Showing posts with label days of awe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label days of awe. Show all posts

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Fire By Night, The Divine Torch


ט' חשון תשס"ת
Phasma Priscus 11

Today marks astological Samhain, and last night I dreamt a dream of fire preceded by the idea of a "monopoly" game. Monopoly is a word which brings unity and multiplicity together into a singular word.

As the idea of a "monopoly" game ran with wings through my sleeping mind last night, the dream emerged.

I was traveling west toward town with my mother and other family members in a vehicle down the road which runs in front of the house. A few miles from the house, as we neared the bend in the road which swerves off toward the north, and exactly the moment before we entered the curve toward the north, the ground beneath the vehicle began rumbling mightily - indeed a major earthquake was in the making. The road buckled and upheaved like a wave, sending the vehicle in the opposite direction - sliding east back toward the house front first (and always I was primarily seeing through the vehicle's windshield - in other words, the vehicle was always facing the direction it was traveling).

As the vehicle slid down the road toward the east front first, the road began to glow red hot as if the core of the molten earth was coming to the surface. It glowed so brightly fire red that I wondered how the wheels and the bottom of the vehicle were remaining intact and not melting away. Surely, the road was turning into pure molten fire.

Yet, the vehicle remained intact somehow and I felt no heat at all sitting inside it, though I realized that the power of the fire was fully capable of dissolving all material substance into pure energy. The road was melting into firehot energy, and though I could clearly see it through the windshield, I felt no heat.

Then, as we arrived in front of the house, the upheaving wave of the earth shifted toward the opposite direction, sending the vehicle back again toward the west. The road glowed hotter and hotter and I felt we were surely going to be swallowed up by the molten earth, be dissolved as material beings, and die. I have never before in a dream felt the real possibility of actually dying, but last night, I did. Yet, even as I feared that I might actually die, I had no feelings of panic. My feelings and thinking were that I was facing some sort of finality, contained some wondering of what lay beyond death (would I dissolve or go on in some manner), and peace that I would die free of the heaviness of guilt, having lived an honorable life to the best of my ability. I was thinking - this is it, this is the end.

As we again neared the curve north, in front of me through the windshield I saw it - a wall of pure molten fire loomed up and we were going to plunge into it. I shut my eyes and prepared to die. As we plunged into the wall of molten fire, I woke up.

It was still night. I wrote a note of the dream down to remember and went back to sleep.

"Only the Torch is found by itself ..." Klach Pischey Chochmah 55

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Days Of Awe


Witch's Shofar, Days Of Awe

ה' תשרי התשס"ט
Blodlessing 6

The fifth shaman stone (from the yard outside my bedroom window) in my Temple Collection is represented by the Celtic goddess Blodeuwedd in the form of an owl (as opposed to her fair flower form as discussed in a previous entry, Relentlessly Faithful And True). It is in this form that she is definitively known as a Dark Goddess.

The short chapter in the book Doorways To The Otherworld (Catrin James), which discusses Blodeuwedd in her owl form, is introduced with the picture of a feather. Not with an owl, but with a feather. Interestingly, right before my Rosh Hashanah encounter with the cricket (קריקט), searching purposefully around in the grass for stones, I came across a single very small feather. I picked the feather up, gathered it into the folds of my skirt with two stones I had found (side by side) just moments before, and continued walking. A few seconds later, I encountered the cricket (a totem of "finding light within the dark", אתהפכא חשוכא לנהורא).

I wasn't looking for a feather, but I found one and kept it, knowing that its purpose would come to me later. What indeed is the connection between Blodeuwedd in her owl form, a feather and a cricket? The thread of connection is active release from a ritual binding and subsequent resurrection.

Catrin James writes of Blodeuwedd in the form of an owl:

It is through becoming an owl that Blodeuwedd escapes the manipulations of men who seek to confine her. Also (in the myth under discussion) Blodeuwedd as flower woman and owl is the only one not to be drowned ... And even as Blodeuwedd does not drown in the lake, so too you will find that in holding on to your truths at this time of transformation, you too will not drown ... In swimming in the ocean of the mystical, others may drown by listening to the wrong words, or identifying with ego, but in holding things lightly yet at the same time paradoxically realizing the sanctity of these messages, these visions, you are coming to a greater wisdom ... The owl dreamstone is to do with silence, stillness, and if you find anything belonging to owl, or indeed any other gifts of the sacred creatures such as feathers, these too can be added to your collection, amongst your most sacred things ... it is a visitation of the goddess, it is the unseen and she has put her hand upon you for a reason that you may not know right now but in the fullness of time will develop, even as darkness gives way to light.

Finding Blodeuwedd's feather on the second day of Rosh Hashanah is yet another amazing "coincidence", just like with my encounter with the deer on Erev Rosh Hashanah (as described in Witch's Shofar).

Taking the feather symbolism further into elucidating the thread of connection, a feather is used in preparation for Pesach (Passover) during the ritual called Bedikat Chametz (a ritual search for chametz, a substance which spiritually is that which can sour the outcome of spiritual development or mystical work). The important idea, especially within the unique context here with regard to Rosh Hashanah and the entire High Holy Day period, is that the sacred point of bedikat chametz is not to find chametz, but is to resolve all doubts. The existence of doubts implies the existence Amalek (collective negative energies which seek to destroy a person or people). Bedikat chametz therefore symbolizes the ritual destruction of Amalek (which in my case, would be all the negative energies which seek to destroy me and that which I am).

Rabbi Wein writes of Amalek's success as a destructive force throughout history in an article pertaining to Rosh Hashanah:

The centerpiece of our Rosh Hashanah observance, prayers, and sounding of the shofar is the remembrance of the akeidah – the binding of Yitzchak to the altar and Avraham’s apparent willingness to sacrifice him as worship to God. The akeidah has followed us throughout our long history. There have been millions of akeidot in Jewish history and most of them ended in the death of the victim and not in him or her being spared.

Yitzchak emerged from his experience of the akeidah (a wizard's binding ritual) alive (symbolized by the shofar), just as I emerged from my akeidah alive (symbolized by the appearance of the antlerless deer by the roadside). As Yitzchak was not slaughtered by knife, neither was I slaughtered by becoming involved in a fatal collision of my car with a deer. Finding Blodeuwedd's feather destroys all doubt that I am spared. And, as Yitzchak was resurrected from the Rosh Hashanah altar of Avraham, so too am I resurrected from the Rosh Hashanah altar of the Sacred Earth, through my encounter with the cricket subsequent to finding Blodeuwedd's feather. As a totem creature, cricket "is about resurrection. Awesome!

Thank Goddess, She has released the bound. Of course, upon my fifth shaman stone shall be written matir assurim (מתיר אסורים) in Hebrew, Ogham and Bardic runes. Interestingly, the shoresh-root (תור) of the word matir (meaning 'who releases') can, among its many meanings [1], mean "purposeful searching" (like I was doing, looking for stones) and "foraging for grass" (like the cricket was doing when I, looking for stones, saw her).

My Torah is Her Torah.

Footnote:

[1] Etymological Dictionary Of Biblical Hebrew, Matityahu Clark

Dare to be true to yourself.