The Prophetess

The little Match Girl

2011-12-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not. Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savoury smell of roast goose, for it was New-year's eve—yes, she remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her; besides, it was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt match in her hand. She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame, and where its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent as a veil, and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her. She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas-tree. It was larger and more beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant's. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches, and coloured pictures, like those she had seen in the show-windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out. The Christmas lights rose higher and higher, till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God. She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. “Grandmother,” cried the little one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God. In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year's sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. “She tried to warm herself,” said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year's day.

2011-04-22T02:16:00.000-07:00

THE SADNESS OF THE MOON by Charles Baudelaire

THE Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.

Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.

And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.

2010-12-11T18:23:00.000-08:00

The Swan Knight (on which Wagner's opera about Elsa and Lohengrin was based)

“My loyal subjects of Brabant, I thank you for your welcome. Once more the barbarians from the east threaten our German Empire. Once more we must defend our land. And so I summon you to join our army.”

On a riverbank outside the walled city of Antwerp, King Henry stood beneath the great oak known as the Tree of Justice. Beside him were the Saxon nobles of his escort, while before him were nobles and other men he had come to enlist from Brabant.

The king sat down in the heavy wooden chair beneath the oak. “But I am distressed to hear of the discord among you. Count Frederick of Telramund, I know you to be a man of the highest honor. Tell me the source of the trouble.”

Frederick stepped forward. “Thank you, King Henry, for hearing this case. Before the Duke of Brabant passed away, he placed in my care his two children, Elsa and Godfrey. One day they went into the woods together, but only Elsa returned. She claimed they had become lost from one another.

“Our searches failed to find the boy, and I suspected wrongdoing. When I pressed Elsa for the truth, she grew pale and trembled, clearly showing her guilt. Then and there, I gave up all thought of marrying her as offered by her father. I instead married Ortrude, princess of Friesland, whom you see here.

“Now I accuse Elsa of a great crime: the murder of her brother. I also claim right to rule Brabant, as next in line after her. King Henry, pass judgment!”

“A fearful charge!” said the king. He hung his shield solemnly on the oak. “Here shall my shield remain until justice is served. Let all your swords be unsheathed until judgment is passed.”

The men of Brabant laid their swords on the ground, while the men of Saxony stood theirs upright by thrusting them into the earth.

The king’s herald called, “Elsa of Brabant, come forth!”

Slowly forward stepped Elsa, dressed all in white, her ladies-in-waiting trailing behind. The men murmured to each other how lovely and innocent she looked—how unlike anyone who could commit such a crime! At last she stood silent before the king, seeming hardly to notice where she was.

“Elsa of Brabant, what do you say to the charges against you?”

She gazed sadly into the distance. “My poor brother.”

Murmurs arose again at this strange behavior. “Speak, Elsa,” urged the king. “What have you to tell us?”

Still gazing ahead, Elsa said, “In my loneliness and despair, I raised a prayer to God that filled the heavens. Then in a dream I saw approach a glorious knight, clad in shining armor, leaning on a sword, with a golden horn at his side. This knight it is who will be my champion and prove my innocence.”

“Frederick,” said the king, “are you certain you wish to accuse this girl?”

“Her dreaminess can’t fool me,” said Frederick. “I have a witness to her crime. But my word alone should be enough, and I’m ready to defend it with my sword.”

“Then God alone must decide,” said the king, “in trial by combat. To the just he will give the victory. Elsa, who will fight for you?”

“The knight from my dream,” said Elsa. “As his reward, he shall take all my father’s lands—and myself as wife, if he’ll have me.”

At the king’s command, the herald called, “Let him who will fight for Elsa of Brabant come forth!” But no one stepped forward.

Elsa told the king, “He must yet be far away and not have heard. Please call again.”

The king assented, and the herald called again. “Let him who will fight for Elsa of Brabant come forth!” But still there was no response.

Elsa knelt in prayer. “Lord, tell my knight I need him now! Show him to me, just as he appeared before.”

