by Ton van der Kroon
When I am in a buddhist retreat in Monchique, in the south of Portugal, I am intrigued by a portrait of the Dalai Lama. He is one of my great examples and teachers in life. How he responded to the brutal Chinese occupation of his country is exceptional. How can he stay so calm, peaceful and smiling? He somehow has conquered the art of peace. When I sit in a meditation during the retreat I suddenly hear his voice: ‘Start showing men the way of the peaceful warrior.’
I call my friend Eran from Israel, who discovered his own way of the peaceful warrior by stepping out of the Israeli Army, and he immediately agrees to co-lead the retreat. In the beginning of august 2025 we have our retreat in Tomar, with a small group of men.
The workshop starts with an unexpected and interesting revelation on the first evening; one man has brought his girlfriend to the men’s retreat. She is in the hotel, but her presence is really felt in the group. Their relationship is quite tumultuous and Eran and me look at each other: What do we do with this? How will this influence the workshop? And what does it mean? Since we use the Open Space rules – Whoever comes are the right people; whatever happens is the right thing to happen; expect the unexpected– we decide to see how it unfolds.
When we decide the next day to make a canoetrip down the Nabao river the man doesn’t join the group. His girlfriend wants to be together with him. It makes us all question the meaning of this strange and interesting situation. How do we deal with the feminine? How do we deal with the women in our lives? With our mothers? How do we make a distinction between love, dependency and manipulation?
It still feels OK to have the two realities paralel to each other, but the next day the situation changes.
We have a plan to do a ceremony at a templar castle, called Almourol, and this time the man suggests to bring his girlfriend along. She is in for a touristic tour. Clearly we can’t continue this way. You can’t do a ceremony if your intention is unclear or biased by other motives. The man has to make a choice: Does he want to be with the men or with his girlfriend? Where is his priority?
His answer is clear: “I want to be with my girlfriend.” So respectfully we say farewell to him, and our group is down to five. We are all relieved but also in awe of the beautiful way we handled this in a peaceful way: no judgment, no therapeutisation; just acknowledging each and everyone’s choices.
The next day we visit the castle, that is built on a small island in the river Tejo. The castle is called Almourol. The word comes from ‘the Mouros’, meaning ‘the stones’ but also the feminine giants that created the rivers, mountains and landscapes of Portugal. The Mouros are mythological remnants of an ancient celtic culture. Enchanted Mouras are often depicted as beautiful young women who possess otherworldly magical powers. They are known for guarding hidden treasures and are involved in various folklore tales related to the landscape and ancient monuments. Since we have to wait for the boat to bring us to the castle, we decide to do a meditation in front of the island.
The image in my meditation is a dungeon under the castle of Almourol. In the dungeon sits a naked woman, tortured, chained and forgotten. Does she represent the forgotten feminine? What is the relationship to the girlfriend that couldn’t join our group today? Are we maybe repressing the feminine ourselves?
Somehow it is clear to me that she is connected to the soul of Portugal. In my imagination I take her out of the dungeon to the surface, with the help of the four men. She symbolizes the divine feminine, Mary Magdalene, the soul, the Shechina, the girlfriend, the river, the water…
Then I realize that the river Tejo feels deeply connected to the soul of Portugal. It is the river of life, running through the heart of the Iberian Peninsula. It connects Toledo, seat of the medieval Kabbalist’s to Lisbon. How can we bring the soul back? How can we honor the sacred feminine? How do we deal with ‘the girlfriend’, whose name we don’t know? Everyone of us reflects on our relationship with women.
One of the other men sees the island in ancient times: there were only women, like priestesses or feminine warriors. Later on the place was conquered by male warriors, the women being killed, and slowly forgotten in history.
We are the whole day at the river, experiencing a deep peace. It is the 8 of august, the Lion’s Gate, and also a full moon. In Portugal I’ve learned to slow down, but today it feels as if the whole world comes to a standstill. A point zero in time, a sacred silence, a moment of nothingness. We end the day with a delicious dinner looking out on the river. When the sun goes down behind us, and leaves a red glow in the air, the full moon is rising. The world seems to be in perfect balance: the river, the dinner, the castle, the sun and the moon and five men. Life is beautiful.
I realize that it used to be different: once the river was a battleground or borderline between the Arab Moors and the Christian Templars. The land got cut in the middle and many people got slaughtered during the reconquista. Is that why the soul of Portugal, the woman in the dungeon, got tortured, killed and forgotten? When men start to fight, the divine feminine retreats and disappears..
When I fall asleep I feel all these questions and impressions still haunt me. I sink deeper in my own relationship with the feminine, and realize a deep fear that started with my mother. Even earlier; it started in the womb. I was afraid of the life that was awaiting me, afraid of the wartrauma of my mother. It influenced all of my life and all of my relationships. Before I fall asleep I make a vow to finally let go of my fear. The fear of love, and the fear of my mother.
The next morning Eran voices his doubt about our decision of the man and his girlfriend. Was there maybe another way to solve this? He puts the question in the middle of the group.
‘What if we invite them for dinner?’ I suggest. Everyone agrees. It seems we are ready to meet the feminine, this time without fears, doubts or hesitations.
In the afternoon we decide to go to a cave, a grutta in the neighborhood of Fatima. When we tune in to our underground visit I get the following message: ‘To enter the dungeons and caves of your soul you need to have a lot of courage. You also need to have the help of others, so there is safety and a back up. If you go down to face your demons, you don’t know if you’ll survive them. It’s the only way to go to become a peaceful warrior. To face the enemies within. The deep fears and. monsters that keep you from being who you are. Only when you’ve gone through this initiation into the darkness, you can become an instrument of light. If there is no fear, there is nothing to fight for. There is no defense, just a radiation of your soul. The earth and all of its creation wasn’t meant to fight you or to kill you, but to challenge you to grow. Everything in this matrix is helping you to reach enlightenment. It is only for you to see that your so-called enemy is your guide to your next level, the gateway to your own paradise.”
We enter the cave and are witnessing a magical kingdom of millions of years ago. Water, stalagmites and rocks are forming a fantastic backdrop for our journey through Mother Earth. When we are deep underground it feels like I’m back into the womb. I do a second channeling and the message is this: ‘When you sink into the depth of your being, and you go through all the layers of the mind and your emotions, layers of fear, of reisitance, you come to this pure being, to the source of who you are, in which there is no duality nor doubt. Just being who you are: expressing the brilliance of your soul into the world. You are a diamond, cut out of rough stone. Are you ready to accept your power? Are you ready to accept to shine?‘
I suddenly realize that the fear for my mom has a deeper ground: it is the fear for myself and my own power. I finally seem to be able to accept who I am and my role in this life. My mom was just a reflection and a mirror for my own fear. I forgive myself and my mom. When I exit the cave I feel reborn.
We go home to have our ‘last supper’. Each one of us contributes to the festive meal: one buys a bottle of wine, another makes the salad, another one the starter, the fourth a grand dessert, and the fifth man decorates the table with candles.
Then we finally meet the girlfriend: she is called Paola, comes from Paraguay and she wears a beautiful red dress. She definitely represents Mary Magdalene, the woman in the red dress, but this time from South America. Although she only speaks Spanish, we have a lively conversation and a beautiful evening. Suddenly our whole story feels complete. Our workshop ‘the Way of the Peaceful Warrior’ is finished. We have faced our fears and demons, each one on his own. ‘When there is nothing to fear, there is nothing to fight for.”
After this workshop our focus will be on a ceremony in the Amazon: Earth heart. To call back the soul of humanity. The meeting with the woman from Paraguay, in the heart of South America, seems no coincidence at all…
Just before the man and his girlfriend depart, I offer the woman to draw a card from a south American tarot deck. She looks at the card in awe: Her card is titled ‘ the guardian of the divine feminine.’
RESTORING THE TEMPLE
part 8 ‘Facing the shadow’
In as much as religion – or any spiritual tradition – can be a force for good, it can just as be an indescribable source of evil. Think of the Inquisition for that matter. Or think of IS chopping off heads in the name of Allah. Or, as we lately witness, the murder and persecution of the Palestinian people in the name of Zionism. Each and every tradition has its dark sides. With a hammer you can built a house, or you can crush someones skull. It all depends on the person using it.
Now the same is true with the idea of the Templars. I think there isn’t any religious group that has been associated with such a wide range of both positive and negative associations. They have been named as the mystical grail knights, searching for oneness and spiritual liberation, bridging cultures and nations, protecting the poor and being in service of God or the greater good of humanity. But they are just as well seen as cruel knights, endslessly battling the Muslims or Moors, killing thousands of people during the rather bloody crusades. In some movies they are the good ones, in others they are the enemy.
