Finding Your Spiritual Feet
by Lian Brook-Tyler
The deeper I go with the mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, the more I see that it is the path of unity I’ve unknowingly been walking all along.
For some time, alchemy - as rediscovered and described by Jung - was the closest description of some of what I’d been spontaneously experiencing. But now I see that alchemy was a stepping stone to the metaphysical first principles of the Kabbalah.
This is a realisation I believe Jung had as well, with strong supporting evidence. He brilliantly found his inner symbols reflected in Gnosticism and alchemy and, in later life, realised they were held even earlier in an even clearer, more precise mirror in the Kabbalah. In fact, the most potent symbols of alchemy, such as the alchemical marriage - the ones that spoke most to me as well - almost certainly originated in the Kabbalah.
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung describes a vision in which he experiences a “marriage” within the Jewish mystical setting of the Garden of Pomegranates, symbolising the Kabbalistic union of opposites, of the Masculine and Feminine, the spiritual and the material. (Tifereth and Malchuth are both Kabbalistic terms.)
“I myself was, so it seemed, in the Pardes Rimonim, the Garden of Pomegranates in 16th. Century Jewish mysticism, and the wedding of Tifereth with Malchuth was taking place. Or else I was Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, whose wedding in the afterlife was being celebrated. It was the mystic marriage as it appears in the Kabbalistic tradition. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was. I could only think continually, ‘Now this is the garden of pomegranates! Now this is the marriage of Malchuth with Tifereth!’ I do not know what part I played in it. At bottom it was I myself. I was the marriage. And my beatitude was that of a blissful wedding.”
It seems to me that the truest soul paths are like that for all of us - a path we find in the outer world that reflects the inner images we’ve journeyed with for much longer.
And so, finding our path is about first honouring the themes arising within us: the visions that alter us in unspoken and unspeakable ways, the fantasies that won’t leave us alone, the memories that hound us down the decades, the night dreams that stay with us for a day or days afterwards, and the heroes, villains, witches, warriors, and fairy queens in the myths and folktales that call to us. This is something many of us find hard in this modern world, where we are told that our inner symbols have little to no value, so we dismiss them rather than embracing them as precious landmarks on the maps to find the priceless gems in our inner caves.
Whether our path turns out to be Christian, shamanic, Buddhist, Taoist, Hermetic, or Kabbalistic - or a synergy of many traditions, as indeed my own is - perhaps first, the seeing and honouring of our own inner symbols is essential for it to truly be the path our soul chose.
Some of the symbols that have guided me the deepest and longest are the Chalice, the Rose, Aphrodite, Fox Woman, the High Priestess, the Celestial Spheres, Chiron the Wounded Healer, the Great Mother, the Enchantress, the Oak, and most of all, Union. They are my guides, allies, medicine, and teachers, and ultimately, parts of me scattered to the four winds and across the aeons. I wouldn’t be wholly me without the remembering and re-membering of them.
My love and blessings as you see your symbols, find your feet, and dance your soul path back home to yourself.
All my love,
Lian ♥️
Image: Me walking on a Turkish beach
Want to become more intimate with us? If YES, click any or all of the buttons below.