Quest Magazine

VOLUME 92, NUMBER 1

CONTENT

Patterns of Light and Dark
By Betty Bland

British Pre-Raphaelites and the Question of Reincarnation
By Lynda Harris

Mary Poppins and the Puzzles of Paradox
By Helene Vachet

Spirit and Art: Paleo-Shamanic Iconography
By Van James

Echoes from the Celtic Otherworld
By Alan Senior

By Van James

Originally printed in the January-February 2004 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: James, Van. "Spirit and Art: and the Puzzles of Paradox." Quest  92.1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004):4-9.

Today, the word spirit and the term spiritual are often reserved for the religion page of the newspaper, held captive at church, or exiled to New Age circles. But the questions of origin and birth, life and fertility, reincarnation and karma, and death and transformation have long been connected with spirit and have been communicated by means of art throughout the ages. Images of gods and goddesses, angels and demons may have given way to pictures of landscapes and abstract forms, but what can we understand from such changes? Throughout human history, spirit—the shamanic trance state, mystic revelation, divine inspiration, religious devotion, enlightened thinking, individual self-expression, the Spirit of the Age—has inspired change and transformation in human consciousness. Art is a picture of the spirit, in its many forms, articulating what it means to be human. Any period in history can show us through its art the nature of human consciousness at a particular time. From the Paleolithic era to the present time, art has acted as a self-portrait of the human condition and has served as a family album or picture book of our humanity. Shamanic art is one of the earliest such self-portraits, at its height during the Paleolithic era, between circa 42,000 and 12,000 BCE.

The term shaman, once used to describe the sages and medicine people of the Tungus tribes of Siberia, is now generally applied to certain people and practices found in almost all indigenous cultures throughout the world. Three essential elements are found in most shamanic traditions: (1) Shamans voluntarily enter visionary states of consciousness, during which (2) they experience non-ordinary realms of existence where (3) they gain knowledge and power for themselves or for their communities (Cowan, p.3). This journey into the supersensory, where the shaman is helped by spirit guides that appear most often in animal forms, usually leads to initiatory crisis, an experience of oneness with the fabric of the universe, and the ability to prophesy, heal, and control natural phenomena. The paintings of the Paleolithic caves may have been used in this connection. By depicting animal images in caves, the shaman may have stimulated a supersensory experience, entered the Otherworld by means of altered consciousness, and gained knowledge through this contact. The ritual artistic act of painting and drawing, together with other means, can be seen as a vehicle for paleo-shamanic practices.

Neuropsychological research distinguishes three overlapping yet discernible stages of trance experience. These begin with the "seeing" of geometric forms, such as dots, circles, crescents, zigzags, grids, or parallel and wavy lines. These forms, called phosphenes, have a luminous, brightly colored, pulsating character that fluctuates and metamorphoses. When the subject's eyes are open, these phosphenes are seen as though projected transparently upon surfaces such as rock walls. In the second stage of trance condition, some forms are given more significance than others and are seen as images of objects: A crescent may be a bowl, a zigzag may be a snake, and a grid a ladder. The third stage is entered by way of a tunnel or vortex experience, at the end of which a bright light is seen. The geometric forms of stage one transform into the lattice structure of the vortex into which the subject is pulled. Animal, human, and anthropozoomorphic figures begin to appear. Subjects feel by this third stage that they can fly and turn into animals or birds. Subjects become what they "see."

Jean Clottes and J. D. Lewis-Williams note that:

These three stages are universal and wired into the human nervous system, though the meanings given to the geometrics of Stage One, the objects into which they are illusioned in Stage Two, and the hallucinations of Stage Three are all culture-specific. . . a San shaman may see an eland antelope; an Inuit will see a polar bear or a seal. But, allowing for such cultural diversity, we can be fairly sure that the three stages of altered consciousness provide a framework for an understanding of shamanic experiences (p.19)

 

Although some researchers acknowledge the shamanic experience, it is often viewed as strictly hallucinatory and illusory in nature. This raises the question, Do we regard all shamanic experiences as hallucinatory or are there such things as valid and objective spiritual experiences?

During the Paleolithic era, entering a cave may have been equated with entering into deep trance by way of the tunnel experience. Images on the cave walls may have paralleled visions attained through altered states of consciousness, thereby providing a link between inner and outer experiences.

From this perspective, the antlers are a pictorial imagination of the formative life forces or chi connected to nerve activity, ideation, and sense perception. In this way, the antlers are an early artistic representation of what was perceived by primal humanity as radiating light that extends beyond and around the head. In other words, antlers and horns may indicate primal halos or auras. The halo is well documented in the history of art as a spiritual emanation surrounding the heads and bodies of buddhas, bodhisatvas, saints, and spirit beings. Antlers, horns, halos, and crowns are pictures of extrasensory capacities that stand behind the spiritual activity of thinking or knowing beings.

