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SheppardOfPhantomPlanetTS1

“Shepherds of Phantom Planets”




Written & Contributed to BENDEDREALITY.COM by TS Caladan – July 2016


by TS Caladan

SheppardsOfPhantomPlanetTS2

“Shepherd, where are we going?” one son asked one of the shadowy, cloaked beings that towered high over him as he walked along with one of the daughters inside the Multi-verse.

The Multi-verse sounded like a finite universe on the interior of an immense, hollow sphere, but old legends stated that the phantoms’ environment was infinite? None of the phantom sons and daughters had ever observed any evidence that they existed within a tremendous BALL; it was taken on faith. The giant Shepherds said so and they told the truth.

“Young ones have so many questions,” one particular Shepherd said to others of his own kind from misty, grey clouds very far away. The great entity continued with Business among his group of guardians. Business of the gods was concluded.

The small ones below were anxious to begin and had millions of questions.

Their Shepherd left his group sooner than he imagined when it realized the fiery curiosity that burned in these two phantoms. Their Guide understood the large job ahead to answer a slew of questions along the Road. It alone led the young ones in a particular direction.

“This way, children. You may ask questions and I will answer.”

The young female phantom or daughter asked the god a very good question: “Before we discover our destination, at journey’s end…we are not clear on what came before?”

The young male phantom commented and questioned, “Excellent. About how we got here and what is this place? Then, where are we going?”

Both hardly constructed life forms of wonder and innocent awe stood very small far below mystic entities aka ‘gods’ high above.

“Where you came from is a riddle. Where you are going, your destination…is your beginning.”

The partially constructed wisps of white energy called ‘phantoms’ did not understand, but kindly accepted such a reply.

The male asked, “Shepherd, will you answer questions…about our…planet? Is that what the Multi-verse is?”

“Of course, children. We have time. We are truly walking inside a hollow sphere. Appears like we have been walking for an eternity, but the adventure has just begun…”

“We cannot see to the other side of the interior,” the he phantom inquired.

The cloaked entity answered, “That is because of atmospheric conditions over very extreme distances. The mist is a faint light, an energy that clouds the view of the far, far Wall.”

She asked, “Are there others, other lives like ours on the Path, on the same journey?”

Shepherd replied, “Oh, yes. Many others, same and different as you.”

The son quickly asked, “How many and will we meet some of them along the Way?”

“Yes?” the shadowy Shepherd said. “You two will meet others and then many more on the journey. I should not answer ALL the mysteries.”

“Fascinating. Ha. Ha.”

The young son continued: “About the planet, this world…”

“Yes?”

The new life was excited, as well as his mate, and asked, “Are there other planets, other Multi-verses, other beings walking inside other spheres talking to their Guides?”

The friendly giant out ahead of them that led the way was amused by the question from the son. Shepherd said, “There is that and much, much more, my son.”

The she phantom wondered about the exterior. “Shepherd?”

“Yes, my daughter?” replied the god.

“We walk on the Great Interior. What of the Great Exterior? Is there another side? What is on the outside, dear Shepherd?”

“My mate asks good questions, does she not, Shepherd?”

“She does, indeed.”

Their long trek continued over slightly rougher, grey terrain.

The gigantic Guide changed tone and saddened. Shepherd answered: “The other side or Great Exterior as you called it is not…”

“What?”

“…Is not what you might expect…”

“Explain, please,” she expressed sincerely.

The male phantom agreed with the same mind-thoughts. They listened closely.

The Shepherd said thoughts that were extremely difficult to broadcast. “To be specific, it is FIRE and BRIMSTONE. It is the worst horrors and terrors you can imagine on the outside exterior. It is Hell-Fire and all demon spirits and everything EVIL. And this world is only one atomic sphere of Hell among countless other systems and clusters and infinite other, much larger clusters of mega-clusters in the true MEGA-VERSE…”

Both children walked a long time in silence and viewed in expanded pictures sent to them from above so they understood new concepts. Reality was a bit clearer. More of their ambiguous ‘body’ structures filled out as they appeared to have grown.

The son commented and asked the Shepherd and the daughter, “It is beautiful here, inside the Big Ball. Is it not?”

Two small creatures looked around as well as phantoms ‘looked’ and sensed an enormous, misty, bland, barren landscape that was not curved in any way.

The god understood the full extent of the child’s ‘statement.’ “How can it be so…on the other side of the Dark Mirror? Such Fire there and such quiet peace here? Is that your enquiry?”

“Yes, Shepherd,” both uttered in thoughts. A calm serenity was felt by the phantoms as more and more colorless hills were passed in a hike that lasted almost a lifetime.

“There is the possibility of good needing evil to exist or light needing dark to exist, or…”

She asked earnestly, “Yes, dear Shepherd?”

“Or…that is not the case at all and Yin can exist without a Yang? We debate this among the Guardians, others of my kind.”

“What is your answer, Great One? What do you think is the truth?” he asked his Father.

“Fire and Light both simultaneously exist and do not cancel each other out. They co-exist.”

More neutral, hilly terrain that differed in texture and form was a tremendous distance away. A completely unknown topography to the male and female phantom stood on the horizon.

After time passed, the son remembered a question from eons ago: “Shepherd, where are we going?”

***

An incredible amount of what was considered ‘time’ had come and gone in a nonexistent clock-world of the Multi-verse, which was only one of an infinite number of Multi-verses that composed the Grand MEGA-verse.

The grey land or what appeared as grey land inside an inconceivably large ball of inner peace and outer turmoil was extremely mountainous. Mists of subtle, cloudy light made the surroundings even dreamier than long ago.

Our mated couple of ‘life forms’ known as phantoms had discovered another couple of mated phantoms along the eternal Path. The other male and female will be known as the ‘other male’ and the ‘other female.’ The four appeared much more complete as ghostlike, white frames.

Two pairs of phantoms rejoiced in the big discovery! Four phantoms ‘spoke’ of the mysteries of life as they marched in a direction they understood was the right Way to go.

In all this time, they had lost their Shepherds somewhere along the Path. It was one more puzzle for the strange life forms, highly motivated to walk for unknown reasons. Four phantoms were without Shepherds, Guides and Fathers. Before the pairs met, each pair had their gentle giant that led the Road far ahead, who stepped over tall rocks, plateaus and hills. The phantoms recalled how they each turned and when they turned back, their Guide was gone. All were mystified, but continued straight ahead and felt this was the proper direction to travel.

Their treks, which had begun an eternity ago, converged. Paths of the pairs pointed in a single direction. That joyous fact to the son and daughter only confirmed that they marched correctly as Fate directed or ‘faith’ directed. The other couple also believed even more that their direction was true.

The other ‘she’ phantom asked a reasonable question in the long Walk of Life. She asked, “Why do we always steer clear of high rocks and high hills?”

Her mate replied, “Do you suggest climbing the hills or the much taller mountains?”

“I do!” the other she firmly expressed in a mind-thought.

“I like her,” she directly told her mate, which was also communicated to the others.

The son responded, “I am pleased we found others, much like ourselves, on our journey.”

The daughter transmitted back at him, “Exactly as our Shepherd told us…”

The son quickly expressed, “And also the promise of many, many MORE. Can you imagine? A multitude?”

The other male phantom asked him, “Your Shepherd informed you…we would meet?”

The other female phantom finished his thoughts, also in amazement: “And the Shepherd said we would encounter many others along the Way?”

“Yes,” son and daughter answered.

Other son informed the pair that their Guide, before it disappeared, did not mention any others or the existence of masses of others. Meeting them was a total surprise. Their shadowy, cloaked giant ‘said’ virtually nothing except for which direction to go next.

Son phantom replied, “Ours also stated that some would be like us and some not. Are we experiments…different experiments…marching to the beat of Fate and not even really knowing WHY we are motivated to move THERE (points) or what we must do when we ultimately, ultimately reach our final destination?”

Other son transmitted, “Possibly, we were and are a varied experiment, purposely made different? Did the Guardians expect different results? Do they watch? Do they see what they have wrought? Will the gods return and do we move toward them?”

The next stage of the combined journeys consisted of the son and daughter as teachers. Everything their Shepherd taught them was transferred over to the consciousness of the others. Others listened intently to everything from what came from a very forthcoming Shepherd. It was blessings to all that companionships and relationships were found in the fog of a confused realm.

The daughter asked her mate and the others, “Could the Shepherds have left because we must find our own answers?”

Her mate always communicated a good follow-up thought. “Remember, dear? It said that it could not reveal ALL of the mysteries?”

“Yes. I feel that deeply. We must discover the truth on our own.”

Her mate expressed, “I think we will…in time.”

The others agreed.

Lessons were over and new ground was needed. A grey impasse stood in the foreground, right in front of them.

Other daughter was intrigued and said the perfect thing as before. “Let us climb a mountain and see what we can see? Let us view what there is beyond? Possibly, we will see our final destination or the many multitudes of others?”

Her mated stated, “She is good.”

The son agreed.

