Epiphany: revealing the hidden divine nature

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The traditional celebration of Christmas continues for twelve days, beginning with the midnight birth of Jesus at the juncture between December 24 & December 25 (three days after winter solstice, which generally falls on December 21st most years, as discussed in this previous post) and ending with the celebration of Twelfth Night at the juncture between January 5 & January 6, with its ultimate conclusion celebrated at Epiphany on January 6th. 

Epiphany is a word which means to "show forth" and refers to the revealing of the divinity of the Christ in the gospels stories. 

The word epiphany itself contains the Greek prefix epi- meaning "to" or "towards" or "upon" (and which is found in the word epistle, meaning "a formal written letter or message" which combines the "to" prefix and the verb stellein, "to send;" and in the word epithet, meaning "a title or label given to someone or something," which combines the prefix epi- with the verb tithenai, "to place upon;" and in the word epitaph, meaning "an inscription upon a tombstone," which combines the prefix epi- with the noun taphos or "tomb") and the Greek verb phainein, meaning "to show" (and which is found in the English word diaphanous, meaning "of such a fine texture as to be transparent or translucent," which combines the Greek prefix dia- meaning "through" and the verb phainein meaning "to show").

The same day which is referred to as Epiphany in most western church traditions is referred to as Theophany in the eastern or Greek church traditions, which literally means "the revealing of God" or "the appearance of a god or goddess to a man or woman," from the Greek word theos, "a  god," and phainein, "to show". 

The day of Epiphany is traditionally associated with three specific events in the gospel accounts which have to do with the revelation or recognition of divinity in the Christ: with the visit of the Magi (or "Three Kings," who come and give honor to the Christ child and give symbolic gifts), with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan (in which the heavens open up, a voice proclaims "This is my son," and the Spirit descends like a dove), and in the wedding at Cana (in which the first public miracle is performed, in the changing of water into wine).

Some of the esoteric, symbolic, and celestial aspects of the visit of the Magi have been discussed in this previous post. There are indications that the baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan, and the wedding miracle at Cana, both have celestial foundations as well -- and that their intended meaning concerns not the events of historical personages thousands of years ago, but rather the condition in which every man and woman finds himself or herself during this incarnate, material life.

[The remainder of this post will examine evidence that the stories in the Biblical scriptures were not intended to be understood literally. Those not comfortable examining such evidence may not wish to read further].

We have already examined evidence that the figure of John the Baptist has strong connections with the zodiac sign of Aquarius, a figure who is of course associated with water and the pouring out of water, and also with the beginning of the ascent back up from the lowest point on the "zodiac wheel." We have seen that the constellation of Aquarius in the sky appears as a man carrying a jug or jar of water, in a distinctly pitched-forward posture, with an outstretched forward leg (see star-chart below). 

This leaned-forward posture, we argued in that previous post, was also responsible for the story about John the Baptist losing his head, since when rising in the east his head would still be beneath the horizon when the body has already cleared the horizon, and when setting in the west there would be a point at which his head was still above the horizon when his body had already sunk below it.

That previous post also showed sacred art from centuries ago depicting the beheading of John the Baptist, in which the Baptist is painted in a kneeling, pitched-forward posture, with his hands bound and positioned about where the "forward leg" is located in the constellation above. One could even argue that the beheading legend might also come from envisioning the jug of Aquarius as the severed head of John, with the streams of water transformed into blood in that case (and, it must be admitted, the small diamond-shaped head of the constellation is quite faint, making this view of the constellation a very plausible possibility).

Based on this identification of John the Baptist and Aquarius in these specific episodes, it is certainly likely that the episode of the Baptism of Christ also derives from the figure of Aquarius as identified with John the Baptist, and that the pouring out of water from the vessel carried by Aquarius is the foundation for the baptism of Christ by John. 

And, as it turns out, sacred art has for centuries depicted John the Baptist in the act of baptizing Jesus as having the same distinctive features of the constellation Aquarius, including the position of the legs, the upraised arms and water vessel, and the streams of water flowing down (see for example the image in the fresco at top, painted during the first half of the 1400s).

The constellation directly below the streams of water coming from the jug of Aquarius is the Southern Fish or Piscis Austrinis, which is discussed and shown in star-charts in this previous post from 2012. Interestingly enough, in the sacred art from previous centuries in which John is depicted with features of Aquarius, the figure of Jesus is often portrayed with his hands together in the anjali mudra (see discussion here), which is also a "fish-like" hand gesture and one that is sometimes used to depict a fish swimming in the water in some children's songs that use hand gestures, for example. The fresco at top demonstrates this hand position.

Sometimes, the figure of Jesus is shown as being even more "fish-like" in form, not just with the hand gesture but with the position of the body as well, such as in the image below, painted in 1601:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Sometimes, the figure of John is shown as having a long staff, usually surmounted with a cross-piece to make it cruciform: the image above shows such a crucifix in John's hand. This feature probably derives from the outstretched "forward leg" of the constellation Aquarius itself. Below is another image of the baptism scene, this one from the 1500s, in which John is shown with such a cruciform staff:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The Aquarius symbology should be evident in all three of the above figures of John the Baptist. The image of the descending dove in between the glowing clouds, present in all three images and in the scripture accounts of the baptism scene, should be evident enough: it is the important constellation Cygnus the Swan, flying "downwards" through the clouds of the Milky Way. Below is an image using the free open-source planetarium application from stellarium.org showing the constellations in question:

As the labels in the diagram indicate, the scripture accounts tell us that the descending Spirit appears and descends when "the heavens opened" -- literally when the heavens were "cloven" or "rent" (like a torn garment). See for example Mark 1:10, where the scriptures read: "And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened [or "cloven" or "rent"], and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him."

You can see from the Milky Way shown in the Stellarium application and the image above that this word "cloven" or "rent" is a very apt descriptor for the Milky Way as it rises up behind Aquarius and as the majestic constellation Cygnus flies "down" it. In fact, this feature of the Milky Way Galaxy which we can see from our observation point on earth is often referred to as the Galactic Rift or the Great Rift. This is almost certainly a clue included in the text to help confirm that the constellations indicated above are those being described.

There are reasons to believe that the Wedding at Cana, in which water is turned to wine, connects to the constellation Aquarius as well (for one thing, Noah was also described in the Old Testament as the first to make wine, and we have already examined evidence that he was associated with Aquariusas well).

It is possible that all these events and episodes actually represent literal and historic events, which just happen to also match up quite precisely to specific constellations that had been positioned in the sky long before they ever happened. It is also possible to argue that these events were foreseen and then were "pre-figured in the stars." 

However, both of these explanations are more difficult to maintain due to the fact that multiple scriptural accounts appear to match up to the same constellations. 

It appears much more likely that these scriptures, just like myths from virtually every ancient culture around the globe, were not actually intended to preserve literal and historical events which took place on planet earth, but that they are exquisitely-crafted celestial allegories designed to convey esoteric truths. If multiple stories around the world, and multiple stories within the Old and New Testaments themselves, can be shown to derive from the very samesets of constellations, then a very likely explanation is that the same constellations gave rise to many different esoteric myths which "dress up" those constellations in different ways, in order to convey profound knowledge which is difficult to grasp except through metaphor.

If so, then what could this series of stories connected with the Epiphany (or Theophany) be trying to convey?

For a possible answer, consider again the quotation from a 1936 lecture by esotericist Alvin Boyd Kuhn, cited in this previous post and discussed further in the subsequent post on the Three Kings (who are also closely associated with the Epiphany), in which Kuhn asserts:

The Bible is the drama of our history here and now; and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it! The Bible is about the mystery of human life. Instead of relating to the incidents of a remote epoch in temporal history, it deals with the reality of the living present in the life of every soul on earth.

In other words, the Epiphany is about the mystery of human life, and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until you realize that you yourself are the central figure in it! 

The baptism scene, with its recognition or revelation of the divinity in the one whom the scriptures describe as descending into incarnate form, and then being "placed beneath the waters" in the baptism scene, describes and depicts the condition of every human soul which has plunged into incarnation, when we leave the realm of spirit (the realm of the upper elements of "air" and "fire") to be clothed in a body of "clay" -- that is, a body composed of the lower elements of "earth" and "water" (seven-eighths water, as we have been told).

These stories convey the message that each and every one of us carries within us a divine spark, which has been plunged into the water and obscured inside our material form. Immersed in this world of physicality and materiality, it is all too easy to be completely blinded to that "invisible realm" or realm of spirit, and to live as though we are completely material beings, denying or forgetting our spiritual nature altogether. One of the purposes of these texts is to cause us to remember -- and one of the purposes of the celebration of Epiphany, it seems, is to help us to remember that we ourselves, and every single human being we ever encounter, contain a "hidden god," a divine spark.

Although some of the centuries-old traditions and ceremonies which have accompanied the celebration of Epiphany in many cultures may not be familiar to all readers, many of them are very powerful and are still carried out to this day in some communities. Many of these old traditions seem to imply the message of the plunge of the divine spark into matter, where it is hidden, and where it must be found and then "raised up."

One of these is the ritual known as the Blessing of the Waters, in which a cross is taken to the ocean, or to a lake or large river, and immersed in the waters. In his masterful 1940 text Lost Light, Alvin Boyd Kuhn explains that the cross itself is a symbol of the incarnate condition of every man and woman in this material life: we have a physical component, represented by the horizontal bar of the cross, and a spiritual component, represented by the vertical bar of the cross. 

The placing of the cross into the waters represents our plunge into the material realm: the raising up of the cross from the waters represents the recognition or revelation of the divine nature which can be hidden and even forgotten but which can never be completely denied. One of our important missions in this life is to recognize and elevate this divine spark in ourselves, in others, and indeed in all of creation around us. Epiphany, which takes place on our annual cycle when the sun begins to climb back up out of the deep pit of winter solstice, is marked by rituals which convey this important task.

