A Start

Knot, 1947. Anni Albers.

---

Anni Albers was one of the key figures of 20th Century Art. Joining Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus School as an untrained, but deeply passionate, novice, she came to create a new language of textiles, a radical theory of color, and an understanding of pattern and form that would change the course of art history. Her career extended long beyond the Bauhaus, blurring the lines between craft and fine art, teaching at Black Mountain College and becoming the first textile artist to have a solo show at the MOMA. In this essay, written in 1947 but not published until Gropius’ death in 1969, she succinctly captures the feeling of a radical place that offered new promises and the development that this philosophy encouraged in all of its practitioners.

---

Anni Albers, February 20, 2025

I came to the Bauhaus at its “period of the saints.” Many around me, a lost and bewildered newcomer, were, oddly enough, in white—not a professional white or the white of summer—here it was the vestal white. But far from being awesome, the baggy white dresses and saggy white suits had rather a familiar homemade touch. Clearly this was a place of groping and fumbling, of experimenting and taking chances. 

Outside was the world I came from, a tangle of hopelessness, of undirected energy, of cross-purposes. Inside, here, at the Bauhaus after some two years of its existence, was confusion, too, I thought, but certainly no hopelessness or aimlessness, rather exuberance with its own land of confusion. But there seemed to be a gathering of efforts for some dim and distant purpose, a purpose I could not yet see and which, I feared might remain perhaps forever hidden from me. 

Then Gropius spoke. It was a welcome to us, the new students. He spoke, I believe, of the ideas that brought the Bauhaus into being and of the work ahead. I do not recall anything of the actual phrasing or even of the thoughts expressed. What is still present in my mind is the experience of a gradual condensation, during that hour he spoke, of our hoping and musing into a focal point, into a meaning, into some distant, stable objective. It was an experience that meant purpose and direction from there on. 

This was about twenty-six years ago. 

Last year some young friends of mine told me of the opening speech Gropius gave at Harvard at the beginning of the new term. What made it significant to them was the experience of realizing sense and meaning in a confused world, now as then—the same experience of finding one’s bearing.

---

Anni Albers (1899 –1994) was a German born, Jewish artist, writer, teacher, and printmaker. Alongside her husband Josef Albers, she helped redefine color theory in the 20th century, and was the leading voice textile art, ushering in craft practices into fine art.

Richard Prince

Film

Wagnerian Painting

Portrait of Téoder de Wyzewa, Jacques-Emile Blanche, 1989.

---

Téodor de Wyzewa was Polish born theorist, writer, and critic who in the last decades of the 19th century became amongst the most celebrated minds in Paris, contributing a philosophical grounding to the Symbolist movement. This essay, first published in 1885 of which a section is reproduced here, anticipates the development of abstract art and espouses a number of formalist theories upon which many 20th century movements would be built. Key amongst them is the idea that art is the route to access 'the higher reality of a disinterested life'.

---

Téodor de Wyzewa, February 18, 2025

The world we live in, which we declare real, is purely a creation of our soul. The mind cannot go outside itself; and the things it believes to be outside it are only its ideas. To see, to hear, is to create appearances within oneself, thus to create Life. But the baneful habit of creating the same things has made us lose the joyful awareness of our own creative power; we thought real the dreams we gave birth to, and also this inner self, limited by objects and subject to them, that we had conceived. 

Consequently, we have been the slaves of the world, and the sight of this world, where we engaged our interests, has since ceased to give us pleasure. And the Life which we had created - created in order to give us the joy of creating - has lost its original character. It is necessary therefore to recreate it; one must build, over and above this world of defiled, habitual appearances, the holy world of a better life: better, because we can make it intentionally, and know that we make it. This is the very business of Art.

But from where will the artist take the elements of this higher life? He can find them nowhere unless in our normal life, in what we call Reality. This is to say that the artist, and those to whom he wants to communicate the life that he creates, cannot, as a result of what their minds normally do, erect a living work of art in their souls, unless it presents itself to them under the very conditions in which they have always perceived life.

And so, this explains the necessity of realism in art; not a realism which transcribes the vain appearances that we think real, with no other end, but an artistic realism, which tears these appearances from the false reality of interest where we perceive them, in order to transport them into the higher reality of a disinterested life. We see around us trees, animals, men, and we assume they are living; but, seen in this way, they are only vain shadows which drape the shifting decor of our vision. They will only live when the artist, in whose special soul they have a more intense reality, inspires them with this higher life - recreates them before us.

