"Do you see yonder large tree?" said the witch, pointing to a tree that stood close by the wayside. "It is quite hollow. Climb up to the top, and you will find a hole large enough for you to creep through, and thus you will get down into the tree. I will tie a rope round your waist, so that I can pull you up again when you call me."
"But what am I to do down in the tree?" asked the soldier.
"What are you to do?" repeated the witch; "why, fetch money, to be sure! As soon as you get to the bottom, you will find yourself in a wide passage; it is quite light, more than a hundred lamps are burning there. Then you will see three doors; you can open them, the keys are in the locks. On opening the first door you will enter a room. In the middle of it, on the floor, lies a large chest. A dog is seated on it, his eyes are as large as tea-cups; but never you mind, don't trouble yourself about him! I will lend you my blue apron; you must spread it out on the floor, then go briskly up to the dog, seize him, and set him down on it. When that is done, you can open the chest, and take as much money out of it as you please. That chest contains none but copper coins. If you like silver better, you have only to go into the next room; there you will find a dog with eyes as large as mill-wheels. Don't be afraid of him; you have only to set him down on my apron, and then rifle the chest at your leisure. But if you would rather have gold than either silver or copper, that is to be had too, and as much of it as you can carry, if you pass on into the third chamber. The dog that sits on this third money chest has eyes as large as the Round Tower. But don't be alarmed; if you set him down on my apron, he will do you no harm, and you can take as much golden treasure from the chest as you like.
"Not a bad plan that, upon my word!" said the soldier. "But how much of the money am I to give you, old woman?"
"Not a penny will I have," returned the witch. "The only thing I want you to bring me is an old tinder-box which my grandmother left there by mistake last time she was down in the tree."
"Well, then, give me the rope and I'll be gone," said the soldier.
"Here it is," said the witch, "and here is my blue apron."
So the soldier climbed the tree, let himself down through the hole in the trunk, and suddenly found himself in the wide passage, lighted up by many hundred lamps, as the witch had described.
And so, in the hollow of a deceased tree the soldier ventures down - down into a realm which is lit by many hundreds of lamps. Do you recall in previous lessons how it has been discussed that this journey inward may often be confused with a journey outward into the Cosmos at large?
The word 'lamps' is actually far more accurate than to say 'stars', because even though one might very much confuse the lamps for stars in a starry space, they are not. This is what one is first met with however, venturing into the realms within. They signify also the starry points of conjuncture within one's own astral body that are 'alight' with activity.
The witch in this story personifies the corrupted condition which is taking the soldier into these depths he is about to encounter. He is secured to the upper world by a "rope tied to the waist"” - his astral chord intact - and he ventures into the realm of death.
The second dog is sitting guarding the chest which holds the pieces of silver. This connects us with the Moon and the realm of the astrality - the second sphere encountered on our journey in.
The third dog is sitting guarding the chest with the disks of gold … the metal of the Sun - this denotes the final treasure to be uncovered - hoarded and stored by the dog.
The dog is obedient to the protection of all three realms. He has no will in this matter, and when later placed upon the blue apron of the witch's own egoic willing, he does not resist, but dutifully sits where put, without cunning or reaction or offering a threat to the soldier.
He is a soldier of Christ that can move about these three chambers without interference or fear. Interestingly the witch herself could not go to these places as she might instruct another.
Of the first realm come to we find a dog whose eyes are smaller than the other two. His appearance by contrast would be gentle. This Venus condition here pertains to the singularity we first spoke of in the soulic consciousness as experienced in the world before the egoic condition predominated.
There is a divine cooperation here, and yet it is also quite an automatic cooperative … and when Paradise overwhelms men to become witless and will-less, it then becomes the realm of Lucifer. You can often find it difficult to find the differences between descriptions of the true paradisiacal state and Lucifer's paradise ad perpetua. However we can remember here that these inner realms now spoken of are the contrary adjuncts to the conditions which preceded them, that live on today in the current etheric and pure astral as it still is. Also, that the ancient Sun still imbibes the old etheric world, as it does the New.
The second sphere come to, that of the ancient Moon, is of the time in which the senses were awakened and the stars began to resonate in Man. Forces outside of himself entered in, compelling and sometimes dividing forces, sparring tensions, which now may be known as desires, and later to thoughts. The ancient Moon did not reflect back the Sun when it was not-so-old as to be living. For it was, in part, just as our Earth is now - the Sun itself, in the making.
This ancient Sun, the kernel to the Globe, is of the first ego but not of the ego today. It was the feminine ego, a womb of knowing; not adventurous, but receptive - a very different type of "I". Even today the form of the ego is as a containing womb and its action is retentive rather than advancing.
-B.Hive
on The Tinder Box by Hans Christian Andersen
No comments:
Post a Comment