Jacob's ladder
The Bible tells the story of the patriarch Jacob who, while fleeing from his brother Esau, slept and dreamt of a ladder that reached heaven. He saw angels descending and ascending on it while the Lord God stood by his side and spoke to him. A Jewish biblical philosopher (ca 50 CE) named Philo did some dream analysis on this and gave four interpretations of what the ladder meant. The first was that these angels represented souls descending to and ascending from bodies — in other words, souls reincarnating. Another interpretation was that the ladder represented the human soul and the angels are God’s way of helping pull up the soul in distress or descending in compassion. A third interpretation says that the ladder represents the ups and downs of human life and continually changing affairs of men. Other early Saints have called the ladder the “bridge” between heaven and earth, and the way of the ascetic path.
One thing is clear. There is movement. Either one goes up or down. This symbol of Jacob’s ladder in his dream came to me as I was reflecting on the energies of this year coming. If we are to chart the movement of 2011, it will be another year of accelerating (yes, even faster than 2010) energies. On a planetarial level, we are moving upwards in a spiral of energy expanding our consciousness to reach newer and higher dimensions. We are forced to go higher, and do so, faster. Meaning… NOW. Choose to change now. We need to choose to junk those shadows and negative parts of ourselves that have cropped up for decades. Make a clear decision to heal or work them for permanent release. Throw them away, or step away from them. If those dramas of life continue to make us suffer and cry… let’s just choose to stop getting caught in the dramas. The key operative phrase I can suggest is: how fast can you go with your center intact?
Have you seen a top spinning? Its center is steady despite the speed of its spin. If that top loses its center, it will fall. Well, we are like that top… if we lose our center and our focus, our balance on that needle-like point, then we fall. The spinning energy represents the fast changing times surrounding us. We can also use this for our own transformative change by shifting how we perceive our world. From what lenses do we look at ourselves in relation to our world?
None of the old methods will help us solve whatever crisis that comes to our lives now because reality has changed. It’s not just that the rules of the game have changed; we are playing a completely new game.
We are all so used to living in an individualistic, separatist world. We thought (well, many still think) that by just thinking of our personal welfare and keeping boundaries from the problems of the world, by amassing money and security (whatever this means), then we will be OK. Now, however, the situation has changed completely. With financial crisis that is shaking up the foundations of what we defined as our security and ego ambitions; global warming crisis that carries the clear threat that we are actually destroying our planet as nature fights back; poverty and overpopulations — all these and more are making us gasp for air in unison. Using all these against the symbology of Jacob’s ladder… it’s clear we have stepped down the lower rungs. And who can help us or save us from our continued decline? Only ourselves — but the part of us that is the “super-human” or the super-hero part.
Real transformative change can begin to happen only when we realize that our real enemy is our small lower, self-centered, greedy, ego self. The Superhero in each of us will be the one to choose to re-arrange our entire value system beyond the selfish ego needs to one that is collaborative. From “success comes from using others,” to the opposite, “success comes from mutual concern.” To help create a world that is new, interconnected, interrelated, working in ways that integrate, unify and uplift. We must find the leaders to do this. Or we must become the leader ourselves. When we reach out with this mindset to other people, encouraging them and empowering them, being part of their own healing and thus, elevating them, we become “super-human” showing off our divine nature that is capable of carrying all that Light coming down now. Our minds become clear. There will be clarity in our actions, and in the path we need to take. Our life mission opens up to us more and more. Our consciousness continues to expand as we redirect the life we live from the core of our soul.. with spiritual values rather than material values. Our choices will change. We will become kinder to ourselves. We will seek to continually work our inner truths in peace and extend this out to others through virtues like compassion, care and understanding.
The image of Jacob’s ladder covered by light from heaven is the challenge we have now. Literally, energetically, our earth and the magnetic fields that surround it is taking in higher and higher frequencies of energy. It is a natural expression of accelerating planetary consciousness. The world, and we, too, are remaking ourselves as we expand and go higher. We need to choose to go up that ladder! We can choose to eat healthier, live healthier and more sustainable. We move on when we need to grow and be whole. We can choose to be kinder with less judgment in our minds and hearts. We will know that what we think is the first form of manifestation of energy that will ultimately create the reality we see and experience in our world. We will understand the universal law that what we give out is what we also receive. We will choose to think of the benefits of the greater majority and not just our selfish wants. All these is what ascending Jacob’s ladder ultimately means, as each of us is both soul moving up and angel reaching out to help another to ascend.
Saint John Chrysostom writes: “And so mounting as it were by steps, let us get to heaven by a Jacob’s ladder. For the ladder seems to me to signify in a riddle by that vision the gradual ascent by means of virtue, by which it is possible for us to ascend from earth to heaven, not using material steps, but improvement and correction of manners.”