Then shouts went up from men by the river’s edge.

“Look!”

“A swan!”

“It’s pulling a knight in a boat!”

Coming to shore was a knight in gleaming silver armor, leaning on a sword, with a golden horn hanging at his side. He stood in a small boat, pulled with a golden chain by a white swan. The boat reached the bank, and the knight stepped out.

“Farewell, dear swan. Return now over the waters, and bring joy when you come again.”

He gazed after the swan as it started upriver, then he turned to the king. “Greetings, King Henry!”

“Stranger,” said the king, “am I right to believe you are sent by God?”

“I am sent to stand up for one who is accused. Elsa of Brabant, do you accept me as your champion?”

“You are my knight and my savior!” she said joyfully.

“And if I succeed, will you take me as husband as well?”

“All that I have and all that I am is yours.”

“Elsa,” said the knight solemnly, “if I’m to stay here with you always, you must promise one thing: Never shall you ask from where I’ve come, or my lineage, or my name.”

“Never shall I ask, my lord.”

“Elsa, do you understand fully what I say? Never shall you ask from where I’ve come, or my lineage, or my name!”

“As surely as you protect me now, I will honor your command.”

“Elsa, I love you,” said the knight, embracing her. He led her to the king, then stepped out among the gathered men.

“I declare Elsa of Brabant free of guilt. God will show the falseness of this charge.”

Friends of Frederick whispered to him urgently, begging him to give up the fight. But Frederick declared, “Better dead than a coward. Stranger, your threats don’t frighten me, for I have spoken only truth. Let God be the judge.”

“King Henry,” said the knight, “order the fight to begin!”

At the king’s command, six nobles stood in a wide circle and thrust their spears into the ground. The herald declared, “Let no one enter this ring and disturb the battle. You who fight, honor the ordeal. Seek not to win by deceit or by magic. Place your faith in God’s strength before your own.”

The king rose and prayed, “Lord God, all our wisdom is but folly. Show us who is innocent here, and who is guilty. Grant victory to the just, and defeat to the wicked.”

The king’s trumpeters sounded the call to battle. King Henry struck his shield once with his sword, and the two combatants entered the ring. At the second stroke, they raised their shields and drew their swords. At the third stroke, they attacked.

Within moments, the knight had knocked Frederick to the ground and placed the point of his sword at Frederick’s throat.

“I grant you your life,” said the knight. “Now go and repent what you have done.”

The men rejoiced at the wondrous victory, and Elsa threw herself into the knight’s arms. The shield was removed from the tree, the spears were pulled from the ground, and all swords were returned to their scabbards.

Then the knight and Elsa were lifted up on shields and carried off, while Frederick and Ortrude were left behind in disgrace.

2

Much later, in the dark courtyard of Antwerp Castle, light and merry music poured from the banquet hall windows in the men’s quarters. On the chapel steps, Frederick and Ortrude sat brooding in clothes that matched the night.

“What spell is it that binds me to you still?” said Frederick, rising up. “Through you I’ve lost all honor. Through you I’ve become an outcast!”

“Husband, why do you no longer trust me?”

“Why?” said Frederick. “Did you not swear to me you saw Elsa drown her brother in the lake? Did you not lure me into marriage with prophecies that your family would once more rule Brabant? And did God not punish me for listening to your lies?”

“I told no lie,” said Ortrude. “Not by God were you defeated, but by the sorcery of this knight! Husband, come sit by me.”

Frederick stared at her fearfully. “Do you seek to bewitch me again?”

“What if I told you,” said Ortrude, “that all his power would be lost if only he were made to give his name?”

Frederick moved closer. “That would explain his command to Elsa!”

“It is only Elsa who can make him reveal it,” said Ortrude. “So first we must make her suspicious of him, then charge the knight with using sorcery to win the trial. If that doesn’t work, there’s another way: A man made strong by magic will lose that strength if the least part of his body is cut away—even the tip of a finger. If you manage that, he’ll be completely in your power.”