In many cultures, the cross is actually flung into the water, where youths then rush to be the first to find it and retrieve it -- raising it up from the depths. This ritual continues every year to this day. Below is a video showing one such ceremony, in a community within the Greek Orthodox faith (where Epiphany is called Theophany):

Alvin Boyd Kuhn gives his explication of the symbolism of the cross and the water -- and he makes clear that the cross has also long been used as a symbol in many "non-Christian" traditions, including those of the ancient Egyptians and of many of the cultures of the Americas:

In a very direct sense the cross is connected with the flood of water that must be crossed, with the baptism and the lower sea voyage. [. . .] This most ancient, perhaps, of all religious symbols (by no means an exclusive instrument of Christian typology) was the most simple and natural ideograph that could be devised to stand as an index of the main basic datum of human life -- the fact that in man the two opposite poles of spirit and matter had crossed in union. The cross is but the badge of our incarnation, the axial crossing of soul and body, consciousness and substance, in one organic unity. An animal nature that walked horizontally to the earth and a divine nature that walked upright crossed their lines of force and consciousness in the same organism. [. . .]

The Toltecs called the cross the Tree of Sustenance and the Tree of Life. [. . .] The cross is a symbol of life, never of death, except as "death" means incarnation. It was the cross of life on earth because its four arms represented the fourfold foundation of the world, the four basic elements, earth, water, air, and fire, of the human temple, and because it was an emblem of the reproduction of new life, and thus an image of continuity, duration, stability, an eternal principle ever renewing itself in death. The whisperings of esoteric fable report that the very tree on which Jesus was hanged was grown from a sprout or seed from the forbidden Tree of Life in Genesis! There are many instances of the cross burgeoning into fresh life. The savior is not nailed on the tree; he is the tree. He unites in himself the horizontal human-animal and the upright divine. And the tree becomes alive; from dead state it flowers out in full leaf. The leaf is the sign of life in a tree. The Egyptians in the autumn threw down the Tat cross, and at the solstice or the equinox of spring, erected it again. The two positions made the cross. The Tat is the backbone of Osiris, the sign of eternal stability. And Tattu was the "place of establishing forever." 414 - 416.

This passage explains that the ritual of throwing down the cross and raising it back predates literalist Christianity as it was formulated in the first through fifth centuries AD. It was a ritual in ancient Egypt associated with the Djed-column (Kuhn uses the form Tat, the older version of writing this same word in our lettering system -- today it is more commonly written as Djed). In fact, Kuhn explains that the Egyptians had a legend in which Isis lost the Tat column in the sea (Lost Light, 420-421) as well as a ritual in which they cast it down into the waters of the Nile (page 306). Also, in the video above you can see that the cross thrown into the water to be brought up again is wreathed in leaves, which relates well to Kuhn's discussion cited above about the cross blossoming with leaves as a sign of life.

After reading this and watching the video, the centuries-old paintings and frescoes showing John the Baptist in the river scene carrying a wooden staff in the form of a cross become even more full of powerful meaning.

Kuhn argues that the ritual of throwing down the cross into the waters and raising it up again represents the divine spark in each of us, thrown down into incarnation and hidden, which we must recognize and elevate. The rituals in which one swimmer finds the cross and brings it up, and then is recognized as special for the entire year, seems to drive home the lesson that "every reader [must] discern himself [or herself] to be the central figure" in the myth or sacred drama. In a very real sense, the concept of the epiphany or the theophany is "all about you" -- you are the "star" of the show, just as the swimmer who lifts up the cross first is the "star" of the drama for that year.

Other traditions from Epiphany or Theophany around the world which emphasize the same message include the tradition of baking a single black bean into a cake: the feast guest who finds the bean in his or her piece is "king" or "queen" for the festival. This again speaks to the symbolism of the "hidden god" or the "hidden divinity" inside each man and woman: this is the message of our human incarnation, conveyed in all the ancient scriptures of the world, according to this interpretation.

And here we return to the fact that in the paintings above showing the Baptism of Jesus, which is associated with Epiphany or Theophany or the revelation of his divine nature, the figure of Jesus is depicted with his hands in the distinctive position of "prayer," associated with the word "Amen" in Christian tradition, and with the benediction "Namaste" in India and other cultures.

This previous post explored the fact that the word "Namaste" means "I bow to you," and by extension "I bow to the divinity in you," and even "The divinity in me recognizes and acknowledges the divinity in you." Similarly, the word "Amen" which is associated with this very same position of the hands is the name of the ancient Egyptian god "Amun" or "Ammon" or "Amoun" -- the hidden god.

This confluence is most appropriate for Epiphany, in which the hidden divine nature is revealed.

We could go on and on contemplating the amazing and profound truths which this examination opens up for us to explore. However, one practical application which seems to be something we can think about every day (and one that I am working on in my own life) is the concept of blessing and not cursing. If we take seriously the fact that every man and woman we meet is possessed of an internal divine spark, then we should want to look at them with positive intentions, seeing beyond the physical and material and "animal" responses we might have when -- for example -- they cut us off in traffic (or stop at a green light long enough to get through it themselves and cause us to miss it).

It may seem strange at first, but reacting to such a situation with real thoughts of blessing towards them produces a whole different set of reactions than reacting with cursing (even if they never even know what was going through your mind or said in your car).

And there are many more applications much more profound than that one.

Previous posts have explored the definition of blessing as being related to the recognition and elevation of spirit, in ourselves, in other people, in animals and plants and streams and rocks and in entire the rest of the material universe.

And the concept contained in the ancient scriptures and traditions regarding Epiphany -- not just in the New Testament scriptures but in the sacred traditions of ancient Egypt and in other ancient cultures around the world -- seem to be pointing us in the very same direction.

Remains of an ancient Egyptian Djed-column (or "Tat cross" as Alvin Boyd Kuhn and other earlier writers usually refer to it), Wikimedia commons (link).

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!"

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!" 

--

A Visit from St. Nicholas, Clement C. Moore (1779 - 1863).

In the quotation cited at the end of the previous post, Alvin Boyd Kuhn said in a 1936 lecture that the ancient stories all have as their central character the individual human soul. The sacred story, he argued, "is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it!"

Does this mean that the reader must believe that the actual outlines of his or her life will resemble the storyline of, for example, one of the episodes in the Arabian Nights, or one of the   adventures of Odin  described in the Norse myths, or the experience of either Penelope or Odysseus whose marriage was interrupted by long years apart but who were finally reunited at the end of the Odyssey? 

Not exactly.

Notice that in the quotation from Alvin Boyd Kuhn, it is argued that these stories are intended to cast light upon the experience of "the human soul "(emphasis added). It is not in the outward events that our lives resemble the myths, but what Kuhn is arguing is that the adventures portrayed in the myths esoterically convey a truth about the experience of the human soul in being cast down to this "underworld" and undergoing the process of achieving a "crossing" of matter and spirit which will give birth  to something new, something transcendent, something miraculous -- and something that was not possible without the descent into matter in the first place.

In a later work, a companion volume to Lost Light (1940) but published four years later and entitled Who is this King of Glory?

 he argues that the story of the Nativity (or birth of Christ, in the New Testament scriptures) was intended to convey this same miraculous message about the human soul. In saying this, he does not mean that each individual is supposed to "self-announce" his or her "divine Messiahship" and proclaim himself or herself "the cosmic Christ and the Logos of God" -- he expressly says that this is not what he means (page 358). The story of the descent of the divine Logos, he explains, is intended to be illustrative of our human condition: 

The entire edifice of theology is built upon and around the central fact of the descent of the Logos into flesh and matter. It is the nub of the entire system. It is the key to the scriptures. 329.

It is illustrative of each and every human being, not some individual or some group to the exclusion of others: "The Christ in each of us is the Word made flesh, which after the analogy of the broken pieces of the loaf, came and dwelt among us, telling us that indeed unless we take and 'eat' of this divine essence, our aeonial salvation will not be accomplished" (329).

The wonderful story of the Nativity, and all the stories of the rest of the scriptures found in the Old and New Testaments, and all the stories of all the sacred myths and traditions around the world, become even more wonderful when we realize that they are telling the miraculous story of the incarnation undergone by each and every one of us. Each and every person you ever meet is a Christ, an Osiris, an Isis, an Odysseus, a Penelope.

Does perceiving the esoteric meaning of the story diminish its power and its wonder? Not in the least. In fact, Kuhn argues specifically that this understanding unleashes the full force and power of every myth -- for without this awareness, our attention is tied down to the symbol itself, and cannot "fly up" to the meaning that was intended.  He writes:

What seems difficult to tell an age that has never learned to go beneath or behind the symbol to verity is that exoterism ends with the beauty of the symbol, whilst esotericism only begins with the symbol and goes on from it to the undreamed-of wealth of a whole new world of revelation. The symbol serves but to touch off the release of a flood of luminous conceptions, which would never leap into organic and meaningful array until marshaled into relationship by the symbol's suggestiveness. [. . .] The vigorous force of a symbol or drama is caught in full when the meanings and intimations adumbrated by it can be carried away from the starting point and applied in the deep regions of personal consciousness. This transfer can be effected all the more smoothly for the very fact that the symbol or drama is itself known to be pure fiction. When, however, that which should be mere meaning-vane is alleged to be itself the event about which meaning is to center, itself the thing to which the meaning points, instead of being merely the pointer to a meaning higher and deeper, the native strong force of symbol and drama is choked in its cradle, so to speak. The alleged historicity of the cycle of Christmas pageantry ties the significance of the festival too close to itself. The meaning can not escape its own symbols and fly with main force into the hearts and minds it should be elevating. 346.

