The Descent of Inanna

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…

Between the shadow and the soul

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

Journey of our Life

In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell of that wood, savage and harsh and dense, the thought of which renews my fear! So bitter it is that death is hardly more.

I cannot rightly tell how I entered there, I was so full of sleep at that moment when I left the true way; but when I had reached the foot of a hill at the end of that valley which had pierced my heart with fear, I looked up and saw its shoulders already clothed with beams of the planet that leads men straight on every road.

Dante, Divine Comedy

A dream beyond our reaching

On a day when He and I were alone walking in a field, we were both hungry, and we came to a wild apple tree.

There were only two apples hanging on the bough.

And He held the trunk of the tree with His arm and shook it, and the two apples fell down.

He picked them both up and gave one to me. The other He held in His hand. In my hunger I ate the apple, and I ate it fast.

Then I looked at Him and I saw that He still held the other apple in His hand.

And He gave it to me saying, “Eat this also.” And I took the apple, and in my shameless hunger I ate it.

And as we walked on I looked upon His face.

But how shall I tell you of what I saw?

A night where candles burn in space,

A dream beyond our reaching;

A noon where all shepherds are at peace and happy that their flocks are grazing;

An eventide, and a stillness, and a home-coming;

Then a sleep and a dream.

All these things I saw in His face.

He had given me the two apples. And I knew He was hungry even as I was hungry.

But I now know that in giving them to me He had been satisfied. He Himself ate of other fruit from another tree.

I would tell you more of Him, but how shall I?

When love becomes vast love becomes wordless.

And when memory is overladen it seeks the silent deep.

Kahlil Gibran, John at Patmos

Magic surpassing the river of sleep

Orpheus – such was the suffering of separation from the soul of his deceased love that it became magic, magic surpassing the river of sleep, forgetfulness and death which separates the dead from the living.

Orpheus is present always and everywhere where the love of a soul torn away by death is not content with pious and resigned commemoration, but aspires to find and meet the departed one beyond the threshold of death.

Such was Orpheus’ love for Eurydice and such, also, was Gilgamesh’s love for his friend and brother Eabani. And who can say how many human hearts have beaten, beat today, and will beat in the future, in union with that of Orpehus and that of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian hero?

Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XXI, The Fool

Your Beautiful Hands

This is the kind of Friend
You are —

Without making me realize

My soul’s anguished history,

You slip into my house at night,

And while I am sleeping,

You silently carry off

All my suffering and sordid past

In Your beautiful
Hands.

Hafiz, Your Beautiful Hands

The Chorus

As if without any help,
He bears upon himself the burden of all.
And thus in quietude, in the icy solitude,
He awaits and readily accepts the onslaught of all
appeals.
Like the foundation of a building,
he silently submits
to being burdened.
He multiplies his hands by ten;
He magnifies his heart;
His spiritual growth must be such that he can respond
to all those turning to him;
Yet he is not afraid.
He knows that his time draws near.
The knocking ones, the menacing
and the oppressive ones,
They must come; and he must meet them.
And for a time he is surrounded by them,
his exit barred.
But the ordeal is not without end.
For nearby is the possibility of the closest path.
Such is the burden of being at the center.
And good it is if friendly hands stretch out to one,
If the chorus is imbued with good will.

Leaves from Morya’s Garden, Helena Roerich

The soul of a thing

The scientific method is very good a knowing some things, but it can be an impediment to knowing other things. Suppose, for instance, a gentleman is attracted to a certain lady and wishes to become better acquainted with her. Can he achieve this by measuring her, taking her temperature and subjecting her to a CAT scan? Not only will these operations fail to tell him what he really wants to know, but they are likely to so annoy the object of his inquiry that she stops returning his calls.

What he really wishes to know – the intimate secrets of her body and soul – can only be learned if he ceases to be objective. She will entrust her secrets to him only if he displays a clear bias in her favour. And the more exclusive his knowledge of her – that is, the less it can be confirmed by any observer besides himself – the more precious it is to him. The alchemist would argue that all natural phenomena have something in common with the lady.

They unfold some of their secrets to objective, scientific inquiry while bestowing others only on the subjective observer. The soul of a thing – whether animal, vegetable, or mineral – reveals itself only in active relationship to another soul.

Catherine MacCoun, On Becoming an Alchemist

The Lord’s Prayer

As I experience it, the Redeemer spoke this original archetypal prayer (at least) twice, in two different contexts and places and to different people.On one occasion He spoke it to a larger gathering of His disciples among whom were present – as I remember – the twelve disciples of the Last Supper. This did not take place in Jerusalem or in its immediate surroundings, but, judging by the landscape, in Galilee.

On the second occasion He spoke the prayer for the group of women described below, during the night between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday….

Although Christ had instructed the disciples that after His departure they should teach the prayer to people – and thus of course to the women who had a profound connection with Him – He knew that the men would find it difficult to overcome their traditional social views of women. To understand this one has to translate oneself back into a quite different time where certain law, traditions and conventions prevailed.

Those arose from accepted religious customs and were very far removed from our own modern views of social community. It would never have occurred to people living in Palestine at the time of Christ to try to change the social and religious customs of the time through a modern impulse of renewal. In the way that we nowadays enjoy the achievements of a certain social renewal, this was something which the Christ alone could bring.

Judith von Halle, The Lord’s Prayer

The Alignment

The potential was enormous but the dangers were all too clear.

The alignment is earlier than forecast by the magicians….

Despite being unable to comprehend that this was anything other than the most significant event conceivable at that moment – even rivaling some key occurrences of the world’s entire history – the witness did not dare to turn on the news or radio.

What if the World Government has also realized what’s happening and decides to send out subliminal brain-washing messages over the network in case everyone goes mad from the emanations?

This was both rational and irrational.

Just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you …*

A small gathering of ghostly figures from ancient history stood silently watching alongside the witness. At first the group remained inconspicuously huddled – invisible to all but the naked third eye – and concentrated without effort on the astounding planetary activity. They were astronomical pedants to the thirty-third degree and this was a sight worth crossing oceans of time for.

The witness focused primarily on the blue planet Venus, whose erotic charge was palpable to everyone… South… of.… The witness made a few rapid deductions…..Watford. Yes, probably Watford, maybe Hemel Hempstead, at a push. I wonder who is going to feel the force and take it upon themselves to enact the dramatic script?

* Robert Anton Wilson