Chapter V
The Divine Mother
This volume of letters and commentaries cannot complete itself, and for the reader it cannot really begin, without impressing upon the soul the realization that the Great Mother--the Divine Feminine Manifestation of the Godhead--is also impressing Herself once again upon the thought patterns of humanity. Just as the Sixth constellation Virgo precedes the events of the great Seventh month, wherein we observe the High Holy Days here in the West, and the epic completion of our present historical cycle...
Shekhina...Revelation 12.
...so the entire idea of the coming of the Messiah(s) is intricately connected to the reemergence of the Female and Mother aspects of Divinity. The children of Abraham (and our orthodox and fundamentalist brethren must be particularly attentive), will come to re-realize that God is Mother as well as Father. Please begin to perceive it in the sefira named Kether, or the Crown, on the Tree of Life, as it becomes one with the idea of the Universal Tao (this occurs when the Oracle-Tree is seen in its universal dimensions), thus the Fountainhead of every balanced principle in the created universe...
Kether (The Tao) The Supreme Crown
EAST
WEST
The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao (Ain Sof). The Name that can be named is not the Eternal Name...
Yet Mystery and Manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called Darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding...Tao Te Ching, First Precept.
...And they will come to realize that God (in their intricately balanced form as Mother and Father) is not only creating the conditions that are bringing about this present surge in human awareness, but the very conditions that are bringing an end to the old political, economic, and religious order itself...
The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn't take sides; She welcomes both saints and sinners...
HOLD ON TO THE CENTER. Fifth Precept
THE TAO IS THE GREAT MOTHER: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.
It is always present with(in) you. You can use (and abuse) it any way you want. Sixth Precept
There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally Present. IT IS THE MOTHER OF THE UNIVERSE. For lack of a better name I call it the Tao.
It flows through all things, inside and outside, AND RETURNS TO THE ORIGINS OF ALL THINGS.
THE TAO IS GREAT. THE UNIVERSE IS GREAT. EARTH IS GREAT. MAN IS GREAT. THESE ARE THE FOUR GREAT POWERS...Twenty Fifth Precept, The Tao Te Ching, A New English Version, by Stephen Mitchell.
What continuity will there be between the Old and the New? It is likened in the oracles to the birth of a child--a Wondrous Child:
And there appeared a great wonder (in the heaven of human comprehension); a Woman clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under Her feet, and upon Her head a Crown of Twelve Stars. (She is crowned in the Majesty of the Universe itself, because She also is God. She and the Father are ONE).
And She, being with Child, travailed in birth, and pained to be delivered...(Revelation 12:1,2).
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Then answered he unto me and said, the more thou searchest, the more thou shalt marvel; for the world hurries to pass away, and cannot comprehend the things that are promised to the righteous in the time to come, for this world is full of unrighteousness and infirmities.
But as concerning the things whereof thou asketh, I will tell thee, for the evil is sown, but destruction thereof is not yet come.
If therefore that which is sown be not turned upside down, and if the place where the evil is sown pass not away, that cannot come which is sown with the good.
Then I answered and said, how and when shall these things come to pass?
And he answered and said, Do not thou hasten above the Most Highest, for thy haste is in vain...
Did not the souls of the righteous also ask questions of these things in their chambers, saying, How long shall I hope on this fashion? When cometh the fruit of the floor of our reward?
And he said unto me, The archangel gave them answer, saying, even when the number of seeds is fulfilled in you, for He hath weighed the world in a balance.
By measure hath He measured the times, and by number hath He numbered the times, and He doth not move nor stir them till the said number be fulfilled.
Then answered I, O Lord that bearest rule, is it that the floors of the righteous are not filled because of the sins of us who dwell upon the earth?
So he said unto me, Go thy way to a woman with child, and ask of her when she has fulfilled her months, if her womb may keep the birth any longer within her?
Then said I, No Lord she cannot. And he said unto me. In the grave (see Ezekiel 37) the chambers of souls are like the womb of a woman. For like as a woman that travaileth makes haste to escape the necessity of the travail; even so do these places haste to deliver those things that are committed unto them.
From the beginning, look, what thou desirest to see, it shall be shewed thee...(2 Esdras 4:26-43, KJV).
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Behold, the plagues draw nigh, and are not slack.
As when a woman with child in her ninth month bringeth forth, within two or three hours of her birth great pains compass her womb, which pains, when the child cometh forth, they slack not a moment.
Even so shall not the plagues be slack to come upon the earth, and the world shall mourn, and sorrow shall come upon it on every side.
Hear my words, make ye ready to the battle, and in those evils be as pilgrims upon the earth...(2 Esdras 16:35-40).
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We have been in pain with child. We have, as it were, brought forth wind. We have not wrought deliverance in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen...(Isaiah 26:18).
A photo taken just recently one stormy day.
Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a Nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children.
Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith the Lord...(Isaiah 66:8,9).
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But of the times and the seasons, ye have no need that I write unto you.
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night (see John 10:1-10).
For when they shall say, Peace and Safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are all the children of Light, and the children of the Day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness...(1 Thessalonians 5:1-9).
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Now why dost thou cry aloud? Is there no king in thee? Is thy counselor perished? For pangs have taken hold of thee as a woman in travail.
Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail:
For thou shall go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field (see Matthew 13:38), and thou shalt go even to Babylon: there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies...(Micah 5:9-12).
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Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be sorrowful. But your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow because her hour is come. But as soon as she is delivered of the child she remember no more the pain, for joy that a child is born into the world...(John 16:20,21).
Just as every child is born out of the darkness of its own mother's womb, into the light of the world beyond, so this Child is being born out of the Darkness of this age into the Light of the age to come. This Child is the coming age. It is coming to birth with all of the ideas, interpretations, and revelations that went into hiding with the Mother herself, when She, along with the mysteries of the Feminine Principle, went into occultation at the time of Christ two thousand years ago. Where is this Child being born? Naturally, in the lower parts of the earth (below the Navel, in the West), but moreso, in the hearts and minds of every single individual, male and female alike, who is being reborn, or born-again, in the process.
"Once upon a time twins (an allusion to the two sides of the Tree of Life) were conceived in the same womb. Seconds, minutes, hours (centuries), passed as the two dormant lives developed. The spark of life glowed until it ignited in the formation of their tiny embryonic minds. With their simple minds came feeling, and with feeling perception, of their surroundings, of the other, of self.
When each perceived the life of the other, as well as their own, they also sensed that life was good, and they laughed and rejoiced, the one saying, How lucky we are to have been conceived, and to have this world. The other chiming, And blessed be the mother who gave us this life and each other. Each budded and grew arms and fingers, lean legs and stubby toes. They stretched their lungs, churned and turned in their new-found world. They explored their world, and in it found the life-cord which gave them life from the precious mother's blood. They said, How great is the mother that she shares all she has with us. And they were pleased and satisfied with their world.
As time passed they noticed a change in each other. We are changing, said the one. What can it mean? IT MEANS, said the other, THAT WE ARE DRAWING NEAR TO THE BIRTH.
An unsettling chill crept over the two, and they both feared, for they sensed that birth meant leaving their world behind. Were it up to me, said the one, I would live here forever.
But we must be born, said the other. It has happened to all others who were here before us. For, indeed, there was evidence of life there before, as the mother had born others.
But is there life after birth? How can there be life after birth, said the other. Do we not shed our life-cord? And have you ever talked to anyone who has been born? Has anyone ever reentered the womb after birth? No! And he fell into despair and lamented, If the purpose of conception and all our growth is that it be ended in birth, then life is truly absurd.
He stabbed the darkness with his unseeing eyes, and as he clutched his precious life-cord to his chest, said, If this is so, and life is absurd, then there really can be no mother. But there is a mother cried the other. Who else gave us this nourishment and our world? We get our own nourishment, and the world has always been here. And if there is a mother, where is she? Have you seen her? Does she ever talk to you? No, we invented the mother because it satisfied a need in us. It made us feel happy and secure.
Thus while one despaired the other resigned itself to the birth. Hours ached into days, and days fell into weeks. And it came time. Both knew that the birth was at hand. And both feared what they did not know. As the one was the first to be conceived, so it was the first to be born. The other followed soon after.
