Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Romans 13:10-12
We could say that God accepts with love the demands of love.
Through his love for another person, the lover contracts an infinite debt – a debt also with regard to God as the guardian of his beloved.
At this point all comparisons become impossible, and love has permanently found its Master.
Kierkegaard
The farthest reaches of the etheric world lead out of and beyond space, into the spheres where the Gods have their abode.
And now picture to yourselves a certain inner relationship which may exist between one person and another and comes to physical expression. Picture it quite graphically.
You are caressed by someone who loves you. You feel the caress but it would be childish to associate it in any way with physical matter. The caress is not matter at all, it is a process, and you experience it inwardly, in your soul.
So it is when we look outwards into the spheres of the Ether. The Gods in their love caress the world. But the caress lasts long, because the life of the Gods spans immense reaches of time.
In very truth the stars are the expression of love in the Cosmic Ether; there is nothing physical about them. And from the cosmic aspect, to see a star means to feel a caress that has been prompted by love. To gaze at the stars is to become aware of the love proceeding from the divine-spiritual Beings.
What we must learn to realise is that the stars are only the signs and tokens of the presence of God in the universe. Physical science has much to learn on its path from illusion to truth!
Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Vol VII
Merlin appears in the shape of a young squire; Nimue in the form of a little maid ‘but twelve years old’. This number is, in this context, more mystical than chronological in intent.
Together they perform an enchantment that is an evocation of the ideal society of humankind and a reconstruction of the Earthly Paradise or Garden of Eden.
For behold! Out of the forest comes a carole of ladies and knights and maidens and squires, “each holding other by the hands and dancing and singing: and made the greatest joy that ever was seen in any land”…And presently, in the midst of the wild wood, appears an orchard, wherein was all manner of fruits and all manner of flowers, that gave so great a sweetness of flavour that marvel it was to tell. (Vida Scudder, Le Morte d’Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory).
This is no mere infatuation of a magician for a fairy maid. It is a great and pre-ordained work of redemptive magic. Similarly Merlins’ disappearance from the Earth into the world behind outer nature is no falling under a false enchantment but a deliberate sacrificial sacramental act. As Vida Scudder puts it, although she does not appear consciously to realise the deeper implications:
….when she spoke to him of her longing to know how to create the magic tower of air, he bowed down to the earth and began to sigh. None the less he did her will, and on a fateful day they went out through the forest of Broceliande hand in hand, devising and disporting; and found a bush that was fair and high and of white hawthorn full of flowers, and there they sat in the shadow.
And Merlin laid his head on the damsel’s lap, and she began to caress gently till he fell on sleep, and when she felt that he was in sleep she arose softly, and made a circle of her wimple all about the bush, and all about Merlin. And when he waked he looked about him, ‘and him seemed he was in the fairest tower on the world and the most strong; and he said to the damsel; “Lady thou hast me deceived, but if ye will, abide with me, for none but ye may undo these enchantment” And in truth she stayed by him for the most part, “Ye have been my thought and my desire” says she, “for without you have I neither joy nor wealth. In you have I set all my hope, and I abide, none other joy but of you”.
Her impulse is thus love and not self-will. And, whether ‘deceived’ or not, Merlin was well aware, before and after the fact, of the implications of this profound magical union.
Gareth Knight, The Secret Tradition in Arthurian Legend
High above the clouds, in a dimension where the sun would shine even at midnight, Zeus brought to mind the Eagles of the East and West, lords of land and sea.
Holding them in sight, he gave to them their mission, saying: “Fly now each of you in his own direction; neither is swifter than the other. The place where you meet I shall pin down forever as the centre of this world”.
The gods had come down from their clouds and assembled at this place, to mark forever the foundation of their temple on Earth. Zeus’s fair twins Apollo and Artemis, sun and moon, came down to where they had been summoned, swiftly followed by the others, each in elemental guise.
Bearing fruits of the earth and dressed in garlands of flowers, the earth mother Demeter walked hand‐in‐hand with her love‐struck daughter, queen of the Styx‐bound underworld.
Ares, Hestia and Hera, Hephestaeus, Poseidon and Athena ‐ each transpiring from their own dominion – fulfilled the summons from their central being.
A bull emerged from the forest, metamorphosising with a swagger into a shining youth, handsome as only a handsome youth can be. He walked hand in hand with the loveliest female in the land, raising to his moistened lips an earthen jar of ruby‐coloured wine.
Her love‐child laughed with his magician.
Hera gazed broodingly at the twice‐born son of his father and a cloud descended on the assembly. “I hope you will not reserve too many honours for this youth, Dionysus, husband, for he is only quite immortal, with half true blood in his blue, engorged veins”.
