Tav
It is finished.
With those words, a man (some might say otherwise) proclaimed victory in the midst of a seemingly bitter defeat. It was not what it seemed to be. The illusion, from one perspective, was stripped away, and the Holy Sparks were raised in that moment, sanctifying not only he who saw and spoke, but all present, including (according to lore) those present who would soon be dead.
He passed into a dark realm from there. A realm where he saw those in captivity. A place of torment, generated by the psychic essence of the guilt of those souls bound there. Again he husked those Divine Sparks, and again the illusion was destroyed.
The veil was rent… the sparks released from their husks.
Tav is Passus, a step by agonizing step look at the world around us, methodically remembering first, “Physician, heal thyself,” and then performing triage.
It’s not always easy. Sometimes you lose people that are your friends. I know I’ve lost a few. Otter mentioned the Dweller. There are those who never even make it to that stage, and even fewer make it further.
But Tav isn’t just suffering/passion.
It’s also about bringing things into being:
http://www.inner.org/hebleter/tav.htm
“G-d’s seal (in Creation) is truth (in Hebrew, emet, spelled out by the final letters of the three last words in the account of Creation: bara elokim la’asot,” ” …G-d created ‘to do’”). The last letter or seal of the word emet, “truth,” itself – the seal of G-d’s seal – is the letter tav, simple faith, the conclusion and culmination of all twenty-two forces – letters – active in Creation.”
- R. Ginsburgh in his essay ‘TAV: Impression – The Seal of Creation’
A seal, a mark, a sign.
Song of Songs 8:6-7
“6 Set me as a seal upon thy heart,
as a seal upon thine arm;
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is cruel as the grave;
the flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
a very flame of HaShem.7 Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it;
if a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
he would utterly be contemned.”
If I must be scorned, let it be for the sake of love. Let it be for doing something that I truly believe in, something worth being scorned over. Am I living my life in such a way that the trouble I take is for doing the thing that I love? Is that not a mark upon the heart, a seal upon the arm, and the very flame that ignites the letters, the name of HaShem within me? As the Shekinah glows within, so does the mark of Tav reflect that glory without.
O Death, where is thy victory?
If we juxtapose here for a second, Casteneda might say that Death’s Victory is in producing an impeccable Warrior. A glowing being full of numenous presence. A man possessed of the Horns of Moses or the Halo.
So we understand the benefits, but what about the consequences? After all, isn’t Tav also related to Saturn, limitation, and responsibility (which I have explored somewhat above)? I would say it is. Again, indulge my juxtaposition here, and allow me to illustrate my point with a couple of quotes from Casteneda:
‘”I will never reach Ixtlan,” he said. His voice was firm but soft, almost a murmur. “Yet in my feelings … in my feelings sometimes I think I’m just one step from reaching it. Yet I never will. In my journey I don’t even find the familiar landmarks I used to know. Nothing is any longer the same.” Don Juan and don Genaro looked at each other. There was something so sad about their look…’
and
‘”…If you survive the shock, which I’m sure you will, since you’re strong and have been living like a warrior, you will find yourself alive in an unknown land. Then, as is natural to all of us, the first thing you will want to do is to start on your way back to Los Angeles. But there is no way to go back to Los Angeles. What you left there is lost forever. By then, of course, you will be a sorcerer, but that’s no help; at a time like that what’s important to all of us is the fact that everything we love or hate or wish for has been left behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the sorcerer starts on his way back home knowing that he will never reach it, knowing that no power on earth, not even his death, will deliver him to the place, the things, the people he loved. That’s what Genaro told you.”‘
The Mequbalim will be made finally and irrevocably a ‘stranger in a strange land’. There is no returning to Egypt.
And now, two seemingly opposed sides to this coin are before us:
‘”Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge,” he said. “Because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.”‘
[Casteneda quotes are from Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Casteneda]
The horror of manifestation, the pathos of existence was what rent the veil. The man, cut to the very root of his soul, became a heretic. The pain was too great and the backlash overwhelmed him. This is not to condemn, but to prepare you, my reader for what will inevitably happen to you as well. Eventually the pain will overcome you, and the backlash will overwhelm you. We all react differently to this balancing act of terror and wonder, as described by the Pardes Story. These 4 strategies generally describe all human reaction to the numinous. It is in the moment of manifestation that we decide what our life will be like in the wake thereof.
