abyss air apollo artemis
beauty blood dawn divine
earth fire future god
gold golden heart heaven
human light love magic
magical
meditations
tarot mind moon mystery
nature power prayer reason
sea secret silver sky
soul spirit spiritual star
sun time truth vision
water wind wisdom world
I left myself to journey into the ‘other’ world with full confidence that my meditations thus far would bear fruit and that I had sufficient protection from the force of my guardian angel and the others.
In what seemed to be no time at all I saw my ‘other self’ in the inky void of deep outer space, where I perceived no stars. In the far distance, below me and somewhat to the right, I almost immediately saw a round, golden ‘wheel’ or ‘seal’. I approached it rapidly and soon perceived that certain symbols and/or words/pictures were engraved on the round, golden wheel. At once it rolled to one side, revealing a black hole behind it.
In the next scene I was standing on a high and exceedingly pleasant mountain plateau in pale sunshine and fresh air. There was no sight of the golden wheel and the ‘black hole’, as I now could see, was the perfectly round entrance to a cave in the side of the mountain.
Logic dictated that there was a reason why this should be so. I do not know why – although it was very clear to me at the time – but I felt it was my mission to call forth whichever waiting souls there were therein. As soon as I arrived, therefore, I stood on the edge of the entrance to the cave (having been vehemently warned not to set foot inside) and shouted very loudly through cupped hands:
“PRAY!”
I do not recall whether I repeated this word but before very long – rushing from the very depths of the cave, out from the complete darkness – came a group of identically dressed men of Arab or Indian appearance. Indeed, not only were they identically dressed, in long, white robes with red sashes and red edges on their turbans, but they seemed to me identical in every particular of their appearance.
The body of them – each of slender build and even height with black beards of medium length – came all at once from the cave and rushed into the middle of the plateau. As I turned to follow them with my eyes I saw this to be the most breathtaking panorama, stretching out for what seemed an eternity, facing the gold-hued horizon.
They had each sat down cross-legged and begun to pray with perfect synchronicity. There seemed to be between 30 and 40 of them, arranged into a number of regular rows. I saw then that they were a river springing forth from the mouth of the cave within the sacred mountain.
How I have dreamed of you, my secret love, in days of never-ending summer and nights of infinite stars.
You were unfolded in perfection before my eyes, lovely and unbending by the golden lotus,
Like the flower that reveals in its splendour a vision of the coming magus, who walks alone in the garden of my desire.
Long is the road that would lead me to my secret love, marked only by the scent of the ever-opening bloom.
A charm the magus weaves is cast before my longing face; a veil of beauty that intoxicates my sense beyond the realm of understanding.
In solitude I comprehend this mystery, which leads me ar along this, the only path I know.
I see the destination of my soul. In the rising sun it shall be be found with you.
A cruel folk you are, unmatched for jealousy, you gods who cannot bear to let a goddess sleep with a man, even if it is done without concealment and she has chosen him as her lawful consort. You were the same when Rose-fingered Dawn fell in love with Orion. Easy livers yourselves, you were outraged at her conduct, and in the end chaste Artemis rose from her golden throne, attacked him in Ortygia with her gentle darts and left him dead.
And so again, when the lovely Demeter gave way to her passion and lay in the arms of her beloved Iasion in the thrice-ploughed fallow field, Zeus heard of it quickly enough and struck him dead with his blinding thunderbolt. And now it is my turn to incur that same divine displeasure for living with a mortal man – a man whom I rescued from death as he was drifting alone astride the keel of his ship, when Zeus had shattered it with his lightening bolt out on the wine dark sea, and all his men were lost, but he was driven to this island by wind and waves.
I welcomed him with open arms; I tended him; I even hoped to give him immortality and ageless youth. But now, goodbye to him, since no god can evade or thwart the will of Zeus. If Zeus insists that he should leave, let him be gone across the barren water. But he must not expect me to transport him. I have no ship, no oars, no crew to carry him so far across the seas. Yet I do promise with a good grace and unreservedly to give him such directions as will bring him safe and sound to Ithaca.
Homer, The Odyssey
Have courage, for life is striding
To endless life along;
Stretched by inner fire,
Our sense becomes transfigured.
One day the stars above
Shall flow in golden wine,
We will enjoy it all,
And as stars we will shine.
The love is given freely,
And Separation is no more.
The whole life heaves and surges
Like a sea without a shore.
Just one night of bliss —
One everlasting poem —
And the sun we all share
Is the face of God.
Novalis, Hymns to the Night
The top of his fin cut the air like a knife, carving a circle of pure white light. Seven sacred colours framed his perfect, golden mind, as Artemis declared to him: “We two are one, combined!”
The sister of the Moon said: “Give me now my silver arrows, for I should strike down dead any one who would dare come between us.”
The brother of the sun held out his golden bow to her: “A weapon such as this may only be brought from the abyss”.
His answering voice was like an echo of her dream before she dreamt it.
“Swim, enchanting sister, while my light is still cool, deep, into the salt-filled waters”.
The Moon queen cast off her linen robe and dipped one foot into the ocean, shielding her eyes from the blue-lit morning star as it rose up on the Eastern horizon. Every other face turned toward the rising sun as she made her way to the bottomless abyss, heedless of the dragon chained within
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.
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.
He gave my self a golden key
Upon it fixed were rubies three.
I raised it to my lips to kiss
Then thanked the One and swallowed it.
The key was safely in my centre;
Through the doorway I did enter,
Past the guardian of the threshold;
Quetzalcoatl’s face was threefold.
Later in the night I wakened –
Half an owl and half a wizard –
Stood before my sleeping station.
Dawn brought hope; a sweet sensation.
Free at last, we dared to open
Wide the way to dew-lit flowers,
Where we walked as soul survivors
Through the sun-kissed April showers.
Over to the left in the same home county, the sun touched its golden brow to the High Street’s Eastern end, flooding the entire length with a pearlescent mirage of soft light.
It cast a shimmering spear through a particularly well-positioned bedroom window, instantly awakening the Master, who climbed from the narrow single bed, lit a stick of rose-infused incense, struck a set of copper wind chimes and then padded off to the bathroom chanting a dawn mantra.
Om Mani Padme Hum