"Wearing red socks or shoes helps remind us to ground our bodies. Because red is a grounding color, seeing red on your feet throughout the day will serve as a reminder to bring your attention back to the physical body. This is especially helpful if you tend to ignore your lower extremities. By consciously focusing on the color red at your feet you will be energetically distributing your energies downwards, anchoring your energies to the earth, thus creating a better balance within yourself. Isn't it interesting that the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz story was wearing ruby red slippers? She got grounded when a house fell upon her while she was flying through the air. It was also the magical tapping of the red slippers together that brought Dorothy back home to Kansas."
The above passage, from About.com is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly it highlights the link with the energies of the earth, which is a focus of the Outer Order, being centred in Malkuth. Indeed, the word for "red" in Hebrew is actually adom, which has the same spelling as adam, meaning "man", or, rather "of the earth". The "red" colour is related to the "ruddy" colour of earth, and thus the red slippers used in the Outer Order are a definitive link to earth energies, or, more aptly, those of Malkuth.
I'd like to highlight the part that says "if you tend to ignore your lower extremities", for this is, in a sense, part of the purpose of the Elemental Grades: to force you to explore these "lower extremities", that of the Lower, Elemental Self, and to ensue that you build the proper foundation upon which the life of the Higher Self will live.
The Wizard of Oz information is intriguing, and merely shows how such perennial symbols have permeated even our more modern expressions in book and film. The Wicked Witch relates to the West, which is the lowest portion of Malkuth, bordering the Qlippoth (and thus explaining her wickedness), but the West is also Malkuth as a whole, just as Tiphareth is the East, and thus she is tied intrinsically to Malkuth, even by the donning of the red slippers. The "magical tapping" of the slippers could potentially be likened to the Knocks used in ceremony, and further suggest the magickal depth that can be found in this film. It's hard not to think that there must have been some occult research that went into it. Regardlss, however, it offers us a modern mythology (just as the Matrix trilogy does for Gnosticism) that can potentially help us understand some of the more difficult aspects of our own tradition.
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11 comments:
Very interested in what you write here. As a tarot reader, I often suggest certain colors or objects that may be helpful to those for whom I read. I also think that on a daily basis, connecting incoming colors to chakras and alchemical symbolism can make for an active spirituality.
Colour is very evocative and amazingly transformative, and was a bit of an "Inner Order" secret in the Golden Dawn. If you've ever looked at some flashing colour tattvas or Enochian tablets for a little while you'll easily see what I mean. This is why the Golden Dawn tools and regalia are coloured so brightly, as it really does have an effect on the psyche.
Thanks for the comment :)
LVX,
Dean.
I know that some researchers have gone very deep into the symbolism behind The Wizard of Oz. It all means something, apparently, but I think the symbolism is Theosophical, so it's Greek to me.
I haven't read any papers on it, mainly because I'm not that mad on the film itself (it's a little too "old-fashioned" for me, and I'm not mad on the musical elements). However, the symbolism does intrigue me, as it does in many modern works which tend to hint at older sources.
So, in a sense, it's very much Greek to me too!
Speaking of such, check this out:
http://henosis-decanus.blogspot.com/2006/10/god-on-tour-comic-strip-8.html
;)
LVX,
Dean.
The Wizard of Oz aside, there is no definitive reason given for the red slippers, at least in any papers that survived. Although it has been suggested they are an alchemical reference, the fire beneath burning away the dross as we move through the outer order.
Couple this with the fact that the inner order wears blue slippers, we can only assume if there was a physical third order that they would have worn yellow slippers completing the aleph of mem and shin.
Ave Theurgist,
I was told it was yellow slippers for Inner Order and blue for Third Order. Thus, Shin, Aleph, Mem in order from Outer to Inner. In some ways I find this hard to reconcile with Sepher Yetzirah, which suggests that Mem should be beneath, with Shin on top, a la the Tree used in Lurianic Qabalah. However, I've had a couple of realisations about this, which I will share in another blog post soon.
LVX,
Dean.
Actually I think you might be right. That's what you get when you go off memory without checking first. ;)
Lol - never trust your memory! Use the appropriate Hebrew letter to banish (can't remember which one it is off-hand now, ironically enough) ;)
It makes sense to have yellow/air in the middle, as ever, although blue for inner order would have made sense in a different way, as it being the blue triangle to merge with the red triangle. That's still present, just in a more "theoretical" way in the Third Order.
Thanks for the comments, Brother :)
LVX,
Dean.
This may be entirely a red herring (no pun intended) but the Popes have always worn red shoes.
Ave Anonymous,
I did not know that about the popes, but that's very interesting. Thank you for sharing :)
LVX,
Dean.
Actually, Dorothy's shoes were silver, because Baum was a believer in sound monetary policy (backed up by silver and gold- yellow brick road). They are only red in the film so that they would "stand out" in technicolor.
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