San Joaquin River Gorge

childsmall26

00:00 / 04:37

Suite No. 14, First Movement:
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL

Once, after I had scrambled down a trail about five hundred feet into a secluded foothill valley and then had hiked about a mile and a half along a creek in search of Native American artifacts, I suddenly knew, without a doubt, that someone was breaking into my car--even though the car was parked far beyond the range of my physical senses. Alone in the woods and helpless to stop the crime, I plopped down on a rock and lamented for at least twenty minutes about all the evil in the world--without any evidence at all that anyone had even touched my car. I just simply knew, in a way that no one could explain--or explain away.
When I returned to the car about an hour and a half later, I found that someone had smashed a window on the passenger side of the car and had opened the glove box. On the way home, I was furious as the cold air blasted me. I soon forgot my intuition.
Like many others, I have experienced inner voices, visions, and intuitions that transcend space and time, wise inner voices as clear as the voice of another person, symbolic visions that have revealed spiritual principles, and powerful intuitions about people and events. Since these voices, visions, and intuitions have occurred sporadically over a period of forty years, and since they are not scientifically explainable nor even socially acceptable, they have tended to become lost in daily concerns. Long-ago predictions of the guardian angel, however, have come true, the cumulative impact of the various communications creating, for me at least, an undeniable gestalt.
The Greeks called the inner voice of intuition and enlightenment a person's “daimon.” Some believe, like Plato, that the daimon is a kind of spirit that is separate from us, a spirit that adopts a person at birth and follows that person even after death. Plato calls it “the daimon which has received us as its portionment.” The ancient idea of the daimon, therefore, appears to be analogous to the guardian angel, which has been described as either a hidden dimension of the soul or separate from the soul, an intermediate power of divine order, or a god of the second rank, as characterized by Maximus of Tyre (1).
This god or angel, I believe, is the highest dimension of the psyche, an unpredictable intermediary between the human personality and the divine Source.
The Romans translated the word daimon as “genius,” from which we get the word “genie.” The Romans also viewed the genie as a personal guide whom one can contact through prayer, trance states, visions, and dreams, or experience as an inner voice, intuition or compulsion. The higher powers and abilities of each human being are attributed to his genius.
Each organized unit of nature, moreover, has a genius, known as a genius loci, or “spirit of place.” Believing that the genius is the unique spirit which exists in every living thing, the Romans worshiped the genius of the river, the tree, the family. For the Romans, each and every God has a unique genius, which is how the Gods could be distinguished from each other. Sacrificing to the genius of a god or local deity was a way of appeasing it and harnessing its power (2).
I discovered my genius--without intending to--when I started meditating to relieve stress at the age of forty-two. At first, I found meditating a little boring, so I read a book on meditation that recommended mental purification of the chakras, the energy centers in the aura. I discovered that I could see the energy centers in my mind's eye. For instance, I discovered that my root chakra was filled with brown muck, so, following the recommendations in my meditation book, I imagined wiping out the brown muck from my root chakra with a damp white cloth. After I cleansed the root chakra, I discovered that I felt much more grounded, so I continued up to the next chakra. Each chakra, I discovered, contained some form of negativity or lack of balance. I was brutally honest with myself and spent many hours eliminating negativity or lack of balance from each chakra. In the process, my mundane personality established a profound connection with my genius, also known throughout history as the daimon, or higher self, or Holy Guardian Angel, or soul. After I pulled numerous black blindfolds from my third-eye chakra during meditation, for instance, I had a clear vision of a gray infinity symbol floating above my head. It seemed so real that I blinked my eyes, and it disappeared. A few days later, I went to a bookstore and felt drawn to a pack of Tarot cards. I purchased the deck and discovered several cards containing infinity symbols. I immediately found a gray infinity floating above the head of a figure known as "The Magician," for instance. I did a little research and discovered that the Tarot dovetails in every conceivable way with the great symbol system known as the Tree of Life, associated with the Western system of Yoga known as the mystical Qabalah. In other words, my higher self had communicated with me through a vision of a spiritual symbol that inspired me to explore the dimensions of Universal Consciousness--even during a period in my life when I was still vacillating towards atheism. During meditation, my higher self has continued to communicate and guide me with visions of spiritual symbols and an internal voice, which of course would inspire most psychiatrists to diagnose me as a schizophrenic.
Each person, moreover, has a unique genius--a kind of driving force which must fulfill its own destiny--forcing an individual to become that which he or she is really meant to be. Ignoring the genius means not only denying the power within but also denying the ability to realize one’s potential. The daimon often creates the inner compulsion to do things seemingly without concern for the consequences. It might compel a person, for instance, to give up a career to become an artist or sacrifice his life as a martyr. The daimon doesn’t care what kind of money a person makes or what kind of reputation a person develops. A person who heeds his or her daimon sometimes feels pulled this way and that--sometimes even deeply violated. Heeding the daimon can lead to a life of poverty in pursuance of a dream. Choosing not to heed the daimon can lead to a worse fate, however: a sense of failure accompanied by feelings of emptiness or regret--no matter how successful a person has become in a worldly sense.
Another time, even though my hikes were almost always focused on finding artifacts, I had an overwhelming urge to climb a mountain that I knew was probably not connected to any Native American village site. As I climbed higher, the slope became steeper and clouds grew darker. A thunderstorm was on the way. I was also worried about rattlesnakes, since I had seen several on the road, in the tall grass and the rocks. Yet whenever I paused to ask myself if I should climb higher or go down, a voice in my head always replied, “Higher.” Finally, my way blocked by a tall outcrop of rocks covered by poison oak, I sat down to rest on a smooth stone at a vantage point that enabled me to see the mountains for miles. Suddenly, I was totally overwhelmed by a sense of the spirit of the place and recognized that the aborted hike up the treacherous slope was for the purpose of connecting with the genius loci of the watershed, as if I needed to have a view of the mountain range to understand its power and significance. After feeling that powerful connection, I felt no need to go higher, so I flew down the hill as rain soaked me to the bone.
I, of course, have no way of measuring the experience or in any way proving that I connected with the spirit of place. Western societies tend to ignore or dismiss as fantasy or psychosis the mysterious compulsions and communications of the daimon, or guardian angel. However, according to a Theosophical source,

The belief in daimones as mediating spirits between gods and men was customary
   in ancient Athens and sacrosanct in Vedic India. Socrates regarded the
   intervention of the daimon – what Gandhi called his 'inner voice', which
   sometimes spoke to him and remained silent at other times to his deep despair –
   not so much as a command laid down on the human spirit by an external power as
   "an absolute law of the spirit itself,” to quote Hegel's terms for the sacred task of
   the Delphic oracle. To make this interior voice wholly subjective is to destroy its
   spiritual character and distort the position claimed by Socrates and Gandhi. For a
   few pre-Socratic writers and for some Indian mystics, the daimon or devata was
   no more than the genius or overbrooding spirit unique to each person. If we adopt
   a facile rationalist attitude and take the daimon merely as an inflated metaphor for
   a familiar psychological process, thus denying it all transcendence and regarding it
   simply as a pathological oddity, a hallucination or a paranoid or hysterical
   symptom, we are, in fact, denying that it is an instrument of any meaningful
   communication and leaving Gandhi and Socrates, and many of the great
   mystics, enclosed in themselves….(3)

