within the one is found the two

The spiritual chorus preaches the one. Everything is derivative of the one and all of creation can be folded back into the one. To express this one, us humans have come up with a bunch of terms, including the polarizing concept of god which we in turn fetishize and transform into an object of worship and sometimes assign to an ideal that is used for human pursuits of power and monetary gain. The understanding of your place in all of this is your connection to all, in that not only are you a product of the universe but you are indeed the universe and from your perspective you are a point of that universal consciousness that is looking out upon itself. It is not only an empowering vision of creation but it also lowers anxiety about what happens to you when the body dies. If you like adventure then I wouldn’t worry about what happens next. You can go even further with this concept and discard the one. Grasping at the one is still objectifying and truthfully there are no objects. We delineate what just is, conjure duality, and selectively take subjective forms of energy and solidify them into objects.

Okay, I think the above is a pretty good explanation of what heady spiritual people preach, if I do say so myself. In our culture, science is king and therefore in modern spiritual pursuits we try and reconcile the two. Using core concepts of Eastern philosophy allows us to bridge the gap and transform the woo into nuanced metaphysical speculations that allow consensus and eschews wishful thinking. This is all well and good however I like to push the envelope past the chains of what others think. I want experience and subsequently I want to put the experience through my filter and come up with my own concepts.

I have walked the desert sands of Egypt and explored their pyramids and majestic temples. I’ve sweated in the jungles of the Amazon basin. I’ve climbed mountains in the Andes and visited valley temples. I’ve spent a night out in the arid and unforgiving wilderness of the American southwest. I’ve ingested multiple plants that have altered my consciousness enough that I know there are many dimensions to this magical mystery tour we call life. I’ve tried to figure it all out. I’ve tried to grasp this elusive enlightenment. I’ve wondered where do I get my certificate telling me I’ve made it?

I understand the philosophy and I feel the universal connection. It’s undeniable. My experiential journey suggests instead of the one, all truth lives at the door of two. We are a reductionist culture and because of this, one is the holy grail. For me, it’s two and everything is derivative of the two. I’m talking about the divine feminine and divine masculine and their coming together creates the one which then reflects back out as a multiple duality of many twos. Envision this construct that comes from the mind of a human, if you will. It is a centre-point that contains two polarities. As a flow chart, the two as the divine feminine and masculine come together into the one which brings you to the unified centre-point. From the centre-point flows out all of creation into multiple instances of this duality into creation. The two must become one before they become the many.

I see this in ancient Egypt as the great mother and her son, who is also the father; this peculiarity known as kamutef, the bull of his mother. In their literature and on temple walls, I see it also expressed in the concept of creation emanating from an androgyne source that contains the sacred two. In the Ennead of Heliopolis, of which this dual-sexed god Atum is at the head, it is said that the masculine light source Shu and the feminine water source Tefenet are always with and are Atum. The androgyne is the combination of the two and there is no getting around it. Even in the word hermaphrodite is presented in clear view the union of two great deities in the Greek wisdom god Hermes and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. These two go back into the hazy scrolls of history to the beginnings of Egyptian thought and the primordial beginnings of the Ogdoad at Hermopolis where the Egyptian counterparts of these two, Thoth and Hathor, stand at the head of all creation that comes forth from the primordial swamp of 8-town. The concept of union and attempts at artistic expression is depicted on temple walls such as this painted relief masterpiece inside the Khonsu Temple at Karnak temple.

The dual-sexed Kamutef

I see this concept in the sacred mesa of the Andes where the reconciliation of the two gendered polarities brings everything back together into the centre at the axis mundi. The great stone idol of the Chavin temple, the lanzon, brings together the feminine and masculine in this depiction of the sacred world centre.

Lanzon in the temple of the jaguar at Chavin

The temple grounds are made up of dualistic constructs such as the set of black and white limestone stairs leading to the temple as well as finding dualistic principles in the raised and lowered opposite hands of the idol in which the masculine points to the upper world and the feminine to the lower world. The temple grounds rest at the meeting point of the coastal and jungle civilizations in a valley where two great rivers merge into one. This reconciliation of all was called tinkuy. Achieved is balance and from this position the healing can be empowered and love for all can flow. In the jungle are the symbols of the feminine serpent and the masculine jaguar. There are exoteric and esoteric understandings of the two.

Those that live off the land and in primitive dwellings we culturally denigrate as simple. Simple people paradoxically have the most profound symbolism. The modern symbolism from our culture of excess is bereft of ideas and suffering from malnutrition. Hidden in the jungle is the most profound teaching accessed by the brave and the courageous. I’ve searched high and low but never have I come across such a direct communication of what it is all about. Obviously, the serpent is feminine and the jaguar is masculine and they are ubiquitous symbols of the jungle. It’s a pretty simple exoteric depiction of life, creation, destruction, and renewal.

There were big teachings this last time through Peru earlier this year in the jungle that carried on into the Andes mountains. It included the direct experiencing of and understanding of the life force common to all, that connects us all, that originates from a common feminine and masculine vibration symbolized as the serpent and the jaguar. The serpent creates the vibrational body that undulates from on to off and the jaguar traverses this path. The jaguar moves freely. As visualized and communicated by Hindu adepts of yesteryear, when you raise your consciousness and enlighten all the subtle body chakras, energetic touch points you break free of, you meet the jaguar who roams the chakras as an expression of the power of the kundalini serpent which in the pre-Columbian South American religious thought are the three shamanic worlds. And finally you become the jaguar.

Everything comes from this one vibration with vibrations within each vibration. It pulses from off to on. Creation is the pulse with two extreme states and everything in between. From a holistic point of view it is one vibration. Within the one is found the two. The one can’t be without the two. The two always have their opposite. Try it; try to cut off the bottom end of a piece of string. What do you end up with? For the feminine and masculine there is no one. There is always the pull to rejoin your opposite, like a magnetic pull that creates the constant oscillation that creates life. How’s that for the esoteric? I’m so humbled by this knowledge that gives me the power to transcend any thoughts of annihilation and head straight into the gale force of life, full of courage and resolve. As the hero, I set out to rescue the princess; my feminine polarity. They seek each other and afterwards separate once again to keep this all going. It’s universal and timeless.

