There are Two Wings

There are two: one wing holds him in contact with the divine understanding, and the other with divine memory/inspiration. The two wings are therefore related to the contemplative and creative aspects of God which, in their turn, correspond to the divine image and likeness in man of which Genesis speaks.

The two Angelic wings are the Angel’s links with the eternal sabbath and the eternal creativity of God – or, in other words, with divine gnosis and divine magic. It is by means of the “gnostic” (or “left”) wing that the Angel is in contemplation of divine wisdom, and it is by means of the “magical” (or “right”) wing that he is active in his capacity as messenger or “Angel”.

This is the principle of polarity underlying the duality of the wings. The principle remains valid also for Angels – and for entities from other spiritual hierarchies – who have more than two wings (sixteen, for example). It will be the task of a future science of “Angelology” to grasp the reason or reasons for the plurality of wings of certain Angelic entities.

With respect to us, we have to restrict ourselves to a general explanation of the two wings of Angels, in reminding ourselves that it is a matter here of meditation on the fourteenth Arcanum of the Tarot, whose card represents an entity with two wings.

From tradition we know that there are also human beings endowed with wings….The astral and etheric wings of a human being signify a more-or-less advanced degree of recovery of the divine likeness in him. For certainly it was the lot of men before the original sin to have wings. He lost them subsequently. How are they recovered?

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XIV Temperance

Shimmering-throned immortal Aphrodite

Shimmering-throned immortal Aphrodite,
Daughter of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee,
Spare me, O queen, this agony and anguish,
Crush not my spirit

Whenever before thou has hearkened to me–
To my voice calling to thee in the distance,
And heeding, thou hast come, leaving thy father’s
Golden dominions,

With chariot yoked to thy fleet-winged coursers,
Fluttering swift pinions over earth’s darkness,
And bringing thee through the infinite, gliding
Downwards from heaven,

Then, soon they arrived and thou, blessed goddess,
With divine contenance smiling, didst ask me
What new woe had befallen me now and why,
Thus I had called the.

What in my mad heart was my greatest desire,
Who was it now that must feel my allurements,
Who was the fair one that must be persuaded,
Who wronged thee Sappho?

For if now she flees, quickly she shall follow
And if she spurns gifts, soon shall she offer them
Yea, if she knows not love, soon shall she feel it
Even reluctant.

Come then, I pray, grant me surcease from sorrow,
Drive away care, I beseech thee, O goddess
Fulfil for me what I yearn to accomplish,
Be thou my ally.

Sappho

Fan the Moonbeams

Out of this wood do not desire to go:

Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.

I am a spirit of no common rate;

The summer still doth tend upon my state;

And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;

I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee;

And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,

And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep:

And I will purge thy mortal grossness so,

That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.

Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! Mustardseed!

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;

Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;

Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,

With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;

The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,

And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,

And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,

To haev my love to bed and to arise;

And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,

To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:

Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Matter and Memory

The state of the brain

continues the remembrance;

it gives it a hold on the present

by the materiality which it confers upon it:

but pure memory is a spiritual manifestation.

With memory we are in very truth

in the domain of the spirit.

Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory

Releasing Energy

Light – is it Sunlight? – out from Spirit-deeps

struggles to shine;

translated into lively strength of will

clear through the cloudiness of sense it burns,

releasing energy that turns

passionate drives into creative thrust

that ripens into work amongst mankind

Rudolf Steiner, Calendar of the Soul, Thirty-first week

Glimmer of Dewdrops

And on the first day of the week when the sounds of the temple bells sought their ears, one spoke and said: “Master, we hear much talk of God hereabout. What say you of God, and who is He in very truth?”

And he stood before them like a young tree, fearless of wind or tempest, and he answered saying: “Think now, my comrades and beloved, of a heart that contains all your hearts, a love that encompasses all your loves, a spirit that envelops all your spirits, a voice enfolding all your voices, and a silence deeper than all your silences, and timeless.

“Seek now to perceive in your self-fullness a beauty more enchanting than all things beautiful, a song more vast than the song of the sea and the forest, a majesty seated upon a throne for which Orion is but a footstool, holding a sceptre in which the Pleiades are naught save the glimmer of dewdrops.

“You have sought alawys only food and shelter, a garment and a staff; seek now One who is neither an aim for your arrows nor a stony cave to shield you from the elements.

