Mirror, Mirror...

Blogger ARIE said... Not an easy task to know oneself.

To know your self you need a mirror

I believe that everyone who comes into our life is a mirror.

I believe that if we understand them we understand our selves.

And, if we are judgmental to them, we are being so to ourselves(and our soulmates).

I believe we could not comprehend a thing, or forgive it, if we have not been it ourselves.

And that the greatest mirror on this plane is the natural world. African wildebeest show us herd mentality, each hopes to survive personally by letting the weaker element be lion fodder. No matter how much pasture there is, two bulls will fight until one is the master of it all. Lionesses are like women who settle for very little, at the expense of their children's well being. Horses who won't leave their burning barn are like people in abusive relationships who can't find the courage to leave.

The natural world can also give us a positive example of healthy mind: Eagles who mate for life, who rear their young together, who rarely re-mate if one should die, are an example to us of real love. A mother bird doesn't fall into bitterness and depression should one of her chicks die, though it is obvious that she is devoted to them. Caterpillars metamorphosize...

It isn't hard to know yourself if you know the trick to it, and approach it with humility("I am not the best person, nor the worst") and the sort of kindness you would extend to your child, or best friend.
One really enjoyable aspect to doing this - recognizing yourself in your mirrors - is that those pesky personality types who have seemed to haunt you forever, will disappear(or the behavior will), as soon as you have seen and owned the truth they represent.
One thing I have found is that most people, myself included, do those mean and nasty things they do, when they are frightened. To me that is certainly forgivable.

So what does all this have to do with the practice of magic? If you don't know yourself you can't detoxify from the shame and guilt our toxic society hands out to everyone. And the mysteries just don't reveal themselves to toxic minds. And, also, these blind spots in our self awareness are key to healing our psychic wounds, that disempower us - no witch or wizard can stand for anything disempowering. It is the opposite of who we are.

He who knows himself knows god – Clement of Alexandria

Spring Equinox

Being able to read symbols comes in handy when you are trying to discern the deeper meanings of these old pagan holy days. For instance three enduring symbols associated with Lady's Day (or what ever you prefer to call the spring equinox) are the moon hare, eggs and Wotan's cross (as seen on hot cross buns). The egg is a womb symbol and refers to resurrection. But which egg is it? It is not the cosmic egg, nor the solar egg lain by the Nile goose goddess. It is the lunar egg laid by the hare goddess. In symbolism moon = body, because the moon's seeming importance fades as the sun rises; and sun rise equates with spiritual awakening or rebirth. This all points to spring equinox as the time devoted to the resurrection of the human body, as a parallel to the resurrection of the Earth Mother, seen in the greening of spring.

We have been taught that we are all dying, and most of us are, and the reason I have been taught that this is so, is because we fall into stagnation. Our survival instincts keep us tied to the reality that we know, and we stop expanding into the world. We settle for our own known corner. For instance, we may desire the freedom of wealth very much, but if we aren't used to it, it is an unknown. That part of us responsible for our survival looks at wealth and sees an unknown, fearful thing. How will our lives change if we do manifest wealth? We don't know, and so when the opportunities come we don't act. The bugger is, if we aren't growing, experiencing the new, spirit sees no reason for our lives to continue and we age.

So, Wotan's cross, made into food gives us an answer. There are various meanings to the symbol, but the one that goes with this set of symbols is that there is a need to focus. It says draw all your attention to this one spot, and make it be a thing you want to experience that is new in your life. Now focus on it.

So, saying we try this out, how long do we focus? As long as you can is a good answer. Until you feel an exultation sweep through you, is a better answer. But someone very dedicated to manifesting, would remain in focus three days and three nights. The amount of time Inanna hung on a hook in the underworld, and the amount of time Yeshua spent in the tomb.

Death, and the tomb, and the underworld all refer to sensory deprivation, a death-like state, gained by total darkness and ear plugs. The point being to lull the upper brain into a hypnotic state so that the image of your focus is carried into the deeper places of the brain, bypassing the censoring of those survival instincts.