It's as close to the truth as I can get. There is a serpent and a jaguar and that’s it. The serpent’s body represents the pulsing form while the jaguar is the energy rushing forth along this serpentine highway. It also dawned on me the ancient Egyptians had something close to this idea in their great mother goddess Hathor and her son Ihy. The serpent lady would give birth to the wild bull Ihy, who would also be described as the perfumed effluence coming forth from her body. The rattling of a sistrum, an energetic vibration, much like the shacapa of the shaman in the Amazon, brought forth the Goddess and the power scent she gave off is the naked child come forth in wild abandon.

The clever adept proclaims non-duality. It all just is. It’s true. Within all, the is-ness is consciousness and once the pond is disturbed, duality becomes king through objectification. Trying to define non-duality is trying to define a state of existence; like taking a snapshot in time. Whatever it is we are living in, one thing for sure is it is constantly on the move and in motion therefore beyond definition. From the perspective of the realization of the one, being at the centre, where you become the axis mundi you see it all splinter into shards of duality made up of the feminine and masculine polarities. When I stand at my mesa, I envision I am the lanzon, the centre, the chaupi. I am everything. I look to my left and I see the feminine. I look right and it’s the masculine. I see everything. Lower world, upper world, and then back to self. My mesa represents the self, my self, and the totality of everything that comes from me. It’s all me. I am non-dual and I see it all break down into duality. All aspects and qualities of existence, psychologically and biologically, contained within it all. Which is the correct perspective? Is it from the standpoint of non-duality or does it originate from duality? What are your prejudices?

I look up at the sky, see the clouds, and I am stunned by the vastness of it all. I come to the realization it is the image of mind I am looking at. This vastness is consciousness. I am privileged and privy to having the ability to image mind and see how creation is the representation of the twinning pattern of consciousness and energy, yin and yang, feminine and masculine, serpent and jaguar.

The game is fascinating and I have a fascination with the game. It’s like being at the beach and grasping a handful of hot, white sand. It just slips through your fingers.

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.

cultivation

Cultivation is an agricultural term for the act or process of preparing the soil for the raising of crops as well as the husbandry of plants. Dionysos represents the process of the cultivation of the self pollinating vine. The wild vine is dioecious (has distinct male and female individual organisms) therefore the male flowering vine must be present in order that the female flower can be fertilized and produce fruit. In nature occur self-fertile grapevines, hermaphrodite vines, and cultivating these vines would produce a plentiful stock of self pollinating vines and this brings its fruits and the gift of wine to regions that would not normally support the propagation and growth of the dioecious vines.

Dionysos with accoutrements

The process called tinkuy in pre Colombian Andean shamanism brings together the wild feminine and masculine halves of the human being to create a harmonious unity. The great quariwarmi shamans of the Andes were cultivating the woman and the man as the symbolic serpent and the jaguar, bringing their energies into the centre, the axis mundi, to produce a physical and spiritual union of the opposites. The centre is where all is mediated to and from here is a sum greater than the parts. During the same period in history, a different culture, on the other side of the world was ritually reenacting the same process. The ancient Greeks were immortalizing the dual sexed in their conception, celebration, and worship of the effeminate god man Dionysos. 

The alchemical transformation of the aspirant involves taking the base materials of man and woman, and refining them. This is the process in agriculture of cultivation or in metallurgy the compounding of alloys into a new material. This process within us is the sacred marriage, called the Hieros Gamos, that creates an inner transformation demonstrated by the union of the sacred feminine and masculine. The spiritual joining together with your soul mate forges the hermaphrodite, who is the end result of this process. The spiritual cultivation of the human being is the template for creating the divine from the human. The spiritual union of the inner divine feminine and masculine gives birth to the god. This is in essence the saviour because it enables the realization that the god is you and you are everything. 

trinity

My idea of a trinity involves the sacred marriage of the divine feminine and masculine within that creates through this union the all encompassing hermaphrodite. Bringing the two powers together creates a wholeness of one and also the three. The one is both. In order to access or see it I have to reconcile within these sacred powers. Then I see it. I look into a mirror and I see it, my reflection is the all. I see her and I see him and we are one. I stand at the head of my Mesa and I see us together. I know she is there within me and when combined we transform into the divine couple. When we come together and reunify we will birth new worlds. This universe is the child of the divine couple.

At the conclusion of the movie 'The Matrix' the song 'Wake Up' by Rage Against The Machine exhorts us to wake up. The lead singer Zack de la Rocha pleads with us. He screams "WAKE UP." It worked. Years later I'm in a small town on the equator in the Andes mountains in Ecuador.

I have discovered within my long hidden soul mate. A rooster continuously crows trying to wake me and prepping me for the sacred marriage. I write this down to acknowledge the parallels.

It required a great deal of time, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to not only figure it out but to actually feel it; to know deep down the answer. I've had the answer for a few years now, probably since the summer of 2016 when I returned from the Amazon jungle. I wasn't able to add it all up and see it though until a few weeks ago. I stood at the head of my Mesa and I saw the answer looking back at me. The realization washed over me and I felt it. I am it. I felt her within and I felt the union. I looked into the union of the serpent and the jaguar and saw it. That's me! And I'm everything. The sacred feminine and masculine were combined as one and acting as my reflection. You know, Jesus is nothing without Mary. Together they are 'god'. They are within us and externally we reenact the sacred coupling with our marriage ceremony. Many ancient cultures had divine couples or dual sexed gods: Isis and Osiris, Virachoca, Shakti and Shiva, and of course my favourite the Ancient Greek god Dionysos - the ecstatic, effeminate, passionate, and liberating one who is eternal and indestructible. The masculine comes forth but underlying everything is the feminine and this is the essence of Dionysos.

The Hindu hermaphrodite Ardhanarishvara - the union of Shakti and Shiva

When I alter my frequency I can access the hidden and forbidden; we call this the occult and are discouraged from entering into these worlds. It's all here now. I've spent time with her in these realms, most of it not understanding our relationship or who I am. She asked me to come away with her, pleaded with me the first time I did it. I said no; I still have things to accomplish in my earthly life and my family to take care of. The second time she invited me into her golden castle and we combined as one through the heart and mind. The third time was an erotic get together in the ancient Egyptian temple of the Goddess at Denderah.

