17 May - (Air) Liber LXV, 2:14-16
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14. Then rose she up from the abyss of Ages of Sleep, and her body embraced me. Altogether I melted into her beauty and was glad.
15. The river also became the river of Amrit, and the little boat was the chariot of the flesh, and the sails thereof the blood of the heart that beareth me, that beareth me.
16. O serpent woman of the stars! I, even I, have fashioned Thee from a pale image of fine gold. -
This strikes me as a birthing process of some sort
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Chapter 2 is mostly a series of parables. This first one is, broadly, a dream-like paragraph of symbols expressing projections concerning the HGA (to pick one of many possible ways that I could say the same thing). As such, it has many ways that it can be viewed (and some excellent insight has been displayed in people's response to these verses over the last several days).
This year, when working through these verses, they kept speaking of that variation of "doing your True Will" that is called "pursuing your Ideal."
I would render it thus:
The river is the stream of life (confirmed by it being a river of blood) - perhaps not distinguishable from Chiah itself. The boat (floating like a cell in the blood stream) is a single incarnation - a single living creature being carried along by the life-stream itself, born by the life-breath blowing the Yesod sails. The boat of "shining steel" is, first of all, iron born on the life-stream of blood (and this probably also means other things such as its durability, etc.).
Asi (Isis) appears as the man's (any person's) highest and purest ideal - whatever that may happen to be. As such, she appears the way emerging, life-driving ideals first appear: golden, splendid, the most beautiful and wondrous thing we see... and artificial, unliving, because, at first look, we rarely see our true ideal as it really is. We see our projections reflected in it. (It is, after all, a reflection of our own innate "gold" that we don't see yet.)
So he loved her - was completely enamored with the life-driving ideal projected from his own being - offered his life to her completely. - Initially in v.7 he was witnessing this from outside all of it - from afar - but, on being enraptured with this ideal, he threw himself into the life-stream entirely. Loosing all strictures, easing his tendency to smallness, he "hurled himself into it," as we do (and must do) with that which most profoundly inspires us. He got more into his unique incarnation ("gathered himself into the the little boat") and, being wholly into his life, devoted himself to his Ideal, pouring his vital and creative and animating force into it as if sexually generating the life of his Ideal (v.9).
This was insufficient: She remained artificial, not coming to life. How many years do we pour ourselves into a thing, even corrupting and distorting it as nobody else pays attention> We can't figure out why the world seems so blind and deaf to our creation or to our exaltation of what seems to us the most precious and singular thing in all life. Nobody seems to think it's as important as we do.
And yet, he continues, year after year, to love it, to pour himself into it, to upraise it. We even corrupt it with our obsession, bespoiling it with our rants (with our efforts to foist it on others - ignorant of the fact that they have their own unique ideals).And, in the process, in our own struggles and efforts, our projections shift. Shadow sides emerge, and the original pristine preconception we had starts showing cracks, starts breaking up. We don't lose any devotion to the Ideal at all (at least, not for long), but our initial pristine, perfect, golden, flawless, artificial image of it starts to crumble.
At some point, despair may even cause us to want to throw it all overboard, and ourselves with it - to dash ourselves out of the highly specific "boat" of our own life and run away from it all (v.12). But we don't.
And then - sometime, somehow - the Ideal comes into life on its own. Perhaps it is our surrender following despair - certainly it is our persistence! - probably a natural ripeness. It comes alive out from under our control, emerges into a life of its own independent of our projections. The thing itself was never lost, just our illusions about it. What we were always really loving, really giving our life to, is now visible to us as a genuinely living thing, pure and splendid as starlight, warm and returning love as only an autonomous living thing can. We melt into its beauty, and we are glad (v.14).
And when this happens, one consequence - one "result" - is that the stream of life now appears to us as the river of immortality. Blood has turned to nectar. We understand that we have just been riding in a closed-off "chariot of flesh" that has borne us along the stream of life.
The Ideal is alive, serpentine, creative, magical, beyond our preconceptions. But it all began (for us, at any rate) because we fashioned something from fine gold - saw our inmost best in it - dared upraise it and love it and give ourselves to it unremittingly.
My worship, that would be inspired by these verses, is the way I already have lived my life since at least puberty (as aggravating as that often was to the people around me).
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14. Then rose she up from the abyss of Ages of Sleep, and her body embraced me. Altogether I melted into her beauty and was glad.
15. The river also became the river of Amrit, and the little boat was the chariot of the flesh, and the sails thereof the blood of the heart that beareth me, that beareth me.
