Reflections by Olivia Robertson

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We all long to have some knowledge of life and death. We therefore, some of us, look to the world of symbols. Because symbols from the unconscious experienced by people without the glorious gift of clairvoyance.

One friend, a brilliant friend in Dublin, told me she had written a book with a totally different meaning expressed in the chapter headings. Warnings are given to us in code, from reading some innocuous list of plane flights. A passing remark, even a joke, an overheard comment, can give us a meaningful enlightenment from some other sphere.

What's pleasant about this form of spirit communion is that everyday people receive this. They don't need to be esotericists. So I feel like sharing an odd 4th-dimensional symbol I received, in a final illustration for my first book I wrote ages ago when I was 29: "St. Malachy's Court." This was published in England and the USA in 1946 and later in London and USA Random House.

I did notice something odd about the chapter headings when it was published. They had a kind of weird meaning, rather weird children's games. But what struck me most was my final picture My father, an architect and therefore artist, commented that it looked something by William Blake. Yet I did it in a few minutes. Like a Tarot card, it needs to be seen both ways - upright and reversed.

The Superchild © Olivia Robertson

I was idly looking at the design in front of what we called our "magic mirror", because it was distorted - we had no Temple, this was the ordinary home. I now have it at the entrance of our own Temple of Isis, a hanging bell-rope by it in Shinto tradition.

I thought, "yes, here he is, Superchild", which I'd drawn with his legs around the very earth, like the Colossus - a tyrant, bestride this world, but he's only really a horrible, violent little boy.

I heard a Spirit Guide saying, "there are always two ways of looking at things - turn it upside-down." I was utterly terrified - I had never ever heard an outside voice before. So I turned it upside-down and I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was totally different.

Reversed © Olivia Robertson

The right way up, it was a triangle, the triangle formed into a little boy with his legs astride round the globe, his arms folded and looking remarkably brutish.

But now, turning it upside, I saw the inverted triangle, but it was a geometrical one - it looked organic. I saw the Chalice; the Grael and I knew what it was too. It is made of a cow's horn, it is small and humble, with a rim of silver. Over it was a small plate - a little plate - to keep the flies off, I supposed. The emblem of the earth reversed, was that of Venus, or the Ankh. Because the cross made by the boy with his arms was under this sphere. The globe was no longer the earth alone, but it was holding the living embryo of a newly-born creature. It was extraordinary. I had blackened in the continent in a special way and it now looked like an embryo, the triangles reversed. Before as a triangle it resembled "as below, so above". Inverted, it was "as above, so below."

It has taken me a long time to accept the disagreeable Superchild as being necessary - not disagreeable, but Mars and the Earth, Geb.

I take the message to be that male and female are one, but individual. Black and white are as day and night. Both triangles form the 6-pointed star - or when only their points join, they form the Diamond of Perfection.

Realizing this at the beginning on October the 30th, 1946, I was embarking as a perfectly orthodox member of the Church of England - well, I believed in Gandhi and in that sort of stuff as well, but I wasn't psychic - as an alchemical path, which meant that Venus had to be balanced with Mars so that our earth may be restored through the Divine Feminine. Isis needs our help to join with Osiris to restore Love and Truth in Harmony.

But that was ages ago! It was this year, just as I was becoming 91, that's the year 2008, I was in the Chapel sending healing prayers. We have this little Shrine in our Temple, and somebody had given me a lovely cast, a cousin of mine called Andrew, of the Mourning Athena. We always think of her as pretty fierce, but she is mourning the dead, standing before a tomb, mourning the fallen - all the people who had been killed in wars. And I had over that a rather sinister looking mirror - a huge square, black mirror - with an enormous circle in it. Much bigger than our "magic mirror", huge really. And I didn't feel this very inspiring for healing, though it was a Shrine you see, for healing. And I got tired of seeing my own face close-up, and very near.

So I veiled the mirror with fine cloth. The cloth was beautiful, it was indigo, printed with a very large, beige sun, with sort-of rays. And there was a maze at the very center, a dark maze. I thought this was fine for a bit, but then I got a bit bored with just looking at the cloth, sort of large, pale beige sun with rays and dark indigo sort of round it with stars indicated. As a work of art, I respected it. But anyway, I got sick of this, so working with white and green paint - poster paint - I always will always put a face on the sun, so I decided to paint a face expressing compassion. However, it didn't turn out like that one little bit. The maze became the snout of a pig and the eyes of a pig's eyes. And I like pigs very much. I did think of a Goddess Porcina, which she could represent, but somehow it didn't quite fit in with my healing prayers and the rather dignified Athena. So I altered it a bit. And to my amazement, became a lion! Because the sun had its rays and whatever I'd done to it, it had changed from being a pig, a perfectly respectable vegetarian pig, to a carnivorous lion. Well, they aren't exactly compassionate.

However, I decided then that I'd better get it a bit human. So I worked on it, round giving it a mouth and I did dare touch the maze a bit, giving it nostrils. Then I was faced with Neanderthal man, or woman. They may be better than lions in many ways, but they're not very compassionate. Finally I had the courage, I got some white paint, and I drew right through the maze, to make a proper nose and I raised the eyes. And now I faced a beautiful face. I thought "oh goodie, this is Athena, now this is really better." And I went upstairs and had elevensies, came down, but then I noticed the rays of sun around it was a Gorgon, Medusa, indubitably and splendid. But not, I didn't think she did compassion exactly. So I didn't know quite what to do.

© photo Minette Quick

But after a bit I came and looked at it and then I got a shock - she had a beard! You see, somebody had drawn in beautiful little lines all around the sun and this figure had a beard. And I looked and I saw that it was shrouding Osiris, Osiris veiled. Now I'd always thought it pretty depressing that Isis' husband had such a raw deal. First of all he gets murdered, then he gets cut up, and finally he's only restored to produce a son. But what about poor old Osiris, he ended up as a mummy, judging people, judging in hell - not in hell, down below, Amenti, separating good from evil. But however, there he was.

Then I had my experience of falling into the well by mistake. (Well Initiation) And I got out and I suddenly felt annoyed with Osiris. I felt he had all these misfortunes and trials and ordeals and I thought, this didn't do. So I looked at him reproachfully and I thought well, I'm going to back to my own place, I had this initiations and what-have-you's.

© photo Minette Quick

So I lifted up the cloak and I couldn't believe my eyes. The white paint had got through onto the mirror. An angelic looking, beautiful face was there. And I thought this is the risen Osiris, he's no longer a mummy. And I was very, very happy. So those are emblems, but they are I know, subjective to each person.

Another version of this Reflection may be found here: The Superchild