As Above and So Below On Samhain (Halloween) means finding the real magic.
It’s my favorite holiday of the year, even though it marks the end of summer, my favorite season. Apparently I’m not the only one. Halloween continues to grow in popularity. According to the National Retail Federation HALLOWEEN SPENDING is estimated to reach $8.4 BILLION U.S. in 2016.
I can’t help but wonder if the interest goes deeper than candy and costumes, at least subconsciously. For thousands of years, long before Christianity, our pagan ancestors (in the northern hemisphere) celebrated the final harvest of the year at late autumn. It was a time to honor the dead, by honoring life, knowing the dark and colder half of the year beckoned.
When we light our Halloween pumpkins and summon our inner ghouls for fun, I believe we’re taking part in an ancient collective memory. It’s far older and universal than any religion but primordial, a whisper from the beginning of time.
The quote “As above so below” is well known to those interested in alchemy and paganism. It holds the secret of life but is tricky to explain.
The inscription is found inside the tomb of Hermes Trismegistus, father of alchemy, author of Hermetic Corpus and Emerald Tablet, a lost source of wisdom but one key piece remains.
The link has a fascinating selection of translations. It is in itself a mind-boggling look at how any knowledge is skewed and tinkered over millennia.
The easiest to understand (maybe) is:
2) As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles.
3) And since all things exist in and eliminate from the ONE Who is the ultimate Cause, so all things are born after their kind from this ONE.
4) The Sun is the father, the Moon the mother;
5) the wind carried it in his belly. Earth is its nurse and its guardian.
6) It is the Father of all things,
6a) the eternal Will is contained in it.
7) Here, on earth, its strength, its power remain one and undivided.
7a) Earth must be separated from fire, the subtle from the dense, gently with unremitting care.
8) It arises from the earth and descends from heaven; it gathers to itself the strength of things above and things below.
9) By means of this one thing all the glory of the world shall be yours and all obscurity flee from you.
10) It is power, strong with the strength of all power, for it will penetrate all mysteries and dispel all ignorance.
11a) By it the world was created.
12) From it are born manifold wonders, the means to achieving which are here given
13) It is for this reason that I am called Hermes Trismegistus; for I possess the three essentials of the philosophy of the universe.
14) This is the sum total of the work of the Sun.
###
As Within, So Without,
As above, So below.
It can be interpreted in many ways but this is the most simplistic.
As Within – How we think, our internal life.
So Without – Is expressed or reflected externally.
As above – Your mind.
So below – Your body and environment.
We are what we think and what goes around comes around.
There is no better time than Halloween and November 1st, All Soul’s Day or Dia de los Muertos to honor yourself by taking the time to honor our ancestors. When we think of our spot in the continuum of life on this planet, it puts everything into perspective.
Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain. Here’s a scary post from two years ago. It reflected on how little time I’m spending at this blog and yet here we are still feeling the tug of time. It feels like a holding pattern, slow bird circles in the sky, waiting, waiting for something new to emerge.
Yesterday, a huge flock of birds swirled around in circles above our property. My husband and stood at stared at the marvel of coordination. How on earth did they not bump into each other? I’d seen it on a video somewhere before and had to Google it. I learned a new word and what a poetic one: MURMURATION.
