INSANE IS THE NEW NORMAL: POST TWENTY-ONE

Path of Daleth, Venus

MEETING THE GODDESS ON THE PATH

     (Note: Somewhere along the line, the word "peace" in paragraph eight was changed to the word "peach," twice, which, in the first version,, made the whole paragraph sound absurd.  I almost decided to keep it that way....)

     Once, when I was in second grade, my class took a train ride through Los Angeles. I found a seat away from the other students, and while the train was rattling through a junky industrial section of LA, an adult male voice informed me that I was not coming back. The voice startled me because I knew that no male adults were in the compartment, and I realized with a shock that it had not originated from a human being. After rebounding from my initial fear, I found the premonition comforting even though I had no idea what it meant. I suspected that I would have to wait until I grew up to comprehend its significance, a situation with which I was only too familiar. As the train rushed onward toward its destination, a trance-like peace enveloped me, the sounds of the train gently lulling me and the other passengers, and I had an unexpected insight: The voice meant that I would not be coming back to live another life.

     I had never entertained the notion of reincarnation before, and I

knew that I would not be able to share it with anyone. I was seven years old, growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household. The idea was unfamiliar to me and more than a little unsettling, so I had a gut feeling that it would make everyone else I knew uncomfortable as well. Even so, I felt deep down that it was true. I sensed some higher being or aspect of myself had spoken. This, as you know if you have been following my blog, occurred several other times when I was growing up, and in all other cases, the predictions came true.

Path of Lamed, Libra

     I knew one thing: The voice did not mean that I was never going

to travel on a train through LA again. Sure enough, forty years later I rode on Amtrak through the same blighted region, which still looked as if bulldozers needed to push it into an abyss before any renewal could occur, and as the train was zipping along, I suddenly remembered the strange male voice, and I realized that it might have meant that I was free of the wheel of birth and death. The memory of the premonition, however, raised more questions than it answered.

     If, as my experiences seem to suggest, we each have a higher self, or daimon, that transcends space and time, surely my daimon would have known when I was seven that I would end up a deeply flawed adult who has encountered more than a fair share of challenges and who is easily distracted from spiritual pursuits, which suggests perhaps that the soul's completion of an evolution through the accumulation of experience, not the attainment of spiritual perfection, is the key to release from the wheel of birth and death, if indeed that is what the voice meant. Or perhaps the voice suggested that I would reach a point in this lifetime that would require the complete regeneration of my soul on some other plane. These were only the ramblings of a confused brain, I mused. Maybe the voice was simply wrong, and I hallucinated when I was seven and all the other times that I thought I heard the voice of my daimon, yet the voice was so clear, the feeling of peace so profound. Other spiritual experiences continue to place the premonition in perspective: As I grow older, more and more pieces keep fitting together, as if key moments in my life, interrupted by long periods of the mundane, form an association chain like symbols in a dream.

     After I found my spiritual path during meditation in my early forties, I also began to find myself more and more in circumstances where I recollected the predictions of my higher self in childhood. I have to admit that time remains a mystery to me, but based on my experiences, I believe that our conception of linear time is an illusion, and that we are not limited by the five senses. Something in each one of us can know things about other times and places that cannot be known through the processes of “normal” brain consciousness.

Path of Tau, Saturn

     During meditation recently I experienced traveling rapidly toward a great light. In my vision, I knew that I had the choice of plunging into the light or remaining outside of it. Once inside the light, I sensed the movement of majestic forces, and I heard a voice say, “This is the dance of the Gods.” I experienced a sense that these were great archetypal forces dancing through the cosmos and through each life, and that each human being can know them if he or she chooses. Then the light completely engulfed me, and I heard a reminder that I can contact these forces through the Earth Soul, which I interpreted to mean that we can know the archetypal forces, which have formed the basis for myths and religions and folklore from time immemorial, because their energies manifest on the physical plane. Communion with the Earth Soul for me has opened up an understanding of what archetypal forces are at work in my life. These forces, I've realized, have greatly influenced my life, if not controlled my destiny.

     When my family lived in LA, I never had the desire to venture beyond my street, but after we moved to Fresno, CA, in 1971, I developed a passion for bicycle riding. When I was eleven, I would ride my bike all the time, not through the neighborhood, but to the vacant lots and orchards near our house. We lived just a few blocks away from the north edge of town, and some of the fig orchards were like parks, with well-worn paths and mounds that I used as ramps. Instead of remaining with friends after school, I preferred riding my bicycle alone. I sensed the Earth Soul in these vacant lots and orchards, and I never felt alone even though I was rarely with another person.

