Transfiguration of Christ

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

I've been scrolling through various articles and images of the transfiguration. Still in grok mode so don't have a lot to say on it.

What I find curious is that both Moses and Elijah are standing next to the transfigured Christ. I don't know what this means but it seems important.

Why are the apostles groveling?

Are they really groveling or is something else going on?

I am wondering what Moses and Elijah meant to those who wrote the scriptures. Was their understanding of these characters the same as ours?

There's so much in Mythical, Christian and Hermetic imagery and vocabulary that has such intense meaning for those who brought them into the world as well as those who passed them on.

I am looking at the image above and know there is something compelling there and yet I see just an aesthetic picture; something quaint from a bygone era. I know there's more, and that's what draws me to iconography, gnostic images and stories.

This is what makes feast days challenging for me.

I'm an outsider.

Whatever that is in me that resonates when presented with these symbols, that's the insider.

My answer for now is to continue reading, asking questions, praying. There's is not much else to do.

St. Julian of Norwich

I don't know a lot about this mystical lady from Norwich England. From what I've read on Wikipedia I find her fascinating. Her writings such as Revelations of Divine Love illuminate an aspect of divinity that is in stark contrast to the standard image popular among Christianity today and her time as well.

This very well known quote is one of hers: "All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well."

This to me speaks to the 'Okay-ness' of things in spite of troubles, frets, difficulties and even suffering. The last thing needed in relating to the divine is fearful constant trembling at a god that is secretly believed to be out to get us. A god that we somehow privately understand has rigged the game all along is one that is difficult to relate to or even want to relate to and take seriously.

I think Julian not only presents us with a corrective to this wrathful god-image, but an alternative that can be counted on - at least until we come to our own understanding or gnosis.

There are so many mind made hindrances that prevent us from trekking the spiritual path. To my mind, St. Julian dispels many of these and her work is the healing salve that allows our seeking nature to be at home and have a place to work from.

Be a Passer By

I was reading today C.S. Thompson's Book "Prayers for Nothing" and read a passage that I thought to be a very beautiful way of relating to life. It reminded me of saying 42 from the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said "Be a Passerby".

This short saying can be quite puzzling and I continue to reflect on it often. At first one may think it's saying something like "Be apathetic". But a passerby is simply one who moves on unattached to each place. He is not necessarily unavailable to the places he visits, but he moves on like a river that may feed the crops or flood a valley and yet still continue on it's way back to it's source.

Gnostics are often accused of being world denying and perhaps many were and are. 'World denying' in this sense is synonymous with 'life denying'. But many of the Gnostics I know today are not this way at all and I believe Thompson's views reflect a more life embracing view while also recognizing the importance of unmasking the fraudulent and unjust.

Here is the excerpt, both the poem and commentary:

I knelt here once and asked with outstretched hands, For things that don’t mean anything at all. So I will kneel and ask for nothing now. The things we want are worthless, and the worldDenies them to us to expose the fraud. I’ll praise the mercy of this savage God, Who forced me to approach Him as I am-A man with open eyes and empty hands.

No matter what we create it won’t last forever. The so-called immortality of great art is just a slightly longer moment in a vast span of time, which will disappear as if it never existed just as we do. But beauty is its own end; it requires no prop. No one asks the Cathedral of Chartres if it ought to have been built; its magnificence is its justification. We shouldn't cultivate the spirit merely in order to chase the chimera of happiness, and we shouldn't be so naive as to think that we can be free of pain. We should cultivate our spirits for no other reason than to make them beautiful, to create in our own selves the harmonious balance of which we’re capable. This beauty includes every aspect of a life well-lived- from struggle and ambition to love and service, treating others with respect and equality while not being afraid to fight for what’s right, accepting the hard facts of a hard world while retaining the capacity for joy and ecstatic awe. If we find happiness along the way, then so be it, and if we find suffering instead then so be it. Either way, we’ll become something more than we were, whatever our talents or lack of them. We’ll be able to say we actually lived. In a world where so many people only pass the time, marking the minutes in Thoreau’s “quiet desperation” until it is time to die, that is reason enough.

