I. Ialdabaoth's Creation

Meanwhile, Ialdabaoth. (dumbec)

Ialdabaoth, being the upstart, egotisitical, aggressive,
heartless, greedy, probably shame-bound man that he was, decided he wanted
to create. He wanted to create the world. And so it occured. It
occured in a way that we are familiar with in these words.

"In the beginning god created the heavens and the earth, and the
earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep:
and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the water."

Ialdabaoth was outside of the heaven. He did not know of The
Deep. The Deep. The face of The Deep was dark and, Sophia, the Spirit of
God moved to soothe her pain, back when she was bound, when she was lost in
the abyss.

Ialdabaoth had seen her on the face of the water and he was
inspired. "Let us make a man in God's image." And so in his creations, he
created angels to help him and the many angels got together and took part in
the formation of this being called Adam. One created a left limb bone,
another made the right ear, one put on the head, until gradually Adam was
born. But he was not alive. He was a dead corpse. He was just a body.
There was nothing that was alive in him.

J. Sophia's Plan to Restore the Stolen Light

Sophia, sitting in her place in the 8th heaven, came up with a
plan. The plan was to tell some angels to go down to Ialdabaoth and to
have Ialdabaoth blow the spirit, the light that he had stolen from her, into
Adam. Ialdabaoth did and Adam became alive. Not only did he become
alive, but he became powerful and as brilliant as Ialdabaoth's Mother Sophia
had been.

Ialdabaoth became jealous for he could not have somebody greater
than him. So he shrouded his light and placed over it a counterfeit
spirit, an artificial self. Then he pulled out of Adam's side a woman
named, Eve. As he pulled her out of Adam's side, Sophia sent her life, her
light into Eve so that she could assist Adam, in bringing the light in to
the world. Ialdabaoth, still not liking this, took advantage
of Eve and from "his exploits came Cain and Abel. But then Adam and Eve
had a third son who was named, Seth, who was the Light-Filled one and who
was the one who would carry the light across the span of generations into
the bodies of man and woman where it lies latent to this day.

So ends the story of how the light was brought to humanity.

K. Historical Overview of the Myth

This creation myth is barely known because it was so ruthlessly
suppressed, forced into hiding by the powers that were threatened by the
mystical implications. But there was an underground root system that would
periodically spring up. There would be various places and times when this
teaching, this orientation, this mystery tradition surfaced. One of the
most prominent times was during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the
time of Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen and Mechtild of Magdeburg. They
were certainly apart of the resurgence of a Goddess orientation, a love
orientation, that had a different spin than Christianity.

The Cathar Church of the Holy Spirit of that time was severely
pounded into the ground for their mystical practices of the eucharist and
baptism. The Knights Templar were tortured in ways that torture had never
been practiced before. And as the story was not able to get out, the
troubadours of Southern France sang for love of this woman who was invisible
and unattainable. If one looks at the old stories and texts of the
troubadours, there is a hidden reference to this lost woman;26 this lost
woman who is latent within us. The Divine essence.

The grail legends came up around the same time and refer to the
same story.

In the Jewish Kaballah, the mystery tradition within Judaism
that surfaced this same time in the Middle Ages27, there is a figure called
Shekhinah, and the parallels between Shekhinah and Sophia are astounding.

Again, there is this experience of loss, this theme of loss of a
greater self and you see it occurring throughout history in various forms.
The
myth of Demeter and Persephone, the descent of Inanna and the stories of
Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

Perhaps one of my favorite angles into this teaching is in the
study and within the belief and practices within Alchemy, particularly those
that have been revived through the works of Carl Jung and Marie-Louise von
Franz. There are some beautiful references to a process of reintegration,
a process of reintegrating that which has been lost. This is the process of
moving into the transformativa stage.

I didn't really outline this for the presentation. It was a
part that I didn't quite get to but you might have been aware of the process
of going through the positiva and the fall into the negativa and then the
movement into the creativa with her meeting with Christ and her movement
out of her right of passage, essentially.

And yet the final process, the transformativa is not yet
complete.

[I neglected to include, during my presentation, the last,
yet-to-be-completed, conclusion of this story. The Sacred Marriage between
Sophia and Christ. When the scattered light or the scintallae28 returns
back to Sophia, who sits in the 8th heaven, she and her consort then move
into the Bridal Chamber and into the heavenly Pleroma. Cosmic peace is
restored.]

