the rainbow bridge

A peek down the rabbit hole:

I've got a lot of writing to do! Happy Easter - 'Tis the season for resurrecting!
(more here)

yod-eling to the firey break through / this little light of mine

*Updated 4/7/11

sWords, Knifes and Saws. 

 I have begun to have a greater appreciation for the connection between the fiery creative energy and nature's law of cutting/dividing.

The Hebrew letter Shin, (representing the element of Fire and Spirit and associated with the Judgment/Aeon card in the tarot) means 'tooth'. Teeth cut through things too! They are tools for cutting and chewing our food in preparation for the transformation of energy. (There are also teeth on a saw). 

Hmmm, perhaps this is one reason why in recent weeks the Red Key of the local Key Bank keeps catching my eye in various locations...

Red is the color often associated with fire, and also the color connected to the root chakra. 

A key is a tool for separating 2 parts that are locked together, much like a sword, and is symbolic of knowledge, mystery, initiation. 

 

Within the spelling of Shin (ShYN ) is the Yod which means hand, it is an instrument of creation and a flame from which all of the Hebrew letters are born. Yod also represents the sign of Virgo, which is traditionally ruled by MERCURY, and the Hermit card in the tarot.

The other letter within the spelling of Shin is Nun. Nun means fish and like fertilizer is both decay and growth. It symbolizes the sign of Scorpio, and the Death card in the tarot. 



So within the letter Shin, is the firey, creative spirit which burns to bring about transformation and growth!

The path of Shin on the Qabalistic Tree of Life connects Kingdom (which is representative of the condensed, earthy physical realm that we are familiar, much like the root chakra) to  Splendor (associated with Mercury/Hermes/Thoth). 

"'The Splendor of the Material World. Mercury acting through Fire, upon the Cosmic elements.' In other words this path serves to awaken the Intellectual center (Mercury) in the psyche (Cosmic elements) of the initiate using Yod energy."~

Self-Initiation Into the Golden Dawn Traditionby Chic Cicero and Sandra Tabatha Cicero

(*It seems fitting that MERCURY happens to be in the FIRE sign of Aries presently.)

The word Splendor means brilliance, bright and shining. It's interesting that the root of the word Black is also to burn, gleam, shine, flash. What burns (breaks earth down), is flashy and brilliant? Yes indeed, Fire! 

Thursday morning when I couldn't sleep I wrote down some thoughts: 
Nature creates by dividing. Things must be broken to pieces in order to put them together again in a new way. Our purpose is to create our self. If the point was to arrive at an end point, where we can experience total unity and bliss, free of hardship, than there would be no need to experience, change, evolve, create - for the peaceful loving union is already the primal nature of the universe/god/all/nothing. In order to experience all of the infinite possibilities and facets of our Self, our higher intelligence urges us to seek destruction so that we may have ingredients to play and build with.

On a personal level, what scorches you, beats you up, and breaks you down is most definitely what will lead you to growth, greater understanding, and fuel your creativity. Facing your fear and pain is your initiation, your ignition.

 Now I'm finding it interesting to read the first chapter of Genesis with a different view of the word 'saw', as a tool of dividing, which shows us how we see the world in parts rather than a whole. Also interesting is that the inverse of SAW is WAS. It gives new perspective to, "...and God saw that it was good."

spirit/nothing(God) divided(saw) that it could experience/unite/be(was) spirit/everything(good/god)

Just yesterday afternoon I read the following:

The Secret of the Shem-Ha-Mephorash

"God is.

Undivided God is pure potentiality

and realizes Nothing.

God can only realize Itself by becoming Many

and then experiencing all possibilities

through the adventures of Its many parts.

The ultimate purpose for My existence is to

exhaust My individual potentiality.

My Love for God and God's Love for Me springs from

the Great Secret we share.

The Secret is

God and I will achieve Supreme Enlightenment 

at the same moment." 

~ Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford (aka Lon Milo Duquette in his delightful work, The Chicken Qabalah)

"For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all." ~ Aiwass, The Book of the Law written by Aleister Crowley

 

I guess because of being inspired by these connections I have been singing "This Little Light of Mine" lately. Today I looked up the song lyrics to see if they are the same as I remember learning them in Sunday school as a 3 or 4 year old, and in the process was pointed to the clip of Christina Ricci singing the song in the movie Black Snake Moan:



And this prompted me to remember that in that film, Christina plays the character Rae (meaning, 'beam of light'), who is chained to a RADIATOR (fitting with the current radiation crisis happening after the recent devastating quake and tsunami in Japan) by a blues man named Lazarus (the well known name of the dead man brought back to life by Christ. Some have also made the comparison to the Egyptian deity Osiris).

 I think I shall have to watch that movie again...

 

"everything is hotter down south" 

serpent fire

*4/10/11 - Sometimes for fun I will click on "Next Blog" at the top of the blogger page. Today it brought me here with these appropriate images:

elemental communion

*update 9/22/10* I didn't have the words to describe the connections I was seeing when making this collage, but today I read this and it fit perfectly:
"From these three glyphs of circle, semi-circle, and cross the symbols of the astrological planets may be derived...

Mercury. The cross below signifies astral consciousness, desire; the circle in the middle, mental consciousness; the semi-circle above indicates that evolution has been pushed beyond the mental and is reflecting downwards light received from a still higher plane, the buddhic, which dominates all. This symbol may also be interpreted as the caduceus of Hermes, two serpents intertwined round a central rod, referring to the fiery power, kundalini, full control of which makes the practical magician." - Alan Leo in his book Esoteric Astrology (emphasis mine)

time to rise and shine

                                        "We are the ones we've been waiting for." Hopi Elders