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| Poppies at Big Creek, March 13, 2017 |
A month ago, as I
hiked down the disintegrating road that leads to a gauging station at Sycamore
Creek, the freshness of winter overpowered me. The brittle spears of last
year’s grasses had dissolved in the rains, supplanted by raw, green tapestries.
In the asphalt blanketed by moss and humus, a surging rivulet ceaselessly carved
a thin ravine. Winter storms had knocked down so many gray pines onto the road that
I found myself often fighting through branches or climbing over tree trunks
until I finally meandered away from the road and discovered that trees had also
collapsed on ancient trails and pounding stones and house pits, the boundless
energy of creation equaled only by the boundless energy of destruction. I used
to feel immense gratitude for the regenerating wetness of winter. This year, the
rejuvenation of the hills inspired fear and a little resentment in me, for I was
reminded every moment that I too will someday be obliterated by nature’s inexorable
freshness.
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| Rivulet in Winter |
In the destruction
of the old and the freshness of the new, I can sometimes see the eternal, but
that provides little or no consolation when I am facing my mortality. I know
that dealing with death is a matter of distinguishing between my personality
and my soul. My individual personality on the physical plane has essentially
developed from birth as the combination of characteristics and qualities that
form my distinctive character. But I have also developed another personality
through an evolution that has formed around a divine spark like a pearl forms
around a grain of sand. This is known by Qabalists as the soul, the
Individuality, or the evolutionary personality. The soul absorbs the
experiences on all planes from the beginning of an evolution, and since it is
linked with the divine spark, the soul can intuit knowledge not perceived by
the senses and transcend time and space. However, as I stared at a pounding
stone covered by a fallen oak, all I could think about was the obliteration of human
history.
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| Stream in Winter, a Tributary of Big Creek |
In the past, I believed
that the dissolution of my personality in nature is a key to spiritual freedom,
but that winter day I did not experience any sense of liberation, for I am
growing old and vulnerable. My heart has become a “gluten gauge”: If I ingest a miniscule amount of gluten, I suffer atrial fibrillation, and I have
experienced A fib often recently even though I have taken great pains to
eliminate gluten entirely from my diet. For anyone who is super sensitive to gluten, the world is a mine field, and the explosives are any foods that
contain even a tiny amount of the toxic proteins. Often, however, the explosive
does not detonate immediately. The adverse effects of gluten can sometimes be cumulative
and can take a long time to blow up a person’s world. I have many times remained at a loss for
months and even years about the source of a continuous adverse reaction, but
now due to A fib I can’t afford any mistakes, which has resulted in growing
sense of doom.
I was beginning
to suspect that celiac disease had not only ravaged my digestive system but had
also somehow ruined my heart. Then one evening recently I forgot to cook
chicken, which I have often consumed twice a day during the past two years.
That night and the next morning I did not experience any irregular heartbeats,
so as an experiment I stopped eating chicken. I discovered online that some companies inject a solution containing saltwater and other ingredients such as wheat into chickens to increase their weight. I have not experienced A fib once
in the past month since I eliminated chicken from my diet. I got lucky. Before
now I never would have suspected that chicken might contain gluten, and if it
weren’t for my forgetfulness that evening, I might have continued eating contaminated
chicken regularly until I experienced a stroke.
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| Poppies above Big Creek |
My chronic
illness makes me feel like an old man, trapping me in the physical world when I
would rather reach for the heights of spirituality. Due to my spiritual
practices, I know that each of us, when the veils have fallen, is a spiritual being
full of inner magnificence, harmony, and abundance, but it is so easy to lose
that awareness in daily life, especially if you are burdened with a chronic disease.
So, at the beginning of spring, toward the end of February, I returned to the
foothills. The poppies were back, and patches of blazing fiddleneck were popping up. At Big Creek I
also found the first shooting stars and popcorn and baby blue eyes. The
rivulets joining the creek were fuller than I have ever seen before, the water
cascading down waterfalls and dancing over rocks. Even though I was no longer
experiencing A fib, I still felt vulnerable, but I once again felt rejuvenated
by the freshness; my personality soon slipped away as my senses opened, and I
suspected that as animals, human beings are always geared toward experiencing
the physical as the dense aspect of the spiritual: We keep getting pulled back
from the higher spiritual energies to the Earth.
