The Terrain Between Lives

by Maryphyllis Horn

One of the most profound exercises in Sandra Ingerman’s “Death, Dying and Beyond” workshop, was to “see the destiny of all souls,” a shamanic journey to the Between-Life realm. I recognized that first journey as the memory of an experience directly preceding my current life.

General Terrain
When I started the journey, I clairaudiently heard a deep penetrating gong sound three times. Spirit said that was the signal to the guiding angels that someone was about to cross over and that they should hurry to the person’s side. As the angels rushed in, I felt overwhelming love and unconditional acceptance. They lifted me up through the ethers ever higher and higher…all the while exuding love. The life-review began at this time. Every so often I felt something heavy leave me and fly unerringly off to the future. What flew off was an unfinished issue that would be waiting for me to work on in a future life. It seemed logical, OK, and in divine order.

After what seemed like a long time, we arrived at the shore of a huge body of water  which sometimes is called the “Indigo Sea” or the “Sargasso Sea”. This was the beginning of the Between-Life realm. On the other side of the sea and somewhat to the left was a large island with a massive mountain in its center. The configuration of the landscape was uncannily reminiscent of Macchu Picchu, an ancient Inca ceremonial ruins in South America.

The angels set me down on the beach next to a man who identified himself as a spirit guide. We entered the sea and slowly swam over to the island, all the while talking about the life I’d just left. At one point, it actually felt like we were in the water for three weeks. My guide said we would not leave the sea until everything from my life was addressed. Occasionally something left me, and I knew it would be healed by the waters before being sent off to the lifetime best suited for dealing with it.

Finally, we arrived at the island. Another guide met me there and pointed to two routes I could take for my next lifetime. He said that I would learn exactly the same thing either way I went, and asked me to choose. One way led down a hill to a quaint village with a cobblestone road. If I chose that path, my lessons would come through “hands on” experiences with family members and village relationships. The other path rose steeply to the top of the mountain where there was a university and church setting.  If I chose that path, my lessons would come through intense mental and spiritual studies. I would be much more alone.

I chose the latter, and he sent me directly to the university to begin preparing for my next life. I focused on a huge library that carried information about everything possible to learn and a large church for spiritual studies. It felt like I was there for a very long time. I loved the studies and my close relationships. When a messenger came to take me to the birthing platform, I didn’t want to leave. There were still some aspects of
my coming life for which I needed to prepare. She said those would be dealt with in the life itself because they were part of my karma.

The descent to the birthing platform was as steep as an Olympic ski-jump, and I felt intense fear of falling. I called out, and angels rushed in to gently waft me down through the etheric planes. They explained that if I were meant to die as an infant, there wouldn’t be many angels at this point. Since I was meant to live to adulthood, many angels accompanied me both at this time and during my coming life. They took me to a small platform suspended in dark space, where I received my last-minute instructions prior to being born. A dark-hooded being on the left gave warnings, and a white diaphanously-robed angel on the right offered words of hope for the future. I jumped through the open door between them and floated down the chute, down  through the spheres to the physical dimension, into the hospital’s labor room to be born.

Additional Components
After Sandy’s workshop was over, I journeyed to the “destiny of all souls” ten more times. Each time the experience was different, and I saw them as if they had happened to me. The experiences related below flesh out more of that Between-Life realm.

Sea of Fire
In one of these journeys, the angels bypassed the watery Indigo Sea by the beach, carrying me up to a higher dimension where there was an identical sea and mountain-island. This one, however, was a sea of fire instead of water. The angels said that when someone leads a life consistently attuned to Spirit, imparts wisdom to others and is undaunted by adversity, much like Mother Teresa, they are taken here. Errors still fly off, but instead of flying to a future lifetime, they are transmuted by the fire. This is a gift from Spirit because the errors made were miniscule in number and consequence, in comparison to the massive amount
of beauty and service given to others.

“Hell”
It’s possible for people to refuse the angels’ love on the way up from the life. However, when the ascent is aborted, they stay at that very point of rejection. Aggressive angels are called in to help them release resistance. I saw angels fly into several souls’ bodies to discover what triggered their resistance. Emerging back outside again, they picked fights, taunted and cajoled with the very words that would get the souls to give up resistance to love. What I witnessed did indeed seem like “hell”. One man’s resistance seemed to go on forever. Finally he escaped to a series of small cubby holes inside a ledge below the lake and island, crawled into a fetal position and fell into a twilight sleep that seemed to go on forever … millennia even. Then “one day” the question came to his mind, “Are you tired of this yet?” He assented, and began floating up to the lake top. With each waft upward he felt more and more the heavenly love and vitality that was waiting for him all along.

Earth-TV
Another journey revealed a different view from the beach. If I turned left, I’d again be at the watery sea. But now to the right I noticed a ring of chair-stools with attached TV screens hanging in mid-air. Some of the people sitting at these stations were perusing different lifetimes to decide what they wanted to do next. Others could tune in on minute current happenings on Earth, but they couldn’t choose what they watched nor could they intervene with prayer. The latter had chosen selfish-suicide as their death-means, and were required to watch the effect of that on their loved ones … up until their Spirit’s originally intended time of death.

Genius
In another experience, when I landed on the beach I was guided not toward the sea but straight forward to a cliff. The angels floated me down to “The City of the Gods” in a cavern far below. Here, all things are possible. Here is where souls go to prepare for a life of Genius. Intellectual development, daring, and detachment are crucial for that. Residents interact with each other in intellectual discourse and debate while also constantly striving for perfection in their area of interest.

When the time was near for rebirth, I was swept upwards by a tunnel of love and powerful emotions to a lava-rock type of terrain and told to wait. It seemed like I was waiting forever! I could feel my emotions becoming more and more intense and impatient, wanting to “get on with it.” Spirit said this was “passion” building. A genius has to have the intellectual acumen and the passion to stick with his endeavor, to be able to see it clear through to fruition.

Mental Hospital
In my last journey, I asked specifically just to be shown around the terrain, to see anything not yet revealed. My guides showed me a stone tower in an isolated part of a muddy rocky landscape. At the top of it was a mental hospital. People were taken there when they refused to face what they’d done wrong or couldn’t heal from guilt. Souls who had committed terrible crimes to humanity (like Hitler or Manson) were asleep much of the time. Nurses and doctors tended to them, little by little helping them to see what they’d done … to the extent they could face it. Others, who were consumed with guilt over their lifetime’s failings, small or large, were gently counseled until they could forgive themselves. Regardless of what any of these souls had done, when they got to the point of accepting all aspects of their previous life, they could proceed on with Between-Life instruction.

Eternity
You may have noted in the above stories the repeated reference to “an interminable” amount of time. That is what it felt like during the journey. Yet the Between-Life realm is outside of time and space, and the journey actually took only ten minutes! I prefer to think of “Eternity” as a spiritual “realm” that is immersed in the sense of immense time but by no means confines a person to an experience that can never change.

© 2007 Maryphyllis Horn. Maryphyllis Horn, M.Ed., Rev., is a shamanic practitioner who has had a private practice in shamanic counseling and healing in Pittsboro since 1995. She studied with numerous Native Americans, Michael Harner, Sandra Ingerman, Tom Cowan and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. From then on, her own spirit guides
have been her primary healers and instructors. She is certified in spiritual hypnotherapy, past-life regression, Thought Field Therapy, genonetics, and pastoral counseling. (919) 542-0260, www.soulshaman.com