For much of my life, I searched for meaning as though it existed somewhere outside of me. I looked for answers in books, religions, psychology, ancient traditions, science, mythology, and the experiences of people who seemed wiser than I was. I assumed that somewhere, hidden beneath centuries of history, there had to be an objective truth waiting to be discovered. Right? 

Lately, however, something has begun to change... The more I study my own consciousness, psychology, and the symbolic language of ancient traditions, the more I realize that what we call reality is never entirely objective. Every person experiences the world through perception. We do not simply observe reality, we participate in creating it! There is no mystical objective reality! Two people can witness the same event and walk away carrying completely different truths. Perhaps objective reality exists somewhere beyond us, but our experience of it is always filtered through the architecture of our own consciousness.

Once that realization settled in, I began rereading many of the ancient texts I thought I already understood. What if they were never trying to describe history alone? What if they were attempting to describe the human experience itself?

Ancient traditions rarely communicated through literal language. They spoke through symbols and images because symbols and images are capable of holding many layers of meaning at once. Eden was both a garden and a state of consciousness. The Temple was both a physical structure and a representation of the human being. Christianity even speaks of the Church as the Body of Christ (Priest is the Father and Church is the MOTHER). Why the body? Why not simply a building or an institution? Ancient spatial traditions such as Feng Shui and Vastu Shastra are also built upon the idea that the outer world mirrors the inner one. Perhaps our ancestors understood that every visible form reflects an invisible reality.

Sometimes I even catch myself looking at language the same way... Like today, my teacher showed me the image of the word... and I started listening for symbolic echoes hidden inside this word. The word is altar. In the Slavic world this word is divided into 2 words - "all" and "tare". So, all is held within a vessel, a basket, a container, a sacred space that receives and holds. What I am saying is that symbols have their own way of speaking to you and you can receive its wisdom from ancestors. They coded this world in language. Words are symbols and they reveal patterns that facts alone cannot always express... you logical facts may not align with what you know inside... 

Perhaps that is exactly how ancient wisdom was meant to be read. Light, for example, was rarely just light. It symbolized awareness, knowledge, revelation, and awakening. Light doesn't create anything, but it alluminates what already IS. It amplifies what already exists! Which makes me wonder whether Prometheus (who later became Devil) was remembered not simply as the one who brought fire, but as the one who brought consciousness itself: the capacity to see beyond instinct, to question, to know. And that raises another question. What if the Ark of the Covenant was never intended to be understood only as a beautifully crafted golden chest? What if, like so many sacred symbols, it was always pointing beyond itself toward something far more profound, something that cannot be excavated from the earth because it has always existed within the human experience itself?

In the Gnostic Gospel of Philip, we encounter a remarkable statement: "The Holy of Holies is the bridal chamber." HA! That single sentence has fascinated theologians, mystics, and scholars for centuries. Some interpret it as the mystical union between the soul and the Divine. Others reduce it to the institution of marriage itself, insisting that preserving the outer form is the highest spiritual ideal (even if inside that marriage abuse and violence happens). Yet history repeatedly reminds us that a form can survive long after its living essence has disappeared. A marriage may continue on paper while love, devotion, honesty, and sacred intimacy quietly leave the room. The structure remains. The temple stands. But the presence is gone... there is nothing holy in that temple any longer...  Others understand the bridal chamber as an inner initiation: a sacred union that first takes place within a human being before it can ever exist between two people. More recent esoteric traditions offer an even more intriguing possibility: that these symbols may not be describing a physical room at all, but the human body itself.

If we begin looking at Solomon's Temple not merely as an architectural masterpiece but as a symbolic map of human consciousness and creation, unexpected parallels begin to emerge. After all, many ancient civilizations described the body as a temple. This idea appears in Christianity, Hermetic philosophy, the Egyptian mysteries, Hindu traditions, and many other spiritual systems. From this perspective, the innermost sanctuary is no longer simply a room. It becomes a symbol of the deepest place within us: the place where life begins, where opposites unite, and where creation itself becomes possible. I will repeat it - where LIFE BEGINS... where OPPOSITES UNITE... where CREATION BECOMES POSSIBLE! 

This is where one of the most profound interpretations begins to emerge. The Ark of the Covenant was never an object to be possessed. It was never a prize to be found or a relic to be locked away inside a temple. The Ark represents the woman's womb, the ultimate symbol of creation, the sacred vessel through which life itself enters the world.

A woman does not have to earn the right to be sacred. She already is.

The question was never whether she is worthy enough to become the temple. The question has always been whether the one standing before her is worthy to cross its threshold. 

• You do not enter a sacred space carrying deception.
• You do not enter while wearing masks.
• You do not enter pretending to be someone you are not.

Every ancient temple required purification before entering the Holy of Holies. Not because the temple demanded obedience, but because truth was the only thing that could survive inside it. Lies belonged outside its walls. 

Perhaps the female body was always understood in the same way. It is not merely a body. It is a sanctuary. A place where life begins. A place where spirit becomes matter. A place that asks every man only one question: who are you when no one is watching?