They cried as they were born into the light, and coughed out fluids, gasping for dry air. And when they were sure they had been born, they opened their eyes, seeing for the first time, and found themselves cradled in the warm arms of the Mother. They lay open-mouthed and awe-struck before that Beauty and Truth they could not otherwise have hoped to have known." The Midwives Alliance of Indiana, (April, 1987).
Who is this Mother? First of all She is not simply the result of metaphysical and theological word-play, but rather the natural extension of Divine Reality which constantly expresses itself in every study of the laws and principles of the Universe. Before creation (the Great Emanation) God was united with Him and Herself (or Her and Himself) in one singularly-conscious form, until the moment of Creation itself when God broke, or emanated, into positive and negative forces and the material order appeared. With it appeared all the conceptual forms into which the Mind of Creation descended, and with which it would clothe itself. With creation She came forth:
SHE IS A TREE OF LIFE to them that lay hold upon Her: and happy is everyone that retaineth Her...(Proverbs 3:18).
She is ever-present. She is the Feminine manifestation of the Presence of God. She (along with the Father), is both hidden and revealed everywhere in Nature, in myth, and in the pages of Holy Writ. As God is Creator, She is Creation. She descended with the process of Creation, from form to form--always keeping the concept of the Divine Father (the Higher invisible Principle) with Her--through the formation of the Solar System, to that of the planet Earth, to the creation of humanity on Earth, and finally to the ongoing creation of the mind of humanity in our very own day. She has given birth a billion times, and (just as She gave birth 2,000 years ago to the age that is now ending) She is travailing in birth again, and the whole world is experiencing Her fierce contractions...
In the scriptures She is our mother Sarah bringing forth Her child in the time of life. (Genesis 18, and 19). She hid the leaven in Three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. (Matthew 13:33):
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a woman who taketh of the incorruptable leaven and hideth it in three measures of meal...And till the whole is leavened, being baked by fire...becoming one loaf...(The Gospel of the Perfect Life XXXIX.5).
Before She was Sarah She was Sarasvati, the wife of Brahma (Abrahm), and the Mother of the Four Vedas:
ABRAM AND SARAI..."The early River Goddess, Sarasvati, becomes identified with speech (Vach). She appears as the wife of Brahma, and the Goddess of Wisdom and Eloquence. (See Proverbs 7:4; Genesis 20:2). In the great epic, the Mahabrata, She is called the Mother of the Four Vedas. (And thus, the Four Gospels)...
Further evidence of a common source is found in the doctrine common to Indian, Greek, and Babylonian systems that all originates from a watery abyss (the womb of the world), and again from a Cosmic egg. Indian lore combines the idea of creation through Water and the Word, in the double meaning of Saras, which can be taken as water and voice, hence Sarasvati...Her characteristics are found in the Babylonian goddess Sarpantium, who, as blended with Erua, the daughter of Ea, becomes 'the Lady of the Deep,' the 'Voice of the Deep,' and possessor of knowledge concealed from men." Pagan Christs, J.M. Robertson, pp.59,60.
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"Brahma (Creator) formed from His (and Her) own substance a female, who is celebrated under the names of Satarupa, Savitri, and Sarasvati...
Brahma's wife is Sarasvati, the goddess of Wisdom and Science, the Mother of the Vedas. She is represented (at times) with Four arms. With one of her right hands she is presenting a flower to her husband, by whose side She constantly stands." The Dictionary of Religion and Myths.
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The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
When there was no depths, I was brought forth; when there was no fountains abounding with water...
Then was I by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.
Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.
Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.
HEAR INSTRUCTION, AND BE WISE, REFUSE IT NOT.
Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
For whoso findeth me findeth LIFE, and shall obtain favor of the Lord.
But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul (see Matthew 12:31,32): all they that hate me love death...(Proverbs 8:22-36).
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Wisdom (Sophia) crieth without; She uttereth Her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief places of the concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city She uttereth Her words, saying:
How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
Turn ye at my reproof: behold, I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU, I will make my words (the meaning of all things) known unto you... (Proverbs 1:20-23).
In a song from the Vedas there are three verses at the close addressed to the river Sarasvati. In the first two she is a goddess (a force of Nature) who is the inspirer of noble thoughts, "the knower of good thoughts in men"...In the next verse there is mention of the great Flood of Waters that grants wisdom through its own wisdom. In another song there is a verse where the Sarasvati is described as a kind Mother giving milk to her baby from her breast. (See Genesis 21:1-8; Isaiah 28:9-11). In another verse Sarasvati is spoken of as associated with the Maruts (please see the previous chapter on the connection between the Maruts and the Essenes)..."She goes forward with a Chariot...She is invoked to go to the Place of Worship." The Quintessence of the RigVeda, pp.68,69.
TRANSLATION: "Sarasvati-speech which is inspirer of acquiring noble virtues and is the instructress of the Right Minded, refined by knowledge of the Vedas upholds the Yajna (the Great Nonviolent Sacrifice...please see previous chapter).
PURPORT: It is only the science and true speech of the learned who are pure in thought, word, and deed, which is full of all knowledge and devoid of all deceit that can give true knowledge to the people...
'According to Rishi Dayananda, the word Sarasvati also means a 'learned lady.' In this Mantra it means that a learned lady always uses and instructs others to use true and sweet words, tender good advice to all, and performs the Yajnas (sacrifices) well...'
TRANSLATION: The Vedic speech, which along with noble actions and intellect, enlightens the great ocean of the words like the great ocean of water, gives intellectual brightness." The Holy Rigveda, Mandala I, Hymn III, pp.46-48.
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"Now for some reason or another best known to themselves, the translators of the bible have carefully crowded out of existence and smothered up every reference to the fact that the Deity is both masculine and feminine. They have translated the feminine-plural by a masculine-singular in the case of the word ELOHIM. They have, however, left an inadvertent admission of their knowledge that it was plural in Genesis 1:26 and 5:1,2: 'And ELOHIM said: Let US make man.' Again (v.27), how could Adam be made in the image of Elohim, male and female, unless the Elohim were male and female also?
The word Elohim is a plural ending from a feminine-singular ALH (Eloh), by adding IM to the word. But inasmuch as IM is usually the termination of the masculine-plural, and is here added to a feminine noun, it gives the word Elohim the sense of a female potency united to a masculine idea, and thereby capable of producing an offspring.
Now we hear much of the Father and the Son, but we hear nothing of the Mother in the ordinary religions of the day. But in the Qabalah we find that the Ancient of Days conforms Himself simultaneously into the Father and Mother, and thus begets a Son. Now this Mother is Elohim. (Please see the following chapters on the Divine Name).
Again, we are usually told that the Holy Spirit is masculine. But the word RVCh, Ruach (Spirit), is feminine, as appears from the following passage of the Sepher Yetzirah: AChTh RVCh ALHIM ChIIM...Achath (feminine, not Achad, masculine) Ruach Elohim Chiim: 'One is She the Spirit of the Elohim of Life.'" The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S. L. Mac Gregor Mathers, pp.21,22.
It was the Spirit of the Mother (conjoined with the Father), and all Her mysteries, which descended from Kether (the Supreme Crown on the Tree of Life) into the Mystery of Christ in the time of John the Baptist: And, lo, a Voice from Heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:17). There cannot be a son without a father and a mother.
Malachi, chapter 4
It was also the Divine Mother (Wisdom Herself) who allowed (compelled) the Male (solar) principle to come to power with the Rising of the Sun in the time of Christ. For in the Mystery of Christ both good and evil (balance and imbalance) were to be brought to perfection and revealed, as it is also written: For the mystery of Iniquity doth already work. (2 Thessalonians 2:7). As we follow this pathway of the "male order" out of the East to this fulness of time in the West, we can look back and see the intended effects of Her work (of Their work). She wanted us to see what a world completely out of balance looks like, how it is filled with violence and aggression, with competitiveness, with oppression, and injustice. The world is reeling under the effects of male domination. It is filled with the spirit of little boys parading around in the guise of grown men, wearing uniforms and medals, playing soldiers and politicians, wearing crowns and miters on their heads, flying here and there, making hollow speeches, filling the earth with vanity, with destruction and with death...while with increasing insolence, impotence, and ignorance of things divine, they preside over the ongoing collapse of their own world order...
