NOTRE DAME AND EASTER

MY ETERNAL GUIDE

You don’t notice me, yet, if you allow, I will guide you to the veiled window of secrets.

You don’t remember me, yet if you desire, I’ll open your door to eternity.

I bring the Prima Materia to each intimate dialog. Don’t be shy.

I open your secret eye and spark creative fire in your breath.

Now, remember me, we’ve known each other forever.

You might catch a glimpse of my gold clad heel

As I exit the stage on which you dance.          

                                                                               

I do my best work behind the curtain.

I will greet you after the show.

---Marti Fenton White Deer Song

I  welcome the fresh growth springing up from a long winter of the mind. I don't know where to begin, so I will allow new sprouts of insight to spring into words like the weeds and flowers in my garden. 

 

When I first heard the news that the great Notre Dame cathedral was on fire, my initial response was denial that it could be serious. Perhaps something inside was on fire. How could the stone structure be in danger, and how could fire get inside the oak skeleton above? Then the reality of the threat to the revered icon became undeniable.

 The timing of this catastrophe seems synchronistic. For we humans, symbology is more powerful than lifeless facts. These great cathedrals of the middle ages are full of mystery and vanishing knowledge. Who were the people who built them? They accomplished amazing technical feats that would be challenging today, and the builders belonged to a secret society whose knowledge seemed to vanish when they disappeared from public view. Notre Dame is a connection to the medieval world and an architectural book of secret knowledge encoded in Christian symbols. I was relieved to learn that the rose window survived. The last I heard, the method of coloring and forming this kind of glass is a lost knowledge. It was designed to speak to worshipers on many levels of understanding in a language each could recognize sufficiently to stimulate a soul driven search for the mysteries behind the ordinary. 

Cathedrals were built to bring heaven to earth, and inevitably for mundane human purposes such as competition with other cities. It was economically and spiritually advantageous to be the home of a great cathedral, and it was vital for a cathedral to have a few important relics of Jesus or the great saints to attract pilgrims. 

I’m sure there are many meanings attributed to the fire that almost consumed Notre Dame.  Fire destroys and transforms. Many of the images built into the cathedral represented alchemical principles, as did the story of the crucifixion itself.  Transubstantiation is itself an alchemical principle. Alchemy arose in ancient Egypt, and there is a secret teaching that Jesus was educated in Egypt and India before emerging into the visible part of his mission. His baptism symbolized
immersion in the waters of Mother Earth’s womb and rebirth. However, whether this is a fact it is a truth in as much as the process of destruction cleansing and reemergence has ancient roots and is recalled in each time of crisis at the end of an era. Truth is truth, but the way it is clothed changes from age to age. Change at the source level is dramatic, confusing and sometimes terrifying. As such, it creates stress and people react to stress at the level of their inner strength and cohesion. Those without firm moorings often lose all contact with sanity and sense of virtue. They become victims and energy food for dwellers of the lower realms.

Even the earth is changing. We desire the furniture in Mother Earth’s living room to last forever, but the world and its home, the universe is still in creation, perhaps forever in creation. In Genesis, first book of the Christian Bible, it says that on the seventh day God rested. I suppose the inference is that creation resumed after the rest. Is it not a continuous story. It seems obvious that we don’t live in a time of rest. The weather is changing, the poles are moving beyond the usual, and many human developments have exceeded their purpose and become more dangerous than creative. Whether or not global warming is induced by human inventions or a natural cyclic change, or more likely both, the change is felt on all levels. Perhaps, even the solar system itself is affected. It is after all a system to which we belong and contribute. 

There are many activists trying to right the world’s many problems and the problems are becoming so numerous that one would have to be an immortal billionaire to support all good causes coming through email every day. My question is, do we have the wisdom to know what Mother Earth needs most. It seems to me in my humble opinion, that if those of us who feel the rhythm of this change listen to our frightened, sad or angry heart and concentrate on discovering that which will make it sing in harmony, we will have a clue to what Mother Earth needs from each of us as an individual.

 Beauty is more than skin deep; it originates from the center of light and life and it is the creation of love and power. Most of the great  wonders of the world have exited the physical world. Notre Dame will never be as it was before the fire, but perhaps it will be renewed in spirit.