A Prayer to the Archangel Saint Michael

O glorious prince of the heavenly army, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the eternal combat, which we sustain against the powers of darkness, malice and ignorance, which afflict us on this aeonial battlefield of our earthly life! Come, invincible leader of the host of heaven, guardian of the paradise of the world and wielder of the double-edged, flaming sword! Aid and sustain us in our defense against the adversary; and come to lead us finally into the presence of the Most High, into the abode of the blissful. Enlighten and purify us, O Thou great and mighty Archangel Michael, grant us to abandon the works of darkness and to love the Gnosis of the Light; so that whilst all things of this world pass away we may ever hold fast those things which abide for evermore.


from the meditations at the Ecclesia Gnostica
http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/lect155.htm

Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?', say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?', say, 'We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.' If they ask you, 'What is the sign of your father in you?', say to them, 'It is a movement and a rest.'"

~Gospel of Thomas: saying 50

Holy Apostle Matthias

Today is the feast day of Holy Apostle Matthias. I've never heard of him before today and in line with my endeavour to read about the saints as their feast days approach, I tried to find more about him on the web.

There seems to be very little written about him. He was born in Bethlehem and is of the tribe of Judah. He was a student of Simeon. He replaced Judas Iscariot as the twelfth apostle.

I did not find much more other than he may have authored some Gnostic Gospels (or more likely had a Gospel named after him). The Gospel of Matthias no longer exists but has shown up referenced in the writings of several prominent early Christians from Origen to Jerome.

Like many of the saints from this time period, he was also a martyr according to some accounts.

Gospel of Truth

Lately, I've been looking for which of the many many gospels resonate for me. I was fortunate the other night when I happened on the Gospel of Truth believed to have been written by Valentinus.

Here is a passage that caught me as I read it:

It is a day in which it is not fitting that salvation be idle, so that you may speak of that heavenly day which has no night and of the sun which does not set because it is perfect.

Say then in your heart that you are this perfect day and that in you the light which does not fail dwells.

If I could keep what this does to me with me throughout the day, what would happen? How does this translate?

It goes on as if anticipating my questions:

Speak concerning the truth to those who seek it and of knowledge to those who, in their error, have committed sin.

Make sure-footed those who stumble and stretch forth your hands to the sick.

Nourish the hungry and set at ease those who are troubled.

Foster men who love.

Raise up and awaken those who sleep.

For you are this understanding which encourages. If the strong follow this course, they are even stronger.

And now after the do's, the do nots:

Turn your attention to yourselves.

Do not be concerned with other things, namely, that which you have cast forth from yourselves, that which you have dismissed.

Do not return to them to eat them.

Do not be moth-eaten.

Do not be worm-eaten, for you have already shaken it off. Do not be a place of the devil, for you have already destroyed him.

Do not strengthen your last obstacles, because that is reprehensible.

For the lawless one is nothing. He harms himself more than the law. For that one does his works because he is a lawless person. But this one, because he is a righteous person, does his works among others.

And finally:

Do the will of the Father, then, for you are from him.

These to me seem to come more out of a mode of being then merely being laws to observe. They're words of advice from a place of knowing.

Making a Place for the Light of Gnosis

The world needs my cooperation. I suppose it needs all of our cooperation too. In economics class we learn that human desire is practically endless and therefore scarcity exists. Like a PEZ candy dispenser, once one attraction or aversion is satiated, the next one is there waiting for our attention. Economic efficiency means 'more and faster'. This is the reality of the world. This is my reality, at least mostly.

I don't think desire is bad, not real desire. But often what passes for desire is merely lifeless diversions or things of a habitual nature - a reflection of things once full of life that have now become encrusted and locked into place.

