The Only Begotten Daughter

“Literalists played down the importance of women in the gospels to endorse their policy of making them second-class human beings. This reversal of attitude towards women in Christianity is symbolized perfectly by the retitling of the fourth gospel.  Known to us now as The Gospel of John, if it is to bear any name at all it should be The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.”

– Jesus and the Lost Goddess

In Jesus and the Lost Goddess Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy go on to say that “this gospel claims to be written by an unspecified ‘beloved disciple.’

“Modern research suggests that the ‘Beloved Disciple’ he makes the narrator of the story is not John, but Mary Magdalene.  Mary is clearly identified in other Gnostic sources as ‘the beloved disciple’, the disciple that Jesus loved’, the ‘companion of Jesus’, and so on.  As scholars have noted The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple has been modified, creating obvious structural flaws, in order to turn the ‘Beloved Disciple’ Mary into the male figure of John, who was more acceptable to misogynist Literalists.”

These authors are aware of the textural changes in the gospels that bring us the standard narrative.. Where every important player in the story is obviously a man.  They see that an important woman was transformed, in the text, to appear as a man.  They are mistaken, however, about the route of this deception.

Mary Magdalene was not replaced by the man John… because John was never a man. The name John is derived from the Sanskrit word Yoni; ancient name of the sacred feminine. There was no ‘J’ in the English language until the sixteenth century.. When J became the last letter added to the alphabet. Jesus is the Greek name for the man known formerly as Yeshua. Before the sixteenth century John was known as Yon, Yona, Yones, or Yoni.

Yoni translates simply as ‘vulva’ and represents the Goddess as divine source and companion to Her lingam counterpart. Here are some Wikapedia definitions of the word ‘Yoni.’:

The female sexual organs, or a symbol of them, especially as an object of veneration within certain types of Hinduism, Buddhism, and other cultures.

1997, David R Kinsley, Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine, University of California 1997, p. 235:
The goddess blesses him by placing his liṅgam in her yoni.

The prophet who taught, and then baptized Jesus, was John. She is the Great Yoni. Hers was the other divine birth, in the New Testament, heralded by an angel of God.  She was born to Elizabeth.  Elizabeth translates as ‘God Isis house.’  She was born to Isis as yoni; the house of God.  The Great Yoni represents that ‘House of God’ and appears on the Tree of Life as the residence of the divine energy of Kether, at the top of the Tree.  This divine energy pours down the central pillar and finds expression in Beauty (Tipharet) at the center of the Tree of Life.

Out of Zion, the perfection of Beauty, God hath shined. -Psalm 50:2

The word Zion is derived from the Hebrew proper name ‘Tsiyyon’, pronounced si’yon.  Zion then appears as the Hebrew rendering of the Sanskrit word Yoni, the house of God, and the proper name of the Goddess.  Such is the Prophet John:  The woman who led Jesus to the Kingdom.  She is the Beauty of God.  Her number is six… and She speaks for Herself in Her own gospel:

I am the way, the truth and the Life.  No man cometh unto the father but by me. -John 14:6

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Cinderella’s Shoe

                     

Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred,
and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.
~ Ezekiel 16:25

The Hebrew word for legs or feet, as we have seen, is a common Biblical euphemism for sexual genitalia, whether male or female.
~ Jonathan Kirsch (The Harlot by the Side of the Road, pg 257)

When the shoe fits, we have in Cinderella’s slipper, the yonic symbol of the Bride. The story of Cinderella, and her famously missing shoe, speaks to the unbalanced spiritual situation created by the standard Biblical narrative. In the ancient original narrative, the sacred bride played the central role in advancing spiritual unity and peace among the nations, through love. There was no split between sex and love in those days, or between sex and the spirit. Sex, on the contrary, was a vehicle of the spirit!
A vehicle of life and love.  Sex, as a sacrament, was revered.

Sex was also linked to knowledge. Biblically speaking, the Old Testament makes them synonymous: to know someone is to make love to them.

And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.
~ 1 Kings 1:4

In the above scene King David has lost his erection: the sacred symbol and original staff of Kingship in Babylon and in pre-patriarchal Jerusalem.  The King James Bible tells us that King David gat no heat and was unable to warm and respond to the damsel’s ministrations.  This scene marks the end of his reign.  His kingship began with his marriage to the land.  It comes to an end with the waning of his regenerative sexual powers.

The word sire refers to the king… who sires offspring. The word desire literally means of the father, and the name David has desire at its heart.  For the root of David is avid… a word that means eager, ardent, or passionate.  This describes the archetype of male sexuality, in specific relation to the feminine.  The balanced union between male and female creates Life, and pleasure in life,  so that in the ancient world sex itself was a ritual path of worship.  This ancient path is remembered within the progressive imagery of the Tarot keys… The Emperor follows the Empress, and faces Her.  His desire is fixed on Her.  In the book of Ruth the ancient rite is performed during a famine in the region.  Ruth makes love to Boaz on the threshing floor of the grainery… and enacts the ritual of  imitative magic that the Sacred Marriage represents… bringing forth new life and abundant harvests.

And it shall be, when he lieth down… thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down;
and he will tell thee what thou shalt do. ~Ruth 3:4

In the Bible, as in Fairy Tale, the foot represents the phallic counterpart to the shoe. When the true slipper finally meets the authentic foot, in Cinderella, a royal wedding commences… and a healing transformation takes place: Heaven and earth unite to reveal eternal joy, and so they live happily ever after.  On the other hand, Old Testament divorce removes the shoe.  If a man refuses to marry his dead brother’s wife (to carry on his brother’s name)  the widow/wife is to remove the offender’s shoe.

Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. ~Deuteronomy 25:9

Cinderella’s missing slipper marks the absence of the yonic archetype of the Bride in western culture. The royal daughter does not know who she is, and is lost in a world of material drudgery.   In Gnosticism, Sophia forgets who she is while in the underworld.  In the fairy tale false feet, in the form of step sisters, would keep Cinderella from knowing her prince.  Cinderella is variously prevented, in the story, from knowing her true Self and spiritual office.   Mother Church appears as the malevolent step mother, who is most unkind toward the sacred feminine.   While the church retains the diminished image of the mother goddess in the semi-divine status of Mary, mother of Jesus… the daughter and sacred Bride has been effectively eliminated.   Yet, our fairy tales remind us that She is imprisoned in a tower.   And, at the heart and center of the Bible, the Song of Solomon still sings to Her.

How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels…
~Song of Solomon 7:1

In The Classic Fairy Tales the authors, Iona and Peter Opie say that Cinderella’s shoe is variously constructed of red velvet with pearls, silk, fur, or glass… depending on the version. In 1697 Charles Perrault wrote Cinderella into French literature from a collection of tales told by common townswomen. According to the Opies:

When Perrault heard the story the shoe may well have been made of a variegated fur (vair)
as has been suggested, rather than glass (verre). ~ Classic Fairy Tales (pg 159)

Earlier in the passage the Opie’s suggest that the nature of the shoe itself seems to be of little significance. Yet, the nature of red velvet… or fur… seem far more accurate, than glass, to describe the yoni… and to bolster the symbol of female genitalia represented by the shoe.  The glass slipper, so important to the modern telling, may have been a mere slip in Perrault’s hearing, giving rise to the translation of the slipper as glass instead of fur.  Still, the transparent nature of the glass slipper, along with her gown of moonbeams, reflect the transcendent domain to which Cinderella really belongs.  The Hebrew word El means god.  Ella shows us a feminine form of this word.  In her ragged kitchen state Cinder-ella is a cinder goddess… whose true nature is hidden among the ashes.   As the prince’s bride Cinderella becomes the love goddess that she truly is.  Her goodness and beauty unite the kingdoms, and reflect the true covenant between heaven and earth.   She brings her prince to the eternal realm within time… where they do indeed live happily ever after.

   Oil, Feet and Hair
Mary Magdalene and Jesus

Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus,
and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. ~John 12:3

Spikenard oil was obtained as a luxury in ancient Egypt and the near east. It is part of the Ayurvedic herbal tradition of India. Spikenard appears in the Bible five times during two love scenes. Mary uses Spikenard to anoint Jesus. And, in the Song of Solomon, the fragrance of Spikenard fills the air between the lovers:

While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.
~ Song of Solomon 1:12 (KJV)

Beauty speaks to Solomon as the Shulamite woman (translated here as woman of the land of peace). Solomon, as another cognate of the word, represents the Prince of Peace as he enters into the ancient covenant of love that makes him King. The Sacred Marriage takes place lying down, and in the English Standard version, the king reclines on his couch:

While the king was on his couch,
my nard gave forth its fragrance.
~ SOS 1:12 (ESV)

When Mary anoints Jesus, in the book of John, the house is also filled with the odor of the ointment. Here again Spikenard appears as part of the ancient love rite that makes the chosen Prince into a king. It appears that costly Spikenard provided the royal lubrication necessary to perform the rite of Sacred Marriage.  Indeed, Jesus becomes Christ, the anointed one, at this moment.

And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner… brought an alabaster box of ointment,
~Luke 7:37

The new testament hides, in this scene, what the Song of Solomon shows. Luke refers to the highborn Mary merely as a woman in the city who is a sinner. The sin, in question, where Biblical women are concerned, is generally and specifically sexual. The standard Christian narrative demeans this holy rite… yet retains it in the New Testament to employ its pre-Christian significance for Christian purposes. In other words, Luke may not have liked her, but his aim could not have been advanced without this sinner and her alabaster box. Jesus could not become king, and high spiritual authority, without Her.

Luke continues to say that this sinner…

… stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
~Luke 7:38

Remembering that the Hebrew word for legs or feet… is a common Biblical euphemism for sexual genitalia we can begin to see
the kissing of feet, in this scene, in a new light. Jesus’ feet were kissed and anointed.. and wiped with the hairs of her head.
Mary, in her role as John (Yoni), or Beauty, ministers to Jesus… just as Abishag and the Shulemite ministered to David and Solomon. Luke does not say that she wiped his feet with her hair. He says that she wiped Jesus’ feet with the hairs of her head. Why make the distinction, here, between the hairs of the head… and other hairy locations?   The hair that distinguishes the sacred female genitalia (or Yoni) also clothes John…

And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins;
and he did eat locusts and wild honey; ~Mark 1:6

If we extract key features from this passage, we see that John is distinguished by hair, skin, loins and wild honey. Are these not familiar features associated with female genitalia?   The Mystery is found within the skin of the loins… behind the hair… where the wild honey flows from deep within the Sacred Feminine.  Hair, in reference to genitalia, appears openly in Canticles.  In the following Beauty sings of the probing desire of her beloved in the morning, after a night of lovemaking… evident by the lingering drops of the night.  Those damp locks are not, I think, from  the head on Solomon’s shoulders.

