The Living Grail, a Wise Tulip and the path to compassionate cooperation

Today is a lunar eclipse, with moon in Cancer; the lunar north node is also in Cancer, reminding us of where we could and should evolve further. Astrologically, Cancer is the Mother archetype and thus linked to nurturing and compassion.  The emphasis on Capricorn (sun, lunar south node) and Cancer (moon, lunar north node) invites us to travel the path of compassionate wisdom on both the institutional and personal levels - to “listen to the heart”, to value compassion in the structuring of our institutions and in the structuring of our individual consciousness.

Compassion often seems lacking in the human world. Animals (even predators) generally treat each other with compassion. They comfort other members of the pack or pride; when not motivated by hunger, a lion lets the gazelle herd graze freely - viewing other animals with a “live and let live” tolerance; tolerance and allowing of “what’s not like me” is a form of kindness. Humans talk a lot, but often fail to communicate; true communication requires tolerance and resonance with what unifies - comm-union. Humans seemingly could learn a lot from animals.

Here’s a little poem about communion, inspired by a bear:

Bear

We hear the heartbeat of earth

Thru our soles,

Walk and breathe with her rhythms.

We rub our backs against a tree,

Scratching an itch

As our blood synchronizes

With the pulsing flow in its woody spine.

Animal, tree and earth communing

In the goodness of life.

So, what next for our disoriented, disconnected species? What might be some stepping stones on the road to compassion?

It’s more than just “stepping in their shoes, Bro”.

At first, it’s “imagine how they feel” - a kind of remote viewing that keeps the other’s pain at a distance, but still trains the imagination. If we can imagine, then we can pull their Beingness close to our field and, like a scientist, examine every detail of what they see, hear and feel.  Thru imagination, we begin to understand what/how they are, at a conceptual level. “Brother, do you feel my pain?”....No, but I have a theoretical idea of what you’re going thru; this phase is a mental process.

Then we get a little closer, decrease some of the distance between “me” and “thee”.  We note areas of similarity - similar experiences, similar interests, similar desires.  Those areas of similarity, or apparent overlap, create a limited kinship. Here we have relationship thru resonance: “You are my brother, my kin, because we’re similar, because parts of me mirror parts of you.” Sometimes the mirror is dirty, cracked or distorted (like those fun-house mirrors), but we are probing for points of likeness, thus of easy connectivity. Tuning into the areas of similarity allows for diplomacy - for civil discussion of differences, while standing in neutral “common ground”. In astrology, this dynamic corresponds to the Libra archetype.

Next comes merging and fusion, the expansion of the “I Am” beyond my individual self and personal attachments. “What am I?”; whatever words follow the “I am.....” become part of my identity. If I say “I am beautiful”, then “beauty” becomes part of my identity structure (at least for a while). If I say “I am unhealthy”, then sickness becomes part of my identity; thru absorbing  the energies of sickness into my “me-ness”, I’ve cast a spell on myself and may suffer more dis-ease. The “I Am” can contract or expand, exclude or include. If I viscerally know that I am connected in interdependence with Nature, that atoms from that tree may be swept by the air into my lungs and become part of my flesh tomorrow, then my “I Am” may expand to include nature in my definition of “what is me”.

Although described in mental language, this process occurs outside usual mental processing - occurs thru the emotions, thru the visceral feelings that become “knowings”, is irrational. When we “irrationally” merge with another human, we literally feel their pain and their essence; this is no longer conceptual, but a “felt knowing”....an awareness received thru the heart and gut. We move from abstract sympathy to experiential “feeling with” - compassion.  The “I Am” can expand infinitely - to include 2 people, 3 people, a whole city, a world of people, a planet of diverse beings, even an entire solar system or galaxy in the definition of “Who I Am”.  At a certain point, the “I Am” expands enough to allow compassion for all humanity. Such compassion can bring overwhelming, viscerally painful despair for the suffering of millions, which then leads to a protective contraction of the “I Am” and necessary rest from overwhelm. But even just one such expansion of the “I Am” can catalyze a radical restructuring of the ego and what it values.

Merging galaxies - 2 become 1

As a preview of a humanity living thru compassion:

In a world where everyone lived in compassion, there’d be no need for Laws (No one would be murdering, raping, etc.). We’d only need trivial non-intuitive rules to maintain order - such as “which side of the street to drive on”.

The Divine Feminine (of the Cancer archetype) evokes images of the holy grail, the grail of divine receptivity and divine generosity. Not surprisingly, some flowers (progenitors of the seed and fruit, and often associated with the feminine) are grail-shaped: Tulips, poppies, any flower whose petals curl to form a bowl-like container.

A Living Grail

This bowl of petals - 

A chalice, a singing bowl

Humming with the wind,

Collecting tones like dew,

Holding offerings of sound and scent

In its nectar-moist grail.

Bees hear the tune and bring

Gifts of pollen, orange fertility,

To the tulip’s embrace.

Hand of bee touches hand of plant 

In reverent reciprocity.

Generosity requires receptivity. Those who give without receiving....run dry, become bitter and shriveled; one must nurture the self, if one is to nurture others. The flower pulls nourishment up its stem from the soil; its leaves and petals welcome and absorb riches from the air and sun; the stamen, like an antenna, reaches up to receive and offer fertilizing particles of solar gold. It welcomes in the expected (the water, the soil minerals, the solar light) and the unexpected - the breeze carrying a new fragrance, the beak of an unfamiliar hummingbird, the unknown magic. And from the alchemy of familiar and unfamiliar, all received in open embrace, it grows into the miraculous grail offering gifts of beauty for the eyes, pollen to the bees and oxygen to the air.

How are we like the grail or the tulip? Images of the human energy field show a tube torus that can extend far beyond the physical body (expanding as our definition of our “I Am” expands).  We simultaneously pull in and emit energy (receive and give) from our crown and feet; the incoming and outgoing energies swirl around us in counter-rotating currents.....in a spherical, or bowl-like configuration. Perhaps each of us is also a living grail.