Cosmic Feedback

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Rubik's_CubeI’ll use a Rubik’s Cube to illustrate the importance of feedback to the inter-connectivity of everything in the universe. It’s important to us because the prevailing worldview tends to undervalue personal introspection, especially if it occurs within a tarot reading or another misunderstood form of contemplation designed to engender self-knowledge and personal transformation.

As we learn about ourselves, we share the information with the entire universe. The universe, in turn, learns about us and, consequently, about itself. This also applies to universal archetypes we call gods, goddesses, spirit guides and angels, etc. Both the micro, in this case people, and the macro, the universe, consequently evolve in complexity and consciousness.

spiral-dynamicsYou could posit that in today’s worried world, it’s more important than ever to increase conscious awareness and knowledge, and to evolve a more rational understanding of how the world works and the co-creative role humanity plays in cosmic evolution. It’s important because our present way of living is unsustainable. A paradigm shift – a new worldview – is essential to the survival of our species, if not to the Earth itself.

To underscore this point, let’s say we give a Rubik’s Cube to a blindfolded person and ask he or she to make one random move every second, which is pretty fast. Probability dictates it will require around 100 billion years longer than our universe has existed before the cube could be ordered correctly by random chance.

Now let’s add simple binary feedback: someone who communicates either yes or no following each move. How long do you suppose it would then take to order the cube correctly? The answer is shocking: less than 5-minutes!

Evolution requires feedback; very little we see around us came into being by random chance. Without feedback, biology wouldn’t yet exist. Despite all our scientific understanding, physics still fails to account for biology.

Feedback, i.e. information, travels instantaneously throughout the universe on a vast network of vortices at the quantum level, vortices that connect everything. This quantum field, which is called, among other things, the vacuum, is known metaphorically as Indra’s Net. I refer to this in the Chrysalis companion book by quoting a passage from Stephen Mitchell’s book, The Enlightened Mind.

   The Net of Indra is a profound and subtle metaphor
for the structure of reality. Imagine a vast net; at each crossing
point there is a jewel; each jewel is perfectly clear and reflects all the
other jewels in the net, the way two mirrors placed opposite each
other will reflect an image ad infinitum. The jewel in this metaphor
stands for an individual being, or an individual consciousness, or a
cell or an atom. Every jewel is intimately connected with all other
jewels in the universe, and a change in one jewel means a change,
however slight, in every other jewel.

As we learn about ourselves individually, we grow in consciousness individually and collectively, as Mitchell noted. As we grow in consciousness, we approach our Higher Selves, the ultimate goal of destiny and personal transformation. As consciousness approaches the Higher Self, we comprehend our divine essence – our own divinity. We come to realize, and more importantly come to accept, that we are divine beings and that divinity is not a transcendent something “out there” but is “in here,” in the Psyche (soul).

Holistic consciousness, the next great leap on the ladder of human evolution, is the collective consciousness of the One. A reflection of the One that can be glimpsed in every jewel of Indra’s Net.

Holistic consciousness – the turquoise level on the spiral dynamics chart pictured above – stands in awe of the cosmic order. It sees “the big picture” and thinks in relationship to the collective other, not just the self. Turquoise views our world and the cosmos as a single dynamic organism with its own collective, divine mind.

gareth_bate_detail_5_jewel_net_of_indra_jan_2012

Detail from Gareth Bate’s Jewel Net of Indra.

The previous blog in this series titled Spiral Awakenings.

 

 

 

Mary the Wife of Jesus

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The Bride

“For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin…
I am the barren one, and many are her sons.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible…
I am the utterance of my name.”

The above poem – musings from the Divine Feminine – is excerpted from “Thunder, Perfect Mind,” one of the 52 Gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. The image (above left) is of Gabriel Rossetti’s “The Beloved,” his artistic rendition of a theme from the Canticle of Canticles.

From the Gospel of Philip, another Gnostic text:

“The companion of [the savior] is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than [all] the disciples and used to kiss her [often] on her [mouth]. The rest [of the disciples were offended] … They said to him, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?'”

Companion in this context means wife.

The version of Christianity that has filtered down to us today is quite different than the Gnostic version, which dates to the second century when both versions were nascent. Orthodox (“straight-thinking”) Christians and Jews regard God as “wholly other” and distinctly separate from humanity and creation. The Gnostics, however, believe in the “intuitive knowledge of Self,” which, in fact, is the definition of gnosis. They regard knowledge of Self and knowledge of the Divine to be one and the same; to know thy Self is to know the Divine that dwells within.

