Sound the Horn

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Tarot Key 20 – the resurrection

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For me the solidarity awoke when I opened another greenpeace email.   It used the word ‘we shall defeat …’  This stirred me deep inside.   I’ve been feeling defeated.  What I stand for had taken a knocking.   Wake up and fight!   Fight, using my weapons as an artist.   I thought of a young mother who lived for years in fear, her family hounded from one mountain village to another.  When she decided to join her husband’s resistance party, and train to be a warrior, she was no longer negatived, she was positively charged, in tune with her destiny and the collective.   The worm turns.

With HOPE we resurrect the Star … shoulder to shoulder;  action.

I’m not very keen on yet more large crowds, politics and organisations.  But this is a time to look carefully at where my values truly are, and NOT feel ‘defeated’, and to act with whatever way small or large, is given.

SOUND THE TRUMPET! – with Purcell’s bright anthem “make the list’ning fields rebound!”  Do sing and dance with this magical clip!  At school, I did Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art for music A Level, long ago.  My sister and I sang to each other Sound the Trumpet over the washing up … like they do here.

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Gabriel’s bright horn in tarot Key 20, opens the graves and changes the level of consciousness.  This arcanum holds a mantric vibration running all the way down the fire-stick into earth.  In days of old they twirled a rod in dry wood for fire, and danced, stomped and chanted rhythmically. The archangel’s trumpet note is uniquely for you and uniquely for me:   each of us as we are born … and reborn.  Find and hear it every day;  learn well what it means and is for you.   Then blow it back to the trump and be of good cheer!  It is energising to have a clear common objective.  It raises our voice from the shadows into the light.

But take a good long look at what’s going on in my blind spot – the log in my own eye –  before I start projecting it outward.  Then, and only then – the principle may get to work;  with love.

Here is a good read!

https://wakingtheinfinite.wordpress.com/2017/01/21/the-end-of-patriarchy/

By paradox, what Mr Red Rag represents, may supply a catalyst for freedom to emerge from the wood.  Better to have it out in the open, than trip over it in the dark. Knowing what we see and what we feel, we build on that. We sing to the moon, we run with the Silver Wolves, we care for our young. There is joy and clarity in the coming together. Each day raise the level again;  keep walking, keep loving the work we do, and each other, keep it going, keep doing.

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silver wolf and moon

 

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Dancing with Pan, 1987

My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2017. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

 

Sketches of Beethoven and Minona

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C3TIr2bBo0 – Barenboim’s noble rendering of the Appassionata Sonata

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http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Famille/FamilyTree-Minona.html#Midi

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Beethoven profile – xerox of a lost sketch

In my earlier post, More Sketches of Beethoven, I described a dream I had many years ago, that I tried to draw his daughter, who lived with him somewhere underneath Vienna.  It seemed at the time to parallel his efforts at composition, a titanic process of inspirational song, rain-soaked notebooks and hours or months of cutting, shaping and refining – it did not come easy for him.

I brought from my dream’s dark-room an impression down the years, of a child with a wide face and a fringe.  She was his child, or she was his soul – he looked through her eyes.  I met him in my dream, and we made an agreement.  That is all I remember – and the heart breaking toil of trying to portray her.   In those days I drew many children, capturing their essence in sometimes half an hour or less.   Not so, with this one!

I decided to try to reconstruct the dream – particularly when “Edwardian Piano” informed me that there was a daughter – it is said her mother, Josephine Brunswick, raised her as Minona Stakelberg. Josephine’s sister Therese alone was in the secret, which she kept until her grave.  On the website (see top of page under the Barenboim video), you can hear a couple of Minona’s Ecossaises for the piano.  It is a pity that they are played in  ‘electronic’ style.  I can imagine their grace and humour on an old Broadwood.

With sepia photos or daguerrotypes, I guess my way along, like a palaeontologist.  The photo looked at once familiar.  Her face in it is broad, yet heart shaped;  she looks a determined young woman.  In the other photo, she is an older woman.  She probably lost her teeth, and her nose looks longer.  I began with Neidl’s likeness of Beethoven, nearest to the dark child I see in my mind:

Engraving of Beethoven by J.Neidl from a drawing by G.E.Stainhauser von Treuberg in 1800

The young Beethoven – after the Neidl engraving

Minona’s face is rather thin here, which draws on information from both the photos. In old photos, much of the bone structure detail is blurred.  It is said her looks were dark and “Spanish”, like Beethoven’s.  My drawing doesn’t show much family likeness, but an exploration of this kind might touch unknown factors;  I do not know!

Josephine Brunswick, her mother

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Finally I began work on this:

Beethoven and his natural daughter

 …  and it is not finished, and cannot be, but is starting to speak.

There are mysteries between ourselves as human beings and our hidden continents and the things we grieve and share and conceal and stumble with, which can only be recognised and touched upon … beyond words.  We touch the hem of the robe.  The story’s pressure through my dream was the character of Beethoven’s illegitimate daughter, and how this condition made her strong, made her hear him, and grow up beyond her years.  This, like tidal currents in the sea which enter one another, has resonance.

Grief is sharp and alive with colour as in a painting, and so is joy;  and life is born through dying, born through dying and letting go … again and again and again.

Photo of Minona Stakelberg

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Anton Schindler’s Impression of Beethoven at the piano:
“What the Sonata Pathetique was in the hands of Beethoven (although he left something to be desired as regards clean playing) was something that one had to have heard and heard again, to be quite certain that it was the same already well known work.  Above all, every single thing became, in his hands, a new creation, wherein his always legato playing, one of the particular characteristics of his execution, formed an important part.

“In his lessons, Beethoven taught: always place the hands on the keyboard so that the fingers do not rise any more than is strictly necessary, for only with this method is it possible to create a tone and to learn how to ‘sing’.  He hated staccato playing, especially in the execution of passages; he called it ‘finger dance’ or ‘leading the hands into the air.’

“The pieces which I myself heard Beethoven execute were, with few exceptions, always quite free of tempo limitations:  a tempo rubato in the truest sense of the word, according to the demands of the contents and situation without, however, the slightest tendency to caricature.  It was the clearest and most comprehensible declamation … as perhaps can only be elicited from his works.

“His older friends, who carefully followed the evolution of his spirit in every aspect, assure me that he developed this style in the first years of the third period of his life, and that he turned completely away from his earlier manner of playing with fewer nuances.  From this, it is clear that his urge towards discovery had already found the ways and means to open up with confidence the portals of the mystery to both laity and initiated. 

“He wanted the Quartets to be performed in the same manner as the Sonatas, for they paint states of mind, as do the majority of his Sonatas.”

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Allegri quartet rehearsing, 1988

 

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My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2015. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

Human Landscape – Masters on the Seven Rays

This gallery contains 21 photos.

Originally posted on Journal with Gene Keys:
Gene Keys Journal, 20 June 2015 For all of us who tune in to the opening of the Seven Seals retreat this summer solstice:  a gallery of my portraits of the Great Holy Council…

What is a School of the Soul?

What is a school of the soul?

A school is a training ground. A soul is a story within stories of life.

This post is based on my notes during a Kabbalah group meeting.

