Sunday, March 14, 2010

The 27th Path, Peh, The Tower

The Exciting Intelligence

During a night without moon or stars, you stand at the top of a tall tower. Bellies of dark clouds skim the battlements. You feel imprisoned by the weight of a heavy crown on your head. The clouds feel as oppressive; the atmosphere so thick you can hardly breathe.

Your feet and your legs are weary from standing on the hard stones. Longing to be someplace new, you try to speak your desire to the impending storm, but find that you are mute. You see no way out of the tower’s interior and find that its great height imprisons you as well.

What good is it to rule this place if you have no freedom? The dreariness of your future, which you can only perceive as limited, full of hunger and thirst, and dull as the gray stones that entrap you fills you with despair. Words of protest surface and you try to scream, only to find that your fury is locked deep inside of you and cannot be released.

At this time, you see flashes of lightning. As they rip through the sky, you see several towers illuminated far off in the distance. One by one they ignite. They burn brightly for a brief time, and then collapse. A few seconds later, thunder rumbles so loudly that the tower shakes. A few battlement stones break off and fall to earth as you are knocked down to your hands and knees.

Where the stones were torn form the tower, a winged creature with a lion head, the body of a goat, and a serpent’s tail hovers over you with feathers that burn crimson with fire. The chimera’s eyes also smolder, while the rest of its body writhes before you.

You feel electrified with fear that this beast will snatch and throw you off the tower, your body to break so far below, or that the lion will devour you. Instead, the beast cocks its head and steps so close that the sulfur that reeks from its body fills your nostrils.

I smell your fear. I smell your despair. You wonder why you are trapped here? Every stone below you is of your own making. Each stone was made with desperation, of self-hatred, and guilt. The mortar was created by your false beliefs. You are indeed the sovereign of this lonely spire.

I have not come to consume you, as you fear because you conceived me. I am manifested by your shadow, and made from the myriad ways you deceive yourself. Yet, you called me to you even in your inability to speak, and by facing me, your transformation begins.

The chimera’s scream pierces the sky as it flies into the storm clouds. Lightning zigzags across its path and hits the tower. The electricity convulses through your body as you fall headfirst into the abyss.

You experience complete darkness and flat in the black space, but eventually the smell of cinders brings you to consciousness. You wake and tower has disappeared. Before you now bubbles a fiery lake. The ground beneath you is composed of jasper and garnet, hard red stones that dig into your body. You sit up slowly and wonder if this searing world means you’ve descended to Hell.

As soon as this thought passes through your mind, laughter surrounds you. Up from the lake rises the god Krishna, playing his flute and dancing on the burning water. His music is the first comfort you have experienced in what feels like eons, and, slowly, his music soothes your rattled spirit.

When tension has left your body, Krishna stops playing and speaks. You stand at the edge of the fount of creation. Join me in the dance of your new life.

Though you fear being burned, you step onto the lake to join him. Krishna puts his flute to his lips and fire surrounds you. Yet, instead of fearing its destructive power, peace and hope grows inside of you.

Krishna transforms into Horus, a young god with a falcon head, holding the sun between his hands. Just as quickly, Horus becomes the god Mars, a robust man holding a flaming sword. As you swirl by him, kicking up sparks with your feet, he hands you the sword.

All power of transformation comes from this lake, and the flames of this sword will always be renewed. The energy of the tower that you were trapped in has been consumed and transformed. Use this fire to propagate your new existence. Spread its flames on the new fields your thoughts and words will sew.

You choose to stop your dance and find yourself in a field of dark green grass that cools the soles of your feet. The flaming sword is clasped in one hand, and a small blood red stone, still hot from its source, gleams brightly in the other. These are the only sources of illumination you have, for the stars and moon are still absent; above is only a void tinted scarlet.

You see the letters IHVH inscribed on the stones, and the significance of having danced with the many faces of the Father-God become apparent. Remembering what you have been told, you finally find your voice.

Let there be light, you say into the emptiness. Your word ring clear and true.

The sword flies from your hand into the sky and becomes the sun. The scarlet above you unfolds into blue sky. Clutching the stone, you spea k again, from the depth of your being, now healed and transformed, and from here you begin to recreate your world.

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