     In vacant lots full of weeds and trash, where squirrels and rabbits scurried away from me in absolute terror, the Earth Soul drenched me with a peace beyond understanding even though I was usually near busy streets. Over the years, I have recovered this sense of peace within little weedy lots as well as within the vast Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Only recently have I come to realize that I have gained far more spiritually from a few hours in vacant lots and fig orchards and campgrounds than from years with the most learned professors—or from interminable sermons.

Tiger Lilies

     Thanks to weedy lots and pristine forests, like Plato, I feel an intrinsic connection within all living things on the planet: “This world is indeed a being endowed with a soul and an intelligence...a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related” (Timaeus, 29-30).

     In nature the experience of the anima mundi, or World Soul (also known as Earth Soul), often begins with a sudden, almost imperceptible shift from the “monkey mind” to a deep feeling of peace that grows more profound. This peace is often accompanied by a feeling of exaltation because the Earth is like a magnet for spiritual forces. Once in tune with the Earth Soul, my soul begins to sense archetypal forces, and I experience as well a sense of freedom from the petty distractions and illusions of my own life. This sense of freedom has helped release me from the destructive aspects of social conditioning while at the same time making it possible for me to feel a deep sense of harmony.

     As I was driving by a trashed vacant lot recently, I suddenly felt the same sense of regeneration that I experienced as a boy, and I understood the voice I heard so long ago on the train. The voice intimated the attainment of a profound archetypal state: the regeneration of the black Isis, the dead sleep from which one rises completely renewed. A soul that still clings to illusion hesitates to fall into this slumber of annihilation, but the soul sick to death of illusion falls easily into the Abyss where the personality vanishes and the spirit wakes to a sense of oneness and harmony, a condition, which, in its most radical state, is the ultimate spiritual attainment: union with the Source.

Path of Gimel, The Moon

     If my brother had not found the plastic toy camel in the garage (see previous post), I would not have remembered my train rides through LA or a vision that I experienced almost a decade ago. In the vision I was walking in a soft blue monk's habit on a stone path through an enclosed garden. From a distance I could see a stone statue, which I suspected was religious in nature. As I approached, I saw a statue of Jesus on the cross and knelt down, but when I looked up, to my surprise the statue changed into the Virgin Mary.

     This vision occurred while some friends and I were “chakra toning,” a New Age technique for opening the energy centers of the aura, which consists of singing the note associated with each primary chakra for an extended period in turn. In theory, this technique opens the chakras to spiritual vibrations. The toning session begins with the note associated with the lowest chakra and proceeds up the scale without interruption to the highest chakra. By the sixth note, after singing nonstop for about thirty minutes, I had achieved an altered state of consciousness through hyperventilation and experienced the vision.

     I was surprised by the vision for several reasons. First of all, I have never worshiped Christian icons, and before then I had mainly experienced visions of symbols associated with the Tree of Life, the sacred glyph of the mystical Qabalah. Even more surprising to me, in the vision I was a monk in a monastery garden. I had entertained the idea of becoming a pagan priest but never a Christian monk. Moreover, I was wearing a hooded robe of the purist soft blue, which both intrigued and confused me, because I thought that monks only wore black or brown or white robes. Before then, I had never imagined kneeling or humbling myself before the Virgin Mary, or an other feminine deity, an act which I interpreted as show of willingness to sacrifice myself in some way. The very act of becoming a monk, of course, requires sacrificing a worldly life for a spiritual one. Donning the robes proclaims detachment from the ornaments and distractions of the world.

     I told my friends about the vision but soon forgot it since the symbolism seemed boringly conventional. At the time, I did not know enough about the deep symbolism of the Tree of Life in the Western esoteric spiritual tradition. Finally, after many spiritual experiences and over ten years of study, the meaning of the vision, which is more Qabalistic than I had initially imagined, has grown much clearer.

Path of Teth, Leo

     Without even knowing it, for most of my life, I have manifested the archetypal energies of the Goddess, no matter the circumstances. In the vision, I was worshiping the celestial Goddess, the feminine principle of creation, revealing my devotion to Her. Though strange, the vision seemed appropriate to me because of my devotion to the arts and the natural world from childhood on, but the vision revealed a deeper level of meaning that can only be understood in the context of the Tree of Life.

     There is an old saying in the Mysteries: “All the Gods are one God, and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and there is but one true initiator.” In terms of the Tree of Life, that means that the feminine principle shows up as different Goddesses on different levels, or “paths.”