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Tree of school of the soul, by Halevi

I think a school of the soul is a disciplined environment whose collective string is tuned by agreement to a subtle or divine frequency. It is like an orchestra.  In practice, a school may have a practical, a ceremonial or a contemplative bias.   Kabbalahsociety is a contemplative group.  We do field work, and  we meet regularly for an exchange of anecdotes, humour, and observation.  We observe human geology, political tensions and our tidal process, and refer these phenomena to the Tree of Life. The tutor’s skill keeps a tight ship – a light touch on the tiller.

Some of us received an early training in schools which developed issues of power and property and went wrong.  Through this, our unconscious projections were exposed:  there are no accidents in the work.  The initial discipline planted a good experiential framework in the side pillars.  Nothing is wasted.

The basic requirements of a school of the soul are simple: a place and time for meeting;  an invocation to open and close the Tree:  harmony in the working group.  We are courteous, speaking when our turn is given, and not to argue a position. Companions come and go, they are not coerced.   The laws of Providence regulate our attendance and individual contribution – as any wise tutor recognises.

Some schools get corrupted by the perennial human weakness for power, sex and money at the top. A regime of fear percolates down a hierarchy whose arteries harden and block the outlet.  In fact, it may be our fate to confront thus, our private tyrannies, and so these opportunities were given.  They became converted to an inner discipline, so that we may bond with kindred spirits.

Out of many thousands among men,
one may endeavor for perfection,
and of those who have achieved perfection,
hardly one knows Me in truth.

Bhagavad Gita, chapter 7

What is the percentage in the world, of those in the Work?  It boils down to about 6,000 committed souls world wide – a homeopathic potency across the human grain.

In some societies, much energy goes into property maintenance, publicity and funding;  the real schools where real work is being done, are rare.  They operate within a different radar.

The Kabbalahsociety emphasises transparency, personal discipline and maturity – a ripening process over the decades. The side  pillars of Revelation and Reason are balanced through the the centre KAV or stem of Jacobs’ Ladder.  Levels of soul and spirit are discriminated through this tool, a barometer of the world – a staff of light.

Jacobs Ladder, by Halevi

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Menorah Seven and Three

The key is the Menorah.

As individuals, we are each a school of the soul in bud, with our teaching input, our relationships, personal vision, wisdom and responsibility in the world, to keep practicing.

Melchisedek became Enoch, and was released from the frame of human time. He walked with God, and he was not:  for God took him. The commands  – do not steal, do not adulterate – are foundational.  We learn to recognise daily the vegetable, animal and human principles and character around us. If our conduct is correct we are living the Kabbalah, and we start to see the Principles at work.

It is good to talk of a school of a soul, and to recall that my private life is a school of the soul, in microcosm. As the path clears some way through Karmic road works, cones and bypasses, it flows.   I flow.  Rules may be enacted, but the Law is discovered through lived experience.  Before the Emperors came to power, the Romans had begun to build Greek principles of democratic government into a forum.

A flexible seeing psychology is a forum:  a capacity for examination and a socratic inner questioning.

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The Holy One generates through all our cosmic history, through tsim-tsum and the glory of the worlds and each “moment now” of the ‘big bang’, a potential towards wholeness and healing, which is perfection. From a tiny apple pip grows a TREE.

Since ever the book of time opened, the tsim tsum – breath of the Holy One – creates an interval for manifestation – the asymmetry or stress, by which we live and desire and grow. A rainbow’s perfect circle through fire and dew in the physical world is bound to fade and vanish.  Planetary and galactic orbits are elliptical, and so is the egg and the tiny seed:  the ellipse is our sustenance.  In embryo and cellular multiplication, in spiral plant growth, in the animal kingdom and in all human difficulty, the ellipse prevails, as evolution.

Justice is the curve of evolution.

Like a pendulum, the dynamic through the Tree and in our lives moves towards a greater manifestation of the whole; the divine Platonic Circle is  seeded in our soul. From within every spiritual tradition and cosmology, the Holy One “enjoys the interplay”. We say, “This is Hell, but it is interesting” – as psychological crises prompt awakening through black eyes, broken noses, religious intolerance, greed and climate change.

Wood bird yantra

We had a group discussion on philanthropic millionaires who can give money intelligently where governments cannot – Bill Gates is informed enough to drop ten million quid in the right place. Wealthy students support the teacher. Youngsters and lottery winners are ruined by the pests of unearned wealth.  The general election rises and falls on the pendulum.

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We show on our walls, the professional tools of our trade – like a plumber’s certificates – to reassure customers or seekers. A portrait artist can reveal beyond any photo,  a  sitter’s private trust and humanity. In the midst of life, I value my tutor’s integrity and personal quirks and enclosures. He is “elliptical” – a growing-towards – just as I am. Along the Fourth Way (Ouspensky) we come into the School and move into solitude, or move from solitude into the School –  the movement, bridges the inner and outer worlds. Nothing is wasted.

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young nymph, 1957

This poem plays with planetary Sefiroth in Plato’s cave:

Chess Cabale (2004)

“Who sports in the Self” is no one person,
but feeling a greater Circle arise
around a candle flame;

and within each smaller Circle –
“gathered here
are Companions of the Light.”

Here are the dreaming Moon and Mercurious child:
Aphrodite, blacksmith’s wife, disarms her warrior Ares;
great Zeus of mercy and thunderbolts, leaps with his entire Olympiad
from Chronos’ tight bowel, measure of time and mind;
while Wisdom, magus of stars
touches the daisies …

Circling the Sun, the Wanderers pass
as shadows through my cave.
Watching nature’s fiery hieroglyph
upon platonic walls, I love
my pageant – knights and damsels wrestling
dragons … eros.

Companions of the Light form a Circle, times a circle.
Companions of the Knight mounting trusty Cabale
square the Circle, speed of light.

When first shown the Tree,
I held not yet my life.

young Theseus 1957

No more could brave Theseus lift his heavy stone
to find his father underneath,
till he’d wrestled three good years
and more.

Through negative film,
our faces appear distorted,
lantern raised a little only,
above the trail.

From the forest cave
with birds’ throat at break of dawn,
the Knight of holy Graal
riding Cabale with questing sword
squares his circle onward, inward –
grace, restraint –
by lions’ strength, beholding beauty.

The Masters’ Eye, 1992, 2004

 

talking, 1957

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My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2014. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

Happy Birthday, Robert

Here are some “Imponderables” from the American sage Robert Adams (21 January 1928 11.30pm – 5 March 1997).  

I woke up this morning, saw something on facebook, and was inspired to celebrate his birthday with these “imponderables” from transcript 85 of his satsangs.  It is called “Ponder This”  – some sips of rare wine to mull along the day while riding on buses and recovering from sore backs and concerned about the world situation, and so forth.

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A new sketch for Robert’s birthday

“All of your desires, all of your needs, all of your wants are already within you, waiting to be fulfilled and expressed . . .  Ponder this.”

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“All of the masters, the teachers, the saints, the sages you worshipped all your life, whether it is Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, Moses, whomever, have always been within you, waiting to be expressed . . . Ponder this.”

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“The only problem you have, that does not allow these sages, your desires, your wants to be expressed for you, is your noisy mind . . . Ponder this.”

