Symbols ana a

Twenty-Two
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Before passing on to the practice section, we shall discuss the hermetic symbols referred to as Seed, Field, and Flowering.
The "Field” as Earth generally stands for the group of conditions and possibili­ties contained within corporeality that is understood in an all-embracing sense. The Seed is, first of all, vulgar Gold, which "separated from the Mine (Universal Life) is as dead”; but when thrust into Earth, or the Field, and after putrefying, it is reborn and brings to lull flower the principle whose potentiality it held—whence is drawn a further symbolism taken from the vegetable kingdom, which is born in and rises up out of the "depths” of the Earth: trees, flowers, gardens, ec cetera, Upon tliis foundation there appears to us, first of all, the inner meaning of the correspondence between Saturn and the cultivation of the Earth and the Fields, for which he was established as the god in the ancient Italic myths: in the sense that that context of analogous traditions cannot but confirm.²²⁵ Concerning the symbol in general we can cite the Hermetic Triumph: "The Stone is a Held that the Wise cultivate, into which Nature and Art have planted the seed that must produce its fruit.”-^{226 227} We may also consider the eighth key of Basil Valentine, in which is seen a sower, a cadaver stretched over ears of corn, and a man rising out of the grave, with the legend: "A creature of heaven , , . dies and rots. Then the stars, by means of the elements, will give life again to this putrid corpse, so that from it may rise a new celestial body. Once this is done, thou shalt see the terrestrial completely consumed by the celestial and the earthly body forever in a heavenly crown of honor and glory. ””
Alongside Boehme’s words: "Sulphur is the materia! womb to which we must rearm,” because "Everything that is embodied, whether spiritually or materially, consists of a sulphurous property,” we must add these two passages: "The grain of wheat will not germinate if it is not thrust into the earth,” and "Wherever the seed, which is your Soul, is sown, there will the Body be lifted up.’’²²⁸ Hamel, after saying that the "Earth of the philosophers is their imperfect body, and is called the Mother, because it contains and comprises all the Elements,”²²⁹ also speaks of a sowing of Gold in the white tilled Earth.²³⁰
After the sowing comes the growing, symbolized by the seasons: after the Hack winter follow the clear spring, red summer, and golden autumn, whereupon the fruit is ripe and can be picked. These are the four traditional hermetic colors used to designate the phases of the Great Work. Tine three last correspond respectively to the resurrection of the states of consciousness or of nonterrestrial entities—
and © —enclosed in the human Earth; and said resurrection in turn is equivalent to the backward movement sub specie inzeriorkatis through the three eras that preceded the "Age of Iron” until we arrive at the golden age of Saturn.
In order for the seed to bear fruit, as we have seen, the seed must die, break, and be opened. Regarding this moment of crisis, the process is articulated by different aspects, to which we will refer in a theoretical and symbolical scheme to be continued in the section devoted to praxis.