“And if my words are a rock and a riddle, then seek, none the less, that your hearts may be broken, and that your questionings may bring you unto the love and the wisdom of the Most High, whom men call God.”

And they were silent, every one, and they were perplexed in their heart.

Kahlil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet

Love

A man must have gazed long at the face of incarnate, crucified Love and pondered deeply on Love’s actions if, when it comes to the point, he can speak of his own failing love in thise terms: “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all thigns.” (1 Cor 13.7).

In such love, however, contemplation comes to blossom in the truth of a human life; it shows whether he has really acted so as to allow God’s word to be paramount in his life, God’s truth and love to triumph over his untruth and egoism.

That is what is meant by worshipping in spirit and truth; it also involves renouncing “ultimate knowledge” for the sake of “ultimate love”. For as knowledge, it will pass away…but love never ends.” (1 Cor 13.8).

The love which “surpasses knowledge” can only be “known” (Eph 3.19) in something more-than knowledge, which is in fact love itself, a loving together with God and from God, just as God’s truth is one with his life of love which pours forth in a threefold stream.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer

The Serpent and the Dove

Using only logic we lose contact with mystery,with the desire for the imaginary. That’s why I love the Oriental philosophy of paradox, which is not that of the straight line, but of the circle, where something can be and not be at the same time, because life is not robotic with prefabricated answers. It’s unpredictable and can change at any second.

I am very fond of the tradition of the dove and the snake. Sometimes we need physical symbols to understand ourselves better. The classic image, which I like so much, is that of the Immaculate Virgin with a snake at her feet. The tradition of the Spirit, which departs from the principle that, what is important is not accumulation but knowing how to read the language of the collective unconscious, what we call the anima mundi. That would be the language of the dove.

And then, on the other hand, the classical tradition of the snake, of the accumulation of wisdom. We cannot remain with one or the other exclusively, but must harmonise the two – logic and intuition….Jesus says he has come not to destroy law but to fulfill it in spirit. Because a time comes when respect and obedience to law keeps you from living, but you can’t just live with anarchy either.

Another example from the Gospels that I like very much is when Jesus tells his disciples that when they go among men they should be ‘wise as serpents and harmless as doves’. That’s why we have to be alert and keep our feet on the ground, being concrete and objective, but at the same time knowing how to watch the run of things, enjoy contemplating them, trying to discover that secret language that speaks more to our feminine side, than to our reason.

Paul Coelho, Confessions of a Pilgrim, Juan Arias

Significant Number 9

Nobody knows precisely what – if anything out of the ordinary – will occur on 21.12.2012, but it may be wise in any case to treat this date as a feasible deadline.

Accepting this premise at face value, for what it is worth – which potentially is either everything or nothing – means there is nothing to lose but everything to gain, but not vice versa, for this reason: The authorities on Mayan culture – the ancestors, as it were – have said that this date is a point of transformation, for better or worse, depending on how the balance tips.

In other words, if the world and all of humanity have not, by this time, made a positive evolutionary step towards a less material, more spiritual, less painful, more peaceful, less hateful, more loving state of reality, natural and supernatural, then the change will be for the worse and might even be catastrophic.

If, however, humanity takes up the ‘Sword of Peace’, ‘Belt of Truth’ and so on, aspiring to and attaining love through truth with hope and faith, then the change will be for the better. The Stairway to Heaven and Gateway to Paradise will manifest and reopen to us. The Tree of Life will be restored and soulmates reunited. It might even be the case that our ability to survive at all will depend on the degree to which our hearts and minds are filled with love and light, the extent to which our soul/spirit is free and in touch with the Divine.

It is therefore proposed that we accept the deadline and begin in earnest a fully conscious, united mission to help save the world by 21.12.2012, else be left to wonder forever what might have been.

So from the present date (September 24 2010) there are 819 days to go until deadline, which is boiling down to a significant number 9 in this book. As to how we might proceed – seeing as 9 might indeed be significant – perhaps now is the time for us all to hang the Hermetic lamps out, so they are brought beyond the mantle more fully. Each to his or her own, thereby, with a mission to shine a light. Upraise sparks.

Key Words

abyss air apollo artemis

beauty blood dawn divine

earth fire future god

gold golden heart heaven

human light love magic

magical

meditations

tarot mind moon mystery

nature power prayer reason

sea secret silver sky

soul spirit spiritual star

sun time truth vision

water wind wisdom world