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“Whatever you see in your life right now, good or bad, is a result of your thoughts and your belief.  It has no other reality.  It is not permanent . . . Ponder this.”

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“There is absolutely nothing in this universe that can hurt you, or cause you physical harm, or cause you pain, except when your mind is trained to believe these things . . . Ponder this.”

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“You have absolutely nothing to do with this world, this universe, or with others.  Yet, at the same time, you are this universe.  You are places and things and others . . . Ponder this.”

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“No one is responsible for where you are right now, whether you like your position or you do not.  This is where you are Karmically.  This is where you are supposed to be, and all is well . . . Ponder this.”

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Robert and Dmitri

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…   To be continued, over the next few days.  I made these imponderables into a little book, and illustrated it, at around the time Robert passed away in Sedona, in 1997.  To read my posts about meeting Robert, type Robert Adams in the search button.

Happy birthday, beloved one.

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My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2014. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

Love Letters with a Dancing Yeti

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This wild shaggy creature fills me with joy and smiles.

Veteran readers of the Ramana Foundation journal Self Enquiry (1993-2004) may recall an exchange of letters from our very own correspondent in Tiruvannamalai.  He reflected on the Guru scene, and took the plunge himself.   Nowadays, tucked up in a delicious French valley – or rather, in the Yeti’s own words (which he prefers): “tucked up ‘n fukked up in his petit coin, suitably located among the desirable caves where his ancestors nibbled their fleas among the shady trees of mittel France”  …  while wintering in India to pedal his astral bike from Arunachala to Alaska – the poet in the Yeti sings.  We just started to write to each other again.

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This might be a Post without an end in sight.

16 January 2014
Dear Kev, just a word to say I loved reading ALL YOUR WORDS for Xmas and to smell India again through your descriptions, and those sadhus and bird noises, and to have a good ketchup with you generally. With much love to you,  Xx Jane

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Thanks Jane, good to hear from ya. Those words were rough and unvarnished as they fell through my head. Rash to dump ’em like that, but communicating sometimes gets huffy and puffy and won’t wait. Your blog is too big for me . Do you have time for owt else? Sometimes I see lovely stuff there, but to try and read it all would be like being the guy who constantly must keep up with the 24 hour surveillance camera. Life throws so much in my face that I can’t offer so much time to the inside of another head, even when it pours out gems. I look forward to a selection of the best, which I can sink into like a warm bath. A lake of dancing fresh water may gladden the eye and soul, but it’s too much to drink and I fear it’ll drown me before I get to the other side or find the bottom. Love from Kev.

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17 January
Don’t let it worry you, Kev.   My stuff might not be your cup of tea;  you poets have your cups full with Life anyway! – as you say.  And I’m glad the Great Teapot in the sky keeps pouring through you its bounteous brew.   Those who settle for bread and butter with my blog find their own bits of jam here and there:  maybe even a Devon cream tea with scones if they are lucky – nobody reads it all, but it is there for a large table.  I’m glad you’ve sunk such rich deep roots in france, and thankful that I don’t have to cope with all them ants in India.  I read about your adventures with them, with awe.  Much love, Jane x

Book of IS: Mt Sandford, Alaska.

The poems inside, may step on a banana skin,
then slide, so far, within the deeps,
they meet the stars,
as they examine simple things
from bits that Darwin missed,
to mysteries like why this all exists,
or who, or what, we are.

“This cover blurb is meant to sell the book,
but if you want to check it out,
just step inside, and take a look.”

(“Is” –  by Kevan Myers
published 2009 by Dancing Yeti Books)

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Dear Jane, I ain’t complaining about the flavour of the tea, though must confess the details of the esoteric and symbols can be wasted on me. I love stuff I read when you reflect on this or that, and of course I have enjoyed reflections of your past, particularly where Peter comes up, but my cup runneth over fairly soon when you are pouring from your bottomless jug (s?). I am amazed by your fecundity and glad for you that it is.

When in UK I sometimes buy a saturday or sunday paper to check TV progs, and then “enjoy ” reading the bloody thing for at least the next ten days as the nesting boxes in my brains get filled with tweeting terribly fast. Thus it is very much more volume than content that leaves me peering over the vastnesses of your bloggery like stout Cortes viewing the Pacific. Like I say, I really look forward to the shortish book of selected gems unthreaded from the kilometres of golden chains where they presently dangle, so sparkling …

Much love, Kev

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Dearest Kev, as I canna yet stopper the fall of tea from the sky, I leave it to you to identify and assemble a few concise leaves of best earl grey for your pot, you lazy old poet!   However I am indeed delighted that you do deign to dip toe & wade a little – say from San Francisco bay area to the bridge, you know it is all pacific really – and especially that you have located and read my outpourings about my Pa, which I value.  Never mind about the Hesoterick, just look at the pictures.   The pictures are there for our tired old eyes to rest from all the wordzzz.

Peter now 91 and a little frail, has email at last – I hope to see him later this month, braving winter gales along the Tarka Bike Trail to Torrington, and then steep hills up and down to his piggery.   He lives in elegant grandeur in The Old Piggery … (in case your cyberwhotsit breaks down.)  He would love to hear from you, and definitely needs practice with his email/Ipad, and he keeps nice biscuits in his tin.
I am seeing Quince and John next month here in Blighty.   Much love, xJanex

PS we have been having a lot of rain.

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Gawd bless, yer, dear,
I have unloaded Peter’s edress and have good intentions to use it. Just got briefly hassled by Authorhouse, offering to print my wurkz. I took a rain cheque, but should really set them on your trail, since yo wurdz are bustin’ out all over. Are you planning to huff and puff your way to Torrington by bike path? Remember I once did it from the Grey Wen to Land’s Sakes and back, which is fine along canals and suchlike, but once confronted with steep and wiggly Devon lanes, big roads are safer and quicker, because you don’t lose downhill momentum at the bottom by savage wigglies or charging pantechnicons or harvesters suddenly blocking the whole lane.

It’s very gracious of Q and J to touch your feet in salubrious w. Hampstead, but high time you hauled your sorry backside over to see them in the gorgeous part of France where they and I offer such splendid horse-pit-alities, and where I also met your fine mama.
Anyroad, enough of this blether. You could have probably filled at least five pages of blog in the time spent soaking in these worthless sentiments.
Much love
Kev

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19 January 
I remember your Great Ride, Kev, and when you turned up in your dayglo cycling gear in the rain – my pa thought it was a bloke from Mars selling spin-driers, and nearly shut the door.  

The trouble with canals and nice flat trails, is the winter monsoon mud in those parts.  To avoid this,  I shall have to turn off from the Puffing Billy at Torrington into steep cow-patted lanes; and  huff up and down the wigglies amid splatter from tractors, till I reach the noble abode, hopefully before dark, & in time for tea & scotch.

Now I have a proposal for thy wurdz and mine, Kev: How about, I create a post for them, in the calm clear waters of me bloggery, like we did those years ago in SE.  It may burble along quietly for as long as it likes, ever deepening the single post which stands by itself in the reflecting lake, O Sake, until we are distracted and fade away elsewhere, like sweet birds run out of twitter.   

