Into the Underworld (Part 1)
One day in May.
It was late at night.
Everyone in my family was already asleep.
I was sitting on the couch, thinking maybe I should go to bed too,
when suddenly my stomach tightened hard—Gyuーーー.
Then the ringing in my ears started.
Someone’s here.
Who?
The name “Raphael” popped into my head.
I couldn’t see his form.
But I had heard that name before.
Right—there was an angel named Raphael in a manga I read in Japan a long time ago.
Hello, nice to meet you.
That’s what I said in my head.
I still couldn’t see him,
but it felt like he smiled at me.
“This is meditation practice.”
That’s what Raphael said.
Meditation… oh, meditation!
So I was going to be trained in meditation?
Is Raphael the angel in charge of meditation?
I feel like I read somewhere on some spiritual website that he’s good at healing and stuff…
Well, whatever.
My breathing changed into that kind of breathing.
I slowly let my breath out.
Fuuuuuu—
Wait, I’m still breathing out?
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…
As I kept exhaling,
my body sank deeper into the couch.
My body felt heavy.
My head felt heavy.
I rested my head against the backrest.
Only then did the exhale finally end.
For a moment, my breath stopped on its own.
And then I slowly started to inhale.
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…
While inhaling, I thought,
“Oh—if my ‘inside’ is about to be taken somewhere,
shouldn’t I ground myself first?”
So I tried the grounding method I had been practicing with Gyu all throughout May.
I imagined a brown monkey tail growing from my tailbone,
stretching down into the pitch-black underground.
Down, down, down—
toward the center of the Earth.
Even when my breathing shifted from “inhale” back to “exhale,”
the tail kept extending.
And then—
I saw a small light in the darkness.
The light slowly grew bigger.
And inside the light, I saw—
A grassland.
Even though it was underground,
it was so bright it almost hurt my eyes.
The air felt fresh and clear.
In the middle of the grassland,
there was a single tree.
Gaia was standing next to it.
The higher self of the Earth.
This is Gaia as I perceive him—
Gaia filtered through my senses.
A handsome guy with long blue hair.
Wearing a silky, smooth white shirt.
When the tail from my tailbone reached Gaia at the center of the Earth,
he grabbed it firmly,
wrapped it around his left arm,
then looked up at me and flashed a bright, white-toothed smile.
His blue hair fluttered softly in the wind.
As he smiled, he gave the tail wrapped around his arm a single, tight tug.
I felt a tug at my tailbone.
That completed my grounding.
Gaia, I’m going!
He smiled and waved at me.
At this point, I was still in the middle of
exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale—
but I had already entered a meditative state,
so my breathing gradually returned to normal.