All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

The Lovers

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DANCING WITH THE FLOWERS

 

I explore the forest to claim hillsides for my soul,

so many roots and stalks and mossy rocks,

so many petals and leaves and wings,

so much vetch and lupine, so many red maids and poppies,

and look an albino blue dick bobbing with its purple clan

and these shooting stars with fluttering petals,

and golden fiddleneck swaying above so many blue eyes,

and hidden by shadow, the first Chinese purple houses

in this living tapestry, and I can’t escape the subtle shock of love

as the fragrant breath from jewels awakens

my hidden eye and I envision

a golden-equal armed cross on a pyramid and suddenly

I sense immense peace drenching the hills and I know the Source

of everything is inside me

and maybe these tiny white flowers

are fairies that just want to make me dance,

so let’s dance, let’s dance, let’s dance….

Wind Poppy and Fiesta Flowers

PENDULUM DREAMS:

Part Fifteen

 

     When I was 42, I mentally purified my chakras and experienced a spiritual awakening. To eliminate negativity completely from my aura, I also spent many hours in meditation forgiving people. Now, I practice a ritual, known as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), which purifies my psyche on all levels. Imagine a conscious mind free of negativity. Imagine emotions and a subconscious mind free of darkness, and a clear will free of distractions. Imagine being able to use the mind, the emotions, and the personal will without any psychic obstacles or disturbances. Imagine feeling centered and one with Universal Consciousness—which includes feeling peace beyond understanding, freedom from fear and negativity, compassion for all life. Imagine feeling this most of the time.

     I realize now that before my spiritual awakening, I used to dwell on negativity most of the time. I was the poster child for the effects of capitalism on body and soul. While believing that I was eating the healthiest diet in the world, all the while, besides consuming pesticides and other harmful chemicals, I was ingesting, like everyone else, an indigestible protein that was breaking apart the tight junctions in my small intestine, allowing toxins and undigested food and waste into my bloodstream. My immune system could not fight off all the foreign invaders, so inflammation occurred throughout my body, and I remained chronically ill. The Russian Roulette with diet is sometimes played out over decades, slowly ravaging the bodies of hapless individuals with no connection to one other, and most people, including most doctors, are either unaware of the cause or blithely ignore it. Unfortunately, if you yelp from the rooftops that contaminated, unhealthy food has killed a large number of people in our society, you are labeled a wacko, which allows the powerful elites who control the food supply to get away with criminally negligent homicide.

     Politicians, captured by corporate donors, have allowed cigarettes, alcohol, toxins in food and air and water, guns, legal drugs, imperialism, and our regular diet to kill untold millions, with little more than a few whimpers from the masses. Now, the elites seem happy to let Covid-19 keep the masses in a panic. So many politicians, used to pretending that the free market will solve everything, end up paralyzed by real problems, like the pandemic, climate disruption, the death of democracy. They have grown used to relying on their corporate donors, for whom the public good is an impediment, to tell them what to do. 

   Their corporate donors don't want to take the simple steps necessary to solve our worst crises. The elites don't bother themselves with the public good. Their only concern is making a profit. The for-profit health care system and the wealthiest top few percent are making a killing from the pandemic, which could have been curbed quickly by widespread testing and quarantining and other rational measures, such as lock downs in targeted areas. For instance, with a population of nearly a billion and a half people, China has managed to keep Covid-19 deaths down to just over twenty-eight thousand people (https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn) while the United States, with a population of just over 330 million, has allowed over a million seventy thousand people to die from the virus.

   As long as Covid-19 rages, the masses experience fear, which the elites can use to divide the races and economic classes and justify a fascist crackdown when the time is ripe. The elites could have long ago curbed climate disruption by shifting away from fossil fuels, but corporations are not done making money hand over fist at the expense of the future of the entire human race and the biosphere. Democracy and truth and our ecosystems die by a thousand cuts as the elites continue to divide the country through lies and misinformation and alternate realities and inflation. (Little known fact: corporate elites set prices, not Democrats.)

     I wish to dwell on the horrors of capitalism just a tad more. An indigestible protein in gluten can be found in just about every food on grocery shelves. Since the protein cannot be digested, consumers are all harmed to some degree. Scientists have known this for decades, yet the government has done little or nothing to remove gluten or other toxins from this nation’s diet. 

   I nearly died from the effects of gluten. My digestive system literally began shutting down—I couldn’t digest most foods—and my heart went hay wire when I ate even a miniscule amount of gluten. Over the years doctors had considered me a hypochondriac, and the people closest to me had believed that I was to blame for my inability to act happy and healthy. My physical symptoms and depression were both considered psychological. I eventually eliminated gluten from my diet, and I am now healthy and free of negativity. 