Do you agree?  I would add a few snaps from the album of happy times, and a verse or two of yourn.   I think I have a photo of you dancing, on that memorable night in Dorset.  I can’t wait for your venerable observations, you chattersome Gemini.   Love fr jane

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http://www.panoramio.com, by pedro point

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19 January
Into my morning space, haunted by squirmy gut, drops intrIguing offer. Most kind suggestion calls for response from this laziest of beings, when it comes to manufacture and broadcast of his emanations. I am most honoured to be thus prodded, and can happily supply you with wurkz old and new, as well as appropriate snaps, of which I posses many, so there be no need to drag forth fotos of bizarre blackmajickry under the greenwood trees of Hardy’s backyard, most particularly since I got no memory at all, of any such prancings among the yokelry.

But to be simple I dinna comprehend the meaning of this here “post” thing you proposeth, though I vizzalyze it well casting its long reflexion over your pool and impeding the crystal currents with its squat nether region. Yea I’m sure I agree, with gratitude and brass knobs on, but need a deeper understanding of how this post is approached, how it will look, and what it demands of me.

As you perceive my observations are hardly venerable yet, as my parts are presently pure, but given time they may acquire the necessary vintage and putrefact desirably.

Which brings to mind the announcement this day received that The Bard is about to imprint the holy dust of my neighbourhood with his esteeming presence, so I shall be dragged forth to receive his lofty Darshan, as he towers like some giant, scrawny monkey puzzle , eclipsing the diminutive form of the holy hill`.

Ah me! Oh yea, and the muddy lanes of Devon will no doubt “ooo arrr” as your comely person huffs with astonishing puffs between its unending hedges as combine harvesters bare their teeth and lurk round every corner, while Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, lurch their way down the steepest, bestest bit for gathering momentum, linking arms with jugs in hand and flying smocks, as the sheep stare.
Kev

O yes, you old Kevvery – don’t you remember this?   That’s yo’ face yeti dancing.

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20 January
Esteemed Colleague,

Delighted about your spiritual exercises by the Holy Hill – along with the squitters, a healthy antidote to chomping on the Lotus in fair France, which was bound to bind you up.

Now Kev, here is what I have in mind.  A Post in a blog is simply an entry – the day’s musings or landfill – whatever.   But of course it can go on and on being added to:  for a Post is an ever lengthening scroll to the deep, an unbottomed and never ending Mystory.

Here is what I have in mind for me and ‘ee:  to offset the rather Serious atmosphere of me Pacific Posts, methought to plant a Merrie one, to cheerieup my patient Readers.  And I thought this post might be your and my plain wurdz back and forth, just as they are, beginning last week, and continuing:  coz I double over with joy at yours.   Each new item gets added to the bottom, dives deeper into the lake, needs just a finger-flick-fone for the curious to scroll it all …

We might get tired of it, or if it gets rather long, create its very own be-a-blog, which we both access from each side of La Manche, and put pictures in.  You might take the project over completely, and make it bristle with verse… That is up to u.  You might come to your senses and publish, you slothful scribe.

You asked I believe, what this yur post will look like, and where will be its squat nether end.  Well vizzilize a big pond, lake or pacific bristling with wind farms – they all are posts.  Here and there a noble ship sails in and out among them, piloted by Magellan or Cortez or a migrating Albatross.  Our little post will extract the michael and mind its own biziniss, and may become a popular port of call, particularly if you include Mr (for gawd) Sake’s observations on the Teaching Scene, while u are in Indiar.

photo by r.nial bradshaw of posts in salt lake

I attach a draft with a few awful snaps.  I might attempt a passable sketch of a yeti.

Am enchanted that you shall see and be inspired by the Bard so very soon.

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dancing yeti in dorset

20 January
Thanks for sending me your sample. I shall study it extensively before conveying it to the lab for professional analysis. How dare you resurrect the nauseating name of Sake, which I never requested though it may have generated some passing amusement among the hissing cauldrons which you shared with the lofty presence, as you popped in livers of pontificating swamis. I am well aware that Self Enquiry may have been scattered with pseudonyms to disguise the authorship of many dubious passages penned by the grey eminences, in an attempt to fool the 30 subscribing miserable seekers of NW3-6 that a plethora of bespectacled academics could be counted among the contributing lunes, but I have so far braved the attention of assassins in never seeking such masks to my reality, beyond the one I have long borne, which carries the much bemyred sobriquet of Kev, and with that I am content. So awa with such as Ma Tarocardananda or the new age Elvish Delvish of the Blackdowns, whom I presently address. Your Jane will never be plain to me. However when it comes to yetis, my fondness for my shaggy leaping hide still warms all the trembly parts of my soul, as I hop skip and polka before the holy hill, so occasional appearances of the.Himalayan bigfoot would not be unwelcome.

As I said I have some excellent snaps and can certainly provide the gorgeous yeti donated by my cartoonist brother.

But I should be amazed if such correspondence raised more than the occasional rarified eyebrow, among the divers necromancers, tea-leaf readers and other exotic fruits from your private tree of life, who must comprise the bulk of your readership, already soaked as they are by your daily voluminous brilliancy.

Thus I am honoured by your offer and pleasured to concur, though noting with displeasure the many typos among my previous offerings.
Love
Kev

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21 January
Dear Kev, I just happen to be up and unable to sleep – moan – but cheered by your twink.  Sake was offered only as a protective hide, but the Yeti’s is much better.  Well then, I await the lab results.  Much love xxx Jane

I go dancing too

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Self-Inquiring R.I.P.

“Self Enquiry”, Penultimate issue

It was indeed a day of infamy when that Lady Chatterbox left her lovers and other glitterati of the spiritual universe rubbing their bewildered spectacles as their deluging weeps created a nouveau Saraswati to mingle its rarified tears with the nether reaches of the less salubrious but very Kosher meanderings of the Brent.

O weep and beat your inconsolable teats, all lovers of spiritual passions and other heats, lest we forget her ladyship, unburied yet and due to rise again when her creating organ, the chief necromancer, forsakes her unending beat, that adds each day another set of rings that newly tingalings the wrinkled foreheads of the tree of life.

mandala

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While Mistress Jane Attempts To Kip

Ah the wee small hours of West Hampstead,
when even the Jubilee Line slumbers,
as it meanders
the passing snores!
Where acres of cemetery
thrust monuments that grope for heavens
high as Whitestone Pond.
While worms sleep gentle sleeps
in many cloistered gardens,
well communally maintained,
beneath the central-heated walls,
well-hung with polished souvenirs,
nudging the heart from half-forgotten
terraces of long ago, before
the robberies inflicted
by more recent times,
that tower high above
the petty wounds
of self-inflicted crimes.

 

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dive spiral arunachala

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More poetry from Kevan …

Confessional-like

I really have nothing to say.
Been saying it for years,
but nobody hears
a thing

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Happy Indiscretion

Ah the joy of wurdz,
where nothing makes a universe
and diamonds sprout from turdz.