Temple of the Goddess at Denderah

It was the most exotic scenario and incredible feeling of pleasure I have ever felt as she moved over top of me. I didn't pursue this; I was taken aback by this visionary sexual tryst and I guess I wasn't ready to find out about desire plus how it makes the world go round. I did come back for more. She's always around. She became a fairy and enchanted me with her grace and charm. She transformed into a serpent, a large green boa, and entered into me and ended up resting upon my left shoulder. She came back to be at my side after I transformed into a jaguar as my Queen. We married last December in Ecuador on a mountain straddling the equator during a Huachuma ceremony. A rooster crowed repeatedly to wake me up and get my attention. There was someone there playing a drum like I had never heard before. There was a lightness and joyful feeling. Then she transformed into a cow and lay in the grass field next door.

I have told her I'm done with searching in my lifetimes. I have been wandering through millenniums, lost in search of the answer, stubborn in my desire to solve the mystery of the great game. This incarnation is it for me as everything I have wanted to learn and solve has been satiated. I know there is always more to learn and I'll keep digging at it but it's all gravy now. I need to finish this book I'm writing that will free a great many humans from a mental prison. That is a promise I made to her and the plants concerning my sacred journeys. The maestro don Howard calls it reciprocity; it's giving back, a thank you. After that I will return home when the time comes. We will be together, start a family, and birth another universe. 

mirror image

When you work with the plant teachers the class doesn't end the next day after a good night's sleep. Often the immediate experience under the influence of the plant is a menagerie of strange visions, fear, ecstasy, and a feeling of relief as the roller coaster comes to a stop. Over the course of the next day or two you gather some insights about the experience but a large part of what took place remains mysterious. I have learned though that you will eventually find connection, or a teaching, with all the content of the class. I have dutifully recorded via pen and paper all of my forays into these realms. However that's not all. In your everyday life things start to happen that you then connect back to a ceremony and you get these epiphanies interspersed throughout your life. The plants are now with you always.

I first went to SpiritQuest in April of 2015 and worked with Ayahuasca and Huachuma. In the ceremonial maloca is this Shibipo tapestry of the head of a jaguar intertwined with a serpent.

It is so impressive and pretty iconic of the sum of my whole experiences in the Amazon jungle. You cannot help but look at it and be enchanted by the artistry and combination of these two motifs. I returned to SpiritQuest in June of 2016 and during the cycle of work with Ayahuasca had some really profound events and revelations during ceremony, all pretty much revolving around my ability to finally quiet my mind and observe. The end of the third ceremony, after a major breakthrough, was serpent charged. A large green boa slithered along the floor of the maloca and entered into my head and wrapped itself around me coming to rest on my left shoulder. Another white snake with flecks of black then entered into my mouth and made its way down to the base of my spine. When I lay on my bed later that night I felt the serpentine waves of energy throughout my whole body. Then during the fifth Ayahuasca ceremony I transformed into a jaguar, allowing me to feel the awesome power of an animal that rules his domain without fear. Just prior to this ceremony we were visited by a group of Shipibo artisans selling their crafts and I was able to purchase a replica of the serpent jaguar tapestry. I have printed out on canvas a picture of this tapestry and also use an image as a background on my personal computer. So I am constantly in contact with this image throughout my daily life.

The last month or so I have internally felt the coming together of the sacred energies within and have sat with them, thought about them, looked for connections with them in nature and mythology, and written quite a bit about this experience in this blog space recently. It's the discovery of the power archetype that combines the sacred feminine with the sacred masculine and this power is... how do I put it? Well it is it. I found the power in mythology that I experience epitomized as the Greek god Dionysos. Dionysos is an effeminate man surrounded by crazed women and horny men.

Love, community, play, nature, intoxication, and mystery cult are what he is all about. It is the sacred marriage of the two polarities of the feminine and masculine found in nature that symbolically combined present as the hermaphrodite.

The serpent jaguar motif of the Amazon is the harmonious combination of this coming together of the feminine and masculine energies. It is the sacred marriage that creates the internal union of the opposites, the intertwining of yin and yang, or the glorious hermaphrodite swan of mythology that ferries the two representatives of the sacred powers, Hansel and Gretel, to safety. I hung my tapestry in my room devoted to my spiritual explorations and I stand at the head of my mesa and look at it every night. A couple years now of looking at this magical image. Two nights ago I stood at this privileged spot and the magical bestower of the sacred epiphany visited me once again. When I stand at my mesa and look at this tapestry I am looking into a mirror. 

magnum opus

The Greco-Roman sculptures and depictions of Dionysos we have passed down to us show him with wine in a relaxed pose.

In the Roman Bacchanalia we read of intoxication and orgies associated with his cult. I was standing the other night at my Mesa where I have a miniature statue of Dionysos on the left hand feminine side and I started laughing because he is holding a bunch of grapes. The mysteries should be hidden so why not just hide them in plain site? Any observer would say cool, the Greeks had a god of wine and licentiousness! And so hidden remains the mystery cult. When you start pulling back the veil he's there, everywhere. When Apollo is absent from his Temple at Delphi in the winter months Dionysos is there with his ecstatic female followers, the maenads.

ecstatic maenads

At Eleusis he's there; he's the light born under cover of darkness. The mystery of Eleusis is a story about the abduction of Demeter's daughter Kore by Hades but Dionysos is somehow mysteriously involved. The light always returns. The popularity of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis and her mystery cult in the Greco-Roman world is due to the connection of Isis and Osiris to Demeter and Dionysos. Initiation into mystery cult begins and ends with Dionysos: birth, life, death, and rebirth, along with play, laugh, love, sensuality, commonality, unity, and nature. The feminine is given the permission to let loose and the masculine to become a lech, well represented by Dionysian coterie such as the maenads and satyrs which are our base instinctual natures liberated and coming out to play.

satyr

Cultures, fads, and civilizations come and go and expectations of behaviour and morals are flimsy, forever changing with the times. Dionysos reminds us our root instincts, some say 'animal' natures, don't change. 