I've also wondered at the question of 'justification' and what that means. What, in terms of the every day choices we make can be justified? Should everything be justified? To what degree does the need to justify favor this zombie encrustation process.

There is something in me that is eternally justifying, evaluating, calculating, protecting and holding on to. I suppose that's just the way things work but sometimes in seeing this, I recognize the sterility and pointlessness of it as well. The whole thing is a lifeless treadmill going nowhere fast.

I don't think there's anything wrong with making it in the world, but if all of my actions are 100% driven by this way of seeing things, where is there room for anything else?

Is there anything else? It seems so to me. In quite moments between the waking world and the world of dreams there is a something else. And I pursue this something else into my waking moments. I want to capture it in unsuspecting moments. I want to work with it in the way I do things too.

To me this 'something' turns the whole striving mess on it's head. Scarcity has nothing to do with it.

At this time of year as Gnostics, we celebrate the coming of the light into the world. During Advent, we waited in quiet anticipation for its arrival. During this time of Christmas we recognize its humble birth and incarnation into the world.

I imagine the world, if it could even perceive it, would see this new life as an alien intruder perhaps or even be threatened. Harod comes to mind.

What I've been slowly realizing again and again is that in my life and the decisions I make, there are no guarantees. I have to work to make space for this light. It doesn't happen by itself as far as I can tell. Like an infant, it must be protected and nurtured.

How to protect and nurture the child, I have no idea but I know making space in meditation and paying attention to dreams and fellow travelers is allowing a feedback process to happen. But I have to give it priority and make space. That's not easy.

The difficulty is that in terms that the world or system understands, all of this is unjustifiable. The infant remains unjustified because the child is non-rational. I suspect that all of us who to any degree are doing this are running against the grain of things and what do we have to say for ourselves?

As for me, I need to learn to drop the need to rationalize everything. That is likely my biggest bane and it's very tiresome. Some things just are and the best things are non-rational from poetry to jazz music to kissing to general silliness. I know this and yet...

Protecting this light against all odds is what matters most. Every time I falter I must get up and keep going. There is no other way that I'm aware of.

There is a passage in Jung's Memories, Dreams and Reflections which speaks to this I think. It was a time when he was just coming to an understanding of two sides to himself.

About this time I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a "specter of the Brocken," my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew, too, that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.

Is Suffering Justified?

The title of this blog is a question posed by Father Scott Rassbach+ at the Spiral Inward forum. I had been thinking about this question quite a bit since he posted it and finally got around to posting a reply. I thought it would be good to put here on my blog as well. Many people have posted to the question so far.

******

There's a lot to think about here. First do the words go together? The word justification implies an intent or will is present as distinct from something outside the realm of conscious influence such as a tsunami.

At first it seems to me that suffering arises out of both realms, that which we could have done something about and that which is outside our control. Is that which arises outside our realm of influence suffering or merely pain? I would call someone dying a slow horrible death from an illness to be suffering. The word 'justification' doesn't seem to apply here because it is outside the realm of intent.

Yet there still seems to me to be a difference between the word 'suffering' and mere pain. One is transient while the other is not.

I think there is a metaphysical suffering from an experienced sense of separation. I think this is the type of suffering that is in question.

This suffering rests in a deeper place and endures while unconsciously influencing outlook and perception. It results in an ambient tinting of reality which often perpetuates itself because when one acts from a place of suffering there often is no clarity. Without clarity one can bumble along too and fro in a kind of feedback loop haze which amplifies and feeds itself.

I think this process is associated with the Wheel of fortune tarot card.

It's through spiritual practices of one kind or another that suffering is brought to the surface to where it is directly felt or seen. Sometimes a caring person who can see the suffering in another may point them to their own suffering as well. In buddhism I think this kind of action is referred to as “skillful means”  but am not sure about that. I think there is a corollary in Gnosticism but don't know if it has a name either. It may be experienced that the practice of meditation, magic or whatever is what brings about suffering.