And, unfortunately,
so many aspects of human life hinder connection with the spiritual nature of
the Earth’s angelic hosts, its plants and animals. Most of us, at some point at
least, experience poverty, loss, illness, betrayal, and conflict, all of which burden
us with negative energies that interfere with the engagement of our physical
and subtle senses with the natural world. We become distracted by technology
and overwhelmed by information. We slowly shut down our physical and subtle senses
because of the noise, the congestion, the physical and mental pollution in our
cities. When I was a boy, for instance,
I grew up in a house that was directly under the flight path of fighter jets zooming
in and out of the airport. One day when a friend came over and complained about
the roar, I realized that I no longer “heard” the deafening noise. Without
realizing it, over the years I had totally tuned it out. Years later, after I
mentally purified myself, I unexpectedly became more open to the spiritual
dimension, and I recognized that I had gradually shut down my subtle senses in
much the same manner.
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| Shooting Stars near Stream above Big Creek |
In the watershed of the Kings River, I once
again felt the ultimate Mystery as both immanent and transcendent, existing in
the Earth and all of its creatures, yet remaining also in another plane far
beyond human brain consciousness. Next to the rivulet, I felt the invisible
energy of the Mystery permeating the water and the rocks, the fresh grasses and
trees, the oaks and buckeyes, the warblers and juncos. I let go of my sense of
doom and my limiting beliefs and opened myself to a Mystery that is far vaster
and more amazing than anything I can imagine. And I felt rejuvenated on all
levels. I felt happy again as I returned to the modern world, where opening myself
to the Mystery usually requires a great deal of mental purification.
I’ve realized
that now in my spiritual development, the great challenge for me is truly accepting
that my personality, which I have spent a lifetime developing, will disappear
entirely from this plane, and all I have is trust in the Mystery that consciousness
will continue and regeneration will follow.
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| Baby Blue Eye, Kings River Watershed |
Due to experiences
with spirits and the power of consciousness in the past fifteen years, I have
come to trust the Mystery. (See previous posts.) And I have come to believe
that the physical to an amazing degree can be manipulated by consciousness.
Within certain limitations, we can heal our bodies with our minds, especially
when negative energy or a spiritual attack is causing illness. I can provide a
few personal examples that defy rational explanation. One, which I have
described before, occurred during a time of intense mental purification. During
meditation one day, I scanned my body with my inner eye and discovered a large
streak of black energy under my armpit. In my mind, I drained the black energy
away into the magma below the earth, and the next day a round, white growth,
the size of a musket ball, painlessly slipped out of a slit in my armpit. The
process occurred a little differently two other times. I drained black energy
from my armpit and a painful boil rose each time. After several days, similar white
growths painfully popped out of the boils. I have continued the same strategy
for eliminating troublesome pains and blemishes—and it has continued to be
effective, except for toothaches.
Once I
experienced four excruciatingly painful toothaches simultaneously. Several
times I have gone to the dentist, only to feel heart palpitations after
receiving a Novocain shot; my heart each time actually felt like it was going
to explode. Worried that gluten might be mixed in some brands of Novocain, I
had avoided the dentist for a long time.
Desperate to ease the pain as I lay awake in bed one night, I intuited
that I should use an egg to draw out the pain from my teeth. I placed the egg
in the area of the two worst toothaches and held my hand over it, drawing out
the black energy into the egg with my palm chakra. Then in my mind I filled my
mouth with intense white light. When I felt that I had completed the ritual, I
flushed the egg down the toilet. The next morning, the pain of all four
toothaches had vanished, and the toothaches have not returned. I discovered
later online that the “egg cleansing” is a practice used by shamans, especially
in Latin America.
Another time, I
entered a bedroom and envisioned a large hive of what looked like black spiders
extending down the wall from the ceiling. I blinked, but the shocking vision
did not go away. I did not want to scare the couple who lived there, so I
decided not to say anything. A few months later one of them told me that she
had a dream of black spiders coming down from a hive above her and swarming all
over her bed. Her husband, who, as far as I know, did not “see” the spiders,
experienced many panic attacks, and the woman began experiencing vertigo regularly
at night. She would wake up with the room spinning. Doctors could not find any
condition that might be causing the problem, so I began to think that she and
her husband were both under spiritual attack. I did several rituals from the astral plane to
cleanse their room and fill it with light. I soon found out that she has
returned to normal.
