Intelligence is an intelligent faculty bringing clarity into everything, dispersing darkness and giving strength where there is doubt and hesitation. It is the crystallisation of the esoteric mind and so brings uplifting. So far in man’s evolution we have used Active Intelligence as though we owned it, for self-aggrandisement and power, calling it our own truth but now we need to serve the truth, which is quite an up-turn. Truth cannot be domesticated to make us comfortable. Though there is a desire to contemplate the truth with no protection, its simplicity can be devastating when our heart is free of all vanity and self-centredness.
Our tragedy lies in the fact that we do not love the greater life, but rather want the greater life to love us. However, this can change overnight if we make that decision. So we need to look at our affir-mations to make sure that we are not using them to reinforce our lit tle selves thereby our self-centredness and so reinforcing the drama, because that can be addictive and is a wasteful use of the light. Nature had to be self absorbed until she found the moment when she gave birth to consciousness in the human species; we have to rise above survival to give nature back her divinity.
In the story of Theseus and Ariadne, Theseus goes into the laby rinth to confront the Minotaur, a ferocious creature who is half man and half bull. The Minotaur requires a Cretan youth as a sacrifice every year, so the people of Crete need a hero to go and kill the Minotaur. This creature represents the past and the old God from a previous culture, so it is no good giving youth to him because it only goes to feed the black dog of illusion. In all the stories and legends a hero is needed to go into the past or the dark night, so as to kill the illusion and the attachment to the past; he can only go when he knows that he has eternity in him and therefore is no longer afraid of death. It is only the initiate who can do that type of work. If we know we are going to die for something much greater than what is going on at the time, there is not the problem of being afraid of death. All that is experienced is the virtual death of the personality as it goes down and re-lives the past, but this is not real. Princess Ariadne gives a golden thread to Theseus, as a guide to help him come out of the labyrinth safely, the thread being a symbol for the Soul, linking him to the eternal life.
Mass consciousness is driven by the subconscious experiences held in the Soul of nature and therefore is the basic human being. When we reincarnate we take our biological suit from the karmic pool of human DNA. Our lighted mind reflects on our reactions to life and our thoughts go back up the stream to the source of those reactions, revealing the films of locked in emotions. We have projected so many situations to be recognised, named and seen as nature’s survival tricks. Nature is then redeemed by the greatness of her intelligence.
The idea of confession in Roman Catholicism, is to help people say “Yes, I’ve done that” as we make the confession to the priest who wears black. Black represents the black work, which is the first stage of the alchemic process and symbolises the deepest understanding of the ordinary life that is driven by the subconscious. We need to confess our sins, or our subconscious reactions, but in reality we just need to recognise what has been done in the past with the true light of the new perception, which brings no blame. In reality these past actions are not sins, because they are seen for what they are. This is the work we have to do to be at ease with our humanity and follow the guiding thread of The Empress, for she links the initiate to the divine. In this way he can make sense of the process and render it sacred, by using the perception that comes from a pure heart and a loving mind.
The Empress has her cloak over her knees and arm; this signifies that she’s available to everyone, unlike The High Priestess who has her cloak over her shoulders to tell us that she is only available to the initiate. The Empress’ cloak is blue, lined with green; blue being the colour of clarity, the higher mind and higher intelligence, whereas green is the colour of the beauty and wisdom of manifested life. So we are here to bring the blue sky of infinity into the green world of life and that is the way we inspire and uplift it. But before man can fly he has to assimilate everything that is human in him, so that he can become the universal man. The blue also tells us that she is not a mystery like The High Priestess, for she is there to be seen by all men of goodwill. She asks us to listen to the goodwill message of the life which is in front of us.
Superficial politeness has to be taught, but the more we recog nise and perceive things from the point of view of energy, the more naturally polite we are, because we don’t want to interfere either with another’s individual space, or the collective environment.
A coat of arms is a symbol that is there for us to recognise a par ticular family, school or group. It is a symbolic representation of the genealogy behind the person or group. It is a very potent symbol which fixes a goal and states an aim. The message is clear for man kind; “Become the truth, the love and the wisdom through your intelligent nature!”
If we are looking at the zodiac
