All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.
ALLIES OF CAPRICORN
"That guy is scaring me, Mr. M," Claire whispers.
“He is certainly frightening, but before you dart away, I want you to try to see beneath appearances. The Hebrew letter for this path is 'Ayin' and the astrological symbol is Capricorn. ‘Ayin’ in Hebrew means eye. On this path, Ayin suggests the eye of inner knowledge, the mind's eye, or 'third eye.' With the third eye, the invisible eye associated with the chakra in the center of the forehead, you can see deeper meanings beneath appearances. You can 'see,' or understand, intuitively, and that is how you can look at the Devil, who personifies all that the world considers evil.”
“It's really hard to look at the Devil. It’s really hard to see beyond all the things I’ve been taught.”
“Yes, extremely hard. But remember that Capricorn is an earth sign and that nothing that God has created in the natural world is innately evil. The Kingdom is the culmination of all that God has created. In the Kingdom, we live in a spectrum of light and dark, positive and negative. Some people channel the most negative, unbalanced forces for their own selfish or evil ends. Radical evil surfaces and spreads when many people manifest subtle forces for purely selfish or negative reasons. For instance, the greed of some people can destroy innumerable human lives and species and even the planet itself. The Devil in one way is scary because he reveals that you can use spiritual and mental and physical energies in a negative way to benefit yourself while severely harming others--sometimes many, many others.
"Seeing that you are part of a community of all life on this planet, you can instead use those energies for the highest possible good of all, not just for selfish purposes.
“Notice that this path leads from the sphere of the intellect to the sphere of harmony and balance known as Tiphareth, or Beauty in Hebrew, and Tiphareth is the sphere of the cosmic Christ force. When you look at the Devil, you see the goat, the horned God, the epitome of the dynamic masculine life-force manifested in this realm. The life-force in the Kingdom manifests in one way as the powerful urge for reproduction, but remember that the life-force manifests on all levels in the Kingdom, the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels. You cannot say that the life-force is good on one or two or three levels only. If you do, you blaspheme against the very Source of all creation. So many people want to cut the Tree off at its roots and live only in the spirit or the mind. That can only lead to terrible problems--indeed, to much of the evil that we encounter.”
“So if you see with the mind's eye, you will see that all of life is sacred, even the physical world?”
“Oh, yes. All of the vibrations of energy in this vast cosmos are essentially holy. All the different species of plants and animals have their own vibrations of energy, so to truly understand the earth and the sign of Capricorn, you need to become a shaman yourself, to feel the vibrations of all the plants and animals, and in that way you can connect with all levels of the life-force in the natural world. One of the worst sins, in my opinion, is having a value system that cuts you off from knowing all the vibrations of the community of life because that cuts you off from the harmony and interrelatedness of the cosmos. You are unlikely to harm others solely for your own benefit if you understand that you are connected to everything else in this world.
"As a species, we must kill to survive, but death for all individuals and species is a sacrifice that enables others in the web of life to live. Those who see beyond the material world know that death is but a transformation that all living things eventually experience. The key is sustaining the web of life and maintaining balance within the community.
“You can see the Devil as a type of sphinx with the legs of a bird, the body of a man, and the head of a goat, sitting on a black cube, which symbolizes earth. A man and a woman are chained to the cube. The background is totally black, which suggests limitation and spiritual ignorance, the inability to see with the mind's eye.
"The world is always partially in darkness, but night is not an evil state. In fact, the devil is raising his right hand in a blessing, with all four fingers held up, suggesting that one should see everything, one should not turn away from any part of God’s creation. The man and woman, after all, only appear to be chained to the cube, but they can easily escape if they lift off their chains. We may be chained by our senses to the physical world, but we can choose to move beyond the limiting values of materialism. Once we do, we can find ourselves in the Emanation of Beauty, the sphere of sacrifice and harmonizing love.”
“In a sense, the Devil is terrible, for you must experience the symbolic death of initiation to know the divinity within all things. Initiation shatters the ego, and what is left is the higher self, which knows the One in the All, the Many in the One. To those who cannot see, the Devil appears to chain us in a dungeon. Those who cannot see that everything is connected might be tempted to work with unbalanced forces for their personal gain. They might feel the sun but never feel part of the Source of all life on this planet. Matter is one form of divine energy. To know this is to understand the Kingdom.”
"Oh, look, Mr. M, a juggler!" Claire exclaims.
"Yes, he is fun to watch, isn't he? But believe it or not, that juggler is a master of the energies of Jupiter in Capricorn. Our friend dances while juggling two pentacles inside of a green strip that forms an infinity symbol. Behind him, ships roll up and down, maintaining balance on the waves as your ally dances. He resembles a carnival figure on stage, a clown or a fool, but he also evokes the figure on the path known as The World, who is also caught up in the perpetual, ecstatic dance of being. In a sphere of great dynamic energy that has emanated directly from the Source itself, your ally, like the Fool, remains open and child-like, but he demonstrates the skill and wisdom necessary to balance the powerful life forces. He responds with resilience, an eternal child, to all of the rhythms and vicissitudes of life. Innocent and wise, aware of the infinitude within, your ally skillfully handles changes and the life-forces as they manifest on the earth in all of their diversity."
"I want to be like him, Mr. M!"
"Yes, I do too, dear child!"
"Look, Mr. M, we're back in the church, and those men are still working," Claire whispers.
"Wow, you've got to respect that!" Claire exclaims.
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