Creating the New Earth Together

Archive for the ‘Mythology’ Category

Remembering Paradise . . . Finale

Whether it happened or not I do not know; but if you think about it, you can see that it is true. —Black Elk        

I will bring this series to a close with excerpts from Richard Heinberg’s MEMORIES AND VISIONS OF PARADISE, including his Epilogue .

This haunting memory is found among the myths of the Omaha Indians, who, along with the entire Native American Nation, have held the sacredness of their Mother Earth in their hearts and in their culture:

HOLDING THE EARTH SACRED

The Omaha Indians of the North American plains also believed in the heavenly or spiritual preexistence of human beings prior to their appearance on Earth in physical form. “At the beginning,” they say, “all things were in the mind of Wakonda.” All creatures, including man, were spirits. They moved about in space between earth and the stars (the heavens). They were seeking a place where they could come into bodily existence ….  Then they descended to the earth. They saw that it was covered with water. They floated through the air to the north, the east, the south and the west, and found no dry land …. Suddenly from the midst of the water uprose a great rock. It burst into flames and the waters floated into the air in clouds. The hosts of the spirits descended and became flesh and blood. They fed on the seeds of the grasses and the fruits of the trees, and the land vibrated with their expressions of joy and gratitude to Wakonda, the maker of all things.”

A Native American vision from chapter 6 — Prophecy: The Once and Future Paradise

One of the most eloquent modern enunciations of the Native American vision is contained in these words of Hopi elder Dan Katchongva:

Hopi is the bloodline of this continent as others are the bloodline of other continents.  So if Hopi is doomed, the whole world will be destroyed. This we know, because the same thing happened in the other world. So if we want to survive we should go back to the way we lived in the beginning, the peaceful way, and accept everything the Creator has provided for us to follow ….

My father, Yukiuma, used to tell me that I would be the one to take over as leader at this time, because I belong to the [Clan of the] Sun, the father of all the people on the Earth. I was told that I must not give in, because I am the first. The Sun is the father of all living things from the first creation. And if I am done, the Sun Clan, then there will be no living thing left on the Earth. So I have stood fast. I hope you will understand what I am trying to tell you.

I am the Sun, the father. With my warmth all things are created. You are my children, and I am very concerned about you. I hold you to protect you from harm, but my heart is sad to see you leaving my protecting arms and destroying yourselves. From the breast of your mother, the Earth, you receive your nourishment, but she is too dangerously ill to give you pure food. What will it be? Will you lift your father’s heart? Will you cure your mother’s ills? Or will you forsake us and leave us with sadness, to be weathered away? I don’t want this world to be destroyed. If this world is saved, you all will be saved, and whoever has stood fast will complete this plan with us, so that we will all be happy in the Peaceful Way.

And finally, our renown author’s vision and rationale from his EPILOGUE:

DID AN EARTHLY PARADISE ONCE REALLY EXIST, or is it the product of human imagination? Even now, at the end of our investigation, we must acknowledge that this is a problem that may never be settled by archaeologists or anthropologists. On one hand, it is impossible to prove the historical reality of a Golden Age by physical evidence alone; on the other hand, the material evidence by no means rules out the possibility, and the less tangible evidences of myth and culture simply will not allow us to dismiss it. Of course, the answer we settle on depends largely on our definition of what Paradise was, is, or should be.

The myths and traditions of the ancients do not portray Eden as the sort of technological Paradise that our present civilization tends to project into the future. If the Golden Age really existed, it must instead have been, as the Chinese describe it, an Age of Perfect Virtue — an age in which

they were upright and correct, without knowing that to be so was righteousness; they loved one another, without knowing that to do so was benevolence; they were honest and leal-hearted with­out knowing that it was loyalty; they fulfilled their engagements, without knowing that to do so was good faith; in their simple movements they employed the services of one another, without thinking that they were conferring or receiving any gift. There­fore their actions left no trace, and there was no record of their affairs. . . .

Of course, there may be some trace of the First People’s actions in Mysterious ancient megaliths, and some record of their affairs may be preserved in myth and legend. Nevertheless, these are fragmentary and ephemeral clues. And yet the vision of Paradise—be it distorted, misunderstood, or even imaginary—has somehow insinuated itself into the vital core of every religious movement and every culture’s literature and social ideals. Whatever the myth’s origin—historical reality or mass delusion—it now has a life of its own in the collective unconscious.

The principal thesis presented here—which is really only a re­statement in modern terms of what spiritual teachers have been saying for millennia—is that the memory of Paradise represents an innate IPO and universal longing for a state of being that is natural and utterly fulfilling, but from which we have somehow excluded ourselves. Per­haps our most useful new clue to this lost state of being is contained in he modern study of altered states of consciousness and, in particular, of the near-death experience. The essence of Paradise is, as we have seen, equivalent to what various traditions have termed nirvana, ecstasy, divine union, and cosmic consciousness. It is the condition of the absence of the separate human ego with all its defenses, aggres­sions, and categories of judgment.

This interpretation may seem like an obvious one, but it has been only recently that developments in several disciplines have made it so. In the field of psychology, for example, the systematic study of alternate states of consciousness did not really begin until this century, and the greatest advances have taken place only within the last twenty years. In anthropology, it has also been only in recent decades that we have come to respect the wisdom of tribal peoples and to take seriously their beliefs about the nature of reality. The field of comparative religion—which has opened a view to the fundamental similarities of the core teachings of all spiritual traditions—has likewise only begun to come of age. All of these developments converge, enabling us to leave behind both the dogmatic religious ideas of the Middle Ages and the simplistic evolutionary assumptions of the last century. We are thus free to attain a new vision not only of the mythic past, but also of our own miraculous potentialities in the present and future.

One of my purposes in writing this book has been to bring together the principle myths of Paradise, Fall, catastrophe, and purification. But another was to recall the texture and nuance of the spiritual worldview of ancient and tribal peoples. Their perspective, so at odds with our modern way of looking at things, may contain some of the very elements that we in postindustrial civilization need if we are to build a sustainable, regenerative culture.

We are living not in a static world that affords us endless time for leisurely academic discussion, but in one that is busily undermining its own biological viability. We have lost our sense of proportion, our sense of the fitness of things, and our sense of being contained within a greater Knowing that provides our lives with meaningful context, and to which we are responsible not only for our actions but for our motives and values as well. We have lost, in short, the sense of the sacred. The Paradise myth is the account of this loss of the sacred dimension, this loss of innocence. And if it contains clues to help us
understand why we have come to this precarious juncture in history and how we may go about regaining what we have left behind, then a retelling of the story may now be a worthy undertaking.

Somehow the timing of this retelling seems to have an almost apocalyptic significance of its own. Many generations have felt that they were seeing the culmination of history, but never has any genera­tion had better reasons for feeling this way. Perhaps we are indeed living in the time prophesied in every tradition, when the profane world of human history and the miraculous world of myth are to be somehow reunited.

We seem to have come very far indeed from the state of innocence and communion with Nature described in the Paradise myths. Depletion of the Earth’s ozone layer, pollution of water and air, loss of topsoil and forest cover, the greenhouse effect, and mass extinctions of species all bespeak a way of existence tragically out of touch with the pulse of the planet on which we live. And burgeoning crime, mental illness, and drug abuse seem to signal some deep estrangement of society from the nourishing aspirations of the human spirit.

Our world is filled with complex political, economic, social, and environmental problems. Yet we cannot expect to solve these prob­lems without first addressing the values and motives that produced them. And how are we to approach the clarification of human values and motives? Surely, we must look to the human psyche itself–that mysterious realm whose suprarational powers and dynamics find first expression in myths, dreams and visions. We are presented therefore with the apparently paradoxical likelihood that the examination of ancient and seemingly irrational stories may be one of the most practical pursuits available to us in the modern world.

Perhaps, if we are willing to become partners once again with Heaven and Nature in the realization of an already existing design that transcends self-centered human purposes, then memory and vision may converge in a realized Paradise in which the tensions that pres­ently bedevil us—tensions between humanity and Nature, heart and mind—may be dissolved in a universal spirit of accord. If we can hear and obey a voice from the timeless source of myths and dreams, there may open before us an age not of technologically engineered comfort and prosperity, but of miraculous beginnings—a new Creation-Time. And perhaps it is only the mysterious power of Creation itself that will permit us to survive, and at last to fully live.♥ Fin

I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I have enjoyed creating and presenting it. By some of the comments I received, I know that Richard Heinberg’s thoughts and visions found resonance with several. MEMORIES AND VISIONS OF PARADISE, along with his several other books, are available at Amazon.com. For a more current Heinberg vision and perspective, view the video clip below. 

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments by email. Until my next post, already in the hopper, 

Be love. Be loved

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

Category:

Climate Changes, Ecology, Garden of Paradise, Global Warming, Golden Age, Healing Tones Blog, Man and nature, Mythology, New Earth, Origin of Man, Paradise Remembered, Planet Earth, Restoring Eden, The Paradise Myth

Tagged with:

Getting Back To Paradise, part 1: Purification First

“It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.”  Black Elk

In the quiet stillness of these times, I will continue sharing my current stream of thought around the theme of “Paradise Remembered.” In this post I revisit Richard Heinberg’s MEMORIES and VISIONS of PARADISE to start bringing this series to a positive finale, starting with this promising passage: 

A new Paradise awaits, but humanity must first undergo a cathar­tic cleansing. Few prophets have looked beyond the day of Purification to describe the events of the restored Golden Age, for the world to come will be inconceivable in terms of the present one. With the return of Paradise, history — as a chronicle of wars and intrigue, of plots and villains — will be finished. Humanity and Nature, Heaven and Earth will once more be joined in peace and harmony as a new Creation-Time begins. 

PURIFICATION OF THE HEART

In the biblical story of the Fall, an angel with a flaming sword was placed at the entrance to Eden guarding the way to the Tree of Life, lest fallen Man partake of its fruit and live forever in his fallen state.  The angel represents the ONE I AM; the sword represents TRUTH; the fire represents the purifying SPIRIT OF LOVE. The story, of course, is a metaphor indicating that in order to return to Eden, we must pass through the fire of purification and prove that we can be true to the Truth of Love, true to our true Self.

The first order of business is the cleansing of the heart, especially of immune-crippling fear and shame. Buried deeply in the heart of humanity are fearful memories of a cataclysmic past in which the human race and all living things were nearly and literally wiped off the face of the earth, such as what occurred in the days of Noah with the Deluge.  We carry shame in our hearts for having brought this calamity, and all those that followed, upon our own heads by forgetting to live by the Law of One, and fear that calamity will happen again. It was said, however, that the Creator would not destroy the world again by water, and that this generation is “reserved unto fire.” What are some of the implications of this prophecy, and by what possible means would such a fiery cleansing take place?

THE CREATING PROCESS

In addressing these questions, I turn to a consideration of the Creative Process in which matter is drawn together for a season and then undone and recycled for future creative purposes.  Integration is an equal partner to dis-integration in this process—and their cycles run concurrently, only integration tends to be a bit more subtle, and dis-integration tends to gain a lot more attention.

As examples: devastating forest fires make news headlines, while new growth in their wake receives little if any media coverage.  Plagues, like the current pandemic, devastate our sense of security, along with the human population — although to little extent compared to the 1.4% current population growth rate — and the daily death toll makes leading story for the morning news. On the other end of the population spectrum, we’re less likely to see announcements of new births in our daily newspaper as we see obituaries. 

Ironically, while we all celebrate new births with congratulatory sentiment, we may harbor reservations about the wisdom of bringing a child into this turbulent and overpopulated world.  We are, after all, leaving our children a mess to clean up.  My concern for our grandchildren is that they will suffer painful hardship in the collapse of this un-civilized world—and I don’t think there’s any doubt remaining that this will come to pass, if not in our lifetime, in theirs.

On our walk a few days ago we met up with a young friend who, with his wife, have agreed not to have children and bring more human beings into this world. Such conscious thinking and wisdom are exemplary.

