In “Secret Engine of the World” (2021), I spoke of 3 doom-defining or doom-defying deadlines: the US elections in 2022 & 2024, & a 2031 drop-dead deadline for any significant mitigation of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD) & the Sixth Great Extinction.
In 2022, I chronicled the run-up to the first of the 3 deadlines w/ a series of monthly updates from July to November. In 2024, I will chronicle the run-up to the second deadline, similarly.
A series of talks & writings on the third deadline is also underway.
"Of Goddesses" is the third in this series of Gaia Talks.
The first, “Gaian Poetics & Gaian Politics,” was delivered in November 2022 & the second, "The Emerald Tablet: 21st Century Insights on Its True Nature” was delivered in March 2023.
The full text of each talk, along with accompanying PowerPoints & embedded videos, are available here. The videos also reside on my YouTube channel, "Spoken Words of Power."
God Is A Concept, God Is Dead
In the 1970s, rock star, political dissident & eventual martyr John Lennon declared "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." A century earlier, in the 1880s, Friedrich Nietzsche, tortured genius, true giant of Western philosophy, had already declared,"God is dead."
From very different vantage points, both of these magical beings were actually, albeit unconsciously, heralding the collapse of the patriarchal narrative. This has been a painfully slow & dangerous process. And now, at long last, we are finally nearing the denouement.
“Imagination is theology; we can only believe what we can imagine. And our cultural landscape hasn’t given us many tools to imagine a non-white, non-male God.”
Grande's song and Cleveland's book epitomize vital new cultural memes.
The "God Is A Woman" meme is more accurate mystically and cosmologically than dominant "whitemalegod" thought-form. Furthermore, "God Is A Woman is perfectly calibrated for this critical juncture in the evolution of our species, i.e., the end of history and the beginning of herstory, the end of the patriarchy and the beginning of what evolves even beyond matriarchy.
The "God Is A Black Woman" meme is even more apropos for the personification of this great shift.
Cleveland explains.
“We are unable to imagine a God who is with us while we wonder if our beloved sister will survive the night. We are unable to imagine a God who proclaims #blacklivesmatter, a God who says #metoo, a God who stands not atop the social hierarchy, but at the bottom with the people who have been cast aside, silenced, and forgotten. When god is solely male, he can only show up as fatherskygod who is nowhere near us.”
“Indeed, social science scholars agree that what’s good for Black women is good for all people. The liberation of all Black women requires the dismantling of all systems of oppression—white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and more. These systems harm all of us. So, if Black women are thriving and free, it also means the oppressive systems have been eradicated and we are all thriving and free."
Clockwise from Bottom Left: Venus of Dolní Věstonice, Artemisia Gentileschi - Sleeping Venus (1630), Kali Yantra, A golden statue of Durga slaying Mahisasur. Delhi (Oct 22, 2004), Kiki Smith - Lilith (1994), Andres Zorn - Freya (1901), Ekajat, the Blue Tara, Ferocious, Single-Breasted, One-Eyed, Single-Toothed Protectress of Nyingmapa Lineage, Painted by Shri Ram Bahadur Lama, Kathmandu
Pantheon
A pantheon of Goddesses smuggled Life, Nature & Reality through thousands of years of metaphysical misogyny & gender slavery providing cover for actual, literal misogyny & gender slavery, & some of these Goddesses could stand as the divine power behind the next civilization:
The Celtic Triune Goddess in the West, Durga Ma in the East, both all-powerful representations of FULL EMBODIMENT & FULL INDIVIDUATION
Freya the Nordic Goddess of BOTH Love & War.
Venus Aphrodite of course, expressive of the Ultimate Power, D-E-S-I-R-E.
The incomparable Tara, in all her 21 flavors, offering, oh, boundless compassion, salvation from suffering, & so much more, e.g., Ekajat, the Blue Tara, Ferocious, Single-Breasted, One-Eyed, Single-Toothed Protectress of Nyingmapa Lineage
In the East, the indigo blue skinned Kali, in the West, the raven winged Morrigan. Holy ferocity, primal security. Self-defense. War of liberation. Sacred rage.
Lilith too. Like Daath, the abyss at the center of the Tree of Life, Lilith is the Shadow of them all.
Gaia
All of the Goddesses in this global pantheon are of the Sambhogakaya, they are like the rays of the Sun (Dharmakaya) warming & nurturing those human incarnations who open to them (Nirmanakaya). They are Mythoi, they are not unreal, they are realer than real, they are Supra Real. They feed the psychological body, the Manamaya Kosha, with the stuff of the Vijnanamaya Kosha, the Intuitive Body, The Jungians would say they are from the realm of the archetypes.
There is one Goddess who pre-exists the Pantheon, that pre-exists our species, that pre-exists all but herself, because all else is her creation. She is the ONLY truly IMMANENT Divinity, she was the forging of oceans, the flow of lava, the bacteria in a dark crevice organizing itself into the first neural network, & now many billions of years later whoever you are, when you look in the mirror you are seeing only Her. She is the Divine Intelligence. She is both the Temple and the Oracle within it. Yes, Her name was taken from the ancient Mythoi by a 20th Century scientist. But only Her name, The rest of Her new narrative is composed of scientific fact, corroborated by shamanic vision. In the South of the Americas, She is known by another name, Pachamama. Gaia-Pachamama is the only Divinity which offers direct, irrefutable proof of Her own existence every moment of every day in every place in all the world.
For those with eyes to hear and ears to see.
Without her you would not be, no five bodies, no incarnation, no path of individuation, no psyche, no soma, no karma, no you. Without her you would never have felt the sun rise from inside the stillness of your meditation or heard the coyotes massing for a hunt in the hills on a moonless night. Without her, no Iceland, no Uluru, no Kahlo, no Coltrane, no Amazon, no Congo, no Lana Del Ray.
If we are going to overcome the folly of our genius & survive the pathologies that poison us, we need to rapidly retool this scarred & conflicted civilization into a green, feminist world in which altruism & sustainability are the defining imperatives of governance. Gaia is the Goddess to place at the center of all you do to pursue this new beginning.
-- Richard Power, Yoga & Meditation Teacher, Writer, Speaker, Global Intelligence & Security Expert.
