Transformatio Dies

Ten minutes later the Master re-emerged, devoid of magazine and whiskey glass but clutching to heart an exceedingly large, old and important-looking volume.

The much-lamented loss of Pros Theon had abruptly ended a few short minutes after its owner entered the bathroom, where it was discovered at the bottom of a towering stack of bathroom-reading material and joyfully rescued by its ecstatic owner.

Tremendously relieved, twelve years of life added back on, the Master placed Pros Theon  on the desk in the study with a great sense of ceremony, lit an ancient lamp and turned to the penultimate section:

Transformatio Dies (The Days of Transformation)

Translating and interpreting the elaborate text was a mission that took every effort of will and imagination; the fruits of this fabled tome being rare and exotic indeed.

After 23 meticulously strung-together minutes, the Master – who had a surprisingly short attention span for one inclined to meditation – looked up from the text and out of the window for inspiration, directly onto the swaying treetops. Perchance, there was sitting a bird of extraordinary magnitude and power and in that same instant a piercing set of eyes imparted the truth – a reminder – with almost unfathomable simplicity:

‘Forwards backwards; time is taking
Certain steps through every section.
Herein find the secret waiting:
Future from the past; reflection.

Soaring Eagle spread his massive wings and flew towards the window, sight locked like magnetic iron onto the fixated Master, who felt a heavenly upsurge of pure, unadulterated joy and ran in the eagle’s direction, having reverted back to childhood in a twinkling of the eye.  In complete innocence the Master was able to grasp one of the bird’s great tail feathers and later attach it to the sun-tinted dream catcher. More memories of Halcyon Days would be captured by this than by all of the other feathers combined.

Twilight fell like whispers of an echo bade by Eros. Venus – like the bloom –transpired, with stars like smelted teardrops.

Hidden Stargates

Marked these words, the quill of Hermes:
Raise the green-lipped youth Adonis.
Listen well, as if to Eros,
See the truth within his promise.

Through the self, a solar system
Metes out time. The planets singing,
Seal in lines the great revision.
“Light!” The cosmic bells are ringing.

Truth reflects within the like minds,
As are scanned the skies sky for giants’
Astronomic temples; sun-signs
Trace the thread of ancient science.

There in orbit turn the star-lings,
Planets binding, suns inclining,
In such ways that whole dimensions
Fold inside the vaults of Heaven.

Angels watch the hidden stargates –
One from North, a second South-side –
East and West. The seal is six-faced.
Secret form – a cube, shaped inside.

Lake of Memory

“Have a drink on me,” says Chiron
“Trouble not your self with worry.
Stand I guard; the heart of darkness
Sits behind me, far beyond thee.

“Child of Earth and Starry Heaven –
Lake of Memory; shun the cypress!”
From the stream that’s clear as crystal
Drinks Orion, knows he’s timeless.

‘“If I’m made to stand here waiting –
Forced by ties which bind, eternal -”
Hale Orion roars in fury,
“My revenge shall wax infernal!

‘”Long for I the Winter solstice,
When the Sea Goat meets the Sun King.
On that day the horn of plenty
Brims. How long will this event be?

‘“Might of oceans, old Poseidon,
Let the fishes  swim beside me?
Lest you grant this one diversion,
I shall die of boredom, nightly.

“Tell me this, as well, oh wise one,
When does Hades mete out mercy,
When young Eros drinks the ocean,
Aphrodite reaches thirty?

‘”Hestia’s hearth is icy cold,
Or Hermes sighs and says, ‘I’m old;’
Hera gives her heart to Echo,
Atlas cries and lets the Earth go?”

Death Spell

‘“Down he went, to play for Hades –
God who had the lady hidden –
Eurydice, the lovely maiden,
She, who by the snake was bitten.

‘“Hearing as he strummed so gently,
Sang a Dithyramb, song of heartache,
Hades’ wife wept tears for twenty,
Whilst the God himself shed plenty.

‘“Weeping like a bride, old Hades –
He that might undo the death-spell –
Said to him: “Oh Prince of Poets,
Sweeter is your song than nectar.

‘“Henceforth shall our guide be Eros,
God of love. Your song convinced us
That we should release the lady,
On but one condition, only.

‘“You must not set eyes upon her
‘Til she’s reached the land above us.
Did you, Prince, take care to listen
“Well? Else fail in this, your mission.