The rulers thought it was by their own power and will that they were doing what they did, but the Holy Spirit in secret was accomplishing everything through them as it wished. Truth, which existed from the beginning, is sown everywhere. And many see it being sown, but few are they who see it being reaped...(The Gospel of Philip II)
When the Male principle came to power, as it did in the most historical way two thousand years ago, we see that not only did the Mother herself go into hiding (concealing herself in such otherwise obscure literary figures as Mary--Mare, the Sea, or the Waters of Life--and Elizabeth, or ElSabat, the personification of the sacred number Seven), but the entire Feminine (Lunar) principle went into occultation with Her. And we follow this realization (making note of all the ways the Feminine principle has been ruthlessly ill-treated, tortured, set aside, disregarded, and callously tread under foot), into our own times, to the High Holy Days in the West, and to the words:
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the Seventh Month, in the first day of the month (the day of the New--returning--Moon), shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation...(Leviticus 23:24).
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Blow the trumpet in the New Moon, in the time appointed on our solemn feast day...(Psalm 81:3).
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He hath appointed the Moon for seasons, and the Sun knoweth his (own) going down...(Psalm 104:19).
The meaning of the New Moon which accompanies the descent of the Divine Mother into our collective field of consciousness, will be realized in the return of the Feminine Principle to its own rightful (balanced) place in the cosmic order. This Anointed one shall appear as the Messiahs are revealed in our time at the place named Majesty on the Tree of Life. (Zechariah 4:10-14)...
THE SUN AND THE MOON, CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM
Moreover the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun shall be Sevenfold as the light of Seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound...(Isaiah 30:26).
So why does it say of the Divine Mother that She has the moon under her feet? (Rev.12:1). First of all, we see that it is here at the Foot of the mystery where the Feminine principle shall reappear in perfect balance with the Male principle. And when it does, She will have under her own Foot any continued notion of the spiritual inferiority, or difference between the male and female principles--the one being potent, for instance, and the other "merely" receptive; one full of light and the other darkness; and one above and the other below...
Then why is the Child of Revelation called a "manchild," or a "Son?" Please! students of scripture, feminists, everyone, quit the childishness. God has only so many physical and literary forms to work with, and there are only so many principles to be expressed, so stop stumbling over them. Stop being offended by them. Come to maturity (Ephesians 4:13). Be spiritual. God hid these principles from the literal, unspiritual mind, so that the spiritual mind could be manifest in the last day, so that Divine Wisdom could be revealed in the last day. This child is called a "son" because a son (not in the literal, or physical sense, but in the world of thought-forms and ideas) has a penus. And a penus (not in the literal or physical sense but in the world of thought-forms and ideas) is capable of penetrating and impregnating another. Thus the penus, and by extension the notion of a "son," is a metaphor for the ability to penetrate another--not with a penus but with the seed of truth, with the meaning of the Word of God, with a right interpretation of reality. Is the female capable? Is she equal to the task? Of course! She has always known it. Has she been called to it? From the very beginning. Is her name not Adam (Genesis 5:1,2), thus, is she not also the Christ? So let us grow past the allegories and metaphors, the types and images. Let's cast off the yoke of literalism and get on with the higher realities of Life. (Please read the chapter entitled "Circumcision").
In the following Gnostic scene Peter, along with Andrew, plays the heavy as usual. He is typed as the rigid literalist who must be taught the secret meaning of the Scriptures and the lessons of the Spirit over and over again:
"But they were grieved. They wept greatly, saying, How shall we go to the Gentiles and preach the gospel of the Son of man? If they did not spare him, how will they spare us? Then Mary (Magdalene) stood up, greeted her brethren, and said: Do not be irresolute, for his grace will be entirely with you, and will protect you. But rather let us praise his greatness, for he has prepared us AND MADE US INTO MEN. When Mary said this, she turned their hearts to the good, and they began to discuss the words of the Savior.
Peter said to Mary, Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of women. Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember--which you know and we do not, nor have we heard them. Mary answered and said, What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you. And she began to speak to them...
(When Mary was finished) she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Savior had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, Say what you wish to say about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Savior said these things. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas. Peter answered and spoke concerning the same things. He questioned them about the Savior: Did he really speak with a woman without our knowledge and not openly? Are we to turn about and listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?
Then Mary wept (for them) and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up by myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior? Levi answered and said to Peter. Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the women like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed AND PUT ON THE PERFECT MAN and acquire him for ourselves as he commanded us, and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond which the Savior said. (Rome?). (Saudi Arabia?)." The Gospel of Mary, The Nag Hammadi Library.
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Simon Peter said to them, Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.
Jesus said, I myself shall lead her in order to make her "male", so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven...(The Gospel of Thomas 114).
Did Peter really believe that Mary was spiritually inferior? Or that women, in the literal, physical sense of the term are not worthy of life? (As the twisted and tormented Augustine and other early Catholic fathers were to in the following centuries)? Of course not. Who would follow them if they did? These guys were not jerks. They were the radicals, the spiritual counter culture of their time. They are members of the Fellowship of the Mystery. And the females among them are all part of the same spiritual conspiracy. One cannot imagine, for instance, that Peter's wife (or any other of the Essene ladies) is some dotish, unintelligent figure cowering around the backdrop of the New Testament narratives, on her way to spiritual oblivion, whose only purpose is to wait on Peter, or that she would stand for such talk unless she herself understood the imagery. But rather imagine her strong and spiritually vibrant, and as perceptive in all of these matters as he. And be sure, if Peter is a prophet it is because she has given him the power to be one. And if he has come to understand the meaning of the higher mysteries for himself, experientially, which include the mysteries of the Feminine principle, it is because she has helped him learn them. And if the penus is a metaphor the vagina even more so:
The Vagina...A Cave of Treasures concealed in a garden of delight. It is the pathway to the Navel of the Earth; it is the portal of life itself. The uninitiated, the unchosen, the unspiritual, have never seen it. (Her secrets that is). They may have thought about it, lusted after it, even forced themselves upon it. They may have imagined themselves its guardians, set rules for it, and commanded it to stay in its place, but they have never experienced it. It is the Higher Mysteries, and the way to the hidden, inner meanings of Life itself that we speak of. It is Divine Wisdom that we speak of, sometimes Mother, sometimes Sister, sometimes Lover, that we speak of. She is true love, and she is heavy with spiritual birth...
As above, so below. The precept is illustrated here in Da Vinci's Last Supper. Forget what detractors have to say about it, there she is, Thunder, Perfect Mind, Magdaline, the Female Christ. She has always been one with Him, and He with Her, in the eyes of those who know.
How did She break loose from her guardians? She is Wisdom, Sophia, She cannot be contained. She listeth where She will. She is the Mistress of the Tantric Path. She descended to us, and with us, bringing all of her secrets with her. Among her many personalities is the Magdalene, the personification of spiritual perfection. All of her devils (her mental complexities) are gone out of her--all Seven of them. The uninitiated, however, the unchosen, the unspiritual, have never lain with her, or been impregnated by her. How is this accomplished?...
Some said, Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit. They are in error. They do not know what they are saying. When did a woman ever conceive by a woman?...(The Gospel of Philip, The Nag Hammadi Library).
...By becoming one with Wisdom Herself--balanced and in harmony with all of the principles of reality--by becoming receptive to Her. Everyone is male (man) to those below them in the spiritual order of things, and female (woman) to those above them. It is all metaphor. Not only must we make ourselves female (nazarites in the fullest sense) to the higher order of reality, in order to perceive (or conceive) that reality within ourselves, but we must learn to cherish that reality, as well as its mirror image here below. Thus each of us must learn that love (and therefore sexuality), is a sacrament of the very highest order. We must be taught the Tantric path (in ways that the lower order of things by itself is incapable of expressing), and learn not to partake of sexuality frivolously, without realizing, or coming to realize, that we are partaking of the very highest mysteries of Life at the same time. We must come to learn of course, that none can experience the (sheer) pleasure of love, who have not first overcome the (mere) love of pleasure...
Sexuality is a reflection in our own physical and individual lives below, of the erotic union, and the cosmic devotion the Divine Mother and Father have for each other in the worlds above. In the symbol of the Universal Tao the Two are found in an eternal state of intellectual, emotional, and sexual embrace. Life on Earth is the fruit of this relationship. Thus those who understand these things--that they are children, born of both Heaven and Earth--strive to bring themselves into conformity with the pattern of this relationship, to a whole and balanced state of mind; and certainly so if we wish to pass through the dimensions of this world into the pure dimensions of the world-beyond. To pass through the Door our individual minds must be aligned with the Mind of the Universe itself, with the Central Pillar of the Oracle of Nature where both that the Male and Female Principles of Life meet and face each other in the mysteries of Christ. Both purity of mind, and the liberation of the mind, are the keys, for it is the mind alone that can pass over--and only the mind of Light at that.
