"Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet." (John, 13: 14; NIV)
If you already knew that today was Maundy Thursday, did you ever wonder what "maundy" means? I never really did. It sounds a bit like "maudlin" which gave me (erroneous) lachrymose connotations I found befitting. I more or less assumed it had something to do with the Last Supper and/or the washing of the feet, but how exactly?
Its Latin root informs me that it has something to do with a "mandate", and as such it has a liturgical reference: Jesus, the Christ, instills a new sacrament of holy communion, which allows every member of the community to partake in the spiritual ceremony themselves without first having to undergo an initiation (of near death-like proportions). The word maundy however became (ironically) associated with something quite secular: "(in the UK) a public ceremony on the Thursday before Easter at which the monarch distributes specially minted coins."( Oxford Dictionary). Perhaps, somebody can figure out when and why that came about.... I shall continue, now, to develop the mandate aspect as Christ intended.
The disciples are taken aback by their teacher, who gets up from the table, strips himself, girds himself (with a sash - that shall serve as a towel) and kneels before them to wash their feet. They don't quite understand that this is more a libation with amrita (the sacred spiritual flow of kundalini juice of the Vedas), than a man OCD about personal hygiene. Peter even suggests, while he's at it, that Jesus also wash his head! Christ can only simper at this and sigh deeply, with an inner tut-tut-tut (so I imagine with my own impatience): he reminds his disciple that he is already clean (baptised), he only needs to keep on washing off the dirt as he walks over the earth. The intent to respiritualise is there, but life goes on and so "stuff" (and karma) will cling to you, and this you need to keep on resolving for eachtother . Forgive! Set right! Do good deeds!
The girding is the clue that this is an initiation process. It also illustrates how the Holy Spirit will descend from above (by way of clear headedness) to motor your feet with wilful steps. This lower kundalini-will power must rise up (from the baser life of earth) to meet this fire. In the picture of Jesus washing feet we find a cleansing of the lower life, in order to receive from the spiritual heights. This action must be refreshed daily. The Rite of Holy Communion which the Christ will next institute is the meaningful intention to do this. What one receives must then be passed on: we must all wash eachother's feet and walk the paths criss crossing the earth to meet eachother (and pass on the divine light). There is no navel-staring in this Yoga-Will practice. No pinnacles to remain on. The dynamics of divine love are offered to the depths. This is the model for the working of Mercy.
Where mercy does not rain (reign, rule the scepter) the earth will become dry and crystalised (silicon chips!), man shall become a dead and unconscious skeleton. He will not survive the CrucifiXion (the warming force of Saturn shall end up stiff and dead.)
Christ washing Peter's feet, 1200 - c 1220, Miniature, Royal MS 1 D X, f 5r
The British Library "What about my brow?!"
Thursday is the day of Jupiter, the Spirit of Wisdom: a Jovial planet brimming with yellow joy. Exuberance, joy, regality, expansion are key tones for Jove's sphere. But today is also a still point (before the cataclysmic event of tomorrow). The Easter expansion is like the yolk within the egg, waiting to be born. Like the wine and the bread needing to take their replenishing effect. At this table, Jesus becomes the King of Kings, fulfilling a Solomonic Prophecy - later degenerated to an earthly title "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (INRI) often found in signage depicted above the cross.
The die have been cast, the Gospel of John opens Chapter 13 with the irreversible fact that Judas is going to betray Christ, and the latter knows it.
The Solomon Jesus (from the House of David) is NOT a new God, a new Zeus (Jupiter); God or not, a divine example of how to be the best I any I can be. He is the I Am. By finding the Christ within, I too, become the I Am. That's the idea. By taking part in the Commuion, by gathering, the Christ can come into a midst and more easily refresh your soul. That was the original (catholic) idea of a new Church - not necessarily replacing a synagoge or the Rabbis but laying a Foundation Stone for each and all to become their own authroity. The first pope (Peter, the rock) means to symbolise that. The Alchemists pick this up again in their Philosopher's Stone.
The thirteen of them gather for the Passover in the Cenaculum, at the house of the Order of the Essenes (which Jesus was a member of). In western Medieval and Renaissance art, you may find a dish of lamb on the table which would convene with the traditional Passover meal. Or you may find a fish: both point to the Christ as Sacrifical Lamb or "Ichthus" meaning fish in Greek, but signifying the I of Jesus and Greek aspirated Chi of Christus (a symbol still used by churches today, and found in the Catacombs where the first Christians post the Crucifixion gathered). In German, there is the added pleasure of discovering the ICH in this fish.
More notable is the bread which the Christ calls his body, and the wine, his blood. These are to be your spiritual staples from now on! This brings us to the bulk of esoteric Spiritual literature and the seed for the Grail epos (Parzival in all its many variations, but also King Arthur and the subsequent legends, but not without finding critical ties to the Norse and Celtic traditions, which blend with the westward stream of the Christ's blood, after it has been collected in the Grail by Joseph of Arimathea, under the cross. More on this Friday).
Fish, bread and wine feature in other places of the Gospel stories: pointing to the different "sheaths" of man and the varying spiritual planes visible to the clairvoyant - which the Evangelists were presumed to be - or so read the Gospels make for profound meditations. Garments or a lack thereof - "nakedness" present other archetypical codes.
Here I shall only sum up the four stages of the Christian sacrament for an indication of how deep all the associations and implications may go.
Eventhough traditionally, the Passover regulation forbids anybody to leave the table and go out into the streets or else the Destroying Angel will be invoked, Judas goes out (after taking the bit of bread Jesus hands him to point out that he is the one). For him the darkest night has fallen. He has lost all faith, all sense of direction. He has put himself in a stasis. There is only the current of money now (30 silver coins). It's not about the money, of course. Even Judas knows that. (He returns them promptly, as regret sets in, before his sefl-destroying final act.)
If Judas was already ticked off about the $2.500 (I calculated by today's price) worth of Spikenard spent yesterday on wishy-washy womanly wiles (okay, she may have gone a teeny bit o.t.t...?), his demon of unrest has no patience with the Sacrament, and that gives him the impetus to get up and be done with the whole song and dance. Let's see how you babble yourself out of this one! he might have gruffed spitefully to himself, maybe never imagining this could be the final night he would see his inspired leader alive. The lovey-doveyness of it all was not easy for any of the disciples to grasp - a bunch of fisherman, tradesmen, and a taxcollector, and whatnot; still wouldn't be any better grasped today. Only John, the disciple "who Jesus loved" (i.e. had a proper dialogue with), who we see lying on his left in many depictions, (heartside) is diametrically opposed to Judas.
This Lazarus-John (see also previous post) forms another library full of esoteric literature on who he was, or became, and went on to be; but for now, let us concentrate on how young he is and how sleepy! He is already in a dream world with his ear on the heart of Christ: he is listening with his soul to the words of Christ or the Logos (which he works out later in his very Esoteric -Rosicrucian/Hermetic - Gospel and Revelations. This hearing and seeing is to drink from the Holy Grail. This is to stand at the Lyrical - Wise - Heart of the "O" or Awe-inspired Jupiter Mood. This is to ask the Question continuously in Love and Exclaim the answer in the ecstasy (joy) of Love.
Keep washing feet, dear folks!
