1. We have the power.  We have Ruby Red slippers to transport us to Kansas,
   to bring about the Edenic state, or to create our heart's desire.
2. Witches and cyclones, while bad, can be a means for spiritual growth.
3. We must learn from ourselves.  Truth is not given so much as it is realized. 
   Look within.  You do not have to go off in search of a mystic or seek truth
   from a variety of exotic religions.  Truth is found in your own back yard.
4. Reality is very simple.  We create our own reality.  We tend to make it more
   complicated than it need be.  The simple universal fact is that, if we believe
   it to be so, it is.
5. There's no place like home.  The kingdom of heaven is not a place; but a condition.^*

^{*  from Andrew Johnson's "The Spirituality of Oz:  The Meaning of the Movie."}

The excerpt below contains references to alchemy, vampires, white gold, and star fire -- topics related to demonstrations of power on the part of our extraterrestrial ancestors otherwise known as "the Anunnaki."

It is also an elaboration on the symbolism of the RUBY RED SLIPPERS in connection with the classic fairy tale "The Red Shoes." 

Reclaiming the Witch's Broomstick

^{This is an excerpt from Chapter 8, "Awakening the Dragon:  The Physiology of Awareness" in Judy Kennedy's new book,  Spiritual Practice, Occultism, and Extraterrestrial Intelligence:  A Travel Guide for Beyond the Rainbow, published with permission.}

It’s an unsuspecting Hobbit that returns the ring of gold to Mount Doom.  And it’s Dorothy Gale from Kansas, the small and meek, who liquidates the wicked witch .  What do they have in common?  Humble origins, innocent integrity, unrelenting vision, single-minded purpose, and loyal friends representing being true to oneself.   

When the Wizard says, “Bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West,” Dorothy and crew are clearly overwhelmed and uncertain whether this is even possible.  Yet they set out on their journey anyway.  That is what a spiritual aspirant does. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, we “go for the gold ” as it were. 

It is possible and it can be done, but it takes persistence, a lot of imagination and engaged creativity.  It also involves facing fear and overcoming it.  Reclaiming the broomstick from the Wicked Witch is a metaphor for reclaiming rightful ownership and control over one’s own kundalini and dragon body – one’s own source of power.  So long as we believe it’s not in our power to do so, the power remains in the hands of the muddlers represented by the Wicked Witch.  As long as we continue to give our outer gold away to the priests, gurus, doctors, and New Age marketers of magical powders and potions, our inner gold diminishes in brightness. 

The Good Witch tells Dorothy, “The sooner you get out of Oz altogether, the safer you’ll sleep.”  Dorothy replies, “I’d give anything to get out of Oz altogether.”  The key word:  altogether.   Being altogether means being complete -- recognizing our inherent wholeness as we are.  Dorothy’s companions were not missing their coveted items.  They just thought they were.  Scarecrow had a brain all along.  Tin Man had a heart all along.  And the Cowardly Lion had courage from the very beginning.  They just had to realize it.  Same with Dorothy.  Only after Dorothy returns to Oz with the broomstick of the Wicked Witch does she realize (with a little prompting from Glinda) that she always had the power to get back home.  Where was it?  In her ruby red slippers. 

The folk tale of The Red Shoes has many different versions and meanings.  In one version, an orphaned girl exchanges her hand-made red shoes for shiny store-bought ones.  Yet there is a hidden price.  The new shoes are cursed and compel her to dance uncontrollably until she dances herself to death. 

Figuratively, shoes protect and defend our grounding ability and our feet – what we stand on.  The feet are also symbols for freedom and mobility.  Without shoes, it’s hard to go anywhere.  Red, being the color of blood, denotes sacrifice.  Willing sacrifice for something strongly desired is one thing; red bloodshed in that case is the blood of life.  But when the sacrifice is unwilling or becomes too much and too long, blood that is shed is the loss of life.  According to Estés, this is what occurs in the fairy tale.  The child is forced to give up her handmade shoes, and chooses counterfeit ones as a substitute.  The counterfeit shoes are beautiful and magical all right; they keep her dancing seemingly forever.  But that’s just the problem.  She dances herself to death.  

According to Estés, the loss of the handmade red shoes represents the loss of a “self-designed life” made with the passionate vitality of our own values, dreams, hopes and wishes.  It represents all the poor choices that led us down a road we did not intend to take.  Perhaps we chose the stability and security of a dead-end job over an adventurous and risky but more fulfilling career in the arts.  Perhaps we married the wrong person for the right reasons or the right person for the wrong reasons.  Perhaps we simply decided to put our own health and happiness on the back burner while we tended to someone else’s.  It could be any number of things.  Sometimes we think it’s too late to turn around, but it’s not.   

The store-bought red shoes made by someone else are never a fully satisfying substitute for the homemade ones.  But we treat them as if they are.  Out of desperation we cling to them and become slaves to them.  Unwise choices and addictions occur when the instinct is injured.  These addictions can take many forms – negative thinking, abusive relationships, abusive situations, alcohol and drugs – whatever.  Like the counterfeit red shoes, they just don’t come off that easily.  Why does this happen?  How do our instincts become injured?  While Estés is talking about mainly women here, the same can be said for men:

Sometimes it is difficult for us to realize when we are losing our instincts, for it is often an insidious process that does not occur all in one day, but rather over a long period of time.  Too, the loss or deadening of instinct is often entirely supported by the surrounding culture, and sometimes even by other women who endure the loss of instinct as a way of achieving belonging in a culture that keeps no nourishing habitat for the natural woman.[i]

Natural woman – let alone natural anything.  Acting naturally does not come easy for anyone anymore.  There’s too much risk involved.  People are too busy conforming, being nice, saying things they don’t really mean – going along with the crowd because they don’t want to appear different.  This all goes back to taking the easy way out.  It’s not being true to oneself.  Estés reminds us,

To follow such a lifeless value system causes loss of soul-linkage in the extreme.  Regardless of collective affiliations or influences, our challenge in behalf of the wild soul and our creative spirit is to not merge with any collective, but to distinguish ourselves from those who surround us, building bridges back to them as we choose.  We decide which bridges will become strong and well traveled, and which will remain sketchy and empty.  And the collectives we favor with relationship will be those that offer the most support for our soul and creative life.[ii]

Spiritual aspirants have to be especially mindful of this or they will not survive.  The blood of our bodies and our souls is just too precious to waste.  It is our strength, our energy, our life. 

