The image of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden is a familiar one, perhaps it is a little less well known that, within a number of mankind's spiritual philosophies and much of its folklore, the image of a tree has stood as , perhaps, the most powerful of descriptive symbols for more than 2000 years. Christianity holds to 'The Tree of Knowledge' and the Cross (the Golgotha tree), the Hebrew mystical teaching (the Kabbalah) , it's 'Tree of Life', Scandinavian folklore presents us with Ygdrassil, the great ash tree on which Odin hung, whilst Britain's Druids have long gathered around the great oaks of Britain to make their worship although, it is important to note, not to worship the trees themselves but what they represent.
A more perfect symbol both for the relationship between Earth and the Cosmos and also of the striving of the human soul, could not have been chosen. For,as various spiritual philosophies expound, it represents the belief that we are each born, rooted in the earth of our ancestral DNA but with spirit potential to reach upwards and, through hard work, joy, pain and, most of all, a maturing discrimination, acquire a 'trunk' of learning, a 'branch' of direction, 'leaves' of experience and, finally, 'blossoms' of soul wisdom.
In particular, the `Hebrew 'Tree of Life' with its journeying pathways and spheres of states of being, maps out such an adventure. In 1990 I had no knowledge of this image and yet, in the subsequent years I was to learn that one of the initial paths from the sphere of Malkuth at the root of this symbolic tree to its next sphere, Yesod, is known, amongst its other titles as the pathway of Ceres (Demeter in Greek myth). She who was worshipped by the Romans as earth mother and goddess of harvest whose daughter, Persephone (Kore to the Greeks) was snatched by Pluto, , brother of Jupiter, and taken down into his Underworld to be his wife, leaving Ceres, grief-stricken and wandering the Earth in search of her daughter. Fascinating to reflect on the fact that, nine years, earlier, my own daughter Joanna, had died from cancer, leaving me also to mourn and wander whilst, at the same time, and completely unknown to myself, apparently stepping on to the 'Tree' and climbing the steep path that led from its root sphere to the sphere of images. Unknown, until that April afternoon in the Spring of 1990, when a British earthquake flung open a long-shut window in my mind and I began to see image and glimpsed a path stretching both behind and before me and, in that moment, recognised that there was something that I had to, absolutely had to, remember.
. . Destruction, destruction . .
One of the known and curious facts that has been observed over the years regarding the phenomenon of intuitive reception, or channelling, is that, in the majority of cases, the first 'messages' a new channeller receives and interprets frequently take the form of, often dire, warnings relating to dangers that are threatening the Earth's future. The form of the spoken, or written expression of any such message is always entirely dependent upon the channeller's own interpretive capacity and personal leanings. It is clear that my own beginning fitted this same pattern and I hope to offer my own explanation for this pattern at some point later in my text.
. . There are circles within circles that must be crossed in a spiraling movement . . you are the converter, the force must pass through you into the ground . . this is the old way in the hills . . Your family is the guide . .
In the beginning are the oak and the hawthorn . . here we have worshipped with the backdrop of hills to guide us . . Gather round this place to make a communion with arms upraised and holding the branches . .
Know only how to begin, as did your forefathers. . . On the hilltop I will wait where the dancers move. .
You are the people of the faith, your task is to pray and make the journeys through the light of time . . The fathers have come home to their children and the mothers cry in the lonely place.
Here the words begin to adopt a fascinating identity. For, reading the whole sections from which the above quotes are taken, the picture that comes to mind is from an ancient British/Celtic Britain - a time of Druidic teaching and a nature-based spiritual and philosophical practice.
How then was it that, as I typed the words 'On the hilltop I will wait where the dancers move', I instinctively knew that the dancers on the hilltop were the standing stones of the Rollrights - an ancient circle standing exactly on the border between south Warwickshire and north Oxfordshire?
It is important to note that these 'Writings' do not flow together as a whole. With increasing hindsight I began to realise that every phrase in every paragraph of these communications forms the shape of a single piece of a broken-up jigsaw puzzle. I very soon realised that that there was not just one jigsaw puzzle hidden amongst these words waiting for my brain to make whole - but many!
It is also apparent that these words are not only emerging from me but they are also summoning me to act - to take-up some kind of responsibility. Appearing, as they do, to infer not only that I understand what they are speaking about but that I have, in some way acquired such knowledge from my ancestors.
I have been able to pull out, amongst others, the following four identifiable forms from these first puzzle pieces:
1. Druidism..
Druids taught, of the power of the sun. the moon and the planets to influence human life, landscape and nature; in the energetic oneness of the whole of existence and the transmigration (reincarnation) of the soul. Many of their teachings, (in common with those of other ancient eastern mystery schools) were given form in the ritual and ceremonies that presided over. These open-air, circular-form ceremonies were held on particular sites which the Druid priests either identified within natural landscape forms or, had, themselves, designated and marked as sacred and were held at specific times of cosmic activity e.g. Full and New moons and Solar and Lunar eclipses.
2. Mithraism
Mithraism is a cult which many believe has its roots in Zoroastrianism - itself an early
Persian sect. For a period, chiefly during the time of the Roman occupation of Britain,
Mithraism and Christianity co-existed and shared a remarkable number of correspondences. For Mithraic beliefs propound that the god, Mithra, was born of a
virgin mother on 25 December and, on his death, ascended into heaven, with the
promise that he would one day return and bring eternal life to his followers.
Mithraism was widely practiced amongst the Roman Legions ( the remains of three
Roman Mithraic temples can still be seen on Hadrian's Wall. Most importantly, in the context of these 'Writings' and the quote, 'The fathers have come home to their children' the priests of Mithra were known as 'Fathers' and their followers as 'Children'.
As for ' . and the mothers cry in the lonely place' these words seem not only to relate to the myth of Ceres/Demeter but also to another cult absorbed by the Legions. That of the Turkish Cybele. worshipped as the mother of the god, Attis, who occasioned his mother's anger, castrated himself as a penance, and, as a result, died. Cybele wept copiously for her dead child but was subsequently enabled to resurrect him. She was known to the Greeks as 'Mountain Mother'' and artifacts of her cult have also been found on Hadrian's Wall.
3. Personal Ancestry
It is important to note that I was born into an old Warwickshire family of proven longevity in the county. My maternal and paternal grandmothers were first cousins and
the shared family line that I carry has been rooted within a five mile circle of central Warwickshire land for, at least, 800 years. Warwickshire, the county which has at its heart and spread below the north facing escarpment of the Edge Hills, the valley that has
been known for centuries as the Vale of the Red Horse. ('. .with the Red Horse to guide us')
A maternal great-grandmother's ancestors all worked the land in the county's south-west
corner where it borders Worcestershire and lies adjacent to the Roman Rycknield (or Buckle) Street. Only recently, I have learned that my other maternal great-
grandmother's ancestors originated in a north Cotswold village, which sits exactly on the
border between Warwickshire and Oxfordshire and is within sight of the Rollright Stones.
Whilst her maternal ancestry has its roots a little further south, amazingly, again at a
spot adjacent to Rycknield Street, this time where it joins the Fosse Way.
(Intriguingly, my mother, her mother and her mother's father all had splendid `Roman'
noses!)
My channelling ability emerged at the exact moment of a British earthquake, the effect of which was to cause me a physical jolt, which was immediately followed by a sensation of heat and irritation in my right brain-lobe (..You are the people of the memory . .) I felt mentally confused but, at the same time, also became certain that 'Someone' was trying to tell me 'Something'. I began typing and, perhaps also, to remember.
Hypotheses:
a) That the earthquake triggered a particular energy wave that I am genetically sensitive
to,
b) that I hold this particular resonance in common with that of my ancestral land and, once
re-awoken to it, could access the memories, it, itself, held within some universal energy
field,
c) that the earthquake impulse also triggered the awakening of my own genetic memory.
giving me access to my ancestors archetypal thought patterns and pictures which are
locked somewhere within this same Universal Unconscious.
d) that, in particular, I accessed the DNA memory of my earliest ancestors who, in their
own lifetimes had acknowledged some integral relationship with their earth and
which they had honoured both in, apparently, essential ceremony but also in the names/
sounds/resonances they had given to the cosmic and nature forces they knew as the gods.
e) that in a time of increasing climatic change, some force, perhaps the Earth itself,
was triggering within me, not only deep memory but also the recognition of the family
skills and responsibility such knowledge demanded.
(NB. Due to personal circumstances my nest Blog will appear in two weeks time)
1 comment:
Post a Comment