A Journey to Auschwitz

I always knew that I would one day visit Auschwitz and that if I visited too soon the experience would destroy me. Haunted by ghetto dreams since childhood, I have played the role of ruthless defender many times, battling against impossible odds, and that of helpless fugitive, too terrified to breathe. This terror held me in its grip for years until I remembered the life of Petra, a little girl who died at Auschwitz in 1942, having spent her infancy in hiding, forbidden speech. I had been vigilant since November 2004, when I first presented my ‘Winds of Heaven’ Sacred Play. This focuses inspiration and includes a section devoted to the Vision Quest. Unexpectedly, while holding space for participants, I had a profound vision which indicated that I should go to Auschwitz within a year. This would be a healing journey on which I would be accompanied by my friend T. In the event, we left on November 1st 2005, All Saints’ Day. Neither this nor the fact that we travelled with German partners was accidental. My account here is limited to personal impressions.

Why should an Irishman want to visit such a place, or write about it? I am aware that survivors and their advocates urge that people who weren’t directly involved have no right to offer commentary, much less forgiveness. Despite this, I feel impelled to write now even as I felt impelled to travel before, in peril of my soul’s destruction. Part of me feared the journey, despite multiple intimations of synchronicity and Grace. What if all my words about Spirit, Love and Light were to wilt in face of the Abyss, sucked into a black hole of humanity’s deepest despair? Notwithstanding apprehension, my spiritual awareness knew that everything was in place. I was also conscious that Shadow holds our disowned Gold as well as our rejected pain and that both are always seeking to come Home. Remembering countless Petras, I resolved to offer myself fully to the occasion, whatever that might entail.

November 2 was unexpectedly sunny and bright. Crowds flocked to village cemeteries on the road from Krakow, honouring ancestors on their special day. I found myself acutely sensitive to every sign of civilisation in what I had wrongly thought would be a grim landscape. Perhaps the camp itself mightn’t be so grim? What could this possibly mean in regard to a place where over a million people had been deliberately killed? I didn’t know.

Auschwitz I has the outer façade of a State Museum. Apart from sobering notices in the car park - Who would have thought Auschwitz could have a car park? - the approach buildings might be taken for a gallery. Inside the foyer, large notices in many languages commemorate the victims of Nazi genocide, always under the implicit rubric ‘Lest we forget. Lest this should happen again.’ A documentary film compiled from contemporary footage detailed a catalogue of unimaginable horrors, identifying perpetrators repeatedly and specifically as Nazis. The many teenagers present knew they were being exhorted not to grow into bad types such as these had been, long before their time of Benetton and Coke. The impact on a group of Israeli cadets was more particular.

The camp itself was smaller, more concentrated, than I could have imagined. Apart from a death’s head insignia it looked almost cosy and familiar. I gathered myself to pass under its infamous gate, leaving personal preoccupations aside to be an instrument of Grace. I had no idea what this might involve. The energy was strangely serene, almost beautiful, despite a macabre battery of signs designating various sites of punishment and execution. An undertow of terror was everywhere. Nevertheless, I felt a distinctly reverent energy as I walked through the barracks and around the edge, my Heart open to all impressions, breathing in and out the Breath of God, admitting floods of recollection as I passed. Our human spirit, Spirit as such, had been annihilated here, or the effort had been made: reduced to administrative units, confined, contracted and crushed. Why? Sometimes humans must do terrible things in order to remember how much we love. Spirit is not exclusive. All of One Heart, we remember this when moved. Forgetful, we need moving so that hardened hearts may open past frontiers of exclusivity and our consciousness of unity be restored. 

Auschwitz is a place where many have been deeply moved. For every murder committed, thousands of candles have been lit and flowers left. This pattern has been enacted with reverence over sixty years. It is particularly evident on this All Souls’ Day at the execution wall. Moved - really moved - to pray, human beings transform reality. This is why Auschwitz has become a sacred place, beyond the agony and despair of those who offered themselves as part of a great sacrifice to return a supposedly rational, functional world to the awareness of Love; to make it holy (sacer facere) again.

These were not intellectual realisations. My Heart was broken open with every step and absorbed ever deeper impressions the more it opened. In the depths of my soul I was crying. The Sorrow of the World was in full flow and I a hapless instrument of Grace. I moved through various exhibitions, noting horror upon horror, hearing different guides recount hideous things Nazis had done. All spoke in controlled tones of tacit dissociation. My soul was crying ‘There is more! Spirit isn’t exclusive. This is no place for judgment. Judging reinforces the split we come here to heal.’ 

I walk past rows of photographs, images of victims from many countries, calling them into my Heart. There is an outline map with Auschwitz at its centre. Energy lines pour into it from all directions, marking the routes followed by death trains from transit camps all over Europe. I stand before this map a long time, transfixed as if by a mandala. I find the Romany exhibition especially moving and study it reverently, absorbing every image, inviting each of these beloveds into my Heart. Then I walk into another world: well-fed Himmler, polished Heydrich and other leading Nazis sit, plotting their Final Solution. I hesitate. My Heart freezes. Could I invite these perpetrators in for healing also? Spirit is not exclusive. To judge a part is to cripple the whole. These judges were in need of healing. No flowers are ever left for them. I open and a dam of sorrow bursts deeper still inside me. 

Then I am drawn, unwittingly, as if by irresistible momentum, to the gas chamber. An impromptu shrine of wreathes and candles honours the sacrifice of those who released their spirits in order that we might remember ours, exactly, here. I recognise the spot where Petra died, led there by a man who saw she was afraid and alone. I stood in that corner, back against the wall, breathing in and out the Breath of God, moved beyond tears by the beauty of what human Spirit can endure and transmute. Again, the power of Grace is tangible here.

Now outside the camp perimeter, I approached the entrance again to meet my friend. Paused at the gate, I feel a surge of energy pouring in from above. It passes through my body into Earth. I recognise this energy as Sophia (Holy Spirit). T is a hundred meters distant, similarly engaged. We stand facing each other for twenty minutes, anchoring what he called a Pyramid of Light into Auschwitz I.