There's this undercurrent in the appearance of Dionysos in Greek history and culture that goes all the way down into current scholarship where he is considered a foreign god. The post Bronze Age epitome of Greek reason was not accepting of this undisciplined behaviour, neither were the gods of Olympus. Reason and enlightenment are something cultivated by mature and disciplined civilizations. But that's just it; reason is a byproduct of culture. What we term instinct is always there transcending culture. Nature isn't subject to reason. Dionysos is indestructible and ever returning with the returning aspect giving him the aforementioned foreign designation. When society shutters itself into a nice and neat nuclear family full of patriotic citizens, Dionysos the ever coming returns in a frenzy; the 60's an example of an outbreak of peace, love, and anti-establishment behaviour. The authorities put an end to the revelry as they sensed the breakdown of their decades long social engineering project. The turn of the 21st century has seen a doubling down on authoritarian measures in the western 'free countries'. The threat of international terrorism gave the totalitarians among us the opportunity to put the lock down on society. Well guess what? The dam is going to break again and soon. It's already happening and this time it's not stopping. Dionysos is the eternal return.

I have written previously about what I consider to be the all. My contention is that everything is derivative of the separation of the ecstatic embrace of the divine feminine and masculine. We are in the post orgasmic state after the release of energy of the two primal powers. It's humorously called the Big Bang by physicists. However nothing lasts as we well know from just being aware. The universe is defined by movement and change and any attempt at objectification leads to delusion. The state of the universe we are in now will not last forever, it will return once again to unity. The divine couple will reunite once again and after the requisite foreplay will once again create another universe, the universe essentially a child of these two. Curiously within all of us are these two powers and we can reenact the divine play of creation with others and also within. And it isn't a microcosm of the grand movie, it actually is it playing itself out and you are it. Within the energy that animates all is latent omnipotent potential to birth as many universes as you can imagine in your philosophy. Externally we create by coming together sexually with a partner of the opposite sex which is a pretty good mirrored example of the dance of creation. Our externally manifest self physically mirrors the all pervasive energy of creation. Unbeknownst to all is hidden within the ability to unite both energies. Take myself as an example. I have a head start on feeling the masculine energy because that is my gender. However the feminine is within me, it is just hidden and due to culture and gender roles is locked away. Within all of us are the two polarities, this peculiar truth recognized by the alchemists of the Middle Ages. They had a funny way of going about it but essentially what they were trying to do is awaken and transmute the two natures and combine them in a sacred union. From there they envisioned immortality. So within she is calling to you: to free her, to rescue the princess. This is your quest, my quest, the only quest, and that road is long and winding. First is a need to recognize your power and throw off the dragon along with the chains of culture. When you find her you find love, wisdom, and happiness. At some point you will realize you are it, you are the divine masculine and the divine feminine. Then preparations for the internal sacred marriage commence. The sex is fantastic.

The union of these two powers that plays out repeatedly in creation conceptually creates the hermaphrodite. In fact think about this: when you are participating in the sexual act you combine and become one, essentially becoming the hermaphrodite. How then do you represent this combination in terms of a 'god', a strange one at that? As a culture you would say he is foreign as there is no place in society for such a god. He is effeminate. He talks about community and free love. You see where I'm going with this. This god is Dionysos. Dionysos represents the union of the sacred feminine and masculine. Dionysos is the state of creation totally unified. When he is torn apart then we have plurality. Eventually the energy wants to return to a state of coalescence. That is the state of higher consciousness, a current you can try and swim against but it will pull you along. Go with the flow.

sacred marriage

When you combine the feminine with the masculine what do you get? Culturally you get the marriage union. Sexually the end result is a baby. Mythologically you get the hermaphrodite. What about from the human psyche standpoint of enacting an inner transmutation while physically remaining the same? Isn't this what Dionysos is all about? Embraced are the feminine attributes of love, unity, play, pleasure, and a connection to nature and animals. All this whilst in a body and culture designating the masculine as stoic, hardworking, with an appeal to self and strong individualism, along with a strong dose of reason thrown in. This describes where I am currently in this most amazing journey of discovery. Both sides have great attributes and can be complementary. Forge each side through the fires of multiple incarnations, burning off the dross, and then the two sides become ready to be united. The shamans of pre Colombian South America called this two fold process tinkuy where the masculine was mediated into the best qualities put forth while extinguishing the desire to control, to judge, the anger, and the holy righteousness. The masculine focused and structured impetus when combined with the feminine artsy and chaotic side has an effect of a whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

In the myth of Dionysos he is torn apart by the Titans after his birth, with the only thing remaining being the heart. The remains of the Titans, after Zeus zapped them with a thunderbolt in punishment, formed the human body. Looking into this myth, I see Dionysos representing the world soul being torn apart upon entry into our world. We all have a piece of this heart which resides in the Titan body we share, much like a concept of an eternal soul. Indestructible Dionysos represents a primal unity, an ability to return to that state, and in this combination are the feminine and masculine attributes. The sacred marriage of mythology called the Hieros Gamos in essence reconstitutes Dionysos as the dual gendered all. The dismembered Dionysos within creation is recombined into the primal whole. He exhorts us to come together whether that is through wine, dance, sex, or community.

The Goddess I have sensed calling to me all these years would be the buried feminine half of me longing to reconnect with the masculine that has come forth. My soul mate. Are my complementary gendered natures on different cyclic scales and I need to synchronize them? Arrange them on the same vibrational frequency? Are we all individually microcosmic representations of the all and all in a process of tinkuy in order to individually recreate unity? Or are we it, nothing microcosmic about us, pretending we aren't? We all must mediate the feminine and masculine within. And then once we all do it the whole then comes together as one. Externally we look for completeness in a partner while ignoring the call internally. This is very interesting in that not only would we look towards cosmic unity as the divine embrace of the sacred feminine and masculine that are derivative of the ultimate unity but within you and I now are these two halves in a dress rehearsal playing out within all that will lead to a reconnection to source. The ultimate answer to the mystery of the origin of the universe is within us all as well, waiting to come together again.

