Peacock Dreams ~ Creation Myth

The Supreme Creator created Peacock Angel as an emanation at the beginning of time. He was brought into manifestation to be a vehicle with which to create and administer the universe. Tawsi Melek is thus a tangible, denser form of the Supreme Creator. In order to assist Tawsi Melek in this important role, the Supreme Creator also created six other Great Angels, who were, like the Peacock Angel, emanations of the Supreme Creator.

Tawsi Melek was the first to emerge from the Light in the form of a seven-rayed rainbow, which is a form he still today continues to manifest within (usually as a rainbow around the Sun). Tawsi Melek and the six Great Angels are collectively the seven colors of the rainbow. The six Great Angels were originally part of Tawsi Melek, the primal rainbow. Of the seven colors produced from the primal rainbow, Tawsi Melek became associated with the color blue, because this is the color of the sky and the heavens, which is the source of all colors.

The Supreme Creator created a pearl containing the substance or substratum of the soon-to-be physical universe.For forty thousand years this pearl sat upon a primal bird ~ Tawsi Melek before he divided into the Seven Great Angels. This pearl then exploded to become the physical universe. Once the Seven Great Angels were created the Earth was produced by the Seven Great Angels out of the substratum of the original pearl. It remained barren and then suddenly entered a phase of intense continual shaking, perhaps coinciding with the violent earthquake and volcanic activity that was ubiquitous around the young Earth. In order to calm the planetary quaking, the Supreme God sent the Peacock Angel to Earth with orders to both sedate the Earth and endow it with multi-colored flora and fauna. As Tawsi Melek descended into the physical dimension his seven-colored rainbow self became manifest as a magnificent bird of seven colors, the peacock. He then flew around the globe in order to bless every part of it, finally landing in the area of what is now Lalish, the Yezidis most sacred part of Earth located in northern Iraq. Here Tawsi Melek was able to calm the Earth while simultaneously covering it with his peacock colors.

Reference:
http://www.yeziditruth.org/home
E.S.Dower ~ Peacock Angel ~ http://www.avesta.org/yezidi/peacock.htm

BE

I have bought the book 'The Book of Secrets' by Deepak Chopra. I have been dipping into it....in the Chapter 'The Universe Thinks Through You' Deepak speaks about the mind moving between two positions ~ Free Will and Determinism. Some people say they come from Free Will where all choice is their own. While others are more Determinist ~ like those believing their actions are the Will of an outside being 'God. Deepak also adds a third grouping who 'sit on the fence'. Connected to this Deepak writes about how the mind fixes on cause and effect. This is the ultimate physical reality. However, he says there is another reality which is outside of this dualism which is Being itself. This Being merges both the Free Will and Determinism.

All this theory sound grand to me. However, my experience is that I am well and truly stuck in between dualism of my mind and Determinism of how I experience myself as part of the system. Stuck. So I rage, cry and grieve.

Maybe there is another way?

I think of Moonroot who found another way out of the cancelling of Avalon WitchCamp to the Summer Gathering. A Third road. That is what I would like to aspire to more. Letting go so that I can embrace life...creativity....

Today the Urban Angel gave me a Xmas Card this morning. I am aware how open he is every time I pass him in the morning and how vunerable he appeared to me when he fumbled in his pocket for the card. I am sure being Homeless he has so often been overlooked and dismissed. But yet he celebrates life and is so resiliant. In a huge city where intimacy ~ communion ~ community is so fragile this is a gift.

The Universe Thinks Through You ~ Deepak Chopra

"My body and the universe come from the same source, obey the same rhythms, flash with the same storms of electromagnetic activity. My body can't afford to argue over who created the universe. Every cell would disappear the second it stopped creating itself. So it must be that the universe is living and breathing through me. I am an expression of everything in existence."

"To you a thought is an image or idea floating through your mind. To the universe ~ and here we mean the universal intelligence that permeates the swarm of galaxies, black holes, and interstellar dust ~ a thought is a step in evolution. Its a creative act."