As a species, we do need to curb population growth, and the starting place is with individuals.  Family-planning is essential, with conception-and-birth control taking precedence over abortion.  For those who do not wish to bring more children into the world, adoption is a beautiful way to fulfill a couple’s desire to have children and a family. If we the people do not take this matter into our hands, the powers that be, that manipulate the masses for profit, will do it in ways that are ungodly and do irreversible damage to the genetics of our species. 

Dan Brown’s INFERNO may be fiction, but the reduction of the human population by means of a viral epidemic, or vaccinations, has been conceived in human consciousness, the matrix in which the patterns of human civilization are set, and out of which our world is born. That said, let us not energize that conception by focusing our mental judgments on it, nor on those “evil-doers out there,” lest the conceived possibility take on a life of its own and become our-worst-fears-realized.

The creating processes of integration and disintegration are unfolding continually.  The question I pose is this: “Is there a ‘critical mass’ in place on earth sufficient to move the Creating Process in a more dominantly integrative direction?”  I sense that we’re getting there, if we’re not there already.  

FOUR WORLD AGES COME AND GO

Historically, ages end with cataclysmic events. According to the Ancients, there have been four Ages in our history.  Richard Heinberg cites them:

World Ages

If the magical landscape fixes Paradise in space, its position in time is defined by its placement at the beginning of a series of world ages. We have already noted the Greek and Hindu conceptions of the ages or yugas of the world, respectively; there are also close parallels among other cultures. The Iranians, for example, knew four cosmic ages that, in a lost Mazdaean book, the Sudkar~nask, are referred to as the ages of gold, silver, steel, and “mixed with iron.” In the Iranian conception, as in the Greek and Hindu, each age is a step in the world’s deterioration, a process that is leading to a final apocalyptic cleansing.”

The Mayans counted their world ages as consecutive Suns­ — Water Sun, Earthquake Sun, Hurricane Sun, and Fire Sun — according to the nature of the catastrophe that closed the epoch. The Hopi also spoke of four worlds — Tokpela, Tokpa, Kuskurza, and Tuwaquchi — the first of which is described in paradisal terms.  Following their creation in the Tokpela world, the first people went their directions, were happy, and began to multiply. With the pristine wisdom granted them, they under­stood that the earth was a living entity like themselves. She was their mother; they were made from her flesh …. In their wisdom they also knew their father in two aspects. He was the Sun, the solar god of their universe …. Yet his was but the face through which looked Taiowa, their creator …. These universal entities were their real parents, their human parents being but the instruments through which their power was made manifest . . . . . 

THE END OF A WORLD AGE

We are the generation to see the end of the “mixed-with-iron” age and the beginning of the “Information Age”– the age of “Artificial Intelligence” or “AI.” That has such a foreboding sound to it.  Are we actually relegating our intelligence to the computer?  Sounds like a final step downward in the devolution of our species — from spiritual beings who had access to all knowledge — past, present and future — down to the level of these animal bodies with brains that have limited vision, and down further yet to the mineral kingdom where we hand over our “intelligence” to a computer silicon chip in which our vision and view of reality is determined by “data” rather than spiritual discernment.   

Returning to the question I posed earlier, by what possible means will this generation be cleansed by fire? Heinberg speaks to this question in the final chapters of his book. I will conclude with these excerpts in two or three posts.

To Get Back to the Garden

EDENIC CONSCIOUSNESS MAY BE RECOVERABLE by individuals in rare moments of spiritual insight. Perhaps nearly everyone glimpses Paradise at some instant during his or her lifetime. But is it also possible for all of us together to live in the Garden once again — to return and stay? This final chapter will offer two reasons for thinking that it is possible. We will see, moreover, how signs of strain and disintegration in the founda­tions of our present civilization, together with some intriguing developments at the growing tips of society, suggest that a new Golden Age may already be struggling to be born.

The Attainability of Paradise

The evidence of anthropology and archaeology may not prove (though it certainly does not deny) the former existence of a Golden Age — that is, of a unitary culture in which people were universally and continually telepathic, lived close to Nature, and possessed miraculous powers. But, as we saw in chapter 8, anthropological and archaeologi­cal discoveries have shown, almost beyond a doubt, that two of the most destructive aspects of civilization (the use and justification of violence as a means of social change, and the desire for dominance over other human beings and over Nature) were acquired only re­cently. The findings of archaeologists show that in the past human beings did live — and therefore in principle are capable of living — in peace and harmony both among themselves and with Nature.

Moreover, the evidence of psychology suggests not only that a subjective condition of oneness, peace, and innocence is attainable, but also that it is the natural and healthy mode of human consciousness. If the human body functions best in the absence of the ego-states of blame, fear, and resentment (as medical experiments show that it does), then the fact that we are living in an ego-based world, in which Paradise is the exceptional experience, must therefore be an unusual and temporary state of affairs.

If we were able to live in Paradise once, we ought to be able to do so again. And if the most natural and healthy way of life available to human beings is defined by the expression of the essential paradisal qualities of character and the subsequent experience of universal harmony, then what is natural should in principle also be attainable. In short, we may be designed to live in Paradise.

Why, then, do we routinely assume that Paradise is beyond our reach? Perhaps it is partly because we have an unrealistic concept of what that state is or should be. We tend to think of Paradise as a place or time in which all human desires are satisfied; since people’s desires tend to conflict, we therefore assume that Paradise could never actu­ally exist. But the Paradise of myth and vision is not a state in which conflicting personal desires are somehow all fulfilled. Rather, it is one in which all human desires and motives are completely subsumed within a larger creative purpose. If individual desires are satisfied in Paradise, this is only because it is the overwhelming desire of all individuals that the consummate accord of Nature and Cosmos be nourished and maintained.

The inhabitants of Paradise — whether in myths of the First Age or in near-death visions — are universally characterized by their expres­sion of specific values and qualities of character. And, as Aldous Huxley (among others) has shown, a comparative study of the relig­ions of the world reveals that these values and qualities — honesty, compassion, and love — are universal and innate. Whether it was a historical reality or not, Paradise exists in the eternal present as an image expressing our deepest sense of what is right and true about ourselves.

Looked at in this way, Paradise may be seen as serving a specific function, as a design for living embedded in the circuitry of human consciousness. All biological organisms, including human beings, contain elements of design. We know, for example, that the pattern of the DNA molecules in our cells governs the basic design of our physical bodies. Perhaps we also contain within us a neurological or psychic program for the optimal design of social and spiritual relations between ourselves, the Cosmos, and Nature — a design of telepathic oneness and interspecies communion that represents the goal toward which our individual and collective experience would naturally tend to unfold.

Provided there are no significant interferences, the design inher­ent in the DNA molecules in our cells is expressed automatically and accurately in the formation of our physical bodies. Perhaps the same is potentially true of the neurological design of Paradise: provided its expression is not blocked, the pattern of oneness with the universal currents of life, as well as of miraculous abilities, should be automati­cally and accurately reflected in our ordinary experience.

At present, however, it is not. As we have seen, nearly all of the world’s spiritual traditions agree that the innate paradisal design is being thwarted in its expression by certain now-universal patterns of attitude, thought, and behavior.

Could it be that simple?  Could Paradise be, as Scott Peck imaged, A World Waiting To Be Born ?  Awaiting our expression of it?  Of its Spirit?  Is the “fire” unto which this generation is reserved the fire of Spirit in expression through us?  The spirit of love, of truth and of life?  Energetically, cosmic conditions are just right for the birth of a new world and a new human race, with our conscious participation as “spiritual midwives,” as we travel with the planet and solar system, at breakneck speed, into uncharted waters in space.  Our once clouded vision is clarifying and expanding to encompass the image of a Golden Age coming down from God out of a New Heaven manifesting a New Earth.  Let us welcome it with joy and celebration.

Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. . . .  Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices. (Song of Solomon) 

The Teacher taught that fear is cast out of the heart by “perfect love”— unconditional love consistently expressed in living.  Shame is cleansed by forgiveness. That’s one means of purifying the heart of humanity.  Another way is by the fire of nuclear fission.  But then there would be no flesh left with which to start over, as in the days of Noah and his family.  Let us opt for the fire of Love — and grant God his wish that none should perish but that all should come to enjoy life eternal in Paradise restored — for, as Black Elk encouraged, “It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.”

Until my next post,  

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

Category:

Alchemy, Apocalypse, Cataclysms, Creation, Dr. Palombo's blog, Eden, Garden of Paradise, Golden Age, Love, Mythology, New Earth, Overpopulation, Paradise Remembered, Plagues, Purification, Purifying your heart, Restoring Eden, Truth

Tagged with:

Paradise Remembered: Tending the Garden of Consciousness

HAPPY EASTER

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Einstein 

The miracle of life lies in the alchemy it creates to manifest forms from out of “nowhere” to “now here”—out of an invisible Heaven and into a visible Earth. “As above so below.” We invoke this alchemy, consciously or unconsciously, each time we recite the Lord’s Prayer and pray the will of God in heaven to manifest on earth. How this works is by Divine Alchemy — only it can’t and won’t work in human affairs without Man’s/our participation.

Words of the Teacher speak to this order of creation: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you”– counsel my passionate father imparted repeatedly, and for which I am most grateful.

ALCHEMY Vs CHEMISTRY

In our scientific approach, we employ elemental interactions in chemistry, and physical labor, to manufacture products.  We even view conception and embryonic development as a biologically driven process. We till the ground to grow our foods and rape the earth for our fuel and building materials.

Forms may appear to rise up from out of the earth, and they do, as my sprouting beans in the garden magically demonstrate.  However, it is the subtle energy of life that creates the irresistible force of attraction that draws form up from out of the earth.  Man uses chemistry to make things.  Life uses Divine Alchemy to manifest Creation.  Everything is a miracle, including the chemistry. Even this coronavirus!

What is it that drives these alleged “lifeless” germs, made of RNA messaging molecules with protein mooring apparatuses, held together with fat, to attach themselves to cells so they can steal their DNA to reproduce themselves?  As Krishna exclaims in the Gita: “Life it is! Life’s urge it is! . . . man’s enemy or friend!” A harbinger of death, perhaps, nevertheless a miracle of life!

Consolation may be found in words penned by Charles Eisenstein in an excellent online article entitled The Coronation: “Remember, death is no ending. Death is going home.” Why, then, do we fight it and stave it off? Seems we would be happy to be going Home.

That said, my heart goes out to those who are mourning the loss of loved ones and dear friends, and to those special souls, heroes all, who are taking care of the afflicted, putting their lives on the line while struggling with fear and uncertainty, yet passionately going about their tasks caring for the sick. God bless and protect them each one. 

ORIGIN MYTHS ABOUND 

There are many myths about the origin of our species, including the Creation Story of Genesis.  In the previous post I excerpted passages from The Book of Grace in which its author, my dearest late friend Grace Van Duzen, offers insights into the biblical account of the Creation and Fall of Man from grace, stature and dominion.  I also shared excerpts from Richard Heinberg’s MEMORIES and VISIONS of PARADISE, and I’ve received several comments, one from a friend and fellow wayfarer, Donald White, who offered this critique and encouragement:

While I agree with much of your treatise here, I’m still wondering why the “story of man” as presented by the most ancient cultures known to have lived upon the planet with actual written records (the Sumerians and the civilizations that followed) are not part of your consideration of our origins on planet Earth. Atlantis (and Lemuria) may have existed…I don’t dispute that they MIGHT have…but we really don’t know (with apologies to the late Edgar Cayce!).

(True, even the Greek philosopher Plato used the Atlantis legend in his Socratic Dialogues as a fictitious tale, a mythical parable about the cultural and political deterioration of life in the state — casting a shadow onto our modern day.)

The biblical texts regarding these ancient times are highly mythologized, having been translated several times so that we have a version in English (King James Bible), but they still allude to more substantive, extant ancient writings in cuneiform from Mesopotamia (Sumer, Assyria, Akkadia & Babylonia). It just seems that what these ancient scribes had to say about their ‘gods’ and the origins of their culture (attributed to their gods) should have at least equal validity to any of today’s lucid dreamers, biblical pundits, and scholarly professional authors on this subject.