In the last line of the "Song of Amergin," one of the oldest remnants of Irish literature, Amergin,the Milesian bard, declares, "I can shift my shape like a god." This reference to the shamanic ability to shape-shift (the capacity to live as, identify with, and become one with other objects, beings, and phenomena) might also be translated as "I am the god who creates in the head of man the fire of thought." Put simply, this line might be paraphrased as "I am the fire of imagination" or "I burn with visions of the spirit world." Tom Cowan says about this phrase "Shapeshifting occurs in the head and is analogous to fire, the most radically transformative of the elements"(p. 35). All of these aspects, contained in this simple phrase by Amergin, pertain to the artistic rendering of the horned and antlered Animal Master. Life, thought, imagination, vision, fire in the head, and shape-shifting all relate to the antler-crowned shaman. So the question arises, Are these horns images of an extended vision, a new vision brought to birth in the Paleolithic caves through directed ritual artistic activity?

Images such as the Sorcerer of Les Trois Freres lead us to inquire whether such anthropozoomorphic figures represent (1) actual creatures that lived at the time, (2) fanciful beings invented by early humans, (3) hallucinations, (4) shamans in animal costume, (5) supersensory impressions of the shaman priests seen through the still-visionary consciousness of primal peoples, or (6) spirit beings. In different cases any one of these possibilities may be true. However, it is likely that in many cases early humanity is depicting the supernatural animal forces, the spirit guides, as they pertain to primal human experience.

Ritual masks, costumes, headdresses, crowns, capes, and other garments that were featured in cave art were probably donned as clairvoyant faculties began to decline among primal humanity. The art of costume initially had its place in cultic practices and probably approximated the actual picture formed in visionary experience. This is not to say that more mundane uses were not possible for sacred objects. However, the original inspiration for sacred objects such as the table (altar), the wheel (solar symbol), the dagger (sun ray), the headdress (halo), and clothing (body aura) appears to have been ritually motivated in connection with early sacred practices. The wearing of animal skins and horns had the significance of aiding the shaman on his or her vision quest or spirit journey to find the Animal Master and spirit guide. In this regard, Joseph Campbell points out:

The masks that in our demythologized time are lightly assumed for the entertainments of a costume ball or Mardi Gras—and may actually, on such occasions, release us to activities and experiences which might otherwise have been tabooed—are vestigial of an earlier magic, in which the powers to be invoked were not simply psychological, but cosmic. For the appearances of the natural order, which are separate from each other in time and space, are in fact the manifestations of energies that inform all things and can be summoned to focus at will. (p. 93)

Robert Ryan characterizes the shaman Animal Master's relationship to the cave as a "returning to the source of creation. The ithyphallic shaman's penetration of the maternal cave of power is a return to the deep structures of the human mind, the formal source of our experience, and, at the same time, to the cosmogonic source. For the revelation of the cave art is that the two sources, human and cosmic, have concentric centers and that their shared center is inwardly encountered and experienced by opening the eye of the soul ..." (p. 55).

To see the scene at Lascaux, one must pass through the great Hall of Bulls, an open chamber covered with exquisite large animal paintings—the largest of which are bulls—and proceed down a narrower, tunnel-like corridor to a well or shaft, "apparently the most sacred place in the sanctuary, rather like the crypt of an ancient church" (a staff, p. 28). One must descend into this shaft to view the shamanic scene.

The Animal Master, Sorcerer, or shaman is an important key to the imagery of prehistoric art as it captures in picture form the aesthetic missing link between the animal kingdom and the human being. Perhaps our long-lost ancestor is not the lower primate we've imagined for the past century and a half, but the elusive paleo-shaman Animal Master, as spirit and art have suggested for thousands of years.

References:

1. Campbell, J. Historical Atlas of World Mythology. (vol. I.) New York: Harper and Row, 1988.

2. Clottes, J. and D. Lewis-Williams. The Shamans of Prehistory. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.

3. Cowen, T. Fire in the Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

4. Gimbutas, M. Language of the Goddess. London, England: Thames and Hudson, 2001.

5. Lorblanchet, M. quoted in R. Hughes, "Behold the Stone Age," Time, February 13, 1995.

6. Ruspoli, M. The Cave of Lascaux: The Final Photographs. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987.

7. Ryan, R. The Strong Eye of Shamanism. Rochester,VT: Inner Traditions, 1999.

8. Uehli, Ernst. Atlantis und das Rätsel der Eiszeitkunst. Stuttgart, Germany: J. Ch. Mellinger Verlag, 1980.

FIGURE CAPTIONSFigure 1. A Lapp shaman's drum, from early nineteenth-century northern Sweden, illustrates the three worldsto which the shaman has access.

Van James is an artist and writer living in Honolulu, Hawai'i. He is editor of Pacifica Journal and author of three guide books on ancient Hawaiian sites. His most recent book Spirit and Art: Pictures of the Transformation of Consciousness (Anthroposophic Press 2001) was reviewed in the March/April 2003 issue of Quest.

By Alan Senior

Originally printed in the January-February 2004 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Senior, Alan. "Echoes from the Celtic Otherworld." Quest  92.1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004):14-18.

O world invisible, we view thee,

O world intangible, we touch thee,

O world unknowable, we know thee,

Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Those words by Francis Thompson set the scene for our exploration of literature and music and the world of the faery. This world is often called the Celtic Otherworld because, for the ancient Celts, the only adventures worth recording were those occurring in "another dimension", and the only journeys of real significance were journeys between this world and the world beyond.

