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.When you can remember or re-experience yourdeaths in previous incarnations, and realize thatyour immortal spirit survives and thrives, the fearof extinction begins to melt away.This sort of work is best done with an123 experienced guide, at least for the first few times.You may begin to relive ancient traumas, and willwant some strong support close by.In my own case,I have relived a spear-thrust through the stomach;death by guillotine; death in childbed; and beingraped and left for dead in the desert.Of course I alsohave access to much more pleasant experiences; buthealing requires that we face old traumas.If you arenot ready to do so, or do not have the properguidance and support, your Younger Self may verywell refuse access to your most traumaticexperiences.This is a sort of "built-in" safety featurewithin you.Ordinarily, if you can recall a past life atall, that fact indicates that you are strong enough todeal with it emotionally.If your religious faith denies the reality ofreincarnation, and you have no wish to explore it foryourself, then look to the teachings of your religionin order to come to terms with death.Do not stopwith doctrines; you must deal with feelings if youwould practice magick.Of course, there are other ways to exploredeath.You may contact friends or relatives whohave passed on with the help of a medium, if nec-essary.You can observe Nature and Her cycles oflife, death and rebirth.You may read books aboutnear-death experiences or about reincarnation.Youcould volunteer to work at a hospice, and learn fromothers as they are dying.You may review all thechanges in yourself since you wereyoung and accept, even celebrate them, since the124 "death" of all those earlier "yous" made the present"you" possible.Persevere until you understand deathas a transition into a new kind of existence and canimagine your own death without fear.On Dinosaurs, Death and The DanceThe Wiccan approach to death is celebratedon Samhain (variously pronounced "sah-VEEN,""SOW-en," or the Americanized "SAM-hayne"), thesabbat or holy night dedicated to the dead.Ac-cording to tradition, the "veil between the worlds" isthinnest on the night of October 31st, making thisthe perfect time to communicate with the spirits ofdeparted family and friends, and to work divinationof all kinds.Unfortunately, what was originally anoccasion for reverence and reunion now has beentransformed into Halloween in popular culture,which focuses on monsters and ghosts, the scarinessof death and the quest for candy.Now there isnothing wrong with a good party; but whereasSamhain encourages people to look squarely atdeath and change and loss, and to celebrate the lifethat was and the bonds of love which remain,Halloween simply flirts with death and darkness,titillating our fears and then quickly divertingattention to the goodie bags.What is it we really need to understand, in order toget past the fear and begin to explore the mystery?For answers to such Big Questions, Ioften turn to wise teachers, the sources of elder125 wisdom; but for this one, I instead asked the dino-saurs in my ears.Well, hanging from my ears, to be precise.Last week I visited Burnie's Rock Shop, which isa kind of home away from home.There on thecounter was a box of little rubber dinosaurs inbeautiful bright colors, just begging to becomeearrings.With the investment of 73¢ and fiveminutes with the jewelry pliers, I soon sported ahot pink tyrannosaurus on one lobe and a lavenderone on the other.Now if you're going to hang rubberreptiles on your ears, you may as well listen tothem.So I consulted the Lavender Lizard of Lifeand the Pink Dinosaur of Death, seeking wisdom.(This may seem a tiny bit eccentric to some, but Ilearned long ago that any object or entity cancatalyze insight; or, to put it another way, you canlook through any window and see the sunlight.)This is what I heard:"Everything She touches, changes.Changeis the essence of life, the nature of all reality."Dawn breaks, and we change the world,and the world changes us.We dance the dance ofdaylight."Night falls, and our conscious minds rest.But the life of the deep mind goes on: reliving,integrating, dreaming, moving and changing inrealms shadowy to our waking selves, but none-theless real.We dance the dance of darkness."In like manner, we are born to dance the126 dance of life; but when that ends and our livingpersonas rest, the life of the spirit goes on in otherrealms.We dance the dance of death."So spoke the dinosaurs, tiny reptilereplicas of whole species which danced into theshadows eons before the awakening of humanity,whispering wisdom in my ears from far down thecorridors of time.I was reminded that WiccanHigh Priestesses wear necklaces of alternatingamber and jet, of day and night, of life and deathand life again, symbolizing the great cyclethrough which we move.Through understanding, it is possible totranscend the fear of death, and so live moredeeply.I quote once more from a man who movedthrough his fear and past it, Whitely Streiber:"Gone was my dread.Now there was.asense of absolute correctness about it.It did notbelong to the dark at all.I belonged to the dark.Death was part of the grace of nature."I had been so scared and wanted so badlyto live.But the peace 1 touched was so incredibly,transcendentally great that I also now loved deatha little, or at least I accepted the truth andpresence of it in my own life."127 128 9Getting Readyfor RitualObviously, preparing yourself to workmagick is no light task.In truth, this kind ofpreparation never ends.Yet at some point you willneed to proceed the work itself knowing you arenot fully prepared for no magickian on thisplane is ever a "finished" Magickal Being.Youwill continue to grow as you work, and what youlearn from the work will, in turn, help you grow [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |
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