"Desire is built into the scheme of life"

"Changing Your Reality to Accommodate

The Eleventh Secret

The eleventh secret is about escaping the bondage of cause and affect. The universe is alive and imbued with subjectivity. Cause and effect are just the machinery it uses to carry out what it wants to do. And what it wants to do is to live and breathe through you. To find out the truth of this, you need to relate to the universe as if it were alive. Otherwise, how will you ever know that it is? Today, begin to adopt the following habits:

Talk to the universe

Listen for its reply

Be on intimate terms with Nature

See the life in everything

Carry yourself like a child of the universe."

"Something totally compelling draws your attention when you are in love; once experienced, it is not easily forgotten. You feel as if you are inside your beloved and your beloved inside you. The merging of yourself with something vaster than yourself is a blending of two subjectives. Its been called the relationship of 'I' and 'thou', or the sense of being as a wave on the infinite ocean of Being"

Quote from 'The Book of Secrets' by Deepak Chopra

Paracelsus ii

Sin is the result of Ignorance and Ignorance the cause of sin.

An alternative interpretation to the 'Garden of Eden'.

What is sin? Is being sinful an antithesis of life and living? Somewhere in this question I find myself pondering on willfulness ~ judgement ~ emotion~ thinking ~ sanity....

How extraordinary that the desire for change ~ growth ~ exploration ~ questioning ~ evolving ~ quest ~ knowledge ~ seeking ~ learning ~ could have been so distorted in this story.

To Sin ~ is that to willfully to do wrong.

Recently I read in the newspaper that a jury in UK came to a verdict of manslaughter in a case where a man who was taking crack and heroin stabbed another man for asking him to stop throwing food over his fellow passengers on a bus. The jury's verdict of manslaughter came as a result of the accused saying he was mentally ill. The article did not detail whether the mental illness was said to be as a result of taking the drugs or the drugs were the mans attempts of self-medication due to being mentally ill.I dare say that taking a mixture of crack and heroin would affect anyone's mind. And there would be a history of why a person would be in such a place.

One could look at his life through the 'glasses' of sociology or psychology and be able to track or interpret the history of the person. Would such investigations give reasons?

What are reasons....are they excuses? Or could reasons be a means of looking a complexities.
Would someone be blaming if they said excuse?

Where is the point of responsibility?

Somewhere in the Christian Bible it says that the sins of men are visited in several generations ~ I forget the number. I have found myself interpreting this as making some sense for my journey of healing the past ~ present ~ future. I have seen how patterns of behaviour can be traced back to my parents and back to their parents.

Paracelsus i

"Wherever we rightly search Nature's phenomena we can infer from Manifestation to Cause, from Cause to Thought, from Thought to Law, from Law to Love.

Man should not be subject to Fate, as he now is, but should be a Divine being guarded by Providence, the Divine Mind.

If we could only realise that we are immortal beings, how differently we should live! "

Paracelsus

Song

"Keep one foot on the earth, and the other in the heavens." - Shakmah Winddrum

"The Way into the Light"

"When a child is born, its firmament will be born with the seven organs, which have the power to become like the seven planets, thus to become everything that belongs to his firmament" Paracelsus

Garden of Eden

"From the Old Hebrew legends the neo~hermetics evolved a curious symbolism, for all it's strangeness quaintly appropiate. To them the heart was analogous to the interior body, while the organs and members surrounding the heart were viewed as the exterior body. Thus, the heart became the 'Garden of Eden' ~ a place of beauty and felicity. The small area within it, now called the pulse point, was recognized as the little interior paradise, which medieval theologian located in the "eastern part" of Eden"

Manly P. Hall
'The Heart, The Seat of Life'

Return to the Centre

"Thus the world has its fiery spirit pervading the atmosphere, and it's centre is called the Sun, and the influences radiating from the sun return to the centre"

Paracelsus

Naked

The angel of liberty was born before the dawn of the first day, before even the awakening of intelligence, and God Called him the morning star.