It is finished, it is sealed, the very moment it is begun. This is the heart of Tav.
“Write … as it liketh you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring: for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse.”
- Esther 8:8
Breakout…
“When you look at the history of the United States, we have had many temporary aberrations — the internment of the Japanese Americans in the Second World War, the McCarthy era, Watergate, and so on. We went on to greater and better things. If we now reject Bush, I think we can resume our place in the world as a powerful but peace-loving nation. If we endorse him by giving him another four years, then we are losing ourselves to something that I find extremely scary. I think that we might end up in a permanent state of war, because the war against terror — it doesn’t need to come to an end. The Bush approach facilitates terrorism, re-energizing itself by creating more terrorists.”
- George Soros, Author Of “The Bubble Of American Supremacy: Correcting The Misuse Of American Power”
Hineni
“So now I find myself trapped in a world between sea and shore…”
- quoted from the anime, “Aura Battler Dunbine”
The Importance of being Pan
Post-apocalyptic America… We’d taken shelter in the sales office of a large used car lot. There were people still outside (no rad-gear) but they weren’t the type of people that you’d let in. They were more along the lines of the type of people you’d shoot in a Resident Evil game. There were few enough of us, and eventually more were there, so I assume they figured out a way to survive the outside, and make the journey. We were eventually accosted by the people who used to run the business, and everyone obeyed them because they were so self-assured. At some point they disappeared, and there was a conflict. The dealership office was divided into two, and the two sides took up residence in front and back. Eventually I helped my side overcome the other, and a peaceful solution was worked out. I looked down to see an ancient man with one eye and a hook hand, who said to me, “You’ve not changed at all, Pan”
There were others. Other settings, other worlds. They flipped before me like Rolodex cards, then fluttered away.
***************************************
It rained, and yet there was still smoke on the mountain. Burning trees and multi-generational dreams make for an odd smell.
The Dark
Thinking about getting a degree through University of Phoenix Online. Not sure right now…
I remembered. I think I was 6 or 7 at the time. It was a harmless thing. They didn’t want me anywhere I could cause trouble, so they’d make me sleep between the two of them. If I moved everyone would get pissed. Occasionally I would be spanked. No biggie. It was when I surrendered finally that it started. I would lay in the darkness, completely still. Most people my age have never heard of Arch Obler, but well, he had a radio show, and one of the episodes was called The Dark. The Dark would creep up out of normal darkness and turn people inside out. They used a wet rubber glove sound (or something akin) to simulate the process, but in my mind, two policemen were still laying on the floor, guts to the world. It, almost literally, scared the piss out of me. Needless to say, when I was laying there, trying not to move too much, the first thing that came to mind was that radio show. Immediately the fear gripped me, and I could see shapes moving in the darkness (no windows in this room either, just a very large mirror). I could feel the air thicken in my chest, and I was sure I was going to end up like the guys in the story. And it kept going. And it kept going. And even if it ended for a day, next Sunday, the horror would come again. The suffocating darkness. The darkness I protected myself against by putting my own hands around my neck, in the style of the Egyptians. I remembered why I hate sleeping at night without music (King Sheol/Saul) and I remembered why I prefer everyone else be asleep before I go to bed.
So anyway, it’s been a rough week, although it’s nice to be able to acknowledge these things and move on.
There was more than just this issue, but I’d rather leave this one on it’s own to represent the others.
Octobereleventhsnightdream
Written October 12, 2000
by Casey Sheldon
i dreamed that you and i were together again
not because i saw you in my dream
because i felt you and you felt me
we were something again and
i was sitting around a table talking
to friends… Nick, Adam, and
then they’d switch, people slowly
fading into and becoming other people
and then returning at will
but i didn’t see you
you were in me
and i was in you
we were one
we are one
Dream fragment
A grey and red clouded sky is all that is visible from the edge of a small island on which I stand. The sea is dark and choppy, but we have just sailed across it to come here. We turn to see a gate of iron (How many there are, I don’t know). We enter (reminds me in imagery of the Moria entrance painting)
==
Well, turns out my record wasn’t quite cleaned up. Lost the chance to get the yearbook job because I had an arrest still on my record. It would have disappeared, had I not been charged with something that was later dropped. But because of that, I still have a fairly bad looking record.
