2016 was a year full of peculiar energy and heightened coincidences. 2016 was the year the demonic stepped forward in a way unlike any other.

Back in late November 2015, a man stumbled across my path. He looked lost, homeless, and high. A moment lost in the churn.

In early 2016, two more people: a woman and then another man, crossed my path in nearly identical moments.  In a major city like Sydney, I could easily have forgotten them or even missed them all together.

Except that all three incidents occurred when I was behind the wheel on a dual, four-lane road in peak-hour traffic.

Three times in a row, a figure appeared without warning in the middle of the road, and staggered vaguely in my direction across my lane. Each time, I slowed to a crawl to avoid a collision.

I knew I wasn’t the only one to see them. The traffic around me had also slowed. I had time to take in their dark hair and clothes. All three times, I locked eyes with each of them across the dashboard for a moment as they walked unsteadily from my lane into the path of the oncoming traffic.

I steeled myself for the inevitable. There was nowhere for a pedestrian to go. I held my breath, expecting to hear the sound of a body impacting with a vehicle, thuds, or brake squeals.

Nothing.

I checked my rear-view vision mirror in disbelief. All three times, the figure had completely disappeared.

The ‘coincidence’ was not lost on me.  Besides the fact I’d nearly collided with them in much the same area, what stayed with me was the furtiveness in their eyes and the shock on their face as our eyes met.

They seemed stunned and ashamed. Like a wounded animal frantic to find cover. They didn’t seem to notice the danger of the traffic. The shock came over them, when they realised I could see them.

The handful of spiritual practitioners I turned to, agreed this was unusual but they offered no insight.  About a week later, after browsing a local ‘New Age’ shop, I picked up a business card from the counter. The shop assistant over-enthusiastically declared, “Oh that’s Olivia, she’s a Witch!”

I dialed the number and booked 30 mins with her. That was nearly a year ago.

In a city of over 4.2 million, finding Olivia was kismet. She listened to my incoherent rambling and without any fuss, she simply said these sounded like demons and explained why she thought this. As she spoke, I remembered a couple of similar unexplained experiences over the years. Olivia calmly answered my questions, and her responses quietly hinted at her own experience. She stressed an approach grounded in respect for these entities, and encouraged me to keep asking questions.

I remember going home that evening with a heightened awareness. I felt watched. Observed.  Surrounded by an almost electric charge. As the year went on, I grew more comfortable naming these entities demons. Nothing else described the quality of the energy when they were present.

As soon as I began wondering what and where the next steps were, the demonic wasted no time turning my world upside down, re-calibrating north.

My internal horizon shifted. They challenged my personal latitude and longitude and moved these beyond anything I would have once considered. The demonic quickly staked me down, planting new truths and fencing their demands. Since then, they have proven to be both reliable and voracious.

At first they unexpectedly emerged in familiar journeying space, and quickly took presence in these ‘other’ worlds. They pushed me to reach further for value and meaning of our interactions. As the year went on, they introduced me to energy manipulation, then beyond notions of good or evil, past moral or immoral.

By mid-2016, they were charging into lessons of sorcery, beyond white or black, with a strong focus on conscious or unconscious practice. As 2016 drew to a close, the lessons extended into the nature, value, and quality of blood.

In hindsight, I realise the one thing I would have expected was missing: fear.

Instead I felt awe, anticipation, deep respect, and unqualified security. While this was reassuring, there were undercurrents I felt could easily engulf and tip me over. Given my life-long experience of hearing and seeing Spirits, I had no fear of entities or even unpredictable demons. If there was any fear, it was in questions around my sanity. Was I ‘crazy’ or ‘mad’?

Instead, the demonic decisively settled this dread. As long as I can identify where I am at any point in time, I know I remain in the realm of sanity.

Today, the spaces between the worlds take up my consciousness more acutely than ever. While I strain to translate meaning across the bridge between realms into sense, I think this is more a matter of learning to balance, and manage contradictions and incongruities. I often feel a sense of a frequency being turned up or pulled taunt.

Time seems elongated. The length of a day, like that weird slinky toy, is strangely slowing and stretching. A single 24 hours feels like a 100, and it’s difficult to track time in the conventional sense.  Most nights feel full: heaving and crowded.

I have a stronger awareness of a multiplicity of dimensions. I have glimpses of a larger generational pattern of place and value. In the midst of the effort and exhaustion, I remain deeply sustained and nourished.

I share this reflection in case you are treading a similar unfamiliar path where the demonic might be stepping forward to greet you. I can’t give you any hope the path ahead is easy or well-lit. It is not.

It is dark. It can be hard and bewildering. This track is uniquely personal and solo.

To get through the months and events ahead, the best thing I can suggest is to rest when and where you can.

Keep your body well nourished and hang on to your critical wits. Find a routine where you start each day with practice and stick to it no matter what.

That might be the only scaffolding you have to hold onto when the demonic start with you in earnest.

29 December 2016