I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying,
Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew,
and my locks with the drops of the night.
~Song of Solomon 5:2

The Song of Solomon is easy to identify as an expression of the ancient love rite known as the Sacred Marriage.  He sings to Beauty as the precious fruit of the Tree of Life. This Tree represents all fruit bearing trees, as Beauty represents all fruit.  Indeed, Beauty symbolizes fruitfulness itself as the object of worship.  Here the Tree, with its fruit, is described variously and simultaneously as a palm Tree, clusters of the vine, and apples.

How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!
This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.
I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof:
now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples;
~Song of Solomon 7:6-8

But Beauty’s Tree of Life and love was to be supplanted by an exclusively male spiritual authority. Devices used in Biblical text to deride and discredit Her, were employed politically to dethrone Her:

But I was like a gentle lamb to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me,
saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut her off from the land of the
living, that her name may be no more remembered.
~Jeremiah 11:19

Once upon a time a people prospered, in Jerusalem, who loved one another.  They prospered because they worked the land together and shared freely of their Mother’s fruits.  They prospered because they sang a song of peace among the nations.  A song of Solomon.  Such a people worshiped in song.  They danced.  They joined earth to heaven through sacred sex. They worshiped Life through Love.  She asks Solomon to remember Her in the Song of Songs.  Remember Love. For love, She affirms, is strong as death:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death
~Song of Solomon 8:6

As time passed, a dense forest grew over our memory of the prince’s daughter of Solomon’s song. The goddess of love and beauty became Cinderella, goddess amid the ashes. Her prince of peace still searches for what was lost.  He searches for the Sacred Feminine, and for the joy of love to be found in a shoe.

How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter!
~ Song of Solomon 7:1

An Introduction to the Sleeping Beauty as Bible Story and da Vinci Code

Waking Beauty

An Introduction to the Tale of Sleeping Beauty as Bible Story and da Vinci Code

Western Culture has been telling the story of Sleeping Beauty for a thousand years.  The Tale was probably the first, among its companion stories… Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Snow White, to be told.

Carl Jung said that Fairy Tales represent the collective consciousness of a culture much as a dream represents the unconscious experience of the individual. As he considered dreams to be meaningful and instructive, so the Fairy Tale speaks to the larger audience of the cultural collective.

As a Fairy Tale then, Sleeping Beauty has something to say about the nature and fate of the soul of western culture.  The story describes a legacy of ancient archetypes:  A royal couple gives birth to a special and long awaited daughter who, ill fated by a resentful nemesis, falls short of fulfilling her role as royal Bride.  For at the marriageable age of sixteen (in some versions fifteen) she will die.  Within the symbolic language of this heritage, however, Beauty represents Life.  And Life doesn’t die. Instead She sleeps for a very long time… relegated to the realm of the unconscious.  She sleeps, as the story goes, until She is found, and loved.

As She sleeps, in most versions of the story, everyone in the castle sleeps too.  Consider the Fairy Tale imagery in the following:

And thorns shall come up in her palaces, 
nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof:
and it shall be an habitation of dragons… ~ Isaiah 34:13

The story of Sleeping Beauty tells us that during the celebration of Beauty’s birth a jealous and spiteful fairy cursed her to die at the moment of her maturity.

The Beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places:  
How are the mighty fallen!
~ 2 Samuel 1:19

But, at that moment a good fairy steps up to announce that Beauty will not die, as Jesus does in Luke 8:52 when he is called to the house of a ruler of the temple, whose young daughter lay a dying:

Weep not; she is not dead but sleepeth. ~ Luke 8:52

The climax of Beauty’s birthday feast occurs with the curse that would claim her life, stating that; as She becomes ripe for marriage her curse will take effect, so that the pleasure of this union remains a fruit uneaten while Beauty sleeps.  Genesis links The Tree of Life to woman, and the phallic serpent to the forbidden knowledge between them… which brings about the first curse of the Bible:

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;           ~Genesis 3:17

The Tree of Life is also a tree of  knowledge concerning the hermetic spirituality that lies beneath western monotheism. Christianity takes much of its spiritual imagery from ancient Hermeticism, while excluding the central image of Life represented by the Sacred Feminine.  Though the tree has been deeply cut by the patriarchal politics of the Bible, it could not be felled.   DaVinci and others worked the message of the Tree of Life repeatedly into the theme of the Last Supper… and in plain sight of the Church, made symbolic corrections to its doctrine of death.  For without the Tree of Life and the Sacred Feminine what else remains?

She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;
those who hold to her are blessed. ~Proverbs 3:18 (International Version)

Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates,
waiting at the posts of my doors.  For whoso findeth me findeth life…                                                                                                                  …all they that hate me love death. ~ Proverbs 8: 34-36 (KJV)

From an Hermetic perspective Jesus was chosen by John to participate as sacred lingam, groom, and counterpart to the great Yoni (John)  as divine Bride.  Da Vinci’s Last Supper does not here represent the last meal of a dying man.  Da Vinci provides the Church’s required imagery, placing  Jesus at the apparent center of the painting.   Yet the embedded image of the Tree of Life gives another center to the painting.  The Tree of Life pictured below has three pillars.  The Dark Pillar on the left.  The light pillar on the right.  And the Central Pillar, representing the divine, or eternal dimension, within life.   Da Vinci represents this pillar just as it appears on the Tree of Life below… as running through the center of the female chevron formed by the bodies of John on the left, and Jesus on the right.