Disclaimer: I am not saying anyone should do this. But any of us could do this, perhaps with a second to smack you when you nod off. I've never come close, but I am aware that it is a discipline used by adepts who are more dedicated than I am.

So... Spring Equinox, the time to become like the mother, and be reborn for a new season of life.

The Goddess is Alive...

Once upon a time...

...when I was just a young woman of about nineteen, and a student, I met a woman. She was just a few years my senior and had only recently graduated from the same school I was going to. I respected her, and our teachers presented her as a model graduate. She was hard working, and climbing the ladder. I was even assigned to work under her a couple of times. But I found that the closer I got to her, the more she frightened me. I couldn't tell if her laughter was genuine or ironic, but it seemed bitter, almost hysterical at times... I was not very insightful as to human nature in those days. I tried to avoid her, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately as things turned out) we attract the things we fear. And so it was one day, when I was feeling free, and happily talking with my friends, I didn't notice this woman enter the room behind me. In a moment she began to verbally attack me, with such sure scorn and despise in her tone I was shocked. Like a deer in the headlights I just let myself be run over by her poisonous words, and they seeped into my very core. The fact that it happened in front of my peers increased my shame a hundredfold.

If I had been taught how to value myself, the strength of knowing your own self worth, her words would have rolled off, but I wasn't raised by a wise woman. My mother was barely eighteen when she had me, and she knew very little apart from her own traditional upbringing. To a large degree I went into the adult world naked and raw.

The attack of this woman stayed with me for years. When I graduated, in good standing, I sobbed bitter tears, sure of my own unworthiness. I never asked questions least I appear not to know something important. I wore a mask with everyone, and I hungered so for recognition... but any recognition I received I shrugged off, because I thought they were simply fooled by my mask, Ms perfect. I worked like a fiend to keep that perfect mask in place, terrified that someone would detect and reveal to everyone my deep unworthiness. I healed wounds, eased pain, saved lives, but couldn't see myself as I was. I couldn't own my triumphs, or forgive my lacks.

Well, from that day forward I thought of this woman as my enemy. I could look back at my life and say I don't hate anybody, even my ex-husband, but then I would think of her. I wondered how I would ever heal that wound, and time passed. I learned philosophies that led me to wisdom. I learned that those people we think of as enemies, in this illusory world, are in fact some of our greatest friends when we pass this plain and know the truth. I learned that no one incidence can scar a person so deeply as I was scarred unless it reminds us of unresolved pain from previous existences. I learned that people in our lives are mirrors to us of who we are.

One fine day I thought of Helen, and I wasn't filled with hatred, or shame anymore. It came to me that I was allot like her - a little too smart, so that my humor often confuses people who aren't in on the joke; a little too sharp when I am stressed; impatient with people who are lagging behind me intellectually, like with republicans, and the religious right. And it occurred to me that she may have been having a really bad day herself, and that perhaps she was so driven because she too was filled with toxic shame. It also came to me that what she did for me was help me solve this problem of low self worth, by being that one last straw. Perhaps I have been suffering with this for lifetimes, but now I have the keys, and either have healed it, or am healing it, and she helped me.

The key is to see self clearly, without judgment for the human weaknesses but compassion instead. Once you have recognized yourself you won't need it from others. You will know your own humanness, your beauty, your true power, and your own godliness.

One thing I have learned from this is that some people are very vulnerable, and that I don't want to be their "Helen", because I think for every one person who finds a way to heal those wounds there are likely a huge number who never do. Another thing is that we all live in a world toxic with judgmental attitudes, and that I would rather be compassionate toward human weakness, than be one who adds to the toxicity with my own intolerant condemnations.

President Obama and the Black Pope Prophecy

Here is a very enlightening insight into Nostradamus's Black Pope Prophecy

This one gives us reason to hope:
http://www.ramtha.com/newsletter/vol5/issue2/SP1.html

This doesn't offer much:
Nostradamus - 243
The great empire will be torn from limb,
The all-powerful one for more than four hundred years:
Great power given to the dark one from slaves come,
The Aryana will not be satisfied thereby.