Marriage is a dress rehearsal for the union within between your two gendered halves and all they entail. It is convenient to put the genders in a box and say feminine and masculine while ignoring the multi variations of the spectrum that each gender contains. The first work, if you are in for example a male body, involves recognizing all the masculine traits within. To become a candidate for the sacred marriage involves mediating all the good and all the bad of what it means to be a man. To be a protector of the sacred feminine; a medieval knight in shining armour. In the human act of marriage two people come together as one, complementing each other, and from that union they produce something even greater. Two halves come together as one and multiply. Within us are the fundamental workings of existence and to realize your full potential we have marriage to remind us that within is also expressed in this same outer construct. I am a man but I also do sense a feminine part of me that is buried. When I become comfortable with my masculinity then I can more easily connect with my feminine half. It was around eight years ago I first noticed her. I have awakened her within through an understanding of who I call the Goddess. She is a source of Love, healing, teaching, and wisdom and within my interactions with her there is a longing to be reunited and she has shown me how she has been locked away. She has asked me to come away with her, she has united with me on an intellectual level and an erotic physical level. Last December there was an afternoon I spent with the plant teacher Huachumon and during this time the most magical drum playing started up and there was this happy and erotic celebratory vibe. It felt like a marriage celebration. No union is perfect and there is work involved to grow however I feel we are together now and need to harmonize our relationship even further. This mirrors the human marriage and a need to work at it.

The connection with Dionysos involves an understanding of my relationship with the Goddess within where this union between us is enacting what is fundamentally the workings of all creation which is the ecstatic embrace of the sacred feminine and masculine. This oneness I see encapsulated in the representations of Dionysos. He is an effeminate man but he embodies attractive masculinity, has this wild band of frenzied female followers called maenads and these erect playful male followers called satyrs. He is ever returning and indestructible and leads us to discovering within are both traits that we can bring together in a sacred marriage to find wholeness. He reminds us with his connections to theatre that this is a grand stage to perform your song and dance and is there so we remember to play. Play, Love, and making connections with others is what it's all about.

yin and yang

I have been thinking about my direct experiences with plant medicines. I can formulate some kind of coherent view of ultimate reality based upon my explorations of consciousness. Admittedly, being ensconced in a masculine body must skew this view; however, I still think it would apply if I was of the opposite gender though I think I would probably describe it in a way that was less of an erotic relationship and more of a co-maternity. Anyway, I will try to elucidate this idea clearly as I write. Unity, the void from which everything comes forth, is essentially the Great Mother/Great Goddess. She gives birth to creation. As the mother of all, within her is the masculine polarity; so, you could really say ultimately She is a hermaphrodite, a virgin, and she gives birth via parthenogenesis. Or another way to look at it from a sexual metaphor is the feminine and masculine are locked in a passionate embrace. The subsequent energetic climax of this union results in the Big Bang which is essentially creation. The feminine is passive, represents the darkness, and is infinite consciousness and energy. She is everywhere and everything. In contrast, the masculine is active and striving, represents the light, is finite and spotlight consciousness, and has the passion to come forth enabled by infinite energy we call Eros.

Eros

All created beings are in essence masculine in that they have made the effort to appear and this is what I mean by created women containing within the masculine energy because she has come forth. Her relationship back to the Great Mother is that they both create life as opposed to any kind of an erotic relationship. Being finite, the striving masculine power has a sense then of individuation or self that in psychiatric terms eventually leads to pathology and this delusion has been given the designation "ego". The feminine origin of creation longs for reunification with the masculine power and through the universal principle of Love, and spreading of this Love, hopes to get through to the stubborn masculine in order to get him to cease his desire to come forth as a separate being and become one with her again by metaphorically stopping going against the wind, swimming upstream, while instead just going with the flow. Regardless, at physical death on a microcosmic scale, there is a return to this state of unity because the energy cycles back down into a latent state with the feminine power. Masculine energy is cyclical and feminine energy is non changing, stable, and just is. I am god in the sense I am the masculine power that came forth from the original hermaphrodite, lit up creation, conquered it, and became the Great Mother's lover and captor. She is my mother and lover (as well as teacher and healer) and what a field day for psychologists that entails! I hold this view because my interactions with the feminine power in altered states of consciousness have been for the most part erotic. In my life, She is the most erotic thing I have ever encountered and She longs for this reunification with me. She is non-judgmental, forgiving, and just seeks to be one again. If I open myself up to her She will teach me how to get out of the mess I have created for myself and teach me to Love.

I must have anticipated this longing and reunification so in my inherent masculine stubbornness, I had a desire to prevent this and have implanted within my psyche a dragon that activates upon exploration of consciousness and also externally manifests in my attempts at formulating spiritual disciplines, paths, and religions as well as grossly coming forth in outbursts of misogyny and subjugation of women. The dragon also separates and classifies my brethren in classes of race and ethnicity in order to promulgate more division, which I believe is all because of the masculine energy's desire to break free of the perpetual cycle of coming forth and the subsequent dissolution of its energy and thus remain on its own, ruling creation free of the perceived domineering wife/mother. It is a quest for eternal life for finite consciousness free of the cycle of life and death that plagues the endeavours of the masculine energy, instead of an acceptance of what is, and an opening up to Love. This quest for eternal life free of cyclical coming and going leads to more and more suffering. To achieve its aims the masculine energy has to discover and understand the power that sustains him. This is no secret. The power he is looking for is Love and Eros is the gateway. We are made of Love, powered by Love, and are defined by the Love we give. And within this discovery lies the great conundrum for the masculine: If he wants to live forever he must Love. If he Loves then his quest ends because he cannot go on once surrendering to Love. So, in defiance, on he goes searching for the secret of this power he is convinced is just untethered power free from the fount of Love.

