finding balance

The jaguar is the ultimate representative of the life force power. The visual expression of the energy is stunning. The beauty, strength, and savageness are on full display. The manifestation of the pure power is realized in the wild state. The domestication and cultivation of the power allows for nuance, growth, and feats of incredible achievements. Deep down, the power wants to be free to express itself and in controlled societies that results in periodic outbreaks of uncontrollable wild abandon. Sometimes we say one has gone crazy.

Balance comes to mind. One can stay cultured and acceptable for only so long before the dam breaks and the jaguar within wants out. There becomes a need to recognize and befriend this state. There is a pull within all to become free and let loose. It is awesome and is what you seek. I can feel it within and how it animates all. This is it; it is what you wanted to discover. It’s the Great Spirit. It comes forth as the jaguar, powered by the serpent. It’s the harmony of feminine and masculine to produce conscious power capable of constant transformational magic.

 

We are all expressions of the power; every single living thing. Everything has spirit. Life could be thought of as an experiment where free will is observed in the situational embodiment of conscious energy and the wonder is in how it is used. The masculine wants to push forward, achieve, accomplish, and win. This involves building and destroying, amidst a show of strength and ferocity. The feminine wants to create community, unity, and family structures. She wishes to express the power through creativity and the arts. Her potency is a check on her masculine counterpart through love and inclusiveness as opposed to individuality and competition. The two as one makes for harmony while balancing each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Left alone, each polarity refines into a greater expression of its dominant traits. In the case of the male, it is the warrior intent upon world domination at the expense of all. This darkness is within us all. Look within and you will see it and you will see the need for harmony and balance. A reconciliation involves finding your soul mate. We are agents of destruction, both outwardly and the self. When we are shown love, the power flowers.

 

There is a need to first reconcile within and afterwards the recognition and mitigation of the duality of each lighthouse of power. Subsequently, one is ready to harmonize with the outward expression of this power. Why do most relationships fail? Look within for the reason. We are not whole beings as of yet though we go in search of a partner who will make us whole. That only works once we have dealt with our own shit.

 

There is a need for deep soul work and a need for the reconciliation of opposites in order to live within the centre/heart space but to get to that place involves a balance within of the contending polarities. Before the coming together of the feminine and the masculine, each side has to get its act together. It's mythicized in ancient Egypt as the constant fighting between Horus and Set and within that story are homosexual elements that symbolize a union of masculine traits that mitigate the destructive tendencies and weaknesses found within masculine archetypes. It’s a tough sell to discuss in our culture as we view this behaviour as deviant as opposed to being symbolic. In western culture, a real man ain’t no sissy; he’s alpha and definitely no cuck or soy boy, has no feelings, and never backs down. In a culture that ritually celebrated this behaviour, the answer becomes obvious and so empowering.

 

I have written about this before and these concepts were realized and practiced by the great quariwarmi shamans of the Andes. I write about it again because of constant insights into its nature and seeing this process unfold within. In pre-Colombian Andean cosmology, each polarity would be first mediated towards the centre starting with the reconciliation of the same gendered complementary opposites found within. Disharmony between these worlds leads to confusion. Sacred performances involving cross dressing males, called ipas, were ritually performed in order to mitigate the male tendency towards judgment and destruction. The masculine force, sufficiently tamed, would be prepared to be symbolically united with the opposing feminine force that has been similarly tamed in a holistic process called tinkuy. The successful reconstruction of the respective gendered poles leads to the mediation of the feminine and the masculine polarities, a process called yanantin, with the result a perfect harmony called the conocimiento. This balancing act and subsequent joining together of the opposing forces ritually recreate the original androgyne along a central axis, bisecting the feminine and masculine polarities, which in turn unlocks and radiates unconditional cosmic love and demonstrates this union is the origin of all there is and is represented in ritual and symbol as the mediated third gendered hermaphrodite. It is the union of the feminine and masculine powers which reconstitutes the all. It’s the cultivation of the human to reclaim a cosmic destiny. It’s taking the wild grape within nature and creating a dual sexed and self-pollinating plant that I have discussed before which is the essence of the mystery of the great Dionysos. I directly experience this voyage of the harmonization of the energy. I am not even sure where I am on the path but I sure do feel this power. It courses through me and at times it is magical. I’m engaged in slowing down, calming the mind, and becoming conscious of this power. Eliminating distractions, whether that be forced through the aging process or mindfulness, brings you into communion with this power. It’s magical and can transform into many expressions.

 

The power of the Huachuma mesa involves this balance and reconciliation. Lighting it all up, getting quiet, and just listening. Being present. Feeling the power of the serpent ripple through my body in waves and admiring the jaguar and its wild and ferocious display of coursing natural power. If nature was going to design the ultimate expression of the force that animates all in the universe then the jaguar is it.

 

I smiled knowingly as the knowledge slowly caressed me and allowed me to understand what it was I was feeling. I pictured the undulating serpentine nature of the Goddess come forth as a serpent and profoundly realized that our existence is a vibration and the path of the serpent’s body represents the pulsation that defines the reality of that vibration. This path is travelled by the jaguar, whose wild energy and abandon lights up the track and allows for the experience of what it is the vibration has created.

 

When you pass the challenges of life, embrace the undulations of the serpent, and rise up in strength, the jaguar comes. Balance is at your doorstep. Welcome to the Order of the Jaguar.