o:O:o
Exogenesis
It is my experience that many of the major themes and
events expressed in the OT are actually recapitulative echoes of the
primordially formative gestures emerging from Genesis. This ‘dividing
of waters’ has a precursor there:
In Genesis I:
II: ...and the spirit of God hovered over the face of
the waters.
III: And God said: ‘Let there be Light.’
And there was Light.
IV: And God saw the Light, that it was good; and God
divided the light from the darkness. [3]
This ‘dividing of the waters’ with light
is a metaphor for the pancreative penetration of the veil between
the dimensions of spirit and manifestation, and the establishment
of a co-nutritive and eternal flow of relational inspiration and communion
between them. Our universe is a ‘slow child’ of the sentient
source we are founded in, and ‘over here’ we re-assemble
endless simulacra of the stories, powers, languages and relations
we ‘secretly remember’ from before our births into ‘manifestation’..
This ‘Light’ is prosentient connectivity,
not merely the energetic state of matter we mechanically recognize
as matching this term. Light emerged as the result of the first omnicreative
gesture in the same way sound emerges when our intention or organism
activates the creative power of utterance. It was good.
Exodus is a recapitulation of this at the scale of human
nations, as Adonay divides the waters, he prepares to turn Israel
into ‘light’ — a lamp unto the world and her generations.
o:O:o
Exodus,
a Birthplace of Re Late Ion Ships
Exodus is a record of the redemption of human beings
from bondage. It was not the first time this happened, nor did a story
like this only occur in a certain place and time, as we commonly understand.
Exodus is the story of every human child, each being on Earth. It
occurs again and again in various cycles and at every possible scale
in the life of each being, and each family, and each culture. The
story never plays out precisely the same way twice, but it is our
constant companion because it is a holophore about human experience,
as well as the particular story of the people of Israel and their
companions finding escape from Egypt. We must come to understand that
the source of oppression on Earth is not some demon or evil angel
— I am not even certain such beings exist. It is instead our
willingness to agree to silence and rape what is most true and exquisite
about life and relation for the sake of an absurd idea of entitlement
or luxury.
An angel of God led the Tribes of Israel and
their cohort out from the long domination of Egypt. I do not know
how many they were, but we may speculate that with all companions
they probably significantly exceeded 660,000 souls [Exodus XII, 37-38].
The ‘angel’ was locally embodied as something akin to
a pillar of cloud, which ‘went before’ the Tribes as they
left their 430 year servitude. It is said that in the day this pillar
led them, and at night provided light that they might continue unhindered
by darkness. I consider this to have been the terrestrial sign of
the local presence of an organ of God, not merely ‘a
messenger’ who is somehow distinct or present in its own right,
but these matters fall under the auspices of ‘what is an angel?’
— a question to be explored more adeptly elsewhere.
o:O:o
Regardless of the miracles they may have witnessed ‘Israel’
was more akin to a family of children than an army. As a whole, they
were rightfully terrified of the might of Egypt, and generally loathe
to leave the small comfort and security of repetition they there ‘enjoyed’.
Though they were unified in hope of a new home and better way of life
there was prevalent mistrust of Moses and his celestially-inspired
leadership. Their stores of food and water were finite — regardless
of the herds in tow — who also required these necessities and
were too valuable to sacrifice. Pharaoh must have wondered where they
intended to go to — thus he certainly sent scouts after
them to inform him of their travels.
Moses was eventually required by God to lead Israel
in a pattern like the top of the shepherd’s staff — the
crook — in such a way as to appear to be fumbling in the landscape
to Egypt’s scouts. Like a lure before a fish, the ‘helpless’
glitter of this movement would cause Pharaoh to ‘bite’
at Israel with his armies. It did. Seeing them ‘trapped’
in the terrain of the path they’d chosen, he leapt at the opportunity
to retrieve them by force.
Whatever Israel was capable of in the way of defense,
we must recognize that an organized throng — even militarily
organized — is a terrible position for soldiers in the field
to be in. Because their families, children and herds were with them
their strategic circumstance was dire. No matter the power of the
capable fighting men amongst the body of Israel, battle in open and
unfamiliar terrain with their families present would be unthinkable.
