New Life to the Relationship

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the restoration of the soul and the first 65 cantos of the Comedy, one can take a long break and simply enjoy the fruits of the readings. The first main step is completed. And one’s life, apprehension, perception, experience, it all will have changed into a bigger picture with potentially infinite enrichment.

But,

the poem keeps moving almost instantly. The pageant starts turning bit for bit with the elders, the virtues, the griffin and the carro, and then starts moving towards the sun and towards the east. The mission is accomplished, and they are going “back” to the Heavens and the Light again.

And the Pilgrim, Stazio and Matelda follow the carro as well, meaning to some extent the new “triplet” of the transformed earthly life (Matelda), the rebirthed soul (Stazio), and the newly cleansed apprehension/consciousness with the Pilgrim. Rather than climbing upwards with the old triplet (Virgil, Stazio and Pilgrim), we are now strolling sideways with the new triplet instead.

And this goes on for the length of “three arrowshots”.

Then appears an image which is widely discussed with multiple efforts at interpretation. We will now make the case for a reading that stays close to Dante’s exact words, and seeks to avoid any internal contradictions, but differs from most of current scholarship.

What they encounter is a giant tree, which is withered and looks dead. There are no leaves and flowers on it, and the whole pageant is murmuring the word “Adamo” – Adam, the first human being.

The tree is enormously high and spreads wider out in its crown the higher it gets. And the common interpretations of this image is: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, a symbol of the Roman Empire and Authority, a representation of Divine Justice, or the Cross of Christ. Our reading of this is different: The Tree is a symbol of the relationship to God. It works both as the overall template for Human-Divine relationship (thus the murmuring of “Adamo”), and it also becomes the personal relationship to the Heavens within each of us, with its own nature for every soul.

The pageant then gives blessing to the griffin for not “tearing its beak into the wood, of the sweet taste, which would badly turn the belly”. Here again one might find multiple interpretations, but from the perspective of the Tree being the spiritual relationship to God itself, it could mean how Christ and the spiritual life (also as unity of spiritual/material) does not force anyone to the spiritual life, nor make it too obvious, as to remove the real choice for the soul, to turn towards it itself.

This would be a necessary mechanism considering the overall telos of the Creation, in the Divine Comedy: to have free willed spirits/souls, that voluntarily choose to turn towards and reflect God’s Glory, so the Glory can then say “Subsisto”, I exist. In a way the relationship is necessary for the fullness of being and the Love in a voluntary reflection. Thus any removal of this dynamic would disrupt the real functioning of the relationship itself. And this might be why the griffin says its first and only line in the poem: “Thus is conserved the seed of every just one”. Meaning: the full functioning of the soul and the relationship when aligned, is only conserved by preserving the turning as an act of exercising the Free Will. Without this, the Tree (as the relationship) cannot function properly.

Then the griffin pulls the “pole” of the carro (the orientation point of your soul) over to the Tree and attaches it. Meaning: the force of Christ (as unity) is pulling and connecting your soul to not God directly here, but to the relationship.

And with this ignition, the whole Tree comes to life. First it is swollen, and then in full renewal with colours and new leaves, blossoming in its nature, not yet in full red but more than in violet, where the branches before were bare.

So in this sense, there is a natural continuity from canto 31. The soul is restored, they turn toward the sun, and after some walking, they encounter the relationship itself, which is then revived, as the soul has now become purified and aligned. For the Pilgrim the journey from the dark forest has thus led to the rebirth of his soul, and encountering his own dead tree of relationship inside of himself. But through the new alignment, this relationship “wakes up” as an essential step before Paradiso. And in this way the passage also functions as a preparation for the third canticle, by setting up a new flowering dynamic with the Heavens, as the renewed and now blossoming Tree.

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The Internal Restoration in Eden in 14 Essays

Posted on June 28, 2025 by Richard Emerson

Here are the 14 essays that give a new and more anagogical (spiritual) reading of the Garden of Eden in Canto 28-31 of Dante’s Purgatorio, focusing primarily on the Soul’s Journey to God.

They all successively build on the ones before – so starting at the beginning will give a much better and more clear understanding the first time. This overall reading and hermeneutical (interpretative) frame will also provide the foundation for the reading of the aftermath in the Garden of Eden (Canto 32 and 33), and for the ascent into the Heavens, in Paradiso.

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Beatrice’s eyes – and smile

Posted on June 24, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the vision of the Griffin in front of him and its changing reflection inside Beatrice’s eyes (as his own soul growing), there is just one more step to make the new presence of the Pilgrim’s soul complete. The three spiritual virtues are now singing to Beatrice to turn her eyes to him, and also to reveal her smile so he can finally see the “second beauty” that she conceals.

In many ways this establishes a new carro in one’s soul itself, with one wheel as the wisdom and intellect (as her eyes), and one as the love and mysticism (her smile). These two dimensions are essential for the growing spiritual life, and makes several important points. The intellectual pursuit of e.g. Logos or First Mover is not sufficient to align with deeper reality in its fullness. The dimension of spirit and love also has to be accounted for, as aspects or forces that shape reality and also sets the cosmos into motion.

And when this happens – when he now finally can behold Beatrice in her fullness with both her beautiful eyes and her radiant smile, the long journey and restoration of the soul is finally complete.

In some ways the Poem could have stopped here. The soul is “fixed”, the capacities are restored, and a new relationship with God and the Heavens is established. Dante even ends this canto, number 31, with the word “solvesti” implying a resolving of the task, with Beatrice – as his own soul and spiritual life – now out in the “open air” and fully connected to his conscious experience again.

So the rewards have come. And as a reader one might experience the same. Your life will change, your experience and perception will change, and being will be infinitely richer and more interesting than ever before. What Dante accomplishes and celebrates in this very  moment in the Garden of Eden is an extraordinary achievement, and also one that lays the foundation for the next journey. We are now ready, with the reborn soul and the capacity for dual perception, to explore the Heavens and grow through the ascent in Paradiso, towards God.

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Dual Perception of the Soul

Posted on June 21, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the crossing of the river Lethe and the cleansing of old misconceptions, the spiritual vision of the Pilgrim is much clearer and more intense.

The very first thing that happens is that Dante redeems his old guiding stars from pagan virtue as handmaidens for the spiritual life. They are now framed as leading humanity to the emergence of the spiritual revelation, with the soul as a portal to the Divine.

They then bring him directly to Beatrice, but with several important details: they point out the three spiritual/theological virtues (Faith, Hope and Love of Being), and then put the pilgrim in front of the breast of the griffin, where Beatrice is now directing her gaze and focus.

The geometry here is essential. Rather than merely taking him to the chariot, Dante sets up a much deeper insight. Beatrice is here his inner spiritual life directing its focus on the unity of the griffin, as the material and spiritual, and also as a symbol of Christ. This is the force that pulls the soul towards greater understanding of the Heavens and of the world. And the breast is important – as the heart. Combining the Intellect/Wisdom and the Love/Spiritual is the dynamic the grows and elevates the soul.

So the pilgrim is now being attentive to both his soul (directed at God/Christ), and God/Christ directly.

His eyes are drawn to Beatrice’s eyes, in a way intensifying his focus on his inner soul. And what he then sees, radiating deep within his soul, is the reflection of the griffin like the sun in a mirror (in lo specchio il sol), now with the material, now with the spiritual aspects.

And then comes the revolutionary insight: as the pilgrim is looking at both the griffin and the reflection of it in Beatrice’s eyes, he notices that the real griffin in front of him is stable, but the image and reflection of it within his soul, is transforming. Thus we have a new overall image for the journey: a way of visualizing both God, and our perception of God within our Soul simultaneously, the latter growing and changing.

This becomes the vehicle (or “carro”) that sets up the whole of Paradiso. To understand and visualize how the soul can now keep reflecting and growing in Divine Wisdom, which itself is eternal, stable and unchanging. This becomes the transcendent and immanent God at the same time. The dynamic and process is again a churning unity of asymmetrical dimensions. Rather than the soul “receiving” gradually more wisdom, there is a living dynamic, which can only be apprehended through a dual perception of reality.

So at this point, the key to Dante’s Comedy is given to us: we have developed capacities through the climb of Purgatorio, and now we can use this to understand the Soul and its relationship to God in a whole new way. The proper relationship is restored here in the heart of the Garden of Eden, partly through a new way of seeing and apprehending reality itself.

And with that, the main objective of the first two books is completed. We have developed the soul, and understood the dynamic of further growth with the Divine. Next step then is to use this dynamic and carro to start flying up and exploring the spheres, with a whole new outlook – and with Beatrice as both our soul, and the radiant reflection of the Heavens.