     Nowadays the President is saying that we should not believe what we see and hear—we should only believe him. Having been fed for our entire lives a steady diet of illusion and lies by the media and those in authority, believing only him has not been a problem for a surprisingly large number of people. Some people, however, must see through the lies or die. For instance, the American diet almost killed me: I know that many of this society’s lies are extremely hazardous to the health.     

The Empress: Venus

     Many years ago, I held my grandfather’s hand as we climbed through golden grass up a hill above the picnic area. My grandfather and I were both radiating golden light. Neither one of us said a word, and in a silence that crickets made more profound, I felt immense peace emanating from the earth, which ignited a euphoria in me that I had never before imagined possible. Golden light flowed from the grass and the trees and the rocks and the earth as we headed back down the hill. 

   After the family piled into the van, I clearly heard a disembodied female voice state with great assurance, “Everything will be all right.” Frantically looking around, I could tell that no one else heard it. Startled, I suddenly sensed that I was hearing the voice of a goddess—even though I was only three years old and no one had ever told me anything about gods or goddesses. For a moment, I felt a little uncomfortable that something supernatural would need to comfort me about my future, but soon I was experiencing again such bliss that I remained still, hoping to hear the voice once more, and feeling such boundless love for the rocks and trees and bushes that we passed that I wanted to remain there forever.

     After I tested positive for Covid-19, I drove out to the foothills where twenty years before I had traveled in springtime with my wife and our dog Pepi, who was only a puppy at the time. That day twenty years ago, after I parked the car, and we got out to stretch our legs, Pepi squeezed under barbed wire and leaped maniacally through fiddleneck and popcorn and miniature lupine until he was sopping wet with dew. 

   Twenty years later, I parked the car in the same turnout, and as I stood remembering Pepi’s exuberance, I felt enveloped by peace. Suddenly tears came to my eyes. One Sunday night a few years ago, when he was sixteen and a half years old, Pepi had struggled to stand up, took two steps on wobbly legs, and urinated on the hardwood floor. An hour later he died in his doggy bed, right next to my bed. He had been my friend and hiking companion for over a decade and a half. As I grieved for Pepi, I gazed down the road and suddenly felt bewildered by the end of my marriage (which had inexplicably lasted thirty years). After the unexpected shocks of grief, as I stood gazing at the fresh green winter grass, I was again enveloped by a peace beyond understanding as well as by an unexpected sense of freedom.

     Suddenly I remembered the voice of the goddess that I had heard when I was three years old, and I suspected that what I had believed was a goddess might instead have been the world soul, the anima mundi, described by ancient philosophers as an intrinsic connection between all living things on the planet—what some consider the unifying force of the universe. As my mind shifted away from grief and I felt centered again, I sensed something even beyond peace and freedom: a profound sense of unity that transcends trauma and war and injustice and loss. Immersed in tranquility, I understood then why I could feel peace and freedom despite my personal history and the history of humanity: in oneness with Universal Consciousness, which can unexpectedly envelop us in nature, we are free of negativity, transcending our worst collective and personal nightmares.

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pounding Stone near Friant-Kern Canal

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THE ONE-EYED MAN

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is insane."

Words and Music by Jim Robbins

 

I work with the powers of harmony to neutralize dark forces

and create balance, for grace is crucial in these troubled times.

The powers of harmony awaken us to the divinity of all life

on this earth, the holiness of all energy in the cosmos.

 

The super-rich continue destroying the planet and so many lives

for their short-term profits, yet the emperor has no clothes.

How can we tell our children that the rivers in the valley are dead;

wildfires turn the forests into deserts of ash and dirt;

 

the coral reefs are bleaching, the ice caps are melting?

So many suffocate from a virus that could have been contained

long ago through rational measures. The wealthy

have never valued the little guy or the planet,

 

only wealth. The world could become total chaos

before we find our roots, so I work

with the powers of harmony to neutralize dark forces

and create balance, for grace is crucial in these troubled times.

 

The powers of harmony awaken us to the divinity of all life

on this earth, the holiness of all energy in the cosmos,

but our chances to claim our right to live as divine,

magnificent beings in this world are running out.

 

Pounding Stone at the Bottom of Pine Flat Reservoir 

in a Drought Year

PENDULUM DREAMS:

Part 14

 

     I suppose the supreme irony in my story is that I must tell the truth so that I appear insane to the average person. My theory is that if I do it often enough, I might avoid encountering people with official-looking badges who approach me with the intent to throw me into a dark hole somewhere. Therefore, I feel obligated to leak spiritual secrets now and then so that average people and the masters of mankind remain confident in their belief that I am certifiably bat-bleep crazy. 

