Harmony in the Hierarchies

How do we Discover Angelic Presence in Everything

First published in Farther In magazine spring 2025
7140 words – a rewarding half hour read.

Who or What is God?

If that were not enough, what about 3 as one and one as three?Beyond theology and belief, How are we to have a living understanding of God as a trilogy?

And, if you’ve got to some peace with that, Angels? — Archangels? And what about the full nine Hierarchies of Angelic beings? – Are they just Catholic Tradition, or are they a true esoteric wisdom?  —  Is it even possible to build a personal relationship with such beings?

 

Lets start with the Trilogy: three gods in one.
Where in life, do we have living examples of this ‘trefoil’ thinking?
What if we look at music? If we define music as an harmonic sound, played on an instrument — Could that lead us into some understanding?

Anthroposophy presents to us the ancient Christian understanding of how Angels, Archangels and the ‘Nine Hierarchies of Heaven’ work within our direct experience to maintain both Heaven and Earth. How can we discover their loving work within us, and enter into direct relationship with their gifts and being?

Below I will try to explain how the many aspects of any single song could be seen to be grounded in a different level of the nine hierarchies. Diving into what depths go into any song you hear. During this I hope to illustrate how these Beings are present in everything we do and are.

All these beings wish to enter into direct relationship with you. As free human beings we must turn towards their extended hand-of-friendship before they may begin any such ‘conversation.’ Once we accept their hand, they are able to work more creatively into our lives, progressing our life’s-goals including our personal development.

What is music?

When we pluck a string, the release leaves the string out of balance. In restoring its equilibrium, the string-centre zooms from side to side, seeking to come to rest. That vibration is taken up by fixing points at either end. In a harp, (as in a guitar or violin) one end is fixed to, or bears upon, a ‘sound-board’ thin enough to vibrate, which in turn is part of a sound-chamber in which the vibrations become pressure waves. It is these pressure waves in the air, in small part from the string and in large part from the wood and chamber of the harp that reach our ears as sound.

Within our body, all sense impressions stimulate a different response. Noise and music differ in whether our inner response is harmonious or not. In good part, this depends on the notes of music being in tune, but it also depends on whether we tune into this sound as music. If that which grows and flourishes in us responds to this sense-impression, then we perceive beauty. If the forces of breakdown and decay in us respond to this sound then we perceive ugliness.

To tune a string the musician adjusts the tension while listening carefully, till the sound is closely aligned with the note required. A combination of knowledge and feeling enables her to bring each string to the harmony that is a musical scale. All of this gets us just one note, twelve of which make a scale.

Apart from plucked strings, notes also arise from tuned air-columns and vibrating surfaces in such as oboes, organs, marimbas and or hand pans. Not to mention bowed strings.

When playing, the musician is focusing his intentions, practiced over untold hours, to bring the music from where no-one can see or hear it into a space and time in which it did not exist before, uplifting listeners into a renewed connection with their own sense of beauty and spiritual connection.

These three elements, the physical, bodily nature of the instrument, the frequency-vibrations that need tuning to a musical scale, and the intentions of the musician are illustrations of the power of the three principal forces that rule and create our lives. These forces are so vast that we easily do not notice that they are conscious, self-aware beings. Let’s take another quick look at their threefold nature:

• The instrument exists because it has been made in the past. Here it is now as an example of all that has been achieved so far. It exists, in space, whether we play it or not.
  • The past, itself, provides us with a basis to be creative and to go forward from here. In the Foundation Stone meditation, this is expressed as “Out of The Father we are born.” Ex Deo Nascimur.
• The strings have been tuned from a sensitivity to this moment. Soon they will be out of tune again and need retuning. The musical scale to which they are tuned is also a present-moment reality. A mere century ago, scales were different; over just a few generations, our idea of how to create harmony evolves. Music does not exist in space; it flows in time.
  • The vibrations of a string last a few seconds, each note in the music is quickly built-upon by the next notes. This present moment is where all that has been dies in order to support what is coming next. This rhythm of building on what was, by letting that die into supporting what must be created is like the breath; in and out, first breath and last breath, inherent in all that we do. The outbreath becomes the inbreath, systole and diastole of the heart, the vibration of the string of our inner tension.
    In the Foundation Stone meditation, this is expressed as ‘in Christ, Death becomes Life.’ In Christo Morimur.
• The musician knows the music that no one else can hear. This might be a famous piece, but her playing makes it, anew. It might be a newly written piece, or even an in-the-moment, spontaneous creation, but in every case, she holds in consciousness something that only comes into existence when she plucks it, ‘out of the air,’ onto the string. If it is an improvised composition, the source of it is in the beauty of the composer/players perception. This music exists neither in space nor in time, but in the perception of both the player and the listeners. The time-flow of the notes, played on a spatial instrument, expresses and creates something that exists independently of both time and space and is thus a spiritual
  • Our free ability to perceive beauty creates a beautiful future. The musician has practiced a heart-seeing of beauty, and in this very practice, projects a future in which others may also participate in the beauty they can create. This makes visible how the free-choice element in us, our thinking, is the foundation from which we create the future. It also points to why doing what we want to do is often called recreation. We re-create ourselves through following this freedom. In the Foundation Stone meditation, this is expressed as ‘In the Spirit’s Universal Thoughts we are reborn.’ Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.

This image of the threefold nature of music emerging from the musical instrument, which in turn was created to enable music, is an appropriate analogy for how the higher aspects of our human nature emerge from what creates all that we are. Folded into our essential nature like butter into pastry, deeper and deeper layers of our nature reveal the character of their creators.

The nine hierarchies of celestial creator-beings mentioned in the Foundation Stone are a characterisation of stages of consciousness. They are also conscious entities in their own right. Rising in three groups of three, they appear in us within the three aspects of our being, mentioned above as instrument, sound/note, and composition.

Taking music as our pathway once again, I will now seek to lead our understanding upwards and downwards, into these deeper layers of what makes us and makes the world we experience through our lives.

The Analogy

Any song is an analogy of a lifetime, a journey, or a moment. To explore the levels of sound and meaning that form “song” itself, I will choose the song Come Healing, by Leonard Cohen. Any song would do, but I chose this one after some thought because the sacred nature of its theme leads us naturally into the depths we must now go to.

Tune, or Melody.

In a song, it is the melody that leads everything along, setting the mood in its rise and fall. Each interval in the tune (the step from one note to another) is an emotional statement. Gathered together, these are the emotional message that gives the song its appeal. This particular song has a floaty melody that starts one note below keynote and rarely makes large jumps.

Angels.

The voice of the angels constantly appears in us as conscience and as inspiration. Like a tune running in the background of our mind, angelic voices are quietly offering us options in how we understand and approach life. Respecting human freedom, they never intervene and are often pushed into the background by our education or social concerns. Angels take their guidance from Archangels, comparable to how, at night, we might choose our path guided by moonlight.

Meditating with the Angels

To prepare for opening your connection with angelic beings (from a meditative soul-space), you might first imagine someone who has shown great love and support towards you. Parent, teacher, or friend, such a one clearly has your best interests at heart. The step between you and such a helper is a small one in the right direction. Your guardian angel (we all have one) has been standing close with you since birth. Their devoted interest in your spiritual well-being has supported you through your trials and sought to bring sweet joy to your soul.

Feel the uprightness within you – through and against all hardship, this has remained, being fed to you from this angel’s spiritual strength. Tune into this support, this uprightness, then turn to face the source of this support, offering gratitude and love as your introduction or greeting.

At this point, some may see light or form, some may hear sound or words, some may feel a new feeling in their heart or spine, and some may notice that change-for-the-good follows in their lives over ensuing days.

With repeated practice, your angel may even become a constantly available spirit-guide. There is nothing they like better than to see you progress in inner strength, clarity and warmth. They are grateful for your personal cooperation in your spiritual growth.

Harmony.

The space between two notes played at the same time is a harmony. Every note in a song’s tune is backed up by other notes. Sopranos, altos, tenors and basses in a choir sing in harmony. Arising between the notes at every moment, the harmony gives depth, impact and meaning to the tune of any song. The harmonies in this song are soft and supportive.

Archangels.

Archangels work in the realm of relationships, and more. They impart their guidance into the space between people, for example as ideas that appear as if both had thought of it at once, or simply as a result of a conversation. Archangels strive to fulfil the loving guidance of the Archai like plants strive towards the sun.

Meditating with the Archangels

To contact an archangel, look into any relationship. Whether you choose a work-group, your own family network, or even the space between you and a great work of art, symphony, or painting. Wherever spirit weaves you together with the human striving of others, archangels will be found. Opening your heart-consciousness to Archangels can feel like welcoming such a group into your soul while filtering out the personal judgement we normally bring. Michael’s sword and scales are an archangelic image of discernment, separating dark from light. When we lovingly welcome our relationship with a whole group, this celestial discernment is applied inwardly, bringing light into the darker places of our own soul in which we normally condemn others.

“Meeting” an archangel is a slightly less personal experience than meeting an angel. Their presence lights up as a sense of expansion within us, enlarging our perception of the working of light in the world – spiritual light. If we take the courage to maintain a relationship with the archangelic (as we find it in our daily experience), we become larger of soul, less small-minded.

Beat and rhythm.

Beat and rhythm set the pace for any song, establishing immediately whether this is about joy or sorrow, beginnings or endings. Their support keeps the musicians of harmony and tune in time with each other. Most songs have drums for keeping time or bass guitar establishing rhythm, but Cohen uses violin and then keyboard for a softer effect here.

Archai (aka First Principles).

Every part of our life needs goodwill and wisdom to work. There is deep wisdom in the structure of our body, as in every part of nature. Body- and nature-wisdom both flow into every aspect of our lives. When things go wrong, time in nature gives us perspective, renewed faith and strength to cope. The Archai maintain this level of support in the background to all that we undertake, every day in every way. The Archai see themselves as serving the higher powers comparably to how a musician strives to express the music being played, as a natural consequence of that music’s existence.

Meditating with the Archai

Archai lead the third hierarchy. As such, they operate in our deepest, less conscious thought-processes. The learnt/learnëd wisdom of the baseline structure of our world-view. To open a connection with these beings, we need to look beyond our individual imagination, and beyond the inspiration we get from meetings with other human beings, both face-to-face and through their inspired words, and look towards the ground of our own intuition. The forces that structure nature are based in the archai. When considering a landscape, notice how the spaces between the elements create the feelings of harmony – hill and hill, woods and rivers, expanse and detail. All engender a conversation. The wisdom-meaning of this conversation is the archaic ‘voice’. Or, looking at a plant, notice how the space between two leaf-shapes compares with the space between petal and pistil, or between the form and colour of a fruit. Take up the inner response that arises in you to any of these outward observations and drop that response into your deepest silence. Sitting with that will become an awareness of the archai speaking in you.

Summary

Where angels speak in the imagination of our inner human nature, arising as an upright light within us, archangels speak in what arises between one human and another.  Meanwhile the archai speak in what arises between spirit and spirit.

These three musical aspects (the tune, harmony, and beat and rhythm) are present in the moment the song is played, and absent before and after.
When we move up to the next three, we enter a reality behind the song that was present before it was composed and remains in the listener after hearing it.

The “3 A’s”  are right around our personal lives, at any moment, offering us personal interaction through our focused intention. Their voice can be identified and incorporated into our understanding and decision making capacities. Because of their direct interest in human soul-development, they are collectively referred to as the ‘Spirits of Soul’ and classified as the Third Hierarchy.

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The Second Hierarchy

Human and animal consciousness emerges within a context of time. This context is provided by the second hierarchy, collectively known as “Spirits of Light.” Their work and very being sustains the background, beyond all conscious activity. Their nature is change. We experience them as those who create and maintain the flow of time.

Meditating with the third hierarchy we are entering into the highest parts of our consciousness. When we meditate with the second hierarchy, we are actually looking for states of soul that lie beneath, and in support of our consciousness. We are relating to beings that are so much higher than us that we can hardly feel into their ‘being’ nature at all, they appear almost as forces rather than beings, yet these are the Creator Beings within The Word itself. The very substance of all Life.

 

Musical Mood.

Within every composer and lyricist, the mood of any composition is the background from which both notes and words are drawn.  Within this song the sense of worship is so strong that Leonard would often kneel on stage while singing it. One can sense within it the many years of devoted seeking and religious service that led to its composition.

Exhusiai  (aka Powers, or Spirits of Form, also Elohim).

Mood is something we don’t always notice. Though our thoughts are deeply influenced by the mood of the moment, our feelings lie deeper than thoughts and only turning our thoughts consciously towards mood, the rise and fall of gentle happiness or subtle discontent, do we notice such things as shallow breathing or slightly heightened anxiety that everyday situations engender in us. Even as our first breath confirms our willingness to live in this body/time experience, the Exhusiai can be felt to breathe all of mankind into existence. They are responsible for maintaining and modulating the underlying mood that flows through time in all of humanity. As humans, we rarely spot a societal change of mood, except when reviewing longer timespans. Individually we may experience the Exhusiai most easily through that deep nature of becoming that lies behind our breath.

Meditating with the Exhusiai

The breath has long been a source of meditation. At the simplest level it offers us a focus that calms compulsive thinking. At a deeper level it brings us in touch with global consciousness for the simple reason that the air we take in has circled the entire world, being breathed by millions of other humans, sage and fool, lover and desperado, as well as animals and plants of all kinds. From the edge of space to the deepest cave, air has been everywhere. Partaking in this lifts us out of our narrow self. This element of movement as a form of consciousness lifts us up that level from the beings of awareness in the third hierarchy to those of movement in the second. The Elohim are the creator element in Genesis, like the first breath is the moment our soul begins its journey. To connect with these beings, I find it helpful to focus on the movement of the breath as a conscious being in itself rather than an aspect of my own experience. When I allow the Breath of God to move within me, re-creating me in my life with every in-breath, allowing me to release my-self into every outbreath, then I feel the Elohim move within me.

Events.

The mood out of which the composer works is brought about by life events. Sometimes immediate, but always including how life’s events have formed us. Such events may or may not get a mention in the lyrics, but they underpin the mood that led the move-to-write/compose. Leonard Cohen wrote this song during his extended world tour from 2008 – 2013. While the world was in recession, Leonard was in demand. Love flowed toward him intensely. He was able to replace and exceed the millions of dollars he had been cheated of while being a monk. He became a key cultural figure, able to bring succour to millions of his fellow human beings.

Dynamis (aka Mights, spirits of Motion).

Where events intervene in life, changing the way we work or live, we are seeing the gifts of the Dynamis. Passing things down through the chain of being, their decisions enter the flow of our lives, adding to the support structure that underpins us, changing the space between us and others till they are felt in our own life’s ‘tune.’ We may not immediately recognise them as a gift, but the Dynamis are at the centre of the heart of life. They understand intimately why we chose life and what we most seek to achieve. The events they bring to support us flow like waves onto the beach of our lives, bringing us inner strength and goodness. The less we fight them, the more they bring us. Waves are the very nature of the Dynamis. Wherever you see waves these beings are at work. Wind and water, day and night, seasons of the year, even in high-speed traffic. They are the essence of all that has flow, and rhythmic pattern.

Meditating with the Dynamis.

Beyond the breath, deeper in to the pulse of life, we find our heartbeat. Our heart is a deep-listening organ. Where the blood flows from deep inside out to our skin, into every muscle and through the lungs, the heart balances and harmonises all this pulsing. Here at the very centre of the hierarchies the very centre of our being is cared for. Choose to listen, in profound silence, watching from the place of The Silence-That-Remains, the Silence that paces you from life to life. From there you may notice a quiet passion for the love of life itself sustaining you in all you are, all you do, all that cares for life itself, through you. You have met the Dynamis.

Personal background.

The first layer of background to the events and mood of our lives is the context of that life itself. Each of the many lives we live has a different cultural context, nation, family, and profession. They all shape the source-material of our being. Leonard Cohen was brought up with servants, a Jewish background and a philosophical attitude. He adopted a bohemian lifestyle before becoming a monk, then devoting his life to giving back love and wisdom to all he could reach. The whole direction of this life is a distinct colour within this very sacred song. Different events in Leonard’s life contributed to different songs, but this constant striving for higher realisation – the release of the everyday self into the higher ‘I’ – is a theme that runs through all his work, even the way he worked with colleagues throughout his life.

Kyriotetes (aka Dominions, spirits of Wisdom).

These sublime beings are still working within our rhythmic/feeling life. Deeper than the breath or the more eventful heartbeat, there are also rhythms within the endocrine system, balanced and guided by the pituitary gland, that have an even more unconscious effect on our deepest attitudes and long-term relationship with life. Within the whole of human life, down all of time, the Kyriotetes are particularly concerned with how human beings are developing their deepest sense of self. The highest aspect of Self within us, the one universal ‘I Am’, or Christ Self, is only found when we see each other (and all created beings) as true equals. Before that happens, we have to allow most of what we now call by our name, to die. This true, highest Self, that every human being shares, is what will, ultimately, bring us all back to God.

Meditating with the Kyriotetes

How do we send our sensing deeper than our own pulse? We can easily be conscious of the breathing. It takes a very quiet focus to become aware of your own heartbeat, but with time it is possible to feel the pulse at many different points in one’s body. To discover the work of the Kyriotetes in our field of awareness we have to go that much deeper again. When Jesus became Christ He had to let go of everything he had become up till then. From that point “The Word that Is God” ran his life. In order to achieve the resurrection, He had to release even more, every aspect of his life, even to the point of crying out to God in his loss. This much we have to be able to truly imagine, truly feel in our deepest being, before the Kyriotetes can become in any way ‘visible’ to our spirit-perception. When they do, a sense of being part of something massively larger than oneself creeps gently into one’s being. None of my own life goals matter. None of the high goals that take me from life to life figure here. This is about all of my being, on every level, simply being a part of the highest goals for life itself.

Moving up another level we leave behind what Leonard brought to this work, from his own being and experience, and attend to the cultural context within which he was working. Whether the work I do is taken up or not in my own time, like Leonard’s was, and whether or not my work lives on down the centuries, like Van Gogh’s work does, all that I do is drawn from my cultural context. Even truly groundbreaking work like Kandinsky’s is connected with cultural context. In his case, it was an interest in Theosophy and Steiner and his awareness of Hilma Af Klint’s art that came to life in his work.

The beings of the second hierarchy we just met, are collectively known as ‘Spirits of Light’  Although their field of work is far less personal than that of the Spirits of Soul, they are available to our personal experience when we delve into our deepest feelings and connect to the soul-spirit movements that they underlie and express. Allowing emotion to come to rest, we notice our feelings alive like an underground river, constantly flowing unseen. Beneath the breath we find the heartbeat, and beneath this are the finer movements of our spiritual sensitivity, all of them offering us conversation with these higher beings that form us in and out of time.

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The First Hierarchy

The next hierarchy up, collectively known as the ‘Spirits of Strength,’ live in a different order of reality. Their work is connected not so much with our development as with our very existence. We know their appearance as space, this three-dimensional reality, the basis for our sense experience. If we compare this with the second hierarchy we can see how the patterns and flow of time, yes, Change itself is dependent on having something to change. This fundamental basis of “All that Is” is provided by the this First Hierarchy.

Cultural Context.

Come Healing was written in 2012. With Leonard’s interest in the spiritual life, he would have been aware of the Mayan prophecy, interpreted to show time ending 12/12/2012. The challenges of entering into a new epoch, in which the holding rhythms established over many thousands of years would not apply, was widely discussed in the western world. Whether Leonard was addressing these concerns in this song or not, the powerful appeal to a healing of body, mind, soul and spirit in this song is solidly grounded in this atmosphere in which open possibility arises from the loss of any certainty about Humanity’s standing and direction.

The Thrones.

Receiving their support from the intense love of God that is the Seraphim, passed down as enthusiasm for deeds through the Cherubim, the Thrones, third down in the first hierarchy, give their entire being as service, becoming the very substance of the material world upon which we all rest and rely. The reliability of solid matter, the appearance of light, the constant flow of sound, our feet resting on and held by the earth, are all gifts from the Thrones. Their power lies in sacrifice, making themselves into matter and allowing us to do what we will with that matter is profoundly supportive of the emerging independence of will in Humanity. Naturally such sacrifice comes at great cost to the Thrones. Like all created beings they are in a process of development through transformation. Giving up everything to be at the mercy of human consciousness and of all beings that lie between us and them is a profound purification that will allow them, eventually, to move up to yet higher forms of enablement. The depths of inner silence required to begin to see the Thrones within their creation, our illusion of matter, is unimaginable to most of us. If we do learn to approach this sacrificial silence within, and recognise the Presence of Throne-Being in our matter-experience, it becomes possible to free them, to re-awaken them within this gift. When we do this, matter transforms, becomes ‘alive,’ and begins to glow or shine to our inner perception. It requires immense, focused intention to do this, even to one small piece of matter. But when we do, the result is referred to as ‘transubstantiation.’  Matter becomes alive again. It becomes the living body, and immanent spirit of the Thrones.

Meditating with the Thrones

At this level meditation becomes action. Take up any piece of this wonderful world in your hand and contemplate it. This stone, fruit, feather, whatever you have chosen is substance. What is substance? We know from both ancient wisdom and from science together that all that makes up matter is illusory. What we have in our hand is form, minute aspects of myriad minerals gathered into this form. Whether earth itself, a plant or a bird gave this matter form its existence is only temporary. The fact of its appearance, here and now, in your hand is but one manifestation of what will be appearing and reappearing in many different forms. Behind all of that is this: A willingness to appear. Matter is manifesting as stone, fruit, feather, bread, this paper or screen. What does it cost matter to do this? What does it cost to be used as both pestle and as mortar, and as the substance that is ground between them? Can you get behind all this diversity to the willingness itself? A willingness to support the experience, growth and development of all other beings, at any level? There you will find the Thrones.

Cultural leadership.

What is it that causes changes in our culture? Was Leonard a feature of his time or one of those who changed the times he lived in? Are those who appear to cause change in the times true leaders, or are some like the figure-head of a ship, driven forward by forces they do not understand? Leonard’s 20^th century albums are very much of their time. By the time he comes to write this one, his years as a Zen monk and deep meditations on the nature of existence had released in him a power of love able to surmount what followed the world financial crash of 2008 and bring profound contemplations of life and death to a global audience. Those forces that lead us from one cultural context into the next can be felt in this song.

The Cherubim.

Cherubim are like the “Yes!” force in life. They take hold of the essential warmth-of-heart radiating from the Seraphim and commit themselves to supporting creation, life, and development in all its forms. To find a meeting with these beings we need all of the extraordinary silence, focused attention, and deep willingness above, and then need to release all judgement of right and wrong. Not just releasing condemnation but judgement/discernment itself, we need to imagine a level of love that supports, without question, each and every being to manifest themselves and their own destiny as an act of free choice, to pursue both right and wrong as steps in growth and judgement for themselves. If we can imagine bringing equal enthusiasm to everyone’s actions and choices, we are ready to meet these beings. All of this first hierarchy are so massive in their nature that it becomes hard to distinguish them from background reality. That is because these beings are background reality. “Meeting” them requires a refinement of perception beyond where typed or printed words can go.

Meditating with the Cherubim

How then should I write about this? Where can you find a power of “Yes!” in your life that might recognise the love of the Cherubim. Deeper than all conscious intent. Deeper than the very substance of our body. A “Yes” more pervasive and unfailing than anything we could muster. Dwelling upon this, taking this to the power of a meditation, you will your life empowered and going forward with renewed positivity and support from these fundamental creators of existence itself.

Meaning of Life.

Within every song, there is the question of the meaning of life. The question that underlies all that we do in one way or another. We appreciate any song in part because it gives us a new take on this ultimate question: “What are we really doing here?” Leonard’s answer, in this song, depicts all our brokenness and striving contributing to our ultimate healing into complete connection with goodness and fulfilment.

The Seraphim.

At the core of all existence is the Love of God. The Seraphim are touted as spending all their time and energy pouring out praise. It would be easy to believe that all their love goes upwards, towards God, whatever he/that may be. In truth, these hierarchies of beings ARE God, even and including the tenth hierarchy, human beings. First, second and third hierarchies can be seen to be the implementing beings of Father, Son and Spirit. Seraphim are the very highest of these. They are the supporting-beings of everything else that is – the base of all existence, and all that flows from them is continually fed with love by them. Yes, the love they offer up to God rises through all the other beings, feeding everything. At the source of Everything lies Love. Warmth of Heart gifts itself as the enabling substance. The Seraphim make it their work to be a constant outpouring of Wonder, Love, Spirit-Warmth, so that all else may take its cue and its strength from their gift. So important is this love that even the act of ‘outpouring’ is not really accurate. Simply the act of continuous generation of Love, from within their own being, is the deed upon which all else depends.

Meditating with the Seraphim

“The Seraphim spend all their time and energy pouring out Their Love of God”
In that sentence we see how, in this realm, noun and verb become one. Action and condition are not distinguished. God is the All-Being – All that is, IS God. The Love of God is both a condition of existence and an action that can be taken.
For us human beings, to pour out love to God is to receive love from God. As His creatures we are him. To pour out love is to become love. This then is our meditation for the Seraphim, to learn with them how to become love. This action, of using wonder to ask how it might be possible to become a love-generator like they are is to take their being into ours. Or to tune into where their generation of Love already lives within us. This action brings us closer, intimately closer with their love. We can become lovers, as Jesus Christ was. We can become conduits for Seraphic Love into this world, our lives, this circle of mutual experience that we are all committed to and involved in until we do become love. All of us.

 

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Images of Being.

To describe these beings as a hierarchy might, to some, suggest that one is more important than another. My hope is that by considering how one simple song, or any song, is made up of all these layers will dismiss that idea from your mind. Is the composers mood more important than the melody, or is the melody a necessary vehicle for conveying that mood to the world?

We might imagine these levels of reality as concentric spheres, like layers in an onion, each protecting those inside and supporting its growth and development. I often image them a little like those ancient drawings of how the zodiac locates in the human body, a torus-form, or donut shape around the body, each connecting with and supporting a specific area of our life-experience.

Layers of Life

Hierarchy is best seen as degrees of service.  Animals are dependent on plants and the ground, whereas ground and plants are not dependent on animals in the same way. So, we can realize that the Seraphim provide a ground-of-all-being in the constancy of their love, from which the Cherubim draw their enthusiasm to support creation, upon which the Thrones depend for their ability to sacrifice their entire being into this dependable illusion of matter upon which all of our lives depend, rock, plant, animal and human. The basest level of our being is created by the most sublime of beings.

By contrast, the highest of our achievements, creative and independent thinking, is supported by the lowest of these hierarchies, the angels. The last shall be first, and the first last. The will-to-be within us is not something we have choice over, but our pursuit of individual development is. What we achieve in terms of our free-imaginations filter down in us to create those feeling-thoughts that also drive us forward, connecting us with each other (archangelic-supported) and then with our considered deeds in and for the world (archaic-underpinned.) In this, our realm-of-freedom, what we achieve out of the help of the third hierarchy, supports the ability of the second hierarchy to work in us. Our breathing deepens and steadies (Exhusiai) bringing health and regularity to the heart, pulse and circulation (Dynamis) which increases our soul and spirit’s ability to bring health to both body and inner life. This second hierarchy is also responsible for our immune system, which is an expression of the higher ego’s work in life and thus connected to the Kyriotetes, as is pituitary/endocrine regulation within our body. It is not hard to see how our feeling life is the domain of this second hierarchy, where the Exhusiai help us with those feelings we are aware of, the Dynamis support our less conscious feelings while the Kyriotetes support that underground swell of our deepest feeling-life over which we have little control or awareness.

In our development, when bringing conscious support to the above processes, we are working up through the hierarchies by working down from our head, into our heart, and thence on, to the will. This is where the regularity of deeds, the health of our choice to open our thought-life upwards, and the freeing of our feeling life from personal fears and desires, transforms our will-life to where our very being becomes a supportive feature in the lives of others. It is not what we achieve in life that makes a real difference, so much as what we become. You may already be aware of this or that person in your community who seems to bring peace and health to those around them while still not being noticed as an ‘outstanding individual.’ Or look at people like Gandhi who brought steps towards peace and freedom to a whole nation by regulating his inner life and convictions. As we come more and more under our own inner regulation, in line with the hierarchical gifts that support and create our very being, we find it easier not to need to be seen to shine. When we release this desire for appellation it allows that energy in us to be converted into ongoing peace and acceptance. This action in itself aligns us with the Thrones.

The gift of the Thrones, that of giving their entire being to be sacrificed into matter, and leaving it up to us how we treat that matter, is reflected/accepted when we begin to realise that we ‘do not matter,’  whereas our actions, and even the deeper feelings that tend to cause our actions, do matter. Slowly, slowly, we become more transparent to the Cherubim, whose enthusiasm for life itself shines into our ability to continue doing things we get no accolade for. Babies are aften called ‘cherubic.’ In this we can see how their ability to conduct their desire for life itself, before needing to be seen in any particular light, allows that light-of-life, that is the Cherubim, to shine from them into people around. Behind their light lies the Love-Undivided that is the Seraphim. Maybe a good image for this is the gestation that provides the baby with the life it celebrates and radiates. Here, in unseen warmth, the mother’s body gives up what is needed for its own health and survival to nourish that-which-shall-be. What can we bring but profound gratitude to this force, so deep below our ability to reach or understand, that makes our existence and that of those we love, possible. In practicing this profound, loving gratitude, we begin to align ourselves with these, the Seraphim, the highest of all beings.

There is no way we can fully understand all of this with our thinking. Once we have got our heads around it, we have reduced it to images that no longer fully embody its true nature. So, once again it comes down to practice. Each of these nine stages presents us with a possibility for deepened understanding and a possibility for action. Like the inbreath of life, attempts to understand increase our soul’s depth and perspicacity. Like the outbreath of acceptance, the echo of the deeds made possible by each of these nine stages brings us closer to spirit, and helps us towards completing the tasks we have set ourselves for this lifetime.

This is our song of creation. The composition of our life relies on all of the above. The texture of three dimensional space itself a gift of the first hierarchy.
All that brings change and development, Time itself, a gift of the second hierarchy.
Consciousness, that arises out of change and development most particularly in warm blooded beings, and crowned in the free creativity of the human being, a gift of the third hierarchy.

The Tenth Hierarchy

The performance of our own song-of-creation brings joy, life and support to others. All of the above meditations will support us in being more of what we were given to be and become. How much we can do, here on earth, depends on how well we sing our song this time around. To the extent that we take up this task we begin to form amongst us a tenth level of beingness, known as The Hierarchy of Love. It is what we do with our freedom that forms this love. The choice to love everything equally, not to accumulate selfishly, nor to denigrate our inner truth-nature, is the road to becoming a new level of angelic being.
Eventually Humanity will form a level of Beings that will perform a task similar to what the angels do for us today. This will not be during this earth-cycle, but in a far and distant future, during an incarnation of the earth, that itself is yet to come.

For now, this is our task, supported by all of these beings:
To do as well as we can at being who we have been given to be.
To choose to sing out in joy, that which arises as free gift within ourselves.
To find and support each other in this journey.

 

top image: The ‘Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven’ by Botticini shows the full nine hierarchies all worshipping a semi human event.