Later we go to Auschwitz II, Birkenau, a much larger camp designed specifically for extermination. A culminating manifestation of deranged human dreaming, Birkenau was built by slave labour on an open plain. Only chillingly deliberate placements of barbed wire separate its interior from beautiful sunsets and memories of Nature as abundant. It is weirdly soulless, a totally functional space conceived with murderous intent. And yet it is heavy with Spirit, subdued perhaps, not yet expressive, but pregnant with gifts of utmost sanctity and devotion, the opposite of what its creators had envisaged. There could be no mistaking this: a place designed to crush Spirit, over a million people murdered between 1942 and 45, mostly within hours of arrival. What could possibly have motivated this enormity, and sustained it?

A chill enters the air. The sun begins receding in pale beauty. I am struck by a sense of spaciousness. How difficult it must have been for people so ‘concentrated’ even to notice. I experience a searing, momentary realisation of brutal cruelties inflicted, back-breaking labours and savage punishments assigned with manic zeal, constricting awareness so that every note of grace might fall away, stripping victims and their perpetrators. This had a perversely equalising effect, given Nazi attitudes towards Jews as ‘chosen people,’ aloof in their arcane mysteries while showing dangerous signs of excellence in worldly pursuits. 

Here, in a manufactured scramble for survival, rabbis, professors and first violins were shown to have no more dignity than their tormentors or, failing that, extinguished. Here proof was adduced that the ‘chosen’ were no better than their captors, themselves fragile aspirants to racial supremacy. This whole maya was born of vast shame! A jealous inferiority sense veiled by acts of power over, stupidly read as a mark of superiority by amnesiac humans who choose without awareness to project rather than own our shadows.  

Never admitting wounds that keep Hearts closed and Spirits imprisoned, we (need to) create a world that reflects this inner condition where Spirit is imprisoned and evidence of other possibilities destroyed. Auschwitz I and II was such a world. Our calling now is not to judge its architects nor dissociate ourselves from them but to learn what they have taught and then open our Hearts beyond what they were able to achieve.

*

Such awareness wasn’t born of clever thinking. My whole time in the camp was spent in meditation, suffering all impressions that arose into my Heart, allowing them to receive whatever healing was available and releasing them to continue as they must. This is a practice refined over years, a particular form of breathing in and out the Breath of God. It has become a reflex to activate Source Consciousness when faced with impressions of disorder. Those noted above came all at once, as if they had erupted from the Body of the Goddess; from an Earth stricken and in recoil but seeking now to shake Herself free of mortification. They burst upon awareness whole, forcefully and beyond equivocation. I felt as if my Heart and mind were blown wide open; then as if I could breathe more freely as a result.

*

A railway line runs from the main gate to the ruins of gas chambers and crematoria at the rear of the camp. We walked its length in reverse, back towards the gate. As we did, I felt like we were walking the Middle Pillar of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. (Kabbalah is a mystical tradition within Judaism. The Tree of Life is an esoteric map that God is said to have given Adam following expulsion from Eden in order that humanity might find its way back Home.) The Heart Centre on this line is the spot where Nazi ‘doctors’ selected which of the new arrivals were fit for work and which must die. Many hearts were broken in this place, torn from loved ones under conditions of peak anxiety and mistrust.

We walked a little the path the ‘unfit’ followed to their deaths. The way is marked by the most poignant photograph I have ever seen, taken by the SS. An old woman accompanied by four children shuffles towards Eternity. I cannot say which of them embodies or elicits the most love. The endurance of this image surely represents a turning point in our fall from innocence? I thought this more in yearning than belief. Then I felt many souls who had walked this way stream into my Heart and out to Light. I gave myself to this process for as long as it took. A couple passed from the opposite direction, eyes lowered to avoid my greeting. I noted a similar tendency in all who let themselves be engaged by the complex, harrowing energies of this place.  

Despite the compassion it evokes, Auschwitz is presented as a monument to shame, a warning of depths to which humanity can sink if… If what? If Nazis were ever to regain power? This attribution is too specific. There is nothing one wo/man can accomplish that any other, in principle, is incapable of. It’s a question of how deeply we realise our Love. Spirit is not exclusive. We are of One Heart. Because we know this ‘unconsciously,’ we feel deeply shamed by our failure to live accordingly. Yet we can’t achieve this as long as unconscious wounds prevent us from relinquishing ego control and daring risks involved in opening our Hearts. Instead, like traumatised children, we hesitate to let old memories go for fear that reduced vigilance will permit a repetition of the patterns that induced our ancient hurt. 

Auschwitz reminds us of our shame and our compassion; our fears as well as grief. Thus we mistrust ourselves, not knowing what might happen were we to slip our leash again, not realising that the unhealed condition of our wounds is what impels us to destroy. This is true for all humans. Fearing the image of ourselves that Auschwitz presents, we cling tightly to it, keeping ourselves trapped at the level of Nazi survival consciousness, where the only fulfilment available is to be the one/group with most control so that it can never happen (to me/us) again. We repress our spontaneity and longing in favour of a soulless, functional world characterised by suspicion, uniformity and death.

I left the camp unsure what had been accomplished or even set in motion. Later I dream:  

My Heart, pink and swollen with love, opens softly. A large stone is pushed out. There is no struggle. It is something dead, the relic of a past now fully lived. In its place a new seed has been planted, born of the old, delicate and fine, pregnant with the promise of new times. My pink Heart closes easily around it, incubating, hopeful and warm.

I am on the edge of Birkenau, alone. All barbed wire has been removed and it is winter. I stand before a vast expanse of snow. My gaze is drawn to a clearing between two clumps of trees. My soul urges me to move towards this but part of me stays rooted, fearful of being shot if I dare to pass beyond camp boundaries. I know I must step out and do so tentatively, feeling very exposed against the snow. I make my way slowly, waiting to be shot. Step after step I continue and still no bullets come. My pace quickens. I feel a huge weight lifting from me as I walk, as if my soul is being unburdened. Then, just as I reach the clearing, a cattle truck appears before me, like those used to transport Jews. I know I must go in. As I enter it transforms into the Ark, burning in pure white fire. Letters of the sacred alphabet rise up as flames and with them my Spirit is set free.

God and Goddess are making love, creating worlds over and over. A mighty wave comes crashing. Their orgasm rips through Cosmos, birthing stars. A corridor of golden light opens in my Heart, running straight to the Heart of Goddess, my Beloved, at Auschwitz II. All Souls who ever walked the Paths of the Holy Tree there stream into my Heart and through it to the Sacred Heart of Birkenau, the point on its Kabbalistic Tree of Life where hearts were torn apart for those lost years. I am amazed to see such brightly coloured souls, SS among them, lift the consciousness of Earth, restored in awareness to Mother’s Love. She grows brighter and more vibrant as they enter. Suddenly the influx is complete. The Goddess erupts, sending waves of shimmering light, pale gold, cascading out in all directions. As the energy of this first eruption fades, a Fountain of Light pours radiantly from the Heart of Auschwitz II, honouring the alchemy of all that enduring human Spirit can transmute, showering waves of Grace all over Europe.

                                                                                                                                                          2006

Guatemalan Odyssey

I first saw Don Alejandro across a crowded hotel lobby in Guatemala City. Joseph, our coordinator, moved to hug him before introducing me. I hugged him also and was amazed by a surge of pure pink energy that leapt from my Heart into his. He excused himself quickly and retired to a nearby gents’. I could see that he was shaken. I too had been startled by this unexpected eruption but felt reassured by its utterly benevolent nature. 

When Don Alejandro (Tata) reappeared, he spoke only to Joseph. Then as our group assembled, he shook everyone’s hand but turned away on catching my eye. This was the opposite of what I had been hoping for. I hadn’t considered how our meeting might be but would have welcomed some sign of recognition.  I knew his sense of boundary had been violated and assumed this had happened for a reason that would eventually become clear.

The next morning we travelled to Tikal. It was late evening by the time we left our belongings at a hotel and walked to the Plaza at the heart of this old city. Once a splendid human habitation, Tikal was mysteriously abandoned by the Maya in the 9th century. It had been reclaimed by jungle but was now slowly being restored. Its ‘great square’ feels surprisingly familiar when we reach it. 

I kneel before the Jaguar Temple, as I had done many times in meditation over the preceding months. Connecting with what Tata calls the Heart of Earth and Heart of Heaven, I introduce myself to the place and its guardians. My meditation goes well up to a point where I am moved to relay energy from the Heart of Creation into Earth. 

This was necessary to trigger an opening that had been envisaged when, early in October, my meditation reached a stage of calling energies of Creation into my Heart. I then saw an image of the Jaguar Temple in which its crown was blown open, making it available for renewed cosmic communion. Human amnesia, violence and neglect had evidently decommissioned it in this respect.

It was just before this point in my meditation that the sense of blockage arose. It felt like an inhibiting force that was coming from me rather than the place. This had to do with respect for my Mayan hosts and was certainly exacerbated by Tata’s wariness at my early enthusiasm. I had prepared carefully for this moment. Nevertheless it felt appropriate to stop, so I did. 

It is pitch dark on our way back to the Lodge. I walk the winding path alone, with no aid from artificial light, following a course laid down by fireflies flickering intermittently before me. Guided in this way, from one evanescent beacon to the next, I find my way to the edge of the jungle and a road leading to our chalets. 

After dinner Tata tells how his Ancestors, while living underground during the interval between the last world and our present one, followed subterranean tracks that opened for them via the appearance of mysterious lights in the darkness. It felt as if, by this telling, a measure of indirect acknowledgment had been given or at least received.

The next morning Tata addresses us before the Jaguar Temple. He says he was once told that the voices of his ancestors could be heard here. He felt uncertain and needed to find out, so one evening he hid in a side-building before the complex closed for the night. Later he came down into the deserted square and climbed to the top of the temple. There, in darkness, he tried to communicate with the stones. 

He found that he could hear his ancestors’ voices, but they were speaking a language he couldn’t understand. This was all he could tell us. If he said more he would be lying and if he lied to us, he would be lying to himself. These words brought me to a sudden realisation. I too had spent many hours, day and night, communing with the stones of my home place. The coherence of my tradition had also been devastated by invasion.

In a flash I see that I too come from an indigenous people whose colonisation has been so thorough that we can’t yet acknowledge the extent of our loss! We debate versions of political history but refer these to a past we believe to be complete, interpretations aside. And we so resemble our colonisers that there is little to distinguish us from them in terms of appearance. Our genetics have long been mixed but race is not the issue. Depth of cultural memory is. 

Specifically, the wisdom of ancestors who once resonated with the genius of my land has been destroyed. We have no teachers who admit the perils of lying to themselves. No one read my stars when I was born or blessed my other-worldliness and applauded my efforts to remember. This sensibility has effectively been lost. It is to rectify this that I have come to the land of the Maya, the keepers of memory. 

After a fire ceremony I am drawn back to the Square. Following the lead of my meditations and Tata’s example I sit facing the Jaguar Temple, hoping to sense what must be done. All my preparations are intact. There is nothing I can do but wait. For three and a half hours I sit, doing nothing, looking at the stones. Then, out of the blue, I am directed to the Temple of the Moon, located at the opposite end.

I ascend a wooden stair and am guided to a point opposite the upper levels of the Jaguar Temple. As I sit, I feel a gentle rumbling in the Earth below, followed by a wave of energy that rises up my spine and through the Temple’s pyramidal form. A vortex spirals gently down from the heavens in response. I feel then like a sailor drifting in a boat of stone. Gradually impressions stabilise and I know that something has ‘switched on.’ 

The Moon Temple feels alive in a way that it didn’t before. Its reconnection with Earth triggers an influx of sky energies. This restored confluence also triggers an activation of the Jaguar Temple. I sense a line of light running the length of the Square from the Temple of the Moon to that of the Sun. It too starts resonating. The whole structure seems to vibrate, sending waves of energy out in all directions. This feels like a message, indicating that a new level of preparedness has been achieved.

I glimpse the Light Geometry of the whole Plaza, which tells me that the temples operate in unison. I don’t often ‘see’ such detail but I did on this occasion and it was very clear. Singing will help to bridge the gap with ancestors and women working through the Moon Temple would be particularly effective in restoring lost lines of communion. I say this to Elizabeth, an English-speaking elder. I do so because I feel impelled to and don’t want to act like a thief in my hosts’ house.

The following night Tata invites questions from the group. I tell him how I spent years searching for teachers in my country and, finding none, had taken to visiting sacred places where I tried to learn by communing with them. My Heart gradually opened in this way. Eventually it led me to visit Guatemala. The most remarkable thing I had found since arriving was how much I loved his people. I asked if he had an explanation for this.

He answered that the Maya don’t negotiate; only Mayans can truly appreciate Mayan culture. He told us of an American woman who asked to be his student. He told her she was welcome in his house but advised her to return to the land of her ancestors and seek teachers there, not necessarily physical. She hadn’t been offended.

I wasn’t either, although I hadn’t asked to be a student and had already spent years doing what was now advised. I replied that while it is important for a flower to be rooted in its own soil, it blossoms for the whole world. Tata closed his eyes. After a while he said we should meditate on the image of human beings stepping out of flowers and thanked me for my question.

Then someone asked about the return of ancestors which had been prophesied for this time. Tata said we should not think of this in physical terms but in other ways (such as voices speaking through stone). Later he quoted a prophecy: ‘We are the ones of today, we were the ones of yesterday and we will be the ones of tomorrow.’

This struck me as a genuinely mystical statement that far exceeds its literal sense. Tata had previously said elders are born, not made, and that he himself was a returning ancestor whose mission had been recognised at birth and codified in his astrology. This suggests that ancestors incarnate repeatedly, contributing their wisdom in newly challenging times.

He was referring to Mayan culture specifically at that moment but it is clear that former Mayans might incarnate in other cultures too, especially in times of great awakening. Elisabeth had already said that this is why so many people now feel drawn to visit. Indeed, Tata said on another occasion that ‘ancestors’ are now returning as ‘people of wisdom’ who are moved from within to remember knowledge that has largely been forgotten. 

I understood then why he felt disposed to see me as a student but there is also more involved. The Mayan precept ‘In lak’sch’ (you are another myself) isn’t constrained by racial boundaries but healing is needed to secure this awareness now that boundary violation (invasion) has occurred. 

Oneness asks us to open beyond wounding in such moments. Being spiritual doesn’t mean that problems won’t arise but rather that they can be processed as they do. I think of my first hug and Tata’s response. Politeness might have prevented this transmission had it not happened innocently. The only thing conveyed was love, yet it raised issues of mis/trust which evidently needed raising.

I recall visiting Egypt with a spiritual group some years before. We were warmly greeted then as returning ancestors. It felt wonderful to be accorded this status of belonging and welcomed Home. I realise that my soul has been hungry for specific acknowledgement on this occasion and that Tata has seemed at pains to withhold it.

Later that week I ask him about the history of the Maya and its significance for other peoples. He tells a ‘creation story’ in response. His recitation is clear, eloquent and unfaltering. I am caught in a cleft between worlds: that of a people ruthlessly exploited by outside interest and that of a returning prodigal for whom no feast has been ordained.

Tata pauses then and looks at me. Unbidden, my fingers trace an opening of my Inner Heart and extend its blessings to him. He looks down and resumes his story. After the Maya of Central America, civilizations with the same source arose in Egypt, China and India. This is the significance of Mayan history for other peoples.

After his Creation Story, I see that Tata speaks from the authority of Tradition. He does so as a Voice for all First People, true humans who pray to remember who they are and where they are from. As custodians of this deep memory, the Maya can’t negotiate; nor can Tata as their leader permit dilution of a Truth they have struggled for so long to preserve. This Truth runs deeper than our facts. Hence I don’t protest his tale as a non-Big Bang account of literal creation. 

Indeed, Mayan mythology describes a series of Worlds that existed prior to ours. Each was destroyed by the gods as it became clear that it would not produce full human beings. Survivors languished in underground caves during dark intervals between them. Tata’s story refers to human re-emergence after the last such interval, most likely that between the Third World and our waning Fourth.

The next day we reach Lake Atitlan. I perceive it as a vital centre from which civilisations might once again spring forth. That night, I dream of being kissed by a beautiful woman. At first I see only her face. Stepping back I see that her body is immense and made of stars. Tata says it is a good dream and means that the Earth is welcoming me home. 

Later he reads my astrology. As he speaks, my brow opens 360 degrees. I say nothing.  All the questions I had been saving for this moment fall away. Everything feels intrinsically, inherently clear. Next morning, we sit together on a long bus ride back to Guatemala City. No words are spoken.

[From The Calendar and the Grail, volume 1- Tantra of the New Grail (2013). See under ‘Books.’]

Easter 2015: Remembering Christ Consciousness

Night 1:   CRUCIFIXION

We break after an introductory session to prepare quietly for our enactment, building on work shared over previous months. When we return the room is completely dark but for a single candle. Strong music plays, evoking energies of the ancient Middle East. As ever, its carrying role will be essential.

You are fifteen years old and a fringe member of a group that has travelled to Jerusalem to be with Rabbi Jesus for Passover. Although it is nearly sunset people are still entering the city. You have been sent to meet possible latecomers from your community and escort them to a friendly house. The sky grows dark. The crowd becomes a trickle. Warned to return promptly at this time, avoiding Roman patrols, you withdraw quietly, moving as quickly as you can without drawing attention, keeping to busy streets before diving into an alley. Then, checking to ensure you weren’t followed, you knock twice on a second door, give the word and are pointed without ceremony to an upper room.

Maybe thirty people are gathered in a circle. Rabbi Jesus stands at its centre. He speaks eloquently about the Lord of some Dance and starts calling a series of hypnotic chants, to which the company responds. The rhythms of this exchange flow easily, accelerating until everyone is swaying in ecstatic trance, none more than the Rabbi himself. The energy peaks in a frenzied swirl before slowly winding down. Jesus’ expression quickly turns to solemn. Many present start leaving but, much to your surprise, you are directed to stay.

The Rabbi summons all those remaining to a table. Here he breaks bread and blesses wine, asking that this practice be continued in his memory. Beyond all comprehension, your destiny feels entwined with his, as if you feel what he feels and experience as he does. One of his inner circle approaches awkwardly and speaks briefly with the Master before slipping away. Jesus says soon after that he must go to a garden and pray.

Your group moves quietly onto the street before making its way swiftly to the city’s edge. Despite his silent resolution, you sense a troubled air about the Master, as if he were anxious, perhaps even afraid. You descend into a valley, cross a river and ascend a sparsely wooded slope on the other side. Jesus strides ahead with two of his disciples, then goes a little higher to be alone. He kneels behind a rock, praying fervently, as if there were a trouble he must order in himself. Amazingly, you seem to sense this also from within.

He recalls the course of his life, its roots in the wilderness of Galilee and, beyond that, communing with his Father. His consciousness dips also into a living Mother stream, shifting between one and the other, combining both until a point is reached past which the tale has not been told. His worry, eased through deep remembering, stirs again when he finds the companions sleeping. He remonstrates briefly before settling again into prayer. Twice more he interrupts his disciples before returning to the stone, sinking deeper each time. 

A procession of torches streams out from the city. If you can see them, surely he must too. He remains composed, asking that if the Cup can pass, Father please let that be so. Soon you hear the tramp of approaching sandals. Then darkness is splintered by the light of many flames. Some disciples clutch at staffs, others pull knives from their tunics only to be stilled. Roman soldiers accompany temple guards. A sense of resignation falls. Jesus is taken roughly and struck hard. Scuffles erupt but you know that all will to resist has gone. The Rabbi is already surrendered in his Heart.

He is brought to the house of a Priest where he is promptly condemned by words from his own mouth. Harshly treated by zealous escorts, he is then dragged to Herod’s Jerusalem palace, where further beatings and humiliation await. Mocked as a would-be King, he is taken next to the Romans and given into Pilate’s hands for execution. Sentence has already been passed. He knows there will be no reprieve. You know this too and wince as leather thongs tipped with metal bite into exposed flesh. Blow after blow rains down. In darkness, finally, everything goes black.

There is noise and then bright light. Water is dashed over your face. Cut loose from the whipping post, you are dragged out to blinding sun. A heavy crossbeam is placed on your shoulders. Prodded with whips and spears you stumble through an open gate, followed by others destined to share your fate. There is little of resistance left in them; or you, if this be your Abba’s will. Remembering His prayer, you step into the street. A crowd has gathered. Some look cowed, others jeer. Shocked still and weak from loss of blood, it is all you can do to keep from fainting. Sensations come at you in waves. You fall. Cajoled and beaten, you take up the crossbeam but collapse again. The third time, an impatient officer makes someone drag it for you.

 At last the infamous hill comes into view. You drive yourself resignedly on, the Father’s prayer cycling in your head. A slow ascent begins. You are ordered to stop, thrown roughly on the ground and your arms stretched out. Your shoulders splayed across the beam, piercing cries disrupt your chant as first one wrist and then the other is nailed fast. Blood spatters your eyes. You feel an agonised wrench when your weight is suspended, un-tempered by the rope slung around your chest. Vertical now, raised up, you scream hideously when an iron spike is driven through your feet. In pained delirium, you seek the balm of necessary words ‘…the glory of my Father, the glory of my Father, the glory of my Father…’ Your ears are tormented also by others’ screams … ‘the glory of my Father, the glory of my Father, the glory of my Father…’ It is hard to breathe.

The din begins to fade. You focus anew to stay conscious. Breathing is getting harder. Desperately, you press down for support. A bolt of pain shoots up. You gasp for air ‘… The glory of my Father… the glory of my Father… the glory of my Father…’ All around is terror and abysmal desolation. ‘Where are your Father’s legions now?’ ‘No miracles today Rabbi?’ It was a mistake to interrupt your chant. Desperately you search for righteous words. It gets harder and harder to breathe. Your consciousness is fading. A stabbing pain lacerates your side. Can this really be your Father’s will, the end for your lifetime of devotion?

A tide of despair engulfs, a sense of bitterness and deep betrayal. No, no, no! It cannot, will not, end like this ‘… The glory of my Father, the glory of my Father, the glory of my Father …’ No sound, just muted longing in a dedicated soul. Then a sense of imminent nothing. Abandonment. ‘My God why have you forsaken me?’ The words escape, accursed and forlorn. From deeper then, a last strangled gasp, a whisper of finally resolved intent as blackness gathers: ‘Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’ Then it is done.

You cross a bridge made by Consciousness into lighter worlds of angelic ministration that serve to soothe the scars of recent trauma on your soul. You continue as through a series of gentle mists, propelled by wave after wave of tender care. When residual traces have been erased, you find yourself arrived in a timeless domain. Here all that must happen is already assured. Just being here is to be at peace. Human bodies, wilting from the strain of our enactment, bear the consolation of this holding into healing worlds of sleep, to resume in the morning from exact spots where we have chosen to rest in a restorative music of no-time.

DAY 2:   REDEMPTION

The Karma of the World (1)

On Earth it is just after crucifixion. Mother Mary, a visible form of the Goddess, holds the tortured body of Her Son (My Child Lies Broken). She cradles it gently, with fierce and tender urgency, as if by the quality of her holding she might erase his pain. The Magdalene clings steadfastly at his knees. The Voice of the Mother cries out in lamentation, rending air with the anguish of Her grief. A deeper resonance is also heard, drawing Jesus’ spirit down through deeper layers of Her being. The Mother’s holding continues through successive levels of his immersion.

Your soul’s imagining, identified with its Beloved, has already made this journey many times. Now you must make it again. Although Jesus has shown the Way, he could only ease the karma of our present, whose plight threatens worse than Rome could imagine. Thus we too must harrow Hell, proceeding as allowed to the Heart of Earth, there to deliver a prayer on behalf of all. This is not a petition for mercy but something bolder and more ominous: a plea that we might come again into right relationship with a Mother whose body we have repeatedly violated by our actions, knowing what we do and not.

Music, intensifying, calls you ever more urgently down through the inner being of Earth. Mother Mary slowly relaxes her grip, releasing you more fully to your task of harrowing. In hope and trepidation you step forth, moving in a light body through jagged veils of resistance that the pain of Earth throws up, venting anguish and disdain towards members of a species that has used itself and Her so cruelly time after time.

She notes the sincerity of your approach, however, and is moved by the earnestness of its prayer: ‘Mother this is X / Feel me coming / Open to receive me / Acknowledge me as your servant and your child / Take me deep into the Heart of your Womb.’ Repeating these words over and over, you step through layer upon layer of grief, trauma and congealed reserve. A way keeps opening, granting precarious access through storms of sad and furious indignation. Old wounds continue to surface, evoked by resolute advance.

At last an impenetrable barrier is reached, a ring set around an inner threshold beyond which it seems there will be no passing. At once you kneel and intone another prayer, recalled in the solemn desolation of this moment: ‘Mother, I am sorry for the suffering we have caused you / I love you and I thank you / Goddess, I am sorry for the suffering we have caused you / I love you and I thank you / Beloved I am sorry for the suffering we have caused you / I love you and I thank you / May we be forgiven and forgive / Let us marry and renew as One’.

Echoes of your prayer fade in pulsing stillness, pitch dark in this deep interior of Earth (or is it Void?). Then the wall breaks open. A new tone sounds. The Mother’s Voice beckons you on. You proceed tentatively, with steadfast courage, lest parting walls close fast again. As if in recognition, the Voice modulates once more, softening to a tone of gentler quiescence. 

You step into a central chamber, Heart-like. It too is pitch dark but atmospherically different than the precariously opening channel just behind. You feel yourself alone, vulnerable but still resolved. Uncertainly, you sink to your knees. Words of your sustaining prayer flood through: ‘Mother this is X / Feel me coming / Open to receive me / Acknowledge me as your servant and your child / Take me deep into the Heart of your Womb’.

The enormity of this request bites deep under these conditions, as if noted for a first time. You, as herald of a species that has repeatedly violated the integrity of Mother’s Love, now seek admission to the Heart of Her Womb! Guilty resonances of this appeal disrupt your awareness. You are troubled by its seeming impudence. Then angry cries break out from unseen depths.

Raucous music plays as a manifestation of Goddess appears, Kali-esque. She draws close, looming ever larger. You see clearly by the light of Her coming: wild eyes, flaring nostrils and fanged teeth; snakes writhe as tendrils for her hair; a garland of skulls dangles from her neck, just past the hanging tongue. You might have known there would be another trial, a test to see if you can abide Her naked power. She dances crazily before you, shrieking and cavorting, as if intent on swallowing you whole.

Buoyed by a sense of remembered purpose, you stand firm, holding your ground to engage slowly the rhythms of Her dance, matching it movement for movement, impressing at key moments the earnestness of your suit. You dance with Her, in Her, as Her, demonstrating a will to respect her patterns. Slowly, engulfment becomes encounter and assertion a prelude to new dialogue. Then, as abruptly as She had at first appeared, Kali is gone.

You are left again in darkness, relieved to have held your ground but uncertain as to why She suddenly withdrew. There must be some consequence of this visitation! All you can do is wait. A fresh disturbance gathers in far darkness, rising up from whatever dimension this may be. Yet another Goddess manifestation comes before you, now resembling Repanse de Joie, the Grail Maiden, dressed in flowing veils of white samite. The music of Her approach is confident but restrained; also deeply erotic. As She draws near you are swept into its pulse.

A courtship dance unfolds within the splendour of Her radiance, daring you once more to match Her steps. The rhythm changes, evoking the promise of spiritual wedding, a bliss of love being made in every sense. Soon a third voice will be heard, announcing a seed of the Divine impressed in deepest throes of sacred embrace. New heights are reached and visions stamped upon your Heart. You rest easy as the glory of this moment fades, knowing you now carry something precious within, something that needs time in which to move towards Birthing

DAY 3:  RESURRECTION AND BEYOND

1. Resurrection

It transpires that closing music heard last night was an early expression of energy charged with returning your soul to the site of its body’s interment on Earth, after crucifixion. This has continued working through sleep. Now you find yourself approaching the place where an inert corpse lies shrouded on its stone bed, awaiting final atonement on this third day.

Borne virtually, you are conveyed by this same music to the scene of your entombment. Your light body, remade, no longer seems familiar, even less than the lifeless vessel which it must nonetheless re-occupy. You lack coordinates and framework for this venture and have no sense of how your consciousness will fare.

Your soul slips into the hollow shell you once thought of as yourself, feeling extraordinarily tender. There are no signs of response as ‘you’ gradually ease in, noting again how it feels to be materially confined. The body is stiff and immobile as your consciousness beholds its re-entry to no tangible effect.

New music plays, heralding the advent of an unexpected turn as energy from the Heart of Mother’s Womb pours in. Trailing your returning spirit, it courses prolifically through, surging in repeated waves that fill ‘you’ past the point of saturation, again and again. There is nothing you can do but suffer these endlessly recurring waves as they unfold, filling you time after time with hyper-charged inflows of radiant brilliance.

The surges go on and on, relentlessly penetrating every joint and fibre. A point is reached when mounting pressure can no longer be sustained. A thermonuclear explosion blasts out from the core of every cell, scorching its vivid imprint on the shroud. Your body reacts sharply, jerking like a beast abruptly charged. It shudders wildly, scornful of your will. This process continues a while before abating, leaving you shaken and estranged in your old/new form.

After brief silence new music plays, impelling you to explore this transfigured vessel, if you can bring it under control. You rise slowly, moving tentatively around the pitch blackness of an unknown interior. There is more space than you had thought. You step boldly through, still getting used to what has happened, tentatively gauging the scope of this remade mass that ‘you’ now occupy. The tomb becomes eerily illuminated as you move.

Your attention is drawn to a massive stone that blocks the entrance. You know that you must gather the power of your enlivened body and apply it somehow to this obstacle. Circling the tomb repeatedly, you harness energy clockwise for the purpose. The music builds and with it resolution. When the moment comes you place your hands and push. The boulder rolls easily away.

Removing bandages (blindfold) from your eyes, you step out into morning sun, sensing light and heat as for a first time. This world looks familiar but also splendidly new. You find yourself in a Garden, savouring the etheric constancy of many shining delights. You see someone rushing to the tomb. Recognising the Magdalene as Beloved, you move towards her. 

As Magdalene you note this figure dressed in white and think he must be a gardener. Then, seeing the open tomb, you turn to ask what happened and are stunned to see Jesus drawing near. You run to him but he warns you against touching. He has not yet ascended to his Father. Such is your relief and understanding, no hint of reprimand is felt.

Jesus bids you tell others his great news, promising to show himself in time. Then, marrying this love of two in your human form, you experience this Easter Mystery as One. So married, you pass resolutely in your enlightened body out from our workroom to a startling world of grass and trees, inclining neither to touch nor be touched.

[From The Calendar and the Grail, volume 2, Part VIII (2015). Forthcoming under ‘Books.’]

The Dream of God

What is it to dream? What reflections arise while ordinary consciousness sleeps? What is their source? What purpose do they serve? Weighing such questions opens unexpected doors.

Already we see that there is Consciousness behind ordinary (waking) consciousness: the consciousness of our dreaming, for example, and behind that a Consciousness from which our dreaming arises.

Our soul histories link to this ‘Source’ Consciousness. Dreams are its vision-bearers, reminding us of all that ordinary consciousness is unable to receive at given times.

Ordinary consciousness seems ordinary because we have become used to experiencing it in given ways, ordered by the stories, routines and conventions that define ‘ordinary’ experience.

The philosopher Chuang-tze dreamt he was a butterfly. On waking he couldn’t decide whether he was a philosopher who dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly, now asleep, dreaming that he was a philosopher.

Might we be butterflies also, only dreaming that we are the ones we think we are?

We all know people who wake up happy and then remember who they (think they) are: who they have been told they are by parents, schools, governments etc.

We are happier and more truth-full before such nets of definition bite; more fully who we most truly are.

There is always greater Consciousness behind our stories of the ones we think we are. We are always more than we have been told; always more than can be told. Consciousness is always more than can be told.

As a child I had a game where I would try to imagine how it would be if there was nothing. Day after day, for hours, I would close my eyes and picture the world disappeared.

Sometimes I too disappeared in wonder. Mostly I got stuck at the voiding of a clear sky.

This corresponds to an adult sense of darkness associated with what we call ‘the Void,’ a matrix of pure potential from which all that exists comes into Be-ing.

Be-ing is our name for the Energy/Consciousness that remains after everything (every ‘thing’) has been eliminated.

Why was I ever motivated to play such a game? Why evoke a Void when we never see one, when it’s not part of our ‘ordinary’ experience?

Because we intuit it as a Source of that experience, what philosophers call the Ground of Being (and thus of existence).

I knew about this as a child, not explicitly or because I was ‘intelligent’ but because I dared to wonder, as we all might before learning to forget.

Philosophers remember when they ask ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ Why is there existence, Be-ing, anything at all?

Then they answer and even correct each others’ answers. From that moment they start to forget.

My childhood remembering was sustained by wonder, not by a desire for answers. This is how I put in those hours without ever getting discouraged. I thrilled to my task of wondering.

There was something about it that engaged the essence of my soul. There still is. That is why I still talk about the Void, which I could never quite imagine because it was no-thing.

I could only approach it by eliminating things but there was always something left that was clearly no-thing, not any thing, just pure Be-ing, a ‘Void’ that was impossible both to picture and not. 

No-thing, beyond Void, is Consciousness, pure Consciousness: a unitary ‘field’ that we call Spirit, Divinity, God, Transcendence, Be-ing, Mystery, Tao and more.

This Consciousness is before ‘my’ consciousness or any particular consciousness, the Consciousness from which all dreams arise and which they express.

This is fundamental mystery; beyond our powers of analysis and understanding. We can’t engage it rationally but only evoke by indirect, poetic means such as ‘the Void.’

It also presents itself via the indirect poetic means that we call Dreaming.

Dreaming expresses the essence of our souls and an energy of Creation that moves us to become aware. It inspires us to remember the Ground of Be-ing, of our Be-ing, all Be-ing, of Be-ing as such.

This Ground, itself undreamt, is the Source of all Dreaming.

Behind the nothingness of Void, Be-ing already is, eternally. Empty and replete, it holds the codes for all forms. As the Life of Spirit, Consciousness predates existence.

As It creates, movement arises. By means of ‘Void’ It manifests existence. Something is born of No-thing as this (It) happens.

Be-ing is always happening (as No-thing), eternally. 

It moves from nothingness to existence through the medium of Dream, bridging a gap between the creative potential of Void and manifest existence.

Consciousness dreams existence and all Its forms out of Be-ing and into it. As expressions of Consciousness, ‘we’ do likewise. Our consciousness/es also dream forms of existence into Be-ing. 

We are thus both dreamers and dreamt, moved to dream the Truth of our souls alive, to remember our True Dreaming (by Source).

This serves It well, the Consciousness that dreams us, bringing It more abinantly to Life in existence.

Thinking we are the ones we have been told we are, this process is initially unconscious. Attention helps us remember. Dreams serve to remind us of what awaits and why we entered existence.

The aim of existence is to realise Be-ing, not retire into it. Existence is an expression of It’s (Be-ing’s) longing to BE more. Beauty is the first face of its expression, dreamt in Love.

All dreams concern the self-remembering of Love. 

Existence is the Dream of God.

We awaken in this Dream, not from it.

Even God is entranced by the beauty of Her/His Dreaming. God/dess is the vehicle of its manifestation, the expressive form and force of all Creation. 

God/dess evokes a first division in the unitary field of Consciousness that is somehow given in the Unity.

It arises as reflections of Dreaming arise within the Unity, as Be-ing’s longing to Be (more) takes form and creativity erupts. This is n/ever so. Illusions of division forever surface in apparently evolving Unity. 

Division arises not between what longs and what is longed for but between Be-ing’s longing to Be more and reflections of that longing.

Is there ever a first time for this, a ‘time’ before reflection arises in the eternal Now of pure Be-ing/Consciousess?

Such reflection creates an apparent split in the Eternal Unity of Be-ing/Consciousness between What Is and What Becomes, but the nature of What Is (It) is to Become (apparently).

To BE more is the nature of BE-ing. This is a qualitative internal process, as Love is, not a quantifiable expansion.

All appearances of growth and splitting are Illusion.  The Dream of What (It) Is to BE (more) manifests in time via the mirror/s of existence.

Existence is a reflection of fundamental Mystery, created as the Dream of God. It is a true illusion, as dreams are. Only the appearance of splitting is false.

It is an Illusion that existence is other than Be-ing or that our dreams are anything other than manifestations of Consciousness expressing as us.

Existence is an integral manifestation of Be-ing’s longing to BE (more). 

This longing is Love by another name. It is not static, but ek-static. It moves (us, inside and out). Existence arises as an integral expression of Love.

Our dreams are spontaneous expressions of this longing within, heralds of (our) Love even when traversed by (illusory) pain.

And just as Be-ing gets to recognise Its nature in the mirror of its Dreaming (i.e. existence), so we come to fathom ours via the projections of our dreams.

Thus ‘God’ (not God) is our personification of the Unity 0f pure Consciousness/Be-ing, an attempt to gauge Its Mystery beyond any possible understanding.

Such attempts are doomed to success as local priests dress ‘God’ in local colours. We must therefore look past form and costume to limitless Be-ing, to sense the vastness of this Mystery.

Consciousness expresses longing in its Dreaming, as we do. God thus becomes a yang power that projects an impulse to Be (more) and Goddess a yin that binds this longing into form and nurses it to grow.

This duality is the platform of Creation and it doesn’t finally matter which God/dess (Shiva/Shakti) name is assigned to which role.

The apparent tendency to two-ness in Unity is what matters, not the names by which apparently corresponding entities are known.

In the Dream of patriarchal mythos, ‘God’ becomes a Father principle of initiative and will.

Goddess thus becomes a Mother principle of encompassment and incubation, a nurturing force that closes around the Father’s seed and carries it to birth. 

As dreams lend impulse primary form and energy follows intent, so God/dess births existence into Being.

The Mother or Sacred Feminine is a Vessel for this process, the Holy Grail of every birth for every child and universal system.  

The Father’s portion is a maverick wind, an irreducible urge at the Heart of Be-ing’s longing to BE (more), i.e. the Heart of Love.

This longing drives us always to new edges but needs Centre to give beauty and coherence to our quest as It forever calls existence home to revelations of Be-ing: to a remembrance that we never left Be-ing, even in the flush of Its most daring innovations. 

Born to sharpen, existence can also blunt our Awareness of Be-ing. That is why we need to remember. The purpose of existence is not just to remember Be-ing but also to disclose it.

Existence is a Revelation.

Be-ing IS, past beginning and end. It is also who we are, behind all travails of existence.

Existence is not a vain Passion but an Ark of Love, dreamt to carry BE-ing through Becoming to Awareness of Itself forever.

The glory of Being is known through the pathos of existence, stemming from the transience of its forms. Movement plays teacher to Stillness in this regard.

Thus, in apparent separation, I have compassion for those I never meet and miss terribly those taken from my little life. What is this no-thing called Love?

Love is One and Its expressions many: yin-yang, fe-male etc.

It would gather all as One into holding arms until all becomes impossibly condensed (yin) even as It also reaches out, expansive and transcending (yang), so that It also makes forever more (Love). 

Awareness is required to marshal balance. This is mirrored perfectly by Breath, whose inhale-exhale motions are equally vital.

Breath expresses (from) the Heart of Love. Spiritus is the Heart of Love. Whole worlds are born of it, flourishing as the  powers unite in complementary tension, where neither dominates.

As the magnetic pull of yin moulds the radiant pulse of yang into ever more beautiful forms, Stillness remains the Source, the unmoved but moving Ground where stirring stirs.

The Dream of every human is to balance these forces in ourselves, although historically, we are asked to observe stereotypes that associate men only with yang and women with yin.

Such polarisation induces complex reactions that prevent Stillness and inhibit marrying.

Stillness is. Movement becomes. Movement is the Becoming of Stillness and BE-ing of Being.

Even as Consciousness projects existence, It rests in Stillness as the undreamt Ground from which Its dream projections rise. The Constant thus beholds its own unfolding.

Movement is thus true illusion; a power that inheres in Stillness and expresses as Dream; at-oned in the Spiritual Heart of Being, which is everywhere.

All projections represent energies assuming form, becoming reflections of and for their Source.

Our dreams epitomise this process, for all dreams express energy as form. Behind every dream an energy is asking to be known. All dreams are Masks of God, enabling Mystery to know itself as such: inscrutable, manifold, opaque, transparent, One.

To BE is what we call a verb. We must find Stillness to know BE-ing as such: as process. Neither attribute nor event, BE-ing is the event, a singularity beyond story or qualification of any kind.

‘God’ evokes Mystery in our stories about BE-ing. S/He doesn’t explain It but points to a Reality beyond explanation.

This Reality, sought by all who enter the moving field of existence in fulfilment of Being’s longing to BE (more), is known in the Unity of Heart through experience(s) of Love. 

To BE more, Be-ing must seem to become other than itself by producing reflections that see themselves as Other in time, just as we see others in our dreams although they are wholly our projections.

Identifying with Its reflections, Consciousness creates a sense of separation. We all do this and awaken only when we see through the mirrors of our Dreaming to Reality as One. 

Longing is a quality of the Divine, an expression of Love’s urge to Love more. Love is the essence of BE-ing (more), of a Spirit that would breathe (reach) out and (gather) in.

It is the essence of a stirring that is at first contained but finally engenders pulse, heartbeat, rhythm, pattern, Life. This happens as kala (time) and kama (desire) realign post Shiva-Shakti differentiation.

 BE-ing implies a process of inherence that is also inherently dynamic. Its dynamism powers Dreaming, immaterial as a Father’s Will (yang) to start, until Mother’s Love (yin) binds it tightly into form.

I base this now on universal mythos, allowing that specific Shiva-Shakti refinements must come later.

Dreaming rises up from depths of Soul: a feminine vessel of Consciousness that secretes our masculine urge to BE (more). In the stillness of its depths, Consciousness is unmoved save for this Love. 

Masculine Love pushes always to new edges, instigating repeated feminine cycles of form-building. We seek by this to feel more at One but succeed only when we look past our reflections and through to Source, from which all reflections arise.

Soul evokes a primary level of Creation, the first stage in a process of diversification and self-limiting whereby One disperses itself across Many forms of existence, God’s Dream.

Awakening in this Dream, existing in the Awareness of Be-ing, I AM. Moving in stillness, still within all movements, I AM.  

As an arrow flies, does the insect resting on it also fly? Does the flying arrow move in flight?

So in stillness I, unmoving, am moved by Holy Breath that fills me; so Holy Grail as Holy Womb gathers winds of Father urging and weaves them with a Mother’s Love into existence.

Stillness is the Zero Point of Mother’s Heart, a Portal of Creation through which Father’s Breath forever tumbles into form, in and all around us.

BE-ing is, eternally and without limit. Yet It grows (qualitatively) as Consciousness is remembered in existence. This is how It comes to Be more. There is no Mystery beyond Origin, where Love is known as the Source of All. The aim of existence is to remember Love. 

Existence is of Be-ing: the dance of a Divine Dream that shapes an inevitable evolution of Its already perfect Unity. Our longing is not for Be-ing but of Be-ing; not for the Divine but of the Divine; not for Love but of Love.

We dream to remember Love and bring it to Awareness in all worlds.

                                                                                                          2002-2026+

[I use this piece as a permanent forum for meditative expression, which means that every time a new insight trans-rationally dawns, I refer it to this ever-growing frame for purposes of conscious assimilation and articulation. I keep it to small chunks so particular propositions can be revalued and modified as necessary. Please feel free to use any or all of what is presented here as a springboard for your own reflections. The opening statements are intuitively accessible and likely to have an awakening effect.]