The female chevron on the Tree of Life represents the Yoni (or John) as the  source of all life.  Life, as a Mother, produces both male and female.  So that, in his Last Supper, the shape of the sacred chevron shows the twinning of these energies emerging from the same source:  Yoni (John) as Sacred Feminine is also the divine Bride, through which the lovers return to their source.   The mystical union of male and female in the presence of God was known, in the ancient world, as the Great or Sacred Marriage.   Da Vinci’s Last Supper shows us John the Baptist as Sleeping  Beauty.   Beauty lies also at the center of the Tree of Life:

The word Yoni, in Sanskrit, refers to the female sex organ and its energy… which is considered the source of life… and seat of the transcendent.  The female chevron, that extends between the pillars, represents the vessel of the living spirit of the Tree of Life.  The corner of this chevron, known as the cornerstone, lies at the center of the tree.  So that the Tree itself has a yonic, or bridal space, into which the entering lingam may join in union… and through which the Transcendent pours forth into the world.  So the lingam and yoni, as sacred groom and bride, join in the Great Marriage between heaven and earth.

But this sacred rite, practiced for thousands of years throughout the ancient world, fell under the spell of biblical reproof:

Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah,
and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth,
and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom,
and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

~Jeremiah 7:34

So the Bride slipped away from the standard narrative.  Here, in part, is how I found her identity in John:  The letter J did not enter the English language until the fifteenth century when a man named Trissino specifically distinguished the J from the I sound.  Indeed the letter J was the last of the 26 letters to be added to the English alphabet.  Jesus was known as Yeshua.  John was yon, yona, yonas, or yoni.

The code Da Vinci used to show the link between Sleeping Beauty and John,  is the same code we use to understand the hermetic principles of The Tree of Life.  The system of symbols that describes the Tree is called Cabala.  The word Cabala actually means Reception and, in the language of the Cabala, the so called Last Supper, as depicted by so many Renaissance artists, refers to a wedding reception.  Indeed the paintings refer to THE Wedding Reception and to the Sacred Marriage of this most holy, ancient and royal pair.

Yet, there is trouble at the table.  In DaVinci’s painting we see Peter touching John’s neck menacingly, while holding a knife behind his back.  And, oh yes, as in so many other renderings on the theme of the last supper, the lovely John at the center of the scene… is asleep.

In looking at a number of Last Supper paintings I was struck by the woman called John, seated with Jesus at the center of the table, who sleeps in painting after painting: her feminine features unmistakable.  I slowly became aware also of features of the Tree of Life within the paintings that suggested that John was not only female, but that she was a very particular and powerful female that had been cut out of the churches’ story.

