Four words crystallize the spirit in the place of power.
In the sixth month the white snow is suddenly seen to fly.
At the third watch the disk of the sun sends out shining rays.
On the water blows the wind of gentleness.
Wandering in Heaven, one eats the spirit-power of the receptive.
And the deeper secret within the secret :
The land that is nowhere, that is the true home
The Secret of the Golden Flower, Richard Wilhelm and Carl Jung
The Tetragrammaton, the sacred name of God is written in Hebrew as a word composed of four letters – Yod He Vau He (YHVH) – hence the ‘tetra’ prefix. Whilst the name signifies Yahweh, it is pronounced in Hebrew as Adomai and in English became Jehovah.
The root of YHVH is derived from HVH, which means being, life or woman, once interchangeable concepts. In Latin HVH is spelled EVE and the esoteric meaning of the YHVH is, therefore, Eve, the Mother of all living.
A second version of the Tetragrammaton is spelled EHYH and is derived from Hayya, another name of Eve that expresses her connection to women in childbirth
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A central tenet of philosophical kabbalah is that God the Father has lost the Great Mother, his feminine aspect, also called the Shekinah. For universal peace and harmony the Holy Mother, the Shekinah must be restored to God the Father. There is an evocative prayer formula we can use to support this cosmic mission which is based upon the Seal of Solomon and signified by ‘fiery water’ as the supreme resolution of elemental binaries.
Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit – Holy Mother, Holy Daughter, Holy Soul
I discovered unexpected correlations in things which hitherto I had thought foreign to each other. Objects distant and different from one another appeared near and similar. The facts of the world arranged themselves before my eyes according to a new pattern
And beneath the radiant stars beside the blue river I saw a naked maiden, young and beautiful. She stooped on one knee and poured water from two vessels, one of gold and one of silver. A little bird in a nearby bush lifted its wings and was poised ready to fly away.
For a moment I understood that I beheld the Soul of Nature.
Ouspensky, Tarot Symbolism, The Star
But of this secret mercury; if you desire,
the secret for to learn, attend to me:
For this is a water which yet is fire,
which conquers bodies from their degree,
and makes them fly much like a spirit pure,
and this after fixing all flames to endure.
This water it doth flow from a fourfold spring,
which is but three, which two, and which but one,
is the only bath to bathe our king,
This is our maydew, this our flying stone;
our bird of Hermes in the mountains flying,
and without voice or note is always crying.
Marrow of Alchemy, George Starkey
When, at length, they have practiced themselves for some time in the journey of virtue, persevering in meditation and prayer, wherein, with the suavity and relish they have found, they have become detached from worldly things, and acquired some spiritual strength in God, so as to be able to curb the creature appetites and in some small degree suffer for God some slight load and dryness, without turning back at the crucial moment; when, to their thinking, they are proceeding in these spiritual exercises to their entire satisfaction and delight; and when the Sun of Divine favors seems to them to shine most radiantly upon them, God darkens all this light, and shuts the door and fountain of the sweet spiritual water, which they were wont to drink in God as often and as long as they chose … and thus, he leaves them in darkness so profound that they know not whither to direct the sense of the imagination and speculations of the mind.
St. John of the Cross
The biblical story of Jacob is an allegory of human evolution on our planet. And his experience at Peniel (Face of God) is linked symbolically with the transformation of the basic octahedron into the Holy Temple octahedron. All human beings eventually undergo this high initiation, called the ShM Initiation (or ‘Name’ Initiation).
Jacob’s name-change to Israel (YShRAL) symbolises the elevation of human consciousness from the sefirah Tifaret (Jacob) to the sphere of Da’at (Israel). At that time Da’at becomes integrated into human consciousness and the ‘covenant of the Unique One’ (BRYTh YChYD) is activated.
During the evolution of the octahedron the ShM Pillar becomes established as its central axis. This occurs as Jacob’s guardian angel (Tifaret, Kaf) releases his hold on the Shin and Maym pathways and allows them to fully merge together. Jacob as Israel (Da’at) then assumes control of the ShM Pillar.
The ShM Pillar empowers Israel to become consciously involved in the divine Work of Yetzirah (Formation). In other words, after reconciling the paths of Shin and Maym within his own microcosmic self, Jacob as Israel is able to consciously assist the Creator in the macrocosmic merging of Binah (Shin, divine fire) with Hockmah (Maym, divine Water). In doing so, Israel takes his first step on the new path of cosmic evolution.
….she died in the Sulphur; the Sul in the kingdom of God, the lubet of the divine liberty, out of which the light of God shines, and in which the divine love, the love-fire burns….
Now there was no remedy for him, unless God’s desire entered again into his dead Sulphur… if this must be effected, then the love-desire must again enter into the desire of the enkindled anger, and quench and overcome the anger with the love; the divine water must enter again into the soul’s burning fire, and quench the wrathful death in the astringent fiat, in the desire to nature, that the love-desire, which desires God, might be again enkindled in the soul
Jakob Boehme, The Signature of all Things
Inspiration, truth to tell, is what constitutes the Hermetic community. It is inspiration which is the link between its members and within which all its members meet one another. The community of inspiration – this is what in reality the community of Hermeticism is.
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“In the beginning was the Word” is the law not only of the world but also of the realisation of inspiration in each individual biography. And the entire community of Hermeticists lives under this law, under the law of inspiration.
Everyone lives under this law. The community of Hermeticists is distinguished from the rest of mankind only in that it is borne – in an irresistible way – to be conscious of it and to know what happens both to them and to the rest of humanity.
The lot of Hermeticists differs from that of every human being only in that the former hunger and thirst for comprehensive knowledge of that which the latter simply undergo. Their lot does not bring any privilege with it, on the contrary, rather, it is an added duty with which Hermeticists are charged, notably the inner duty to understand the totality of miracles and disasters which is life and the world. This duty makes them appear presumptuous or childish in the eyes of the world, but it is the Arcanum of inspiration – the Arcanum of the winged entity pouring living water from one vase into another – which renders them such as they are.
Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XIV, Temperance
The Canigó is an immense magnolia
that blooms in an offshoot of the Pyrenees;
its bees are the fairies that surround it,
and its butterflies the swans and the eagles.
Its cup are jagged mountain chains,
colored in silver by the winter and in gold by the summer,
huge cup where the star drinks fragrances, the airs freshness and the clouds water.
The pine forests are its hedges and the ponds its dew drops,
and its pistil is that golden palace,
seen by the nymph in her dreams descending from heaven.
Canigou, Jacint Verdaguer
And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping ember.
No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.
Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away;
your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move
after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.”
Pablo Neruda, Sonnet LXXXI