Soul Matters, Book 2: Wrath of the Goddess

The battle within Phil, between the security of the known and transcendence to the Real, continued over the next few days. During slack moments at work, or instead of meditating in the evening, he searched out the various accounts of ancient man. In this search, he knew, it was really a search to reconnect with his own archaic self -- the ground from which he himself had sprung.

Civilization was a layer over that archaic self, he knew. Disasters showed how close mankind was to barbarism. Although, it also showed how crises did bring out compassion and generosity as well. Tribal man was at once xenophobic as well as committed to making sure that each tribal member enjoyed the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential. It seemed like that tribal inclusiveness was lost somewhere along the way, while the barbarism remained.

Periodically during this fully intellectual pursuit for historical fact, he also explored those inner locations along his ‘imagined’ trail through the forest and down the stairs. Other ‘facts’ were available there -- facts about the slumbering powers of the unconscious and the realm of Nature he could awaken.

Both sets of facts, he eventually realized, formed an unorganized mess cluttering his mind. However, some facts clustered to support his need for security (with its fundamentalist religious conclusions), and some facts supported Manuel’s agenda (with an unknown conclusion -- except for Manuel’s firm hope to get Phil out of the patio).

Two days later, Phil felt ready to confront the angel with what he hoped would be well-thought-out questions. The evolution of humankind, which each child retraced as they grew, could only be as far as society itself had progressed. A society couldn’t support growth past its own mean evolutionary state. That enabled Phil to start his inquiry from a firm foundation.

On a good note, he smiled to himself as he headed for the study, Dr. Loreen hadn’t called him lately. He did feel sorry for whatever happened to her on his account. As a result, he wasn’t happy how Manuel dealt with her. On the other hand, her last guilt-tripping ploy -- “you owe it to me to let me help you” -- was a bit over the top. Fundamentalists did have a fanatical evangelism he overlooked in the past. Overlooking the fanaticism was one price he was willing to pay for security, but he was becoming reluctant to pay that price any longer.

He entered his study and left his thoughts of Dr. Loreen at the door. In the darkened room, the streetlight sent a shaft of light across his desk. Outside, the weather was once more clear, and a half-moon was rising above the cluster of houses on the block. After situating himself on the leather beanbag, he coaxed his mind into a deep meditative state. The singular door opened, and he stepped into the lush flower garden.

Manuel materialized a moment later. Sitting on the marble bench, he said, “Your counselor is having a crisis of faith.”

“Dr. Loreen? What have you done to her?”

“A few little balloon-poppers. It seems your counselor has her degree in economics, not counseling psychology. I let the licensing folks know about it.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” Manuel said dismissively. “She is one person who really needs to get her ego in check.”

Phil moved to the bench, noticing he was dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved, button-down shirt -- a yuppie casual look. He sat and wondered at Manuel’s apparent cruelty.

“Not cruel,” was the angel’s response to his unshielded thoughts. “It’s what we do -- point you away from your egos so you can maybe glimpse the Divine.”

“But she’s not a tightly wrapped person,” Phil argued. “This might push her over the edge.”

“All the better,” Manuel replied without emotion. “If she can’t get it this lifetime, the sooner she exits it, the less damage she’ll do to others.”

“That’s pretty cold-blooded.”

“A trip to Hell would do her some good. She could live out, first hand, the consequences of idolizing the ego.”

“What would it be?” Phil wondered. In his one trip to Hell, it was streets upon streets of people engaged in their vices. However, Manuel once told him people chose their own hell, purgatory, bardo-state, buddha-land, or heaven they thought they deserved. What kind of ‘hell’ would Dr. Loreen land in?

Manuel’s chuckle belied the fact he was in Phil’s mind again, “Imagine a monastery filled with self-important religious folks. All of them eternally arguing for their projection of God.”

Phil shook his head in awe of the inventiveness of angels.

“We’ve had a long time to figure it out,” Manuel spoke to his ‘awe.’ Then he said, “Your mind looks like a teenager’s bedroom.”

Phil brought himself back to his well-thought-out questions.

“It’s pretty cluttered. I’ve been doing research on the whole Uroboros-Typhon stage. It seems to predate the Flood by thousands of years.”

“As a pure stage, or stages, it does,” Manuel agreed. “But the influence of those stages remained -- still remains -- as long as the Great Mother tradition prevailed -- or was repressed and denied rather than transcended and included.”

Phil nodded in acknowledgment but forged on, “Biblical literalists don’t like to go back much further than 4000 BC, but archeologists date the early farming communities to around 9000 BC. Then the bigger agricultural-based cities arose around 4500 BC. And the Flood didn’t come along until a thousand years later.”

“You’re having trouble with the chronology, I take it.”

“Well, yes.”

