The Angel and the Lion constitute the other pair of opposites on the cross of man’s instinctivity. The Angel’s moral conscience unites with the Lion’s moral courage.
The Nature of Courage
“Exploring Plato’s four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance and justice”
“The Lion symbolizes the instinct that can be designated as ‘moral courage’. But just as there is the Eagle and the eagle, so there is the Lion and the lion. Ferociousness is to moral courage as the lion is to the Lion. The former is a degeneration of the latter.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p257
“The Cross is the union of two pairs of opposites, and the practice of the Cross is the work of conciliation of four opposites—two horizontal and two vertical opposites. The Eagle and the Bull are vertical opposites: they are the tendencies towards the heights and the depths, towards the general and the particular, towards a comprehensive overview and towards the minutiae of points of detail.
“The Angel and the Lion constitute the other pair of opposites on the cross of man’s instinctivity. Here it is a matter of the transformation of combative courage into moral courage—into the courage of conscience. For the instinct that we call ‘moral conscience’ is the effect of inspiration on the part of the Angel, and it is by elevating instinctual courage, i.e. the desire for heroism, adventure and struggle, that the latter is united with conscience and becomes the moral courage that we admire in martyrs and saints.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p259.
“Courage doesn’t mean having no fear. It means not letting fear deter you from where you know you have to go. And so that kind of courage is needed. And I think that as we become conscious citizens of the emergence of the old, rather than scared rats on the life raft of the old, that there is a possibility of an infusion into the collective dark night of a new kind of strength, which is already the beginning of the dawn.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Integral Light Dec 2021, 25:17 5.1 Apocalypse or Unveiling
Courage as a Transformative Force
“When I talk about courage the substance of courage you could call it the energy of courage or the substance of courage at this level they’re essentially interchangeable and we’re going to look a little bit more about why these terms are basically interchangeable in the bandwidth where we’re working. But consider that courage is a nutrient and consider that in the presence of it certain kinds of healing, possibility and manifestation become possible in the absence of it something else happens. I’m talking about what I would call very specifically pastoral courage and it is the heart of the Christian mystery.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Stonington Imaginal 9-2020, 17:28 0016 Intro
“To awaken, a person must see more and more clearly what he or she is like. This is painful. But it gives us courage to die to ourselves and our self-love.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1619
“Your life is your wedding garment, how you live it, how you grow it, how you enrich it in the exchange. And when, at whatever is the moment of death, when the wave form of your life lived in time becomes the particle of your consummated identity, then what you’re wearing at that moment is your wedding garment. So the wedding garment is spun from your conscious work. It’s spun from kenosis, spun from conscious presence, spun from your courage to do your shadow work, and spun from your willing participation in the exchange, even though it hurts like hell. That’s your wedding garment.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mary Magdalene Conscious Love, 0:56 disc 7 track 5 Procreation on the vertical level
Courage in Service to the Whole
“Can we hold an atmosphere around this tender and crazy and broken planet, and as the vibes and the disruptions move through it, can we hold a place in which some sort of third force might have a way of entering? Without trying to engineer the third force, it’ll take care of itself. Something surprising is gonna happen. And we just, you know, each of us tilling the soil in our own way, some, even some in this room, will emerge as actual players in the playing out of that drama. The rest of us that will not be frontline players will hold the space, feeding into the world our own renewed measure of trust and courage to create the atmosphere in which surprise and resurrection becomes possible.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Imaginal Wisdom School 8-2020, 42:00 0821 IWS Friday AM Teaching.
“In this always dark time of the year, which celebrates both human fragility and the endurance of that which supports and protects it, here we are again in a fragile and precarious time in our human journey. And I have a deep conviction that each one of you who’ve had the courage and the willingness and the need and the yearning to respond and put yourself there are doing some work for our planet right now. And we’re going to try to be cognizant of that, that to hold the space for the new birth in whatever way it’s going to lead us.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Integral Light Dec 2021, 01:34 0.1 Overview
“How we begin to work our way way back to a situation of even beginning to envision a different kind of trust, a different kind of forgiveness, a different kind of spiritual strength, and then commit ourselves to the effort to generate it in the conscious marrow of our own lives. So, it takes a certain courage and generosity of heart to be willing to do this, a willingness to step up to the plate and bear the pain body of humanity without judgment, and without reward. This is really what we’re talking about when we talk about substituted love. It’s paschal in nature.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Rebuilding Trust Feb 2022, 29:00 Day 0 Rebuilding-Trust-Introduction
Logion 7
Yeshua says...
A lion eaten by a man is blessed
as it changes to human form,
but a human devoured by a lion
is cursed as lion becomes human.
Logion 106
Yeshua says...
When you are able to transform two into one,
then you will become a "Son of Humanity,"
and it will be possible for you
to say to a mountain, "Move," and it will move.
Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020).
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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