Four phantoms were no longer ‘children.’ They had matured on their own without ‘training wheels’ or a comforting Guide with all the answers. They started to climb the mountain that was in the Way. Normally, they would have went around the neutral high ground.

The daughter asked the others, “What shall we contemplate as we ascend?”

The other male had an instantaneous thought. “Our Multi-verse, this huge, inner core of a foggy planet…”

“Yes?”

“Is it finite or is it infinite?” he asked.

“Sounds like a debate for the Shepherds,” the other female commented.

“It is infinite,” other son-phantom continued and exclaimed in certainty. “The inside of a hollow sphere is the same as the outside of a sphere. We will be walking FOREVER! There is no end; therefore: It is infinite.”

“Let me correct you, friend and traveling companion.”

The female phantoms were absolutely enthralled at the ‘boy’s’ debate.

All of them kept up with the climb. Higher and higher. As more ground was covered, more and more scenes were viewed beyond. Incredible vistas that went on and on in the barren lowlands could be observed from high altitudes on the mountain.

“Please,” the other son deferred.

The son was sure he was correct. He transmitted, “You are wrong, sir. Other way of looking at it is the inside or outside of a ball has a FINITE area of space. If measurements and means were available, we could MAP both inner and outer worlds because they are indeed finite.”

“I like his answer,” his mate concurred.

He continued, “Matters not our travel upon it, which truly would be an endless exercise in futility and a complete waste of our lives. Legends report our world is Infinite, not the finite world of area I described. There must be much, much more as the Shepherd told of other planets and clusters of universes. In other thoughts…there must be a way OUT!”

***

Long epochs of time passed. The phantoms were fully ‘fleshed out’ in their ‘physical’ forms. They were not as white as they were ages ago in their early purity. Knowledge and strange sights and rough terrain may have tarnished the consciousness of the four.

They reached the apex of the dead, grey, empty mountain. Four brave, middle-aged, phantoms on one of countless ‘phantom planets,’ without a Shepherd in sight, witnessed an unbelievable vision. The vision was real and true.

Son and daughter and the other pair conquered the summit. When ‘their Way’ achieved the perfect, tallest vantage point, the phantom foursome still could not conceive of the reality that existed an astronomical distance away! So much area of the odd topography was revealed that, for the first time, the CURVE of the Great Wall was finally seen through the haze of misty lights. A bizarre, green-grid superstructure stood beyond the fog. There was no doubt. They saw with ‘eyes’ that they were inside of a very big ball.

“Godlike view…must be how a Shepherd saw the Multi-verse,” said the daughter who was clearly dazed like the rest. There was much more to the distant view. Daughter pointed and asked the others in complete wonder, “What is that? What is around it? Is it dark rivers…a drain in a vast, shadowy ocean? Look at the flow, so very far away. From every side; look carefully! Everything slowly flows into one point. What is that black cloud in the land?”

They were transfixed to an indescribable panorama no one could have imagined and then to one particular location which was some type of ‘hub’ of fantastic activity~

The group of tarnished phantoms, well-travelled on Eternity’s Road, guessed at what the special spot was and what also flowed into it. All Paths led to…what?

The other, darkened female expressed that it could have magnetic properties and Rock Spirits were pulled into one precise point because of the attraction.

Her dirtied mate offered his assessment. “That spot is where the Shepherds went…”

For a suspended moment, all four were sure the other son was exactly correct. Then the moment passed. (He may only have been partially accurate).

Other son continued his mind-speech. “…You were told of the multitudes and we want to see the many throngs, great crowds of creatures just like us and unlike us. There they are! Where else would we be and they be pulled to, home of the missing Shepherds?”

“You are right about massive flows, what they are. I feel it. They are us. They are the many masses our Guide mentioned,” the son said.

His mate questioned him, “Could that be?” She observed again.

The other female agreed with the son and her mate.

Son transmitted: “Yes. That Thing…whatever it is…is what we all have been pulled toward, what we have been walking toward our entire existence! Everyone is drawn to it from the whole Multi-verse. There, at the Center, what seems infinite steps away, is a major traffic jam…”

“Drawn to the Shepherds. They pointed the Way.”

Son stated to the other male, “No. You are wrong. That is not what I sense. I sense the gods, our Shepherd Fathers, have done their jobs and have gone, transcended. We are here! THAT is our final destination, there! That is our home, whatever the black sea is.”

Daughter, also dirtied by the long trip, sparkled and believed her mate. She expressed, “I suppose you two will have another large debate on the issue?” The question went unanswered.

Other male asked son, “What is the black hole we are drawn to, that all are dying to get to, if not a return to the gods, my traveling companion?”