 If you wish to learn more about Notre Dame's mysteries there is a book: Le Mystere des Cathedrales by Hermetic master Fulcanelli. I don't know if it is still in print but it reveals much of the alchemical meaning of the images in Notre Dame and other famous cathedrals.

The Imperiled Life of an Ice House in the Age of Climate Change

We have been watching the constant presence of Trump in the news. He seems to be the magic bone that can’t be gnawed away. To those of us who find the news fixated it can be wearisome. The Mueller investigation drags on and the presidential appointments circulate through a revolving door. his lawyer reveals all, while the president’s supporters don’t believe he is credible. Why they believe his former boss is credible, cannot be explained except by the principle of Cognitive Dissonance. Nothing is ever settled and what is done is then undone and redone. In a sense it is a satire of a failing system that has finally hit the wall. The thinning curtain between our world and the once mysterious machinations of government exposes the cast list behind the stage.  They seem nonplussed because Trump is so extreme from the norm that no one knows how to respond. Its as if they find themselves as naked as their emperor and can’t do anything but point a finger of blame or pretend it isn’t so.  How long can the president coast on the air of denial and confusion? I suppose however long the supporters hold him above the ground. In the meantime, the news media on both sides has unlimited spicy product.

The UNTIED States of America.

I’ve been puzzling about our theoretical democracy, it seems comparable to what happens to a spiritual movement when the inspired founder leaves this plane.  It is then hijacked by controlling, top level theorists who modify the original inspiration with partial truths enclosed in clever propaganda and use fear enhanced by egoism to assume authority. Any gold at the heart of the original inspiration morphs subtly into fool’s gold for its trusting followers. After that, an unfiltered experience per the original source of inspiration is persecuted as heresy. This isn’t confined only to religion and politics but is also present in science and other disciplines that have freeze dried the heart of inspired discoveries into self-serving dogma.

What about the Emperor who would be naked but for the creative imagination of his followers? They of course underestimate their own rights and powers for the defense of their fantasies. They want to believe, and they want to belong to something ‘great’. For a real democracy to work, the citizens would have to put themselves in the driver’s seat and not expect to be driven by someone else to the place they want to go. The deeper question is of course, where do the citizens want to go?

Equality, theoretically a central feature of the American ideal is in opposition to the American dream that everyone has an opportunity to become rich and powerful. Obviously, what it takes to be rich and powerful is exactly opposed to equality. In other words, “equality” is used as a starting line in the race for the inequality of superior power and opportunity. Perhaps this is to be expected considering that the founders of the United States were reacting to European feudalism.  It isn’t easy to erase old habits, and of course, people have different qualities and talents. Some are valued in our society more than others. Hawks have more social prestige than doves in the world we live in, and capital more value than heart. Perhaps that is the testing ground for survival in a changing climate.

The American Dream has an underside of royalty envy. This is apparent in the American dream of land ownership.  Everyone wants his/her (but more often his) personal kingdom to rule. The fact that this often generates an ecological disaster is not yet being addressed and inevitably leads to enormous problems as this style of individual ownership and dominance collides with the greater good and splits the land owner’s intentions from the health of the land itself. It also becomes a selling point for real estate agents and developers who exploit the fantasy dreams of their clients.

 Does equal opportunity mean that all participants begin a race at the same starting line or is it like a handicap race where each competitor is placed in a starting position that is most likely to equalize the field. Of course, some runners are naturally faster than others and would surge ahead if not handicapped.  However, if some of the runners are ill or malnourished it cannot be an equal playing field. Just beneath the surface of the American Dream is an overwhelming temptation to rig the race. There is no possibility of equal opportunity when the lower state of human nature sets the rules of engagement. Losing a rigged race is not founded on innate inferiority. A predator’s way of acquiring overwhelming power requires ambush tactics or pack cooperation.  Social equality and valuing the individual’s well-being and rights are inevitably in conflict with the capitalistic ideals of anything goes to get ahead and stay ahead.  Humanitarian and opportunistic concepts are always in opposition because they are based on opposing values. The robber barons of the 19^th century set the tone for this equality oxymoron.

Above the concept of equal opportunity is the reality that certain talents have more social support than others. The ability to acquire wealth is valued over compassion, power is valued over authenticity and cleverness above wisdom. These are cultural biases that skew the values by which success is measured. However, imbalances in cultural values inevitably create social weaknesses that eventually cause the foundation of clay to give way and the top to topple. We seem to be approaching this situation.

