STONEFLOWER KABBALAH

StoneFlower Kabbalah
A site based on the healing of the ancient wisdom of the Geocentric worldview. The understanding of sacred texts and wisdom is based on a relationship to the Source. This Central Source is the Fount from which the three distinct movements of the Earth globe flow. These three turns-rotation,revolution and precession are a great secret/sod and key to the profound teachings of the mekubalim/kabbalists. These movements provide us with the experience of shanah/time, olam/matter and nephesh/soul(being). The Earth turn called precession is the slow wobble that causes the polar skies to change slowly over a 26,000 year cycle.
The chart of "72" names relates to this great cycle and is a key to unlocking where we are in "time".

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Leviathan/"Black serpent" the Oil disaster and Tikkun Olam


This Oil gushing disaster from the south appears to fulfill the end of this Native American prophecy of the struggling three serpents. The Black Serpent(in bold below) from the south who is described with a head that drips salt water may represent corporate greed as well as deep emotional(greed)imbalance called a kelippah/husk in the Hebrew wisdom tradition. We can find a similar story in the Hebrew legends/aggadah that refer to the battle between the giant fish/leviathan(black); behemoth animal(red)and Ziz/bird(white)- the elements of water, fire & air.
Taken from “The Lodge” a Native American teaching website:

“Deganawida (“He the Thinker”) was a wise prophet of the Iroquois. He lived at the same time as the great chief Hiawatha, circa 1500. At that time, the Iroquois nations were at war among themselves.
Deganawida was given a vision of a gigantic spruce tree which reached up to the sky to the Elder Brothers, symbolizing the Family of Humanity. Deganawida began to preach a religion of love and harmony, thereby bringing unity to the Iroquois nations, a great confederacy that lasted more than 300 years.
In another vision, Deganawida foresaw the destiny of the Native Americans. That vision was transmitted orally until Edmund Wilson published it in his Apologies to the Iroquois:
When Deganawidah was leaving the Indians in the Bay of Quinte in Ontario, he told the Indian people they would face a time of great suffering. They would distrust their leaders and the principles of peace of the League, and a great white serpent was to come upon the Iroquois, and that for a time it would intermingle with the Indian people and would be accepted by the Indians, who would treat the serpent as a friend. This serpent in time would become so powerful that it would attempt to destroy the Indian, and the serpent is described as choking the life’s blood out of the Indian people.
Deganawidah told the Indians that they would be in such a terrible state at this point that all hope would seem to be lost. He told them that when things looked their darkest, a red serpent would come from the north and approach the white serpent, which would be terrified, and upon seeing the red serpent he would release the Indian, who would fall to the ground almost like a helpless child, and the white serpent would turn his attention to the red serpent.
The bewilderment would cause the white serpent to accept the red serpent momentarily. The white serpent would be stunned and take part of the red serpent and accept him. Then there is a heated argument and fight. And then the Indian revives and crawls toward the land of the hilly country, and then he would assemble his people together, and they would renew their faith and the principles of the peace that Deganawidah had established.
There would at the same time exist among the Indians a great love and forgiveness for his brother, and in the gathering would come streams from all over — not only the Iroquois but from all over — and they would gather in this hill country, and they would renew their friendship. And Deganawidah said they would remain neutral in this fight between the red and white serpents.
At the time they were watching the two serpents locked in this battle, a great message would come to them, which would make them ever so humble, and when they became that humble, they will be waiting for a young leader, an Indian boy, possibly in his teens,who would be a choice seer. Nobody knows where he is or where he comes from, but he will be given great power,and would be heard by thousands,and he would give them the guidance and the hope to refrain from going back to their land and he would be the accepted leader.
And Deganawidah said that they will gather in the land of the hilly country, beneath the branches of an elm tree, and they should burn tobacco and call upon Deganawidah by name when we are facing our darkest hours, he will return. Deganawidah said as the choice seer speaks to the Indians, that number as the blades of grass, he will be heard by all at the same time.
As the Indians gathered watching the fight, they notice from the south a black serpent coming from the sea, and he is described as dripping with salt water, and as he stands there, he rests for a spell to get his breath, all the time watching to the north to the land where the red serpents and white serpents are fighting.
Deganawidah said that the battle between the white and red serpents opened real slow but would then become so violent that the mountains would crack and the rivers would boil and the fish would turn up their bellies. He said that there will be no leaves on the trees in that area. There would be no grass, and that strange bugs and beetles would crawl from the ground and attack both serpents, and he said that a great heat would cause the stench of death to sicken both serpents.
And then as the boy seer is watching this fight, the red serpent reaches around the back of the white serpent and pulls from him a hair which is carried toward the south by a great wind into the waiting hands of the black serpent, and as the black serpent studies this hair, it suddenly turns into a woman, a white woman who tells him things that he knows to be true; but; he wants to hear them again.
When this white woman finishes telling these things, he takes her and gently places her on a rock with great love a respect, and then he becomes infuriated at what he has heard, so he makes a beeline for the north, and he enters the battle between the red and white serpents with such speed and anger that he defeats the two serpents who have already been battle weary.
When he finishes, he stands on the chest of the white serpent, and he boasts and puts his chest out like he is conqueror, and he looks for another serpent to conquer. He looks to the land of the hilly country and then he sees the Indian standing with his arms folded and looking ever so noble so that he knows that this Indian is not the one that we should fight. The next direction that he will face will be eastward and at that time he will momentarily be blinded by a light that is many times brighter than the sun. The light will be coming from the east to the west over the water, and when the black serpent regains his sight, he becomes terrified and makes a beeline for the sea. He dips into the sea and swims away in a southerly direction, and shall never again be seen by the Indians.
The white serpent revives, and he, too, sees the light, and he makes a feeble attempt to gather himself and go toward the light. A portion of the white serpent refuses to remain, but instead makes it way toward the land of the hilly country,and there he will join the Indian People with a great love like that of a lost brother. The rest of the white serpent would go to the sea and dip into the sea and would be lost out of sight for a spell. Then suddenly the white serpent would appear again on the top of the water and he would be slowly swimming toward the light. Deganawidah said that the white serpent would never again be a troublesome spot for the Indian People.
The red serpent would revive and he would shiver with great fear when he sees the light. He would crawl to the north and leave a bloody shaky trail northward, and he would never again be seen by the Indians.
Deganawidah said as this light approaches that he would be that light, and he would return to his Indian People, and when he returns, the Indian People would be a greater nation than they ever were before.”

