All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.
ACCEPTING THE WORLD
I often hike in the Sierra Nevada Mountains just to encounter stones. Some rocks, though resembling magnificent spires or edifices, confront the soul with a sublimely nonhuman order. Other stones covered with moss and humus seem as alive in their niches as anything else in their ecosystem. Though forever silent about human and natural history, some stones contain traces of a Native American presence that in the Sierra Nevada Mountains has all but disappeared within the last century or so, the mortars filled with grass, humus, water, sometimes even pestles. A vibration from eon's ago, perhaps from the beginning of time, permeates stones: Occasionally in the mountains I am so impressed by stones that I feel a crazy desire to worship them.
The energies within stone and earth form the physical ground of being, which has existed far longer than the human race, far longer than any organic life on the planet. These energies establish the basic reality around which countless forms of life have surged forth only to pass away, enabling other forms to fill their niche. These energies are the bedrock of creation itself, but they also usher in the King of Terrors, for whatever tabernacles in physical form must perish. Because all form eventually breaks down, even the tallest mountains, the Gods of creation also force us to face the inescapable realities of suffering and death. The life-force is in a field of constant change, of creation and destruction, which allows the new to supplant the old in a never-ending cycle.
The Gods of creation have birthed forms beyond the human race's ability to conquer or control, live volcanoes from the ocean's floor and vast mountain ranges and seemingly endless deserts. Tiny humans huddle on firm, flat ground as much as possible, often ignoring or forgetting the intimidating forms of nature, yet something within us longs for places with sublime natural forms that tower above us—for contact with another order of being, primordial and majestic, that humbles and amazes us and reminds us of the inexplicable vastness of space and time.
The soul needs to be fed as much as the body. As revealed by the Tree of Life, there are nine energetic states, or chambers, of the soul, each of which requires a steady influx of the corresponding energy of its vibrational frequency. The level of the energy of the womb of creation is very high, associated with the supernal Emanation on the Tree of Life known as Understanding, or Binah in Hebrew. Since this state is on the other side of what the Qabalists call the Abyss, far beyond brain consciousness, the soul must be very still and calm to tune to this primal energy, as still and calm as stones.
The ancients fashioned Gods that represent the basic forms and energies of creation, from Ptah in Egypt, to Cronus in Greece, to Saturn in Rome. My soul opened to the energies of the physical ground of being after I had hiked many miles through the mountains, so impressed by rocks, large and small, that I began to feel their frequency. Saturn is perhaps the symbolic form of the primordial Gods of Creation most recognized by modern human beings. Saturn's Greek name is Cronus, Father Time. Associated with the Grim Reaper, Saturn rules our subjective sense of time, including our sense of mortality. In a human being's short span of life, Saturn is the crucible that burns away trivial or artificial characteristics. Saturn's pressure keeps you focused on your own path even if you find that some goals force you to plod through great difficulties in order to establish inner wisdom and discipline—even though all the while fear and regret may accompany you. Known as the “greater malific,” Saturn, the most feared planet in astrology, demands that you accept your true nature, your higher self, and take control of your life, finding what must be done to avoid or solve problems. Tests and trials occur so that you know and accept your higher self and face obstacles with wisdom and courage. Saturn never promises success, but through discipline and perseverance, and by avoiding distractions and overcoming doubts and gaining knowledge and skill, you can earn mastery regardless of the outcome.
Similar in many ways to Saturn, the ancient Egyptian God Ptah is the fashioner of the egg, who dreamt creation in his heart and called the world into being, his name meaning “the opener,” in the sense of opening the mouth to speak the Word. From chaos he fashioned the universe through harmonics and thought and established the harsh discipline of form. As the creator of form, like Saturn, Ptah is a God of restriction and stability and obedience to structures that serve individual or collective purposes. On the personal level also, Ptah is a God of planning and determination, of boundaries and limitations.
These days I appreciate the more frightful aspects of Saturn because as a teenager I experienced a great deal of confusion and fear about death. Not long after my grandmother passed away, a year after my grandfather died, my cousin and his girlfriend, both in their early twenties, were killed in a car accident. I was fourteen. The entire family remained devastated by the loss for many years.
