The Cube of Space – Part 2

We are now entering the North face of the Cube of Space through the Justice card. Justice links the West face to the North face at the North-West edge of the cube. We’ve also managed to get off the West face! That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s not only dark, but you’re alone. You know that there’s something more to life than the material world, but you’re not quite sure what that is.

Your experiences acquired through the use of the sword, aka discrimination, has allowed you to test your ideas about life, to find out what truly works for you. You are beginning to eliminate things that you no longer want in your house. You have questions, but you’re beginning to find out that answers to them are hard to come by. Your friends and family try to help, but you keep thinking that there’s more.

The Hermit card, at the edge called North-Below, is your next stop. See the diagram below, which shows the order in which you’ll be visiting the cards on the North face. The Hermit stands alone at the summit, guiding travelers on the Path of Return. What he is telling you at this point in your journey is to look within rather than without for the answers that you seek.

You’ll begin to critically examine all of your preconceived ideas that are based on the appearances of your outer world. Here you’re no longer prevented from this research by the myriad of distractions of the outer world. It’s dark and you feel alone. This is a good thing. You begin to feel the peace of the inner world, even if fleetingly.

You make space in your life, or begin to change activities in your life, to allow yourself time to just close your eyes and be still. You may spend more time outdoors in nature. But you now begin to see it as not just an athletic adventure, but as a way to get in touch with your inner self. You may even begin to study the lives of spiritual teachers of different religions.

If you review the Hermit Key 9 on this blog, you will note that he represents a connection between what you eat and your nervous system. What you eat enters your blood stream and thus determines the health of your body and your brain. The body must also be prepared to receive more Light. Light is Power, Force, and Energy, so keeping your body in tip top shape by right eating and right exercise is a good idea.  Remember, your body is the vehicle within which you ride on this journey, so take good care of it. Look both ways before you cross the street!

We now move on to the next card, the Emperor, on the North-East edge of this North face of the cube. He is the card of reason and logic. His title means “he who sets in order.”  The letter meaning of the card is window, so the function of this Key is sight. From the vantage point of a window you can survey all of your surroundings and everything that goes on around you, but not necessarily get involved.

But the Emperor is doing more than just looking out a window. He teaches you that you can develop true vision by looking into the things around you. By looking deeply into Nature, it will reveal itself to you. Take a look at the Orange Exercise on this site. It will prove to be very helpful at this point in your life.  You will develop feelings that will awaken your inner, or spiritual,  senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. If our perception of our environment is based on its outer appearance, then our response to it, and how we live our lives, will be short-sighted and muddled.

He also symbolizes both authority and paternity. We must take steps to establish dominion over our lives. The symbol on his helmet is the sun. The background is orange, another sun symbol. The sun also has to do with health and vitality. His throne rests on Nature, indicated by green, the color of Venus and love. The Egyptian Ankh is also a symbol of Venus. Thus he rules with love and his authority is established on love. This is also his protection, his armor. This is another lesson that you must learn and incorporate into your life in order to move from one card to the next on the North face.

The fourth card is found on the edge North-Above. At this point we have made a full circle on the North face of the Cube of Space. Here we find the card called Strength. It represents the agency of suggestion, and it is through this agency that we are able to control, effortlessly, the modification of external conditions in our lives. Learning how to use the Law of Suggestion, though, does take some understanding and effort. A more thorough explanation may be found on this site called Strength Key 8.

At this stage you begin to explore various forms of spiritual exercises, including meditation, contemplation, and the use of visualization. Check out the other spiritual exercises on this site. You are attempting to gain a deeper understanding of the higher self. You may even pursue a more formal discipline, such as yoga, for the first time. The red lion represents the Deceiver card from the West face. You now not only recognize this Deceiver for what it is, but you’re able to confront it with love, not hate and fear. Your eyes are turned inward, not outward. You are still on your own, so you’ll make mistakes, but you’re heading in the right direction.

The final card is in the Center of the North face. This is a rather dramatic card, The Tower, and must be approached cautiously. All that we see is not all that there is – and this is driven home in a flash from within. The manner of the experience is different for everyone, but the result is the same – you’ll never be the same as you were before! This is your first awakening, a first moment of clear vision. And it will never be lost.

But this is actually an experience of destruction – all of your customary wrong thinking and wrong action must go. In order to release the chains that bind us we must learn how to break them, beginning where you are right now. The forgetfulness of the Deceiver card and the powerful binding influence of the Wheel of Fortune card on the West face are tossed aside. Here is the culmination of all of your previous work on the West and North faces. It is instantaneous. The flash comes from the Light in the lantern of the Hermit, and that Light comes from the Sun.

At the moment that this flash takes place within you, you are propelled across the Inner Cube, through the Center, and out the other side, to the South face. You travel on the Judgement card. During your crossing you suddenly intersect with the World card in the Center. You’re still alive, but here you’ve come face to face with God from the vantage point of your higher Self. Whoa! You’ve just discovered that the interior of the cube corresponds to the inner spiritual planes of reality. Just remember, the three Mother Letters of the Hebrew alphabet reside within the Cube. They are the most powerful of the 22 letters.

The Judgement card is a Mother letter representing the element fire. It enlivens our awareness to the realization that we are on the threshold of blending with the universal mind. Briefly your inner and outer worlds have become one. In a flash we know that our personality has no separate existence. Sorry to say, but this is a fleeting experience. That’s because it’s not brought on under our control, by our conscious mind. Not to worry, that ability will come later, as we progress along the Path around the cube.

At the Center of the cube is the World card. The timeless experience that we have at the Center is a great purifier. It is a baptism by fire. You are awash in the white Light of Spirit and your previous doubts and fears are burned away. At the Center you also experience the Fool card, your higher self. All of this happens very quickly, but never to be forgotten. You then burst through the center of the South face and arrive at the Sun card in the middle.

So you have made it through the North face, traveled through the center of the cube and arrived at the South face. The Sun is at its blazing zenith and is surrounded by The Moon, Transition, The Star, and the Teacher cards. At this point you are ready to meet your true teacher.