Saturday, September 02, 2006

Portals

If you counted the number of times a person goes through a doorway in his lifetime it would boggle the mind. I got to thinking about this little invention and what it means to the human creature.
Of course, to the early Homo sapien it meant safety, warmth, and comfort. It still does, but the uses have expanded exponentially. I think we literally worship the door and I've come up with some uses and symbolism of this universal passageway.

These portals provide entrance into another dimension each time we pass through. I think they stimulate imagination as we envision someplace more desirable than where we are. The framing and separation create a picture that we long to enter. Hopes and dreams beckon. Promise is offered.
They also provide exit, so they offer promised release. People often locate the exit sign first in a large room. A room is a sort of entrapment so the doors provide an escape we always want.

Doors symbolize transition, and extend to mental and spiritual realms as well.

They are a means of self expression and communication with others. Doors can be closed or left open to deliver the message, and even the amount left ajar states our case. Intimacy is established, anger demonstrated, and isolation determined, with sounds accompanying to make the point clear. Just think of the variety of slams we hear, or the gentle squeaks and opening. The language of doors.

Then comes the added factor....the lock and key. We can be imprisoned by doors or protected . When we turn this device ourselves we are in control. The joy of turning the key, opening the door, and entering a familiar place is known to all.

The door is the portal to one of the world's greatest pleasures......the refrigerator. The kitchen cupboards are a close second.

So the passage through the common door is a magnificent experience in sum total. I once saw a movie about a monastery in the middle of a lake. There was a door standing alone out in shallow water not connected to anything, where a person passed through on the way to the temple. So oddly reverent and intriguing. 

In astrology, the 12 houses of the birth chart are separated by an invisible doorway and when major planets pass from one to another, I feel the transition in my life, and the new opportunity that comes with it.
So I thought as we go in and out of doors backward and forward, are we really progressing? We do have to get to the end of our lives, so that implies movement of some kind. Are the doors leading us somewhere overall? Or do we just go back and forth among dimensions until we gain admittance to the final portal? 
 Photo by Al Petteway

22 Comments:

Blogger Diane L said...

Are the doors leading us somewhere overall? Or do we just go back and forth among dimensions until we gain admittance to the final portal?

This is a good one jm . . . you are on a roll! You have a gift for making us contemplate and that is soooo good!!! And we all benefit to be sure. I will give the Libra answer . . . :-) It depends! Just kidding . . .

I do believe we have the opportunity to "go" somewhere, it's up to each of us as individuals as to whether we do. Those of us who observe humanity have seen both people who have managed to do nothing in their time here except annoy others (maybe that IS their job . .) And others who contribute wonderfully in many, many ways. Sometimes it takes several trips through a portal to recognize what it is we need to know too . . .

2/9/06 7:52 AM  
Blogger jm said...

Neith.

Those of us who observe humanity have seen both people who have managed to do nothing in their time here except annoy others (maybe that IS their job)

LOL.
They certainly do teach us, these types. This is where a door can come in handy.

You have a gift for making us contemplate

This is the good part. I found people who already have been doing this as all the well thought out enlightening posts reveal. I just opened the door to a familiar place, took off my shoes, and settled in.

Interesting about portals. One of the reasons so much is pouring out of me is because of the length of time and the force with which it was backed up reading repeated posts elsewhere that didn't stimulate or genuinely excite me. I have a lot of Uranus/Mercury and get bored easily. I needed the torture for some reason, but when I was released and opened this new door, the unleashing was equal to the previous restraint.

It has everything to do with our Saturn/Pluto transits.
I hope I don't have to experience another episode like that last couple of years, though, to keep the ideas flowing outward. The best preventative medicine is hanging out with you and getting this kind of advanced response. I'm learning, growing, and moving. What a relief.

Little facts don't get me there, althought I need them, but the big questions delight me.

I've been waiting a long time for enlightened people. It was worth it.

2/9/06 3:00 PM  
Blogger jm said...

Your comment reminded me, neith. With my Moon/Jupiter in Sagittarius in the 9th, philosophy is my love. I remember when I was knifed under a Sag Moon for being philosophical and not suffering enough. Of course, I suffer sufficiently, but keep a lot of it to myself. And it doesn't shut down my contemplation, even if I have to pace when it gets physical. I think that's when I saw how ludicrous it all was. That's when I finally had the motivation to go through the next portal.

Fortunately I took the remark philosophically!

2/9/06 3:36 PM  
Blogger kadimiros said...

"So I thought as we go in and out of doors backward and forward, are we really progressing? We do have to get to the end of our lives, so that implies movement of some kind. Are the doors leading us somewhere overall? Or do we just go back and forth among dimensions until we gain admittance to the final portal?"

Every point in space is also a point in time. You never really go through the same door twice. But you have been going through the same door forever.

::Twilight Zone music plays::

2/9/06 3:43 PM  
Blogger jm said...

Well that answers it doesn't it?

We go everywhere and nowhere.
That's kind of a relief. I'm off the hook. Now I can just listen to the music and relax!

2/9/06 3:52 PM  
Blogger jm said...