As minds become more refined, Art requires increasingly more diverse methods than those operative in reality to suggest the same life. Thus, a polychrome statue resembles the models it has reproduced too much in its material.  

And so again, a drama, when read, will appear more alive to delicate souls than the same drama played in a theatre by living actors. In order to preserve the feelings of art, we have an ever more urgent need that the impressions of life should be given us, in the life of art, by means other than those of real life.

Painting responds to this need. The means it employs to suggest sensations to us artistically differ entirely from the means employed by reality. For the colours and lines in a. painting are not reproductions of the quite different lines and colours which are in reality; they are only conventional signs which have become equivalent to what they signify as the result of an association between the images. But they are just as different, finally, from real colours and lines as a word differs from a thought, or a musical note from the emotion it suggests.

A few outstanding masters, their eyes endowed with an almost pathological sensitivity, accustomed artists to seeing objects surrounded by the air that bathed them. From that moment, the vocabulary of painting became modified; new signs were introduced which created new sensations.

---

“Marrying them in such a way as to produce in us, by their free play, a complete impression comparable to that of a symphony.”

---

Painting, Literature and Music each suggest just one mode of life. But life exists in the intimate union of these three modes. Soon, their art must have appeared to painters, as it did to writers, to be insufficient to create the whole life which they conceived. Therefore, long ago they wanted to expand the possibilities of their art, to employ it to reconstitute diverse forms of life. For example, writers noticed that words, over and above their precise conceptual meaning, had assumed special resonances for the ear, and that syllables had become musical tones, as had the rhythms of the sentence. Then, they attempted a new art: poetry. They employed words no longer for their conceptual value, but as sonorous syllables evoking emotion in the soul by means of their harmonious alliance.

The same need to translate the life of the emotions with the means of their art very quickly drove painters to go beyond the limits of reproducing their sensations in a wholly realistic way.

And a new kind of painting was attempted by them, one which a happy agreement of circumstances made possible. This is to say that colours and lines themselves, like words, had also, through familiarity, assumed for souls an emotional value independent of the objects they represented. We had always seen a certain facial expression, a certain colour or certain contours accompany the objects which inspired us with such-and-such an emotion. And behold, these colours, these contours and these expressions, are linked with these emotions in our soul; they have become not just signs of our visual sensations, but signs of our emotions also; they have become, by the accident of this connection, emotional signs, like the syllables of poetry or musical notes. And so, certain painters were able to leave behind the original purpose of Art, which was to suggest the precise sensations of sight. They employed colours and lines for purely symphonic compositional ends, with no regard for the direct depiction of a visual object. And nowadays, colours and lines - the means of painting - can be used in two quite different kinds of painting: the one sensuous and descriptive which recreates exactly how objects look; the other emotional and musical, neglectful of treating the objects these colours and lines represent, using them only as signs of emotion, marrying them in such a way as to produce in us, by their free play, a complete impression comparable to that of a symphony.

Therefore, emotional painting, as well as descriptive painting, has a legitimate right to exist, and possesses the value of an art which is equally precious. Its first master was the poetic Leonardo da Vinci. He gave us the emotion of lascivious terror through the mystery of perverse and supernatural expressions. Later, Peter Paul Rubens created the most intense symphonies of colour. Whereas with Rembrandt, we find a supernatural play of chiaroscuro which creates an emotion which is at once more troubled and more restrained. Afterwards, Watteau translated elegant melancholy: he devoted the delightful grace of his drawings to light-hearted and sweet poems which seem to recall certain andante movements in Mozart's quartets. And in turn, Delacroix was the lyricist of violent passions, a little vulgar in their romanticism.

All these masters have proved that painting could equally well be descriptive of real sensations, or suggestive of real emotions. Only, they have intuited that these two possibilities demanded two quite different kinds of art, and that they had to choose one or the other, following their natural inclinations. Today, the necessity of making a choice is even more vital.

---

Téodor de Wyzewa (1862-1914) was a Polish writer, critic, and translator who emigrated to France in 1869. He was a leading exponent of the Symbolist movement.

Four of Cups (Tarot Triptych)

View fullsize

Name:  Luxury, the Four of Cups
Number: 4
Astrology: Moon in Cancer
Qabalah: Chesed of He

Chris Gabriel February 15, 2025

The Four of Cups is comfort, familial love, and emotion. We are given three very different interpretations of this same force in each deck.