The Qabalists believe that each person has a Holy Guardian Angel, a higher self in touch with divine knowledge that transcends our limited physical senses. For the Qabalists, the supreme spiritual experience of The Kingdom, the material plane, is the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. This simply means that the higher self communicates with the conscious mind through intuitions, inner voices, and symbolic visions.
Why is it important to connect with your daimon, your guardian angel? For one thing, it can save your life. It can lead to a state of optimum physical and mental health and a sense of connection with the divine.
My connection with the holy guardian angel began when I started meditating, purely to relieve stress, at the age of forty-two. I did not believe in a spiritual dimension and knew nothing about the daimon or the Tarot or the Tree of Life, or anything else considered occult, or “hidden.” The last thing I expected at the time was a spiritual experience; in fact, for several decades before then I had doubted the existence of the soul. But I started to meditate, usually when I woke up from my nap, emptying my mind completely. Unexpectedly in my mind’s eye, I started envisioning pearls in the joints of my fingers and a rainbow of wheels, known as chakras, spinning in front of me along my spinal cord. I noticed impurities in the vortices and mentally wiped them clean. Some of the spinning wheels were harder to keep clean than others, however. I kept mentally draining the blackness from my heart and emptying trash from my crown chakra, for instance, but the blackness and the trash kept returning, so for a long time--in fact, until this day--I continue to purify my aura.
One day when I finally felt purified, I began having visions of symbols, such as a simple mandala comprised of a golden, equal-armed cross with angels at each end, each angel in a differently colored robe; a gray figure-eight on its side above my head; and a pure, white flower with countless petals above my head. (I had thought at first that the flower was a rose, but a voice in my head whispered, “Lotus.”)
I continued meditating and noticed in my mind’s eye a patch of black under my right arm. I mentally drained the black energy from my body and filled the area with blue, yellow and brilliant white energy. Several days later I pressed a round ball of white flesh, the size of a musket ball, painlessly through a slit under my arm. Weeks later I envisioned another black streak, this time under my left arm. After doing the same visualization, mentally draining the negative energy and filling the underarm with positive energy, a large round boil surfaced under my arm. Several days later another round ball of flesh, along with a teaspoon of puss, painfully oozed out. The same process occurred two more times over the period of a year, my left underarm forming a boil and white growths oozing out--after I had drained the black energy from my aura.
From then on whenever I envisioned a streak of black anywhere in my aura, I mentally drained it away into magma and engulfed my aura with blue, yellow and white energy, and soon I began to feel healthier than I have ever felt before even though I was almost fifty years old. The black energy continued to appear in my heart, which caused me concern not only for my physical and spiritual well-being since the heart, I realized, is where the spiritual and physical energies of the self meet, but for the well-being of society, which is deluged by negative energies. I continued to drain the black energy from my heart whenever I envisioned it there and slowly felt more and more joyful, experiencing a radical innocence that I have not experienced since childhood, and rarely even then.
If one goes through a process of mental self-purification in meditation to clear negative energy from the subconscious mind, the higher self can then reveal to the conscious mind problems with the mental, astral, and etheric energy “sheaths” in the aura surrounding the physical body, just as the higher self can then also communicate to the conscious mind profound spiritual principles through archetypal symbols, inner voices and intuitions. The idea of connecting with the guardian angel or daimon is ancient, but I believe that the “knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” has potential applications in terms of mental and physical health that make it more than a spiritual achievement: It is a way to heal oneself on all levels of the psyche (which is suggested also by placing the caduceus on the Tree of Life), as well as a way to “clear a path” to the divine.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(classical_mythology)
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_loci
(3) the Avatar, http://theosophytrust.org/tlodocs/Daimon.htm Copyright©2011 Theosophy Trust

Bush Lupine Overlooking the San Joaquin River Gorge

beat12

00:00 / 04:42

Pounding Stone on the Experimental Range

Suite No. 14, Second Movement:

THE EXPERIMENTAL RANGE

Once, when I first began exploring the Experimental Range, a downpour commenced that was so vigorous, rain water fountained out of rodent holes on the slopes. I splashed down a muddy road over a ridge and found clear rivulets veining the grass and swelling a pond thick with buttercups. I followed a rushing stream that led me to a pounding stone with mortars brimming with water, and as rain glittered in sunshine, I turned and realized that I had just hiked across land containing house pits, which, since the Native Americans sometimes buried the dead under their huts, remains sacred land, an unmarked burial site. As I explored the stream, I finally admitted to myself that I had no idea which direction I was heading. As I turned around and around, I squinted at gray pines, oaks, lupine bushes, mushrooms, moss--all fields of vibration within infinite fields of energy, and as I listened to rain drops drumming the leaves, I woke to the sentience of the ecosystem. At the time I did not consider myself a spiritual man or even a particularly loving man, but sheltered under a massive tree, I fancied myself a shaman, tuning my soul to the different powers of the species by the stream, and after unintentionally shifting into a trance-state, I felt the presence of an Over Soul, an intelligence keenly aware of every animal and tree and bush and stone and blade of grass. My mind resonated with its overarching consciousness, and I felt a surge of love and compassion for all things in its domain.
Established in the mid 1930s, the San Joaquin Experimental Range contains almost 2,000 ha of land (1 ha equals 2.47 acres), consisting primarily of oak woodland savanna. Except for a small sign near the highway revealing that the Forest Service and CSU, Fresno, maintain the land, the Range from the highway appears no different from the private ranch land dominating the lower foothills. Another sign at the main gate states that hunting and camping are prohibited but neglects to mention that the public otherwise is tolerated. In the past decade or so I have explored the entire Range and have encountered a total of three people beyond the main road, only one of whom seemed to have any authority--a scientist who waved around strange equipment and didn’t acknowledge my presence.
Near the roads stand mysterious experiments: white pipes, sometimes capped, protruding above ground like periscopes; tractor tires cemented into the earth; scrawny bushes, usually dead, carefully enclosed with chicken wire; flimsy poles on which is strung white ribbon that delivers a powerful electric shock; wooden enclosures reinforced by chicken wire that retain thick tufts of grass unmolested by cattle. In the middle of nowhere, one experiment, which resembles an alien space-craft, bears a sign explaining that the equipment measures shifts in the earth's plates. Besides grazing on the grass, the livestock, always present on one part of the Range or another, gobble up dwindling species of flowers that blanket the few ungrazed areas of the foothills, and on the surface it appears that educational opportunities are limited primarily to livestock production and management, but hundreds of studies have been conducted on the Experimental Range, reflecting its initial purpose to explore ways to “better manage these lands” (1).
Cow patties dissolve at a glacial pace all over the woodland savanna and on the roads, but the Range supports a variety of wildlife. Individual coyotes have occasionally loped by me, thirty or forty feet away, seemingly without fear or curiosity, perhaps hoping that I’ll follow them to their lairs. In late afternoon and early evening, I have heard bands of coyotes cut loose a terrifying chorus of howls, usually in the distance but sometimes unnervingly close. I have seen, several times in ten years, a mother pig tailed by a long single-file line of baby wild pigs. Once I almost stepped on a bobcat hidden in tall grass in a house pit; it rose slowly, unperturbed, and skulked away down the hill. And once in a remote part of the Range where I had discovered seven pestles resting on a rock next to a pounding stone, I noticed a tawny cat about a hundred feet away, camouflaged by golden grass. At first I thought it was another bobcat, but then I observed a long tail flopping around behind it. I have heard that mountain lions like to pounce on the neck, so I spent the rest of the hike looking over my shoulder.
Native Americans for an estimated sixteen thousand years (perhaps longer) managed the ecosystems in North America to suit their needs, but compared to the vast changes caused by development and cultivation in the Valley in the past century, the Native Americans had minimal impact on the environment. Nevertheless, the trails, pounding stones, house pits and pestles, so easily overlooked, reveal that a completely different human order once dominated the area. Just below in the San Joaquin Valley, evidence of a Native American presence has all but been obliterated in just a few generations. Developments are leapfrogging into the lower foothills, but generally, lack of water has stalled large-scale cultivation and urban development at the edges of the Valley, preserving the evidence of thousands of years of human history for cattle ranchers, trespassers, and an archaeologist or two. Current laws cannot stop large-scale development on private land (except on Native American burial grounds) once the "water problem" has been "solved."

Pestle in a Pounding Stone

Legend has it that Native Americans could not make sense of the ships of the first European explorers because nothing like their ships had ever moored off the coast before, and now perhaps something like the reverse is true. People from urban settings tend not to perceive evidence of Native American cultures. For instance, even though I am generally observant, I hiked on trails through the hills many Sundays before I finally realized that most, if not all, of the trails hook up with abandoned Native American village sites. Something in me, moreover, just could not admit that house pits still remain near the pounding stones until after I had encountered shallow oval indentations in the ground at almost every single village site. For me at first it was hard even to imagine that Native Americans ever lived there--let alone survived there for over fifteen thousand years. The same for me is true about other species that once existed in the area: grizzly bears, wolves, prong-horned antelope, tule elk, and many others exterminated or cleared out by hunting and modern land use practices.
Even more alien to the experience of people in urban areas are encounters with entities from subtle dimensions beyond the perception of the physical senses, such as nature spirits, Over Souls, and the shining ones known as Archangels or Gods. The Experimental Range endures as a natural and spiritual zone: The tranquillity of the woodland savanna enables a person to shift the mind easily to a timeless spiritual awareness completely different from the surface consciousness that dominates modern society. Until I had repeatedly experienced a sense of connection with different subtle orders of being, I could not imagine that it was even possible. I only recognized the existence of spiritual beings after repeated encounters, and since few people ever meditate or experience nature, what follows will no doubt seem more like fiction than what might be labelled "incredible nonfiction."
Ten years ago, around the time I first started exploring the Experimental Range, when I was in my early forties, I began meditating purely to relieve stress, and one afternoon, after meditating deeply for over an hour, I had a vision of a gray figure-eight floating on its side above my head. I could also see the walls of my room clearly, so I thought for a moment that I had opened my eyes. I blinked and the infinity symbol disappeared. I had no idea what the vision signified, so I mused for awhile and forgot about it.

