[TouccuraLar]

"It's a new dawn.
It's a new day.
It's a new life.
And I'm feeling good."

Nina Simone


The ancients saw death as a kind of initiation. It may be difficult to understand because the word 'initiation' is a strange one to us today. Its meaning has been lost, or perhaps been turned into something strange and wrong, like secret rites into a weird cult. This is because Constantine's Christianity, in the fourth century, wiped out all initiations, leaving only the relatively empty one of the Christening. The Jews hung on to their most important one, that experienced by young boys at 14 years of age (which they call the 'bar mitzvah'). But the death 'initiation' journey described in allegory as the Exodus in their scriptures has become to them an actual historical exodus of the Jews out of Egypt. So once again, the meaning, and thus the true purpose, of the initiation has been lost.

We see a remnant of its original meaning in the New Testament with the saying of John the Baptist: "I have come to baptise you with water, but one who is greater than me will come and baptise you with Spirit and Fire." But we don't hear any more about this baptism of Fire until later on, in Acts, when the disciples are gathered in a room and the Holy Spirit descends with tongues of Fire.








After that, we have Paul's enlightenment on the road to Damacus, where the light from the Fire descending from the Spirit causes him to fall off his horse and temporarily blinds him:








An initiation is a rebirth into a new life. In Paul's case, he signifies this by changing his name from Saul to Paul. The word 'initiative' which derives from the word 'initiation', has all the connatations of life and not death. When we start something new, we 'initiate' something. When we are at a crossroads of indecision, when all our previous knowledge fails us, we have to use our 'initiative', a wellspring or inSPIRIration of wisdom that brings vision and clarity or 'new life' to a previously unresolveable dilemma.

The ancients saw death as an initiation - the final initiation of this life, having travelled through several initiations in their lives to get there. The Greeks would sacrifice a cock at all their initiations. As Socrates was being taken to his execution, his final initiation, he said to a friend: "I owe a cock to Asclepius", Asclepius being their 'god' at the time.

The story of the crucifixion of Jesus is the story of an initiation, based on the Egyptian death journey called the Coming Forth By Day, which Exodus was also based on.

The Jews' bar mitzvah is typical of manhood initiations in most shamanic societies in that it takes place at age 14. We see this in some African tribes even today, where the young boys of the village are taken, at around the age of 14, out of the village and into the wilds, where they stay with the shaman and the elders for a number of days, and sometimes weeks, until they pass their initiation. The passing of the initiation usually involves an act of courage involving the supernatural, or an act of initiative where the young boy can no longer rely on his elders to help him. This is his dragon-slaying moment, known to us from so many ancient myths. Just as a cold snap in Spring forces the sap up a flower stalk so that it can blossom, so crisis forces rebirth. Revolution is the precursor to evolution. Insurrection is the precursor to resurrection.

Thus, when he returns to his village, the boy is no longer a boy but a man. This is how boys become men in shamanic societies. Manhood is not just something that is attained automatically at a certain age of adulthood. It has to be earned and attained. It is process, a natural growth development that takes place under certain contrived and catalytic conditions, and not an automatic right.

And some boys don't make it ...



African boys at initiation ceremony




Most of the scriptures of the modern day religions - Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Hinduism - were originally stories of these shamanic initiations. They usually have several common components whereby we can recognise the journey of the hero (initiate) as he meets and faces his challenges, and these are very well described in Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. A full description of an actual shamanic initiation which still takes place for young boys in Burkino Faso, Africa today can be found in Malidoma Patrice Some's book Of Water and the Spirit. More about Malidoma Patrice Some.

Our ancestors saw everything as circular, and not linear as we do today. They understood the cyclical nature of every living thing from their study of Nature and their inner, shamanic journeys into fractal or quantum realms. From their megaliths, we can see that they understood that the astronomical processes were cyclical and revolved around one another. They knew enough about this to be able to align their earthworks and henges towards the sun's nadir at the winter solstice (the "death of the sun") - they knew where on the horizon this would occur.

They understood the concept of 'as above, so below', in other words, that if this revolved or went round:


Atom



Then so did this:


Solar system



They knew that revolution was the precursor to evolution.

And as man is part of Nature, (and not separate to it as we see ourselves today) then his evolution will also necessitate its precursor - revolution. He will 'go round' too ... not in his body, which he shrugs off at death like an old, worn out overcoat, but in his Spirit, which was taken from him and made to appear as separate to him in the naming of it 'Holy Spirit'.

The Egyptians called their death journey, or final initiation, the Coming Forth By Day or Coming Forth Into Day as it followed the journey of the arc of the sun at night through to day.

Just as the sun lights up the sky in a carnival of reds at daybreak, and a baby is born smeared in red blood, so the corpse of the deceased, smeared in red hematite, was seen as going towards a new dawn, a new day, a new life.

"It's a new dawn.
It's a new day.
It's a new life ... for me,
And I'm feeling good."