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!