Feast of Mother and Child

For the Sophian, the Winter Solstice marks the end of one year and the beginning of a new year. Its closest parallel is Christmas and, to a certain extent, we are paying homage to that celebration. But our celebration puts its emphasis on the Mother as much as the Son. This is why we also call the Winter Solstice the Feast of Mother and Child.

Yeshua’s humble beginnings signify the soul’s incarnation into the material world, Malkut or the “Kingdom.” His birth in a manger in the middle of a barn full of animals symbolizes the most basic entry and state of our soul into the world. We are born with the infinite potential of becoming “priest-kings forever” but we must realize it on our own — and that takes faith and spiritual practice in the Divine Potential which gave birth to creation and all of us.

Mother Sophia as symbolized by Yeshua’s mother, Mary, is the force through which creation and the Soul of the Messiah came into being. Even the “virgin” status of Mary alludes to the supernal nature of her relationship with the Father, who is the unseen and transcendent aspect of God. In our Christian Kabbalah this refers to the supernal triad of Keter (crown), Hokmah (Father), and Binah (Mother). Keter, the Divine Force of Will and Desire, is actualized through Hokmah “impregnating” (so to speak) Binah. This actualization took the form of creation and the Human One of Light, symbolized for Sophians by Yeshua Messiah.

In the beginning sas the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into the world in him was life, and the life as the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1: 1-5)

What does it mean that the Word was with God? Is it not the same Divine Will / Desire actualized through the transcendent Father and immanent Mother? The Soul of the Human One of Light (the Messiah) is part of the Energy Force which is God and has always existed with God, i.e. The Word is God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son. (John 1: 14)

The Word or Desire of God is actualizing through the evolution of humanity — and through the birth of Yeshua physically and the spiritual re-birth which accompanied his Baptism, ordeal in the wilderness, and Resurrection, Sophians believe he was the first soul in Western tradition to achieve full realization. As such he was the first and only son at that time in our evolutionary history. He was and is our example — and our Spiritual Teacher. Through his example — and sacrifice — we are shown our own Potential. Praise the Holy One of Being.

So how does the Feast of Mother and Child tie in with the Winter Solstice?

As Tau Malachi writes, We celebrate the Feast of the Mother and Child on winter solstice, or the Feast of Divine Incarnation — the darkness of winter solstice as the womb of the Divine Mother in which we are conceived and gestated, and from which we are reborn as the Spiritual Sun, the Messiah of God, the Enlightened One; the Solar Sphere representing the Pleroma of Light, the Christ, which gives light and life to the world, to all people.

When we gaze upon the sun, even on the shortest day of the solar year, there is a simple truth: “There is no darkness in the Sun of God, the Sun of God has never experienced the night, or the change of the seasons that represent birth, life and death; the the Sun of God sin and death have never existed — the Sun of God is the Bornless One, the Ancient of Days and the Eternal Youth.”

This is the truth of our Supernal Being, and the sun is the symbol of Holy Remembrance, which is the purpose of the Divine Incarnation: To remind us of who and what we are, and to show us where we have come from, where we are now and where we are going; hence to reveal our Supernal Being and invoke the Remembrance of the Divine I Am (Christ Melchizedek).

This celebration might also be viewed or understood as marking the transitional state of our own consciousness, always becoming as we most truly are in the Mother. We are all in the womb of the Divine Mother as her daughters and sons, and within that space our consciousness is constantly running to and returning from primordial and transcendent awareness back to a dream-like reality. But it is all in the Mother.

Yet, more and more, we may find ourselves desiring to hold on to that awareness, to cling to our Mother in faith, love (devotion), and gnosis. The real peace comes when we realize our own Light Presence and Light Power is something we carry with us at all times -- an awareness that comes by the Divine Grace of Our Mother.

So, as we contemplate a time of year marked in the Sophian tradition by the the celebration of ourselves in the womb of the Mother but being born into Christ consciousness, may we carry that inner knowing with us daily. Rather than allowing ourselves to get caught up in the spend-and-buy culture of the holiday rush, how can we realize the Light by which we can both know ourselves better and help others to become more aware of their own Inner Light?

Who are we in the Mother? Who are we without the Mother? There really is no us without the Mother but the key is to really feel and "gnow" this Truth in the very depth of our being now and forevermore.

May We All Be Empowered In the Divine Remembrance!

The Christ Spirit

Who was Yeshua Messiah? Those Sophians raised in a traditional church setting knew him first as Jesus Christ. Yet, now as Sophians we find ourselves asking, “Did I really ever know him?” Can we ever know Jesus Christ without first knowing ourselves? These are the questions we ask ourselves more and more as we come to understand the original beliefs which informed followers of “The Way.”