In other words, Kuhn is here arguing that the story itself is like a weathervane. He calls it a "meaning-vane," which is an interesting construction that evokes a weathervane (and may be an original word-construction invented by Alvin Boyd Kuhn) but which is designed to point us to some deeper or higher meaning whereas a weathervane is designed to point us to knowledge of the approaching weather. To focus on the vane instead of the thing to which it is meant to direct us, Kuhn says, is to miss the entire purpose. 

In describing the symbol itself as a sort of weathervane that directs us to a higher meaning, this passage is very similar to the saying in Buddhism about a "finger, pointing a way to the moon" discussed in this previous post: if we focus solely on the finger, then we will miss "all that heavenly glory." Kuhn warns us that if the force of the symbol becomes the entire focus, the meaning will become chained to the symbol itself ("tied too close," he says), unable to fly. The symbol will achieve a kind of terrible gravity, too strong for the meaning to achieve an "escape velocity," and its transcendent quality will be defeated by its own beauty. It will end up pointing to itself, instead of to the meaning it was designed for. "To stay with the symbol," he says, "was to cut off the soul and mind from the possibility of their soaring aloft into the highest of their capabilities of rapport and rapture" (346).

Kuhn admits the beauty and emotional power of the Nativity story, listing the elements of the scene -- "the Holy Child laid in the manger, the shepherds with their flocks by night, the angel's appearance to announce the birth, the heavenly choir chanting their carol of glory to God and peace on earth, and the halo of holy thrill around the entire event" -- and admitting that "in the whole of literature there is no more exquisite idyll than this" (345).

But he argues that it cannot have been intended to be understood strictly literally, and in fact is full of contradictions when we try to force such a reading on the texts.

The visit of the Magi, for instance, describes them as coming from the east to the west, but being guided by a star which they see in the east, which does not seem to make sense (334). He also notes that "no star [. . .] could by any possibility become or act as a local guide to a given spot on earth. If there is any lingering remnant of protest that perhaps it could be done, let anyone go out under the open sky at night and try to determine at what moment he is exactly under a particular star, or exactly what spot that star is pointing to" (333).

He argues that the visit of the Magi, or the "Three Kings of Wisdom," has an esoteric meaning relating to what we learn through our incarnation in this physical instrument (336).

The visit of the Magi and the directions of east and west make perfect sense when we understand that the drama describes events which take place among the stars of heaven, and that the "Three Kings" are the stars of Orion's belt, setting in the west and looking across the vault of heaven to the east, where "Mary" is rising in the person of the constellation Virgo the Virgin, bearing upon her outstretched arm the Holy Child. At the pinnacle of the arc of the zodiac as it is then seen stretched across the sky will be "the Manger," in the beautiful cluster Praesepe, the Beehive in the constellation of Cancer the Crab, associated anciently with a Manger and also with the pineal gland in the human body. See the discussion in this video (caution: examines evidence that the stories in the Biblical scriptures were not intended to be understood as literal history -- those not comfortable examining this evidence may not wish to view the video).

Note, of course, that these celestial "Three Kings" do indeed come from the east

(the eastern horizon, where they started) -- and that by the time they reach the western horizon and see the rising star in the constellation of Mary, they have been traveling from the east for quite some time!

These motions of the heavenly bodies also describe a story of which the "star" or central figure is always the human soul.

The point of the year at which the sun begins its journey back upwards, after traveling down towards the very Pit of the year at winter solstice, is imbued with deep significance in the sacred traditions found around the world.

We have seen abundant evidence that the annual cycle itself contains a "cross" in which the vertical component can be envisioned as running from the bottom of the year, when days are shortest, all the way up to the top of the year, when days are longest: in other words, from the winter solstice up to the summer solstice. 

The horizontal component of this "cross" is formed by the line between the equinoxes: that line which marks the two transition points at which darkness begins to dominate or at which light begins to dominate, one marking the transition from the upper half of the year which has longer days and shorter nights to the lower half of shorter days and longer nights, and the other marking the transition from the lower half of the year back to the upper half.

For previous posts discussing this concept, and its manifestation in myth around the globe, see for instance "Scarab, Ankh and Djed," "Vajra: the Thunderbolt," "The shamanic foundation of the world's ancient wisdom," and "O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, thy Leaves are so unchanging."

The upward turn in the great annual drama was associated with the concept of "raising the Djed-column" in the mythology of ancient Egypt, and with the restoration of Osiris the god who had been "cast down" into the underworld. It is also associated with the Lakota concept of walking the sacred red road as articulated in the vision of Black Elk. There is an abundance of evidence that these concepts relate to recovering the connection with the infinite hidden world of spirit, which our plunge into the "underworld" of matter can obscure from our awareness and from our vision. 

In other words, this annual drama is about the annual journey of the sun as seen from the earth, but it is really about our own consciousness, and our own journey to awaken our consciousness: to see or to sense that which cannot be perceived by the physical senses (which are designed to function in the material realm rather than the spiritual realm). 

The story of Osiris, plunged down into the underworld is really the story of each human soul, on its long walk through the underworld, the realm of night  -- and the raising of the Djed-column is thus a task each of us must undertake, to remember our spiritual nature, and to perceive the non-material realm that is buried within all of us and all of nature, and that is behind everything that we can perceive with our physical senses. This can also be expressed as seeking to walk the good red road.

The story of the Nativity, celebrated at this specific point on the annual cycle, expresses the same thing. 

Notice that in the quotation from Alvin Boyd Kuhn, it is argued that these stories are intended to cast light upon the experience of "the human soul"(emphasis added). It is not in the outward events that our lives resemble the myths, but what Kuhn is arguing is that the adventures portrayed in the myths esoterically convey a truth about the experience of the human soul in being cast down to this "underworld" and undergoing the process of achieving a "crossing" of matter and spirit which will give birth to something new, something transcendent, something miraculous -- and something that was not possible without the descent into matter in the first place.

May your Christmas and all the days of the year be filled with miracles!

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

Winter solstice, 2014: the Stable and the Manger

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The earth will pass through the point of December solstice this year on December 21st at 2303 Greenwich time (now referred to as UTC), which is 1503 Pacific time and 1803 Eastern time for those in North America (numerous sites on the web can help you determine the time at your location if the references above aren't enough to zero-in on it).

As has been remarked upon in many other discussions, the word "solstice" descends from a combination of the Latin noun sol ("the sun") with a form of the Latin verb sistere ("to stand"), and thus means "sun-standing," as in "standing still." We find another example containing a derivation of sistere in the word "interstitial," which describes the "boundary space" in between two larger spaces -- the border-zone, the threshold region, the "standing-in-the-middle" place.

When the earth is hurtling towards the December solstice, it causes the sun's apparent path to observers on earth to move further and further south each day. As a consequence, ever since we passed the June solstice, the sun has been rising on the eastern horizon at a point further and further south, and arcing across the sky on a path that is further and further towards the southern horizon, and then setting at a point along the western horizon at a point that is further and further south each day. 

At the solstice, the sun seems to "stand still" before it turns back around and reverses the process. The reason for this standstill is discussed in this previous post involving the metaphor of a mighty sailing ship with the bowsprit acting as the north pole. 

For those observers in the northern hemisphere, where the sun's steady progress towards the south has caused its rays to be less and less direct, and the warming effects less and less effective, plunging the world deeper and deeper into winter, as the days grow shorter and shorter and the nights longer and longer, the anticipation of that turnaround is tremendous. It seems as if life itself hangs in the balance, and the time in which the sun finally grinds to a halt in its southward progression and stands still before finally turning back towards the north feels like a breathless pause in which the entire world freezes in place to see if the life-giving orb will actually "make the turn."

It is this moment, when all the world collectively "holds its breath" (figuratively speaking), that Alvin Boyd Kuhn says is commemorated in the concept of the "Silent Night," the stillness that is celebrated in the Christmas tradition, with carols which proclaim: "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie," and (in "It came upon a midnight clear"), "The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing" (13).

In a lecture entitled The Stable and the Manger, delivered in 1936, Alvin Boyd Kuhn elucidates the connections between the elements of the Christmas story and the significance of the winter solstice as a spiritual allegory, in which spirit which has been plunged deep into matter begins its "upward turn," but prior to doing so there is a pregnant pause in which all is in perfect stillness, and the tension between the two creates a moment of equipoise in which "all is calm."

Outlining the framework of the metaphor, he explains:

The sun in its apparent passage from the high glory of summer to its enfeebled power in the solstice of winter exactly symbolizes, because it repeats, the experience of the soul in its alternating swing from the heights of spiritual purity in disembodiment -- in summer -- to the depths of diminished shining in the lowest arc of its immersion in a body, its night, its winter. 11.

And, tying this concept to the Christmas story, he explains that it is this commingling of the spark of spirit plunged into the body of matter which gives birth to the "third principle," the higher self, the Christ within. Kuhn says:

Suffice it to say for the moment that obviously if a higher and a lower force are to meet and unite at the point midway between their status of being, they must so meet as the result of the ascent of the one and the descent of the other. Nature could not well arrange such a meeting in any other way. That nature has so arranged the matter is one of the bits of knowledge furnished us by the ancient wisdom. When God or Life at the beginning of each period of its activity bifurcates into the polarization of spirit and matter, the two forms of being move toward each other, meet in the middle ground, so to say, effect their conjunction and interplay, and at the end of the cycle retire into latency again. For the earth evolution that point of middle distance between the two is the body and life of man. here is where the "marriage" takes place and the Son, the Christ, is born. And when the two forces meet at this point, they counteract each other's energies and bring each other to a standstill. Spirit descending came to a stop in the arms of matter, for the inertia of matter stilled the vibrations of spirit. 9.