     The Tree of Life reveals the evolution of the cosmos from the finest spiritual energy to the densest physical manifestation through ten primary states of being known as sephiroth (plural). Each sephira (singular) within the cosmos emerged from the previous state of being and eventually emanated the next. The first three states contain the basic principles of creation, for instance the duality of masculine and feminine and the existence of unity within multiplicity, but remain outside of manifestation. The Virgin Mary is symbolically associated with the third emanation, a supernal sephira on the Tree of Life known a Binah, in a dimension above the Abyss.

The celestial Virgin, the archetypal feminine principle outside of manifestation, therefore experiences immaculate conception, and gives birth to a savior God, the “Son” of the Trinity manifested on this plane. Binah, the sphere of the celestial Virgin, is the primal womb of manifestation from which all form originates, hence its association with Saturn, with stone, and with the sea. The third sephira, though outside creation, ushers in the lord of all terrors. The word Mary comes from the Hebrew word marah, “bitter” or “bitterness.” Binah, the great sea of evolving life, is bitter: Whatever is born must die.

Path of Tzaddi, Aquarius

     The feminine principle, as I mentioned, is associated with other Goddesses on different paths on the Tree, most notably with Netzach, the seventh sephira ruled by Venus—the sphere of nature, beauty and the arts. I was born under the sign of Aquarius, which on the Tree links the sephira of Yesod with the sephira of Netzach, each sephira representing different aspects of the Goddess. In my vision, though, I was worshiping the celestial Goddess. I had already manifested the energy of Venus through my art and adored Demeter through my love of nature. I had found the energy of Luna through meditation and had worked for Ma'at through my struggle for truth and justice. In terms of the Tree of Life, the vision made perfect sense: I have sacrificed my personality, not to manifest the Christ force, but to manifest the energies of the Goddess on different levels.

     Several connecting paths on the Tree of Life, including the Path of Gimel, the Path of Daleth, the Path of Teth, the Path of Lamed, and the Path of Tau, also reflect aspects of the Goddess, so the adventurer on the Tree of Life has the opportunity to meet the Goddess at many points on the journey. In the archetypal hero's journey, the meeting with the Goddess represents a stage in the adventure when a person experiences a relationship that has the power and significance of an all encompassing, unconditional love. Also known as the sacred marriage, the union of opposites, the “meeting” may take place on a purely psychological level, representing the unification of the self during which the hero begins to see himself in harmony with all creation.

Two of Wands

     A psychic, about a year before my vision, told me that my aura is soft blue, which may partially explain why in the vision the monk's habit is blue. Renditions of Mary portray the Queen of Heaven and Earth and the Great Sea in blue also. My monk's garb in the vision is, on one level, an emblem of my adoration for the Goddess. Pure, soft blue is also a symbol of the spiritual level in Chokmah, the sphere of dynamic, masculine energy opposite Binah, which connects the primarily masculine energy of the celestial God with the energy of the celestial Goddess.

     According to Dion Fortune, an authority on the modern Qabalah, the bible, which is essentially a Qabalistic book, contains God-names that pertain to the different sephiroth on the Tree of Life. For instance, all references to the Father concern the Source in Kether, the crown of creation; all references to the Son apply to Tiphareth, the Christ-center; and all references to the Holy Ghost, the feminine principle within the trinity, relate to Yesod, the Foundation, the state of being out of which the physical universe has evolved. The Holy Ghost, which I understand to be the Goddess, the Earth Soul, attracts archetypal spiritual forces like a magnet to the Kingdom, the physical world. The dance of the Gods, feminine and masculine, is the dance of the archetypal energies of one God through different dimensions of the cosmos, energies which ultimately manifest in the physical world.

     The paths of the Goddess bring peace and harmony and a sense of oneness with all creation. The energies of these paths counteract the exploitation and alienation and brutality of a left-brained, male-dominated world. Living in Fresno, CA, I have never received any reward for my art and have occasionally been kicked in the face for speaking truth to power, but I have always felt compelled to manifest the energies of the Goddess anyway due to a crying need for them in this community and this society as a whole. My lower personality, so woefully limited by my five senses, longs for the simple, powerful connection with the Earth Soul, despite any sacrifices or doubt. I don't know what the voice on the train meant exactly so many years ago, but I can't help but feel that it was telling me about regeneration through the Goddess, a renewal resulting in a radical sense of harmony and oneness with creation. At least I know now that all I need to do is find the Goddess again in a weedy lot or a pristine forest to get in touch with my core and with cosmic spiritual forces.