Colorful Pillars of Light

Something amazing happened...

…and it has taken me some time to become ready and able to talk about it.

It all started when a friend invited me to a conference.

Now, I’m on old charismatic from way back and I do love a good conference where the collective really presses into the Presence of God. We can go much father together than we can separately. But I wasn’t sure I had enough stamina after cancer treatment to be there in person. Those things can be pretty physically demanding and four days of early morning until 10 pm involves A LOT of peopling! They had an online version, so I went that route, and I’m glad I did. I had the house to myself most of the time and was able to worship, pray, and write in my journal without being aware of, or distracted by, others around me. But I could still interact with my dear ones when there were breaks in the schedule. This was freedom to focus that I needed.

I was pretty surprised by how good the conference was. I’ve been out of the prophetic movement for some time due to abuses and misalignments I saw that were deeply problematic and I had just walked away. Not my circus, not my monkeys - I want nothing to do with that batch of cornflakes. I still love Jesus but sometimes… Y’all. Discernment is a THANG! (So often we use the gift of suspicion and call it discernment but that ain’t it.) These days I’m much more at home in a deeply curious academic quest into Scripture that is more like digging for buried treasure. And why should a person of faith have to choose either a deeply spiritual expression, or a deeply theological one? We are both spirit and intellect! It doesn’t seem fair that I can’t have a church experience that has both - but I digress.

My friend had recommended this conference as a place where they hadn’t lost the plot. I was delighted to hear that such a place existed, and they mentioned names I remembered from the old days and so I went in cautiously. (I am purposefully not mentioning names!) The first session was excellent. In fact, the whole event seemed to be a reboot and pivot of the prophetic back to the path of Jesus away from Imperial “Christianity”. Speaker after speaker talked about what prophetic ministry is and is not, and you could feel the Spirit giving a gentle but firm, and deeply loving, course correction. And to tell the truth, my bullshit meter wasn’t going off. There were a few little things that did ping, but over all it was just so good! I’ll admit I was pleasantly surprised because this ol’ charismatic has seen some schnitzel!! And even with the abuses I’ve seen, I still love the flow of the Holy Spirit more than anything! It really was soooooo good!

⁴ One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple. -Psalm 27:4 (One of my life verses)

One evening of the conference, my hubby went off to the theater and I had the house to myself. That evening I cranked up the music and really engaged with the worship and it went very deep very quickly and I was caught up in a prophetic flow. Before long I had the impression to clear my desk and get out paper, and grab my Posca markers that are nearby.

I quickly moved into drawing a quick motif over and over again - swirls… lots of movement and lots of color. It felt like drawing a vortex, the movement was quick and then I discerned to smudge them with my fingers to smooth the lines. It was really fun!

As worship progressed I continued to interact with the colors on the page, but then there was a shift. It was dark outside at my place and I had the lights off except for in my office. And that’s when the experience progressed from impressions into a vision. I began to experience pillars of light in my home. They were shaped like cylinders from floor to ceiling, and each one was a different color of light. They were spaced around my home. They were *incredibly* beautiful and I was absolutely so incredibly alive and overwhelmed by a sense of the awe in the Presence of God.

And then I realized they had the same movement as the lines on the paper - each one was a moving cylinder of light that was moving like I imagine a whirlwind would move - not a scary destructive thing, but an incredibly alive kind of energy flow. “Way cool” doesn’t express how cool it was! Each swirl on the page represented one of these gorgeous pillars of light - the drawing was kind of a loose floor plan kind of thing - I was seeing these pillars from above in my drawing and then I was moving through them in 3D in my vision - if that makes any sense at all. LOL!

Here’s where I need to step away from this present day story to talk about something that happened to me years ago when I was in another deep God encounter. I remember there was an angel on each side of me, I could not see their faces but I somehow knew that these two angels were from South America. (That has significance that I just realized. Click! How did I not see this before? That conference was all about bringing the outpouring from Argentina to the US! Claudio Freidzen was there. Woah!) And in that worship environment, those two angels were moving my body kind of like I was caught up in a vortex of Holy Spirit power. They were dancing me with me around in ways it’s just not humanly possible for a body to move, I really was caught up. It was so amazing. These things are SOOOOO difficult to put into words. I don’t usually talk about these things, but I guess because I had this experience of dancing with angels, I kind of “understood” or had some context by which to understand a Holy Spirit Presence energy vortex kind of thing. That one wasn’t just a vision, I danced with angels! This present experience feels very connected to that experience many years ago.

