Category: Gatherings

McCall Gathering 2007, Part 48

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 48 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Lernaean Hydra

JJ: The next labor is Destroying the Lernaean Hydra, this is in Scorpio and this is an interesting sign in the fact that Scorpio is often called the sign of death because the Scorpio often has things happen that is out of his control. Death and divorce, things like this are beyond the control of anyone, certain things happen that are just beyond his control and so he learns to accept certain things that he cannot change.
In ancient Argos a drought occurred, Amymones sought the aid of Neptune and he bade her strike a rock and when she did out gushed three crystals streams but soon a hydra made his dwelling there beside the river Amymone a festering swamp of Lerna stands and within this noise and bog a monstrous hydra lies, a plague upon the countryside. Nine heads this creature has and one of them is immortal. Prepare to battle with this loathsome beast – think not that common means will serve. Destroy one head and two will grow apace.

Expectantly Hercules waited. “One word of counsel I may give,” the teacher said. “We rise by kneeling, we conquer by surrendering, we gain by giving up. Go forth oh son of man and son of God. Go forth and conquer through gate eighth.” Then Hercules passed through the gate and began his work..

The stagnant swamp of Lerna was a blot, dismaying all that came within the confines; its stench polluted the entire atmosphere within a space of seven miles. When Hercules approached he had to pause, for the smell alone well nigh over came him. The loosing quick sands were a hazard and more than once Hercules with drew his foot lest he be sucked downward by the yielding earth. At length he came and found the lair where dwelt the monstrous beast.

Within a cavern of perpetual night the hydra lay concealed. By day and night Hercules haunted the treacherous den, awaiting a propitious time when the beast would come forth. In vain he watched. The monster stayed within its fetid den. Resorting to a stratagem, Hercules dipped his arrows in burning pitch and rained them straight into the yawning cavern where dwelt the hideous beast. A stirring and commotion there upon ensued. The hydra, its nine angry heads breathing flame, emerged. Its scaly tail lashed furiously the water and the mud bespattering Hercules. Three fathoms high the monster stood, a thing of ugliness that looked as if it had been made of all the foulest thoughts conceived since time began. The hydra sprang at Hercules and sought to coil about his feet. He stepped aside and dealt it such a crushing blow that one of its heads was immediately dissevered. No sooner had this horrid head fallen into the bog than two grew in its place. Again and again Hercules attacked the raging monster, but it grew stronger, not weaker, with each assault.

Then Hercules remembered that his Teacher said, “We rise by kneeling.” Casting aside his club, Hercules knelt, grasped the hydra and with his bare hands, and raised it aloft. Suspended in mid-air, its strength diminished. On his knees, then, he held the hydra high above him, that the purifying air and light might have their due effect. The monster, strong in darkness and in slouchy mud, soon lost its power when the rays of the sun and the touch of the wind fell on it.

Convulsively, it strove, a shudder passing through its loathsome frame. Fainter and fainter grew its struggles till the victory was won. The nine heads drooped, then with gasping mouths and glazing eyes fell limply forward. But only when the lifeless body lay still did Hercules perceive the mystic head that was immortal. Then Hercules cut off the hydra’s one immortal head and buried it, still fiercely hissing, beneath a rock.

Returning Hercules stood before his Teacher. ‘The victory is won”, the Teacher said, “The Light that shines at the Gate, the eighth, is now blended with your own”.

So Hercules goes after this hydra and it lived in this marsh that was putrid and the stench went for seven miles it was so bad. What is the symbolism here?

Audience: It reminds me of the paperclip where water, air and land meet, but here you have all of these mixed in one and muddled together like a corrupt version of it.

JJ: The Hydra represents our lower desire and it produces stench, chuckling, our lower desire gets us into a lot of trouble and it has nine different aspects. One of the heads is immortal. The nine different heads are:

1) Sex

2) Comfort

3) Money

4) Fear

5) Hatred

6) Desire for power

7) Pride

8) Separativeness

9) Cruelty

JJ: Which one of the heads do you think would be immortal?

Audience: Greed, jealousy, hate.

JJ: Basically they represent all the negative emotions and the negative emotions associated with the lower desire but they are not immortal for they shall be transmuted. Which one of the heads is immortal.

Audience: Power

JJ: Right, it is power and it does not say it in the book but I am sure it is power. You might think sex, and sex on all of its levels is probably immortal but not in the lower nature. But power is immortal for we are told that in the council chambers of heaven there was still a struggle for power – and do you remember what that story was about? Who was the one who rebelled against God and wanted power?

Audience: Lucifer

JJ: Right so even in the courts of heaven, which were supposed to be ruled by the Most High there was one we call Lucifer who rebelled and took with him a third of the hosts of heaven because he sought power. The Tibetan verifies this – He says that in the councils of the Most High there has not always been peace and tranquility and wrote about the fall of Lucifer. He said the fall of Lucifer was not really a big thing in the whole course of the universe or even our solar system but as far as our earth goes it was a significant event. He does not give us a lot of details about it so apparently even in the courts of the Ancient of Days there have been big problems with those who are seeking power.

So Hercules took this immortal head and buried it under a rock, now what does that mean?

Audience: He wanted to suppress it.

JJ: Right, it was hissing even as he put it under the rock and is symbolic of desire for power being put out of his consciousness so he would not misuse power. Now power is the easiest thing to misuse, it is interesting if you ask anyone if they can be trusted with power and they all think that yes they can be trusted with power. It seems like an easy thing to handle. Money is an attractive power and it is interesting thing with these lottery winners – have you ever the stories about these winners after they win millions of dollars? What happens to them?

They go crazy don’t they, they go out buy very expensive homes, cars and all kinds of things and people hit them up for money and family comes out of the woodwork and pretty soon half of its gone and they think well I had better be careful with this or there will be nothing left. Then people get mad at him because he will not give out money anymore and all his friends feel like he has turned on him and pretty soon he gives out more money to pacify them and that still does no good and then pretty soon all the money is gone and so are all of his friends. He is just disgusted with all of his family and friends and I would say that about after about two years 95% of them end up this way or worse. They end up saying that they wish they would had never won for their life would have been a lot better off. Now if I told you guys I would give you twenty million dollars, do you think you could handle it? Would you take the chance?

Audience: Yes

Right, we all would, wouldn’t we? Yet it is funny that most of these lottery winners wind up saying, “I wish I had not won the money.” But how many of us would have the foresight to see in such a way that we would say, I do not even want to win the money. Who says that? Nobody, and as a matter of fact these same guys that say I wish I would have never won the lottery, still play the lottery. And that is the funny part about the whole thing! They think that somehow they can redeem themselves by continuing to play the lottery.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 47

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 47 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Labor of Libra Explained

JJ: What do you suppose the wild bore represents?