Interesting thought. That the time factor makes every repeated action different. But sometimes I think that time is arbitrary and artificial. Manmade to give a frame of reference and the illusion of progress.

2/9/06 3:56 PM  
Blogger kadimiros said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

2/9/06 3:58 PM  
Blogger kadimiros said...

"But sometimes I think that time is arbitrary and artificial."

And so is space!

Here's another door: Consider the doughnut, or torus, said by some to be the shape of the cosmos.

Ever notice that the hole in the center of the doughnut is actually contiguous/continuous with the void in which the doughnut exists?

2/9/06 4:00 PM  
Blogger jm said...

Never noticed that but saw it immediately just now.

Fascinating indeed. The door alone in the lake is exactly this. The arbitrary separation and definition of space and everywhere if we really look, we can see the wholeness, the void, and the impossibility of getting somewhere.

The hole in the doughnut gives us a place to get a grip with our hands and hold on in the void.

2/9/06 4:04 PM  
Blogger jm said...

The circle is already moving outward.
Last night while out on the town, I met a writer, a gorgeous Leo, who delighted and fascinated me with her knowledge and warmth. Her interest in life and ideas. A lot of sychronicity was present. This encounter was on an unusually high level and I expect I will be experiencing more and more of this.

I think as Pluto finishes in Sag, the line is being drawn in the sand, with Iraq being a symbol. Do we count the dead every day or do we think about life? Both, I guess, but to what degree? And how do we use the experience?


At first, the Pluto transit brought out the extremism and abuse of power, but now I see the better aspects of Sagittarius emerging and we can clearly choose...higher mind, connection to the cosmos, optimism, orchestration with the rhythm and flow of energy, togetherness beyond interpersonal manipulative games, love of life, expectation and possibility, etc....

This is a great time.

2/9/06 4:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've read that the gates to Zen sancuaries are meant to remind us as we pass through them that we are leaving one consiousness outside and entering another.


I've thought of this often as i pass the big pole beamed entrances to ranches. Maybe only dirt stretches as far as the eye can see, but it is paradise for someone. And clearly states ownership...so different from the Zen...leave all outside.

Of course the gated communities in the Low Desert (Palm Springs, Palm Desert)are a whole 'nother thing. And they've got the weaponry to back that up.

2/9/06 8:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One of the things i've been contemplating for a bit has been how often with a gate or portal the polarity changes one side to the other. A point of seamless merging of "opposites".

2/9/06 8:13 PM  
Blogger jm said...

The weapons are telling. These people are imprisoned by the gates and trapped in their paranoia. It amazes me that others long for this life.

Good info on the Zen sanctuaries.

2/9/06 8:15 PM  
Blogger jm said...

how often with a gate or portal the polarity changes one side to the other. A point of seamless merging of "opposites".

I hadn't even thought of this. I was hoping someone would come up with a unique idea.

Everything changes on the other side but the self. Right?
The thought of going back and forth through polarity is interesting as it could be a propelling force to keep us moving. We automatically seek the opposite.

2/9/06 8:20 PM  
Blogger kadimiros said...

often with a gate or portal the polarity changes one side to the other. A point of seamless merging of "opposites".

The still point, the eye of a wind storm....

The Monroe Institute folks talk about a null point in neurological activity, a point of transition when the body's electrical polarity shifts to a neutral phase. The null point lets mental activity easily move in any desired mental direction, to "purposefully and consciously decide exactly what you choose to explore."

Some say that the body has energy vortexes, doors to states of mind and heart. Perhaps the body is itself a door. We go out through the door of the body to get inside the physical universe.

3/9/06 11:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Some say that the body has energy vortexes, doors to states of mind and heart. Perhaps the body is itself a door. We go out through the door of the body to get inside the physical universe."

i would be among these...
For some of us the door did not fully close behind us....

3/9/06 11:38 AM  
Blogger jm said...

Perhaps the body is itself a door. We go out through the door of the body to get inside the physical universe.

Beautiful thought.

At least the door can't hit you, tseka.

I wonder why we are so uncomfortable with the physical universe since we took so much trouble getting here. Maybe it's just getting comfortable with the flux and discomfort.

point of transition when the body's electrical polarity shifts to a neutral phase. The null point lets mental activity easily move in any desired mental direction, to "purposefully and consciously decide exactly what you choose to explore."

A moment of free will.
Interesting thought since the mind has so much to do blending the physical with the rest. The constant pull of the polar opposite keeps us preoccupied. A moment of neutrality does make sense as being a unique opportunity.

3/9/06 12:13 PM  
Blogger kadimiros said...

You are a door.

3/9/06 1:51 PM  
Blogger kadimiros said...

...Are you revolving yet?

3/9/06 1:55 PM  
Blogger jm said...

Yes. I'm adoorable.

4/9/06 5:19 AM  
Blogger kadimiros said...

Heheheheheh! One could make a "je t'adore" pun here, but let's keep things open!

5/9/06 11:49 AM  
Blogger jm said...

let's keep things open!

Chuckle, chuckle.

5/9/06 3:59 PM  

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