As a student of Cabalistic thought, and familiar with some of the language of the Tree of Life, I began to see unmistakable representations of the Tree imbedded in at least twenty other artist’s renderings of the Last Supper.  The sweet faced John we see at the center of these paintings represents the central sphere on the Tree of Life. The Hebrew name for this center sphere, or sepherah, is Tiphareth.  The name rendered in English… is Beauty.

~~~

The story of Sleeping Beauty, along with that of Cinderella and Snow White, had already been told for more than 400 years by DaVinci’s time and were well known throughout the Renaissance era.   That artists of the period would know and depict Beauty’s story is not surprising… but that they should link Sleeping Beauty to the Biblical John was a big surprise… showing that the theme of these paintings represents an alternative, though deeply contested, interpretation of this New Testament event.  Sleeping Beauty is cursed by a jealous fairy who bares a certain resemblance to Yahweh:

For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD,
whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: ~Exodus 34:14

Our princess in magical company, who embodies all the blessings of beauty and virtue, is cursed by a single jealous figure. In killing her there would be an end to her marriage rite, and to the memory of her heritage.  Yet, as these paintings show… Beauty lives, and her heritage continues in secret.

These Last Supper paintings use the language of Cabala to describe the Tree of Life with Beauty and her groom, Jesus, at center.  This place, like the other centers on the tree, has a Cabalistic name and number:   The meanings of which are developed in the Cabalistic primer for understanding the Tree of Life. This primer is called the Tarot.  The Tarot keys contain the symbols and images associated with the teachings of the Tree.

Beauty’s number is six.  Number six refers to the yonic space at the center of the Tree of Life. Six is associated specifically with sexual union on the spiritual dimension, and with the archetypal pair depicted as The Lovers in the Sixth Tarot key.  Put simply, Cabalistic symbols form the secret code by which the meaning of Da Vinci’s painting, as well as a host of other Last Supper paintings, may be understood.   These paintings show Beauty as John at the center of the table with Jesus, her chosen groom.  This meal, accordingly, is not the last meal of a condemned man… but is part of a sexual celebration which culminates in the experience of divine union.

Apparently the code for saying such blasphemous things remained unbroken by the church… who saw in the paintings only what they wanted to see: On the  surface they appear to conform to church doctrine… if only by bearing the official name of The Last Supper… given by the church to this particular moment in the New Testament story.

According to John Gray, Professor of Hebrew, Semitic languages, and Biblical Criticism at the University of Aberdeen…

The sacred marriage between god and goddess was an important
rite in Sumerian religion and indeed in nature religion among the
Semites in the Near East in all periods and regions except Israel.                                                                                                                    ~ Near Eastern Mythology Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine

Hermetic spirituality was challenged and largely overcome by a particular band of nomadic semites who could not abide by the Tree.  Calling themselves the children of Abraham they chose a warrior of a father god who demanded strict obedience.  Abraham, who would willingly sacrifice his son to his god, became the first absolute subject of the new god, and the model of obedience for subsequent generations of his children.  Abraham showed a more complete and abject devotion to Yahweh than Adam, who could not resist a taste of the Tree.  The mother god, as a Tree of Life, was abandoned.   A poignant example of this is written as the vision of King Nebuchadnezzar in  the book of Daniel:

Thus were the visions of mine head in my bed;  I saw, and
beheld a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great.
The tree grew and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto Heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth;
The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.

Suddenly the King’s vision shifts, and he sees a watcher descend from Heaven, whom he believes to be an holy one:

He cried aloud and said thus; Hew down the tree, cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit; let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches… 

                                              ~ Daniel 4:10-14

The passage refers to his tree, but what is described is the the female archetype of the Tree of Life.  From earliest Sumer, through the times of metropolitan Canaan, the king was linked to The Tree of Life, symbolizing the mother goddess, and joined with Her in sacred marriage at every new year.

His office is to tend and fertilize the tree, and to extend the blessings of life to the people.  The assault on the political and spiritual powers of Babylon, and of Jerusalem, begins with such images of cutting down the tree and burning its branches.

What is the vine tree more than any tree..?
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; as the vine tree
among the trees of the forest which I have given to the fire
for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

~Ezekiel (15:2 & 6)

DaVinci’s last supper shows Peter with a distinct malice toward John.   He stands up from the table with a hand to her throat.  The other hand, behind his back, holds a large knife.  The correlation of this scene with Sleeping Beauty creates a clear picture of Peter, the rock of the church, as the murderous fairy.

Yahweh is surely behind him as he himself wages open war on the daughters of Jerusalem:

Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet  ~Isaiah 3:16.

Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown
of the head of the daughters of Zion (Isaiah 3:17).

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the
daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of
Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment,
and by the spirit of burning (Isaiah 4:4).

The child, Beauty, represents an ongoing spiritual legacy of  sacred duality.  Like the eastern image of Yin Yang, this duality describes the movement  of two… within the One Unity to be realized.  The two created of the One… join in sacred union… to re-member the One.   Yet… the One God of the Hermetic Mystery was somehow transformed into the one and only male God of the current Christian narrative.   Names were changed in Biblical text, genders were switched, and even the calendar has been changed to wipe Her clean from our memory.

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth:
And the former shall not be remembered,
nor come into mind

~ Isaiah 65:17

But Life does not die, and the hearts of the people remember deeply what they can not recall.  And we are given a trail of breadcrumbs to follow…

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. ~Psalm 50:2

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,
till her righteousness shines out like the dawn,