Yesterday I started to feel the weight of 3 years of work that had all gone to nothing. They tell you (I was still pretty fucked up at the time) that you’ll be able to re-integrate into society, that everything will be okay. Now I don’t fit in either place. Stuck in the middle with you…
I didn’t snap. Almost did. Broke down and wept for a bit, at the uselessness of all of it. So I’m putting one foot in front of the other, so that I don’t fall over or give up or just lay down and die. It seems to be working. Started doing the Yichudim again last night… I find mechanical practice to be the best remedy during times when I don’t want to do anything at all. YMMV
Pantheacon
So much I could say about Pantheacon.
It was a lot of fun. Got to participate in a bid for peace. Got to hook up with interesting people that I would like to talk to at greater length (You know who you are 
. Unfortunately I was also suffering from a bad ear infection that caused me a lot of pain, and tended to afflict me with waves of vertigo when there was too much noise. That made a couple of situations sort of awkward, but I hope it wasn’t percieved as rude.
Would have liked to have been able to meet more people…
Got to eat raw fish for the first time… it was pretty tasty once I got used to the idea of it.
Picked up a Hebrew equivalent to runes… fun stuff for me, seeing as I work primarily through the letters. Maybe I should go back to the Abacys project (alphabet with each letter corresponding to an astrological concept – the phonemes cover the larger part of the IPA charts, which allow for substitution in multiple languages).
Shin – Sun, Fire, Propagation
Okay…
I’d like to wrap this baby up by explaining in more detail some of the things I wrote about earlier in the letter. Experiences suggests that there are a few nuances I wasn’t aware of previously.
“I also believe that the Breaking of the Vessels, as described by the Ari,
may be seen as both a microcosmic and a macrocosmic effect. In the
microcosmic version, though, the collective consciousness of humanity may
have been shattered as a reflection of a larger metaphysical event that
occured during the process of creation. Shin is said to be representative of
the Breaking of the Vessels, as well as the Reparations thereof, and even
the World-to-Come (a new letter, like a Shin, but with 4 heads is supposed
to be added to the aleph-beit in the World-to-Come). Consider that of all
the elements, Fire is the only one spelled with an Aleph (the Desire for
Union), and that this Aleph is joined to a Shin.”
First of all, let me establish that I don’t see fire as a ‘type’ of energy, so much as any energy that acts in certain ways. Fire tends to spread unevenly (unlike Mayim/waters), can spread upwards or downwards or both (also unlike Mayim/waters) and is a catalyst that causes other energetic types to ‘combust’ – ie break down their structures of memory and disperse.
But these are energetic descriptions which don’t tell us much at the level of experience.
To the quoted paragraph I’d like to make an correction to the end of the last sentence: “…and that this Aleph accomplishes its purpose through Shin”
However the purpose it seeks, Union, can be both positive and negative in its effects. Unification within a societal context can produce wonderful things or terrible things (from Stonehenge to the Holocaust – I know there are probably better things than Stonehenge, but gimme a break here). This drive toward Unity reminds me of the RIP protocol from my TCP/IP class… it routes a connection through the shortest number of hops (servers that the connection is passed through), but if those hops happen to be slower than another route with more hops, it still goes for the lesser number of hops. OSPF – Open Shortest Path First – is more efficient, but takes up more overhead to run (I don’t know how often this consideration enters into the realm of practical knowledge, but it illustrates that both have downsides).
Same thing with people. If we want a smoother path, we have to be willing to ‘be here now’ and take into consideration our actions as they effect others. Like I mentioned in previous posts, because of the nature of consciousness, this sort of responsible action is somewhat contagious. If a critical mass can be achieved at lower levels – neighborhoods, communities, even smallish towns, then the process can work it’s way into larger masses. That’s the slow route.