Separatism, particularly in monotheistic religions, is expressed using terms such as us and them, with them often being marginalized, and even demonized. Holism, particularly in Gnostic and Eastern religion, is expressed in terms such as one and all where everything in the cosmos, both matter and spirit, is seen as being interconnected and interdependent, including the Divine pleroma, the totality of divine emanations. Martin Buber’s expression “wholly other” becomes starved of its meaning.

The Gnostics spoke in terms of enlightenment and of the illusions of the world, not of sin and repentance. The Gnostic Jesus was a human being, “a guide who opened access to spiritual understanding,” wrote Elaine Pagels in her seminal work The Gnostic Gospels. (Highly recommended!)

5 - Divine Child
In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says: “If you bring forth what is in you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is in you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

This sounds somewhat like Jungian shadow work: “Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate,” wrote Jung.

The message of our androgynous Divine Child, and Chrysalis Tarot’s overarching theme, is that we find the important answers inside us. They aren’t “out there” somewhere. Tarot decks like Chrysalis that honor the holistic, interconnected worldview of the Gnostics “bring forth what is in you” by assisting with spiritual growth and by increasing self-knowledge via tarot’s Hero’s Journey, and by encouraging use of active imagination and intuition.

Like Gnosticism, the Chrysalis worldview does not hold sacred a parroted catalog of “correct beliefs” (dogma) that passively lead to salvation. We hold as sacred spiritual practices that lead instead to pathways of self-discovery, self-knowledge and empowerment. In addition to tarot, such spiritual practices might include yoga, chakra work, meditation, holotropic breathwork, reiki, or any number of other modalities that actively promote healing, self-knowledge and spiritual transformation.

We don’t need to be saved. We need to be transformed.

For this piece, I purposefully did not choose a well known painting of Mary Magdalene. Far too many of them picture her holding an alabaster jar, a symbolic reference to Luke’s unnamed sinful woman (prostitute) who washed Jesus’ feet. That was not Mary Magdalene! (Jesus washed the feet of the disciples on Maundy Thursday, which by the way is celebrated today, March 24.)

This tawdry injustice to Mary, a misogynist theological fiction, can be directly traced to a sermon delivered by Pope Gregory in 591. His error confusing Mary Magdalene with a prostitute was eventually acknowledged by the Vatican in 1969, although a lot of preachers and filmmakers apparently never read the press release.

Our Mary Magdalene is an enlightened Alleluia woman, both emanation and exemplar of the Divine Feminine that dwells within. She is the “honored one and the scorned one.” 

Our Mary Magdalene is the beloved wife and disciple of Jesus Christ.

mary davinci.jpg

Still from the film, The Da Vinci Code.

 

Spiral Awakenings

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21 - PsycheAccording to Spiral Dynamics, a mere 1% of the world’s population can legitimately claim to be in an Awakened state of second-tier consciousness. It’s the goal of Chrysalis Tarot to help boost this percentage. Before delving into how we all can accomplish that together, allow me to present a brief overview of the concept of Spiral Dynamics. I believe all Chrysalids (that’s what I call us) should be familiar with the concept.

Simply put, Spiral Dynamics identifies eight memes that detail the ways we think (our worldview) by assigning arbitrary colors to eight ascending waves of a spiral vortex listed below. Incidentally, the Chrysalis Suit of Spirals was named after this revolutionary theory. The first six are known as first-tier memes (memes, as opposed to genes, are cultural DNA). By way of explanation, I include a few main characteristics or attributes for each meme. This maze falls neatly into place as you move along.

  1. Beige – Basic survival needs. Distinct selfhood is practically nonexistent. Individuals gather into groups to sustain life. Beige represents probably less than 1% of the adult world population; remnants of early human societies.
  2. Purple – Magical, Superstitious and Animistic. Good and evil spirits roam about the Earth and determine events. Perhaps as much as 10% of the population, located mostly in developing countries, are Purple. Note: These percentages are only estimates; there’s no database.
  3. Red – Power Gods. The first emergence of the ego-conscious self and of capricious archetypal gods and goddesses who meddle endlessly in human affairs to achieve both good and bad ends. At least 15% of the population.
  4. Blue – The Mythic Order. According to transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber, a leading expert on Spiral Dynamics, “Life has meaning, direction and purpose with outcomes determined by an all-powerful Other or Order … with absolutist and unvarying principles of right and wrong.” We call this “religious fundamentalism.” The Blue meme represents a somewhat scary 30% of world population.
  5. Orange – Scientific progress. “Truth and meaning are sought in individualistic terms.” This Orange meme is, like religion, rigidly dogmatic. It is also rigidly materialistic and mechanistic (linear cause and effect). The Orange meme worships technology and advocates “Mankind’s dominion over all the Earth.” It is characterized by secular humanism and makes up 25% of the population.
  6. Green – The Sensitive Self. “The human spirit must be freed from greed, dogma, and divisiveness; feelings and caring supersede cold rationality; cherishing of the Earth, Gaia, life.” This meme probably represents around 10% of world population, but 20% or more in the West. Many of us probably identify with the Green meme.