Path 12: The Magician

A few days later at a bookstore, I felt a totally uncharacteristic desire to buy a pack of Tarot cards. Normally I would hang out in the Literature section of the bookstore, but that day I browsed the New Age section and found a book on the Tarot and an attractive pack, the Universal Waite Tarot deck. As the cashier was ringing up the items, he confided that he had been thinking about "getting back into" the Tarot himself. Not knowing quite how to respond, I paused, and then suddenly the word "synchronicity" popped out of my mouth. I confess that at the time I wasn't quite sure what the word meant. The cashier smiled and handed me my purchase, and I then drove to another store on a different errand. Before I got out of the car, I flipped through the book and stopped at a page that contained a striking photo of a man named Carl Jung. I read the text below and discovered that Carl Jung had coined the term synchronicity to suggest how events in the external world can significantly mirror the symbolic world of the subconscious mind, in other words, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. I then opened the pack of Tarot cards. The second card I encountered, called “The Magician,” contains an image of a man with a gray infinity symbol above his head. I flipped through the book to a description of "The Magician" and discovered that the infinity symbol, also called a lemniscate, is a spiritual symbol that suggests the knowledge of the infinitude within.
In my vision I had tapped into an archetypal dimension and had encountered a symbol that a few days later surfaced in "real" life, and I soon found out that the symbol system of the Tarot dovetails in every way with the great mystic symbol system known as the Tree of Life. Individuals can channel subtle forces through the archetypes of the Tree and the Tarot into the psyche so that the energy floods the conscious mind and can eventually manifest in daily life. Through the symbols of the Tarot and the Tree of Life, for instance, I am often keenly aware of the infinitude within, which has an extremely positive effect on me and everyone connected to me. Before that I was pessismistic, cynical, and generally a chore to be around.
Most of the experiments that dot the Range reveal efforts to improve the cattle industry by increasing water supplies and managing herds more efficiently. In the woodland setting, the experiments shout how every human creation, no matter how clumsy or strange, takes shape first in the mind as thought-forms before being tested in the harsh conditions of the material plane. Due to the West's emphasis on education and experimentation, a growing percentage of the population is developing the ability to concentrate and visualize well enough to create effective thought-forms in the imagination, with groups and individuals exerting control over the environment in ways that people a century ago would be astonished to witness. The experiments on the Range accentuate how, in the last century, humans have become great experimenters with thought-forms, altering environments from their natural state, in some places, like the San Joaquin Valley below, beyond recognition.
A conventionalized symbolic image of a God, Archangel, Over Soul, or nature spirit is a specific type of thought-form that represents or "personifies" a subtle force. Once established in the imagination and filled with the appropriate corresponding energy, the symbolic image attracts the subtle energy into the personal sphere of sensation, or aura. For instance, the Romans symbolically depicted Over Souls, known as "genius loci," or the “spirit of place,” as deities holding such items as a cornucopia, a patera (a shallow dish used for libations), a snake, or a combination of the three. Through the thought-form, an individual can connect with the essential force of the Over Soul and achieve a parley or beneficial subtle relationship. The Over Soul that I first encountered on the Range was distinctly maternal and even seemed glad that I was there, possibly because for thousands of years, generations had lived in harmony with the woodland stream and very few “modern” humans have stumbled into the area. On other occasions I have become acutely aware of other Over Souls who seemed resentful and threatening, possibly due to the repeated degradation of the area by modern humans and cattle. Since then, I have encountered Over Souls in remote areas of the Range that strike me as frightfully primeval; while in their domain I have felt a hostile, alien presence that has raised the hair on the back of my neck. Since then I have concluded that to live in harmony within nature one must achieve some sort of parley with the Over Souls and other powerful spiritual beings in an area, which requires, purely for survival, consciously moving past the surface mind into the brain wave frequencies conducive to spiritual awareness.

Goddess of the Sierras

During my hikes in the woodland forests I have also experienced waking visions of archetypal symbols such as a golden, equal-armed (balanced) cross on top of a truncated pyramid. As I hike, I sometimes envision symbols associated with natural forces for sustained periods of time, sometimes up to an hour. Moreover, at Native American sites, visions of Gods and Goddesses have surfaced into my consciousness. At these sites, human figures instead of geometric symbols personify natural forces in my mind’s eye. Keep in mind that I remained an agnostic for most of my adult life, and I, like many educated people, have sometimes had great difficulty believing in a spiritual dimension, but because of repeated experiences, I cannot deny the reality of these visions, and therefore I have tried to develop a rational explanation. Over many thousands of years in these village sites, the human mind has anthropomorphized the forces of the spiritual world, giving human qualities to the subtle powers and intelligences, and in addition these forces appear to “remember” how they have contacted human individuals, the forces having become accustomed to taking on human form in the individual human imagination, which is part of the collective consciousness known also as the astral plane.

Ithuriel's Spears

Of all the strange experiences I’ve had in the past ten years, perhaps the most startling and profound occurred when I was just hiking along one day and stopped to gaze at an Ithuriel's Spear next to the trail. Suddenly, my personality was completely erased. I was literally no longer myself. Instead, I was a point of awareness within a vast consciousness experiencing It Self--the observer, the observed, and the act of observation, as though God or the Source (or whatever you want to call It) had asserted It Self and taken over my consciousness, and all that I had ever considered my self to be was not just irrelevant but totally gone. At the same time, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and blessing, but soon I sensed my personality was coming back, and the more I resisted its return, the more I lost the feeling of peace. I had done nothing to alter my consciousness beyond immersing myself in the natural world.

A new electronic main gate, which can be opened only with an access code, has recently been installed at the Experimental Range. Now even fewer people will be exposed to the human history, the natural frequencies, and the possibility of spiritual connection with other physical and nonphysical beings. Since the urban mind-set is so strong, it takes repeated experiences to develop even the realization that something “other” exists, which I suppose is one reason why in my work I describe the same key spiritual experiences in different formats. Music and fiction and art also help shift consciousness, sometimes into greater spiritual awareness, and I find that simply extending consciousness in unexpected ways makes the journey worthwhile, but the influence of Mercury, God of magic and a supreme trickster, is strong on the Experimental Range. But I always know, as I gaze down the crumbling road that disappears around the bend, that some kind of adventure awaits in the woodland savanna and the "forest of symbols."

(1) fs.fed.us/psw/ef/san_joaquin

San Joaquin River Gorge

sparkle

00:00 / 03:42

Suite No. 14, Third Movement:
BRAIN WAVES AND THE ANIMA MUNDI

Recently I dwelt in tranquility in the San Joaquin River Gorge, a public park which might soon be buried under water by a dam at Temperance Flat. While lounging on a pounding stone in the river bottom and pondering the lack of stewardship in this society, I understood why the looming destruction of the planet is essentially a spiritual problem.
The concept of the Earth Soul, or “anima mundi,” is, unfortunately, unfamiliar to many. Known also as the “world soul,” the anima mundi has been described as an intrinsic connection between all living things on the planet: “This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related" (Plato, Timaeus, 29–30).
The idea of the world soul has surfaced in many philosophies and religious systems in different cultures throughout history. The Stoics, for instance, believe that it is the only vital force in the universe. Similar beliefs exist in systems of eastern philosophy, such as Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, Taoism and the School of Yin-Yang (1).
The experience of the Earth Soul often begins as a feeling of peace that grows more profound as you immerse yourself in the frequencies of nature. The longer you are in nature, in other words, the more you naturally tune your brainwaves to the frequency of the Earth. The Schumann Resonance (known as the "heart beat" of Mother Earth) is on the average 7.83 Hertz (2). Four commonly accepted types of human brain waves occur at the following vibrations per second (HZ):

Delta: .5 to 3 HZ

Theta: 3 to 8 HZ

Alpha: 8 to 12 HZ

Beta: 12 to 38 HZ

Synchronized electrical pulses from neurons communicating with each other produce brainwaves. Beta rhythm (also known as beta waves) refers to the frequency range of human brain activity between 12 and 38 HZ and represents an intense state of alertness, concentration, logical thinking, and memory. Since beta mode is the required mental state of the workplace, it is generally valued as the most productive state of modern human consciousness in terms of survival and success. Other brain wave rhythms, alpha, theta, and delta, associated with, among other things, imagination, spiritual connection, and intuition, are accessed through deep relaxation, meditation, daydreaming and immersion in the natural world.
Previously dismissed as 'spare brain noise,' researchers have also examined a fifth brainwave that is highly active in states of universal love, altruism, and higher-level functioning. Gamma brainwaves (38 to 42 HZ) are the fastest of brain waves, occurring at high frequency, and they relate to simultaneous processing of information from different brain areas. In order to access these most subtle of brainwave frequencies, the mind has to be quiet. The presence of Gamma relates to expanded consciousness and spiritual emergence, and because Gamma is above the frequency of neuronal firing, how it is generated remains a mystery.
An individual during meditation can intentionally move beyond the beta rhythms of the surface mind to alpha, theta, delta and gamma brain wave frequencies. Alpha brain waves (generally considered 8 to 12 cycles per second), produced when a person is resting, meditating, or reflecting, indicate a state of relaxed alertness, good for stimulating imagination and inspiring powerful ideas. Theta brain waves (3 to 8 cycles per second), usually associated with the dream state, are produced also when a person is daydreaming, experiencing a flow of ideas, or performing a repetitive task. Theta brain waves are also associated with profound inner peace, mystical knowledge, symbolic visions, transformation of unconsciously held limiting beliefs, physical and emotional healing, inner wisdom, and psychic abilities. Delta brain waves (0.5 to 3 cycles per second), are produced usually during dreamless sleep, and during meditation can also include deep access to subconscious material and a sense of oneness and pure being (3).
The “heart beat" of Mother Earth, at 7.83 HZ, is on the border between Theta and Alpha brain waves. In other words, The Earth Soul, Mother Nature herself, as well as meditation can induce a brain wave frequency where one experiences tranquility, intuition, visions, and wise inner voices. I have found this to be the case over and over in my excursions into nature. In fact, with regular meditation and experiences in nature, I have discovered that the subtle, psychic senses can open in a way that a mind stuck in surface consciousness and dominated by the media would find extremely difficult to believe.
In the film Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays an actor burdened by nameless anxieties who has his soul extracted by the “Soul Storage Company.” His soul, it turns out, resembles a chickpea. Unlike the character in the movie, I believed for decades that I didn’t have a soul, extractable or otherwise, until I experienced a series of visions during meditation. My spiritual emergence occurred unexpectedly: I began meditating purely to relieve stress. I had no interest in ideas of God or the soul and no desire to have visions or to expand consciousness.
I eventually realized that the visions presented related spiritual principles. The first in the series was of a golden, equal-armed cross with an angel at each end. The second was of a golden plate and cup on a pure white tablecloth; floating in the cup a large pearl turned ceaselessly around and around. The third vision consisted of a plain, golden crown. Since at the time I was an agnostic with no interest in spiritual matters, my conscious mind took a long time to process what my subconscious mind was showing me.
By that point in my life, I had experienced enough treachery and deceit to make anyone cynical for several lifetimes. I did not have any reason to feel hopeful about the human condition. I was pessimistic to the point of despair--if I had fallen asleep during meditation, my subconscious mind was more likely to manufacture nightmares than glowing, golden symbols. During the meditations, however, I was totally awake, but in a state of consciousness that I had never experienced before. My subconscious mind in the visionary state tapped into a realm that transcended my limited personality, presenting symbols of what to me at the time was an inscrutable optimism about our essence, what many over the centuries have labeled the “soul.”
I have come to believe that the great tragedy of our time is a lack of understanding about the different levels of the psyche. I don’t mean to suggest that anyone will be damned for eternity for ignoring his or her own soul. That and other ideas about hell-fire and damnation have kept me and many others from even trying to understand and honor the psyche. I’m suggesting instead that we are losing valuable connections to the spiritual dimension, knowledge from within the timeless core of ourselves that transcends the limited physical senses and also provides opportunities for greater health on all levels of being. When I say, “honoring the soul,” I mean acknowledging all aspects of the psyche--which I have discovered is a far greater mystery than most psychologists would concede. Honoring the soul means acknowledging the vast potentialities of the psyche while recognizing that each one of us, when the veils have fallen, is essentially a magnificent spiritual being containing the inner seeds of abundance and harmony. Honoring the soul is also the first crucial step in honoring the vast, awesome web of nature and recognizing our place within it.
My vision of the angels and the equal-armed cross has various esoteric meanings, but to me reveals the balance of elements and the integration of the individual personality resonating with this vast cosmic harmony. Water in the golden cup to me suggests spirit manifesting in matter. I have to confess that the pearl turning around in the water puzzled me for a very long time. Only after I reread the proverb about the merchant who gave up everything for the “pearl of great price” did I realize that the pearl in the vision symbolizes the soul in its various experiences within the material realm. In other words, the soul forms like a pearl around the divine spark, the core of the psyche, through an evolution, containing the essence of many incarnations, and, like the wheel of fortune, keeps turning as it experiences and reflects the multiplicity of life, both in the subconscious mind (the part in water) and the conscious mind (the part in air).
I finally understood the series of visions over all in the context of the last, simple vision. The crown symbolizes dominion and magnificence, the gold representing incorruptibility and purity. Together the visions reveal the spiritual magnificence, harmony, and abundance within the soul. These visions have a kind of simplicity that has taken me years to understand.
Human beings, in esoteric terms, are physical, astral, mental, and spiritual creatures. Whenever a person first begins moving into the subtle planes during meditation, the mind often reveals subconscious content related to the aura, which is the subtle envelope containing the invisible energy centers known as the chakras. The primary chakras correspond to the spine and usually turn clock-wise. If you hold a pendulum made from a paperclip and a thread over a chakra, such as the stomach or heart center, after a few seconds the paperclip will start spinning around. Within the aura, the chakras extend outward into the astral, mental and spiritual levels. I was surprised to find that I can mentally tell the pendulum to spin only in the astral or mental or spiritual level of the aura, and the chakra responds to the command, just like a hand responds to thought.
The lower chakras are linked with an individual’s preservation instincts, sex drive, and personal power, the higher ones with communication, imagination, and spiritual awareness. The heart center, besides being the center of sympathy and love, connects the lower centers related to the physical realm with the higher centers related to the spiritual levels. Each of these chakras is associated with a state of being that corresponds to a particular sheath or "vehicle" of consciousness within the aura. In other words, consciousness is not limited to the physical body.
As the mind becomes more adept at meditation (or ritual, if one prefers) the conscious mind becomes better at focusing on particular levels of the psyche. Complex color patterns are associated with the chakras in some traditions, but the subconscious mind responds to an arrangement of the chakras in a simple rainbow pattern, with red at the bottom representing the lowest chakra between the anus and genitals and violet representing the third eye chakra. Brilliant white, a combination of all the colors, is associated with the crown chakra, also known as the thousand-petaled lotus. These different vibrations are associated with the different levels of the subtle planes (besides space, the last frontier).
In this stage of evolution, what we currently consider normal consciousness in esoteric terms is an astro-mental state flowing with emotions, ideas, and images, in other words thought-forms, or for lack of a better term, thought-complexes. We tend to create reality with the force of emotion and the forms of the intellect, in other words. The physical senses generally are not nearly as engaged as they used to be even a hundred years ago.
During spiritual practices, an individual can experiment with the different frequency levels of vibration that correspond to the higher and lower levels, from plant and animal frequencies to the frequencies of the angels and gods. The more one moves in either direction, of course, the more one experiences vibrations beyond what the average person considers within the normal range of perception and consciousness--and the more one begins to recognize the true potentials of the psyche. The old maxim, "Know thyself," means far more, I think, than most modern humans suspect.
On a social level, frequencies other than beta brain waves tend to be associated with fuzzy head-in-the-cloud thinking and the inability to function properly in the real world, an attitude that has become a major obstacle both to connection with nature and to spiritual development. When not required to remain in beta mode by high stress jobs, people nowadays tend to slip into alpha and theta states under the influence of the mass media, which controls the flow of thoughts and emotions and tends to extinguish the potential for authentic spiritual experience.
I had the good fortune to experience the Earth Soul often on fishing trips when I was growing up. After practicing meditation for several years, I finally understood what it means to tune the soul to the heart beat of Mother Nature, explained by science in terms of the alpha and theta brain frequencies.
During meditation, I “drop into the void” for extended periods, and I have sometimes experienced a subtle order of existence that is “objective” in the sense that I envision what other seers have also experienced. Other visionaries, in other words, have also envisioned the symbols and archetypes of what Carl Jung has described as the “collective unconscious,” which to me is more accurately described as the “collective subconscious.”
The Tree of Life is extremely helpful to the traveler into the unseen. Throughout history, cultures have created different pantheons of Gods and Archangels that represent the subtle forces. In other words, a God symbolically represents a force or power that exists in the subtle spiritual dimension of the cosmos--and inside each human being: “As above, so below.” One God might represent the force of expansion, another the force of restriction, another the power of thought, another the power of harmonizing love. Jesus, for instance, is a Savior that finds his rightful place in the sixth sphere of the Tree of Life, known as Tiphareth, along with other sacrificial Gods.
Each culture has similar Gods because the same forces have existed inside of people throughout history. Different forces have been emphasized in each culture based on its needs. One culture might emphasize the courage and energy and strength of Mars while another might emphasize the intellectual power of Mercury while another might emphasize the power of love and beauty represented by Venus. Whenever a person contacts a cosmic force fashioned symbolically into a God or Goddess, that person is actually contacting an aspect of the energy of a sphere on the the Tree of Life. Unfortunately most people do not realize that each individual, without a priest interceding, can access the cosmic force symbolically represented by a God or Savior, and each person can establish a channel or correspondence with that energy because the energy also exists within each individual: the microcosm (the individual) reflects the macrocosm (the cosmos).
On the cosmic level, manifestation of all forms begins within the seventh sphere of the Tree of Life, a state of being known as Netzach, or "Victory"--a title which suggests the victory of natural forms flourishing in stunning beauty and diversity. Netzach is the sphere of the Goddess Venus. Dion Fortune, arguably the most influential Qabalist in recent history, once pointed out that any religion without the Goddess is "halfway to atheism." In common parlance, Earth is our "mother," and fortunately in much of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, at least, the Goddess undeniably still reigns, but many irreplacable ecosystems have already been destroyed or are in danger, like the San Joaquin River Gorge.
On the Tree of Life, the sphere of the Sun is just above (or, in terms of evolution--before) Netzach. Known as Tiphareth, or "Beauty," the sphere of the Sun represents the Source of all life within the physical plane, and, because Tiphareth balances and harmonizes the energies of other spheres on the Tree, it also represents the cosmic Christ force. Imagine a prism held up before the sun, breaking up the light into all the colors of manifestation. This is the light of the Source, the One manifesting harmoniously and victoriously as the Many within the sphere of Netzach and the lower spheres.
For me, spiritual emergence began with physical and mental purification. In many spiritual traditions, cleansing is a crucial step in the process of spiritual development. A person must eliminate negative energies from the body and the aura to progress on the path. Having many food allergies, intolerances, and chemical sensitivities, I first had to eliminate everything in my diet that made me ill or unable to think clearly. Then with a damp white cloth I mentally wiped away negative energies, revealed in various forms to psychic vision, in each one of my chakras while also forgiving myself and others. I felt purified after I dumped trash from my crown chakra for several hours, and I immediately had a vision of a many-petalled, brilliant white flower. I thought at first that it was a stunning white rose with innumerable petals, but a voice in my head said, “Lotus.” I went on-line and discovered that the thousand-petaled lotus is symbolically associated with the crown chakra.
Like Dion Fortune, I believe that there is no room for authority in occultism--or any other form of spirituality--but how I would have appreciated another soul explaining what was happening to me! I never once feared for my sanity, but I was many times deeply confused and fascinated to the point of fixation, only slowly piecing together an understanding through experimentation and by wading through many an arcane text. I do not claim to be an authority, but I have had enough experience to become knowledgeable about a subject that is foreign to most people in Western society.
In terms of energy frequencies, whether viewed as brain-waves or chakras, through experience I have come to believe that, besides quieting the mind during meditation or contemplation, purification and exaltation of consciousness are the keys to spiritual development and connection to nature. I believe that cleansing the aura is essential in opening an awareness of the various vibrations of the psyche. Through experience, I have also come to believe that “following your bliss” results in the kind of exaltation and expansion of the mind that leads to spiritual emergence and enlightenment. For me, that means immersion in nature and the arts, both of which are associated with the sphere of Netzach on the Tree of Life. Others, of course, find their own path. Through experience, I have come to believe that exaltation, inspiration, and expansion of consciousness, associated with Gamma brainwaves, leads to the Vision of Harmony and opens up the state of being known as Tiphareth, the Christ-center, on the Tree of Life.
Recently, in the fresh air and splendor of San Joaquin River Gorge, my mind relaxed. I recognized once again that we are surrounded by field upon field of interconnected, divine energy. My mind was tuned to the heartbeat of Mother Nature: The inspirations of the divine rise from the subconscious as much as from higher consciousness, from the Earth Soul as much as from heaven.
Lack of spiritual connection with nature could soon lead to the destruction of the stunning ecosystem within the San Joaquin River Gorge. Lack of understanding about our own psyche and our own connection to nature could lead eventually to the destruction of the planet. Many of those in power can only see the river gorge as a storage container for a certain number of acre feet of water that would benefit private, vested interests, their contributors. Our politicians and the media do not appear to care that the gorge contains an ecosystem of interconnected, divine energy that belongs to the Earth--and to the public.
As an activist, I have come to take the long view. As much as it would break my heart, the San Joaquin River Gorge might not be saved. But due to experience I know that we are all connected on a subtle, spiritual level, and I believe that through psychic resonance, where on the subtle levels the few make it easier for the many to advance, the more each one of us honors the soul, the easier it becomes for others to do the same and the more likely that as a species we will then be able to honor the planet and ensure our own survival.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_mundi
(2) http://www.bewellbuzz.com/body-buzz/schumann-resonance-essential-health/
(3) brainworksneurotherapy.com/what-are-brainwaves

