NMR ISSUE 43

Antilion Fly, Abalone & Grouse
Astrological Forecast 43
Chant for the Goddess
Colm and the Unicorn
Dark Passages
Editorial 43
Esoteric Symbology of the Tarot
Evolution
Healing for Mild Depression
In the Fire
Meditation
Meditation is the Key
Midsummer's Eve
Mouse
Namaste Part I
Pathworking
Ravel Magick
The $ Word
The Deserted Castle
Working with Your Shadow, II

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The Deserted Castle

By Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki

Prepare yourself for the pathworking by relaxing and stilling the mind. See the image of your body within this room and watch the separation of the astral form from the physical. Build the image with a gray robe and leather belt and sandals. Now turn your attention to the door in the opposite wall and see it come into sharp focus. Push your consciousness into the astral form and feel it take root there, then open your eyes and look at the door. Get yourself used to being in the astral, then cross to the door and turn the key. Open it and go through.

You find yourself walking along a woodland track, just after a shower of rain. The trees have been freshly washed and their scent fills the air. The grass too adds its perfume, and the wild flowers. Everything seems new and fragrant. Feel the dampness as your robe gathers the excess rain from leaves and bushes, and your feet become wet as you walk through the long grass. It is not cold, but it is slightly clammy and misty. You are not sorry when you come to the end of the woodland and see before you, rising up from the rocky landscape, a castle. It is everything a castle should be, it has turrets and castellated walls, a great stone gate served by a drawbridge over a moat filled with water in which fish are swimming.

You walk closer and closer until the walls are towering above you and you can see the gray stones and the tiny narrow windows. The drawbridge is up, but as you come to the edge of the moat, it begins to lower, the wheels being turned as if by invisible hands. It settles onto the bank just at your feet with a thud. You can see no one, but your curiosity is aroused and you cross over into the outer courtyard of the castle.

As soon as you enter, the drawbridge is pulled up, startling you and making you wonder if you have been wise in entering this strange place. You walk across the deserted yard, past a tilting court and a water trough. You can see a row of dog kennels with straw in them, and on the other side some small doors. Ahead of you there is an archway leading into the inner castle green, a stretch of grass bordered by flowers, with small fruit trees here and there. A graveled path leads right around it and up to a huge door of paneled wood with hunting scenes carved on it. You think this must lead into the castle itself and step up to knock on the door.

The sound echoes round and round, and emphasizes the emptiness and deserted quality of the whole place. Gathering up your courage you push against the door and it begins to open. Before you is a vast hallway with stairs that climb up to a midpoint then branch out into two stairways that go up on either side. All around the hall are doors leading into various rooms. The one straight ahead and behind the stairway leads into the Great Hall. This is vast and has a high ceiling with tall pointed windows running down either side. In the center is a fire pit with a spit for roasting fixed above it. On either side are long wooden tables elaborately carved at each end. Wooden benches have been placed on either side of each one.

At the top of the hall on a raised step is another table, smaller but again beautifully carved. This has matching chairs facing the hall, two much larger and higher than the rest, and all covered with crimson velvet and provided with soft cushions. The floor has been covered with fresh straw in which are mixed flowers and herbs. From the ceiling hang wooden chandeliers that carry about fifty candles each. Everywhere is clean and swept as if waiting for someone to come at any minute.

You decide to explore further, to one side of the Great Hall are the kitchens. They are well stocked with utensils of every kind, all neat and clean. Beyond the kitchen are storerooms, empty but ready. You go from room to room looking and searching for anyone who might be there, but there is no one. Upstairs the rooms are richly furnished with hangings and tapestries. Some of them look out onto tiny walled gardens filled with flowers. The turrets hold little rooms filled with sunshine, in one there are many musical instruments, in another a loom and a spindle and a tapestry frame. In a carved box there are skeins of variously colored wools and silks. In a larger turret room there are many books and paintings. Each one holds different aspects of life in the castle. Finally you come to a locked door and wonder if the key on your belt will unlock it. It does, and when you open the door you are dazzled by the sight of silks and satins and velvets, clothes of every kind and for every season. There are carved boxes of jewelry too, as well as swords, daggers and everything a man or woman could wish for.

At last you find your way onto the castle ramparts that look out over the land down to the wood on one side, over mountainous country on the other. To the East there are parklands that obviously belong to the castle and beyond them fields and just a glimpse of village houses. To the West is a river broad and swift and in the far distance you can see the gleam of the sea. You wish there were someone you could ask about this place.

There is, you can ask me. The voice startles you and you turn to find a man standing behind you. He is not very clear, rather misty, but he encourages you to correct this.

Just picture me as you need me to be. I am the castle Seneschal, I shall look after all your needs and those of the castle itself, but you must see me as you wish me to be.

You concentrate hard, and gradually the figure becomes real. He is dressed as you have decided he must be dressed, he looks as you want him to look. His name is the one you give to him. The castle is named as you decide.

The Seneschal tells you that this is your castle, and all that is in it is yours as well as the lands as far as you can see. But if you want people around you, then you must imagine them into being first. This will take you a long time, but each new person must have a reason for being there. Together you go down to the Great Hall and there your new friend and servant helps you to bring into being cooks and kitchen servants, guards for the castle, messengers and house servants, gardeners and maids.

At last it is enough for this time, there is still a lot to do, but it must wait until another time. You say goodbye to the Seneschal at the drawbridge; he assures you that he will look after the castle while you are gone, and that when you return you can work on further projects. He directs you to a small door in the castle wall just outside. To your delight you see it is the same door by which you entered this world, and once opened you find yourself once more within the room that holds your physical body. You close and lock the door, then take the astral body to stand before the physical. Withdraw the mental self, and allow the astral to melt into the physical body. Then let it pull your mental awareness into the body as well. Feel the floor beneath your feet, the chair or cushion beneath you. Allow the sounds of this world to become real and slowly awaken in your own time.

World-wide Copyright 1994, to Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki