The Passion
of Matter
A soulless society feeds on
ignorance, violence and poverty. It has
nothing to teach its citizens. Americans
take pride in the fact that we’re free, but real freedom is earned by responsibility
and choice. President Barack Obama’s
Inauguration speech in 2009 stressed this Truth: “It is time to set aside
childish things and grow up. It is time to take up the burden of freedom and
choice. It is time to take up our
service to the world. It is time to
become responsible for ourselves, for each
other, and for the Earth.” For what
good is served when politics and media culture fosters fragmentation and
ignorance, rather than enlightened choice?
.
An ancient alchemical text, the Corpus
Hermeticum, explains why people remain in ignorance.
Wickedness remains among the many,
since learning concerning the things which are ordained does not exist among
them. For the knowledge of the things
which are ordained is truly the healing of the passion of matter. 4
Healing the passion of matter! How can we do this? By taking responsibility to learn, to grow,
to deal with the constant longing in our souls, because our souls know the
answers to the questions of our life and can give us the knowledge we need to
live consciously and well
One of the meanings of the word passion is to suffer. Matter, or our
human nature, is suffering through a lack of understanding of the things that
are ordained in our lives, that is, the natural laws of our human nature. We have lost our connection to what it means
to be fully human – body, mind and spirit.
We need to listen to our bodies, our minds, our emotions and our
spiritual understanding so that we make good choices in our lives.
What we have been told is that
matter is dead, and that our human bodies are corruptible and ultimately evil.
This philosophy gave rise to crass materialism and compulsive consumerism. But healing
the passion of matter entails seeing that matter is full of spirit; that
life itself is sacred. For the
alchemist, the transformation of matter through the alchemical process was such
a healing, for it entailed the spiritualization of matter. While the Enlightenment scientific community
rejected alchemy and astrology, scientists such as Galileo, Kepler, Francis
Bacon and Isaac Newton were alchemists and astrologers, because they viewed
matter as full of spirit. And of course,
our physicists now tell us that matter is most definitely alive and full of
consciousness!
Perhaps we are suffering through our
problems as a labor that gives birth to a new consciousness that can heal the
fragmentation of the Western ego. This
seems to be our ultimate purpose this lifetime, for our world is at a turning
point. We are being forced into
consciousness by the suffering of our ‘matter’ - both our personal bodies and
the Earth's body.
Any sacrifice on our part can now be
seen as a ‘making sacred’ or giving meaning to our lives. We are beginning to understand that we have
to suffer through a situation to find its meaning. Ask anyone who’s gone through the pain of
divorce or disease about the suffering that brings consciousness. Although the suffering is bitter, no one
comes away from the experience without coming into a conscious relationship
with themselves for the first time in their lives. Through all the emotional suffering people
have learned that there is meaning in everything we do in life. We just have to find a context for our
suffering, a context that is the healing of the passion of matter. That context is a cosmology, a sacred story
that helps us understand the things that are ordained for us (i.e., living a
joyous, conscious life). We need to
re-discover a sacred story about Life.
Our New
Sacred Story
New stories are being told about our
times, stories told by alternative healers, seekers, pagans,
traditionalists. Over a quarter of the
people in our country, about 44 million people, are what sociologist Paul Ray calls
Cultural Creatives, people who are
active in transforming our political, social and spiritual heritage. Many of these people are women, and all of
them believe in the feminine principles of love, peace, service and
interdependence.5 They are working
to understand and bring about the ‘things that are ordained’, the necessary
changes we all have to make if we are to continue living here on our mother,
the Earth. Many people believe that when
a critical mass of these creative people is reached, (really only a small
percentage of the entire population – very like the 144,000 righteous remnant
of the Book of Revelation) then a new
consciousness will become available to anyone who tries to access and
ultimately understand and use the gifts of the imagination for its true
purpose.
We need to find our place in the
universe once more. We need to come
home. The search for meaning was ignored when our modern scientific worldview
focused on how things work rather
than why things are. This is what happens when we separate spirit
from matter. But the search for meaning
has always been the work of our poets, artists, musicians, mystics, alchemists,
great teachers, pure scientists, storytellers, psychologists and women. So there is hope that we'll re-discover those
stories and begin to live within them again.
We are all being called upon to be
the healers of our times, and we are seeing this happen. It seems there is a
growing movement among baby boomers (an estimated 1.1 million already) to move
out of the corporate world and go to work in non-profit organizations, with
millions more to follow in the coming years.
About one half of the 78 million boomers are interested in jobs that
help others, putting their talents to work for the group.
Pluto symbolizes the energy of
regeneration and evolution, with Leo ruling individuation and consciousness and
Virgo ruling self-knowledge and service. Those of us who lived through the 60s
or were born in the 60s came to renew our consciousness, our sense of what it
means to be human and our responsibilities to each other. We do this by discovering our own
individuality and talents, and then contributing them to the greater life of
the community. Many people have had to
face their own wounding and heal themselves, heal the passion of their matter, and in that healing have discovered
their ability to heal others. The idea
of the wounded healer is a very ancient belief, and is at the root of shamanic
lore. To see this happening on a collective,
cultural level is exciting, because it means that we have a chance to create
the change that will heal the passion of
matter. For we are remembering that
matter, our physical world, is alive and intelligent and knows the things that
are ordained for the health of life on this Earth.
People are healing themselves by
listening to the voices of the Earth’s imagination - the winds, the waters,
crystals, plants, the stars, the body, the soul. For only by going through the darkness
ourselves can we become true guides for others who still reside there. The great Western mystic, Hildegard of
Bingen, said that "God has arranged everything in the universe in
consideration of everything else."6 Perhaps
the inner suffering and loneliness of many people has been Spirit arranging for
the new creativity that our times so desperately need.
We are living in a defining
moment. The times are calling upon us to
envision the future life of this planet.
Ours is an age of rapid change and chaos; the violence of our culture
reflects the violence of this chaos. The
transition of the ages always involves a return to chaos so new forms can
arise. These times give rise to great
spiritual awakenings, and many people are opening up to the gifts of
Spirit. Once again, medicine people,
visionaries and mystics are being heard and honored. But it is a spiritual awakening that must
take place within the heart of each individual, and each individual has to do
the hard work to gain self-knowledge, which precedes the true gifts of the
Spirit. This self-knowledge is not only
one of criticism of self but also of acceptance of self. We have to name ourselves and our wounds for
them to heal. And we have to gather the
tools for healing that can be passed on to others who are still suffering.
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