ever begin to do the work. In starting that work, we look for our own original sound by trying out many different songs. In that process we may find some vibrations that are in tune with parts of our sound or Soul, vibrating to its spiritual guidance. When we travel deep into our space we might find some aspects of ourselves that we don’t like, this is when the work of transmutation has to take place. We need to remember the first sound behind our name; to do that we have to let ourselves drop as if we were falling from a mountain. Then, as we fall deeper and deeper, we will align with our sound and eventually it will become the chord, or silver thread.
Once we have connected to it we will be able to go anywhere with it, because we will always be completely aligned with the orig inal sound within ourselves and always be at home.
Figure 2. The work of the evolving
Figure 3. The goal of the disciple. consciousness.
The alignment of the Soul-driven personality with its higher mind has the ultimate goal of building a direct link to the divine plan.
The naming of the animals that God asked Adam to do, is so important because it was saying “If, on my behalf, you can make sounds which represent all things, such as trees, cats or clouds, then you are actually vibrating with those things that you are naming and so bringing them back to me”.
We can qualify this further by saying “Beautiful flower, sweet cat and great tree” and even if it is ‘murky yuck’, all that can be brought back to God, for they are all part of God and God knows how to love. If there is only love, simplicity, humility and the understand ing of the process, then transmutation predominates and we may ask “Why should anyone want to be the best and what for?” We are all alchemical instruments and not one of us is better as an instru ment than any other. Who cares which one goes first and which one is recognised or is the fairest? As we drop all the descriptions such as, ‘fairest’, ‘prettiest’ and ‘cleverest’ by owning them and admit ting that we wanted to be this or that, we can transmute them. The question is always “What do I love best? Do I love God best, or my position in the system?” Once we know the answer to that, we stop feeding the drama and everything else that might look like a fall isn’t one. Everything difficult that comes up is like a bubble coming to the surface and is released. So we should not pull it back by think ing that we are bad again or by hating it, because that is feeding the drama; we can just love the process of witnessing.
All the Tarot cards are archetypes. We are all archetypes, because it is a virtual world; we are as we thought, loved and feared yester day. Archetypes are illusionary thought forms, but they are a neces sary part of recognising the big drama we play. Archetypes are mostly elemental gods and thought-forms. We are required to fly with the archetype without getting lost; this is how we survive in the inner world of the psyche and the mind. Archetypes are not reality, but they are ways and mind-sets that help us to recognise each energy we are dealing with, so enabling us to touch the fire without burning.
The only archetype that is not virtual is the great life we live in; energetically this is just movement in space. It is important to deperson alise the greater entity we live in, otherwise we go back into the arche type of the father-mother God. This is a beautiful concept but is still an archetype. It is an energetic life, that is all and though that is a mind-set too, it is the clearest mind-set we can have so it stops us from going back into the emotional. If we can only see the world as archetypal we might have locked ourselves into a virtual system, whereas if we really see it as energy, see matter as crystallised Spirit and Spirit as refined matter, it is so much easier to have a transpersonal point of view.
The whole of life is symbolic and archetypal; it is only a film or tapestry. The Empress is the beginning of the esoteric life or mind. Being the goddess of clear reason she is serene and poised. We need to remember that if we recognise a good or bad archetype in some one else, we have been there ourselves.
The initiate comes right into the market place in order to learn, for the only viable place to wield energy is in matter, on the Earth. He knows that he can’t give his life to God because it already belongs to God, but because he has understood the idea of fusion and aligning he is able to go through the door for the last purification. Divine wis dom, or the second aspect of the Trinity is in every single one of the atoms of our body; it is really here in matter, not somewhere up in the clouds. The alchemical process is one of recognising and dissolv ing the separative little self into the light and heat of the Soul, again and again. The initiate is dealing with the daily reaction of the heavy matter of his body and he knows that his brain/body apparatus is a wonderful sounding board. It enables him to align progressively to the light that is flowing through him, revealing the understanding of all the wisdom and knowledge that his karmic biological lives have gathered. He knows as well that there is no more intellectual knowledge to explore, for we can keep on reading books for a long time until eventually we realise that it doesn’t actually change any thing, since we are still reacting to life and have to experience these lessons to release the wisdom. We know that the reactions are not there to be taken personally, therefore there is a deeper burning that enables a true transmutation to happen. This is the giving up of self, but at the same time knowing that it is not up to us to give ourselves to the greater life, because we already belong to it; this enables us to avoid the martyr archetype.
The High Priestess is the guardian of the door; she is also an archetype and we need to absorb and translate the ‘pass-me-not’ of cosmic wisdom. So we should not take ourselves seriously, because whichever archetype we have projected for ourselves, we can for get ourselves in knowing that we are just an instrument or cell for the greater life we live in. Removing an archetype can be a tricky thing, because behind it there is nothing but reality and reality is quite shocking. This is because we recognise the games that we are playing. To do this we have to be completely dead to any self-intent and while we think either that we have nothing left to give up, or so much to let go, we put ourselves in the realm of the archetype of the self-obsessed! After The Empress, the rest of the Major Arcana describes the conditions and the right ingredients for the alchemical process to be realised within the initiate, so that he can pass through the opened door to divine wisdom.
The inner man is where the great Saturn of Capricorn operates, for this is the initiate. He has climbed the mountain and is very sin gle minded and resilient to the point of stubbornness, so as to reach the top. It is important to transmute stubbornness into the spiritual quality of endurance and use it when it is needed. If we know stubborn people, we should help them to use their stubbornness for the work of the light. To climb the mountain we have to be as tough as the mountain, but remember we do not have to carry it on our shoul ders, the mountain carries us on its back and the mountain invites us to its summit. Once we have understood that we can climb it, so we have to make light of the task. Endurance is a wonderful qual ity; this is the lesson, for if we mean to live as we affirm we mustn’t move from our affirmation. The mountain will come and go, but that affirmation will remain.
The French word for Empress is ‘Imperatrice’ and is linked to the word ‘imperative’, which means absolutely necessary. It is impera tive that the mind is clear, poised and impersonal. Because it is a virtual world, man is there to recreate it through his own thoughts; this means changing his perception, so The Empress works though impressing thoughts. If there are enough of us seeing the world in a particular way, it will happen. So we have to understand the impor tance of how we perceive the world and in which direction we align our mind.
The Empress is Active Intelligence, which knows itself as a mind with a mission. It is intelligence being conscious of itself and there fore can open to the higher spiritual truth. With The Empress we have started to understand that it is a virtual world created by our minds and because each mind is unique,