"Thank you for being everything you are and upholding this world, you secret tsaddik ... Deep bow to the living mystery school that you are, Richard Power. Such a blessing to the world.” - Vera de Chalambert (@vera_de_shalom)"
“These books by Richard Power are portals of mythic truth and transmit Sovereignty Codes. I highly recommend reading them as you navigate all the changes - whenever I open the pages, it's like sitting at the feet of a great Oracle. Thank you Richard."
At 2:00 a.m., sometime after Yule 2022, before the end of the Muggle calendar year, I picked up “Wyrds of Power” to look up something for someone. Flipping through, searching for the passage I wanted to reference, I kept running into whole chapters I hadn’t laid eyes on in several years. I was awestruck by the sweeping scope of my work.
That same month, a close friend and ally chose to no longer be a friend or ally. It happens.
Both experiences left me NOT in the mood for having my work forgotten or my life disappeared.
Curating Legacy & Legend
To further the curation of legacy & legend, first, I released 3 series of Instagram and Facebook posts (IG/FB) that underscore the scope & depth of the creative cycle stretching from 2010 thru 2021.
Hashtag Series: 21 IG/FB posts highlighting major themes running through “Wyrds” “Dragon” & “Engine”
Gatherings for the Spoken Word: 10 IG/FB posts featuring 10 photos each from some of the 25 in-person talks that were foundational in the shaping of these 3 books
2010: "User's Guide to Human Incarnation: Yoga of Primal Reality" (series of 3)
2012-2013: "Mapping Primal Reality: Further Notes for A User's Guide to Human Incarnation" (series of 7)
2014: "Planetary Emergency, Personal Emergence (series of 4)
2015: "Cauldron Yoga, Gaian Poetics & the Way of the Ancient Future"
2016: "Wyrds of Power: New Language for A New Reality"
2016: "Matrika, Midi-Chlorians & the Mysterium"
2017: "7 Beasts, Tale of the Mysterium"
2017: "5 Survival Tips for Your Journey into the Wilderness"
2018: "I, the Dragon"
2018" "Dragon Medicine: A Journey into Healing & Redemption"
2019: "Dragon Bone Broth"
2019: "Legends of the Ancient Future: Cauldron of the Dark Goddess, Secret Engine of the World, & the Riderless Horse that Crosses the Himalayas"
2020: "Pandemic 2020: Dreamtime Dweller"
2020: "Straw Dogs, A Mysterious Valley & the Power of Nothing"
“With his feet rooted firmly in the earth and his head in the Mysterium, Richard Power has written a dazzling book of great scope and meaning. It is a literary Ouroboros - Power’s extraordinary experiences, confessions, insights, revelations, and epiphanies unite to serve his fearless pursuit of truth and his inspiring vision of the infinite. Having just finished it, I am starting it again." - Susan Gammie
"I'm so moved by your transparency... Your book is a gift. It will help heal many hearts. Including mine." - Kim Amadril (@undertherug)
“Truth infusion that feels like time travel through mystical traditions. Richard Power brings these ancient tools to our modern day ground zero so we might remember who we are.” - @RobinGorn
For more, see below.
San Francisco Theosophical Society, 9/20/19
“Wyrds of Power," "I, the Dragon," "Secret Engine of the World" were not brought forth from my mind, in a seated position, at my laptop. They arose exclusively from talks & walks, from what yoginis call “the Throat Chakra” & from what Gurdjieff called “the Moving Center.”
The talks were delivered over the course of 11 years (2010-2021). Many at the sftslodge, some online, late at night, from an urban cave. The walks that led to what I call the “Epiphanies” (some might call them poems or prayers) took place over that same span of time. Some in a lush, deeply magical forest (incinerated in the Climate Catastrophe of 2021). Some in the City of the Golden Gate, on the high hills or amidst flocks of pelicans at the ocean. 25 talks & 156 epiphanies.
The talks formed the skeleton & the nervous system of this body of work, these epiphanies shaped & animate its vital organs & 6 senses. These galleries of images offer powerful witness: magical beings coming together in celebration of the Mysteries.
"San Francisco Theosophical Society Lodge, 9/23/16
"I, the Dragon" Audio Book Released
On the Spring Equinox, with the help of friend & producer Harrison Nir, I pushed out the audiobook version of “I, the Dragon.” (A project that had been halted during the pandemic.)
Available now via Audible, iTunes & Amazon.
The Three Deadlines & The Taxonomy
In “Secret Engine,” I spoke of 3 doom-defining or doom-defying deadlines: the US elections in 2022 & 2024, & a 2031 drop-dead deadline for any significant mitigation of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD) & the Sixth Great Extinction.
In 2022, I chronicled the run-up to the first of the 3 deadlines w/ a series of monthly updates from July to November. In 2024, I will chronicle the run-up to the second deadline, similarly.
A series of talks & writings on the third deadline is also underway. Most recently, “Emerald Tablet: 21st Century Insights on Its True Nature” (@sftslodge 3/26/23), & before that, “Gaian Poetics & Gaian Politics” (@mpowerdanceproject 11/13/22).
This narrative tracking of the 3 deadlines will be incorporated into my next book.
The centerpiece of this new work will be the full text of “Taxonomy of Magical Beings: Field Notes of An Occult Anthropologist.” I offered a glimpse into this research in the talk “Dragon Bone Broth” & included that transcript and accompanying illustrations in “Secret Engine.”
The full “Taxonomy” will detail the characteristics of the magical species we have identified so far, it will also offer examples of how we determine a being’s species classification & examine the complex interrelationship of the magical & muggle worlds.
San Francisco Theosophical Society, 10/24/14
Rave Reviews from Readers
"Reading Richard's words while in college supplemented a kind of learning, of growth that I wasn't finding in my assigned work, but so desperately wanted. His was the first language that worked on my body like yoga, a poetry that explained little and somehow still delivered me to heights of feeling! Reading 'I, the Dragon' is an experience of transformation, not just a retelling but an active process of reliving. Within its pages, Richard gives us the greatest gift possible: his life." -- Harrison Nir (@just_a_har)
“Still the greatest book I have ever read. You have never read anything like it. The format is like no other ... Richard Power is one of the most relevant writers of our time. As the world moves deeper into chaos, Richard presents his personal saga, 'I, the Dragon,' as proof that one can come from complete madness, see how madness is effecting humanity politically, economically, environmentally, and yet still find healing and the ability to love unconditionally." - Brenna Geehan (@brennageehan)
"I’m not sure how else to tell you this. You must read this book. An essential artifact from the Ancient Future ... A necessary survival guide for humanity and where we are going... Written by one of the greatest living writers Richard Power @rgpoweriii Genius dragon devotee of the Dark Goddess, channel of a new language for a new reality. Weaver of the anthropological spiritual political arc of human evolution at this critical juncture on planet earth. His writings are water in a desert. Inoculations against spiritual delusion. Seeds planted in the heart that awaken the reader to their own depth of wisdom & direct knowing ... You know where to find it. This is a must, required reading for incarnated beings." - Maya Luna (depravedanddivine)
"Richard Power is magnificently depicting the jagged layers of our underworld and the absolute and fucked up perfection of everything. The ugly, disorderly, unforgivable … He shamelessly offers truth. Uncensored … His heart wide open in this book. His knowledge & experience vast, daring & evermore melding into the holy, deep, dark & feral beauty of this world …” - Aurora Rose @aofthisplace
How genuine, honest, authentic and whole ‘I, the Dragon' feels. With all the facets, ebbs, flows, textures and malleability of a human being, with a gift for sharing life and truth in a way that is so relatable. Touching, moving, and inspiring!! Your book is like advice that is neither unsolicited nor unwelcome! It is just magical, intuitive, deep, personal connection." - Jenn Jackson (@lovejennik)
"Reading 'I, The Dragon' I was struck by the tests, trials and tribulations Richard has endured that began as a young child and have woven throughout his life. And I sense the hero’s journey he has lived, learning to rely on his intuition ... To forgive is not to forget. The true hero must undergo a death and resurrection in order to progress. Richard has achieved this multiple times within his life, emerging each time to a higher level of understanding and release. His story is raw and penetrating and touched me at the depth of my being." - Wendy Ellsworth
"Richard Power is a dear friend, soul brother, true blue ally, real-life magician, 21st-century bard, fountain of authentic wisdom, and all-around extraordinary human. I am blessed to have him in my life and now the world is blessed to have his memoirs in the collective consciousness. 'Epic Life' is not an exaggeration! Richard's life and work is a channeled articulation of the most profound Truths about the human experience, conveyed with wit, brilliance, poetry and pathos. I love this man SO MUCH. THANK YOU, dear wizard, from the bottom of my heart, for existing and for delivering this gift to a planet in desperate need …" - Sarah Hendlish
"Into the Sublime. A Must Read." - Terence Smith (@Callmenadu)
"’I, the Dragon’ is more than an incredible work of art. Richard Power delivers a personal nakedness never before shown, one that breathes healing into the deepest shadow of torture and survival. A most important work, masterfully written in three styles: porn cult-classic, polished blade of a global security expert and literary philosopher-poet. An undercurrent exists throughout this book, taking us beyond the desolation of his experience. Power never fails to find a way that leads us all into a new green oasis." - Mary Power (@mpowerdance.project)
"I, the Dragon is equal parts intimate memoir, zen treatise and firsthand historical document. Across a life filled with both trauma and triumph, Richard Power has traveled the world, witnessed extraordinary things, met an astounding list of fellow travelers and emerged with a story—many stories, many of them remarkable—that is both resonant and beautiful." - Kali Holloway (@kaliholloway)
"’I, The Dragon’ is a book of healing. There is vast tenderness in the transformative journey that this hero took upon himself as he embraced his power. The journey & the tenderness are gifts of Great Medicine from a courageous soul. The magic of this unique epic is that it can uplift anyone ..." - @rosalynvintageshop
“No words to describe what your words do to me. Thank you. You changed my life." - Maya Luna (depravedanddivine)
"Summer is almost gone except here in the SF Bay where winter happens in July and summer happens in October. I am thoroughly immersed in "I, the Dragon" this powerful page-turner that chronicles the extraordinary life of the incomparable Richard Power. You will be entertained, you will be dazzled, inspired and magically transformed through these pages." - Courtney Wynn Sheets @eyesofcourtneywynn
San Francisco Theosophical Society Lodge, 2017
"This book has a hypnotic effect that pulls you deeply inward into the most subtle spaces that typically can only be felt versus read, but Richard has the ability to successfully convey these inner landscapes in such a way through word that I gained much personal insight and clarity as a side effect of the read. His personal stories have transpersonal gifts and the tone of mystery painted throughout the book way-showered me into a deep sense of the familiar. This multi-dimensional book led my psyche into an awareness, as if inner doors kept opening into a homecoming of mysterious revelation. On the same note, the aha! moments I received when reading were inspired from the book's great practicality, rawness, and depthful wisdom that is acquired through direct experience, age, and the courage to embrace the full journey of a mystical, inter-dimensional life." - Maalika-Shay DeviDasi
"Reading & re-reading Richard.... what has struck me most strongly about 'I the Dragon' is the beauty of the lyricism in some of the narrative passages... the content is yours (you lived it) yet I, the reader, own the breath, joy & tears that all rise with each turned page .... it's a staggering work of memoir and literature, so much so I want to take this copy to Sligo, place it on W.B's grave stone, photograph it and send it to you...." -- Kevin McLaughlin (@thesolarboutiq)
“With his feet rooted firmly in the earth and his head in the Mysterium, Richard Power has written a dazzling book of great scope and meaning. It is a literary Ouroboros - Power’s extraordinary experiences, confessions, insights, revelations, and epiphanies unite to serve his fearless pursuit of truth and his inspiring vision of the infinite. Having just finished it, I am starting it again." - Susan Gammie
"I'm so moved by your transparency... Your book is a gift. It will help heal many hearts. Including mine." - Kim Amadril (@undertherug)
"Richard Power your words infuse my soul with Musings of the worlds unseen. I can’t seem to put this book down ..." - Alita Arose (@alitaarose)
“Truth infusion that feels like time travel through mystical traditions. Richard Power brings these ancient tools to our modern day ground zero so we might remember who we are.” - @RobinGorn
"This book has rocked my world on so many levels! The story pulled me in and wouldn’t let me go! An amazingly honest, personal account wrapped in revelation, wizardry and mystery. This intensely heroic life is written with poetic mastery ... Inspiring medicine …” - Kate Henke
“‘I, the Dragon’ brought me on a journey into a very profound life. It aligns with anyone searching for their truth in healing & becoming Self. It is honest, deep, & tells a wonderful story of a life well lived. Thank you Mr. Power for your strength, compassion & words.” - @lucienshapiro
"This book ['Secret Engine'] is a treasure for humanity, an experience to be lived, a download of love filled with remarkable insights and visions written by a poet. Richard Power, a modern mystic, is gifting us an unusual yet practical life raft for our times. If I were you, I would reach out and grab it.” - Courtney Wynn Sheets (@eyesofcourtneywynn, @outriderart)
"Captivating, riveting. A wild ride of a read. The wisdom of an incredible man whose precious l
ife was recovered from the heart and soul of a young boy." -- Helena Zera (@helenavyana)
San Francisco Theosophical Society Lodge, 9/25/15
“What a gift you are to this world.” - Allison Hodge (@kalikscollective)
"This novel has me engrossed. The title alone set me into a completely compelling desire to get absorbed in the secrets of each page. Richard Power your words infuse my soul with Musings of the worlds unseen. I can’t seem to put this book down. Thank you for your honesty, your courage, your truth. I’m honored to know you." -- Alita Arose (@alitaarose)
"Yes, 'I, the Dragon' arrived just in time to begin savoring it in conjunction with blood blue moon. Which as we know is as it had to be. It is remarkable and anchoring and fracturing, all at once. A shard of reality in these illusion-filled times." -- Jennifer Ruth Keller (@aplaceapart)
“The book that I cannot put down and at the same time I have to put down to catch my breath. “The sands are spilling through the hourglass for all of us. There is a finite number of grains. Don't waste your time in this world." - Lalyn Curtis @breathingskyhealingarts
"Your words pierce my heart. Your exquisite words, You vast ocean! So much wisdom - all alchemized within." - Lauren Searles (@loveangelcoach)
"Into the Sublime. A Must Read." - Terence Smith (@Callmenadu)
Emily Shurr is a gifted poet whose work I have encouraged. Her review of my book is itself a work of utter brilliance:
"A short review of I, THE DRAGON is like a week in Paris. Overwhelmed with beauty and majesty, art and revolution, with just enough squalor to keep it really real, you just have to hit the high points and promise to come back soon ..."
“It takes the form of a complex chronicle … including a historic timeline of world events alternating with deeply personal narratives, often in footnotes that go on for pages. Our story begins with tales of horrific abuse and exquisite transcendence, told in waves and incantations. Statues and stones speak from across aeons, pouring the Presence of Archetypes into author and reader alike ... This is deep and high, this telling. This is a wild, precise, elegant rampage of the Goddess Herself through a single man’s life -- a man who has carried fire for the whole world ..."
"These blessings are unending. Each one contains myriad others. They open into themselves in a fractellating way. So many, so thick, pouring like complex spiced honey, I obviously can’t address them all here. Tackling the nature of Evil, page 395. Obviously a gigantic topic, one which most professional ethicists actually avoid. How to access Grace in no uncertain (deeply uncertain) terms, page 400. A closing Feast with goddesses Grace and Gratitude, guests Anger and Bitterness, the 7 Beasts and the 5 Richards, page 404. Nothing like it in all of literature …”
Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus (“Hermes the Thrice-Greatest”), aka Thoth
noun: demi-god
a being with partial or lesser divine status, such as a minor deity, the offspring of a god and a mortal, or a mortal raised to divine rank. – Oxford Languages
“…in Egyptian religion, a god of the moon, of reckoning, of learning, and of writing” - Encyclopedia of Britannica
8th-9th Century - Arabic sources
12th-13th Century - Translated into Latin
Earliest known version appeared in Apollonius of Tyana’s
Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa (The Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature)
Apollonius was a Neo-Pythagorean, just as Plotinus was a Neo-Platonist
A contemporary of Jesus and Buddha, he too performed numerous miracles.
Unlike Jesus and Buddha who chose to move among the poor and downtrodden, Apollonius chose to move among the upper classes, nevertheless, according to H.P. Blavatsky, “the three ‘miracle-workers’ exhibited striking similarity of purpose”
“His existence is surrounded with such a veil of mystery that he is often mistaken for a myth … It is quite true that this Sage, who stands unrivalled in his thaumaturgical powers to this day – on evidence historically attested – came from it, no one seems to know whither. But the reasons for this are evident. Every means was used – especially during the 4th and 5th centuries of our era --- to sweep from people’s minds the remembrance of this great and holy man.” – H.P. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, Vol. III
According to Apollonius, he discovered a vault hidden below a statue of Hermes. Inside the vault, he found an old corpse on a golden throne. The corpse held the Emerald Tablet in its hands.
Much has been projected on to the Emerald Tablet over the centuries.
Medieval alchemists looked to it for the secrets of the Philosopher’s Stone.
Modern mystics and occultists have woven their world-views around the Tablet’s signature declaration, “As above, so below.”
“it is first and foremost and fundamentally an alchemical formula, relating both to the alchemy of the base metal and the divine alchemy of human regeneration” - Manly Palmer Hall, “Secret Teachings of All Ages”
The Emerald Tablet is only fourteen lines long.
In preparation for this talk, I compared and contrasted numerous translations and renderings, including those of the great Sir Isaac Newton, Theosophical Society founder H.P Blavatsky and Sufi author Idries Shah. The differences are mostly insignificant. The version I chose to use here is that of the early 20th Century French alchemist Fulcanelli (translated into English by Sieveking), Fulcanelli was the author of the brilliant “Mystery of the Cathedrals.” …
Emerald Tablet – The One
“Above” and “below” are so limited and limiting. Even though this phrasing is healthier than that of the religionists who exalt “Heaven” and debase the so-called mundane world, this phrasing still warps and denigrates the meaning of the teaching it is meant to convey. This powerful truth is not about “Heaven” and “Earth.” They are not two. They are not separate. It’s not “Gods” and “Angels” above and “humans” and other “animals” below. And even though it says “as above, so below,” it’s still a separation that only exists in the human mind, you are not “a soul” in “a body,” you are not “here” now and going “there” after, they say “as” – it’s not “as” it’s “IS,”
‘IS above IS below’ would really work better.
