The Pilgrimage Of The Greater Eid - Celebrating the sacred bond between fathers and sons

My father. Rev. Richard Jackson
This photo taken of him as he fought for integration equal rights and an end to racist wars in Viet Nam and elsewhere

My son Isaac 
Artist. Mountaineer, hard working servant of family, community and mankind. 

And me, a wizard, hypnotist and healer. And a necromancer, master of dance among the dead.  And still learning how to be a man. 

the Greater Eid is the most important festival of the year to the Muslim world celebrates the extraordinarily powerful bond between father and son.  

(My Yemeni son  Ibrahim in the spirit world ... Where I've been adopted by a community calling themselves the "army of Allah"   laughs at me when I try to pronounce the Arabic so I won't bother. This festival marks the end of the hajj, the great pilgrimage to Mecca.  

The great hajj … The pilgrimage for me this year 2021  was coming to the great mountains of Seattle .. A pilgrimage of spiritual renewal.  To see my son.   And at its end I am called, not to sacrifice my son to some ideal of GODliness like my father thought he must sacrifice me to in obedience to His God.   (He tried to sacrifice my wizard self upon the altar of "Christian minister")   And nor is it for me to sacrifice my son  to my narrow views of what Isaac should become.  Or like the patriarch Abraham was willing to do with his eldest and most precious son, n the  Koran.  

This is a pilgrimage to discover and to honor who he has become.  And for me this great pilgrimage ends with the festival of honoring and celebrating the amazing son that Allah has given to me.

We learn from the Koran that NO LOVING GOD would ask as to sacrifice our beloved son to our vision of doctrine ... ( much less God's own son!  For Christ's sake! )  Or our arrogant needs for a perfectly formed junior Ego for ourselves.

This call to sacrifice is really  an opportunity to help  us see the gift of our sons with greater clarity, for the divine perfection in which he was created.  Which is why my adopted Yemeni son Ibrahim dressed up in such absurd finery for Me on the festival.  (He says the flowing elaborate clothes are a part of the ritual. Who knew? ) 

Thank you Ibrahim and your other father Mohammed, dear friends in the spirit world for helping me to reach this understanding.   It has helped me so much to understand the father-son relationship.

Now let us pull together to liberate the daughters and mothers from the prison of the Islamic fundamentalist world. That is the mission now of our "justice mujadeen" which father and son  initiated me into  during this year's celebration on July 20th.

I will cherish this dagger forever! It is the symbol of the vow all three of us ... and tens of thousands of men and women with us in the Alchemy Institute have taken.  (Yes it's an Arab science and an Arab word) A vow we all  took to liberate the women of the Arab Islamic world from the prison of the Burka the harem and the curse of Sharia.  Which is an abomination to the Mother and Father we serve.   (And in liberating these women we will free their men. ) 

Even as this precious daggar pierces my heart with humble adoration for both of my sons, it reminds me that our task is not over until all of them are free.  

(I knew nothing of this important feast … The Muslim equivalent of Jesus' resurrection at Easter until my Yemen friends explained it to me.  And it was the most beautiful celebration!  
Especially as we danced a dance of liberation with our women folk ... Unveiled and unashamed. )

And it has been so important to me in  making this pilgrimage into the great lineage of spiritual manhood.