This is supposed to mean - the US will suffer civil war, it was all powerful, and colonized 400 years earlier. Obama is the one from the slaves given great power, and the Aryan-sorts will be displeased.
~~~~~
Saint Malachy had this to say about the last black "Pope":
Petrus Romanus
(In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations; when they are over, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible or fearsome Judge will judge his people.

I can't help but wonder if "Peter" = the Rock, which is what the name means.

and if "Romanus" could also, less literally be "of the Republic". "The Rock of the Republic" seems more apt for Obama. Also, I have heard him referred to as: The Rock Obama.

Personally I think the city of Seven Hills is Rome but here is a link to a list of cities built on seven hills:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_claimed_to_be_built_on_seven_hills
~~~~~
And speaking of Caribou Barbie, I found this associated with her on a Nostradamus site:

At the war's end:
The Feeble Kept One will strike down the Night
And his Imbecile Queen will rise from the snow
Bedecked in finery and the pelt of a wolf.

I can't guess what the first part meant, but the second part seems to be Palin to a T.

The Green Man

I believe the Gods (masc), or if you prefer: "archetypes", of our pagan past, most of which still are very pertinent today, are to a witch what the nine muses are to men of various inspired arts - they are our inspiration.

Lately I feel the the presence of a power, a God, both lofty and profoundly erotic.
It is The Green Man. He has many names, some hotly contested. He is Osiris, Dumuzi, Tammuz, Adonis, Dionysus, Jesus, Viridios, the Green Knight, John Barleycorn, Sylvanus, Green George, Jack in the green, Al-Khiḍr, Llew, Robin Goodfellow, Robin Hood...

A couple of interesting bits -
"In one of his roles the ancient Egyptian God Osiris is regarded as a corn-deity and is commonly depicted with a green face representing vegetation, rebirth and resurrection. Containers of soil in the shape of Osiris planted with seed ("Osiris Beds") are found in some New Kingdom tombs . The sprouting corn implied the resurrection of the deceased."
- Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart, p119, Routledge, 2005

"There are legends of him (Al-Khiḍr) in which, like Osiris, he is dismembered and reborn; and prophecies connecting him, like the Green Man, with the end of time. His name means the Green One or Verdant One, he is the voice of inspiration to the aspirant and committed artist. He can come as a white light or the gleam on a blade of grass, but more often as an inner mood. The sign of his presence is the ability to work or experience with tireless enthusiasm beyond one's normal capacities. In this there may be a link across cultures, …one reason for the enthusiasm of the medieval sculptors for the Green Man may be that he was the source of inspiration."
- Anderson, William (1990). Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth. San Francisco: Harper Collins.

The Green Man isn't just the Goddesses yearly child. Together with his sister-lover, the flower maiden, he is life, life never-ending. He may transform in Autumn, when he is sacrificed for the sake of life, to feed the people, but he is never absent, as, in all places, he is immortal in that which is evergreen.

In him we see our own immortality mirrored. We, are born in the spring of our youth, only to ripen and be harvested, and then , one fine day we come again, like the grasses and the flowers we are reborn, again and again... me, I want to be the evergreen.

I yearn for him to come
and bless my garden with his presence,
as if it were a holy place
where he might abide softly
enchanting me with his green song.
In my soul the flower maiden awakens,
and my hair takes on a golden hue,
and my finger tips are rosy.

When I tread the pathways,
of my garden;
so carefully laid out in early spring,
tendrils and dewy leaves grasp at me.
I smell the perfume of herbs,
and green life growing.
He is so close then I wonder
blushing, and glancing about,
if other's will see my desire.