Genesis

Now the Serpent was more subtle then any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman "You, has God said , You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden"
But the fruit of the Tree which is the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die"
And the serpent said to the woman you shall surely die. For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then you eyes shall be opened, and you shall be gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the Tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew they were naked

Genesis

Autumn Delights

Many thanks for Moonroot posting Autumn Senses ~ I loved it so much here are mine...

Five Autumn Sights
Crisp blue morning sky ~ Blue evening sky with turkish delight orange ~ sun light shining through gold coloured leaves ~ mist laying low on land ~ cobwebs covered in dew.

Five Autumn Smells
Hot Chocolate ~ Wood burning on a fire ~ leaf laden woodland ground ~ toasted crumpets with butter ~ cold harp air.

Five Autumn Sounds
Crows crying, croaking and calling! ~ Wind shaking the tree leaves ~ Wind rattling window ~ rain tapping on roof ~ fire crackling.

Five Autumn Tastes
Roasted Chicken english style with potatoes, parsnips, bread sauce, sweet carrots and loads of gravy! Not sure if that is more or less of Five?!

Five Autumn Sensations
Holding hands with my love warm on the palms cold on the outside, cold tip of my nose, winds shifting and moving against my skin, shorter daylight ~ coming home in the dark ~ waking up in the dark, goose pimpled skin with warm belly.

Place of Power

I stand on a mountain top and can see in all directions,
Infront, to the sides, below, above, inwards, outwards

to my left and to my right.
I am alive and in the moment.
Anything is possible.
I have clear vision. Clarity.
I have choice.

I go beyond what my mind thinks is reasonable.
I go beyond what my mind thinks you or I are.
This is the Place of Power.
This is what Power can BE.
Full of life
Full of grace
Full of Loving
Power~full

For my Beloved

Be here Now!

After many circle castings over the years I have ~ along with others ~ said 'Be Here Now!'. Last night I was with the experience of feeling alive and recalling other times where I felt similar.
What occurred to me was I have felt like this when I do not feel in control, when I am in unfamiliar situations, where I have consciously put myself in environments of change, transition where I am fully present to the moment.
In the past when I said 'Be Here Now!' where I often asked what or who I might be saying 'Be Here Now!' to ~ I have moved to being aware/present with consciously saying this to myself and my witnesses. 'Be here now'! then takes on a further depth for me.
What has been present with me is my awareness that it is me/I who was/is having a problem being present ~ being fully present with my centre~heart. And how simplistic let alone arrogrant it could be for me to proclaim outwards 'Be Here Now!'. Surely it is about the clarity of my intention.
Can I risk being fully present ~ fully present with where I am ~ then surely I would be getting closer to the Divine that is ever present. Risking being open and vulernable instead of hard and brittle.
Working magically for me would therefore include being respectful, being fully conscious and aware of my choices, being present with creativity that I create my world, being fully responsibilty. Being alive. Open.

The Chasm of Fire

"And so it came....it slipped itself into my heart, silently, imperceptibly, and I looked at it with wonder. It was still, small, a light-blue flame trembling softly and it had the infinite sweetness of first love, like an offering of fragrant flowers made with gentle hands, the heart full of stillness and wonder and peace." Irina Tweedie.