There is an interesting relationship between gnosticism and
Christianity. Valentinus, who was the prominent teacher during the second
century after Christ, probably sustained some of the wisdom teachings and
the sacred and esoteric teachings, apparently through a lineage associated
with St. Paul. He was again attempting to bridge the gap between
Christianity and gnosticism but, as you can see, from the depiction of the
god who is prominent to the bible in Judaism and Christianity, YHWH was, in
this tradition, more associated with this monster, Ialdabaoth. And yet
certain rituals such as the baptism and the eucharist and the image of the
dove coming into Christ during his baptism are really apart of an old
tradition that survived in that form.

So we are challenged, I think, in looking into the gnostic texts
to come up with or to open up to a revisioning of god; the Godhead and the
God or, more specifically the Goddess who is actually the creator, the
Emanation.

This is the great span of Sophia. The Barbelo is Sophia in her
highest form. There is also the youth, Sophia. And there is the spark
that is latent within us.

All this surviving array of the image of the goddess points to a
time when it would be safe for a return of the goddess. Over against the
wall we have an altar to Beltaine with many Goddess figures on it, that was
part of the May Day ceremonies here this weekend. Everywhere now, we see
goddess imagery and an embracing of something that has been lost within the
broad sweep of Christianity and the stronghold of Western patriarchy.
Of course, I think it is most challenging for men to enter into this new
perspective, this new power and energy that is available. And yet it is
not only for women, it is general feminine energy.

This Goddess imagery is representing the emotions that are so
beautifully depicted in the myth. Allowing for our emotional experience is
something that is so difficult for us to negotiate and for us to see the
vast incredible importance of the emotions particularly for men where they
tend to be pushed aside from early days.

And I think that it is a wonderful image of how we can respond
to others emotions of anger, fear, confusion and shame by how Jesus
approached Sophia, and embraced her, embraced her emotions, embraced her
pain so that they could slip away.

My wife and I actually have a long standing debate about all of
this. Melissa is a beautiful translator of Christian imagery and symbolism
particularly within the Episcopal Church. We have a wonderful Church in
Santa Rosa with a minister who is able to contain the breadth of
wisdom.
Melissa reminds me that really, in our attempts to outgrow or move beyond a
fall-redemption theology, we really need to know how to go through the
negativa and if we have not completed that we cannot move into the creativa.
And it was particularly the experience of shame, that brought Sophia onto
her knees which then brought about, what was called a metanoia or a
conversion experience.

And so with the theme of descent, the descent of Sophia down
into matter and the descent of Jesus down into matter to meet her on the
other side of the wheel of the creation spiritual paths. (see Appendix A) We
are challenged to vigorously pursue our truth, our spark, our light, our
emotional vitality. Marie-Louise von Franz, who was one o f the greatest
thinkers around who just died recently, was kind of Jung's right hand woman.
She said, "where there is no emotion, there is no life."29 It is like if
you are sitting at school and you are not plugged into what is being taught,
what are you going to learn? That is why UCS is so wonderful because they
really bring you in.

And there we have it.

[End of transcript]

8. Into The Field, Notes on the Musical Composition

The music was composed specifically to accompany this
performance at UCS. I intended to tie together the various instrumental
motifs used in the telling of the myth into a song which could bring some
celebratory cohesion to the beauty of the tale.

The audience was invited to sing the chorus part, which is a
slow lyric melody with a text taken from an Alchemical text called Aurora
Consurgens which, according to Marie-Louise von Franz, were notes taken at
St.Thomas Aquinas's last lecture. "Come, now. Let us go into the field I
added, "Where our flowers grow."

Melissa sang the three verses whose lyrics represent the
influence of Christ helping Sophia to release the pain of her emotions.

Two drummers assisted, along with a guitar, a violin and two
support vocalists, including my five year old daughter Inanna.

I want to mention the jembe drum that was used in the
performance, playing the role of the Christ. About four years ago, I broke
the goat skin head during an emotional catharsis. For the performance, I
wanted to re-head the drum in a way that I felt could resonate the feeling
of power when emotional release turns into creative brawn. I spoke to some
drum friends about putting a thicker cow skin on a jembe which they had been
unable to do with much success.