Are we as a species the product of a ”magical’ divine Creation or a design-driven, divine Evolution? Are we still evolving (with fits and starts from proto-human to Neanderthal to Cro Magnon) where angelic consciousness emerges as a whole in the world, or do we need to experience a resurrection from a fall from a place of divine identity where we already knew that identity in human form? These questions are key to your subject matter and I welcome your current focus in this area as it has allowed some deep meditation on my part about where we are today as God’s vessel and representation for this world. This I agree with wholeheartedly, beyond belief!

THE GARDEN OF HEAVEN 

In the Beginning, Man was given a garden called Eden to dress and to keep. No tilling was required because this garden was, and still is, an invisible one.  It was the Consciousness of the Creator, who was willing and eager to share with Man its care and creating magic, along with its material manifestation — a desire that awaits fulfillment.  That’s why we are here today.  Eden awaits Man’s return to dressing and keeping it — the topic of my next post.  

In this series I have also been sharing some of Peter Watson’s commentaries, which have actually provided thought-provoking upgrades for my own understanding of things hidden in the Creation Story handed down to us in the Book of Genesis, for which I am profoundly grateful.  Here is an excerpt from his most recent dialogue:

As the heaven – the realm of preform – must logically precede the realm of form, as with invisible life that designs and then grows the forms it inhabits, the idea of debris from dead suns being drawn together by gravity, so that under the right circumstances, with water air and earth, and a safe distance from the fire of a sun, the collection of debris would be suitable to support animated ecosystems is far-fetched to say the least. Such a materialistic view is clearly in denial of heavenly preordination, and is therefore flawed inasmuch as it cannot account for our invisible animating force, life, nor its origin; i.e. the Father and Mother of Life.

Fortunately Jesus foresaw the scientific dilemma that would eventually surface as men of intellect probed only the heavens, and the past, for mankind’s meaning and origins, instead of looking within, and perceiving the kingdom-of-heaven as instructed. His remedial advice, and blueprint for the way life works, are contained concisely in the so-called Lord’s Prayer, portraying the simple outline of the order in which life works (i.e. from the heaven and then into the earth; “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”), which must be complied with if our latent human potential is to be realized and made manifest. All of this he liberally demonstrated in working with the four forces, starting his ministry in a water cycle, and miraculously healing those who responded appropriately to his presence, “Wilt thou be made whole?”

(His brief earthly life and ministry ended in a Fire cycle with his celebratory entrance into Jerusalem, commemorated in the Christian world on Palm Sunday, and his crucifixion and victory over death that led to his resurrection from the tomb and ascension back into Heaven from whence he came — commemorated during Holy Week and Easter Sunday throughout the Christian world.)  

It’s now up to a precious few of us who are remembering and enacting the instructions of Jesus, so that what he initiated may be brought to fruition as intended. I rejoice in sharing these words with you and seeing the seeds planted by Jesus replace the superstitious seeds of religious fear, and bring the Garden-of-God, Eden, back to life on earth. “I am come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.”

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

Having followed up on Don’s encouragement to at least expand my research to include the Sumerian and other ancient mythical stories of the formation of the human species, and having meditated on Peter’s commentary on the two accounts of the Creation story in Genesis 1 and 2, as well as on Grace’s insightful interpretation of the biblical Creation Story, I have finally come to terms with my own inner struggle to make sense of it all — and it all comes down to the first paragraph of this post: the Heaven gives form and birth to the Earth.

In Genesis 1, God, Elohim, created Man male and female, in their own image and likeness and placed them in Eden, a Paradise where everything they needed in the way of food and sustenance was freely provided, requiring no tilling but only a thought form to manifest what they needed to sustain their heavenly forms. God blessed them and gave them dominion over all the life forms in Eden, instructing them to be fruitful and multiply and “replenish the earth.” We’ve done a lot of multiplying of our species, but very minimal replenishing of the earth.

In Genesis 2, “The LORD God” (a conclave of God Beings, as Grace explained) is said to have “formed” man (male only) from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man “became a living soul.” Life, the originating and organizing force of Creation, is given to this man after he is formed by matter — the heaven and the earth in reversed order — “when the earth and the heaven were created”— contrary to the way the Law of One works to bring forth Creation out of Heaven.

Here we again have a committee of God Beings, not creating but forming a man out of clay, as many myths describe their various “gods” did.  As for woman, well, she was an after-thought by the rogue creators seeing as how the man was alone and in need of a “help mete”— not an equal partner but a helper.  So, it’s been a man’s world ever since the Fall.

This conclave of God Beings “planted a garden Eastward in Eden, and there they placed the man whom they had formed.” Here we have the first division, that of Man, created by God male and female in His own image and likeness, divided into a man and a woman, a pair of opposites — from oneness to duality.  One myth describes the First Man as being male on one side and female of the other.  Hmm?

Peter’s Comments:

Let it be said that any compromise, or reversal of the principle of cause-and-effect, heaven-and-earth in that order, would inevitably result in a state of decay, and eventual death. We cannot deny or ignore the way-of-life; i.e. what Jesus demonstrated admirably, with impunity.

Let’s say, in Genesis chapter one, we have a true account of creation, with Man, male and female, designated to share God’s dominion . . . .  Alongside, we have chapter two that denigrates mankind (not Man) to have come from the dust-of-the-ground, subject to externals and a tree-of-the-knowledge-of-good-and-evil, a tree-of-death, with no mention of dominion, only subjection, and we have a reliable perspective of how humanity has been coerced into falsely interpreting God’s will.

Earlier on in this commentary:

Fortunately, death and decay can only spread so far in either direction in the microcosm and the macrocosm at a form (material) level, beyond which life reclaims waste and renews it in the mineral kingdom and on up. As is recognized by physicists, no energy is ever lost; you cannot have a ‘dead’ (motionless) atom, or indeed a motionless galaxy. Where there is motion there is evidence of life; where there is life there is the ever-present origin-of-life.

We cannot separate matter from motion. Even using negative numbers, Euclidian geometry, or quantum mechanics, matter and motion are inseparable except in human imagination. However, designed as it is to participate in the furtherance of creation, imagination of the human mind can and will manifest if concentrated over a sufficient period of gestation. Beyond a certain point it becomes questionable as to what human imagination manifests is of any practical value; we may use disease and weaponry as examples of negative manifestation.

Stephen Hawking asks, “What place for God” in his imaginary universe.  Einstein said “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Observational science limits itself to the analytical view of “nothing is a miracle.” Participatory science (ontology) expands its parameters to see “everything is a miracle.” Einstein’s vision extends the reach-of-science beyond the grasp of mankind.

The grasp of mankind is limited to material observation and measurement, a phenomenal mental approach to understanding the universe, but which denies or otherwise ignores the essential encompassment of a motivating force, such as that which makes vegetation grow, human digestion allocate protein where it belongs, and guides the constellations along their celestial paths.

And from an earlier commentary:

So there’s the so-called Fall-of-man in a few lines, sustained by, but not initiated by Eve — the cloned after-thought companion of a simple gardener when it was noticed, “It is not good that the man should be alone”. Unfortunately, Sunday-school translation has made them both appear to have been the original sinners, upon which religion has capitalised in using a ‘sinner’ identity to cover up the rogue’s role of Godlessness, and at the same time keep congregations in the dark regarding our true identity in original Man, male and female, not made from the dust-of-the-ground, but by the male and female spirits of God incarnate. “BIG mistake!” as Schwarzenegger would say.

ANCIENT MYTHS 

Now, the Sumerian, Babylonian and other ancient myths tell of many gods flying in the heavens and roaming the earth making things they needed, which included laborers — more like slaves — to till the ground; and warring with one another over the manner in which things were being done, especially in the slave-making department.  They also created “giants” to do the heavy lifting. 

Donald’s Commentary:

Here’s a short summary of the story of mankind’s creation as told in the Sumerian ‘Enuma ‘Elish’ (deciphered from clay tablets uncovered when ancient Ninevah was excavated circa mid 19th century):

“… What is extremely interesting in the ancient Sumerian Creation Story is the fact that initially, man created by the Gods was not able to reproduce on their own. This is why the Gods ‘MODIFIED’ mankind with the help of Enki and his sister Ninki. After the Gods had modified mankind, Adapa was created as a fully functional human being which had the ability to reproduce. However, this ‘modification’ was done without being approved by Enlil, brother of Enki and Ninki, which created a conflict among the Gods.

The conflict made Enlil the first adversary of human beings and according to ancient Sumerian texts, mankind went through an extremely difficult time while serving the gods.”

As you can see, there are numerous similarities between the creation story of Ancient Sumer and other ancient cultures and religions around the globe, but interestingly, in all of them, we learn that mankind was literally CREATED by the GODS in their own image.”

Perhaps the beginning of religion and slavery imposed upon our earliest ancestors? What an awful implication (and indictment) on our false ‘god/creators’!

I think Don is onto a hidden truth.  Here’s an interesting side-story I came upon in my limited studies of ancient cosmology. The word El, as in Elohim, is feminine in gender, indicating that it was a Goddess who created Man — or at least the Elohim may have been a group of feminine deities who were commissioned by the Godhead to create the world and Man in it.  Heinberg cites a man’s near-death-experience in which the God he saw was a woman.  I rather like this kind of musing about God being both male and female and how this works in the invisible order of angelic and creator beings.   

RECLAIMING OUR ORIGINAL INNOCENCE

So, Don, I trust I have adequately addressed your queries about who we are and were we are in our evolution of consciousness — our heaven out of which our earthly forms and world continually and momentarily materializes.  I’m right in there with you meditating on our current role as representatives of God on Earth, and as co-creators and keepers of the Garden — and with you Peter, in uncovering the clarifying truth of the Creation of Heaven and Earth, in that order, and of Man and mankind, hidden in myths until a time when we can bear to hear it — realizing that we can correct the “Original Sin” of Adam by reclaiming our Original Innocence.

In our innocence — not by faith and belief in an unknowable God, but by conscious knowing of our own divine identity as Sons and Daughters of God, co-creators with God — we can intelligently engage the Law of One that governs Creation to create Paradise on Earth.  As we hold the image and likeness of God in our consciousness as the template of our outer forms, letting love radiate without concern for results, our bodies will continue to evolve and be transformed, ultimately transmuted into angelic light forms. “As above so below.”

It was Man’s concern for results and his self-determination that reversed his polarity, repelling our first parents from God and ejecting them from Paradise.  We are here to “repent,” literally turn around, restore our polarity in God, in Love, and allow a resurrection and ascension to take place.  All we have to do is dress and keep the Heaven.

I’ll leave it there for your meditation. Until my next post,

Have a Happy Easter and/or a Joyous Passover.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

 

Category:

Alchemy, Ancient gods were planets, Ancient knowledge, As Above So Below, Ascension, Atlantis, Divine identity, Divine Matrix, Dr. Palombo's blog, Easter, Eden, Elohim, Garden of Paradise, Golden Age, Healing Tones Blog, Kingdom of Heaven, Law of One, Mythology, Origin of Man, Paradise Remembered, Passover, Plagues, Restoring Eden, Resurrection, Subtle energy, The Lord's Prayer, The Paradise Myth, Viruses

Tagged with:

Paradise Remembered, part 2: The Garden of Eden

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he placed the man whom he had formed.” (Genesis 2:8)

Most of us today are awake sufficiently and quite able to bear the “many things” the Master Jesus had to share with his disciples but could not due to their limitations of consciousness.  After all, we’ve experienced more than two-thousand years of awakening in consciousness and spiritual maturity since then. What I’m about to share, then, concerning Man’s origins should not disturb anyone, and may even free some from limiting beliefs. Just for one, that it was Eve, tempted by the “serpent,” who then tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden to disobey God’s command that they not partake of “the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” thereby initiating the “Fall” that resulted in the loss of Paradise for them and their progeny.