     At this stage of history only spiritual people with knowledge can save humanity, and unfortunately that forces the spiritually inclined to exhibit what the vast majority of people consider blatant lunacy. For practical purposes, one must remain on a plane above evil to deal with it effectively. Evil reigns supreme in the political and economic realms, placing the fate of humanity in limbo, so only the few who experience sublime madness can elevate human consciousness enough to turn this badly leaking boat around.

     The Nephilim are a unique order comprised of angels who have chosen to incarnate as humans in order to aid humanity in its evolution. The Nephilim cannot escape human frailty, but we have a strength that the masses are not currently aware that they have. Unlike us, humans rarely feel one with the Source, with the Thrones of Power and Archangels and Orders of Angels and elementals and the Earth Soul, and therefore have no knowledge about how to connect with the subtle (humans might say “magical”) spiritual powers of healing and balance. The individual members of the Nephilim, as we transmute negativity through grace into harmony, often face challenges that human beings at this stage of evolution could not possibly survive, but the Nephilim manage to continue plodding along because of the ability to heal quickly, thanks to our connections with the powers of harmony. Throughout history, of course, many of us have been persecuted and executed because of our orneriness. Humans might memorialize a few now and then due to the archetypal significance of their particular sacrifice, which humans throughout history for the most part have only dimly comprehended, but the Nephilim, on the whole, remain content with a life of sacrifice without glory.

     A key element of grace is a connection with the Source—as well as with the awesome beings who bring the energies of balance and healing down through the different planes of manifestation into the world. The Source, pure spirit, does not reach a hand down through layers of clouds to heal or create balance. This never happens. 

     If you examine the Tree of Life, you might notice what appear to be spheres emanating from the Crown of Creation. Within these Emanations (“Sephiroth” in Hebrew) are Powers, Archangels, and Orders of Angels. If you do a bit of research, you should find the name representing the God Power of the Emanation, the name of the presiding Archangel, and the name of the Order of Angels associated with each sphere. For instance, in the second Emanation, the God-name for the Power is Jehovah (the Supernal or “Heavenly Father”), the name of the Archangel is Raziel (“Herald of God”), and the name of the Order of Angels is Ophannim (“Wheels” in English). Each of the ten Holy Emanations on the Tree of Life contains this hierarchy: the God Powers reside in the Archetypal or Divine World; the Archangels represent the World of Creation; the hosts of Angels represent the World of Formation; the elementals reside in the World of Action.

     You can cry “Lord, Lord” all day or become one with Universal Consciousness for fifteen minutes, but if you are not in tune with these aspects of divinity that channel the powers of harmony down through the planes, you are unlikely to become a co-creator with the Source.

     With appropriate knowledge, you can perform the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram and bring the powers of harmony effectively into alignment. The ritual features the Powers of Ehyeh, the Source, as well as Jehovah, Elohim, El, and Adonai; the Archangels of the Elements, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Auriel, and by association, the Orders of Angels (under the ruling guidance of these Archangels), known respectively as the Melachim, the Bene Elohim, the Keruvim, and the Ishim; as well as the Elementals, Sylphs, Salamanders, Undines, and Gnomes. In other words, these divine beings channel the energies from the Source down through the subtle spiritual planes into our dimension. (If you feel a thirst for this connection, the information is out there….)

     The Nephilim’s sacrifice is rooted in empathy, a psychic sensitivity that often traumatizes us. Since we incarnate with a compulsion to create balance and harmony, we often take on the negativity of others and sometimes attract toxic personalities. As we grow up, for instance, a close relative might subconsciously recognize our empathic abilities and continually dump their emotional and mental negativity into our subtle energy field. We also often attract narcissists who enjoy our company for a similar reason, and we can end up in extremely unhealthy relationships. 

     Sometimes it takes years for the Nephilim to understand the danger associated with human beings. We must practice great discretion, especially around people who participate in a strong group mind based on the power of hate—witches who practice black magic, for example— but all groups that maintain a sense of superiority and exclusiveness through negativity, whether politically left or right or off the spectrum, are extremely dangerous. Due to her psychic sensitivity, a member of the Nephilim, after years of dealing with the subtle negative energies of human beings, can identify these types of groups quickly but must always neutralize the group’s negative energy without letting on that she recognizes how treacherous they are. To maintain the group mind, these organizations viciously vilify and demonize others. These groups are sometimes large, which can give them political power and influence. Many of these groups, acknowledged politically or not, continually strive to find scapegoats to attack—victims who might actually be innocent and compassionate and loving beings….