Back in my own house in this vision, I began to realize I could dance around my house and flow in and out of these colorful pillars of light. Now I’ve been in treatment for cancer long enough that I don’t really have dance muscles or any coordination at all. In spite of that, I was moving around my home in and out of these incredible pillars of light and just flowing in and through them! One was near the laundry room door and the coats hanging on that door brushed me as I danced in that pillar of light. It was kind of a cool interaction of tactile and vision all wrapped together. There were other light pillars around and I danced in and out of them worshiping Jesus. I felt the freedom to enter and move from one to another like a pollinating bee moving around the garden. It. Was. Incredible. It was holy ground!

Now if you know me, you already know that color is already my mother tongue. I have had a sense of the magnetic pulling of the Holy Spirit to different colors in my work as a prophetic artist and Saori weaver. But this is the first time I got to interact with the colors and light in the Presence of God. What an incredible experience. It reminds me of the Revelation 4:3 about the rainbow in the presence of God:

“…and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.”

As the conference moved on and I listened to various people speak, impart, and minister prophetically, I continued to interact with that vision. Sometimes, someone on the stage would say something and I would experience an additional jolt of Holy Spirit power going through me. There was a lot of flow and I am so thankful that I could experience it even via live video at a distance.

Of course I have explored quite a few rabbit trails as a result in the days since then. I have already mentioned the “rainbow like an emerald” in Revelation 4. There’s an Ezekiel 1 reference, and others. I also explored the way the Jacob’s offspring moved through the dessert following a cloud in the day and a pillar of fire in the night. What I saw didn’t look quite like fire, it looked like glowing light in a tall cylinder shape. It didn’t undulate like fire, even though it was very much in motion.

I did not know there was such a literal thing as “light pillars” as a natural phenomenon, and it was super cool to see that this actually exists. This is a thing! Wow! Wouldn’t it be amazing to see that in person? Maybe it’s similar to “northern lights”? I would be over the moon to experience this natural phenomenon in my lifetime! The color scheme of what I experienced was different than this photo, but it still moves me and feels very familiar to my vision! See how they’re perfectly parallel? Yep! Gorgeous!!!

A while back I’d had just a flash of a vision of a map with bright spots all over the country connected by lines. Very much like this, but waaaaaay more colorful.

Of course this also has a bit of a burning bush vibe to it. I didn’t think about it until just now, but I can see how Moses could look at a pillar of light over a shrub and wonder how it didn’t burn up. It didn’t look like “fire” to me, but God encounters are really hard to put into words. No, I’m not equating myself to Moses, I’m just saying that I had an encounter with color and light in the Presence of God and it’s something I’m holding very close to my heart before the Lord.

There’s so much connected with this. I do kind of wonder if there is a spiritual network of light pillars all over this country/world. Places where there is a kind of touch down (not like football but like tornado touch down) of Holy Spirit power/color/light/energy, each one it’s own glorious color indicating that this is a very diverse group of connections. The one thing they have in common is the presence and light of Jesus. Dogma is out the window - PRESENCE is everything! The idea of moving between those pillars of light all over the country is pretty amazing. Mind blown.

More recently I was listening to a prophetic voice saying that God was releasing “Glory Refuge Centers” all over the world to help people through these present troubles. People would come together in a small group community where they would come into the PRESENCE of God and get restored and ready to go back out into this burning world. And honestly, it clicked like it was a wooden puzzle piece with a satisfying “snap!”. I felt like that made so much sense in terms of what I feel God is bringing forth with Riverside Anabaptist Collective. To me, this is what those pillars of light represent. And I think the map shows how they are all gloriously connected.