“Can this be true?” said Frederick. “And to think I believed my defeat came from God! But, woman, if you’re lying now, Heaven help you.”

“Calm yourself, dear husband, and learn from me the sweet delight of vengeance. But look! There is Elsa on the balcony! Go quickly now and leave her to me, while you deal with the knight.”

On the balcony of the women’s quarters stood Elsa, enjoying the cool night breezes and dreaming happily of her champion. The courtyard lay dark and still, the revelers having retired. From below, she heard a mournful voice.

“Elsa.”

“Who is that?” she called back in surprise.

“Do you not even recognize the one you have condemned to misery?”

“Ortrude, is that you? But what are you saying? Can you think that I caused your misfortune?”

“My husband must have been mad to accuse you,” said Ortrude. “Now he is filled with remorse. But what should that matter to you? Your life is filled with happiness, while ours can bring only grief.”

“Don’t say so, Ortrude! I would betray the goodness shown me by God if I did not share it with you. Stay there, and I will let you in.”

Elsa hurried inside. In the courtyard, Ortrude cried out to the darkness. “Gods of old, bless my deceit! Gods of power, make good my revenge!”

The women’s door opened, and Ortrude threw herself at Elsa’s feet.

“Ortrude, must I see you so humbled? Please stand up. I forgive you any suffering you have caused me, and ask the same of you. You shall come to my wedding tomorrow in splendid dress—and once I’m married, I’ll ask my husband to have Frederick pardoned.”

“I am forever grateful,” said Ortrude. “Never can I repay you fully—but perhaps my powers of prophecy can at least save you some misfortune.”

“What do you mean?” said Elsa.

“I fear you place too much faith in a man who appears by magic and conceals his origin. What will stop him from leaving as he came?”

“Poor woman,” said Elsa. “Can you not believe in a love with no doubts or regrets? But now come inside.”

3

Early next morning, summoned by trumpeters, the men of Brabant gathered in the castle courtyard. Soon the king’s herald appeared.

“Hear the words of King Henry: Count Frederick of Telramund is banished for falsehood in the trial by combat. The knight sent by God is given this land to rule as Protector of Brabant. The Protector bids you join in his wedding feast today, then return tomorrow to follow him in service to the king’s army.”

The news was met with joy and excitement. Then the door of the women’s quarters opened and the ladies’ wedding procession emerged. In her magnificent attire, Elsa was hailed as she made her way to the chapel.

But just as Elsa reached the steps, Ortrude rushed from behind and blocked her path. “For a single hour I forgot my worth, but no longer will I meekly follow. I am your better, Elsa, so now give way to me!”

“Ortrude, what’s come over you? Was I taken in by sheer pretense? How can you set yourself before me, when your husband was condemned by God?”

Ortrude said, “Before my husband was judged wrongly, he was honored and revered throughout this land. But who here knows your knight? You yourself don’t even know his name! Secret it must be, to shield his magic power. You know that must be true, or else you’d ask it of him!”

Just then the procession from the men’s quarters began—but when the knight saw the disturbance, he hurried forward, King Henry close behind.

“Unholy woman, why are you near her?” the knight said to Ortrude. “Away with you! Here you can never win.”

Tenderly he took his weeping bride in his arms. “Elsa, did she try to poison your heart? Come into the chapel, and let me change those tears to tears of joy.”

But as they climbed the chapel steps, they were blocked once more, this time by Frederick. “Stop, you deceiver!”

The king demanded, “Why is this man here? He has been banished!”

“King Henry, all of you, listen to me!” cried Frederick. “I have been done a great injustice. This knight corrupted the sacred trial by use of magic. He succeeded only because we failed to ask a vital question. But he won’t escape it now! Stranger, who are you, and where have you come from?”

The knight said, “I need not answer one who is steeped in evil.”

“If he will not answer me,” said Frederick, “then let King Henry ask him. Surely he cannot refuse the king.”