But they may well have objected to the term Otherworld, which was conceived by modern-day Western minds, implying that the spirit-world is somewhere "out there." The Celts perceived the Otherworld as dynamically interacting with our world, often with music acting as a bridge between the two. Some believed the Otherworld was located in islands far out to the west where the sun sets, called Tir Nan Og (Land of the Ever Young), unconstrained by time and space, which govern our existence. Whoever visited it became more than mortal, returning after a period of days or weeks to find that no time had elapsed at all.

Literature about Faeries

In 1691 the Reverend Robert Kirk of Aberfoyle wrote The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies, reprinted by Observer Press, Stirling in 1933. In it he attempted to define the elusiveness of faery essence and the nature and organization of those beings, during a time when few in Scotland denied their reality. He wrote that faeries are intelligent and curious; have light, fluid bodies; can appear or vanish at will; and have the ability to drastically alter their appearance and control their own size. Faeries once had their own society and agriculture but are unable to stay in one place and travel constantly. They are, he maintained, physically immaterial, are divided into tribes, and have children, marriages, and burials. They live in houses normally invisible to human eyes, often speak with a whistling sound, and may be commanded to appear at our will. Sometimes they cannot be told apart from humans and may be enchantingly beautiful or grotesquely ugly. Kirk was taking the view of Paracelsus and others that faeries can be commanded and that relations with them can become natural. He died the year after writing this—of a heart attack on a faery hill. Did the faeries take him? people asked.

The word faery, which has many spellings, comes from the Latin fatum, meaning enchantment, and is also related to the Fates, those goddesses who spin, weave, and cut the threads of our lives on Earth. So what do theosophical writers have to say about these entities? They recognize the world of the faerie as a part of a usually hidden spiritual world coexisting with our physical world and that the general function of these nature spirits is to absorb prana, or vitality, from the sun and distribute it to the physical world, building and caring for the forms of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. In a hierarchical structure, or devic order, are to be found these architects, builders, and craftspeople of nature, all linked in an intimate relationship from the form-building angels ("heavenly messengers"; Latin: angelus) flowing downward to the smallest faery creatures. 

The Theosophist Edward L. Gardner wrote a book, Fairies: The Cottingley Photographs and Their Sequel,published in 1945 by the Theosophical Publishing House, London (and reprinted in 1951 and 1974) after his involvement in the controversial affair of the photographs of the Cottingley faeries. Gardener stated that within our physical octave there are degrees of density that elude ordinary vision. Thus, faeries are small because they adapt themselves to our ideas; they have no clear-cut shape normally and resemble only hazy, luminous clouds of color with a bright, spark-like nuclei. Sometimes they assume the shape of diminutive human beings, half-visible, and perhaps are stimulated to appear so by human thought processes, desires, and expectations. But they can change size, shape, color, or gender at will.

The Irish poet and Theosophist W. B. Yeats, who reported many experiences with faeries, said that they possess no inherent form, but change according to their whim or the human mind viewing them. ArthurConan Doyle provided similar explanations in his own book of 1922, The Coming of the Fairies, having seen the grainy photographs taken in 1917 by two girls in the Bradford area of Cottingley. He believed they were genuine and that other faery appearances should be taken seriously, adding that faeries are quite substantial, in their own way as real as we are, but are not born and do not die as we do, while their observed forms are often powerfully influenced by human thought.

All this was borne out by another Theosophist (and clairvoyant), Geoffrey Hodson, in his bookFairies at Work and Play. Hodson and Gardner specified that each nature spirit possesses a definite individuality, not real or physical in the usual sense, but real enough at the time, taking on a specific shape in response to the ideas in our minds—either tiny, tall as a human, or gigantic; beautifully enchanting or hideously frightening; helpfully benevolent or harmfully spiteful. These, they said, are the "little people" of folklore who have endured for thousands of years.

As for the Cottingley photographs taken by two girls, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, at the Yorkshire village, it is notable that Polly Wright, the mother of Elsie, was interested in Theosophy and its teachings that thought forms can be materialized so that clairvoyants like Hodson are able to perceive them. She attended Theosophical meetings at the Bradford Lodge and circulated the faery pictures at the Society's conference in Harrogate. Illustrations of thought forms had been published in earlier theosophical books by C. W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant; this and the popular, "psychic photography" were sufficient to persuade many people that it was possible to photograph faeries. But it was later admitted that the faeries in the 1917 photographs had been very skillfully drawn, cut out, and secured to the stream's bank or tree branches with hatpins—although this is not to say that the stream at Cottingley is not a liminal place, where forms of faery life might be observed by some people. In 1921 Geoffrey Hodson visited Cottingley Glen and declared it to be swarming with elemental life—wood elves, a brownie, water sprites, gnomes, goblins, and the rarer undines in the stream.

Faery Music

In ancient times, the Celts believed that music was the means by which supernatural influence affected the listener, creating feelings of joy or sadness, sometimes inducing a trancelike sleep(particularly with harp music), or aiding relaxation and healing. Such altered states of consciousness were mostly joyful and inspiring, but the music also included the "weeping-strain," which caused the listener to wail or lament, particularly at funerals played by a haunting and sorrowful violin. Other instruments mentioned in connection with supernatural influence include bagpipes, whistles, trumpets, tympans, horns, and bells. The voice, human and nonhuman, also becomes a musical instrument in this context. In later Christian times, music was "sent from Heaven" to aid the saints in their difficult missionary work. When the work was done, their spirits were summoned to heaven accompanied by choirs of angels. 