Thus, he notes, it is highly appropriate that the ancient scriptures describe the birth of the Christ as taking place in a stable -- the word itself means "steady" and "standing upon a base," appropriate for this story that takes place at the very base of the year, the bottom of the zodiac wheel shown below, and appropriate to the point where as Kuhn says "spirit and matter, soul and body, are 'stabilized' in relation to each other" (12).

He further points out that the stable is the place "where animals come to stand for the night," and a place where the animal nature connects with the benevolent care of the higher human intellect (which presumably designed and constructed the stable, to shelter and protect the animal), and which thus may symbolize this point where "the brute kingdom is elevated by the grace of mankind, as mankind in turn is exalted by the grace of the gods" (12).

But that is not all -- for, as Kuhn goes on to explain, the Christ-child who is born at this point of tension between spirit and matter, where spirit has descended to its deepest place in the cycle, is then laid in a manger -- the place where the animals are fed! The animal nature must be fed and nourished and ultimately elevated by their participation with the Christ nature (17 - 19).

Astronomically, we have seen that the sign of Virgo, standing as she does at the autumn equinox where days begin to be shorter than nights, presides over the plunge of the spirit from the higher realm into the material realm (see the image of Virgo, wearing the crown of the "Queen of Heaven," located just above the horizontal line before the "crossing point" indicated by the red "X" on the right-hand side of the zodiac circle as we face it in the diagram above). Virgo appears in the ancient Egyptian myth-cycle as Isis, holding the divine Horus on her lap in exactly the same way that she appears in the New Testament accounts as the Virgin Mary, holding the divine Jesus:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The identification of Isis, and Mary, with Virgo is evident from an examination of the outline of the constellation itself, but also from the fact that Virgo is associated with wheat and with grain, and that in fact the constellation is often depicted as holding a sheaf of wheat, and in fact the name of her brightest star, Spica, comes from a Latin reference to an "ear of grain" (and in Arabic this star is called Sumbalet which also means "an ear of wheat"). The fact that she lays her divine son in the manger, where the grains are fed to the animals, should cement this identification between the heavenly queen and the Virgin in the story found in the gospel account. See also the discussion of Mary and Virgo, and the visit of the Magi, in this video.

There are many more astonishing connections to be found in the lecture of Alvin Boyd Kuhn, and in consideration of the spiritual symbology present in the point of the winter solstice with all its implications. The reader is encouraged to consult the full text of that lecture (click on the word "fullscreen" to bring up a facsimile of a book format), and what better time to do so than this portentous point on the year, when all the world stands still at the December solstice?

But, perhaps the most important part of Kuhn's entire lecture is found before he actually begins to elucidate the details of the solstice-scene at all, when he explains that these exquisite metaphors are meant to convey a drama of which the central player is each and every human being. He asserts:

Bible stories are in no sense a record of what happened to a man or a people as historical occurrence. As such they would have little significance for mankind. They would be the experience of people not ourselves, and would not bear a relation to our life. But they are a record, under pictorial forms, of that which is ever occurring as a reality of the present in all lives. They mean nothing as outward events; but they mean everything as picturizations of that which is our living experience at all times. The actors are not old kings, priests and warriors; the one actor in every portrayal, in every scene, is the human soul. The Bible is the drama of our history here and now; and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it! The Bible is about the mystery of human life. Instead of relating to the incidents of a remote epoch in temporal history, it deals with the reality of the living present in the life of every soul on earth. 4.

The Heart of Everything That Is

Now is an outstanding time of year to view what is sometimes referred to as the "Winter Circle" of dazzling stars, which includes Sirius (in Canis Major), Procyon (in Canis Minor), Menkalinan and Capella (in Auriga), and the Twins of Castor and Pollux (in Gemini). 

The Winter Circle was previously discussed in a post from 2011, which you can find here.

Now that the moon is declining towards the New Moon of December 22, it will be less and less of a factor in the night sky (it will rise later and later in the "wee hours" of the morning, or closer and closer to dawn, and as it does so it will also grow thinner and thinner), enabling you to really observe the starry sky in all its glory -- and the glorious constellations of winter are at center stage, featuring mighty Orion and the surrounding arc of bright stars mentioned above.

Below is an image from Stellarium.org showing Orion and the stars of the Winter Circle, as they appear to an observer in the northern hemisphere around thirty-five degrees north latitude:

You can clearly make out the silvery band of the Milky Way, running up and to the right in the above image, almost through the center of the screen. Nearly half-way up the Milky Way band, look for the three distinctive stars of Orion's belt, in a tight line angled up and to the right. Following the line of these three stars and extending that line down and to the left you will find Sirius, which is labeled, and which is depicted as the largest star on the above chart, because it is the brightest star in our sky (other than the sun, of course). 

From Sirius, you can then trace the arc of stars named above, beginning at Sirius and moving clockwise up to Procyon (also labeled), Pollux and Castor (only Pollux is labeled but Castor is very close, up and to the right from Pollux in the screen above), then Menkalinan and Capella (only Capella is labeled, but Menkalinan is the star you come to first as you arc from Pollux and Castor towards Capella in a clockwise direction). From Capella, you can also cross the Milky Way again and find the gorgeous cluster of the Pleiades (not labeled on the above chart, but more on them in a moment).

This circle of brilliant stars is sacred to the Lakota, and are part of the area of the sky known as "The Heart of Everything That Is." The circle just described was also connected to the concept of the Sacred Hoop, discussed in this previous post. The celestial component of this sacred concept is discussed at length in a book entitled Lakota Star Knowledge, written by Ronald Goodman with help from many Lakota wisdom keepers, and with appendices which quote teachings preserved by Charlotte A. Black Elk.

The book is published by Sinte Gleska University which strives to perpetuate the values associated with the four Lakota virtues of the Lakota medicine wheel and Sacred Hoop, as explained on the back cover of the book. It is a book which those interested in this subject will want to have in hardcopy. 

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

As described in the vision of Black Elk, the Sacred Hoop consists of a sacred circle which contains the horizontal road and the vertical road (see discussion in this previous post and this previous post), a pattern which is also very reminiscent of the zodiac wheel crossed by the horizontal line between the equinoxes and the vertical line between the solstices:

Ronald Goodman's book explains that the circle of stars now visible in the night sky make this same Sacred Hoop pattern of a circle divided by two perpendicular lines. The two lines are envisioned as being generated by the line created by the belt of Orion (these stars are known as Tayamni by the Lakota) which can be seen as extending to Sirius in one direction and to the Pleiades in the other direction, and by the line perpendicular to that line which is created by extending the imagined line running between the two bright stars Betelgeuse (in Orion's shoulder) and Rigel (in his foot):

Above, I have sketched in the outline of a rough circle which connects the circle of stars: Sirius to Procyon to Pollux and Castor to Menkalinan and Capella to the Pleiades to Rigel and then back to Sirius. Within it, I have created dashed-lines which cross perpendicular to one another: one line along the line suggested by the belt stars and extending all the way to Sirius in the lower-left and to the Pleiades in the upper-right, and another running from Rigel to Betegeuse (and which can be imagined as continuing through all the way to the other side of the hoop from there).

This diagram is based on those drawn in the Ronald Goodman book in numerous places: I have just chosen to draw it on the stars as seen in the night sky using the image from Stellarium.org. It is hoped that this will help readers to go outside and actually locate this important set of stars.

Perhaps the most remarkable information expressed by Ronald Goodman and the Lakota wisdom keepers he quotes in the book is the fact that this celestial Sacred Hoop has a corresponding reflection on the earth, which the Lakota have recognized since time immemorial -- from before the horse arrived -- and that they would move to specific points on the terrestrial Sacred Hoop at specific times during the year, to reflect on earth the patterns of the stars in heaven, the motion of those stars through the year, and especially the rising of the sun in the different points along its ecliptic path as the earth progresses through its own annual cycle.

The reflection of the celestial Sacred Hoop was found on earth in the region of the Black Hills, or Paha Sapa in the language of the Lakota (I believe that this means "Black Hills").

Below is a diagram based on some of the terrestrial points in this Sacred Hoop, as explained in the book and drawn in some diagrams in the book -- I have chosen to use Google Maps with the "terrain" overlay, to show some of these points in a way that will enable us to visualize these sacred sites as we look at the map:

The first point labeled on the map above, identified with the numeral "1." and a small black arrow pointing to the right (difficult to see clearly at this resolution, but it is pointing to the right) is Inyan Kaga, also called Harney Peak, a very sacred site to the Lakota and one which is central to the vision of Black Elk and to the story of his life which he relates in Black Elk Speaks. The book by Ronald Goodman seems to indicate that Harney Peak is also called Opaha Ta I. This sacred mountain corresponds to the Pleiades, or Wicincala Sakowin.

The second point labeled on the map above, identified with the numeral "2." and a black rectangular outline, contains three peaks in a near-perfect line, pointing towards Harney Peak -- just as the three stars of Orion's Belt (Tamanyi) point to the Pleiades (Wicincala Sakowin). Below, some "zoomed-in" maps will show this in greater detail.

The third point labeled on the map above, identified with the numeral "3." and an small black arrow pointing down, corresponds to Pe Sla, the center of the Black Hills -- an area now labeled as Reynolds Valley on maps.

The fourth point labeled on the map above, identified with the numeral "4." and a small black arrow pointing down, corresponds to Mato Paha, or Bear Butte. This site appears to have been considered the terrestrial reflection of the point marked by the star Capella in the celestial Sacred Hoop.

The fifth and final point labeled on the map above, identified with the numeral "5." and a small black arrow pointing down, is Mato Tipila Paha, or Devil's Tower. This majestic geological formation was considered to be associated with the constellation of Gemini, and the summer solstice. Note that on the zodiac wheel diagram above which I believe can be seen to correspond in many ways to the Sacred Hoop, the sign of Gemini is located immediately before the point of summer solstice. Lakota Star Knowledge explains that prior to summer solstice, all the Lakota would converge on Devil's Tower, for an important gathering which included the most important Sun Dance of the year.

It should be noted that the Sacred Hoop in the sky as shown in my Stellarium diagram must be rotated in order to correspond to the sacred terrain of the Black Hills: the line running from the rectangle at "2." to the Inyan Kaga (Harney Peak) at "1." corresponds to the dashed-line running up and to the right in the star chart, from Orion's belt to the Pleiades.

Below is a closer "zoom" into the area containing Tayamni (Orion's belt) on the terrain:

In this map, we are still "far enough out" that you can see Inyan Kaga (Harney Peak), indicated by the small black arrow to the lower-right of the larger rectangle. If you imagine three peaks within that rectangle, aligned in such a way that they create a mental line pointing to Harney Peak, then you can see that Orion's belt in this map will point "down and to the right" to get to the Pleiades (represented by Harney Peak).

Below, we zoom-in on the area in the black rectangle from the map above:

You should be able to plainly see the three stars of "Orion's belt" -- they are marked with the "hourglass" symbol of a "cone inverted over a cone," which Ronald Goodman explains in his book should be thought of as a vortex over a vortex: the upper vortex being the star and the reflected vortex below representing "the related earth site" (page 2 of the book). I have placed the double-vortex star symbols just below and slightly to the left of each mountain on the terrain map: hopefully you can make out the three peaks, pointing in a line towards Harney Peak (which is not visible in this map, but would be located off the map, down and to the right -- see map immediately above this one).

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the sacred Black Hills to the Lakota. Their movement throughout the year to the various sites were seen as participation in the renewal of the world. Appendix D of the book contains words from Charlotte A. Black Elk, in which she says that the pattern of movement through the sites in the Black Hills is "traces the renewal of creation and the spiritual regeneration of the Lakota" (50).

Later, she says:

We say that Wakan Tanka created the Heart of Everything That Is to show us that we have a special relationship with our first and real mother, the earth, and that there are responsibilities tied to this relationship. Wakan Tanka placed the stars in a manner so what is in the heavens is on earth, what is on earth is in the heavens, in the same way. When we pray in this manner, what is done in the skies is done on earth, in the same way. Together, all of creation participates in the ceremonies each year.

[. . .]

So, tonight, walk outside and look up. See the Black Hills Sacred Ceremonies of Spring, and you will understand and know why this place is special and stands first among all places of Maka. And return, in the manner the Lakota have done for thousands of years, to the Heart of Everything That Is, to the heart of our home and the home of our heart. 52.

There is much to contemplate deeply in these things. I hope that if you are able to do so you can go outside at this time of year, and observe the stars, and as you do so you can reflect upon the Sacred Hoop and the Heart of Everything That Is.

The Crossing of the Red Sea

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The response to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "How Did Moses Part the Red Sea? The science of tides may have saved the Israelites from the Egyptians" has been quite interesting. 

Since its publication on December 5th, it has been the "most popular" story listed in the right-hand column for several days in a row, and only today slipped to the "second-most-popular" position. Further, the story has stirred up an often-contentious train of reader comments now over six hundred in number. 

Clearly, the subject of the historicity of this story from the ancient Hebrew scripture, as well as the possible "mechanics" of this particular miracle, remains extremely compelling to many men and women to this day.

The article in question was written by Dr. Bruce Parker, former chief scientist of NOAA's National Ocean Service, now a visiting professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and author of a new book on The Power of the Sea: Tsunamis, Storm Surges, Rogue Waves, and Our Quest to Predict Disasters. The hypothesis he presents in his article, in short (please read his actual article for full details), is that Moses used his knowledge of the tides to spring a nature-based trap on the pursuing armies of Pharaoh:

Moses had lived in the nearby wilderness in his early years, and he knew where caravans crossed the Red Sea at low tide. He knew the night sky and the ancient methods of predicting the tide, based on where the moon was overhead and how full it was. Pharaoh and his advisers, by contrast, lived along the Nile River, which is connected to the almost tideless Mediterranean Sea. They probably had little knowledge of the tides of the Red Sea and how dangerous they could be.

Dr. Parker even speculates that Moses might have used the observation of the dust clouds thrown up by Pharaoh's army and their chariots, and used their progress to time his springing of the trap. He posits that Moses could have gotten all the people across to safety in advance, and then "sent a few of his best people back onto the temporarily dry sea bed to entice Pharaoh's chariots to chase them."

("It's a trap!")

As Dr. Parker is someone whose professional interests involve awareness and prediction of the powerful ebbs and flows of the sea, such an explanation would certainly seem to appeal to him, and his expertise in the area would make him capable of assessing the possibility that tides changes could have been involved. Predictably, however, his hypothesis has raised a chorus of protests from a wide variety of readers, many of them upset that he is suggesting a natural phenomenon to replace direct supernatural intervention, and many others upset at the suggestion that there is any history to the story at all, or that he is discussing the Red Sea as the body of water that Moses and the Israelites crossed in the Exodus story, rather than some other body of water such as the Nile delta.

Having just completed a series of posts arguing that critical analysis should include consideration of every possible explanation, and the examination of evidence in order to help determine which explanation best fits the evidence, I believe that Dr. Parker should be commended for offering a hypothesis and for bringing his professional knowledge and experience to bear on the question (those previous posts on the importance of analysis include "Analysis: Against mind control, for human consciousness" and "Thomas Jefferson and Immanuel Kant on reason, analysis, and mind control," plus my recent interview with Professor James Tracy of MemoryHoleBlog in which the same important subject was a topic of conversation).

While I don't believe this particular explanation is the best fit for the body of evidence available, I do not believe it should be rejected out of hand as some of the comment-writers seem to be doing, simply based on  commitment to a prior dogma, whether literalistic Biblical dogma, "ideology of materialism" dogma, or some other.

I believe that it can be demonstrated that the overwhelming bulk of the evidence strongly argues that the stories of the Old Testament and New Testament are esoteric metaphors built upon the motions of the sun, moon, stars and planets through the sky, and the daily, monthly, yearly, and even multi-year cycles created by these heavenly bodies.

Previous posts have outlined the numerous, detailed points of correspondence between the celestial actors and specific stories in the Old and New Testaments, including the story of Adam and Eve, the birth in the manger and the visit of the Magi, the events foretold in Revelation chapter 9, the story of Elisha and the two she-bears, the Ark of Noah and the dove, the episode Noah's sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, the episodes in the life of Samson, the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter, the near-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, and many, many more.

Further, it can be demonstrated that myths from around the world also appear to follow the very same pattern of celestial metaphor!

This index lists many of those, along with links to previous posts discussing them -- and it is by no means exhaustive but merely scratches the surface of the available stories which could be examined and found to be built upon the motions of the heavens.

This evidence is absolutely astonishing. It suggests that the conventional paradigm of the ancient history of the human race may be grievously incomplete. It also suggests that the stories recorded in the Old and New Testaments -- like the sacred myths and legends from the other cultures around the globe -- are not a record of literal, historical events enacted by human actors upon the earthly terrain, but rather poetical, metaphorical, esoteric stories describing the stately motions of the majestic celestial actors upon the infinite stage of the heavens.

In other words, we do not actually need to get too narrowly-focused upon the details of Professor Parker's theory which tries to fit the events of the Red Sea crossing described in Exodus into the tidal mechanics of our terrestrial oceans and seas, if the overwhelming bulk of stories in the Bible contain abundant clues indicating that they are celestial in nature. We need not point out that the "tidal trap" theory requires the armies of Egypt to show up at almost the exact perfect moment to venture out into tidal flats and then get swallowed up by the incoming tide -- a rather unlikely scenario -- or that the region uncovered by the low tide would probably have been fairly uninviting for masses of chariots and horses in the first place. Such details do seem to argue against Dr. Parker's hypothesis, but they are actually quite tiny details once we "zoom out" to survey the much wider landscape composed of Bible story after Bible story after Bible story which each testify to their celestial foundation. To argue that this one story, the crossing of the Red Sea, was an historical event which somehow managed to be preserved in scrolls filled with celestial metaphors on either side of it as far as the eye can see would appear to be a bad fit for the majority of the evidence.

Further, the fact that we can find very compelling evidence within the Red Sea crossing narrative itself pointing to its own celestial nature provides even more conclusive proof that this crossing is a heavenly and metaphorical event, and not an earthly and historical-literal one.

In order to explore some of this evidence within the Red Sea episode, we must understand the important "zodiac wheel," which depicts the cycle of the year using the background of the twelve zodiac signs within which the sun successively appears to rise each morning on the eastern horizon as we progress throughout our annual circuit (for some visual discussion of what causes this, see the "dining room table" analogy depicted in this video I made some years back).

This annual circuit, with its backdrop of the twelve zodiac signs, is conveniently divided into four quarters by the important "station points" of the two solstices and the two equinoxes (numerous previous posts have tried to illustrate the mechanics behind these four points using various metaphors -- one metaphor I find to be helpful is the "earth-ship metaphor" described in this post).

Previous posts have already discussed the evidence that this ancient world-wide system of celestial metaphor often depicted the equinox points, where the sun's ecliptic path crosses back above the celestial equator during the day (initiating the half of the year in which days are longer than nights) and back down below the celestial equator during the day (initiating the half of the year in which days are shorter than nights) as places of sacrifice -- see for example this post, this post, and the discussion of the sacrifice or near-sacrifice of Iphigenia discussed on pages 34 through 37 in the online preview chapters from my book, The Undying Stars).

In those stories of sacrifice, which contain clues to indicate that they pertain to one or the other of the equinoxes, there is almost always a direction mentioned: the sacrifice is at a crossing going up (the spring equinox) or at a crossing going down (the fall equinox). Is it possible that the crossing of the Red Sea, in which the ancient scriptures tell us that Moses led the children of Israel up out of Egypt,* also represents an equinoctial crossing? I believe there is good evidence to suggest that this is the case.

Below is the zodiac wheel, with the two crossing points of the equinoxes marked with a red "X" at each equinox point. The horizontal dividing line separates the "lower half" of the year -- from the fall equinox through winter and then back to the spring equinox, the half of the year when days are shorter than nights -- from the "upper half" of the year, which stretches from the spring equinox up through the summer solstice and then back down to the fall equinox at the other "X":

It can be demonstrated rather conclusively that the start of the year among many ancient cultures, including the ancient Hebrews, was associated with the point of crossing of the spring equinox (the "X" located on the left side of the wheel as laid out above). Thus, the zodiac sign that metaphorically could be said to "lead" all the other signs (the zodiac sign at the "start-point" of the circular train of signs) would be the one who was "leading" across that "starting line" at the spring equinox (the "left-side X" in the diagram).

In the wheel above, which depicts the Age of Aries, that leader is the zodiac constellation of Aries the Ram (you can see that it is the first sign "above the line" at the left of the diagram, at the equinox crossing-up point).

This is the sign who leads the "children of Israel" (the other eleven signs) up "out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage." In this version of the metaphor, the lower half of the year, the wintery half of the year, the half of the year in which the forces of darkness oppress the forces of light, is allegorized as the land of Egypt, "the house of bondage." In other myths, this lower half is allegorized as Hades, or Tartaros, or Sheol, or the land of Troy in the Iliad of Homer, and many other depictions in many different cultures.

Thus, Moses can be seen as playing the role of Aries the Ram in this particular story, leading his people up out of bondage (the lower half of the wheel) and making the upward crossing at the spring equinox over to the other side, where there is much rejoicing (days once again becoming longer than nights). Further evidence to support this reading can be found later, at the incident of the golden calf (Exodus 32), when Aaron the brother of Moses makes the idol of a bull-calf and tells the people that "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 32:4). Moses is furious at this declaration: Taurus the Bull is not the leader of the zodiac band: the precessional Age of Taurus preceded the Age of Aries, but it is over and now the declaration that the bull led them up out of Egypt is infuriating to Moses.

Further confirmation that this entire episode is metaphorical and based upon the zodiac wheel comes from an examination of the chariots and horsemen that the Exodus account is very careful to describe as being destroyed by the sea. The actual crossing of the Red Sea is described in Exodus 14, and in verses 18 and 19 the Egyptian army is twice described in identical terms, as consisting of "Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen," as if we are to be very clear that horses are present. But this emphasis on the host of chariots and horsemen, as the Reverend Robert Taylor (1784 - 1844) points out in his Astronomico-Theological Lectures (see especially 393-394), creates a significant problem for those who take the Exodus account as intending to depict literal terrestrial events, because in Exodus 9 just a few chapters before, God declared in no uncertain terms to Moses to tell Pharaoh that the next plague visited upon Egypt would be upon "thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep" (Exodus 9:3), and that on the next morrow "all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one" (verse 6).

It is possible, of course, to argue that the plague promised only sickened the horses of Egypt and did not kill them all, but even so it is rather astonishing to see the mighty armies of Pharaoh which pursue Moses and the children of Israel so full of chariots and horses -- unless the entire story is describing the celestial cycles involving the zodiac wheel and not a literal and historic event that took place on the earth.

Also, the following plague described in Exodus 9:19 and following -- the plague of hail -- would seem to be designed to kill off any remaining beasts from Egypt that were not killed by the previous plague just described. There, God tells Moses to have the children of Israel bring their beasts out of the fields, because when the plague of hail comes, "every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die" (Exodus 9:19). Between these two plagues, it is difficult to argue that many horses would be left in Egypt, and even if there were some left, they would hardly be in a condition to swell a mighty army to pursue Moses.

Again, however, this is only a problem if the event is not a metaphor -- and the evidence outside of this story, from many, many other stories within the Bible itself and from myth around the globe all argue that it is.

Now, we might ask ourselves: if the event actually is a heavenly metaphor, then why would there be such an emphasis upon there being horses and chariots in the army that is "left behind" to be buried at the bottom of the sea, when the children of Israel led by Moses "cross over" (or up) to the other side?

Following the analysis of Robert Taylor, I believe the answer can be found if we look again at the zodiac wheel, and at the very bottom of the lower half of the year (the half which I believe -- in this particular metaphorical telling -- represents the oppressive forces of Pharaoh) you will see the sign of Sagittarius, positioned at one side of the winter solstice point, the very lowest point on the entire zodiac wheel.

Sagittarius is a horseman, and archer (sometimes a centaur) -- and just as the Ram is crossing up over the horizontal line towards the "promised land" of longer days and the rule of light over darkness, Sagittarius is left below at the very bottom of the year: in fact, at the very bottom of the sea.

Further support for this interpretation is provided by the actions of Miriam the sister of Aaron, after the safe crossing is accomplished. In Exodus 15:20 and following, we are told that she "took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dances," and sang that the LORD had triumphed gloriously, and "the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea" (Exodus 15:20 - 21). The text is here giving us a very strong hint that Miriam in this case is played by the important zodiac constellation of Virgo, whose constellation actually includes a faint circular disc of stars which is allegorized in ancient myth in many ways, but sometimes as a "timbrel" or "tambourine" (see discussion here).

If you look again at the zodiac wheel, you can see why Miriam is the one who "answers" the song of Moses (also presented in Exodus 15): she is the other constellation located "just above the line" which separates the "upper half" of the year from the "lower half," if she is indeed associated with the constellation Virgo (as her timbrel indicates that she is). If you look at the zodiac wheel diagram, you will see Virgo located across the wheel, just above the horizontal line and just before the "X" on the right-hand side of the diagram as we look at it on the page. Thus, she and Moses are "above" the line (they have "crossed the Red Sea," and escaped from Egypt) -- and both of them are glorying in the fact that the "horse and his rider" are "cast down" in the depths, below the line. They are almost certainly referring to Sagittarius in these verses.

Thus, I believe that the efforts to try to find "natural" explanations for the events of Exodus, including this episode of the crossing of the Red Sea, are misguided. In fact, the Greek philosopher Plato made much the same argument against the kind of explanations that Dr. Parker is pursuing in the article mentioned above, in the dialogue known as the Phaedrus (circa 360 BC).

In that dialogue, Plato has Socrates gently ridicule such efforts to use natural phenomenon such as unusual weather in trying to explain the myths (in this case, of course, Socrates discusses Greek myth and not Hebrew scripture). And, in doing so, Socrates also drops a hint as to what these celestial metaphors are actually to be used for instead.

In the Phaedrus, as discussed in this previous post, the young Phaedrus is walking with Socrates along the banks of the river Ilissus, and Phaedrus asks: "Tell me, Socrates, isn't it somewhere about here that they say Boreas seized Orithyia from the river?" Phaedrus then presses the question further, and gets to what he really means to ask, which is: "pray tell me, Socrates, do you believe that story to be true?"

Socrates gives a most revealing answer:

I should be quite in the fashion if I disbelieved it, as the men of science do. I might proceed to give a scientific account of how the maiden, while at play with Pharmacia, was blown by a gust of Boreas down from the rocks hard by, and having thus met her death was said to have been seized by Boreas, though it may have happened on the Areopagus, according to another version of the occurrence. For my part, Phaedrus, I regard such theories as no doubt attractive, but as the invention of clever, industrious people who are not exactly to be envied, for the simple reason that they must then go on and tell us the real truth about the appearance of centaurs and the Chimera, not to mention a whole host of such creatures, Gorgons and Pegasuses and countless other remarkable monsters of legend flocking in on them. If our skeptic, with his somewhat crude science, means to reduce every one of them to the standard of probability, he'll need a deal of time for it. I myself have certainly no time for the business, and I'll tell you why, my friend. I can't as yet 'know myself,' as the inscription at Delphi enjoins, and so long as that ignorance remains it seems to me ridiculous to inquire into extraneous matters. Consequently I don't bother about such things, but accept the current beliefs about them, and direct my inquiries, as I have just said, rather to myself [. . .]. From the translation of Reginald Hackforth (1887 - 1957), found in this edition of Collected Dialogues, page 478.

Note that Socrates, in Plato's telling of it, offers up a theory that he imagines might be current among "clever, industrious people who are not exactly to be envied" and who are in fact wasting their time. Instead, Socrates says it is better to just accept the stories and concentrate on the enjoinder of the famous inscription of Delphi: "Know thyself."

I believe it is entirely possible that this is Plato's way of telling us that the actual message and purpose of the myths is to help us to pursue that very command from the temple at Delphi: "Know thyself." The message of the myths has to do with understanding who we are, a curious mixture of spirit and matter, like stars cast down from the proper realm above (the spirit realm) to be plunged into this "underworld" of incarnation in the physical and material realm of earth and water (imprisoned in bodies of "clay," as Genesis describes it). This is the "house of bondage" below the horizontal line of the zodiac wheel, where we toil towards the point of ascent again into those "upper realms."

And, as we do so, we are in fact "crossing the Red Sea" -- we are toiling along as spirit-sparks encased inside a material body: a material body animated by the pumping tides of our own internal Red Sea. Alvin Boyd Kuhn elaborates on this interpretation at great length in his 1940 masterpiece, Lost Light.

This, at least according to Plato and Socrates, may be the real message of this story -- and naturalistic explanations involving "gusts of wind" may be superficially attractive, but ultimately they lead us off the trail. Unfortunately, this is what I suspect Socrates might say about the theory of Dr. Parker.

However, if we read the final lines of Dr. Parker's article in a more metaphorical sense, rather than the apparently literal sense in which they are written, perhaps they contain a profound message for us after all. He says: "If the tide was indeed involved in Moses' 'parting' of the Red Sea, it has to qualify as the most dramatic and consequential tide prediction in history."

In fact, Alvin Boyd Kuhn would argue that this "crimson tide" does indeed qualify as "the most dramatic and consequential" concept of them all, for he says:

It can indeed be said that the one sure and inerrant key to the Bibles is the simple concept of fire plunging into water, the fire being spiritual mind-power and water being the constituent element of physical bodies, -- as well as the symbol of matter. Soul (spirit) as fire, plunged down into body, as water, and therein had its baptism. Hence soul's incarnation on earth was endlessly depicted and dramatized as its crossing a body of water, a Jordan River, Styx River, Red Sea, Reed Sea. Since the water element of human bodies is the "sea" which the soul of fire has to cross in its successive incarnations, and it is red in color, the "Red Sea" of ancient Scriptures is just the human body blood. Esoteric Structure of the Alphabet and Its Hidden Mystical Language, 20.

And so, although this Red Sea is "just" the human body blood, it is indeed the "most dramatic and consequential tide" of them all, and the question of the meaning of this "crossing of the Red Sea" is the question of the meaning of our human existence here in these material bodies! And that is indeed a question that merits the kind of intense attention that this article by Bruce Parker has been getting this week, and that the question of the crossing of the Red Sea has commanded for millennia.

--------------------------

* Examples of verses in which the motion of the children of Israel out of Egypt is described as a motion up abound in the scriptures: see for example Numbers 32:11 ("Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt . . ."), Amos 2:10 ("Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness . . ."), and Joshua 24:17 ("For the LORD our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage . . .).

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, thy Leaves are so unchanging

That special time of year has finally arrived when many of us erect the Christmas tree in our homes. 

There is something magical about the arrival of the tree each year, with its wonderful evergreen smell and the nostalgic connection to memories of Christmases past stretching back to when we were children.

Much has been made of the "pagan" origins of the Christmas tree (and many of the traditions surrounding the celebration of Christmas itself, including its specific date three days after winter solstice), and much ink spilled on both sides of this often-contentious issue, and yet the actual meaning of this ancient symbol is rarely if ever explained beyond the rather obvious connection between the use of an "evergreen" tree and the concept of "eternal life" or the eternity of the human soul.

That Christmas falls on one of the four most important solar stations on the great circle of the year, the lowest-point of the sun which is reached at the December solstice (for observers in the northern hemisphere) is simply undeniable. In fact, its celebration coincides to the very stroke of midnight at the beginning of the third day after the day on which winter solstice most commonly falls -- the stroke of midnight between the 24th and the 25th of December, three days after December 21st (the traditional date of winter solstice -- the day will occasionally wander to the 22nd due to the fact that the number of complete earth rotation or days does not fit perfectly into the space required to get back to the exact point of winter solstice each year, necessitating a leap year to bring the calendar dates back in line with the annual stations on the great wheel). 

The three-day pause probably originates from the fact that the sun seems to linger at the lowest point before turning around, just as it does at its opposite highest point at the summer solstice each June. This phenomenon, and the reason that the sun does not linger at the equinoxes, is discussed in this previous post about the mechanics of the solstices and equinoxes.

Previous posts have explored at some length the evidence which supports the assertion that the great wheel of the year can be "quartered" by drawing two lines between these four very important stations of the year: a horizontal line between the two equinoxes (March and September) and a vertical line between the two solstices (December and June). A diagram illustrating this idea is shown below, and previous posts which discuss ancient myths which seem to support this "cross within the circle of the year" can be found here, here and here (among many others). 

Note that this appears to have been a worldwide concept: the examples from those three posts span the sacred teachings of ancient Egypt, of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures in the Bible, of the ancient Greek Scriptures in the Bible, of the Vedas of ancient India, and of the Lakota of North America. I would argue that the traditions of many other cultures could be examined and found to contain a similar pattern.

The horizontal line between the equinoxes equates to the "casting down" of the spirit into the world of "the underworld," this world of incarnation. It is allegorically symbolized by the heavenly bodies which we see in the sky -- the sun, moon, planets and stars -- plunging down into contact with the horizon of earth or of water, as if these bodies which are native to the crystal spheres above have been thrown down into the mud of our earthly disc, there to plow through the underworld until they break free once again to rise into the sky on the other side. 

This "casting down" took place at the equinoxes on the "Cross" of the circular year, because the equinoxes are the places where the ecliptic path of the sun "crosses" either above or below the celestial equator, creating the point of transition when days become shorter than nights (night prevails and the sun is figuratively in the "underworld" as we toil our way through winter) and the other point of transition when days again become longer than nights (and day prevails again, with the sun being figuratively released to dominate the sky once more, free from the clutches of the wintery months when night rules supreme). 

In ancient Egypt, the god of the underworld was Osiris, and he was depicted as laid out horizontally like a corpse in many scenes, slain by his brother Set and bound in a sarcophagus, cast into the waters -- all of which are emblematic of our plunge into incarnate matter in these human bodies.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The Djed column itself (discussed in this previous post) was associated with the "backbone of Osiris," and it was figuratively "cast down" horizontally when Osiris was "laid out" in a sarcophagus like a corpse in the underworld (by the action of the sun's "crossing down" at the fall equinox). But Osiris was not destined to remain horizontal forever -- as the image above plainly intimates. He is destined to rise-up vertically, just as the shoots of grain shown rising from his body in the image above are doing. The raising of the mummified Osiris from the horizontal position to the vertical position was associated with the act of "raising the Djed column" from its "cast-down" horizontal position to its vertical orientation. 

I believe that the raising of the Djed column is figured by the vertical line between the two solstices, shown in the zodiac-wheel diagram above. The raising of the Djed, the raising of the "corpse of Osiris," could be seen to take place when the sun stopped its descending path and turned back upwards: at that point of the very "bottom of the year."

This is why we erect the Christmas tree in anticipation of the turn that takes place at the absolute low-point of the year -- when the sun finally stops its descending path, arriving at winter solstice at December 21, and then it pauses there at its lowest point as if building up our anticipation for three days before starting back upwards towards the top of the year. If the point of fall equinox was figured as the "crossing point" of begin "cast down to the underworld," the turn that takes place at the bottom of the year is appropriate to be celebrated with the raising of a vertical pole, because that is the point where the Djed column begins to be raised back up, as the sun makes its turn from the dreadful downward plunge that it has been taking on its way to the December solstice.

If this interpretation is correct, the raising of the Christmas tree is symbolic of the vertical pillar that can be imagined running from the winter solstice at the bottom of the year and going up through the summer solstice at the very top of the year:

Indeed, there are many legends in which the corpse of Osiris is in fact imprisoned within the body of a tree, lending even more credence to this interpretation of the Christmas tree as commemorative of the raising of the Djed column at the winter solstice. In his discussion of the myth-cycle of Isis and Osiris, Plutarch says that the slain Osiris was imprisoned in a chest which floated out to sea and ended up making its way to Byblus (or Byblos). There, he writes (beginning in paragraph 15): 

the waves had gently set it down in the midst of a clump of heather. The heather in  a short time ran up into a very beautiful and massive stock [a "stock" as used here is a stump or a trunk of a tree], and enfolded and embraced the chest with its growth and concealed it within its trunk. The king of the country admired the great size of the plant, and cut off the portion that enfolded the chest (which was now hidden from sight), and used it as a pillar to support the roof of his house.

Thus, we see that the corpse of Osiris was in this legend "cast down" into a horizontal position within  a chest, but then turned into a tree and was brought into a house (just as the Christmas tree is brought into our homes). His corpse (imprisoned within the tree) is eventually recovered by Isis and restored to life.

Elsewhere, we have explored the evidence suggesting that Isis taking the corpse of Osiris down from its prison inside the pillar in the palace of the king of Byblos is analogous to the pieta scenes in which Mary the mother of Jesus receives his crucified body back from the Cross, before it is raised up again at the resurrection.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

If this interpretation of the "cross" of the year is correct, with the horizontal line between the equinoxes analogized in ancient myth as the "casting down of the Djed" and the laying out of the corpse of Osiris in his sarcophagus or on his bier, and the vertical line between the solstices analogized in ancient myth as the "raising up of the Djed," then the "raising up of a Djed" in our homes (in the form of a Christmas tree) would almost certainly be predicted to take place in anticipation of the "turn" of the year which takes place at the December solstice. And this is exactly when we do in fact erect the Christmas tree in our homes: in the days or weeks leading up to the point of winter solstice. 

The fact that Osiris was explicitly described as being imprisoned in a tree, and brought into the palace when he was in the form of a tree, lends even greater strength to the argument that our tradition of bringing in the Christmas tree into our homes hearkens back to the symbology of the "vertical Djed column" associated with the vertical line that gets erected each year beginning at the low-point of winter solstice. Below is an image from ancient Egypt of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys raising Osiris to a vertical position between them -- this time, he is in his manifestation as Osiris-Re or Osiris depicted with the head of Amon-Ra:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The upsweep of the wide-spreading horns at the top of this "Djed-shaped" god (with the solar disc between them) are strongly reminiscent of the outstretched arms of the Scarab, which we have previously argued is connected to the outstretched arms of the zodiac sign of Cancer the Crab, who is located at the summer solstice point, at the top of the "vertical line" in the zodiac wheel that we are trying to establish as the "vertical Djed column." 