 The ruby red slippers are representative of Dorothy’s blood too, and in particular, her menstrual blood.  Again, Estés reminds us:

It is said that in the matriarchal cultures of ancient India, Egypt, parts of Asia, and Turkey – which are believed to have influenced our concept of the feminine soul for  thousands of miles in all directions – the bequeathing of henna and other red pigments to young girls, so that they could stain their feet with it, was a central feature in threshold rites.  One of the most important threshold rites regarded first menstruation.  This rite celebrated the crossing from childhood into the profound ability to bring forth life from one’s belly, to carry the attendant sexual power and all peripheral womanly powers.  The ceremony was concerned with red blood in all its stages:  the uterine blood of menstruation, delivery of a child, miscarriage, all running downward toward the feet.  As you can see, the original red shoes had many meanings.[iii]

Dorothy doesn’t give her red slippers to anyone else.  At one point, yes, she agrees to let the wicked witch have them in exchange for preserving the life of Toto.  But she finds that it’s impossible.  As long as she’s alive, the shoes will not come off her feet.  That’s important for it means that as long as the blood is being supported by the inner fire and vital energy, we still own it.  It’s only when the vital energy is gone that the life is drained from us, and this is usually due to injured instinct.  Toto represents instinct and he’s not injured although the witch is making threats. 

Dorothy doesn’t give away her blood.  She doesn’t let the vampires suck it dry.  She refuses to be a factory for the progeny of a sham sovereignty.  Her own sovereignty is all that matters.  She uses her ruby red slippers as the grounding vehicle and foundation for her own ability to thrive and navigate the journey.  And she requires no one’s permission and no one’s assistance.  The Tin Man , Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow (and Toto too!) are all aspects of her being.  They provide everything she needs to complete the journey and go back home. 

Taking the white powder is a crude and dangerous substitute for the real thing.  It is not the natural way.  It’s like exchanging the handmade shoes for the counterfeit ones.  Addiction to it is certain death.  Believing in the lie of a special, exclusive, sacred  bloodline that bestows special powers and privileges us mere mortals can never have is equally absurd and destructive.  We know it’s a lie because their continued attempts at genetic manipulation through incestuous intermarriage did not work.  It just further corrupted a gene pool that was already damaged by the destructive effects of ancestral over use of white powder and star fire.  Granted, maybe every once in a while, a recessive gene popped up that contained the super-charged mitochondrial superconducting magical “mysterical” element, but so what?  Psychics are a dime a dozen.   And it’s no guarantee that you’re going to have your shit together better than anyone else. 

While I will defend the civil rights of vampires as much as anyone’s, the need to be a vampire or identify with one is redundant.  As was said earlier, we are all vampires in a sense because we all feed on cosmic energy and the energy of everyone and everything.  But to think that one must depend on the source of that energy as always coming from or being “another” – external to oneself – and to the point of addiction – is coming from a perspective of lack, not abundance.  We already have everything we need.  We need not become vampires to actualize it.  The Goddess within is sufficient.  Her riches are exhaustless.  In the words of an ancient Qabalistic text, 

From the exhaustless riches of its limitless substance, I draw all things needful, both spiritual  and material.

There are no chosen people.  The desire to become special is something we all have to get over.  Why?  Because we’re all, each and every one of us, already special!  In the words of Dr. Ilchi Lee:

This relative “specialness” is not just a matter of freedom of individual expression.  It carries the unmistakable scent of competition that spirals ever upwards.  All expressions of life are already special by definition.  The specialness of life is absolute and not subject to a relative comparison…  What is the basic compelling force being the drive to become special?  It is the craving for attention that comes from the need for recognition.  Turned inside out, it is the twisted expression of an ego with an inferiority complex.[iv]

Dr. Lee reminds us, character comes before enlightenment.  “God” is not to be worshipped but to be used.  And “my body is not me, but mine.”  Don’t give it away.  Retain your sovereignty.  Recognize your own true worth as a co-creator in the divine plan.  This is what will get you home and keep you there.

Just three clicks of the heels, and you’re there.  Three is a magical number that appears frequently in fairy tales.  In the true and authentic alchemy, coordination of three special substances are involved in this operation:  sulpher (rajas), salt (tamas), and mercury (sattva).  Sulphur represents the subtle fiery energy that fills the seemingly empty  spaces between subatomic particles or “soul.”  It is invisible and subject to mental  manipulation.  Salt represents subconsciousness and “the body.”  Mercury represents superconsiousness or “spirit” -- containing everything – the source.  Mercury is exalted in Virgo.  Remember Virgo is the sign that governs the abdominal region.  Virgo is also the sign of the virgin – the mystical bride of the dragon.  Christ was born of the virgin within – whose blood, soul, and body were purified by the inner fire of the unfed flame.  His dragon wings were earned, not given, and fueled by an aspiration that led to one of the most complete embodiments of Love and Wisdom the world has ever known.  Because of this, the world has never been the same.  He is not the chosen one.  He is not the only one.  Yet his essence – his blood – his life – is in our own. 

Judy Kennedy © 2004, 2005