In early Irish literature and folk tales, music is revealed as an essential attribute of theOtherworld, its sound heralding the approach of the supernatural, and by means of it the sidhe-folkplace men and women under enchantment. The word sidheis Gaelic for an Otherworld hill or mound and the sidhe-folk are rulers of the faery realms, often called "people of the hills." Celtic folklore is full of stories about earthly musicians carried off by the faeries to satisfy their desire for music, which they are also able to perform, sometimes teaching special playing techniques to mortal musicians.

Liminal places are those where supernatural music can be heard—in a cave or hillside hollow entrance; at ancient tumuli, cairns, or hilltop forts; even on mountaintops where Christian saints ascended, like Jesus, to commune with God and pray. The word liminal comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold, and refers to a transitional state where the veil between this world and the Otherworld is thin or lifted entirely, though just where this world ends and the Otherworld begins is not clearly enunciated. But there is nothing specifically Celtic about descents into caves—similar stories and practices occur in the Mithraic mysteries and the rites of primitive peoples, indicating a visit to the world beyond. The Earth has many of these places of power, and the Romans had a term, genius loci, referring to a divinity that resided in a particular locale. The genius of a place is a higher and more spacious form of presence whose extent we do not know, and Geoffrey Hodson in Clairvoyant Investigations(published by Quest Books in 1984) refers to these as lofty Landscape Devas, or Devarajas, who might preside over a whole range of mountains, stimulating the growth and evolution of a particular area. John Muir, the great Scottish conservationist and founder of National Parks, sometimes spoke of what I take to be Landscape Devas in his essays. Awareness of these presences has inspired much great music, as we'll see.

But it is, says Hodson, chiefly the angels of music who are concerned with the whole divine art of music, right up to the highly evolved order of angels called by the Hindus gandharvas, and "every true musician is brought into relationship with the gandharvas or archangels of creative sound and can become a channel for their uplifting influences . . .Composers and performers are in contact with these also, and it may be that great Egos have been and will be inspired, not only from their own Egos or immortal Selves, but with the aid of the angelic hosts" (p. 76). Cyril Scott expands on this in Music, Its Secret Influence throughout the Ages (Aquarian Press, 1958), in which he speaks of composers he calls Deva-exponents who have been able to "bring through" a portion of that music, having contacted much of the atmosphere of the nature-spirit evolution and, in the case of the Russian Aleksandr Scriabin, the Devas of the higher planes.

Many well-known tunes are said to be of faery origin, and the traditional Irish melody "The Londonderry Air" is claimed to be one such tune. Was it perhaps heard by a traveling minstrel touched by Faerie and passed down through the generations to become part of our heritage? It has certainly retained its supernatural status, and it is thought by actors to bring bad luck if whistled backstage in theaters. It was also one of many songs chosen by New Zealand Theosophist Hugh Dixon (with family and friends) to perform for Geoffrey Hodson's Clairvoyant Investigations. The words to this tune, which begin "In Derry Vale beside the singing river, so oft I strayed, ah, many years ago," also interestingly include the line "Oh Derry Vale, my thoughts are ever turning to your broad stream and faery-circled lea." During the performance, Hodson clairvoyantly observed flowerlike forms and sylphs jumping and dancing while the music was being sung—"natural denizens of air, radiant creatures, all gold, all blue. . . moving in graceful dances within the aura of the singer" (p. 102).

From Scottish folklore there is the tale of the musician Thomas the Rhymer of Ercildoune and of his visit to Elfland, sometime in the thirteenth century. Near the Eildon Hills in the Borders, while playing his lute, he suddenly became aware of a beautiful lady dressed in green and riding a white horse —no less a person than the Queen of Elfland. "Play your lute for me, Thomas," she said; "fair music and green shade go well together." So Thomas took up his instrument again, and it seemed as though he had never before been able to play such lilting tunes. He agreed to accompany her to her home in Elfland. As they rode, the border between this world and the Otherworld of Elfland faded, and they passed into an enchanted country filled with a splendid light. After seven years he left, rewarded with the gift of prophecy and a tongue that could not lie, so he became known as a seer who always told the truth ("True Thomas"). Some say that he eventually went back to Elfland and lived on as adviser in the faery court.

In Scotland there are many tales of mysterious music being heard yet no performer ever being seen. Other stories tell of faery harpers seducing young women with their enchanting and irresistible melodies. Near Portree on the Isle of Skye, there is a hill with a Gaelic name meaning "a faerie dwelling of the pretty hill." Those who visit it at night claim to hear the most beautiful music coming from beneath the ground, yet they can never say exactly where it originates. Likewise, beckoning, curious, and alluring music has been reported coming from under the arches of Fraisgall Cave in Sutherland.

