Winter Lands Sanctuary

Ice spirits, crystal transporter pads, rainbow mirrors, dreaming rooms, gothic windows into other dimensions - take a trip to a very different place, a locus that is well known to song and tale - these are the realms of Superman's Fortress of Solitude, the Snow Queen's ice palace, and where Father Christmas has his magic workshop.

Silvia reports on an expedition using the First Sanctuary meditation.

On the playlist just now there came up the First Sanctuary test from last night.

And as I was about to shut down, I lay back in the chair and smiled and thought, the time of year is winter ...

... and the time of day is night ...

... and to my amazement, I recognised the locus.

I've been here before! It's that place from Ice River, where there are the "sleepy things, snug and safe in timeless slumber"!

I wonder why I was sent here?

The house ...

It grew from the ancient ice upon which I am standing (and hey, well done Silvia to make the comment to be comfortable in those surroundings! The fur boots happily materialised immediately, as did the Ermin cloak and hood!), elegantly and beautifully, like crystals do in time lapse photography, forming a beautiful shape, like a fairy castle, but not big, very manageable proportions and very pretty.

Features?

Mirror windows, gothic, amazing.

Reflecting not the landscape but something else and something beyond, like the cover of Enchanted - another reality full of life and coloured lights, and stars.

The door.

Not tall, tall enough for me though and wide enough too, gothic arch shaped in fabulous proportions.

Similar material to the windows but like a rainbow mirror, waves of colours washing down it perpetually, not hard yet entirely impenetrable.

I raise my hand and it passes straight through - the house recognises me and wants me to enter.

Inside, it is - amazing.

Snug, dark yet lit with colours that dance in the walls which are not of ice; they are not cold. There are rooms from a central circular entrance halls with a spiral staircase going up, and these look out on amazing vistas, not at all the Winter Lands in which this castle stands but undersea, in space, another dimension ... I catch glimpses of seats and comfort, strange living machines like shells ... oooh ....

Upstairs, I sense travelling and dreaming rooms.

And there is a downstairs too ... oooh ....

There is no back exit, so I step out through that rainbow curtain and back into the Winterland which lies incredible, sparkling and vibrantly alive.

An ice well forms, and amazing it is too, steam swirling from it ...

The transporter pad is also made of ice crystal, grows into those same gothic arches for the gazebo. I'm just amazed and cannot wait who would come to visit here!

Inside the force field, there is a swirling, white with sparkles, an ice spirit has come to be my personal guide to the winter lands. It manifests as a semi-person, but that's only to make me comfortable; they really don't have a body at all and normally would be invisible. I am delighted to meet this ice spirit and blow it a kiss before I return them to where they came from.

Oh, and the wishing well!

Ohmygoodness!

This is just - unbelievable.

It is made of ice and it's like a portal into what is beneath - there is a liquid substance in there that isn't water and thus it cannot freeze.

The coins in the bowl are also amazing - they are of a bluish hue, like the most ancient ice, lit up from inside, and there is a sweeping design that reminds me of the ice spirit.

My heartfelt wish is to understand this place, to be at home here and KNOW it intimately, and that is really so in every way.

Wow.

I'm just amazed at this - I didn't expect anything like this.

Ah but there's something so fantastic about this place, and this is so exciting - I must go and speak to the Ice Spirit, look around the castle and that land ...

New worlds, old worlds, wow I love this stuff!


Joyfully yours,

Silvia Hartmann