The fifteenth bead in the blessing cord is the blessing of change. This is the fire of Gebruah. Change is a constant in the universe. Nothing stays the same forever. Some things come back around, but eventually they change again. We can’t escape being changed by the circumstances of our lives. We are constantly growing, building, deteriorating or decaying.
One of the teachings we can draw from the images of Baphomet by Elphias Levi are the words written on Baphomet’s arms: SOLVE and COAGULA are the Latin words for to sepperate and to join together, respectively. Since Baphomet is a microcosmic view of the universe, neither male nor female, human or animal, it represents this power of change in the universe in these two concepts. These are the two sides of change. To seperate or divide into its component parts or to bring things together in a new shape or configuration. These processes are the two methods the alchemist uses to create a pure essence of the substance they are working with. This is why nature is considered the greatest of alchemists.
Change often has a rhythm and a cycle to it. These cycles of change are the small cycles that reflect the greater cycles of life. Take for example the life of a tree. Spring is birth and renewal, summer is the prime of life and growth, Fall is the decay and waning, preparing for sleep or death, Winter is dormancy and death—each has its place and is a reflection of the whole life of the tree. None is good or bad, it just is. No part of the cycle could happen without the other parts of the cycle. In this meditation, we go through the life of a tree to feel the changes and rhythms in change and that an end is not just an end, but also a new beginning.
Meditation of Change
Hold the fifteenth bead, the bead of the blessing of change, The blessing of fire in Geburah.
Count yourself down into a meditative state.
Allow the screen of your mind to expand to create a sphere around you. Feel a rising sensation as the sphere fills with a red light. Vibrate the god name of Geburah: El-oh-heem Gi-boor
The red light around you begins to become like a red mist of dawn in a grove of oak trees. Look around you at your feet and find an acorn. Take that acorn and dig a hole in the earth for it. Once it has been buried, let your body dissolve and become like liquid light. You pour yourself into the buried acorn. All your essence is within this acorn. Merge with this small life.
At your will, project yourself and your acorn through time so you can move through its life cycle. Feel the resistance as acorn-you grows roots, displacing the soil. Feel the resistance as you grow to break through the soil to the surface. Feel the growth as you become a young sapling. Sprout leaves to soak in the summer sun. As summer wanes you drop these leaves to prepare for the sleep of winter. What does it feel like to give up this part of yourself, returning it to the earth? Sleep well under the snow, until spring rises again and you bud and begin to grow again to feel the summer sun.
Your branches grow, only to have one branch break and fall off because of the wind. You persevere, knowing that the loss of this branch has opened up that space to let your other branches grow into to get even more sun. As fall and winter come again. Time marches forward at an even more rapid pace. You feel what it is like to grow up above the other trees. Grow and grow, season by season. Until you are a gigantic oak sheltering smaller oaks of your own. What is it like to have come into fertility?
Time marches forward to when your vitality begins to wane. The processes you have gone through become harder and harder until your tree begins to die and decompose. Feel the separation of spirit from the body of the tree. How it spreads and expands, feeding the spirit around it. Know that this is not the end only a new beginning for this tree soul.
The liquid light of you begins to separate from the tree spirit and reform into your spirit body. Take time to ground yourself into the shape that is you. Thank the tree spirit for teaching you the ways of change and its cycles.
The red light begins to fill your sphere again blotting out the grove. You feel a gentle decent as the red light fades. Your sphere returns to the shape and size of the screen of the mind.
Count your self up into waking consciousness and ground and center yourself.
Contemplation
What changes have you gone through in your life? How has this effected your journey? What changes do you need to make to create a better life for yourself and others?