In Our Likeness

י׳ בטבת תשע"א
Grael 13

The Na'vi say that every person is born twice. The second time is when you earn your place among The People forever ... [Jake Sully in Avatar]

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ
And Elohim [Divine Ancestors] said: 'Let us make the human in our image, after our likeness ... [Genesis/Bereshit 1:26]

Early this morning I dreamt.

Like the twice born Druid-Bard Taliesin (whose name means shining brow and who was first born as Gwion) was chased by the shapeshifting Welsh goddess Ceridwen to earn the gifts of Divine wisdom and prophecy, I was chased up a tree by a mythic sized white cow like the sacred white cow of Irish goddess of bounty Boann. Amidst the upper branches of the tree, the white cow bit at to eat me. She was shot by a bullet and (like the Glastonbury thorn tree was recently felled) fell from the bough of the tree.

Like the sacred white cow fell, I too fell from the bough of the tree and discovered that, also like the cow, I too had been shot with a bullet. I had been shot in the left hip, like my twice born Jewish ancestor Jacob was injured in the hip when he wrestled with the Divine stranger in the darkness and earned the greater name Israel, like Gwion earned the greater name Taliesin through his wrestling with Ceridwen.

When I fell from the bough of the tree, I landed in a pit, like my Jewish-Egyptian ancestor Joseph had been thrown into a dry snake and scorpion filled pit by his brothers, which in my dream, was like an underworld cavern, like the cavern in the Celtic Avalonian immram to the Tor.

The living inner surface of the dark stone walls and floor of the pit-cavern emanated brightly like my guide-myself Heulwen-Hwylwen. The bright living emanations reached out, moved toward and surrounded me. The emanations were made of myriads of intertwining arm-like roots like the roots of the Celtic Tree of Life and surrounded me like the Celtic Tree of Life's roots surround the tree itself. Like the roots of the Mother-Ancestor Tree of Souls of the Pandorian Goddess embraced Jake Sully in the movie Avatar, the bright arm-roots emanating with light walked out from the cavern's surfaces shapeshifting into the embracing loving arms of my Ancestors.

Like Jake Sully in the physical body of his avatar, embraced by the Ancestors in the arms of the Divine Tree of Souls, I woke up.

Like Jacob is reborn Israel, and Gwion is reborn Taliesin, I am reborn Heulwen-Hwylwen.