LESSON 18 The Spear Realm
Spear Ten Speaks
None gain entrance to me unless they bend their backs with effort.
None can live within me who do not know how to bear their responsibilities with a light step.
The Spear Castle is inaccessible save to those willing to make the long
climb upward. It crowns the hillside and surveys the whole land. Spear Ten
expresses the cumulative powers of the spear cards, representing burdens
and struggles which must be coped with somehow. The skills of the spear
are to make light of this, just as a professional subsumes the efforts of
training in the practice of his or her craft. The cumulative focus of Midsummer
often brings things to crisis, so that we feel over-burdened by many cares.
If we can find the indwellino strength of this season and work with it,
we may find that we are able to carry our burdens effortlessly. Such are
the testings of this quest that we often steel ourselves to continue climbing
an apparently limitless slope when in fact we have reached the plateau several
feet back! The Spear Castle has many rooms within it enclosing mysterious
treasures. The Spear quest puts us on our metal to manifest these upon our
road. We have to beware how we apply our efforts and that we don't fall
into the extremes that often typify this path. We must balance resolution
with the subtle messages of our intuition. To enter this high place, we
must raise our aspirations and learn to draw upon our power.
Questions
1. What are the nature of the responsibilities that fall on you at this
time?
2 . Which of your duties can be delegated to others? Which duties can
only you perform? Which duties are best shared?
3. How can joy and service be best combined in your life this Midsummer?
Meditation
1. Following the Rainbow Path of the Seeker, you arrive at a cross-roads.
Northern hemisphere readers take the southern road, southern hemisphere
readers take the northern road. Set out in search of the Spear Realm. The
Spear Castle, depicted on Spear Ten, is hard to reach and seems to have
been built in the era of giants. It takes all your efforts to reach this
place.
2. Enter the Spear Castle and explore. Describe what you find. Who is within
it?
3. Sunk in the depths of the Spear Castle there is a dark hall wherein day-light
never comes. Taking a candle you explore it. Pull down the dark hangings
that you find there, the once royal banners, the moth
-eaten tapestries of past greatness. Everything in this hall is mouldering
away, its purpose lost. Hanging here also are faded photographs of your
own life, depicting the moments of achievement that were full of promise,
to which you have not been faithful. Take these down also and add them to
your heap of rubbish, unless you really intend to fulfil the promise depicted
within them. Now set fire to the heap and see the smoke rise upwards through
the flues set in the ceiling, drawn upwards by a great draught. By the light
of the great conflagration, you now see the original hall walls. They are
painted with tall trees like columns and between them are beautiful scenes.
You find paints and brushes. If you wish, you can paint successive scenes,
continuations of the moments held in the photographs of your life, or other
moments yet to be. (You may wish to draw or paint these scenes on paper
after you finish meditating.)
4. To explore the Spear Realm, you can stand on the Castle walls and look
beyond. If you wish, you can fly over it in the shape of a raven.