The Camp Fire

At a certain point in this lengthy journey I wondered if I ought to look out for something more specific, as it seemed that we we were actually going somewhere. No sooner did I think this when the bird dropped lower and my own eyes were able to see more clearly the landscape below. We reached a place that looked like a space between mountains, a kind of valley, and I began to wonder if anyone was down there.

Maybe we would see a fire?

I saw the fire very soon after thinking of it, though I also experienced a moment’s hesitation that I believe was felt by the bird as well.

Were the makers of the fire friendly?

Until that moment it had been circling a particular area, but suddenly it dipped downwards so quickly that it left me suspended in mid air for a second.

After slight deliberation, it was somehow decided that it would be alright to ‘go down’ for a closer look at the campfire we had just spotted. Just as I was wondering how long it would take to get there, I arrived with an almighty crash right on top of self same fire.

It all seemed to happen a bit too quickly and I even wondered whether the eagle had been shot down or had simply dropped me off (more likely). At the same time I was very much aware that I was standing right on the very edge of a huge fire that filled all of my vision.

Eagle ride to the Himalayas

I was staring so hard at the winged being that even in that ‘state’ I began to meditate upon it, until I was slowly drawn towards it. As I got closer it began to look increasingly bird-like.

Before I actually reached it – while I was a few feet away – it seemed as if I was somehow becoming one with it, or closely attached at least; the only thing in my mind was what was before my eye, which at that point in time was like a bird. A white bird. The only thing in my mind was ‘white’ bird and as I thought of this in my eye was a dove.

At this point  in time I realised I was actually thinking I was at one with a white dove and wondered if I was just ego-tripping. I wondered if I should stop,  but for no apparent reason a voice told me not to think about that kind of thing.

We were rising upwards vertically – floating rather than flying – and I was conscious only of the being itself and the blue sky peripherally surrounding us. As we rose higher the bird began to change into a swan and other large, white birds, until it was like an eagle in form. Maybe even a Phoenix, I wondered, but I didn’t know if this could be right.

When we finally finished the ascent – I knew it was very, very high up in the sky – the eagle began to fly in a particular direction with me on its back. I kept very close indeed to the bird’s head/shoulders, so that our faces were almost touching.

I had the distinct impression it was very cold indeed and that we were heading to an even colder place. We seemed to fly for quite a long time. I like hot climates and the cold weather bothered me, it seemed uncomfortably cold.

The sight of a huge, white triangular shape made me realise we were flying towards – and would ultimately fly above – snow-capped mountains that I was told were the Himalayas. The flight over the mountains was spectacular. We followed a very narrow ridge for a long way and there was nothing but snow and sky to be seen amongst those razor sharp peaks.

Papus: Magic is the science of Love

Magic is crowned, since her task is the sublimation of Nature, as indicated by the shield or coat-of-arms with the eagle in flight, that the Empress holds instead of the book of the High Priestess.

Josephin Peladan defined magic as “the art of the sublimation of man”, no other formula is superior to his. This is exactly the emblem – or aim – of magic, if one understands by “sublimation of man” that of human nature. Peladan had a very profound understanding of the emblem of magic: the shield with the eagle in flight. All his works bear witness to this. Together they represent a magnificent flight; they aim, as a whole and each taken individually, at  the ideal of the sublimation of human nature.

It is because Peladan bore the emblem of magic: the flying eagle, that this is so.

Isn’t it to have the emblem of magic before one’s eyes that one is invited “to throw the eagles of one’s desires to the wind”, because happiness “raised to the level of an ideal, freed from the negative aspects of oneself and of things….is the sole triumph of this world?” It is the same emblem – the shield with the eagle – that Papus had in mind, in actual fact, when he defined magic as:

The application of the strengthened human will to accelerate the evolution of the living forces of nature.

He preceded this definition with another:

Magic is the science of love.

For it is precisely “the accelerated evolution of the living forces of Nature” that the eagle of the shield of the Empress represents; “the science of LOVE” is the sceptre of the Empress, which represents the means by which the aim of magic is attained.

Unknown author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter III, The Empress

Elysium Fields

When he first looked upon the world and wondered how best it should be ordered, Zeus released the Eagles of East and West, bidding each to fly around the Earth in his own direction.

The birds were reunited at this place and Zeus set down a sacred white stone, to mark it forever as the centre of the planet. The first shrine was created around this stone and from that moment onward, Zeus’s son Apollo, keeper of the sun, began relaying the will of his father to those who came here.

She stands within the fourth Apollonian Temple to have been built here, which has undergone extensive and ongoing repair works following the War that almost destroyed it.

The first Temple was much smaller than the present building and constructed from branches of Thessaly’s sacred laurel trees, while the next was created by bees of wax and feathers, designed to bridge the gap between Earth and the underworld.

Bees make the journey to and from Hades as a matter of course and the secrets they retrieve therein are for the golden ears of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis, the virgin huntress, keeper of the moon.

The third temple was a great bronze edifice, which stood for many years before the heat of the Sun God melted it back into the Earth. The fourth was built before she took up her office and the fifth shall be put on its foundations when she has left for the Elysium Fields.

The Shaman

On the Earth the Shaman shifted
Shape and let his song be silence.
Thus, was set a leopard’s spirit,
Loose amongst the emerald forest.

Just beneath his leafy carpet
Slipped a serpent, shedding softly,
All its skin. This eerie presence
Passed them by, the nine in heaven.

Knew the souls of all the sages –
Those who heard within the silence
Purest notes of timeless music –
Golden was the light, the silence.

Soon the leopard reached the edges,
crossed the deep green emerald forest,
Looked up at the sky of sapphire
Saw the eagle, called in spirit.

So the bird did swoop upon it,
Took the soul within the leopard,
Lifted it beyond the forest,
Past the clouds, ascending skyward.

From the greatest height a creature
Of the world might reach, the eagle
Spied a movement on the carpet
Of the Earth and dived to reach it.

The Dream Catcher

Eagle of the deep blue sky,

Watching, waiting, to see my open eye,

See me awaken and fly towards me.

Fly towards the window of the world,

Closed and invisible;

My child’s hand touches glass,

Then finds the space between

To stretch and grasp

Just one long tail-feather

For the dream-catcher.