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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The Chariot – the Deepest of Reality

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the four gospels have appeared on the other side of the river, as a deepening vision and experience of spiritual wisdom – the Pilgrim sees something more: in the “midst of” or “inside” the four gospels there is a chariot on two wheels, pulled by a griffin.

This image is extraordinarily deep and complex. First, the chariot is a central metaphor for not only the whole Comedy, but for Dante’s larger cosmology and ontology, as well as his theology in some sense. More and more comes the idea, that reality at the deepest level is a churning unity of two asymmetrical dimensions. This is a source of being and the deepest principle of the emergence of reality. And this insight/vision comes precisely in the space inside/between the four gospels. Meaning: if one digs deep enough into the spiritual wisdom and living reality, one will eventually encounter this principle. It applies to all the deeper dynamics: your soul and God, matter and spirit, love and wisdom, stability and motion. Two dimensions of different natures, unified together, with often infinite emergence.

This “carro”/chariot will increasingly become a guiding metaphor and telos later in Paradiso. It is both the portal, the path, the vehicle, and the destination – all at once.

And in the image that Dante is showing us, the chariot is being pulled by a griffin, representing Christ, and the unity of God and the human. This living truth is what is pulling, animating, and bringing forth the chariot. Meaning; we are encountering and discovering the deepest truths of reality through the spiritual wisdom of Christ, and in a sense also Christ as a “process” towards this revelation, the dual perception of the material and the spiritual, as one of the gateways into this deeper foundation and source.

So these are two essential elements of the image; the chariot as a foundational principle of reality, and the incarnated spirit of Christ as bringing this forth.

But the image is even richer. The chariot as ultimate reality is also to some extent a metaphor for your own soul. As our soul is emerging and made from the Divine source, it itself contains this foundational nature, if we dig deep enough. So this principle is reflected in ourselves, and being reconnected to, through the pulling of the griffin, as the incarnated spirit and also as internal unity.

So from the anagogical perspective, we are now seeing the deepest dynamic of the soul, and how it can be moved forward in its growth and relationship to the heavens.

On top of this comes a practical warning from Dante: be aware of hubris. We have just been shown a deep and powerful spiritual truth. He thus evokes the story of Phaethon, the little boy who takes the reins of Apollo’s Sun Chariot, loses control, and almost burns down the whole world before Zeus steps in and stops him with a thunderbolt.

The message in part being; stay grounded. Take time. The spiritual path is a long one, and the temptation for hubris and superbia will arise again and again. So we are given deep wisdom here, and also reminded of the necessary humility in participating in this deeper reality.

So in short; the insights are still cascading, and we have now glimpsed the deepest part of the soul and ultimate reality. These are the fruits of the climb, the alignment, and the acceptance of bigger insights from the Heavens. As we move closer and closer, to the ascent into Paradiso.

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Gaining more eyes to see

Posted on May 30, 2025 by Richard Emerson

After the appearance of the 24 elders in the wake of the light of the Covenant, they slowly pass by and there are new and fresh flowers visible on the other side of the river – in part meaning new spiritual wisdom and life flourishing.

And then comes a new image in the unfolding vision of the Pilgrim: four animals crowned with green foliage, feathered with six wings, and the feathers full of eyes, comparing it to the Greek giant Argos with a hundred eyes.

These animals are representing the truth of the Gospels, in part as a deeper spiritual insight building on the older biblical stories, and also having hundreds of “eyes” as new aspects into spiritual truth and wisdom. And there is a double effect suggested; the Gospels both as having hundreds of eyes, but also as giving your soul hundreds of new eyes, too.

So, the revelation is continuing; we are in transformed life (as Eden), right at the threshold to the spiritual realm (the river bank), and if you mirror the acceptance of Mary with the “genoito moi”, “let it happen” internally, your soul and connection with God will experience a tremendous new opening into the Heavens.

Again, this is only possible after the arduous climb of the mountain, the rebirth of your soul, the “earthquake” of the mountain, and a long term development of dual perception that opens up for a spiritual and material unified experience of reality. This bears repeating; one can read Dante and Purgatory hundreds of times, but unless this inner transformation has happened, these passages will remain beautiful symbols, visuals, evocative poetry – but not spiritual and mystical real experiences. Still beautiful, but nothing remotely similar to the breakthrough of cascading insights and hundreds of new aspects appearing all at once, spiritually.

And on the side, this is partly a challenge with most modern Dante commentary that treats this as an “external allegory” and not as an internal real transformative experience. Many translations express a somewhat confused and chaotic impression of the Garden of Eden, which is natural – if the anagogical level (the Soul’s journey to God) is bypassed. The gifts and rewards at offer here are infinite, but only if the real journey is undertaken as participation, and real internal growth.

And the rhythm here is increasingly becoming more celestial too, with the insights appearing as “light follows light” – come luce luce in ciel seconda – in our preparation and journey up towards Paradise, and up into the Heavens.

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Receptivity as key for the Soul’s relationship to God

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Richard Emerson

As the imagery keeps expanding in the Garden of Eden, we are presented with several new key elements for how the relationship between the soul and the Heavens/God can grow and deepen, once the capacity has been developed.

Behind the seven lights moving we now see coloured bands that form a rainbow of seven colours, the symbol of the Covenant. This is essential for understanding the nature of the relationship – a “pact” and a coherent deeper reality we can align with, rather than more ancient ideas of Divinity as unpredictable and more anthropomorphic like for example the old Greek Gods or the Norse traditions.

So there is a focusing here on the spiritual, with the transformed life symbolized with Matelda, and a closing towards the threshold experience – with the river and the bank.

Dante then again evokes the symbol of God and the soul as the sun and the moon (now as Delia/Diana) –  and indicates an amplified state of the moon as having a glowing “halo”, likely suggesting your soul in a elevated state of intensity and perception.

Then the 24 people symbolizing the old biblical stories gradually appear, in part as medium, channels or instruments for deeper spiritual wisdom and connection with God.

But perhaps the strongest symbol at this point is the invocation of Mary, as the human soul and the birthgiver of spirit. At this very moment it all comes together as a radiant symbol of the connection itself – the elders in the procession give her blessings – and we are now again suddenly at the core of the whole Comedy: preparing your soul for communion with God.

None of this imagery will make any sense unless you have already developed and transformed your soul and your internal being, through the seven terraces. A rebirthed soul and dual perception are simply required. And in addition, just like Mary’s acceptance of the message from Gabriel, her “γένοιτό μοι” – “may it happen it to me” – when the opening to the Divine presents itself, is also essential. This is exactly Dante’s guiding to the reader as well; at this point in the journey you have developed the capacity, and the opening will eventually present itself; the test is then whether you will accept this or not. The fuller relationship and incarnated spirit can only happen, if you internally say the same: “γένοιτό μοι” (genoito moi) – let it happen.

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Discovering the “bank” between the Spiritual and Earthly

Posted on May 28, 2025 by Richard Emerson

The revelations of Eden deepen as the Pilgrim looks beyond the Seven Lights.

After the Divine Light intensifies above the seven candle sticks, a new cascade of insights are happening for the Pilgrim. First, Virgil admits with his facial expression that he does not understand at all what is happening at this point. And then Matelda, still as the transformed earthly life, pushes the Pilgrim to look deeper, behind, “di retro” of the appearing living lights – suggesting a deeper perception of the spiritual vision is now possible.

And as the Pilgrim looks deeper, he starts seeing people led by these shining lights, which are symbols of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Reverence/Awe of the Divine.

But then Dante writes an extraordinary tercet that transforms Eden from a unified experience of Heaven and Earth, to also being a portal and a transition into the realm of pure spirit.

The tercet is this:

L’acqua imprendea dal sinistro fianco,
e rendea me la mia sinistra costa,
s’io riguardava in lei, come specchio anco.

One way to read this is:

The water took/grasped from the left side,
and rendered to me my left coast/boundary,
if I looked into it, like a mirror again.

Meaning: The spiritual wisdom and vision and insight comes to the Pilgrim on his “left side”, meaning the earthly perception, as the idea of the Heavenly shining through into the Earthly here in Eden.

Then what happens is that these new and stronger spiritual visions are making it more clear for the pilgrim where the boundaries and flows between the earthly and spiritual are; in a way he discovers more clearly the bank/threshold of the earthly perception through which at the moment the spiritual is coming to him. But this boundary is only rendered to him when he looks into the spiritual vision itself, and thus noticing the difference, and the combination of two different realms, reinforcing the idea of “dual perception” being a key capacity that has been trained and developed on the seven terraces. He can now keep both dimensions simultaneously in his mind and experience them at the same time.

And then comes an even deeper point; this apprehension of the spiritual and earthly and the flow/boundaries is like a mirror, meaning it reflects the nature of ultimate reality and the Divine itself: this new perception is in itself an alignment and reflection of being, not merely the nature of his experience. Or in other words: this discovery of the “costa” internally is a revelation of ultimate reality itself, at a cosmic scale. His new capacity for perception is aligned with how reality actually works – thus giving him at times exponentially greater ability to understand this fuller reality.

And as an extra poetic layer of beauty implicitly; The water is also reflecting the Pilgrim himself literally, adding a meta-reflection of the “self” seeing its own role in perceiving, contemplating and participating in this unified experience of reality.

In short: the Pilgrim understands both himself and the big picture in a much deeper way, and detects the shores where the purely spiritual realms begin. This will prove to be essential for his impending final ascent, into the Heavens.

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The Soul as Reflecting Divine Light

Posted on May 27, 2025 by Richard Emerson

A new relationship between the soul and the Divine, as we enter the Garden of Eden.

After the combined experience of Heavenly and Earthly is to some extent established in the Garden Eden – as grounded in the Earthly but with the Divine shining through all of Creation, Dante gives us a new image of the overall journey:

Di sopra fiammeggiava il bello arnese
più chiaro assai che luna per sereno
di mezza notte nel suo mezzo mese.

From above flamed the beautiful apparatus
more clear by far than the moon serene
in middle of night in its middle month.

In a literal sense this is describing the light coming from seven candle sticks emerging out from the forest, in their brightness and pure beauty. And this is also an image of how the spiritual wisdom and reality are starting to shine more intensely through into the Earthly and to the Pilgrim’s experience.

But it expresses something deeper too; it is about the soul and God, and the relationship. Which is the overall theme of the whole Divine Comedy.

The first line describes the Divine presence and flaming reality, in beauty (“flamed the beautiful apparatus”). The second line picks up the metaphor of the moon as your soul, as we had earlier with the soul’s rebirth as a cauldron of molten fire (here: “the moon serene”)

But several important points are being made here: your soul is not shining purely by itself, it is reflecting Divine Light. The more you grow in the spiritual life, the more you can reflect. But still – no matter how much you align and grow and participate/reflect (metaphorically as “middle of the night for the full moon”), the Divine source is “more clear by far” – or “più chiaro assai“, and eternally so by nature.

So we have the source, your soul as reflecting, the beauty and eternity of this dynamic, and the growing relationship between your soul and the Heavens. And a reminder perhaps, that your ability for this is ever changing too, just as the moon can reflect in various degrees.

And this scene comes right at the moment when the Pilgrim sees “seven trees of gold”, that turns out to be seven candle sticks, and a much deeper spiritual meaning is about to be unfolded.

An overall point being this: We are preparing for the ascent to Paradiso in just a few more cantos at this point, and this insight is important. Your soul is now growing, it is reflecting God’s light, but keeping this image of the latter “assai” more clear than the former is an essential key to the further ascent – up to the endeless gifts of the Heavens.

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