“Not even the king would I answer,” said the knight. “He is well able to judge me by my deeds. No, there is one only I could not refuse.” He turned to Elsa with a smile—but it vanished when he found her staring into the distance, trembling.

“Friend,” said the king, “you need not listen to this man’s charges. You have our complete faith.”

As the men of Brabant pressed around the knight to pledge support, Frederick slipped close to Elsa and spoke softly. “There is a way to reveal his secret and keep him by you forever. I need cut off only the smallest part of him, just the tip of his finger. I will be close tonight. Call and it will be quickly done.”

“Never!” she said.

“Elsa!” cried the knight. “What is that man doing there? Away from her, both of you wicked ones! Never let me see you near her again!” He turned solemnly to his bride. “Elsa, in your hands lies the fate of all our happiness.”

“My deliverer,” said Elsa shakily, “above all doubts my love shall stand.”

The knight smiled, took her hand, and led her up to the chapel.

4

Late that evening, when ceremony and celebration were done, Elsa and the knight were led to their bridal chamber.

“At last,” said the knight, embracing his bride, then drawing her to the couch by the open window. “We are alone for the first time since we met. Elsa, are you happy?”

“How much more than happy! I am filled with a heavenly joy.”

“As am I,” said the knight. “How noble is our love! We could sense each other even before we met.”

“I saw you in a dream!” said Elsa. “Then when you stood before me, I wanted nothing more than to be yours. What word can describe the depth of my love? None can there be—except perhaps your own name.”

“Elsa,” said the knight uneasily.

“How sweet my name when you say it!” said Elsa. “Will I never know the sweetness that comes from saying yours? Not even in the most private hours of our love?”

“Elsa, consider the fragrant perfumes from the garden outside this window. I give myself to them in delight without knowing fully what they are. Even so I gave myself to you. From but a single sight, I was certain of your innocence and pledged myself to defend you.”

“Yes,” said Elsa, “and if only I could find a way to serve you too, a way to help you bear a burden. Perhaps shame or suffering would befall you if your secret were known. But I could keep that secret with you, and nothing would tear it from me. Let me prove my worth by sharing it!”

The knight stood and stepped away. “Elsa, you will more than prove your worth if you keep your promise not to ask! Dearest one, let me be only happy in your love. It is my one repayment for what I’ve given up. For I come not from grief and misery as you may think, but from light and grace—from the noblest life a man may live!”

“What are you saying?” cried Elsa, rising in despair. “If that is what you’ve left behind, how long before you wish to return? Am I to merely count the days until you leave? How can I think that my poor love could satisfy you?”

“Elsa, your love will ever hold me, unless it’s spoiled by doubts.”

“Do I hear something?” said Elsa, staring into the distance. “It is the swan! You have called it to take you back!”

“I beg you, Elsa, stop this madness!”

“Nothing can ease my mind,” she said, “nothing can stop my doubts—nothing but knowing what you hide. So hear and answer me now: Where have you come from? What is your lineage? And what is your name?”

“Elsa! What have you done?”

At that moment, behind the knight, Frederick and four of his men stepped silently into the room, swords drawn. “Save yourself!” cried Elsa. She picked up the knight’s scabbard from where it lay on the couch and held it out to him. With one swift motion, he drew his sword, whirled around, and slew Frederick.

The others dropped their swords and fell to their knees. Elsa sank to the floor.

“Now,” said the knight, “all our joy is gone.”

He instructed the men to carry Frederick’s body to King Henry. Then he called for ladies-in-waiting to ready his wife. “Before the king,” he said, “her questions shall be answered.”

5

Just after dawn, on the riverbank outside the city, King Henry again stood beneath the great oak with his Saxon nobles. Arrayed before him were the men of Brabant, dressed in battle gear and ready to follow their new Protector into the king’s army.

“It does my heart good to see you all,” said the king. “With valiant fighters such as you, we shall surely drive back the invaders.”

