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That
paroxysm of creation was the Wrath of Chaos and the Making of the World. And yet, to the implacable tumult of that
global firestorm, something silently other has come - a benediction and
promise of possibility toward which that empty devastation had looked with
great longing and expectation. Her
arrival and long sojourn in the molten land is something strange, wonderful,
and utterly beyond comprehension - Life on earth is as foreign as a
flowing crimson gown in the green primordial forest...
Nine and The Trinity
As
discussed in Song of the Hummingbird Muses, our identical words for the root
of a tree and the root of a number, in fact mean the same
thing. A root is that which connects a
growing thing to that from which it grows.
As a tree grows from the earth, nine grows from three. The square root of 9 is 3 (3 x 3 = 9): the
root of nine is the Trinity.
The
Trinity is an ancient idea found in the spiritual traditions of people from
every part of the world; it is a prevalent but still difficult concept. Whence comes the pervasive fascination with
the notion that, somehow, God is a tripartite entity? As I mentioned in Celestial Apparition, there are three
dimensions of space (length, width, and height), and three dimensions of time
(past, present, and future). This
“threeness” in the form and duration of our cosmic house is, perhaps, part of
the meaning, part of what we hope to explain with a godhead of three
aspects. The Trinity is the fundamental
unit of perpetuating life: Mother, Father, and Child. It may be that this is another component of the influence this
archetype has upon us. Perhaps a more
arcane illustration of the Trinity is found in the complementary polarities of
existence (one-many, up-down, rest-motion, dark-light, pull-push, etc...) that
in conjunction become mysterious unities within the dance of the living
cosmos (not pull and push but tension; not dark and light but gray,
not rest and motion but rhythm, etc.).
For example: male is one form of phenomena, and female is a second form
of phenomena; in union they are together a third form of phenomena - Life - a
unity of which male and female are merely component halves. Stated (not very) simply: The universe is
the Two that become Three, that is truly only One.
Nine
is a very common number in the sacred stories of humanity, and it always
appears in the same guise. Fortunately,
that guise has very little to do with nebulous contemplations of the
Trinity. We shall see that the significance
of nine rests in its proximity, not to the smaller root, but to something
greater...
The Nine and The Quest
In
ancient Egypt (land of the Nine Gods), their name for nine was “Mountain of the
Sun.” The hieroglyphic symbol for nine
was also a component of the glyph for both “sunrise” (new sun), and “new moon.” In fact, many languages within the
Indo-European complex derive their word for “new” (Latin, nova) from the
Sanskrit word nava, which means nine.
In sacred stories from across Eurasia, nine is very often the guide that
leads us to the edge of something new...
The
Aztecs, in accord with all Central American belief, constructed temples of nine
stories to match the nine heavens. To
ascend the mountain-like nine-level pyramid was to imitate the nine-step
crossing of the sun; it was a symbolic rehearsal of the nine-stage journey into
the afterlife wherein one finds eternal rest.
In
the philosophy of ancient China, there were nine heavens above, and nine
springs in the land of the dead. In
emulation of this cosmic order, there were nine steps that lead to the imperial
throne, and nine gates that insulated it from the exterior world. We see another reflection of this “guiding
nine” in the Taoist classic, Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching, which has 81
chapters (9 x 9 = 81).
That
he might drink from the infinite depths of Mimir’s well, Odin (Ruler of the
Nine Worlds in Norse mythology), sacrificed an eye to achieve knowledge of all
things past, present, and future; ever after one empty socket looked inwards,
while the remaining eye looked out.
Odin was then left to hang for nine days on the world-tree Yggdrasil,
learning the secrets of the runes, until finally beckoned by the Prophetess
into the Wisdom of Eternity.
Christ
hung upon the Holy Rood for three hours; in his aspect as one third of the
Godhead we may say that the Trinity entire hung upon that world-axis for nine
hours (3 X 3 = 9). “And at the ninth
hour Jesus cried in a loud voice, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?’”(Mark 15:34) This then is a final
expression of humanity made by a man standing at the horizon: behind him is the
temporal world of suffering and strife, forever limited by fear and desire;
before him is the Holy Spirit (imagined as feminine in many early Christian
traditions) beckoning him into limitless one-ness with the Kingdom of God.
Demeter (Greek
Goddess of the bounty of nature, and She who wears the nine stalks of wheat)
was the Sister of all-powerful Zeus, and the Mother of Persephone. Demeter adored Her young daughter, but did
not know that Zeus had promised Persephone to their brother, Hades - Lord of
the Underworld. When Persephone
disappeared from Mount Olympus, Demeter searched the earth for nine days,
before learning of the abduction of Her daughter. In anger and sorrow She withdrew Her regenerative grace from the
world; the crops, forests, and grasslands soon withered. Demeter was inconsolable, and so eventually
a deal was made: each year Persephone - the Daughter of Nature - must dwell in
darkness with Hades for 3 months.
There, while the earth sleeps a barren winter sleep, Persephone will
remain until ushered by Demeter Herself back into the world of life, brought
forth as the 3 Living Seasons: 3 X 3 months = nine months.