Once, during one of my first visits to Jericho in the Middle East, I was watching a television series about the Templars in a small cafe, while eating some falafel. As a kid I had always been playing with little plastic knights, dressed in their grey suits of armor and with red and white crosses on their shields. I think it was my first introduction to the legendary story of Templars. And to the battle of good and evil for that matter. But in this TV-series I was a bit disappointed. The Templar knights were played by really bad actors, they looked foolish and they mostly lost. Suddenly I realized I was watching an Arab version of the Crusades, in which wé were the enemy. I had to switch perspectives. The ‘good ones’ were – who knows – not so good after all, depending on which group you belong to.
Reading two excellent and well researched books about the Crusades – one by Amin Malouf about the Crusades by land in the 11-12th century, the other one by Nigel Cliff about the crusades over sea during the age of discovery in the 15th century – all of my romantic ideas of knights, Templars and chivalry were completely shattered. Although we might think of the Crusades and the discoveries of new worlds as heroic adventures, led by Templar Knights, in reality they were mostly brutal endeavors, killing and slaughtering thousands of people, ruining cultures and nations, and using slavery.
This colonization goes on till this very day, when western companies still abuse and extract anything they like from countries in Africa or south America. In Israel the fight against the muslim Palestinian population takes on a new form: genocide and ethnic cleansing. Some religious jews are eagerly thinking about the destruction of the Golden Dome, so the prophecy of the building of The Third Temple can take place. Many devout Christians are supporting the Jews in their conquest of Palestine, because for them the Messiah will only return when the Third Temple has been built and the Seventh Gate is opening up.
Some Muslims believe in the return of the Mahdi, the grandson of Muhammed, and they are willing to kill all the infidels as part of that glorious moment.
In a news article I read that Avner Netanyahu, the son of Israels prime minister, is working for a defense tech company that has the same logo as ‘Resident Evil’ the most well known series about Zombies. The company even has the same name as the one in the movie: The Umbrella Corporation. The logo is another version of the Templar cross, and the purpose of the corporation is to wipe out the zombies. It seems clear who this young man sees – in real life – as the zombies: The arabs. On facebook he wrote: “There will never be peace with those monsters in the form of men that have called themselves ‘Palestinians’ since 1964”.
The Us has been setting up food distribution centers in Gaza (GHF), but some of the workers are part of the ‘Infidels Motorcycle Club, a notorious anti muslim organisation. Members see themselves as modern Crusaders, using the Crusader cross as their symbol – a reference to the medieval Christians who fought Muslims for control of Jerusalem. They sell shirts with texts as ‘Embrace violence’ and another which says: “Surf all day, rockets all night. Gaza summer 25.”
All of this seems to happen now, in this time, while things are getting more and more dark and out of hand. The forces of chaos, hatred and destruction seem to be spreading like a virus, and october 7th was a watershed moment. Suddenly all the anger and frustration being built up in the ‘holy land’ came to an explosion, both on the side of Hamas, as on the side of the zionist government and Christians supporting them. It seemd as if an evil virus had escaped, infecting everyone around the world. Innocent people were being killed and slaughtered. And the western – read Christian – world was standing by and doing nothing. All notion of peace, living together, a two state solution, human rights, an international court of justice, and so called western values are going down the drain. Every red line is crossed. The trauma is endless and generational. How do we ever come out of this quackmire of revenge and religious hate?
All my travels – especially in the middle East – have given me hundreds of new perspectives, and a complete rethinking of my catholic upbringing, and of religion in general. Jerusalem can be seen as the city of peace, a symbol of hope, a New Jerusalem to unite humanity, or it can be seen as a price to be conquered, a bride to be taken instead of loved and respected.
As religion is being (ab)used for killing one another, we might also need to look at it for its solution. If there is a God, he – or she – will definitely not like what we are doing. Thou shalt not kill. Love your neighbour as you love yourself. Turn the other cheek. Forgive your enemies. They all seem concepts from a far biblical past, but we might need them more than ever.
Who knows it is time for the Messiah aka Messiach aka Mahdi to return? Not to slay the infidels, but to unite humanity and bring us back to our heart. And who knows we need the modern Templars, warriors of the heart, to bring justice and peace in the world, not by killing but by using compassion and love as our weapons?
Once a muslim sheich was leading a group of derwish dancers into a prayer. Above his head was a kromzwaard. I askd one of the participants what the sword was for. ‘Probably to defend the women and children when your village is being attacked…’ he responded. ‘But wait a moment, I will ask the sheich.’
When he came back ten minutes later, he started apologizing. “I was completely wrong. The sword is used for the Jihad, the Holy War, which is the war against your own ego.’
The other day I was visiting the templar castle of Tomar. An american tourist came down from the castle. On his shirt was a templar knight, kneeling down. The text on his shirt read ’The Last Templar.’ Maybe we/I have to let go of the old Templars and open up to something completely new…
RESTORING THE TEMPLE
part 9 ‘beyond’
‘Love is not a the King’s home
for I could not find it there. (…)
I will tell you where I found it:
It was among the Temple friars.’
Gil Peres Conde
To ‘restore the temple’, as my original assignment was when I saw the vision of the Templar knight, I realise we have to go beyond the violent history of the Templars, beyond the duality of right and wrong, beyond the visible and the tangible, beyond religion or mythology, into a realm of the esoteric, the hidden, the invisible. That which can only be perceived by the heart and the soul.
We enter the realm of the Grail knights, who were searching for the holy grail: the cup of the last supper that brings healing to the world. The realm of the jewish Kabbala, the system of the 11 sefiroth, that explains the different dimensions and geometric order of the universe, and the path of initiation that each human makes during many, many lifetimes.
It is also the realm of the alchemists, that used the five elements, earth, fire, water, air, eather, to transmute led into gold, as a symbolic way for each soul to transform from a state of innocense and unconsciousness to awareness and enlightenment.
Each religion has its esoteric – or hidden – tradition, that tells about the inner path, the path of the mystics, that goes beyond books, beyond theory, beyond rules and regulations, and beyond social or religious order. It relies on the compass of the heart to find a way to the holiest of holiest.
In Islam it is the tradition of the sufis, the dancing derwishes, that explore the divine by poetry, dancing around ones inner center, and devoting all our love to the Beloved. That same Beloved in the Christian mystical tradition is the Lady, the Muse, the Divine Feminine. She is personified in archetypal stories as Blancefloer, Beatrice, Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary or Sophia. In Jewish kabbalistic traditions she is called the ‘Shechinah’, the hidden feminine. She can’t be grasped or conquered by the mind or the sword, neither can she be owned like a wife or a servant. She can only be approached with the utmost devotion and reverence, otherwise she won’t be able to bestow her blessings and love upon the seeker.
The seeker, or Grailknight, is Parcival, the fool from the Tarot, the one who is still oblivious to the spiritual quest that lays in front of him. He has to undergo many challenges and difficulties of the path of life to find his ultimate destiny, to find the grail, heal the king and restore the temple.
All fairytales, mythological or archetypal stories, symbolic adventures into different worlds, like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan in Never Neverland, Bastiaan in the Never Ending Story, or Frodo in Lord of the Rings, are expressions of this mystical journey into the inner world, where we encounter demons and dragons, frogs and princesses, treasures and traps. They all reflect the inner struggles we face when searching for healing, wholeness and a sense of the divine.
In my own search for the Templars I come across this mystical aspect for the first time in the castle of Almourol, on the island in the river Tejo. The castlewall has nine round towers, perhaps symbolic for the nine original Templars that traveled to Jerusalem. In the middle of the castle is a square tower, with a foundation that goes back to Roman times. The tower itself has three floors and a terrace overlooking the river, symbolic for the lower world, the human world, the upper world, and the world of the divine.
Within the tower are texts that explain the esoteric tradition of the Templar Knights. I haven’t been able to find them anywhere else yet, but here I come across the writings of Gil Peres Conde, a troubadour in the court of Alfonso X of Castile. He gives insights into the path of initiation each knight has to go through and the hidden language they used to describe this path. The texts give a mystical vocabulary that the Troubadours and Templars used to describe the secret path of initiation. In a time when they were persecuted by the church and the Inquisition it seemed wise to hide the true path within symbols, stories, art and clues that pointed the way.