“I’ve been concentrating on the relevant points,” Manuel informed him. “I forget humans have a sensitivity for time. To be clear, the Grigori were stuck in the Flesh for about 6,000 years. Mankind was still connected to the Spirit world -- the third eye hadn’t closed yet, and the gods and goddesses could still interact with humans. In one sense, it was a pretty chaotic period.”

Phil shook his head to clear it of the burgeoning ramifications of Manuel’s remark, and moved to his next point, “People at the Typhon level would be incapable of constructing a society, but there were societies by, at least, 9000 BC.”

Manuel shifted on the bench before saying, “You really are getting more precise in your thinking, Phil. There is hope.”

“Thanks,” Phil answered dryly.

“Okay,” the angel spoke with salesman-like enthusiasm. “At the Uroboric phase, it’s all about getting enough food to eat. Remember? Fill the belly and you’re back in Paradise. This stage reaches back to millions of years ago. At the Typhonic phase, it’s all about getting to tomorrow and getting enough offspring to insure your immortality. This stage begins around 200,000 BC. With me, so far?”

Phil nodded his head. These were the dates he found in his own research.

Manuel continued, “At the next stage, when the mind becomes active, it does so by creating communities. And it began about 9500 BC. Even so, the Great Mother still ruled those communities, but her rituals became more complex. For one, this was when man figured out he didn’t have to sacrifice humans to appease her. He could offer substitute sacrifices -- such as animals or enemies when she wanted blood, or other substitutes if she wasn’t thirsty.”

“I got stuck here,” Phil interjected. “I know you said blood equals life. But how did they connect it to actual sacrifice?”

“Ah,” Manuel smiled, and his aura rippled with pastel colors. “Good question. The answer has to do with mortality. Once man figured out he would die someday, he tried to fend off the moment of death by providing the Angels of Death with substitutes.”

“Alright,” Phil frowned as he incorporated the thought. “It makes sense, but the anthropologists also point out prior to the rise of civilization, there were no wars. Are wars a product of this substitute sacrifice agenda?”

“Most definitely,” Manuel concurred. “Better some stranger or enemy who believes in false gods than you and your buddies.”

Phil’s frowned deepened, “It’s still going on then.”

“Most definitely.”

“How can it be?” Phil’s voice took on a tone of horrified disbelief. “We seem to have progressed so far, and yet we have gone nowhere at all in 10,000 years.”

“Like I told you the other day,” Manuel began, “when you repress something, it comes back in its unsupervised shadow form to bite you on the butt.”

“You’re suggesting we repressed Mother Earth?”

“And the Goddess with her,” the angel clarified. “What do you think this means to you?”

The question bumped Phil out of his shock, because he had been asking the same question as a defense to Manuel’s teachings. Having the tables turned on him, in the middle of their conversation, ultimately made him laugh. The laughter seemed to drain the tension from his mind.

But the angel wasn’t going to let him off so easily, “Well?”

“Well, I’m not sure. But the opposite of denial is acceptance. Therefore, I would need to accept my body, along with all its drives and needs, and I would have to accept it must die. I would also have to accept Mother Earth and all of her children.”

“And the sooner the better,” Manuel redounded, “the rape of the Earth needs to stop. But you also have to accept the Goddess within you in order for all these other acceptances to actually work. Inner creates outer.”

Phil nodded his head in agreement and realized his recent activities, up and down the imaginary stairs in the Nature realm, were accomplishing just this task.

“Good,” the angel once again spoke to Phil’s thoughts. “Put your trail up on the wall.”

Phil did so. Soon the tree-lined trail stabilized on the magic-wall. They both left the marble bench and stepped onto the trail through the forest. Phil marveled at what an alive place it had become. It was a vibrant micro-environment where he felt at home.

Manuel marched with purpose down the trail to the stairs, then to the bottom of the stairs. There he commanded, “Put an archway here.” He was pointing at the gray emptiness the stairs led to.

Phil struggled to find the ‘right’ archway to construct. Three or four different ones started to appear in the gray static before them, but each dissolved. Manuel was no help; he stood by exuding impatience.

Finally, the angel said, “Relax. Let the form of the archway come up from the core of your being.”

Eventually, a stone arch flickered into existence. It was massive. Some twenty feet tall, the arch was three feet thick. On its face, cut in bas-relief, was scrollwork forming a border for runic symbols and hieroglyphs.

Phil took a step back to marvel at the enormity of the structure, but quickly became disturbed by the pagan symbols inscribed on its face.

Manuel caught his concern and said, “The transcendent is a non-verbal place. Therefore those avatars who achieved transcendence end up using the existing symbols of their cultures to communicate with others. As you may have figured out, the religious language of the Goddess and Mother Earth was the same language -- although they existed at opposite ends of the ladder of development.”

“But I don’t know any of these languages,” Phil said in confusion, pointing to the etched letters and symbols on the arch.

“Well, I didn’t put them there. Must be from some of your other lives.”

“Can you read any of it?”