The
Greeks summarized the pursuits of human intellect - our arts and sciences -
with the Nine Muses: Thalia (comedy), Clio (history), Calliope (epic poetry),
Terpsichore (dance), Melpomene (tragedy), Erato (love poetry), Eutere (music),
Polyhymnia (sacred hymns), and Urania (astronomy). These nine sisters were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne
(memory); they represented the living incarnation of all knowledge. By proper action and contemplation, the
adept would communicate with each muse in turn, each time ascending another
level or sphere of existence. From the
dim and opaque depths of the human realm, successive raptures would summon the
spirit to ascend into ever higher planes of being until, from the vantage of
Urania’s starry vault, one might bask in the transparent incandescence of
Unbounded Knowledge.
Dante
was nine years old when he first beheld the terrifying spiritual glory of
divine grace. Her name was Beatrice,
and he writes of her in La Vita Nuova (The New Life): “...at the
beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me...clothed in a most noble color,
a modest and becoming crimson [.] At that instant, I say truly that the spirit
of life, which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble
with such violence...and trembling, said these words: ‘Behold a God stronger
than I, who coming shall rule over me’” Many years later (long after Beatrice
Portinare had died at the age of 24), Dante’s muse appeared to him again and
lead him on an extraordinary spiritual journey through the nine rings of hell,
and the nine spheres of paradise. And
from that ninth sphere, Dante, with lovely Beatrice at his side, witnessed the
empyrean beauty and perfection of The Infinite.
(There
is a heavenly counterpart to this beautiful, archetypal image of decent and
ascent: Venus (Goddess of Love and Life), in Her celestial incarnation as the
Evening Star, follows Apollo’s solar chariot (the Sun) into the underworld
darkness wherein he will find regeneration and prepare anew to smite the
darkness with his blazing spears of light.
And Venus, as the Morning Star, will be there to guide him again
into being as his luminous consciousness approaches the horizon...)
The Odyssey
The
Trojan War waged for nine years. After
the final victory of the Greeks, Odysseus, a vigorous but unwilling participant
in the battle, attempted to find his way home; his journey took nine
years. A soldier, like a child, is
always subject to the will of another, and to make the essential transition
into proper and complete life, the boy must break from parental
authority and exercise his own will as a man. This is the objective of The Odyssey. And just as we have seen in the examples
above, Odysseus’ transformation was mediated by The Feminine. In his travels he encountered three nymphs
(and we shall soon see why a trinity of Goddesses is always a nine), each one a
representing a different aspect of the Goddess of Many Names:
Circe
(an incarnation of Aphrodite) is the seductress and temptress, the irresistible
invitation to abandon the innocent games of youth. The erotic dimension is the first motive impulse to the Ritual of
Life. She guides Odysseus on a
harrowing trek into the underworld and back again, followed by a celestial
journey to the God of the Sun. This
narrative (one of the most common in mythology), we may say, is like a journey
from consciousness into the unconscious, and then returning again - somehow more
awake; it is a voyage to the primeval depths of the unknown mystery whence
all life comes, and an aspiration for the illuminated knowledge that lies only
at the summit beyond the far side of darkness.
To a soldier of Odysseus’ time (and all too often in our time as well,
it seems), women were nothing more than the spoils of war. Circe introduces Odysseus to a grander view
of the world in which women must be recognized as equal partners in the eternal
dance.
Calypso
(an incarnation of Hera) is the wife and mother, the call to productive
responsibility. The second motive
impulse in the Ritual of Life is the will to achievement. Calypso is that force in the feminine that
compels an aspiration to power and authority that is sublimated in the service
of life. She is the imperative for
which stable and prosperous societies are erected, so that new life is nurtured
and protected. Calypso represents the
terrifying knowledge that, contrary to boyhood fantasies, there is only power
in the service of Life, and power in the service of death. There is no third way.
Nausicaa
(an incarnation of Athena) is the enchanting virgin daughter, the beautiful
miracle of the Ritual of Life. She is
the reminder that the Wheel of Life churns ever onward, and that as new life
comes into being, so, too, must old life go out of being. Athena is also the matron saint of heroes;
so, paradoxically, Nausicaa is also the Prize for which those little boys fight
- whether they know it or not.
In
this symbolic reappearance of the three goddesses from The Iliad, we may
say that The Odyssey represents a kind of redemption for man. In The Iliad, we encounter - in the
soldiers’ contemptuous disregard for women - the misogyny of frightened boys. Paris humiliates the life-bestowing mystery
that is the Goddess, but we can see him for the boyish puppet he is. Odysseus and The Odyssey represents
that next bewildering step into true manhood, after all the sticks and stones
are thrown. The Goddess’ essential
action is existence; it is man who must act and be found worthy of that which transcends
action.
What
is common to all these references to “nine-ness” is a recognition that nine is
the last number, the threshold. In the
sacred stories briefly described above, we have seen that it is nine that
brings us through the limited dimension of existence to a point of new
departure into the unlimited. To
step beyond this boundary of the nine single-digit numbers is to ascend into
the higher realm of infinite repetitions and reiterations of the principles and
relations established in The Nine. The
Greeks called nine “The Horizon.” Nine
is the end of the quest, the expectation of transition and transformation from
one phase to another - the expectation of The Prize. The Chinese use the same word for both “nine” and “gift.” There are some interesting reasons why our
sacred stories identify the beckoning gift-bearer as feminine.
