the TREE OF LIFE

Walt Thirion Photography

"Tree glowing in sunset -- lucky enough to see this tree lit up by the sunset while driving through the Santa Fe National Forest. I like the way the clouds spray out, too." - Walt Thirion

 August 13, 2013 
Tree of Life.   

"Certain Asiatic myths carry through centuries the continuity of their religious and social structures. They can be compared to very old trees of knowledge whose fruits have dried on their branches for lack of any renewed sap. Contrarily, the Qabala has died and has resurrected many, many times amidst spectacular displays, on each occasion accomplishing and then burying its past. 

If, by chance, we happen today to be in such a time, we are the very conjunction, the very timeless spark, which at one time appeared as Abraham, at another time as Mosheh, and later as Jesus. That pinpoint of recurrent eternity is the Qabala." 

~ Carlo Suarès, author The Cipher Of Genesis: The Original Code of the the Qabala as Applied to the Scriptures  


Stevie Kay

"Fun shot of me looking over polaroids from my shoot with Tom Martinez Jr. . I still have a couple available for sale." ~ Stevie Kay

August 19, 2013 

A Mystery Teaching Us

God's Power Is Greater Than Your Problem
Rev. Dr. Sinclair Grey III 

God can make anything that appears impossible a reality. In other words, what may not make sense to you or seem logical in your sight isn't a problem for Almighty God. I need to say that again. With God, all things are possible because nothing is bigger than God and nothing is too difficult for our God to handle. All you have to do is be obedient to His will and trust Him without doubting. 

The Bible tells us when Abraham and Sarah had surpassed their biological years of having a child that God stepped in and reversed what seemed impossible. How so? Because God promised them a child. As you and I know, when God promises, He delivers. Through God's omnipotence, "The Lord dealt with Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him." Please don't miss this. Never doubt God. Never question His love for you. And never think your situation is too difficult for Him.


KNOW THIS:


The lesson of Sarah and Abraham extends into the realms of sexual potency. It is a deep undertaking into the restorative powers of sex, and the resurrection principles sexual energies. It isn't the easiest thing for me to put into English, but being 100 years old Abraham's life force has a significance in its symbolism. I am outside of the lexicon of canon law teaching into the mysticism of thought, action and purpose attempting to explain it. .

First of all we are thinking and thought needs to know it has a beginning. Beyond that where this teaching comes from the archetype within this story is the unthinkable life-death, abstract principle of all that is and all that is not. This the where the beat and the pulse of life-death-resurrection is projected into temporal continuity. This is a battle, a struggle not forever going on, but constantly in motion within the life of the body. It lived in Sarah and Abraham as it does in us all.

Sarah and Abraham came together as promised and their sex was born again into a light and a source of everlasting power not because Sarah was an extraordinary lover, but she and her husband were recipients of particular power(s). Abraham in covenant relationship with his death, and Sarah deeply embroiled in the mysterious aspect of blood and water exalted the principle of life-death beyond the simple understanding of 'in the beginning' tied themselves together and every aspect of Creation acted through their projection against itself and became cosmically deathless.

They destroyed illusion. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.18.13

Cosetta Chantal
May 10, 2013

Goddess' Breath

a Sacred Journey

All the holy places are taken up by storms of revolution, intellectual discourse, and replaced by stone buildings scattered throughout metropolitan areas the world over. She, the Beautiful, is at home in the original places of Sacredness. She is in the body, and the body is a holy place. It isn't a temple. It is a form. It is story formed around a concept of containment of what cannot be contained, but will submit to being retained, or boxed if one so wishes it. The life force of Sacred Things is the essence formless, yet tangible, intangible but somehow we hold onto it when making love to our mate, eating our food to nourish our body, and when we need to draw, or create art our bodies come alive with the tingling feeling of potential, and promise and our sexual energies come in to play, and play they do somewhere between masturbation and the orgasms that topple over the misconceptions of permanence, and stability, and form. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 3.26.13

crater of Lake Oregan
by Black Rememberyourancestorslove

Drumming around the Fire

POWER

“Poetry, Hip Hop, and our souls demand deeper penetrations into power, and a connection to mysterious links into the process of becomng a whole person, the theology of thinking, and the spirit of learning how to become a sacred person in one lifetime. -Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of the Drum

SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION OR HEALING?

