Pillars of the Portico

Before you let me go, remember
That I was special to you, once
Not just two fishes swimming
In the same month, but the joining
Of Sun and Moon forever
Above the cold fronts

Perhaps I am tired
Of not being who you think I am
Of justifying nothing
To escape self-doubt?
And perhaps you are simply bored
With your perceptions -
Or is it opportunity
You surmount, unthinking
For tomorrow?
Where you walk the world follows -
Footsteps I can’t count
Only sorrows.

Can you let it fade, or did it first glow
Only from your reflection?
The truth is, I am neither then, nor now,
Cannot be deduced by circumspection
You’ve reinvented me twice
And yet I remain unborn
I am not the ressurection
Nor your idea of things
There are no images to clothe the motions
No keys, no words, no strings
To attach
I am more than can be scratched
At by the loose digits of the mind.

Let it go, and keep me
Free from what you find
In definition of your own being
The legitimate of pride
For I am tired of all this seeing
And searching around inside
Just come up now and hold me
Right here, within your heart
Lay me down, and gently unfold me
To keep me close
Let’s lie here a million ages
Before the worlds upstart
I end in your beginning -
My substance is your ghost
I end in your beginning -
I love you the most.

Over the last couple of months you might have felt like you’ve been in a blender, or rent in several different directions without really going anywhere.  Relationships may have been trying, circumstances restrictive and unyielding, business difficult and unfruitful.  There have been a lot of forceful planetary aspects so far this summer, most notably between Jupiter and Saturn.  These are trying times, and much is being pushed toward its own awakening.

Jupiter and Saturn are slow moving, ponderous planets and the movements they illustrate have gradual and lasting effects.  Saturn, especially, can be restrictive and frustrating, signifying hardship, boundaries and self-discipline.  What is forceful and restrictive, despite ultimately being in our own best interest, is nearly always experienced as unpleasant.  No one likes to be at the mercy of circumstances beyond their control.

Unfortunately, these aspects are reactivating as Jupiter turns retrograde on July 24, to apply to a mutual opposition with Saturn from Aries, before crossing back into Pisces again.  This opposition perfects August 16.  Jupiter goes direct on November 19, 2010.  That means there’s more to come, first as Jupiter retrogrades against Saturn, who is about to enter Libra, and then again in early 2011 when Jupiter comes back to cross the opposition a third time as he reenters Aries.

The persistence and frustration of the opposition has been compounded by the fact that Jupiter entered his first station (when a planet appears stationary previous to retrograding) almost at the point of opposition.  I’m writing this in late July (July 20) and for the last few weeks Saturn, the slower planet, has actually been applying to Jupiter, who has slowed almost to a standstill.  This makes everything slow, culminating, heavy and lasting.  Like heavy boots of lead and a long ladder to climb.

Saturn is a cold, distant planet, significant of boundaries and distinction.  Saturn delineates and casts off.  Saturn discriminates and criticizes.  The effects of Saturn can appear cruel and exacting.  Yet the sphere of Saturn, and all of the cold and dry Saturnine dispositions under it, are crucial for our evolution beyond the pleasures we, in the modern age, frequent in the pursuit of happiness.  Real happiness cannot come from the things that make us happy alone.  Lasting happiness comes in overcoming – and in contradistinction to – hardship.  Saturn is obliging, in this regard.

 Saturn is the highest planet of the ancient Astrology.  The seventh sphere, beyond which the astral host assembles before God.  As the highest, and the slowest, Saturn is the last of the archons – the last sphere to pass on our souls’ ascent to the source and center of All.  It is no accident that, among other restrictive qualities peculiar to human existence, old-age is given to Saturn.  Loneliness, miserliness, yet also occult and secret knowledge, are his.  Saturn is the last and hardest lesson for us to abide, here beneath the Moon.  Saturn is deliberate and pedantic.  There is no immediacy or pleasuring under Saturn.  Saturn requires study, discipline, dedication, constancy, and exertion.  Saturn requires an amount of self-sacrifice to something larger than yourself.

