August 8th, 2014 - Friday - Sun

August 8th, 2014 - Friday - Sun - Clunk! Bonk! Boink? Digging around in  your soul can be nasty business. Look! Here's a piece of yourself you didn't know even existed. And who put THAT in here? You like WHAT? You hate THAT? Who keeps all this stuff up here? Haven't you ever wanted to start over and CLEAN HOUSE? Well that's what you've been doing... cleaning house.  Hauling all the junk out to the curb. Or maybe piling it up in the back, pouring gasoline on it, and setting it aflame. So... Who ARE YOU?

Not who you thought... that's for sure.

The angels have looked at your work...which right now looks like one of the worst episodes of Hoarders ever, and are saying: YES. 

And... they are asking you a question:

Do you mean it? Really? This is dark work. You can take your commendation for starting and go home right now. Why not? It's murky, mucky, stinky in here.

Do you want to go further?

A man named Eliphas Levi (February 8, 1810 - May 31st, 1875) wanted to go further as well. So he created a god form that he could commune with to help him do just that. Sound crazy? It's not so different than psychologists naming different parts of our psyche. Levi just labeled his psyche in more spiritual terms. So who did he come up with?

Bahphomet.

This constitutes his image of God, and hence of himself.  The key parts are as follows: 

Dualistic: both God and Devil.  Levi saw in himself both light and dark, and didn't have a problem with that.  He saw himself in both male and female terms, understanding that he had both masculine and feminine parts in his psyche. Not only that, but his deity broke from the monotheistic male God Ruler image so prevalent at the time.  God has boobs?  Yep. 

Illumination: Baphomet bears a torch which shines light on hidden things: There are no secrets.  We are going to look and see everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  

Shamanistic: Baphomet is clearly part animal, accepting animistic parts, as well as shamanistic, dealing with the spirit of the land, the animals and nature.

Sexualized: Baphomet is sexualized: In a time when sex was steeply controlled by the government and church, Levi proudly proclaimed his God (meaning himself) was a sexual being.

Magical: Baphomet is magical... clearly a magician in the world.

This is very crazy stuff, you have to know that.  Levi basically took everything in his culture (he was a former Catholic Priest) and turned it on it's head.  All the parts of himself he had been taught were bad, he instead saw as neither good nor bad.  They just 'were'.   

So... what good is Baphomet to YOU?  Well... in our dualistic dig into your dirty underwear this last week, it helps to have a symbol of all that is human in the world.  We are all trying to become better people, more loving, more light, more giving, more authentic and gifting.  

So to help us in this quest... when did we humans create a God that was only half human? Or let's be honest, actually not human at all?  Perfect, Shining, Loving, and solely MASCULINE may be an ideal to strive for, but it's not very realistic... is it? 

A quick view of nature reveals nothing of the sort.  HE... is nowhere to be found.

But a quick glance into nature, into the real human condition, and Baphomet very quickly appears as the more useful explanation of the human psyche.

Of course the monotheistic culture we live in has crowned Baphomet the DEVIL... which is baggage some of you might have to deal with before you start talking to her/him.  

This needs to be said: No one is bagging on a particular vision of Deity, one way or the other. The point of all this is that we are HUMAN. Which means we have a lot of different parts... good... bad... and ugly.  And rather than shunting them off into dark corners of our attic... we are opening the windows, letting the sunlight come in, and seeing ourselves for who we truly are.  This is tough work... we get to see parts of ourselves that we would rather keep hidden...

But the real bounty of all this work on self only comes from seeing all sides of yourself.  

The sun is shining for you.  It's a good sign. The best of signs.  Now all you have to decide is whether to look inside yourself or not.  Warning: If you look... brace for impact.  Promise: If you look... magical bounty awaits.