     Angelic souls usually incarnate as females—the gender that tends to be far more psychically receptive than males at this stage in history. I have met many female members of the Nephilim whose souls are from the Order of the Elohim, which is associated with Venus, in other words, with nature, beauty, love, and the arts—their spiritual energies being especially crucial in human society now that nature is under assault by so many powerful interests. I also know some male and female members from the Order of the Chashmillim, associated with Jupiter and the magnificence, abundance, and harmony of the human spirit and the cosmos; the males from that order of angels are often bisexual or gay, partially due, I believe, to their openness to the divinity of all life.

     Many of the incarnated Nephilim never understand why human beings so often direct their negativity at us, but after a while, some of us, especially after many vicious attacks, finally understand the spiritual purpose of our sacrifice and recognize our angelic strength—which humans will eventually understand and collectively honor as a pure form of spiritual power for neutralizing negativity and maintaining harmony (no doubt only after experiencing numerous horrific events that sear the soul). My pendulum confirms that humans eventually, after many experiences with terrible evil, will also become an order of angels that assists all evolving life. As I mentioned above, the Tree of Life reveals the different Powers of Divinity and Archangels and Orders of Angels on the planes of being in the different dimensions—it is a symbol system worth studying by humans as well. Other modalities, such as Reiki, can also be extremely powerful in the hands of an angelic soul like Amber. At this stage, of course, we need to use all the tools that we have.

     I would like to sit here all day and sing the praises of the Nephilim, but there is so much work to be done. All of us on this earth now are facing truly daunting threats, such as economic collapse and fascism and climate change and extreme environmental degradation and the use of weapons of mass destruction. Human negativity, especially fear and greed, could soon end organized existence as we know it. Angelic souls must continue to work at a subtle spiritual level to elevate human consciousness. Through spiritual practices that enable us to connect with the Source and the powers of balance, we can bring energies of harmony down the planes and help others recognize that we are all divinely connected through Universal Consciousness—and maybe, just maybe, form a group mind strong enough to create a collective shift to higher spiritual awareness.

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pestles on a Pounding Stone

(Don't worry, I put the pestles back in their mortars)

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FORGIVE MY TRESPASSES

 Words and Music by Jim Robbins

Watt’s Valley Road crosses a canal that diverts

almost every drop from one of the most

abused rivers in these United States, and not far

from the canal, the road then curves through

 

a Native village site. No doubt years ago,

construction workers didn’t think twice about blasting

and bulldozing burial sites and pounding stones as they built

this road through former Native American lands.

 

I park the car and roll under barbed wire,

and I soon know peace beyond understanding, freedom

from negativity, compassion for all life,

for I feel one with Universal Consciousness

 

as I immerse myself in a timelessness owned now

by a few ranchers and corporations. All the rivers

die in the valley below, the wetlands like lost

puzzle pieces, the diverted water in canals

 

heading for crops that have no business

being cultivated in a desert. Suddenly I see

in the distance cowboys on horses riding straight toward me.

Surely capitalism can solve this little problem.

 

Can I just rent the trail for a few hours?

I feel as vulnerable as a Native American

as they gallop toward me on their horses.

I only wanted to search for Native village sites

 

that have been here for thousands of years.

Would they sympathize if I told them that I

just want to feel one with the Source of all Creation?

They’ve stopped on a ledge, waiting

 

for me to run through the open field

but I am crawling instead

behind rocks up a steep slope where they

cannot follow on their horses.

The Sun

PENDULUM DREAMS: 

Part Thirteen

     Before I knew anything about Native American trails and village sites, I hiked all over the foothills searching for birds, a hobby that requires a heightened sensitivity to the foliage and the terrain. A flitter here or a hop there would make me whip out the binoculars in search of a rare or colorful flower of the air. Sometimes a stunning bird such as a bunting or a tanager or an oriole would wing right in front of me, unbidden, like grace. Other times I pushed through dense foliage, up steep mountain slopes, just to catch a glimpse of a bird I had already sighted a hundred times. But even then the experience was memorable because I had never witnessed the bird in those surroundings before or at that particular time of day. As I was searching for yet another bird, I came to know the flowers and where they grow, and over time I noticed that the plants are, from one spring to another, migrating a little every year over the land.

     I have followed numerous trails, whirling around now and then with binoculars in hand. Only after I became knowledgeable about the birds and flowers did I become sensitive to the human history in the mountains. Coincidentally, around the same time I was becoming more sensitive to the spiritual side of my own nature through meditation, which helps to explain an unusual experience that I had one day.

     When I first started bird watching, I never wondered about who or what had made the trails. I just always assumed that cattle had etched them in the earth.

