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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Garden of Eden

Posted on May 26, 2025 by ancientworld

The Garden of Eden in Dante’s Purgatory is somewhat different in the original compared to most English translations.

In Dante’s Italian it becomes more of an expression of the transformed life, and the new experience of the Earthly with the Heavenly shining through, symbolically with a permanent little “breeze” from the east.

The three poets are also to some degree symbolic of the self (Pilgrim), the rebirthed soul (Statius) and the transformed rational faculty (Virgil). All three aspects are now together entering into this state of experience and perception, and the Pilgrim’s Will has been calibrated and re-oriented through the seven terraces.

Next step is to regenerate the frame of memory, in many ways the interpretative framework that shapes our perceptions. This has two steps: first to wash out the memories of sins, vice, mistaken frameworks and human internal constructs, and second, to reinforce the good memories of virtue and truth. This is one of the main overall themes of the last six cantos in Purgatorio, as we become more familiar with the new experiences of being, after finishing the terraces and a moment of touching Heavenly Love in the final wall of fire.

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The Blessings

Posted on June 25, 2022 by ancientworld

The Angelic Boatman approaches the Island of Purgatory. Ill: Gustave Doré.

“Fall to your knees, fall to your knees!
Behold the angel of the Divine! And fold your hands.
Expect to see more ministers like him.”

After the Pilgrim has girded his waist with a soft reed, as a symbol of the necessary humility to gain deeper insights into the world and the Heavens, he sees the Angelic Boatman approaching over the waters. The Boatman in some ways representing the first blessing on the journey of purgation. The rewards and affermations are immediate once an approach of openness is adopted. And with the promise, of many more blessings to come.

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