Wake!
Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Edge of the Abyss
The children and their companions were clinging to what was not even a ledge – just some lucky hand and footholds – on the edge of that abyss, and there was no way out except forwards, along the slope, among the shattered rocks and the teetering boulders which, it seemed, the slightest touch would send hurtling down below.
And behind them, as the dust cleared, more and more of the ghosts were gazing in horror at the abyss. They were crouching on the slope, too frightened to move. Only the harpies were unafraid; they took to their wings and soared above, scanning backwards and forwards, flying back to reassure those still in the tunnel, flying ahead to search for the way out.
Lyra checked: at least the alethiometer was safe. Suppressing fear, she looked around, found Roger’s little face, and said:
“Come now, we’re all still here, we en’t been hurt. And we can see now, at least. So just keep going, just keep on moving. We can’t go any other way than round the edge of this…” she gestured at the abyss. “So we just got to keep going ahead. I swear Will and me’ll just keep on till we do. So don’t be scared, don’t give up, don’t lag behind. Tell the others. I can’t look back all the time because I got to watch where I’m going, so I got to trust you to come on steady after us, all right?
The little ghost nodded. And so, in shocked silence, the column of the dead began their journey along the edge of the abyss. How long it took, neither Lyra nor Will could guess; how fearful and dangerous it was, they were never able to forget.
Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass
Secretive Memory
Henceforth be all my aim
to wrap secretive memory around
the New conceived within me,
waking and making strong
powers that to me belong
so that I grow up to become Myself.
Rudolf Steiner, Calendar of the Soul, August 11 – 17
The Secret
I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right early and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.
And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of my name.
And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but a recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.
John Clare, The Secret
Pegasus
Tonight, of all nights, Perseus borrows the winged sandals of Hermes, diamond sword of Hephaestus and magical helmet of Hades.
Medusa will be slain and Pegasus born.
What a hero it is – with the help of a goddess – that makes possible for a gift such as this to be given to the Muses!
Guardian Angel; Flaming Star
The guardian Angel accompanies as a faithful ally the divine image in man….the Angel acquits his charge in five ways: he guards, cherishes, protects, visits and defends. He is, therefore, a “flaming star”, a luminous pentagram, above man.
He guards memory, ie, the continuity of the great past in the present, which is the preparation for the great future. It is the guardian Angel who takes care that there is a connection between the great “yesterday, today and tomorrow” of the human soul. He is a perpetual “memento” with regard to the primordial likeness, and with regard to the special room for the soul “in my Father’s house, where there are many rooms.” (John xiv, 2).
If it is necessary, the guardian Angel awakens recollections of the soul’s previous earthly lives, in order to establish continuity of endeavour – of the quest and aspiration of the soul from life to life – so that particular lives are not merely isolated episodes but constitute the stages of a single path towards one sole end.
The guardian Angel cherishes the endeavour, quest and aspiration of the soul engaged on this way [but] support never signifies substitution of the Angel’s will for that of man. The will remains free, always and everywhere.
Just as the guardian Angel is sometimes constrained not to participate in the soul’s activity – this activity not being in accord with the divine image of the soul – so also can he sometimes take a greater part in human activity than usual – this activity being of a nature not simply permitted but also called for. Then the guardian Angel descends from the point of his ordinary post into the domain of human activity. He then visits the human being.
Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XIV, Temperance
Alcestis
O heart of me, much-enduring heart, O right arm, now indeed must you show what son was born to Zeus by Alcmena, the Tirynthian, daughter of Electryon! For I must save this dead woman, and bring back Alcestis to this house as a grace to Admetus.
I shall watch for Death, the black-robed Lord of the Dead, and I know I shall find him near the tomb, drinking the blood of the sacrifices. If can leap upon him from an ambush, seize him, grasp him in my arms, no power in the world shall tear his bruised sides from me until he has yielded up this woman.
If I miss my prey, if he does not come near the bleeding sacrifice, I will go down to Kore and her lord in their sunless dwelling, and I will make my entreaty to them, and I know they will give me Alcestis to bring back to the hands of the host who welcomed me, who did not repulse me from his house, though he was smitten with heavy woe which most nobly he hid from me! Where would be a warmer welcome in Thessaly or in all the dwellings of Hellas?
Alcestis, Euripides
Mass of the Immaculate Conception
‘The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his ways. I existed before he formed any creature. I existed from all eternity, before the earth was created. The abysses were not yet and already I was conceived. The fountains had not yet come out of the earth; the heavy mass of the mountains had not yet been formed; I was begotten before the hills.
He had created neither the earth, nor the rivers, nor strengthened the world on its poles. When he prepared the heavens, I was present; when he confined the abysses within their bounds and prescribed an inviolable law; when he confirmed the air above the earth; when he balanced the waters of the fountains; when he shut up the sea within its limits and imposed a law on the waters, so that they should not pass their bounds; when he laid the foundations of the earth, / was with him and I regulated all things.
Mass of the Immaculate Conception
A Prophetical Riddle, Rabelais
And to increase his mournful accident,
The sun, before it set in th’ occident,
Shall cease to dart upon it any light,
More than in an eclipse, or in the night,—
So that at once its favour shall be gone,
And liberty with it be left alone.
And yet, before it come to ruin thus,
Its quaking shall be as impetuous
As Aetna’s was when Titan’s sons lay under,
And yield, when lost, a fearful sound like thunder.
Inarime did not more quickly move,
When Typheus did the vast huge hills remove,
And for despite into the sea them threw.
Thus shall it then be lost by ways not few,
And changed suddenly, when those that have it
To other men that after come shall leave it.
Then shall it be high time to cease from this
So long, so great, so tedious exercise;
For the great waters told you now by me,
Will make each think where his retreat shall be;
And yet, before that they be clean disperst,
You may behold in th’ air, where nought was erst,
The burning heat of a great flame to rise,
Lick up the water, and the enterprise.
It resteth after those things to declare,
That those shall sit content who chosen are,
With all good things, and with celestial man (ne,)
And richly recompensed every man:
The others at the last all stripp’d shall be,
That after this great work all men may see,
How each shall have his due. This is their lot;
O he is worthy praise that shrinketh not!
A Prophetical Riddle, Gargantua and Pantaguel, Rabelais
A Prophetical Riddle cont.
Then those shall have no less authority,
That have no faith, than those that will not lie;
For all shall be governed by a rude,
Base, ignorant, and foolish multitude;
The veriest lout of all shall be their judge,
O horrible and dangerous deluge!
Deluge I call it, and that for good reason,
For this shall be omitted in no season;
Nor shall the earth of this foul stir be free,
Till suddenly you in great store shall see
The waters issue out, with whose streams the
Most moderate of all shall moistened be,
And justly too; because they did not spare
The flocks of beasts that innocentest are,
But did their sinews and their bowels take,
Not to the gods a sacrifice to make,
But usually to serve themselves for sport:
And now consider, I do you exhort,
In such commotions so continual,
What rest can take the globe terrestrial?
Most happy then are they, that can it hold,
And use it carefully as precious gold,
By keeping it in gaol, whence it shall have
No help but him who being to it gave.
A Prophetical Riddle, Gargantua and Pantaguel, Rabelais