Cosmos

Balak on this Full Moon Shabbat

וְהוֹקַע אוֹתָם לַיהוָה, נֶגֶד הַשָּׁמֶשׁ
and raise them up in the face of the sun ... Bamidbar 25:4

Thursday night before an important meeting Friday, with the word-locking warding power characteristic of Vardlokkur, I drew one magical rune out of my rune-pouch to reveal and draw out the energy which would characterize the meeting the next morning. (As always, as with every divination I do using magical alphabets, the act of drawing was made by putting one of my hands into the pouch and drawing out the rune to which my hand is drawn - I do not see any of the runes until after one is drawn and taken out of the pouch. In this particular drawing, I drew the rune out with my left hand, the hand of strength. In note, all of my runes are hand-crafted without electrical tools and hand-pyrographed into hand-cut circles of apple wood of equal size.) The rune I drew was Sowilo.

“Sowilo guides and leads you to the doorway, then waits for your return.” ... rune poem, author unknown

Sowilo, the Sun rune, is also known as the victory rune - it guides to and brings up honor, victory, success, revelation and wholeness. Importantly, Sowilo is a life-giving force. It's driving energy is not one of destruction. It's driving energy is one which activates one's inner Divinity to mobilize action of one's highest values within the given situation to catalyze transmutation of one's highest will and thought into manifest reality. Sowilo makes enlightenment real.

This Shabbat Saturday morning, the day following the meeting Friday, and opposite in time to the Thursday night rune drawing, as Sowilo waited for my return to the runes, I returned, drawing a retroceding rune (such that the two rune drawings sandwiched the Friday meeting, both anteceding and retroceding it, with magical energy). As per my usual procedure as described above, yet this time with my right hand to provide balance, amazingly I drew Isa - the Ice rune force which expertly balances and focuses Sowilo.

“Ice only appears to stop a river’s flow.” ... rune poem, author unknown

Isa wards, focuses and concentrates the success and enlightenment brought up by Sowilo onto and into the target situation and magical working. Isa restabilizes the natural instability surrounding the act of transmutation, brought up both through Sowilo and through the magical Hebrew word וְהוֹקַע in this week's parsha meaning "raise up." Isa freezes, brings to stillness and neutralizes other potential negative meanings (namely, "to condemn" or "to execute") of the word וְהוֹקַע to energetically focus, concentrate and bring into single-minded action the positive meaning of the word וְהוֹקַע - namely, "to raise up."

Isa is also the rune of satisfying, meditative quiet rest. Like Shabbat.

Together, Sowilo and Isa correspond to the elusive soul power of hishtavut (equanimity), the ability to live with harmony in the most profound reality of the Cosmos. One who is shown to possess such equanimity shows oneself to be One with the Cosmos.

The vardlokkur for this Shabbat morning is Cosmos. Oh, how beautifully the Cosmos speaks in me!

Mystery Of The White Bull

Vayera

הִנֵּה-נָא הוֹאַלְתִּי לְדַבֵּר אֶל-אֲדֹנָי, וְאָנֹכִי עָפָר וָאֵפֶר
Behold now, I speak as the Divine even within dust and ashes ... Bereshit 18:27

On this phrase, in Out Of Context, n writes:

Rava in Tractate Chulin 88b says that the reward for saying this was that his children would earn the Mitzvah of the ashes of the Para Adumah (Red Heifer) and dust of the Sotah (a woman brought to the Temple accused of adultery was forced to drink a concoction which had dust from the foot of the Altar in it).

How are Sotah and Para Adumah a relevant reward to Afar v'Efer?

N sums it up:

This explains the Pshat of the Dubner Maggid, that Hashem took what Avraham said, and changed the context from dust and ash with all their negative connotations, to dust and ash as Mitzvos with all their positive connotations.

In other words,

Says the Beis HaLevi, Hashem inverted this, by giving the Mitzvah of Sotah, which cleans the woman's past, and Para Adumah which purifies the persons future.

Last night before sleeping, I drew mannaz, the rune of Divine Conciousness made manifest in the individual and within the race of humanity. Mannaz asks the question, "what does it mean to be human?"

I dreamt.

Like in the television series Lost, I was in Jacob's shack. There was something I had to face.

Outside, a storm-tossed ocean filled my view. The waves were as tall as skyscrapers. Driving the waves and all across the surface of the ocean were tornados made of water. One was coming at me. The natural instinct would be to run, but I just stood looking at it as it approached. Then, like Aaron of the Exodus, I ran toward and into it, face first. I encountered an underwater ship with a brief dreamstory of its own walking through the wall of water. The water didn't part, there was no water-water, I just walked completely through it as if I could breathe like a fish (נון, like Moses). [Interestingly, נון is the Aramaic word for fish - and, in follow-up to last week's Torah commentary (The Demon Dance), angels can't understand Aramaic. Human beings, with the ability to maintain wholeness even within the physical, can.]

I emerged in a sunny place. Climbing up an embankment by a river's edge, I saw a reddish cow wearing a cowbell standing near the edge of the earthen landing. Glancing aside while eating vegetation, she looked up at me, then turned and walked away.

In the place of the reddish cow, a white bull came toward me. Telepathically, the white bull communicated to me, "I can tell you."

Then, the white bull transformed into a bald man with his eyes closed standing in the rain. I was now standing at the top of the earthen embankment, face to face with the man. The man opened his eyes. Our gaze met eye to eye.

In our linked minds, we looked together and saw two women trapped in a hole in the earth.

I woke up.

Interestingly, mannaz is the "n" rune describing humanity as the progeny of the Divine. As n considers the mysteries of dust and ashes in Out of Context, n considers the mystery of what it means to be human.