The Crossroads
Useful tactics require a meaningful strategy
As we have now crossed the threshold of thresholds, let’s take some time to talk about the landscape. My previous writings have offered much of the foundational “technology” we will use here, though I will attempt to synthesize it as a toolset for navigating the in-between. We might need to abandon logic and reason in certain places so I again wish to make you aware that we are in a different, more esoteric, space than we were over the past year.
The Crossroads is one of the oldest tropes in spirituality, so much so that it has reached into common parlance and for good reason. It is a convenient linguistic conveyance of being faced with a decision. It is a focal point for our hopes and fears, our beliefs about the world and an access point to invoke the unseen to inform the seen. All while being a literal, physical “thing” we can all point at. It encodes the consequence of decisions. The symbol of our karma in a very real and practical way.
As such, our physical human lineages have invoked our spiritual lineages as rulers and guides of the threshold/crossroads. Here is a short and incomplete list of some of those beings (please note that histories, interpretations and human culture in general is complex and non-linear so do not take this list as more than directional):
Enodia, Hecate, Hermes, Cardea, Diana, Janus, Matrikas, Innana, Legba, Exu/Elegua, The Morrigan, La Carrefour, Jesus, and the list goes on.
The reason I risk providing an incomplete list is to demonstrate how wide and broad the pantheon of liminal beings extends. It’s important to me, as I offer the views that I do, that there is no sense of sectarianism. This is about our human lineage, not a particular cultural one. I also recognize that I will fail at being completely inclusive yet I will still attempt to be. That said, we may find ourselves drawn to one being or another. Perhaps in relation to our blood, perhaps not. I invite you to have some openness and curiosity as we press on.
Let’s for a moment discuss the difference between strategy and tactics. The framing of these two for use in how I write is a simple distinction. Strategy is how we position ourselves and the tactics are what we use from that positioning to attain our goals. The value of tactics are questionable without a meaningful strategy which includes where we are, the terrain around us and the result we want. A deep contemplation of the “why” of that “want” must be prerequisite as well. Clearly some of my corporate life has helped inform my esoteric life…and vice versa.
I began to offer the topography of the Crossroads in the last letter in two narrative forms. The latter one is where we will spend the majority of time as there is terrain to explore and is likely to be far more useful (if such a word is even appropriate here). Having a vessel for our energetic intentions is a powerful tool. Please read that sentence again. We are going to begin cultivating that vessel in our mindscape. The interior of that vessel creates the space and the ground, the terrain, that we can traverse to meet our ends.
The most difficult news I have to share at this point is that meditation, calm-abiding meditation, is prerequisite for this work. I know, I know! Who has time or energy or the will to do it? What I will promise you is that without it, all you will create are sandcastles that will wash away with the next wave of thinking. We can’t even begin to create a strategy, let alone act upon it, if we don’t even have a place to do that work.
Instead of rewriting meditation instructions, please use the ones found in my letter here:
As you cultivate stillness, at the end of a period of resting, close your eyes and bring the following into focus in your mind’s eye. Take your time to develop the detail in your vision, it matters. This is not a one time event, we must construct it all until it becomes as vivid as the world in front of our waking eyes.
Visualize yourself sitting in the center of a field in the middle of the night.
The field is framed by a circle of thick dense forest a few hundred feet away in every direction.
The flora looks familiar, the air is still.
While it is the dead of night, everything is illuminated by the light of a full moon, though there is no moon or stars in the sky.
The space you are in is pregnant with source-less moonlight.
Looking down, you see you are sitting in the middle of an ancient, dirt, 4-way crossroads.
The dirt paths extend equally in all four directions and disappear into the forest, to locations unseen.
You are facing down one of the paths.
There is a feeling of the ground pressing up to support you, like an ancient living being.
Practice the meditation instructions (above) in this place for as long as you are able. Relax.
No expectations, no demands on you here. Simply invite the coil deep in your gut to unravel.
This is our first step in relating with the liminal space directly. A world of paradox made exoteric.
It is taking me a bit longer to get into a video release schedule however I will offer an audio guided meditation in the very near future. For those of you embarking on this journey with me, thank you for your trust, I do not take that lightly. For those who wish to keep this more academic, I am thrilled to have you here as well! It all matters.
Love,
The Vajra Brimo