Taming The Beast

"Nothing was the way Alvin Miller Senior thought that it would be. He'd imagined shooting his musket at the same screaming savages who cut up and killed his boys. But the city turned up empty, and they found the Reds all gathered in Speaking Meadow, just like they was ready for a sermon from the Prophet. Miller never knowed there was so many Reds in Prophetstown, cause he never seen them all in the same place like this. But they were Reds, weren't they?
So he shot his musket all the same, just like the other men, firing and reloading, hardly looking at whether his shot hit anything. How could he miss, them all standing together so close? The bloodlust was on him then, he was crazy with anger and the power to kill. He didn't notice how some of the other men were getting quieter. Shooting less often. He just loaded and fired, loaded and fired, stepping a yard or two closer every time, out from the cover of the forest, out into the open; only when the cannon got moved into place did he stop shooting, make way for them, watched them mow great swaths through the mass of Reds.
That was the first time he really noticed what all was happening to the Reds, what they were doing, what they werent doing. They weren't screaming. They weren't fighting back. They were just standing there, men and women and children, just looking out at the White men who were killing them. Not a one even turned his back to the hail of shrapnel. Not a parent tried to shield a child from the blast. They just stood, waited, died.
The grapeshot carved gaps in the crowd; the only thing to stop the spray of metal was human bodies. Miller saw them fall. Them as could, got up again, or at least knelt, or raised their heads above the mass of corpses so that the next blast would take them and kill them.
What is it, do they want to die?
Miller looked around him. He and the men with him were standing in a sea of corpses-- they had already walked out to where the outer edges of the crowd of Reds had been. Right at his feet, the body of a boy no older than Alvin lay curled, his eye blown out by a musket ball. Maybe my own musket ball, thought Miller. Maybe I killed this boy.
During the lulls between cannon volleys, Miller could hear men crying. Not the Reds, the ones still living, huddled in an ever-smaller mass down toward the river. No, the men crying were his neighbors, White men standing beside him, or behind the line. Some of them were talking, pleading. Stop it, they said. Please, stop it.
Please stop. Were they talking to the cannon? Or to the Red men and women, who insisted on standing there, not trying to escape, not crying out in fear? Or to their children, who faced the guns as bravely as their parents? Or did they speak to the terrible gnawing pain in their own hearts, to see what they had done, were doing, would yet do?

It wasn't just a whimper behind him anymore. It was a shout, from more and more men. Stop shooting! Stop it! Put down your guns!
A bugle sounded. The men fell silent. "Time to finish them, men!" shouted Harrison. He was on a prancing stallion at the head of the meadow, leading the way down the blood-slick hill. None of the farmer folk were with him, but his uniformed soldiers formed a line and came along, bayonets fixed. Where once thousands of Reds had stood, there was just a field of bodies, and maybe a thousand, a ragged remnant, gathered near the water at the bottom of the hill.
That was the moment when a tall young White man ran from the wood at the bottom of the hill, dressed in a suit too small, his feet bare, his coat and waistcoat all unbuttoned, his hair wet and tousled, and face grimy and wet. But Miller knew him, before he heard his voice.
"Measure!" he cried. "It's my boy Measure!"
He threw down his musket and ran out into the field of corpses, down the hill toward his son.
"My boy Measure! He's alive! You're alive!"
Then he slipped in the blood, or maybe he tripped on a body, but whatever happened he fell, his hands splashing into a river of blood, spattering his chest and face.
He heard Measure's voice, not ten yards away, shouting out so every man could hear him. "The Reds who captured me were hired by Harrison. Ta-Kumsaw and Tenskwa-Tawa saved me. When I came home two days ago, Harrison's soldiers captured me and wouldn't let me tell you the truth. He even tried to kill me."
Measure spoke slow and clear, so every word carried, every sound was understood. "He knew all the time. This whole thing, Harrison planned it all along. The Reds are innocent. You're killing innocent people."
Miller stood up from the bloody field and raised his hands high over his head thick blood running from his scarlet hands. A cry was wrung from his throat, forced out by anguish, by despair. "What have I done! What have I done!" The cry was echoed by a dozen, a hundred, three hundred voices.