The Magician: Mercury

beat23

00:00 / 04:05

Suite No. 14, Fourth Movement:
THE LEMNISCATE

Like many other sixth graders in California, I toured the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose. I was only mildly interested in the mummies and the other Egyptian artifacts, but for some reason the excursion triggered in me a feeling of absolute bliss, a “ballooning” of consciousness that I had never experienced before. As the bus was pulling away from the museum, for a moment I also realized with sadness that I might never feel that kind of euphoria again. On the way home the joy eventually subsided, and I soon became obsessed with Rosicrucianism after reading a brochure from the museum--I even wrote an eleven page letter asking to be accepted as a member. The symbols and artifacts had resonated with my subconscious mind in a way that I still don’t entirely understand. I just knew then that I wanted to experience that blissful resonance again.
I received a letter stating that I was too young to be a member but that I could order a book containing background information about Rosicrucianism. I begged my parents to order it, and about a month later I received a book with a bright pink cover. Most of the information was over my head, but I eagerly devoured the book. As my zeal grew, my parents became more and more suspicious of the Rosicrucians and stated several times that I was just too young to be concerned about such topics.
Eventually my enthusiasm waned. I forgot about Rosicrucianism as I began focusing more and more on satisfying social needs in middle school. I graduated from high school, went to college, became an agnostic, and started equating mythology with superstition. I didn't give a second thought to religion or spiritual development.
Thirty years after that sixth grade field trip, I started meditating to alleviate stress. After a period of mental purification, I unexpectedly envisioned archetypal symbols in my mind’s eye, including a gray infinity symbol (lemniscate), a golden equal-armed cross, a golden crown, and a brilliant, many petaled lotus, each vision as real as anything that I have witnessed with my physical eyes.
One of the first symbols I envisioned was a gray infinity symbol, which is a symbol of harmony and eternity. After an hour and a half of deep meditation, I saw the walls of my room and the infinity symbol directly over my head so clearly that I thought that I had opened my eyes. When I did open my eyes only the walls remained.
I eventually discovered that many of the archetypes I envisioned are found on the Tree of Life and in the Tarot, which, coincidentally, are symbol systems employed by the Golden Dawn, a mystical secret society whose inner order is essentially Rosicrucian. I also found that the Tarot and the Tree of Life contain a symbolic landscape that can be read in a way similar to the way that one can read the subtle disturbances of the terrain of the physical world.
Almost immediately after I first opened a pack of Tarot cards, I found four cards containing the infinity symbol, or lemniscate, the first of which was The Magician, a card that for me remains the key to understanding essential spiritual principles of the Tarot and the Tree of Life. In the Magician, the lemniscate, besides being the mathematical symbol of infinity, is a type of wavy halo that forms a number eight on its side--a number associated with the primal forces of creation and the essential order and harmony behind and within the cosmos.
Legend has it that at one point The Book of Thoth, which contained powerful spells and wisdom, was hidden in many boxes, the keys to which were spread throughout ancient Egypt. Eventually the mysteries in this lost book found their way into the Tarot, which is now sometimes itself referred to as the ‘Book of Thoth.’ God of wisdom and magic, Thoth is associated with the Greek Hermes and the Roman Mercury, so the planet Mercury is assigned to this Tarot card, which represents a path on the Tree of Life between Kether, the sphere closest to the Source known as the Crown, and the third sphere known as Binah, the primal womb of creation. Thoth, as the heart and tongue of Ra, is the great magus associated with the Logos, the Word that begins the process of creation. The Hebrew letter Beth, also associated with the path represented by The Magician, is the first letter of the bible, suggesting, since it is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, that a first cause or prime mover exists before the first act of creation. Beth means ‘house,’ which suggests form enclosing force. In terms of the Tree of Life, the twelfth path connects Kether, the source of manifestation, with Binah, the primal sphere of form, so in this card you see the first act of creation, which has echoed through all other acts of creation.
The Magician holds up a wand with one hand and points toward the earth with the other, signifying his intention to bring harmonious spiritual energy into manifestation. On the table in front of him are the symbols of the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, elements that are reflected in the triplicities of the zodiac. In other words, three astrological signs of the zodiac are Earth signs, three are Water signs, three are Air signs, and three are Fire signs, suggesting that, like Thoth, who is whole and completely integrated, the magus uses all elemental energies within creation to establish divine harmony in his sphere of influence.

Tarot Cards with Lemniscates

In Egyptian mythology, the number eight is associated with the primal forces of creation. The Ogdoad (Greek, meaning “the eightfold”) were eight deities worshipped during the Old Kingdom, from about 2650 to 2100 BC. The eight deities consist of four female and male pairs, the females associated with snakes and the males with frogs. Each pair represents the female and male aspect of one of four concepts, namely the primordial waters (Naunet and Nu), air or invisibility (Amunet and Amun), darkness (Kauket and Kuk), and eternity or infinite space (Hauhet and Huh). More than a tenuous connection between these four basic concepts and the four Elements, Water, Air, Earth, and Fire, exists: the element of Earth is associated with darkness and the element of Fire with the sun and the stars in infinite space (1).
The four concepts represent the primal forces of the Beginning. In the myth, their interaction proved to be unbalanced, causing Ra, the fiery source of all life, to arise. The lemniscate, as the number 8, represents these primal forces of creation behind manifestation--as well as a knowledge of the infinitude within.
The number 8 in some esoteric traditions, such as Martinism, represents the Christ force. According to L.W. de Laurence, 8 is the number of the Christ, associated with the fall of the first man, the state of privation from the divine Source, and the process of His return. In Gnostic traditions it also represents the essential harmony, both immanent and transcendent, within creation, with God as the "Sun behind the sun." The infinity symbol and its connection with the number 8 evokes the Christian Gnostic belief in the rebirth in Christ as a change "unto the Ogdoad." The early Christian symbolism of the Christ as the Spiritual Sun that harmonizes the Ogdoad represents the harmonious spirit behind creation manifesting within nature and within the human mind (40).
The Christ is a cosmic force, not a man, and The Magician as a human being manifests this force. Through the Christ force, the cosmos and the individual maintain balance and harmony, which results in sublime beauty, represented symbolically by the lilies and the roses that surround the Magician. Jesus was a man who manifested the Christ force to re-establish spiritual balance through sacrifice, taking upon himself the negative energies of the collective mind for the good of all. The Magician reveals that all human beings have the potential to manifest the Christ-force, eliminating negative, destructive energies and establishing harmony in his or her own sphere of influence.
Gnostics believe that the vast majority of people see physical manifestation, take it at face value, and assume that a spiritual reality does not exist, but through the faculty of intuition, the higher self can discern the existence of a greater reality. The Cosmic Christ, the Sun behind the sun which harmonizes the Ogdoad, is both a symbol and an expression of this higher knowledge. Like the human magician, those with the spark of the higher intuition or gnosis catch an occasional glimpse of the higher pattern--the perfect model and the perfect mold of order and harmony that informs all of existence. (http://www.plotinus.com/gnostic_jesus_copy.htm)
The Magician reveals the integration of the individual being on all planes through the energy of Mercury--the capacity of thought-- represented by the bright yellow atmosphere. He is the male power of creation who acts through conscious willpower and desire, drawing divine power down from the heavens through his white wand, molding it with that energy of thought, and manifesting it in the physical plane. This is that most ancient magic to make real what is imagined, such as when God said, "Let there be Light!' and there was Light," and it manifests on both a human and a cosmic level.
The Magician’s white gown symbolizes the purity of his divine motive, the red over-garment revealing his passion and power. His gown is belted by an uroboros, symbolizing the endless cycle of energy, death and rebirth--also reflected in the infinity symbol. The white headband, itself a circle, represents the effort and sacrifice involved in the process. Around the Magician, white lilies and red roses grow in abundance, representing the pure creative thought behind the Great Work and the beauty of harmonious spirit manifested in the physical world.

Path 19: Strength

The woman in "Strength," who is taming a lion with her gentleness, is the female version of the Magician, except that she embodies spiritual power and manifests it harmoniously through a knowledge of polarity. She is, in terms of Egyptian mythology, Maat, Goddess of balance, consort of Thoth. In the bright yellow atmosphere of Mercury, representing purposeful thought, she tames the wild beast, her red roses seemingly merging with the lion’s mane. The sweat band has been replaced by a wreath and the red overcoat has disappeared, revealing a pure, white gown, the passion reflected instead in the roses wrapped around her waist. She literally holds the power of the Magician gently in her hands after it has manifested on the Earth.
The strength suggested by the title is not physical strength but the mental strength that the higher self manifests. In terms of the Tree of Life, the 19th path is a horizontal path connecting spheres that are essentially opposite. Chesed, the sphere of Jupiter, represents creative, up building, organizing forces and is associated with mercy, abundance, and order. Geburah, the sphere of Mars, represents destructive, restricting, disciplining forces and is associated with severity, power, and justice. Essentially, Chesed and Geburah are the primary creative and destructive forces of the manifested cosmos. The 19th path balances the spectacular primal energies with the perfect discipline of Geburah and the perfect order of Chesed, and that harmony is reflected in the sphere of Tiphareth, known as the Christ-center, below.

Path 32

The three vertical paths on the Tree of Life connect spheres that are essentially opposite in nature. Understanding the law of polarity is the key to understanding how to handle the forces--the key, really, to spiritual development and basic survival. Obvious examples of polarity are hot and cold, masculine and feminine, love and hate, spiritual and physical. In fact, you can find examples of polarity on all levels of being, and you can always move from one pole to the other by degree. For instance, you can move by degree from hot to cold or from love to hate, or vice versa. The universe is not caught in an eternal conflict between good and evil, God and the Devil. One pole is not absolutely evil and the other absolutely good. The spiritual is not better than the physical, just like cold water is not better than hot water. They are simply two poles of one thing, and everything is relative in context.
Essentially, the ability to polarize from one state to another to establish harmony reveals to a great extent the degree that a person has evolved. But everything is relative in context. Hot water is better than cold in some contexts. Severity is better than mercy in some contexts. Knowing what is needed and having the ability to polarize to the required state is the true strength. If you develop the discipline, you should ideally be able to move by degrees emotionally, mentally, or spiritually for the highest good in each situation, maintaining balance the way a person on a bicycle maintains balance. The hill of attainment in the background stands behind the woman in "Strength": Attaining that level of knowledge is no easier than climbing a mountain.

Two of Pentacles

Two other cards, representing states closer to physical manifestation, reveal the infinity symbol in a more subtle fashion: the Two of Pentacles, representing the Earth element in Chokmah, the second sphere on the Tree of Life, and The World, path 32, between the ninth and tenth spheres on the Tree. I like to call them the Lord and Lady of the Dance, for they are both caught up in the eternal dance of spirit and matter represented in the archetypal symbol of the Infinity symbol.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad_(Egyptian)
(2) de Laurence,L.W. The Illustrated Key of the Tarot. Chicago: Scott & Co., 1916.

