Sliding down the familiar root system from the bright light of midday in the middle world, into the dusky dimness of a foggy morning in the Otherworld, was at first a relief, then suddenly painful as a flood of light crashed directly into my eyes.
For a moment it blinded me like headlights suddenly appearing around a curve on a deserted night-time highway, then I dropped onto the shores of the crystal clear blue lake where I'd been many times before.
I stripped off my clothes, ran into the water and swam like a dolphin playing, eyes open to its cool healing powers.
When I finally surfaced, I lay on my back floating spread eagle, watching my heart link-up with the Sun.
It was automatic, almost timed.
The Sun floated in heavens so empty, they reflected the turquoise clarity of my lake.
The heat of the sun warmed my skyward skin gently, yet like the searing pain of an ice pick, an energy stalactite bore straight into my chest.
Maybe that's exactly how an ice pick penetrating skin, then bone and viscera, feels.
I was readying to scream in agony when someone called to me from under the water, tugging at my feet and my arms.
Pulling me down, we submerged together passing through a few different mini-temperature zones.
I followed her until we were close enough to the bottom where I could see a spring bubbling up from under the band of freezing winter water currents we seemed to be trapped within in that moment.
A striking contrast to the beam of light and surface waters topside where I floated easily, this water was heavy, pressing us down onto the sandy floor of the lake.
I rubbed my chest, thankful at least, for that passing memory.
No more pain.
Everything I felt was sensual down there and there was nothing to see.
With my eyes closed, I could feel the temperate flush of water pumping out of the spring.
It was both a surprise and a luxury bath caressing me underneath the ceiling of cold just above.
My skin relaxed, its pores opening a revolving doorway to flush-out and re-nourish, welcoming this fluidic charge of life force.
In here, my long lost felt-sense reawakened like never before.
Just as I was beginning to disappear into my surroundings, she tugged at me again and we dove directly into the spring, coming up for air inside some caves filled with long hanging crystals.
Again, I was reminded of stalactites and stalagmites, although these were not gray, dingy or bumpy like those made from dribbles of dirty wet sand like a castle turret created at the line between beach and sea.
Rather, their finely honed, hexagonal, multiple edges were between six and 20 feet long, all quartz-like filled with phantom scenery.
Looking in from the outside, it appeared very magical and not temporary at all, unlike the sandy limestone architecture of middle world cave formations or even the oily mortar of beach castles.
When I stood near one of the largest, I felt strangely pulled inside a glass column.
"Was I half in and half out?" Looking down at my body, I could see that I was most certainly in the crystal, yet I saw that I also remained standing outside.
The me inside the crystal knew I was in both places; the me outside the crystal looked around as though I'd no idea the other me even existed.
I didn't want to leave this new realm, yet a path glowing in the distance beckoned me to walk its curves.
My elusive guide was right behind me this time, urging me forward and upward.
Candles lighting the edges outlined its spiral course along and around the sides of the cavern.
I now looked down from high above the crystal forest.
As we walked, we found colorful cloths which we tied around our waists like skirts, now only topless as we made our way along the ever climbing pathway.
At some point I jumped down from a ledge on the side of the trail, endlessly falling on my back face up, and then over onto my belly, face down.
Falling faster with every foot I travelled, my hair flew upward; at first around my face, then up and behind, taking the corners of my eyes into my temples and the corners of my mouth into my cheeks with the velocity.
After a while my body turned and I dove head first into the air around me, eventually surfacing up from out of the deep in the turquoise clarity of my lake.
Dripping wet and naked, I saw my male Indian guide standing at the edge of the forest.
I walked shyly towards him, staring into those sunlit windows in his eyes.
We were the same height now, unlike all the times before when I felt tiny in comparison.
I asked him why he sent me here, and there.
"Who was the woman in the water and what was I supposed to learn," I demanded information.
I was tired and I also knew there was something more, something I hadn't yet discovered on my journey.
I stalled and wasted time as I coated him with even more questions.
"I don't understand the double reality in the crystals.
Please tell me more, I want to learn!" "No talking," he said it softly and I sighed much louder, almost rolling my eyes because he says these words so often.
This time an open left palm held to his face covered his mouth, sealing his own lips, maybe because I couldn't seal my own.
"Now go, you are being called home.
"