They awaited his answer. Most of them felt it would be 100% true.

“It is a DOOR. This is why our Great Way is Infinite, not to walk in endless circles, but to plunge through a Door, pass through the Door to the Greatest Mystery of all! What is next?”

***

The phantom foursome descended the mountain and joined the great flow of many others which streamed in the direction of one particular place.

The central place in the distance appeared as a black unknown, yet every phantom was magnetically or collectively drawn towards it. “What was it?” No one knew, but masses of worn and weathered beings had their own personal views of what it was; why the unanimous devotion to it, what connection was there to old Shepherds and what will occur when the walkers finally reach and pass through the Black Abyss? What was life in the Multi-verse about? What was the meaning of an endless journey shared by billions times billions of similar creatures? Were they abandoned by the gods? Now that a true ‘Final Destination’ was in sight and the ultimate Life’s goal was almost within reach, will answers be clearly known at the end of the journey?

Ages had passed…

When the four first entered the mainstream of millions of others, the feeling and attitude was exuberance! It was a bustling City, crowded with happy people. When the phantoms communicated with many stranger-phantoms, each had similar stories with only slight differences. The walkers went from a magical beginning to a found mate to a found Shepherd and sent on long journeys of a lifetime. To discover: “All walkers converged and convened here so close to Center of the magnetic pull”…was an ecstatic/electric feeling, which was only compounded by an ‘ocean’ of similar, positive creatures inside one of the Phantom Planets.

It was a happy, wonderful Festival! Everyone celebrated, joyously close to the massive flow of phantoms, yet still on the outskirts of the unknown, Black Hole or Black Door beyond them.

The four had been through so much, through extended time periods that they resolved to stay together. They remained as close as they could inside large ‘festival’ crowds. Soon they would basically ‘cue-up’ and join the ‘Big Push’ at Center and the pandemonium they sensed even nearer to everyone’s ultimate goal.

Every phantom was in bad shape but their spirits were high. Their whiteness was gone. They fashioned a kind of clothing, rags and even cloak-materials to protect themselves over the endless eternities that they had crossed. Many rested here at City Limits and shared stories and amazing adventures. There was a moment of relaxed peace in the crowds who knew it might be madness near center stage. There were spaces in-between the phantoms on the Outskirts. There was no space between the dark creatures so very near termination in the Walk of Life, as was seen near Center.

“You know what you look like?” the mature daughter asked the son with a spiritual smile on her face. Big crowds were in the area and background as well as a lot of noise and commotion.

“No.”

“If you covered your face with a cloak, you would resemble a Shepherd, only not so dark and so big, of course. Ha.”

“Ha. Ha. You are right, my dear mate, who has been through very much at my side. Look around. We all have been through hell, through wars…all with a singular Quest…our consistent Walk of Life. Without assistance, we made it here. We are tattered and torn, but soon…we will make that PUSH along with the rest and see what there is to see, as other daughter once said. Any sight of them, my love?”

“No. We said we would wait here, wait for them, before we get squeezed together, near…”

A religious zealot in rags made a podium of sorts and shouted to crowds in the City: “The gods are dead! I see Light. Turn back before it’s too late! We march, without thought, without soul, without knowledge of what we are doing! Do NOT move with the masses! I warn you!”

The mind-thoughts only motivated the audience to complete their great journey quicker and they moved closer to their goal in the direction of Road’s End. Many left the area of the excited fool. Many condemned him with abusive taunts…

“Why listen to the ravings of an old maniac? We will not turn around!”

“He thinks he is right and all of us who seek truth and light are wrong.”

“We want to ascend and transcend, demon! Praise the Shepherds!”

One of the many ragged daughters ridiculed him with, “No mate. Notice?”

“We march, the many, we walk as one! We walk in the steps of Fate because we understand we are right and we know we are right…together!”

More creatures of tattered rags and shadowy cloaks came into the area and captured the dissident on the self-made podium. He was taken away and exiled from the flow of the masses.

After long moments, the son and daughter held firm on their location in the crowd and observed no signs of the others, their traveling companions.

Son stared into his mate’s eyes.

She held him and responded with, “We have waited lifetimes, infinite eternities. Surely we can wait a bit more time for our friends?”

Son’s ‘spirit’ brightened in the ‘Sea of Greyness’ around them, everywhere. The noise was extremely loud. Chaos filled the misty and electrified air. Son was anxious to complete the Quest, the Walk and possibly receive answers that every phantom sought. He waited, patiently.