 Saturn is there to remind us of the most important lessons of all:  the ones we don’t want to learn.  Imagine if in school you were able to pick the subjects you wanted and to ignore the ones you didn’t.  You would be “happy” in school, yet insignificantly so: you would miss some of the most eye-opening and lasting lessons.  How often have we found our most profound experiences precisely where we weren’t looking for them?  This is true adventure, and a necessary winding of soul experience.  To come to learn secrets in places you never expected them is to discover the beginning of the mystery where the appearances of things change, and our perceptions shift in revelation.  This is eye-opening; life is not simply the reaffirmation of our own prejudices. 

 Often we are our own worst influence – the ego loves to pleasure and fan itself.  Yet it is the destruction of the ego which reveals the majesty and the true nature of the soul.  Again, Saturn obliges.

So, this opposition will continue to stir up conflicts and circumstance.  Jupiter, the natural significator of wealth and prosperity, will by dried up by Saturn.  Tensions will be increased and released.  Water, wind, fire and heat will be stirred up, literally and figuratively.  Mars applies conjunction to Saturn in Libra (a place Mars is disagreeable to) late July, bringing force and drive.  Accidents and problems crop up.  Venus and Mars carry the opposition through Libra sparking passion and lustiness through to the New Moon in September (September 8).  Relationships will appear like tugs of war, forcing one way, then the next.  Best thing to do is to ride with the waves, and see where they take you.  Plan and persevere, but don’t seek to control.

 This summer and early fall, change may be coming in your life.  Change is always coming.  No matter what, embrace it.  It’s good to get out of your own way.

In the morning I watch you wake
To shine like the Sun
Echoes of last night’s dreams
The morning left undone
To begin this brand new day.

Your skin is soft as morning air
Your limbs will move at last
as sunlight tangles in your hair
and sets afire the dust

I wish that I could stay

Watching you wake is like watching life
Return after Spring
A world filled with invisible warmth
Golden, & forever green

If I could lie there, & all day breathe you in
I would lie there
Comforted
If I could hold you beneath my arms, & waste the pressing hours
I would hold you
If I could kiss your million smiles
I would be fulfilled
Yet emptiness confounds these tears
When distance is revealed

What happened, my gentle love
That you and I should part?
How can something, new as dawn
So quickly, strangely wilt?
What walls have we let circumstance
Build here between us?
How can we, so close today
Be altogether distant?

I want to take an axe
And chop away these hours
I’d gladly smash the clock
And set the house on fire
If I could stop the swamp
From drowning all I want -
All I want is you -
To watch you slowly wake
Today.  Right now. Forever.
Pressed up close
For Heaven’s sake

Bones wrapped around bones
Heaving in your breaths
Your patch alive with dew
Going, going, gone
One night yet
A thousand deaths
- Two lives -
Unrepressed
Joined by silent sadness
where tears know joy nor pain
Where hearts are clouds
And eyes are suns
Washed with morning rain

I leave my ghost across the sheets
Where yesterday I lay
And head out across the mundane streets
Spreading out decay
To murder all I love the most
In the brightness of the day.

Know nothing -
That knowledge may be revealed
In the empty space you make for it
Knowledge is received
In this way, learning is only preparation
a letting go of the steeled
Habits of your own justification
and relentless ego.

 Knowledge is not vengeful
Neither does it stir up anger
It does not harm, nor discriminate
Knowledge remains peaceful
Unattached, disinterested, for its own nourishment
It is given away.

 When you know everything
You know nothing.
When you know nothing
Everything is revealed
In its essential Oneness
Empty of all preconception
Hollow as the void
Knowledge joins eternally
Only error makes separation
in boundaries of ignorance
Your error is what you think you know,
The unerring is only One.

 Know nothing, so that you can become nothing
Create the space you fill by hiding
Realize your own absense
Move out from your shadow
And perceive the essential Light
This is your chariot
and Wisdom becomes it
Thus creation knows
It is moved
It returns
Judgment becomes adjustment
A necessary learning, upward
Where the soul goes

One of the great challenges of the initiate is the balancing of the spiritual aspiration with the necessaries of mundane life.  We are constantly forced to maintain life even while we seek to transcend it.

There seem two ways to resolve this issue.  The first is to walk out into the world, leaving everything behind.  This is indeed tempting, except the world is now owned a million ways, and by 7 billion people.  The wild game is vanishing, the waters no longer fit for drinking, the weather variable, and the neighbors unsympathetic (and sometimes downright hostile).  It seems the days of the minstrel and the pilgrim are over.