These six memes represent first-tier worldviews. From time to time, we all think and act in terms of more than one meme, but only one best represents those core beliefs that form an individual’s worldview. It’s important to note that first-tier thinkers stubbornly believe that only their worldview is the correct worldview. Indeed, they feel quite threatened and become downright belligerent whenever their cherished beliefs are challenged.

Second-tier thinkers, on the other hand, recognize that all waves of the spiral must exist in the world simultaneously and in harmony (think the Ma’at card), and that all stages of consciousness are important to the overall health and well being of humanity’s Global spiral. In this regard, the eight memes behave kind of like brainwave frequencies; all are necessary because at different times we all think and behave differently.

spiral-dynamicsKen Wilber goes on to point out that as each wave transcends its predecessor, it carries forward some of its core beliefs. Each successive wave, therefore, adds to and expands upon the wave that came before it, as the spiral suggests. As humanity ascends the spiral, memes grow in complexity and consciousness.

Here’s an example: as Green transitions to Yellow, the “cherishing of the Earth” attribute is carried forward while Green’s selfish, ego-driven unwillingness to abide “big picture” solutions remains in place. By definition, second-tier memes require a modulated, healthy but selfless ego. In Chrysalis parlance, the morphology of second-tier consciousness is what Jung called psychic death (think the Phoenix card).

Chrysalis engenders second-tier thinking and encourages growth both in knowledge and cognitive awareness of the next wave up the spiral. Dr. Clare Graves, originator of the theory of human development that inspired Spiral Dynamics, referred to the emerging worldview as a “momentous leap,” where “a chasm of unbelievable depth of meaning is crossed.”

wisdom14The next two (second-tier) memes are called Yellow – Integrative, and Turquoise – Holistic. Combined, they account for a mere 1% of world population! Seems the West is not as advanced as we’re led to believe.

When we designed Chrysalis, we felt that we must transcend some of the stalwart characteristics of first-tier consciousness prevalent in tarot. These included Purple: superstition and esoterica; Red: monotheism and hierarchy; Blue: dogmatic authoritarianism (civil, religious and scientific), and Orange: power-driven institutions and militarism.

Therefore we felt it necessary to say godspeed to emperors and empresses, queens and kings, devils and demons, knights and swords, Judgment Day and death, and to archaic first-tier archetypes such as the hierophant and hermit. We also bade farewell to Green political correctness, value ranking and egalitarianism. Instead, we reintroduced nature-oriented goddess spirituality (Gaia, Storyteller, Green Man) as a scientific fact (as detailed in the new companion book). Note that goddess spirituality doesn’t tilt the scale toward the feminine, it balances the scale by deifying Nature.

Moreover, we renounced the pernicious illusions of duality and Cartesian separation between matter and spirit, and instead embraced the connectivity of all things in a Living, Conscious Cosmos. With Chrysalis as our handy telephone, calls to the divine realms of transcendent consciousness are local calls where no priestly intermediaries are ever required. As one member of the Chrysalis Study Group on Facebook put it, “I embraced my inner shaman.”

C19

 

In a follow up piece, we’ll dote on the characteristics of the all important second-tier Yellow (Integrative) and Turquoise (Holistic) memes, colors celebrated in the Sun card, and explain why we believe it’s vitally important for a creative minority of Earthlings to transcend first-tier consciousness yesterday.

