This morning, I opened Orion Foxwood's book, The Faery Teachings* and found yet again that it is so often my conceptual orientation to language that erects barriers in my mind. The terms “Upper” “Middle” and “Lower” are frequently used to describe shamanic cosmologies. Yet Upper, Middle and Lower are–in my mind’s eye and sense–linear and remote, informed irrevocably by
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Strange Worlds
Shamans return to the world of the living with conscious knowledge of the inner realms.
R. Grimassi
Shamanic line drawings trace a path through ‘swaying places’ (trials and obstacles) marked by water, sand & clouds.
The Book of Symbols 430
Ascent origin = ascendere (latin) to climb, or freedom from weight. oft paired with descent. May signify the volatilizing of a solid / the spiritualizing of matter / making conscious unconscious projections. Integration of polarities: ladder, tree, stairs…in alchemy ascent must necessarily be followed by descent (shaman returns to body).
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