Audience: Inaudible

JJ: The bore represents our lower nature that is out of control again, particularly the emotional nature and the earthly nature, so he was told to go and capture it and not to kill it. Now remember in the last labor he wore the skin – he killed the lion and he has now a new personality, one that is woven from his own thoughts, one that will serve him well. This time he has to have further dominance not by killing but by capturing the wild bore – there are still wild parts of himself that must be tamed. Once a labor is accomplished then we come back in an entirely different life and wild things begin to grow again, so again and again we have to tame these wild things. So Hercules had to tame this wild bore and once again he had a hard time finding his quest and he comes across these two centaurs What do these centaurs represent?

Audience: Guards, centaurs are guards aren’t they?

JJ: One of them was kind of on guard.

Audience: Centaurs have a lower half of an animal a horse and the upper half is man so they are not fully human.

JJ: The two centaurs had names and one was Cherion, which means good thought and the other was called Pholos, which means bodily strength. The test was to show control of the emotional, astral and desire nature in whatever forms it may take. Often times in our quest to maintain dominance in our own nature we get discouraged and we give up for a period of time.

Lets take the emotion of anger. Many people have a lot trouble with anger and they enter into anger management programs. People go through these programs and it does not seem to help them. Take Lindsey Lohan for instance – she goes through her problems and goes to rehab and a week later she comes out and has the same problem again.

We get discouraged because we try to handle the lower nature and get it under our mastery and then the problem resurfaces again and we get discouraged. So we meet the centaurs which is half animal and half man and the animal part really likes to let loose and party and the man part is responsible and guards the camp and valuables What is interesting is they have this wine and the wine is to be shared by the brotherhood, what is the symbolism behind the wine?

Audience: It could be like Christ energy or spiritual energy or some kind energy of this nature.

JJ: The wine symbolizes the group life. There are certain things that are only beneficial when shared as a group. For instance, we as a group create a life energy that flows through us when we are together that if we try to attain this just by ourselves – it is just not available. Then there are certain things that we can have by ourselves that we can’t have as a group.

This wine was dedicated to the group and wine is often symbolic of the spiritual flow. The spiritual flow is designated to be shared as a group and what they did is they shared it away from the group and instead of having the spiritual flow it became a very carnal flow of lower type energy that reached down to the lower levels, and they got drunk.

They got drunk and out of control symbolizing that the spiritual energy of the life of the God within. When not used properly this gets us drunk on its own power so to speak. So we become out of control and I have seen this in quite a number of people throughout my life.

When they have a touch of the higher energies and do not share it with the group and want to keep it for themselves it makes them drunk on their own power. The life of God must be shared as a group rather than just keeping it to ourselves. It must be shared with all the people willing to receive it.

There is another great lesson to be learned. Hercules had the idea that he was not going to create any harm this time so he went with no weapons and yet his plan did not materialize. Why was that it the he vowed to be harmless yet he wound up hurting and killing some? What mistake did he make?

Audience: He took his eye off the ball?

JJ: No

Audience: He got off the path?

JJ: No

Have you ever this happen in your life? You say I am going to do this and the situation seems to change and you wind up doing something entirely different than you had planned and it didn’t work out?

Audience: Is it like in the Secret where they said people were treating this guy bad and he kept putting attention on the one thing and it just kept coming to him.

JJ: That could be an ingredient but it is not the main ingredient.

Lets say someone comes up to you and really presses a button and makes you angry and you have committed yourself not to get angry but this person says something so cruel or outrageous that there is no way that you cannot avoid telling him off. Have you ever had this happen?

Audience: Oh yes.

JJ: What could you have done to prepare yourself that you could have handled that situation without getting angry?

Audience: If I would have known going in that this person is probably going to say something then I would have been prepared to let it roll off of me because I would have had my guards up and ready. But if I am not prepared and pretend like that person is not going to hurt me then they usually can get to me.

JJ: That is a really good point. If you are prepared for the situation and you have seen it ahead of time then you can also prepare your reaction for it. But if someone comes to you out of the blue with something totally unexpected -what happens is you do not really know how to handle it.

For instance a person came to Artie and asked for a full refund for this symposium just before it started. We did not expect anyone to ask for a full refund and we did had not thought of how to handle it so Artie gave the money back. Afterwards we thought, well that really comes out of our pocket because we already had to pay for the food and the lodging whether they come or not so why in the heck did we do that? We should have at least charged him enough to cover the expenses we incurred for him.

We should have thought about that before hand and because we had not thought about it we were caught off guard for they wanted us to make the decision right then. We did not think carefully enough about what was fair and what was not fair – we were just thinking about what they wanted so the guy caught us off guard.

Have you ever been caught off guard like that? Especially by people that want something from you – that is where it really catches you off guard. So the key here is that Hercules did not envision all the possibilities that could happen to him. He just made one commitment that he was not going to kill anybody or hurt anybody and he was going to be harmless.

Well that is not enough. Just saying you are not going to get angry will not do it. Saying I am not going to react to a situation or I am not going to loan money to deadbeats is not going to do it. You have to visualize what is going to happen to you in the future – see the events before they come – project your life into the future for the day, the week, the month, the years and years to come.

Think of the people that you know who are close to you in your life, think of the things that they will ask you in the future and then visualize what how you are going to respond. The more you see into your future and plan what you will do and how you will do it in different situations, the more control you will have in your life. If Hercules would have looked into the future and thought, I am going to get discouraged if it takes me a long time and first of all he could have decided that he was not going to get discouraged and if he could have decided in advance not to get discouraged no matter how long it took then he would not have stopped and made friends with the centaur and taken this detour.

Once he made friends with he centaur he should have thought ahead and said to himself, won’t the brotherhood be upset if they find out we are drinking this wine because it is dedicated to the brotherhood? But he did not think about this because he was not looking ahead into the future. This is an important item that many of us overlook. We do not think to look into the future and see everything that is going to happen and visualize what we are going to do, what we are going to say, how we are going to react and how we are going to manipulate the situation to the best advantage of ourselves and the whole.

If you can do this one thing it will give a lot more control over your destiny. Now I really try to do this and still once in a while I am caught off guard. I am not caught off guard too much; certainly not like when I was younger. We were caught off guard because it hit us suddenly and we had just not thought about it and you will always be hit with things that you don’t think about and when you are hit with things that you do not think about in advance you will always make the wrong decision, every single time. Like we made the wrong decision on this and it was an unfair decision that we made to the other persons advantage. But every time you are caught off guard you will make the wrong decision.

I notice in my life that every time I have been caught off guard I make the decision in line with the least resistance. This is the one that is easiest to make and is almost always the wrong one and you end up giving yourself a hard time about it causing yourself more grief than was necessary. So think of the people in your life that may take advantage of you. It is like playing chess – think of their next move and then think of your move. When they make their move you will catch them off guard because then when they make that move they will anticipate that you will do X, Y, or Z and instead you will do A, B, and C, and it will somewhat flabbergast them because they will not be expecting it.

One thing Hercules learned also was to enjoy himself, but he went to the extreme with the centaurs and enjoyed himself too much. He was told to take the time to eat and drink and he did but he went too far. This is one of the lessons that we need to learn in this sign and that is to not go to the extreme and to take the time to enjoy ourselves, to eat, drink, and make friends but also to project ourselves into the future and avoid the pitfalls and still maintain control of your destiny and avoid the extreme.