The seeker is called ‘Amigo’, friend, who needs the ‘Chave’( key), the secret teaching, to find the ‘Dama or Dona’, the divine intelligence called Sofia. The true doctrine is also called the ‘Flor’, flower, or ‘Rosa’, Holy Wisdom, and to earn it the seeker has to die ‘Morte’: to let go of his earthly life with its desires and temptations. One of these temptations is offered by the church, that symbolized the exoteric tradition, and is seen as ‘Pedra’, the stone or petrified heart, the ‘corrupt church which monopolizes the Wisdom for its benefit’. Those who follow the chruch are called Savagem or vilao (savage or villain, as oppsoed to cournteous and gentle.
The seeker has to become a True lover, and dedicate his life ‘Vita’, his devotion or passionate love ‘Fogo’, to his Lady. ‘The Dona is not won until after the hero has triumphed in a series of challenges to his virile qualities and his immaterial faithfulness (poverty).’
One of the challenges on the path is to go beyond duality. In the kabbalistic Tree of Life this is symbolized by the sefira ‘Daath’. It is the place of spiritual initiation before one reaches the Temple of the Divine: Chochmah (knowledge), Binah (wisdom) and Keter (the crown, the divine Oneness). This Daath is a tricky place: it shows itself as a house of mirriors, where everything has meaning, everything is connected, and the play of good and evil is dramatically enlarged to encompass the whole world. Yet one cannot see that this dualistic theatre, this worldly play is nothing else than a reflection of our own mind. Some seekers will stay trapped in the battle between good and evil, endlessly fighting demons and dragons in the outer world, in the illusion they themselves are ‘The good ones’, the heroes. Yet to enter the divine, one must let go of the outer world, the play of good and evil, and realise that everything is part of the divine.
In Eastern esoteric tradition they describe this state of being in the Advaita Vedanta, the theory of non duality or Oneness. Yet it cannot be a mere theory, as some seekers proclaim (‘I’m beyond emotions, thoughts and duality) but a living presence. One has to go through the ordeals, the other Sefiroth to find the Grail and enter the temple.
On the city square of Tomar, with the statue of Gualdim Pais, the grandmaster of the Templar order, there are white and black squares, symbolizing the duality of the world. One has to walk up the hill to the castle, Keter, or the Crown, to reach the temple of initiation, the Rotunda. One can actually see the whole town of Tomar as a path of initiation: it starts at the chapel of Santa Iria, the hidden Feminine, or Shechina, crossing the bridge, following the Corredoura, the middle path, towards the Praca and the Castle. As Santa Iria connects us to the Earth and the Water, to Gaia, the Castle connects us to the Heavenly sphere, the New Jerusalem. Both – heaven and earth, masculine and feminine, light and dark – are needed to become whole.
In 2027 the Festas dos Tabuleiros will be performed again: a mystical procession in which some 640 women, supported by their men, will carry life size crowns though the Corredoura to the Town square. The crowns represent the pillars of the New Jerusalem, the New Temple in the third Millennium, in which people don’t need priests or religions anymore to connect to the divine, but everyone has their own connection through the holy spirit, symbolized by the dove. It is a beautiful and symbolic festival of fertility and abundance, the crowns filled with flowers and bread, that might be going back to the Roman goddess Ceres, or even back to Celtic times when the goddess was still venerated.
Later, in Medieval times it became part of the Templar Tradition, expressing the importance of the Divine Feminine. When the Templars were initiated they pledged their oath to the ‘Woman of Bethany’, also called Mary Magdalene. They were not only soldiers of Christ, the divine masculine, but also knights in service of the Lady, the divine feminine. In balancing both sword and grail, both male and female, sun and moon, they reached the inner marriage, the Conniunctio Oppositorum, as described by the Alchimists or Rosecrucians.
So here we are, at the end of our exploration of the Templars, both villains, monks and soldiers of Christ, lovers, fighters and initiates that were seeking a path of meaning in a world of Medieval chaos. It seems we are a the same crossroads: we can loose ourselves in the chaos of the world, or try to find a path to the heart, a path that brings healing and wisdom. So if you ever come to Tomar, than pay your tribute to those seekers that came before, and who knows, you will find your own path to the grailcastle.
- The End –
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NOV 20: EARTH HEART, A CEREMONY FOR THE EARTH
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