As we evolve, so we dissolve

Greetings All,

I ramble.

For a span equal to one-half of my life now, I've diligently involved myself in the theory and practice of a myriad of occult expressions.  When I first began in the Summer of '97, I quickly became acquainted with the idea of how we discover, create and maintain a "universe" (that is, our own paradigm, be it the religion of our forefathers or a new idea altogether)  and that, eventually, it must be destroyed.  The concept seemed lofty, but I really had no idea what it entailed until the last couple of years.

Upon the arms of the image of Baphomet are the words "Solve" and "Coagula", to dissolve/separate and to unite.  This quintessential hermaphrodite is an alchemical symbol for the Great Work, an alchemy of turning the lead in our asses into a gold of spiritual understanding through the dissolution of the self into the Unity of the Self.  This is how I interpret it-- your personal view may differ which is perfectly fine.

Nothing is free from the wheel of creation-preservation-destruction.  Be it human or ideal, at some point a genesis is enacted.  We cradle that infant or feed that idea to preserve it.  After years, we bury them.  Just as the death of a loved one can be an emotional cross to bear, so can the requiem of an idea that's either outgrown its use or has been devoured by a newer concept.  The idea may no longer fit.  The schema may no longer bear fruit.  Whether this loved one that passes be material or immaterial, we bloody must get over it at some time.  Grief and regret can kill the most noble of souls.

Over those years, I cradled many a notion.  I found myself embracing even seemingly conflicting ideas and sought to consolidate them.  I succeeded and failed.  Often.  With as many ideas that I embraced, just as many I buried.  With each one sent to the grave, another would take its place.  This cycle consumed me for many years.  Birth! Preservation! Death! (AUM!) and even, yes, a recycle.  Rebirth!  Some ideas, I learned, simply don't work at the moment inspiration embraces us.  Years later, however...

So, too, I suspect it is with those taking time to read this.  What ideas have died (be it naturally or by the murder of the mind) only to be resurrected later in life?  What concept have we coddled, loved and found certain it was THE MEANING OF LIFE, only to see it wither away as with the leaves in Autumn?

It's

All

So

Perpetual

And no matter in what direction we travel, evolution will come.  And, as we're moving along that road to that Great Work, we, too, are dissolving.  Muse we may on the relationship between Mind and Body, just as the aged looses his or her memory with each passing year, but even on that spiritual level, we cannot escape birth-preservation-death.  Most mystical schools agree, the end of the road is the dissolution of the self into the Self, the material into the spiritual, the microcosm into the macrocosm, man into God, allegories ad nauseam.