The second is a veritable balancing act.

In the modern world, it seems we must partition our mind, even as we seek to unify it.   On the one hand, various roles are necessary as we earn a living.  On the other, no act is too unseemly for the scoundrel.  For while God will provide for the faithful, yet the unfaithful stir up circumstances to prevent Him.  Even if one is somehow able to escape the fates, and transcend the influences pulled at by the lower soul, still the crowd is moved by it.  In an unsteady sea, no matter how great your boat, sailing is difficult.

To make time requires discipline and preparedness.  It takes courage and dedication.  It seems you can be free of this requirement, and have all the time available, in three simple ways:

1. Have nothing.
2. Have everything.
3. Do only what you love.

Most of us must pursue the third category.  The problem arises in making what you love to do profitable enough to survive, to move unfettered by the circumstances of the crowd.  More often than not, in the modern world, this is attained by some form of sales.  Selling art, selling music, selling ideas, selling your time.  But one thing is for sure, if you don’t love what you do, you will never do well.  Yet the question remains, how can you sell love?  How can you prostitute truth?  Love only grows when it is given away.  Truth is inviolable.

So, here’s my advice.  To hit no. 1 become a monk.  Become a vagrant.  Be willing to be destitute, walk barefoot across an endless landscape of empty tires, plastic bags, and broken bottles.  “Tune in, turn on, and drop out.”  But the 60s failed.

For no. 2. inherit a fortune, make a billion dollars, conquer the world.  This one never seems to work – by virtue of attaining the fortune, or the world, the focus is already lost, and the soul is destitute even amidst the lap of luxury.  “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.”

No. 3 really is the only option.  To find love in everything, to love what you do, labor becomes joy.  It takes great courage.  How many of us spend the majority of our days in some dull, dead-end job, hoping to find meaning somewhere between the cracks where the cubicles join, or washed up beside the water cooler?  To make the great decision means letting go of all false promises.  If no one bought a dollar, the bank would go bust.  Maybe it’s time to quit that job, and follow your heart.  Say goodbye to the house, farewell to the mortgage, trust only in God and strike out after your dream.  “Sweep someone’s house.  That says enough,” Mother Teresa reminds us.

So what is you dream?  What are the three things you most want?  Write them down.  If they in any way differ, you’re in trouble.

In Ancient Greek there are four names for love.  Each of these is different, yet united by that same bond.  In Platonic theology, it is these loves that bind and hold all things together.  Just like gravity holds the physical world of the cosmos in harmony, so do these loves hold and harmoniously bind the invisible universe beyond the material.

The four types of love are Agape, Philia, Storge, and Eros.  These four loves can be equated with the four worlds, the four elements and the four letters of the Tetragrammaton.

Agape (“love”) is the higher love, the pure love of Deity and His love for the creation.  It is the sustaining archetype from which all the others are wrought in their different shades.  It is like the first Yod in the Ineffable Name, the Fire of spirit.  It is love in the world of Atziluth.  In the material world it is evinced by the virtuous love between spouses and the devotion to Deity.  It has a remarkable property: the more it is given, the more it grows.  Agape is the first and sustaining law of the Invisible.

Philia (“friendship”) is the love of brotherhood, of friends and family.  It is a bond like Agape, but without the devotional connotation.  It can be unconditional, but is more easily broken than that of Agape.  It is love in the world of Beriah, the first Heh in the Ineffable name, equivalent to Air in the spiritual, the intellectual archetype, and is manifest in the material plane by the love of friendship, brotherhood, and the obligated bonds of knighthood.

Storge (“affection”) is best expressed as the parental love for one’s offspring.  Often unconditional it is different than Agape – Agape is a love between equals, or from a lower to a higher.  Storge is irrational, and stems downward.  It is love in the world of Yetzirah, consonant with the Vav in the Ineffable Name, the Yod extending into the Earth, the elemental Water, from whence creation was wrought.  It is like a reflection of Agape; and the image of Agape is birthed in the waters.