You must unlearn what you have been ‘programmed’ to believe from birth. That software no longer serves you if you want to live in a world where all things are possible. ~Jacqueline E. Purcell

 

Loki’s Prophecy

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Loki-brood-serpent-cultLoki's brood; Hel, Fenrir and Jörmungandr. By Emil Doepler

The painting above is titled Loki’s Brood, by  Emil Doepler (1855-1922), a German artist, art nouveau illustrator and teacher. The young lady in the center is the Norse goddess, Hel, Loki’s daughter. She lives beneath one of the roots of the Yggdrasil tree, pictured below. The monstrous wolf is Fennir, son of Loki. Fennir is said to have bitten off the hand of the war god Týr, for whom the day Tuesday is named. Appropriately, we pen this piece on a Tuesday. The serpent is  Jörmungandr, which means “huge monster.” She’s the World Serpent and middle sibling. Their mother, the giantess “who brings grief,” is Loki’s wife Angrboða, who is seen in the background.

Why this piece? It evolves from a lucid dream I had over a 3-night period last week. A lucid dream is one in which the dreamer remains conscious of the dream and is able to exercise some control over it. Everyone who has lucid dreams will experience them differently, although there are many commonalities, i.e. all are interpreted and informed by the Third Eye. Lucid dreams occur in what is known as liminal space, a threshold or portal between the world of the senses and the world beyond the senses. In Chrysalis Tarot, we refer to realms beyond the threshold as the Otherworld.

Piecing together a lucid dream isn’t as difficult as interpreting a more typical dream. In my case, it usually involves arranging the dream’s storyboards, or salient points i.e. recognizing patterns and connecting dots. No communication from the Otherworld can be repeated verbatim because it is filtered through the expectations and biases of the dreamer’s cultural conditioning. If a young Catholic girl, for example, has a vision of the Great Mother, she likely will interpret it as an apparition of the Virgin Mary. If a Jungian psychologist has the precise same vision, she or he will recognize the archetype as the Cosmic Woman, Shekinah or Divine Feminine. Both are valid interpretations.

Like virgin olive oil, no communication from the Otherworld can be 100% purely comprehended. It is always dirtied by the filter (seer). The best one might hope to attain is 99.9% on the virgin meter, and few prophets ever come anywhere near that mark. If they do, you can bet the prophecy was historicized after the fact.

Another reason or two for this blog in addition to my dream, and in addition to the fact that it’s Tuesday, have to do with the current state of affairs in the world. Also, I watched “The Avengers” last night. I had the dream last week but wondered if there were signs in the film of art imitating dreams. There were, although as mythologist and mystic Caroline Kenner told me, “I try to avoid Loki. I had a bad experience or three with Him. But His wife is lovely, I am close to Angrboða.”

Caroline, who developed the Chrysalis Tarot app for Fool’s Dog, went on to explain that Loki is not a run-of-the-mill trickster god. “I wish I could communicate this to people who think Loki is a sexy Tom Hiddleston. Loki frightens me.”

I read this morning in the Washington Post that women and children were tear gassed yesterday at a border crossing between Greece and Macedonia. These innocents are refugees fleeing Syria and other parts of the war-torn Middle East to seek asylum in northern Europe, home to the Asgard pantheon. Asgard is the realm ruled by Odin (Woden) and his wife Frigg, for whom Wednesday and Friday are named, respectively.

1-Ravens Amazon HRI mentioned these name correspondences because too many of us have neglected or entirely forgotten the Norse gods and goddesses. It is they who I believe are most active in today’s world, for it is they who are tasked to avenge the destruction of the Old Ways, which was done in order to clear a path for the monotheistic dream of humanity’s “Dominion over all the Earth.”

And then there’s Baba Vanga (1911-1996), another dot. Bearing in mind that prophets can only aspire to fully comprehend complex deities like Loki, “the blind Macedonian mystic predicted that Muslims will invade Europe in 2016, and there will be widespread destruction by extremists, which will go on for many years until the continent ceases to exist. She had also predicted that a Great Muslim War will begin in Syria.”

I believe now may be the ideal time to get to know the Norse gods and goddesses beyond simply citing the days of the week. (Sincere apologies to Thor – Thursday.)

 

Book recommendations:

How to Master Lucid Dreaming: Your Practical Guide to Unleashing the Power of Lucid Dreaming, (Kindle edition 99-cents for a limited time) by Sean Kelly.

The Love of Destiny: The Sacred and the Profane in Germanic Polytheism, (Kindle edition $5.99) by Dan McCoy.

“We’re all familiar with the pop culture depictions of Norse mythology that are shallow and trite at best, and often downright misleading. They owe far more to puerile fantasies of being a macho superhero than they do to the ways in which the pre-Christian peoples of northern Europe actually thought of themselves and their spirituality.”

