Sweet Potatoes, Popeye, and the Almighty

I was told a couple of nights ago that I would be asked to testify for the Lord the next day but the next day came and I didn't leave the house. I was completely anti-social that day. But, that night, I had a dream...

I won't go into the length and breadth of the dream but I did testify for the Lord in such a random and quirky way that intriguingly tied yams to Popeye to the Almighty. Yep. You read that right. 

As I stepped into this backroom of a house, there lay dozens of boxes filled with potatoes and yams (aka sweet potatoes). I asked the women congregated throughout the room if they knew how yams remind us of the Lord. In the old cartoon and movie (with Robin Williams), Popeye declares, quite frequently, "I yam what I yam."

Now, anyone with any sense of biblical studies will know that the Lord tells Moses at one point "I am that I am." Some Bible versions may replace that with who or what and that would be because the Hebrew word אֲשֶׁר ('ăšer) may translate as which, who, that which, that, when, what, where, how, because, from whence, and so forth [Blue Letter Bible]. This active conjunctive pronoun declares a context of unrivaled omnipresence regardless of time, place, action, or character. His presence surpasses description and instead places Him firmly as the foundation of all. He is the east, west, north, and south temple of the God/Self channel (aka Tent of Meeting). He is both that which contains and that which frees.

Now, yam's [or yâm (יָם)] usage in the Popeye the Sailor Man franchise allows us to explore an interesting perspective. Yâm in Hebrew usually refers to sea or some body of water, but also seaward, westward, and on rare occasions will be used to refer to a southern direction. Its root refers to a roar and finds an earlier etymological root in the Assyrian iâmu, (āmu) meaning sea or see. To further explore, I'll be quoting from my book from a section about Mary: 

Mary derives from the Indo-European cognate móri meaning sea, harkening to her correlation to Aphrodite (the Goddess of Love who was born from the foam of the sea) making Mary's presence love personified... 

The original Hebrew was Miryam. Here, we have yam meaning sea, just as mer in Indo-European also does, like a reflection of each other. Take the mir cognate and we have the Russian word for a "village community" and the German for "me". This etymological root establishes words such as mirror and mirage, both offering reflections of light in some context. To proceed a bit further, we have mirth and mire. First, there is a requirement of being among others for the fullness of expression. In the second, one becomes entangled, embroiled, or deeply rooted in something else. To pin down meaning, we must establish a pattern and find where lies the foundation, along with any governing thoughts that may crisscross. Remember, sea brings us back to water which we’ve established, through historical symbolism, to mean emotion. The Hebrew word for water, in fact, is mayim. This Hebraic spelling contains what's referred to as the open and closed letter mem, meaning the first (open) mem reveals God’s teachings (aka, the Torah) and in the second (closed) mem, we find the secret wisdom. This, in turn, takes us back to the mer-yam, sea-sea reflection. But, more importantly, we find the reflection of the Self and community (or of the collective consciousness) as can be seen with mirror ‣ mirage ‣ mirth ‣ mire and the mir (self) = mir (community or other) examples. Even under the context of the definitions given historically as found in the sea of bitterness or rebelliousness, she remains still as Self-reflective of others, for, in order to be bitter, we must have an externalization perception to be bitter about, and in order to rebel, we must have an externally-perceived figure of authority to rebel against. Furthermore, sea also implies salt water which would refer to a purity (or purification) of emotion. Some basic principles of salt happen to be a reduction quality as it draws in moisture and impurities working as a food preserver, flavor enhancement, and acts as a binding agent in foods. On an emotional level, this reflects a clarity and purity of emotion that bypasses an external transmission or reception, therefore emphasizing any and all authentic emotion (aka love). Because not only of the reflection of self and community but also due to the emotional tonality in historical meaning, I would challenge to define Mary as the heart place, as an emblem of the Holy Spirit whose existence inhabits the undefinable time-space of the zero-point. Under this frame of reference (or reverence), she reverberates and embodies the center of the all, the connection between Self and others, the God-Spirit of the interconnectedness of the zero-point formulated through love. 

Though getting a wee bit off-topic, traditional religions usually contain a trinity consisting of father, mother, son. In Christianity, we have the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. But, what is the Holy Spirit? Through my channeling experience, I have been requested to call the Holy Spirit Become and that as Spirit, it is neither male nor female. However, though without a human-assigned gender, S/he operates through the accepted understanding of feminine energy (a receptive/passive energy). As such, and under the above guidelines of who Mary is, it may be safe to utilize Mary as the exemplar of the Holy Spirit. She is the receiver, the vessel, the container, and the revealer for God to become Light-manifested (aka Jesus). She gives birth to the result of (creative) thought + emotion. As the Holy Spirit, S/he is the act of Becoming. Yahweh (יְהוָֹה) could be known as the creator, the idea-generator, the brain behind the curtain. He operates as a masculine, directive energy. Jesus (Yehoshua/Yeshua) then is Yahweh's becoming realized, physically. Unlike the Holy Spirit or Yahweh, Jesus operates both with the masculine and feminine energies and without. As Light-manifested, he is masculine and his being works as an automatic direction. He also contains and receives Spirit and emotes empathy. In a sense, he is the coalescence of the two, thereby showing the Way.

Worthy of exploration was that root of yâm meaning to roar. Yahweh (also Hawah) has been noted as the breath we bring upon exhaling and inhaling. Throughout the Bible, the Word or the spoken word has particular importance for it directs creative thought (Yahweh) + emotion (Holy Spirit) into becoming Light-manifested. 

But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment

for every empty word they have spoken. [Matthew 12:36]

Yâm's definition also gave two directions: west and south. Traditionally, the west's element is water while the south's fire. So, here we have the emotional element of water with the creative energy of fire (aka Spirit or creative thought). 

To bring Popeye back in, he is the quintessential masculine directive energy that goes through life with much spirit or, we could say, a roar like when the sea rages. Though he has quite a ways to go to get anywhere near Yahweh's might, he does come with certain, rival characteristics:

1. Protect those he loves
2. Protect those who are weak
3. Live life to its fullest
4. Straightforward manifested destiny
5. Strength beyond measure (the spinach thing came later with the cartoon)
6. Creative thinking skills
7. Problem solver
8. Highly courageous
9. Highly skilled and adaptable
10. He knows who he is, is when, where, how, and because he just is...

...quite like Yahweh as the "I am which, who, that which, that, when, what, where, how, because, from whence I am."

Last word of note, I just learned sweet potatoes are not the same as yams as most of the US population has presumed. Yams are not native to North America and require a more tropical or temperate environment.