If in the practice of Tantric yoga one looks into the collective unconscious now, one will see a triptych, something like the Grunewald’s Isenheim altarpiece, vibrating in the ether of the astral plane. In one panel we see a painting of the feminine lamenting the fall of the masculine into time; it is a painting of Isis crying above the coffin of Osiris. In the second panel, we see the dead masculine in the arms of the feminine, Jesus in the arms of Mary.  In the third panel we see neither the Fall nor the Crucifixion but the sacred copulation (hieros gamos) of the reunited young lovers. Once it was physical death and crucifixion which nailed consciousness down into matter: then it was the sacrament of Thanatos; but in the world-epoch about to begin it is a sacrament of Eros, a physical sexuality in which the lovers of eternity give birth to the world on the physical plane. The avatars of the New Age, as the Irish mystic A.E. realized in a vision seventy years ago, will not be the solitary male, but the male and female together.

Myth is the history of the soul. Lest we think that Isis and Osiris, or Jesus and Mary, are only stories from the past, we should look around us to see that a new chapter is being written in our own time. Whatever names these two lovers take, when they come together it will be like the touch of matter and antimatter, the passing and consuming passion of our world. In the origins of civilization is the overture to its end.

(From The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, by William Irwin Thompson)

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Painting:

Gustav Klimt: "The Kiss"

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Music:

Rumi: "Say I Am You"

You may despair of finding a true friend of God;

but since the treasure does exist in this world,

consider no ruin empty of treasure.

Go to every dervish at random,

and when you find the sign of a true saint,

keep his company regularly.

If the inner eye has not been granted to you,

always think that treasure could be in anybody.

Rumi

Photo of Mayan Rain Forest in Second Life by Alex Noble

And what is the purpose of Art, if not the perfection of love? For love is our primal cause, our ultimate destination. Love is our ancient memory of unity, harmony and grace. It is our burden, our adventure, our deep intuition of completeness. It is love that invites us to become timeless and enter in to the Mysteries. It is love that is our calling, our quest, and our Grail.  It is love that shows us eternity in the flower, and unfolds the Kingdom of Heaven in each of our hearts. It is love alone which fuels Creation, and enchants order from chaos and old night. Love is our first, final and forever gift, the destiny we can never escape, our connection to holiness and the cosmos. For we are made of the stuff and substance of love’s dreams.  We are not forgotten, fallen angels, but unforgettable light-bearing stars.