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mike  – a very dear friend – on a visit from holland which is FLAT

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As dreams go by …

23 January – From Kevan: “Here attached find yetis …”

I love ‘em.  Those cuddly toys in ye mail.   The Hill must be doing you good (and the wurdz).  So shall I make a post at the weekend?  No hurry, just when you like.   Love, J

Yo, go ahead and carve yer post whenever you have a spare mo, but please check my do-dos for typos afore ye posteth as they can udderwize confyouse. Love Kev

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Dunsbear Halt on the Tarka Line Trail

23 January
Yo, u Neti neti (arunachala generated), Yeti yeti, of course I willeth check yore spellings and notyets, I thought they might be done on purpose, I don’t meddle with Poet’s Purpose except I be given strikt instructions.  I can’t go to Devon Oo-arr this weekend, and indeed not till February, because the railway line from Taunton to Exeter is closed for repairs and the replacement buses don’t take bikes.  Love from Jane

PS Mr Sake is sacked.

Alan Jacobs and Kev, in 2004

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24 January
Enough mit these excuses. Who needs train and bus when you could leap on your steed in west End Lane and start pedalling. These Adamses are a muscular lot with mighty shanks, just made for this kinda thing.

As foR typos, me deliberate unspellings are obvious, but typos confuse the head by usually missing a letter, reversing them or inside-outing them as dyslexic affect rather than failing wit-exercise. Would you like me to hi-itify some. Here comes an oldish one now: …

(and so forth.)

cows near buckland filleigh

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24 January
Been delving among recent werkz and made some dubious improvements , which might lead you to chooze these newer vershuns, unless you feel advershuns, of coarse!  Kev

 A Trespass On Your Moments

I have undone what I oughter have done
And there is no good in me
Under the sun, but that which has sprung
Out o’ my own unhoed earth.
Do I ask for praises unsung,
Songs to be sung
To commemorate
The strainings of my birth?
Rather I say forget it
Get on with your own undoings;
Love, as you will, your screwing
And unscrewing,
Under the ungod eyes
Of the skies of mirth.

Ah men! That we have become!
Ah, the becoming of the end
Of unbirth!
The dance of life
Pours through the snores
Of the blind-eyed conveyors
Of I-pads on their endless tube run
Into the blank.

May the skies split and run
As the sewn up of everything
Comes undone.
Let’s tear off the hoods
And run.

Kevan Myers

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“Back hoe” that’s a JCB in Yankspeak

 Seems like “Front Hoe”
if there am, should wear
a kinda “Hiyo Silva” ‘n cut
this backward crap
cos hoeing up your backdays
seems to me to be
a little short on mileage,
even though, old Uncle Ho,
may be the ghost that lurks
at tunnel end,
if days along the furrow
trailing hoe
were lengthened out
to miles of the killing fields
of Napalmed ‘Nam.

groovin on that memorable night in dorset

Forgive my mind
that trespasses in lands
where any visitor
would once have opted for
the white stick of the blind.

I’m lost and wander off
so many tracks,
you cannot blame me
when my ankles land before my toes,
because I’ve yet to find
the way to open up
the eyeballs on my back.

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Back Again

The nothing was blessèd and long… ‘til dimly aware of the soft, warm liquid, and distant muffled sounds..strange roaring and words in another tongue…

I flinch and kick, and kick. Memories of pain of body..always pain..but more ..the tearing of thorns.. the agony  of wrists splintered and bored..trying to focus on love while shredded by hatred and the dumb hope of eyes not knowing what to with themselves, staring at what?

Let it be gone forever. Give me nothing, nothing, beautiful nothing.

Everything is intrusion in this nothing. Even this warm, safe pool that seems to be me.

I want no memories and no present. But this warm, liquid body of me will not obey, and now I am being forced inside out, squeezed and squeezed, driven out of myself, struggling and blinded.

Not again! Not again!

Kevan Myers

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general musings

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Poetry in this post is copyright (c) Kevan Myers.

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2014. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

 

 

rejection

This is a wonderful piece about trauma, its discovery, its breathing-space and earthing. It comes right to where I am now.

truebeautyalways

This weekend I attended an illuminating workshop taught by Sarah Thomas of  Clarity Acupuncture. She described, from a Chinese Medical perspective, what happens to our bodies when we experience trauma.

Trauma, she explained, is so overwhelming that we simply cannot experience all of it in the moment.  As a result, the un-felt feelings get buried or frozen in the body.  How does this happen? Listen to this heartbreaking story:

The pericardium is the guardian of the heart.  Its job is to protect the spirit, the center of our ability to communicate and bring our light to the world.  The pericardium’s ability to open and close the gates of the heart is what allows us to love a friend deeply, yet take it in stride when she has a bad day and snaps at us.  It allows us to feel empathy for another’s tragedy, yet not cry at every…

View original post 1,158 more words

Kita Brahmari Nyaya the Law of Caterpillar and Butterfly in Yoga

I am reblogging this post by Rohit, which arrived so serendipitously this morning, together with a phone call from a friend about the timely chrysalis in Yoga, and … my friend had just had a dream about a Tibetan cup with mud in it, which morphed into the Avilokiteshwara, the Buddha of compassion, and so he is going to visit Dharamasala. What resonance is at work within us collectively, and gestating ?

aryayogi

 Yoga has unique observations on the psychological process of change and about the mind and its power. “We become what we focus attention/emotion on” This is the Law of Caterpillar and Butterfly, or the Kita {the slug} Brahmari{the insect} Nyaya{ the law}. Buckminister Fuller  once mused that “ ‘There is nothing in a caterpillar which tells us that it will become a butterfly.” According to the Yogic tradition the caterpillar whilst in the cocoon meditates so intensely upon the form -the rupa- of the butterfly that it transforms from an ugly slimy crawling thing to an actualization  of beauty that takes flight! As a metaphor for the spiritual process and its goals this is just about perfect.

Yet Yoga insists this is not a symbolic statement but a literal truth. By intense focus upon a desired locus, human or divine, we are transmuted into the thing itself or at least…

View original post 1,138 more words

Sacred India Tarot Archive – the Royal Lotuses (2) – Kama & Rati

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Lord Siva on his Tao

Notes by Jane & Rohit on The Knight of Lotuses – Kamadeva

Kama is the deity of desire and lust.  His interaction with Lord Shiva was picturesque, to say the least, and is followed through cards 4, 5 and 10 of this suit – (see earlier posts in this series, under Categories in sidebar).

I cannot find Rohit’s notes to me for creating the Kama card.  Originally, the Knight of Lotuses was to be Pradayumna, who is now the King of the Suit.   The plan changed when I drew and sent to Rohit, two versions of Kama’s wife Rati.  The first one got promoted to the World Shakti in the Major Arcana.  The second one required a consort:  so Rohit commissioned a new Kama – naturally the Knight.

It was important also, to show that Kama was restored in full glory, following Siva and Parvati’s marriage.  During their yogic courtship, he was incinerated for his effrontery.

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Sacred India Tarot, 5 of Lotuses – Siva destroys Kama with his third eye

You can see Parvati’s terror as the kundalini Shakti overshadows her.   This is a picture of the raw subconscious forces which our love-affaires and relationships arouse and “front”.

After Siva and Parvati settled down together on Mount Kailas, the story – like lines drawn on water – merges into the love-play of Kama and Rati in full bloom.

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photo credit kamadevan.webs.com

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Rohit’s Notes on Kamadeva, from his book with the deck:

“…The power of desire is a prime moving force in the universe.  Without desire, there is no karma/action.  Unfortunately, the strongest desire is lust and, even more unfortunately, it is the easiest to inflame.  Kama shoots shafts that are burning flowers from his bow of sugarcane.  This odd imagery indicates the juicy, supple, sweet but unyielding and fiery nature of desire.  Flowers as we pretend not to know when we gift them romantically, are the sexual organs of plants.

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“Neither Kama nor his imagery is subtle about what is desired and in what measure.  It is the sheer irresponsibility of the pleasure principle, its wilful disdain for consequence of repetition, so long as it gets what it wants.  Hence he is named Gridhu – sharp lust!  

“As the Atharvaveda says, ‘The well directed arrows of Kama, winged with pain, barbed with longing, with desire for the shaft, pierce all hearts’.

“Yet the power of desire is a great good, being the force behind civilization and culture, the first impulse of creativity.”  (NB the identical creative/spiritual/sexual root).  “‘Kama was born the first, both the power to provoke and gratify desire.’  His name Iraja signifies his birth from cosmic waters.  His power to enkindle enthusiasm as well as passion names him Darpaka – the Inflamer!  He is called Samantaka – the power to destroy mental peace, to denote what happens when passions control one.  Desire as Kama fascinated the Indian mind for its many triumphs over the best of intentions.  

“This card in a reading … … Falling in love.  Potentially very promising and normally a fabulous future, but the shadow is very strong in this card … …  Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.“

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Jane’s Notes

Central to this theme, is the Lovers card in the deck.

Sacred India Tarot card 6

When lovers first meet, there seems to be no shadow at all!

This card tells the story of Kaccha a divine Prince, and Devvyani, daughter of the king of the demons.   The psychology is subtle.  Between them, the ‘sugar cane’ bow buds into almond blossom:  around them, flowers and orchids push through the ground.   Devvyani lures her suitor with nature’s feral beauty.  Kaccha’s face is modelled on J.Krishnamurti.  He wears on his brow the Akasha-Tejas Tattva – the colours of Saturn and Mars.   He has a passion to fulfil through sensual Earth, but points back to his original agenda or ‘master-plan’, to discover the secret and set souls free.

The card shows the cross-fertilizing and trading of divine and daemonic nectar, fire or energy – the fruit of which is tantrically sublimated in the higher plane.  A razor’s edge discriminates the currency through equal beauties but different densities of Earth and Heaven – below and above – gross and subtle.  There is a commitment, a renunciation and change of plane, through dying and being born again.  The dove in the genital armour is a phoenix, bird of light in the Alchymical Hierogamos.

If K married Devvyani and settled with the demons, the gods would never know the secret their existence depends on.  Devvyani tries to win back by love, what her father lost by a wager.  K was no fool, and he let her down with gentle remonstrance, and returned to his proper region, with the nectar.

You can look up the full story online, or read it in full, in Rohit’s book.

Each relationship is a potential crucible.  The shadow within, as it comes to light and manifests, may transform to love.  The profound Karmic forces of mutual attraction may mature into “right action”.   Hope stands at every beginning.

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Sacred India Tarot – Kama the Knight of Lotuses

Here is Kama in his glory – immersed in  female waters and roots of the blue lotus;  his seminal power erect in urdhvalinga, yogic bliss.   His candied bow is delicious as a seaside stick of Brighton rock.  The soles of his feet receive the power of the ground.   Desire in full fruit is Union:  Self-union, the union of the World and plant kingdom, the lover’s timeless embrace and sharp pull.   The Hebrew word for Union is identical numerically, to the word for Love. In the western Tarot, the symbol for the Lovers is ZAIN, a word meaning both phallus and Sword.  We all have known the sharpness.

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Correspondence 6 April 2005:  Rohit to Gautam –

(this shows the shuffling of places still going on in the deck.  Originally Kama and Rati were to be the King and Queen of the suit.  When the drawings appeared, some fresh thinking happened.)

Sacred India Tarot world Shakti, 21

“I think the Queen is the best card ever done till today, but it is probably a waste for Rati.  We could easily put this up as a (female) World card.  Rati is not so powerful, but we can rename this the Tripura Sundari – essence of feminine supremacy … The male World card could be the Nataraja, not the Ardhanariswara, so we will have two world cards which is okay, Hinduism is conflicted as to whether the ultimate form of God is male or female.  

“The Kama is magnificent, but I think it underlines my point that we have to make him the Knight, as a symbol of uncontrolled sexual and pleasure principle, while Pradyumna, currently Kama reborn, becomes the erotic impulse transferred, transformed into healing.  The switch is easily made.  No need to redo anything.”

(For Pradayumna, King of Lotuses, see next SITA post.  To see Siva Nataraja and Rudra cards, see Creation of the World Shakti & Natarajan and Siva Ace of Lotuses )

“I know this Tantric image, and it is the ultimate female shakti depicted there, so we can use it as one World, the Nataraja becomes the male World card, completing the journey of the Fool – Rudra, Siva and now Nataraja.

“I think Rati needs a somewhat more conventional treatment.  The Apsara with a bow is ideal, as per the Indiayogi image.

Apsara in Krishna temple

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“It will be a slight drag for Jane, but really her (Shakti) card is too powerful, there is also a Lingam which completes the Siva imagery which began in the Fool card.  I think Jane has reached an absolutely inspired vein in these last two cards, the Kama is actually the ithyphallic hunter-Siva who has dalliances with the wives of Rishis in the forest of reeds near Chidambaram.   I think Jane has to be troubled to draw the Queen once more, but it is her fault for being so brilliant !!!”

(NB – 2005 was a difficultyear for me – insomnia, some depression, exhausted and over-reacting to things.  I greatly delayed producing many of the cards.   The project however, was unconcerned it seems, and drew itself along with the available material.   Rohit says in his introduction to the deck, that he in India and I in the UK suffered everything the deck could throw at us in life.)

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preliminary sketch – Rati queen of lotuses

Rohit’s Notes, 2004

“QUEEN OF LOTUSES – RATI;    In every way, the counterpart of Kama, down to the garlands and bow.  In her case you can dispense with the nipple precaution! She does have a greater capacity to endure faithfully as she waited cycles of time for Kama to be reborn as Pradyumna, son of Krishna. 

“The reference we provide is typical.  The joint picture of Rati and Kama used as reference for the Lovers card in the Major Arcana, may be consulted as reference, and can be used too.

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The Sacred India Tarot, Queen of Lotuses – Rati, wife of Kama

Rohit often mourns the fact that “God’s Frozen People” lost the natural state’s exuberant joy as depicted in the old Temples.    Blue lotuses surround Rati also, as she plays with her husband’s bow and lifts the serpent power as easily around herself as pulling away her sari.  No thought as yet of pregnancy, domesticity or the patter of little feet troubles her soul.

From Rohit’s book with the deck: 

“Like all female consorts of male deities, Rati is regarded as the Shakti, the active and activating power of the god’s function.  Rati is regarded as sensuality and voluptuous  desire, a symbol of the sophisticated ethos that made possible the Kama Sutra, as well as the lesser known but superior Ananga Ranga.