Contrary to this belief, it was Adam, Divine Man, created in the image and likeness of God, a son of God, enamored by the beauty of the forms they had co-created with God, who acted contrary to the Law governing Creation by reversing his polarity with the Creator and polarizing his outer mind in Eve and in Creation itself, and then proceeding to judge the forms, no doubt with Eve’s full participation, as the forms were evolving toward becoming good and complete.  (I take writer’s license here in spelling the word “evil” as “evol,” as it is a habit we humans seem to have inherited of judging and interfering with the Creative Process, thereby creating something evil.)  And their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked, which apparently they didn’t think was a good thing, seeing as how they covered their nakedness with leaves. I’ll pick up on this later on.  First I would like to give thought to the two different versions of the creation of Man as recorded in the first and second chapters of Genesis. 

In chapter one, on the sixth day of Creation, God created Man.

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion . . . over all the earth. . . .  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” 

Now, a “day” of Creation was a lot longer than an Earth day of 24 hours. Some 25,872 years longer, as author and biblical historian Grace Van Duzen explains in her epic work and legacy, THE BOOK OF GRACE — A Cosmic View of the Bible:

Cycles of time have been recognized, such as an “age,” consisting of 2,156 years; a “solar age” of 25,872 years; and a “universal age” of 310,464 years. The solar age is made up of 12 ages, and the universal age of 12 solar ages. It is the solar age that is referred to in the Book of Genesis as a “day,” with the seven days of Creation totaling 181,104 years. 

The word us in this passage indicates that God, the Creator, was not a single entity but more like a conclave of Creator Beings. Grace offers a more precise explanation:

The word us in this text, “Let us make man in our image,” is derived from the word Elohim, plural of the ancient word for God, El—a designated number of God Beings under the focus of One, El.  A term used later, and consistently, in the Bible story, will be LORD of Lords, referring to this same Being. Elohim was a group, or body of divine Beings who created a body of human beings, for the purpose of indwelling in physical form to continue God’s work on this planet, His image and likeness. Other derivations of the word El have come through varying religions, as for example, Allah, designating the supreme God or ultimate point of focus for the universe.  

In chapter two of Genesis, we find this version of the same creation of Man, male and female: 

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested. . . . 

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in  the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,

And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. . . .

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2: 1-7)

A question one might rightly ask, then, is “Why was there a need for a ‘man’ to till the ground if the Garden of Eden yielded up food for foraging literally upon demand?” What’s going on here?

We find a fascinating answer to this question in Grace Van Duzen’s book, and further historical details in Richard Heinberg’s.  So, between these two authors, I think we will come away with a deeper and more vital understanding of our origins in Genesis, and what caused the “Fall” and the expulsion of our first parents from the Garden of Eden. This will take several posts, so stay with me.

The Garden of Eating

So many legends and myths tell of a time when Man lived in a Garden of Eden before agricultural practices of tilling the ground to plant seeds for food became vogue.  Food was plentiful in the Garden.  And yet, reading the second version of the creation of Man from the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, supposedly written by Moses, one is left asking, “Why was a ‘man’ needed to till the ground?”   

Here are a few excerpts from Heinberg. (I will share excerpts from Grace’s book in the next post):

Somewhere down in the underworld we were created by the Great Spirit, the Creator. We were created first one, then two, then three. We were created equal, in oneness living in a spiritual way, where life is everlasting. We were happy and at peace with our fellow men.  All things were plentiful, provided by our Mother Earth upon which we were placed. We did not need to plant or work to get food. Illness and troubles were unknown.  (Hopi Elder Dam Katchongva)

Under the subheading The Golden Race there is this: 

The third-century B.C. Neoplatonist Porphyry said that the Greek philosopher Dicaearchus, of the late fourth century B.C., spoke of

men of the earliest age, who were akin to the gods and were by nature the best men and lived the best life, so that they are regarded as a golden race in comparison with the men of the present time … of these primeval men he says that they took the life of no animal. … Dicaearchus tells us of what sort the life of that Age of Cronus was: if it is to be taken as having really existed and not as an idle tale, when the too mythical parts of the story are eliminated it may by the use of reason be reduced to a natural sense. For all things then presumably grew spontaneously, since the men of that time themselves produced nothing, having invented neither agriculture nor any other art. It was for this reason that they lived a life of leisure, without care or toil, and also—if the doctrine of the most eminent medical men is to be accepted-without disease …. And there were no wars or feuds between them; for there existed among them no objects of competition of such value as to give anyone a motive to seek to obtain them by those means. Thus it was that their whole life was one of leisure, of freedom from care about the satisfaction of their needs, of health and peace and friendship. Consequently this manner of life of theirs naturally came to be longed for by men of later times who, because of the greatness of their desires, had become subject to many evils …. All this, says Dicaearchus, is not asserted merely by us, but by those who have thoroughly investigated the history of early times.

The classical Roman authors Ovid, Cratinus, Pausanias, Tibullus, Virgil, and Seneca expanded freely on Hesiod’s story of the original golden race, always emphasizing those qualities that characterize the benefits of the simple, primitive life—freedom, self-sufficiency, and lack of dependence on technology and complex social organization. Ovid’s Metamorphoses was for centuries standard fare in all Euro­pean schools, and his description of the Golden Age in Book I became the definitive form of the myth for the Middle Ages and the Renais­sance: 

The first age was golden. In it faith and righteousness were cherished by men of their own free will without judges or laws. Penalties and fears there were none, nor were threatening words inscribed on unchanging bronze; nor did the suppliant crowd fear the words of its judge, but they were safe without protectors. Not yet did the pine cut from its mountain tops descend into the flowing waters to visit foreign lands, nor did deep trenches gird the town, nor were there straight trumpets, nor horns of twisted brass, nor helmets, nor swords. Without the use of soldiers the peoples in safety enjoyed their sweet repose. Earth herself, unbur­dened and untouched by the hoe and unwounded by the plough­share, gave all things freely …. Spring was eternal … untilled the earth bore its fruits and the unploughed field grew hoary with heavy ears of wheat.

Elsewhere, Ovid speaks of the peaceful amity of Nature herself, before the degeneration of humankind. “That ancient age,” he writes, to which we have given the name of Golden, was blessed with the fruit of trees and the herbs which the soil brings forth, and it did not pollute its mouth with gore. Then the birds in safety winged their way through the air and the hare fearlessly wan­dered through the fields, nor was the fish caught through its witlessness. There were no snares, and none feared treachery, but all was full of peace.

Under the subheading Paradise of the East there is this Indian legend in the Vaya Purana:

In the Krita age human beings appropriated food which was produced from the essence of the earth …. They were character­ized neither by righteousness nor unrighteousness; they were marked by no distinctions. They were produced each with authority over himself. They suffered no impediments, no susceptibilities to the pairs of opposites (like pleasure and pain, cold and heat), and no fatigue. They frequented the mountains and seas, and did not dwell in houses. They never sorrowed, were full of the quality of goodness, and supremely happy; they moved about at will and lived in continual delight …. Produced from the essence of the earth, the things which those people desired sprang up from the earth everywhere and always, when thought of. That perfection of theirs both produced strength and beauty and annihilated disease. With bodies which needed no decora­tion, they enjoyed perpetual youth …. Then truth, content­ment, patience, satisfaction, happiness and self-command prevailed …. There existed among them no such things as gain or loss, friendship or enmity, liking or dislike.”

In China, we again find the Paradise myth flavored somewhat according to local cultural sensibilities, but nevertheless characterizing humankind’s earliest condition as one of ease, plenty, and free­dom. Taoist philosophy, profoundly and often sardonically primitivist, has permeated Chinese thought for at least the last two and a half millennia. According to the earliest Taoist sages, Lao Tzu and Chuang
Tzu, it is Nature herself who is wise, and the intelligent man knows better than to impose on her creative rhythms. “Profound intelli­gence,” according to Lao Tzu, “is that penetrating and pervading power to restore all things to their original harmony.” (Emphasis mine)

I will take up from this last paragraph in my next post—and share some of  Grace Van Duzen’s perspectives from THE BOOK OF GRACE. Until then, 

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com 

Category:

Creation, Dr. Palombo's blog, Eden, Elohim, Evolution, Garden of Paradise, Golden Age, Golden Race, Man and nature, Mythology

Tagged with:

Paradise Remembered

“Myth is the history of the soul”  

William Erwin Thompson penned those words. The Paradise myth, along with all the legends and stories about the “First People” handed down through the ages, are vivid and haunting reminders of our origins.  Who among us does not have a deep desire to live in Paradise—or for Paradise to be restored here on Earth?  It’s the unconscious impetus in our quest for the American Dream: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  It’s what we seek and hope to find in most of our endeavors to make a comfortable and happy life for ourselves and for our families—and why we go to the wilderness and camp out in the forests and national parks.  We want to be in Paradise, if only for a few days and nights filling our eyes and hearts with “Kodak moments,” camping out under the stars, and sitting by a stream of cool, clear water drinking in the golden silence and peaceful beauty of the Natural World. 

Ken Burns has performed an outstanding service bringing the pristine peace and beauty of the natural world to the television for all to enjoy with his documentaries on the National Parks and Monuments airing on PBS again this weekend. Thanks primarily to John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, thousands of square miles of undeveloped lands and mountain ranges have been preserved and set aside for us and our progeny to visit and be nourished by and reminded of the Paradise our planet Earth still is—inspired even to do our parts in keeping it that way.

VISIONS and MEMORIES of PARADISE

I’ve been reading my friend Richard Heinberg’s MEMORIES and VISIONS of PARADISE for the second or third time since it came into my hands many years ago, and my longing for Paradise has been quickened once again, this time with even deeper yearning.  Reading some of the stories about a once Golden Age when we were more angelic than human, and we spoke with the animals who “spoke” with us, I can almost taste the clean, fresh air and feel the pristine, magical Eden atmosphere. Here are a few memories from Richard’s book of what our ancestors, the “First People,” were like in the mythical Garden of Paradise:

“The myths and traditions of the ancients do not portray Eden as the sort of technological Paradise that our present civilization tends to project into the future. If the Golden Age really existed, it must instead have been, as the Chinese describe it, an Age of Perfect Virtue—an age in which

they were upright and correct, without knowing that to be so was righteousness; they loved one another, without knowing that to do so was benevolence; they were honest and leal-hearted with­out knowing that it was loyalty; they fulfilled their engagements, without knowing that to do so was good faith; in their simple movements they employed the services of one another, without thinking that they were conferring or receiving any gift. There­fore their actions left no trace, and there was no record of their affairs.” *

They were kind and affectionate:

“The ability of human beings and animals to understand one another resulted in a condition, according to fifth-century B.C. philosopher Empedocles, ‘All were gentle and obedient to men, both animals and birds, and they glowed with kindly affection towards one another.'” *

They were radiant and could fly:

“According to virtually all accounts, human beings in the paradisal age were possessed of qualities and abilities that can only be called miraculous.

“They were wise, all-knowing, and able to communicate easily not only with one another but with other living things; moreover, they could fly through the air, and they shone with visible light.” *

They were wise and godlike in appearance:

“In contrast to the contemporary view of early humans as dull and brutish, the myths speak of them as sages. In Jewish folklore, Adam is described as being so wise and so beautiful to behold that the creatures of the Earth mistook him for the Creator and, together with the angels of Heaven, bowed down and chanted, ‘Holy, holy, holy.’ It is also said that God revealed the whole of the future to Adam, as well as the geography of the entire Earth. In these respects, Adam resembled Adapa, the Babylonian First Man, who ‘was equipped with vast intelligence …. His plane of wisdom was the plane of heaven’” The ancient Mayans similarly described the four First People as wise and all-knowing. According to the Popul Vuh, the Mayan book of lore and customs, the people of the first age were so perceptive that when ‘they lifted up their eyes … their gaze embraced all; they knew all things; nothing in heaven or earth was concealed from them.’ These created ones rendered thanks, saying,“‘Truly, thou gavest us every motion and accomplishment! We have received existence, we have received a mouth, a face; we speak, we understand, we think, we walk; we perceive and we know equally well what is far and what is near; we see all things, great and small, in heaven and upon the earth. Thanks be to you who created us, 0 Maker, 0 Former!'”*

AN AGE OF INNOCENCE 

The Golden Age was an age of innocence; its inhabitants simple and childlike—much like the late and memorialized Mr. Rogers as portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” With Richard’s permission, I will share a few excerpts from his thoroughly researched and captivating book, with little if any commentary from me.  I invite you to just read the stories and let the magic they still hold enchant your heart as you ponder them deeply in your imagination.  They may even trigger up memories of Paradise from out of the collective unconscious, as they did for me, and quicken in you an inspiration to live as though in Paradise.  Perhaps the adage “To become, act as if” may apply in our shared work of creating a heavenly home for our Creator here on Earth. Legends tell of a time when the Creator lived with his Creation and walked with Man in the Garden of Eden.  Listen to these stories.