She heard him ask her: “What is the Abyss we move toward? Will it be horrible or beautiful? Should we trust or are we being engineered, deceived? Are we, Guidelessly, led to our oblivion or…will the treasure, reward at the end of Life’s Rainbow be worth the pain and suffering?”

Daughter answered, “You are really asking about the After-Life, are you not, my love? Will we live again in the next world? Will we return and EVER be able to find each other again? Will we be happy tomorrow?”

Son whispered to her in thoughts that only she received. “You are of the view…the End of the Road is our Death? Termination? The Black Abyss is Doom, yet we must plunge, headlong into the After-Life when we get to Death’s Door?”

“Yes,” she replied in sweetness among the chaos.

He agreed and smiled. “Climb the mountain.”

“See what we can see. Ha.”

Suddenly they saw the other male, but not the other female. He ran towards them.

“My friends! She’s gone! I cannot find her. I have looked everywhere.”

***

The triad pushed toward Center in and around and through sheer madness.

The fervor and fury of the heavy mob collective was an extraordinary powerful Vibration~

Phantoms were pressed together in what the son referred to millenniums ago as a “major traffic jam.” At times, spaces appeared and there was an energy flow. There was movement. There was an elated sense that walkers were much closer to the prime target. Then blockages occurred which held up the Grand Parade for eons. Crowds grew impatient and belligerent and even violent. Others attempted to calm the nasty problems. Many were crushed when the next wave of pressure was exerted upon the masses, which moved as one.

A few phantoms had spent lifetimes on the great Quest or Walk only to completely change their conscious minds incredibly near their goal! It was too much. They had suffered too much. They did not want to finish the life-goal of about every walker in the Multi-verse. A few believed no deity or Shepherd would ever put its ‘sheep,’ its ‘flock,’ its ‘children’ through such cruel tortures. The missing gods cannot be good: They allowed the great Paradise to be corrupted. Why? Maybe the march is to Armageddon? Only a few phantoms wanted to turn back, but they could not. It was too late. The flow toward what appeared as a gigantic, roundish lake of Black Waters was too forceful. No one could turn back, not even those who desperately wanted to.

A lull in the intense push forward happened.

Son and daughter still held onto each other. They had lost sight of the other male, their friend. It was only them as they huddled together and realized: No one had a choice anymore. Everyone was going to go over ‘The Falls’ or pushed into the black pit. They tried to not worry. They had each other. They had each other for the moment. The Walk continued a little bit more.

Son was able to ask his mate, “Godlike view…must be how a Shepherd saw the Multi-verse. You said at the summit. Sounded like you meant the age of Shepherds was over. No more Guides. Are we truly on our own? No future? No one cares?”

A beaten and different kind of zealot overheard what son said in such tight quarters of the insane mob. He expressed: “Would good gods do this to us?” He seemed terrorized and out of his mind. Or was he?

Son asked for the old, scarred man’s conclusions. “What do you think will happen when we reach the Blackness?”

Both son and his mate were able to hear the response, before another wave crushed them and pulled them in one direction with everyone else.

The beaten man said, “It will be BEAUTIFIL, don’t you see? That’s why our lives have been such hell, such misery as we walked through useless, grey mists. They’ll be COLOR in the next world and good magic and music and dance and everything real and wonderful in the After-Life…not the mechanical, ghost-lives we’ve been given here, but sweet tomorrow will be forever: golden Kingdoms of Heaven, real pleasures and Gardens of Earthly Delights. We’ll feel beyond what we dream feelings are. We’ll really FEEL and truly live in Death…”

***

When son reached the black beach and water’s edge, he was cloaked and shadowy. He was also alone. He’d forgotten what it was like to be alone. The crush to the Center of All Things that every being within the Multi-verse longed for, strived for and pushed for over eternities…

…Took away his mate. She was nowhere to be found.

He looked around like a lifeless ghost. He beheld only dark, weak figures at life’s end: a black shoreline, so close to Death. They all plunged into the pool of darkness and accepted the inevitable. Each had no energy left and poured like cosmic ink over Black Falls and into the very Heart of the Great Abyss. They were annihilated. Gone. Every drop of the Phantoms’ Waterfall left the cloudy, hazy dimension…

…And entered another dimension. The ‘phantoms’ entered a real world that was not so dark.

Sons and daughters were born into a clear, physical, 5D universe of bright lights, bright colors, sounds and sensations! Phantoms were PRE-LIFE that now lived, breathed and thrived in a realm less amorphous and foggy.

They had not reached their Final Destination. They finally arrived at their First Destination~

~END

SheppardsOfPhantomPlanetTS3

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