The Wholly Holy Hole
Magic is the art and science of changing consciousness at will.
Handout notes from a presentation to the Adult Discussion Group at Manhattan Beach Community Church, 11 October 1998.
Sacred Space
The word translated sacred in the New Testament is the Greek word aphorizo, from apo, a prefix meaning "away from" or "beyond" and horizo, meaning boundary, from which we get our English word horizon. Thus, the sacred literally means "that which lies beyond the boundary". To enter sacred space is to step beyond the "horizon" and to experience that which is new, that which empowers, that which transforms.
We create sacred space by taking overt action with our bodies and our minds. By doing something to delimit our mundane activity, we actually change our consciousness. Taking a symbolic act with the body, such as holding hands in a circle, can have a powerful impact on our minds, especially at an archetypal level.
Bliss
What is in the hole
I do not know
And what shadow falls behind
I do not seeThe lurking things pass nameless
In dark places I dare not venture
I cup my hands beside my eyesEven my tunnel vision
cannot unshiver the shade of Deathwaiting
just over my shoulder.
– John Elder
Joseph and the Pit
The Joseph story, while found in the Bible, has the elements of a fairy tale. The hero is an overinflated youth, who descends into the depths, yet succeeds with divine assistance and hard work. This theme, found in fairy tales such as Iron Hans, is archetypal–it is a theme which we each recapitulate within our own psychic lives.
I read the Joseph story from The Book of J. I like this translation because the David Rosenberg, the translator, worked very hard to capture the literary and emotional tone of the original Hebrew and make it accessible to the English reader.
The Book of J (Rosenberg and Bloom, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990) p. 118,119
The Void
When you hold something in your hand, nothing else can be there. But when your hand is empty, when it contains no thing, then all things are possible. The emptiness, the holes, the pits, are wombs of begetting. The empty spot I fill within my soul cannot be filled with alcohol, sex, possessions, friendships, political power, righteousness, or anything else. It is infinite. Whatever I put into it disappears.
Only when I stop viewing it as a hole to be filled do I have comfort. The Void is the cosmic womb. That ache in the soul produces beauty, brings empowerment, is the source of transformation. The experience of the Void is a sacred experience.
Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.– Lau Tsu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 11
Tao Te Ching (Feng and English, New York: Vintage Books, 1972)
"He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how ."
– Friedrich Nietzsche
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