Just then, four men brought up a covered bier and placed it before the king. To his shocked questioning, they replied only that all would be revealed by the new Protector.

Elsa too then arrived with her ladies-in-waiting. “You look so sorrowful,” said the king. “Is it because your husband leaves with me?” But Elsa was silent.

At last came the knight himself, dressed as on his first arrival.

“Friend,” said the king, “you see here the men you called to war, ready for victory under your command.”

“King Henry,” said the knight, “I cannot lead them into battle.”

“What’s this?” said the king in distress.

“I come today,” said the knight, “not as leader but as plaintiff.” He uncovered Frederick’s body, to the stunned murmurs of all assembled. “First I ask you to judge this man, who attacked me in the night. Please say whether I was right to take his life.”

“Without question!” said the king.

“And now I charge another,” said the knight. “My wife has betrayed me, by asking what she promised not to ask.”

“Elsa!” cried the king.

The knight said, “I could refuse to answer both enemies and friends, but not my wife. So before you all, I give now the answers to her questions.”

The knight gazed into the distance. “In a far land you will never see, there lies a castle, and in that castle stands a temple filled with light. Within that temple is the holiest of relics—the Grail, used at his last supper by our Lord. Brought to earth by angels, its holy power each year is renewed by a dove come down from Heaven.

“The guardians of the Grail are a brotherhood of the purest knights. When the Grail calls a knight to this service, it arms him with a power no evil can defeat. This power he keeps even if he is sent abroad to defend virtue. But so subtle is the blessing that it flees the presence of unholy men if ever the knight’s identity is revealed.

“Now learn what you have wished to know: I come here from the Grail. My father, Parsifal, wears its crown. And I, its knight, am Lohengrin.”

Murmurs of amazement rose from all around. The knight turned to Elsa.

“My dearest wife, all my holy power I wanted only to devote to you. Why did you force from me my secret? But now the harm is done, and I must go.”

“Husband, don’t leave! Be merciful as God is merciful. Accept my repentance, or punish me yourself, I beg you.”

“There is but one punishment for your deed,” said the knight, “a punishment we both must suffer: I must return to the Grail.”

“Stay with us!” enjoined the king. “Your men need you in the fight.”

“I have no choice,” said the knight. “If I disobey the Grail and stay, even my own human strength will be taken from me.”

Once more he turned to Elsa. “If I could have remained even for one year, the power of the Grail would have brought back to you your brother, who is still alive. But if he somehow does return, give him this horn, this sword, and this ring.”

Just then, shouts went up from men by the river’s edge.

“Look!”

“The swan!”

“It comes again!”

“No!” cried Elsa.

“So the Grail sends for me,” said the knight. “Farewell, my sweet wife.”

But at that moment, out from the crowd stepped Ortrude. “That’s right, proud knight, go home! Leave me to tell your foolish bride who that swan really is. I know him by the golden chain I placed around his neck when I enchanted him. Elsa, it is your own brother, Godfrey.”

Cries of horror rose from the crowd. “Yes, Elsa, and by driving off your knight, you have sealed your brother’s fate. Now you shall ever know the vengeance of the old gods I still worship.”

The knight had reached the river’s edge, and now he knelt in prayer. As all eyes watched, a white dove fluttered down and hovered over the boat. Seeing it, the knight leaped up and took the chain from around the swan’s neck. And there in place of the swan, clad in silver armor, stood Elsa’s brother.

“Behold your new leader,” said the knight. “Here is Godfrey, Duke of Brabant.”

Ortrude collapsed with a shriek. As the men of Brabant knelt in homage to their young duke, Godfrey bowed to the king, then rushed to embrace his amazed sister. For a brief moment, her face lit in joy—then she looked again toward the river.

“My husband!” she cried.

There he stood in the little boat, head bowed, leaning on his shield, as the white dove pulled him upriver—back to the land of the Grail.

About the Story

This is a retelling of one of the most popular operas of the great nineteenth-century German composer Richard Wagner. Lohengrin was first performed in 1850, though Wagner himself never saw a performance until 1861. (Shortly after composing it, he was forced to flee Germany for his part in a failed political uprising.)

Wagner’s opera is itself a retelling of popular medieval legends of the “Swan Knight.” Deriving from oral tradition, the legend appeared in written versions starting in the early thirteenth century. It is found in such German works as Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, Konrad von Würzburg’s The Swan Knight, and the anonymous epic Lohengrin. It is found also in works from France, Italy, Spain, and Iceland.

Legends, though fictional, generally enlist real persons, places, and/or events to add credence. The historical setting for Wagner’s version is more than usually specific: 933 A.D., in the city of Antwerp, in the duchy of Brabant—a land now divided between Belgium and the Netherlands. Wagner’s king is Henry I, commonly called “Henry the Fowler”—a king well known to history for uniting the German lands to successfully fight off barbarian tribes from the east.

Also represented in the opera is the time’s lingering conflict between the newly dominant religion of Christianity and the surviving worship of the old Germanic gods—gods that Wagner himself featured in his later and most famous work, the four-opera series The Ring of the Nibelung.

The “trial by combat” that figures in this legend is one type of “ordeal”—a way to judge guilt or innocence by invoking divine or supernatural intervention. The use of ordeals was common in the Europe of the early Middle Ages, as it has been in many times and places around the world. The idea was that God would reveal judgment by protecting the one who was innocent. Fortunately for Elsa, it actually worked in her case.

In my retelling, dialogue is paraphrased rather than translated, and names are anglicized for easier pronunciation. The most helpful translations consulted were by Chris Wood, and by Amanda Holden with Stewart Spencer. My thanks to the Los Angeles Opera for a memorable first taste of Lohengrin in live performance.

For an audio recording of the opera, I recommend Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, from London Records, 1990; and for a video recording, Claudio Abbado conducting the Vienna State Opera, from Kultur International, 1991. A good, fun intro to Wagner and his operas is Wagner Without Fear, by William Berger, Vintage, New York, 1998. For those with musical training, there’s also Wagner, by Barry Millington, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 1992 (revised edition).

2010-07-11T04:09:00.000-07:00

Evening Solace
by Charlotte Bronte

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;--
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back--a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress--
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven
Seeking a life and world to come.

2010-07-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

Eurydice to Orpheus

Robert Browning

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
Let them once more absorb me! One look now
Will lap me round forever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond :
Hold me but safe again within the bond
Of one immortal look! All woe that was,
Forgotten, and all terror that may be,
Defied,--no past is mine, no future : look at me!

From a poem by Thomas Moore -

2010-07-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

"O my beloved, how divinely sweet
Is the pure joy when kindred spirits meet!
Like him the river god, whose waters flow,
With love their only light, through caves below,
Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids
And festal rings, with which Olympic maids
Have decked his current, as an offering meet
To lay at Arethusa's shining feet.
Think, when he meets at last his fountain bride,
What perfect love must thrill the blended tide!
Each lost in each, till mingling into one,
Their lot the same for shadow or for sun,
A type of true love, to the deep they run."

2009-03-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

THE HYMN.
I.
1
When, a quite little child, I was dwelling
In the House of my Father’s Kingdom,
2
And in the wealth and the glories
Of my Up-bringers I was delighting,
3
From the East, our Home, my Parents
Forth-sent me with journey-provision.
4
Indeed from the wealth of our Treasure,
They bound up for me a load.
5
Large was it, yet was it so light
That all alone I could bear it.

II.
6
Gold from the Land of G§ l~ n,
Silver from Ganz~ k the Great,

15
7
Chalcedonies of India,
Iris-hued [Opals?] from Kã sh~ n.
8
They girt me with Adamant [also]
That hath power to cut even iron.
9
My Glorious Robe they took off me
Which in their love they had wrought me,
10
And my Purple Mantle [also]
Which was woven to match with my stature.