A few years later, my father died, three days before his fifty-sixth birthday, about a month after I turned seventeen. I still have a vivid memory of his body laid out on a single bed in his best suit the day my mother picked out his coffin. His face was waxy and unnatural; the embalmers had attempted to make it seem like he was just sleeping—without success. That same day my mother opted to purchase a concrete vault for the casket that would purportedly survive fifty years instead of twenty-five—for twice the money.
All my other relatives who had died, placed on display during visitation, seemed pasty and slightly misshapen, as if someone had replaced the real body with a poorly rendered, life-sized doll. Shocked by their almost real-life appearance, I thought that I might be expected to pretend that they weren't dead. Whatever the reason for their appearance, I found that I couldn't bring myself to grieve openly; my formal clothes, the limousines, the hasty ceremonies, the flowery grave sites all felt unreal. The only time I experienced true grief was during my cousin's funeral when my uncle lifted son's hand from the coffin and wouldn't let go. He and my aunt wept uncontrollably, which caused me to bolt, sobbing, out of the funeral chapel. After my father died, my surviving family avoided talking about death, and my friends avoided me, as if I might somehow bring death into their world.
In the physical world, things fall apart. People suffer from serious defects and illness and pain. As someone who has experienced a chronic illness for forty-five years, I know that even people close to you often remain in denial about your illness or blame you for not overcoming your condition. They act like they would rather just avoid dealing with it and would prefer that you would just function "normally" in the social arena and in their presence. Like death, illness triggers the primal self-preservation instinct.
Unfortunately, since people often avoid you when they learn that you have an illness, even one that isn't contagious, as I have grown older, I have grown more and more solitary. After a recent trip to the mountains, I realized that I needed to honor the basic energies of existence, which include suffering and death, and I needed, as a person with a chronic disease, to let go of regret in order to live more fully.
I doubt that people can truly experience the vibrational levels of the life-force if they are in denial about suffering and death. If we cannot grieve or suffer openly, if all hint of death and illness must be hidden from sight so we can pretend that they don't exist, aren't we shutting out the life-force? If we glorify youth and strength and ignore aging and illness and weakness, aren't we also ignoring the life force in all its manifestations? If we shut down emotionally when faced with suffering and death, can we truly live?
We contact the subtle forces with both the intellect and the emotions. We cannot experience the life-force with the intellect alone. If we shut down our emotions, we cut ourselves off from the life-force on all levels—and the soul starves.
I invoked the God Saturn as a way to experience basic energies of the life-force and to accept the world and all it suffering. I also invoked Saturn to release my regrets. After the ritual, I realized that I have ended up doing what I had always felt compelled to do—though with much greater financial limitations than I had expected. I had once believed that a career would have enabled me to do the things I wanted—without recognizing that a career would have eaten up most, if not all, of the time that I needed in order to be a creative, politically active, spiritual person. I have discovered that lingering regret can end up being worse than illness itself, but the emotional pain can also become a catalyst to grow into the person that you feel compelled to be. With regret also comes anger at the people who have stood in your way. I realized as well that I need to release that anger.
Because of my ritual, I have felt free of anger and regret. In a moment of reflection, I understood that suffering and sorrow and limitation have helped me to grow as a person. Despite my illness, or perhaps because of it, I have developed the discipline to overcome obstacles and focus on what I need to do to accomplish my goals. On the Pillar of Severity, Mars and Mercury are both Saturn on a lower arc, Mars on the ethical level and Mercury on the intellectual level. Opening the self to the influence of Mars can lead to a compulsion to fulfill the moral imperative for justice. Opening the self to the influence of Mercury can lead to the compulsion to fulfill the moral imperative for truth. Like Saturn, both Mars and Mercury are anchored in severe (some might even say "harsh") discipline.
I have finally made a clean break. Why should I feel guilt or have regrets? I accept my true nature—I know I have lived up to the demands of my higher self.
I am free of guilt and regret and denial. I accept the world as it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment