THE LIVING TAPESTRY OF MEMORY

Grass Growing from Pounding Stone:
 San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

A RESPONSE TO THE TEMPERANCE FLAT DAM

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT

     Many years ago I heard a version of a legend about how one of the bluffs overlooking the San Joaquin River got the name “Squaw Leap."  In this version a squaw during a skirmish pulled a Spanish conquistador over the edge of the cliff. I didn’t think much of the story then, but one meaning of the story has stuck with me over the years: Some people will, without hesitation, give their life to protect a place and a community. 
     Over the years I have come to understand the natural, cultural and spiritual “significance of place”  at “Squaw Leap” and other areas in the foothills. I know where to find different species of flowers and birds every year. I know where to find many of the ancient Native American village sites. And I have experienced profound spiritual revelations in the river gorge and elsewhere in the mountains. 

Fiddleneck and Popcorn: 
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     For instance, almost every year in early spring near the parking lot of the San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area, popcorn and fiddleneck flowers bloom profusely. In some years baby blue eyes blanket such a large area that you might think the sky has fallen to the ground. As you progress along the trail you find red maids and purple vetch and poppies and soon are overpowered by the cloying fragrance of deer brush. Next to a small stream that runs across the trail, shooting stars bloom. Storks beak and fennel grace the edge of the trail. Then you find spot rugs of baby blue eyes and goldfields, each stretch of trail providing a different array of flowers.
     When I was a younger man, one day as I hiked down to the river all stress disappeared and my senses opened. I noticed flower after flower, each with its own stunning color and design. Feeling adventurous, I decided to stray just a little from the trail to explore the creek and discovered a pounding stone with one mortar. 

Pounding Stone next to River: 
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     The place took on a completely new significance for me. I realized that another culture had dwelt there for thousands of years, perhaps sixteen thousand years or more. Our own culture, in contrast, has only settled the area in the past century and a half. In most of the mountains and valleys, a few trails and pounding stones are all that is left of once great cultures that spanned across the the entire continent.
     What we did to those cultures was unspeakable, and what we continue to do to what they left behind and to the natural world that was once their home is also unspeakable. 
     I have returned many times to the river gorge. If you have only been there once or twice, you cannot possibly have a true perspective of the place. You have not seen how the living tapestry has changed from one year to another.  You do not know the different arrays of flowers that grow there given the varying weather conditions.  You do not have, in relationship to this place, the living, changing tapestry of memory that is the basis for so much meaning in our lives.

Lupine Bushes: 
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     Once, when I was hiking down to the river, I passed a lupine bush with numerous buds. That day at sunset when I returned back up the trail, I noticed that one of the buds had bloomed--perhaps the first bloom of spring in the gorge. The next year that I returned I searched for the lupine bush and discovered that its gray limbs were strewn upon the steep slope.  The other lupine bushes and the goldfields that had jeweled the slope the previous year were blooming again in the sandy soil, but there was also much more miniature lupine and owl’s clover. I risk stating the obvious when I say that these little things weave together to form the living tapestry of memory.
     A little farther down the path, just south of the second gate, over the past twenty-five years or so I have occasionally encountered a pale yellow flower that I have never seen anywhere else in the foothills (and I have seen much of the foothills). It only blooms when the conditions are right. I have never found it in wildflower books, so I don’t know its name.  It’s possible that the home of one of the last specimens of an entire species is right next to a path that will be buried underwater by the dam.

Popcorn Flowers below Bluff:
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     On that path I had what the Qabalists call the “Vision of Harmony.” I saw each life form, in the river gorge and the cosmos, as a field of energy within fields upon fields of living energy all harmoniously interwoven. But I cannot dwell on what kinds of spiritual experiences I have had or how or I have recovered from personal losses in the river gorge. 
     I know from experience that the jargon of an environmental impact statement often hides what is truly happening. This process is all about legality--essentially about what makes the destruction of this river gorge legal. However, what is legal and what is moral are two very different things indeed in this case.
     You cannot rip apart a magnificent tapestry thread by thread and hope to put it back together again. The habitat of the San Joaquin River Gorge is a majestic, sprawling tapestry in all its dazzling complexity and fragility. All the species, so interwoven and interdependent, have adapted to their own unique location and to each other over time immemorial. When you destroy an entire habitat individual “mitigation measures” become merely a piecemeal attempt to salvage the most threatened species. 

Goldfields near Dead Lupine:
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     Moreover, a habitat does not just consist of rare, threatened, or endangered species but of many interrelated species, all of which are significant. The loss of individual members of a “thriving" species due to habitat loss means a loss to the overall species as a whole, moving it closer to the “threatened" classification. Destruction of the entire habitat means dissolving the web of species that have adapted to each other within uniquely specific conditions that cannot be recreated anywhere else. You cannot hope to recreate the habitat ever again if you bury it under water--no part of the personal, cultural or biological significance of the habitat can truly be recovered or replaced. Mitigation measures become a pathetic attempt to save a few of the most fragile threads, not the whole tapestry.
     Once the water from the dam at Temperance Flat drowns the habitat, the threads of life that once tied the place together will be gone forever. The roots will die, the rocks and soil remaining unstable. 

Pounding Stone near Hydro Project in Inundation Zone of Millerton Lake: 
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     The dam will not only destroy an entire habitat. The water from the dam will bury the homeland of a Native American tribe under hundreds of feet of water, the last stage in a long, horrendous process of genocide. You cannot realistically mitigate the destruction of a Native American site, each of which is unique, each with its own cultural, historical and spiritual significance. You cannot move the pounding stones and house pits and burial sites and trails to some other place. 
     Despite all the discussion of mitigation in the environmental impact statement, adequate mitigation for ecocide or for the last stages of genocide is impossible.
     Every stretch of trail in the San Joaquin River Gorge Special Recreation Management Area contains personal significance to the people who have hiked or biked the trail with friends or relatives or alone. You cannot tear apart the living tapestry of memory within an individual or a community and hope to piece it back together. 

Baby Blue Eyes next to Trail: 
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     If the dam is approved, the public will pay more than a billion dollars (perhaps billions) for the destruction of this habitat and former Native American homeland. The public will pay to destroy the San Joaquin River Gorge Special Recreation Management Area. In other words, taxpayers will foot the bill for the destruction of its own land, essentially for private interests, such as the farmers on the east side of the valley.
     Claiming that water for salmon is a public benefit, after Friant Dam destroyed the original run, is an insult to the intelligence. The greatest public benefit would consist of spending the billions for water conservation measures, which have already proven to be far more cost effective, far more efficient and far less damaging to the environment. Government agencies should already know about these conservation measures.  If not, just a few minutes on the internet can be very enlightening.
     As a final insult, the burden of ensuring that mitigation measures are effective ultimately falls on the public. Too often, government agencies make a poor attempt to implement or “bird-dog” the implementation of mitigation measures.  To continue with the analogy, the public is left with the task of ensuring that a few threads of a huge tapestry are woven back together in a way that resembles the original.

Pounding Stone near Suspension Bridge: 
San Joaquin River Gorge Special Management Area

     Regarding the loss of the San Joaquin River Gorge Special Recreation Management Area, the only adequate mitigation would consist of replacing these public lands with habitat of equal size and natural values.  Without this one-to-one mitigation the public ends up a pathetic, hoodwinked loser, paying for ecocide and the destruction of its own lands and participating in the last stages of genocide, essentially for the benefit of private interests.  A dam at Temperance Flat would remain an unconscionable violation of the public trust in the broadest sense.

A RIDDLE

Trail near Pounding Stone, San Joaquin River Gorge

ANOTHER DAM RIDDLE

     Voters could soon give the government the right to “take” property from a land owner and destroy it without either paying for it or providing the owner with comparable property as mitigation.   
     Hard to believe, but the legislation requires the land owner to pay for the destruction of her own property--while a few people who control certain “rights” benefit from a valuable commodity found on her land.
     The property contains Native American cultural resources, including pounding stones and sacred burial sites supposedly protected by law. The property contains environmental resources, including twenty-four rare, threatened, or endangered species, also supposedly protected by law, as well as a stunning river ecosystem. All of this could be lost if voters pass this legislation.
     Have you guessed who the property owner is?

