A ringing in the darkness. A loud whisper. Other times a softer voice, beckoning me to follow HER into my childhood home or crystal caves or a secret place where I can breathe underwater in the dark.

The first time SHE tapped me gently was the night my paternal grandmother passed, offering me a road map to the inner realms. I wish I had known to sit up and take note. Map it out with watercolors. But that was more than two decades ago. Long before I knew who SHE was.

The second time, a decade later, I didn’t expect that SHE would become a HE. My step-father. Recently passed. Offering an apology and instructing me how to contact him should I need to get a message to the other side. You have nothing to be sorry for, I said. But that was in the past. Now it was about developing my ability to see and listen differently. To use all of my senses.

Today SHE mostly comes through images. Fragments. Pieces of a puzzle, which, if I’m paying attention, start to form a map of their own. A map of where the lost aspects of me have gone missing and where they can be found. A map of the future and what is to come. A map of how to navigate the interior landscape - the dream terrain - because despite what you may think, it’s possible to get lost there, just as it’s possible to lose our way in waking life.

Though HER shout is often quiet, I know how to trace my steps back when SHE calls. Back through the old familiar house. The crystal city. The underwater caverns. Back into my body just in time to turn on my head lamp and scribble it all down.