In Rider, we see a youth no longer satisfied by material pleasure. He sits like an ascetic beneath a tree, rejecting the phantom hand that holds out a cup for him. He is like the Buddha, denouncing the world for the sake of what’s higher.

In Thoth, we see four golden cups and elaborate pipe-like roots leading to the Lotus, which is pouring down water into the cups. The clouds in the sky are the silvery gray of the Moon, and the wavey Sea is the light blue of Cancer.

In Marseille, we have four cups and a pillar-like flower. Qabalistically, the card is the Mercy of the Queen. This is the love and kindness of the mother.

A good upbringing with a loving family leads to, at its best, an individual who is secure and can withstand the tumult of the world. Often, however, people lose themselves within the comfort of home, reject the external, and remain in arrested development.

In Rider we see a boy who is becoming unhappy with his comfort. He may be preparing to grow, to expand and transform. When Crowley described his Thoth card, he gave it a subtitle: “The Seeds of Decay”, which lay in the fruits of pleasure.  

This is not to say comfort is always bad; there is a time and a need for it. Childhood may be best spent in comfort, butwhen childhood ends, the comfort must be abandoned and the enchanted circle of the mother broken.

If this fails to occur, one will remain in an illusion, a daydream, an oedipal hologram meant to keep an individual from individuating. This is the struggle of the card's astrological placement: the Moon in Cancer, even though it is in the sign of its rulership, is prone to delusions and extreme sensitivity to the world around it. 

The card is notably featured in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. The Kid finds it in a destroyed house and then pulls it while having his fortune read:

He took one. He'd not seen such cards before, yet the one he held seemed familiar to him. He turned it upside down and regarded it and he turned it back. The juggler took the boy's hand in his own and turned the card so he could see. Then he took the card and held it up. 

Cuatro de copas, he called out. 

The woman raised her head. She looked like a blindfold mannequin raised awake by a string. 

Cuatro de copas, she said. She moved her shoulders. The wind went among her garments and her hair.

When we pull the Four of Cups we can expect a slow and comfortable energy to be at play, we don’t need to worry. Nothing is falling apart, for now.

---

Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, READINGS

Hannah Peel Playlist

---

Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and Emmy-nominated, RTS and Music Producers Guild winning composer, with a flow of solo albums and collaborative releases, Hannah Peel joins the dots between science, nature and the creative arts, through her explorative approach to electronic, classical and traditional music.

Film

Egyptian Tantra and the Ankh

Sphinx Mystagoga, 1676. Athanasius Kircher.

---

Molly Hankins February 13, 2025

In Drunvalo Melchizedek’s Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life book series, he shares channeled material from Thoth, also known as Hermes Trismegistus. The second book outlines the basics of Egyptian tantra practice, explaining that recycling orgasmic energy is the key to eternal life. This is a vast departure from many other tantra traditions, but makes sense - human life begins with an orgasm.

From an energetic standpoint,  most orgasms are akin to discharging a battery into a ground wire - the energy dissipates and is gone from the battery forever. “This is what all the world’s tantric systems I am aware of believe,” he writes, “That orgasm brings one a little closer to death because a person loses his or her life-force energy in the orgasm.”

For the Egyptians, controlling sexual currents was more important than controlling sexual release. According to Thoth / Hermes, the Egyptian tantric system is unique as it recycles sexual currents as a source of infinite life-force energy. Engaging in this practice, according to the sex magic schools of Isis (partnered) and Horus (solo), can create the conditions allowing for eternal youth and life.  

Overlay the Egyptian ankh next to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man, and the meeting point of his arms is the energetic starting point at which we’re directing the sexual current in our bodies - the heart chakra. The practice  is that of pushing energy out from our backs.allowing it to loop back around the top of our head, and re-enter the front of the heart chakra to form the ankh shape. 

---

“Immortality is not living forever in our current form - it’s learning to work with the energy that  animate our physical bodies, to the point where we don’t age.”

---

The goal of Egyptian tantra is to let sexual energy build up the spine, and then move it towards the heart chakra as you’re approaching orgasm. This practice can be used to simply build vital energy or directed towards an intention, and can be performed solo or with a partner. The instructions, as Drunvalo, explains are: .

1. Allow the sexual energy to rise up your spine and collect at the top of the heart chakra.

2. The moment you feel orgasm is imminent, fill your lungs 9/10ths of the way full and hold.

3. At the moment of orgasm, push the energy out the back of the heart chakra at a 90 degree angle relative to your spine, allowing the energy to continue in the round shape like the top of ankh, and recycle it back into your body. 

4. The instant the sexual current energy makes contact with the front of the body, draw in the rest of your breath so your lungs are full, this completes the ankh before exhaling.

To illustrate the power of this practice, Drunvalo uses the example of a standard tuning fork. Once struck, it will vibrate for a certain amount of time upon being struck. A tuning fork with the ankh shape on top, however, will vibrate for a much longer period of time because the energy is being recycled back into itself rather than immediately dissipating. 

Egyptian tantra posits that recycling our life-force energy keeps us vibrant in form for longer. Immortality, Drunvalo believes, is not living forever in our current form - it’s learning to work with the energy that  animate our physical bodies, to the point where we don’t age. The goal of this practice is to evolve to a point where we can live as long as we wish in a healthy, vibrant body then choose when and how to transition. 

---

Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.

Adrien Brody

Sound Shapes the Mind: A Binaural Beats Primer

Danny Timur February 11, 2025

We live in a world of noise. We are inundated with honks of traffic, buzzes of phones, and din of conversations that we now spend much of our lives attempting to drown out the sounds of the artificial world, which in turn only pushes us further from nature. We strive for silence, believing that may be the answer, seemingly unaware that nestled within the frequencies we hear are wavelengths that could hold the power to calm our minds, sharpen our focus, or even alter our emotional states. These are known as binaural beats—a type of auditory illusion that can shape the way we think and feel, and their possible benefits are enormous.

Binaural beats are simple. In a pair of headphones, two different frequencies are played, one in each ear. What seems like a straightforward auditory experience opens a door to something far more profound. Your brain doesn’t hear the two tones separately; instead, it creates a third frequency—a "beat" that is the difference between the two sounds. For example, if one ear hears a tone at 300 Hz and the other hears one at 310 Hz, your brain perceives a 10 Hz beat. This influences the very frequencies of your brainwaves, guiding them into specific states as it synchronizes itself in a process called brainwave entrainment. 

Our brains are malleable, and a variety of activities and tools can help us synchronise and rewire them. Meditation, exercise, movement, surges of dopamine from scrolling timelines - all of these are modes of entrainment that alter our consciousness and send us into new states, but they are often scattershot in their efforts. The real power of binaural beats lies in their ability to influence these patterns in a targeted way. Our brainwaves are categorized into distinct frequency bands, each associated with different states of consciousness:

• Delta (0.5–4 Hz): Deep sleep or unconsciousness.

• Theta (4–8 Hz): Light sleep, meditation, and creativity.

• Alpha (8–12 Hz): Relaxation while awake, calm but alert.

• Beta (12–30 Hz): Active thought, alertness, and concentration.

• Gamma (30–100 Hz): Intense focus and cognitive processing.

When we listen to a binaural beat at 4 Hz, we enter the theta state, which is associated with deep relaxation, creativity, and even meditation. At 10 Hz, we move into the alpha state—calm, but alert. For moments when focus is needed, binaural beats in the beta range (12–30 Hz) can help foster concentration and alertness.

---

“In the symphony of human experience, music has always informed our emotions. Songs, speech, birdcall - these can change our mood in seconds. Binaural beats are an extension, a distillation, of this eternal idea.”

---

Binaural beats act as a gentle guide, steering your mind into a particular wavelength. Like a dancer moving in time with music, your brain follows the rhythm, adapting its own frequencies to match the beat. These shifts are not merely psychological. They are physiological, rooted in the way our brains process and respond to sound. 

We can be precise in our responses, identify harmful or painful emotions and find their sonic mirror, the audio antidote to reclaim balance. The brain waves in a stressed state, for example, are often fast-moving beta waves which make it hard to focus or think clearly. Listening to binaural beats in the alpha or theta ranges will counterbalance this by promoting slower, more relaxed brainwave patterns. In the same way, if we are tired, Binaural beats can be used to enhance cognitive performance by encouraging brainwave activity that promotes alertness and concentration. Our morning coffee can be listened to, instead of drunk, and the energy that we have so long relied on from external sources can be unlocked within ourself.

