every soul had come to see beneath the temple’s shining gates.

But they were sending her away. Her training would be cut short, and she no longer knew what would become of her life.

While she contemplated the escape from her chambers to the inner city, Princess Vah could hear her two guards speaking outside her door.

“Ah, yes, the dawning of the age of the Great Lion. And Goddess willing, we may be alive to witness it.”

“It’s a divine omen. A sign of great change.”

They were twin brothers, hard for her to distinguish through the solid wooden door. But she knew them well.

“Yes, a sign of great change, maybe war, or the end of our age. What will become of us and the great age of Virgins?” The second guard responded. Who may have been the one a minute older, Castor.

Their words made her stomach tighten. She knew they spoke of the new sun. Amid the dispersing haze of smoke that veiled their expiring romantic sky, a second sun mysteriously appeared, resting upon the southern horizon of the valley.

“I’ve heard the princess will be sent far into the rugged mountain slopes, to live with Longsila.” One guard responded. Who may have been the one a minute younger, Pollux.

“That old legend? Yeah, well, nobody knows where that is, really, or if he exists at all. I’ve heard he’s nearly a thousand years old.”

“Ten thousand years old. I heard he went crazy, thinks he can walk through walls.”

“Nobody is ten thousand years old.”

“The Devī-Shakti are.”

“Oh yes, well yes, the Shining ones are indeed.”

“Have you ever met one?”

“A Devī-Shakti?”

“A Shining One? Well, either!”

“Not yet, but I’d make love to one.”

“Hell, we all would.”

“I intend to,” Castor responded.

The puzzlement of living with her old grandfather, Longsila—a silent man she barely knew, seized her throat with dread.

Knowing she couldn’t distract the guards long enough to slip out through the front door, Princess Vah turned her attention to the green atrium windows in her room. She pulled back the tall, wine-colored curtains, exposing seventy-two small panes interlocked with wooden slats — a wall of glass. She studied two large sections that had hinges, now peeling at the corners from old paint. And she tried to unlatch one of the fused handles, without success.

Then the letter opener crossed her mind, and she reached for it. With a growing desperation, she wedged its tip beneath the corroded latch, trying to pry it loose.

Her hand slipped as she applied pressure, causing her fist to shatter one of the windowpanes. As the glass cracked and splintered, pain flared brightly across her wrist. She reacted by jerking her hand back through the jagged hole, cutting herself again. Vah stared in shock at the blood for an instant before glancing toward her bedroom door—relieved the guards were still murmuring, apparently unaware of the sound.

Then, breathing hard, she assessed the damage and saw that the latch had come free. She studied the window and pushed it. As it swung upward, she propped it with one hand, slipping each foot through carefully and quietly.

Moments later, she was outside — across the northern courtyard, and in her gardening pants, over the brick wall.