“This is a holy place. You should cover your body.”
Some days ago, my friends and I went to visit one of the more explosive sites on the crust of our planet these days — the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mountain in the heart of the old city of Jerusalem.
Muhammad on his horse El-Burak
Jews see this place as the location of King Salomon’s temple of YHWH. Muslims see it as the 2nd holy place for Islam after Mecca. They believe that Muhammad flew to this place on his winged horse “el Burak,” and from there rose up to the heavens. Orthodox Jews are waiting for the 3rd temple to be built on this location by the messiah, while the Muslims are constantly stressed about it and busy destroying any archeological evidence that can show any connection of the Jews to this holy place. Jerusalem is a city that demonstrates how organized religions can take a powerful spot and pollute it with religious politics of hatred and control.
The whole compound is guarded today by “The Muslim Wakf” — a religious order, centered in the kingdom of Jordan that guards the holy Islamic places. Non-muslim tourists are allowed to visit the temple mountain in specific hours and not to pray, meditate or enter the Dome of the Rock itself.
So, we came to visit.
The secrets of the Goddess
What very little people know is that according to the bible itself, King Solomon did not only build the YHWH temple in Jerusalem but as well a temple for the goddess Ashteret (“Astarte”), the goddess of love, pleasures, and sexuality along with two other shrines for other local deities.
Even less known to many is the theory that claims that the rock underneath the golden dome in Jerusalem is not less than the remains of the ancient goddess temple. The worship in ancient Jerusalem was dedicated to Ashteret long before King David (Solomons's father) concord it. The local vassal-king of Jerusalem was signing his letters to the Pharos of Egypt as “The servant of the Ashteret”.
The big rock underneath the golden dome is manually carved. From the underground infra-red analysis that was made there, it seems that its original shape was that of an octagon, just like the blue building above it. No other Muslim building in the world is built as an octagon. This shape was taken because each generation and each religion build upon the foundations of the previous ones. An octagon and an 8-pointed star are known as ancient symbols of the love goddesses — Ishtar, Astarte, Ashteret, and even Venus and Aphrodite. When Solomon built the worship place for Ashteret, he might have actually just recovered the ancient local tradition and reenacted Her old shrine.
“This is a holy place, you should cover your body,” said the Muslim guard at the gate to us. It was a hot summer day in Israel. I was wearing shorts, and my beloved Katara, whom I took on a tour to see and feel some ancient pagan power places in Israel, was wearing a short sleeves shirt. They gave us heavy clothes to cover our bodies so we could enter.
How ridiculous is this sentence! How painful it is to be welcomed this way in the gate to where once stood the temple for the goddess of sacred sexuality!
“The body IS sacred,” I protested to the guards as I dressed up in a funny grey skirt.
We went up to the golden dome. My friend Yaron told us to put our hands on the wall and close our eyes. We did so, and each of us was immediately flashed with powerful visuals of the Goddess, alive, passionate, heartbroken.
We moved away, hugged, and ran some tantric energy while Yaron took some pictures. One of the guards came quickly, yelling at us. How dare we touch each other here… “it is a holy place.” Poor man, I thought to myself, what a negative approach must he have towards the body and sexuality.
The monotheistic occupation of the Goddess shrines
I usually feel the sorrow of “the occupation” with my Palestinian friends, meaning the Israeli occupation of the territories where they live under the domination of an occupying army. But visiting the ancient temple of the goddess, buried under the Roman temple for Jupiter, a Christian Byzantine church, and a Muslim golden dome, I felt for the occupation of the sacred feminine by fearful men, who in their fear of matter-mother created religions that repress the body in the wish to run away from Her, the great sacred feminine, to His arms — the great father, Allah, in heaven. This occupation is at least as bad and harmful as the occupation of the territories.
The sacred Flow
From there, we went to walk in the ancient underground water tunnel that was carved in ancient times. Underneath the crazy political mess of Jerusalem, the goddess is waiting, flowing, fresh and cool, from the springs and running in the underground. One day she will burst out, as the prophecy says:
“…a spring will flow from the house of YHWH to water the Valley of Acacias”. (Joel, 4, 18).
This prophecy is unique because the Acacia tree was revered by Moses. In fact, the first model of YHWH's temple, the desert tabernacle that Moses supposedly built with the people in the desert, was made of Acacia trees, according to the book of exodus.
Acacia is also known as one of the local plants that contain DMT. Professor Benny Shanon from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggests that Moses was on the medicine of Acacia when he saw the Burning Bush and met YHWH. This might be the symbolic meaning of the tabernacle being “built of” Acacia trees.
We can unpack the ancient prophecy as if it is saying that a spring of fresh waters, which is the flow of the goddess’s energy, will flow from where the Jews assume the house of YHWH used to stand, and water the depth (the Valley) of DMT experiences”.
Joel was also the prophet who visioned the day when the Divine Spirit will be poured upon all of us:
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all people; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions…” (Joel 2, 28)
In my eyes, Joel spoke about our generations and the way that DMT (via Acacia, Ayahuasca, and other teacher plants) helps us all to be directly connected to the Divine Spirit, with less human mediations.
If you are interested to explore more of this Sacred path, visit the website of our Ashram of Love.
I will end this article with a prayer:
May the days come when the guards at the gates of the holy mountain with welcome us and say:
“This is a holy place! You may take off your clothes and expose your sacred body — if you wish!”
And let us say AMEN
Ohad Pele / July 2022
