To have Altjira-Alcheringa in the First House is to know and believe that the individual has emerged from the love and protection of the Creator Being and the Creator Spirit into new life. The first house celebrates that you have a body. You are gifted by the Creator Spirit to take up activity that enables reaching the goals of life.
The Spirit World
The knowledge and understanding of the Spirit world and the natural world for Aboriginal Nations, draws its understanding from the Ancestral Narratives-rituals that have been transmitted through generations of their religious and social structures. The Aboriginal view of the relationship of the natural and spiritual world is seen through their totemic relationship to the natural world through our spiritual associations.
In other words, the spirit or soul of an Aboriginal woman or man given by the Creator Spirit, is the spirit and life force of our humanity, and could be essentially the same as those of animals, as we believe that the spirit or soul never dies, but rather is incarnated into the life of another living species, and this spirit or soul could be that of a Spirit Ancestor.
This, of course, is not to say that this view that we have is static in any way, as our perception of our spirituality and culture is that of a living entity that at times has incorporated changes over the past centuries and millennia during our life in this country.
One belongs to a family, a tribe, ancestors. Totems and Dreaming operates in the same way. They provide personal and social identity to an individual or group, they empower people and help us feel more connected to all living and non-living things. Both foster a strong sense of kinship and kindredness that serves to unite us.
Kinship
Each person is born into a kinship network. It stretches back through the generations, beyond grandparents and great-grandparents into the distant past, and also outwards socially. You may have heard the expression ‘He’s like a brother to me‘ or ‘She’s like a mother to me‘. Familial relationships can be created as acts of friendship. These quasi-kin friendship networks have operated throughout human history as people have helped each other and worked together to ensure food and water for all. Aboriginal kinship logic continues to operate in this way, even if the local or regional languages are no longer spoken.
The First House:
The first house celebrates that you have a body. Your body is the fruit of your choices and in large part, reflects past life karma and subtle vibrations that come with the mind to this new life. The Creator Spirit Altjira-Alcheringa is the divine architect of your body and your life.
If you have Altjira-Alcheringa in the First House, then the presence of the Divine has a role in
- shaping the body in the womb
- gives courage, vitality, energy, the drive to act, to do, to endeavour
- gives impetuousness, decisiveness, omnipotence, impulsiveness
- physical manifestation (birth, janma) and the power to forge one’s life
The presence of the Divine Architect in the first house bestows a number of drives: one has survival instinct, assertion, aggression and initiative. These drives are relevant to the survival instinct and the need to take action in order to achieve one’s personal goals and the goals of life: right action, the wealth necessary one’s station in life, the fulfilment of personal needs and necessities, and freedom from the fear of death and the cycle of rebirth. The survival instinct is all-encompassing and takes many forms in modern life.
The survival instinct may take form as assertion, egocentricity, independence, being energetic, decisive, initiating, impulsive, fearless and direct. Energy has to be taken up in service of one’s goals, the needs of one’s community (the welfare of the community) and the advance of society and culture. The presence of Altjira-Alcheringa in the 1st House gives energy for advance – in learing, in the workplace, in the advance of trade and industry, and the betterment of all.
The first house hails the arrival of the body.
The Human Raft
Man is the victim of many a pain; to those who identify themselves with the body, life is a series of troubles and misery. But to those who know that the body is but a vehicle, these cannot cause anxiety. I must emphasise this now, when I am inaugurating this Primary Health Centre. Bodily health is important, for ill-health affects mental poise and concentration. When the body is fit, mental functions run smooth; when the body suffers, the mind gets unsettled. So, this raft called body which is the only means of getting across the sea of change has to be kept in good trim.
Untruth, injustice, anxiety – all cause leaks and loosen the knots of that raft. With such a poor raft, it is foolish to attempt the crossing. The raft has to be cast aside when the crossing has been effected; there is no more use for it. The human raft is the most efficient, for it is built out of discrimination, detachment and intellect, hard timber that can stand the beat of wave and the sway of current. If one does not make the best use of this chance, it may not come again for a long long time. Devotion and morality are as important for physical as they are for mental health. They free the mind from agitation, they feed it with joy and contentment; they quieten the nerves and help even bodily processes. The flowers of this garland were buds yesterday; they bloomed this morning; they have started to fade now and tomorrow they rot and dry. But the string that holds them together, interpenetrating them, is not subject to such change; it was string yesterday, it is string now and it will be string tomorrow. The unchanging soul and the changing body – analyse them thus and be convinced of the eternal universal core of your being. As a thinking, discriminating human being, it is your responsibility to discharge this duty to yourself and also to your country!
Ātivāhika Śarīra: the subtle body; the transmigrating body: refers to the subtle or ethereal body (sūkṣma śarīra). This is the body of mind and vital energies that carries the individual soul across life and death from one incarnation to the next.