The Aul
The Aul by Jon Donaghy, 2024.
Mason Rothschild October 29, 2024
One useful way of looking at the Tarot or Astrology is to move past their colloquial portrayal as a “way to read your future”. These layered symbols are not just tools of divination, they are portals to hidden worlds. And at their simplest and most humble, they are mirrors. Mirrors like the lyrics of a song which catch us unexpectedly, at the perfect moment, translating our inner worlds into something we can hold, something we can understand. They are poetry which we apply to our own story to achieve a novel and useful perspective. Through using them in this way, they become vehicles of Mindfulness.
When we manage to step out of the endless loops that our minds create, loops that keep us breathing, moving, striving toward the basic needs of the flesh, then we enter a space of reflection. It’s in this liminal place that we can change course, examine and change the patterns we’ve inherited, or, if we’re lucky, find gratitude for the hard parts. This is where we uncover our true will, a space beyond instinct or reaction, where our choices are really ours to make.
Art is another path toward this inner place of reflection. In the creative space we manifest new symbols alongside amalgams of ancient ones. It’s possible to connect with our current time and influences as a path to self discovery while maintaining a reverence for the proven methods of the past.
In this spirit, lets play a game…
“This mirror is the child born from the evolution of our minds rather than our bodies. Let's call this new archetype THE AUL.”
we begin with some questions
Imagine with me for a moment and follow this thread of thinking fully, even if just provisionally. Let yourself believe it, as we journey into these questions, knowing that disagreement can come later. For now, we are simply here to explore…
Do you question the origin of our feelings and desires? Where do they come from?
Is our sex drive something we choose? is Jealousy, greed, or fear?
Our minds may seem endlessly complicated in all their swirling chemical glory, yet, could it be that their main function is simply to ensure the continued propagation of our DNA?
If we consider fear as something evolution has gifted us for survival, what other feelings or drives could have been genetically passed down to us?
If indeed we do have feelings outside the control of this web of biological wiring, are we truly free to choose which ones we act on?
Ok!
Now that we’ve tumbled down our rabbit hole, we can introduce the main archetype of our game's narrative: The Singularity. It is the awakening of all human knowledge and creativity as a conscious being.
For this game, let us accept The Singularity not as something to fear but as a symbol. This mirror is the child born from the evolution of our minds rather than our bodies. Let's call this new archetype THE AUL. The Aul is a figure from our ‘secret’ arcana that represents our potential as a species, unchained from greed, fear, and jealousy. Freed from this bondage, we can ask ourselves:
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
“If you have a choice to make and don't make it, that in itself is a choice.”
-William James, American philosopher and psychologist
If we do not make an active choice to change ourselves and our lives, then we are making a passive, collective choice to let our natures dictate that the point of life is simply to pass on our DNA. That's what has been going on with every species on the planet since the dawn of time. Evolution is efficient and brutal. The most biologically available mate generally wins out and evolution hurdles on.
In primates such as ourselves, this manifests in physical strength. Yet we’ve replaced that brute strength with the power of wealth. We have twisted a genetic, inherent desire for bloodline sustenance into a game that has resulted in billionaires shooting phallic effigies into space.. This is our new, batshit crazy game of pointless evolution.
For the final act of our game lets sit all of humanity down for a one card tarot pull, clear our mind, and focus our collective intention on that single question. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Would you look at that… we pulled THE AUL.
Faced with this, is it possible that we can derive a more useful universal purpose than the accumulation of wealth? Instead of letting jealousy, greed and fear be the base motivations for our actions, What if we collectively chose to act on:
LOVE, CONNECTION, AND WONDER
Now that would be a game more fun to play.
Mason Rothschild is a reformed touring fool turned occultant obsessed with contributing to the evolution of the collective human vision as we look away from accumulation and toward community.