ONCE UPON A TIME all human beings lived in friendship and peace, not only among themselves but with all other living things as well. The people of that original Age of Innocence were wise, shining beings who could fly through the air at will, and who were in continual communion with cosmic forces and intelligences. But a tragic disruption brought the First Age to an end, and humanity found itself estranged from both Heaven and Nature. Ever since then we have lived in a fragmented way, never really understanding ourselves or our place in the Universe. But occasionally we look back, with longing and regret, and dream of a return to the Paradise we once knew. . . .

The tribes of central and southern Africa preserved myths of an original time when the celestial God and human beings were friends, before the separation of Heaven and Earth. It was an age that was typified in the saying of the Ngombe tribe of Zaire: “In the beginning there were no men on earth. The people lived in the sky with Akongo and they were happy.” Ethnologist Paul Schebesta recorded the following tradition from the Bambuti Pygmies of central Africa:

After God had created the world and men, he dwelt among them. He called them his children. They gave him the name of father. … He showed himself a good father to men for he so placed them in this world that they could live without much effort and were above all free from care and fear. Neither ele­ments nor animals were inimical to man and foodstuffs grew ready to his hand. In short, the world was a paradise as long as God dwelt among men. He was not visible to them but he was in their midst and spoke to them.”

Summarizing African myths about the First Age, folklorist Herman Baumann wrote:

In the view of the natives, everything that happened in the primal age was different from today: people lived forever and never died; they understood the language of animals and lived at peace with them; they knew no labor and had food in plenitude, the effortless gathering of which guaranteed them a life without care; there was no sexuality and no reproduction—in brief, they knew nothing of all those fundamental factors and attitudes which move people today’

It was only when the people set themselves against the other creatures that God was driven away and the original harmony of Nature was destroyed.

And that will be the consideration of my next post in this series. Until then,

Be love. Be loved

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

Credits: 

* Richard Heinberg, MEMORIES and VISIONS of PARADISE — Exploring the Universal Myth of a Lost Golden Age. 

Category:

Dr. Palombo's blog, Eden, Garden of Paradise, Golden Age, Golden Race, Healing Tones, Healing Tones Blog, Heaven, Mythology, New Earth, Paradise Remembered, The Paradise Myth

Tagged with:

Astrology, Free Will and Determinism

“In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

I rarely ever read my horoscope in the daily newspaper. Born on the cusp of Taurus and Gemini, I’m usually undecided about which sign is more influential in my life. Most likely Gemini, as I tend to avoid making decisions and simply do what’s obviously needed in the moment.

In considering the astrological influences of zodiac signs and planetary alignments in our lives, the question naturally comes up as to how much control we have individually and collectively over our lives and the unfolding of global events. A friend recently responded to my previous post addressing this very question.  

When I consult someone regarding their astro-chart (which I do occasionally) I always preface what I say with advice that there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ astrological influence, although, through personal interpretation/judgement, such opinions are often made. I say things like, “You are the master of your own ship”. The focus on mastery/maturity allows for proper conscious behavior as these cosmic influences ebb and flow around our little ‘ship’ of being. Cymatics is an interesting subject in this respect which confirms that there are larger patterns within which we live and have our being. We don’t control the larger pattern of life, our sun/solar system/universe…we can only align with this reality, or continue to try resisting it, to our eventual demise! One wants to ‘go with the flow’ here…or expect a capsized/cataclysmic experience. — Donald White

Don echoes the words of the poem Invictus: 

“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” 

Richard Tarnas bumps up against the issue of free will and determinism in his research into the history of planetary alignments and their impact on the human psyche, which he published in 2007 in his epic book COSMOS AND PSYCHE, Intimations of a New World View. I think he addresses the issue quite thoroughly: (Emphasis mine) 

Free Will and Determinism

Because the question of free will and determinism has long been the most exis­tentially and spiritually critical issue in all discussions of astrology, I will offer a few preliminary remarks here.

There is no question that a substantial part of the Western astrological tradi­tion supported a relatively deterministic interpretation of cosmic influence (a tendency even more marked in Indian astrology). For numerous schools and theo­rists of ancient and medieval astrology, the horoscope revealed a person’s destined fate, and the celestial powers governed human lives with a more or less rigid sovereignty. The widespread reemergence of Western astrology in the course of the twentieth century, however, arising in a new context and at a different stage in the West’s cultural and psychological evolution, brought with it a deeply trans­formed vision of both the human self and the nature of astrological prediction. The most characteristic attitude among contemporary astrologers holds astro­logical knowledge to be ultimately emancipatory rather than constricting, bring­ing a potential increase of personal freedom and fulfillment through an enlarged understanding of the self and its cosmic context.

In this view, knowing the basic archetypal dynamics and patterns of meaning in one’s birth chart allows one to bring greater awareness to the task of fulfilling one’s authentic nature and intrinsic potential, as in Jung’s concept of individua­tion. The more accurately one understands the archetypal forces that inform and affect one’s life, the more flexibly and intelligently responsive one can be in deal­ing with them. To the extent that one is unconscious of these potent and some­times highly problematic forces, one is more or less a pawn of the archetypes, acting according to unconscious motivations with little possibility of being a co­creative participant in the unfolding and refining of those potentials. Archetypal awareness brings greater self-awareness and thus greater personal autonomy. Again, this is the basic rationale for depth psychology, from Freud and Jung on­ward: to release oneself from the bondage of blind action and unconsciously mo­tivated experience, to recognize and explore the deeper forces in the human psyche and thereby modulate and transform them. On the individual level, as­trology is valued for its capacity to articulate which archetypes are especially im­portant for each person, how they interact with each other, and when they are most likely to be activated in the course of each life.

But in addition to the psychological evolution of the modern self with its in­creased sense of dynamic autonomy and self-reflective interiority, perhaps the most significant factor in the emerging emancipatory understanding of astrology is a deepening grasp of the nature of the archetypal principles themselves, the subject to which we now turn.

So, let’s have a brief look into the nature of archetypal principles—and the first thing to do is define what archetypes are. For that, we have Richard Tarnas to fill us in on the history of archetypes, at one point considered by the Greeks to be gods who populated an enchanted Universe. In other words immortals embodied by material forms, such as planets and constellations. In the more contemporary mind, the archetype is the prototype that informs things and events, the immanent “form” that makes things what they are and shapes their behavior.  Tarnas explains the concept within its historical context giving us a view into the evolution of the word “God.” (Emphasis mine)

Archetypal Principles

The concept of planetary archetypes, in many respects the pivotal concept of the emerging astrological paradigm, is complex and must be approached from several directions. Before describing the nature of the association between planets and archetypes, however, we must first address the general concept of archetypes and the remarkable evolution of the archetypal perspective in the history of Western thought.

The earliest form of the archetypal perspective, and in certain respects its deepest ground, is the primordial experience of the great gods and goddesses of the ancient mythic imagination. In this once universal mode of consciousness, memorably embodied at the dawn of Western culture in the Homeric epics and later in classical Greek drama, reality is understood to be pervaded and struc­tured by powerful numinous forces and presences that are rendered to the hu­man imagination as the divinized figures and narratives of ancient myth, often closely associated with the celestial bodies.

Yet our modern word god, or deity or divinity, does not accurately convey the lived meaning of these primordial powers for the archaic sensibility, a meaning that was sustained and developed in the Platonic understanding of the divine. This point was clearly articulated by W. K. C. Guthrie, drawing on a valuable distinction originally made by the German scholar Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.

Theos, the Greek word which we have in mind when we speak of Plato’s god, has primarily a predicative force. That is to say, the Greeks did not, as Christians or Jews do, first assert the existence of God and then pro­ceed to enumerate his attributes, saying “God is good,” “God is love”and so forth. Rather they were so impressed or awed by the things in life or nature remarkable either for joy or fear that they said “this is a god” or “that is a god.” The Christian says “God is love,” the Greek “Love is theos,” or “a god.” As another writer [G. M. A. Grube] has explained it:

“By saying that love, or victory, is god, or, to be more accurate, a god, was meant first and foremost that it is more than human, not subject to death, everlasting …. Any power, any force we see at work in the world, which is not born with us and will continue after we are gone could thus be called a god, and most of them were.”

In this state of mind, and with this sensitiveness to the superhuman character of many things which happen to us, and which give us, it may be, sudden stabs of joy or pain which we do not understand, a Greek poet could write lines like: “Recognition between friends is theos,” It is a state of mind which obviously has no small bearing on the much­ discussed question of monotheism or polytheism in Plato, if indeed it does not rob the question of meaning altogether.

In one perspective, “monotheism” and “polytheism” can be understood as one and the same reality. “Out of one many,” as we are reminded of this oneness on our currency by the words “E Pluribus Unum.” The Master Jesus stated this truth in his final words to his disciples before his departure: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Today we call these “mansions” levels of Consciousness.  Consciousness is, in reality, all there is. One Consciousness with many levels, or differentiations. Out of the One God spring many “gods,” or points of Light, focal points that differentiate the One Light of Love, of Truth and of Life.  And so, we have one Sun in our solar system that focuses the Light of the Galactic Center, which focuses the Light of the One Consciousness for creation in this corner of the Universe.  Is this differentiation perhaps the foundation upon which the concept of archetypes is based? 

This, in my view, is all indicative of the process underway of remembering the “Truth” that makes us free of our current limitations in consciousness and awareness.  We are remembering that we ourselves are focal points of the One Light of Love, of Truth and of Life. We are awakening to the larger cosmic context of our journey through time and space as angels, if you will, or gods, in our Father’s House of many mansions.

I will continue with this discussion in my next post. Until then, 

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

 

 

Category:

Archetypes, Astrology, Conscious Evolution, Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, Dr. Palombo's blog, Mythology, Planetary Alignments, The Science of Mazzaroth

Tagged with:

Peace in Heaven and on Earth

The Heart Nebula (Thanks to Gary Courtland-Miles)

A Fresh New Beginning

In this Year of our Lord 2018, we find ourselves afloat in space on a planet that is one of nine sister planets (that we’re aware of), all of which appear well established in their orbits around the sun, our star in the heavens.  This stability hasn’t always been so well established and peaceful. Immanuel Verikovsky has shown in his trilogy Worlds In Collision, Earth In Upheaval and Ages In Chaos that in our historical past our solar system has experienced a radical shift and taken on a new planet and, therefore, a new configuration. The once-comet-now-planet Venus, he proposes, was born out of Jupiter and eventually captured by the sun after bouncing around the solar system like a billiards ball, colliding with Earth as well as with Mars, wreaking havoc while nearly obliterating the human race along with all living creature, until it was finally knocked into an orbit around the sun by Mars to become a member of our solar system.  For hundreds of years fear gripped the hearts of human beings. Rituals of human sacrifice numbering into the hundreds of thousands every year of men, women and children were performed to appease the gods of Venus and Mars and hopefully stave off the end of the world. To this day, “The End” is prophesied to be “Near.”

Velikovsky speaks to this fear of cataclysmic upheaval in Worlds In Collision:

The average man is no longer afraid of the end of the world. Man clings to his earthly possessions, registers his landholdings and fences them in; peoples carry on wars to preserve and to enlarge their historical frontiers. Yet the last five or six thousand years have witnessed a series of major catastrophes, each of which displaced the borders of the seas, and some of which caused sea-beds and continents to interchange places, submerging kingdoms, and creating space for new ones.