This link was written after the NY power outage. There are indications that correctly placed ‘interventions’ can cause massive unifications, and the precision of the occurance can outshine the normal barriers (shells) that interfere with group consciousness alterations. That’s the quick way. Not really a lot of ‘science’ that deals with these sorts of events though, unless you want to start calling up old revival preachers in seances. Probably not a good idea.
However, I think also that the collective unconscious propagates by similar principles, which at this point, is part of the problem. The human collective has expanded its girth to the point that it must now be dealt with in a different way. The methods of the past are no longer effective enough. Meme propagation is more difficult because of the fact that in some places information is freely available, and in others takes enormous amounts of time to move. This gap is becoming an ever-widening reminder that the individuality of humans can be a great asset, and a problem in some respects at the same time.
In the context of spirituality, you might look at certain societies as moving towards unification and others as moving away. As indicated by the Nun in the name Shin, this direction is decided by the subconcious drives within the national ego (although these country/people/extended tribe lines aren’t necessarily the same as national boundaries). The key, if you wished to cause a unification of all nations, would be to find a country with many people from various other countries, and to push it into a hyper-unification mode, whether through trauma originating outside of itself (unite against the foe) or through the resolution of internal complexes (civil rights as a past issue that would represent such a complex). I would tend to see the resolution of internal complexes as a more healthy method, as unification against a foe tends to produce inefficiency in the way of guilt as a side effect, which creates a complex that later will have to be dealt with. Also uniting against a foe involves projecting power onto an outside source in order to produce enough resistance to cause a reaction on the part of the country in question. Without enough resistance, the effect of the unification is only temporary and can cause more damage than good. Some have suggested the the backlash of an unsuccessful unification (sometimes even a successful one) is a sacrifice.
That’s the dark fire. God sacrifices himself to himself to accomplish the Tzimtzum… and as Eco says, “In the beginning He created a point, which became Thought, where all the figures were drawn. He was and was not, He was encompassed in the name yet not encompassed in the name, having as yet no name other than the desire to be called by a name…He traced signs in the air; a dark light leapt from His most secret depth, like a colorless mist that gives form to formlessness, and as the mist spread, a burst of flames took shape in its center, and the flames streamed down to illuminate the lower Sefirot, and down, down to the Kingdom.
But perhaps in that simsun, that diminishment, that lonely separation-Diotallevi said-there was already the promise of the return.”
Shin can be an entropic force also. The NY thing, not just as the spread of one force, but as the diminishment of one and the spreading of another. In Shin, if I take this job, I may be taking money out of the mouth of another. It doesn’t mean I won’t take the job. It just means I should remember these things. Illuminate them and understand them, for no other reason than that.
Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the sunlight of awareness, and being completely aware of everything around us that is occuring, instead of living an hour ago, or an hour from now. Shin is also that sort of numinous awareness of being. It allows us to choose truly what we are to become through understanding what we are right now. As I said at the beginning, fire can move upwards and downwards. If something is to change in the Upper Worlds, I cannot depend on anyone else but myself, because if I become a raging fire, for good or for ill, then the worlds around me will change also.
The Ministry of Strange Actions
First dream of a couple of nights ago….
I dreamed I was in the shower, and that I heard a sound at the door. I paid no attention to the sound, because my door was locked and bolted, and I knew that my cats were probably just being really noisy (as my cats are wont to do). So I finished showering and got dressed, then checked on the cats. I didn’t see anything, but when I turned around and looked in the kids room, there was a man standing in their room, standing over Booka. Waves of that sense of evil rolled off of him…
Second dream of yesterday…
This dream started out with me in my bed… I was looking at the door when white light came through the cracks around it. I moved quickly blocking the light with my hands and feet. The light was tainted… by what I did not know. I stepped out of the room to see what was going on. A group of five people were standing inside my door. I told them to sit down… they were from a local church, here to inform me I was going to hell. I began to explain myself to them, then gave up. So I told them, “Everything I do is a demonstration of who I am… if you do not watch carefully and interpret, you’ll miss it.” Suddenly I was prompted through a series of Ma’asim Zarim (strange actions) and after each one I would look at them and ask, “Did God reveal to you what that meant?” I continued to get louder and began to rail at them. Finally one of them said, “I see… your action meant…” and told me what I was thinking as I was walking in an almost Python-esque way. Then I woke up…