Not who you pretend to be. Not who others believe you are. Not who you perform for. Who are you when every mask falls away?

Can you stand before the sacred without deception? Without manipulation? Without dividing your truth between different people? Can you enter with one heart, one face, and one word? Because the temple was never opened by desire. It was opened by truth.

If this symbolism is true, then perhaps we have misunderstood kingship as well. There is a reason so many ancient civilizations did not believe that a man became a king simply because he was born into the "right bloodline". Blood could inherit a throne, but it could never inherit wisdom... Before a crown touched his head, the future king had to pass through initiation.

His teachers were often not generals on battlefields, politicians, or even priests... They were women. The priestesses became guardians of that threshold. They did not exist to please the future king, or to serve him, or indulge him. They existed to reveal him to himself... Through a series of sacred initiations, they led him through "fire", "water", temptation, power, sexuality, greed, fear, pride, illusion etc. Every hidden shadow was invited to surface. Every unconscious hunger for domination had to expose itself. Every mask had to fall. Every false identity had to die. It was NOT comfortable place to be... Only then could the question finally be asked: can this man be trusted with power? Because ruling others was never considered the first qualification of a king. Ruling himself was!

Perhaps that is why so many initiation traditions placed the feminine at the center of the process. Not because women were servants of kings, but because they were guardians of truth. A man could deceive another man. He could impress a court. He could win battles. He could inherit a throne. But he could not pass through the feminine mystery while remaining divided within himself. Throughout the time a naked female body has an impact on any person. Regardless of her age, "beauty", size etc... Naked female body will ALWAYS make an impact.  However... The woman was never the reward waiting at the end of the future King's journey. She was the gate... And the gate did not ask, "Are you powerful?" It asked, "Are you whole?" 

Perhaps this is also why the deepest meaning of power has been forgotten. In the symbolic language of the Slavic tradition, the word vlast means v ladoo: to be in harmony, to be in inner order, to live in accord with oneself. Symbols speak in images before they speak in dictionaries. 

Perhaps this is also why we have forgotten the true meaning of both power and authority. I am not speaking here as a linguist searching for historical etymologies. I am just listening to the symbolic language of words, the way our ancestors often listened for wisdom hidden within sound itself. When I contemplate the word power, I cannot help but hear several stories unfolding at once. Po - as movement, flow, that which moves through, and wer, the Old English word for man! The same root that survives in werewolf, literally "man-wolf." Suddenly, power is no longer something a man possesses or conquers. It becomes something that flows through a man who has become whole. Then another image appears. In the middle of power, I see the word owe. True power remembers that it owes itself to something greater than the ego (po as a flow). It serves before it commands. It protects before it possesses. It understands that power without responsibility eventually destroys itself. And then I notice an entire family of words: power, empower, potential, potency. Last two are what I ALWAYS look for and when I "see" those two in someone, I immediately call them "my King"... I SEE the potential... however, sadly it typically stays as a potential... None of these words speak first about domination. They all point toward the capacity to generate, to awaken, to bring what exists only as potential into living reality. Suddenly, power begins to resemble the feminine principle itself: the mysterious ability to manifest life from what was previously invisible.

Perhaps this is why ancient kings were never initiated into power (women held the power). They were initiated into authority. Even that word reveals another image. Authority shares its root with author. An author does not control a story (especially a story of lies), an author brings it into existence. Before a man could author the destiny of a kingdom, he first had to become the author of himself. Only then was he considered worthy of wearing a crown.  

A true ruler is not the one who controls the world around him. A true ruler is the one whose own inner kingdom is no longer at war.

At this point, the conversation extends far beyond women themselves. Perhaps this symbolism points toward a universal law of creation. Nothing truly meaningful is born from fear, greed, lies... Not a child... Not home... Not love... Not creativity and inspiration... Not healing... For anything genuinely new to emerge, there must first be safety.

Interestingly, modern neuroscience is beginning to echo something remarkably similar. When the nervous system exists in a state of threat, survival becomes its only priority. When genuine safety is present, entirely different capacities awaken: the ability to connect, to create, to heal, and to grow. Neuroscience explains this through the regulation of the nervous system. Mystical traditions describe it as entering sacred space. Perhaps these are simply two different languages pointing toward the same reality.

For me, the most interesting question has never been whether the Ark of the Covenant existed as a physical object. A far more compelling question is this:

what were the ancients trying to protect through this symbol? Why did nearly every spiritual tradition place the innermost sanctuary beyond ordinary access? Why was entrance always associated with preparation, maturity, and responsibility?

Perhaps the greatest treasure was never hidden somewhere beneath the sands of the desert. Perhaps it has always existed within the human being. And if these symbolic interpretations hold even a fragment of truth, then the female body becomes something far greater than biology. It becomes a living reminder that life itself emerges only where trust exists, where peace is cultivated, and where nothing attempts to take by force what can only ever be freely given.