With this kind of system, those on the lowest rung of the ladder of social and monetary success have very little chance of rising. There must always be a lower rung to provide the superior climbers with a first step.  There is no true independence. In nature, predators cull the sick, wounded and old from a herd thus giving the more fit animals a better chance to thrive. Social Darwinism provides a rationale for this position. However, human hunters prefer to cull the healthiest and most beautiful animals from a herd and thus leave breeding to the less fit. Equality and dominance exist in unavoidable tension. In addition, the playing field itself changes. I suppose this is the cogent basis of our two-party political system. However, real people are always moving back and forth between these extremes in various aspects of life. Being fit for one kind of contest may make one unfit for another kind. There are always cultural values that may themselves be out of balance. History is not static, nor is the natural state of the world, and as circumstances change, so must the definition of social power and success change.

Opposites are always in danger of becoming oppositions. But for united efforts, walking with competing legs isn’t possible.  Every culture has certain talents and abilities it values above others, probably based on early needs or even values once imposed on its culture from a foreign takeover. Religions have this effect as does war, climate change, and greed, all are threats that impel a population to relocate—which is the main reason America was recently peopled by Europeans, Asians, Africans and so on. Some came willingly some didn't but it isn't unique. People have been moving around the planet for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years displacing and mingling with the previous population. It seems to be human nature to become possessive about one's new neighborhood.

I used to feel despair about the negative fate of revolutions and how typically they begin with humanistic ideals and end in rigid dictatorships.  History is replete with heroes that morph into villains and gods that morph into devils. Our current political scene is locked in combat with each side believing it should have the righteous final say. Real progress requires coming together to achieve a higher creative understanding of the issues that transcend both viewpoints. Movement requires this! The winner/looser assumptions must be unencumbered by fears of loss and humiliation.

What seems correct for known circumstances, may not be fit in the unseen future.  I remember botanist, John Kimmy speaking of what the native people taught him about seeds. While helping local elders set aside seeds for the next spring, he was culling irregular ears of corn from those to be saved for the next planting season. One of the older women scolded him for not saving at least one of every kind, however imperfect it appeared to be. She said that we never know what the next growing season will bring and the seed that seems inferior now might be the very one that thrives next year. This brings two principles to mind. One is the importance of time and experience which is currently being ignored in our modern techno youth-based culture, and the other is the importance of not being fixated on one ideal of fitness.

America will never be great again, because the standards of greatness must evolve, and the past is not a good program for the future if one believes in any kind of growth. The current, sometimes absurd and if not so serious in potential consequences, comedic state of our politics may be just the state of confused chaos needed to propel growth beyond the fantasies of a past greatness that was never without complexities and contradictions. Confusion, neurotic symptoms and disillusionment are usually necessary to drive growth. The ideals of democracy have never thrived in America because they are ideals not realities. They will never be any more real if we don’t accept the importance and nature of our imperfections and use them as rungs to a higher level.

STARTING 2019

I’m slowly putting some order in the first week of this new year. I began writing this three days ago.

2019’s First Day

This morning instead of writing in my 2018 tattered grey journal, I decided to begin a new journal. After all, there were only three empty pages left in this old one. I went to the shelf where I’d seen two empty journals earlier. To my surprise, they were not empty, they were full of 1998. So much for any hope of a blank slate. I interpreted this as a suggestion that I compare then and now. And so, I leafed through them to reconnect with my old self. I was very sad then. Most of my concepts about what gave meaning to my life were being massacred. I felt that the engine of my soul was dead, and I was silently drifting on left over momentum.

In hindsight it looks very different and the end of hope turned out to be a necessary detour. The other revelation was that the subjects of my mental gnawing had not changed but my approach has changed. On one hand, it’s possible to see life as being trapped on a Merry-go-Round but the difference was the state of soul with which I interpreted this circular ride. After all, we are on a round planet turning and turning in the same direction. And on a cosmic scale our earth goes `round and `round the Sun who also has its own circular journey in the cosmos. In a sense, we never go anywhere new. But the journey seems new if we crack through the crust of habitual perception and allow ourselves to be clueless. It may feel vulnerable but that’s the only condition that permits transformation.