This phrasing is the old patriarchal paradigm repeated over and over. And no, the Sky is not “Masculine,” just because the Earth is “Feminine.” It’s a false correspondence.
So in my rendering of the Emerald Tablet, I supplant “As above so below” with –
The Microcosm is within the Macrocosm and the Macrocosm is within in the Microcosm.
The next lines in this particular translation show a deeper understanding, so no strikethrough.
“all things exist in and emanate from the ONE Who is the ultimate Cause, so all things are born after their kind from this ONE”
Yes, indeed. Now who is this “ONE”?
Gaia is the Macrocosm, I am, you are, the Microcosm. The Ecosystem of the Planet, which is itself the Intelligence of the Planet, is the Macrocosm, my five bodies are the microcosm. All of it spirals upward and outward, downward and inward, SIMULTANEOUSLY. Gaia is the Microcosm, the Solar System is the Macrocosm. The Solar System is the Microcosm, the Galaxy is the Macrocosm, and on and on …
For nearly the entire history of life on this planet, 85 percent of that history in fact, life consisted solely of of microorganisms. The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) for every life-form on this planet was bacterial. Again: The last universal common ancestor for every life-form on this planet was bacterial ... In fact, every life-form we see - again, every life-form, including you and me - is simply a modification of bacteria in a more complex form ... The Gaian ecosystem, the self-organized system that we know as Earth, came into being with the emergence of the global bacterial community. The bacterial community is still the foundation of the world. It is Gaia. It is the interconnected network of millions of bacterial biofilms, individual bacteria, and symbiogenenic, bacterially generated, complex life-forms that lies deep within the crust of the Earth (perhaps by as much as 5 kilometers), covers the surface of the planet, and extends at least 50 kilometers above the Earth's surface ... The original neural networks that are present in all bacteria and their communities have been expanded in both shape and extent over long time lines. All the living self-organized systems that we know of as life-forms contain neural networks based on the original neural network that emerged. And the neurochemicals that bacteria originally developed have been refined over long time lines and are now used by virtually every life-form that exists. Our neural network is only modification of an already extant neural reality that pervades the entire Earth ecosystem; it is only a specific instance of a general condition.This expansion of the neural net, in multiple forms, all interconnected, facilitates the intake and processing of environmental information at ever more sophisticated levels of the Gaian network as a whole. Each self-organized system, that is, each subset of the larger whole, possesses a drive to fulfill its ecological function within the whole, and each possesses a sophisticated neural network with which it gathers data about the local environment in which it exists. Each also possesses free will as to how it accomplishes its function and how it responds to environmental perturbations. Gaia does not use top-down control over the parts that make-up the whole. - Stephen Harrod Buhner, Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm
Emerald Tablet - Sun & Moon
The Emerald Tablet - Sun and Moon
Languaging is so important, so pivotal … Languaging impacts the stream of consciousness, if it’s off, if it’s unhealthy, it can warp a truth, it can flatten it out, make it brittle and thin, make it square, drain it of its Sakti … Esoteric, metaphysical, mystical, spiritual languaging concerning the Sun and the Moon offers vivid examples of this abuse … In all of the Table of Erroneous Correspondences, nothing is as egregious as the characterizations of the Sun and Moon as “Active and Receptive, Male and Female, Yang and Yin,” wrong, wrong, wrong … To anthropomorphize the Sun and the Moon into “Father” and “Mother” is patriarchal, sexist, Samsaric … it is trivializing and misleading ..
Consider the Sun …
26,000 light years from the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, the Sun holds the planets of this solar system in its thrall, pulling them with it as it circumambulates that galactic core.
At an average speed of 450,000 miles an hour, each circumambulation takes 230 million years.
All the while, the Sun is delivering the heat and light that make life on Earth possible.
Noun: photosynthesis
the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis in plants generally involves the green pigment chlorophyll and generates oxygen as a byproduct. – Oxford Languages
“It would be impossible to overestimate the importance of photosynthesis in the maintenance of life on Earth. If photosynthesis ceased, there would soon be little food or other organic matter on Earth. Most organisms would disappear, and in time Earth’s atmosphere would become nearly devoid of gaseous oxygen. The only organisms able to exist under such conditions would be the chemosynthetic bacteria, which can utilize the chemical energy of certain inorganic compounds and thus are not dependent on the conversion of light energy.” - Britannica
“Sunlight kills bacteria. Many of us spend a lot of time indoors ... Sunlight may reduce high blood pressure ... Sunlight can regulate the immune system ... Sunlight strengthens bones ... Sunlight can improve sleep quality ... Sunlight boosts mood …” - GoodRx Health, 5/27/22
“Nothing is more important to us on Earth than the Sun. Without the Sun's heat and light, the Earth would be a lifeless ball of ice-coated rock. The Sun warms our seas, stirs our atmosphere, generates our weather patterns, and gives energy to the growing green plants that provide the food and oxygen for life on Earth.” - NASA
And as for the Moon …
“The Moon's radius is larger than a quarter of Earth's radius, a much larger ratio than most moons to their planets.” - Space.com
“The brightest and largest object in our night sky, the Moon makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate. It also causes tides, creating a rhythm that has guided humans for thousands of years.” - NASA
“Earth's moon is vitally important in making Earth the planet we know today: the moon controls the length of the day and ocean tides, which affect the biological cycles of lifeforms on our planet. The moon also contributes to Earth's climate by stabilizing Earth's spin axis, offering an ideal environment for life to develop and evolve.” - The Week, 2/7/22
Father and mother? Putting the gender stereotypes aside, even if it were a metaphor predicated on healthy parenting, your parents bring you into the world, then you grow up and live your life, you individuate, maybe at the end of theirs you help them out of this life just as they helped you in … But the Sun and the Moon, they did not just give birth to the world, and these mysteries, they are at the center of them moment by moment, sustaining it all, organizing it all at every level, now and ever since, and for as long as they endure, they are central to it all, and allow for the rise of Gaian Intelligence, they empower Gaia to paint her masterpieces upon the canvass of her own luminous flesh, yes …
So in my rendering of the Emerald Tablet, I supplant ““The Sun is the father and the Moon the mother …” with –
Within the Cauldron of the Creatrix, the Yin and the Yang swirl ceaselessly, likewise the Yin within the Yang and the Yang within the Yin swirl ceaselessly. Feel all of this.
The true alchemy of this living planet owes a lot to the Taoists –
Every whole "thing"--from a tree to a person to a business, an atom, planet, or universe--can be seen as a metaphorical Tai-Chi, with corresponding Yin and Yang aspects. Once Yin and Yang are distinguished, each one can also be seen as a whole and broken down further into its own integral Yin and Yang parts. We can see this creative process unfold all around us. The universal process of Being arising from Non-Being through the fusion of opposites, followed by the differentiation and increase of complexity from oneness to myriad forms, can be observed in the studies of modern cosmology, the evolution of species, the conception and development of individuals, and the arising of ideas ... - Simmone Kuo
“Yin and Yang are one vital force -- the primordial aura.” – Yangming Wang
“The motion of yin and yang generates all things in nature” - Meh Jiuzhang & Guo Lei
“The alchemists believed that the universal formula contained in the Emerald Tablet was the basis for a spiritual technology first introduced on the planet in ancient Egypt more than 10,000 year ago. The formula consists of seven consecutive operations, performed on the ‘matter’ – whether it be of a physical, psychological, or spiritual nature.” – Dennis William Huack, The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy for Personal Transformation
I looked up ‘Philosopher’s Stone” in the index to Manly Palmer Hall’s “Secret Teachings of All Ages,” I had to laugh. Among the numerous references, two in particular stood out.
One entry read “Philosopher’s Stone contains all the powers of Nature CLVIII” Lol.
You know what else “contains all the powers of Nature”? N-A-T-U-R-E! Nature Herself. Gaia.
Another entry read “Philosopher’s Stone represented by Isis XLVII”
Well, yes, but really it’s not “symbolism.” It would be more accurate to say “Isis is the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Philosopher’s Stone is Isis.”
Isis, of course, being one of Gaia’s many divine disguises.
Please don’t misunderstand me, “Secret Teachings of All Ages” is a marvelous tome, a rich resource, but the minds of white men from earlier centuries (even the 20th but especially the 19th) are utterly at a lost when it comes to the deep feminine mysteries of this planet.
I find myself wanting to declare “This is the true alchemy of our living planet!” Because, well, it is. But I need to add a caveat, I am not saying this is the only true alchemy. There is the true alchemy of Carl Jung and his path of individuation. Jung’s encounter with the Emerald Tablet in particular, and his inquiry into alchemy as a whole, would be a talk unto itself, and such a meaningful one, there is the true alchemy of novelist Paolo Coehlo. In “The Alchemist,” he writes, “Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.” The history of alchemy is vast and sprawling. There is Chinese alchemy, there is Indian alchemy, deep troves overflowing with treasures. There is a whole alternate, suppressed herstory of alchemy, Mary the Jewess is considered the first known alchemist. 200 CE. And, of course, here in this very Lodge, we honor the life and work of the legendary African American alchemist Light Devoy Edward Harris who left this plane of existence in December 2014. “L-I-G-H-T Light! S-O-U-N-D Sound! Light and Sound! Sound and Light! Light and Sound Sound and Light. L-I-G-H-T Light! S-O-U-N-D Sound!” Yes, there are many true alchemies! This talk is just a reflection on my encounter with the Emerald Tablet, it is what I feel to speak through these five bodies with my voice in my words, calibrated to our present circumstances. We are in the throes of this Planetary Emergency. Anthropogenic Climate Disruption and the Sixth Great Extinction pose an existential threat to civilization itself. And only through the Ascendancy of the Feminine and the spread of Eco-Feminism, in philosophy, psychology, mysticism and the arts, in politics, science and commerce. The arc of human evolution is leading us beyond patriarchy. Thus I say this is the true alchemy of our living planet.
“The Tablet supposedly contains the secrets of alchemy and the recipe for the philosopher's stone, an artifact capable of giving its user eternal life.” – The Archaeologist: Civilizations of the World
Well, yes, but …
I suggest to you that the great Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) knew more than the men who came before her, more than the men of her time, and more than the men who came after her.
And Hildegard wrote about what she called Vriditas, the “Green Flame,” the “Greening Force.”
“O most honored Greening Force, You who roots in the Sun; You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel that earthly excellence fails to comprehend. You are enfolded in the weaving of divine mysteries. You redden like the dawn and you burn; flame of the Sun.” - Hildegard of Bingen, “Causae et Curae”
In my rendition of the Emerald Tablet, I swap out the cryptic lines about alchemical operations involving four (of the five) elements, e.g., “… the wind carried it in his belly. Earth is its nurse and its guardian …” and I supplant it all with this –
The Green Flame is the Emerald Tablet in ceaseless motion, the Emerald Tablet is the Green Flame in utter stillness. They occupy the same space. Within that space, every incarnation is lived and all karmas are played out. The Green Flame forges the Emerald Tablet. The Emerald Tablet fuels the Green Flame. Immerse yourself in this mystery and realize that you are a mystery within a mystery, a miracle within a miracle.
Within Nirvana, Gaia is the Philosopher’s Stone. Within Samsara, the individuated being, the woke being, the being that has fallen awake, is the Philosopher’s Stone. And yes, Nirvana and Samsara occupy the same space. So that’s where it all is, what it all is, utterly INCOMPREHENSIBLE, utterly UNSPEAKABLE, and yet, we can know it and speak it …
[NOTE: On November 11, 2022, I was honored to speak at the closing reception for MPOWERDANCE Project's year long year long exhibition of MOTHERpeaceMOTHERwar at the Theosophical Society of San Francisco. It was a powerful event featuring dance p, art, music and spoken word. Here are a video recording and transcript of my remarks. - Richard Power]
#GaianPoetics #GaianPolitics
I was asked to speak about Climate Action and our Planetary Emergency. I have spoken and written a lot on this subject, and we have all been living through it in our own ways.
In my “Secret Engine of the World: Further Notes on Primal Reality, Gaian Politics & the Arc of Human Evolution,” which I published in 2021, I articulated three deadlines that would define the next decade – for me and for anyone who resonates with my perspective. The first two deadlines are the U.S. federal elections in 2022 and 2024, but we’re not going to go into any of that here tonight. The third of the three is kind of an arbitrary one that I set for the Climate Crisis, for the Climate Emergency, for the threat we face as a species, along with all of the other species that we have endangered with our genius and our foolishness. And that deadline is ten years after the publication of “Secret Engine,” so 2031. I spent over 20 years trying to scare people about Climate Change, because that was the appropriate thing to do, to try to scare people in power so that they might come to understand what we were trying to tell them. Cassandra. Those with reasons not to listen do not listen. Of course, I was right, we were right, whatever. Now I find myself trying to calm people down. Not to reassure them at all, but to make people feel that there is hope. I am not talking about people in power now, I am talking about people in general, my friends and allies. I am trying to show There is some way forward. We’re talking about thirty or forty years here. It happened. It’s already underway. It’s no longer about trying to stop Climate Change, we are in its throes now, we can see the floods that are more than floods, the droughts that are more than droughts, the fires that are more than fires, the storms that are more than storms. The death of the soil. The places in which the temperature is becoming uninhabitable. The melting poles. The glaciers that feed the Ganges. We can see it all around us. So It’s happening. But there is still a narrow window in which humankind can make some course corrections and mitigate the worst impacts, the worst consequences, of what we have unleashed. So there are in this moment, in the month, in this week, there are encouraging trends in the world, and there haven’t been many times when we could say this. One encouraging development is that the Congress of the United States passed the Biden administration’s massive climate action as part of an even larger piece of legislation that is now law. Hundreds of billions. Desperately needed. Designated for truly meaningful climate action. Now is it enough? Of course it’s not enough. But it’s the most that’s ever been passed, it will be the most that’s ever been spent in the history of the world. It’s a turning point. We’ve gone from “Is Climate Change real?” and “Yes, it is!” to “Are we doing enough?” and “No, we’re not doing enough.” That’s a different conversation. That’s a healthier conversation to have. So that’s a big shift for this country. And at the same time, in the Brazilian elections, Bolisnaro, a huge climate denier and enabler of predatory capitalism in terms of deforesting the Amazon, LOST, and the incoming Lula administration is committed to climate action, and in fact the incoming President Lula is working with the leaders of Indonesia and the Congo, and they’re going to form a “Rainforest OPEC” to leverage their power – because they control most of the rainforest in the world, and those are the lungs of Gaia. They’re going to try to dictate terms rather than the other way around. This is a big shift. These are not insignificant steps forward. And right now in Cairo, COP27 is meeting. Don’t look necessarily for anything much more to come out of all the talking and the speechifying, but just know there is a shift going on in the world, and we are part of that shift. Well, actually, there was one bold, significant stride forward at COP27: “Deal on compensation for climate impacts represents major milestone for climate justice. The 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) has ended with an historic deal to create a new fund, in which countries responsible for high carbon emissions will compensate vulnerable countries suffering from climate impacts” (The Lancet, 12/8/22) I am laughing because the President stopped by COP27 on his way to the G20, and he said in his speech: “The science is devastatingly clear; we have to make vital progress by the end of this decade. That's why the United States is rallying the world around climate game changers." So I just want to say that President Biden and I are on the same page, and that the page is from this book, “Secret Engine of the World.” Because in that speech, he said “by the end of this decade.” That’s the first time in these DECADES, where I could say any POTUS and I were on the same page literally in terms of the dwindling number of years we have left to make sufficient impact. Now we’re going to jump to Aristotle. S-Q-U-A-R-E. Both Aristotle and Plato were pretty square. The Pre-Platonic Philosophers (e.g., Heraclitus) and the Neo-Platonists (e.g., Plotinus) were/are much more interesting to me and relevant to our circumstances. But in Aristotle wrote Poetics in 335 BC and Politics in 350 BC. And they sit there in all of the university libraries. Everyone bows to them. Hardly anyone reads them, of course, or references them, because, well, Aristotle is so square. But they are foundational to the story that western civilization tells about itself, as it goes forward from ancient Greece. So these two tomes are there at the beginning of the long arc that brought so much - from the Sistine chapel to the Hubble telescope, from Illuminated manuscripts in Irish monasteries to global communications through social media on your iPhone, from Beethoven’s 5th to the life-saving science of vaccines, but this is life, there is both evolution and devolution, so of course the story of these two thousand years also includes pathologies – oligarchy, patriarchy, misogyny, racism, predatory capitalism, authoritarianism, weapons of mass destruction and yes, overshadowing all of them Anthropogenic Climate Disruption. Have you ever heard that term? That’s actually a more accurate, technically precise term than Climate Change or Global Warming. In the sense that humans have done this. Not a volcano, not a comet, not some nonsense about “natural cycles of cooling and warming.” No, no, this was us! We did this. And we didn’t just do this with the burning of fossil fuels, although that’s a huge piece of it – we also did it with deforestation, with overpopulation, and with our appetite for meat mass produced through industrialized agriculture, I would say those are the big four contributing factors. So here we are. The genius that was unleashed across that long arc has so far outdistanced our sanity and our conscience that we are destroying the very balance, the global climate, that this civilization is predicated upon, by punching holes in it and jacking up the heat. Here we are in this moment. At this crossroads.. In the midst of this must-win ten year stretch. This is how, in the course of writing the first of these three books, “Wyrds of Power” (actually five books all together in one volume), I coined the phrases “Gaian Poetics” and “Gaian Politics.” OK, Aristotle, step aside, we need new ways to think about our languaging and our governance. By Gaian Poetics I don't mean writing about the beauty of "Nature" although of course that's wonderful, and a part of it, and always to be done. By Gaian Politics, I don't mean activism or environmentalism, although of course that's a vital, critical, absolutely essential aspect. I’m talking about something else. Most important, by Gaian Poetics and Gaian Politics, I mean an internal shift within us, within each of us. Gaia isn't a goddess whose world this is, She isn’t a statue, She isn’t something we pray to, She isn’t some anthropomorphized “Divine Being” who has rulership over this planet, Gaia IS this planet we are not Gaia’s children, we are Gaia’s cells, we’re not Gaia’s “stewards,” I know they mean well but whenever people start talking about being “stewards” of Nature I get very uncomfortable, because that’s this madness, the human pathologies got started, you are not the “stewards” of anything, you are the cells of one vast planetary being. The true Oneness is our life within Her, science and shamanism are seeing the same reality now. We are not Gaia’s children, we are not Her stewards, we are a part of her. The planet, Gaia, is alive, sentient, a self-organizing intelligence, we all exist within that being, we are all cells of Her body, every creature, every plant, every stone, every river, the seas, the atmosphere.