The Gospel of Thomas was first ignored and then lost for centuries and thus escaped the “refinements” and religiously-correct scalping at the hands of canonization. Thomas retains the original “sayings” format that scholars believe the Four Gospels lost through numerous edits. That Thomas went “undiscovered” until the 19th and 20th centuries may actually have been its salvation. Discovered during a time in our human and historic evolution more open to viewing such texts as true literary and cultural artifacts saved it from being annihilated as a “fraudulent” piece of work to be burned or compromised as one needing a KJV-type translation. The sayings of Thomas speak volumes to humanity at the very time humanity is prepared to hear its message:

Jesus said, “If those who lead you say, ‘See, the Kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds of the heaven will precede you. If they say to you,‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is within you and it is without you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.” (Thomas, Saying 5)

Those who have recognized the Christ-spirit within find perfect resonance with this saying. Sophians have come to understand the Soul of the Messiah as the already perfect and yet unfolding potential of the will of Ain Sof Or, the Endless Light. Yeshua Messiah was the incarnation of the Soul of the Messiah, sent in a particular time in our human evolution that would deliver many from lawlessness while also creating a long-lasting institution that some would criticize for its inhumanity. How, they might say, could a loving and just God have sent a “Savior” whose legacy would result in so much bloodshed?

“Savior”? Was that really Yeshua’s mission? To show us that through no effort of our own — merely via trust in him — we would find salvation? Sophians believe Yeshua Messiah came to show us that the path to salvation lies within each and every one of us. He was not born realized but became enlightened through a lifetime of spiritual practice and awakening. What is salvation but a remembrance of our true nature as children of the Primordial Light ? Free will is a beautiful part of creation, but that then means evolution is necessary in order to understand and see. Remembrance requires an evolution in both the collective and individual consciousness. Many were not prepared for such remembrance at the time of Yeshua’s appearance and, instead, they made him into an icon, into God. Once institutionalized, he was used throughout history to excuse or support many political and war efforts devised by the minds of still-evolving humanity, influenced more by cosmic ignorance than the True Light. Gnostic Christians, such as Sophians, who dared to view him as other than the incarnation of God, were driven so far underground they were only recently able to resurface to form study and fellowship circles.

Sophians study the words of Yeshua with an inner knowing that he was here to show us “the Way.” This belief both sustains and motivates us. We view God as both beyond and yet within us, and we have confidence that we are never a-part from God. The grief and pain faced by most of humanity is the result of both an individual and collective consciousness that denies its own Christ-essence, thus always feeling separate from God. Our studies of the Scriptures, the Kabbalah, and Gnostic texts show us the “Way” and in turn deepen our faith. Our study and faith together increase our gnosis so that we “gnow” two things: First, we are not separate from God and, second, recognition of the Christ-spirit is the beginning of an understanding of the All.

Jesus said, “Let him who seeks not cease seeking until he finds, and when he finds, he will be troubled. When he has been troubled, he will marvel,and he will reign over the All.” (Thomas, Saying 2)

What does it mean to “reign over the all?” It means an understanding of the Sacred Unity so that all we do is with the heart and mind of God. Within this place we find unimaginable peace:

Let me share with you the idea that the initiates of our lineage hold in their spiritual practice and spiritual living. The view they hold is that is is the Christ-Spirit in them that prays, mediates, and worships God in Spirit and Truth and that it is the Christ-self who lives their life and labors to accomplish God’s plan through it. In everything that is done, it is the Holy Spirit that is the doer and the initiate is the conscious witness and vehicle of this action of Divine Grace. (Tau Malachi in Meditations on the Mystical Teachings in The Gospel of St. Thomas)

The answers to all of life’s questions are contained within the Inner Light of Awareness. In this gnosis we are free and alive. Praise the Holy One of Being Who Sustains Us with the Gifts of Creation and Uplifts Us with the Radiant Awareness of Our True Nature.

