Purgatory

The “eye” of the spiritual process comes with a sense of instability, and the need for a full withdrawal of illumination on the soul.

From the opening of Purg X:13-16

E questo fece i nostri passi scarsi,
tanto che pria lo scemo de la luna
rigiunse al letto suo per ricorcarsi, 
che noi fossimo fuor di quella cruna;

The literal meaning: “And this made our steps short, so much that first the receding of the moon reached again its bed to lie down again, than we were outside of this eye.”

The depth here is profound. It describes the birth of the spiritual process for the soul. As the Pilgrim and Virgil have entered the gate of Purgatory (as spiritual process), the path is swinging back and forth, indicating disorientation, and with Virgil’s advice that they need a bit of skill/art to navigate this.

A key learning is this: it will be a destabilizing experience at first, and, a necessary threshold is the complete withdrawal of the current Divine illumination on your soul, the shining of the moon. The moon must wane completely, the reset must be a full one. That, is what is needed before they are outside of the “eye”, the biblical image for spiritual initiation in many ways.

So in terms of the whole Divine Comedy, this is the description of the soul’s reflection withdrawing, and the consciousness in a “wavy” state, before they find themselves on a deserted and empty plain. A kind of total nothingness.

This is the entrance.

Why the portal to the Good Life can be hard to find.

Here is the opening of Canto X in Purgatory:

Poi fummo dentro al soglio de la porta 
che ‘l mal amor de l’anime disusa, 
perché fa parer dritta la via torta

Literally: Then we were inside the threshold of the gate, that bad loves of the soul leaves in “disuse”, because they make the twisted path already seem right.

So Dante makes a big point in the opening tercet here: many people will never start the process of correcting internal distortions and twisted apprehensions of the world – not because of avoidance or reluctance to admit this, but because everything will seem fine. The twisted filters on the world are thus not like the “funny mirrors” where you clearly can see the misrepresentation of reality, but they are largely not detectable in themselves. The twisted road will seem straight.

Meaning: introspection for “flaws” is thus partly impossible to do directly. Aiming for the Good and for Virtue, in Humility, and starting a process, is what will heal and clear up the perceptions and experience of the world. That, and finding a good guide.

A new journey starts once again today, with Trina – as a returning subscriber!

The opening is such a beautiful and timeless reminder of the basics: humility, an open mind, start connecting with something transcendent again. And more concretely here, start rationally discerning Virtue. In that way the connecting and “bridging” process starts automatically.

A long time subscriber Juan is right at the Gate after 3 months today, entering the Purgatory Proper this morning.

Now the work starts, and no turning back.