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. 

psychological concepts and the understanding of self

Self is created through thinking and self reflection, a quality humans have developed. Being a construct of mind, the self is fragile and can be at times easily manipulated. To try and break free of this manipulation causes self to turn on self. There's no way around facing this gun fight at high noon.

The mind heads for judgment as its first course of action. The social app Facebook is pernicious in this regard because immediately you have to make judgment decisions on what is presented to you as you scroll through the posts. Humans crave acceptance from others so psychologically you present a snapshot of your life, thoughts, beliefs, or interests and then you wait to see if it gains approval from others who hold this power over you. It's a strange gambit but it could pay off in rewards. If you accumulate likes and followers then you achieve to a degree fame. Then you build off that fame with your ego temporarily feeling satisfaction in achieving this notoriety. Social media is a bit of a catch 22 in that it is a great way to stay connected and a big part of life is connecting with others. The way past this judgment is positivity and to like and encourage.

I am desire, I am Love, I am my feelings, passions, dislikes, and likes based on awareness. Psychologically it is called the Id. My sense of self, identity, and the suppression and control of my base needs and desires is mediated through Ego. Ego is formed by an interaction with others and culture who want you to fit into society's box. From this develops the Superego which judges, rewards, punishes, and controls the ego like a puppet. And it can be malicious. The ego is kept in line via shame and rewards meanwhile the id is buried, though feelings always surface. The feedback loop between ego and superego suppresses the id. I was confused all my life because I thought my impulses were causing havoc but here's the thing: I was trying to break free of the puppet master by getting rid of my ego so when I did that the superego just made the goal of a higher self the next egoic achievement. You see this outcome in many others. They want to become ultra spiritual but it is still just the ego now moved up to a higher place. I wanted to get one up on everyone and I was going to do it by becoming enlightened! The Goddess at one point had told me there are many layers to the deception and when I did the whole spiritual trip in the end she just laughed at me and said it is all about Love. Nothing else matters. So conceptually shedding the ego and superego reveals who you are, pure conscious awareness, as far as I can tell. There's no higher self and no lower self. Just me, warts and all. I want pleasure, I want Love, I'll act and react when challenged. I will accept.

So what about this id? Psychological concepts were a product of the 19th and 20th centuries but there is a treasure trove of deep work into the psyche that we now call mythology and largely dismiss. The masters we have voluminous records of were the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Hindus. All great societies of the past we can learn from and a great overview of this can be gleaned from Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

I will touch on one of these great gods of the past which has been calling to me and that I have done some work on over the past little while. It comes from a question of what gives the energetic wave that enlivens us the impetus to rise, fall, and repeat? It is desire. The feminine encapsulates desire and the masculine is enlivened to come forth through want. Within the masculine is a transformer that absorbs this power and lights up desire. The ancient Greeks called him Dionysos.

The ever coming one of indestructible life. He appears, and then goes away to eventually return again. In our modern culture he has been reduced to the Greek god of wine and licentious behaviour. Fair enough I suppose because he epitomizes the lust for life. Dionysos is the elixir that powers up and makes the world go round and round. He is our base desires; the id.

Dionysos is born under the cover of darkness, forever coming forth after being torn apart; this alluding to patriarchal societies that are always suppressing Dionysos. Greek reason rose on the back of Apollo after the influence of Dionysos was repressed. The major Greek mysteries conducted at Eleusis and Delphi both contained elements of the mystery of Dionysos. In Roman society, Dionysos was allowed out once a year during the Bacchanalia as the people shed their pent up frustrations and inhibitions. Dionysos ultimately represents a return to the left hand path of the feminine. To sensuality. To transgressing society's morals and repression. He appears androgynous, he cross dresses, he encourages drink and drugs, and flaunts his sex appeal. If you want to find him in modern times look towards good old rock 'n roll. Watch this performance by Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and you'll get the idea. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll baby! is this guy. It symbolizes a society out of control, freeing itself of the shackles of good taste and modesty, and perhaps that what we need before we destroy ourselves. Our world is a locked down patriarchy, dominated by the rigours of science and reason which exacerbate our destructive tendencies in a quest to control everything instead of letting things be, enjoying ourselves, and loving one another. It's this orgy of Love Dionysos ever returns to remind us of because he's indestructible. Until given his proper place and an equality with Apollo in order to find that critical balance, the outburst of Dionysian lust will forever trouble and harangue Apollo and the edifice he has built.

The cross dressing, transgendered, and somewhat effeminate Dionysos is needed in order to bring balance into the masculine sphere. It's a reminder to embrace the feminine into our life to counteract the rigid and destructive side of Apollo. In Pre-Columbian South America mesa rituals there were a class of Andean shamans called quariwarmi who ritually cross dressed in order to mediate the feminine and masculine to a wholeness and balance in the centre. It is a concept called in the Quechua language tinkuy and it 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. These were societies that still retained an innocence, a respect for the feminine, and valued a holistic way of life. They remained largely untouched by the purview of hyper masculinity until the Spanish arrived. In Ancient Greece the collapse of the Bronze Age spelt the beginning of the end for the ideal of balance. Apollo slew the dragon and took over the oracle at Delphi, and the Hellenistic world that came out of this usurpation is a bedrock our western civilization rests on. At the same time the matriarchal Cretan society vanished and Greece transformed itself into a bastion of reason and logic epitomized by Apollo. They tried to retain a balance, but ultimately as their treatment of women showed, it failed.

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.