III.
11
And with me They [then] made a compact;
In my heart wrote it, not to forget it:
12
"If thou goest down into Egypt,
And thence thou bring’st the one Pearl--
13
"[The Pearl] that lies in the Sea,
Hard by the loud-breathing Serpent,--
14
"[Then] shalt Thou put on thy Robe
And thy Mantle that goeth upon it,

16
15
"And with thy Brother, Our Second,
Shalt thou be Heir in our Kingdom."

IV.
16
I left the East and went down
With two Couriers [with me];
17
For the way was hard and dangerous,
For I was young to tread it.
18
I traversed the borders of Maish~ n,
The mart of the Eastern merchants,
19
And I reached the Land of B~ bel,
And entered the walls of Sarbã g.
20
Down further I went into Egypt;
And from me parted my escorts.

V.
21
Straightway I went to the Serpent;
Near to his lodging I settled,

17
22
To take away my Pearl
While he should sleep and should slumber.
23
Lone was I there, yea, all lonely;
To my fellow-lodgers a stranger.
24
However I saw there a noble,
From out of the Dawn-land my kinsman,
25
26
A young man fair and well favoured,
Son of Grandees; he came and he joined me.

VI.
27
I made him my chosen companion,
A comrade, for sharing my wares with.
28
He warned me against the Egyptians,
’Gainst mixing with the unclean ones.
29
For I had clothed me as they were,
That they might not guess I had come
30
From afar to take off the Pearl,
And so rouse the Serpent against me.

18
VII.
31
But from some occasion or other
They learned I was not of their country.
32
With their wiles they made my acquaintance;
Yea, they gave me their victuals to eat.
33
I forgot that I was a King’s son,
And became a slave to their king.
34
I forgot all concerning the Pearl
For which my Parents had sent me;
35
And from the weight of their victuals
I sank down into a deep sleep.

VIII.
36
All this that now was befalling,
My Parents perceived and were anxious.
37
It was then proclaimed in our Kingdom,
That all should speed to our Gate--

19
38
Kings and Chieftains of Parthia,
And of the East all the Princes.
39
And this is the counsel they came to:
I should not be left down in Egypt.
40
And for me they wrote out a Letter;
And to it each Noble his Name set:

IX.
41
"From Us--King of Kings, thy Father,
And thy Mother, Queen of the Dawn-land,
42
"And from Our Second, thy Brother--
To thee, Son, down in Egypt, Our Greeting!
43
"Up an arise from thy sleep,
Give ear to the words of Our Letter!
44
"Remember that thou art a King’s son;
See whom thou hast served in thy slavedom.

20
45
Bethink thyself of the Pearl
For which thou didst journey to Egypt.

X.
46
"Remember thy Glorious Robe,
Thy Splendid Mantle remember,
47
"To put on and wear as adornment,
When thy Name may be read in the Book of the Heroes,
48
"And with Our Successor, thy Brother,
Thou mayest be Heir in Our Kingdom."
49
My Letter was [surely] a Letter
The King had sealed up with His Right Hand,
50
’Gainst the Children of B~ bel, the wicked,
The tyrannical Daimons of Sarbã g.

21
XI.
51
It flew in the form of the Eagle,
Of all the winged tribes the king-bird;
52
It flew and alighted beside me,
And turned into speech altogether.
53
At its voice and the sound of its winging,
I waked and arose from my deep sleep.
54
Unto me I took it and kissed it;
I loosed its seal and I read it.
55
E’en as it stood in my heart writ,
The words of my Letter were written.

XII.
56
I remembered that I was a King’s son,
And my rank did long for its nature.
57
I bethought me again of the Pearl,
For which I was sent down to Egypt.

22
58
And I began [then] to charm him,
The terrible loud-breathing Serpent.
59
I lulled him to sleep and to slumber,
Chanting o’er him the Name of my Father,
60
The Name of our Second, [my Brother],
And [Name] of my Mother, the East-Queen.