Zeus roared with laughter and raised a glass in toast to his progeny. “But see the ones who are with him, sister; you must admit he is in great company: The body of desire with the power of love and the herald of all ages. I see no issue here but that which is great!”
“But come forth now Apollo and shine on me son, step beyond the clouds, for I would have you build me here a house, where men from all corners of the world will
come to learn their destiny”
Precisely as the confident sun was crossed by a thick, scudding, cloud, the atmosphere in Mysteries was electrified by morbid anxiety verging on panic. To lose the book would be an unmitigated disaster, of this there could be no doubt. There were only seven known-of copies left on the planet, the other two having been lost in the midst of time while three updated versions were yet to be recalled and translated from the Akashic records[i].
A well-preserved copy was with the Dalai Lama, while the elder Rabbi – who had denied its existence no less than 28 times because of his pathological obsession with total secrecy – kept the most pristine version within a hidden compartment in his personal library.
An Indian sage called Mahavatar Babaji had also received a Pros Theon scroll that he subsequently left with his disciples, while a famously un-heard of Sufi Magician inherited the fifth from his grandfather.
This highly revered leader of a largely forgotten tribe of nomads had escaped persecution by retreating to a hidden network of mountain caves above the plains of ancient Babylon. From this increasingly imperilled retreat, he and his devoted disciples kept alive a love-fuelled tradition that transported them all to a revolutionary state of pure ecstasy on a well-timed basis.
The Catholic Church had the remaining extant copies of Pros Theon. The first was mostly in fragments and frequently misinterpreted due to the high number of puzzling gaps in crucial places, while a second had been retrieved by the Knights Templar from a vault below the Church of the Sepulchre in Jerusalem, shortly before mad caliph al-Hakim came to power in the dark ages.
Sealed in a ruby and amethyst-encrusted casket that was locked with a golden key bearing three perfect emeralds and a set of alchemical sigils that were barely understood by anyone alive, this particular copy of Pros Theon had not been opened for almost 1,000 years and nor would it ever be again.
The Master felt a sudden chill. Was it possible that the only freely available text had been lost or – it hardly bore contemplating – stolen? Oh, the horrors if that were true! The very thought brought about cold sweats and a search that was renewed with marked zelatory.
Holy Krishna, Moses and Mary, Christ the everlasting Lord, please don’t let Pros Theon fall into the wrong hands. Forgive me for so carelessly misplacing it, I beg of you to let me find The Book…
[i] Derived from the Sanskrit word akasha, which means ‘sky’ or ‘ether’, ‘akashic record’ is a phrase used in theosophy and anthroposophy to define a body of mystical knowledge – a hall of records – accessible only via non-physical planes of existence or dimensions. This is where the ‘books of life’ are thought to be written and stored, along with the secret history of the world. The records are seen as equivalent to the mind of God, although the concept originated with the dualistic and atheistic Hindu Samkhya philosophy that recognizes only that there are two distinct realms of being, the one material, the other of consciousness.
Wisdom in His eyes does shine serenely,
On the understanding of His lady,
Strength in victory brings to pass their dreaming,
From creative force foundations laid He.
Endless though it was her endless waiting,
Faith eternal, hope and love defeated
Time. And now her knight reveals a true king,
Witness of the virtue oft entreated.
As the faerie queen revised all history,
Every female spirit was encompassed,
Eve from Adam, then the rest, her sisters
Fell as one into Earth’s fiery suntrap.
Mary – stellar priestess, light of heaven –
Body, mind and soul, the one uplifted,
Holds within her hand a starry seven,
All who see her light above are gifted.
Just as Jacob found his soul in Rachel,
So the dove with she at last is rising,
As Sophia stands beside Saint Michael,
Angels all surrounding, deep are sighing.
So the miracle that’s even greater –
More than even Moses made in Egypt –
Over and above the Red Sea parted,
More than manna dew-lit in the desert.
More than all the plagues that conquered Pharaoh,
More than Aaron’s staff that blossomed newly,
Just as Isaac came from out of Sarah,
So the soul-mates knew themselves and truly.
Shy she is as daisies in the meadow,
Walking with a step that lights the ether,
Paler than the moon with veils of shadow,
Moving on the water stretched beneath her.
Sweet she is as lilies dripping nectar,
Dancing with the sunbeams on the ocean,
Golden is the sphere and it surrounds her,
Silver stars a-light her every motion.
Green the gown that covers her in beauty,
Violet is the robe she wears at midnight,
Rosy-hued the colour of her secret,
Blue as rain the sky within her eyesight.
Silent is the soul that came down gently,
Carried in the arms of love so tender,
Wedded to the Prince of Peace intently,
Gazing at the one so He defends her.
