Back in the Wilderness: the Rough Places, Plain

And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of Elohim, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.

Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts; and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.

And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

The mansion of the morning star flies in tandem with the sun in his circuits; for its silver windows are as the first clear reflection of that great light's brilliance. Its towers are with him in the East when the sun arises in his strength; they are with him, also, in the West, as he turns to visit other lands. Always near him: if we see them not in his appearances, their absence brings no shame; for they often take rest in his aura.

The glory of the sun outshines the mansion of the morning, and he sometimes draws it too close against his countenance for its lesser glory to be visible. Yet, it is very bright, indeed: were it to pass before his face, it would not greatly diminish the sun's shining. She who dwells therein may linger in the night to carry some message to the moon; but she is soon gone to rejoin her beloved, answering his call, to follow him beyond our certain knowing.

The lady of the morning star is known by some on Earth as Aphrodite, the embodiment of love. We do not contest their view of her; for it arose in recognition of the light within her soul; and it was inevitable that those who could not fully probe her mysteries should name her according to their perceptions. She is Venus: called Beauty, by men of the West, and Tipareth, by men of the East. She it is who has the care of all growing things. Her first name was ChauWah.

Seven points she has upon her crown, whose lights are mirrored seven times in the chain she wears about her neck to soothe her fading memories of the dark mountains she scaled on Earth in the early days, before she was lifted from the seas. It is said by some that she was born from the sea, arising full-grown from its ancient depths upon a shell. This is true enough, but it is not strictly so.

She was first born past memory of mortal men in the garden of bliss; her birth from the waters was as a second birth: the beginning of her renewal in the mind of God. It is told she will be carried in that shell-- as in an ark: again, as in a chariot of fire-- through and beyond the center of all things, to be seated, at the end of days, in her destined place, beyond the partings of all the veils.

At the inward points of her crown are seven narrow windows that shine as silver paths upon her necklace below. We call the light that rims these windows silver, but it is the color of transcendence, a merging of the visible and the invisible spectra. The windows begin as narrow paths of light; for she first walked visible realms by narrow roads, which fanned and broadened inwardly in her travels, to converge upon a path that lifted her safely to the orb of another, denser firmament than we have known-- a sky capable of bearing the negligible weight of such a one as she.

Neither is the mansion that lies beneath those skies truly known to men: the firmament of her world was fashioned as her covering. Neither could men live there, should they succeed in their vain efforts to gain her world without her leave and the consent of her beloved; for the jealous sun would blaze in tireless wrath against their mortal frames, overwhelming their every precaution, should they accost the dwelling of his love.

Selah.

Flying Arrow lay aside his flute and rested quietly upon the earth. He had been watching his brother, the hawk, climb higher and higher on the hunt, wishing he, too, might fly. He wondered at his desire; for, truly, he was content as the Great Father had made him.

The manitous were closer kin and flew higher than the hawk; but he, as yet, had no desire to be as they-- formless, so it seemed, except in their appearances to men, when they assumed the forms most convenient to their messages. He understood, at last, that it was not the giddy freedom of his brother hawk he coveted: he wanted simply to experience the currents of the sun's breath as clearly as he felt the insistent warmth of its face upon his own in the heat of the day.

Instantly upon his understanding, the hawk began to dive. The harder it fell, however, the higher Flying Arrow's spirit arose within himself. It seemed his every memory was being lifted up-- was changing, in his ascent, to truer images of themselves than they had ever been on Earth. Small, forgotten details of unremembered days began to burst with meanings unimagined; and, soon, he was asleep.

In the first beginning of his slumbers, he saw his brother, Flying Arrow, laying quietly upon the ground and looking up at him. As he looked more closely, he could see the seven strands of silver as they began to travel outward from the golden bowl surrounding the boy's head. The features of his face were as seven expressions, opening first into the silver cord; and, soon, all of Flying Arrow appeared therein, to begin the frequent climb beyond the sky.

How glorious the Great Father had made this son of all the worlds! Water, earth, air, and fire, and even things beyond hawk's knowing were as One to such as he. And yet, it was as though the man, himself, did not know these things.

Many times the Great Father had commanded the hawk to perch upon the arm of a manitou to signal its approach unto a son of man who might not, otherwise, notice. Not even this care was always sufficient to gain the attention of unthinking men, however; for the manitou sometimes sounded his trumpet through the hawk's cries to alert them of his coming. This nearly always won the attention of men, but the hawk was not certain that it also won their understanding of the significance of his service.