Sentience is in some ways the mystery of mysteries
Gaia dreams her world-dream. And within her world-dream, she dreams the whales dreaming their world-dreams, and the humans dreaming their world-dreams. Yes, our world-dreams are utterly dependent upon hers, they arise within hers, and they are re-absorbed into hers. Likewise the world-dreams of the tree frogs, the world-dreams of the salmon, the world-dreams of the madrones, the world-dreams of the emeralds. Gaia herself is a sentient being and ALL life on the planet has its existence within her, all life here is composed of her, sustained by her, and reabsorbed into her.
This isn’t only a shamanic truth, this is a scientific truth.
OK, so stay with me here, every once in a while, not often, but now and then, our friend, the legendary American sage Joe Miller would say something like this: “At some future time and place, we'll have grown to a stature where our bodies can be an entire planet and all the humanity the same as the particles within our physical bodies now. We'll know about all that when the life itself is love. Love and life are one.” (Joe Miller, Great Song, p. 53) He's saying on this arc of human evolution, assuming we don’t go the other way, we can evolve into celestial beings. Meaning not some anthropomorphic goddess or god, no, the actual intelligence of a planet or a star, a different order of intelligence, completely inhuman, incomprehensible to the human mind. We can only project what we know. We evolve into these different realms of intelligence. I see this view of Joe’s as very relevant to the science of Gaia that is coming out from brilliant thinkers like Stephen Jay Buhner and James Lovelock (as problematic as he can be). In Plant Intelligence, Buhner writes, “… that the world is alive, intelligent, aware, communicative and filled with soul; that we are not alone; that we are part of something much larger than ourselves; that we are companioned by millions and millions of related life-forms; and that the dead mechanical world we have been taught about in school does not exist and never has.” Gaia is a divine intelligence, a self-organizing being of divine intelligence. And we are all part of that. This is why the Japanese talk about “forest-bathing.” This is why we feel so renewed when we enter into a true forest. This is like a sorceress stirring a tonic for you to drink, that’s what a forest is. So that’s on the arc for each of us if we go deeper and deeper into the nature of reality. To deal with our current planetary and national emergencies, we have to tap into our Gaian Poetics and our Gaian Politics. Gaian Poetics is when the words are informed by Her from the inside out, Gaian Politics is when our governance philosophy is informed by Her from the inside out. What do I mean by Gaian Politics? Well, the “Founding Fathers” modeled the U.S. Constitution selectively on the Iroquois federation’s “Great Law of Peace.” They took a few very good ideas from it, but conveniently left out other very good ideas. It’s time now, way past time really, to embrace more of that wisdom medicine. For example, it was a matriarchy. Their Senate was composed of the Grandmothers. They could remove the Chief if they didn’t approve of his actions. And in the process of making important governance decisions, they pondered the impacts and consequences seven generations into the future. Can the governing principles be grounded in altruism? Can our governing principles be grounded in sustainability? Can we be guided by those two overarching imperatives, altruism and sustainability? I will close with one more reading, this one from “Secret Engine” –
Gaia is a Mistress of Disguises. She has a safe deposit box in the Central Bank of the Cosmos. She has stashed many passports under fabricated identities, from “Tara” to “Zeus” to “Isis” to “Thor.” She has stashed bundles of cash in all the world’s currencies. She has stashed pouches of brilliant diamonds and fat bricks of gold and platinum. This treasure allows her to cross any border and do business in any country. Her true identity is the Earth itself. She is the Divine Intelligence of the planet.
All life thriving within the thin sheath of atmosphere she has spun around this globe is hers. We not only “live and move and have our being” in her, our “being” itself is hers, we are her at the cellular level, we are the strands of her hair, the drops of her blood, we are her very embodiment, every tree, ever mountain, every human, every whale, every insect, every mushroom, every cloud, every mongoose, every body of water, every forest, everything and at every order of magnitude, from microcosm to macrocosm, all of this. Hers. Our sentience. The Chi that animates us. All of this is literally her.
For those of us in human incarnation, there are many paths. In one sense, there are as many paths as there are beings. The pathless path is the truest, and all of the other paths empty out into it before the end.
Life. Not beyond life. Not life after death. Life. This world. Not some other world. Not the next world. This world. But not a dream of this life, not a dream of this world, no, the reality of it all. Here and now. From before and beyond. And always on, ON, and ON …
Gaia, Sakti, Lilith, Dark Goddess, Durga Ma, Madonna, Isis, so many names for the Divine Intelligence, revealing herself ceaselessly.
To celebrate her, to serve her, embodied as she is in life and the world, this is our true purpose. To feast on her, and be fed to her.
This is the pathless path. To alleviate or at least mitigate suffering
To see clearly what is, to discern the reality of what is, and so live and move FREELY. This is true story of it all. To know her, we must know ourselves. To know ourselves, we must know her …
Each atom is a temple of her celebration. Each strand of hair. Each cell. Each leaf. Each drop of rain. Each blossom. Each pool of molten lava. East wasp nest. Each coconut. Each tortoise. Each hunk of amethyst. Each heap of yak dung. Each glacier. Each of the five bodies that constitute every single human incarnation. All are temples in which she is celebrated ceaselessly, simply by being fully and truly ourselves. She is the Divine Intelligence within all of this. And there is a unique architecture for each class of these seemingly infinite temples. To know ourselves is to know her.