This form of deep listening, of allowing the subconscious to be guided by the sonic, has the potential to unlock deeper states of consciousness—states where creativity flows freely, where anxiety dissipates, and where we reconnect with the present moment. The theta state, which binaural beats can induce, brings deep meditative experiences, a sense of inner peace, and heightened creativity. For those who struggle with finding time to meditate or who are unable to quiet their minds on their own, binaural beats offer a shortcut—a gentle, guided entry into mindfulness.

In the symphony of human experience, music has always informed our emotions. Songs, speech, birdcall - these can change our mood in seconds. Binaural beats are an extension, a distillation, of this eternal idea and they offer a unique key to unlocking the mind’s potential. Through the simple act of listening, we can influence our brainwaves, shifting our mental state from tension to relaxation, from distraction to focus, or from confusion to creativity.

There is a deep, almost primal connection between sound and the mind. In a world filled with noise, the quiet power of binaural beats reminds us that the gentlest frequencies can have the most profound effects. By simply tuning into the rhythm of sound, we might just find a way to harmonize our minds with the world around us.

---

Danny Timur is a musician and DJ based in Hong Kong.

---

Film

Iggy Pop Playlist

---

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. Since forming The Stooges in 1967, Iggy’s career has spanned decades and genres. Having paved the way for ‘70’s punk and ‘90’s grunge, he is often considered “The Godfather of Punk.”

Page of Wands (Tarot Triptych)

View fullsize

Name: Page of Wands or Princess of Wands
Number: 4
Astrology: Earth of Fire
Qabalah: He of Yod

Chris Gabriel February 8, 2025

The Page of Wands is measuring up, stacking up, and determining value according to the Measure of his wand. The Princess, on the other hand, disregards all this and flies into action.

In Rider, the Page is a young man with a feathered cap, a yellow tunic adorned with salamanders, a scarf, and fiery yellow boots. His clothes are similar to the Knight, and he is set in the same pyramid spotted desert. He is looking up toward the tip of his wand, holding it in place. The Wand is taller than him.

In Thoth, the Princess is naked, save for a huge double uraeus crown. She has caught a tiger by its tail and is rushing ahead with the flames, dragging the tiger along. There is a burning altar beside her, as she holds a solar wand.

In Marseille, the Page is dressed very simply. He stands in a field with sprouting plants and looks ahead unsure. His wand is kept on the ground, directing his fiery energy into the Earth, causing the growth. The question is, what will make him raise his wand?

In each of these cards we see the interrelation of Fire and Earth. In Marseille, fire is something feeding the earth, in Rider it competes with the earth, and in Thoth, earth is the fuel to fire.

It is here that I find the Page of Rider most fascinating. While the suit of wands is generally proud, aggressive and arrogant, the youngest of them is shown struggling to measure up against his wand, his destiny. If the face cards in the suit of wands are having a “dick measuring competition”, the Page is losing, even against the Queen.

The Page of Marseille appears to be content with his Wand being more of a tool to fertilize the Earth, rather than as a tool of aggression. He is untroubled. 

The Princess disrupts both of these modes entirely. She is taking up the creature of the Earth, the tiger, as she ascends with the burning flames. This is a frenetic, excited young woman, who is quick to drag you along on an adventure. She represents extreme and blind enthusiasm, the freedom of the feminine, as opposed to the distinctly masculine insecurity in Rider. 

When pulling this card, we may be met with an assisting Page for our greater pursuits or we may assist someone in theirs. We may also be like the Tiger and get dragged along on a greater adventure.

---

Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, READINGS

Film

The Power of Shame

Detail from ‘Ashes’, Edvard Munch. 1895.

---

Suzanne Stabile February 6, 2025

There are times when I teach Enneagram Wisdom and I become aware that I sound like I’m offering an answer to managing all the things that make life complicated and painful. That may sound somewhat arrogant, but the truth is, it’s exactly what I’m doing. After thirty years of teaching and studying the Enneagram, it is clear to me that using it every day changes your life for the better. Enneagram wisdom teaches that there are nine ways of seeing and nine ways of processing how we see. We can change what we do with how we see, but we can never change how we see. Knowing that alone is helpful in identifying some of our responses to life that we would like to change. 

*

There are multiple sets of three to be found in Enneagram Wisdom. Among them are three Triads and their corresponding Default Emotions. All three Triads revolve around a powerful emotional response. For the Thinking triad, fear is the foundational motivation for behavior. For the Doing triad, anger is always within reach. For the Heart Triad, it is shame that guides the way. Each Enneagram number struggles to understand and manage the dominant or default emotion of the Triad. It is challenging work that never ends. 