Alban Elfed

via Celtitude

This year's Mabon has a significance for me as my birthday being in September is linked to this time when I have turned 40.
The welsh I have read have known this time as 'Alban Elfed' ~ meaning 'light of autumn'.
At this time of equal light and dark ~ the turning of the wheel. I find myself standing at a point where I am reflecting on my choices. I am calling for clarity which comes with this light of autumn.
Years ago I heard the theory that we all choose our lives and this as I remember was said in connection with the 'new age' theory of that everyone chooses their parents. At the time I remember myself and others around me reacting to this statement with feelings of anger and upset. I felt it was simplistic and open to blame.
Like most parents ~ mine were far from perfect. How much they were conscious of their patterns...how much they 'felt' or 'thought' they had control over their actions and lives ~ I do not know.
Later on... when reflecting on this idea, I had the thought that I could have chosen to be with the people who were my parents just like I choose who my friends are. I make choices at the time with the awareness and knowledge I have at that time.
And I am also aware that past, present and future also co-exist.
Being with this thought....to own my own life ~ is for me to work with owning my life as my choice. Not to be a victim of life. I am responsible and embrace life. I embrace learning and so can I be with not knowing and asking? Not having the answers?. Being with open curiosity. Risking meeting the 'fool'. Embracing the journey?
But how then can I reconcile other's lives who are in pain and suffering?
My next thought then goes to a more holistic model where as individuals we are not isolated but are interlinked in some way. So the actions of one affects others.
If I go with this thought then how much responsibility do I take regarding actions of others?
This question has also been present with me through my desire and experience of working magically. I have experienced putting out intentions, desires, wishes and receiving responses. I have questioned how much awareness I have of where those intentions, desires, wishes are coming from. How much do I know of myself? And these questions get more complex when working with others ~ esp in large numbers in Public Rituals. I have not and cannot be clear what other people's intentions, desires or wishes could be. I cannot be another person. When working magically I realize that I am asking for a conscious awareness of our connection and of working with integrity.
More recently through I have become more aware and sometimes painfully so that at times I do not know myself. I have witnessed myself constructing what I think are 'excellent' reasons/arguments and thoughts to support my belief at the time that I do know myself. Only to realize that there were layers that I was not fully aware of. I am aware of how seductive this false God/'Demiurge' is.

But I am also aware that Working magically ~ means not only being ~ fully being in my life ~ but also that I put a trust in my soul and heart speaking clearly. That intention has a clarity which transcends and is an accurate homing beacon. For me working magically is becoming more fully present and awake.

As the leaves begin to have their energy and light drawn back into the trees and the 'bone's of the trees or exposed. I think of all the birds who have less shelter. I think of the beauty of the trees and their shapes against the dusk sky. I think of the winds which I experience come at Equinox. I stand at the centre of the wheel and at the same time on the outside of the wheel.
Most of all I call to those close to my heart that give me warmth as the hearth. As the days draw shorter and the night longer. I give thanks for the abundance of my friendships. I give thanks and acknowledgement to my heart connections which I nurture and value.
Blessed Be

Gnosis ~ Knowledge through experience of Spirit.

"This is my self within the heart, smaller than the grain of rice, than a barley corn, than a mustard seed, than a grain of millent or than kernel of grain of millet. This is myself within the heart, greater than the earth, greater than the atmosphere, greater than the sky, greater than these worlds. Containing all the works, containing all desires, containing all odors, containing all the tastes, encompassing this whole world, without speed, without concern, this is the self of mine within the heart; this Brahman. Into him, I shall enter, on departing hence". Chandogya Upanishad.