From - The Red Prophet, by Orson Scott Card
~~~~~
A soul lesson worthy of the Bene Gesserit.

I think to be so brave as the Native Americans were in this story, one has to believe that what one truly is, Spirit, is immortal. This story also reminds me of the many brave men and women, and even children who died a witch's death, at the stake, or a heretic's death and taught the world tolerance. I think the greatest army is an army of consciousness, an army of great minds and wise tongues.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
- William Shakespeare

Caution - Disturbing Images

It too obviously does matter, but I think he is being ironic. Or perhaps he means that in the face of all eternity, and an immortal soul, it all shrinks in importance? BTW - I love Axl's passion.

The Muse

I am a story teller. I love telling people stories. I am a walking anecdote, my head full of metaphor. You might find me beside a campfire, weaving my craft. You might find me beneath a bridge with my fellow indigents. You could be at an inn, or in a pub, in the small hours of day and realize I am speaking, though you hadn't known I was, and suddenly be riveted. You might read one of my stories in a book. A friend might forward you one online. I love stories because I am one. I am a myth. I come from a family of myth, of mythic proportions, of gods and goddesses. They have gone but I remain; the heir of their legacy.

I am not without my enemies in the world of stories. Because we are, in fact, the end result of our dreams, our stories, there are those who wish to craft us stories that serve their purposes, and press those stories on us. These stories speak of sin, of a fall from grace that never happened, of only one perfect son. These stories tell us what is real and what is not, in defiance of our senses, our logic, our own and our neighbor's testimony. These stories define success and failure in such a way as to ensnare the soul. These stories sicken. These stories keep the mass of humanity pliable. And those are not my stories. In some cases they were mine once, but they were taken and twisted, so that rather than uplift and inspire, rather than inform, now they poison. If I could catch them, and lock them back in their box, I certainly would; but there is little more elusive of capture than a story. So it is that the responsibility of discernment falls on you, the listener, the reader, the observer. Will you choose to live a great story? What is a great story? Will you choose something inspiring? Or will you choose something more comfortable? Or will you embrace those stories that tell you the worst of humanity, unaware that what you choose to see in the world, which is your mirror, is ultimately yourself? Will you believe lies that pluck off the wings of your divinity, and burden you so that your back is bent double beneath load? And it's all a load of bull shit.

I know, beings such as I am, are not supposed to talk that way. Right? Wrong.

It would all be heinous, and tragic, if you were not a forever being. But you have, we all have, existed from the very beginning, and are without end. And here we must make distinct from one another, human stories, and divine stories. Human stories have a limited existence. They are born from a lack of knowledge, and resolve into the past when the wisdom of them is learned. Divine stories are never ending. They are a tapestry made of all the little stories, and embroidered with pearls of wisdom. Thus, you have, and we all have, chosen one set of human stories for one life, which may in practice stretch over many lifetimes, and a new set when those are finished, and so on and so forth, and will continue to do so. Did I mention forever?

Did I mention that while I am a story teller, I suck at endings. I just don't think that way. My version of an ending would be: and then he/she got it, and never believed such nonsense again, and chose a new story to live. Those I inspire often do think in terms of endings though. They have too often still been caught up in the illusion of mortality. And so many have felt a need to finalize their stories. They wrap it up and either move on to write a new story, or live a new story, or, more often, die. That doesn't bother me if their stories are small, human, transient stories, meant to end. I just don't like the inference that like human dramas, divine stories also end. He lived happily ever after? How about he ascended happily into the everafter. She died, but because she was good in the end, she went to heaven? Where she got to sit on a cloud and pluck a harp for eternity? How about, she died, but because she had learned the moral of her story she got to go on to a new one. All stories go on, because all lives go on; because all of life is forever ongoing unfoldment. Thus are the best of stories. Ongoing. Inspiring. Forever unfolding into that which is greater and greater.

Symbolism in Literature - Harry Potter