In this series of articles, I’m exploring the emotions of shame, fear and anger as they relate to Enneagram wisdom. We experience all three, and we need to learn to respect each one and use it for its value, understanding how each can be helpful and can be harmful. We also need to learn to respect the power of each one without allowing it to have unnecessary influence in our lives. 

One of the three is the default emotion for each personality type or number in the Enneagram. Enneagram Twos, Threes and Fours  make up the Heart triad, and these three personalities, shame dominates how they see themselves, others and the world. So, it’s healthy for us to know what shame looks like. 

We live our lives telling stories. My work is to teach, and model, the art of connecting the Enneagram with the stories that make up our lives. In doing so, we can “find ourselves” both in the present and the past, and we can also imagine ourselves in new ways as we look to the future.  

According to the work of Curt Thompson, M.D., there is a story we tell ourselves about shame, and there is a story that shame tells about us. I’m a Two on the Enneagram and I was adopted at birth. Part of the story shame tells about me, in relation to my birth narrative, is that I am not good, not wanted and not enough. It is challenging to live with the never-ending premise that we are fundamentally unworthy, inadequate and flawed but Enneagram Twos, Threes, and Fours have no other option 

Unlike guilt, which is about what we do,shame is about who we are. One might feel guilty about telling a lie to a friend,  yet feel shame about being the kind of person who would do such a thing. In the same way, we feel embarrassed because we think we look bad and feel shame because we think we are bad.  

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Masaccio. 1425.

In her work, Brene’ Brown suggests that we need to know these three things about shame. First, we all have it. Second, we are all afraid to talk about it. Third, the less we talk about it the more control it has over our lives. Brown suggests that “shame is the fear of disconnection.” Keeping in mind that it is the default emotion for The Heart triad, it makes sense that the  personality types that most want connection would be the perfect target for shame. 

A 2011 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, along with other agencies, found that, “as far as the brain is concerned physical pain and intense experiences of social rejection hurt in the same way.” Think about that! We’ve all experienced shame and often, in trying to talk about it, we describe it using language such as “intensely painful” or “unbelievably exhausting”, because that is literally how it feels.  

If everything contains its opposite, what then could be the purpose of shame? Like anger and fear, it is most often a negative emotion. And yet, some professionals say we need to acknowledge that both sides are necessary if we are to function in the healthiest ways possible. In looking back over your own life, I would suggest that there are ways that shame, though painful, has been helpful.

---

“When we tell our own stories, including the parts we are ashamed of, we get to write the ending.”

---

Shame can be preventative, helping us to avoid repeating mistakes. It can be helpful in our learning to take responsibility for our actions. And it can provide us with the desire to question ourselves, and the actions we take that have a history of leading us toward regrettable behaviour.  

Yet too much shame is overwhelming.. As a Two, I find it to be like a hologram. It looks like me and it shows up, unbidden and unwanted. These days, I question the hologram when she approaches, knowing that she wants to move in and cover me. “Did I behave in ways that caused harm?”, I ask.  If the answer is “no” then I move on. If the answer is “yes” then I consider whether it would be harmful if repeated. 

We must move through the experience of shame without sacrificing our value or our values. If we address shame appropriately, the experience and lessons offered can be very helpful. The most effective practice I have found for holding the hologram at bay is to know, own, and tell my story honestly. When we tell our own stories, including the parts we are ashamed of, we get to write the ending. Shame hates to have other words wrapped around it. Especially words that would show it for what it is. For obvious reasons our tendency is to hide it but shame is a big emotion that gains strength in the dark and shrinks in the light. 

For Enneagram Twos, Threes and Fours shame is always in the wings, just off stage, waiting to enter the story of your life at any moment.  Some common expressions  of shame as named by Twos are feelings of inadequacy and being unable to live up to expectations. . Twos tell me that when they look inside themselves it’s a struggle to feel joy or pride, they feel I feel inferior to most of the people, and  wonder if God is disappointed in them.  

Threes express to  me that it is common for them to say to themselves, “I am a fake. I feel like if people really knew me, they might have contempt for me. I’m not as successful as I pretend to be.”  Fours tell me they feel flawed inside, like they are blemished in some meaningful way. They say they are sure they will never measure up to what they ought to be. “I feel as if I will never be acceptable. I am always either too much or not enough.”  