Then as he was going down the hill with the bore instead of tying it up or killing it he made fun of the it and making fun of the bore, who represents the lower personality, means he made of fun of himself using his lower personality. Some of the best comedians do this, like say Robin Williams, for instance. Some of the best comedians will make fun of themselves and this turns their personality from an irritating thing to an enjoyable thing. So where the strong personality can be irritating, if used correctly is fun to watch and also harmless.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 46

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 46 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Capture of the Erymanthian Bore

JJ: Labor Seventh in Libra, the capture of the Erymanthian Bore. Hercules was told this time to go and capture a bore that has been terrorizing a community just about like the lion had been doing earlier. This time a wild bore is giving everybody a bad time. Hercules is told to go and capture it. He does not have to kill it this time – he just has to capture it and render it harmless.

Hercules is very concerned about himself and he is not sure is he can trust himself. He said, “Twice now I have killed those I was not supposed to kill. In the first labor I killed my best friend and in the last labor I killed the Amazon queen that was willing to cooperate. This time I will go with no weapons and I will be harmless.”

This is the way Libra’s are – they are the balance between things and they are the negotiators. If there is a big argument that ensues the Libra is the one that will come forth and say, hey guys let’s get along, let me negotiate here and bring peace. This is the Libra nature; they like to bring to balance to things.

So Hercules decided that he was going to be harmless and just capture the bore and not hurt it even though this was a wild bore. Hercules thought this would be a good plan and all would be well this time. So he takes off roaming around searching for it and he has a heck of a time finding it. As he is searching for the bore he gets bored and begins to forget the object of his search as we so often do and he came across this centaur who was a member of a brotherhood of centaurs. All the brotherhood was gone and he was guarding the local home of the centaurs.

Hercules made friends with the centaur and he noticed that they had this great big cask of wine. The centaur says, this is the cask that is to be shared by only centaurs and the only time we drink of it is when we are a group and we drink and share the energy of the wine together. They became good friends and after a while the centaur says well we are such good friends now lets break open a cask of wine. So they broke it open and they drank and got drunk and having a great time and telling stories.

Then another centaur came along and he started to drink with them and they were all just having a great time and they were making such a loud noise that the brotherhood of centaurs heard them from a distance and suspected something was wrong. So the brotherhood came back and found them all drinking the wine and they attacked Hercules. Hercules had to defend himself to stay alive and he wound up killing these two centaurs that had become his best friends. He also had to kill several centaurs just to get out of there alive. After he escaped and went up the mountain a ways he thought, wow that was a heck of a deal. I come down the mountain here I did not have any weapons and I was not going to hurt anybody and here I killed two people I love again. I just can’t believe this! This is really irritating!

Audience: Laughter!

JJ: So he says I guess I had better focus on my mission and if I had not given it up and started to take it easy then this would have never happened. So he goes back and refocuses on his mission and finally finds out where this bore is and he continues on his quest to be harmless. He did not want to kill this bore so he sets a trap and captures it. When he captures it he grabs the bore by its hind legs and goes down the hill with it like he is pushing a wheelbarrow and goes through the village with it showing the people. When they see the bore that were terrified of and how Hercules was making fun with it by forcing the bore to walk on its hind legs, the village people just laughed. They thought it was so funny. This is basically the end of the story – Hercules put the bore in a safe place where it would bother no one anymore.

JJ: What do you suppose the wild bore represents?

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 45

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 45 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Girdle of Hippolyte Continued

Audience: The girdle, is that like a belt?

JJ: The girdle is a symbol of unity, unity achieved through struggle, conflict, strife, and a symbol of motherhood of the sacred child to which all human life is truly turned. Now these Amazon women achieved a very high degree of unity and maybe that is why they did not have men around, under their queen.

Audience: Chuckling

JJ: This was a high achievement, and the girdle was a symbol of that. This was one lesson, which the disciple must learn and that is to achieve unity with other like-minded souls and unity with those who were different from him. Hercules was a strong male and Hippolyte who he slew was a very powerful female and instead of achieving unity and cooperation with her so she would give him the girdle he felt he had to conquer her and destroy her and take it by force.

When you read about the middle ages it is interesting to study some men who have gone down in history- lets take Sir Thomas Moore for instance. He is recognized as a great man by a lot of scholars. He wrote some interesting books and was a legal scholar and I think the Catholic Church even made him a saint but what few people know about the guy is he had a torture chamber in his basement and he participated in putting people to death and burning heretics at the stake. He was a little like Hercules and deceived at this point. He was a powerful person but to those who disagreed with him and were heretical he sought to destroy them.

When you read about the middle ages many people were this way. Martin Luther, for example – everybody thinks he was a great guy and he was also persecuted when he began to break off from the church and many of his followers were put to death but then when he got a little power he had people that disagreed with him persecuted, tortured and burned at the stake. So he was not any better than the other guys and yet he is recognized as one of the great souls in our history. But when he got power, just like Hercules, those whose disagreed with him that were different from him, he called heretics and had them persecuted even though he had gone through a similar experience and should have known better.

Martin Luther, Sir Thomas Moore and other people who were respected in history as making a Herculean effort of some kind, but they turned on those who disagreed with them and had them killed – and this often happens. Fortunately today we have laws that protect us from this but we can see that many people who otherwise may be fairly significant souls will still go after those who do not agree with them. And to achieve unity they will get them out of the way rather than to seek their cooperation.

What is interesting about Sir Thomas Moore is he was completely cooperative with his king and the king was finally suspicious that he was betraying him and not cooperating with him and he had Sir Thomas Moore killed. Yet Moore did the same thing to those under him and anyone who was a heretic he supported having them killed. To achieve unity during most periods of history what you did to those who disagreed with you was to have them killed.

This has often been a trap that has been embraced by many great Herculean disciples of the past 6000 years or so and they have fallen into the trap that to achieve unity they have to eliminate anyone who disagrees and just have people that agree around you. You’ll notice that many of the kings throughout history and many of the leadership today are surrounded by yes men, people that just tell them what they want to hear and they never hear the truth and then when the empire collapses around them they are really surprised that the people do not love them.

One interesting example is in 1989 Nicolae Ceausescu the leader of Romania before the fall of the communist empire, he punished and put to death anyone who he thought disagreed with him to the slightest degree and he thought the people loved him. Then when his empire fell he and his wife had to flee for their lives but they thought that the people loved them until they were captured as they were trying to smuggle large amounts of money out of the country. They were put to death and as they were being put to death it finally dawned on them that people did not love them after all but they really believed right up until the end that the people really adored them.

Kim Jon Ill of North Korea I will bet he believes the people really just loves him to pieces.

Audience: Why wouldn’t you love the loving fatherly figure?

JJ: Right when he walks down the street everybody goes through the motions and shows worship in some way. Such leaders think, “oh I am the most beloved dictator,” or brother or leader or whatever he calls himself and he probably honestly believes that he is loved. Now if the people were given complete freedom to speak for themselves he would find out something entirely different.

Audience: I would bet that Ivan the terrible the czar of Russia in the 16th century thought the people loved him.

JJ: Yes I’ll bet he did. Almost all the dictators truly think they are beloved by the people. Hugo Chavez the leader Venezuela is becoming a dictator and he probably thinks he getting more loved all the time and he is getting more hated all the time.

So Hercules had to go and redeem himself; he had to rescue another female.  It is interesting that his two great failures in the labors were with females – first with the female mares and then with the female Amazon queen. This is one of the problems that the disciple has is understanding the female energy and how the female mind and emotions work. It is very difficult when you are in the male body to understand how the female energy works.

Hercules fought her like she was a man for if she were a man he would just have assumed that he is not going to give him the golden girdle and he had to just take it. So he approached her as if she was a man but she was not a man and a female if approached correctly she could have been reasoned with in a way that a man can’t. A female will give to you in a way that a man will not. This keeps us men always coming back to the females and even though we have difficulty understanding, we never leave them alone and we always go back and they always come back to us because we both have pieces to the puzzle that is needed to benefit the whole.

So Hercules has to go rescue another female to redeem himself from his mistake. Sir Thomas Moore and Martin Luther and all these guys probably came back in another life and had to redeem themselves for their illusion about unity. Instead of achieving unity by just doing away with your enemies maybe they came back and were part of the founding fathers – who knows? Maybe they did something through peaceful means that created a better system that would save the lives and freedom of many people.

Now we do not know exactly how it happened with these individuals but they would have to come back and redeem themselves. Hercules had to jump in the water in order to redeem himself, he had to jump back into the pool of emotional energy. Females are very closely associated with emotions so he had to submerge him self in emotion to better understand the female and by submerging himself in the emotions and then jumping into the belly of illusion which is represented by the sea monster and the belly represents emotions again – he is completely submerging himself in the female energy to understand it and how to communicate with the female side. His lesson not only applies to other females but also the female side of his own nature which is partially what he had to save to redeem him self.

Audience: May we have a short summary of Virgo?

JJ: A short summary of Virgo is we achieve unity through understanding our female side and having the male and female energy cooperate to achieve unity rather than attempting to slay or subdue the emotional side. We do not slay our emotional nature and this is a temptation of men is to take pride in not crying and keeping our emotional nature suppressed, but the point is that we need to be in touch with our emotional nature and we do not want to slay it. We are not entirely Clint Eastwood where we are steely eyed and completely unemotional. We have to get in touch with our emotional nature and not slay it but get the cooperation of our emotional self and our mental self and have them work together and cooperate to achieve unity.

Audience: I thought service was a keynote of Virgo.

JJ: The labor is not always directed to the keynote of the signs but it is related to the sign as a whole. He learned to transmit fighting into service by saving the maiden.

Audience: You said these labors correspond more to our rising sign than our sun sign, right?

JJ: Yes it corresponds somewhat but the rising sign tells you what your destiny is whereas your sun sign tells you what your personality influences are in this life. What is your sun sign?

Audience: Virgo

JJ: So your personality, how you show yourself to the world, is very strongly influenced by the Virgo energy. Your mission in life is very strongly associated with your rising sun.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 44

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 44 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Girdle of Hippolyte

The next is the labor sixth done in Virgo, the seizing of the girdle of Hippolyte. There was a group of Amazon women that lived completely isolated from men and only used men for breeding. The queen of the Amazons was named Hippolyte who had this golden girdle which Hercules was commanded to retrieve.
So he went to retrieve it and as he was on his way the Amazons met together and they said a messenger of the gods and a powerful warrior was coming their way. Do they give him the girdle which he seeks or do they fight to keep it? Now they were debating whether to fight to keep it or to give it to him, and as they were debating Hercules arrived early before the debate was over and the decision made.

Hercules demanded the girdle and he began fighting with the queen of the Amazons and as they fought they fought fiercely for a period of time and as they were fighting the queen kept telling Hercules, “we will give you the girdle,” but Hercules had it fixed in his mind that he had to fight for it. Finally Hercules got the best of her and he grabbed the girdle away from her and just as he raised his sword and as he was thrusting in his sword she was making a motion that she was going to give him the girdle. He wound up killing her and retrieving the girdle. He took it to the presiding elders and they said, “You accomplished what you were asked to do but you did it very badly.” The presiding one said, “You killed the person that was going to give you the object of your desire – because of this before you can return to the gate you must redeem yourself.”

So Hercules had to go back and somehow make redemption. As he was wandering around he came across this maid that was captured by this sea monster who had this maid in his mouth. So Hercules saw this and swam out there and when Hercules got there the sea monster gulped the maiden down his red throat clear to his belly. Hercules then grabbed the sea monster, threw it on its back, went into its mouth and down in its belly. He grabbed the maiden and took his sword, cut his way out of the belly and rescued the maiden. Then the presiding elder says, “A life has been taken and a life has been saved and the balance is restored. You can now return to the gate.”

This is in Virgo, what do you suppose the lesson or lessons of this labor is?

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 43

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 43 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

Mastering the Ego

Audience: It seems to correspond somewhat to fear or to some force that you have a weakness with and Hercules choking it is like the law of attrition where the lion cannot get air anymore and it is now deflated.
Audience: Is the lion the personality?

JJ: Very close, what part of the personality in particular do you think?

Audience: Ego?

Audience: The pride?

JJ: Right, it is the ego, the personality and the faults and imperfections that go along with it. Why was everybody so terrified of the lion?

Audience: Have you ever tried to reckon with someone else’s ego?

JJ: (Laughing) Right, and especially our own. Remember all this is an extension of Hercules so looking at it this way, as disciples, are we afraid of our egos and our own lower personalities? Are we afraid of confronting that within our selves?

Audience: I think we are afraid to let it go – we are so wrapped up and invested in that being who we really are.

JJ: Right we do not want to slay it do we? We do not want to slay it because we identify with the lower self. We think that is who we really are but the truth is that we are really sons of God. We are really not that lion and we have to slay the personality so that what we really are can shine forth. We are really sons of God rather than just animal man.

Remember one of the symbolisms behind all the animals is the lower nature which is the animal self that has to be either mastered or slain. The animal self has to be mastered or slain in all of us. So it is interesting that this ego scared everybody. Externally if a person with a big ego comes in the room – have you ever noticed that nobody challenges the guy? They almost seem afraid if him especially if he is an authority figure of some kind. Have you ever been in a class where a distinguished professor is lecturing and nobody dares challenge him? Nobody dare asks him, “what makes you think you are right on this issue,” or point or whatever. Or a religious authority is visiting or something and no one asks “what makes you think that you are right?” Nobody dares to challenge the guy.

Audience: He is intimidating.

Yes he is very intimidating. Have you ever been around someone very intimidating and you felt like you did not dare ask him a question? Especially when I was younger I encountered a number of people like that and as I get older and wiser I am more prepared to confront the lion of the ego in myself, and others. When you think back to when you were younger in school, college it is amazing how easily people of renown and respect may have intimidated you.

So the lion represents the ego. Say you are having a party and when a dominant personality enters the room. People get the impression he speaks with authority and he speaks with a lot of ego presence. Everybody just listens and if people disagree with him they will say nothing. I have been in situations where nobody was speaking up and I thought, boy does everybody in this room think exactly the same way that this guy is talking? And so I challenge the guy and have an argument with him and later people will come up to me later and say, you know I really agreed with you and disagreed with him all the time and I am really glad that you spoke up and challenged the guy. It turns out that few really did agree with him but nobody challenged him because he was the like the lion that everybody was afraid to challenge.

Audience: Dan: Sometimes there is just doesn’t seem like there is any point though.

JJ: Yes, sometimes there is not any point and I do not do that all the time because it may be seen as rude or not do any good, but I do it when I feel that the guy has a powerful ego and he needs a little humility. I am on the mental plane like Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the physical plane and if the guy deserves it then I am going to let him have it. But if he is just rambling on and not making any point then fine but when I feel that these people are following him like sheep and the guy deserves to be questioned because he has such a powerful ego, then I am going to ask him a couple of little questions that is going to upset his little applecart.

When you do this, these guys usually get very upset and insinuate, “who do you think you are questioning me?” They are like the Nemean Lion in this labor of Hercules. Like I say though, it mostly applies to us because all of us have the ego to be conquered and mastered again and again.

We are told that we not only meet the lion in this labor but we meet the lion again and again as we go throughout our discipleship. It is not just slain once and then put away for good. We slay it and then it is dormant for a while and then in another lifetime it will wind up surfacing again. So all of us have to deal with it over a period of cycles until the ego is completely mastered.

Now what did it mean when Hercules wore the skin of the lion?

Audience: Well you still have to have a personality.

JJ: Right but he discarded the old skin and put on a new skin, what does this mean?

Audience: As you change you discard the old personality and put on a new one?

JJ: Often in different types of initiations in groups like the Masons you are given a new name and in the scriptures Abraham was given a new name, Jacob was given a new name. It was changed from Jacob to Israel.

Audience: Star Wars.

JJ: Star Wars?

Audience: Yea, you know where the dark lord sith says to Anakin Skywalker “I shall call you Darth Vader”

JJ: Yes the dark side copies the light.

Audience: You have seen too many movies!

Audience: Yes, I certainly have!

Audience: Laughter!

JJ: When Hercules was young he had become an aspirant and this caused him to change his personality and to put on a new skin right there. But then when he eventually had strong soul contact he shed his old personality and put on a new one. One of the things the Tibetan says about the personality is the disciple manufactures his own personality after he advances so far.

In other words, he decides what his personality is going to be. And so his personality then becomes developed again to become a useful tool for service, where his old skin was no longer useful and he felt he had no control over it. But the new skin he puts on shows us that he still has a personality that he likes and is useful in the service of mankind. He no longer says, “I am what I am and there is nothing I can do about it.” Have you ever tried to point out a needed change in a person and they say, “Well, that is just the way that I am, that is me.”

I will tell one more story then we will continue. When was on a mission for the Mormon Church every companion I was assigned to had at least one irritating thing about them. On a mission you change people you worked with about every 3 months and I got this new guy and I really liked him and I thought this was somebody that I liked completely except he had one little fault. He sang all day long. He sang Rogers & Hammerstein and at that time I did not like them very well for I liked rock & roll. He would sing this stuff all day long and we would be walking along and he would be singing, “Some Enchanted Evening” (JJ singing the line)

Audience: Roaring with laughter!

JJ: Now I was a little bit intimidated by the Nemean Lion in this guy and I did not say anything for about six weeks and finally I could not handle it anymore for it was just about to drive me crazy. Finally, I said, elder, you are a good singer of classical songs (putting it to him as gently as I could) but your singing is driving me crazy! Could you please not sing so much? And he told me – he said, “That is just who I am, sorry.” Then he began to sing again, “some enchanted evening.” (JJ singing the line again)

Audience: Roaring with laughter!

JJ: I felt like hitting the guy and knocking him out and boy was I ever happy to get transferred away from him! Laughing!

When Hercules finally went to slay the lion he had to chase it around and this is what we have to do with the ego. We have to pursue it because the ego is very elusive and it makes a lot of noise but once it finds out that you are going to master it and destroy its power over you, you find out that all that power was just noise and it is really afraid of you.

So you have to go after the lower self because the lower self wants to remain in control. You know if you pay attention to your lower nature it is almost like it is a separate entity. For instance, have you ever noticed that if you get angry you feel those stirrings inside of you and if you silence yourself down for a moment and let those emotions continue to rumble you will notice that it is like there are little lives inside of you with a life of their own.

There are little deva and elemental lives that are giving the anger that energy and this is an interesting thing to contemplate that when you feel these emotions they really have a life of their own. We are a composite life of many other smaller lives.

The easiest life to feel is the anger and even afterwards it lingers for a period of time, even if you get yourself in the soul. If you separate yourself and be the observer then you can see that your emotions are really not you but they are a vehicle composed of smaller lives, yet very potent. When these lower lives see that you are after them as a whole to master them and dominate them then instead of them coming after you, you must go after them for they become afraid of you.

The lower parts of our selves do not want to be dominated and they will resist domination completely and change shape or do whatever is necessary. Finally the lion goes and enters into a cave and what does this cave mean? A cave is normally symbolic of consciousness and whenever you have a dream and you dream of going into a room or a cave or anything like this it is a symbol of you entering into a conscious state which is hidden from your normal vision. In other words if you dream of entering a basement it is a symbol of lower consciousness. If you are going up stairs then you are going to a higher state of consciousness but there is usually something in these rooms that is hidden from your normal state of consciousness. So if you ever dream about going into rooms or a cave pay attention to what is going there because there will be clues there to what your subconscious mind is trying to give you that you are not catching onto in your physical life.

So the ego goes into this cave and Hercules goes after it in the depths of his own consciousness to try and find the ego but he cannot find it and the ego has disappeared. So the disciple searches for the ego to master and when he goes inside of himself he concludes that maybe my ego is not here after all and maybe I am okay and everybody is okay.

Then he finds the lion roaming around outside again terrorizing the neighborhood and he finds that he does have an ego to master after all. So what he finally does is to seal an exit. He recognizes that the ego is in his consciousness and the lower self has to be dominated and he is going to find it this time and is not going to allow an exit.

He goes into his own consciousness and examines himself and comes face to face with the problems created by his own lower personality. He finally realizes and comes face to face with the fact that his lower personality is creating a lot of problems for himself, his friends, his family, his community and it terrorizes and creates difficulties and problems.

Have you ever noticed that people often want to avoid someone with a very powerful personality? People think that the guy with a strong personality is well-liked but the truth is that few really want to be around him because of a powerful personality. They may want to be around him in maybe a professional relationship that serves their need but in the private intimate relationship the lion has few true friends for himself until he dominates the personality because people are agitated, irritated or scared of the powerful ego.