In examining some of my struggles within plant medicine ceremonies one thing that reoccurs, is worth acknowledging, and going deeper into is this block within the masculine mind in regards to the feminine power of the mother and her ability to create which is done with a selfless and unconditional Love. We as men want to possess her, lock her away, and take over total control. When I approach the mystery and have not sufficiently tamed the ego, it will rage against the Goddess. This behaviour is projected outwards into society as a whole. Every culture subjugates women and I believe it comes from the deep down psychological impairment within the masculine who wants to dominate her and therefore it expresses this behaviour in consensus reality in this way. I label the behaviour the dragon but it's worth investigating just why the dragon acts this way. Basically, I think it is because we as men want control, well we have it, but we want total control. We want to learn and steal her power to create and history is a sad reminder of our attempts to do so. We have done unspeakable things to those who carry the light within and we have mined the mother for her secrets. We aren't to be trusted and when we discover and approach her there seems to be many tests and checkpoints to see if we are worthy to continue because we can deceive like no other.

tinkuy

I wish to initially touch on "The Contendings of Horus and Set" story from ancient Egypt concerning the homosexual acts perpetrated upon each combatant and from this position end up journeying intellectually into the Andes mountains. Horus and Set are the personification of the dualistic masculine mind that can be thought of as reverse images of each other. Another way to envision this is when the sun rises it is as Horus; when it sets it is invoking the power of Set, and this solar behaviour was combined into a deity called Harakhty by the ancient Egyptians. When Horus sees his reflection, he should see Set and when Set looks in the mirror he would see Horus.

Set and Horus combined as Hrwyfy

They are of the same principle but perform the opposite action. Another example would be the interplay between the light and the dark. Without the other there is no distinction between the two; these opposites are what make up the created world and they operate as complementary waves, each with their own peak. Set's attempt at sodomizing Horus is an attempt to prove dominance as it seems this behaviour was also used to depict the subjugation of other nations in that era. By foiling Set's attempt at penetrating him, and then using trickery with the help of Isis to get Set to ingest his semen, Horus is able to eventually prove to his elders that he is the dominant one able to conquer Set and lay claim to the white crown of his father Osiris and thus assume the dual kingship of Egypt.

Horus at Kom Ombo with the double crown

This might seem unrelated but bear with me. I have been smoking jungle tobacco, called mapacho, regularly since August and one of the things it has helped me with is dreaming. My dreaming for quite a while had been sporadic to the point of non-existence and if I did dream, I couldn't remember them. It seems mapacho provides a light into the visionary dreamtime and I now dream vivid story lines which I remember clearly almost every night. A couple of nights ago I had this kind of disturbing dream, well I have noticed that my dreams run the gamut of behaviour and emotions so having this type of dream isn't necessarily uncommon, anyway this male figure appeared and eventually tried to sodomize me which was an uncomfortable situation to say the least. I resisted the attempt and then awoke confused. The next day I was trying to make sense of what this was symbolizing when it occurred to me the metaphor concerned my other half, the dark side if you will, and it was trying to reassert its dominance over the light side. By resisting, it was a sign of where I am on my journey and is suggestive that the tables can be turned now, and the light can dominate the dark if I so choose. However, that leads to another line of thinking.

I had been reading of Pre-Hispanic Mesa rituals in the Andes over the past month with most of the data cited coming from the Spanish conquistadors' observation and interviewing of the former ruling Inca class and the various nations they ruled over. The author of one book called "Decolonizing the Sodomite" was able to bring to light and reconstruct some of the rituals by extracting meaning from the indigenous words used and by critically examining the pandering to the Inquisitors concerning the explosive issue of sodomy which the Spanish had witnessed as being practiced by the Andean people along with rituals where men would crossdress. My take on this is the Andean specialists, shamans called quariwarmi, who were dual gendered shamans that mediated between the symmetrically dualistic spheres of Andean cosmology and daily life, were tasked with reconciling this very thing I have been discussing in which they ritually were bringing balance back into the complementary pair of the masculine through ritual sodomy and then going further to establish a centre balance between the feminine and masculine through the symbolic act of crossdressing which invokes the idea of the third gender recognized as an androgyne. This is the idea of a hermaphrodite being present in their conception of what constitutes the all-encompassing monad, the deity called Viracocha, and of which I have written extensively about in my critical examination of ancient Egyptian mythology.

the dual gendered Viracocha

It would be proper at this point to explain the indigenous idea of tinkuy as this is what the quariwarmi shamans were trying to achieve. Tinkuy is the joining together of complementary opposites through ritual mediation. It's all about bringing everything into the centre, the in between space, to find balance. This place was called the chaupi and the central axis in this common territory was called the chhimi which means the heart. It's interesting that what I can intuit as being the answer to the vexing problem of duality - love and the heart - was ritually mediated by a culture very in tune with this necessity and this was driven underground and destroyed by the conquistadors over 500 years ago.

Again, while smoking mapacho the other evening this idea came to me as my mind faded away and I became the observer that while the masculine mind manifests the middle world and the feminine gives it form, the state the world currently finds itself in is due to the stubbornness of the masculine polarity. The mind has the capacity to know all and refuses to accept the need for the feminine's freely given love and wisdom in order to enact the perfect creation. The situation feels like the feminine is used to birth creation and the masculine is confident from then on it can bring about utopia. The endemic stubbornness of rejecting love as the overarching principle for this most perfect world has sunk us into the abyss we currently are submerged in. The inherent duality that lies within the masculine mind is constantly in battle, symbolized by the light and the dark, and will never be at peace until surrender to love is viewed as a show of strength and not weakness. Love is always available to rectify this pathological condition if we choose.

Here's another way to look at this: the two polarities of the omnipresent energetic force are the opposite attractors of feminine and masculine. Within each node of polarity (think of an alternating current) are the same sex pair described above which can be described as symmetrical though opposing - the Horus and Set never ending conflict that bedevils the masculine node. The idea of looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of oneself describes this symmetry. Each polarity must balance its contending duality before becoming fit to mediate and reconcile its relationship to its opposite. Examples of this would be the dominate feminine traits of love, nurturing, healing, and sexuality harmonizing with warfare, destruction, pestilence, and chasteness. The resulting feminine iconography of the mediation of these characteristics produces ritual and symbolic displays of warrior goddesses with ithyphallic traits. Drawing on my knowledge of ancient Egypt this is iconographic in the goddess figures of the raging bringer of pestilence and healing lioness Sekhemet and in the primeval combative and creatrix goddess Neith.

the ancient Egyptian goddess Neith with erect phallus

In ancient Greece, this confluence of gender traits manifests in the warlike Athena who so attired can appear as what could be described as a female crossdressed.

