The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

I am looking for answers too.  Yeah, here it comes...wait for it... oh, you're gonna be so surprised (not)...I had this experience some time back which nags at my consciousness because my mind just doesn't know how to classify it, so it sits in my mental "inbox", awaiting tags that will signify the proper category under which to file it.

I was lying prostrate, soaking up the sun at the height of the day, when a shadow obscured the sun.  I took my arm away from my eyes and looked around for what could possibly manage to eclipse the sun on such a day.  Directly overhead was a buzzard, more properly, a vulture.

It was poised absolutely motionless in the sky, not a feather needing to move, in what must have been a really rare equilibrium of loft between gravity and air current.  no breeze stirred at ground level. The air was very still as it often is at that time of day in that neck of the woods yet there it was, this great unmoving bird, still as a statue a mere 30 ft or so directly above my head. Our eyes met.  How awesome!

The Vulture ceased it's hovering on whatever unknown air current it was that held it aloft and made a sharp right angle turn off to the due East, gliding without flickering so much as a wing-tip feather, slowly gaining height.  Oddly enough for that time of day, at that time of year, there was a single cloud in the sky to which the vulture was headed.  I watched with my hand shielding my eyes from the sun-at-it's-apex as it got smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the cloud.  Cloud?  Wait...What the...?

Before this juncture in the story, I described the experience as  being awesome. This is the juncture at which the story passes merely awesome and enters the Twilight Zone. I'm going to proceed very carefully from here because I am imagining that many readers are already doing the whole "face-palm" thingy in "Oh, I-just-knew-it-was-coming-to-this", frustration.

"I knew this was going to be a fish story...", you might be thinking right about now; but, it is not a fish story, it is an Air Element story, a true one which has caused me many hours of contemplation and somewhat futile research.  ( I trust that I'm not stupid, just techno-challenged, effective Google search syntax-use unsavvy, and lacking in a local public library that system that stocks much else than romances [historical romances being "high-end" reading in my area, I guess] and librarians who are loathe to initiate an inter-library system search which believe it or not, it just started doing during this past year.) 

Ok, digression over.  When the vulture entered the cloud, it quickly reformed itself into a 3-D, full color tableau, clear as a bell.  As it arched in circular fashion from the East in a Southerly direction, I did the usual open mouthed gawking, looking around for a witness, and arm pinching for someone in the throws of such an experience as that. It was not only still, I was totally alone with not so much as a face peeping from behind a curtain in the apartments that surrounded the complex's adult swimming pool.

The tableau consisted of a tanned or swarthy looking man dressed in a loosely fitting long white robe with a one piece, full-length, generously full sleeved over-garment and an Egyptian styled headdress, with a gold  headpiece.  His clothing appeared to drape like hand-woven linen (much softer than machine made), or some material much like it.  He wore sandals and one foot was in front of the other, his weight evenly distributed between his two feet.  His hands rested on either side of the lectern and a book or sheaf of  papers was  between his hands on the tilted lectern.  I could only see one side of him.

He appeared to be speaking to another, or others who would have been facing him at a slightly lower level from the position of his head, which didn't change position. He appeared to be speaking in serious earnestness from his expression. Very scholarly was the impression I got from the man in the tableau; but I couldn't hear a word he said.

Now comes the climax of  the story.  When the whole tableau had arched around 90 degrees from due East to due South, he suddenly turned only his head  sharply and looked straight at me with an unblinking stare which, I admit, shriveled me. So direct and piercing was his stare that after only a minute or so, I felt forced to look away from his gaze, which up to that point, I had met from the moment he had turned his gaze to me.  I look down or to the right, I think it was to the right, very briefly, just a second or two before I could not help but seek him out again.

When I looked back, he and the whole tableau were gone.  There was not a cloud in the sky. 

End of story.  Anybody have any ideas?  I have not told many people about this as I guess you might be able to understand.  One close magickal friend suggested it might be the G.D. but he was not wearing G.D. regalia to the best of my knowledge and research has not turned up any similar pics of G.D. officiators dressed in that way.  I's wondering who this was and why me, what was I supposed to gather from that vision?

Can you describe it is more detail? As this is the only "unusual" item I noticed in your description of the vision, it may be the key to identifying what it was a vision of.

Here's where I bewail the loss of any record of that day.  Let me see, as I recall, I am talking about a simple ring-like headpiece that held the head cloth (all white) in place (Khat headdress).  there was a symbol in the forehead area, but I just can't recall if it was the Upper and Lower symbols together or just one symbol, (Nekbet, since the messenger was a vulture?  But then, this might have just been a messenger of opportunity since there aren't many cobras slithering around loose and free in Texas, whereas there are innumerable buzzards.) so I can't even give you  an approx. date from the headdress. It seems to me that it was both so I guess it would date from the New Kingdom?  I got the impression that this was some kind of eminent scholar or Doctor, healer.  I also got the impression that this was an informal part of some kind of rite or course, maybe even a meeting of professionals, or Nobles, maybe even Deities with this one presiding.  Just impressions of mood, although I have not got a clue.  He was speaking but when he turned to me, he said not a word.  I don't recall if he was wearing a (hold on, researching...) false beard but I don't think so.  

I appreciate your attempt to help.  I know that that happening meant something but the loss of old journals and other records in the process of moving (along with other things) doesn't make the job any easier.  I'll try to dream on it for awhile and see if I get an answer. Thanks!