For those students of the Hebrew wisdom tradition, the prophet Deganawada was said to have had a stutter and so his friend and student Hiawatha delivered the message of peace fluently to the people after Deganawada healed Hiawatha of his own troubled imbalanced feelings and thoughts. It is therefore probable that Deganawada like Moshe Rabbeinu carried the Neshamah level soul root of his people.
The struggle between the Red and white serpents never caused what appears to be described as a nuclear global disaster. perhaps this is because of the fact that in the Hebrew legends/Agaddah it is stated that Moshe rabbeinu already conquered the Ziz bird; the out of balance/kelippah of the air element. Like in the Hopi prophecy we have always had a choice in prophetic outcome and the wisdom lineages have been quite succesful in tikkun Olam. Baruch HaShem!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seem to recall that Robert Graves (perhaps others?) believe that all “story” falls into a single, repeated pattern – that there is only one myth in the human unconscious – one “psychological archetype of the human soul”. Usually The Story is about a fall from grace, a descent into tribulation and exile during which critically important lessons are learned and incorporated, followed by an ascent usually depicted as a return home a more enlightened being. It is really quite incredible how often and for how this basic pattern colors the human imagination. Touches something very important about meaning, purpose in the human condition – a response to the imperative of death maybe and/or a belief in redemption – maybe even something about our species' origins.

In any case, it struck me that the Iroquois prophecy is a version of The Story, with strong parallels in Jewish tradition (as you point out). Here perhaps is how it might play out in more specifically Jewish terms: The white serpent is b’nai Esav (Edom/chesed?) and the red serpent is b’nai Yishmael (gevurah?). The observers/“other” are the Jews, who like the Indian people in your story, have been taught that their story is part of a much larger story, have experienced descent and exile and a hoped-for return home. The Edomites maintain their grip on the Jews until they are shaken by the specter of an ascendant b’nai Yishmael, whereupon the Jews are (partially) released and a very significant ingathering “in the hilly country” begins. A great struggle ensues between b’nai Yishmael and b’nai Esav in the North – tzafon – the shoresh of the hidden place and also conscience. The destruction that you say was avoided may be of a different and less literal kind, and has perhaps not been avoided at all – a high-stake struggle over beliefs and hegemony in which all of nature, the shechina herself, becomes instrument – a means to an end – as if the trees are leafless.

Perhaps the black serpent is Amalek – symbol of all that would turn belief into stone – the blank response to even the hint that transcendence is possible. Greed, yes as you write, but I prefer “addiction” – a state of being trapped so firmly in the physical world that imagination withers, no thought beyond the source of next fix, a living death,being willing to engage in violence to protect the supply line, even though the supply line delivers death. Your connection to the oil spill makes so much sense – as in the story of the quail, the earth has responded, “you want oil; I’ll give you oil”. We should be looking for a global “12-step” program – or perhaps that’s what you are attempting?

The great light comes from the East. Of course – as in The Story – redemption involves an ascendant return… kedem as both future and past.

The woman is important, but I don’t understand her yet in this story. (She returns in your next post, but haven’t had time to think about that yet.) In any case, we often forget that Moshe and Aharon accomplished what they did because their sister formed the third leg of the stool.

Sweet and hopeful in either version. Thank you.

js

Michael Margolis said...

thanx for these ideas and connections js. what the mythkeepers like Graves, Jung and Cambpell called "archetypes" do have validity especially if we apply the five continuum worldview of the mekubalim and see the patterns and images that arise in the mind/body as connected to the more complex dimensionality of soul/being. then we impinge on the makom/place of true prophecy!

Anonymous said...

Thanks much for your comment. I hadn't thought of prophecy as the place that intersects these dimensions.

And the white woman, from the hair of the white serpant, who speaks a truth that calms, then enrages - who is she and what is her message? A discovery of the white serpant that evil is illusion?