The black ball
A couple of months ago, I visited a friend whose daughter loves gemstones. When she was proudly showing her collection, my friend showed me his own gemstone: a massive obsidian stone. Deep black and infinitely mysterious. When I held it, something resonated, but I did not make anything out of it.
Then, a couple months later, I heard Thomas Moore talk about an obsidian stone in a podcast. After he got one gifted from his son, he put it into his office. It was just lying there, until one day, it became alive. Since that day, he could use it as a gateway to the unknown, even asking it important family questions. When I heard this story, I immediately knew that one day, I would get one too.
A couple of months later, friends from Germany stayed with us for a few days. While visiting Utrecht together, we walked into a spiritual store. And there I met a big exemplar of the blackest obsidian. It felt as if it was waiting for me, so I bought it and took it home, not knowing what to do with it.
On the drive home, my friends asked me whether I was willing to guide a meditation that night. I was surprised, for my friend had been going through a long and intense journey through the underworld in which any form of spiritual practice would often be too overwhelming. But I agreed on it with one little demand: That the black ball would be in the center of our meditation.
I don’t know why I wanted this, but it seemed clear that it was the way. So we sat, circling the ball that was surrounded by candle light, staring into the ball for a couple of minutes. Then, I asked whether anybody had questions to ask the ball. My friend K replied by asking what the ball’s power was, and surprisingly, the answer came right through me.
It is a mirror reflecting the light through deep darkness. It is a symbol for the great unknown, and a gateway to it simultaneously. The light piercing through the darkness. Just as light of the stars is empowered by the blackness of the night.
Then I asked my friend G how he felt, and he replied:
“I feel a great resistance and a great respect”
To which I replied. “To what?”
In that moment, all three of us felt a powerful energy flooding the room. I began shaking, while G and K had goosebumps and stared at each other wide-eyed. We felt great fear for the immensity that chose to enter our shared consciousness and were unsure of its purposes.
Slowly, I began to question its purposes and even though I still felt an immense respect and fear for its greatness, I also realized that its intentions were good.
Slowly, the entity began to take shape in my mind’s eye, and I saw a light being with great white wings. A guardian angel. An annunciation. Not mine, but my friend’s. An event that had long been coming for him, but apparently needed a space of containment in which it could happen.
That night, something shifted in his perception. The gateway to the archetypal realm was now opened, but it takes a long time to fully integrate the immensity of this shift. Afterwards, we walked in the night to ground ourselves and he felt as if he was flying. But as clear as the imagery was and is to me, as unclear it is for him. Which to me is a lesson. The way I see the world will always be uniquely mine. My archetype is that of Hermes, a dweller of different realms. Yours might be that of Venus, the soft and caring touch of the great mother.
But it didn’t end there.
When we came back from the walk, something was staring at us from outside the window. A blue Stitch (Lilo & Stitch) balloon, just chilling there as if it had been there for a long time. The next morning, while G and me sat to re-evaluate the night before, the balloon slowly moved from the corner to exactly the place where we sat.
The world is alive, and if you’re open to it, it starts to talk to you in strange ways.
A couple of weeks after the event, I feared the potentiality of the black ball, so I put it far away in my closet. But out of nowhere, it called me again. And now it often sits on my desk or joins me in meditation. Sometimes, when I feel the clouds of ignorance to be dense, I put it in my therapy room.
It doesn’t feel like I found it. It found me. And as a bridge between worlds, it simply empowers the clarity of connection. I’m always very careful with magic or occultism. I’ve learned to never use any form of power for myself, for it is bound to corrupt. But when the signs are so clear, I just have to follow.