 

 

The Cailleach

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cailleachThis can be a difficult time of the year: the crazy, obnoxious days between Imbolc (Feb 1) and the Spring Equinox, which occurs on March 20th this year. It’s a season marked by relentless change and brought to bear by the stormy power of the Cailleach as she grudgingly yields her might and majesty to gentle spring breezes; the old god or goddess now must die so the new goddess may be born.

The Cailleach herself was born at Samhain (Halloween), as depicted in the image (above left). Winter is her glory. The dark half of the year is hers alone to rule, and she does so with stubborn scepter and iron thumb. Has anybody really accomplished much since November?

Now, as Maggie Lukowski brilliantly notes in a recent blog, people are squirreling around cleaning out their closets, both literally and metaphorically. Imbolc begins the season of purification. It has been so for thousands of years. It’s in our genes. People have a mysterious, nagging urge to rid themselves of all kinds of clutter that have outlived their usefulness and symbolic essence, as well they should.

C47In Chrysalis Tarot, the Cailleach is represented by The Watcher. While we might think she doth protest springtime, she doth not. Whatever has happened, or is happening, in these days of transition was in her plan all along. It was written in the shadowy spark of her eyes and hidden in the crevices of well worn wrinkles.

The secret to coping with change is acceptance; wholesale acceptance with neither resignation nor regret. Become a wise watcher who dresses in the ubiquitous cycles of life that govern everything in the cosmos. Wear your change well!

If you find yourself fighting off negativity, the Cailleach suggests white sage incense, a talisman and some fresh air.

The half of the year – the half that basks in brilliance – will begin with Beltane (May 1), which means “bright fire” in Gaelic. This is Brigid’s season as the maiden aspect of the goddess ascends her throne. Brigid is born each year at Imbolc as the last breaths of life leave the old Cailleach, the haggard old crone of darkness.

PapaLegbaBookBW

This lovely image is from the new Chrysalis Tarot companion book. It depicts Papa Legba assisting Psyche into his ferryboat for the short journey to the Isle of the Blessed. The meaning and symbolism of this sketch by Holly Sierra, at least as it pertains to this blog, teaches us the importance of enduring the robust darkness of the chrysalis so true personal transformation can occur. Psyche in Greek means both butterfly and soul. In this sketch, Psyche is the transmuted soul of the Cailleach departing into the brightness of the Sun.

She will be gone but for a little while!

 

For the book, I asked Holly for a sketch of Papa Legba as Charon the Ferryman based upon John Stanhope’s famous painting. I like her interpretation much better!

 

Chrysalis and The Craft

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wheelThe People of the Woods and the Old Ways are dear to many of us for many reasons. These include a profound reverence for the Earth and all living creatures, plus a rejection of the notion that “dominion over the Earth” gives humans license for unrestrained abuse and exploitation. Quite the contrary, in dominion theology the word itself implies benevolence.

For better or worse, our current worldview has been shaped by the creation stories told in Genesis. That’s right, there are two Biblical accounts of creation, and they differ considerably.

We are most familiar with the dominion theology version – the hierarchical, authoritative account of human origins based upon privilege, power and preeminence of the masculine. This version is contrasted by a second – a theology of dependence based upon servanthood, humility and mutual respect.

In this less familiar story of creation, which can be found in Genesis 2, the first humans were created from the arable soil, as were all other life forms. There is no heavy-handed hierarchy; masculine and feminine principles exist in perpetual balance, and humankind holds no distinctive position over other life forms in  dependent theology – a cornerstone of both Chrysalis and The Craft.

Another commonality between Chrysalis and The Craft is the observance of rituals marking the Wheel of the Year and the eternal cycle of life. So we can readily associate a Chrysalis archetype with one of the seasonal festivals, or Sabbats as they are known in Neo-Pagan and other pre-Christian traditions, I devised this list with the caveat that there are various other ways (perceived similarities) to align the sabbats with Chrysalis archetypes, Troupe and pip cards.

The Lesser Sabbat Quarters

C04Winter Solstice or Yule (Dec. 21)

Green Man as the Oak King bids adieu to the Holly King to symbolize re-birth of the solar god. Sacrifices, gift giving and lavish feasting have always been popular Midwinter customs since the Old Stone Age.

 

 

C13Spring Equinox or Ostara (Mar. 21)

Ariadne welcomes spring appearing as the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. Decorating eggs, a sign of fertility, was an annual custom at this time of year. Ostara is a Germanic fertility goddess whose attributes include the hare and egg. The word Easter was derived from her name.