Cosmic collisions are not divergent phenomena, or phenomena that, in the opinion of some modern philosophers, take place in defiance of what is supposed to be physical laws; they are more in the nature of occurrences implicit in the dynamics of the universe, or, in terms of that philosophy, convergent phenomena. “Lest by chance restrained by religion,” — and we may read ‘science’ instead of ‘religion’ — “you should think that earth and sun, and sky, sea, stars, and moon must needs abide for everlasting, because of their divine body,” think of the catastrophes of the past; and then “look upon seas, and lands, and sky; their threefold nature . . . their three textures so vast, one single day shall hurl to ruin; and the mas­sive form and fabric of the world held up for many years, shall fall headlong.” *

“And the whole firmament shall fall on the divine earth and on the sea: and then shall flow a ceaseless cataract of raging fire, and shall burn land and sea, and the firmament of heaven and the stars and creation itself it shall cast into one molten mass and clean dissolve. Then no more shall there be the luminaries’ twinkling orbs, no night, no dawn, no constant days of care, no spring, no summer, no winter, no autumn.” *

“A single day will see the burial of all mankind. All that the long forbearance of fortune has produced, all that has been reared to eminence, all that is famous and all that is beautiful, great thrones, great nations – all will descend into one abyss, will be overthrown in one hour.” *

The vehemence of flames will burst asunder
the framework of the earth’s crust.*

With those kind of doomsday words of warning, little wonder the hearts of people were gripped with fear. With fear comes weakened immune systems and chronic stress, not unlike the current global atmosphere wherein disease finds us vulnerable hosts.

A New Beginning

But, take heart. There was method in all this madness, however bleak the prospects of survival must have been for our ancestors who suffered through such horrific cataclysmic upheavals.  With the new configuration of planets comes a new energetic dynamic in the solar system, as well as in the evolution of human consciousness.  The conflagrations and deluges had destroyed “all corrupted flesh” and cleansed the earth of the genetically manipulated creations of fallen man. Some survivors had escaped death by fleeing to the Himalaya mountains as they rose up out of the sea during massive earthquakes and the sinking of continents like Lemuria and Atlantis. China and India had their beginnings from these remnants of lost civilizations. Noah-type characters appear in legends and stone carvings in many parts of the world that closely resemble the deluge described in the story of Noah in Genesis. The destruction was global.

In Fingerprints Of The Gods and Magicians Of The Gods, Graham Hancock writes about “the shining ones” with long white beards and white robes who traveled to various postdiluvian settlements to teach them agriculture, architecture, language and writing skills. Their mission was to restore the “garden of the gods” that had been their homelands before the deluge and conflagration. But their mission and efforts were frustrated, so they left feeling defeated, in some cases by boat and in other cases by walking upon the ocean waters, but in all cases they departed by ocean and disappeared into the horizon; perhaps ascended. They did accomplish, however, their main objective of helping to begin again the rebuilding of civilizations on the planet.

I believe that what may have frustrated these “shining ones” was their loss of the power they once enjoyed to create living things. Something had drastically changed in the energy field of the planet. It was as though they were barred from partaking of the “Tree of Life” and thus maintaining their immortality on the pohysical plane. Whatever the case, things were different than before the cataclysmic upheavals that, for one thing, caused the earth’s axis to tilt some 23 degrees and the orbit of the Earth to change. Added to these changes, a new planet, Venus, joined our solar system and the orbit of Mars was altered as well.

Was all of this upheaval on Earth and in our solar system a first step preparing us for the day and place we would find ourselves in at this time in the history of Mankind? The “Place of Creation?” All the factors are in place for a new beginning for the planet and for the human race as we make, with our Earth Mother, an historical frequency shift.

The “Place of Creation”

I return to my post of December 24, 2017. In the year of our Lord 2012 our solar system aligned with the Central Sun of the Milky Way Galaxy and we find ourselves once again in the “Place of Creation.”  I will end this post with this excerpt from that post reminding us that we have an 80-year window of opportunity to attune ourselves to the divine plan for the restoration of Mankind to the dignity and nobility we once knew as sons and daughters of God.  We are two-thirds of the way across the front of this window.

I am reminded of a passage in the Book of Revelation (12:14):

“And when the dragon saw that he was cast down unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.  And to the Woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and a half time, from the face of the serpent.”

That’s three-and-a-half periods of time, whatever that signifies – days, months, years or perhaps decades or centuries. And I will not even speculate here, only mention that we are in the midst of the “Rise of the Feminine” as She confronts the male-dominated social, political and economic world order. She has taken flight to take her rightful place as co-creator with the Masculine, having been persecuted for hundreds of decades for her positive masculine expression of her truth — her “man child,” for which she has been “travailing in birth” to deliver, and which the dragon seeks to devour.  OMG! How descriptive of current events in the “war of the sexes.” That entire chapter bears reading.

The significance of this alignment lies in the access we have while traveling through this 80-year window of creation to unlimited energy and power to co-create a new world upon the surface of our Home among the stars. This is the time for which we have been born into this world, and we have only 25 more years in which to complete our work of renewal. The New Heaven has been created and established in the collective consciousness of a critical number of human beings in the Body of God on Earth over the past fifty-five years. The New Earth is already emerging out of the chaos of the times, for out of all chaos order emerges. Never mind the mass media which makes its fortune airing the chaos in the world. There is much more occurring of a positive, creative and integrative nature under the radar of the media than the negative stuff of this disintegrating mind-made world that is shown on television newscasts and pictured in newspapers. So, my word today is “Take heart and be about the work of rebuilding and re-birthing the New World of order and beauty from out of the New Heaven of love and truth and life.  Let us make all things new again.”

There is peace in the Heaven of our solar system and galaxy. Let there be peace on Earth as well. Our time has come. ”

“As above, so below” — “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

Until my next post, then,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthon7

Read my Healthlight Newsletter online.

 

*Velikovsky’s references:

1  Lucretius De rerum natura, v (trans!. C. Bailey, 1924).

2 The Sibylline Oracles, transl. Lanchester.

3 Seneca Naturales quaestiones III, xxx (transl. J. Clarke).

4 Seneca Epistolae morales, Epistle xcl (transl. R. M. Gummere).

 

 

Category:

2012, Ancient gods were planets, Ancient knowledge, Ancient Technology, Angels & Archangels, Ascension, Astronomy, Atlantis, Cataclysms, Catastrophism, Climate Changes, Conscious Evolution, Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, Cosmic Energy, Cosmic events, Creation, Current cosmic event, Evolution, Frequency Shifting, Global Events, Global Warming, Immanuel Velikovsky, Lamuria, Mars, Mayan Calendar, Milky Way Galaxy, Morning Star, Mythology, New Earth, Our Sun, Planet Earth, Pole Shift, Venus, Venus a once comet, Worlds in Collision

Tagged with:

War in Heaven and on Earth, page 3

Thank

                       Our Solar Entity – Celestial Body of the Archangel

Earthlings saw angels doing battle in the heavens and archangels slaying dragons.  They saw Lucifer, the Morning Star, cut down from on high; they even saw witches flying on broomsticks — the stuff of legends, folklore, and religious beliefs. They prophesied the end of the world and made human sacrifices to placate the gods and stave off the destruction of the world. Such was the climate for hundreds of years during cataclysmic events Immanuel Velikovsky writes about in his heavily documented Worlds in Collision — from which I will share a few more excerpts.

Lucifer Cut Down

It can be said that the planet Mars saved the terrestrial globe from a major catastrophe by colliding with Venus. Since the days of Exodus and Joshua, Venus was dreaded by the peoples of the earth.

For about seven hundred years this terror hung over mankind like the sword of Damocles. Human sacrifices were made to Venus in both hemispheres in order to propitiate her. After centuries of terror, one sword of Damocles was removed from above the heads of mankind, only to be replaced by another. Mars became the dread of the peoples, and its return was feared every fifteen years. Before this, Mars had absorbed the blow, even the repeated blows of Venus, and had saved the earth.

Venus, which collided with the earth in the fifteenth century before the present era, collided with Mars in the eighth century. At that time Venus was moving at a lower elliptical velocity than when it first encountered the earth; but Mars, being only about one­-eighth the mass of Venus, was no match for her. It was therefore a notable achievement that Mars, though thrown out of the ring, never­theless was instrumental in bringing Venus from an elliptical to a nearly circular orbit. Looked at from the earth, Venus was removed from a path that ran high to the zenith and over the zenith to its present path in which it never retreats from the sun more than 48 degrees, thus becoming a morning or an evening star that precedes the rising sun or follows the setting sun. The awe of the world for many centuries, Venus became a tame planet.

Isaiah, referring figuratively to the king of Bbylon who destroyed cities and made the land into a wilderness, uttered his remarkable words about Lucifer that fell from heaven and was cut down to the ground. The commentators recognized that behind these words applied to the king of Babylon must have been some legend about the Morning Star. The metaphor regarding the king of Babylon implied that his fate and the fate of the Morning Star were not dissimilar; both of them fell from on high. But what could it mean that the Morning Star fell from the heights? asked the commentators.

Significant are the words of Isaiah about the Morning Star, that it “weakened the nations” before it was cut down to the ground. It weakened the nations in two collisions with the earth, and it weakened the nations by keeping them in constant fear for centuries.

The Book of Isaiah, in every chapter, provides abundant evidence that with the removal of Venus, so that it no longer crossed the orbit of the earth, danger was not eliminated, but became even more threatening. . . .

Meteorites fell from the sky as stones.  One of those stones is the “black stone of Kaaba” venerated as the holiest thing in Mecca which pilgrims come from afar to kiss.  According to Moslem tradition, it fell from the planet Venus, although another legend says that Archangel Gabriel brought it down.

Kaaba is older than Mohammedanism. Mohammed, in the early part of his career, worshiped Venus (al- Uzza) and other planetary gods, which even today enjoy great veneration among the Moslems as the “daughters of the god.”

Who, then, is this Archangel Gabriel?

The Archangels

In the Scriptures the destruction of the army of Sennacherib is said to have been caused by a “blast,” and a few verses later it is said to have been the act of an angel of God.” The Talmudic and Midrashic sources, which relate that the army of Sennacherib was destroyed by a blast and scourge accompanied by a terrible din on the night following the day when the shadow of the sun returned ten degrees, are
more specific: the scourge was inflicted by the Archangel Gabriel “in the guise of a column of fire.”  In the present research it has been established that it was the work of Mars.

Are archangels planets? “An old tradition, dating back to Gaonic times, had it that there are seven archangels, each of whom is associated with a planet.”  “The seven archangels were believed to play an important part in the universal order through their association with the planets and the constellations. There is some variation, in the different versions, in the angels assigned to the planets.”  In some medieval writings Gabriel is associated with the moon, but in one or two with Mars.”

The following, however, makes the identification of Gabriel possible: Gabriel is connected with the foundation of Rome. The Jewish legend says that when Solomon took the daughter of Pharaoh to wife, “the Archangel Gabriel descended from heaven and inserted a reed in the sea. About this reed more and more earth was gradually deposited, and, on the day on which Jeroboam erected the golden calves, a little hut was built on the island. This was the first dwelling-place of Rome.” Here Gabriel is cast in the role the Romans ascribed to Mars, that of the founder of Rome?* Our assumption that it was the planet Mars which caused the destruction of the army of Sennacherib in the spring of -687 is implied also by rabbinic sources: Since the Archangel Gabriel is another name for the planet Mars, the ancient Jews knew the origin of the “blast” and the identity of “the angel of the Lord” who destroyed the Assyrian army.

*It was Aeneas who founded the city of Rome in the eighth century before the present era after he was saved when Troy was captured and went to Carthage and from there to Italy.

Gabriel is the angel appointed over fire; he is also, according to Origen,” the angel of war. Thus we again recognize in him Mars Nergal. The rabbinical tradition says that the Assyrians of the host of  Sennacherib, before they died, were permitted by Gabriel to hear “the song of the celestials,” which can be interpreted as the sound caused by a close approach of the planet. The words of Isaiah (33 : 3) 
“at the noise of the tumult [hamon] the people fled,” should, according to the Jewish tradition as related by Jerome, refer to Gabriel, Hamon being another of his names.”