     One spring day, I followed a creek where three different types of swallows wove invisible loops around me, and orioles scolded me, and male tanagers scouted out suitable nesting habitat in the canopy above me. I was having a spectacular bird watching day, so I kept trudging along even though my feet were aching, and I had very little water left. I finally plopped down next to a creek and noticed smooth mortars in a Native American pounding stone. Lounging quietly in a cool breeze, I felt like my mind was part of an ocean of consciousness, and suddenly I heard the laughter of women right next to me. I looked all around but could see no one. 

     Even though I had never been there before, at that moment I knew without a doubt that a trail was nearby that would lead me to another pounding stone.

     I scrambled up the slope and quickly found a distinct trail that led up the hillside. Without a second thought, I followed the trail and discovered a pounding stone about several hundred yards away on a ridge overlooking the creek. The pounding stone seemed familiar even though I had never been there. For the first time I suspected that cattle had not made the trails.

     Because the sun was setting, I headed back to the floodplain of the creek and rested on the pounding stone again before heading back. Feeling excited but uneasy, I waited awhile for something to happen, but nothing did, so I stood up and began the long trek back to my car. Suddenly I stepped into a current of cold air and experienced an intense rage as if something precious had been stolen from me. Up until that moment, I had been feeling only fatigue and tranquility. I have since realized that I had probably stepped directly into the cold energy field of a ghost.

     Perplexed, I whirled around to see if anybody else was in the vicinity. I had not encountered another soul all day, but I had an eerie feeling that a powerful drama had at some point occurred by that stream. I then had an overpowering urge to cross the creek and climb up to the ridge on the other side. As crickets chirped in the cool air, I hopped across unstable stones without getting my boots wet, and, vexed by the feeling that some buried knowledge or memory was about to surface, I followed a faint path up the hill on the other side of the creek.

     When I reached the top, I found only a few oaks and dried cow patties. After I stepped into a clearing, I could see across the creek to the ridge with the pounding stone. Then I peered into the floodplain below and noticed the pounding stone that I had first encountered that day. Exhausted, I paused in a shallow indentation in the ground, absolutely certain that I had discovered another Native American village site, but I could not find any evidence of it. By that point I could no longer postpone the journey back.

     After that, I searched for pounding stones as I hiked the trails, and I found them about everywhere I wandered in the foothills. I also began to find shallow indentations in the ground just about wherever I found pounding stones, and eventually I realized that they were pits where the Native Americans had set up their houses.

     I eventually returned to the ridge where I had stood at dusk in a shallow indentation, where I had felt a Native American presence, and realized that at the time I had been standing in a house pit. I then carefully searched the ridge again and discovered several pounding stones blanketed by oak leaves, one of which still contained a pestle in a mortar.

     If past is prologue, the same cultural and natural devastation will occur in the mountains. More dams, more development, more exhaustion of resources. I would like to believe that as a species we have moved beyond genocide, but the current perpetuation of ecocide suggests that our rapaciousness does not yet end with the exploitation of nature.

     I have known a handful of activists who were unrelenting in their efforts to protect human and natural communities, no matter the personal cost. You could not find people more unlike each other in terms of background and lifestyle and philosophy, yet despite their differences, each was driven to carry out his or her own personal mission. A few of them spoke truth to power and used the system so effectively that they ended up blackballed or ruined financially by the powers that be--and that did not stop them. They cared little or nothing about power or status or money or any of the ideals associated with the American Dream. Malcontents or misfits perhaps in the eyes of many, some were poor and getting poorer, but nothing, it seemed, could stop them. None of them ever talked about what motivated them, but I believe that I might understand at least some of them now after my experiences in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

     Our culture remains in a limbo of the perpetual present, with very little sense of history or natural diversity, stuck in the “surface mind” that values status and glitz and excitement over spiritual connection. I mention this only because I believe that each of the die-hard activists I once worked with at some point in their life stimulated a higher aspect of the self that enabled them to feel a bond of sympathy for all things, which continued to motivate them despite the beatings they receive in the political arena. Most of them, I suspect, would never view their own motivations as spiritual in nature, yet this spark, I believe, is undeniably Christian in nature, from an esoteric point of view. A social critic such as Chris Hedges might consider the persistence of these activists as a symptom of "sublime madness," but I would instead consider it the result of the awakening of the higher self.

     As I was returning to the Native American village site recently, I felt ravished by the flowers that are flourishing despite the drought that our local newspaper and politicians have claimed will end civilization as we know it if we don’t build more dams, and I realized that this stream could just as easily be buried under hundreds of feet of water or bulldozed into a nucleus of urban growth. As I stood again in the house pit in the clearing, gazing at the ridge across the creek, I began to fear that only a core group of adults, each of whom remain in contact with their higher self to some degree, would fight to save this place, perhaps at great personal cost—and I remembered those activists that I haven’t seen in years.

