Holy Archangel Uriel

"And Uriel said to me: 'Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons 'as gods', (here shall they stand,) till 'the day of' the great judgment in which they shall be judged till they are made an end of. And the women also of the angels who went astray shall become sirens.' And I, Enoch alone, saw the vision, the ends of all things; and no man shall see as I have seen." ~Book of Enoch

Currently I'm trying to understand Uriel. It seems now to me that Uriel sheds light on where energy is being given to the creative act in conjunction with lower powers. Where the act of invisible seduction is happening by the powers of fate.

Perhaps personally Uriel can show us where we're giving too much energy to the false gods of this world or the system.

"We Dance"

When Joseph Campbell was in Japan for a conference on religion, he overheard an American delegate say to a Shinto priest, “We’ve been now to a number of ceremonies and seen many of your shrines. But I don’t get your ideology.  I don’t get your theology.”

            The Shinto priest paused as if in deep thought, and then slowly shook his head.  “I don’t think we have an ideology.  I don’t think we have a theology.  We dance.”

~From The Power of Myth series

Valentine for Denise

Your dark eyes

the curves that grace your face

There is something about your presence

When I'm with you I know I'm home

where I've always belonged

This moment

This time

with you

A universe in a grain of sand

that is our life together

This one life

me, you and our children too

All eternity held in this moment
this one life we have together

I love you my darling Denise
I've always loved you
and all my longings are resolved in you

Happy Valentines my dear Denise

What is this longing?

What is this longing that hurts this way?

How can such sweetness make me undone?

I don't want anything else

only to be here with you.

To cry a thousand tears

a thousand years.

I don't want anything else.

Just this moment

just this one time with you.

Michaelmas

Michael is the bad ass of heaven and when it comes to spiritual warfare, he is the one you want on your side aiding in the struggle with the archons and rulers.

He helps you find them, face them and say to them, "I see you now, I know that you're there and with that I give you a name and number". After all, the source of their power is their ability not to be seen.

Here's a link to a gnostic homily of St. Michael defender of gnosis by Rev. Steve Marshall.

The Jhanas, Gnosis and Maps

I've just finished a book on concentration meditation called Practicing the Jhanas by Stephen Snyder and Tina Rasmussen. It gives a pretty thorough map of the Jhana territory and their mastery. The Jhanas are standard meditation states that have been known since long before Buddhism.

One interesting point the book makes is that one should not aim for spiritual attainments including Jhanas. I imagine that applies to gnosis as well. One learns to do the meditation well just as one hopefully does in anything else in life. The jhanas arise naturally on their own.

I have reflected lately on how much striving and efforting I have put into spiritual practice. It is an interesting point of view to aim between striving and complete slacking.

I have also lately begin dis-trusting all spiritual maps. They are all well meant to be sure and maybe have their place at some point on the spiritual adventure. I am finding a lot of disagreements among various seasoned spiritual practitioners across all traditions and am coming to realize there's a lot of work to be done in this area.

My advice to self is to take the recipe book mentality with a grain of salt. It's useful to a point, but one must always be willing to let go of their ideas of how things are supposed to go down. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes one cannot be aware of and one should know that this is the case and be OK with it too.

The self that does the practice is simply part of the big picture: an important part, but a part nevertheless.

Wisdom of Chief Seattle