16. O serpent woman of the stars! I, even I, have fashioned Thee from a pale image of fine gold.Amrit, eh? So. it's come to that again. Honesty compels me to be a little annoyed at this point.
I refuse to make obvious statements about Tiphareth/Beauty and the K&C of the HGA, and Babylon.
What attracts me in this text is the idea that this 'experience' was produced by the use of an image of fine gold—an image. But this is a technical thing. I think I understand the mechanics of it, and its necessity for the mind, but as a poetic device in the text it doesn't inspire love so much as it provides a helpful hint(?). The broadest, unintellectual thing I can squeeze from this passage is the advice to persist, simply stick with it. And we knew this already; whether we are talking about constraining the mind to a single thought or inflaming the passions towards a spiritual ideal, persist! Generate tapas...
Cieslack (spelling?) was one of Grotowski's original actors. His role in the Constant Prince revolutionized western theater (fun fact: he was also a notorious drunk). Nevertheless, he had this idea, that if you could follow anything to the end, no matter what it was, at the end you would find god.
I confess feeling really stupid most of this chapter, posting what I could come up with because I kinda asked myself to put out and to honestly see where it would take me, even if it means being stupid and dense. I'm in my own little boat it seems. At moments like these I am uncomfortably aware of my bulk—I feel like a bull in a china shop. What is lacking is my ability to make an honest connection to the spirit of the text, to unseal something in myself productive of fiery insight and its consequent outpouring of love. Then I would no longer be the bull, but a comely supplicant in the temple of my god, where there would be no doubt that this was where I belonged because I clearly showed the signs of the Pentecost.
The separation is strong in me; I stand just outside—but outside is outside no matter the relative degree of nearness; and I flail at the smoke that hangs in the air imagining shining boats of steel and the passionate fires of the spiritual caress, but they are only images in my head...
Love and Will
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"What is lacking is my ability to make an honest connection to the spirit of the text"
I've hated this text in the past. In fact, it was probably my most hated. Classic, now that I've had time to see just how airy I am.
A boat of steel floating in a river of blood. A lifeless golden idol honored within it. The figure hopping in and out of the blood to kiss the idol. Revolting. And what a fitting picture for the river Amrit. The gods that travel on it must be made of metal, with nothing living in them. No ability to relate to the world of lifeblood and breath. The people who worship them, beasts swimming in blood.
If I'd had this as a dream, I might have thrown over the idol and capsized the boat. Damn them all, these dead gods!
That's some of the connection I have to the passage, anyway. Some of the emotions it stirs. It's not all present tense, and I'm understanding it much more clearly this time through, but that's where my mind goes when I read it. Just thought I'd offer.
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I believe that the combo of river/water; ideal man or woman; and serpent are common dream symbols.
To give some mundane examples from my own dream journal:
"May 3, 2010: Dream - I was in a vehicle [floating] in a swimming pool. There was a spitting cobra *, but the glass windows in the vehicle prevented its venom from harming me. When the cobra dove under the surface, I got nervous, and decided to try to exit the pool."
"May 3, 2010: Dream - [Intense erotic dream]"
"May 4, 2010: Dream - I was in the garden of Eden, and saw that Eve was also the Anima, and [she morphed into] the Serpent, who was Kundalini."
"May 4, 2010: Dream - [I went into the bathroom to investigate a mystery.] There was a woman with long fair hair floating face down under the surface of the water]I would bet that most other people have had some sort of variation on these themes in their dreams. And it's clear to me that Jim's interpretation of the verses applies to my dream as well.
The dreamer of the dreams above is clearly in the earlier phase; he fears death, and doesn't understand that the death of the individual must be confronted and accepted, in order to unite with the divine.
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[not as countering in any way - only giving it as it reflects off of me]
The image of a steel boat gliding along in a river of blood. The incarnation as viewed from the element of Air, perhaps? It's how it strikes me. Even the image representing the Will is cold and metal, golden as it is.
Adrift in a world of blood and passion and gore, reason seeks to rise above it - it seems detached from it. If there is reason that sets motion to such blood and gore, it is reasoned, it must indeed be a cold and calloused reasoning.
If the world is full of blood and gore, let me find my sanity in reason.
If the world is full of cold, dead reason, let me find my insanity in passion.But they're opposites, right? At odds, and ever must be. One floats above the other like a cold steel boat floating along on a river of blood.
The visionary continues in his quest through love, working against the apparent sight of reason, until he sees the boat, and the goddess, and the river as all partaking of the same living nature - or... not sure how to word the resolution.
[Been trying to rub all the black off. Guess I better remember how to kiss.
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