This is all in the context of these present troubles. 2025 has been painful and frightening, and it’s going to be dark for a while. There is no politician who is going to be able to ride in and fix what has been unleashed in 2025. There will be no political rescue, Imperial “christianity” will implode. Empire will fall. And in the midst of what a friend of mine called “world on fire” there will be an outpouring of God showing up for hurting people who come together in intimate Jesus-centered communities from house to house. People in these groups have come out of and separated themselves from the love of power and fame, the abuse of authority, the love of wealth (greed), and sexual domination that is so prevalent in Empire christianity.

Of course, as an artist I’m also wrestling with how I can make a physical realm artwork that represents what I experienced in my vision (although vision seems way too small of a word for what I experienced). Stay tuned, that’s definitely on my list. Although honestly it’s really hard to make artwork of something so ethereal! I sometimes feel like it comes out feeling like soggy toast in comparison to the real thing. But I digress. That’s no excuse not to try.

So this is not at all the kind of thing I usually write about. And I’ve had so much flowing around as I have sat with these things before the Lord. I think something is happening. And it’s bright, beautiful, and so incredibly restorative! It’s been such a healing experience, delicate, beautiful, and precious.

Blessings to you dear one. I realize reading something like this can feel pretty strange. I’m pretty well anchored in the physical realm most of the time! LOL! I suppose it’s up to you if you’re interested in subscribing (or continuing to be subscribed) to see where this adventure leads. Or maybe you’ve been burned by people getting a little “thus saith the Lord” on ya, especially if they come out with some stuff that sounds nothing at all like that homeless man from Nazareth. I get that. You’ll make the choice that is right for you with no real or implied pressure from me! Whatever you decide, you are welcome here! NO control or domination here, this is the way of Jesus.

Somehow everything has changed and I’m good with that.

Everything.

Is that an overstatement? Maybe? I’m still going to get up from writing and go into my kitchen and put together some kind of meal. I am still going to comb my hair and go about my work. Still, there is a shift that I feel, ephemeral but real. Maybe I’ll just say that this feels significant. There, maybe that’s better. This really does feel significant.

Jesus, be the center. Be the light that rescues us from this present darkness. Call us together in community and connection with each other and with YOU! Release Your GLORY in these beautiful light-filled God Pods! Bring us in to be restored and healed from all the fiery darts flying around out there! Your Love and Light is everything! Bring the truth to light, Lord. Bring us out of deception. Bring us out of idolatry! Show us our other gods and release our grip on them. Set us free without looking back like Lot’s wife, Lord. Draw us into the present/future instead of dwelling in the past. Draw us into your Kingdom instead of earthly empire. Draw us together in healing God Pods that are powerfully restorative because you’re in the midst of us moving in power and light to restore and heal each one. Oh Lord, do it again Lord. (I strongly feel that the Lord has done this kind of thing before - although I don’t know the details.) Release Your restorative power on us Lord, and teach us not to hoard it but to give it away! Bring us in, then send us out in an exponential burst of Your light across YOUR land! This is the world you love God, shine on us and through us! Hallelujah, come Lord Jesus!

Jesus is so beautifully, mercifully, and mysteriously LORD y’all. I just stand in awe. We belong to YOU Jesus. We belong to you. There will be no other gods.

Goodness, writing about this has really made it possible to relive this experience in such an interesting way! Me likey.

Sending healing love your way. You belong. You may not realize how much yet, but you do! I know there is a place where you belong with an intimate group of dear ones who love each other all week, not just on a Sunday morning, and who press in to the glorious healing light of Jesus! And not just our incredible friend Jesus, but LORD Jesus.

-Carmen

PS Oh my goodness, I just discovered some other really cool stuff about pillars of light in the Text. Expect more study of the Text on this in coming episodes! Anther piece just clicked into place, but this blog post is so long already. I’m just over here basking. The Lord is kind, y’all, the Lord is kind!

I leave you with this blessing (and these are not simple nice words, I feel fresh power in this)

I release you in the power of the Holy Spirit into the world God so loves, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with the God, who sees the goodness and grace in you (because God put it there) and walks proudly with you.

Be in the light, friends. Be in the LIGHT!

Whoopydoodles, my Lord, what a morning!