Pharaoh probably deployed between 7 and 13 thousand
troops to pursue them, thinking perhaps that the combination of their
strategic weakness as well as the profound desire to avoid open combat
would be strongly in his favor in the ensuing confrontation. It is
likely he expected to be able to bully or threaten Moses into returning
Israel to his dominion without combat of any kind, and if he had advisors,
they probably suggested this.
When the Tribes see the vast force of the oncoming
Egyptians their previous concerns blossom into terror, and Moses convenes
with God on this matter. The word from God is that though the approaching
forces of Egypt appear mighty they will be cast down entirely on the
morrow, and that through the vehicle of this liberation of Israel
this the world would come to know God as present and real in every
possible and impossible way.
o:O:o
We should pause to consider the motives at play here,
for they are not what on the surface they appear. One entity bent
on slavery and domination was pursuing a band of refugees from tyranny
with military might. It wasn’t that the Egyptians were hated
by God, or inherently evil, so much as it was that they were impudently
intent upon slavery and murder. Doing evil things to children is wrong
in every possible sense. The children in question served Egypt as
slaves for hundreds of years — possibly millions of human lifetimes.
Mustering the might of nations to do evil things to several hundred
thousand children is abomination, then as now.
Israel, for its part, was merely trying to get away,
and didn’t even have anywhere to go to. They hadn’t
‘done anything’ deserving of pursuit, and Pharaoh prosecuted
the affair as though gold coins had run away from a purse and had
to be recaptured in a game of Senet. Regardless of scriptural implications
to the contrary (mostly poor translations) the God of the Hebrews
was not plotting the destruction of the Egyptians —
any more than one would plot the severing of one’s own arm.
Pharaoh was deeply aware that he was playing a game with the Hebrew
God, and it was a challenge to the history of Egypt as well as his
own immortality and godHead. Though he was losing, he was as persistent
as kings are wont to be, and unprepared to accept defeat until it
was final.
Was this not a nation of Cain chasing a nation of Abel
through the field — a ‘massive glorification’ and
‘correction’ of a vastly important earlier moment in these
ladders?
o:O:o
A glowing whirlwind leads Israel through the lands in
the night, and a bicameral prophet with a wooden stick is their protector.
The majority of the might of the lineage-throne of Egypt bears down
upon them with malign intent. The miracle begins in the darkness.
The angel of God moves its pillar or pillars between
the Egyptian host and that of Israel. This renders the Egyptians functionally
blind, at the same time acting as a lamp to aid Israel in its progress.
Moses raises his hand over the sea, (the rod is not mentioned), as
he was instructed. Throughout the night, a strong East wind carves
a channel through the water, such that soon there are stable walls
of water to either side of something akin to a road.
Clearly this is no wind alike with those we know, or
Israel would have been blown to smithereens. In the parting of the
waters, a miraculous egress is formed. Moses leads Israel
into a dry channel in the Red Sea which simply did not exist a few
hours previously.
In passing through this ‘division of the waters’
— Israel will be born into the potential to exist as a sovereign
cultural and spiritual entity. This is the moment of the ‘division’
of Israel from Egypt — and the terrestrial establishment of
a new ‘Light’ in the human dimension — people who
will become the vessel of God on Earth. In the dark, passing through
the living waters parted by the transtemporal source of sentience
itself, Israel is recapitulating the emergence of Light —
and becoming the living vehicle of that light.
This is an entire people recapitulating the story of
Noah, who similarly was ‘divided away’ with flock, and
‘miraculously passed through’ the waters to a new world.
In fact, each of us must breach the waters of the womb
during our own birth into the world of human and celestial light.
o:O:o
As Israel follows Moses in the channel, the angel of
God is simultaneously lighting their way and making the progress of
the Egyptian horde costly and slow. God is ‘looking forth’
upon the pursuers with lightnings and trials of weather.
Later, Moses is instructed to raise his hand toward
the Egyptians, and in the morning the channel behind Israel closes
upon the army of Pharaoh, erasing them from the Earth. Thus too the
door to their servitude of Egypt is permanently shut — they
will never return to the prisonworld of the Egypt again.
Before them, the channel remains open, and they traverse
it to the shore, and from thence onward to a place near a wilderness.
Songs are sung.
o:O:o
:: next :: previous
::
