A recent visit to the Convent of Christ, a bastion of the Knights Templar in Tomar, thrilled with its sculptural ornamentation.

Gothic pinnacles, the heraldic cross, the virgin with child, and decorations of nautical inspired themes all presented in a rope-tangled, finely chiseled harmony of Manueline style.

To share a little nugget of history, the Knights Templar were crusading knights, holy warrior monks who fought in some of the most bloody battles during the middle ages. With an initial humble intention, they were founded originally to protect pilgrims traveling around Christian sites of worship in Jerusalem.

Over the period of two centuries, they developed into a very wealthy, elite organisation of military force, worshipping and bludgeoning their way through the Middle ages as the pope and rulers sought to extend the range of Christianity through the crusades.

By combining monastic dedication with chivalrous duty and chainmail chic, they attracted the monetary gifts and support of many noble fans. Over some time, they ceased to be primarily a fighting organization and went on to broaden their mandate beyond faith-related activities into finance and swiftly became the leading money handlers in all of Europe.

Yes, chew on that for a second.

As they became more worldly and more decadent, some of the very same king and clergy fans began to boil with hatred and jealousy and proceeded to arrest, torture, and burn most of them at the stake. But only after they elicited and extracted confessions of sacrilegious practices to suit their needs.

Nine centuries after they were formed, the Knights Templar continues to both inspire and fuel a myriad of conspiracy theories and narratives. Some proudly honour them for their brave service in honour of Christ while others suspect them to be the foundation that birthed the Illuminati, Freemasons, and a New World Order deeply rooted in the occult and racialised medievalism.

With an ongoing influence in the modern-day movie and video game franchise, I wondered what impression the Knights Templar would ignite in my subconscious with their romanticised, championed vision of history tinged with the grammar of conspiracy theory and the scatterings of peculiar aesthetics. Aesthetics that unfortunately are currently mobilised in the service of contemporary far-right supremacy.

Much like with what is unfolding in the world at the moment, there are many perspectives. Each one is as heavily defended as the other and each has the potential to succeed as a role player encouraging division as civilisation grapples in a period of existential crisis.

With a convergence of external and internal catastrophes, we are all (well, most) feeling the pangs of discomfort in a world smothered by Change.

Would the figure of the knight find its way to a dream that night? No doubt it already had a place nesting in my psyche as a symbol associated with the notion of chivalry when fighting was deemed a glorious activity by brave men glistening with sweat, taking a stand to defend all they hold dear with their muscled limbs, stubble jawlines, and armored skirts. At all costs.

No.

Instead it was the architectural delight of the building with its symbols and iconography of Christianity drenched in the mysteries of the occult and elemental sea magic that stirred me in ways that no building has done before.

And it was that which I took to bed with me that night.

The dream…

I am walking barefoot through the rich marbled hallways of a castle. With each step, as the soles of my bare feet connect to the cool surface, I hear the voices of the souls buried beneath the stone-cold slabs of marble. Their voices strike a chord within me for there exists an undeniable innate knowing of the language of the dead.

I see the silhouette of a young woman in the shadows, beckoning me to follow her through an ornate arched doorway.

“Scheherazade … Scheherazade … come” she whispers.

I recognise this as my name and I follow her.

This place, an empty carcass of a castle, feels familiar. Ornately carved and constructed with its deep sculptured portal, it’s a place I often return to in my mind.

“Scheherazade … Scheherazade … come”

I pass through the arched doorway with eyes wandering with delight over its intricate features. A central angel hangs suspended in the middle with a look of uncertainty drawn across its features as two beings on each side appear to be gently removing its wings.

It looks at me in silent despair as it accepts its fate to incarnate yet again. With the final tear of feather from body, it drops to the ground swiftly transforming from angelic stone into being, human being.

It lands with a thud, grasping after its previous, suspended winged form and begins to weep, a sound that touches my soul and activates the silent ones beneath the tombstones to wail in unison. I bear witness to this great resistance as it feels threatened by the upstart imaginal cells activating the next stage of its evolution. The more it struggles, the louder the wails beneath the tombs sound as a paradigm of suffering shapes its entire energy field.

As its previous form disperses, the more desperately it tries to retain it. Wounded by the alienation at the very source of its being.

I realise that I am witnessing the origin of human Suffering … and how it’s rooted in a resistance to Change.

It scuttles to a corner and refuses to use its feet, eventually curling up and scrubbing at the few stains of earth that have already smudged it.

I feel such curiosity for this creature, a thing that was dead as soon as it came alive. A smidgen of pity holds me to linger there but after a few urgent whispers of my name called yet again like the sensation of a current rippling transparently through the air, I know to leave this angel being to its process of earthing.

I see it as birthing, it sees itself as dying.

I enter a room filled with women clothed in red, their radiance and warmth haunt every corner of the chamber. As they step, the earth adores the touch of their bare feet as it falls. They guide me to a sepulchre built in stone with incredibly carved features of coral, sea gods, angels and ropes all chanting and blending in glorious harmony.

Pouring through the window and the delicate crimson leaves of the oak trees outside, light spreads over the metamorphic slate of the tomb with a scarlet glow. The women indicate that this is where I am to lay.

At the thought of this, I feel tears moistening my cheeks.

They prick my finger and blood drops to the floor, creating a stark contrast between its red colour and the white marble. As it collects, it forms a tendril of a snake which divides in two and coils around my ankles to rest there.

After I lay upon the cold, marble slate, an elder crone looks at me bird eyed from a nest of wrinkles and begins to pour flower infused waters upon my forehead. Her smile is as empty of teeth as a turtle’s. The other women begin to oil my limbs. As they do, texts and ancient symbols begin to surface as if they were already there etched into my skin at the source of creation and were now brought to sight by their sacred touch and the perfumed oil.

The women gather around and begin to read these ancient texts inscribed on my form. Their fingertips awaken and decipher the text carefully as the words manifest into meaning. As they fathom each sentence, they compare it to a record of experiences imprinted on my auric field.

I feel strangely at peace but also disturbed by this comparative process. The sort of uncomfortable feeling that surfaces when you realise that another has just seen ALL of you and perhaps you have not as you blindly stagger along a path of familiar lines with a script that’s always the same.

The women step away from their place of scrutiny and direct me to an arch beyond where the watching Madonna stands with her arms outreached. She stands glorified in exquisite sculpture with a grand sensational flare of her mouth as if in a permanent state of song. She casts her benediction far out to a large body of water in the distance in which the stars of heaven shine, tangled and confused with its reflections upon the earth.

And it is under the carefully carved symbols of the arch with a suspended angel winking at me from above, that I step towards her.

And with a twist of fate…

I see myself as dying, but the angel sees me as birthing.

I wake with profound gratitude for the teaching on the power of perspectives and its crucial role in this time of change. For the eternal support of the Divine Mother, sacred invitations, haunting memories of angels resisting incarnation thus cementing the origin of Suffering …

and a potent reminder of the importance to continue to gracefully let go of the identifications of the past if you wish to fully embody and accept where you are.