The Western Gate

Of The Holy Guardian Angel (contd)

The changing line of the IChing oracle declared, “Leave for me by an open window a bowl of rice and a flask of wine.” This for the reading on how to meet the “Holy Guardian Angel”. This Angel? how do I perceive such an entity, I have pondered that it must be as the perfected soul, the crowned aspect of oneself. The spirit that has evolved throughout time and yet exists in this moment. As we are the BA, the soul and personality, if you will, the person eulogized at our funeral, the person crafted by memories from everyone who ‘knew’ us. Then! The ‘Holy Guardian Angel’ is the KA~ the potential of all that we could be, all the things we are and are not, all the things we experienced and all the things that passed us by, the knowledge we absorbed and that which we disregarded.
Others will suggest the Holy Guardian Angel is just as written, an angel, that walks beside us for our lifetime, not so much as directing our life, lest we encourage the supposition and influence., but that they ‘watch’. Is this formed by our conscious mind or by the reflective pattern we imprint from our higher nature? Such was she nature of my curiosity, such was the drive to probe its nature.

After I had cast the IChing oracle I had a dream. I was aware I was dreaming and though more often than not I am Lucid in these observations I was prevented from attaching the conscious mind to the theatre that was being revealed. This always means I have to watch what is being played out before me. I was in a house that I did not recognise or can recall having visited but was very familiar. The street inclined somewhat from left to right two characters were approaching. They reached the window and one looked straight in and seemed somewhat agitated that the window was locked, the other character shuffled behind somewhat inquisitive, urchin like and dishevelled, he appeared to be the follower. Now the larger character looking into the window seemed to have a very prominent forehead though as I looked it was lack of eyebrows that gave this impression, his face was chiselled and cheek bones high, his eyes were not so much as piercing but reflective as if they were capturing the whole scene both for himself to recall and for me to understand that everything was being observed. He did not attempt to break into the window nor find another means of access though the urchin seemed very insistent that they should force entry, the urchin was always dismissed and ignored by the larger.
I knew instantly that this was symbolic of the approach of the Holy Guardian Angel, and the interpretation need not be examined suffice to stay the lead character was not amused the window was shut contrary to the IChing’s guidance.

It was now the New Moon 14/15 Oct, The New Moon in Libra. Upon the window ledge and by an open window as The IChing oracle had prompted sat a bowl of rice and the receptacle in which wine had been offered. More properly for those of a Thelemic nature this would be, I suggest, the offering of both Blood and Seed (Semen), yet just as a dagger is air and wand fire, so Rice and wine are semen and blood.

The dream that followed was lucid, and more alike the ritual that I have known. There was no ‘Holy Guardian Angel’ but being as the Moon was new and in Libra (equilibrium) it was the aspect of Thoth who emerged on the threshold. Thoth, The God of knowledge and the scribe of Maat (Judge), is often very difficult to interpret, I cannot make out much of what is said, instead relying on the visual images that arise as he imparts the insights.
Direct contact with the ‘Holy Guardian Angel’ or indeed the higher self that exists in all time (Aha! just as I had proposed) is made by entering the lucid dream state, and there entering in itself the inner dream state, this is to dream within a dream. In Lucid dream, perhaps, we work within the sphere of the moon, in a dream within a dream, we are face to face with the Abyss !
To facilitate this I needed some assistance from the Devas kingdom, the nature of us, Verdant Gnosis. To be less rhetorical I needed some herbal nigh time dream assistance. Blue lotus flowers and Mugwort steeped in water, agitated and stirred frequently and then drank an hour before sleep.
As I fell to sleep and on that threshold I usually fall, observe myself falling, observe the muscles giving up the ghost and thereupon enter Lucidity. I cannot remember, The switch simply engaged and I was lost.
Dream did eventually occur, though this would be hours after I first drifted. I commanded the scene to be vivid and lucid, to be stable. I was in a bedroom, and here I would lay down, to fall into sleep by which I would observe myself falling and thus entering lucidity in the send threshold, or the abyss. I noticed concern, firstly that my initial lucid experience had not happed as usual by means of observation of falling asleep, and that instead I had slipped into dream and my mind had switched off. Therefore, in this state as I attempted to dream within a dream would that occur likewise. As I lay upon the bed, I closed dream eyes and saw a myriad of technicolour chaos and felt the fall. However, as I opened my eyes to see the dream within the dream I had in fact fully awakened in my own bed. I observed the time which was 3:21, symbolically perhaps inferring a countdown to success or a project begun and lay for a moment looking at the ceiling. I then wrote quickly in shorthand by the pad at my bedside all that I had observed and what was revealed amongst the many visual images that arose as I attempted to dream within a dream. In the mnorning I would re-evaluate what had happened. My mind became heavy and eyes succumb to deep sleep.

On awakening I picked up the pad to read what would by now have been forgotten such is the nature of the conscious mind to discard all that the subconscious and dream state reveals,once the physical body awakens and takes charge. The pad was empty. I had in fact dreamt with a dream and so lucid was it that I believed I was in the here and now. I recall everything felt physical, there was no disconnect of reality such that it was as an out of body experience. I recalled I was observing from the point as normal and that I viewed my whole body as normal. Not once did it occur to me to call forth the holy Guardian Angel as I was aware and of the belief I existed in the physical… whereas in point of fact, I were in dream within a dream.
It occurred to me that if the waking world could be seen as positive and its opposite, the dream, being negative, then dream within a dream is a negative of a negative, or indeed a positive? well if my maths teacher was correct. What is dreamt in a dream of a dream, thus, could manifest in the physical? It arose in my mind the thought ~ That ritual primarily is within the realm of the Lunar, by the law of hedge-riding, dream within the dream, we enact the ritual our ancestors knew and performed. We are in fact in that scene a reflection of our natural world, and yet liminal, the abyss is both as alluring as the waking world, and just as tempting.