Baby Blue Eyes by the Kings River

beat35

00:00 / 04:23

Suite No. 14, Fifth Movement:
FEELING THE CHRIST-FORCE BY THE KINGS RIVER

Occasionally, even while I'm performing ordinary tasks, my heart unexpectedly radiates a light that fills my entire aura. Sometimes, when this happens, I suddenly feel like I'm standing in the middle of the sun. My personality disappears, and I experience myself only as pure light.
Similarly, in the quiet by the Kings River, among snakes and unstable stones and poison oak, my personality disappears, and I experience another dimension of my self. I have gotten into the habit of following paths into the forest until I reach a place where that other dimension of my self surfaces, and I feel connected to the Anima Mundi, or "World Soul," the spirit that connects all things on Earth. That other dimension of my self often shows up by the Kings River, where I first began to love the earth and the moon and know the subtle forces of the sun and the awesome power of the Sun behind the sun.
In fact, the first time my aura became filled with light, I was sprawling on a smooth stone at the hole where my Dad and I had gone fishing two weeks before he died. I closed my eyes for a few moments, and suddenly when I opened them, I could see my aura lit up, as though by the sun. For many years before that moment, I had remained stunned and confused by his death. Finally, by that hole, after many years, I could experience inconsolable grief, as if my real feelings could only surface in the river bottom.
Whenever I feel hungry for light, I find a Native American path and follow it into the Kings River watershed, which includes many creeks and rivulets. Last weekend I returned to the North Fork of the Kings River to search for pounding stones and discovered that the Rough Fire had ravaged much of the forest. The blaze, halting at the edge of the single-lane road, had left the river bottom untouched. From the edge of the road, I gazed down into the canyon and glimpsed a Native American village site that I had discovered several years earlier, and I knew that not far away, hidden by sycamores, a washed out bridge still clung to a megalithic rock in the middle of the river.
A few months before, I had found a pounding stone near the river, so last weekend I followed the stream down to the North Fork of the Kings, suspecting that I would find another pounding stone at the confluence. Hopping from one unstable rock to another and struggling through brush for twenty minutes, I noticed a large, flat stone overlooking the river. I climbed toward it through dormant poison oak and discovered a pestle. “Eureka,” I smiled as the hair stood up on the back of my neck.
The pounding stone, with twelve mortars, stirred up an odd mixture of feelings. From time immemorial Native Americans had settled everywhere they could next to streams and rivers. Evidence of a culture that had survived for thousands of years--as long, if not longer, than civilizations in the Middle East and Africa and Central America and Europe, still remains, yet no one where I live is making any effort to preserve the trails and abandoned village sites. Our current society, established after the gold rush, is a mere infant, and infants have short memories.
After the discovery of gold in California, one of the first acts of the new government was to allow a bounty on Native American scalps. Rewards ranged from twenty-five dollars to five dollars for every severed head in Shasta County in 1855 to 25 cents for a scalp in Honey Lake in 1863. Some regions passed laws that called for collective punishment of an entire village and all of its inhabitants for a crime committed by only one individual Native American, which led to the annihilation of as many as 150 Native American communities. In both 1851 and 1852 California paid out $1 million to militias that hunted down and slaughtered Native Americans. In 1857, the state issued another $410,000 in bonds to pay for anti-Indian militias. State law for several years also provided for the indentured servitude of Native Americans. Moreover, Native Americans could not testify in court to defend themselves or their property. The legislature didn't ratify the treaties, and the militia and bounty hunters ranged throughout the hills until the Native American population, already decimated by disease, dwindled in a few decades to approximately fifteen percent of the number that had existed before the gold rush (1).
Touching the pounding stone, I unexpectedly experienced an indescribable rage. “Why do I feel so angry and betrayed?” I wondered out loud. A moment before, I was simply feeling happy about my discovery. I had no reason personally to feel victimized, yet for some reason I felt deeply violated.
I've discovered that in the river bottom my rawest feelings, as well as visions and premonitions, surface because the mind tunes to vibrations different from typical modern human consciousness in urban areas. In the river bottom brain waves that are normally repressed in modern civilization come to the foreground of consciousness, brain rhythms that correspond more to subconscious instincts as well as to the spiritual dimensions of the self. I began to believe that I had subconsciously tuned to residual energy retained by the environment, similar to the way a psychic tunes to an object in the environment to read the events of the past. As insane as it may sound, even now I do not feel like I was experiencing my own emotions—it seemed more like the emotions of those who were truly betrayed over a century ago were stimulating my subconscious mind. And those emotions made me realize that the rich and powerful who always work behind the scenes in politics, like the ones who supported the genocide a century and a half ago, could drown this canyon with a dam. Ag interests have repeatedly proposed building a dam at Temperance Flat on the San Joaquin River, just as they every few years keep proposing the construction of a dam at Roger's Crossing, only a few miles away from this pounding stone in the river bottom of the North Fork of the Kings River. Why not build a dam here as well since water is gold and continuous growth and profit is what matters in a capitalistic society? With ever deadlier weapons, this country has continued to be as savage to other people around the world, most recently in the cradle of civilization itself, as it once was to the people who lived in these mountains for many thousands of years. This pounding stone remains the only memorial for a race that was nearly exterminated, portending never-ending wars for land and resources all over the world for the benefit of the super wealthy who run this country behind the scenes. I suddenly knew why I was feeling betrayed: This river bottom and some of my most significant memories along with it remain just as expendable.
I felt unsettled for a long time, as if I needed to do something to stop any further unspeakable tragedies. I plopped down on the pounding stone and asked out loud, “What do I need to do?” The answer came immediately, “You don't need to do anything.” (An answer that I, in my usual state of mind, would never have expected.) For a moment I felt unconditional acceptance, as if I had encountered a Goddess in some archetypal hero's journey, a feeling that I don't remember ever experiencing in Fresno, CA. For a moment, I felt like I had connected with something eternal, something higher than my personality. All peoples vanish and all structures crumble, leaving the forces of the sun and the moon and the earth and invisible currents that connect us with the cosmos, forces that remain no matter what people do to each other or the world.
These feelings were as unexpected as the visions I sometimes experience in the forest. When I am wandering through the woods, I sometimes envision a golden Celtic Cross in my mind's eye. When this first happened to me, I unexpectedly envisioned a golden balanced cross by itself as I was hiking, and then a golden, truncated pyramid suddenly appeared below it. The equal-armed cross at the top, like the Celtic Cross, represents power in equilibrium. The truncated pyramid is a basic solid and represents the three dimensions of matter. Together the cross and the pyramid symbolize the power and harmony of spirit manifested in the material plane. The first time this vision occurred, I was familiar only with the Calvary Cross. After repeated experiences, I have come to understand the process of spiritual vision: A subtle force in nature stimulates the subconscious mind, which then casts an archetypal symbol that represents the spiritual force onto the “screen” of my conscious mind.
Magical connections with the forest occur when the mind tunes to the vibration of the Earth, known as the Schumann Resonance, or the "Heartbeat of Mother Nature." While in nature, I often feel a shift from the intense human focus usually required in the city, associated with the beta brain wave, to more relaxed states that open the mind to spiritual dimensions. Since the beta state is so often associated with normalcy and success, it is often quite difficult to make the shift. Personally, if I have not experienced nature for a long time, I often feel fear as this shift is about to occur: I am afraid that I will lose my personality, my sense of self--in the unknown. If I let go of that fear and simply continue on my path, magical things often happen after the other dimension of my self surfaces. I have visions of archetypal symbols with my eyes wide open and hear wise voices and experience intuitions.
In nature I have learned to experience spiritual dimensions by being passive and receptive. From my contact with Spirit in nature and in meditation I have developed through vision and contemplation a body of symbols and ideas, which has provided a foundation for understanding the subtle force of the Sun, the Christ-force, as well as other subtle forces revealed symbolically by the Tree of Life. The symbols and ideas, still within the planes of form, have led to greater intuitive knowledge and to the sense of being filled with light that I described above.
In the Qabalah, the Christ force is associated with the Sun, the source of all light and physical life on earth. To the Qabalist, some archetypal form of Christianity has and will always exist because the Christ force establishes a state of equilibrium, maintaining harmony throughout the cosmos. In the human mind it exists as an ethical tendency based on sympathy and love that manifests as harmony within the family and the community.
The vibrations of nature not only help me feel emotions more intensely and enable me to be more psychic, they also bring home to me how fragile I am. My father died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-five. Whenever I go to the river, I feel the lack of his presence deeply, and I can't avoid recognizing my own mortality. Coincidentally, when I recently turned fifty-five, my heart began beating irregularly whenever I ate a bit of gluten: beat, beat, beat, pause, pause, beat, beat, beat, beat, pause, pause, pause, beat, beat, pause, pause....This irregular rhythm would often continue for over an hour. Every time it occurred, I inevitably wondered if I was on the verge of a heart attack. I have eliminated gluten from my diet and no longer experience irregular heartbeats, but gluten, highly toxic to my body, had already wreaked havoc on my digestive system. I have to keep adjusting my diet to avoid other unpleasant, albeit less threatening, problems because I tend now to have an adverse reaction to anything that I eat too often, as if my immune system has become like Rambo in the jungle, shooting at whatever becomes noticable. The inability to function normally undermines the positive state of mind brought about by my spiritual practices. In the natural world, I also recognize that suffering and death are inescapable aspects of being an animal. Suffering, raw emotion, recognition of mortality have goaded me to grow spiritually. Even if I had lived an ideal life, experiencing the sun every day within the King's River watershed, without suffering I would not have developed spiritual practices that have opened me more to the subtle light that has revealed a life-altering truth: human beings of all races and ethnicities are essentially magnificent spiritual beings, full of harmony and light (once the veils have fallen), and all life is part of one infinite tapestry of energy.
If I had a church, I would arrange to meet on the pounding stone and contemplate the river every Sunday. We would close our eyes and mentally purify ourselves, draining all negativity away into the fires below the earth. We would open ourselves to the forces of nature and drop into the void in meditation for almost an hour, waiting quietly for some transpersonal voice or symbolic vision. At some point we would share our adventures in the subtle planes or our sense of connection with the earth or our sympathy for the beings of the earth. We would thank the Holy Spirit for the archetypal symbols that provide us with spiritual principles for understanding all subtle, cosmic forces, including the Christ force. We would focus on being full of light, harmony, magnificence and abundance. We would imagine that each person is like a sun radiating light for others.
I smiled as I followed a faint trail, hidden by fallen branches and brush, past the washed out bridge to another pounding stone. I will probably never have a church, but I will return as long as I live to this timeless place that enables other dimensions of my self to surface so that I feel the subtle forces within nature—even though my own society just over a century ago wiped out another culture that once existed here. Though my own culture is now suffering its own dark karma, and though I might soon pass away, I feel a peace that transcends history, that transcends understanding, as I follow a path by the river.

