Four words crystallize the spirit in the place of power.
In the sixth month the white snow is suddenly seen to fly.
At the third watch the disk of the sun sends out shining rays.
On the water blows the wind of gentleness.
Wandering in Heaven, one eats the spirit-power of the receptive.
And the deeper secret within the secret :
The land that is nowhere, that is the true home
The Secret of the Golden Flower, Richard Wilhelm and Carl Jung
In winter when the frosty nights are long
And sedge is stiff about the frozen meres,
One night above a volume of old song
Of legendary loves and magic fears
Sweetened by long elapse of slumbering years,
I nodded in the frosty firelight beam
And fell on sleep and straightway dreamed a dream.
I thought it was a luminous summer night,
And in the star-flecked welkin overhead
A fading sickle of soft golden light
Its wonder over all the landscape spread,
While fleecy clouds athwart its paleness sped:
Ten thousand thousand points of light did peep
Out of the boundless heaven’s velvet deep.
C.S Lewis
When his love he doth espy, let her shine as gloriously as the Venus of the sky ~
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
It wasn’t the flickering light in the upper storey window which drew the Watcher’s attention, for many lights vied for his attention that evening. It was a melody drifting upwards through the gradually darkening sky. A rose-gold sun set the western horizon alight as the lone figure made slow, wide circles in the radiant atmosphere. Drawn by her irresistible presence below, he descended to the place where she now dwelt.
The flame of a candle within licked gently at the surrounding air and a heady scent was carried up to him with the rising music, like dancing graces of the Temple. Deeply he inspired, considering the soul within. She was stretched like a cat upon the bed, her long blonde hair spread out along the pillow. His eye was now fixed.
One golden glance of what should be
A powerful gust of wind blew the window open with a bang and she jumped out of her skin, shaken from her hazy reverie by the sudden noise and rush of cool air. Smooth like quicksilver, he slipped inside, permeating the chamber with a magnificent aura, the robe of divine beauty.
She sat up on the bed and gazed into the indigo space he had left behind him, trying to trace the formless form which had been there as she rose and stepped toward the window. He watched while she turned to face east and then west, scanning the sky for what or whomsoever had electrified the ether. Finding naught but the dying throes of day, she fastened shut the window and lay back down, book in hand, feigning near-oblivion to the almost unexpected arrival of the thrice-descended master.
She was wearing gold-coloured sandals – shoes that were a gift from her father – and a midnight blue dress. Around her wrist was a bracelet full of charms and with his bright, ancient eyes, he saw that the necklace at her throat was made from the stuff of magic, a gift from her mystery-loving mother.
Reaching out a hand, she found the volume switch on the radio and pushed it higher. Lush electronic sounds swelled like waves of water from breath and a heavenly voice swept over her on the cool air. A drama was set to unfold, of that she could be sure. Doubtless, there was a kind of magic taking place right there and then, with her at the centre of its circle.
As her eyes ran over the sepia plates of the open book the two became increasingly attuned, their selves amplified in their minds as the daughter of memory was evoked. The lost history of time began to unfold between them.
Once again he had challenged the doors of time to reach her. Over 2,500 years had passed since she had last been this close to his original form. On that occasion the moon had been perfectly halved by the shadow of the Earth. Jupiter, then, was at the same point in its orbit as it would be in precisely three and a half minutes that self-same night.
He looked over his shoulder at the gigantic sphere, which made its passage through the expanding cosmos with an intricately complex, haunting melody. A ray of its light fell upon her in that moment and the ageless diamond of her soul began to dissolve in his mercurial presence.
One shaft of light that showed the way
A sense of fervent devotion rose up inside her like the flames of a secret fire as he stretched out his hands to touch her outspread hair.
This flame that burns inside of me is here in secret harmonies
She had dreams; he could see every colour of every scene.
One dream, one soul, one prize, one goal
With a silent whisper he reminded her of the truth:
No mortal man can win this day.
He exhaled into her parted lips.
There can be only one….
The radio crackled and grew fainter, framing the esoteric silence like a braid of wheat, magnetising all background interference until the air grew taut as a lens, magnifying live reactions as if they were in a scene from a lyric master’s play.