Again, all of this evidence should strengthen the case that the tree we are erecting as we approach the bottom of the year is a representation of the divine spiritual component in the Cross of the year, the vertical line running from the winter solstice all the way up the summer solstice, the line that represents the lifting up of the "dead god" from his prison in the sarcophagus to the upward line which points up to the very summit of the year at the summer solstice, highest heaven.

Figuratively, this raising of the Djed column may well be indicative of our mission in this incarnation: to see beyond the merely physical or horizontal (difficult to do, trapped as we are in these bodies in the same manner that Osiris is bound in his mummy-wrappings), and to call forth the invisible, the spiritual, the vertical. For more on this thought, see the previous post entitled "Blessing."

Interesting additional confirmation of this identification of the Christmas tree with the vertical pillar of the Djed comes from the other Christmas tradition involving a tree-trunk, less commonly celebrated today but once taken very seriously: the tradition of the Yule log. Various accounts of the Yule log indicate that it was a huge trunk, the biggest that could be found, sometimes chosen from a type of tree seen as sacred, and hauled into the house to be burned in the fireplace, but only after it had been anointed with oil and salt and spices and prayed over first. It was often so large that only its "head" could fit into the fireplace, and the rest of the mighty log stretched out into the great room or family room.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Based on these descriptions of the tradition, it is difficult not to conclude that the Yule log represents not the Djed column "raised up" as with the Christmas tree, but the Djed column "cast down," since it was basically dragged around horizontally and then burned. 

The fact of its being burned provides added confirmation that the Yule log is the "horizontal component" that represents the line between the equinoxes (as opposed to the vertical pillar connecting the solstices). The equinoxes, where the sun's ecliptic path crosses the celestial equator, were strongly associated with fire: in fact, as is discussed in this previous post, ancient Mithraic sculpture and bas-reliefs often depicted the two equinoxes as two youths, each holding a torch (one up for the equinox in which the sun is crossing up towards summer, and one down for the equinox in which the sun is crossing down towards winter). 

The tradition of having the Yule log lit each year by the daughters in the household or by the

mother only strengthens this connection, since the "casting down" point of the year takes place a the autumnal equinox presided over by the sign of Virgo the Virgin. This fact also helps to explain the numerous depictions of the vertical Djed column in between the two goddesses, such as in the image of Osiris-Re shown above or in the image of the Djed column in the form of an Ankh (surmounted by the upraised arms) in between the same two goddesses. 

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The Djed column is the stylized "backbone"-shaped column supporting the Ankh-cross itself (you can see the "vertebrae" at the top of the Djed).

Based on this evidence, it appears that the symbology of the Christmas tree (and the now nearly-forgotten symbology of the Yule log) has extremely ancient roots. One could say that all of this evidence supports the argument that the familiar Christmas symbols are really "pagan" and not "Christian," but I believe this misses the real point, which is that the distinction between "pagan" and "Christian" is actually based upon an enormous misunderstanding, because all these sacred traditions the world over can be shown to be using the same system of celestial metaphor -- and that includes all the stories of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The symbols may change their outward appearance somewhat, but their core form remains recognizable, and their message (I believe) is fundamentally the same.

In writing about the symbology of the Christmas tree in his 1940 masterpiece Lost Light, Alvin Boyd Kuhn wrote that the fire atop the Yule log, or the glowing candles upon the Christmas tree, symbolizes the divine spark in each man and woman, hidden in the rough element of our physical form (317). Elsewhere in the same text he writes:

The savior is not nailed on the tree; he is the tree. He unites in himself the horizontal human-animal and the upright divine. And the tree becomes alive; from dead state it flowers out in full leaf. The leaf is the sign of the life in a tree. 416.

Thus both of these ancient symbols work together at this time of year to convey to us a profound message about who we are. We are both the Yule log "cast down" and the Christmas tree "raised up," the horizontal "human-animal" and the upright "divine."

This aspect of the symbology is usually absent from the annual discussions of the "pagan" origins of the Christmas tree and other symbols. Yet I believe the evidence is abundantly present to support such an understanding -- and I believe that it is an interpretation that makes these ancient symbols incredibly powerful to us even to this very day, even as they connect us back across thousands of years to the same sacred traditions from ancient cultures all around our planet.

Hour Two of my interview with Marty Leeds on the Mathemagical Radio Hour

I really enjoyed the first part of my conversation with Marty Leeds on his Mathemagical Radio Hour, and we realized that we still had more important topics to discuss, so we continued for a second hour, which has just now been posted at the SyncBook web page as well as on iTunes and YouTube (the first hour of the interview can also be found at that same SyncBook web page, as well as on iTunes, and here on YouTube).

We definitely ventured into some territory during this second hour that has not necessarily been addressed in other previous interviews!

Again, special thanks to Marty for being such a gracious host and for the insightful questions that he asked! As I listen to the second hour, I realize that towards the beginning there, I took some "big, looping detours" in answering some of his questions, but hopefully that won't throw anyone off -- I was trying to give a comprehensive "big picture" here in this second hour, and I hope that it makes sense!  (I also said "Medea" once when I should have said "Circe" in reference to an episode in the Odyssey, but hopefully everyone knew what I meant anyway).

Below are some additional helpful diagrams and links to some posts that may help give a "map" to the paths I was taking as I "ran through the woods" during this second hour, trying to get to all the important "vista points" that might illuminate this enormous ancient formation that we are looking at.

First off, here is the essential "map of the year" -- the zodiac wheel:

This is the way I usually envision it, and this is the layout of the wheel that I was describing during the interview. The equinoxes are each marked by an "X" symbol, signifying the "crossing point" where the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator, and where we cross over from the "upper half" of the year (days longer than nights) to the "lower half" (days shorter than nights).

Below is a video I made some time ago to illustrate the mental model of the "solstices and equinoxes in your dining room" that was described in the interview, and which helps explain why we have this zodiac wheel in the first place.

During this interview we discussed:

• The celestial foundations of the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent, and some of the esoteric teaching that the celestial understanding of this myth might be intended to convey.
• The teaching that we are in a condition similar to that of stars who have plunged down from the realm of spirit into the realm of matter, and the way that the ancient teachings of the "hidden god" and the concepts of Namaste and Amen remind us of our true condition.
• The connection of Virgo (who follows Leo across the sky) to the goddesses of ancient mythology who are depicted in association with lions (and see also this post about the Festival of Durga).
• The example of "wax on, wax off" as a means of imparting karate to Daniel-San in the first Karate Kid movie, and how it relates to the question of "the esoteric," and the related metaphor of Montessori as another good example of the teaching aspect of the esoteric. 
• The assertion by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz that I was trying to reference on this subject is found in Esoterism & Symbol, where he says that: "Esoterism has no common measure with deliberate concealment of the truth, that is, with secrecy in the conventional sense of the term. [. . .] The intention of the enlightened, the prophets, and the 'messengers from above' is never to conceal - quite the contrary" (1, 75). This explanation of esoterism by Schwaller is discussed in the second chapter of my book The Undying Stars, and you can actually read the table of contents and the first three chapters online here.
• The evidence that those who decided to deliberately suppress the esoteric aspect of the ancient scriptures may have done so in order to "keep the karate" all to themselves.
• The evidence that the ancient esoteric understanding of the myths was deliberately overthrown during the Roman Empire using the twin vehicles of the secret cult of Sol Invictus Mithras and the public religion of literalist Christianity (see also here, here, and here).
• The evidence (such as that offered by the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library) that the rise of literalist Christianity corresponded to a violent suppression of the esoteric or broadly gnostic understanding and of the teachers and writings that posed a problem for the propagation of the literalistic viewpoint.
• The undeniable fact that literalist Christianity was forced upon non-Christian Europe at the point of the sword, and the possibility that its centuries-long opposition to the shamanic worldview (which can still be seen to be operating to this day) may be evidence that the actual correct understanding of the Biblical texts is that they themselves are shamanic -- and that literalism was invented in part to hide this important fact (see the link entitled "keep the karate" all to themselves, above).

Please feel free to post up your feedback or questions, either underneath the YouTube video, on Facebook, or on Twitter, and of course to share it with anyone who may find this information to be helpful. Also, you may find this archive of previous interviews to be a handy reference: it also contains links to download the mp3 version (whenever possible), as well as links to other "liner notes" like this blog post, containing links to other material about the topics discussed.

When sharing, however, please be sure to be respectful of the deeply-held personal beliefs of others: this material is not intended to be used to "beat people over the head" but to be of assistance for those who are already looking in this direction. Remember that we're all here in this life trying to figure out the mystery, and forcing our beliefs on others can easily cross the line into violating their individual rights. I believe that each individual is very much a king or a queen of their own realm, and they must be allowed to examine the evidence, and make their own "rulings" within their own proper realm as they see fit -- we have no right to invade the territory of their individual domain and tell them how they must rule in their own minds (but neither does anyone else have the right to do so to us).

At the end of the show, Marty asked a question about how all of this has impacted my own spiritual journey. In my answer, I incorporated some references to the Scarab, Ankh and Djed, and to the very important concept of blessing.

I believe these concepts may actually lie at the very heart of our purpose here in this material realm -- and that we should be actively involved in blessing (rather than cursing) as often as we possibly can. That is to say, in recognizing the divine spark in everyone we meet, and indeed in all of nature around us (including all the animals, plants, and even in the rocks and rivers and ocean waves), and working to bring it out, bring it forth, elevate it (rather than suppressing it, oppressing it, denying it, or brutalizing it).

Blessings!

Namaste

.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).