Eros (“erotic love”) is love sexually expressed.  When united with Agape, Eros is the material expression of uniting opposites and the propagation of creation.  Without Agape it devolves to lust; rather than growing more abundant as it is given away, the more it is given the more it must take.  Thus, it can be considered the inversion of Agape or Agape’s perfect expression depending on when and how it is evinced.  Eros is the final Heh in the Ineffable Name, the elemental Earth, the manifestation of form brought through the other loves, to bind the universe in its material expression.  And, in the microcosm, it is the bringing together of physical forms to create anew.

All these loves are contained in the first, just as all the elements contain the first Fire.  Agape can exist by itself.  Yet, without Agape, Philia, Storge, and Eros cannot possibly exist.

“We’re perpetuating a building, in which every stone is a living man, every arch the grasping of hands.  Together, we uphold the whole.” 

There are many powerful forces behind Masonry that have helped sustain it through the ages, but perhaps none is more powerful than that of its brotherhood.  Aside from our many activities, Masons make Masons.  It’s one of the most vital parts of being a Mason, the part that extends the Brotherhood and maintains it. 

 In making Masons, the Brothers assemble to put on the necessary rituals.  There is bonding that occurs when brothers unite for a specific purpose.  Not only do they learn the rituals inside and out (which is of itself beneficial), the necessary practices and memorization help bind them together, and come to know each other, in surprising ways. The experience is something like constructing an edifice, or, sometimes, fighting a war.  Anyone who has taken part in a ritual will tell you there is something much like stage fright preceding every enactment, which makes the whole thing a little nerve-wracking.  When it’s over, one feels a part of something, something that required energy, diligence, self-control, discipline and coordination among many different people.  This coeval experience is a powerful agent for strengthening bonds between men.  It’s a kind of shared history, with significance common to a group: shared memories, joys and hardship. Shared experience in the common pursuit of a goal. 

 And, let us not forget, the ritual has a powerful impact on the candidate for whom the whole thing is rendered.  He really comes to know his new brothers through their hard work and preparations to receive him.  You can learn a lot about a man by watching him play other people.  The choices we make define us, and our actions bespeak them. 

 I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit over the last year or so:  It’s amazing the bonds that develop between men who otherwise would likely never meet.  Men of different faiths, backgrounds, tax brackets, perspectives; men as different and individual as any in the world; all united by a common cause, a common act, a common purpose.  A common understanding.

 Of course, it takes time and commitment to prepare and host any degree.  It takes planning and coordination.  It takes practice and learning.  It takes discipline and dedication.  Memorization is not easy. And, left to one’s own devices, one must learn to make time for it, turn off the many distractions that surround us in the modern world, and perfunctorily perform a rote task.  It can be boring.  Even discouraging.  But, once performed, it really is its own reward.

 One must also travel to a common place where the Brothers can practice.  Good degree work takes practice, and practice together.  This takes scheduling and preparation, as well as communication among the Brethren.  I personally commute quite a ways to my Lodge, Chapter, Council, Commandary, and over 100 miles (one way) to the Consistory.  My shortest commute is 17 miles (one way).  It may seem banal to travel all this way, and take the necessary time out of already full days, to practice making Masons, but in my opinion it’s a prudent use of time.  One is working, for sure, and yet it is pleasant work.  It is productive, in that one meets with others and exchanges ideas (imagination is stimulated), there is memorization and history, stage directions, discussion.  Philosophy and metaphor, symbol and allegory.  Not a time goes by when I don’t catch something new which resonates somewhere within.  And it’s for a good cause – to provide the ceremony by which another man will remember his Masonic career, stimulate in him the pursuit of wisdom and an understanding of Divine law.  Knowledge, like love, only grows when it is given away.  This remarkable property only increases knowledge and filial love between the brethren as they make time for ritual and making Masons.

 There is something still more profound, which affects us all in other ways entirely.  This last is a little hard to describe, but in my own experience I know Masonry has helped me aspire to be better – better than myself.  There are many fine words spoken in ritual and these words, when uttered, must stimulate the subconscious somewhere.  The lessons do seep in, and, whether we know it or not, begin to work their subtle magic in our minds’ eye.  These memories – or perhaps lessons – stir beneath the surface, and arise at crucial times – as if under their own volition – to remind the Mason of the importance and necessity of being upright, true, sincere, dependable, honest, good and faithful in the performance of his duties to God, to his country (or land), to his family, to his fellow man and Mason.