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Full confession, and cleansing the Meta-mistake

Posted on June 20, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the Pilgrim has admitted and realized his deepest mistake; abandoning the spiritual life and falling for lesser replacements, an even harder truth hits him.

The things he loved the most in his years of disconnect: secular philosophy, science, Greek philosophy and mythology, and Roman pagan epics, they had all become his enemies – and the more he loved them, the more they had blocked him from the bigger picture. And the reason is simple; when partial frames are applied as overall and fuller frames, they tend to obscure clear thinking while also distorting the true big picture, that only the “carro” and dual perception can give you. Assuming science or Greek mythology as a full cosmology will collapse your apprehension into single-mode thinking, and obscure big parts of reality.

This discovery hits Dante so hard, that he “falls conquered”, and can finally understand the depth of his mistake for maybe around twenty years. He fell for the sparkling partial frameworks, the human constructs, the original sin itself, rather then recovering and restoring the spiritual and unified life as the overall frame.

And when that has happened, the Pilgrim (and we as readers, perhaps realizing the same mistake in earlier parts of life) can finally enter the river of Lethe, to forget the mistakes, and rinse out the misconceptions of the past. In a sense, to flush out the “meta-mistake”, of applying limited frames as the whole, and denying the spiritual life. This is the core of his confession, and why he is now finally ready to restore the connection fully to God, in a sense restoring the fundamental dynamic of the Garden of Eden, internally.

So with this full confession and understanding, he is taken into the river Lethe, first to the neck, then into full submersion, and then finally also drinking from the river. All while the angels start singing “Asperges me” – from Psalm 51:7, meaning: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed“.

Then he is taken up on the other side of the bank, with a more clear spiritual perception than ever before. And a big step closer to the ascent up into Paradiso, and to the celestial spheres of the Heavens.

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Restoring the Spiritual Life

Posted on June 17, 2025 by Richard Emerson

As the exchange with Beatrice is continuing, now seen as both Divine Wisdom and Dante’s inner spiritual life, the big question then comes: Why did Dante abandon the spiritual life for such a long time? What happened that made him forget the spiritual connection from his early life, and then let it fade away and be replaced by false frameworks that gave so much less?

As Dante examines himself more deeply to find the exact mechanics, the starting point becomes this: It does not matter for the Heavens if he admits his failings or not, in terms of understanding from “above”. In the bigger picture the reasons are already well known. But the inner dynamics of identifying and admitting the mistake is essential, for letting the Heavens start its work of removing the sin with its “wheels”, and thus removing the “cut” (taglio).

Meaning; the confession and admittance is in part an interior function, to open and repair the relationship with God. This in some ways frames the process differently for the pilgrim.

Then comes the basic question: The joys of nature and art never gave the same heights as the spiritual life and experiences. So what exactly did Dante try to replace it with, when Beatrice “died” (meaning the spiritual life disappeared)? This becomes a device to start searching through one’s own memory and discern, both for the pilgrim and to some extent the reader as well.

At the first arrival of insufficient or lower frameworks, Dante should have lifted his sights back to the spiritual life for the fuller cosmology, and not have waited for some new and better “blow”, or aimed for secular-profane philosophy, or other “vanities” (also as meaningless things) – perhaps suggesting personal fame and glory.

And then comes the technical understanding for the Pilgrim; it is expected for young fledglings to fail a couple of times, and not see the difference between the counterfeits of lower goods or partial frameworks, but for a matured bird, one fully “feathered”, neither nets nor arrows should be able to capture it.

So in a way, Dante is moving towards a reconciliation with his past and his mistakes, through first realizing the mechanical aspects of growing up and maturing as a human being. One might have clear spiritual experiences in the beginning, but through adolescence and younger adult life one might easily be deceived, simply from lack of experience – and not being able to tell the difference between a deeper truth and a seemingly brilliant idea.

In Dante’s case this is likely the period from his early 20s, until early 40s. He is explicit that the spiritual life was gone when he was 35, in 1300. Most likely it was recovered and he converted around 1306/07, during the Malaspina years, at around 42. And his falling away from the spiritual, metaphorically here as Beatrice’s death, which in real life happened when he was around 25 yrs, is likely the time when he pursued secular philosophy, Greek Philosophy and Mythology, early Roman Pagan Virtue, and the Greek and Roman Epics for wisdom and a complete cosmology.

Dante retains much of the richness from these years, but later admits – that they lack the bigger spiritual dimension, and thus fail as overall cosmologies. They are simply incomplete, and thus in many cases misleading or even blocking the deeper truth and understanding of full reality.

So in short; The Pilgrim has to face his earlier failings, but is helped to understand why it happened. It does not remove his personal responsibility for the wrong choices, but it does shed some light upon why this is a common process. And before he is ready to admit his failed choices, as the interior confession and threshold, this recognition and new insight helps him. And at the same time, it has big implications in terms of understanding human nature, growth, maturation, the role of culture and society in acknowledging these dynamics and also allowing for them, while still maintaining an overall healthy view and frame. A frame that is aligned with Transcendent Truth and the bigger reality, and one that ultimately still aims for the bigger view and an aspiration up towards growing unity, with the Heavens.

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A new relationship: God and Soul

Posted on June 12, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After Beatrice appears, first as a channel emerging from deep within the Chariot, and connecting the Pilgrim to God’s Love and Power (The “Ancient Love”), something extraordinary happens.

Virgil disappears, in large part since a direct connection with God is outside the bounds of Reason’s capacity. But Beatrice’s function also changes, in terms of what she means.

In short; Beatrice is your inner spiritual life, through which you will sense the Divine directly, but it will also be an immature “faculty” at its new “birth” within you. Just as Virgil goes through a series of changes throughout Inferno and Purgatory, Beatrice will also change, and she makes mistakes in the beginning.

Meaning; your inner spiritual life and soul need growth and adjustments. Which we see here in Canto 30; instantly after we had the touch of the “hidden virtue that moved from her”, that made the Pilgrim feel “the great power of the ancient love”, Beatrice falls into a different mode and starts her first speech with the word “Dante,”. And she starts aggressively attacking him for his failures and shortcomings. But this is not the voice of God. This is the voice of Dante himself, his own spiritual life being full of self-resentment and self-accusations. In a way, this is your own inner critic, detached from the true heavenly life and realities. So this is the second time one will “meet oneself” at the biggest thresholds, the first was accepting God’s Love in the Wall of Fire, the second is how your inner spiritual life might start attacking you strongly, for your own faults.

“She” is right in many things she is saying, but she goes about it in a wrong way. Which is why the angels start singing to the Pilgrim, and directly address Beatrice for being too harsh. They represent the true voice of the Heavens, while Beatrice is the newborn, nascent spiritual soul in oneself, veiled, and the beginning a new journey of growth and discovery.

And here comes the much bigger point; what Dante is doing here is setting up a new dynamic for the rest of the Comedy. Rather then reading this is in single-mode, we need to see this through the “dual perception”, of God AND Beatrice. This is the new dynamic. Your soul and God, and the growing spiritual consciousness and wisdom within you, gathered through a constant “churning” and dynamic with the Heavens. As we see shown instantly; Beatrice being too hard, the angels very gently guiding her to a bigger spiritual wisdom.

So in a way, Dante the Writer creates a new “carro” for us; your soul (Beatrice) and God. Which is also why he twice specifies that Beatrice is on the “left side” of the Chariot (la sinistra, and la detta coscia).

Moreover, this sheds a new light on the Garden of Eden. It becomes here the place where you establish a new relationship with God, and a dynamic learning one, through a new carro.

This is the foundation of a new journey, and this is the new carro that will bring us up through the spheres with an increasingly wise and radiant Beatrice, and the one that ultimately will bring us to full communion and union, with the Heavens.

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Beatrice – Love as the deeper Reality

Posted on June 6, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the channel to God opens, it finally happens: Beatrice emerges out of the chariot, in a rain of flowers and with the angels singing with blessings.

The key here is very simple: Love is the deeper reality of God, and the deeper animating principle. That is what “Beatrice” shows here – and why she is coming out from the chariot. We’ve reached the deepest layer, and the revelation is this: the chariot as foundational principle of a churning unity of two asymmetrical dimensions is essential, but it’s not enough. The life, the move, the energy, is Love – as God.

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Opening the channel to God

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Richard Emerson

With the pageant of the Scriptures stopping and focusing on the chariot, the spiritual “charge” is sharply intensifying, as the fuller connection to God is about to erupt.

One of the elders then starts to chant: “Come, spouse, from Lebanon” three times, and all the elders – in a sense the fullness of the older biblical stories –  are following the chant. This is the call in the Song of Songs from God to your soul, to rise up from “Lebanon” (as spiritual perfection), and further up into mystical union with Divine Realities.

And this is moment when the channel is fully opening; the elders chant, the soul is aligned with the deeper cosmic and spiritual realities, and then suddenly a hundred angels erupt out of the chariot, in some way meaning God’s energy is directly opening for the soul.

It’s hard to overstate how important this moment is. If this happens to you, you are truly transforming your being and your soul into becoming something very different. This is not only a poetic description or beautiful imagery of higher aspirations of the Heavens, but a categorically different life for you. It connects you with God from deep within. This is what Dante experienced, and this is what he wants to happen for the reader. The whole Comedy leads up to this moment – the healing of the soul and then the ripping away of the veil and for the first time having the capacity to truly participate in God.

So in terms of the Soul’s journey to God as the purpose of the Comedy, this threshold and connection is what the Garden of Eden actually gives to you. First a state of transformed life where the Divine shines through the Earthly and becomes a permanent presence, and then it will quickly move even further. The capacity that is now built, will reveal things for you never seen or experienced before.

Implicitly this also clarifies Eden and Paradiso; The soul discovers itself and fundamental reality in the chariot metaphor in Eden, and then opens the channel. And if that has happened to you, but only then, will the third book show you the journey of the now transformed and “resurrected” soul, further and further up into God, and to the Heavens.

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The Chariot in the Night Sky

Posted on June 3, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After Dante has established the chariot as a deep metaphor for both your soul and ultimate reality, he opens up the next canto by lifting the sights into the night sky, and recognizes the chariot (carro) once again.

The poem becomes almost impossibly multilayered and recursive at this point, but an overall intention is to show how this foundational principle runs through the entirety of the creation as the source and basic pattern (or “fractal”) of existence itself. And he starts with one of the most central metaphors of the whole comedy, the “Big Dipper” as a constellation showing this chariot in the skies, slowly rotating around and pointing to the North Star, the center and source of all existence and a general metaphor for God. That around which everything revolves – als0 physically.

The carro also alludes back to the seven candlesticks and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that comes from the “first Heaven” or the Empyrean, the Mind of God and the realm of pure Divine Light and Love.

The imagery is infused with beauty, and suggestive: the carro (as constellation, ultimate reality, the deep of your soul, gifts of the Holy Spirit, a churning unity of two wheels/asymmetrical dimensions) – the carro “never rises nor sets” as Dante writes, apart from the fog that we ourselves might veil it with – through vice and sins. Meaning; this deeper truth and reality is always there, and it is up to us to clarify our vision and remove the sins, to be able to perceive this reality clearly.

It also touches on the idea of “Our heart is restless until it rests in thee”. Dante writes that the truthful people (la gente verace) turn themselves to this carro, as “to their peace” (come a sua pace).

This has a very practical aspect: IF this suggestion from Dante about reality is correct, there is once again a cascading effect of pieces falling into their place. If this is reality, then it has to be reflected in the soul as well, and the soul will not find peace until it correctly discovers and aligns itself, with this dynamic and nature. It is only when the soul “clicks” with this dual perception and alignment with its deeper nature, that it falls to peace and can see the world correctly. Almost in a technical sense; there will be unrest and a lacking fullness and peace, as long as the “apparatus” is not aligned with itself, and “tuned” with its own nature. But when it does, an infinite wealth and generation starts occurring – in a sense; The Kingdom of God will start unfolding in its infinite abundance.

So this is one of the key moments of the Comedy and the unveiling in the Garden of Eden: the nature of reality and your soul – and how you can align with this reality through the spiritual life, the Scriptures, and through Christ as an aligning force and the “pulling griffin”.

Trying to reach the “carro recognition” internally through a single-mode thinking is simply impossible, as it becomes a rigid model of “same natured” elements. It is primarily through uniting spirit and matter, and the dynamic between the two, that we can reach this insight and experience.

And, once this stage has been reached, one might see implied in these verses, there is also “no way back” to unseeing it. In part because you will have new insights that the “old way” of thinking and experiencing simply cannot explain or account for. So once this is established and used for a while, it becomes a self-sustaining mode of being and participation in reality. In a sense, the “carro” becomes a living reality for your soul, and that which opens up not only more insights, but the path and what changes into the instrument itself, for the ascent up into the highest Heavens.

And the reminder is now there on clear nights in your daily life, if you just look up, to the starry night skies.

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