Soul Matters Volume Six: Bondage Battleground

Phil worked most of the afternoon. His job was helping environmental companies with their green agenda. Since his background was insurance, Phil figured out a polluting company’s liability exposure and reported it to a green company. The green company would approach the target corporation with alternative technologies that, it was hoped, they would see as cost effective in the long term.

It seemed to be working as Phil was still getting paid a respectable consulting fee.

Since it was Wednesday, Pam was on his schedule for dinner. They met at a cozy Italian restaurant off Pacific Coast Hwy. She was wearing dark slacks and a light crème blouse. He was under-dressed in jeans and a V-neck sweater.

Pam was thin, even featured with light brown hair to her shoulders. Her face reflected a hard life with wrinkles and coarse skin. She looked better today than when he first met her. She was smoothing out and gaining self-confidence.

After they were seated she asked, “Heard anything from Pastor Mike?”

“He’s out of the psychiatric hospital and leading retreats on inter-denominational spirituality up in Oregon.”

“I’m glad to hear it. What about your daughter?”

“Donna’s doing well in college. We talk every week or so.”

Pam sipped her water before saying, “You never did tell me the whole story.”

“What’s to tell? Pastor Mike was having a spiritual emergency. We helped him through it.”

The waiter arrived and took their orders. Phil decided on seafood linguini; Pam went with scampi. When the waiter left, Pam continued.

“It doesn’t make sense, Phil. No one gets into the monastery like you did. And Pastor Mike had his whole church to help him. Yet there you were in the middle of it with the abbot helping out. There was more going on. And then your daughter shows up for no apparent reason.”

“She and Pastor Mike have some history.”

“What are you hiding, Phil?”

“Nothing,” he said and knew he couldn’t dodge some kind of explanation much longer. “I just don’t see the point of going into it.”

“It’s what friends do,” she smiled. “They share their worlds with each other.”

“And what kind of friends are we?” he smiled back.

The warm mini-loaf of bread and their salads showed up, and Phil hoped he could change the subject.

“How’s your job?” he asked in an attempt to change the subject.

“Good. But let me answer your other question. Right now we’re the kind of friends where you know all there is to know about me -- all my dirty little secrets, everything. I know what you let me see, and it’s not much. You could be a government assassin for all I know.”

“I’m not. I’m an insurance consultant, divorced, with two kids in college.”

She shot back, “Who is on a first-name basis with famous Buddhist monks, and has the run of an upscale psychiatric hospital. How does that figure in?”

“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?” Phil concluded as he finished his salad. A busboy quickly removed it and filled their water glasses.

“The more you avoid telling me, the more intrigued I get.”

“Well, it has to do with my spiritual training,” Phil said with a slow, heavy sigh. “I’ve got a rather weird teacher, and things get out-of-hand every so often.”

“What training? You’re not Buddhist.”

“No. It’s more like shamanism.”

Her eyebrows arched a fraction. “Interesting. Can you tell me more?”

“I’m working out the deeper truths in the Bible.”

Pam frowned and waited for their entrees to be served before she asked, “How do I fit in?”

“I’m not sure you do. Although you entered my life at the same time I was working on the Prophet Hosea. Maybe you are to me what Hosea’s wife was to him.”

They ate in silence and Phil remembered Manuel told him to clean up his life. Now seemed like an opportunity. Even so, he didn’t know what there was to clean up. Maybe Pam did. She certainly came with an agenda tonight.

After she sampled her scampi, she asked uncertainly, “Wasn’t Hosea the one who married a temple prostitute?”

“Yes, but the rocky marriage may just be a metaphor about the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. The temple prostitute idea may mean the deteriorating affiliation between Yahweh and the goddess Ashurah. In fact, the whole story isn’t too clear.”

“Yahweh had a wife?”

“Ashurah. She was an early mother goddess called the queen of heaven.”

“Like Isis?”

“And Innana, Astarte, Ishtar. All those myths overlapped quite a bit,” Phil answered with soft certainty.

Pam slipped into a pensive mood and focused on her food. Phil was content with the silence since he had no idea where to take the conversation.

Presently she asked, “Are you using me?”

Surprised at this new turn, Phil responded, “I hope not. I mean, if I am it’s unintentional.”

“Good. I’ve been used enough, but what do you see in me?”

He thought to answer with a few stock responses he knew worked on women -- well, they worked on his ex-wife. What Betty couldn’t handle was the mess Manuel made of Phil’s life. Instead, he tried honesty.

“I don’t know. You’re a good person. We get along. We’re both striving to better ourselves, but I don’t know what the attraction is. Karmic debt, maybe. That’s been a theme of late.”

“Do you love me?”

Phil sighed and put down his fork. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I understand love anymore, or if I ever did.”

“Me, too. But why did you help me?”

“Because I could. Because you deserved a chance. I was here; you were there. It seemed the right thing to do.”

“Yeah. There was a kind of destiny, wasn’t there?”

They finished dinner. Busboys removed the plates. Dessert was spumoni ice cream and coffee.

“Phil, if our relationship has something to do with Hosea and his wife, could it be Yahweh tried to impose his patriarchal ways on Ashurah and she would have none of it?”

“It’s as good a theory as any other I’ve read.”

“Could it be we both escape that yoke?”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but you’ve already given me the chance to be free. Maybe I can do the same for you.”

“Free me from what?” Phil asked, and immediately realized his prison may be invisible to him. “Can you see where I’m trapped?”

Her laughter broke the mood, and she smiled, “How could I? I know so little about you.”

They returned to his place rather than hers. Pam shared her apartment with two female roommates. Their lovemaking was sweet and unhurried. In the after-glow she snuggled close.

“It shows up here, Phil. You haven’t let go completely since the first time we were together. There’s something you hold in reserve.”

“You’re talking about where I’m trapped.”

“Yes. It’s like you’re worried about me or something. There’s a critic or censor in bed with us.”

Soon she fell asleep. Phil lay awake and considered her words. It was true what she said. There was always that someone peering over his shoulder, taking notes in silence, but disapproval came through -- always. Never approval; he had never felt approval from this internal presence. He dropped off to sleep with subtle anxiety for even thinking about it.

Phil awoke to his phone ringing. Pam was gone. She started work at 8am. The bedside clock said it was nearly 9am. He grabbed the phone.

“Hi, it’s Becky. I talked to my friend, Christie. Let’s go surfing and at lunch I’ll tell you her answers to your questions.”

“Okay. How about half an hour?”

The sky was cloudy and the surf wasn’t great but good enough for Phil to practice simple left-hand maneuvers. Between sets, they sat on their boards gazing out to sea.

“Becky, remember the one time we had sex? Why didn’t it work?”

“I don’t know. We could try it again, and I could take notes. I don’t have orgasms anyway.”

“You don’t?” he asked, surprised by her answer.

“I did once, but my jackass boyfriend would stop in the middle of it and laugh at me.”

“Really?” He didn't know how to respond to this disclosure. What kind of jackass would do that to someone?

She nodded, “I don’t know what I ever saw in him. Probably my own desperation. Anyway, if you want, we could get it on again. I’ll eat an apple while you’re doing your thing and take notes on your performance.”

Then she laughed, a pure sound of off-the-wall enjoyment.

Phil wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. “No. I couldn’t do that.”

“I’m kidding, but the idea of it is pretty funny.”

“The idea of it comes from a disturbed mind.”

She laughed harder.

They rode the next set of waves to the beach and headed for the breakfast café.

She pulled a notebook from her daypack after they ordered from the list of omelets available.

“See. I took notes when I was talking to Christie,” Becky began with a coy smile. “Temple prostitute. There’s no real evidence there was such a thing, except within the fertility cults. On the other question, there were three classes or orders of women who attended to the Mesopotamian goddesses: nuns, novices and lay women. Female scribes. More like secretaries. They did copying, but were never responsible for anything important. Does that help?”

She put away her notebook and turned to her coffee.

Phil answered, “Not much. I was hoping for a clue on the direction I ought to take.”

“What was the sex thing all about?”

“I’ve been told I hold something back.”

“Pam?”

“You know about her?”

“Sandy told me. I think what you’ve done for her is admirable. But, you know, women like her are dangerous.”

The omelets arrived. His was a Spanish omelet; hers, the signature chili cheese. After he sampled his, Phil went on.

“We’ve got some kind of twisted destiny together.”

“That’s what I thought about Jackass.”

“You’re worried about me.”

“I am. What you’re doing for me is admirable, too. I don’t want you to leave before we’re done.”

The conversation turned to surfing technique, but Phil realized both these women depended on him in ways no one had ever depended on him before. He wasn’t sure he was up to the task. It probably came from too many years living with an internal atmosphere of disapproval.

There was no other choice. Phil needed Manuel’s help. That afternoon, he sat on the black leather cushion and dropped into meditation. The door appeared, and he marched stoically into Manuel’s garden patio. The angel appeared moments later.

“What is it?” he snapped as he moved quickly to the marble bench.

Phil was taken aback by the angel’s abrupt greeting. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Always. I’m ‘helping’ the angry sisterhood of man-eating feminists see the error of their ways.” Manuel replied without sitting on the bench. Then he started pacing.

“Really? How?”

“The CDC will be issuing a report about how hatred and anger eat you up from the inside out. But it affects women more than men. Anger and hatred are triggers for certain auto-immune system diseases.”

“Is that really true?”

“Of course, it’s true," Manuel snapped. "Why do you think the Buddha spent so much time on it?”

“No. I mean the part about women being more susceptible.”

“Yep. It’s an inversion of yin energy.”

Realizing he was thoroughly sidetracked, Phil sought to restore his concerns, “I’ll try not to keep you, but I need your help. There’s no good, reliable information on temple prostitutes or female scribes.”

“Go see for yourself, then.”

“What?”

“The plain of all spiritual memory. Go there. Set a time and location lock and travel there yourself.”

“I can do that?”

“Jeez, Phil. It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

“But you did it. I just tagged along.”

“Now you know how, don’t you?”

“Okay. I’ll try it. But what if I get into trouble?”

“Rooted self," Manuel said with heavy sigh. Then he turned away and muttered, "I’m leaving before I get angry and hateful. Goodbye.”

Manuel disappeared. Phil left the patio, returning to his body. He held a meditative state though and brought before him his trail in the forest.

Once it was clearly envisioned, he stepped onto the start of the trail and walked slowly forward. He passed through curtains of invisible energy, which separated specific kinds of power: personal memory, the beast within, body control, healing, and other attributes of the unconscious mind. Each was marked with his own symbol to help him achieve these states when he needed to during his ‘normal’ life. When he began walking down the stairs, which came next, he traversed the realm of the Living Force. The stairs separated out the power points: near entity communication, far entity communication, Force healing, the Force energy itself, and the interface between Force and Spirit, which was at the bottom of the stairs.

Also at the bottom of the stairs was the arch. Silver energy filled it. When Phil stepped through, he became immediately disoriented. It lasted until he could see the landscape of his Medicine Area. In the distance stood rolling mountains. To his left, a river cut along before him. Trees widely spaced lined the river. To his right was a ridge falling away to a meadow. At the meadow’s edge was a wall separating his Medicine Area from the rest of the world of Spirit.

Within the Medicine Area was another power spot, the Sacred Area. Phil walked through it to reach the bluff. He passed his rooted self on the way. It was a hollow statue of himself. In emergencies, he could imagine himself inside the statue and be instantly transported here.

He touched the statue for reassurance and moved quickly down the ridge, across the meadow to the barrier wall. A gate marked with sentinel statues guarded the gate, and Phil strode through. The first level or realm of Spirit was all spiritual memory -- the Akashic Record. It was a completely barren plain covered with a dark sky. Phil walked the gravel trail through this place, found his marker -- a miniature Mayan temple, and stood for a moment, facing left and created the clear intent to be in Babylon, 525 BCE, at the hall of the female Hebrew scribes.

Then he walked off the trail into the dark horizon. A mist rose and enveloped him. Then the mist cleared and he was walking down a packed gravel road. Sand colored buildings lined the road, which was some twenty feet wide. The buildings to his right were two and three stories tall with geometric decorations on the roofs. On his left, a bank of steps led to a colonnade fronting a long building. He knew this was a scriptorium and mounted the stairs. As he mounted the stairs, he could see the Euphrates River behind the building.

Phil understood from his previous trips it was unlikely anyone would see him, but there were some who could. He wasn’t sure how that worked, but he clothed himself in a long robe and sandals. Once inside the building, he wandered around until he determined the main hall was at the center of the building. Rooms for various other purposes, housing, storage, offices, were at the perimeter. He made his way to the center room.

Light streamed into the room from louvered windows on the roof and two walls, providing ample light for a hundred or more scribes, each at his or her own desk. A center aisle separated men from women. They were about equal in number, and it looked to Phil like they were all doing the same thing under the gaze of about a dozen older men in dark robes. A leader was at the front and he was defining their task. His voice was strong and the flat echo of it reached all corners of the room.

“Biblical narrative is one way we maintain our identity. They have their epic songs; we have real men and women struggling with their flaws. They have gods indifferent to man; our God builds on a Covenant with us. They have fixed choreographies; we have living history and its many perspectives.

“Each of you will now retell the story of Tamar. Begin with Judah leaving his brothers to look for a wife. Use the connecting phrase, ‘he went down from’ his brothers. It will link this to Joseph’s story. Be mindful of your words. Heber-na (recognize this) and vayaker (he recognized) will be used at the climax of the story. These terms parallel other stories. Be mindful also of your characters’ actions. There must be recurrence, parallel and analogies. Make what you write a puzzle for others to figure out. Write no word unless it is necessary to the story, to the moral of the story, or to connect the story to one of our biblical themes. Is all this clear? Good. Begin.”

It was a writing contest, Phil realized. They were transcribing their ancient history according to literary formulas. Part of the formula was the mystery novel format. A reader could collect clues, link to other stories and thematic principles and come up with an answer about something. Maybe whoever wrote the best mystery won a prize.

The leader was speaking again, answering a question from a student in the front row, “You will have the Adullamite looking for a qadeshah, but Judah sent him to find a zonah.”

A different youth, female this time, asked, “Why, master?”

“You don’t burn a woman for adultery. You stone her. You burn someone for sins against God, or as a sacrifice to God. A qadeshah is a woman, a holy woman who offers more than sex. A zonah is a simple prostitute. Tamar, Gomer, Rahab and other women fall into the category of holy women. From Tamar comes the line of David, but is she a holy woman or a harlot? Judah recognized her as a holy woman by the manner he ordered her death -- burning not stoning. Even so, he sent the Adullamite in search of a harlot. Can you see contradictory irony?”

“Thank you, master,” the young woman said and returned to her work.

Phil thought he was beginning to understand, at least a little. Biblical narrative was its own literary genre. It served at least the purpose of maintaining Jewish cultural identity. Both men and women scribes revised or retold the stories almost like murder mysteries to engage the populace. Presumably a winning entry for this contest would become canon. Also, he was witnessing the process of redaction. Rather than one person collating, editing and reworking the Hebrew Bible, it was a writing contest pitting various schools of scribes against each other. All of them were here today restructuring the story of Tamar.

Phil understood now what Manuel meant. Female power found its civilized place here. Women were instrumental in writing the moral and ethical codes of their people. But what about temple prostitutes?

Qadeshah, which was usually translated as temple prostitute, Phil knew could also mean a ‘public woman.’ She might be offering her services as wet nurse, midwife, or other female duties including sex. Since she offered her services along a highway, obviously not a temple, the term temple prostitute didn’t fit. The lead scribe, though, just said it did fit because of the punishment Judah ordered.

There had to be something more about the designation qadeshah than came down through the centuries. Were there women who traveled like friars, helping God’s children where they found them? It seemed unlikely, but women’s histories were radically under-reported. Maybe there was an order or guild of holy women who brought comfort and services in this way. Even if this was so, what made them holy? Were ‘normal’ female activities viewed as holy endeavors? As a holdover from goddess traditions, maybe so.

Or was it the ubiquitous miracles of birth, lactation and sex, viewed from a male perspective, which made women holy? As holy ‘objects’ men may have wanted to possess them, thereby controlling female power. But what if the norm was just appreciation, wonder and awe? What if a normal guy in 525 BCE just liked women for who they were -- enigmatic beings with the power of life flowing through them?

No wonder he held something back during sex, Phil thought to himself. It would not be good to fall into the abyss women governed.

There were too many questions, for which Phil saw no easy answers. Phil exited the scene. He retraced his steps to his marker on the plain of spiritual memory, the Mayan temple. From there he shifted back to his body. That afternoon, Phil picked up the requisite half-rack of beer and visited with Sandy.

“Hey, Phil,” Sandy called from the kitchen as Phil entered. Sandy was chopping vegetables for a stir-fry. “I’ve been thinking about female roles pre and post exile. There was one anomaly I overlooked when we discussed it before. Most people overlook it. Sophia showed up after the exile; whereas, before the exile there was Ashurah.”

Phil put the beer on the kitchen table and pulled out two beers and observed, “The Hebrews were getting more sophisticated in understanding the yin.”

“It seems so. Does it help?”

“Yes,” Phil replied. Then he told Sandy what he found out, followed by his series of questions.

Sandy continued chopping vegetables in silence. Some kind of cubed meat was already cooking in the wok, and Sandy added the vegetables before turning to Phil.

“Sophia is as powerful as the Hindu Shakti. But the Hindus more gracefully integrated the Divine Feminine than the Hebrews. The philosophy of it, though, gets a little sticky.

“Sophia is God’s Wisdom. The question arises: why is God’s Wisdom split off from God and made to be a separate female being? The answer is God’s injustice, His cavalier breaking of His own Covenant, and His savage treatment of Job presume God’s actions are unconscious.”

“I don’t understand,” Phil interrupted. "He had to know He was doing whatever He was doing."

Sandy stirred the contents of the wok as he explained, “I said it was sticky. Think of it this way: God needs man psychologically because consciousness is a product of an interaction with others. So you can view God’s actions before the exile as God becoming self-aware. After the exile, with Sophia for balance, you get a different God. It’s a God who no longer walks with men, though. In fact, God’s last speech was to Job. Well, rant would be a better description.”

Phil was sitting in a kitchen chair. He sipped his beer and realized the Twins were right. He needed an understanding about the yin in order to answer Job’s question.

“Want some dinner?” Sandy asked and filled two bowls from the wok.

Later that evening, Phil sat on the cushion in his efficiency apartment and wrestled with what he knew so far. In one sense, he didn’t know much, but what he knew jarred what remained of his simple faith.

All of God’s erratic behavior in Genesis could be explained by postulating a God operating from an unconscious mind -- in other words, reacting to stimuli. Additionally, the relationship of the people to God made better sense if God was acting off unconscious impulses. If that were the case, prophets had to keep reminding God of His Covenant, which they did, as well as warn the people about God’s wicked and irrational temper. Even Jesus didn’t trust God and included another reminder in the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.” Which was its own answer to Job -- God, please don’t do to me what you did to Job.

As he pondered these facts, Phil remembered Green Man’s remark when they were on Mt. Sinai. Yahweh and the Elohim were joining forces to become the One God of Israel, and Green Man was transfixed by the event. He told Phil, “This is part of our history.”

Green Man, the Lord of the Elements, and Morrigan, the Sovereign of Ireland, were Phil’s true parents. Without their help, he would surely be stuck in the Flesh, reclaimed by the Devil, or just plain dead. On the other hand, calling on them had never been his first choice. In the past, they were his last resort. Maybe making a connection with them now rather than later would be wise. At the very least, he could get some idea about God’s history and evolutionary process.

Retired masks of God were parked on a vast expanse on the archetypal plane, which looked like the top of a cloud bank. Hundreds of them sat there as hollow statues waiting to be filled with the energy of mankind’s belief, which historically showed itself through worship and adoration. Phil knew the mere act of bringing his attention to them was sufficient to awaken them, and he brought the images of Green Man and Morrigan to mind.

He did so from his Sacred Area within his own connection to the world of Spirit. He envisioned himself sitting on the ridge overlooking the meadow of his Medicine Area where the surrounding wall was prominent. The wall separated his Medicine Area from the actual world of Spirit, and according to Manuel he was completely safe here.

Phil imagined Morrigan in her red cape and flaming red hair. Green Man was clothed in leaves and his round face was benign with love. Soon they sparkled into life and gazed on their son with fond regard. Phil brought them into his Sacred Area and they stood near a gentle waterfall at the foot of a mountain range that ended at the bluff overlooking a plain.

“Thank you for awakening us, my son,” Green Man’s voice was soft.

Morrigan was more abrupt, “How long has it been? You must call us more often.”

“Not long,” he reassured her. “And this time I’m not in any danger. At least, not yet.”

He told them of his meeting with the Twins, his research into the thorny problem he faced, his trip to Babylon, and his conversation with Sandy.

He concluded, “That’s when I remembered what you said on Sinai. I think I need to know more about your history. How are masks of God created? What evolutionary process did you go through? What about evil?”

Morrigan laughed, “Slow down. We can’t answer all those questions at once. In fact, I think the best way to answer them is to take you on a little trip.”

“I agree, my dear,” Green Man concurred. “Where do you think we should start?”

“The Clouds of Mystery, of course.”