The Ark of Initiation/Autumnal Lodge of Colors

We have now entered the rainy month of Chesvan when the first Beith HaMikdash/temple was completed and when the third Holy House is destined to be revealed to the whole world. We have spent the days of the last two months of Elul and Tishre, 58 days sweetening our souls. The Torah parsha Noach always begins in the month of Chesvan. The value of the name of Noach-nun-cheth is 58. He is the righteous initiate in the temple mysteries who has received the good heart with a relationship to HaShem as we have sweetened our own hearts with the days of teshuvah, awe, and festival(58 days in all). He also has received the mystery of the crystal interface with which to build a holy house, an ark which is to receive the light of the forty day flood. This is parallel to the Sinaitic revelation of forty days. It is only a destructive flood to those who cannot withstand this flood of the upper waters of celestial light. Noach is one of the people mentioned in the legends/aggadah that receives the original secret book of sapphire given to the first Adam by Raziel, the angel of secret things. Noach is said to have used this jewel to light the ark and distinguish day from night during the forty days. The Zohar goes deeply into the colors of initiation which are related to the colors of the special jewels and the covenant of the keshet/rainbow. The colors are directly related to the vision of Ezekiel, the foundation stone of the holy temple and the faces of the four holy creatures/Hayoth HaKodesh.. This month of Chesvan embodies one of these four faces, that of the Eagle. This month involves the great depths(snake, scorpion) and the most awesome heights(eagle). It is the alternating heights and depths that bring the initiate into the most profound levels of the lodge of colors, the tree of the omakim, the directional depths of a shamanic life journey. The Zohar for the parsha Noach tells us,” The firmament is imprinted, at the four corners of a square, with four figures, of a lion, an eagle, an ox, and a man…Further the firmament with its enclosed square contains the gamut of all the colors. Outstanding are four colors…green, red, white, and sapphire, which is made up of all these colors. Hence it is written, “ As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud, in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of HaShem, containing, that is to say, all shades of all colors” Zohar I-71b. The Zohar then connects the Eben Shetiyah, the foundation stone of the temple tradition to this bow of colors of initiation. We have in the Torah this teaching about the rainbow: “ This is the sign of the covenant that I give between Me and you, and every living being that is with you, to generations forever”(Bereisith 9-12) These are the colors that the Kabbalists explain as directions on the great Tree. They are degrees of initiation with corresponding tastes, smells and textures. The eleven ingredients of the temple incense is a part of this mystery tradition. The sacred tree of life gives us resins, flowers, and fruits that awaken our senses to the bounty of Adamah/Earth. We learn about the fruits of the Tree throughout the great Shanah/wheel of the year. The gifts of the Source continually unfolding, flowering and ripening with color and fragrance. In the beginning of the Zohar on this weeks parsha Lech lecha we have a beautiful poem that sums up the lodge of colors, better known as the Tree of the Omakim/Depths or sephirot.
1) One mounts to one side.
2) One descends on that side.
3) One enters between the two.(Abraham and Sarah and the covenant)
4) Two crown themselves with a third.(the Keter-crown-vertice of fifth continuum(crown-kingdom) towards the unchanging“good“)
5) Three enter into one.(the three patriarchs and the priesthood)
6) One produces various colors. (Tiphereth radiates the seven colors "below")
7)Six of them descend on one side and six of them on the other. (spatial directions of this world)
8) Six enter into twelve.(the tribes as embodying the temple building and the edges of the cube of the stone)
9)Twelve bestir themselves to form twenty-two.(the cube=12 edges,6 faces, 3 axis and the center stone=22)
10) Six are comprised in ten.(the six are the matriarchs-Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah)
11) Ten are fixed in one. (Malchut=vertice of 5th continuum as tabernacle stone and Shekinah)(Zohar I-77a)
The seven colors of the six walls of the tabernacle-cube and the seventh center stone of foundation, the special sapphire, are the brighter rainbow being revealed now to the world. The Zohar tells us this bow of colors would brighten in the days of the third temple, meaning its significance would deepen. Those people who have come upon the Native American teachings of the medicine wheels; with the colors and the winds and the elements as well as all living beings and their places on the wheel of initiation, can not help but get the shivers as we come to recognize this lodge of initiation coming from the people’s wisdom of the Earth lodge and joining with the bow in the sky lodge. Heaven and Earth are joining and this Temple that is eternal in the heavens is becoming visible here in sacred Earth. In this eighth month of the wheel we can go out at midnight as the Zohar tells us to do and see the scintillating constellation of the Pleiades, the seven sisters directly overhead at Zenith-the top of the starry sky tree. Cultures all over the Northern latitudes celebrate these nights as especially "Hallowed"(November first-Gregorian) because these seven rainbow stars of the ancesters crown the sky tree at midnight this time of year. A full, sweet and beautiful month of Chesvan, a month of colors, to everyone!