Opening Heart

I return to my Blogg after a dream I had the night before last where I had travelled back in time to the time of the Incas. The dream was red with blood as I was given a beating heart to hold in my hand. As I held the heart a voice proclaimed "When your heart it open it cannot be broken".
This brings me to the book I have been reading ~ Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior ~ in which Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche speaks about the Warrior becoming more open, breaking out of the cocoon where we hide/ we wrap around ourselves for protection from the difficulties of daily life. He speaks of Heart of Sadness. This deeply felt sadness arises from the realization that the world is not an easy place in which to have an open and loving heart, that there is much that is incompassionate and cruel here. The alternative to this sadness is shutting down and remaining ignorant of reality. Since courage is required to avoid this shutting down, maintaining the Heart of Sadness is the act of a warrior.
I have been focusing my attention recently on my 'cocoon' and how I have excluded experiences, feelings, people ~ in fact I have excluded myself.
The following night I dreamt of again being in the land of Incas ~ this time in the present day on the borders of the wilderness. I had booked into a hotel room. It was night and I had the desire to go out into the wilderness. As I looked out of my bedroom window a pack of Wild Cats were waiting for me ~ their prey! My desire to go outside was not because I wanted to die but I wanted to experience Wilderness in the full.
To include means embracing all that is and all that is ~ is God/dess. Looking beyond the concept of Good or Bad.
Wilderness is not good or bad.
And to include Wilderness ~ that would shatter my ego.
That is what I crave and that is what I fear.
Since returning from my break to my friends wonderful small holding in Wales. I have intentionally prayed to the God/dess for me to remember my heart connection to the Wilderness.
My ego sometimes lets go of it's grip and my heart is allowed to beat it's drum. I see a shimmer of the God/dess ~ Wilderness. It is beyond what I could have imagined.
Including in letting go of my grip is acknowledging that I am totally responsible for my experience. Sometimes I can get it ~ mostly I find myself rebelling and slipping back into running the stories my ego needs ~ at best putting the responsibility of my experience outside of myself on others and at worst blaming others for my experiences.
Including leads to a vast wilderness. Not a sterile landscape.
And I return to the question how I can touch wilderness while living in a city?
Is the Divine ~ God/dess craving to know his/herself through our creation?
Through my dreaming can I touch God/dess?
Can I dare to awaken when I am not dreaming?
Blessed Be

Heart

'Wild Earth'

"I felt its urgent demand in the blood. I could hear its call. Its whistling disturbed me by day and it's howl woke me in the night. I heard the drum of the sun. Every path was a calling cadence, the flight of every bird a beckoning, the color of ice and invitation: come. The forest was a fiddler, wickedly good, eyes intense and shining with a fast dance. Every leaf in every breeze was a toe tapping out the same rhythm and every mountaintop lifting out of cloud intrigued my mind., for the wind a the peaks was the flautist, licking his lips, dangerously mesmerizing me with inaudible melodies that I strained to hear, my ears yearning for the horizon of sound. This was the calling, the vehement, irresistible demand of the feral angel - take flight. All that is wild is winged - life, mind and language - and knows the feel of air in the soaring "flight, silhouetted in the primal".

Wild - Jay Griffiths

Metamorphosis

Yesterday evening when I was closing my window a dark green large grasshopper landed at my feet. It was the largest and darkest green grasshopper I have seen. With a hook at its tail. It had an incredible energy. I am 2 floors up and in a very urban environment.
So I am very curious at being visited by a dragonfly last week and this week a grasshopper.
This is an image of an Aztec carving of a grasshopper.

Darshan

From intro in book 'Rumi ~ Gazing at the Beloved'.

"Just as archers fix their gaze upon a distant target before loosing their strings of their bows and sending their arrows flying, so do lovers of God fix their gaze on the face of God, each releasing the soul so it too can fly toward its target where it celebrates its homecoming. All spiritual paths teach us that if we want to find God, then we need to turn directly toward God, come face-to-face with the energies of the Divine, and then surrender to whatever encounter creates our lives. But where do we turn? And where exactly is that we find the face of the Divine? Is it everywhere? Or in one particular location only? And can perhaps a particular location, a particular face, serve as the doorway to the face of God?
One way to look upon the face of God is to create on image of God, either a painting or a sculpture, and then gaze at that image for an extended period of time. This practice can be found in the Greek Orthodox church where icons of saints and personages from the Bible are the only companions that monks and nuns take with them into the isolation of their cells during long periods of retreat.
When one fixes his or her entire attention on these images over long hours and days, the images may come to life and enter into animated dialogue with the practitioner. Many devout Hindus create personal shrines in their homes and temples in which images of a God or Goddess serve as the means for personal dialogue with the Divine. It is said that the eyes of these images are the most important of all the facial features, for by creating eye contact the image a devotee achieves darshan, a sanskrit word meaning "seeing and being seen by God".

Will Johnson

Poem by me! - Monday, July 23rd, 2007

Earth Air Fire Water
Sing with your Body

Your Body the Hand
Caressed by the Gods

~

Winds of Angels Fly
On the Desire of the Gods

Dance in the Desire
Of Belonging

~

Feet Whisper Love
Beating in the depths of your Heart

Dance with Thunder
Sweet Sweat Tears of Angels
Raining in your Body

~

With every Mortal Breath
The Gods taste each Moment of Creation

Sweetness and Bitterness
Life and Death.

Mystery - Friday, 20th July, 2007

I loved these quotes on website for Feri Camp May 07

"Mighty Guardians of the Elements of Life!" In doing so, we are calling upon the vast Beings who Guard the Elements of Life! Our Guardians are not representatives of the Elements. They not only have the Elements of Life within them, they are the Elements of Life Itself; the stuff of creation; Life-force in its most raw, power full and unmitigated form."

"We not only have but are the Circumference and the Center of the Elements of Life. As such, we are the presence of the Mighty Ones."

"When invoking the Guardians, we call upon the Seventh who is the Center and Circumference of All. Who/What we are invoking is the Self in Alignment. Each of us, individually, is the Seventh Guardian."

Angel from God - Thursday, 19th July, 2007

Last night I watched 'My name is Earl' - varies in quality but is touching and delightful. This episode Earl was an Angel - sign from God for a character played by Roxanne. He very eliquently said that if she chose to see him as the Angel to allow her/give herself permission to be who she truly was then great!

This morning an Angel sold me the 'Big Issue' - homeless magazine. He always says 'God Bless you'. Such a gift. A black guy who still has the rough edges of smoking too much grass...and when he says 'God' it doesn't come with Dogma or 'you shoulds'. Just a gift. And my heart sings when he says it. And I am hesitant in naming him as an Angel. Names have such power and words come with such ownership or this dogma or this meaning.


I have ordered the book - Wild: An Elemental Journey by Jay Griffiths. Here is a quote from a review in the Guardian newspaper by Mark Cocker: "The wilderness for her always in a distant setting, such as the Amazon or the Australian outback. She has nothing to say on wilderness at home, nor on more positive European responses to the wild. To give one example, the blackbird I can hear singing now in my garden as I write is a point of contact between the cultural and the wild. Our gardens are a form of open woodland, often richer in wildlife than the surrounding farmland. Blackbirds thrive better in gardens than in any other habitat. The reason Amerindians don't fear and destroy the forest is tha that they have domesticated it by their knowledge and their cultural appropiation of its qualities. In short, the rainforest is for them a form of garden".

Shedding Skin - Wednesday, 18th July, 2007

Inspired by Reya's Blog and then intern by Susan's here is my first entry.

My experience yesterday of the red dragonfly visiting me at my window is still present with me. My thoughts were still on Reya's Blog sharing her experience of nature.
Previous to the dragonfly I had been witnessing my downstairs neighbours young cat meeting the ginger tom. Cats are extraordinary. The tom stood his ground staring. This went on for ages. Until the neighbour came out and the tom ran a little distance away. However as soon as it noticed the young cat running after him, he promtly lay down. He did not stand, sit. No..he lay down proclaiming that piece of land his terrority!

Thinking of who I have been and who I think I am....in fact not being present!...and I have wondered if I can link in with the still point of the flight of the dragon fly...then maybe I can be present.

Here is quote I read from Peter Gabriel being interviewed in the Big Issue..which I related to...

"We are not often able to see ourselves, and if you look at the fringes you see the centre".

Which also leads me onto reflecting on the centre of oursevles encompassing the all. If I truly 'got' that my ego mind would truly be in a panic!

Yesterday I was connecting with the part of me that want to hurt that which I love. Madness!...apparently William Blake has written a poem about this perversity in human nature.