     I haven’t attended a Christian church regularly since the fourth grade. I confess that for many years I suffered from a serious “Jesus allergy,” and I have never made any effort to be “saved.” For the majority of my adult life, Christianity has seemed authoritarian, rigid and intolerant. After my experience with my activist friends, however, I believe that a form of Christianity is crucial to our society—but not the evangelical Christianity that so many know and love. (I am approaching this subject from the perspective of the mystical tradition known as the Qabalah, or Kabbala.)

     From the mystical perspective of the Qabalah, the Christ is a cosmic force that manifests as harmonizing love, spiritual inebriation, and sacrifice--not as one man who will come either to save or condemn us. The principle of cosmic harmony has been personified throughout history as different gods and goddesses, not just as Jesus, and has had many names, such as “Ma’at” and "Ra" in Egypt. Gods of exultation and sacrifice have also surfaced in different cultures. For instance, Apollo and Dionysus, sons of Zeus, together symbolically personify the harmony and spiritual inebriation of the Christ force.

     Because the Christ is a cosmic force, any man or woman can manifest it, not just a savior or a priest. This force, I believe, will not “save” anyone from a hell in the afterlife or ensure that a person enters a heaven.  No one needs to be "saved." We each have the energies already within us, unfortunately too often veiled or dormant. Instead, a person can awaken and manifest the cosmic force in the here and now to establish and maintain harmony within his or her own personal sphere, just as a worshiper in Greece might have manifested harmony through a mystical connection with Apollo, who is, like Jesus, a symbolic representation of an invisible but very real force. Just as importantly, a person can experience the spiritual exultation of the Christ force, which provides a permanent expansion of the personality, a stimulation of the ethical faculties, a sympathy for all life and a greater desire for harmony--a greater desire for the righteousness of beauty and the beauty of righteousness.

     I am basing my understanding of the cosmic Christ on the glyph, or composite symbol, known as the Tree of Life. On the mystical Tree, the Sephira ("Emanation" in English) of the cosmic Christ is the sphere of the Sun, the source of life, and is known as “Tiphareth,” or “Beauty.” The spiritual experiences assigned to this sphere are “The Vision of Harmony” and “The Mysteries of the Crucifixion.”

     The Vision of Harmony includes an understanding that each life is a field of conscious energy within fields upon fields of interconnected energy throughout the cosmos. The mysteries of the crucifixion include creating balance and harmony within the self and the community through sacrifice. Some people, such as my activist friends, for instance, have the courage to experience ongoing personal sacrifice for the highest good of the community.

     An extremely important concept relating to this state of balance and sacrifice is the concept of the higher self, the aspect of the soul in touch with the principle of cosmic harmony and divinity. This higher aspect of the self, open to powerful forces, sometimes inexplicably knows things in a way that transcends the five senses. This connection, commonly known as intuition, is often associated with a guardian angel or “daimon" and is one basis of faith.

     Through exultation and the expansion of the mind, aesthetically, ethically, and spiritually, the higher self is activated. Since this expansion of consciousness normally takes years, it is extremely unlikely that a child would be able to see the world through the eyes of the higher self. A society’s obsession with youthfulness suggests either an ignorance or rejection of the higher self, or both.

     The higher self, in tune with the Christ force, strives for the highest good, even though this might require great personal sacrifice. Due to the profound vision of harmony, the individual understands that all energy is connected, part of one underlying Universal Consciousness. Through this recognition, the individual develops sympathy for all life and embraces the physical world, with all of its harshness and suffering, instead of rejecting it as evil, and turns to the natural world, and the spiritual forces behind it, as to a friend.

Pounding Stone and House Pits on a High Ridge

     Each path on the Tree reflects the primary forces within both the cosmos and the individual, and each force contains extremes at each end of a spectrum. As a sphere of equilibrium and the higher self, the Christ center on the Tree helps place the extremes of all the forces into balance. Without the perspective of the higher self, in other words, an activist, like anyone else, can get out of balance, becoming merely combative, vengeful, biased, or egotistical. Through the perspective of the higher self, an activist can move by degrees to a state of balance, remaining focused on the highest good for the self and the community.

     An activist might not realize that he or she is motivated by the higher self, but from an esoteric spiritual perspective a selfless striving for justice, equality and harmony, despite great personal sacrifice, is one indication. The Sun in esoteric symbolism represents the higher self, and the Moon, which reflects the light of the Sun, reveals on one level how that light over time changes in the lower personality. Few human beings can stand fully in the light all of the time. Once the personality has expanded to a certain degree, however, the desire for the harmony of the Christ force—in aesthetics, ethics, and spirituality—never entirely retracts.