“This is the vision of the aesthete as to what constitutes pleasure insofar as it applies to humans.  Yet. the throbbing, pulsing energy of sexual desire also has a spiritual function.  It is by transmuting the sexual drive into Ojas – spiritual fuel – that one gets the skill and power to tackle the higher reaches of sexuality. 

“The raised snake above the head is that irresistible sexual impulse catalysed into the longing for liberation.  It is a yogic triumph she has achieved here – to subvert the strongest downward dragging impulse, and make it a vehicle for spiritual transcendence. 

“Rati was punished with widowhood for Kama’s audacity in provoking Siva.  Yet she refused to abandon hope, and forced the gods to restore her foolish husband, with all the conceit drained out of him.  Knowing that Kama was going to be reborn as Pradyumna son of Krishna, destined to slay the demon Sambara, she took service at Sambara’s palace as a maid, and waited.  A giant fish in the kitchen when cut open, revealed an infant that Sambara had tried to kill by drowning.  Not recognising the child, Sambara’s fate decreed that he not only fail but that he bring up the son of Krishna as his own, with Rati’s help!  

“When the boy reached adulthood, Rati revealed his story to him, and the reborn Kama slew the demon.  Rati finally got a husband worthy of her.

“In a reading: … Potential for deep spiritual transformation … good healers and therapists … great decoder of the emotional web that exists between people….  But might become determined and insistent that all who meet them have problems so that they can ‘help’….  Everybody is not as intuitive as you are, so share your insight where it is appropriate.  Do not mistrust your feelings.”  (Copyright (c)The Sacred India Tarot to Yogi Impressions Books, 2011)

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Ananga Ranga 20 – the Roaring position

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Correspondence 18-21 May 2005:  re Rati Queen of Lotuses

“Dear Gautam, did you receive Rati safely a few weeks ago?  I had asked you to ring me as our computer had crashed and none of your phone numbers worked either – please give me a contact number.  Anyway, up and running again now, but I shan’t be able to scan anything till the end of this week …   Regards, Jane

“Hi Jane, herewith feedback on Rati.  I did have some reservations re the eroticism of the illustration, though it is stunning.  Given below is Rohit’s feedback.  Warm regards, Gautam.”

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As published – with bra and pants!

“Gautam, 
I am very willing to go with the image as it is, as Rati is not in any way important to the religious consciousness, and therefore will not have any potential to cause trouble.  We could add a little dhoti trouser type covering to lower limbs if we felt the need to reduce nakedness, but I think the card is absolutely terrific.  Another magnificent effort by Jane.  The lotuses have come out at a level that is somewhat frighteningly good.  Rohit.”

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Kailas

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The Sacred India Tarot Archive, Major Arcana 0 – 14 can be found at http://aryayogi.wordpress.com    SITA Major Arcana 15 – 21 are on janeadamsart.wordpress.com also.   TO BE CONTINUED/

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Rohit Arya

Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}. He has also written A Gathering of Gods. He is  a corporate trainer, a mythologist and vibrant speaker as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga

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Jane

My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

 

The Mythology behind Ramana’s Thirty Verses

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The material for my next Sacred India Tarot Archive post  contains a reflection on Ramana Maharshi’s Thirty Verses.  I feel it should be given on its own, then followed by the Knight and Queen of Lotuses in the Tarot archive, as originally planned.

The Sanskrit title for the 30 Verses was “Upadesa Saram“.  This means “The Quintessence of Instruction.”  It draws near to the ineffable.  At the same time, it raises the bar in a practical way, for tackling any situation where we have wined and dined out and become a little noisy.    Meditation is Life:  our body and breath are Earth’s gravity.

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Ramana with Arunachala’s children, including his nephews Sundaram, Mani and Ganesan

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The Mythology Context of Ramana’s “Thirty Verses”
first published in the Ramana Foundation UK Journal “SELF ENQUIRY” April 2001

MY EARLIER SITA post, (9 and 10 of Lotuses) includes “The Birth of Skanda” – a colourful Puranic account of Siva and Parvati’s yogic courtship and marriage, leading to the birth of their son Skanda,  who, it was fortold,  alone had the power to destroy the demon of the reactive mind, Taraka asura.  

It will be recalled that Agni, the god of sacred Fire and sacrificial offerings, had been tricked into swallowing Siva’s semen, which burned intolerably within him.   He was advised by Siva to go to a certain pine forest on the banks of the river Magha, where dwelt seven ascetic Rishis and their wives:  the wives would receive the fiery seed,  relieving Agni to return to his natural flame state,  and enable the saviour to be born.

This story, like a crystal, is retold from numerous different facets.   In one of these, it is Siva Himself who visits the unsuspecting ladies, and who, chastising their husbands for their sterile ascetic practices,  gives them the teaching on the laws of Karma which, in our day, we find in Ramana’s Thirty Verses on the Quintessence of Instruction (Upadesa Saram).    The poet Muruganar, when writing this legend in Tamil verse, on coming to the instruction given by Siva to the Rishis, asked Ramana – as Siva incarnate –  to write it for him,   Here first is the setting, and then the Thirty Verses :

CERTAIN ASCETICS in the Pine Forest had obtained great powers by their prayers and sacrifices.  In order to conserve these, their hearts had to be permanently pure, as well as the hearts of their wives.   Siva heard about the beauty of the womenfolk, and resolved to seduce them.   Taking the form of a beautiful young beggar, he invited Vishnu to dress up as a voluptuous woman and accompany him on this prank.    Vishnu went first, to arouse the ascetics.  He excited all of them out of their minds.   They abandoned their sacrifices and ran after the siren as moths fly about the light they see in the night.

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Meanwhile Siva made his appearance among the resinous pine trees, half naked, dishevelled, with begging bowl.   The women abandoned their housework and ran after him, half undressed, begging him to remain there with them.   Siva slipped away into the shadows, and they followed him.

The Rishis began to notice that their rituals became less effective, and their powers were no longer what they had been.   They conferred among themselves.  They suspected the handsome beggar who disordered their wives, was none other than Siva,  and that she who seduced themselves was Vishnu in disguise.    They were enraged.   They conjured up an elephant and a tiger by magic rites, and sent them against Siva.   Siva slew the creatures easily, and took the elephant’s skin for a robe and the tiger’s for a wrap.   They tried likewise in vain, a disembodied head, a giant, a brace of writhing serpents, and fire.   Finally they sent all the waning power of their prayers and tapas against him.   These forces came forth like a mass of fire, beat against Siva’s genitals, and detached them from his body.   Siva, full of indignation, made to burn up the entire earth with his genitals, but Vishnu took shape as the female organs, receiving those of Siva,  and prevented general conflagration.

Moved by the prayers of the Rishis – for Siva is never indifferent to His devotees – he consented to hold his fire, and to give them “The Quintessence of Instruction”.

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In the closed Hindu universe, described as an egg, nothing is ever lost.  Things are transferred, reborn or transmuted.   The law of karma – literally, “action” – is based on this world-view.  The sum of one’s past actions is embodied in the force of karma, which is considered a discrete, transferable quantity.   One Upanishad describes a mystic view of the sexual act, and then concludes,  “The man who practices intercourse in awareness of this view, takes to himself the good karma of the woman.   He who does it ignorantly, loses his good karma to her.”

Briefly, a host of nuances concerning the fertility of the inner life and creativity, the generative power of thoughts, and the sterility of those who cling to the letter alone, are touched on here.   In the Pine Forest, Siva had excited the women and infuriated their husbands, but he didn’t actually do anything.   He was chaste, and made others believe him to be a lecher, a false ascetic in reverse.   He served as a mirror.   He chastised the Rishis for their dishonesty and barren self-seeking rituals;  he awakened their real nature to them.

Researched from Wendy O’Flaherty’s book Siva the Erotic Ascetic

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                  THE THIRTY VERSES by Ramana Maharshi

ACTION yields fruit,  for so the Lord ordains it.
How can action be the Lord?   It is insentient.

The fruit of action passes.   But the act leaves behind the seed of further acts 
leading to an endless ocean of reaction :   not to liberation.

A disinterested act, surrendered to the Lord 
purifies the mind and points to liberation.

This is certain:  worship, praise and meditation, 
being work of body, speech and mind,  are steps for orderly ascent.

Ether,  fire,  air,  water,  earth,  Sun,  Moon  and living beings –
worship of these, regarded all  as forms of life,  is perfect worship of the Lord.

Better than hymns of praise is repetition of the Name ;  better quiet than loud; 
but best of all is silent meditation – reflective in the mind.

Better than spells of meditation is one continuous current 
steady as a stream or downward flow of oil.

Better than viewing Him as Other – indeed the noblest attitude of all – 
is to hold Him as the ‘I’ within – the very ‘I’.

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Abidance in pure being,  transcending thought through love intense 
is the very essence of supreme devotion.

Absorbtion in the heart of being,  whence we sprang, 
is the path of action,  of devotedness,  union,  and of knowledge.

Restraint of breath controls the mind like a bird caught in the net. 
This gentle regulation helps absorbtion in the heart.

Mind and breath (as thought and action) like two branches forking out 
both spring from a single root.

Absorbtion is of two kinds:  submergence and destruction. 
Mind submerged again arises:  mind dead revives no more.

With even breath,  and thought restrained, 
the mind turned one-way inward,  fades and dies.

Mind extinct,  the mighty Seer to his natural being returns 
and has no action to perform.

Wisdom turns away the mind from outer things 
to behold its own effulgent form.

When unceasingly it scans itself,  there’s nothing there. 
For everyone this direct path is open.

Thoughts alone make up the mind,  and of all thoughts,  the ‘I’ is root. 
What we call ‘mind’ is but the notion ‘I’.

When we turn within and search whence this thought of ‘I’ arises, 
the shamed ‘I’ vanishes —  and wisdom’s quest begins.

Where this ‘I’ notion faded,  now as I,  as I,  arises here 
the One,  the very Self,  the infinite.

Of the notion ‘I’,  the permanency is That.  For even in deep sleep 
where we have no sense of ‘I’,  we do not cease to be.

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Five faces of Arunachala Siva … the “i – i ?”

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Body,  sense,  mind,  breath,  sleep – all insentient and unreal – 
cannot be I,   I, who am the Real !

For knowing That which is,  there is no other knower. 
Hence being is awareness;  and we are all awareness.

In the nature of their being,  creature, and creator are in substance One.
They differ only in adjuncts and awareness.

To free oneself of attributes is to see the Lord, 
for He shines ever as the pure Self.

To know the Self is to be the Self,  for it is non dual.
Knowing thus,  one abides as That.

That is true knowledge which transcends both knowledge and ignorance,
for in pure knowingness,  is no object known,

Our nature known,  we abide as being with no beginning and no end
in unbroken consciousness and peace.

Abiding in peace beyond bondage and release 
is steadfastness in service of the Lord.

All ego gone,  in peace as That alone 
is penance good for growth,  sings Ramana
“who sports in the Self”.

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A NOTE BY ARTHUR OSBORNE:  “The Tamil poet Muruganar wanted to write 100 verses on this theme, but he could not readily proceed beyond 70 verses.  It then occurred to him that Ramana was the proper person to write the verses relating to Siva’s instruction.  He therefore begged Ramana to compose them, and Ramana accordingly composed 30 Tamil verses.  They were subsequently translated by Ramana into Telugu and into Malayalam.  He himself later translated them into Sanskrit;  the Sanskrit version known as Upadesa Saram (the Essence of Instruction) was daily chanted before him, together with the Vedas, and continues to be chanted as a scripture before his shrine.  He grades the various paths to Liberation in order of efficiency and excellence, showing that the best is Self-enquiry.”

Arthur Osborne, founder-editor of Ramanasramam journal The Mountain Path

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The relationship of Siva, Lord of the Dance, and seed of fire, with Agni,  god of the sacramental fire itself,  is explored with great subtlety in various streams of the mythological delta.   In some of these stories, Agni becomes the servant, object or representation of Siva’s will.   The fire both creates and destroys.   Arunachala is primordially a “Hill of Fire”,  and the Temple there,  among those dedicated to the elements in Southern India Saivism,  represents fire.   The Deepam Festival of Lights in the winter season is the biggest of the regional festivals.   The flame is rekindled at the summit and at the root of Arunachala, amid general celebratory pilgrimage.   Siva’s ancient Vedic form was as Rudra, the Wild Hunter,  the fiery Archer, who interrupted the coitus of the Father Creator with the Dawn  (He Emerges from the Poem of Ancient Power).

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Agni – Skanda

The interplay of these currents across the sleep of spacetime awakens paradoxical archetypes of awareness.   They resonate like rhythmic chants of a kind, or music.   The opposites tasting one another, in mutual annihilation give birth.   Ramana, a child of these traditions, points to the fiery heart within us:  our warmth and love of being.

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This was my first attempt, yesterday when tired. Next morning I found his left eye was wrong, so I moved it a bit. I drew him often in the past, but I now find it very difficult to approach his likeness.

A sketch … when staying there itself. The perfectly proportioned, primordial Mountain of fire.

Note how the sanskrit “Agni” and the Ram vehicle, resonate the French word agneau – the Lamb or young ram; and the wealth of Biblical symbolism for the archetype. In this SITA card, I was requested to portray the publisher of the deck, Gautam Sachdeva, and the author, Rohit Arya

Alan Jacobs in his spiritual home. He wears a sivalingum badge on his beret

Ramana’s teaching often spoke of the cinema screen and the events we believe and get lost in – which are projected onto its surface and upon each other. The Seer is the scene: the light itself illumines and is the Real life.

… and finally this, which I began by turning the photo upside down, for the “helpful” distortion which sometimes occurs surprisingly to life – this didn’t happen today. A long whittling towards an approximation! The photo is rather shadowy. I found it on Alan Jacobs’ facebook advaita-vedanta group. Ramana’s facial expressions flowed like water over the absolute stillness of a mountain. At the same time, he cooked, bound books and helped Annamalai the ashram builder with the brick laying.

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

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All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/