We have seven (7) bodies. The lower bodies are four: memory, emotional, mental, and physical. The higher bodies are electronic, Christ, and causal bodies. What is the order of the bodies? What is causal? Electronic? Explain that. Is it above or below the Christ body? Why the Christ? Why not another figure who has ascended to that level of spirituality? Are these teachings bent to included the Christ because of the times? What I mean is have the times dictated what is the manifested consciousness that will resonate with seekers today? What high consciousness was personified centuries ago for the times, and its people? -Gregory E. Woods

QABALISTIC MAGIC LESSON 3: HISTORY AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORTHODOX HEBREW QABALAH AND WESTERN ESOTERIC QABALAH

Western Esoteric Qabalah is a blend of traditional Qabalistic teachings, Gnosticism, Hermetic Philosophy, Neo-Platonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Alchemy, Astrology, and Tarot. All of the Western Wisdom traditions can be understood through the medium of the Qabalistic symbol - the Tree of Life. That being said, we use the name Qabalah which is obviously Hebrew, and a large proportionate amount of what we are dealing with here had its beginnings in the Hebrew Qabalah, the oral tradition of mysticism practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Scholem who is one of the foremost scholars of Jewish Qabalah states that its beginnings were in Jewish Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism a philosophy and theory developed by the Greek Plato. In this theory, Plato espoused that the universe was made up of emanations of energy which hierarchically descend and radiate from the Godhead through intermediate stages finally forming physical matter and the world we live in. This theory of Emanations is where the idea of the Sephirotic spheres was developed.

Traditional Hebrew Qabalah today, on the other hand, functions as a part of the spiritual practices and wisdom of Judaism. In Orthodox Judaism, Qabalah is used only to interpret the workings of God, the Penteteuch (the first 5 books of the Bible) and the Holy texts of Judaism. Qabalah is a part of this tradition and is used in a very specific way. Hebrew Qabalah of today tries not to vary from its beginnings in Judaism's mystical traditions and is still taught orally, although utilizing various texts as well, only to men over 30 years of age. The Sephir Yetzirah-Book of Formation is the first important text, originating from the oral tradition and was written down sometime between the 3rd-6th centuries C.E. It contains six brief chapters and is the first book in which the word Sephiroth appears. This book describes the creation of the Universe in terms of the Hebrew alphabet and symbolic numbers undoubtedly related to Neo-Pythagoreanism.

The Sephir Yetzirah then became the foundation of later texts. The next flurry of writing and work with the Holy Qabalah was in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Other important texts include the Bahir, written around 1200 CE in southern France. Here we have the first references to the Secret Tree (the Tree of Life) and the description of the Sephiroth as vessels of the Divine Light. It is theorized that the Bahir was probably assembled from other texts that were probably of Eastern origin.


Then between 1280-1286 CE, Moses de Leon wrote perhaps the greatest text on QBL, the Zohar, a series of commentaries on the Bible and on mystical cosmology. For generations considered an ancient work written in Ancient Aramaic, a language which is the root of Hebrew and Arabic, Moses de Leon felt that his work would be taken more seriously if rather than naming himself as the author, instead should be attributed to an ancient author, thus 2nd century rabbi Simeon ben Yohai. There exists no complete translation in a European language - Simon and Sperling translated only 35%, while Kabbalah Unveiled contains three more books.


At this time Spain was a hotbed of knowledge under Muslim rule with scholars studying alchemy, astrology and with much tolerant exchange of ideas between Muslims and Jews, even Christians, in Muslim Spain. Another important work, Gates of Light, Sha'are Orah, was also produced at this time which is an excellent text on Hebrew names of God.


In the Renaissance man considered himself the jewel in the crown of the Universe, becoming the measure of all things, rather than the lowly sinner atoning for the fall. Hermetic philosophy came to the fore and another great exchange of ideas with Qabalah being studied by the Christian Scholar magicians. Under this influence Qabalah now was grasped by Christians as a universal system and a great tool. A few Jewish converts to Christianity helped speed this occurrence. This exchange of ideas and interest dovetails with Hermeticism as a major interest of the time. In 1460 CE Cosimo De Medici, realizing the value of the Hermetica, asked his translator to do it first before even a text of Plato's Republic.