 As for the labor involved in hosting the degrees and making Masons, I can only quote the author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie:  “There is no such thing as work, so long as you’d rather be nowhere else.”

 In the midst of degree-work, one may find oneself in the prop room, in the dressing room, urgently looking for a Brother to fill a sudden vacancy, even transported back in history to a time and place otherwise unknown and, for most, forgotten.  But one thing’s for sure, no matter where your Masonic work takes you, right in the thick of it very rarely do you want to be somewhere else.

 Coming together to make a Mason, of whatever degree, is always a worthwhile endeavor. Worthwhile for the Fraternity, for each individual, and for the candidate.  It should be considered one of the highest honors and duties of the Fraternity.

In the void there is

no up

no down

no kingdom

no servant

no monarch, or crown

no space

no quality

no form, no sound

only becomming

becomming from the void

a willingness

an awareness

a likeness

of oneness

similarity from nothingness

even nothing becomes type

where universality

is rendered

to funnel creation

toward its sustaining thought

the first Yod

like lightning

throws shadows across the cavity

for light is birthed with shadows

even while it fills the whole

there the tip of the Tagin

informs the adornment

such that the glory

of the formless

has form

behold!

it sees

itself extending down

each perception like a garment

or witness

in the act of creation

creation spills forth

Shamayim

through the chain

of buckets

so begins to turn

the wheel

this axis of the ages

this coming of rain

infinitely fills

eternity

everywhere

the coming of movement

moves below

a multitude

comes forward

from the thought

to repeat, and return

the endless affirmation

in each nestled chamber

a light is born

in minute reflection

of that becomming

which utterence turned the world

and rendered a beginning

even before creation

creation sustained itself -

the birth of the small

light joins with the first

the possibility of that awareness

that likeness

of oneness

willing

upon whicn

depends the whole.

Man reaches up to God

and creates Him.

While much mention is made of Albert Pike, one of the greatest contributors in the history of the Scottish Rite, still many of us know little about him.  We have all heard his name, seen his pictures, read his quotes.  But precious few have actually read his books — or even know much about him.  This short biography, then, we hope might inspire some research into the life and character of this remarkable man.

Albert Pike was born December 29, 1809, in Boston, MA.  He was born into a poor family, his father was a shoemaker and farmer whose weekly wages were typically less than $4.50.  The family was respectable, moral, hardworking, but without the luxury of disposable income.  It took several months of weekly payments, for example, for the family to purchase their Bible.

Pike numbers among his ancestors some interesting and boisterous folk.  John Pike (1613 –1689) founded Woodbridge, NJ.  Nicholas Pike was a friend of George Washington, and penned the first widely-used math book published, in 1788, in the US.  Zebulon Montgomery Pike was something of an avid explorer; he traveled through the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere courting danger and adventure.

Obviously, Albert Pike had a gifted mind.  Among other subjects, he taught himself Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.  He was a voracious reader.  Many anecdotes persist of his remarkable ability to read through dense and voluminous works in a matter of days.  By teaching at his local school, in Essex County, MA, he raised enough money to cover one term at Harvard, where he was accepted in August, 1825.  Upon discovering that the college required payment for two terms in advance, while he had saved enough for just one, he changed his mind and abandoned the school.

In 1831 he set off west.  He traveled far, a great deal of it on foot.  He traveled to St. Louis, then to Independence, MS, and joined an expedition to Taos, NM.  He spent much time trapping, hunting, and walking in the wilderness.

In 1833 he settled in Arkansas, teaching again to pay his way.  He began contributing articles to the Arkansas Advocate, with some success – in a short time he was asked aboard as a writer, and in 1835, after his marriage to Mary Ann Hamilton (which dowry afforded some ready cash), he acquired the paper as its sole owner.  He then began studying law.

In 1837 he was admitted to the bar in Arkansas.  He sold the Advocate and began practicing law.  His authorship of the Arkansas Book of Forms is said to have garnered him an amount of prestige as an authority on jurisprudence.  He was recognized for his legal mind and, no doubt, as a philosopher of law.