(1) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/14/567667/-

Poppies near a Native American Village Site

beat2d

00:00 / 04:06

Suite No. 14, Sixth Movement:
RETURNING TO THE MEADOW

When I was in college, one of my bar mates was an aspiring writer. Over french fries and libations, we would discuss weighty literary and philosophical topics. At one point, after a few beers, she blurted out, “You have to leave the meadow!” She sighed and chortled, believing that she had made another profound statement. I have to admit that I was impressed by the sentiment, having already imbibed a few, and I enthusiastically agreed. Having already lived in three different apartments in the El Dorado District, the most poverty stricken neighborhood in California, dubbed “Sin City” in the sixties, I had grown accustomed to the grittier side of life, the drugs, the criminality, the tawdriness. At the time, I believed she was implying that people cannot hope to understand art or literature without first questioning superficial middle-class values and losing their “innocence.”
Now I realize that she might have also been poking fun at the sixties. I have to admit, however, that I have always secretly wanted to “get back to the garden.” Having experienced more than enough chaos, corruption, needless suffering, destruction and waste, I understand the universal longing to return to Eden. Born at the tail end of the baby boom generation, I have always been fascinated by sixties’ counter culture movements. I have since understood that returning to paradise is not simply a matter of taking the right drug, joining the right political party, finding the right yoga position, or sitting at the feet of the right holy man.
I have always believed that you must become as a little child to regain paradise, possibly due to my Christian upbringing. I now understand that this is true in a very limited sense but also very misleading. We long to return to a time before we had to repress emotions to survive. But in childhood we have not had time to develop our minds and learn to harmonize instincts and emotions. There is more than a little suggestion that “returning to paradise” means giving free-reign to all instincts and emotions, no matter how selfish or destructive. It is easy to see why many efforts to “get back to the garden” have failed, and why so many individuals in the counter culture in the sixties have become libertarians.
A return to paradise can be made only if one expands consciousness through exultation and mental development. In a life-long process of expanding and disciplining the mind, sincere efforts must be made to balance the emotions and to comprehend spiritual principles. Returning to the meadow is a return to the state of being known as Tiphareth, the Christ center, on the Tree of Life. Through an expansion of consciousness, one achieves an understanding of the spiritual principles behind natural forces and develops compassion for all things. The Vision of Harmony leads to an understanding of the need to strive for the highest possible good as a way to harmonize the aspects of the self, the community and the society as a whole.
Analyzing the symbolism of the Sphere of Tiphareth, Dion Fortune states in the Mystical Qabalah, “The Order of Angels of Tiphareth are the Malichim, or Kings. These are the spiritual principles of natural forces and no one can control, or even safely make contact with elemental principles unless he holds the initiation of Tiphareth....For he must have been accepted by the Elemental Kings, that is to say, he must have realized the ultimate spiritual nature of natural forces before he can handle them in their elemental form. In their subjective elemental form, they appear in the microcosm as powerful instincts of combat, of reproduction, of self-abasement, of self-aggrandizement, and all those emotional factors known to the psychologist. It is obvious, therefore, that if we stir and stimulate these emotions in our natures it must be that we use them as servants of the higher self, directed by reason and spiritual principle” (193).
Regaining paradise, in other words, includes the understanding that if we “stir the emotions,” we must learn to channel them productively through reason and spiritual principle. Otherwise we might as well just continue to rely on the old tried and true methods of stifling emotion as a way to maintain social order.
According to Fortune, we must “give ourselves wholeheartedly to the corporate life” (157); in other words, we must accept that we are members of communities, instead of merely rebelling against any type of order that stifles the instincts and emotions. The powerful instincts of combat, reproduction, and self-aggrandizement will lift their heads even above Tiphareth, like the many-headed dragon in the glyph of the Garden of Eden after the Fall, if the higher self does not bring them into harmony.
We cannot escape the polarity within emotions and instincts, each of which has a positive and negative side. For instance, the powerful instinct of combat can lead to cruelty and destructiveness or to great courage and energy, to injustice or to justice. The instinct of reproduction can lead to lack of chastity and lust or to unselfishness and the production of beautiful works. The higher self harmonizes and channels instincts and emotions for the highest good, but this takes concentration, inspiration, willpower and experience. “Stirring and stimulating” the emotions can lead to lack of balance, resulting in what others perceive as mistakes in one’s personal life, while one is learning what it means to open the heart and use emotions wisely and productively. Learning to live in the higher self and regaining paradise is the “great work” of a lifetime, but in the process we understand the Power and the Glory, the Victory and the Splendor and ultimately the Beauty of the Tree of Life and the natural forces within us and the cosmos.

1) Fortune, Dion. The Mystical Qabalah. London: Society of Inner Light, 1998.

Mystical Tarot Realms

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San Joaquin River Gorge

Suite No. 14, First Movement:
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL

Bush Lupine Overlooking the San Joaquin River Gorge

Pounding Stone on the Experimental Range

Suite No. 14, Second Movement:

THE EXPERIMENTAL RANGE

San Joaquin River Gorge

Suite No. 14, Third Movement:
BRAIN WAVES AND THE ANIMA MUNDI

The Magician: Mercury

Suite No. 14, Fourth Movement:
THE LEMNISCATE

Baby Blue Eyes by the Kings River

Suite No. 14, Fifth Movement:
FEELING THE CHRIST-FORCE BY THE KINGS RIVER

Poppies near a Native American Village Site

Suite No. 14, Sixth Movement:
RETURNING TO THE MEADOW

San Joaquin River Gorge

Suite No. 14, First Movement: CONVERSATIONS WITH THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL

Bush Lupine Overlooking the San Joaquin River Gorge

Pounding Stone on the Experimental Range

Suite No. 14, Second Movement:

THE EXPERIMENTAL RANGE

San Joaquin River Gorge

Suite No. 14, Third Movement: BRAIN WAVES AND THE ANIMA MUNDI

The Magician: Mercury

Suite No. 14, Fourth Movement: THE LEMNISCATE

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Baby Blue Eyes by the Kings River

Suite No. 14, Fifth Movement: FEELING THE CHRIST-FORCE BY THE KINGS RIVER

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Poppies near a Native American Village Site

Suite No. 14, Sixth Movement: RETURNING TO THE MEADOW

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Suite No. 14, First Movement:
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL

Suite No. 14, Third Movement:
BRAIN WAVES AND THE ANIMA MUNDI

Suite No. 14, Fourth Movement:
THE LEMNISCATE

Suite No. 14, Fifth Movement:
FEELING THE CHRIST-FORCE BY THE KINGS RIVER

Suite No. 14, Sixth Movement:
RETURNING TO THE MEADOW