The hawk began to dive against the serpent crawling towards the feet of Flying Arrow, and the manitou freed his servant to other service. Then, reaching out his right hand from behind the outer veils, the manitou gently cradled the sleeping man within his palm and began the long and intricate journey to the Father of Lights. The man had been summoned before the Throne beyond the heavens. He would speak, in later years, of Unity. What more might be expected?

Selah.

She remembered trying to explain to her first teacher that there was no difference whatsoever between and . The teacher had mocked the child before the whole class, saying, "And I suppose you would think that there's no difference between an arrow and a bird, simply because they both can fly and both have feathers!" If the teacher had not taunted her with that particular rebuke, she might have hated him forever; but in the child's later studies, she ran across an Eastern parable that goes, "Words are birds; and birds are arrows, to the wise."

As she thought on the teacher's words, she realized that it was her own immaturity that had opened the door for the teacher's treatment of her. She ought not to have said, "whatsoever." She had followed the words, like arrows, to the source of the disagreement. There were, indeed, differences between and , as she could now clearly see; but the difference between the two letters rested in the realms of perspective.

This last teacher had given the class a word they had never before encountered. Not a particularly difficult problem, it would seem. The class had been assigned to translate the new word from the Hebrew without the help of a Hebrew dictionary. It didn't seed so difficult, and it would be so easy to cheat! But "words are birds," she remembered; so she decided to toss the new word into the sky within her mind to see what it would do and where it would land.

---

"Tipareth"

taw, the first letter: numerical value, 400; traditional significations: the four elements, the four directions, composites of four; completion, totality; regeneration; phonetic equivalent: t, th.

pe, the second letter: numerical value, 80; traditional significations: mouth, container, pit, soul, face, personality; phonetic equivalent: p, f.

alef, the third letter: numerical values, 1; 1,000; traditional significations: ox, horns, seed, power, beginning, principle; phonetic equivalent: a.

resh, the fourth letter: numerical value, 200; traditional significations: head, first appearance, knowledge, intelligence, beauty, fortune, ruler; phonetic equivalent: r.

taw, the fifth letter: numerical value 22; other possible significations: continuation, sum, perfection, unity.

---

As she considered the problem before her, she thought that she just might succeed, if she only knew a little more! The values of the letters would begin to merge into a unified concept in her mind, but some element was missing or-- as with her earlier dilemma while facing comparison of and -- not fully developed or expressed, thus preventing completion of her assignment.

Throwing the letters once more into her mind, she realized that their individual sounds were not united, as in a word; and she reasoned, therefore, that the element of sound was the source of her difficulty. She decided that she would have to do some research on the functions and significances of sound in language, and that it would be well to begin by better understanding the words "phoneme" and "phonetic."

Opening her English dictionary to the appropriate place, her eyes fell on an alphabetical table entitled, "Phoenician Alphabet." There, before her, were the same number of letters as in the Hebrew, bearing the same names and having the same numerical significations and phonetic renderings. The Hebrew taw corresponded to the Phoenician , also named taw, and also pronounced as t, or th.

"It's really beautiful," she thought, "how these things work out! If I learn the differences between x and t well enough, I may end by learning that I knew it all before I first began!"

She mused upon the mysteries of knowledge and of their foundations in the world of experience, and a fragment of verse composed by one of her school fellows came into her thoughts without fanfare and without explanation: "I will wear a purple shirt before I'm old: my spinning hands will whirl the web's wheel around its axis, until the hub splits loose and spills each single part unto its single destination. And then I'll sigh, I think, and watch my body wrinkle in smiles."

 Selah.

An ancient soul, the old man watched his prayer wheel complete a final turn and circle to a stop. It was time, again, to say, "Amen." However much he troubled the waters above with his mantras on behalf of the thousands who lived within his chakras, the open center never moved-- however long its agitations might continue! As had been his custom for many years, he would close his prayers in the four lower realms, leaving their closing in the four higher realms to the mind belonging to his body of light.

"Om mani pedme hum." As above, so below. The fires of inner Earth are quiet, and her pores are open to the waters. "Om manye paedmehumn." As above, so below. The waters have found the lowest place and are filling every bowl. "Om." As above, so below. The waters are tranquil: they are open to the air. "Om." The air is still: it is drinking. "Aom." The fire is burning in the thin vapors of the upper air. "Aum."

He gently laid the prayer wheel beneath his crossed legs and slowly crossed his arms. Tomorrow, the lilies would open to the sky; the budded rose would learn her destiny and service. Another interval of rest, and then the dawn. I charge you, O daughters of the Chakras, that you stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.