RETURNING TO THE MEADOW

Tiger Lilies, Arrow Leaf Tansy, Angelica, Columbine

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, pollution, 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.           

Columbine

     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 exaltation 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).

Columbine, Tansy, Angelica, Tiger Lily

     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 of 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.

Camas and Shooting Stars

     
NOTE: If you are wondering what has happened to the other essays that I’ve written for this blog over the past year, I have collected the ones I like and put them in what I consider the most effective order after eliminating mistakes and redundancy. If you wish to experience these superior versions, click on this link: Exploring the Experimental Range.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE: Inspired by the topic of “returning to the meadow,” I have written a modest story (with illustrations) for a harp and piano concerto in four movements. If you wish to experience the story, music, and illustrations, click on this link: The Last Meadow.

All of my revised work can be accessed at this site: PATHS AND THRONES.

All text, music and illustrations Copyright 2014, by Jim Robbins.
Tarot cards by Pamela Coleman Smith (in public domain).

BUILDING THE TEMPLE

Four of Cups

THE INSPIRED SELF

     Once, when I was fishing with my father and brother at Dinkey Creek, I put down my pole and sprawled on a smooth stone. I was fourteen at the time, and I remember feeling stressed from a rough week in middle school. On the cool stone, as I gazed at the pine trees and listened to the stream, suddenly all tension slipped away--as if the surrounding trees were breathing tranquility into me, and my consciousness ballooned. The pine needles were glittering in the sunset, and I sensed the trees and I were part of innumerable fields of living, light-filled energy.  I was totally inspired, as though a god had breathed into me, and I felt connected to all things.
     My father turned his thumb toward me and muttered to my brother, “Why can’t you be more like him?” 
     My father and brother stared at me. Was my dad actually glaring at me? I couldn’t tell for sure, but I realized that my inspiration had somehow become apparent to them both. I felt like I was emanating light and love, but I was at a loss for words. I realized that any attempt to explain my exaltation would only diminish it.

Three of Cups

     That was one of my first magnesium flashes of higher consciousness. Since then I have occasionally experienced an unexpected ballooning of consciousness at strange times and places, such as two in the morning in my living room or nine in the morning at work. How I am feeling at the time seemingly has no relevance:  I can be feeling miserable, bored to death, exhausted, comfortable or uncomfortable. Only when lost in hyper-focus while painting or writing or composing music, or lost in the void during meditation, or lost in devotion during ritual have I experienced exaltations similar to the moments of unexpected ecstasy. 
     I developed a thirst for inspiration at a young age. The flashes of exaltation often left me with the sense that daily life was stale and dull, but in retrospect I realize that each inspiration provided an expansion of consciousness that never completely diminished. I eventually discovered that every time I made myself available to moments of inspiration--in nature, in ritual, in meditation, and through the arts, I opened the door a little more for higher consciousness.

Tree of Life

     Only when I began having visions of archetypal symbols that represent spiritual principles did I realize that these moments of profound inspiration were related to a state of being on the Tree of Life known as Tiphareth, the sphere of the Sun and the higher self. Since the term “higher self” has been so over used that I believe it now has little meaning, I am choosing instead the term “inspired self,” which suggests the "immediate influence of God or a god," (from the Latin spīritus, breath, spirit) and suggests as well the inebriation of ecstasy, joy, exaltation. (Being “inspired” is similar to being “enthused,” literally “possessed by a god.”)
     Recently during meditation I envisioned my soul radiating light like the sun: I felt free, without labels or limiting beliefs, without need for anything better. Then suddenly a golden plate and chalice on a white tablecloth appeared in front of me. A golden, equal-armed cross with a brilliant light around it floated to the right of the chalice. Finally, in my mind’s eye, I saw a golden crown  on the white tablecloth. Tiphareth is the Sphere of the Sun, the source of light and life, and gold, which is incorruptible and does not tarnish, is the mineral associated with that state of being. The symbols in my vision reveal the magnificence, harmony and abundance within the human spirit. I also had an epiphany about why I was experiencing the vision: Cumulatively, the moments of inspiration expand consciousness until higher psychism is possible.  
     I consulted my dog-eared copy of The Mystical Qabalah. According to the author, Dion Fortune, in Tiphareth we find the archetypal ideas behind creation that have emanated from the higher planes. Fortune refers to Tiphareth as the “Treasure House of Images on a higher arc” while making this critical distinction: “but whereas the astral plane is peopled by images reflected from forms, the images of the Sphere of Tiphareth are those formulating, and as it were crystallizing out, from the spiritual emanations of the higher potencies" (The Mystical Qabalah 189). 
     The lower astral plane reflects the forms within the human mind and the physical plane. The mind during moments of higher psychism in the Sphere of Tiphareth, on the other hand, rises above the lower astral plane to the archetypal ideas emanating from the higher states. Tiphareth, (“Beauty” in Hebrew), is the transition point between the states of force and form and also functions as a point of equilibrium on the Tree. The astral forms of archetypal symbols in Tiphareth, such as the golden, equal-armed cross, embody the spiritual principles that emanate from the higher, formless Spheres.

Six of Cups

     The mind can only become prepared for this higher psychism through the expansion of consciousness that occurs through repeated experiences of inspiration. Fortune points out that the mystic is at first like a child in a humble manger, not like the Christ giving the Sermon on the Mount. The mystic, in other words, must first “build the Temple” through these moments of exalted and expanded consciousness. After each inspiration, the white heat of pure consciousness eventually diminishes, but “in the brief space of its lasting, changes occur in the temperament, and the mind receives new concepts and undergoes an expansion that never wholly retracts. The tremendous exaltation of the experience dies away, but we are left with a permanent expansion of personality, an enhanced capacity for life in general, and a power of realization of realities that could never have been ours if we had not been forcibly swung across the great gulf of consciousness by the momentum of ecstasy” (183).

Six of Wands

     Usually we spend our time in what Fortune calls “brain-consciousness,” the surface mind that addresses the demands of daily life. In a stressful capitalistic society, the effective use of brain consciousness is highly valued, to the point that any attempt to expand consciousness beyond the physical plane is considered irresponsible, narcissistic, kooky, impractical, even unsafe. (In most other social situations, of course, I wouldn’t dare to describe experiences of exaltation and expanded consciousness.) This reveals the essential conflict within a society that is both capitalistic and Christian: without the expansion of consciousness produced by inspiration, the individual cannot know the emanations of spiritual principle from the "higher potencies" in the Sphere of the Cosmic Christ.
     Every human being can access the Christ-center by remaining open and honoring the multiple dimensions of the psyche.  This requires sacrifice, which is the transmutation of force through a shift of focus, a different use of emotional and mental energy. This sacrifice is an aspect of the Mysteries of the Crucifixion, one of the two spiritual experiences of the Sphere of Tiphareth, the other being the Vision of Harmony--the internalization of the harmony, magnificence, and abundance of the human spirit and the cosmos, which occurs in the temple of exaltation.