With the help of grace and some luck, I found a way using
sixteen turnbuckles to accomplish this task. To add further dimension to
this personalized drum, I put the skin through three stages of a natural
walnut dye bath. The outer ring turned black, the middle ring of the drum
head turned a light black and the inner circle remaining undyed. Also,
constructing the drum was accompanied by a ritual of releasing myself from a
caffeine addiction that has been self-sabotaging for years.

I am proud to say that the bass beat of the drum has a three to
four second sustain, longer than any drum I am aware of. This is an
example of how, in this project, I have tried to plant my intuitive research
into the activity of bardic storytelling that is resonantly rooted on the
physical level.

9. Conclusion

No academic paper or bardic presentation can fully capture the
essence of this figure, Sophia. In fact, one of the biggest challenges I
contended with in this project was to try to reign in the breadth of this
creation myth into some presentable form. So many angles connect to this
ancient creation story with so many implications on a personal and
collective level.31 The choice of a bardic format (as opposed to a
research paper) was made because I felt that this was the most effective way
to bring people into the richness of the story.

Of course, the story has been immensely valuable for me. The
myth has impacted me in indefinable ways and guided my process of
individuation for years. I had, in fact, from the onset of this project,
intended to interweave elements of my personal experience into the
presentation and discussion of the myth. It became clear after a meeting
with my advisor, Robert Rice, that the perimeters of this Master's project
could not contain all that I had hoped to squeeze into it. I continued to
develop the personal material, however, which planted me with a firm sense
of familiarity and self-confidence as I navigated through the myth. By
focusing primarily on the creation story, including some historical
background, I hoped to share with others the potentials of this myth to
inspire psychological insight and healing.

What can we learn from this dramatic story? The story contains
so many aspects of psychic and inter-personal experience onto which it is
possible to project our personal issues. For example, after seeing my
performance and reading the transcript, a friend asked me why I had left out
the discussion about how badly Sophia longed for her Father, The Deep, and
then turned around, almost with spite, and created a son, Ialdabaoth. All
that I had said when presenting the myth (according to the tape of my
presentation) was the simple statement made by Sophia. "If I cannot have my
Father, I will create a son." Here is a wonderful example of how this part
was magnified in her psyche, which may be reflecting some aspect of her own
relationship with her father and son.

A few months ago, I came into an awareness of aspects of the
Ialdabaoth within. After riding on a wave of production of research
material, a certain egotism began to take over me which seemed to me to
create a sense of separation from others. One danger in being creative is
that inflation can occur as a strategy to avoid experiencing the pain of an
unhealed psychic wound. This was my experience. I admitted this to a
small circle of friends and helped to bring some compassion to the wound
that lies deep inside of this deformed, power-god self. The result was to
feel the shame that had not been felt for awhile, whereby it could be
released from entrapment due to a lack of conscious recognition. Ialdabaoth
was born out of his mother's damaging inflation, which seems to be a
counterpart to feelings of shame. Ialdabaoth was not only the "son of
shame", he was also "son with shame". Perhaps this image may also help us
to better understand the pendulum swing of male-domination in the last four
thousand years.

I think one of the most important aspects of this myth that can
help our journey through the initiatory process of life, is the material on
emotions. In many of the renditions of this story, specific emotions are
described that Sophia feels from the dark abyss after having her light
stolen by Ialdabaoth. Christ then comes to her and helps transform her
emotions so that she can return to a higher place in the hierarchy of the
aeons.

There are few situations in modern day life where emotions can
be expressed and received in a way that is healing, as opposed to being
perceived as injurious. How can we meet a person who is experiencing
authentic emotion and respond with compassion, without trying to allay the
emotion or attempting to surpress a temporarily uncontrolled outburst. What
if Sophia had gone on Prozac?

I bow before the great teacher of the Wisdom traditions, Carl
Jung. Almost single handedly, he revived the dying Alchemical texts from
the dusty shelves of antiquity to bring us a system for mapping the passage
of growth through the four paths of Creation Spirituality.

On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth
brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluidities to
ashes (omnes superfluitates comburit). But on the other hand, emotion is
the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion
is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to
light or from inertia to movement without emotion.32

Let us see Sophia as the guiding light of courage through the
passage of inner darkness and turmoil that must be accomplished if we are to
move through the via negativa and into the light of the via creativa.

The conclusion of the myth is pending. Sophia, stands like the
lady of the light over New York Harbor, to guide us if we heed her
direction.

Come love, look out at the field,

where our flowers bloom.

Feel your light releasing,

into the darkest room.33