It is also time for those who consider themselves to be religious to complete the Hajj. When they do they will learn to stop enforcing their own interpretation of "purity" upon others, but to see to it that they become pure themselves. Only then--only through unconditional love, and only through a mature understanding of the often rigorous process of personal transformation that one must experience, how the pathway to spiritual perfection often carries the individual soul off in other directions before it returns them to the straight path again--may one person become a guide to another. Everyone must work out their own salvation, with trembling within, but free from the condemnation and the restrictions of others. The path of return is marked Freewill Offering. (Leviticus 1:1-3). This transformation process, of course, is an almost purely Western phenomenon as it is written: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The path is paved with grace.
Thus it is also time to take off the veils, and to replace them with "really good hejab." (Voluntarily of course). And let no one take refuge in the literal precepts of the Qur'an, or any other holy Book, for Allah (in Her own Feminine persona) has purposefully enacted such precepts into the text of the Holy Qur'an in order to cause those who cannot see into their higher meanings to stumble, so that they will reveal themselves in the last days...(Hebrews 4:12)...
Immature minds, hidden lust. These guys don't get it yet.
If one is full of lust, as most authoritive males are, God knows it. If it lies latent in the heart, God knows it. It makes absolutely no difference if the outward object of such lust is fully clothed or fully naked. The chief fault is not in the object of the lust (especially if such a one is pure in heart, or even unwitting), but in the one who lusts. This has been one of the great purposes of the Western experience, of the collective and unbridled descent into the lower, material world, and into the manifold ways of the flesh: so that the soul may learn to make a truly freewill offering of itself, as it learns to overcome (in the presence of every temptation) all of the lower attractions of the world and the ways of the flesh itself. For it is only in such an environment that the soul can break the power of every inordinate affection--in ways, that is, that are ultimately, and fully liberating to the soul itself. Is this not the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to let the oppressed go free; and that ye break EVERY yoke. (Isaiah 58:6).
And to say: What! shall we indeed give up our gods for the sake of a mad poet?
Nay, he has come with the truth and verified the apostles.
Most surely you will taste the painful punishment.
And you shall not be rewarded except (for) what you did.
Save the servants of Allah, the purified ones.
For them is a known substance,
Fruits, and they shall be highly honored.
In gardens of pleasure,
On thrones, FACING EACH OTHER...(Sura 37.36-44).
To bear the yoke of one's own lower thoughts and impulses are the heaviest oppressions of all. All social, political, and sexual oppression arises from those places in the soul (the heart and mind) that have not been opened up and liberated, that have not been exposed to the higher Light. If the Divine Mother is revealing Herself in our day, in ways that are perfectly conducive to the attainment of true holiness and purity of mind (as in Miriam No Longer Behind the Veil), and if the Anointed Ones shall be revealed in Her light, Her daughters and sons may do so as well: Her daughters may take off the veils. They may come out into the Light--but only if they want to, of course. (Please consider the Chapter on the Mysteries of Islam).
Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away: she is easily seen of them that love her, and found of such as seek her.
She (nurtures) them that desire her, in making herself first known unto them.
Whoso seeketh her early shall have no great travail; for he shall find her sitting at his doors.
To think therefore upon her is perfection of wisdom, and whoso watcheth for her shall quickly be without care.
For she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her, shewing herself favourably unto them in the ways, and meeteth them in every thought.
For the very true beginning of her is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is love;
And love is the keeping of Her laws; and the giving heed unto Her laws is the assurance of incorruption;
And incorruption maketh us near to God:
Therefore the desire of wisdom bringeth to a kingdom...(Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-20).
Tender is the Tree of Life
Tender is the Tree of Life,
Her branches salaam to the wind.
In due time, she sheds leaves florid
As tears for the orphaned girl,
The impulsive bride,
Reluctant bridegroom,
Wanderer, wayfarer
All those pelted by the world.
The Tree of Life awaits the time
Of tender buds, flowers and fruits,
For this is when she tempts us all to eat
The penniless, prominent
Or piddling, infamous, godly,
Or gone from our minds, majestic
Or ministerial. She shelters
Birds of every color.She seeks out the child, shunning the
Hot-headed father, the
Fractious brother; she courts
The stranger whose home is
The world. She opens herself
To him and shields him with
Leaves light and warm as goose down,
For the wayfarer spreads
Aboard the seeds of her
Compassion.Orphan, stranger
Each has stood a moment before
The Tree in full flame as the sacred
Smoke wafts up toward
Madness or heaven beyond
The cloudbanks of memory
And desire to a reality
Beyond bearing—but that's
Another story.
Zara Rabb
For all men have one entrance into life, and the like going out.Wherefore I prayed, and understanding was given me: I called upon God, and the Spirit of wisdom came to me.
I preferred her before scepters and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison to her...
For She is a treasure unto men that never faileth: which they that use become the friends of God, being commended for the gifts that come from learning...
For She is the brightness of the Everlasting Light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God and the image of his goodness.
Being but One She can do all things: and remaining in herself, She maketh all things new, and in all ages entering into holy souls, She maketh them friends of God, and prophets.
For God loveth none but him that dwells with Wisdom.
For She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars: being compared with the light, She is found before it...(Wisdom of Solomon 7:6-29).
__________
For at first she will walk with him by crooked ways, and bring fear and dread upon him, and torment him with her discipline, until She may trust his soul, and try him by her laws.
Then She will return the straight way unto him, and comfort him, and shew him her secrets...(Ecclesiasticus 4:17,18).
It is also time to break down the mehitzah (as many already have). The principles of reality are based upon the idea of "symmetry" (Yin-Yang), (Positive-Negative), (Male-Female). Those precepts are being discovered and reconstructed in the findings of 20th century physics, just as they were anciently constructed into the dimensions of the Oracle with its male side and its female side. The precepts of the Torah, which are based upon these very same principles of reality, have always contained and implied the principles of balance that operate and function between them, and which join them together as one. And initiates in the hidden science have always been free to interpret them in that light, and to guide their own lives in accordance with them. Which is why the truly spiritual seem at times to be irreligious in the eyes of the orthodox, because they always seem to be in violation of some (literal) precept of the law, or of some custom or another as they are observed by the rigidly orthodox. As far as Judaism is concerned, and the struggles that exist between Reformed and Conservative Jews, and their Orthodox co-religionists, there is a blessing and a curse on each of their houses. If either knew, for instance, where the Western wall of the temple was really located, if either possessed true Daat, then the one would not be insisting on the right to pray at it (at that wall over there), whether in mixed company or not, and the other would not be found storming its precincts in fitful attempts to drive females from it, or to divide the females from the males, as they do. Such behavior may indicate a zeal for the law, but also an historic ignorance of its meanings. The spectacle is tiring to God (if such a thing were possible).
The scriptures are full of male terminology because they are full of the power of penetration and impregnation. The mind that is opened by them, and to them, becomes one with them. It has nothing, however, to do with the physical differences that exist between the male and the female, but rather with the literary differences that exist between the terms man and woman. Religious orthodoxy stumbles over these terms, and cannot, in its own rigid adherence to literal forms, assimilate the meanings or the effects. It is fixed in a literal interpretation of the word man. But so is Feminism. It is captured by the mystique associated with the word woman. Try as it does to unburden itself of all the connotations associated with the word, it will not let go of the word itself. (Not that it should. It is a very powerful word. Women should just come to terms with the meaning and the implications of the word itself). We have expressed it in other places and it must be expressed here again. The term "man" in the scriptures refers (in their not-so-hidden, and not so mysteriously complicated sense), to every soul--male and female alike--who have attained to the higher realities. It is as Paul begins to intimate when he says: For we know that the Torah is spiritual, and, that we (have also been) delivered from its literal restrictions on the mind, having died to them through (an understanding of) the mysteries of the Tree of Life...That we should serve in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:4-14). But even the oldness of the letter has always made the male and female equal. The newness of the Spirit, in this case, simply illuminates the meanings that have been there from the beginning:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created MAN, in the likeness of God made he him.