The Scottish Symbolist painter John Duncan (1866—1945) often retreated to the tranquillity of the Hebrides to restore his health and spirits and to seek out the Gaelic culture in its purest form. The island of Eriskay, with its "holy quiet," seemed to him a kind of spiritual home, and he wrote, "One should go to that island clad in peace and shod in silence. One should dawn into it and fade from it without hail or farewell." Here, on the Isles of Iona, Eriskay, or Barra, it isn't difficult for the most practical of mortals to believe in the sidhe, and it was on Barra, while painting, that Duncan confessed to hearing "faery music"—first a strange voice singing a curious, plaintive melody (but with no human in sight), then not one but several bells pealing, to be joined by what seemed like many voices. But his companion at this time heard nothing: It was Duncan's clairaudience at work.

Duncan eventually came to consider that the world of faeries was as essential an element of the Hebridean landscape as the rocky shores, the sea, and the sky, and during his visits he encountered many visionary beings. Although he was sometimes troubled by these visions, they were too intense and meaningful to be ignored, and Duncan knew they were not mere symptoms of imbalance. He wrote "I am not mad. I know they are not to be confused with mortal men and women. They do not collide with solid bodies but they are not shape-shifters. Nothing ghostlike or vaporous. . . " He was aware that he was living in a materialistic age and that many would scoff at the idea that art should concern itself with something imperceptible to the eye, but his intuition prevailed.

Conclusion

These experiences of a hidden world were so intense and meaningful that Duncan sometimes suspected that the very concepts of reality and illusion might in fact be inverted. "Could it be," he mused,"that some only see with the outer eye and others with the inner eye? With the innermost eye. . . nothing is invisible." This echoes Yeats and A. E., who also believed that truth might be revealed in those rare moments of illumination when "the veils that separate us from this 'real' world wear thin, as clouds do, and the starry eternities show through either in momentary flashes or in tranquil beauty."

Finally, this is what George William Russell (A. E.) had to say about the Land of the Ever Young:

Tir Nan Og . . . is that region the soul lives in when its grosser energies and desires have been subdued, dominated and brought under the control of light; where the Ray of Beauty kindles and illuminates every form which the imagination conceives, and where every form tends to its archetype. It is a real region which has been approached and described by the poets and sages who, at all times, have endeavoured to express something of the higher realities . . .In a sense it corresponds with the Tibetan Devachan . . .If we will we can enter the enchanted land. The Golden Age is all about us, and heroic forms and imperishable love. In that mystic light rolling around our hills and valleys hang deeds and memories which yet live and inspire. The Gods have not deserted us. Hearing our call they will return. A new cycle is dawning and the sweetness of the morning twilight is in the air. We can breathe it if we will but awaken from our slumber.

Alan Senior, a native of Yorkshire, has lived in Scotland since 1971. An international lecturer for the Theosophical Society, he edited the Scottish Theosophical magazine Circles for many years. As a painter and a writer, he exhibits throughout Scotland and lectures at Aberdeen and St. Andrews Universities.

By Helene Vachet

Originally printed in the January-February 2004 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Vachet, Helene. "Marry Poppins and the Puzzles of Paradox." Quest  92.1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004):28-33.

Mary Poppins is probably the most famous nanny in history. She arrives out of nowhere to apply for a position with the Banks family and is hired on the spot, without references. Mary Poppins is able to evoke in others a recognition of truth, especially in Mr. Banks, who says that she paid them a signal honor by coming to their house. The lesson Mary Poppins teaches is to use our intuition, to look within, to find the truth. This theme continues throughout the stories, particularly in adventures involving the two older Banks children, Michael and Jane. Mary Poppins almost always denies that anything unusual happened, in order to make them think. Likewise, each adventure has an encrypted, paradoxical message to make the reader look within.

The Mystery of Expectations

Going upstairs to see the nursery, Mary Poppins rides up the banister of the staircase, going against gravity. Only the children notice this phenomenon; Mrs. Banks does not. What is the meaning of riding up the banister? Obviously, this establishes Mary Poppins as a person with magical powers and is a preview of the greater magic to follow.

Once in the nursery, Mary Poppins begins to unpack. The children have looked in her suitcase and found it empty, but Mary Poppins takes out "seven flannel nightgowns, a pair of boots, a set of dominoes, two bathing-caps, a postcard album and, last of all, came a folding camp bedstead complete with blankets and an eiderdown, all to the wonder and amazement of the children." This story illustrates the paradox of expectations: When you expect big things to happen, you get nothing; but when you expect nothing, you get everything. Mary Poppins herself, presents a paradox. Her looks are unremarkable. She is certainly no beauty; she is plain like a Dutch doll. Her role in life is also not powerful—she is a nanny. Caroline Myss, noted medical intuitive, calls paradox the language of the Divine. She says in Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice that "small is big and big is small—Heaven speaks to us in paradox."

Pamela L. Travers, the Discoverer of Mary Poppins

My encounter with Mary Poppins began with the Disney movie starring the truly magical Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke as Bert the chimney sweep, Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks, and the great David Tomlinson as Mr. Banks. The movie was delightful, but gave no inkling of the real magic of the universe embedded in the stories. To find that mystery, one has to read the books by Pamela L. Travers. Yet somehow Mary Poppins was not part of my childhood reading. It was not until 2002, when I was asked to review A Lively Oracle: A Centennial Celebration of P. L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins, that I became intrigued with the character of Mary Poppins and with Travers, who said that she didn't create Mary Poppins, but discovered her.