San Joaquin River Gorge

     This land is your land! If Proposition 1, the $7.5 billion water bond, passes, Temperance Flat Dam might be built and a public recreation area, the San Joaquin River Gorge Special Recreation Management Area, might be buried under hundreds of feet of water.
     Let me be perfectly clear: The public could vote to destroy its own property for the private gain of vested interests who control the water rights. The supposed public benefit, with a price tag of $1.25 billion: Water for salmon! Dams have helped salmon so much, haven’t they? 
      (Imagine what kind of uproar would ensue if the government took away a farmer's property and turned it into a public park....)
     The hydraulic brotherhood, a cabal of farmers, lobbyists, and politicians, is hoping that the drought has scared the public into voting against its own interests. 
     Socialism for salmon? What’s next, welfare for delta smelt? Who or what will be sponging off of taxpayers next? 
     According to Doug Obegi of the NRDC, “the federal feasibility study for Temperance Flat estimates that this project would cost nearly $2.5 billion and would yield only 61,000 to 76,000 acre feet of water per year. "  Obegi goes on to say that, "In contrast, the state has estimated that $1.4 billion in water bond funding for integrated regional water management (IRWM) projects like water efficiency, water recycling, and groundwater cleanup over the past decade leveraged $3.7 billion in local funding and has helped save or create nearly 2 million acre feet per year.  Big new dams simply can’t compete economically with these regional and local water supply projects."
     Peter Gleik also points out that “400,000 acre-feet of water per year can be quickly conserved by urban users by replacing only some of the many remaining inefficient toilets, showerheads, commercial spray-rinse nozzles, and washing machines. These savings would require an investment of under $2 billion.”
     That’s not even half of what we could save through conservation measures. According to Gleik, “Another 600,000 acre-feet per year of water can be saved by applying smart irrigation scheduling to 30% of the state’s vegetable and 20% of the orchard acreage, practicing regulated deficit irrigation on 20% of current almond and pistachio acreage in the Sacramento Valley, and converting 20% of Central Valley vegetables and 10% of orchards and vineyards to drip and sprinklers. These changes would save water at a cost of around $100 per acre-foot.” Why so much effort over the past decade to build Temperance Flat Dam even though conservation measures could save a lot more water for a lot less money? The farmers with the water rights in this region cannot as easily get a hold of this other water.  
     The Fresno Bee has admitted that “much of the new water” created by a dam at Temperance Flat “is already spoken for.” In fact, the government has already allocated water rights for five times the amount of water that exists in the state, according to the Bee and others. What chance does the public have to benefit in any significant way if so much water is already “spoken for” in this bizarre system of water rights? 

Baby Blue Eyes, Popcorn and Fiddleneck, San Joaquin River Gorge

     Some believe that building the dam might create a kind of “trickle-down effect.” The farmers, in other words, would receive more water,  keep people employed and prices down. This is a kind of perverted socialism for those who own the land and means of production, a “socialism for the wealthy.” If the dam is built, taxpayers would once again hand over public resources, including money and land and water, to the rich, revealing again the attitude that some businesses are too big to fail. The price of the dam would be another subsidy that  supports unsustainable, water-intensive crops such as almonds. Of course, with this subsidy farmers could continue to provide those cushy menial jobs that so many people covet! Without this subsidy, the public might refuse to pay for their expensive crops, forcing farmers to implement water conservation measures and grow crops more suited to the region. This is capitalism, after all. Isn't it?
     The NRDC also points out that the dam will create very expensive water: "the water coming out of Temperance Flat would cost more than $1,500 per acre foot....Even with massive taxpayer subsidies, the Bureau of Reclamation estimates that water would cost more than $200 per acre foot for agricultural contractors (far more than these districts pay today, especially since the project would eliminate much of the cheap $10 per acre foot water that is provided in wet years)." As so many continue to point out, the cost of water produced by new dams would be far more than the cost of water generated from water recycling, storm water capture, groundwater storage, or water conservation projects.
     People are hurting. Those in favor of the dam point to the bread lines forming in the Valley, without mentioning how our economic system continues to marginalize workers, especially farm laborers. I feel great sympathy for the farmworker during a drought. Why don’t we create an effective safety net for the farmworker as well as the farmer?
      Remember the 1,400 dams and all the subsidies that we have already provided for the farmers? Remember that farmers use about 75 percent of the water in California?
     The Valley is a semi-arid region, practically a desert, and we have suffered through many a drought without our civilization collapsing. The people who came before us somehow managed both to survive and preserve public land. Were they better at spotting corruption or simply more courageous?  According to the NRDC, “Importantly, the water bond does not earmark funding for Temperance Flat or any other surface storage project.” However, if the bond passes, this storage project will be eligible for development and, due to the feasibility study and draft environmental impact statement already completed, one of the first on the list to be approved. Given the numerous efforts by the hydraulic brotherhood over the past decade to build this dam, which I have witnessed, I suspect that they will use all of their influence to get the dam approved. The danger? If the dam is approved, only a handful of already over-extended activists will make any effort to stop it, especially since the San Joaquin River Gorge is not widely known.
      So let's review. A "yes" vote on the $7.5 billion water bond could mean that you agree that taxpayers should subsidize agri-business interests again with billions of dollars. And you agree that we should destroy public land for the benefit of private interests. And you agree that we should spend more money for far less water than we can conserve. And you agree to allow our legislators, and the vested interests they represent, to trample our laws regarding endangered species and Native American burial sites. 
      You might not have ever visited Yosemite, but would you want to bury that gem of public land underwater, mainly for the benefit of a few private interests? You might not have ever visited the San Joaquin River Gorge, but like Yosemite, this majestic public park still belongs to you. In this case, your vote actually matters! 
     Our economy has survived every drought before now, and it will weather this one. We have time--time for the politicians who supposedly represent us to address our water woes in a way that truly benefits the public, not the top few percent.

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.