The last week of 2018, I was physically and mentally low. It wasn’t an emotional depression but more like an empty fuel tank. But there was something else going on that required descending into something like hibernation. It didn’t escalate into frustration because time educated me that new experience requires an empty vessel and seen with new eyes empty space is full of options we may have overlooked because they were not on the old list of recognized possibilities. Frustration, sometimes verging on despair is required to jump start the engine of discovery in our high-speed world.

Today in the cold and snow, the Pueblo is doing the turtle dance. PQ and cold weather are not compatible and so we stayed home. It was lovely and peaceful doing nothing. The New Year came in quietly. We watched the powdery snowflakes drifting silently downward. It was healing to do nothing beyond a few simple routines while sending and receiving good wishes for the New Year. Of course, we all know that the world beyond that peaceful winter scene framed by the living room window is fraught with madness, fear, desperation and uncertainty but the earth continues to turn, the Sun rises each morning and this year here in New Mexico we will have more water after a dry 2018.

Mother Earth is expressing turmoil in tandem with the confused desperation of her human residents. This earth journey has never been an easy ride. As the Turtle Dancers rhythmically stroke the earth with their reverent feet gently stirring her to another round, I feel gratitude that life continues despite the alienation of those who fight with their fear and rage against peace.

I no longer despair about situations that I can’t change. There are hidden rivers of power beneath our vision rushing with cosmic force, but I will dance my humble steps as best I can to the rhythms of creation. As a student of the earth dance, I may not get it just right this time around, but I now recognize that dissonances exist in every song and provide a contrasting frame for the respite of balance. We have entered a new year and bring to it the effects of our previous years. I will work to resolve the discords of loss, defeat and fear with peace and balance. It seems like the best any of us can do for our besieged world.

This Year's Subscription has Almost Expired, But I Plan to Renew

I’m writing this on the kitchen table while PQ paints on the other side. Outside the sun is setting and the bare dark branches contrast against a silver blue sky. Everything is grey and white out there, but the skeletons of trees and bushes reveal their fractal beauty. I love summer, but this is beauty in repose. Much of the winter world lives in secret.

The final time of the year is a transition from one life cycle to another. Winter is the darkest, coldest and most hidden time of the year. We celebrate for the birth of a new beginning in the form of the coming yearly cycle of seasons. Hope for this renewal of life was the purpose of the winter solstice celebration of our ancestors, now diminished to partying and obligatory gifts, and was full of color, light and flavor to show faith that Mother Earth would wake up gain. It was then appropriated by the young Christian church, which was also based on death and rebirth. For me, renewal is the essence of Christmas including the week before the New Year’s birth. We all hope it is a kind of rebirth of our hopes and dreams, and another chance at doing better. This is the thought behind the tradition of New Year’s resolutions, something I never do. However, I do reflect on the meaning of the previous year and attempt to understand its influence on life, which automatically morphs into thoughts of the future.

I painted this some time ago
but it seems appropriate

As I write PQ is working on a new pen drawing. This is a media he made his own this year. Each one is better than the previous one (or so it seems to me). He continues to paint jackets and recently designed a logo printed on T-shirts for a men’s club in California. I on the other hand, have only finished two new paintings this year, while distracted with the mundane duties of life my artistic imagination hasn’t had much time to flower. Having said that, I suspect that there is a deeper personal change that exists as a bud preparing to flower. There are winters of many kinds and I’m awaiting an artistic spring.

The heart beats of the cosmos as well as the natural and supernatural breaths of life come on many frequencies. From the highest that we can’t hear to the lowest that we also can’t hear. This fact encourages me not to become too concerned with the down times before Mother Earth’s next breath and heartbeat, these will always come even if within a great age by our miniature human reckoning. Unexpected disruptions and political discord have occupied the mainstream consciousness this past year. Simply put, there are seasons within seasons and sometimes the historic outer seasons of winter are very long indeed, but we must remember that even in the dead of winter there are interruptions of mild and sunny days.

I look back on my worst days and realize that they were responsible for pushing me through the shell of one limiting reality after another. Sometimes the broken shell held a mental construct, sometimes an emotional expectation or dearest hope and a few times many layers came down at once. I could feel persecuted by God and fate, and sometimes I did, but finally there was a new and enhanced world on the other side of the shattered shell that I once mistook for reality.
We too often look at unexpected problems and failures as the demise of happiness. On a national and world stage no one could argue that there is disarray, destruction, wrong headedness and a great deal of suffering.

