Pulling the Sword from the Stone is a metaphor for Self Mastery. In esoteric thought swords are associated with the element Air (Intellect / masculine) and stones with the element Earth (body / feminine).
The Sword of the cerebrospinal nervous system penetrates the Stone of the body. The head is the sword’s hilt and the spine its blade.
“Only the true king can pull the sword from the stone” is another way of saying “only the awakened mind is free of identification with the body”. The awakened mind is sheathed in the body’s sensory aliveness yet not bound to it. Awareness extends impersonally beyond the body, the sword of the intellect ever ready to cut through obstacles such as temptation, deception, doubt and fear.
Sheath your awareness in the impersonal head to feet, front to back, side to side aliveness of your body. Feel this subtle open aliveness as your local emergence point into impersonal panoramic sense perception. Practice staying ‘In Here’. ‘Out there’ is a condition of disembodied awareness.
“The name Excalibur ultimately derives from the Welsh Caledfwlch, which is a compound of caled, ‘hard’, and bwlch, ‘breach, cleft’.” *
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