Comments on the Roman Way
Well, that is the second time in two days when I have lost the complete contents of a post, this time by one inadvertent keystroke. This hasn't happened for many months, and I am beginning to suspect some inner sabotage going on, perhaps by Sophie - you will see why. This time I am taking some precautions.
This first question I asked when I woke into trance was, "Where did I see this place before". The answer is that I had dreamed a similar dream earlier that night. The differences in that dream were that I was by myself in the Subaru, there was no snow on the rocky slope, and I made it to the top by cutting across the slope rather than going straight up.
This really is a multi-level dream, and it is going to take a bit of unravelling. On one level, this dream actually is about Lynn's journey, and I will leave this aspect confidential. But a dream like this will not suffer being put in a box.
On Sunday I again did not have any remembered dreams, meaning that none were significant. This time I took the hint and used the time to do a
Spirit Guide Draw at the beginning of the week rather than somewhere in the middle. I can see that doing so is rather like reading the "course outline" for the week before learning the lessons, so the draw gives me some signposts towards what will be worked on as this unprecedented dream cycle continues.
In this case, the chief concern was Sophie as the Drama Queen (Queen of Cups Rx), with various reinforcing cards of doom and gloom scattered around her. After doing the draw, it did occur to me that this week we are away to see the Deva Premal concert in Vancouver - a very Eirian thing - and thus missing the likely delivery of the
riqq that Sophie is longing for.
It seems to me that Sophie is obsessed with ascent at all costs. I have some serious concerns with ascent when I see that the Solar Plexus is in need of a great deal of work. Ascent at this time seems to me to be more like escape, and I had quite enough of that during the Full Moon in Aquarius a couple of months ago. It is one thing to draw down Crown energy to inform and bring perspective to the lower chakras. It is quite another to run away from this necessary work to hide in the Crown - but much more likely to divert to the glorious visions of the Inner Eye - and avoid the issues.
In this dream we see yet another abortive ascent, this time by "Lynn" representing the Magician who will through raw energy alone climb the steepest mountains. This is the journey of the obsessed ascetic, in violation of the rootedness of gravity and through a field of frozen emotions, who will rise above materiality through sheer effort of will. I have been told quite clearly on previous occasions that the Subaru is the vehicle of Lady Death, representing egoic sacrifice and death as a path to transformation - in fact, to union or oneness, which is what the word "subaru" means in Japanese. This is not the appropriate vehicle for this particular route, which would be better made walking, i.e. going step by step meditatively and with mindfulness, up the path of the Hermit.
Instead, the intended path for the Subaru is somewhat circuitous. The sacrifice is made in the course of other work, most likely compassionate and nurturing service, down on Main Street. The sacrifice is made not "to get to heaven", but to bring heaven to earth. In the process of doing so, one eventually arrives home at the beautiful villa on the hill. Without thinking about it too much, I would say instinctively that this is the path of the Star.
Yes, the "pretty villa on the top of the hill" assuredly is a vision of the Christian heaven, a place I have visited once in a dream several years ago, and once in the meditation on the Hierophant two years ago - but in the form of a garden, not a villa. This is the place of perfection in the Crown, of complete oneness. The earlier dream last night reflects my journey there through the Hierophant, one completed through luck or grace, and not likely to be repeated.
Note that the setting is in Italy, and I sense we are in a pleasant suburb outside of Rome. For me there is an obvious connection with the Roman Church, and the Anglican Church that I belong to nominally is a part of this same stream of Imperial Christianity. The path of the Hermit instinctually veers to the left, into the field of the right brain. This is the path of the contemplatives of all organized religions, and when taken on foot, it is easy enough to transcend the rigid walls of dogma, those retaining walls that block us from the dynamic feminine power of the green and fertile sea, and explore both the waters of duality and those earthy Spanish apartments, rooted as they are beside the sheer drop into the bottomless void. This way requires discipline and determination, the qualities of a Roman, but the path is actually quite short and sure.
Sophie is herself Latin, but Spanish rather than Italian. However, in an earlier dream from that stressful period during which there was a struggle with the internalized abusive mother, the Old Landlady or Empress Reversed, she was imaged as the daughter of a Mafiosi family, victimized by their control and cruelty. In this dream, I see a new perspective on the Italian connection, that this was also a struggle with the internalized anti-feminine doctrines of Imperial Christianity.
The path that she has seen set before her is not an appropriate or realistic one - the approach to ascent is naive and ill-founded. It is not the path itself that is wrong, it is the approach. As an emotive creature of visions, hers is not the way of blind asceticism, of betraying the body to satisfy the spirit. The egoic sacrifice required by Lady Death is not intended to destroy the emotions, or even the ego, and certainly not the rootedness of the body. Instead it celebrates duality as unity expressed through diversity, that all literally are one flesh.
The true Hermit brings his passion with him into Unity, leaving nothing behind. This way requires great balance and quietude, and it is not one that can be taken
en masse or through reliance on dogma. This is the esoteric path.
The attempted shortcut of ascent via the Hermetic path through the denial of the lower chakras is doomed to failure, although it is certainly attractive to devotees of the Inner Eye, like Sophie and many others. This very shortcut is founded in the exoteric doctrines of organized religion. It just so happens, of course, that the lowest two chakras, the Root of Earth, and the Sacral of Water, represent the feminine elements of the soul itself. Denial of the lower chakras equates to denial of the sacred feminine. Thus so many people of both genders are led to betray their fundamental natures.
The use of the bodhrán and any of the other frame drums reinforces and celebrates the lower two chakras, and their basic language is a dialogue between Earth and Water, with Earth predominating. For the Solar Plexus, the chakra of Fire, the bodhrán excels at invoking the energy of Wands when played on the wooden rim. The
riqq and other tambourines perfectly add the element of Air, the domain of the bell and jingle. It is so right that Sophie should lead me upwards in my drumming to Air, the element of the Heart. But this cannot be done to the detriment of either the Solar Plexus or the Throat.
The Deva Premal concert will celebrate the creative energy of the throat in an unparalleled way, for all her work is based on that one sound that includes every other, Om.
