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Cardinal directions
There is one set of symbolism that is related to the Spiritual Path. The Four seasons and the hours explains this symbolism.
There is however, another set of symbolism that is based on navigation around the Egg. Your position in the universe [including all its vibrational levels] can be found using the vibrational level and some co-ordinates - up, down, east, west, north, south. Many older documents have these co-ordinates, for example, Mem, North, East so many 'degrees'.
I have tried to show this diagrammatically below in relation to the Egg itself. From the point of view of the soul in ascension, the direction taken is ‘Up’ - up the celestial pole, but the actual direction taken is towards the Orient – meaning the direction in which one orients oneself in order to attempt the Spiritual Path.
This has been interpreted incorrectly in most literature now to mean the East. This has produced some rather odd literal interpretations of the spiritual realities. People are buried on a literal East west axis, people pray to the literal east and so on. The Cardinal directions are figurative and not ‘physical’. One travels up the vibrational levels [Levels and layers] and hopefully reaches the point where our soul cone touches that of the Creation and Creator. From there it is assumed we are in paradise.
Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth – Henry Corbin [translated by Nancy Pearson] 1977
In the true sense – that is to say, in the spiritual sense – the Orient is the world of the beings of Light, from which the dawn of knowledge and ecstasy rises in the pilgrim of the spirit. There is no true philosophy which does not reach completion in a metaphysic of ecstasy, nor mystical experience which does not demand a serious philosophical preparation. And such precisely was the dawning wisdom of the Khusrawanids, those ancient Iranians in whose person the two meanings of the word Orient – Aurora consurgens, Ishraq – were thus conjoined.
But what happens if you are just exploring? Rather than look at the Egg as a circle, for simplicities sake let me go back to a flat representation.
Now imagine that we are at one level or layer – earth, or water, air or fire for example. You can go up and down between levels – see the diagram below, but you may also be travelling horizontally. Furthermore, wherever you are journeying in the spiritual world you will have a start point and if you are travelling at a level you will be going in a certain direction.
Particularly if you are travelling at a level where a very distinct landscape [perhaps a recognisable landscape] can be seen you will want to describe the direction you went in so that maps can be drawn for other shamans or for the edification of your tribe or group. So you use the Cardinal directions to describe your route at that level – ‘I went east, west, north or south’.
In effect, the cardinal points in this context are used in a vision as reference points relative to the position and direction in which the person is facing in the vision and is used to ‘navigate’ their out of body travels. In some cases they appear to be essential to ensuring the person makes it back! In all visions therefore travel can be in three dimensions up and down as well as from east to west or north to south in relation to where the ‘body’ or rest of the soul is situated.
Daito [1282-1337]
At last I’ve broken Unmon’s ** barrier
There’s exit everywhere – east, west; north, south
In at morning, out at evening; neither host nor guest
My every step stirs up a little breeze
**Yúnmén Wény?n (862 or 864-949 CE), is also known in English as "Unmon". He was a major Chinese Zen master in Tang-era China and founded one of the five major schools of Chinese Zen Buddhism.
Now let me try to transpose this picture on to the circular matrix and you get the following [incomplete] picture.
The reason it is incomplete is because I cannot show on this diagram the idea of north and south, only east and west, because north goes into the picture and south comes towards us – in effect because this is a 3 dimensional structure – the other two directions cannot be shown.
There is more detail on the Cardinal directions and the colour symbolism used to denote the various cardinal points, in the symbol section Cardinal directions and the colours.
Observations
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- 1 Chronicles 9 17 The gatekeepers
- Ahmad Ahsai, Shaykh - Kitab Sharh al-Ziyara - Jabalqa and Jabarsa
- Ancient Egyptian - The Creation Myth of Heliopolis
- Ancient Egyptian - The symbolism of the four sons of Horus
- Angkor Wat
- Arthur, James D - 13 A profound feeling of direction
- Atharvaveda - XII 1 Hymn to goddess Earth - Part 02 Give us this day
- Babylon - The Ishtar Gate 01
- Babylon - The Ishtar Gate 02
- Babylon - The Ishtar Gate 03
- Bax, Clifford - The Meaning of Man - The one great song of the whole creation
- Beuys, Joseph - Crosses and crucifixes 01
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Birds and Spirit helpers
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Circles within circles
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Horses
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Spiritual path
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - The Hoop of the Earth
- Blake, William - And the four points are thus beheld in great eternity
- Blake, William - And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward generation
- Blake, William - From every one of the four regions of human majesty
- Book of Enoch-17
- Book of Enoch-18
- Book of Enoch-26
- Braveheart - Columns and colours
- Chagall - Circus
- Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz - The Second Day
- Cirlot on cardinal directions and animals
- Cirlot on the Orient
- Corbin, Henry - Jabalqa and Jabarsa
- Corbin, Henry - Na-koja-Abad: a place outside of place
- Corbin, Henry - Qazvini
- Corbin, Henry - The celestial pole and the Orient
- Cree - Native American Indians - Cardinal points
- Crowley - 21 The Universe
- Dante - Purgatorio - Canto 03 & 04
- Dante - Purgatorio - Canto 28
- Daśa-Dikpāla
- Diamond Kings
- Dickinson, Emily - The Wind took up the Northern Things And piled them in the south
- Dixon, Jeane - A vision of the snake
- Dogon - The Order of creation
- Doré, Gustave - The Bible - Zachariah 6:5
- Dr Joan Halifax - The Warao of Venezuela
- Dürer, Albrecht - Symbolism - Constellations of the northern and southern skies
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 017
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 109
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 127
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 176
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Nature - The rounded world is fair to see
- Enûma Eliš - Fourth Tablet
- Evelyn Lip - Chinese Geomancy
- Exodus 36
- Ezekiel - Ezekiel 40 - The New Temple Area
- Father Bernabe Cobo - Inca Religion and Customs - Titicaca Temple of the Sun and Moon 2
- Floating world
- Four Heavenly Kings
- Gaudi - Professional work - 04 The Sagrada Família
- Genesis 02 - Garden of Eden
- Genesis 28 - The Story of Jacob
- George Darley - Unicorn
- Holderlin, Johann - The Ister
- Homer - The Iliad - The Hours
- Homer - The Odyssey - The nymphs
- Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq - He saw the lightning in the east
- Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq - My lovesickness is from her of the lovesick eyelids
- Jili, Abd al-Karim - Henry Corbin - The Paradise of Yima
- Kabir - The small diamond everyone wants
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1836
- Klee, Paul - The Seafarer 1923
- Lame Deer - Native American Indians - On rattles
- Lame Deer - Native American Indians - The Cardinal Directions
- Lame Deer - Native American Indians - The Power of Four
- Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
- Lethbridge, T C - A Step in the Dark – Using the pendulum and colour symbolism
- Lethbridge, T C - A Step in the Dark – Using the pendulum, correspondences
- Lyrics from the Chinese - I went out at the Eastern Gate
- Lyrics from the Chinese - The willows by the Eastern Gate
- M A Czaplicka - Siberian shamanism - On spirit beings
- M Huc - Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China during the years
- Mayan - Popol Vuh - 02 Sky-earth, lake-sea
- Mayan - Popol Vuh - 16 The prayer to the gods
- Mayan - White roads and cardinal directions
- Mircea Eliade - Belet
- Mircea Eliade - On the Gardens of the Hesperides
- Mircea Eliade discusses the Epic of Gilgamesh
- Misc. source - A Sami drum map
- Misc. sources - Aztecs and Mexica - Ehecatl
- Mutwa, Vusamazulu Credo - And the jackal story
- Mutwa, Vusamazulu Credo - Birds as creators
- Native American Wisdom - The Hako Party presented to the Powers
- Native American Wisdom - White Buffalo Calf Woman
- Neiye - Verse 10
- Nizami – Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) – from On the Ascension
- Ogotemmeli - Granary
- Ogotommeli - Egg and Atom layout
- Ogotommeli - The Matrix and constellations
- Paul Devereux - Inca paths
- Pauli, Wolfgang - Dreams of Rings, Circles, Eggs and Stars
- Persepolis - And its sacred geography 03 Gate of All Nations
- Plato - Critias - Atlantis and Athens
- Poetic Edda - Völuspá [extract]
- Reichel-Dolmatoff – Amazonian Cosmos - Desana Creation Myth
- Revelations 06 : 1-8
- Rig veda - Rudra with braided hair
- Rig Veda - Spirit travel
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 02 The Bird and Branch
- Saint Brendan - 02 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 03 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint-Yves d’Alveydre – The Archeometer – Revelation 06
- Schuré - The Great Initiates – Hermes-Thoth
- Schuré - The Great Initiates – The Sphinx and cardinal directions
- Shaku, Soyen - No more heavy burdens on your shoulders
- Sheikh el Melewi and the mountain
- Silene capensis & Nicotine - by Sabje
- Solomon ibn Gabirol - The Fountain of Life
- Suhrawardi - Book of Conversations - The pure lights
- Sumeru
- The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
- The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
- The four guardians of the cardinal directions
- The Gates of Golgonooza
- The Liezi - 列子 "Book of Master Lie" - Chapter 5
- The Lotus Sutra - 18 Benefits of the Teacher of the Law - 6 The benefits of becoming a 'seer'
- The Lotus Sutra - 23 Perceiver of the World's Sounds - 1 Brahma's sound, the sea tide sound
- The Mithras Liturgy - Lines 535 to 555
- The Saami - A Cultural Encyclopaedia - The Power of the Drum
- The sun’s penis
- The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine - Key 09
- Thoreau, Henry D - Walden - Explore thyself
- Tibetan Book of Exorcisms
- Tirgereh - Prayer to the Celtic goddesses
- Tranströmer, Tomas - The Cuckoo
- Tree, Isabella - Sliced Iguana – The Church of San Juan Chamula
- Trithemius, Johannes - Steganographia
- Tzu, Lao - A Way you can call Way isn’t the perennial Way
- Unusual cards - 16 The Tower
- Various symbolic objects - Lamassu
- Vignoli, Tito - On Sacred groves
- Vignoli, Tito - On the Cardinal directions and orientation
- Watson, Lyall - Sacred mountains and volcanoes
- Wei Boyang - The Canton of qi
- Xam bushmen - Num dom
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - I hear the shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake
- Yeats, W B - The Wind among the Reeds - Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns
- Zachariah 2
- Zachariah 6
- Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter - Moan