He became the leader of the Whig party in AK, until the party dissolved in 1856, when he joined the Know-Nothing party.  The Know-Nothings were predominantly concerned with limiting immigration and curbing perceived Papist influence in North America.

In 1843 Pike became the Captain of the Little Rock Guards, an artillery unit.  This post made him an attractive appointment in1846 as a cavalry troop commander in the Mexican-American war.  His time serving in this conflict would feature strongly in his poetry.  It was during this time that his disagreements with his commanding officer, John Selden Roane, led to the famous duel in which neither party was wounded, despite the firing of two shots each and both men known marksmen.  After the duel, which was ultimately settled by each man’s seconds, Pike and Roane caroused together at Fort Smith.  Pike, it is said, calmly smoked a cigar throughout the confrontation.

In 1853 Pike returned to practicing law, now in New Orleans.  Here he wrote Maxims of the Roman Law and Some of the Ancient French Law as Expounded and Applied in Doctrine and Jurisprudence, which added more recognition and austerity to his name.

In 1857 he returned to Arkansas.  He represented various Indian tribes, gaining a settlement of $800,000 for the Creeks and surrounding tribes from the federal government.

In 1859 he was appointed Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, after a rapid rise through the degrees.  He had attained the 32º just 6 years previously, in 1853; he was made a member of the 33º in 1857, before his appointment as Grand Commander in 1859 – the same year he turned down an honorary Ph.D. from Harvard – and maintained that post until his death, in 1891.  He was a vital influence on, and contributor to, the revision of the Rite’s ritual.

At the outbreak of the civil war, he was appointed envoy to the native Americans.  He was efficacious in negotiating treaties, the most famous of which was with the Cherokee chief, John Ross, in 1861.

Pike joined the Confederate cause in the civil war, despite (apparently) supporting the ideal of a united country.  On Nov. 22, 1861 he was appointed Brigadier General and given a command in Indian Territory.  Here he trained Indian troops, and led them to victory at the Battle of Pea Ridge.

In 1871 he published the first edition of Morals and Dogma, his exposition on the symbolism surrounding the degrees of the Scottish Rite, demonstrating a far reaching grasp of esoteric philosophy.  His written works are voluminous, comprehensive and complex.  He drew influence from the old texts of India, Egypt, and the Levant, describing the ladder of mystical assent to the comprehension of the Deity, the coming of the worlds, and the necessity of being.

He is the only Confederate general with a statue in Washington DC (in Judiciary Square).  Among other national monuments to this great man, the Albert Pike Highway runs from Hot Springs, AK, to Colorado Springs.

Much more could be said – for his is a rich and intriguing history – but we leave it up to you.  May his life and times be, as he had hoped, an inspiration for you to become better than yourself, an ready example to work in service and duty to your fellowman, and a lasting encouragement to labor for a better world for future generations.  So mote it be!

By Bro. Ben Williams

It’s simple – but inexpressible

Chambered in the systole

Yet fills the heavens

And settles my soul

I see it in your eyes

When the moonlight breaks the clouds

An opalescent circle

Through the avenues of smoke

Rising, upward tides

And pulling inward notes

Of  long-forgotten silence

The silent music

Shining in the void

Even emptiness has a curtain

Where the eternal overflows.

And here we sit in silence

Whisper where it goes

The body is our instrument

To resonate the distance

And make the open closed.

It wakens in Spring blossoms

And fills the worlds with snows

Every moment lasts forever

With the passing of shadows.

Every darkness is revealed -

It is a good, clear vision

Nothing is left -

Nothing remains hidden

When I lift your veil

My hands play your cello

And sweet music is birthed in silence

In silence is the greatest possibility

For the utterance to be heard

And I hear it all so clearly

Underneath your words

Where truth is shaped in newness

And repeated a million ways

Here beneath the stardust

And the parting of the waves.

And so I swim your ocean

Where the moonlight shifts and breaks

I hold you in my hand

So my heart speaks

To rhyme with endless blessings

Silence between the beats

As wave on wave drowns me

Buoyantly

Adrift upon your surface

Pulled down underneath

Disintegrated by the sands

Pinched between the hemispheres

Where the two bulbs touch

Where all time meets

It’s the end of everything

Because eternity is endlessness

And the endless loves so much.