“Of course,” the angel answered and peered at the stone arch. “There’s a reference to Odin. One to Ptah. Another to Morrigan. It seems you’ve confined yourself to Celtic, Nordic, and Egyptian lives. Oh, there’s also some Aramaic and Hebrew.”

“What does it mean?” Phil’s voice was still demanding, as this production of his -- this arch -- was now more than a little distressing.

“Something,” Manuel shrugged, “but only to you. I can’t make heads or tails out of it. It’s a jumble of symbols with religious or totemic significance.”

Acting on a strong impulse, Phil stepped forwards and placed his hand on one of the symbols. Immediately his mind filled with dream-like images of an ocean voyage in an open Viking-like boat.

He removed his hand and stepped back again, “Whoa. What a trip. That was way cool.”

His original concern, he soon realized, was a product of his yuppie-self. His new glee, as might be expected, came from his hippie-self -- the probable cause behind the sudden impulse to touch a symbol. Impulse control wasn’t valued much by hippies.

Manuel broke into Phil’s Self-marveling, “Have you gotten over this enough to wonder what the arch may lead to?”

“What?” Phil said absently. Then, “Oh, yeah. What’s this archway lead to?’

“Before we get there,” Manuel said with the aura blazing that signaled an eye roll. “Imagine a thick curtain of energy filling the entire arch.”

Phil did so, and a silvery curtain of rippling energy appeared within the confines of the ancient-looking stone archway. It was opaque, though, like quicksilver. Phil couldn’t see through to the other side.

“Do we go through?” Phil asked in an eager voice.

“Not today. Your mind isn’t ready to accept what’s there.”

“Well, what do I need to know?” Phil’s voice was powered by the impatience of the inner-hippie.

“It’s more about what you need to unlearn,” Manuel said as he turned to mount the stairs.

“Like what?” Phil demanded as he hastened to keep up with the angel.

“What if I told you Noah was a child of the Nephilim?”

The question rang in his mind until they stepped back into the angel’s patio. Phil turned and imagined the wall back to its natural state. The trail disappeared, and the wall returned.

He pivoted to face the angel. Not sure what to say, he asked, “Was your original idea a success? Did you get angel genes into the human gene-pool?”

“Not really,” Manuel replied. Then he asked, “Did you ever wonder why all the Patriarchs’ wives seemed to be barren?”

“Well, no.”

“It wasn’t because they couldn’t have children. It was the men,” Manuel explained. “We found it was only in rare circumstances children came from mating with angels and their off-spring. Sort of like horses and donkeys. They produce sterile mules. Therefore, most of the Nephilim were sterile.”

“But some weren’t,” Phil concluded. “Some were able to reproduce, and one of those children was Noah. His line, then, had the recessive gene of impotence. It took generations to erase the gene.”

“Yep. The sterility kept showing up down the line,” Manuel confirmed. “We got a little creative with Abraham, but it’s not important to our task.”

Phil let the matter drop out of his over-full mind. He brought his attention back to the problem of the repression of Nature, in both its Mother Earth form and its Goddess implications.

He prompted the angel, “It seems I need to accept Mother Earth and the Goddess, instead of repressing them, but I’m not sure how it’s accomplished.”

“Yeah, it’s a problem,” Manuel commiserated. “One of the properties of repression is it’s gone from consciousness. So how do you get it back into consciousness in order to actually accept it? Especially because you have to accept it before you can get it into consciousness to begin with. It’s a wicked feedback loop.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“Well, I was stalling so you could figure it out yourself,” Manuel said tersely. “But it seems less than likely you’ll do so. It’s intention. Remember? INTENTION.”

“I just set an intention to have all that stuff de-repress?”

“Yeah, you just set an intention,” Manuel’s sarcasm returned full-force.

Phil realized whatever he accomplished so far in the realm of Spirit was either accidental or was under the direction of Manuel. He wasn’t sure how to actually set an intention -- at least, not the kind of intention the angel seemed to be talking about.

“You’ve been to management trainings, haven’t you?”

“Lots,” Phil replied.

“The better of those trainers have some of the details worked out on how to set intentions. What do you remember about all those ‘goal-setting’ lectures?”

“Well, you have to break it down into short-term and long-term goals. All the way down to what you might need to do each hour of the day.”

“Which does nothing more than bring your focus to the goals you wish to accomplish.”

“I see,” Phil’s dark eyes brightened. “Focus is the mechanism for intention.”

“Right.”

“But how do I focus on my unconscious?”

“All personal memory,” was Manuel’s reply. “The first area on your trail -- where the bookcase is. Go to the bookcase, sit on the up-trail side of it and dredge up the memories of when and why you repressed Mother Earth.”

It seemed too simplistic a solution to what seemed a much more complex problem.

“It is just that simple,” Manuel confirmed. “What’s not so simple is how much resistance you’ll have. You repressed it for a reason.”

Phil sighed. It was true. He didn’t want to examine his past. It was too painful.