Athena adorning a column in Athens

This need for balance extends to the masculine traits such as aggressiveness, single mindedness, dominance, and righteousness being reconciled with compromise, inclusion, trust, and free association. This act of restoring individual harmony in our society is a difficult path to follow as the male's gender role is society is rigidly defined and deviation from that is considered effeminate and queer. However, it is a recurring archetype and especially prevalent in the arts. The artist David Bowie is a perfect example of the Dionysian impulse that lays bare the societal exaltation of the alpha male figure.

David Bowie

In my study of pre-Colombian Andean cosmology it is revealed how in tune the various cultures were of the need to achieve this balance. Sacred performances involving crossdressing males, called ipas, were performed ritually to mediate the male tendency towards judgment and destruction. The masculine force, sufficiently tamed, would be prepared to be symbolically united with the opposing feminine force in a process called tinkuy. This balancing act and subsequent joining together of the opposing forces ritually recreates 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.

Mountains can be considered these peaks of masculine power, the feminine would be the valley and rivers running through the landscape, and the indigenous people of the Andes referred to these landscape formations as Huacas - idols invested with elemental powers. The Huacas are representative of these contending powers. The masculine will to assert dominance would anthropomorphically have one polarity declaring that they are the most high. Picture in your head two sine waves, each wave successively creates a mountain and a valley and when one aspect is at its peak and is dominant its complementary wave must be moved out of phase in order to keep it in check.

Sine waves out of phase

Combining these two waves in a harmonious relationship creates a figure 8; rotate the 8 ninety degrees and it's an infinite expression of all there is and all there will ever be.

Infinity

Each power rises and falls, has its complementary power symmetrically opposing it, is mediated by its relationship to its opposite counterpart, and is checked and harmonized when the all-encompassing powers cross in the centre. Indigenous wisdom that came before our marauding western civilization and now lost to intolerance and time, created this congruence through symbol and ritual and they strove to lead lives imbued with this idea of balance and reciprocity referred to as tinkuy.

So dark has our situation become that in order to change it a return to the archaic world of symbolism and ritual is much needed. The two estranged waves of masculine polarity, in order to be corralled, must be mediated to the centre where the wise and fully realized feminine power alone in her castle remains in wait for her lover to arrive.

hex and hag

In conjunction with my previous blog post: mirror, mirror, on the wall that describes the relationship of the Goddess to the visionary experience I felt it necessary to comment on the role of the malevolent hag or witch that is also prevalent in mythological lore concerning witchcraft. To get started let's do some research on some concepts connected with witchcraft. Putting a magic spell on someone is the idea of a hex. The Online Etymological Dictionary gives the origin of hex as the following:

hex (v.) 

1830, American English, from Pennsylvania German hexe "to practice witchcraft," from German hexen "to hex," related to Hexe "witch," from Middle High German hecse, hexse, from Old High German hagazussa (see hag). Noun meaning "magic spell" is first recorded 1909; earlier it meant "a witch" (1856).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hex&allowed_in_frame=0

Dictionary.com gives these definitions:

hex1 [heks] 

verb (used with object)

1.

to bewitch; practice witchcraft on: He was accused of hexing his neighbors' cows because they suddenly stopped giving milk.

noun

2.

spell; charm: With all this rain, somebody must have put a hex on our picnic.

3.

a witch.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hex

One thing that stands out for me is the pronunciation of hex as heks. In ancient Egyptian the idea of magic was attributed to a male deity named Heka. 

Heka

Magic was understood to be a force that was not necessarily evil; it could be used for both good and bad purposes. As opposed to a glitzy conjuring, the idea of magic was something more commonplace in the world of the ancient Egyptians. It was a force that gave life to objects and connected to the ancient Egyptian idea of the life force called Ka. Through the use of ritual, the ancient Egyptians hoped to enact the transference of this power onto objects or to animate a mummified body for instance in the ceremony of the opening of the mouth and eyes.

Opening of the Mouth and Eyes

A witch is commonly known as a hag and the mental image we get from the word hag is an ugly old woman.

hag (n.) 

early 13c., "ugly old woman," probably a shortening of Old English hægtesse "witch, fury" (on assumption that -tesse was a suffix), from Proto-Germanic *hagatusjon-, of unknown origin. Similar shortening produced Dutch heks, German Hexe "witch" from cognate Middle Dutch haghetisse, Old High German hagzusa. 

First element is probably cognate with Old English haga "enclosure, portion of woodland marked off for cutting" (see hedge). Old Norse had tunriða and Old High German zunritha, both literally "hedge-rider," used of witches and ghosts. Second element may be connected with Norwegian tysja "fairy; crippled woman," Gaulish dusius "demon," Lithuanian dvasia "spirit," from PIE *dhewes- "to fly about, smoke, be scattered, vanish." 

One of the magic words for which there is no male form, suggesting its original meaning was close to "diviner, soothsayer," which were always female in northern European paganism, and hægtesse seem at one time to have meant "woman of prophetic and oracular powers" (Ælfric uses it to render the Greek "pythoness," the voice of the Delphic oracle), a figure greatly feared and respected. Later, the word was used of village wise women. 

Haga is also the haw- in hawthorn, which is an important tree in northern European pagan religion. There may be several layers of folk etymology here. Confusion or blending with heathenish is suggested by Middle English hæhtis, hægtis "hag, witch, fury, etc.," and haetnesse "goddess," used of Minerva and Diana. 