  All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Native American Pounding Stone on a High Ridge

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FIND A PATH

Words and Music by Jim Robbins

Shut your windows, lock your doors, and arm

your alarm system. Find an ancient path 

into the woodland forest and hike until you stumble

upon a Native American Village, abandoned

over a century ago. Along the way, you will find

sweet, ravishing flowers, revealing how the brilliant

energies of splendor extend into the cosmos--

to the farthest stars. You might find an ancient oak

emanating peace from the Source and suddenly

feel free of negativity, and suddenly feel

compassion for all life. As you stand among

the flowers, under the huge branches, your ego

might let go as you gaze far into the distance

and suddenly you might feel one 

with Universal Consciousness and know 

that all energy is holy. Your ego might let go

as you gaze into the distance

and you might suddenly feel one 

with Universal Consciousness.

You might find flowers emanating

sweetness from the Source and suddenly

feel peace beyond understanding,

and suddenly feel free of negativity,

and suddenly feel compassion for all life.

Ancient Trail through Lupine, Popcorn, and Goldfields

PENDULUM DREAMS:

Part Twelve

   When I was a boy, the neighborhood kids ditched me now and then in unfamiliar places. They were all two years older, yet I was better at sports than some of them, especially football. In retrospect, I believe that they repeatedly tried to cut me down to size in order to emphasize that I should remain weak and subordinate, which placed me in an awkward position because they surely would have wrecked me if I had not striven to measure up to them.

   One time stands out because two aspects of the experience had a profound effect on me. I don't remember where we were that day because I had slept in the car for most of our trip into the mountains. I remember opening my eyes as we were about to cross an arched bridge over a canyon, which startled and amazed me enough that I kept my eyes open. After a few more nauseating miles on a winding mountain road, my Dad parked the car, and we all plunged down a hill to a river below. As my Dad fished, the rest of us wandered off to explore the area. We followed a trail up a hill and soon lost sight of the river. 

   Suddenly they all tried to ditch me, but I managed to keep up with one of the less athletic boys, who sprinted around wildly in a circle. 

   After we joined up together again, Alan, our de facto leader, cussed and sneered at the boy who couldn't shake me. As I was asking what the hell was going on, Alan suddenly yelled, "Again!" They all quickly vanished into the nearby woods. I didn't try to scramble after them the second time, however. For awhile I felt abandoned and vulnerable and furious. For most of the hike, I was still trying to wake up and hadn't really paid much attention to where I was in relation to the river or the car. I kept plodding up the hill, thinking I might find my friends on the trail ahead.

   Then I noticed lupine next to the trail. I had never really stopped to look at lupine before. I was usually oblivious to the environment as I tried my best to keep up with the other kids. I smelled its faint, cloying fragrance and it suddenly seemed like the most stunning flower I had ever encountered. I knew that I should probably continue searching for the other boys, but I just stood gazing at the lupine, and suddenly peace drenched my soul, a peace that was flooding the entire woodland forest, a peace that forced me to question why I kept struggling to be as good or better than the other boys.

   I found another trail heading downhill and hiked along a small stream, aware, for a change, of an abundance of flowers, especially lupine. I couldn't help but pause and gaze at each flower, now and then remembering that I was lost and might not find my way back before sunset, but I kept telling myself that I didn't need any of them, that my newfound awareness of the peace within the natural world was all I needed no matter what happened.

   I don't know how long I wandered alone but eventually I pushed through some bushes into an opening and stepped out unexpectedly onto the river bank. My father was still fishing, and the other boys were splashing around in the river. 

   As soon as my father saw me, he yelled out, "Time to go!" I realized then that a great deal of time must have passed since they had ditched me, but I hadn't noticed because along with the feeling of peace was a sense of timelessness. I realized then how lucky I was to have wandered straight to the place where everyone was hanging out as I noticed the beginnings of sunset reflected in the river. My father had always just shrugged whenever I told him what the other boys had done to me, so I didn't say anything as we scrambled up the hill to the car.

   Alan's father had died from leukemia about six months before our trip. Alan had now and then displayed leadership qualities that our small group valued: adventurousness and rebelliousness. After his father passed away, he began to demand loyalty no matter how insane or sadistic his machinations and his adventures turned out to be. He was the mastermind behind ditching me in a pitch-black cave, for instance. (See previous post.) He once got his hands on a bottle of 151 rum and commanded me to guzzle two large cups of Pepsi spiked with the noxious liquid; not aware that I was drinking copious amounts of hard liquor, I pounded down the libations given to me as quickly as I could. I passed out less than an hour later and threw up all over the kitchen table where the others were playing poker. (I was deathly ill for three days.) Once, he directed me to fight one of the weaker older boys; I pulled all of my punches, but the others all thought it was hilarious as I pretended to beat the hell out of him. Even though they acted like I was the decisive winner of the fight, we both ended up humiliated. 