her salvation like a blazing torch.                                                                                                                                                                                          ~Isaiah 62:1  (International Version)

The Biblical name John  is simply a 16th century English translator’s cognate of the word Yon, which is at the root of the Hebrew word Si yon… later compressed into the word Zion.  Without the Z, one would pronounce the letters ion as yon.. as in the word onion (on-yon).

The sacred feminine as Yoni, appears on the Tree of Life in three spiritual persons… known to us in the Bible as the three Johns: John The Baptist, John The Evangelist, and John the Beloved.   Each of these three aspects of the sacred feminine work to awaken the initiate: The Mother (as Empress) is the Baptist that initiates, and brings the human spirit into the world.  The sister (as High Priestess) Evangelises or instructs. Finally, through her sexual mystery and spiritual love, the Beloved daughter and bride brings the initiate into the Tree itself, and into union with God.

For God, according to the Cabalistic Bible… resides in Zion.   God, in this philosphy, dwells within the Sacred Feminine… known to us Biblically as Yon, John or Zion.

So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.  ~Joel 3:17

On the Tree of Life the central pillar penetrates John, the Yoni, as a penis would.  Da Vinci emphasizes this in his Last Supper… where his representation of the central pillar is made clear by its relationship to the female chevron… formed by the bodies of John and Jesus at the center of the table.  On the Tree of life, as in Da Vinci’s Last Supper, the shape of an arrow is formed between the female chevron and the central pillar.  The Tree of Life appears often in the sacred iconography of Sumer, where the word for Life is the same as the word for Arrow.  Sacred imagery in the Middle East, pre-patriarchy, is highly sexual and the Life arrow in the ancient world is closely associated with love; an association that finds its way, through Eros and time, to Cupids familiar arrows.

The nature of the Holy Trinity, in pre-patriarchal terms, is embodied by the three forms of the Sacred feminine, depicted on the Tree of Life.  Three numbers are associated with the terminal ends of the female chevron on the Tree; their numbers are 2, 3, and 6.

                                                                                        

# 3, known in the Cabala as the Mother Number, represents the Empress, as the third Tarot Key and archetype of Universal Mother.

#2 represents the High Priestess, the second Tarot Key in the Tableau. This Key concerns Learning, especially the higher learning of spiritual instruction.

#6 holds the place of Beauty, at the center of the tree of Life. This number also represents The Lovers Key, as the garden paradise where the Lovers unite.

These three form the shape of the female chevron on the Tree.  This chevron represents the Holy Trinity of the Great Yoni… known also as Zion, Yon, and later John.  As the famous cup in Da Vinci’s Last Supper, She represents the true and Holy Grail:  Vessel of divine life.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. ~Psalm 50:2

Last Supper by Ghirlandaio depicting the Tree of Life and Beauty at the Center

The Tree of Life consists of three pillars. The pillar on the left is called the Dark Pillar and is considered feminine.  The pillar on the right is called the Light Pillar and identifies the masculine.  The middle pillar, called the Central Pillar, represents the eternal and spiritual dimension within this duality.

In the beautiful Last Supper by Ghirlandaio, below, notice the dark pillar on the left, as an interior arched wall with window.  The light pillar is on the opposite wall.    The sense of three pillars is emphasized by the forward architecture of columns.  The central pillar literally points to John and Jesus, in the center, as lovers.  In the Cabalistic language of the Tree of Life, the Lovers, as the sixth Tarot key,  are joined at the sixth sepher on the tree of Life; the place of Beauty.   John, as Beauty, is located six places from Her end of the table.  Jesus is counted also in the sixth place from His end of the table.  The dark pillar represents the feminine.  A dove sits in the window as famous symbol of the feminine.  A peacock sits in the light pillar on the right, representing the illumined masculine.

Ghirlandaio made two Last Supper paintings ten years apart. In his first rendering, below, at the Franciscan Church of Ognissanti in Florence, he centers the entire architectural form of the space on John, so that the whole structure of the painting points to John at the center. He painted this version around 1480:

The appearance of John in Ghirlandaio’s first painting is fairly androgynous; enough so, it would seem, to comply with the expectations of doctrine as the church’s version of the story, where the Beloved Disciple is a man. Her eyes are closed, but she does not rest her sleepy head fully upon the table. She seems to be propped up on her arms as she leans against Jesus, who stiffly sports the only halo at the table. Here again Jesus makes the hand gesture, symbol of truth, above her head. This painting points, in every way, to John as the central figure of the story.  Jesus himself would seem to corroborate this.

Ten years later, around 1490, he painted the Last Supper again at the Cenacolo di San Marco in Florence. The basic composition remains the same… though he pulls the central architecture back somewhat from the singular head of John. Instead the structure points to the space that both figures occupy. John and Jesus appear in position six, at the center of the table as Lovers. John.. a full and lovely woman.. sleeps on the table.

Details of Ghirlandaio’s Last Supper  paintings, below, show the development of John’s feminine features over a period of a decade.

John as Sleeping Beauty

This work involves a reinterpretation of Biblical events; especially the moment we know as The Last Supper.  Throughout the Renaissance period Da Vinci and many other artists created works on the Last Supper that reflected on the Tree of Life.   These works posit  the woman John at the center of their work.  Artists in these Last Supper works used the symbolic language of the Tree of Life.   The use of the Tree expresses an alternative spiritual interpretation of this Biblical event.

I hope to educate my reader enough to see the connections… without diving into a full education in Hermetic philosophy and Cabalism.   Yet, the more one knows about the language of this philosophy, the easier it is to form the connections between the story of Sleeping Beauty and the Prophet John… through the language of the Tree of life.

Mary Magdalene, in Hermeticism, represents the entire Tree of Life.  John represents the sexual aspect of the Tree.  The Magdalene’s signature letter M forms a simple template of the Tree, with its two pillars and the female chevron between them.

The corner of the chevron, known as the cornerstone, resides at the center of the Tree.  The name of this center is Beauty.

There is a significant difference between the shape of the original love story of spiritual unity practiced in pre-patriarchal Jerusalem, as compared with the standard Christian narrative… which borrowed heavily from the original.  Yet, the agenda of the standard narrative shifted emphasis from love and knowledge… to fear and obedience.   Compare the following:  The first voice is that of Beauty, whose number on the Tree of life is six.  The second voice is the familiarly fearsome Yahweh.

        For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice;              

        and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

                                                                                                ~ Hosea 6:6

        That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, 

        that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever.

                                                                                                 ~ Joshua 4:24

Our culture has been educated by the standard narrative, and captivated by the booming voice of Yahweh, for a very long time.  Meanwhile a quieter voice has been telling the bedtime tale of Sleeping Beauty…  a tale which represents the story of John.

John (known at the time as Yon, Yona, Yonas or Yoni)  is also Beauty,  who sleeps only because we do not see Her for who She is.

She speaks, as herself, throughout the book of John.  Redactors, however, playing off the original yonic imagery of that female triangle of hair, disguised John in a coat of camel hair, and changed all the pronouns to he, him, and his.

The voice of John then became HIS voice.  In another short step, Johns words became the words of Jesus.  Her teachings on love became the familiar teachings of Jesus.     This final patriarchal stroke rewrote history, as exclusively his story… a story which eliminated the feminine as a spiritual power and a political force, and concentrated these in the male only.

Thus pricked, She sleeps.  And we, in the castle of culture, sleep with her.  To reveal Her significant presence in the Bible, some basic instruction in the language of the Tree of Life is needed.  For She represents (and is represented by) the Tree of Life.

The V shape that hangs between the two pillars represents the Holy Grail as yonic cup.  This sacred cup and  holy vessel of the spirit is represented by the female chevron that joins the two pillars. (note the female chevron, formed by the bodies of Jesus and John, at the center of da Vinci’s Last Supper.)  On the Tree of Life, the point at the bottom of this chevron, known as the cornerstone,  is the place where beauty joins all the paths on the tree to the Central Pillar.  The English name of the cornerstone is Beauty.  Its number is six.

Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: ~Isaiah 28:16

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.
~ Psalm 118:22

That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:
~ Psalm 144:12

Introduction

Sleeping Beauty and da Vinci’s Code:

The Tree of Life, the Bible, and Fairy Tale

Beauty’s story may be found in the Bible… in a secret stream of narrative known to those who can read the code provided by the Tree of Life.  Leonardo daVinci knew this code and worked the major elements of the Tree into his Last Supper.  As many as thirty other Artists throughout the period of the Renaissance also painted the Last Supper.  Using this code they wove the image of the Tree of Life into the familiar Biblical scene… and altered its meaning to reflect an ancient spiritual tradition based on of the Tree of Life. Beauty is at the center of the Tree of Life and of a mystery philosophy of peaceful union, sacred sex, and divine love.

Wedding Day: A vision of what was.

How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights
This thy stature is like a palm tree, and thy breasts are as clusters
of grapes. I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts 
shall be clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples;
and the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, 
that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep
to speak.                                   ~ Song of Solomon 7:6-9

On this day we gather early to celebrate the golden dawn, dressed in Her gown of light, approaching.  Together in the early light we eat cakes for the Queen of Heaven. Their honey sweetness a pleasure shared with her lord, and with the people who, on this holy day, will all rise up to play.

Thick ropes of incense snake up to heaven: so dense at the gates its hard to see.  The scent is heady, even before the wine, and the people are drunk with joy.  Their light hearted banter in the morning, their warm greeting, begins this day of love.  And after the ceremony, when The Two are wed, we will come flushed with pleasure, to the feasting.

The streets are festooned with flowers.  They spill from the windows onto the street, wrap around the eaves, and join the amber beads in the braids of laughing young women.  All the men and women of the right age dress the streets in beds of straw, covered with palm leaves.  The beds of palm line the streets from the gate of the city through the streets to the temple doors.  They surround the temple.  The beds are piled high at the sheep gate.

Grandmothers set the sweet cakes on the street corners.  They place water vessels on their doorsteps. The young  will enjoy their leisure today. Their will be no work at the well.  Laughter and music sweep up the streets, and the priests, waving their censures, begin the invitation… calling the people to Her love.

The spirit of our city calls to us, and to Her shining lord.  Calling with music we follow, in song, to the place of supreme joy.  Here, Her chosen lord will know her loves.  Here, he becomes our king.  We gather beneath the high place, at the gate, where our Lord will meet the Holy Daughter of Jerusalem.  We stand together looking up at the curtains of their bedchamber and wait for the Beauty of Israel to show Herself.  We wait for the sacred dove to light upon the new king.  To crown him with her love.  Her lap, his new throne.

Let our prince of peace lie in the lap of love!  Let him marry the land! Let the sacred Shepherd tend Her flock, and father plenty for the people!  Roaring like thunder… he waters the Tree of his delight.  In the honey of Her love, let Him move like thunder and, with Her Love, give the people a share in earthly plenty… and heavenly joy!

…we will certainly… burn incense unto the queen of  heaven, and pour out drink offerings unto her, 
as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, 
and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty to eat, and were well, and saw no evil.
                                                                                     ~Jeremiah 44:17

A low muttering roll of drums makes the sound of distant thunder.  He approaches the Tree.  A high female voice rises above the rumble.  She is ready.  Her desire goes out to him in thrills of song.  The people are shoulder to shoulder now, embracing one another.   We stand as a body that sways with their song.  Our gazes fixed upon the high place… and the darkened curtain of their bed chamber.  As their voices rise together, the curtains are suddenly illuminated and Beauty appears!

Inanna opened the door for him.
Inside the house She shone before him
like the light of the moon. ~ Sumerian hymn to Inanna

Her radiance, luminous as the moon, strides like dawn toward the marriage bed.  The drums roll like thunder and he stands before her with raised head.  His glory, a rod of iron, held up to heaven!  She reclines for him.

Tammuz looked at her joyously.
He pressed his neck against Hers.
He kissed Her. ~ Sumerian hymn to Inanna

Every heart in every chest is pounding.  Our song, a fervent prayer of purest pleasure!  Joy to the Shepherd who comes eagerly to Beauty!  Joy to the new born king at his throne of love!

My yoni, the horn, 
The boat of heaven,
Is full of eagerness like the young moon.
My untilled land lies fallow.
I, Inanna, ask you
Who will plow my yoni?
Who will plow my high field?
Who will plow my wet ground?
His response is urgent and tender.
Great Lady, the king will plow your yoni!
I, Tammuz, the king will plow your yoni!
Then plow me, man of my heart!
Plow my yoni! ~ Sumerian hymn to Inanna

Peals of thunder roll loud from the drums as he bends over the bed.

The king went with lifted head to the holy loins.
He went with lifted head to Inanna. ~ Sumerian hymn to Inanna

She took hold of the rising cedar in the Shepherd’s lap.  She anointed his head with fragrant oil.  He sang to her then his song of wisdom and his song of peace.

My sister, I would go with you to my garden.
I would go with you to my orchard.
I would go with you to my apple tree.
There I would plant the sweet, honey-covered seed.

Make your milk sweet and thick, my bridegroom!
My shepherd, I will drink your fresh milk.
Wild Bull, Tammuz, make your milk sweet and thick.
I will drink your fresh milk. ~ Sumerian hymn to Inanna

He cried out with a loud voice as he entered heaven.  He bellowed his bull pleasure.  She moaned a soulful response.  They move together now, as one writhing body… their cries sending chills through the crowd.

He brought me into his garden
My brother Tammuz brought me into his garden 
I strolled with him among the standing trees,
I stood with him among the fallen trees,
By an apple tree I knelt…  
Before my lord Tammuz.
I poured out plants from my womb.
I placed them before him.
I placed grain before him.
I poured out grain before him. 
I poured out grain from my womb.  
He shaped my loins with his fair hands,
The shepherd filled my lap with cream and milk.
He stroked my hair.
He watered my womb.
He laid his hands on my sacred yoni.
He smoothed my black boat with cream.
He quickened my narrow boat with milk.
He caressed me on the bed.
Then the Queen of Heaven,
Inanna, first daughter of the moon,
Decreed the fate of Tammuz.

In all ways you are fit.
May your heart enjoy long days!
As the farmer, let him make the fields fertile.
As the shepherd let him make the sheepfolds multiply.
Under his reign let there be vegetation.
Under his reign let there be rich grain. ~Sumerian hymn to Inanna

The music swelled at the moment of his death.  His great cedar felled.  The candles are snuffed and the magic of the bedchamber goes black.  A breath later and the doors below the bedchamber open up.  Her gate opens and out pour the fruits of divine union.  Out comes the wine and the grain.  Out come the figs, fruits and cheeses.  Out comes the meat, fish and bread.  Enough for all.

For the sun and moon conspire together for the benefit of their children.  And we, the children of Benjamin…the children of gods’ love… receive in gladness what the divine couple give in joy.  Such is the covenant between our Mother and Father, for the sake of the children of earth.

I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: 
I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; 
I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; 
I have drunk my wine with my milk: 
Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved!    ~Song of Solomon 5:1

What I tell you let the singer weave into song.
What I tell you, let it flow from mouth to ear.
Let it pass from old to young.   ~ Hymn to Innana

Motherless in Israel

The Beauty Tales as Bible Stories

We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes, 
 and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves. ~Tom Robbins

In fairy tale the king and queen are invariably equal.   They go together.  In both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty the king and queen long for a child together.  They rejoice together at her birth.  And together they form one spiritual whole  and social authority that prospers the land and its people.  This spiritual configuration is Hermetic; where equal and opposite pillars hold up the tree of life together.   If they are not together the kingdom, and its daughter, suffers.

Therefore said I, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me,
because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people. ~Isaiah 22:4

When the king and queen do not exist together we have, as a basic condition, the orphaned state of the Beauty tales.  Specifically, a motherless daughter.   The queen as nurturing mother is absent.  In her place the Step Mother appears.   Both Snow White and Cinderella show her as a wicked and resentful adversary,  who would kill or utterly subjugate the daughter of our story.   The Church has been such a mother to Beauty.

Beauty,  who was at the absolute center of the spiritual life of our ancestors became, by the time of Pope Gregory, a mere prostitute… as part of the campaign to cut Her completely out of the picture.     The Church, as such a malevolent mother, is depicted in the Beauty tales as the Step Mother.  In Da Vinci’s Last Supper Peter, as the so called rock of the church, represents Step Mother Church.  Peters actions in the painting show the actions of Church dogma:  He holds one hand to John’s throat.  The other hand, behind his back, holds a knife.

The rock in Bible speak is itself a feminine archetype that, through the course of the old testament story, is masculinized.  When power is concentrated in the masculine, the archetype of the Sacred Feminine as nurturing mother, is duly masculinized:

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you;
and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. ~Isaiah 66:13

In the quote above the speaker does not claim to be a mother,  but steps in only as a mother.

Like the patriarchal Church Yahweh, as a bachelor father, exerts the full force of the runaway masculine, and  removes the Mother in Jerusalem.  He refuses responsibility for the act.  Instead, Yahweh blames the children for the divorce, and for the absence of their mother:

Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold,  for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.  ~Isaiah 50:1

The peculiar result of replacing the divine mother with a male version is depicted in an odd portrait, painted during the Renaissance period.  The name given to the painting below is simply a Jewish Couple.  The image of two bearded men, as a couple, is perhaps not so peculiar, but the fact that one is holding a perplexed infant up to his uni-breast seems, at the very least, strange.

Is this not the spiritual situation in western culture?  Our fairy tales suggest that we are orphaned of our heavenly mother.  The exclusively male mother church offers a single breast.  At one point in the play Faust asks Mephistopheles ;  Is this such food as fails to feed?   Could such a singular parent provide true balanced nutrition?