If the hægtesse was once a powerful supernatural woman (in Norse it is an alternative word for Norn, any of the three weird sisters, the equivalent of the Fates), it might originally have carried the hawthorn sense. Later, when the pagan magic was reduced to local scatterings, it might have had the sense of "hedge-rider," or "she who straddles the hedge," because the hedge was the boundary between the "civilized" world of the village and the wild world beyond. The hægtesse would have a foot in each reality. Even later, when it meant the local healer and root collector, living in the open and moving from village to village, it may have had the mildly pejorative sense of hedge- in Middle English (hedge-priest, etc.), suggesting an itinerant sleeping under bushes, perhaps. The same word could have contained all three senses before being reduced to its modern one.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hag&allowed_in_frame=0

The hag comes from hex and always referred to the feminine in northern European paganism. There is the idea in this word of a hedge which designates a dividing line between two worlds. This fits with the idea of a goddess being at the transition points that intersect the world of the material from the world of the spiritual. In ancient Egypt the goddess Hathor would be present at all events of birth and death. She would have a foot in both worlds of spirit and matter and from this we get the idea of birth and death as forever intertwined. A birth of a baby into the material world involves the death of a soul inside the new beginning. The awakening and re-birth of the soul within the body involves a death to worldly pursuits. The final death of the body allows the soul to be freed to re-enter the home from which it came. These magical events are attended by these emanations of the feminine divine who sit at the crossing points between these worlds.

This idea of the feminine being present at the soul's apparent death and deliverance into the material world gave rise to myths that depicted her as an evil temptress aligned with the devil, the devil being the Lord of the material world. In Greek mythology the legend of the Gorgon Medusa is such a tale. 

Medusa

She was at first a beautiful maiden that seduced the soul into the material world (the stone) but as you got closer she became hideous and turned you to stone. Her hair being venomous snakes screams out to me her connection with the feminine divine you would encounter in an altered state. We find these ideas in the definitions provided here:

World English Dictionary

hag 1  (hæɡ)
— n
1.	an unpleasant or ugly old woman
2.	a witch
3.	short for hagfish
4.	obsolete  a female demon
[Old English hægtesse witch; related to Old High German hagazussa, Middle Dutch haghetisse]

Encyclopedia

hag

in European folklore, an ugly and malicious old woman who practices witchcraft, with or without supernatural powers; hags are often said to be aligned with the devil or the dead. Sometimes appearing in the form of a beautiful woman, a succubus is a hag believed to engage in sexual intercourse with sleeping men, causing severe nightmares and leaving the victim exhausted. Although viewed in most lore as the antithesis of fertility, the hag is believed by some scholars to be a remnant of primitive nature goddesses.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hag?s=t

I believe the same ideas of the hag, witchcraft, the devil, and death are at work in the old fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. In this story the witch lures the two children into her house after the hungry pair first find her house made of gingerbread and cakes in the forest. The witch locks up Hansel and enslaves Gretel with the intent to eventually cook and eat them. The children are representative of the paired soul that is incarnating. They left home due to the wickedness of their stepmother. The myth making here demonstrating it is the intention of the feminine to force the soul to incarnate. The pair only incarnate because they are lured into the material world. The oven that the witch will cook them in is representing the fires of this material hell. The witch is an emanation of the Goddess, a side of her that is terrifying because she births the soul into the material world. This world is unkind and threatens the soul with death. The Goddess in mythology has a terrifying side, whether that is for example Kali in Hindu mythology, Medusa in the Greek stories, or Sekhemet the raging lioness destroyer in ancient Egyptian lore.

Sekhemet

Gretel manages instead to shove the witch into the oven and burn her. The underlying idea here is the soul is freed from its enslavement in matter. The two find a vase full of treasure and precious stones belonging to the witch and then a swan ferries them back home across the waters. The treasure is the material wealth of the Goddess; the swan is associated with the idea of a hermaphrodite; and the waters are material incarnation that must be crossed to make it home. 

Venus sitting on a swan and accompanied by a hermaphrodite

http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e4-603f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

The hermaphrodite is an interesting concept in mythology not understood. It is the pairing of Aphrodite and Hermes which in ancient Egypt are Hathor and Thoth. 

 Hathor at Kom Ombo

Thoth imparting magical formulae at Abydos

Here we have the goddess of love combined with the god of wisdom to make the hermaphrodite. The deeper meaning is one of the paired soul of masculine and feminine halves. When they unite, they sail over the waters of material incarnation and head back home to their spiritual abode. It was encoded in this story as Gretel and Hansel. We can find this motif in many other places and here are a couple that come immediately to my mind:

in a book called "The Yellow Cross", which is a story of the Cathars of southern France last stand against the Catholic inquisition who persecuted them for their perceived heretical beliefs, the author writes about this belief of theirs:

According to script Catharism the foetus was a creation of the devil which awaited its redeeming soul. Moreover, some Cathar versions of the Fall averred that the devil seduced the souls away from their heavenly home by introducing it a beautiful woman whom all the souls desired to possess.

The Yellow Cross, Rene Weis, pages xxiii to xxiv.

I believe this idea of theirs comes from the beginning of Genesis 6 which tells the story of the sons of God lusting after the daughters of men.

Genesis 6

King James Version (KJV)

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

I have written a blog post called let the sleeping giant lie that goes further into this curious passage in the beginning of Genesis. Further to this idea we find in Hinduism a goddess called Kali, who as an emanation of Durga who comes from the Great Goddess Devi, is the personification of horror and death. Much like the Egyptian Sekhemet, Durga is a terrifying goddess who subdues demons and has an association to felines as she rides a tiger, eliciting comparison to the great goddesses of the levant who are shown subduing large cats.

Levantine forms of the goddess Hathor: Qadesh, Ishtar, and Asherah

Kali's flesh is black, she has menacing fangs, and wears a necklace of skulls. Kali appears in the material realm full of power to destroy and a laugh that mocks all who try to escape. Her arms represent the cardinal directions in combination with the cycles of time and there is no running from her power over life and death. But once you accept your fate in the material world then Kali gives bliss in the form of offering a bowl of plenty.

Kali

The idea of the hag in the mythological past is varied and had evolved into something that was negative and to be feared. For sure, this idea of leading your soul into material incarnation is something to be feared but the ancients looked upon it as a necessary journey in order to procure eternal life. The idea of Kali offering a bowl of plenty to the enlightened traveller or Sekhemet being pacified by turning the Nile into intoxicating beer after first being sent to destroy mankind, suggests that the power of the feminine divine to cause misery and destroy becomes part of the necessary elixir that transforms the soul into something greater.