So the disciple comes face to face with that in himself. You will notice that many people that do become teachers have powerful personalities and many of them are hard to bear in normal or intimate circumstances. I hope I am not too hard for you people bear for I have been accused many times of having a powerful ego myself and I am sure every teacher has, but eventually everybody must come face to face with that ego and not allow it to exit and dominate it and slay it. Then one must take its skin and make clothes for the outer personality in a way that is intelligible and usable for the disciple.

You will notice that when Hercules goes into town wearing the lion’s skin that the lion’s skin is now a usable thing and does not scare anybody because that old life that was in it does not exist anymore. The new life of the soul which is now Hercules is now covered by the skin so when the soul is covered by the personality and within the personality is the dominate soul of Hercules then the people rejoice and are happy to have the skin of the lion there where before they were afraid or they did not like the lion in their community.

Audience: Could this labor correspond to the dweller on the threshold or not?

JJ: It could. Several of the labors in here could correspond to the dweller for the ego could be part of the dweller experience. I would not say it is directly related to the dweller because the ego does not attack us, it feeds us whereas when we go after the dweller it will attack us head with in a full frontal assault. It is a little bit similar but the personality itself is not the dweller. If I remember correctly one of these other labors, maybe involving the hydra, could more correspond to that dweller.

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 42

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 42 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Nemean Lion

This next is a very interesting one and it is Curtis’s favorite because he is a Leo and it is about the slaying of the Nemean lion. There was once this land where people lived that was plagued by this giant, terrible, frightful lion. He roamed the countryside and if anyone got into his way he tore them to pieces and ate them and this terrified the people who lived there and they were afraid to go outside. People were starving to death because they could not even plow their fields for fear of getting eaten by this horrible lion. They did not leave their homes unless their life was at stake and this whole land was filled with terror because of this lion. He was a terrible thing and they were praying for some type of deliverer to come and free them from this horrible nightmare they were trapped in.

Hercules was told to go and free the people from the Nemean Lion. So all he takes with him is his trusty club along with his bow and arrows. So when goes to the land where the lion is they see that he traveled light with hardly any weapons. They wanted a man with armor and many weapons because this lion feared nothing. They wanted someone to put the fear of God into it and destroy it.

The people did not have much faith in Hercules because he traveled light but Hercules was sublimely confident and told the people that they did not to worry that he would take care of this lion. One day the lion shows up terrifying the land and its people and he spotted Hercules and he started to run towards him. Hercules did not run from the lion and this was the first man the lion had ever met who was not afraid of him.

Hercules stood his ground, prepared to fight the lion and as the lion approached him he became a little nervous thinking, “Why is this man not afraid of me?” He came very close to Hercules and let out a terrible roar that made the trees shake and Hercules just stood there ready to do battle with the lion. This made lion a little nervous so he took off and hid from Hercules. The story continues where Hercules had to pursue the lion. One time he got the lion within his line of sight and he shot an arrow at him and it just ricocheted off the lion and did not even hurt him.

Hercules wondered how he would kill this lion, he seemed to so powerful, but Hercules was determined to proceed because this was his mission so he had to kill this lion. He pursues the lion through the forest and the lion keeps evading him until finally they come to this cave.

Here Hercules has an idea, he will chase the lion into this cave and then the lion will have to face him. The lion goes into the cave and Hercules follows only to find that there is no lion in the cave and he cannot figure out where the lion went to, so he waits and he chases the lion in the cave again and once again the lion is not in there. So Hercules looks around the cave and he finds that it has an exit out the other side and he figures out that when he chases the lion in the cave, the lion then exits out the other side and escapes.

This time Hercules seals off the exit so that he cannot escape and has the lion cornered. He realizes that his bow and arrow are useless against the lion and the only way for him to kill him was with his bare hands. So he approaches the lion with only his bare hands and a great struggle ensues, after a great struggle with the lion he chokes him to death.

The garb that Hercules wore was made from the lion that he had killed when he was a child and this was very worn by now so he discards it and takes the new skin of the Nemean Lion that he had just killed and he asks his teacher if he could wear it to substitute for the old skin and the teacher said yes. So he put on the skin of the Nemean Lion and goes back to the towns’ people and explains to them that he has killed the lion and they are free. Hercules is wearing the skin of the lion. There is rejoicing throughout the land and Hercules is the hero, and he has accomplished his mission.

JJ: What do you suppose the lion represents?

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 41

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 41 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

Mastering the Intuition

Hercules would hold the doe close to his heart for he did not even have to chase him. Now what does this tell us?

Audience: That we are destined to become a part of the intuition.

JJ: Right the disciples pursue the doe over and over again and it gets easier and easier and eventually they develop the intuition to the extent that they can tune into it whenever they want. They can tune into the oneness principle whenever they want and they can have all the knowledge available but until the great struggle is consummated there is great difficulty. They see a little flash here and another little flash there. For instance, I hear a lot of people say they get soul contact and perceive things that are true a little bit here and there but the knowledge is fleeting and the source seems illusive.

Audience: So what connects the link or the anchor? Is that aspiration or focus? How do you create the link as when Hercules shot the doe in the foot?

JJ: Let us go through the symbolism. The arrow symbolizes the mind stretching and searching for truth at a higher level, so, in other words, to shoot the arrow you have to aim with a sure eye. So you are looking for the intuition but it is fleeting time and time again Then, all of a sudden, you spot it at a time when it is just sitting there. You rise to the intuitive level for the first time in many lifetimes. Perhaps you have gotten a glimpse of reality and it is not going away and you are in a state of consciousness which is just there, so you focus with your mind and anchor that position.

We have to create an anchor to keep the higher things with us. The will of God when perceived is fleeting like the intuition. There has to an anchor made with all higher realities and that is symbolized when Hercules shoots the arrow part where it anchors the higher and the lower in his consciousness and then he can go back and reflect on that moment when he had that higher state of consciousness and anchor it in the mind and secure it in consciousness. This allowed Hercules to capture the doe and keep it with him close to his heart.

Audience: So you basically focus and reflect on that bit of intuition that you had and contemplate it until it becomes anchored.

JJ; Right, in the beginning the doe is just fleeting about and you are not even sure you are seeing it because it fleets about so fast and you think, did I see the doe or did I not? I thought I saw and I saw enough to that I think it is there so I am going to pursue it. Eventually you have some experience come to you where heaven and earth is united within you. You use the intuition and you know you are focused upon it and you are sure of it and keep it in your sights and anchor it to the higher and lower self so you can return to that moment and retrieve the intuition of that thing anytime you want.

But there are all kinds of things to learn through the intuitive level and you will earn them and have to re-capture them. When you do it the second time is easier and the third is easier still and then eventually the intuition of the doe comes to you because it becomes your friend. Eventually you do not even have to search for it and it will come to you.

Audience: What is the meaning of putting the doe on the sacred alter?

JJ: this is a good question. It means that the things that you received from the intuition, you return to the alter of God. In other words, you give credit to God and you recognize that God is the source of the things that come through the intuitive mind.

Audience: I was thinking sacrificial.

JJ: No it is not a sacrifice but a dedication to God.

Audience: What is the relationship to the sign of Cancer with intuition?

JJ: That is a good question, Cancer is a water sign and Cancer is represented by the crab that sticks his arms and legs out into the feeling world and then brings them back and he does it very cautiously at first. He senses all these feelings for this is a normal thing for him. Now intuition is a higher octave of feeling.

The orthodox interpretation of Cancer concerns dealing with regular emotion, but here in the labor of Hercules we are talking about the higher level of feeling which is intuition so it is a little bit like the crab who explores the feeling world a little bit at time. It explores then withdraws, explores then withdraws, until it is finally able to feel comfortable with all those feelings out there.

He does the same thing on the higher world but he explores and gets a little taste of the intuition withdraws and then explores a little more until he immerses himself in the intuition and it becomes his friend so to speak.

Those who fought Hercules and tried to stop him were Artemis, which is instinct, and Diana the huntress which represents the intellect. Then there is Apollo the sun god who truly owned the intuition. In other words the intuitive level belongs to God within and that is where it rightfully belongs.  Then there is the false God without that is the source of illusion.

But there are two goddesses that claim it who do not have a right to it. In other words, many people think that instinct and intuition are the same thing and they are not. They are two different things. What is the difference between them?

Audience: Instinct is a built in drive of survival and intuition is a developed higher feeling nature that you have to acquire with hard work, attention and focus.

Audience; From my view it seems like instinct is submerged in details and facts of a situation and its nature is to react and respond to a stimulus whereas intuition is all above it and has that overshadowing kind of effect, it can understand and see.

JJ: Natives in the jungle are very instinctive because they are  in tune with the animal nature so they get a feeling when it is going to rain or they may know that there are certain dangers from an animal in the jungle that guys like us would not have a clue about. Or they may have a feeling as to where and find water or something like that.

Animals are very instinctive; they are instinctive as to when there is danger and this where their instinct helps to save their lives. Instinct is not intuition and because they are both kind of supernatural they are often times lumped together but they are two separate things. Intuition is a much higher octave of instinct in the fact that intuition is a super sensory thing that takes us to the intuitive plane where we bring down ideas, concepts and principles so that it is registered in the brain.

When this happens it does not have a lot to do with instinct, but just like instinct keeps us alive physically the intuitive nature keeps us alive spiritually. Now the other person that claimed it was Diana the huntress who represents intellect. She thought that the intellect, especially the higher intellect was the same as intuition. Because many people look at a problem and solve it through the intellect and they compare this to somebody else who has solved it through the intuition they think they are doing the same thing but they are not.

Solving something through the intellect can take you so far but in the teaching state, the mind slays the real and you get to the point where you reach a dead end with the intellect alone. You can solve a lot of problems with the intellect alone but in a lot of areas especially when we get into the spiritual dimension we reach a dead end and the most popular dead end for the intellect lies with a simple question, “Is there a God?”

You can make an intellectual argument for the existence of God and you can make an intellectual argument for their not being a God. The only way you are going to get a higher grasp of it is through the intuition – not through the intellect because you reach a dead end with it. You get into the intuitive level and when you get that flash of that doe you think that doe belongs to God and “if I follow that doe, I can find God.” This turns out to be true.

Many atheists have broken through the veil of atheism by seeing a glimpse of that doe after they hit that dead end and they think I am going to follow that doe to see if it does lead to God and they find out that it does. They discover God and find out the mystery through the intuition rather than the intellect. Then after they find out they use it again and again and again and they go and pursue the intuition and discover many dimensions of learning that was beyond what the mind alone could do. Every time something is discovered through the intuition seekers also find that it is satisfying to the intellect. It is logical and it makes sense and the person will ask, how come my mind could not figure this out because in hindsight it is really pretty simple. But to discover it they needed the intuition.

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 40

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 40 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Capture of the Doe

Next is labor four – the sign of Cancer, the capture of the doe or hind. Hercules was told go and capture this doe which is very quick on its feet and runs around in the woods, and it is very fleeting. He says this is a real simple test for you Hercules; all you have to do is go and capture this doe and take it to the sacred alter. Hercules says, well that sounds pretty simple.

There are a couple other problems involved though; there are several other people that claim the doe. Diana the hunter who claimed to have ownership of the doe, Apollo the sun god claimed the rightful ownership and Artemis also claimed ownership as well. So three other gods claimed ownership of the doe and the presiding one says to Hercules that he might have a problem with them but go and find the doe anyway.

Hercules goes to the woods and every time he sees the doe it is very quick and fleeting. It feeds quickly and then jumps into the woods again. So he searches and catches another glimpse of it and pursues it and loses it again. It is just gone, it is really a very fast little thing for it goes through the pastures and it fleets through them very quickly and then it is gone.

On top of this, the other two gods, Artemis and Diana think they own it so they do everything they can to subvert Hercules and they trick him into not finding the doe. And for a long period time he just catches a glimpse here and a glimpse there and he has the hardest time trying to track down this doe – it is not as easy as he thought it was going to be.

Then finally he catches a glimpse of the doe in a pasture and very quietly he pulls his bow and arrow out and he shoots the doe in the foot and that slows it down enough to where he is able to grab it. He grasps it, holds it close to his heart and takes it to the great central alter of the gods. The gods accept the doe and tell him this is good and they will keep it but Hercules wanted to keep it to himself because he had spent so much time searching and tracking the doe. The gods said no, that he had to let it go.

So he left it at the sacred alter and then he came back the next day and found that the doe was not at the alter but fleeting around the woods again. He said boy this is weird what is going on here I took it to the alter and now it fleeting around the woods. I thought they wanted it left at the alter. The great teacher said to him, the doe must be captured again and again and again until it is held close to the heart and you are entirely familiar with it.

Does anyone have any idea what this doe is?

Audience: The soul?

JJ: Close, something discovered through the soul.

Audience: Wisdom?

JJ: No

Audience: Soul contact?

JJ: No

Audience: The mind?

JJ: No

Audience: Intuition?

JJ: Correct, we are all disciples like Hercules and commanded to go and find our intuition and when we first begin to develop it we just see a flash of it like the doe flashing through the woods and we say what was that? And when we first catch a glimpse of it we think that there is something important there but it came and went so fast that we didn’t get it. But you get a sense this is something one must pursue because there is something important in finding the intuition. So he continues to pursue it and he catches another glimpse and another glimpse and another glimpse and he does not get discouraged. He does not quit because the more he catches a glimpse the more the disciple understands that developing intuitive powers is extremely important. So finally he catches a glimpse of the doe in the pasture and he pulls his trusty arrow and he shoots the doe in the foot. Do you have any idea what that would symbolize?

Audience: Attention, focus?

JJ: does anyone remember what the Antahkarana is in the words of the Tibetan?

Audience: The link between the monad and the personality?

JJ: It is the link between the higher and the lower self. He established an anchor with the intuition, an anchor between the material side of life and the intuition. You establish that anchor by striking it in the symbolic foot. He did not strike it in the heart – he did not kill the intuition but it established an anchor or a link and by establishing a link with the intuition he was able to hold it close to the heart as he did when he carried it to the alter of God.

When he took it to the alter of God it seemed like he would then have it forever but it was released and there it was fleeting back in the woods again. This tells us that we have to establish an anchor and then we let it go a little and leave everything in the hands of God and behold all of sudden we pursue another line of endeavor and we find that we have to pursue the intuition all over again with another line of endeavor.

When we pursue the intuition the first time it leads us to the answer of some mystery or question or some principle that we are reflecting upon and then we get a full knowledge of that one thing. Then we have to leave it at the altar but when we want to seek another avenue of learning we find that the intuition is floating about the woods again. We have to rediscover it all over again.

It is interesting the story ends with Hercules staying at this particular place and going in and out of the gate of this particular labor and pursuing the doe over and over again not because he has to but eventually because he enjoys it. After a period of time going in and out of the gate, meaning going in and out of incarnation, he pursues the doe again and again and it says eventually the doe will become a friend to Hercules and later the doe even comes up to him. They become so close together that often times the doe would come up to him and Hercules would hold the doe close to his heart for he did not even have to chase him. Now what does this tell us?

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 39

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 39 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Journey to Wisdom

JJ: So next in his quest Hercules comes across Prometheus – another human being who is being tortured and in dire need. He thinks he is giving up his quest for the golden apples when what is really happening?
Audience: He is getting closer to them.

JJ: Right, he was actually taking one of the real steps toward the golden apples and that was service. To get the golden apples of wisdom one of the paths that we have to take is service, to be of service to all men, to be able to help people alleviate their pains. Prometheus represented humanity as a whole. The vultures were picking at his solar plexus. This depicts our emotional nature for our emotional nature gives us much grief and pain. Understanding our emotional nature and our complexities and being able to help people that are in emotional pain and lift them out of it requires a lot of wisdom. If a person is in a physical situation like Prometheus it is a bit different but when we switch over to an emotional nature, solving emotional problems like being a marriage counselor is probably one of the most difficult jobs on the earth.

Audience: Wasn’t Prometheus bound to that rock because he stole fire from the gods?

JJ: Yes that is part of the story as a matter of fact Prometheus shows up again in another labor and we will talk about him more then.

Audience: So Prometheus as a symbol is all of humanity doing what? Evolving?

Audience member answering: When Prometheus stole fire from the gods it is like when we get an inflated ego from our actions and so he had to suffer. The graphic suffering being his liver, he suffered this by day but it healed by night because it is in the darkness of ourselves that we struggle and then we come back around to that feeling of wholeness and self humility that we arrive at and that is just the story of man.

JJ Okay thank you, now Atlas was holding up all the cares of the world on his shoulders what does this represent?

Audience: Inaudible

JJ: One of the interesting statements from Jesus is, “Follow me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” When you think of the story of the crucifixion you do not really think that. Whether or not your burden is light is not dependent on what is happening outwardly. It is interesting that people believe that He took upon himself the sins of the world. He went to the Garden of Gethsemane and he sweated blood and then he goes to the cross and yet He says my yoke is easy and my burden is light!

Now if He can say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” why can’t we say that? We look at our own lives and we think, wow I have it harder than anybody I know. Many people think this about themselves. Of course we do not know everything that is going on in everyone’s mind but once you explore a little bit you find that most people think they have it pretty tough. So it is interesting that He made that statement “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” when he faced such a monumental amount of pain that He had to go through. This boils down to attitude.

Atlas stands for humanity and we as human beings think that we are carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders and we are waiting for Hercules the higher self to come and take that weight off of us. We are all waiting and let me ask you this – where is the Hercules in our lives that all of us are waiting for? For some people it may be your parents, for others it may be your spouse. For some it may be your Guru, for others it may be dying and going to heaven. Some say, “I am not going to be burdened anymore, this life is the pits but Jesus is going to reward me when I go to heaven. We are all waiting for Hercules to come and take the burden off of our shoulders. What did Hercules find out about the burden?

Audience: The world was okay without him holding it up.

JJ: Yes the world can take care of itself. It was all for nothing and there was no burden to be worried about. In other words, the things that burden us down and make us feel the weight of responsibility is built on illusion and is not even really there. That is why even when Jesus was faced with a terrible situation he could say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” – because of the way He looked at the situation.

As a matter of fact there was a story in one of the apocrypha books that was supposed to be written by Peter. When Jesus was being nailed to the cross He was laughing. I thought that was kind of funny but on the other hand I think it is entirely possible that it may have been true.

Since Jesus was a Master of the physical world it is quite possible that He could have negated the physical pain if He so chose. He might have thought the situation was kind of amusing.

So it is interesting that what maybe really happened could have been totally different than the Passion of The Christ as presented by Mel Gibson even though that movie does make you really think it is quite possible that the reality was quite different. Maybe His yoke was easy and His burden was light clear to the end. There was one great struggle He had which was in the Garden of Gethsemane which was like one of the labors of Hercules where we have to face a great crisis. We will talk more about that as well.

Lets move on. It turned out that Atlas and the three maidens were guarding the tree and when they saw that Hercules had obtained wisdom, that he desired to serve and to alleviate people from their suffering. This produced wisdom so they gave him the golden apples freely. But then when he had the golden apples he decided he would just leave them there for the next person. He did not even eat them himself but saw that the best thing to do would be to leave them for the next traveler.

It is interesting that when he had the physical apples that he chose not to partake in them. Why? Because wisdom is not physical. You cannot hold wisdom in your hand. Anything representative of wisdom he would leave it for the next guy and he would find out the reality of it as he goes through the same struggle. I think that is a beautiful story.

Audience: We had Aries and Taurus, did this come in as a Gemini?

JJ: Yes the golden apples are in the sign of Gemini and one of the lessons that we overlooked was the fact that he had to learn the duality of things because the Gemini represents the dualities. So on his search for wisdom he balanced off the outward with the inner. The two sides of the Gemini are the outward and the inner, matter and spirit as he balanced them together and by finding that balance he obtained the wisdom.

JJ: There is a story of a student that came to Socrates and he says, Socrates I want wisdom and knowledge like you have; what do I have to do? And that is what Hercules asked, where do I find the golden apples? And he was told “I am not going to tell you.”

Socrates said to the student, come out with me and wade in this lake about waist high and I will show you The student said okay so they wondered out into the lake about waist high and Socrates grabs him by the head and pushes his head under water and holds it there about a minute and then brings his head up. The student says what in the world did you do that for? Socrates says, when I had your head in the water what did you want more than anything else in the world? He says air and the longer I was down there the more I wanted it. Socrates replied, “When you want wisdom as much as you wanted air you will then be as smart as me.

I’ve always liked that story which likened to Hercules wanting wisdom, Hercules wanted wisdom like he wanted air and he searched for it and he did not give up and when he found it was not in the way that he thought he would find it. When he was being delayed by helping Prometheus, Atlas and all these other guys that was really part of his journey in finding wisdom. The finding if the wisdom was in the journey not in the ultimate destination. It is a little bit like fun; fun is in the journey, not in getting there.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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