Sacred Tetraktys
Of
course, the first step from nine into the boundless ocean of spirally-cycling
number is ten. Nine is the last number
with its own distinct identity; ten is a composite number, for it is considered
(in our system of decimal notation) one collection of tens, just as
twenty is two collections of tens. Ten
is a return to unity because it is one cycle of number. Virtually every form of numerical notation
in the world has distinct symbols for each successive accumulation of ten. In the West these accumulating “hierarchy of
tens” are called orders of magnitude (10, 100, 1000, etc...). From ancient Sumer (the birthplace of
writing 5000 years ago) to Egypt, Greece and Rome, India, China and Japan, and
right into the modern world, we have chosen to count with our fingers. We are able to ascertain very large numbers
very quickly because we count by tens.
This
may seem rather obvious and banal, but there was a time in the development of
man when there was only many.
The realization that we could quantify the world in a precise and
therefore meaningful way - that we could count things - was almost
certainly the inspiration that lead to the invention of writing. (We can easily see that the first surpluses
enjoyed by the early city-states made possible a new human endeavor: commerce;
and trade and exchange requires accounting.) That a meaningful and intelligible model of the world could be
constructed with something as ethereal as number was a source of awe
among wise men in those ancient times (and still is among physicists and
mathematicians). Many schools opened to
pass on the mysterious secrets of quantity; the foremost of these
ancient schools was that of Pythagoras.
| The Pythagoreans called ten - the first step into the empyrean cosmos
of infinity - the “Perfect Number.”
From this “holiest of numbers” they constructed a mandala-like glyph
known as the Sacred Tetraktys, which was the foundation of all Pythagorean
philosophy. It is a triangular
symbol which consists of ten dots assembled in four rows: a bottom row
of four, a row of three, a row of two, and a crowning summit of one. |
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They
related the four rows to the dimensions of geometry: the absence of dimension
is a point, one dimension is a line, two dimensions is a plane, and three
dimensions is a volume. And in this
geometric model they saw a reflection of nature itself, growing in four
distinct stages: seed (0-D), stalk (1-D), leaf (2-D), and bloom (3-D). They established the close geometric
relation of the Tetraktys to the five regular polyhedra. The four numbers of the Tetraktys - 1, 2, 3,
and 4 - are the only numbers required to generate the ratios which determine
the musical scale: the fractional lengths 1/2, 1/4, 3/4, and 2/3, sound as the
octave, double octave, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth - the essential notes
that establish the fundamental frequency relations between all the notes of the
diatonic scale.
Pythagoras
believed that sound, and specifically the geometrical nature of musical sound,
was fundamental in the creation of the universe. In this philosophy there is a resonant frequency that is in
harmony with the very structure of space and time, vibrating through creation
as the “Music of the Spheres.” In India
this sound is known as Aum; in China it is called Kung. Pythagoras called this first note of
creation “A”, and set a value of 432 for it (more than two millennia
later, sophisticated mechanical measurements established the frequency of
middle A only slightly higher at 440 vibrations per second). There is, perhaps, even a counterpart to
this notion in modern physics: the cosmos comes into being with a Big Bang.
The
Pythagoreans even explored philosophical associations between the Tetraktys and
the Four Elements. In the Tetraktys, as
“the many” ascend towards the infinite One, it becomes ever more rarefied; as
the elements ascend into the luminous heavens they too become ever less dense:
solid earth, fluid water, vaporous wind, and ethereal fire. Esoteric traditions, to this day, encourage
the contemplation of this divine triangle.
We
see in this simple graphic another representation what the Egyptians called
“The Mountain of the Sun.” This
upward-pointing triangle is an image of the World-Mountain. We can see that the summit of the
World-Mountain rests upon the threshold of nine: 4 + 3 + 2 = 9. And in this trinity of numbers (4, 3, and 2)
there is an extraordinary celestial dimension...
Celestial 432
In
the Poetic Edda (the sacred books of Norse mythology - c. 900 A.D.) it is said
that 432,000 warriors will engage the Wolf in the battle before Ragnarok - the
end of the world. In the Hindu Puranas
(c. 400 A.D.), 432,000 years is the duration of the current cosmic epoch, the
Kali Yuga; it is the last and shortest of four such epochs which define a
specific lifetime (known as the Mahayuga) for the universe: 4,320,000 years. At the end of the Mahayuga, the entire
universe will be consumed in a cosmic deluge.
The Maya and Olmecs, too, reckoned the heavens by cycles of vast
duration, and the end of a cycle heralded the end of all things. These cycles were counted by Tun. One Tun equals 360 days. 20 Tun make a Katun, and 20 Katun make a
Bactun. And one great round of 6 Bactun
consists of 4,320,000 days.