Travers was born of Irish descent in the outback of Australia in 1899. Early in life, she became aware of her gift of storytelling and would entertain her brother and sisters with tales that she created. After a brief career on the stage in Sydney, she went to Ireland, where she wrote for the Irish Statesman and befriended A. E. (George Russell), the famous Irish poet and Theosophist. She became an intimate part of a literary circle composed of W. B. Yeats, Padraic Colum, James Stephens, Lady Gregory, George Bernard Shaw, and others. Later she moved to England and wrote for the New English Weekly. There her circle of friends expanded to include A. R. Orage, P. D. Ouspensky and G. I. Gurdjieff. Meanwhile, W. B. Yeats translated the Upanishads, which was to have a profound influence on Travers, as did Hindu mythology and Buddhism, the lore of the Navajo Indians, and Jungian psychology. Travers wrote numerous poems and articles for well-known journals (later in life, she wrote mainly Jungian articles for Parabola magazine) as well as books, among which are seven Mary Poppins stories produced between 1934 and 1988.

The Meaning of Paradox

Mary Poppins, one could say, resembles a guardian angel, daimon, or cosmic being who comes from time to time to visit Earth. She never settles with the Banks family for very long, but while she is there, she teaches the family, primarily the children, about the deeper meaning of life. She does this through magical outings with the children during the day or at night when the children dream or wake up and seem to leave their room. Joseph Campbell wrote that we must follow our bliss and that to do this, we must put ourself at risk and doors will open. In the Mary Poppins stories, the children follow their bliss, always putting themselves seemingly at risk, and the universe opens for them and, vicariously, for us.

What intrigues me is the interpretation of these adventures. Their meaning is embedded in paradox,like a Zen koan or the wonderful stories of the Upanishads, part of the sacred mythology of India. Rohit Mehta, the Indian and Theosophical scholar, writes in The Call of the Upanishads that "A paradox is the placing of two opposites in juxtaposition. There is no solution to a paradox, a paradox can only be resolved or more truly dissolved" (p.12). Mehta explains that to reconcile a paradox, we must see the two opposites existing in the same place and at the same time. Since the human mind cannot conceive of this, he says, we finally reach a field of nothingness because the two opposites have canceled each other out, leaving nothing. "It is out of this nothingness, out of this negativity that a positive experience is born" and we are able to reconcile the opposites. Again and again in Mary Poppins, Travers asks the question: What will the resolution be when the opposites meet?

The Symbolism of the East Wind

The first chapter of the Mary Poppins series, "East Wind," explains how she arrives at number seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. Mary Poppins first appears as a shape, "tossed and bent under the wind." Two of the Banks children, Jane and Michael, notice that the shape is carried by the air and flung at the gate,then lifted by the wind and carried to the front door. Later, Michael Banks says to Mary Poppins, "You"ll never leave us, will you?" Mary Poppins replies, "I"ll stay till the wind changes." In other stories, she descends from the sky riding a kite or her parrot-headed umbrella.

What is the significance of the sky and wind bringing Mary Poppins to Cherry Tree Lane and determining the duration of her sojourn there? This reference is reminiscent of a passage from The Voice of theSilence by H. P. Blavatsky, a treatise derived from The Book of the Golden Precepts, studied by mystical students in the East. In fragment forty, the text says, ""Tis only then thou canst become a "Walker of the Sky" who treads the winds above the waves, whose step touches not the waters"(p. 9). The glossary excerpt for this fragment refers to this siddhi, or spiritual power, as being a "sky-walker" wherein "the body of the yogi becomes as one formed of the wind; as a cloud from which limbs have sprouted out," after which the yogi "beholds the things beyond the seas and stars; he hears the language of the devas and comprehends it and perceives what is passing in the mind of the ant" (p. 77). Known as the Great Exception, this aptly describes the powers of Mary Poppins, meaning in this context that she has gone beyond the evolution of humanity and her life now stands in contrast to those who have not yet reached this stage.

Discerning the Nature of Free Will

In the chapter entitled, "John and Barbara"s Story," a starling, a wise bird, visits the nursery at Cherry Tree Lane and communes with Mary Poppins and the babies, John and Barbara. Through their conversation, we become aware that the babies, the starling, and Mary Poppins understand the language of the wind, the stars, and the sunlight. However, the starling laments that the children will soon forget everything about where they came from. The children, of course, vehemently protest. Soon, however, they do forget.

This theme is explored further in the chapter entitled, "The New One" in Mary Poppins Comes Back. When the baby Annabel is born, the starling makes another visit, and he turns somersaults on the windowsill, clapping his wings wildly together each time his head comes up. "What a treat!" he pants, when at last he stands up straight. (Now he had someone to whom he could speak again.) The starling asks Annabel to tell the fledgling that accompanies him to tell where she came from:

"I am earth and air and fire and water," she said softly. " I come from the Dark where all things have their beginnings. I come from the sea and its tides, I come from the sky and its stars, I come from the sun and its brightness—and I come from the forest of earth. Slowly, I moved at first always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly. I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters." "It was a long journey! A long journey indeed!" said the starling softly, lifting his head from his breast. "And ah, so soon forgotten!"