Lucretia, Rembrandt van Rijn. 1666.

Feelings are messy for all of us, but they are particularly problematic for those who are in this triad. Of the three Enneagram Triads, the Heart Triad is the least capable of rational thinking, and shame thrives off irrationality. Often, it is difficult for all of us to distinguish multiple feelings as they flow in and out of our awareness but for Twos, Threes and Four it is particularly challenging because Twos feel other people’s feelings. They will often be unsure of their own feelings, but they read the feelings of others whether they want to or not.  

Threes find that feelings interfere with their top two priorities, efficiency and effectiveness. They set them aside waiting for a more convenient time to address them. Unfortunately, that time seldom presents itself to the number that is the best at multitasking. Fours are not content with average feelings. As a result, they find ways to exacerbate feelings so that when they are sad, they can be sadder; and when they are happy, they can engineer ways to be happier.  

Shame finds a home in these three Enneagram types because as long as we identify with our number, with our personalities, something deeper goes unaffirmed. Of course, there are three different solutions to this dilemma. Twos begin by creating and identifying with a false reality. “I love everybody.” But we don’t. We follow that with going out of our way to please others so they will like us, and we end up resenting that. Threes have their own false identity which is, “I am successful.” They maintain the image by under-reporting or reframing failure. And they use their energy to become outstanding in every way they can, hoping to avoid failure so they will be admired and affirmed.  Fours create a false identity around an image of uniqueness and their own understanding of authenticity. That sense of who they are is usually accompanied by an elaborate story about themselves that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. 

At the end of the day, these three numbers struggle to believe that they have value. So, the agendas of their personalities are about hiding that lack of value from others and more importantly from themselves. As a Two this is a very personal part of the journey for me. I still have so much to understand about the shadows of shame. But there is one thing I know for sure: the antidote for shame is found in learning to fulfill your needs from the inside out rather than from the outside in.

---

Suzanne Stabile is a speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of people over the last thirty years. She is the author of ‘The Path Between Us’, and coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of ‘The Road Back to You’. She is also the creator and host of The Enneagram Journey podcast. Along with her husband, Rev. Joseph Stabile, she is cofounder of Life in the Trinity Ministry, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry committed to the spiritual growth and formation of adults.

Daron Malakian

Film

Wandering: Farmhouse

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. Caspar David Friedrich, 1818. Oil on canvas.

---

Herman Hesse helped bring Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions into the western mainstream through his exquisite writing of poetry and prose. His novel ‘Siddartha’, a story of a young man’s spiritual journey of self discovery in the time of Gautama Buddha, was written in 1922 but became a seminal and influential counter-cultural work of the 1960s, informing much of the hippie movement. ‘Wandering’, published two years before, deals with many of the same themes. A series of short essays and reflections, it explores the longing to return to nature, a journey away from home and into oneself, and the possibility of living a different kind of life. In this, the opening essay, Hesse considers the very nature of movement, and how the landscape of our birth shapes us in unknowable ways.

---

Herman Hesse February 4, 2025

This is the house where I say goodbye. For a long time I won’t see another house like this one. You see, I’m approaching a pass in the Alps, and here the northern, German architecture, and the German countryside, and the German language come to an end.

How lovely it is to cross such a boundary. The wandering man becomes a primitive man in so many ways, in the same way that the nomad is more primitive than the farmer. But the longing to get on the other side of everything already settled, this makes me, and everybody like me, a road sign to the future. If there were many other people who loathed the borders between countries as I do, then there would be no more wars and blockades. Nothing on earth is more disgusting, more contemptible than borders. They’re like cannons, like generals: as long as peace, loving kindness and peace go on, nobody pays any attention to them — but as soon as war and insanity appear, they become urgent and sacred. While the war went on, how they were pain and prison to us wanderers. Devil take them!

I am making a sketch of the house in my notebook, and my eye sadly leaves the German roof, the German frame of the house, the gables, everything I love, every familiar thing.

Once again I love deeply everything at home, because I have to leave it. Tomorrow I will love other roofs, other cottages. I won’t leave my heart behind me, as they say in love letters. No, I am going to carry it with me over the mountains, because I need it, always. I am a nomad, not a farmer. I am an adorer of the unfaithful, the changing, the fantastic. I don’t care to secure my love to one bare place on this earth. I believe that what we love is only a symbol. Whenever our love becomes too attached to one thing, one faith, one virtue, then I become suspicious.

---

“I am not complete, and I do not even strive to be complete. I want to taste my homesickness, as I taste my joy.”

---

Good luck to the farmer! Good luck to the man who owns this place, the man who works it, the faithful, the virtuous! I can love him, I can revere him, I can envy him. But I have wasted half my life trying to live his life. I wanted to be something that I was not. I even wanted to be a poet and a middleclass person at the same time. I wanted to be an artist and a man of fantasy, but I also wanted to be a good man, a man at home. It all went on for a long time, till I knew that a man cannot be both and have both, that I am a nomad and not a farmer, a man who searches and not a man who keeps. A long time I castigated myself before gods and laws which were only idols for me. That was what I did wrong, my anguish, my complicity in the world’s pain. I increased the world’s guilt and anguish, by doing violence to myself, by not daring to walk toward my own salvation. The way to salvation leads neither to the left nor the right: it leads into your own heart, and there alone is God, and there alone is peace.

A damp mountain wind drifts across me, beyond me blue islands of heaven gaze down on other countries. Beneath those heavens I will be happy sometimes, and sometimes I will be homesick beneath them. The complete man that I am, the pure wanderer, mustn’t think about homesickness. But I know it, I am not complete, and I do not even strive to be complete. I want to taste my homesickness, as I taste my joy.

This wind, into which I am climbing, is fragrant of beyonds and distances, of watersheds and foreign languages, of mountains and southern places. It is full of promise.

Goodbye, small farmhouse and my native country. I leave you as a young man leaves his mother: he knows it is time for him to leave her, and he knows, too, he can never leave her completely, even though he wants to.

---

Herman Hesse (1877-1962) was a German Swiss poet, novelist, and painter who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. Hesse remains one of the most widely read and translated European authors of the 20th century, and his novels have served as essential touchstones for generations of young people looking to find themselves.

Hannah Peel Playlist

---

Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and Emmy-nominated, RTS and Music Producers Guild winning composer, with a flow of solo albums and collaborative releases, Hannah Peel joins the dots between science, nature and the creative arts, through her explorative approach to electronic, classical and traditional music.

King of Swords (Tarot Triptych)

View fullsize

Name: King of Swords, Prince of Swords
Number: 1 or 3
Astrology: Aquarius
Qabalah: Yod of Vau or Vau of Vau

Chris Gabriel February 1, 2025

The King of Swords is the highest card in the suit, but as the Prince, as he appears in Thoth, he is the third highest. In each depiction he bears a sword and wears a crown,  looking with judgment and considering how to apply his sword.

In Rider, we have a King cloaked in sky blue and grey. His throne is adorned with butterflies and sylphs. He is crowned, and his sword is held aloft, slightly to the right. He looks straight ahead. 

In Thoth, we see a Prince riding in a chariot drawn by three little men. Geometric figures swarm about him. He is preparing to strike with his sword, while his other hand holds the reins and a scythe.

In Marseille, the King is looking to the left. He is adorned in ceremonial armor with two Lunar shoulder pads. He is holding court, giving orders, and forming plans - not going to war. He is giving orders and forming plans. His sword is pointed straight up, and his scepter is by his side.

In both Rider and Marseille we are shown the King as Judge. This calls to mind the Judgment of Solomon, in which two women claim to be the mother of a child and come before their King to solve the dispute.

24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.

25 And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.

26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.

-Kings 3:24-17

A King judging by the sword is a perfect example of this card. 

The Prince, on the other hand, is judging only ideas. He is in a realm of intellect, not practical matters of the court. With his sword and scythe he cuts every sprout and sapling before they have time to mature, for each is imperfect. This card always reminds me of masturbation, and the phrase “mental masturbation”. None of these ideas will be fertilized. This is Hamlet himself, thinking and thinking.

The Kings on the other are interested not necessarily in Justice, but in balance and symmetry. The butterflies on the Rider King’s throne are not beautiful per se, but beautiful in their symmetry. The Kings are interested in using their swords to cut perfect borders, to divide bounty, to create laws and boundaries for their subjects.

When we pull this card we can expect an orderly person in the case of the King, or a mental person in the case of the Prince. Their ideas can bring peace and balance to our lives, or set us spinning our wheels. This may be energy we have to embody, setting things in their right place, and removing excess.

---

Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, READINGS