Soul Matters Volume Six: Bondage Battleground
Chapter 12

Phil returned home and worked for a while. For now, he put the healthy community project on the back burner and concentrated on specific corporations the green people he worked for could sell their technologies. He emailed his recommended proposals by mid-afternoon. Then he did his laundry, cleaned house, and prepared to return to the world of Spirit.

When he did so, Phil’s first stop was Morrigan. If he had integrated the shadow feminine in a healthy way, she of all beings would recognize it. As the Morrigan, a tripartite deity, she syncretized Badh, Nemain, and Macha. She was a goddess of war, fertility, and the land itself. As such, she embodied both destruction and creation, the Light and the Dark.

He sat on his leather cushion and brought the image of his trail through the forest to mind. When it was a clear and strong image, he stepped onto the trail and began walking. When he reached the fork in the road, he looked up the left fork and recalled the gazebo where he took Becky. He made a mental note to get clarification on its properties from Manuel.

Then he made his way down the stairs. Pausing briefly at the arch, he found the warrior rune carved on its face. It called to him, but he ignored the call. Someday soon he would need to see where it would take him. Stepping through the silver energy filling the arch, he walked to the bluff before the flats. He brought Morrigan’s statue to mind, envisioning her floating just beyond the wall enclosing the flats.

She awoke and was soon standing next to him. Tall, red-haired, wearing a red cloak, she started right in, “How did it go with snake-woman?”

“She spit me out,” Phil answered. “We were both changed by the process. Then I faced her three sisters. They changed. I changed. Can you tell me what these changes mean?”

She gathered him into her arms, and he felt their essences blending. As his true mother, Phil trusted her entirely. This embrace was one place he could completely relax.

She put him down and spoke, “You are changed, but each experience changes us, transforms us if we are willing. Your battle with the four sisters has awakened and matured your feminine nature. You now bear a heavier burden and wield greater power.”

“I don’t feel either,” he told her. “Others have noticed a change in me. Why is it I cannot?”

She laughed. It was a throaty alto sound. “Does a child who can walk remember the child who could only crawl? New plateaus, once achieved, become the new ‘normal’ very quickly. But where you are now -- this new ‘normal’ -- hides a new danger. The strength of the feminine is that it can yield gracefully and use another’s force against him. In blending with the other, though, there is the danger of losing yourself in him or subsuming him into yourself. You are now like water and can blend, but what is the water once blended?”

“Gone,” Phil muttered thinking of powdered milk or cans of frozen orange juice. Once mixed with water, how could the water be distilled out again?

“The spiritual growth of man is like this,” she concluded. “You must maintain your integrity, and you must become the Universe. You must be water even when blending with the ALL.”

Phil smiled, “Good thing we don’t have to do it all at once.”

“Good thing, indeed,” she smiled back. “What is your next battle?”

“Job’s question.”

“It would be accurate to call them God’s questions,” Morrigan grumped. “The early masks of God, the Elohim in particular, had to learn their place.”

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“Man thinks he must serve God, but it is the other way around. God serves man in a most complex way. First of all by becoming a mask of God; then, by fulfilling those duties.”

Phil wasn’t sure if he followed her full meaning, but he could better see how the roles of the various categories of created beings worked in their own ways towards a common goal: to make the Universe self-aware. Why this was a necessary goal was a mystery. Perhaps awareness was its own reward. Perhaps it was a prerequisite for something else.

Morrigan interrupted his thoughts, “You haven’t asked me the obvious question.”

Phil shrugged his shoulders and grinned in embarrassment, “I guess it’s not so obvious.”

“How do you unblend water?”

He laughed, “Of course. I apologize. Please tell me how to unblend.”

“Hold to your center. If you hold your center, you do not fully blend. If you do not hold your center, you will fight a losing battle to regain yourself.”

The equation was simple but revealed the twisted origins of the shadow feminine. It was a consequence of losing one’s center. It was the futile battle to recapture individuality once it was lost. He could see its results in the four sisters, which meant someone else must bring them back to their centers.

“Once you’ve lost your center,” Phil began, testing his insight, “you can’t get it back by yourself. Is that right?”

“Mostly, yes. You must gain each new plateau on your own. Once you’ve achieved a new plateau and you’re playing the new game, it’s then you can lose your center. And, you’re right, someone other than you must give it back.”

“The rules are different for the climb and the plateau.”

“Yin and Yang,” she smiled. Then her demeanor changed. “Enough of talking. Let’s do battle with ha-satan. It is he who holds the answers to Job.”

Phil felt a chilly wind blow up from the flats. Ha-satan was surely Sammael.

“How do we do it?”

Morrigan smiled, “In Job’s story, what did ha-satan do?”

“Took away everything meaningful to see if Job would keep his faith.”

“No. While it’s true Job lost everything, ha-satan isolated Job, stripped away all the anchors for his ego, and through his wife and friends tried to make Job doubt his reality.”

It was a symbolic stripping away. But why? Phil could easily see the obvious test of faith. There must be a deeper level.

After a few moments, he asked, “I don’t see the deeper challenge.”

“Without anchors, can you can find your center, my son?” she continued to smile. “Imagine a community wherein each member knew where his center was.”

Pieces fell into place. Of course, he now saw a balancing of healthy yin and yang was the first task; then finding the balance point, the center, would follow. After that, who knew? Practice with blending and unblending, probably.

“Let’s go find Sammael,” Phil said and reached for Morrigan’s hand.

They flew into the disturbing liquid space and landed in the four sisters newly constructed compound. It was unlike any compound Phil had seen so far. Nestled against a jagged mountain, the compound was enclosed by a wide circle of trees beginning and ending at the mountain. Fountains gushing water, sinuous cobblestone lanes lined with rose bushes, shade trees randomly spaced, tents in family groups, pit fires, and gaily clad people gave the place a pastoral look and feel.

In the mountain, on the left as Phil faced it, was a cave entrance. Three palaces, cut into the face of the mountain were next to the cave. Behind the rock-cut facades, halfway up the mountain, Phil could see shadowy forms streaming from four evenly spaced openings.

“Demons,” Morrigan sniffed in disdain. “Call your sisters from their work.”

“Sisters,” Phil called out. “We ask for an audience.”

While he waited, Phil dressed himself in a suit. He didn’t want to insult their new status by being underdressed.

Echidna slithered out from the cave. Lilith was in the next palace, then Agrat and Eisheth. Echidna wore a brocade vest over a muslin blouse. Lilith was more sensibly dressed with a gown and cape. Agrat came formally attired in a full-length golden dress. Eisheth billowed forth in multi-colored silks.

They gathered in a tight semi-circle before Phil and bowed to Morrigan.

Lilith spoke, “You grace us, my lady, with your presence. What do you wish?”

“Call your husband,” Morrigan commanded. “My son is ready to face the challenges of Job.”

“And,” Phil added softly, “if you don’t mind, let Manuel know what’s going on.”

The sisters went rigid, communicating Phil knew with Sammael and Manuel. When their bodies relaxed, Lilith stepped forward.

“We would help you if we could. I hope you know that, Phil.”

“I do. When I return, maybe we could have a party.”

Eisheth snorted and tossed her red hair, “Now he wants to party. Men!” She smiled to soften her comment and winked.

Sammael appeared, flanked by a dozen dark-robed angels. Manuel appeared moments later with Raphael and Sanoy.

Sammael’s hawkish face turned to inspect the odd assemblage and said, “Nice place, Lilith. What souls will you be caring for?”

Lilith’s dark eyes glistened, “I think Metatron called them ‘generic goddess worshippers.’ Our first batch is out there in the tents.”

Sammael turned to Morrigan, “My lady. I take it you chose this place for a meeting.”

“I did. I wanted to insure Lord Jehovah stayed home. Your treachery is notorious, demon. I am here to proctor the challenge you give my son.”

“Well,” Sammael sneered, “we have a problem, then, because his challenge is scheduled to happen in Jehovah’s dungeons.”

Morrigan whirled to Manuel. “This cannot be right. Jehovah’s grudges against my son are known. Are they not?”

“He is the vengeful mask of God,” Manuel shrugged. “And he requested the honor of providing the means for the test. How can mere angels deny him?”

“Then I’m coming with him,” Morrigan asserted.

“Maybe to drop him off,” Sammael’s sneer deepened. “I doubt Lord Jehovah will let you into his compound.”

The chilly wind Phil felt while in his Sacred Area blew through him again.

Sammael’s cohort of dark angels surrounded Phil, and soon they were flying. It was a short trip to Jehovah’s enormous compound. They flew through the pearly gates and onto the central plaza.

Jehovah’s compound consisted of three discreet areas: fundamentalist Christian, Zionist Jews, and Islamo-fascist Muslims. Jehovah embodied their common belief system -- vengeance, judgment, retribution, and the burning need to defeat God’s enemies. They also saw Jehovah the way he described himself in his final speech to Job: awesome, powerful, merciless, and convinced of his own magnificence. This was the terrible, jealous and punishing mask of God, whom Phil had humiliated on more than one occasion. Yet, because of who Jehovah was, he was the logical choice to preside over Phil’s test of faith.

Morrigan, Manuel, Raphael, and Sanoy didn’t follow him here. They were unwelcome. Phil was already feeling isolated when they landed in the central plaza. Jehovah showed up moments later. He floated down from the sky on puffy white clouds. Winged angels accompanied him playing harps. A crowd gathered to watch the show.

Jehovah was stunning in a white cassock and purple cloak. He fixed on Phil with fiery eyes. Phil quickly filled himself with the energies of Flesh, Force and Spirit. If he were to cease to exist today, he would go down fighting.

“Fear not,” Jehovah’s voice boomed. “You are here to be broken and remade in my image, my son.”

It was Jehovah’s oblique way of telling Phil he wouldn’t be summarily executed. Phil let the energies drain out.

“You have come to endure Job’s ordeal. Your belief in me is your salvation. You shall be taken to the place of testing. You will undergo the sacred trial. You will return here when it is complete and gain your reward.”

The crowd hooted in enthusiastic agreement. Jehovah raised his hand, and the crowd became silent, “Take him away!”

The crowd cheered as the angels took Phil to a stairway at the edge of the plaza. It looked like a subway entrance, but once they were underground, it more accurately resembled a medieval dungeon. It was dark, damp and cold. They continued down switch-backing staircases to the lowest level. At each level Phil noticed a single dead-end corridor about a hundred yards long. The corridors were lined with cells, most of which held prisoners clamoring for release.

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