The planet Mars is red, and Maadim (the red or the one who redens) is the name for Mars in the Hebrew astronomical texts. On­e text says: “The Holy One created Mars–Maadim–that he should throw them [the nations] down into hell.”

A few rabbinical sources attribute the destruction of Sennacherib’s army to the action of the Archangel Michael; some ascribe it to both archangels.

Who, then, is the Archangel Michael?

The entire story of Exodus is connected with the Archangel Michael. In Exodus 14 : 19 the pillar of fire and of cloud is called Angel of God. According to the Midrash it was the Archangel Michael who made himself “a wall of fire” between the Israelites and the Egyptians. Michael is said to be made of fire. The Haggadah states: “Michael was appointed High Priest of the celestial sanctuary at the same time that Aaron was made high priest of Israel,” that is, in the time of the Exodus. Michael was also the angel who appeared to Joshua, son of Nun.

The celestial struggle at the Sea of Passage is depicted in the familiar image of the Archangel Michael slaying the dragon. Michael produces fire by touching the earth, and it was the emanation of this archangel that was seen in the burning bush, He has his abode in heaven and is the forerunner of Shehina [Shekinah] or God’s presence, but as Lucifer, Michael falls from heaven and his hands are bound by God. All these attributes and acts of the Archangel Michae lead us to recognize which planet he represents: it is Venus.

The Archangel Michael, or the planet Venus, and the Archangel Gabriel, or the planet Mars, saved the people of Israel on two dramatic occasions. At the Sea of Passage, when the hosts of Egypt, pursuing the fleeing slaves, could be seen in the distance (“the chil­dren of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid,”  the sea was torn apart, and the slaves walked on the bottom of the sea and reached the other shore. Their enemies were thrown high by the released tides, which fell down when a spark passed between Venus and the earth.

Eight hundred years passed after the Exodus. The Assyrian hosts, which a generation earlier had removed the Ten Tribes of Israel to an exile from whence they never returned, invaded Judea with the express purpose of crushing rebellious Judah and removing him from his homeland and from the scene of history. A blast from the planet Mars fell upon the camp of the Assyrians and annihilated it. Those rabbinical sources which ascribed this act to both archangels were not wrong. Venus pushed Mars toward the earth, and thus both were instrumental in the destruction.

The author of the apocryphal book of the Ascension [Assumption] of Moses knew that “Venus and Mars are each as large as the whole Earth.” 

Because of their intervention at moments when the national existence of Israel was at stake, Michael and Gabriel were looked upon as “guardian angels” of the eternal people.

Gabriel is the Hebrew Hercules (Heracles). Actually the classic authors made it clear that Hercules is another name for the planet Mars. In the Gospel of Luke (1:26) Gabriel is the angel of Annunciation to the Virgin.

In the Roman Catholic Church Michael is the conqueror of Satan, “head of the host of heaven and first of the saints after Mary.

Planet Worship in Judea in the Seventh Century

In the Northern Kingdom the process of disassociating the deity from the celestial object had not yet been completed when the Kingdom was destroyed (-723 or -722), and its population was led away into captivity, from which they did not return. “And they [the tribe of the Northern Kingdom] left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal” (II Kings 17: 16).

Only a few years after the deliverance of Judea from the hand of Sennacherib, Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, ”built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord” (II King, 21: 5). “For he [Manasseh] built again high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and he made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served
them” (II Chronicles 33 : 3). 

“Baalim” or “Baal” are shorter versions of Beelzebub (Baal Zevuv), names given to Venus when she was a comet. This sheds an historical light on the story of Elijah and his contest between the worshipers of Baal and those who worshiped the Lord God. Then there’s this legend behind our Halloween witches on broomsticks:

The Pageants of the Sky

Cosmic perturbations took place, catastrophes swept the globe, but did witches fly through the air on brooms? The reader would agree that cosmic catastrophes, if they occurred, could leave, and must have left, similar memories all around the world; but there are fantastic images that do not appear to represent realities. We shall follow this rule: if there exists a fantastic image that is projected against the sky and that repeats itself all around the world, it is most probably an image that was seen on the screen of the sky by many peoples at the same time. On one occasion a comet took the striking form of a woman riding on a broom, and the celestial picture was so clearly defined that the same impression was imposed on all the peoples of the world. It is well known how, in modern times, the forms of comets impress people.

Besides being a source for creative imaging (pareidolia), folklore, and religious beliefs, cataclysmic upheavals of the past tell us that we live in a world that is far from stable and that has its own cycles and seasons of evolution which impact our planet’s climate and weather far more than anything we humans could possibly do. I will continue sharing Velikovsky with you in the next post. Until then,

Be love. Be loved

Anthony

Read my HealthLight Newsletter online for informative articles.

 

 

 

Category:

Ancient gods were planets, Angels & Archangels, Cataclysms, Catastrophism, Global Warming, Homer's Illiad, Mars, Morning Star, Mythology, Planet Earth, Venus, Venus a once comet, Worlds in Collision

Tagged with:

War in Heaven and on Earth, page 2

Collective Guilt and Amnesia 

Catastrophic events have always been perceived by the inhabitants of the Earth as punishment by the gods for their sinful and ungodly behavior – or, as one native tribe believed, for turning away from the Great Spirit. It hasn’t entered our guilt-laden consciousness that it is we, not the gods, who have brought the sky down upon our own heads, literally, by our failure to play our spiritual role as a vital cog in the Wheel of Life; our failure to remember that what we do here vibrationally impacts the entire solar system. The problem is compacted by the fact that we’ve forgotten our bloody and painful past, blotted it out of memory altogether, while tottering on the brink of repeating it. These blog posts are being written as a reminder of what has gone before — not millions of years ago, but in our own recent historical past.

Immanuel Velikovsky has reminded us of that cataclysmic past in his trilogy, Worlds in Collision, Earth in Upheaval and Ages in Chaos. I bring him forward now in a timely manner because the decisive hour of this civilization’s survival or utter collapse is at hand, and it doesn’t appear likely we are going to repent of our self-centered destructive ways soon enough to avert a man-made global catastrophe. Twice in our historical past our species has been blown to kingdom come and all but annihilated from the face of the earth. A third time would be our last. Just as in America’s favorite sport, three strikes and you’re out. What we need is a Home run.

Here are a few excerpts from Worlds in Collision, describing in graphic details what our species underwent during global cataclysms that took place five-thousand and twenty-seven hundred years ago – in the fifth century before the present era in the days of Noah when Atlantis sank into the ocean and in the eighth century before the present era when Moses led the Jewish Nation out of Egyptian captivity. These excerpts relate to the period following the latter of theses two events when the once-comet Venus, after wreaking havoc on planet Earth, was captured by our solar system after an encounter with Mars which pushed her into a stable orbit around the sun and added her to our planetary system — all of this the end conclusion of Velikovsk’s exhaustive research into the cataclysmic history of our planet.

The Year was -747

Velikovsky

ABOUT seven hundred fifty years passed after the great catastrophe of the days of the Exodus, or seven centuries after the cosmic disturbance in the days of Joshua. During all this time the world was afraid of the recurrence of the catastrophe at the end of every jubilee period. Then, starting about the middle of the eighth century before the present era, a new series of cosmic upheavals took place at intervals of short duration.

It was the time of the Hebrew prophets whose books are preserved in writing, of Assyrian kings whose annals are excavated and deciphered, and of Egyptian pharaohs of the Libyan and Ethiopian dynasties; in short, the catastrophes which we are now about to describe did not take place in a mist-shrouded past: the period is part of the well authenticated history of the lands of the eastern Mediterranean. The eighth century also saw the beginning of the nations of Greece and Rome.

The seers who prophesied in Judea were versed in the lore of heavenly motion; they observed the ways of the planetary and cometary bodies and, like the stargazers of Assyria and Babylonia, they were aware of future changes.

In the eighth century, in the days of Uzziah, king of Jerusalem, there occurred a devastating catastrophe called raash or “commotion.” Amos, who lived at the time of Uzziah, began to predict a cosmic upheaval before the raash took place, and after the catastrophe Isaiah, Joel, Hosea, and Micah insisted unanimously and with great emphasis on the inevitability of another encounter of the earth with some cosmic body.

The prophecy of Amos was made two years before the raash (1:1). He declared that fire sent by the Lord would devour Syria, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Philistia, as well as the far-off countries, “with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind” (1: 14). The land of Israel would not be exempted; “great tumult” would be on its mountains, and “great houses shall have an end” (3: 15). “He will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts” (6: 11). . . .

Amos, the earliest among the prophets of Judah and Israel whose speeches are preserved in writing,” reveals the concept of Yahweh in that remote period of history. Yahweh orders the planets. “He who maketh [ordains] Khima and Khesil,” and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night, and calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth, the Lord [Yahweh] is his name: He strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong” (5: 8-9).

Amos prophesied: The land “shall rise up wholly as a Rood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day” (8: 8-9). The “flood of Egypt” mentioned by Amos may be a reference to the catastrophe of the day of the Passage of the Sea; but more probably it refers to an event within the memory of the generation to which Amos spoke.

In the reign of Osorkon II of the Libyan Dynasty in Egypt, in the third year, the first month of the second season, on the twelfth day, according to a damaged inscription,” the flood came on, in this whole land . . . this land was in its power like the sea; there was no dyke of the people to withstand its fury. All the people were like birds upon it . . . the tempest . . . suspended . . . like the heavens. All the temples of Thebes were like marshes.” . . .

On the day of the approaching catastrophe, Amos says, there will be no place of escape, not even on Mount Carmel, rich in caves. “Though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down. And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence” (9: 2-3).

Earth will melt and the sea will be heaped up and thrown upon inhabited land. “And the Lord God of hosts is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt. . . . He that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth” (9: 5-6).

Amos was persecuted and killed. The catastrophe did not fail to come at the appointed time. In anticipation and in fear of it, King Uzzlah went to the Temple to burn incense.” The priests opposed his appropriating their functions. “Suddenly the earth started to quake so violently that a great breach was torn in the Temple. On the west side of Jerusalem, half of a mountain was split off and hurled to the east.”  Flaming seraphim leaped in the air.”. .  

The Year -747

If the commotion of the days of Uzziah was of global character and was brought about by an extraterrestrial agent, it must have caused some disturbance in the motion of the earth on its axis and along its orbit. Such a disturbance would have made the old calendar obsolete and would have required the introduction of a new calendar.

In -747 a new calendar was introduced in the Middle East, and that year is known as “the beginning of the era of Nabonassar.” It is asserted that some astronomical event gave birth to this new calendar, but the nature of the event is not known. The beginning of the era of Nabonassar, otherwise an obscure Babylonian king, was an astronomical date used as late as the second Christian century by the great mathematician and astronomer of the Alexandrian school, Ptolemy, and also by other scholars. It was employed as a point of departure of ancient astronomical tables.

A Blast from Heaven Kills 185,000 Warriors

The destruction of the army of Sennacherib is described laconically in the Book of Kings: “And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hun­dred fourscore and five thousand; and when the people arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt in Nineveh.” It is Similarly described in the Book of Chronicles: “And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and cried to heaven. And the Lord sent an angel which cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he [Sennacherib] returned with shame of face to his own land.

What kind of destruction was this? Malach, translated as “angel,” means in Hebrew “one who is sent to execute an order,” supposed to be an order of the Lord. It is explained in the texts of the Books of Kings and Isaiah that it was a “blast” sent upon the army of Sennacherib.! “I will send a blast upon him … and [he] shall return to his own land,” was the prophecy immediately preceding the catastrophe. . . . The Talmud and Midrash sources, which are numerous, all agree on the manner in which the Assyrian host was destroyed: a blast fell from the sky on the camp of Sennacherib. It was not a flame, but a consuming blast: “Their souls were burnt, though their garments remained intact.” The phenomenon was accompanied by a terrific noise.”

“Yahu!”