I love the use of symbolism in literature, and lately I especially love J K Rowling's use of it in her Harry Potter books. One aspect of what I love is that symbolism is the language of God. If you want to communicate to someone's, or your own, divinity, the language you use is symbolism. So, you can be telling a story to someone's intellect, amusing it, and also be telling a deeper story with this other language, and unconsciously the person will understand.

When I recognize that an author is using symbolism I am always intrigued to understand what their other message is, and sometimes the translated symbolic message is so advanced, and so not what the author appears to be about, that I wonder if they have included their symbolism unconsciously, and the message is directly from their God.

J K Rowling, however, is using symbolic language quite consciously, and in a common sense sort of way. Here is a bit of it:

Air - this is Ravenclaw house. It's animal is the golden Eagle. it's emblem is the tiara of Roweena Ravenclaw. It's colors are blue and bronze
Location: Ravenclaw Tower, which is located on the west side of the castle
The common room, like the other House common rooms, is decorated in House colours (blue and bronze silk wall hangings, in this case, and a midnight-blue carpet decorated with stars). The room is wide, circular, and very airy, with a domed ceiling painted with stars, and walls with graceful arched windows that provide a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. There are bookcases, tables, and chairs, and opposite the entrance is another door leading to the dormitories. Beside this door is a plinth on which stands a life-size statue in white marble of Rowena Ravenclaw wearing her diadem

Fire - this is Gryffindor. It's animal is the Lion. It's emblem is the sword. it's colors are red and gold. The entrance is located behind a large painting of a Fat Lady in a pink silk dress. If you know the right password to tell her, she swings open to reveal a round opening in the wall. The common room contains a lot of squashy armchairs, a fireplace, and tables. The fireplace is connected to the Floo Network.

Earth - this is Hufflepuff. It's animal is the black Badger, a burrowing animal. It's emblem is the cup of Helga Hufflepuff. It's colors are yellow and black. Of their quarters we hear - "as dissimilar as possible" from the Potions classroom. As we have seen in the other common rooms, it is decorated in House colours, which in this case means that there are lots of yellow hangings; like Gryffindor Tower, it has a lot of comfortable armchairs. There are "little underground tunnels leading to the dormitories, all of which have perfectly round doors, like barrel tops" (BLC, JKR).

Water - This is Slytherin House. It's animal is the snake. It's emblem is the locket of Salazar Slytherin, whose secretive and enclosing properties are comparable to the chamber of secrets. It's colors are silver and green. The Slytherin common room is a low-ceilinged, dungeon-like room with greenish lamps and chairs, with skulls all around and views into the lake.

This symbolism would identify the houses with the body so: head - Ravenclaw, heart - Gryffindor, stomach - Hufflepuff, and lower abdomen - Slytherin. It also identifies certain houses with directions. Ravenclaw is on the west side of the castle, thus intellect is associated with west, and loftiness in general. And we can deduce that if the mountains are to the west, around the castle than the lake must be to the east, and thus Slytherin is associated with east and emotion, especially painful emotion as is further demonstrated by the painful childhood of Snape, and the suicide of it's ghost, the Bloody Baron. This leaves north and south for the other two houses. North is traditionally associated with spirituality and south with physicality, so very likely north belongs to Gryffindor and south to Hufflepuff, though I am only guessing.

She has kept with traditional symbolism for directions in so far as I can tell, but has broken with tradition and used common sense symbolism for their emblems. Tradition associates the sword with air/intellect, the cup with water/emotion, the wand with fire/soul or spirit, and the platter or coin with earth/physicality. Perhaps because everyone had wands she needed to change things, or perhaps she wanted symbols that added something to our understanding of the properties of the four elements. She gave Air a Tiara, quite an appropriate symbol of mental brilliance. Fire was given the sword. The sword is truth, always - as far as I have seen. Is this to say that it is spirit that is the source of bravery, and that spirit is the source of truth. I think so. Earth is given the cup, and it is symbolic of kindness and generousity, which Helga Hufflepuff displayed well. It sort of speaks to plenty, and the generosity of nature, which feeds and suports us and gives us this lovely play ground to evolve in. And water got a locket, a sort of secret chamber in which evil was hidden. That goes well with her story, but is she giving water a bad rap? Not if you think of water as a force for chaos and erosion, which it is. Also, she has identified water with negative emotions; the green and murky kind which we hide from others so that they perhaps fester in secrecy. Jealousy. Envy. Insecurity. Draco Malfoy displays all of these.