Male and Female created he them, and blessed them, AND CALLED THEIR NAME ADAM, in the day they were created...(Genesis 5:1,2).
God called his name Adam, and her name Adam. They are, when they both understand the meaning, and when they are joined together in one mind, both Adam. They are not Adam and Eve, or Adam and Lillith, but Adam. It is understood in the precepts of Christ, which--in every type and image--are the true expressions of the Torah:
For as in Adam (the natural man, the old letter), all die, even so in Christ (the spiritual man and the meaning of the old letter) shall all be made alive...(1 Corinthians 15:22).
__________
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, AND HATH BROKEN DOWN THE MIDDLE WALL (the mahitzah) OF PARTITION BETWEEN US;
Having abolished in "his" flesh the enmity, EVEN THE LAW OF COMMANDMENTS CONTAINED IN ORDINANCES; for to make in himself of the two, ONE NEW MAN, so making peace.
And that he might reconcile both unto God IN ONE BODY by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby...(Ephesians 2:14,15).
The Roman church, of course, has not come close to the meanings either, wholly married to the affairs of the lower world, and stuck in the Augustinian view of reality as it is...
FIRM "NO" ON WOMEN'S ORDINATION
Vatican City__The Holy See Jan 24 presented its most comprehensive case yet on why it says the Catholic Church will never ordain women.
The Church's top doctrinal experts announced the release of of a book gathering together the major recent Church documents on the subject and a raft of scholarly essays bolstering their position.
The book is part of a series of books produced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (remember the Inquisition). It was not clear why the latest volume was devoted to the contentious issue of women priests. But it follows a visit to the Vatican last month by the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, which ordains women. Pope John Paul II has called the practice AN "OBSTACLE TO UNITY" within the Catholic Church...
In summing up the Church's arguments, Bishop Scola said, "The Church does not have the power to modify the practice, uninterrupted for 2,000 years, of calling ONLY MEN to the ministering of the priesthood, in that this was wanted directly by Jesus." He cited arguments that Jesus decided to choose only men for the 12 apostles and that the priesthood is "objectively linked to the male sex of Jesus."
So much for the Vatican's point of view. Uta Ranke-Heinemann treats the subject splendidly in her Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven, Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church. (Of course this was the intended effect of the Spirit's literary devices to begin with. She deprived the Roman hierarchy, obsessed as it was, and is, with its own literal, male sense of things, from understanding Peter's Hidden Man of the Heart. 1 Peter 3:4. The entire mystery was sealed from the Roman church). And the rabbis--those who had access to such works as the Bahir (one of the earliest books of the Kabbalah to emerge out of the even earlier traditions of the Merkabah mystics), and who subsequently made a deep study of such works--should also have come to the meanings but did not. They read the words:
"In Hebrew, Solomon is Shlomoh, from the root Shalom, meaning 'peace.' (See 1 Chronicles 22:9). As discussed earlier, peace is the attribute of Daat, Knowledge, which is the concept of union and reconciliation, especially between male and female. THE WORD SHALOM--PEACE--COMES FROM THE SAME ROOT AS SHALEM, WHICH MEANS PERFECT AND COM PLETE. IN PARTICULAR, NEITHER THE MALE OR THE FEMALE IS COMPLETE WITHOUT THE OTHER.
Shalom (ShaLWM) is spelled WITH A VAW (or Waw), (The place where the Male and Female Principles meet on the Tree of Life), while Shlomoh is spelled with a Heh. As discussed earlier, the Vaw represents the male, while the Heh is female. (As in Yod Heh Vaw Heh...Yod-Father, Heh-Mother, VAW-SON). Shlomoh-Solomon is therefore the concept of 'Peace' in Malkhut-Kingship, the Female. Shlomoh-Solomon is therefore said to be 'the king to whom peace belongs.' (Shavout 35b, Rashi on Song of Songs 1:1). God therefore told Solomon that his name was like the name of 'My Glory' since glory always refers to the sefirah of Malkhut-Kingship.
Wisdom was then given to Solomon through 'the Daughter,' which is also the sefirah of Malkhut-Kingship. It is an important kabbalistic teaching that Malkhut-Kingship is the sefirah through which all others are revealed. Since Solomon made himself a counterpart of Malkhut-Kingship, he could draw through it." Bahir II.65.
...and then continue, despite the words, and in the very presence of their own female counterparts--their wives and daughters--to thank the Master of the Universe for not making them ignoramuses or woman. Even if all concerned suspect the allegorical or esoteric meaning in the phrase, it is time to dispense with it. Those who translated this work approached right-meaning at Bahir 198 when discussing Genesis 1:28, and then utterly confused it again when quoting Genesis 2:18, and 22, by reassociating the word female with the word woman again--substituting the former for the latter as did the entire orthodox world at that time. The Gnostics (those who "really knew" that is) made no such mistake, and searched for language capable of conveying the true and higher realities:
"And Thought performed a deed and she came forth, namely she who had appeared before him in the shine of his light. This is the First Power which was before all of them which came forth from his mind. She is the forethought of the All--HER LIGHT SHINES LIKE HIS LIGHT--the perfect power which is the image of the invisible, virginal Spirit who is perfect. The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons (the sefiroth), the glory of the revelation, she glorified the virginal spirit and it was she who praised him because thanks to him she came forth. This is the First-Thought, his image; SHE BECAME THE WOMB OF EVERYTHING. FOR IT IS SHE WHO IS PRIOR TO THEM ALL, THE MOTHER-FATHER, THE FIRST MAN, the Holy Spirit, the Thrice-male, the Thrice-powerful, the Thrice-named androgynous one, and the eternal aeon among the invisible ones, and the first to come forth." The Apocryphon of John, the Nag Hammadi Library.
Of course we are not to imagine that every Gnostic group was privy to Her innermost mysteries. What we do know is that almost all of the Gnostic groups (the heretics as they were called by the othodox church), the knowledgeable and the unknowledgable alike, were all driven out over time by the emerging and more powerful dictates of the World-church. They were driven almost out of the pages of history itself--in much the same way as the early rabbis excommunicated the likes of Rabbi Eliezar ben Hyarcanus (the Great), for fraternizing with the "other side" (the Essenes), and, of course, the likes of that other Pharisee, Paul (Elisha Ben Abuyah himself), for commanding them to be silent:
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be silent.
For Adam (the spiritual male, and the spiritual female) was first formed, then Eve.
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression...(1 Timothy 2:9-15).
__________
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak: but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. (See Exodus 23:21,22; 1 Peter 1:2).
And if they will learn anything let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church...
(And then Paul says): If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord...(1 Corinthians 14:34-37).
Please see that at no time does Paul command the female to be silent, but the woman. The difference between the two terms is as vast as is spiritual reality from the church's inability to interpret it. But neither does Paul divulge the difference in any outright way. He leaves it for the Holy Spirit to enlighten each individual soul as She will, according to Her own great purposes in history. (Continued)...
An interview with Leonard Nimoy in the February, 2004 edition of Moment Magazine:
MOMENT...Have you ever felt as if you have seen the Shekinah physically or spiritually?
NIMOY...You asked me a very interesting question. My Shekinah...is an artistic vision, my artistic interpretation. I'm not claiming to actually see or be in the physical presence of Shekinah. I have a spiritual sense of what a Shekinah is all about for me. And I have experienced that at times, at various times in my life.
MOMENT...What does it feel like to spiritually experience the Shekinah?
NIMOY...I think--I hope-- that most people at one time or another in their lives have a feeling of being in a state of grace for a moment or two, feeling that all has come together for them, that they have a sense of harmony, a sense of inner peace, a sense of successful combining of instinct and will. It's the coincidence of events that makes one feel that you're in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing.
MOMENT...Many Jews seem unaware of the Shekinah. Do you hope that your photographs will make them more aware?
NIMOY...I think it is true that a lot of Jews are not familiar with the idea, the concept. It was the Kabbalists in the 1600s who taught in what is now Safed in Israel who very energetic about their belief in mysticism and Shekinah. Not a lot of people read or study Kabbalah. It's a narrow field...It's a very interesting issue to me because it grew out of an Orthodox experience, and yet it is a feminist idea that is not particularly welcome to Orthodox people. I find it, right or wrong, a very interesting and strange mixture of spirituality, religion and contemporary culture.