Prophet of the Age

‘Thus I come to vain Apollo –
He who thinks himself the greatest –
Source of all my kindred’s troubles:
Every evening bow to Isis.

‘‘From the rest you’re put asunder,
‘Cept for Hermes – he may wander
Close – and yet the comely Venus,
She will burn each night for heathens.

‘‘Mars will threaten peace with war cries –
Or just gasp with thirst – in near skies,
Holding over Earth forever
Fears of war and stormy weather.

‘‘Now, fair God, more bitter medicine:
Worshipped, though – it’s true – you shall be,
None shall gaze upon thyself nor
See inside your mind. Yet, moon’s beams,

‘They’ll take shape within the psyche.
Shield of Earth, your sister’s mirror
Hypnotises every Earthling,
So the secret love I’ll give her.

‘‘Henceforth, god, be void of reason –
Let your self be burning passion –
Tempered, just, in winter seasons.
All you long for turns to ashes.

‘‘Filled with fire that’s all-consuming
You shall draw the Earth unto thee,
Just because your will is stronger
Than your mind, which is no longer.’

‘So the great unchained Osiris
Sends Apollo out of Nothing,
Up to where the Ra’s residing.
Rolling wheel of fate deciding.

‘Sevens swans with sorrow singing,
Break Apollo’s heart, like Daphne.
Eros laughs, “your love is kindling
Hope; at least you’ll warm the Earthlings!”

Round galactic spheres, revolving,
Fragments of the mind dissolving
Cosmic will is near resolving;
Prophet of the age evolving.

Don Juan

Don Juan is not purely and simply a blasphemous dissolute, he is rather a hierophant of this small god of great power known in antiquity under the name of Eros or Amor (Love). It is the magic of Eros that he represents, and it is the mysteries of Eros over which he presides in the capacity of a priest.

Don Juan was neither a blasphemous dissolute nor a false-hearted seducer, nor even a brutal adventurer, but rather an obedient and courageous servant of this childlike divinity who loves and commands elan, enthusiasm and ardour, and who detests and forbids the weighing, measuring and calculating of reason with its laws of utility and advantage, circumspection and respect for convention and, lastly, its priority of a cold head over a warm heart.

However, love has not only its  right to exist, but also its transcendental metaphysics, philosophy and mysticism. Don Juan was more than a victim or dupe of love – this apparently capricious goddess. He embraced her philosophy and mysticism and was therefore her conscious collaborator, her hierophant initiated into her mysteries. And it is thus that he has become an archetype – the archetype of love for its own sake, the lover par excellence.

Don Juan lives through the energy of amorous influence for the energy of amorous influence – by nourishing it and maintaining it like a fire which should never be extinguished. This is because he is conscious of the value of this fire and of the mission that htis fire has in the world. In the eternal conflict that there is between law – of right, of reason, and of the divine – and love, he takes the side of love, for which courage is necessary.

And it is thus that Don Juan represents an idea, an archetype, an arcanum. He represents the young man on teh Card of the sixth Arcanum of the Tarot “The Lover”, who has chosen the fire of love as such and multiplicity instead of the unicity of the love of his eternal sister soul – since Babylon, the woman appointed to the mysteries of erotic magic, has convinced him.

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XXI, The Fool

The Homeric and Orphic Creation Myths

Some say that all gods and all living creatures originated in the stream of Oceanus which girdles the world, and that  Tethys was the mother of all his children.

But the Orphics say that black-winged Night, a goddess of whom even Zeus stands in awe, was courted by the Wind and laid a silver egg in the womb of Darkness; and that Eros, whom some call Phanes, was hatched from this egg and set the universe in motion.

Eros was double-sexed and golden-winged and, having four heads, sometimes roared like a bull, or lion, sometimes hissed like a serpent or bleated like a ram.

Night, who named him Ericepaius and Phaethon Protogenus, lived in a cave with him, displaying herself in triad: Night, Order and Justice. Before this cave sat the inescapable mother Rhea, playing on a brazen drum, and compelling man’s attention to the oracles of the goddess. Phanes created earth, sky, sun and moon, but the triple-goddess ruled  the universe, until her sceptre passed to Uranus.

The Homeric and Orphic Creation Myths, Robert Graves