This episode is reminiscent of the soul's encounter with the river Lethe in Greek mythology. The souls of the dead bathe there before they are born, so they will not remember their previous history and choices made before birth (karma) until their life is over. If we knew what happened in past lives with the people we know in the present, we might avoid these people and many of life's experiences. How can we operate with free will and choice if we know our sacred contracts, asks Caroline Myss, author of Sacred Contracts. In The Secrets of Dr. Traverner, Diane Fortune, the occult fiction writer of the early twentieth century, wrote about a character who refused to come completely into her body because she knew her fate and was afraid to face it. This presents the paradox that from ignorance we exercise free will; from knowledge we forfeit our right to choose.

Exploring Moon Magic at the Zoo

One day Michael mentions to Mary Poppins that he wonders what happens at the zoo at night. After the children are put in bed that night, a disembodied voice calls to Michael and Jane and tells them to get dressed and leads them to the zoo. There everything is the opposite of the usual: the animals run the zoo, the people are in cages, and all of the animals coexist in perfect accord. Although the lion that the children encounter says that he is the king, the real king is a hamadryad, a huge hooded snake that Mary Poppins calls "cousin." This evening is an occasion for the meeting and the resolution of opposites, ostensibly because Mary Poppins's birthday fell on the full moon. The climax of the activity was the grand chain when all of the animals circle around Mary Poppins in dance. The hamadryad escorts the children to the dance, and he gives Mary Poppins a snakeskin as her birthday present. The next day, she wears it as a belt, proving to the children that the adventure was real.

What lesson was Travers trying to convey with this story? The idea of rebirth may be demonstrated by the imagery of both the moon and the serpent, the former having phases and the latter shedding its skin.The moon dies with each cycle and is resurrected anew. The snake sheds its skin and is renewed as life is renewed by the progeny of each generation.

Another aspect of the story is reflected in Mary Poppins calling the hamadryad "cousin." Heinrich Zimmer, the great German scholar of Eastern religions and their iconography, explains that in South India, a nagini or naga (snake deity) in the family tree gives it greater importance. It is believed in Indian mythology that nagas are genii, guardian spirits, considered to be superior to humans, and they are renowned for their cleverness and charm. They traditionally wear a precious jewel in their heads, and they dwell in resplendent palaces studded with gems and pearls at the bottoms of rivers, lakes, and seas. They are the keepers of the life energy, he says, that is stored in the earthly waters of springs, wells, and ponds as well as being the guardians of the riches of the deep sea: corals, shells, and pearls.

The story of Nagarjuna is a favorite of both Heinrich Zimmer and the noted Theosophist Joy Mills. When the Buddha began teaching his doctrine of nirvana, he soon realized that humankind was not prepared to fully accept his doctrine of the void. They shrank from the implications of his vision. Therefore, he entrusted the deeper interpretation of his doctrines to the nagas, who were told to safeguard it until people were ready to understand. It wasn't until seven centuries had passed that the great sage Nagarjuna, Arjuna of the Nagas, was born. He was initiated by the serpent kings into the "truth that all is void." He brought to humanity the full-fledged Buddhist teachings of the Mahayana which illustrate the paradox of emptiness being full and fullness being empty.

Buddhist scholar Malcolm David Eckel says that the verses of Nagarjuna can be interpreted to mean that emptiness is a state of awareness, not just a state of being. However, a most intriguing resolution was demonstrated by Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect, at the Theosophical Society in the Ojai Valley. He filled a metal cup with miscellaneous objects from his pocket and then hit it with a gong. The resulting sound was faint and muffled. When he hit the empty cup with the gong, the sound that resulted was a beautiful and melodious chime.

Discovering the Magic of the Sun

In "The Evening Out," Jane and Michael are able to walk in the sky, where they are invited to a heavenly circus, the polar opposite of the earthly circus at the zoo. Here the animals are the constellations and the circus master is the sun. Instead of dancing the grand chain, the animals dance the "Dance of the Wheeling Sky," apparently all in honor of Mary Poppins"s evening out. Michael is given the moon to hold, presumably because he had asked for it earlier during the day. When it begins to wane and shrink in size, Michael says to the sun,

"It couldn't have been a real moon, could it?" The sun replies, "What is real and what is not? Can you tell me or I you? Perhaps we shall never know more than this: that to think a thing is to make it true." And so, if Michael thought he had the Moon in his arms—why, then, he had indeed. "Then," said Jane wonderingly, "is it true that we are here tonight or do we only think we are?" The Sun smiled again, a little sadly. "Child," he said, "seek no further! From the beginning of the world all men have asked that question. And I, who am Lord of the Sky—even I do not know the answer!"

Joseph Campbell in his elegant prose describes this situation of the sun being all light without darkness, containing only the shadows of those who do not open to the light:

What we all want surely, is to know the truth, even though its full knowledge may comeonly with the dissolution or stilling of the activity of the world. And so, whereas we have a deluding creation, maya [illusion] on the one hand, we have an illuminating destruction on the other, and between the two flows the enigma of the universe (p.264).

This story is also reminiscent of the paradoxical iconography of the Hindu deity Shiva. He is surrounded by circles of flame, rings of fire representing the sun. Shiva"s dance is the universe. A skull and a new moon--death and rebirth at the same moment, the moment of becoming-- adorn his hair. In one hand, Shiva holds a little drum that goes tick-tick-tick. That is the drum of time, the tick of time that shuts out the knowledge of eternity. We are enclosed in time. But in Shiva"s opposite hand is a flame that burns away the veil of time (the veil of maya), and opens our minds to eternity (truth).

Finding One"s Shadow on Hallowe'en

In Mary Poppins in the Park, the last chapter is called "Hallowe'en." The events of the day foreshadow the events of the evening. Mrs. Corry, a friend of Mary Poppins, accuses Michael and Jane of stepping on her shadow. Jane tells Mrs. Corry that she didn't think that shadows could feel. Mrs. Corry replies that this is nonsense and that shadows feel twice as much as we do. She warns the children to take care of their shadows or their shadows won"t take care of them. Finally, she asks them how they would like to find out that their shadows had run away. "And what"s a man without a shadow? Practically nothing, you might say!"

Much later, Michael arouses Jane during the night because he woke up and saw their shadows outside the house. They leave their bedroom and follow their shadows. When they finally catch up, Jane asks, "Why did you run away?" The shadows reply that it is Halloween, the night when every shadow is free. Also, this is a very special occasion—there is a full moon and it has fallen on the Birthday Eve (Mary Poppins' birthday, of course). The two shadows flit away with the children not far behind, on their way to the park for the party.

This episode brings to mind a passage in The Sorcerers' Crossing: A Woman"s Journey by Taisha Abelar. She was a student of Carlos Castaneda and gives us a glimpse of the American Indian perspective of the shadow. Since Travers had been initiated into the Navajo mysteries and given a secret name, this knowledge was hers also:

"I have news for you," Clara continued. "You"ve seen shadows move before as a child, but then you were not yet rational so it was all right to see them move. As you grew up, your energy was harnessed by social constraints, and so you forgot you had seen them moving, and only remember what you think is permissible to remember" (p.74).

At the party, the children have a conversation with the Bird Woman regarding the nature of shadows. Jane says that shadows aren"t real because they go through things and that they are made of nothing. The Bird Woman responds, "Nothin"s made of nothin", lovey. And that"s what they"re for—to go through things. Through and out on the other side—it"s the way they get to be wise. You take my word for it, my loves, when you know what your shadder knows—then you know a lot. Your shadder's the other part of you, the outside of your inside—if you understand what I mean."

During the party, in further conversation with the Bird Woman, the children ask her why Mary Poppins's shadow and that of Mrs. Corry were not free like the others. The Bird Woman replies that Mrs. Corry wasold and that she had learned a lot. "Let "er was old escape—not she. And as for Mary Poppins"shadder—It wouldn"t leave" er if you paid it—not for a thousand pound!"

Once we acknowledge our shadows and cease to lie to ourselves about who we are, we will have the greatest protection against evil. Then we will be able to utilize the creative energies of the shadow to assist us on our journey toward inpiduation. Carl Jung said that our first contact with the unconscious is always with the shadow. From the perspective of Jungian psychology, the shadow is the part of ourselves that is unknown, a paradox in itself. How can a part of ourselves be unknown to us? To become whole and fully conscious, we must integrate our unknown self, our shadow, with our conscious selves. To do this, we must search for clues in the secret recesses of our being—our deepest desires and our greatest fears. We must analyze the reasons for our mirth, our sadness, our illnesses, and our addictions and address those parts of us, however unpleasant or diminishing they may be to our persona, the face we present to the world. There is a positive aspect to this investigation, say Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf in Romancing the Shadow: "The shadow reveals its gold in creative works, which build bridges between the conscious and unconscious worlds" (p. 41).

To express the inexpressible in a form both enjoyable and meaningful was Travers"s task. We are both entertained and prodded to look within while following the adventures of her famous nanny, Mary Poppins, and the Banks children. If we are successful in decoding the messages, perhaps for a brief moment we can still the cacophony of voices in our mind to hear the truth.

Mary Poppins books by P. L. Travers: 

Mary Poppins (1934)

Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935)

Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1944)

Mary Poppins in the Park (l952)

Mary Poppins from A-Z (1963) 

Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane (1982)

Mary Poppins and the House Next Door (1988)

References 

Abelar, Taisha. The Sorcerers" Crossing: A Woman"s Journey. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. 

Blavatsky, H.P. The Voice of the Silence. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1992. 

Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. New York: Penguin Compass, 1993. 

Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988. 

Campbell, Joseph. Baksheeh and Brahman. New York: Harper-Collins, 1955. 

Draper Ellen Dooling, and Jenny Koralek., Eds. A Lively Oracle: A Centennial Celebration of P. L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson Publications, 1999. 

Eckel, Malcolm David. To See the Buddha: A Philosopher"s Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. 

Hillman, James. The Soul"s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. New York: Random House, 1969. 

Mehta, Rohit. The Call of the Upanishads. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970. 

Myss, Caroline. Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential. New York: Random House, 2001. 

Myss, Caroline. Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice. (Part of 6-CD Set Audio Collection.) Boulder, CO: SoundsTrue, 2001. 

Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. New York: Pantheon Books, 1953. 

Zweig, Connie and Steve Wolf. Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life. New York: Ballantine 1997.