Mercy springs and splendour mark their presence –
Two as one they stand as all united –
Perfect is the love, their only essence,
Faerie queen and son of man be-knighted.
Crystal stones bejem the kingdom’s pathways –
Topaz, onyx, jasper, sapphire, beryl –
Plus a thousand others at their passage –
Amethyst, carnelian and emerald.
In her breast a bird of light is flying,
Spreading open wings of joy now boundless,
Whiter than the swan with grace undying,
Every step she takes the ground is thrice-blessed.
Lady from the high-walled faerie palace,
She who gathers sea shells on the sea shore,
She who saved the spark to give her master,
Now does reap the promise of the rainbow.
It was clear from the start that the work was more brilliant than any other I had encountered and as the story unfolded I drank it in like nectar, the most sublime poem that had ever been written. I tried to commit the piece to memory but so perfect was the arrangement of words that my mind could barely comprehend their beauty, let alone learn them completely. Only one word would I remember, and this stood out as clearly as the others eluded me:
Rainbow
This is the only thing that I remembered for sure from what I read, that an early or integral part of it was of a rainbow, sign of God’s covenant with the Earth. But if the words were veiled, the meaning of the writing was evident at once.
I held in my hands the most heart-breaking love story that had ever been written by one (a male) for the other, at one and the same time human and divine, natural and supernatural. The character of the author was laid bare by the words but the object of his love seemed to have been absent from his existence for an eternity, or no longer present, except as a memory or product of the imagination. A tale of lost or unrequited love.
In this tale I beheld the power of love, as if tears that sprang from a broken heart had fallen from the eyes of the beholder and transformed themselves directly into words on a page. This was a passion so great that I wonder how I even bore witness to the fruit of its longing, beauty and sorrow combined with infinity and sown as a microcosm of nature.
So deep was this love that from the pain had been born the work of creation, which encompassed the whole of nature and found fragile first expression in the rainbow, wherein may be seen the depth of love as a blend of enlightenment and tears.
As I read on, enthralled and governed by the power of these words, they were seamlessly transformed into a pictorial continuation of the scene being described. I was completely taken up with what I saw, which seemed to satisfy every yearning for understanding within myself, even though the complete meaning was beyond my realm of knowledge.
I found myself in the outer limit of deep space, truly the middle of nowhere, suspended by the unseen force that was author of the magical words I had just been reading. Below me I saw planets, but mostly was aware of simply the infinitude of space – the infinity he had to cross in order to reach her. Where had she gone and why – was she lost, had she run, did she die – what terrible catastrophe had befallen them to rend asunder the love that created the universe.
The whole of this space was the filled with the hymn of God to his lost love and my gaze was fixed on this impossible expanse of nothing, the overwhelming sorrow that was wholly without end; how I arrived there I shall never know.
When I became conscious of his mission – his determination against all odds to find her – the scene at once changed and I found my self upon the ground, but not within my room. I saw green fields appearing in front of me as if I were standing at the edge of a botanic kingdom. At the centre of this world was the largest and most wonderful tree I had ever seen. Could this have been the tree of life, I wondered, or the tree of knowledge of good and evil, perhaps?
I saw no more through that window and moved through the door into my room. It was then that I saw the writing on the walls. I had never before been given cause to think about the writing on the walls until this time.
The room was its usual shape with all the regular features firmly in place, including my own empty body on the bed, wearing a light blue sweatshirt. I saw my body just out of the corner of my eye and did not study it too closely lest I became frightened by the sight of myself. In any case, the bedroom walls presented me with something far more fascinating than my sleeping self ever could.
I might have been anywhere at any time as I watched the multi-coloured words began to form and multiply, so rapidly that in an instant it seemed that every surface was covered. I discerned again the rainbow, literally because of the myriad colours displayed in the writing. The subject was again one of love and love’s longing for paradise. The only word, in fact, was Love, repeated over and again on every plane.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
All of history contains tragedy in proportion to joy. I was overwhelmed and found myself lying on the bed in the position I had left my body in. I turned my head to look at the mirror hanging over the radiator, which had somehow transformed itself into a window, through which I could see into another window in another house.
I was fully aware that this change in my usual surroundings had taken place and, whilst unafraid, I was perplexed. I saw two middle-aged women who appeared to be washing clothes, both wearing dark dresses and with dark hair tied up into top-knots, like widows. They were looking in through my window at the place where I lay, talking about somebody who seemed to be me but was actually this man.
They spoke of this man who lay (or had lain) on the bed in the room, and discussed his sadness to themselves as if he were dead. I realised that my astral projection, vision, dream, whatever it might have been, was losing coherence, and I regained ordinary consciousness a second later.