The four house ghosts give us more confirmation of, and information about J K Rowling's ideas on the four elements. I have already mentioned the pain which drove the Bloody Baron to murder and suicide. But the Fat Friar is also apt for Hufflepuff, as is the cold maiden, Helena Ravenclaw. Nearly Headless Nick is a bit of a puzzle. Does she mean to say that people driven by spirit, the truly heroic, often don't pause to think. They aren't so much clever as virtuous? This is certainly true of Harry, throughout the book. He does the right thing, usually without regard for his own well being. And it is true of Neville, when he defies his friends in the first book and Lord Voldemort in the last.

The four friends - Lupin, Sirius, James, and Peter also give us more to ponder. Lupin, associated with the moon, and painful emotions seems to be the watery one. James, the seeker, would be fire. Sirius, as different from his family as he could be, and named after the brightest star would be air. And Peter the rat would be earth. Each gives us another view of these elemental personalities. Lupin is filled with painful emotion but he takes it to a different place than the typical slytherin. Instead of tearing others down to feel better about himself, he has humility. James shows us the negative side of fire, arrogance and thoughtlessness. Sirius is an air personality with passion, he deeply loves James, and is a man of action. Recall also that Sirius, the star was called the dog star, and the scorcher, as it seemed to herald in the hottest days of summer, the dog days. Peter seems to be the dark side of earth, a survivalist; one who will betray anything for the sake of his own physical survival.

There is another tradition which associates the four elements with the four upper chakras. These correspond to the endocrine glands in the human body. In this tradition water is associated with the Thymus, near the heart. Air to the Thyroid, in the throat. Fire to the Pineal gland which regulates wakefulness and sleep, and is located near the back of the brain. And Earth, as diamond, the crown chakra and master gland. This symbolism is seen in our common playing card deck - water is hearts, earth is diamonds, fire is clubs(a descendant of the tarot suit of wands), and air is spades(a descendant of the tarot suit of swords). In this tradition the four fixed signs of the zodiac - Taurus/earth, Leo/fire, Scorpio/water and Aquarius/air - also correspond to the four upper chakras. These are the four living animals mentioned in the bible, and are to be seen on old European cathedrals, with the eagle replacing the scorpion, a well known alternative symbol. Their importance is that the three lower chakras control everything that makes one human, in a muggle sense of the word; while the four upper seals represent evolution spiritually. The heart chakra is love. The throat chakra is expression of love. the pineal is seeing Divinity in all people and things. And, the pituitary is seeing the Divinity of self.

The four treasures of the Tuatha De' Danann fall into this tradition, with the Undry Cauldron corresponding to water and the heart chakra due to it's power of feeding and healing; the Sword of Nuada being a sword of truth equates with air and the throat chakra, speaking truth being a sure spiritual weapon against ignorance; The Lugh's spear Luin symbolises fire and the quickening when the pineal is activated; and the Lia Fail, stone of kingship, represents earth, exalted. The king was also the spiritual leader of his people. He was earth exalted, and thus the stone recognized him.

It is possible certain characters in the Harry Potter books are meant to exemplify these upper four, but it is not explicitly shown. However the three lower chakras/seals are seen in the deathly hallows. The three lower ones are sexuality; especially male, as the female sexual glands are higher, and more associated with the second seal/chakra, which is emotional pain. And the third is power, the will to have our own way, to control. As deathly hallows we see the first seal in the wand, which is a power tool, but more brutish, and phallic. The second seal/chakra, emotional pain (people who dwell primarily in this seal are very psychic, and likely to see thinks of the next world) is symbolized by the black stone. The cloak of invisibility is left to correspond to the third seal/chakra, and at first it seems an ill fit, but if true power comes from knowledge, what better way to gain knowledge than to be able to go anywhere undetected. That Harry becomes master of the three is to say that he has evolved beyond the human condition, and of course the voluntary self sacrifice, for love of his friends and peers, and subsequent resurrection, makes him a Christ-like figure of the sacrificial lamb sort.

Marianne Williamson -

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."