Winter 2016 Grand Councilor’s Message

A Season of Light

Dear Fraters and Sorors,

Welcome to the advent of the winter solstice and all its wonders! Since ancient times, this time, this season has been one of both inner and outer Illumination, thus incarnating the alchemical maxim, “As above, so below.” Let’s pause for a moment and give that well-worn phrase another look, a review.

The phrase denotes an integration of the heavens above and the Earth below as well as that between the inner and outer self. The experience of their integration is indicative of a very significant mystical principle. The correspondence with the heavens above is suggested and coincides with the annual cycle and growth of the Greater Light, the Sun, and the Light whose energetic essence shines both within and without. It is logical then that the recognized birth of avatars such as Osiris and Adonis at this time is no accident as the First Imperator of this cycle, H. Spencer Lewis details in his masterful Mystical Life of Jesus. The experience of this Light within is an illumination that comes through many degrees of realization as suggested by the graded nature of the Rosicrucian monographs.

Simple reflection on the nature of the heavenly Sun, reveals an enormity, a near-perfect sphere, one million times the volume of the earth, engaged in a constant transformation of hydrogen into helium; with every second our star recycles some four million tons of itself into radiant energy which is then sent out into the cosmos itself and ultimately to us, a topic cosmologist Brian Swimme addresses quite elegantly in his Hidden Heart of the Cosmos. The Sun bathes us in its energy and holds our planet in a perfectly balanced orbit through its gravity.

Please join in a simple reflection on life on Earth. The universe began in Light. Its birth gave rise to waves of energy that created gravitational fields that then coalesced into stars, and ultimately galaxies. Stars exploded into super novas from which the elements of our bodies were created. Over billions of years, the same creative Light transformed into food for plants, the primordial energy of our food chain, an energy consumed and transformed by all subsequent forms, simple protists, multi-celled poriferans, the rest of the invertebrate kingdom, and on up throughout the food chain. We, due to the transformative power of photosynthesis, eat the Sun. Photosynthesis, a bond between life on our planet and the Sun, has been part of earthly evolution for close to four billion years.

So, in a very real sense, we owe our existence to both the Light of the Sun and its transformative power inherent throughout the physical food chain.

But what of that maxim, “As above, so below”? As the energy of Light fuels our planetary and physical evolution, so too does Light fuel and help prepare the physical vehicles for that consciousness. As the Earth increased in complexity, so too did consciousness as life become more and more able to experience the meaning of the complexity all around us as a manifestation of a single creative and energetic source--Light. The Rosicrucian monographs direct the student ever more into experiences of that Light--of that source--as it lives within us as an energy, a partner, and a guide. Like the great physical Sun, it radiates freely to all who are able to directly or indirectly receive it. Such is the generosity of Light.

And so in this season of Light, my very best goes wishes out to each and every one of you as we await and celebrate this season of Light and that great moment when once again the Sun begins its yearly cycle of Illumination.

John Fowler, FRC

Grand Councilor

Rocky Mountain Region, AMORC