And then at this point it may be asked “Is suffering justified?”. But in this case the suffering was already there and merely brought to the surface. When this happens it is experienced as pain and there is an opportunity for healing to happen if one doesn't try to bury it again where it remains as suffering.

There is a verse in “The hymn of Jesus” that speaks to this:
“If thou hadst known how to suffer, Thou wouldst have power not to suffer.
Know then how to suffer, and thou hast power not to suffer.”

It has been my experience so far that the suffering is removed or healed in bits and pieces rather than as a big chunk.

The question still remains, was and is all that suffering justified? Was it necessary in any way?

I don't understand why suffering exists in the first place but only that it does. So I don't understand the answer to the question but hope to have more insight into it.

I suspect at one level it wasn't meant to be but because of our stupor or sense of disconnection from the Pleroma or the All we err and let suffering happen where it doesn't need to. For the most part if not the whole part it is through us that suffering happens. I'm not talking about pain which comes and goes but suffering. It is pain that is in the nature of things but suffering doesn't need to be.

I don't believe in running away from it or escaping it but facing it the best we can because that is where our humanity lies. I think real human warmth and love lie where the suffering is, not somewhere else. I read somewhere that there are two sides of the equation that are a part of reality. There is pain in creation but also love. Pain is okay because it is part of the whole but without love it turns ugly and becomes suffering.

So it might sound a little corny, but perhaps we are meant to wake up to love so that suffering can be healed. A real love that was never not there because it was always the case.

I agree with Sr. Shilo that it is for us not God or rather God manifesting as our actions that love can happen in the world and suffering can be mitigated. I like what Father Stratford+ said about the demi-urge being a construct or fabrication. When we evade our part of the responsibility for the way things are we often project it on the other. The demi-urge is a perfect projection canvas.

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

Annunciation

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

-From Luke

Archangel Gabriel

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

-from Luke

Montesegur Day

On March 16th 1244 a fire burned at the base of a mountain known as "The Pog"* in the heart of the Languadoc region in Southern France. Around 220 souls were marched into that fire. The fortress here at the top of the mountain was where the Cathars put up their last temporal resistance for their life and their faith - for the right to live and practice a spirituality that for them connected them to their destiny in light, truth, love and gnosis.

For them, to deny this connection was to deny their own souls. For them, it made more sense to face the fires at the feet of unknowing faces and empty eyes then to turn away from the light of the Good God.

I can't imagine what it must have been like. What kind of doubts if any were had by these people of the Languadoc. If the soldiers who carried this out felt anything when they saw the eyes of children as they looked to their mother's and fathers in bewilderment.

What I do know is that they are not forgotten.

* It's interesting to note that the mountain's name "The Pog" and it's similarity to the word "pogrom" which means an organized massacre of an ethnic group. I don't know if this is a coincidence or if the terms are somehow historically connected.

Order of St. Esclarmonde Rule

I'm currently in the process of contemplating the six items in the OSE rule. It recently dawned on me that although I have a poetic sense for what they mean, I could have a more concrete understanding of each of these items and how they can be manifest in my day to day life. I also thought it would be a rewarding exercise to do so.

I also realized how easy it is for the rule to grow dim and sink more and more into the background as the weeks and months go by. With a busy life and laziness with whatever time is leftover it seems easy for this to happen even in spite of the daily practice of prayer and stillness.
I recently printed out the Rule, Vow and Prayer and put it next to my desk at work to keep them more in the foreground

I think that there is a lot to be explored there, a lot that I haven't tapped into yet or even thought about tapping into. I just noticed that each of the six elements of the rule can work with a busy life or a quiet one. It doesn't demand a lifestyle change - "nothing harsh, nothing burdensome"

A link to the rule can be found here:

http://egina2.blogspot.com/2007/03/order-of-saint-esclarmonde.html