~
Still you will always be with me, your name constantly on my lips, never forgotten ~ Ovid, Hyacinthus
Wake! For the Sun, who scattered into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heaven, and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
The Canigó is an immense magnolia
that blooms in an offshoot of the Pyrenees;
its bees are the fairies that surround it,
and its butterflies the swans and the eagles.
Its cup are jagged mountain chains,
colored in silver by the winter and in gold by the summer,
huge cup where the star drinks fragrances, the airs freshness and the clouds water.
The pine forests are its hedges and the ponds its dew drops,
and its pistil is that golden palace,
seen by the nymph in her dreams descending from heaven.
Canigou, Jacint Verdaguer
And the God of Gods created the soul, fashioning it for beauty.
He gave unto it the gentleness of a breeze at dawn, the scent of flowers, the loveliness of moonlight.
He gave unto it also the cup of joy, and He said:
‘You shall not drink of this cup save that you have forgotten the past and renounced the future.’
He gave unto it also the cup of sorrow, saying:
‘Drink that you may understand the meaning of joy’.
Then God bestowed within the soul love that would depart with the first sigh of content,
And sweetness that would flee from the first word of arrogance.
He made a heavenly sign to guide it in the path of truth.
He placed in its depths an eye that would behold the unseen.
He created within it a fancy to flow like a river with phantoms and moving figures.
He clothed it in garments of longing woven by angels, from the rainbow.
Within it he placed also the darkness of bewilderment, which is the shadow of light.
And God took fire from the forge of anger,
Wind blowing from the desert of ignorance;
Sand he gathered from the seashore of selffulness
And dust from beneath the feet of the ages;
Thus he fashioned man.
And unto man He gave blind strength that leaps into a flame
In moments of mad passion, and lies down before desire.
God gave him life which is the shadow of death.
And the God of Gods smiled and wept, and He knew a love which hath no bound nor end;
Thus He united man and his soul.
Kahlil Gibran, The Soul
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me’.
The Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson
The post of Emperor does not belong any longer either to those who desire it or to the choice of the people. It is reserved to the choice of heaven alone. It has become occult. And the crown, the sceptre, the throne, the coat of arms of the Emperor are to be found in the catacombs…in the catacombs – this means to say: under absolute protection.
And just as no parliament will replace the spiritual reality of the post of Emperor – the throne of David cannot be replaced by collectivity – so will no oecumenical council replace the spiritual reality of the post of Pope or the ‘throne of Melchizedek, king of plenitude (Salem)”. Whether the “cannon shot” predicted in the esoteric circles of the Occident be given or not, whether the sacerdotal throne remains visible or whether it be installed in the catacombs, it will certainly remain present for ever in the future history of humanity – despite what the prophets of its destruction may say.
Meditations on the Tarot
From the great above she opened her ears to the great below
from the great above the Goddess opened her ears to the great below
from the great above Inanna opened her ears to the great below
my lady abandoned Heaven and Earth to descend to the Underworld
she abandoned her office of holy priestess
to descend to the Underworld
she gathered together the measures of
heavenly and earthly powers
she took them into her hands
with the measures of heavenly and earthly
powers she prepared herself
Inanna set out to the Underworld…
At the very end of the New Testament John described the holy of holies that he saw in his vision. There was the throne of God and the Lamb, there was the river of the water of life, and there was the tree of life. The servants of God and the Lamb saw his face and had his name on their foreheads. They stood in a place of perpetual heavenly light, needing neither lamp no sun, and the reigned fore ever (Rev.22.1-5). For the first Christians, this was their vision of heaven.
They were standing in the temple, but not the temple rebuilt by Herod and completed only a few years earlier. They were standing in the temple as it should have been, as it had once been and as they hoped it soon would be, because in their vision they were standing in the true temple. The temple they knew – or had known, since there is no way of dating this vision – had neither the heavenly throne nor the tree of life in the holy of holies. Josephus says that at the end of the second temple period, the holy of holies was empty.
In another part of the vision of the temple, John saw the ark (Rev.11.19) which had been lost for centuries. Later tradition remembered it had disappeared in the time of King Josiah, during the temple purges of 623 BCE. It would be restored in the time of the Messiah, along with the other things that had been in the first temple but not in the second: the fire, the menorah, the Spirit and the cherubim. Since the first temple furnishings symbolised the temple teachings, this was saying that the faith of the second temple was very different from the faith of the original temple.
Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord