Holy grail traditions

And try to read this if you're interested- a very illuminating book. I think the Holy Grail traditions, any access we still have to those primordial teachings, is important and--as of now--rings the most bells in my spirit.
 

The golden light of Aphrodite

 "Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy."
- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

The lilac-scented air of Spring has come and gone and my body's craving and seeking for solar warmth is finally contented. The steps of my Spring dance with Persephone shuffled from lakeside lounging, cold herbal drinks, fresh fruit, a collarbone dabbed with ambrosia oil, a book on Eros and the mysteries of love and the primordial traditions of sacred sexuality, and sowing seed-prayers with each step and turn of this seasonal waltz.

Late winter and early Spring were difficult. I entered a short dark night, but was able to understand and detach enough to endure and seek the lesson, the soul communication. A threshold was crossed internally, boundaries set, decisions made, the path forward cleared a little. These things are never easy and I suspect there will be many more to move through in this life. But I don't believe the purpose of being here is necessarily ease, do you? 

Now, there is gold surrounding me once again. The gold, the anchor, the ground, the nectar. The vision that I Am.

I rest in Divine revelation that God is being and not a being, and that no religion [at least modern, perhaps a primordial truth did once prevail] contains The Great Everything. Seeking for the right canon, the right tradition, the right way to pray...these constructs only seemed to reinforce the righteous nature of the ego. In setting up camps for who holds the absolute truth about The Absolute, we claim ownership over God and it is my observation that this creates distance from Truth and certainly from Love. 

The cherries are ripening in the trees

Wild roses are in bloom and delicate 

if you touch them they whisper

The kingdom is within

A golden white figure glides through the center of a dark mountain lake

Like Artemis' arrow

Like silk over deep mysteries

Wolves on the shoreline and loons in the cove are howling

Be still and know

An owls cry fills the night and soars into

your dream

Where an easel holds a sheet of papyrus inscribed with music 

And in the dream you hear it sung

But upon waking 

Find your tongue 

unable to mimic what you heard

A primordial chant echoes out through the canyon in morning

The flowers twirl on the slopes and rejoice in color and in fragrance

A cacophony of magpie, and frog, and locust erupts

High on the ridge a white elk and a black one tangle their antlers in battle 

One snake consumes another as they writhe 'round the staff 

That turns into the ankle 

of the golden white figure

Who is walking the path devoted, singing, searching, serene

Amidst the trembling 

and the spectacular light 

“Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.”

- Frithjof Schuon

In May, on Ascension Eve (and on Julius Evola's birthday), Charles Salvo, the man behind Gornahoor passed on from this world. About a week prior, he had appeared momentarily in a dream of mine, something which had never happened before. I ask that anyone reading this will pause and say a prayer for him- in some traditions, the weeks following human death are thought to be a time of great importance as the soul travels disembodied. Charles left behind such a valuable library for the devoted spiritual seeker, those looking to piece together The Mystery, and I'm so grateful to have crossed sacred paths with him in this life. Link to a lovely memoriam.

Now I sit inside typing on what is probably one of the last rainy and stormy afternoons we will see around these parts for a long while. Life is rich with learning and experience and feeling, and also admittedly laced with a low-grade confusion and strange disconnect I haven't been able to reconcile entirely, but it's something I understand and am willing to sit with a while longer to see if [what I believe to be] the source of it works itself out in time. 

I have loved being alone this year more than ever before, and have gained great insight into myself and others just by learning about Ancient Greek female archetypes. There are the vulnerable goddesses: Hera, the wife; Demeter, the mother; and Persephone, the daughter. These three are reliant on relationship to others, and I have only a tiny bit of these archetypes in my personality. Then there are the virginal goddesses: Artemis, lover of the wild, animals, hunting, nature, and fiercely independent; Athena, the level-headed strategist, the warrior; and Hestia, who is such a part of me, keeping home and hearth even if it is only she there to enjoy it, and tending her spiritual world above all. Of these three virginal archetypes, marked by self-sufficiency over relationship, I contain all and to great degree. Then, there is Aphrodite, filling a woman with attentiveness to others, interest in life, lover of beauty and pleasure, able to be in relationship without identifying as that role, and self-sufficient yet soft and captivating. Anytime we are in love or swept up in creativity, it is Aphrodite we embody. It is Aphrodite who can confuse men into mistaking a woman's conversational interest with being fascinated or enamored with them. Aphrodite is what those of Abrahamic religions might scorn as a temptress or seductress, her aura of charm and vitality unsettling to them. 

The more complex the woman, the more archetypes she will contain.

While my personality is mostly composed of Hestia, Aphrodite, Artemis, and Athena, this season Aphrodite especially has wafted in on the fragrance of flowers deeply inhaled, on allowing the dessert to be enjoyed without penitence, by loving my body instead of nitpicking it, by softening my austere brow and drawing me to new and various forms of beauty and pleasure.

The water has also been a stronger calling than ever this season. The water is feminine, after all. Last year, I started swimming in the high mountain lakes here, swimming into the depths which was new to me, and I became somewhat addicted. Now, this year, that addiction has intensified and I find myself getting comfortable in very cold waters, and feeling more courageous than before... not only here in my beloved Swan Lake, but also the frigid glacial waters of Diablo Lake, and the Salish Sea. Though, I have to admit- the Salish Sea was only a dip, and a difficult one at that, I didn't manage any swimming or taking my head under, it was just too freezing cold. But I did meet a man there, from the Czech Republic, who swam for a good 20 minutes while I watched with amazement. When he came to shore, we chatted and he affirmed what I know, which is: reframe the feeling of intense cold, don't let your mind call the sensation "painful" just tell yourself "this is the feeling of cold" and let it be neutral, there is no need for resistance to the sensation. It doesn't have to be experienced as pain. Isn't so much of what we do able to be used toward our Enlightenment? 

It feels as though summer has just arrived, here on this 9th day of July, five days past my 38th birthday, and already the season has been packed with new experience and feeling. In me I carry the suspicion that life could change dramatically this year, but also the notion that it doesn't have to, that all is well and good as it is too, even if unsolved, in-between, not sure yet...

I think I have finally learned to genuinely live in that state of unknowing that Rilke so eloquently wrote about: 

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

The urgency I used to feel to solve all problems as soon as possible is eased now by a simple is-ness. I'm just here. Here to gain wisdom and experience, to grow, to remember and reunite with the divine. But this can all become blurry when the active mind fixates on place, people, things, careers, perceived slights, investments, choices... all of the doing. I always feel I've been here before and done it all anyway. So this time, I shall hold on, but more loosely. 

.::*::.

Related to water and the unknown, here is a story that I found captivating. A tale of shipwreck and unlikely survival. Maybe it'll splash a little perspective on your day, as it did mine.

A few thoughts on this conversation

Click to listen to the debate

I think that both of the men in this debate have common ground in that they are hopefully seeking truth and purity, and I wish only the best for both of them. These are just some thoughts I had while listening.

Isn't man being under illusion also akin to the Orthodox perspective of man being now fallen? So if we are going to pick apart how one can know something while in a state of Maya, or illusion, mustn't we ask the same about how fallen man can come to Truth? If the response would be "by the word of God we can know Truth, despite our fallen state" then the Bible is no different from, say, the Vedic canon in that regard, in that they're both the proclaimed Highest Wisdom.

But, I don't translate being in a state of Maya to mean Truth is thereby unknowable. Through wisdom accumulation, prayer, devotion, self-awareness and awareness of the illusory state I do believe we can pierce through the veil, at least periodically. This is important because it was the primary hang-up Jay seemed to have. I'm not sure why Aarvoll didn't address this in a straightforward way. 

To say that the Perennialist view of God is an impersonal one isn't correct- both Islam and [keyword] authentic Sanatana Dharma, for example, believe in a personal God and are both spiritual traditions that a Perennialist might choose to commit to, since it's usually believed that despite accepting that most religions seem to have key beliefs in common one should still select and adhere specifically to the practices of one. 

I think it's important that a worthy text be arranged and compiled which aims to explicitly outline the perennialist views; what are those core truths that religions have in common throughout time?

***

Either way, we shouldn't get too caught up in the debate of it all. For the past month or two, I have allowed that intellectual part of myself who is so hungry for gathering wisdom to rest, and instead I've simply focused on thinking of God, prayer, meditation, all through the day, loving others, treating everyone with respect, lifting them up, and being a living example in my daily interactions with others rather than finding the morsel of what's incorrect to swoop in and refute. And this approach has brought me closer to the Ultimate Good, I am sure. 

The 'trad' movement

It is a shame that the recent 'trad' movement has taken the name of Traditionalism, further blurring its meaning, the same as the likes of Aldous Huxley and the theosophists did some decades ago. Now we must further distinguish what is meant by the term, most often using agitating phrases like "capital T Traditionalism" to differentiate meaning. 

Often, in the right-wing trad subculture, we see the following:

• from males: a focus on going to the gym and eating a specific diet, on being the financial provider for their family (so they say, I actually don't see many living examples of this, unfortunately those who espouse the idea are usually keyboard warriors who aren't responsible for any family whatsoever), some may fixate on hobbies they [read: their social media peers] have deemed manly such as gun collecting or mountain climbing
  
  
• from females: a focus on "being feminine" which they address by wearing certain clothing and taking on hobbies such as baking and sewing, going to church (usually very new to any religion), also a focus on reproducing and other Demeter-oriented activities

I applaud the above activities, as most of them are personal preferences and hobbies of mine and my husband as well. But this is not the point. The point is that the lower case trad types begin and stop here. Their fixations and focuses rest primarily on the external, on the doing, on the becoming, and again- in the archetypical Demeter and Warrior roles (if you don't yet grasp these archetypal roles, it is very useful to click the links and learn).

This is a form of 1950's [t]raditionalism, a roleplaying of Leave it to Beaver. And this should not be mistaken with or equated to true Traditionalism. 

The above and other mentioned hobbies and outward activities may indeed end up being natural by-products of a true man or woman of antiquity, i.e. Tradition, but what we see in the modern trad movement is these outward activities coming first, without the inner state as the foundation to inform action, which is why there is a sense of roleplaying, a loss of real essence.

Tradition is not an intellectual system, because it cannot be fully understood without having undergone a change in one’s being. -- Gornahoor, The Experience of Existence

I write this today because I do feel a sadness when I come across online profiles of women with "home, family, tradition" proudly written out in their bios.  Is this a huge step beyond most modern women? Probably. But I wonder, "what exactly does she mean by 'tradition'?" Is she merely referring to gender roles? Does she mean going to church? Wearing dresses? The problem here is that a truly life-changing path of Traditionalism is getting missed altogether, being understood and misrepresented as this 1950's path of externals, of which Puritan imagery becomes the defining aesthetic.

But Tradition is the transcendent path of inner change. It is altogether transformational on an ontological level for the one walking it. Curling your hair and baking bread matter not in such a realm. 

"The “greater holy war” is man’s struggle against the enemies he carries within himself, that is, against the elements in him that are opposed to order and unity. There is however no question of annihilating these elements, which, like everything that exists, have their reason for existence and their place in the whole; what is aimed at is to “transform” them, by bringing them back and as it were reabsorbing them into unity. Above all else, man must constantly strive to realize unity in himself, in all that constitutes him, through all the modalities of his human manifestation:

• unity of thought
• unity of action
• and also, which is perhaps hardest, unity between thought and action" - -Rene Guenon, Symbolism of the Cross 

So much esoteric meaning has been lost to us, and I worry that people--even some I know and love--are LARP'ing some role which will not lead them down a path of true fulfillment or spiritual growth/union with God. We cannot focus on the wife, the house, the job, the church building only and expect gratification. Eventually, externals will fail you.

This loss of meaning extends into every realm. Think of archaeologists who unearth ceremonial artifacts, only remarking on the physical attributes and the physical activities these objects implied. They can't possibly fathom the potential power, danger even, that they hold in their hands because the world has been reduced to only knowing "truth" through the senses. Our epistemological empiricism and rationality, even our own scientific method, assumes that the physical layer of reality is it. 

And we have such a difficult time escaping this paradigm, as we've all grown up in it, our very thought will always be influenced by it, no matter how hard we try. We see this even in the 'trad' movement, which I honestly find more and more insufferable these days, steeped in ego and self-righteousness, and unfortunately, still so fixated on biology and the physical in general. I just wish they would have chosen a different term to define themselves; using 'traditionalist' is contributing to subversion.

Transcendence in a dark age

I've come across a new perspective recently which struck me as very reasonable and possible; this is the notion that the teachings for transcendence of antiquity might not suffice for you and I here in the midst of a dark age, dense in our materiality. 

"It is claimed that the teachings, rites, and disciplines that would have been viable in the first age (the Krita or Satya Yuga, the equivalent of Hesiod's 'golden age') are no longer fit for people living in the following ages, especially in the last age, the "dark age" Kali Yuga, the 'Iron Age,' the 'Age of the Wolf' in the Edda)." -Julius Evola, The Yoga of Power

Evola goes on to highlight essential features of the Kali Yuga we find ourselves in now, one of which is that:

"... mankind living in this age is strictly connected to the body and cannot prescind from it; therefore, the only way open is not that of pure detachment (as in early Buddhism and in the many varieties of yoga) but rather that of knowledge, awakening, and mastery over secret energies trapped in the body. 

So is a transcendent path enough during a time when debauched living is a societal norm that we've all grown up around? Can we even recognize our low standards amidst such debased living reflected in the world around us? Is it even possible in the degree that would be required to make the Olympian leap, for the soul to survive death? Is devoting our hearts, our thoughts, our wisdom-seeking toward God, behaving righteously, and singing or chanting our devotional songs as many times each day as we can manage... is it substantial, in this era, for any save the very exceptional tucked away in monasteries?

Evola goes on to respond that it isn't, and that transformation is also necessary.

"The second characteristic is that of the dissolution typical of this age. During the Kali Yuga, the bull of dharma stands on only one foot (it lost the other three during the previous ages). This means that the traditional law (dharma) is wavering, is reduced to a shadow of its former self, and seems to almost be succumbing. During Kali Yuga, however, the goddess Kali, who was asleep in the previous ages, is now fully awake. [...] This symbolism implies that during the last age elementary, infernal, and abyssal forces are untrammeled. The immediate task consists in facing and absorbing these forces..."

Are we capable of that, I wonder? Of interacting with unseen and strange forces, not grasped by modern man, enough to be able to absorb and victoriously transform them, thereby elevating our own ontological nature?

Certainly such a process would require proper Initiation first, and can a true guru be found in this age? Is self-initiation possible? If so, I believe it would be vital still to maintain ones daily devotional rituals to God together with this approach, staying prayerful and centered when encountering such forces, and especially if ever absorbing them into your own being.