MOMENT...Tell us why you photograph women wearing tefillin.
NIMOY...Tefillin are typically associated with men...Now, this is not the first time this thought has been presented. There is reason to believe that...Rashi's daughter wore tefillin to pray. MY SENSE IS THAT SHEKINAH CAN WEAR TEFILLIN IF SHE WANTS...I wonder if you're at all aware that in Israel there's a law that says that a woman standing at the Western Wall to pray in Jerusalem and wearing tefillin is subject to criminal prosecution and can be jailed UP TO SEVEN YEARS.
MOMENT...What about the veils the women in your photographs wear?
NIMOY...THE WORD VEIL TO ME MEANS MYSTERY. IT MEANS SOMETHING NOT QUITE VISIBLE. It means something between the viewer and the object that can be sometimes seen through, sometimes removed, sometimes obscured. IT HAS TO DO WITH THE MYSTERY OF SHEKINAH.
(continued)...Yet Paul says it plainly enough when alluding to Adam and Eve at Ephesians 5:31,32: This is a great mystery, he says, but I speak concerning Christ (the male and female joined together) and the Church. She (Eve), is not the figure of the female gender, but rather, she is a figure of all the males and females together, the priests, rabbis, ministers, reverends, and imams (and all others who cling to their lesser interpretations), who have not yet ascended to the higher realities, and who therefore keep their flocks entangled in the gross elements of the world and in the literal elements of the Word. "She" (Eve) is all those to whom the first Adam (the first spiritual couple) went in ancient times, in their first attempts to explain the meaning of the revelations and insights they were receiving from God (from the Mind of Nature Herself). "She" (Eve) was Adam's first church. Has "she" not given birth to two kinds of sons, Cain and Abel? Are they not still with us? Are not the sons of Darkness now grown powerful, violent, and wicked in the earth? All in their father's name? Are they not now occupying thrones and seats of power, and positions of great worldly authority in the earth, seats which their own professed Father (Christ, the second Adam), refused to sit in? (See Matthew 4:8-11; John 6:15). These are the disobedient ones, of whom the scriptures refer when they say: Their feet shall slide in due time. (Deuteronomy 32:35), and finally: They shall kill you thinking they are doing God service. (John 16:2). It is the point the original author of the Kerygma Patrou is driving at when he or she speaks of the woman, the present World-church (RELIGION) as it exists in all of its many forms and divisions here at the end of the 20th century:
"There are two kinds of prophecy, the one is 'male' (interpret correctly here), the other is found amongst those who are born of woman. (Not females). Proclaiming what pertains to the present world "female" prophecy (the terms are confused here again) desires to be considered male. On this account she steals the seed of the male (continue to interpret from the higher reasonings, we're dealing in metaphors here), envelops them with her own seed of the flesh and lets them--that is, her own words--come forth as her own creation.
She promises to give earthly riches gratuitously in the present world and wishes to exchange the slow for the swift, the small for the greater. She not only ventures to speak and hear of many gods (as if both good and evil did not flow from the same source, and as if all the nations and the affairs of the world were not under the direction of the same God), but also believes that she herself will be deified (or even raptured away); and because she hopes to become something that contradicts her nature, she destroys what she has. Pretending to make sacrifices, she stains herself with blood at the time of her menses (proving that she is barren of understanding) and thus pollutes those who touch her. When she conceives she gives birth to temporary kings and brings about wars in which much blood is shed. Those who desire to know the truth from her, are led by many and opposing statements and hints to seek it perpetually without finding it, even unto death. (Please understand Revelation, chapter 17, and Ezekiel 16 in this same light, and in the light of each other).
For from the beginning a cause of death is certain for blind men; for she prophecies errors, ambiguities, and obscurities, and thus deceives those who believe her. Therefore she has given an ambiguous name to her firstborn son, she named him Cain (compare Genesis 4:1 and Job 3:1-10), which word has a two-fold meaning; for it is interpreted both 'possession' and 'envy' and indicates that later he was to envy his brother Abel a woman, or a possession, or the love of his parents. But if it was none of these, then it was well ordered that he should be called 'Possession,' for he was her first possession that was profitable to her...For he was a murderer and a liar and did not wish to cease from sin once he had begun to do so. Moreover his descendants were the first adulterers. They made harps and lyres and forged instruments of war. Therefore also is the prophecy of his descendants full of adulterers and harps which secretly excite to war." The Apostolic Pseudepigrapha.
When Paul says:
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God...(1 Corinthians 11:3).
(And) Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the Body...(Ephesians 5:22,23; Colossians 3:18).
...he knows that the spiritual mind coming to perfection will not mistake the hidden principles and allegories in these texts for literal commandments. He knows the Divine Spirit will reveal Her own meanings in the fulness of time, as She did in great part to the 9th century kabbalist, John Scotus Eriugena:
"St. John the Evangelist, too, heard the voice of the Word. Responding to its call, he appropriated and entered into it. Fully listened, and divested of all that was not the Word, he became one with the divine spiritual field of its nature. Thus in a state of pure reciprocity which contains the meaning-being of all things, St. John became the ear of the Word. Becoming its ear, he spoke, and speaking he became its mouth and voice, the Voice of the Eagle.
In this way and without warning we are plunged into the central mystery of Christianity: the meeting place of the human soul with Christ in the phenomenal world. How does this take place? Consider Eriugena's interpretation of the story of Christ and the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well:
It is the 'sixth hour,' the cosmic midday; Christ, tired by the rigors of incarnation, meets THE WOMAN--THE HUMAN SOUL--by the well of the world. Seated upon its rim, he asks water of her, a Samaritan. Surprised, she wonders why he, a Jew, would ask water of her. He replies that if she knew whom he really was, she would ask him in turn for 'living water.' The woman then notices that Jesus has no way of drawing any kind of water. But he repeats that the water he offers is living, a well continuously springing up unto eternal life. Finally the woman asks him for some, and he replies, 'Go, call thy husband.' That is, he says to her that she cannot drink his water unless she first calls her husband. Eriugena explains this as follows:
'THE WOMAN IS THE RATIONAL SOUL (anima) WHOSE HUSBAND (literally, 'vir'. or 'man'--with the connotation of active power, not 'maritus' or 'conjunx') IS UNDERSTOOD TO BE THE ANIMUS, which is variously named now intellect (intellectctus), now mind (mens), now animus and often even spiritus. This is the husband of whom the Apostle says 'The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, the head of Christ is God.' IN OTHER WORDS, THE HEAD OF THE ANIMA IS THE INTELLECTUS, AND THE HEAD OF THE INTELLECTUS IS CHRIST. Such is the natural order of the human creature. THE SOUL MUST BE SUBMITTED TO THE RULE OF THE MIND, THE MIND TO CHRIST (the idea of harmony and balance between the Two principles), and thereby the whole being is submitted through Christ to God...Spirit revolves perpetually about God and is well named the husband and the guide of the other parts of the soul.'" The Voice of the Eagle, The Heart of Celtic Christianity, by Christopher Bamford.
Thus in the spiritual realm not only may both the male and the female be considered "man," but either one of them can be the "husband" of the other one as well. Only intractable and spiritually hardened minds refuse to break down the barriers that exist between themselves and their own imperfect, and unspiritual interpretations. But these shall, sadly, be left behind as the human mind goes on to perfection in Christ. Both males and females possess the same faculties of animus and anima. When they are in harmony, the one above the other, the "husband" is the head of the "wife." But when the female finds herself married to a male who does not understand these principles, when she does, then she is the spiritual husband in the relationship and is required to honor her mate as the "spiritually weaker vessel." (1 Peter 3:1-7). Everything must be accomplished in love (when it is possible). But when both understand these principles there is true harmony, and both are equally submissive to the other. The middle wall of partition is removed (as it will between all Christians and Jews on the Tree of Life), and there is peace.