 

 

C06Summer Solstice or Litha (June 21)

Litha is the time of the sacred marriage of the god and goddess. It’s a gentle time when youth turns to wisdom, as allegorized by Merlin. The Venerable Bede, another great sage, wrote, “Litha means gentle or navigable, because in both these months the calm breezes are gentle and they were wont to sail upon the smooth sea.”

 

C09Autumn Equinox or Mabon (Sept. 21)

Mabon is a great harvest festival and a time for offering thanks for Earth’s abundance. Storyteller represents the goddess in her crone aspect. She bestows blessings on the community for protection during the cold months of the coming winter.

 

The Greater Sabbat Cross-Quarters

C05Imbolc (Feb. 1) Divine Child

As the Earth quickens and ewes begin milking, the new born lambs and baby god will be nourished. The goddess is purified and cleansed (spring cleaning ritual) as she prepares to return to her maiden aspect.

 

 

C02Beltane (May 1, May Day) Sorceress Morgan le Fay

Beltane (bright fire) heralds a raucous celebration of mysticism and magic replete with bonfires, mead and Maypoles to welcome summer. Morgan subsumes attributes of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, for this festive occasion.

 

 

C03Lammas (Aug. 1) Gaia

The bread harvest – the first fruits. The goddess as mother imbues the Earth with the energy of abundance. This is the first of the three Wheel of the Year harvest festivals. The other two are Mabon and Samhain. The Sabbat is also known as Lughnasadh, named after the Gaelic god Lugh.

 

C07Samhain (Nov. 1) Herne the Hunter

This is the time of the Wild Hunt when the curtain between the worlds is lifted and the ancestors roam the moony shadows (Halloween or All Hallows Eve). It is a grand festival of darkness that’s balanced on the opposite side of the wheel by Beltane, the festival of light.

 

An excellent book on Spiritual Ecology.

look inside

book cover usg version

Chrysalis Tarot Companion Book @ Amazon

Fortune Tellers, Prophets and Baba Vanga

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C71The topic of fortune telling using tarot cards is controversial; some believe it’s a legitimate use of the cards while others citing ethical concerns do not.

The former camp points to long held traditions, while the latter sees the cards as an aid used to inform choices. They assert that the cards, and those who read them, would would never, or at least should never, interfere with someone’s free will or exploit their expectations.

In Holistic Tarot, author Benebell Went puts it this way: “Having grown up in the Chinese/Taiwanese culture, I was routinely exposed to East Asian fortune-telling practices: face reading; palmistry; Ba Zi, which is the practice of revealing your destiny through date and time of birth; and many more. What I have learned is that fortune-telling is a rudimentary understanding of the cosmic forces that govern us.”

So too are the various categories of western divination. A better question, therefore, is this: is it possible to read the future at all? While I don’t think tarot, per se, is able to peer into the future, there are certain individuals who do have this ability. They are called clairvoyants. Many clairvoyants employ tarot cards as a sort of “jumping off point” used to hone their psychic readings.

You could be one such individual. If you continue to use Chrysalis, you likely soon will be. That is unless you harbor disabling religious beliefs or have an innate psychological resistance to precognition. Chrysalis was designed to increase one’s intuitive skills and psychic abilities; to activate one’s Third Eye and awaken the Higher Self. This is what spiritual formation and the Hero’s Journey in tarot is all about. Precognition ability naturally accompanies spiritual growth. They travel hand in hand.

C47Marie Laveau was known in New Orleans spiritual circles as a Watcher, a mystic who walked hand in hand with spiritual realm. There are other watcher-type characters in Chrysalis. We know them by names like The Visionary, The Illusionist, Morgan le Fay and Papa Legba. All our Chrysalis shamans, such as those depicted on the Nine of Stones and Eight of Mirrors, are also watchers.

Watchers are prophets. They are the Sybils, Pythias and sundry other oracles who have been called on throughout history to reveal what the future holds. This tradition continues today; almost every village in Tibet, for example, has its own official oracle, and the Dalai Lama himself consults the Nechung Oracle (short video) annually.

So where does this secret information come from and why? It comes from the Akasha, a Sanskrit word that means aether, although it is known by other names such as the fifth element, Spirit. The aether, which is an energy field, connects each of us to everything else in the universe and to all information contained in the Akashic Record. This information can aid us, warn us of impending danger, enlighten us and challenge us.

Consider the Akashic Record an energetic field or database that functions like a cybernetic feed back – feed forward loop. For example, Earth’s Collective Unconscious, home to the archetypes, informs the Akashic Record and is in turn informed by the Akashic Record. In fact, the Akashic Record is a universal memory bank that accounts for everything that has ever happened in our universe. It can be accessed by mystics and other awakened souls and used to make fairly accurate predictions about the future, but it is not omniscient (all knowing) – nor for that matter is anything else.

C09This brings us to Baba Vanga. She’s been in the news of late because of some predictions she purportedly made concerning the times we live in. You can read about her in this New York Post article, which includes her photograph. I chose Storyteller’s image for this section because she and Baba Vanga share a great deal in common.

Storyteller is Chrysalis Tarot’s quintessential watcher, and arguably its preeminent spiritual presence. Like Marie Laveau and Morgan le Fay, Storyteller keeps the center of her being on the surface of an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Her mind is always still, uncluttered and free of ego fostered delusion, therefore an ASC is readily attainable.

Suffice it to say that one cannot be a prophet and proclaim future probabilities unless capable of entering an ASC either through deep meditation, yoga, an entheogen or a shamanic ritual. This truism would most certainly exclude boardwalk fortune tellers who read tarot as if it were some form of arcane cryptology. They would be known as false prophets or charlatans.

In closing, it’s worth noting that classical prophecy, which often asserts that bad things are going to happen unless ways are mended, is, in many cases, simply an interpretation of history and pattern recognition. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with divine retribution, which doesn’t happen, and everything to do with humanity heaping misfortune upon itself, or experiencing a natural calamity.

It’s worth noting that we reckon time in a linear fashion, always moving from past to present to future; from cause to effect. This ubiquitous viewpoint has, however, recently come under scientific scrutiny; theories of backward causation are being explicated. The New Physics represents cutting edge scientific thought, not New Age woo-woo. I personally regard the phenomenon of Jungian synchronicity (meaningful coincidence) as a natural, psychokinetic concomitant to backward causation.

For example, say you are earnestly pursuing a spiritual path that leads to your destiny (Higher Self).  You will experience synchronicities more often than, say, someone mired in ego-consciousness. Your future Higher Self acts as a causal agent for this synchronicity. Consequently, when you experience synchronicity, you know you’re making serious spiritual progress. We should always contemplate meaningful synchronous events in our daily lives. Your future is trying to tell you something.

These subjects are discussed in greater depth in our new Chrysalis Tarot companion book.

 

book cover usg version

 

 

On the Cusp of a New Golden Age

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6 - Lovers

From the new Chrysalis Tarot companion book:*

Our two lovers are none other than King Arthur and Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of Hearth and Home and the Keeper of the Sacred Flame. But this celebration is far more than an ordinary wedding in the woods. It represents the archetype of the Sacred Wedding also known as the hieros gamos, an alchemical “union of opposites” not well appreciated today.

In the sacred wedding of Arthur and Brigid, sun and moon are symbolically joined together, opposites are reconciled and made whole (male and female, anima and animus); the two become as one and confer divine grace upon one another. The sacred marriage of Osiris and Isis is another example of the unifying mythology of hieros gamos (sacred marriage).

Wedding announcements went out to all the creatures of the forest. It was an invitation to a “New Golden Age,” symbolized by King Arthur and Brigid’s marriage.

We feature this card today to honor and commemorate a remarkable feast of synchronicity. The new Chrysalis companion book is to be published on February 1, which just so happens to be Imbolc or Brigid’s Day. It’s indeed a fitting feast of synchronicity, so to speak, that the book’s publication falls on one of the four major Celtic feasts to celebrate the seasons of the year, and on Imbolc in particular.

Imbolc marks the start of the Celtic spring, a time of new beginnings when the Crone of Winter Past loosens her icy grip on the soil so young life can sprout. It’s the time of the first milking of thecross ewes (note the white ewe in The Lovers art) and of making Brigid Crosses  from rushes and then proudly hanging them on farmhouse doors until replaced by the new batch next spring. The Pagan crosses invoked Brigid’s maternal and eternal protection as the Celts’ beloved goddess of hearth and home.

As keeper of the perpetual Sacred Flame, Brigid, along with her 18 priestesses, symbolize the 19 moons that comprise a metonic cycle, a bygone method of reckoning time. Her sacred flame still burns brightly today in Kildare just as it has done for thousands of years. The flame reflects the march of time; nature’s continuing cycle of life, death and rebirth.

When I lived in Cornwall, UK, I often came across holy wells dedicated to Brigid that dotted the lush countryside along with the stone circles and other ancient megalithic monuments that contribute to the legends of the Mystical Isles. The Merry Maidens stone circle was a brisk walk from where I lived near the former art colony in Lamorna. One such Celtic standing stone, or menhir as they’re known locally, is featured on Chrysalis’ Ace of Stones, and Stonehenge itself graces our Eight of Stones.

Since Brigid played a hugely significant role in the creation of Chrysalis as a nurturing mother who sweetly whispered gentle inspirations, Holly and I are honored and touched that our new book will be published on her special day.

Fitting synchronicity, a Chrysalis hallmark!

 

* Our new book is now available from Amazon and metaphysical booksellers everywhere.

companion book cover front

 

 

 

18 Human Qualities Most Needed to Advance the Global Awakening

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By WakingTimes • wakingtimes.com • January 01, 2016
Cosmic-Earth-Storm-1

Dylan Charles, Editor

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.” – ShakespeareReality is anything but fixed, it is created again and again, re-defined from moment to moment as a product of the behavior and choices of all sentient beings. For certain, we are more powerful than we yet know, and each one of us is indeed an actor on the same stage, all of us with the ability to impact and contribute to the story.

Our connection through media amplifies extreme qualities of the human experience, offering a rather warped vision of reality, making our whole situation difficult to see clearly through the fog of sensationalism, distraction and propaganda.

Although truth and justice are severely repressed in our world, an evolutionary shift is rising just below the surface of the mainstream, already effectively challenging the power structures and control paradigms that are driving all of us towards extinction.

The most important players in the world right now are not in the limelight, they are not celebrities, nor are they freaks, oddities or authority creatures. They are the activated human beings out there, setting extraordinary examples by living courageous lives, helping to expand our awareness of what is possible, contributing to a proper vision for the future.

They’re the ones making adjustments to the trim-tabs on the rudders of humanity, so that the future holds promise for a meaningful sea change.

In opposition to the controlling forces of fear, scarcity and decay, we have the opportunity to demonstrate the powers of love, abundance and creativity. For this to come to pass, we are challenged to bring forth, amplify and elevate those human qualities which are most needed right now to push the global awakening forward and bring it into its full power.

Observing the world from my little outpost, I see the potential for people with the following exceptional qualities to play extraordinary roles in this awakening, however, this perspective is mine alone, and the list could just as easily be infinite. If something mentionable is noticed to have been left amiss, please comment and share your input.

1. People who furiously pursue self-mastery, but are able to dodge the traps of the ego and the fantasies of new age salvation.

2. People who meditate, but do not worship.

3. People who practice de-escalation, who understand the high art of withdrawal, and who are willing to compromise in order to win.

4. People who realize that in order to be free you must give freedom to others.

5. People who are capable of staring into the abyss of darkness without falling in, and without losing sight of the light.

6. People who have opinions, but revise them as often as needed to avoid getting fooled by them.7. People who are more afraid of conformity than of standing alone.

8. People who value experience over suggestion.

9. People who love themselves first, and protect themselves first.

10. People who respect the universal principle that nature is here for our use, but not for our abuse.

11. Self-healers and self-teachers who survive by practicing independence.

12. People who understand the import and impact of history, but who are willing to abandon it or escape from it.

13. People who appreciate and rabidly exercise the power of saying ‘no.’

14. People who recognize that material truth is multi-layered and rarely revealed in its entirety at once.

15. People who know that spiritual truth is revealed in cosmic flashes of total clarity, but whom happily return to their work here on earth when the ride is over.

16. People who maintain harmony and balance by practicing gratitude, acceptance, appreciation and most importantly, service.

17. People who are experienced and skilled in transmuting their own anger into love.

18. People who can laugh at anything. For if it cannot be laughed at, it is not the Tao.

READ: 9 Key Components of the Shift Towards Higher Consciousness

Final Thoughts

We have a tremendous opportunity at our fingertips. Rather than accidentally submitting to the Orwellian reality being scripted for us by the engineers of a society and culture in collapse, we have the choice to actively participate in re-writing our future for our own benefit.

This humble list is a reminder that it’s time to figure out where you stand in the struggle, to get there, and to stand firm.

Read more articles from Dylan Charles.

About the Author

Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.