Here is a story, told to Shelton by the Snohomish tribe on Puget Sound, about the origin of the exclamation “Yahu,” to which I have already referred briefly. “A long time ago, when all the animals were still human beings, the sky was very low. It was so low that the people could not stand erect. . . . They called a meeting together and discussed how they could raise the sky. But they were at a loss to know how to do so. No one was strong enough to lift the sky.  Finally the idea occurred to them that possibly the sky might be  moved by the combined efforts of the people, if all of them pushed against it at the same time. But then the question arose of how it would be possible to make all the people exert their efforts at exactly the same moment. For the different peoples would be far away from one another, some would be in this part of the world, others in an­other part. What signal could be given that all people would lift at precisely the same time? Finally, the word ‘Yahu!’ was invented for this purpose. It was decided that all the people should shout ‘Yahu!’ together, and then exert their whole strength in lifting the sky. In accordance with this, the people equipped themselves with poles, braced them against the sky, and then all shouted ‘Yahu!’ in unison. Under their combined efforts the sky rose a little. Again the people shouted ‘Yahu!’ and lifted the heavy weight. They repeated this until the sky was sufficiently high.” Shelton says that the word “Yahu” is used today when some heavy object like a large canoe is being lifted. 

It is easy to recognize the origin of this legend. Clouds of dust and gases enveloped the earth for a long time; it seemed that the sky had descended low. The earth groaned repeatedly because of the severe twisting and dislocation it had experienced. Only slowly and gradu­ally did the clouds lift themselves from the ground.

One can only imagine what horror human beings experienced in those days. I will share more of Velikovsky in my next post.

Read my HealthLight Newsletter online at LiftingTones.com  for informative articles on health.

 

 

 

 

Category:

Astronomy, Atlantis, Cosmic events, Global Events, Global Warming, Immanuel Velikovsky, Mars, Mythology, Planet Earth, Pole Shift, Venus, Venus a once comet, Worlds in Collision

Tagged with:

Cataclysms: Velikovsky Revisited

 

Venus and Earth in comparison

Venus: The Morning Star/Mazzaroth/Lucifer/Satan/Baal/Beelzebub

We inhabit a planet that has undergone radical and traumatic change in the past, and we are in the danger zone chronologically for a revisit of comet debris from outer space. Things have not always been as quiet and stable on Earth as they appear now. In our historical past, for example, Venus was once a comet that legends tell horrific stories about. All of the names listed in the caption above are names by which the once-comet-now-planet Venus, thought to be born out of Jupiter, was called.

The story – as told in ancient legends and retold by Immanuel Velikovsky in his 1950 heavily documented masterpiece of exhaustive research Worlds In Collision – tells of swarms of flies and other insects that plagued, not only the Egyptians in the story of the Exodus, but peoples everywhere on the planet in the wake of comet Venus’ tail as it passed so close to the earth that it scorched its surface and wreaked havoc to the planet.  Venus was thus dubbed “Beelzebub, Lord of the flies” for this reason.

When Venus sprang out of Jupiter as a comet and flew very close to the earth, it became entangled in the embrace of the earth. The internal heat developed by the earth and the scorching gases of the comet were in themselves sufficient to make the vermin of the earth propagate at a very feverish rate. Some of the plagues, like the plague of the frogs (“the land brought forth frogs”) or of the locusts, must be ascribed to such causes. Anyone who has experienced a khamsin (sirocco), an electrically charged wind blowing from the desert, knows how, during the few days that the wind blows, the ground around the villages begins to teem with vermin.

The question arises here whether or not the comet Venus infested the earth with vermin which it may have carried in its trailing atmos­phere in the form of larvae together with stones and gases. It is significant that all around the world peoples have associated the planet Venus with flies. . . .

Modem biologists toy with the idea that microorganisms arrive on the earth from interstellar spaces, carried by the pressure of light.  Hence, the idea of the arrival of living organisms from interplanetary spaces is not new. Whether there is truth in this supposition of larval contamination of the earth is anyone’s guess. The ability of many small insects and their larvae to endure great cold and heat and to live in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen renders not entirely im­probable the hypothesis that Venus (and also Jupiter, from which Venus sprang) may be populated by vermin.

Baal Zevuv (Beelzebub)

The beautiful Morning Star was related to Ahriman, Seth, Lucifer, name equivalents of Satan. It was also Baal of the Canaanites and of the Northern Kingdom of the Ten Tribes, the god hated by the biblical prophets, also Beelzebub or Baal Zevuv, or Baal of the fly. 

In the Pahlavi text of the Iranian book, the Bundahis, describing the catastrophes caused by celestial bodies, it is written that at the close of one of the world ages “the evil spirit [Ahriman] went toward the luminaries.” “He stood upon one-third of the inside of the sky, and he sprang, like a snake, out of the sky down to the earth.” It was the day of the vernal equinox. “He rushed in at noon,” and “the sky was shattered and frightened.” “Like a fly, he rushed out upon the whole creation, and he injured the world and made it dark at midday as though it were in dark night. And noxious creatures were diffused by him over the earth, biting and venomous, such as the snake, scorpion, frog, and lizard, so that not so much as the point of a needle remained free from noxious creatures.” 

Then the Bundahis proceeds: “The planets, with many demons [comets], dashed against the celestial sphere, and they mixed the constellations; and the whole creation was as disfigured as though fire disfigured every place and smoke arose over it.”

A similar plague of vermin is described in the Scriptures, in Exodus, Chapters 8 to 10, and also in Psalm 78 where it is told that there were sent “divers sorts of flies among them [the people of Egypt], which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. (From Worlds In Collision)

Fear reigned in the hearts of the people

Comet Venus, which cycled back toward Earth about every fifteen years, was greatly feared by the people who had survived the first cataclysmic upheaval in the second millennium before the present era and had begun to rebuild their lives and human civilization. Venus was watched by astronomers and fearful humans across the globe for changes in its movement in the heavens. I’ll let Velikovsky tell it in his own words:

Velikovsky

“The earth and the water without which we cannot exist suddenly turned into enemies and engulfed the animal kingdom, the human race included, and there was no shelter and no refuge. In such cataclysms the land and the sea repeatedly changed places, laying dry the kingdom of the ocean and submerging the kingdoms of the land.” (Velikovsky, Earth In Upheaval) 

 The movements of Venus were carefully watched by the ancient astronomers of Mexico, India, Iran, and Babylonia. Temple observatories for the cult of the planets were built in both hemispheres. The bamot or “high places” so often mentioned in the Scriptures were observatories as well as places for offerings to the planet-gods, chiefly Venus (Baal). On these high places idolatrous priests, ordained by the erring kings of Judah, burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon, and to the planets. . . .

As long as Venus returned at regular intervals, fear of the planet was kept in bounds, when the star passed without causing harm, as it had already done for a few centuries, the people were calmed and felt themselves out of danger for another period. But when Venus, for some reason, began to move irregularly, fear grew intense.

The priests of Iran prayed:

We sacrifice to Tistrya, the bright and glorious star, for whom long flocks and herds and men, looking forward for him and deceived in their hope: When shall we see him rise up, the bright and glorious star Tistrya?

The Zend-Avesta answered for the star:

If men would worship me with a sacrifice in which I were invoked by my own name then I should come to the faithful at the appointed time.

The priests responded:

The next ten nights, 0 Spitama Zarathustra! the bright and glorious Tistrya mingles his shape with light, moving in the shape of a golden-horned bull.

They glorified the star that made “all the shores of the ocean boiling over, all the middle of it boiling over.” They heaped up sacrifices to the star, imploring it not to change its course.

We sacrifice unto Tistrya, the bright and glorious star who from the shining east moves along his long winding course, along the path made by the gods. . . .

We sacrifice unto Tistrya the bright and glorious star, whose rising is watched by the chiefs of deep understanding.

The star of Venus did not appear in the prescribed seasons. In the Book of Job the Lord asks him: “Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season …? Knowest thou the changes of heaven?” 11

11 Job 38: 32-33. The King James translation has, “Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?” The Septuagint has “the changes of heaven.”

The Science of Mazzaroth

The ancients read the stars and governed according to the signs and seasons – the ordinances – of the heavenly bodies, their risings and their settings. That science was generally lost, only later to be replaced by what we know today as astrology, a rather distorted and poor imitation of this ancient astronomical science and art. This may be the reason, as the author indicates below, for the uncertainty of its meaning.

There exists an extensive exegetic literature on this Mazzaroth from which it can be concluded only that “the meaning of Mazzaroth is uncertain.”  But the Vulgate (Latin) translation of the Bible has Lucifer for Mazzaroth. The (Greek) translation of the Seventy (Septuagint) reads: “Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season and guide the Evening Star by his long hair?” These words of the Septuagint seem very strange. I have already mentioned that the Greek word komet means “the long-haired one,” or a star with hair, a comet. In Latin, coma is “hair.”

Venus ceased to appear in its seasons. What had happened?

Venus Becomes the Morning Star

Since the latter part of the eighth century before the present era, Venus has followed an orbit between Mercury and Earth, which it has maintained ever since. It became the Morning and Evening Star. Seen from the earth, it is never removed more than 48 degrees (when at its eastern and western elongation) or three hours and a few minutes east or west of the sun. The dreaded comet became a tame planet. It has the most nearly circular orbit among the planets.

The end of the terror which Venus kept alive for eight centuries after the days of the Exodus was the inspiration for Isaiah when he said:

“How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.”

Septuagint [Greek Bible]and Vulgate [LatinBible] both translate Morning Star or Lucifer. What does it mean, that the Morning Star was assailing the heavens and rising high, and that it was cut down low to the horizon, and would weaken no more the nations?

More than a hundred generations of commentators have occupied themselves with this passage, but have met with failure.

Why, it is also asked, should the beautiful Morning Star, called Lucifer, the Light Bearer, live in the imagination of peoples as an evil power, a fallen star? What is in this lovely planet that makes her name an equivalent of Satan, or Seth of the Egyptians, the dark power? In his confusion, Origen wrote this question to the quoted verses of Isaiah: “Most evidently by these words is he shown to have fallen from heaven, who formerly was Lucifer, and who used to arise in the morning. For if, as some think, he was a nature of darkness, how is Lucifer said to have existed before? Or how could he arise in the morning, who had in himself nothing of the light?”

Lucifer was a feared prodigy in the sky, and its origin, as illuminated in this book, explains how it came to be regarded as a dark power and a fallen star.

After a great struggle, Venus achieved a circular orbit and a permanent place in the family of planets. During the perturbations which brought about this metamorphosis, Venus also lost its cometary tail.

In the valley of the Euphrates, “Venus then gives up her position as a great stellar divinity, equal with sun and moon, and joins the ranks of the other planets.”

A comet became a planet.

Venus was born as a comet in the second millennium before the present era. In the middle of that millennium it twice made contact with the earth and changed its cometary orbit. In the tenth to eighth centuries of the first millennium, it was still a comet. What caused such further changes in the motion of Venus in the first millennium that it became a planet on a circular orbit? (From Worlds In Collision)

The answer is Mars, which I will write about in my next post. Until then, here’s wishing you a Happy and Healthy New Year !

Anthony

Read my HealthLight Newsletter online at LiftingTones.com.

Velikovsky’s References for this excerpt :Schiaparelli, Astronomy in the Old T’estament, p. 74; Cambridge Bible, Book of Job, by A. B. Davidson and H. C. Lanchester; J.S. Suschken, Unvorgreifliche Kometen-Gedanken: Ob der Kometen in der’heiligen Schrift gedacht werde? (1744); and Isaiah 14 : 12-13); The Writings of Origen, “De principiis” (transl. F. Crombie, 1869), p. 51.; A. Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East (1911). I, 18.; Zend-Avesta (transI. Darmesteter ), Pt. II, pp. 94 ff. The belief sometimes expressed, that Tistrya is Sirius, is an obvious error: Sirius does not travel in a winding course. The star in the shape of a golden-homed bull was Venus. Also, inaccurate movements of Sirius could not occur without similar irregularity on the part of all the stars; Job 38: 32-33. The King James translation has, “Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?” The Septuagint has “the changes of heaven.”

Category:

Ancient Egypt, Ancient knowledge, Astronomy, Beelzabub, Cosmic events, Immanuel Velikovsky, Mars, Morning Star, Mythology, Planet Earth, Satan, Venus

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud