October 21, 2021
It’s probably too early to call it a trend but I am noticing that the breadth of my experiences in the Imaginal has started to transcend the human to encompass other beings, including our brothers and sisters of the so-called animal world. Perhaps one of the lessons from my meeting with Grandmother Spider (or whatever is the proper honorific for the Divine Mother I met a couple weeks ago) is that humans aren’t the apex. There is no apex. All beings, including non corporeal and perhaps even the inanimate, are equal. All have their place. All are important, vital, necessary.
As you will know if you have been reading these entries from the past couple weeks, my experiences have involved non-human animals. I tend to perceive them as human/animal hybrids but I wonder if that’s just my human bias? Maybe I see them as humanoid because I want to? It’s possible that individual non-human animals are not sapient like ‘us’ but that doesn’t mean that they don’t possess spirit or that there aren’t aspects of them in the spiritual realm that are just as sapient as we humans. I seriously doubt that the Divine selected humans for any particular reason, we just happened to evolve in a such a way that allows us to become aware of our Divine nature. If any species survive this mass extinction event caused by humans on the earth, they may very well evolve the same capacity. And perhaps they already have in the non-physical realm?
I am seeing my human bias more clearly these days. I have this tendency to think that we humans are all these is, that human souls are superior, that because we are superior, naturally the optimizing force of the Divine is concerned solely with us. Further, I haven’t considered that my animal siblings might help us out or that I might be called upon to help them out. I hadn’t considered that we’re all one, all of us are in this together and our continued evolution and awakening is mutually dependent. I feel like such an asshole for being so close-minded and stupid.
Another way of considering this is through the lens of interpenetration. This capacity of the soul to simultaneously occupy multiple realms and multiple beings at once. One way of perceiving the soul is to feel it to be comergent with all beings. All beings are resident here right now. Depending on what Being is presenting, this knowledge may be more or less explicit. Sometimes, it’s important to focus on the ego, sometimes on the field of the individual soul, sometimes on the comergence of the individual soul with another human soul, sometimes on the comergence of the human soul with another non-human being, sometimes on the “multi-mergence” of the individual soul with some, many or all beings. Being is mysterious in the way it works, mostly because I’m so frickin’ ignorant.
There is another aspect of comergence that I need to discuss: It’s not just temporal but infinite. In other words, the capacity of the soul to be comergent isn’t limited by time and, in fact, can contain all time within it. Thus, when meeting another being in the Imaginal, I can perceive them throughout their development. Sometimes an earlier development or appearance can be dominant and sometimes a later one is dominant. I can only assume that they perceive me in the same way with all ‘levels’ and ‘times’ of my soul’s development apparent to them. There is a particular beauty in perceiving the fullness of a being’s multiplicity. All times, all forms, all locations can be present at once but usually the experience is a range, arising out of the innate wisdom of Being/God in the present moment as what is needed for that particular time, entity and location. It’s wondrous!
Today, I realized that my minotaur companion who is more of a deity than a creature like me does in fact love me. His love is expressed differently than I’m accustomed to but it’s there nonetheless. I’m not his lover, although erotic contact can certainly be present between us. I’m not his partner. I’m not his kind. Those facts can make it feel like there is a barrier between us. That is not the case. It’s probably closer to the truth to say that I haven’t yet learned this type of love because there doesn’t appear to be an analog in the physical world.
While I was meditating this morning, I had the sensation of him reaching out to me and draping an animal skin over my body. The skin immediately settled over me, transforming my soul until I became his little calf, for lack of a better term. Calf is probably not the right term because I could tell I was at sexual maturity, although I lacked his giant size and musculature. There was more than just a skin; the entire experience was like being brought into the fold, the stable where many other cattle were gathered. The air was rich with the odor of large animals...manure, urine, sweaty, hairy bodies. But it wasn’t unpleasant. It was like being welcomed into the herd.
This is where I get the idea that animals may have attained spiritual development beyond what we humans are willing to grant them. The individual members of a species may not be self-aware or possess a human’s capacity to ‘grok’ Being but that doesn’t mean that they are completely oblivious to it or that they lack any spiritual nature at all. In the spirit realms, they seem to have avatars who are spiritually developed to the level of deities...like my minotaur. This seems to be only one view of him; there are many, many more.
The experience of transforming into his nature, possessing the form of a young bull, was erotic because I could feel the union between us is also sexual in nature. It’s hot being his subordinate, feeling his weight and heft behind me as he mounted me. I wanted nothing more than to have his huge bullcock slide inside me. I gloried in being dominated by him but also in being a bull myself even if I was less significant than he. I love the carnal nature of our union, or rather I should say I love that our union includes the carnal and transformative.
The interesting thing in this experience was the equanimity of it. I’m not sure if equanimity is the right word. Or even if there is a word in English that describes it. He was dominant and he was taking me physically but there was no violence or domination in the act. It was like we were being just what we are, nothing more, nothing less. I wasn’t losing anything or being diminished by his domination and he wasn’t gaining anything or being enhanced individually. Together, we were enhancing each other. And also understanding each other. And understanding the nature of cows, the importance and equality of cows with humans. I recognized the long-standing union of humans and cattle. We’ve been together for many generations. We’ve shared so much that we have become inseparable in a way, our very beings have melded.
It’s similar to the feeling when I met the ‘dogman’ in the Imaginal a few days ago. I could feel the long history of dogs and humans, how we had evolved together, shared our gifts with each other, enhanced each other to the point where you can’t say that humans and dogs are different species any longer. We are ‘unionized,’ if you will. No wonder there are so many traditions with dog-headed humans and minotaurs...and so many other hybrids. Our evolution is inherently merged beyond just simple domestication. I think this is something that many other cultures have recognized but which has fallen out of favor in the past several hundred years as human narcissism has become more dominant. Our gods have become human gods, losing touch with our animal nature and the interconnections between us and all living things, especially the species we have domesticated. If you want to apply a hierarchy to the animal/human world, you could put domesticated animals closer to the ‘top’ because we owe our very existence to them. Without domesticated animals, we would not be here. We couldn’t evolved physically, societally or spiritually without their selflessness. They never chose to be our property, we made them that way. It’s time we acknowledge this sacrifice. They sacrifice their lives over and over and over to feed and clothe and help us. We owe them and one way to do so is to acknowledge that we are not dominant, we are equal.
One further thought: Christian tradition states that Jesus was born in a stable surrounded not just by people and angels but also by animals. I don’t think this fact has been overlooked by Christ and it shouldn’t be overlooked by us.
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