   Those are just a few of his brilliant ideas. Somehow Alan knew that the group needed someone to pick on, someone to humiliate, and his commands seemed to be getting crazier every time we got together, and I was getting sick of being the target of his sadistic schemes. After he caught our tent on fire one night, which ended up severely burning the back of my head as I slept, I began to suspect that he felt no qualms about seriously harming others in order to maintain his position as the supreme leader of the group. Thanks to him, I began noticing examples of this form of behavior throughout history.

   Giving Alan the benefit of the doubt, however, I began to suspect that after his father died he needed to be in control of every situation and that his demand for absolute loyalty was a substitute for something that he was missing, but I could no longer laugh off or ignore how he was becoming more and more of a menace--especially to me. I knew one thing for certain: I could not follow him anymore. I could not be part of a group that harms its weakest members to satisfy the sadistic needs of the others. I learned because of that experience that on my own I could find a profound peace that enabled me to totally let go of anger and fear and frustration.

   Something else happened that day that had a profound effect on me. After we crossed the bridge over the canyon on our way home, I suddenly knew that my father was going to die soon, and I would not be able to do anything about it. He had never showed signs of illness or weakness, but I knew it with absolute certainty. I felt shocked and devastated as the car wove through hillsides on fire with fiddleneck. I was speechless, but I knew that they would belittle me for my premonition anyway. As we gently swayed back and forth in our seats on the way home, I eventually fell asleep.

   My premonition came true several years later. My father died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-five. I eventually realized that there are currents of time, the knowledge of which can surface due to external events and conducive states of mind. In the forest by myself, no longer worried about Alan's sadistic schemes, my consciousness had slipped into a state that enabled me to experience a profound sense of unity underlying all consciousness, which induced a sense of peace beyond understanding, and I let go of all negative feelings about my peers. In that state, possibly sparked in part also because of Alan's emotional struggles due to his father's death, I also accessed knowledge of the future. I eventually understood that those currents of time include not just premonitions about the future but memories of past lives buried deep in the subconscious mind. It was as if all time exists at once, including the future and the remote past of other lives, and instead of accessing knowledge of key moments within the soul's history, we are "normally" too caught up in the moment or too afraid to experience that knowledge.   

   Recently I went to see a psychic named Debra. From a safe distance, Debra ushered me in to sit on her couch, and she plopped down in a recliner on the other side of the room. We chatted for a while, and she suddenly blurted out that my soul is from a high angelic order known as the Brilliant Ones. Another psychic had mentioned something similar back in the days when I was an open-minded agnostic, but Debra's emphatic claim nevertheless came as a surprise. I didn't believe the statement when I first heard it mainly because I have been less than mediocre throughout most of my life thanks to a chronic illness. "You must know what it's like to suffer before you can empathize," she stated. "Not only have you been sick most of your life, without anyone making an effort to truly understand your illness, but you have also been traumatized by black magic." She made this claim before I had even mentioned my chronic illness or my experiences with black magic.
   She then suddenly stated that I had been a member of the Knight's Templar in a previous life. According to her, in that life I was an extremely devout man who massacred innocents in the performance of his duty for the benefit of the Pope and the Catholic Church, which made it impossible for me to reconcile my experiences with the Catholic Church's repeated assertions about the goodness of God and Jesus. Debra informed me that the templar knight aspect of my personality would soon reveal itself to me.
   Over the past three decades, I have searched the Kings River watershed for Native American village sites, and many times I have experienced a sixth sense about where to find them. One night recently while I was sprawling in bed, unable to sleep, I was being guided in vision through places I had known in some other life, and suddenly I knew with absolute certainty that I had been a shaman who had wandered from one village to another in the Kings River watershed during the Gold Rush times. I had survived a massacre and practiced black magic to harm as many invaders as I could.
   Then the templar knight aspect of my personality suddenly surfaced through a series of visions. During the crusades, the Knights Templar had discovered the mystic teachings of the Kabbalah. As a templar knight I eventually lost my faith because of the corruption of the Catholic Church. As a knight who had studied the Kabbalah, I figured out how to perform black magic to harm those responsible for the Holy War and for all the massacring and pillaging throughout Europe and the Middle East. 

   I began to believe that the demons and malicious spirits that I had sent to harm other people in those two other lifetimes had come back to haunt me in this life, via the government and sundry practitioners of black magic. I suddenly wondered if I might have a heroic side, which I had never seriously considered before as a possibly. I was fighting to create balance, this time, though, without causing harm to anyone.