XIII.
61
And [thereon] I snatched up the Pearl,
And turned to the House of my Father.
62
Their filthy and unclean garments
I stripped off and left in their country.
63
To the way that I came I betook me,
To the Light of our Home, to the Dawn-land.
64
On the road I found [there] before me,
My Letter that had aroused me--
65
As with its voice it had roused me,
So now with its light it did lead me--

23
XIV.
66
On fabric of silk, in letter of red [?],
With shining appearance before me [?],
67
Encouraging me with its guidance,
With its love it was drawing me onward.
69
I went forth; through Sarbã g I passed;
I left B~ bel-land on my left hand;
70
And I reached unto Maish~ n the Great,
The meeting-place of the merchants,
71
That lieth hard by the Sea-shore.

XV.
72
My Glorious Robe that I’d stripped off,
And my Mantle with which it was covered,
73
Down from the Heights of Hyrc~ nia,
Thither my Parents did send me,

24
74
By the hands of their Treasure-dispensers
Who trustworthy were with it trusted.
75
Without my recalling its fashion,--
In the House of my Father my childhood had left it,--
76
At once, as soon as I saw it,
The Glory looked like my own self.

XVI.
77
I saw it in all of me,
And saw me all in [all of] it,--
78
That we were twain in distinction,
And yet again one in one likeness.
79
I saw, too, the Treasurers also,
Who unto me had down-brought it,
80
Were twain [and yet] of one likeness;
For one Sign of the King was upon them--

25
81
Who through them restored me the Glory,
The Pledge of my Kingship [?].

XVII.
82
The Glorious Robe all-bespangled
With sparkling splendour of colours:
83
With Gold and also with Beryls,
Chalcedonies, iris-hued [Opals?],
84
With Sards of varying colours.
To match its grandeur [?], moreover, it had been completed:
85
With adamantine jewels
All of its seams were off-fastened.
86
[Moreover] the King of Kings’ Image
Was depicted entirely all o’er it;
87
And as with Sapphires above
Was it wrought in a motley of colour.

26
XVIII.
88
I saw that moreover all o’er it
The motions of Gnosis abounding;
89
I saw it further was making
Ready as though for to speak.
90
I heard the sound of its Music
Which it whispered as it descended [?]:
91
"Behold him the active in deeds!
For whom I was reared with my Father;
92
"I too have felt in myself
How that with his works waxed my stature."

XIX.
93
And [now] with its Kingly motions
Was it pouring itself out towards me,
94
And made haste in the hands of its Givers,
That I might [take and] receive it.

27
95
And me, too, my love urged forward
To run for to meet it, to take it.
96
And I stretched myself forth to receive it;
With its beauty of colour I decked me,
97
And my Mantle of sparkling colours
I wrapped entirely all o’er me.

XX.
98
I clothed me therewith, and ascended
To the Gate of Greeting and Homage.
99
I bowed my head and did homage
To the Glory of Him who had sent it,
100
Whose commands I [now] had accomplished,
And who had, too, done what He’d promised.
101
[And there] at the Gate of His House-sons
I mingled myself with His Princes;

28
102
For He had received me with gladness,
And I was with Him in His Kingdom;

XXI.
103
To whom the whole of His Servants
With sweet-sounding voices sing praises.
* * * * *
104
He had promised that with him to the Court
Of the King of Kings I should speed,
105
And taking with me my Pearl
Should with him be seen by our King.
29
COMMENTS.
THE PEARL.
Both Hoffmann and Preuschen are of opinion that the Poem is a free elaboration of the chief element in the very briefly recorded Parable of the Pearl which the first Evangelist alone has preserved (Matt. xiii. 45, 46):
"Again the Kingdom [or Kingship] of the Heavens is like unto a merchantman seeking fine pearls; and when he found a pearl of great price, he went and sold all he had and bought it."
This seems hardly sufficient in itself to account for the genesis of our Poem. