Primal Invocations

 

“There were two forests for every one you entered. There was the one you walked in, the physical echo, and then there was the one that was connected to all the other forests, with no consideration of distance, or time.

The forest primeval, remembered through the collective memory of every tree in the same way that people remembered myth- through the collective subconscious that Jung mapped, the shared mythic resonance that lay buried in every human mind. Legend and myth, all tangled in an alphabet of trees remembered, not always with understanding, but with wonder. With awe.”
― Charles de Lint, Spiritwalk

 

The way that Charles de Lint describes forests is the way that I talk about archetypes including the god and goddess archetypes in myth and ritual. For every one there is the archetype that we relate to in our head, with our personal association and the way we see the force and then there is the primal figure and symbol, that which is both inherent in its being and the collective view of everyone who contemplates the archetype. Thus when we invoke Pan or Isis or Legba or pray to Jesus or Jehovah, we are first connecting to our personal image of that deity and through that we reach the central figure. The more awareness of who we are invoking and how they are seen that we have and the clearer our vision than the closer we get to the root of that being. This is as true of places as it is for god forces and symbols.
BLessings, G

 

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Goddess VeiledThe Goddess Veiled by G A Rosenberg

 

UvallUvall by G A Rosenberg

 

Quote of the Day – November 23 2012

“Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.”
― Joseph Campbell

Invoke o man the deity
that speaks your souls desire
Invoke with passion
and with sound
Invoke with song
and with colour
Draw Sigils in the air
and on the ground
in water
Ignite your sign with fire
Use perfume pleasing to god or goddess
and know their presence
Worship with open mind and soul
and see purpose fulfilled
— G A Rosenberg

 

Repeat as needed for as many different aspects of the universe you wish to know and to integrate within. The hardest part I always find for myself becomes the channeling of intent tho I become better at it.
If you have difficulty believing in the efficacy of such a practice, try it. If the idea of invoking a deity offends you, try invoking an emotion, a feeling or perhaps a saint or angel, astrological sign or tarot card, whichever speaks to you. At the very least it may lead you to effective meditation and powerful prayer.
Blessings, G

 

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Knight of Swords by G A Rosenberg

Green Vortex by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day — September 6 2012

“I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
— T S Eliot

Tonight I found a lesson in breaking the fourth wall. I was talking to some friends in one FB group or another while listening to music and playing with art. One friend was talking about his enlightenment in a manner that some do as if they have moved beyond earthly thoughts and patterns and was somehow above it all. This tends to irk some and inspire others. I tend to feel a kind of bemusement at it. I feel that even in hard times when the path feels its hardest, I would still much rather feel like I have a far way to go than that I have arrived at a stopping point. What would be the purpose and where the fun in that? Which basically was the question I asked my friend. What do you do for fun? There was a long pause and then he started talking about his love of photography and we talked about capturing the moment that doesn’t come again and the conversation became to me a lot more interesting.

I realized that I had gotten my friend to break the fourth wall. In stage, television and movies where sets are three walls the two sides and back, the fourth wall is that invisible wall which separates the actors and the characters they play from the audience. The audience watches its window into the world of the play and sustains the belief that these are not actors playing characters but events unfolding. Likewise, the actors and the characters usually pretend that the audience is a non existent one. However, in some plays the actor or the character he plays breaks the fourth wall and for a moment breaks character and speaks directly to the audience. Groucho did it in a few of the Marx Brothers movies, George Burns did it all the time in his show. For just a moment, my friend had broken the fourth wall, dropped the character of enlightened master and spoke as an excited human. At that moment, he became so much easier to relate to.

It got me thinking. Who is behind our fourth wall? Does the universe (God) consciously watch and feel its parts acting out its myriad dramas? How about the part of our unconscious that Ken Wilber calls the witness, that part below the surface that dispassionately watches all the events of our life. The more we identify with our witness and the less with all the drama, the farther we have come. We connect the most with the universe when we pray and the most with the witness when we meditate. In this way prayer and meditation would be the two methods by which we break down the fourth wall and come down from the state.
Blessings, G

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Paths to and From the Centre by G A Rosenberg

 

Red Gray Waking Spiral by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – April 21 2012 (Part 2)

“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

Maybe I’ve been going at this all wrong. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working up towards expressing some thoughts on this blog that are difficult. I’ve been reaching for words only to feel my mind pull back that it is not time yet, reaching and finding that my sentences lacked clarity and things that I could articulate in my head moments before were now twisting and bending on their way to the screen. Perhaps it hasn’t been time for me to express them yet, perhaps I need to know my heart before it can find its way to words. I’m not sure but reading Gandhi’s words, I have more confidence that if my heart is there then the words will come
Blessings, G

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Flame Man’s Vision by G A Rosenberg