Helen Martineau's Blog

As well as the sword of the spiritual will, Archangel Michael carries a pair of scales. And scales are balancing implements. There is much in our world that’s out of balance. Just take male-female relationships. Humanity has lived with with 3000 or so years of patriarchy and the strong-arm leadership of aggression – of ‘male’ or yang domination out of balance with its yin polarity. Archangel Michael is traditionally portrayed as male, but that’s not the reality. This painting by Monika Bisits captures something of the reality. A spiritual being is not male or female. Spirit is one.  Really, we need a new word for such a being. ‘He’, ‘she’, ‘it’ or the clumsy substitute ‘they’ are inadequate terms. Female and male, yin and yang, all polarities unite in one whole.  Spirit is always active in the world and the power of Archangel Michael works specifically in this age, in our lives. Right now, we are in a liminal zone, approaching a threshold alive with promise. When I look at

September 29 is the AFL Grand Final, and it’s Michaelmas. It’s the great day for courageous warriors. Here on earth one football team vanquishes another in suburban warfare. There’s fist-pumping jubilation on one side and heads bowed in anguish on the other; that’s straightforward. In the other-worldly realm Archangel Michael vanquishes the mythical dragon-devil. But behind the usual dramatic picture of ‘war in heaven’ there’s far more than meets the eye. The fighting images have externalized a deep and personal truth. This war continually takes place in us. When Archangel Michael, a mighty spirit, wields the sword, it represents the strong backbone of our own human spirit that overcomes the dross of our lower nature. This is the dragon and it lives in us. It’s all the resentful, fearful, quarrelsome, judgemental thoughts and acts that set us against the world.                                  ​ ​ Yet when we take hold of the sword of Michael it becomes