This past year, I’ve become aware that the cosmos and our world is something of a seesaw ride. One aspect of life goes up while another goes down. One great breakthrough also brings along with it, problems that no one anticipated. Too much sugar is toxic and so is too much protein. Balance is a challenge for every change. Positive and negative are inseparable. We can regret it, fight it, bury our heads in the sand and ignore it but it is inescapable. In fact, the bond of opposites seems to fuel the engine of creation.

Balance is a goal of life and and the source of beauty, but it is always in process and movement challenges balance with each step. We live in a world and cosmos that instead of having once been created is forever in the process of creation and we as little atoms in the great cosmic body are also in creation. By the way atoms don’t die, but they can rearange. That’s among the reasons I believe in reincarnation. There are others as well, but I’ll save that for another time. Now the sun is setting, and darkness is taking over. Just remember that the sun will rise again. This is the dynamic message of Christmas.

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Have a wonderful Christmas and transition to a New Year of inner peace.

Each time I begin

Each time I begin a new blog, I jump into the stream of unconsciousness in apprehension and hope that I will find something real beneath the rapids. Sometimes I try to use a theme that looks and sounds good but in the end it grows stale and I have to abandon it on the bank.

A few days ago, there was a PBS biography “A Place to Stand,” about Jimmy Santiago Baca, a poet author of Mexican and Apache ancestry whose name has been known to me for years yet was unknown to me inside the covers of his books.  His entry story is unfortunately not unusual but the outcome is rare indeed, marking him as one of those rare souls who came into this world destined by the sublime alchemist to be forged by fire to a fine metal. Frequently such souls begin among the lowest levels of the social hierarchy.  

Jimmy’s parents were addicts who abandoned him at an early age. He foraged and stole to survive. He had no schooling. He rose in the realm of thieves and drug dealers until he was caught.  He went from one prison to another and finally ended up in Arizona State Prison deemed one of the worst in the country. It was truly a place of horror where inmates were routinely ground down to a subhuman level. Some were tough and clever and Jimmy learned both good and bad skills from them. The inmates walked shoulder to shoulder with death every day.  He learned to be tough without permanently losing contact with his soul. The warden did what he could to keep the inmates from rising above the lowest level of bare existence, punishing those in anyway who attempted to learn or better themselves. Jimmy seemingly by accident discovered words and became enthralled.  His reward was to be banished to the dark underground of the prison. But even in this hell he received support from both inside and outside the prison.  An amputee veteran of WWII began to correspond with him secretly.  This man believed his calling from God was to communicate with prisoners like Jimmy. I have forgotten many details, but I believe he may have come to that calling having himself been a prisoner of war. His dialogue and encouragement was what Jimmy needed to survive and it fed his passion for the magic of words.

Due to this man’s intervention, Jimmy was finally removed from solitary. He continued to write, especially poetry. Words were the fire of life and lifted him above his pain and cage. At first, he had no thought of being published, but eventually began submitting his work to various magazines. The prison didn’t allow him to profit from this but writing was its own reward.

The suffering continued and Jimmy wrote to his benefactor that he was an atheist because if there was a god he couldn’t allow such cruelty and evil.  His benefactor then cut off their communication with a letter stating that he could not continue with someone who didn’t believe in god. After that, Jimmy was on his own.

Too often, religious people believe their god is too weak to withstand criticism and loss of belief. I have certainly lost belief many times in this cruel world based on exploitation and greed, but I now believe that a truer picture of god includes our rightful despair and rage at the horror and cruelty in this world.  I don’t know if Jimmy is still an atheist or if he now has a more complete view of god, but my own change came when I realized that it was more imperative that god believed in me than whether I believed in god. I am not using a capital G in the word god because my view of god will always amount to less than the tiniest dot of comprehension in the enormity of the cosmos.  

  

When we are born, if we have previously committed to the creative fire, we will most likely have a challenging reentry to this dimension. The white flame of life is our heritage just as it is for our planet that is now feeling a great heat melting it back to a malleable mass ready to take on a more beautiful form. Beauty saves. It saved Jimmy Santiago Baca because beauty is the shape of the divine form in all things from the greatest to the microscopic.

So many struggle and flail in their fear and rage, sinking deeper into the quicksand of pain and evil.  In their desperation, they often grab for others and pull these down too like lobsters in a boiling pot while sinking deeper and deeper into the thick viscous lower world. To ascend to power and beauty from such a place is true redemption and a forward to co-creation.

Light and dark exist in a constant dance. However, because dark has no energy of its own it must steal from the light.  Jimmy Santiago Baca is not just the story of a man who personally triumphed over a sentence of oppression. It is about the true alchemical process of transforming suffering into brilliance and power.

Our outer world is made of crumbling forms, “things fall apart,” as Yates said.  Yet, while no form is forever, and the state of the world is not to our liking, the Master Architect says there is a new design that we see a flashing glimpse of now and then and in order to build this finer form some ”things much fall apart.” In the ancient Indian holy writings, the world goes through many stages of creation and destruction. The world was not once created but is always in the process of creation. After the Kali Yuga, the darkest age in the circle of life, our earth takes a deep breath and begins the process of ascension again. It works that way for all inhabitants who pay attention.

DREAMS AND BLACKHOLES

Are we on the outer edge of a cosmic twister? Our life here in Taos is going on as usual but there is a feeling of unreality about it, or maybe the reality has changed and we haven’t caught up. When our connection to Arizona came to an end a year ago or at least to a long hiatus, it struck me as the perfect storm for us, and even more for the friend we stayed with in Cottonwood. However, a perfect storm is not just awe-inspiring bad luck; it turns life inside out and demands that we operate on unfamiliar terrain. Here again, the essential Hermetic maxim applies—“As above, so below.”

Donald Trump is getting virtually all the news commentary at this time.  In fact, as I write PQ is listening to some commentators attempting to reason out what happened to get us where we are and what might happen next, making my concentration on this blog very difficult (isn’t that a great symbol). Actually, this confused news is a practical metaphor for the present state of our non-union and is this not the main effect of a big storm of any kind?  When everything considered normal is tumbling about, people focus on immediate survival. Yet humans have an internal compulsion to understand and always struggle to make sense of the nonsensical, or more accurately, whatever is operating above their understanding. It is a moment-by-moment situation that blinds the unwilling participant to the larger world and its usual everyday routines let alone any long-term plans further out than the next moment. Perhaps we are in a kind of cosmic washing machine. Presently, we are on “soft wash”, but I’m not in denial that it won’t be enough to clean away the dirt and then the cosmic washing machine will be reset to “deep clean”.

Sunset augmented by California Fires

Even nature is having a fit. One side of this country seems to be burning up while the other side is drowning. Here in the middle, we are having a very dry year. The big trees are dying while the grass remains yellow.  Mother Nature is trying to tell us who is really in charge and we merely convert her messages into food for the nightly news.

Even small changes have ripples that extend far out into the universe. Of course, this means that any ripples out there come back to us as well. This is the underlying process that astrology is based on. Our little minds can’t imagine the actual complexity of influences both local and cosmic, so we read one system to get a sense of what the big picture might be, and of course, the reading is only as good as the competence of the interpreter.  I’ve learned that I’m actually better at reading in hindsight than predicting the future.  Unfortunately, we tend to imagine the future by transposing over it past experiences. Incidentally, this brings up an old memory from the pre-digital days. I accidentally loaded my camera with a film that was already full. The effect was actually pretty interesting. It placed my backyard in the Redwood forest of California. Maybe something comparable is happening at this time, and we just don’t recognize it.

To understand this life and its nature we need kaleidoscopic vision.  The pattern is constantly changing and we really have no control over the next turn. The only control we have is our response because within this kaleidoscope, all the little pieces are alive.  Chaos doesn’t rule it’s just another turn in the dial of the cosmic kaleidoscope. The other side of the Hermetic maxim is “As below, so above”.

Okay, I think I’m in as deep as I can go right now. I’m starting to get dizzy. Therefore, I’ll pull myself back from the cosmos into this tiny world I’m living in.  For sure, it is all I aspire to master right now. Even that may be a bit beyond my grasp, remember my lifetime issue with the Monkey Bars—I’ve made it to another rung but it’s still a long way to the top.