Understanding the Sacred Heart

THE HEART STAR — in Eastern faiths referred to as the “heart chakra” — finds a beautiful voice in the Beatitudes. In Sophian tradition, the heart star is Tiferet, the pattern that connects all of our human energy and desire with the Power and Presence of God. In a fully-open and balanced heart star we may also find the Sacred Heart — but it is most alive in us when we have cultivated the conditions that bring about its residence within our own being. Indeed, the Gospel of Matthew (5:1-11) speaks volumes to this condition of the heart we might call open or unconditional or limitless. But what does this mean? In the context of the typical human heart, being too-giving or too-limitless can mean overwhelming someone or something even to the point of suffocation. But what does all of this blessedness that we find in Matthew mean in the context of the Sacred Heart — and how does that apply to us as humans? What separates the Sacred Heart from the normal human heart?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. How wise and loving is the Holy Mother who opens herself up to those whose hearts have been broken. The kingdom of heaven ultimately signifies the bringing together of Keter and Malkut — for neither heaven nor the kingdom are places, at least not in the traditional sense. The kingdom of heaven is a state of mind. I think sometimes it’s easier for the broken-hearted to contemplate or live in this state of mind or consciousness than someone who has never suffered or felt the pangs of life. When we accept the broken pieces of dreams and disappointments that life hands us and fill the spaces left behind not with bitterness but with understanding then we have created the space for the Holy Spirit (the Power and Presence of God) to reside. Thus, those who have allowed themselves to be broken without becoming bitter have become vessels for a place where the Sacred Heart may take up residence. Life’s battle scars have become a teaching-ground and a healing ground — and a fertile ground.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Those who have lost a loved one have felt the ultimate pang of life — in the pang of death. In that experience of loss we face the ultimate recognition that life and death are inseparable because you can’t have the joy of one without the pain of the other. Those who truly open themselves up to learn from this know that love really does go on forever; the love that we gave and we were given changed us and will forever be a part of us, even doing so through healing the karma of current and past lives. As one opens him or herself up to what this really means we understand that without this dance of life and death we do not grow. We do not “gnow” either. For some, the experience of losing a loved one is so powerful it changes their life direction — in ways that open up the world for others by creating organizations or movements in their honor, changing lives as a result of what they learned through that person’s death about themselves and about humanity — and about God. This is what happened for me when my sister died — for in her death she taught me the most beautiful and precious things in life are beyond what we can see in the material world. Her death renewed my spiritual search in a truly inspiring way, opening me up to the Holy Mother’s life changing movement of sparks that find their melting point in the heart.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. This is so true for those whose life experience teaches them humility because most of us are not born with it. It is mostly learned through the hard knocks and falls that come with being overly-confident and selfish. Life’s experiences aren’t meant to kill our spirit but to awaken it. That which humbles us teaches us truths about the universe and ourselves that we can then use to open our hearts to others. Again, in our humility we have created the space for the Mother to work — and with which the gifts of creation may be truly understood and enjoyed.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Those who truly seek — in fact, long for — truth and justice are already compelled by their own human spirit coming into being as the unfolding potential of the Human One. Those souls who think this way are already compelled by the Mother Spirit to lead others in humanity — and if they don’t allow selfish or ego-driven human nature to preside over their hopes and dreams, their hearts become fertile ground for the Holy Mother to work. This is why a balance of the lower stars is so important for the heart star to be open and for all of these blessings of the Mother to find their true potential.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Here is Hessed on the Tree of Life — the fullness of God’s mercy in creation and humanity coming into being as unlimited love. Those who give of themselves without balance may also drain themselves in the context of the human heart — and sometimes may even see much pain in return. However, that kind of passion and openness is a fertile ground for the blessings of the Mother to take root in these hearts that sometimes give without receiving. These hearts are often broken — but, once broken, if bitterness is not allowed to reside, Divine Grace steps in and the same unconditional love these hearts once gave is reciprocated and returned a thousand-times over.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. We might ask, Is anyone pure in heart anymore? But we’ve all met them — we’ve all known these individuals who seemed to either have been born pure or who became pure as a response to life’s circumstances — or through their own dance with the Holy Shekinah. To have the heart of the Human One — to see and behold the Light and Fire without being consumed by it — enables one to see the face of God. Few have ever gone here but again this is not something they’ve done on their own — but by spiritual living and practice have created the space for the Holy Shekinah to manifest in the most profound ways.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. Like the seekers of truth and justice, the peacemakers are envoys of God, so to speak. Their human spirit is strong and compelled by their internal awareness of humanity as deserving of life and respect. They have the understanding of heart that makes them great emissaries for God whether they know it or not. Those who forge peace pave the way for anger, hatred, and war to be replaced by more gentle pursuits — a kinder, meeker world driven by a common desire for humanity’s own becoming. In this space the Mother can do some of her greatest work in the continuning evolution of humanity.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all manner of evil against you falsely on may account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the very same way they persecuted the prophets before you. Those who follow the path of truth do so very often alone — as they seek to live a life in commitment to the indwelling and transcendent Light Presence and/or a life in which their teaching and practices become a subject of ridicule. These individuals face detractors on a regular basis but, despite that, they continue their labor in service to the actualizing potential of the Human One. Their heart will let them do nothing else because, put quite simply, their heart already knows the truth — and gnowing this truth they will continue steadfast on their course — as did Yeshua, whose sacrifice became a talisman or symbol for humanity to know itself in, to find its own divine potential in. Those who sacrifice all for the sake of the kingdom of heaven are open to the Holy Spirit’s divine grace moving in and through them to touch the very hearts of
men and women.

So, after reflecting on all of this blessedness found in Matthew, I believe the heart star when fully open can become the Sacred Heart — the human heart filled with the Divine Grace of the Holy Spirit, balanced by the most profound knowledge of humanity and self. Because there is no dualism in the Sacred Heart there is no room for excess — only a love and self-awareness that moves mountains, changes the world, and understands the All.

Yeshua said, “Let him who seeks not cease seeking until he finds, and when he finds, he will be troubled. When he has been troubled, he will marvel, and he will reign over the All.” (The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 2)