We
find other references to this number in the equally eschatological Book of
Revelations (c. 100 A.D.). The size of
the City of God is described as “12,000 stadia; its length and breadth and
height are equal.” Now 12,000 x 12,000
x 12,000 = 1,728 billion cubic stadia, which divided by 4 equals 432 billion. Furthermore, we are told that “the number of
the name of the beast ...is [666].” 6 x
6 x 6 = 216, which doubled is 432.
The
earliest written reference to 432 is found in a compilation of ancient
Babylonian myth and history assembled by a Chaldean priest named Berossos (c.
280 B.C.). He describes a line of 10
kings who ruled the land of Sumer for 432,000 years before the world was
destroyed by a terrible flood. Although
the earliest reference to the flood of which he speaks is found in a
small cuneiform tablet found in the ruins of the Sumerian city of Nippur (c.
2000 B.C.), we cannot fail to notice an unmistakable similarity to the biblical
story of the flood. In Genesis 5 we
read that there were 10 antediluvian Patriarchs, forming an unbroken chain of
succession, between Adam and Noah, of 1656 years.
The
great Rabbi Akeva, and the other men who compiled the Old Testament (c. 300
B.C.), were of the generations after the Jewish exile to Babylon. They knew those ancient Sumerian stories
too, and they employed an interesting mathematic trick to disguise the
inspiration they found in them.
(Mesopotamia was a powerful and ancient land; it is not as surprising as
one might think that even prisoners of Babylon would admire and seek to emulate
its greatness.)
There
is a substantial difference between the Babylonian reckoning of 432,000 years
for the Reign of the 10 kings, and the biblical reckoning of 1656 years. But there is a common factor of 72 in each
number. 72 is the number of years it takes
the for the zodiacal wheel of the “fixed” stars to advance 1 degree of arc in
its long rotation. If, as mentioned in The
Return, the zodiacal year is 25,920 years, then 72 years is a zodiacal
day (72 x 360 = 25,920). So if we
divide 1656 by 72, we arrive at the number of zodiacal days in 1656 years:
23. Then we substitute a zodiacal day
for a Jewish year: in 23 years of the Jewish calendar, plus the 5 leap-year
days within that span, we find that there are 8400 days, or 1200 weeks. We now re-multiply 1200 weeks by the common
factor of 72 to discover the number of 7-day weeks in 1656 years: 86,400 -
which is double 43,200.
Perhaps
the most enigmatic reference to Celestial 432 is found in the construction of
the Great Pyramid of Khufu (or in the better known Greek, Cheops), one
of the earliest and largest stone structures ever built. The most significant geometrical dimensions
of a pyramid are its height and its perimeter.
We find here, in the relation of the Great Pyramid’s height to its
perimeter, an extraordinary ratio: 2pi.
This is precisely the same ratio we find between a circle’s radius and
its circumference, and also a sphere’s radius and circumference. So this eternally astonishing monument is
the pyramidal analogue to a hemisphere: in both instances we can determine the
perimeter by multiplying the height by 2 X the transcendent number pi
(3.14...). This image of the
World-Mountain, with its many air shafts exactly targeting the traverse
of certain mythologically significant stars, with its 4 corners exactly
oriented to the cardinal directions, and with its location exactly on 30
degrees N latitude (exactly 1/6 of a complete circle around the earth
measured from the north point of axial rotation), very clearly demonstrates
that it is not merely a model of any hemisphere, but is, in fact, a model of a terrestrial
hemisphere. And the scale of this
model? The earth is larger than Khufu’s
Pyramid by a factor of exactly 43,200.
Wherefore art thou 432?
At
the dawn of human history, civilization was very much closer to nature than we
are now. The ever-present threat of consumption
by the surrounding chaos of nature was the most prominent danger known to those
early, tentative societies. And then
someone discovered an underlying order in the heavens: the relative motions of
the moon, the sun, the planets, and the fixed stars, are of regular
periodicity. And this eternal,
celestial order can be known by number.
This realization was one of the most significant in human history, for
if there is order in the heavens, man can emulate this order on earth. This powerful idea spread like wildfire
across Eurasia and meso-America.
In
ancient Sumer - the primary mythogenetic zone on earth - this emulation of
celestial order found expression in sexigesimal numeration: base 60. A circle, that without beginning or ending,
is the archetypal image of the Creator.
And just as six circles of equal size issue from and exactly
circumscribe a seventh circle of equal size in the center, so too are all rounds
properly quantified by six. A
single beat of a human heart is the fundamental unit of time, so 60 beats shall
make a minute, and 60 minutes shall make an hour (which is 43,200 beats for
day, and 43,200 beats for night). The
solar year is 6 x 60 days long (plus 5 intercalary days of regeneration); thus
the circle of the terrestrial horizon shall be 6 x 60 (360) degrees.
The
period of the moon had been known for millennia by the time the first cities
appeared. A reckoning of the sun’s
annual period happened, apparently, only sometime shortly before the emergence
of those cities. Knowledge of the
planetary periods followed, perhaps, a brief time after that. It is difficult to establish for certain
when it became known that the “fixed stars” are not fixed at all. A slight wobble in the earth’s axis of
rotation causes an effect known as equinoctial precession. Each year the equinoctial background (the
stars which appear directly above the rising sun on the first day of spring)
shifts very slightly; the “fixed” stars precess 1 degree every 72 years. The Zodiacal vault shifts 30 degrees (one
Zodiacal twelfth of the sky) every 2160 years, and precesses 360 degrees
through the entire Zodiac in a great “Celestial Year” of 25,920 years. (The discovery of equinoctial precession is
generally attributed to Hipparchus of Bithynia (c. 2nd century B.C.), but the
presence of very specific precessional numbers in both architecture and
manuscripts that are known to antedate him render this claim untenable. It may be that this zealously guarded secret
of the cosmos was known by Sumerian and Egyptian priests, but then was lost and
forgotten in later epochs.)
72
years (and 7 + 2 = 9), 2160 years (and 2 +1 +6 +0 = 9), and 25,920 years (and 2
+ 5 + 9 + 2 + 0 = 18, and 1 +8 = 9).
And 25,920 divided by the divine Sumerian number 60 is 432 (and
4 + 3 + 2 = 9).
In
each day there is a time of sleep and darkness; so too in each month (the new
moon), and each year (the winter). We
find in the discovery of a Celestial Year, a mythological extension of
the same motif: In every cycle there is a consumptive phase where light
disappears into darkness for regeneration and rebirth. As night follows day, eventually even the
vast cosmos must sleep. And it is the
Goddess of Eternity - the round of time that is always a nine - who beckons him
forward, guiding him into the underworld, back to the secret garden that is the
genesis of all being.
The Inward Journey
We
saw, in the Pythagorean Tetraktys, a graphic representation of the Nine that
guides one to the frontier of the Infinite.
And in that image the first step into union with the cosmos is an
exterior step, a centrifugal inclination where the objective is out
there and the energies of the quest are directed to push into the
unknown. But there is another
representation of the Tetraktys, one with a centripetal inclination,
where the objective is in here; thus, the energies of the quest are
directed to pull into the unknown.
In this “Chthonic Tetraktys” we see the familiar rows of 4, 3, and 2,
arranged - not below, but - around the Ocean of Eternity. And this image is vastly older than the
upstart Pythagorean version.
| In this orientation we may easily see the full significance of this
beautiful form: it is a yonic triangle surrounding the mystery of the womb;
there could not be a more enduring and compelling image of the horizon,
beyond which is the unknown Source of Existence and the Mystery of Creation.
Here are the Nine who guide us to the Gates of Eternity; here are
the Nine who bear The Gift; here are the Nine who Beckon... |
 |
There is a French cave at Angles-sur-l’Anglin
wherein we find perhaps the earliest representation of this sacred image. There, carved into the very stone of the
cave, are three Goddesses. These very
stylized representations of the Feminine (carved about 15,000 years ago) have
only the remotest suggestion of heads and limbs; they are swollen hips and very
prominent genital triangles - religious amplifications of the regenerative
power of nature incarnate in the Feminine.
This three-fold incarnation of the Goddess may be the first image of the
spiraling Wheel of Time: She is the past whence life came, the present
in which life abounds, and the future in which life returns to the
Unknown whence it came. This great
Round of Eternity is symbolized by three triangles, each of which possesses
three sides (3 x 3 = 9).
The magical allure of a woman is
well known and easily comprehensible.
But the allure of the yonic symbol lies not in its resemblance to a
woman’s triangle; it is rather that this simple three‑sided shape is the
terrestrial counterpart of a Celestial Form: all images of sublime beauty
are the hieroglyphs of Transcendent Ideas ‑ archetypal forms of which
woman and man are merely the most extraordinary projections. Like a form‑embracing gown, such
images are but adornment over the unknown body inside. Beauty is the Raiment of the Goddess.
All numbers multiplied by nine yield
numbers whose constituent digits add up to nine. In this curious arithmetical property of nine we find yet another
quiet whisper of The Creator who is Sui Generis: the Self-Creating
Form-who-is-all-forms of the universe.
And of course each one of us dwells nine months in the universe of our
mothers before we are summoned to the threshold, brought forth to console an
inconsolable pain, and make that first terrifying step into the Adventure of
Life...
The
One and The Many
The many around
the One, is one of the most common motifs in mythology, with several primary
forms and literally thousands of local interpretations. There is the Duality
that is, in conjunction, a third and greater thing - the Trinity. There is the
Trinity growing from the Unseen Forth. There are the Four Elements aspiring
towards Quintessence. There is the six-fold Order of Life winding around Spiral
Seven. There are the Zodiacal Twelve
who serve the Mystic Redeemer. And, as
we have seen here, There are the Nine Messengers communicating knowledge from
the Sacred Tetraktys. The salient
common feature of all these different stories is that there is a dynamic
exterior in constant motion around a serene interior, an active dimension
always struggling and aspiring in the service of a Still and Silent Perfection
in the Center. What we have in these
many symbols is, in fact, a single archetypal image that is, as we shall see,
surely the most abundant in the universe…
The
Mystery of Being
The 20th Century has experienced a
kind of creeping desacralization, and adoration of the Sacred is commonly
regarded with suspicion and derision (it is tres chic to be a cynical
atheist). In stark contrast to the Way
of the Goddess is the pre-eminent philosophy of the modern world: Positivism
- the belief that perception is reality and there is no other. In Paleolithic terms (when such ontological
contemplation began) , we might describe this, not as the tender-hearted ethos
of the Shaman, but rather as the hard-hearted ethos of the Hunter.
This very powerful “can-do”
ideology has achieved extraordinary things for humanity. The last 100 years has seen unprecedented
(even inexplicable) progress in every field of human endeavor: history,
physics, biology, medicine, transportation, energy, exploration, entertainment,
communication, mathematics, engineering, etc.
We have attained profound insights into the mysteries of nature, and
exposed astounding secrets that have troubled mankind for millennia. We are now more secure, more prosperous,
more knowledgeable, and more pampered, than at any other epoch in human
history. As Paul Simon sang, “These are
the times of miracles and wonders.” It
is precisely so. In fact, the only
problem with positivism is that it is wrong.
Like a child in the womb, we know
vanishingly little of the cosmos in which we float. And all that we do know comes to us impeded. If we wish to ascertain the tactile quality
of a soft downy kitten, we do not wear oven-mitts to do so. When we wish to ascertain the essential
nature of the universe, we are similarly impaired, for between the cosmos and
the mind are oven-mitts: our very specific and limited organs of sensory
apparatus. Our sense organs gather data
from the exterior world, and that data is subsequently processed by the mind
into an intelligible, and quite often useful model of the world. But that model of the world is not the
world.
Our primary image of the world is
naturally a visual image, and in this product of our ocular sense we
find our most comprehensive reckoning of our environment. The human eye can discern more than a
million distinct colors, and with our innate understanding of the principles of
perspective, we can determine the size and proximity of terrestrial objects
with respectable accuracy. If we look
at a vast expanse of blue, we might say, “Yes, that is what the sky looks
like.” But the radiation we
perceive as visible color is only a minute corpuscle in the middle of a
colossal ocean of light. The entire
spectrum of electro-magnetic radiation is an awesome vista of energies, ranging
from very long-wavelength (low-energy) radio-waves, to very short-wavelength
(high-energy) gamma rays. Our eyes are
completely oblivious to all but the tiniest fraction of light in the universe.
If we nick a finger, we often lick
the drop of blood away; we are all familiar with that viscous, salty
taste. Yes, that is what blood
tastes like. But a shark’s entire
body is covered with sensory structures exactly analogous to taste
receptors. A shark wears his tongue on
the outside, and can taste blood even if present in concentrations of only
one part per million - and thus is able to detect prey from a distance of two
miles or more. A shark’s model of the
world is defined by taste. There is not
even the remotest corollary in the human experience that might allow us to
comprehend the magnitude or quality of this perception.
If we smell another person, the
information we acquire is mostly limited to whether the odor encountered is
pleasant or otherwise. Yes, that is
what sweat smells like. But there
are dog breeds whose olfactory acuity is some millions of times greater
than ours. We cannot even guess what
untold volumes of biography are revealed by an armpit times 10 million. A dog’s model of the world is defined by
smell.
If we hear a sound, we are usually
able to establish its orientation and proximity with at least some crude
precision; our stereophonic auditory sense easily detects slight differentials
in wave pressure and time of reception.
Furthermore, we can discern a truly astounding variety of waveforms -
provided that the frequencies lie between 20 and 20,000 vibrations per second -
and even extract very specific meaningful sounds from within a deafening
cacophony of meaningless noise. And
some sounds (like a Rossini overture) can drive a burning sword of rapture into
the soul. But a bat sees by
sound. The silent flight of a moth is
tracked by ultrasonic (far beyond the threshold of human hearing) echolocation
with better-than-visual precision. A
bat finds, in the impenetrable tangle of modulating wave differentials, a
moving “picture” of his dinner. Modern
medicine makes extensive use of sonographs, but these “sound pictures” must be
translated into “visual pictures” to have any meaning. A bat makes no such translation; its model
of the world is defined by sound.
Scorpions can feel the vibrations
caused by the footsteps of a tiny insect three feet away. There are fish that measure their
surroundings by fluctuations in a static electric field. Other creatures orient themselves by a
reckoning of the earth’s magnetic field.
There must certainly be many unknown mechanisms of perception, a vast
multitude of Ways of Knowing, each understanding some small truth unknown to
all others, each creating their own unique but incomplete models of the
world.
We are undeniably the pre-eminent
life-form on this planet. And for those
perceptions beyond the sensory grasp of our inherent mechanisms, we have
fabricated wondrous machines to augment and extend our reach. But those information-gathering machines
must then communicate with us in a comprehensible manner; they must compress and
translate data that we are simply not designed to absorb. Natural selection has chosen for us senses
and sensory acuities that are appropriate to survival in the jungle; in
relation to all that is, the jungle is a very small place indeed. Our model of the world is an artifact of the
mind; the world itself is something entirely other. The limitations of our perceptions are
great, and the universe is far greater still...
Where
the Forest was the Thickest...
The political history of humanity -
the history of the Hunters - is occasionally interrupted by extraordinary men
who seem to have touched the world itself. From the mouths of Shaman-Prophets come words of eternal beauty,
but in the hands of Hunter-Politicians such words quickly become instruments of
temporal power. And for 99% of human history,
those who would not submit to that temporal power were (and still are in some
places) sent to the stake...
The mortal conflict of political
ideologies that has so traumatized the 20th Century is a recent
phenomenon. Before the first modern
republics emerged two centuries ago, ideological conflicts (as opposed to mere
thievery) between nations were conflicts between religions. In the collective temperament of a people,
spiritual ideas are not merely notions about the origin and proper of reckoning
of things; they also provide a profound sense of national legitimacy and
identity. And to call the legitimacy of
a nation’s Idea into question is to call that nation into
question. Powerful men are prepared to
defend their legitimacy, and in the European tradition we find one of the most
egregious exemplars of this ruthless collectivism.
We do not hear of Buddhist monks who
have visions of Christ, or of priests and nuns astounded by apparitions of the
Buddha. We generally think of spiritual
revelation as coming in the guise of the established local culture. In many individuals, the collective forms of
religious practice are sufficient to assuage spiritual curiosities, and may
sometimes even provoke genuine spiritual experience. But there shall always be men and women for whom the collective,
socially authorized forms are not sufficient, who must seek their own
way into the Mystery of Being. Like
Gawain and the other knights on their quest for the Holy Grail (the sacred
vessel which contains the Blood of Eternal Life - an unmistakable reference to
the womb), such men and women “...thought it would be a disgrace to ride forth
in a group. But each entered the forest
at one point or another, there where he saw it to be the thickest and there was
no way or path.”
In the Christian era of European
history, a personal quest for the Divine was a very dangerous and often fatal
endeavor. And so it was necessary to disguise
such individual pursuits within the acceptable garments of the collective
will. One of these secret spiritual
traditions eventually became the conceptual foundation for one of the most
successful of all positivist sciences.
They were the disciples of “The Great Work”: the Alchemists.
Alchemy
The modern view of the Alchemists
might be stated thus: “Stupid, greedy lunatics hoping to turn lead into
gold.” It is certainly true that among
the Alchemists were some deluded profit-seekers, but it is also a fact that in
those times the true province of corpulent spiritual corruption was found in
the orthodox religions. In any
event, our modern view of the Alchemists is misinformed; their objective was
not to achieve gold one could spend (aurum vulgi), but to achieve Gold
one could know (aurum philosophicum). Theirs was a quest for Spiritual Gold. Alchemy was a meditative discipline: by
contemplating the material of creation, and thereby learning the processes by
which one form of matter becomes another form of matter, the Alchemists hoped
for nothing less than communion with the Form-of-forms that is the origin of
all matter. And the word matter (like
the comparable words matrix and material) is derived from the Latin word mater
- Mother.
The Quest for Spiritual Gold - the Philosopher’s
Stone - was a four-level process; like the four-level Sacred Tetraktys,
each successive stage brought the initiate to a higher level of
understanding. The Alchemists perceived
a universe that is, in all aspects, dual (up-down, light-dark,
active-passive, limited-unlimited, etc.); thus, the oscillating tendency
between all such polarities represents the quintessential Rhythm of Existence -
the inhalation and exhalation of the Cosmos itself, the systole and diastole of
the One Celestial Heart. And the fundamental
polarity of the universe is, they believed, Masculine and Feminine; the
apparent diversity in the many forms of the world is an illusion and all the
manifestations of nature are merely projections of just two cosmic principles -
the Two Gods. The task of The
Great Work, then, is to find unity in this division, to reconcile the
irreconcilable in a Celestial Marriage of the White Queen (the female element,
mercury) and the Red King (the male element, sulphur).
The guiding ethos of Alchemy was solve
et coagula: purify and integrate.
And this philosophy applied to the Alchemist even more than it applied
to the contents of his crucible. By
understanding the material process by which the Creator fashioned gold
from elementary matter (prima materia), the Alchemist believed he might
discover an analogous spiritual process. And so, as lead might evolve into gold within the crucible of the
Alchemist’s furnace, so too might the adept evolve from a material to a
spiritual being within the crucible of his own burning soul. To obtain the Philosopher’s Stone was to
transcend perception and achieve perfect knowledge (gnosis) of the infinite
cosmos itself.
Level 1 - The Black Stone,
Base Matter. The first step was called
putrefaction: the reduction of matter to a shapeless, featureless state. Base matter was usually represented as
black, but as a symbol of the manifest aspect of the visible, natural world,
this primordial incarnation of substance was often represented by the botanical
color of the terrestrial illusion - green. Through a series of nine secret processes, base matter was
transmuted into...
Level 2 - The White Stone,
Mercury. The second step was called
solution: the corruption of matter was removed by series of elaborate
purifications, leaving only an essential and universal substance of shimmering
fluidity. From a distant and unknown
celestial beacon comes a first purifying revelation of light to the abyssal
dark of base matter. Through a series
of nine secret processes, mercury was transmuted into...
Level 3 - The Red Stone,
Sulphur. The third step was called
distillation: as the cosmos emerged from primordial Oceanos, as life emerged
from the terrestrial ocean, so too does the earthly element sulphur
issue from the aqueous element mercury.
(What Alchemists called sulphur - which is, of course, yellow - we now
know as mercury sulphide, or red cinnabar.)
With the creation of the second component of the elemental duality - the
Red Groom for the White Bride - the Alchemist sought to chemically facilitate
an elemental courtship through a series of nine secret processes, until Queen
and King were united into the Glory of...
Level 4 - The Philosopher’s Stone, Gold. This final step was called sublimation: the
realization of perfect Absolute Substance.
To achieve gold was not to transmute lead, but to transmute the soul:
to complete our incomplete models of the world, to ascend to a luminous
celestial plane that is infinitely beyond and infinitely within the
world one has known.
Raiment
of the Goddess
We see in this image an apparition
of the Goddess of Eternity in the great Cathedral of Illusion; fluttering
around Her are the nine messengers - each one a whimsical
reflection-in-miniature of the Goddess Herself. And hidden within this image we shall find an unexpected visual
representation of the Alchemist’s Quest...
The green forest is the
nature from which we issue, and of which we are prisoners; as the progeny of
material nature, we can never be other than material beings. It is nature that has determined for us the
very limited extent of our perceptions, and yet it is also nature that has
provided the consciousness that might transcend those limitations. And the first step of transcendence comes
like a beckoning light in the darkness...or the white cascading flow of
an eternal river bringing life to the thirsty black soil of the world.
Disappearing below the outer-sleeves
of the Goddess’ gown is an undergarment of white worn next to Her body. If black is the abyssal void of nothingness,
then white is the first illuminating revelation of possibility. It is the delicate light that first appears
in the eastern sky of retreating night, the dream of a day that has not yet
happened. White is the nocturnal
luminescence of the sun-reflecting moon, the eternal promise of a great golden
light to come. Like a painter’s empty
canvas, it is the still and silent purity of infinite potential unblemished by
unrealized aspirations. The White
Goddess is the song of all colors, beckoning the knights of the rainbow into
the task of realization...
Over this first layer of white the
Goddess wears a sensual gown of deep, dark red. If white is the invitation into The Task,
then red is the explosive aspiration of the struggle for life. It is our raging passions and emotions
inflamed, the call to dynamic action, and the horrific suffering that is an
inevitable consequence of action. Red
is the living blood that flows like fuel into the life-consuming engine of
nature: flowing from the womb that brings new life into being, and flowing from
the sword that returns it to the germinating soil. The Red Lord is the mightiest of the warriors of the rainbow, the
will and the power by which The Task might be achieved...
And ornamenting this somber,
brooding red is a decorative trim of luminous gold. Gold, the most precious of all metals, will
not tarnish, stain, or rust; it is immutable and will not alloy with other
metals. This quality of eternal
perfection bestows upon gold a sense of immortality; in fact, the Egyptians
believed the flesh of the gods was made of gold. The shimmering luster of gold has its celestial counterpart in
the blazing radiance of the sun that obliterates the limitations of the
night. And like the sunlight, gold is
the illuminated knowledge revealed by the evaporating shadows of ignorance.
And the key to the whole image is
found in the pattern in the gold - the foliaceous forms of the
illusion of nature. Just as carbon -
the fundamental element of life - is in one aspect base black charcoal, and in
another aspect perfect crystalline diamond, so too are gold and clay one and
the same substance. All we see are
sorrows, shadows, and limits; but just beyond the threshold of our perceptions
is the universe itself: Perfect, Luminous, Infinite. The presence of beauty in the universe is a Divine Beacon, a sign
of hope that all this pain and blood serves some greater purpose ‑ The
Task ‑ that we are far too small to understand. So we need not aspire to perceive the unperceivable, apprehend
infinity, nor stare God in the face to ask our infinitesimal questions. We find
the Grace of The Goddess when we realize that the beauty of the cosmos is a
gift ‑ a gift of gold...
* * *
Personal
Notes on Forest Light
This image had been bouncing around
in the back of head for nine years or so (the artist said with a wink), and
elements present here can be seen in many of my other images. Forest Light began as an attempt to
redeem an earlier attempt at a very similar image called Regeneration,
which I designed in 1990, but had always considered a very poor painting. I wanted to know if I could do a better job
years later. And, as is usually the
case, I found the real motivation and inspiration only in the process of
painting the image; something that bothers an artist for nine years
inevitably has an unknown psychological dimension.
Gnostic Alchemy emerged in Europe
sometime shortly after the Emperor Justinian closed down all the schools of
classical learning (pagan worshipers all!), although the tradition may be far
older in India and China. And strange
as it may sound, the restless shaman of whom I spoke in my essay The
Awakening is apparently at work here too.
I chose the colors and the patterning on the gold because that was the
image I had in my head. I discovered
the chromatic progression of the Alchemist’s spiritual ascension only after
I had completed the painting.
Coincidence? The parallels are
not merely close, they are mirror images of each other. The Alchemical tradition flourished for more
than a thousand years only because it resonated in an unknown, quiet corner of
the mind; and this empty cavity - the biological inheritance of every man and
woman - perhaps serves no other purpose than waiting to be filled by the
universal sound...
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