The entire language of the Scriptures is based upon this synthesis of principle and form. And that the Universe itself is based upon cosmic sexual principles is evident, not only in the sublime union that binds the male and female together in the highest (tantric) state of love--creating life, bringing forth life--but in the corresponding union that binds the upper and lower worlds to each other. What words do we use to express the relationship? Father (pure Thought) above, and Mother (the phenomenal World, out of which every one of us has been born), below. Some in the Feminist camp contend that the Father and Son overthrew the Mother with the advent of Christianity. It is an impossible reality. God is not divided, and cannot be overthrown. Just as Wisdom (Hokhmah) is the first extension of Kether, so Wisdom (Sophia) is the natural extension of the invisible Presence of God in the world. As She descended she took upon Herself all the physical forms of the Lower order, giving birth in time to the literary forms...but also to the very notion of God the Father itself. If She had not instructed us in the ways of His Presence, we would have known absolutely nothing of Him at all. Between them they brought forth the "Son." They entrusted all of their mysteries to the realm of the Son, but They, and especially She, did not leave them unattended:
"There can be no doubt that the goddess to whom the Hebrews clung with such tenacity down to the days of Josiah, and to whom they returned with such remorse following the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, was, whatever the prophets had to say about her, no foreign seductress, BUT A HEBREW GODDESS, THE BEST DIVINE MOTHER THE PEOPLE HAD HAD AT THAT TIME.
Following the death of the spirit of idolatry in the days of Nehemiah, the Hebrew goddess succeeded in surviving. She underwent, to be sure, an astounding metamorphosis, but then that too is the mark of a living Deity. In one of her manifestations she penetrated--in what period we can only conjecture--the rebuilt sanctuary as THE FEMALE CHERUB, POISED IN MARITAL EMBRACE WITH HER MALE PARTNER IN THE DARK CELL OF THE HOLY OF HOLIES. In another she became the manifestation of God's Presence, THE SHEKINAH--a feminine name just as God's is masculine--a loving, rejoicing, motherly, suffering, mourning, and in general emotion-charged aspect of deity...
The new mythology of Kabbalah, revealed in the writings of the Jewish mystics of the 13th century...knows evil goddesses, in addition to good ones. They are the she-demons of yore, Lilith, and Naamah...who managed to work themselves up to a much higher position, until their queen, Lilith, becomes God's consort. This happened following the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the subsequent exile of Israel, which came to be regarded as a catastrophic event not only for the people but also for God. The Shekinah, or Matronit, as She now was called, in her motherly love for her children, went into exile with them. This brought about a separation between her and the King who thereupon allowed Lilith, queen of the demons, to attach herself to him and take the place of the Matronit as his spouse...
The Matronit, meanwhile, continued to be closely concerned with her children. Like a true goddess, she played the role of spouse as well as mother to her people. She also assumed the form of a Divine Queen and bride, who joined them every Friday at dusk, (at evening), to bring them joy and happiness on the Sacred Sabbath." The Hebrew Goddess, by Raphael Patai, p.26.
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I was sent forth from the Power, and I have come to those who reflect upon me, and I have been found among those who seek after me...
I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the mother and the daughter...
Why, you who hate me, do you love me? And hate those who love me?
You who deny me, confess me, and you who confess me, deny me...
You who know me, are ignorant of me, and those who have not known me, let them know me...
I am she who cries out...(The Thunder: Perfect Mind, The Nag Hammadi Library).
The Divine Mother (Holy Wisdom) did not only clothe herself in the obscure and lowly literary figure of Mary (Miriam) in the time of Christ, as well as in the Virgin's alter image, the Magdaline; and She did not only enter into the congregation in the collective figure of the Church (a title which the Roman and Orthodox churches arrogated to themselves over time), but She has been dwelling in the literary figure of Eve from the very beginning in the story in Genesis. But more: in her darkest aspect, and from the very beginning, She had ensouled Herself in the character of Lilith as well. (Read the entire text of The Thunder: Perfect Mind). How else could humanity ever come to know the difference between good and evil, light and darkness, truth and error, if Wisdom Herself had not descended into the Darkness of the Human Soul to draw it down to those places where such things are realized? How could we have ever discovered our own propensity for the darkness; indeed, how could history ever have come to pass as it has, and how could it come to the conclusion it is about to, if Wisdom had not descended with us to the Lower side of the Tree, enticing us to partake of it--if She had not fed us, as it were, with such measured amounts of human awareness, as to awaken our minds to the nature of Darkness itself? (see Hebrews 5:12-14).
The Tree of Life is a cosmic metaphor for Life itself, and the Dark side of this Tree is a metaphor for human experience. We had to eat from it. In the (Solar) mystery of Christ the Divine Mother has been accompanying the people back to the Western ends of the Earth, back to the garden of Eden, to those events recorded in the first chapters of Genesis. All of this to complete the very process of Creation itself, for the mind of Adam is still being created. (Genesis 1:26). She has descended with us into the realm of Darkness, not only in the interest of bringing forth daughters and sons capable of uniting all of the dimensions of the Oracle to each other, but to demonstrate to all of us together the great and powerful, and subtle nature of Darkness itself, especially as it is revealing itself here in America at the end of the age. She is revealing this spirit not only to us but in us...as it is written: For Satan is more subtil than any beast of the field. (Genesis 3:1).
THE SERPENT MOUND , ADAMS COUNTY, OHIO
Behold, I go to prepare a place for you...John 14:1-4.
This ancient earthwork hidden in the primal woods since the time of Christ, along a ridge in the place we now call Ohio, is a living prophecy of those events that are about to unfold in our time, as the Great Serpent(s) rises up in our midst in their attempt to devour the Child of Revelation as soon as it is born. (Revelation, chapter 12). This cosmic Serpent has Seven turns in its frame between its spiral tail and its devouring mouth. These are the historical turns of human events that have carried the mind of Light into these times, and to the things that must come to pass at the time of the Seventh and Eighth sefirot on the Tree of Life named Endurance and Majesty. The egg represents the coming age, which is now in the process of hatching, as well as the heart and minds of all those who are being born into it.
Allegheny, The Place of the Foot
And the Lord said unto the Serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel...(Genesis 3:14,15).
At a gathering of environmentalists some time ago (a Tree-huggers Ball), a song was sung in honor of the Mother Goddess--a rythmic litany of names humanity has known her by. A voice in the gathering said, "Return to paganism." Another said, "It is not paganism." Another said, "Pre-christian," and finally one said, "Full-circle." When the prophets inveighed against the Queen of Heaven in ancient times (Compare Jeremiah 7:18, and 44:17), they were not taking a stand against the idea of God as Mother, or against the fact that She was an object of worship for much of the ancient world, they worshipped Her themselves, but against the things that were, and which still are practiced in Her name. They inveighed against the basest rituals that were being performed in honor of Her mysteries, and against the fact that these rituals never brought their practitioners to a real and meaningful understanding of Her Presence in the world. The same is true today. Our worship of Her has devolved to idolatry. In the name of progress, for instance, the church acts hand in hand with those who are literally destroying and scarring the face of the Divine Mother. Is She not, in one of Her many manifestations, the Holy Mother Planet Earth Herself? And side by side with these destroyers the American church has also set aside and disregarded the plaintive cries of those who have been made stewards of this Sacred Mystery by God Themselves...
During a recent pilgrimage to the sacred mountain in South Dakota we met an indigenous man who told us not to fail to see her when we got there. "Who?" we asked. "Earth Mother giving birth to the World," he said. Look hard, you will see her." And there she was! We ascended to the Navel of this sacred mountain and payed homage to Creation--to Heaven Father and Earth Mother.
The cover of one of the latest editions of the Village Voice has a caricature of Bush's secretary of the Interior, appropriately entitled "Eco-Terrorist Gail Norton:"
WASHINGTON, D.C.__As she sailed through her Senate confirmation hearing last week, interior secretary nominee Gail Norton played the classic moderate, draping herself with the dual mantles of "conservative" and "conservationist." What bull (*!@?$$#!t). A libertarian from the West, Norton has spent the last two decades railing against federal control of public lands and doing all she could to subject their water and energy resources to the bracing reality of the market place. "I hate the government telling me what to do," she once said. "And I assume other people do." As Colorado's attorney general in the mid 90s, she chalked up a scandalous record: looking the other way in the face of damaging polution, dragging her feet on prosecuting big business, even challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to override state law...In another spectacular case she testified against her own citizens, siding with a big corporation that fouled the air. After years of bouncing between libertarian think tanks (think Ayn Rand) and states' rights groups, Norton may finally get the authority to implement her freewheeling ideas on a large, large scale. James Ridgeway.