I have done
several egg cleansings for my heart and digestive system, and although they
have made me feel healthier, the sad fact is that gluten is poisonous to my
system, so I must remain ever vigilant. Nevertheless, I am beginning to suspect
that in “civilized” countries, the average person has given up control of his or
her own health care to doctors and drugs instead of using the power of the mind
to heal physical ailments. This perhaps has become “normal” in places where the
psychic senses are shut down and the spiritual dimension is ignored. This
ability to heal only exists, however, if one has purified the psyche so that
one can perceive energy with the senses of the soul—in other words, when the
higher self is awake.
I strive to live
in my higher self because I generally feel a greater sense of harmony and
abundance and a greater optimism about humanity in general, but when I first
became spiritually aware, I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to stay on
the path. Perhaps if I had not felt flawed and vulnerable over the years I would
not have stayed on the path at all. Negative feelings from conflict, betrayal,
illness and loss tend to stay with me, so I have to purify myself regularly,
and I have discovered that the most effective cleansing is with the fire of Mars,
known as the Power of Geburah, the fifth Sephira on the Tree of Life.
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| Path 27: Mars |
The Power of
Geburah can eliminate subtle negative energies associated with conflict, loss,
betrayal, illness, and poverty from your aura so that you can recognize the healing
power of your inner sun. The same Power can
be found also in the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, which, if performed regularly, has more
of a gradual effect on the psyche. Great care must be
exercised when invoking the energy of Geburah: Depending on how you manifest
it, Mars can be a disruptive force that itself can cause conflict and loss, or
Mars can be the cleansing energy of fire that purifies the spirit, mind and
body.
For me
personally, the energy of Geburah has been the source of many, often painful
life lessons that have helped me develop the discipline to focus on my art and
my spiritual growth, and it has also burned away the negativity associated with
those lessons so that I see my essence. Be warned, this might be a life-changing ritual: The energy of Mars can burn
away the personality until you see the eternal in yourself, but it can also
cause you to become egotistical, cruel and destructive. Like all of the
Sephiroth below the Abyss, Geburah has a virtue and a vice. Mars is the God of
War whose virtues include strength, discipline, vitality, and courage. However,
if you already have a great deal of Geburah energy, it would probably be better
to invoke the energies of Jupiter to balance your psyche.
In the Tarot, all
of the Fives can be considered adverse cards. A quick review of their
alternative titles will give you a good idea of what I mean:
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| Five of Pentacles |
- Five of Pentacles: Lord of Material Trouble
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| Five of Swords |
- Five of Swords: Lord of Defeat
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| Five of Cups |
- Five of Cups: Lord of Loss in Pleasure
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| Five of Wands |
- Five of Wands: Lord of Strife
Therefore, in
order to perform a constructive ritual with the Fives, it is best to concentrate
on the symbolism of the forces associated with the decans and the Tree of Life correspondance:
- Five of Pentacles: Mercury in Taurus, Mars in Geburah
- Five of Swords: Venus in Aquarius, Mars in Geburah
- Five of Cups: Mars in Scorpio, Mars in Geburah
- Five of Wands: Saturn in Leo, Mars in Geburah
The Major Arcana
correspondences are as follows:
- The Tower: Mars
- Five of Pentacles: The Magician (Mercury), The Hierophant (Taurus)
- Five of Swords: The Empress (Venus), The Star (Aquarius)
- Five of Cups: Death (Scorpio)
- Five of Wands: The World (Saturn), Strength (Leo)
In terms of the
Egyptian pantheon, the Gods correspond as follows:
- Mars: Horus
- Venus: Hathor
- Mercury: Thoth
- Taurus: Osiris or Serapis
- Scorpio: Anubis or Nephthys
- Aquarius: Sothis or Hor Wer
- Saturn: Ptah
- Leo: Sekhet
With this
information, you should be able to construct a ritual where you invoke the Gods
to eliminate the negative energy within yourself in order to know your essence.
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