At a past-recent gathering of Indigenous Peoples, the theme was "The Cry of the Earth." Many came to speak. The following comments are from notes taken during the conference which was aired on Public Television. These comments--and may we add to them Al Gore's The Earth in the Balance, Ecology and the Human Spirit--are an indictment against the entire American Corporate State, including the so-called Environmental Protection Agency. The former because they represent the Voice of God spoken through the living victims of the great American atrocity, this nation's wholly violent and destructive 400-year march into the heart of this sacred continent. The latter because it reminds us plainly that as far as the American Corporate State is concerned it is still "business as usual," and nothing but "words" spoken over and over again with the same forked tongues. The Corporate State will do nothing that is not in its own financial interest, thus it will do nothing to redeem itself in the eyes of God, as it continues to provoke the Creator (the Great God of War Himself), and to draw the wrath of Nature Herself down upon the whole house...The Divine Mother and Her children will be saved from the ravages of man, and the earth will be healed. Is her name not also Kali?...
Virgil Killbear, of the Lakotas, spoke of the Sacred Number 7, given to the Sioux by the Seven Brothers and Seven Sisters. He spoke of the Seven Sacred Laws:
1. To carry about in one's heart the welfare of the people.
2. To have pity and great compassion.
3. To have respect for all things, and tolerance.
4. To cultivate great minds.
5. To seek humility.
6. To be brave and courageous.
7. To get Wisdom and Understanding.
THE PROPHECIES
1. When the Eighth Star appears, change will come.
2. You will see the events unfold.
3. As unnatural events meet the real, you will see. (Two men and two women cannot make life).
4. When things that are not supposed to happen, happen.
5. When the sacred circle spins in reverse. (Zionism in the East).
6. The Sacred Earth which moves will reveal itself in a different manner.
7. When womankind cries, saying it is too difficult.
8. When earth cries, the mothers cry.
9. When the Sacred Hoop of Life is broken.
10. The Seventh Generation will mend it.
Ollie Nepensi, Great Grandmother from the Rosebud reservation:
I have tears in my eyes, because the prophecies are coming true. My elders said these things to me.
In the future bad things will come, and you will live to see it.
The water is your life, take care of it.
Care for the wood, the trees. They are being cut.
Recall the old ways (one foot ahead, one foot behind).
Things are not the same; things do not grow as they used to.
The children are like strangers.
They have no respect for family, for elders, home, or environment.
We have lost our religion. It was stolen. (Practitioners have been arrested).
Some young people, however, are coming back.
The strangers are "wiring us up," destroying us.
The coming ruler, (unclear), but a time of great tribulation.
Arvol Lookinghorse spoke Lakota:
We are the caretakers of the heart of the continent called Turtle Island.
Less than five hundred years ago life was abundant. Where is that abundance?
We are at a critical stage in human, moral, and technological development.
All things are interrelated.
The mending of the Sacred Hoop has begun.
May we have the courage to heal Mother Earth...
A Great Flood came to this island before "the contact" to purify the earth.
After that the Sacred Pipe was brought to the people by the Spirit Woman (the White Buffalo Calf Woman).
The bowl, the Red stone represents the Mother.
The wooden stem represents the Tree of Life.
As the Tree grows so do our people.
The Red Pipe Stone is turning white, it must be restored.
It must not be used as a tourist attraction.
The dreams and visions will return.
The prophecies are coming true.
We are part of a cycle of life which has no beginning and no end.
"The story of these people has at its center and all around it the story of the Medicine Wheel. The Medicine Wheel is the very Way of Life of the people. It is an understanding of the Universe. It is the Way given to the Peace Chiefs, our Teachers, and by them to us. The Medicine Wheel is the everything of the people.
It is the Living Flame of the Lodges, the Great Shield of Truth written in the Sign of the Water. It is the Heart and Mind. It is the Song of the Earth. It is the Star Fire and the Painted Drum seen only in the eyes of children. It is the Red Pipe of the Buffalo Gift smoked in the Sacred Mountains, and it is the Four Arrows (Directions) of the Peoples' Lodge. It is Our Sun Dance.
The Medicine Wheel begins with the touching of our Brothers and Sisters. Next it speaks to us of the touching of the world around us, the animals, the trees, grasses, and all other living things. Finally it teaches us to sing the Song of the Whole World, and in this way to become a Whole People.
Medicine Wheel, Wyoming
Each tiny stone within the Medicine Wheel represents one of the many things in the universe. One of them represents you, and another represents me. (Please see 1 Peter 2:5). Others hold within them our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and our friends. Still others symbolize hawks, buffalo, elks, and wolves. There are also stones which represent religions, governments, philosophies, and even nations. All things are contained within the Medicine Wheel, and all things are equal within it. The Medicine Wheel is the Total Universe.
Our teachers tell us that all things within the Universe know of their harmony with every other thing, and know how to give away to one another, except man. Of all the Universe's creatures it is we alone who do not begin our lives with knowledge of this great harmony.
All things in the Universe Wheel have spirit and life, including the rivers, rocks, earth, sky, plants, and animals. But it is only man,of all the beings on the Wheel, who is a determiner. Our determining spirit can be made whole only through learning of our harmony with all other spirits in the Universe. To do this we must learn to seek and to perceive. We must do this to find our place within the Medicine Wheel. To determine this place we must learn to Give Away.
The Vision Quest, or perceiving quest, is the way we must begin this search. We must follow our Vision Quest to discover ourselves, to learn how we perceive of ourselves, and to find our relationship to the world around us. Among the people, a child's first teaching is of the Four Great Powers of the Medicine Wheel." Seven Arrows, by Hyemeyohsts Storm, pp.1-6.
Audrey and Leon Shenendoah, the Iriqouis Delegation:
This people planted the Sacred Tree of Peace in Rome and New York City.
As we are gathered it is our responsibility to bring a message about caring for our Sacred Mother Earth.
Our Creator has given us our Mother the earth, and it contains everything we need for life.
Our Mother provides the medicine we need for daily life.
They are there for health as well as sickness.
They bring a healthy mind when used right.
We have our Grandfathers, the Thundering voices, they bring the rain.
Our brother, the Sun, brings light and warmth.
Our Grandmother, the Moon, she is directly related to the Female Principle of life.
She determines when life will be born.
Oren Lyons:
The Creator gave all peoples stories and creation myths. They are all true.
The leaders were supposed to carry out the instructions...
By keeping our thanksgivings and offerings we support life.
When we stop life will stop.
Make sure it is not your generation.
Hopi Delegation:
Since 1948 we have been believing that we would come together like this. We have been knocking on doors...FOUR DOORS, FOUR KNOCKS, NO MORE
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Martin Gashesesheoma, spiritual leader:
When you hear the prophecies they will bring everyone to the right state of mind to work together.
We promise to live a simple life. Spider Woman instructed us.
Jacob Swamp:
The Peacemaker made them stand around the Sacred Tree, and told them about those who would come with sharp objects.
The Tree will begin to fall.
Do not lose faith, or peace will not come again.
Our leaders are tired, all things have come to pass, but many new ones are being born.
I give thanks today for the people who came, and who stayed to hear the messages.
All the children of the world must come together and work for global peace.
In September of 1994, the White Buffalo Calf was born in the state of Wisconsin.
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldst give reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy Name, small and great, and shouldst destroy them that destroy the earth...(Revelation 11:18).
Seemeth a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your Feet the residue of your pastures? And to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your Feet.
And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden down with your Feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your Feet. (See Deuteronomy 32).
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and the lean cattle...(Ezekiel 34:18-20).
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Ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are, for blood it defileth a land; and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed upon it, but by the blood of him that shed it...(Numbers 35:33).
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"Tell me now Oldest Mother, why did the Old Man, the Lord of the Lightning, let the white man take our lands?
Sit and be still (said Old Eyes of Fire), for I shall tell you what you need to find your vision.
Eyes of Fire made circles in the dust with her stick and then drew a big Circle that surrounded all the little circles.
These little circles, she said, are all the little nations and all the little religions of the world, but the Big Circle is the One Big Nation and the One Big Religion that encloses them all, and means them all, and knows them all just as a mother quail draws her chicks under her spread wings and loves them all as a mother should.
Long ago, all our people were united in love and knowledge. The Wise Old Chiefs and the Wise Old Women taught the children how to grow up and be good and to love one another. All the land belonged to all the people and all the children felt that every man or woman was a father and a mother...
But tell me Oldest Mother, why did the Spirit of the Earth let the white man take our people's land?
All these th
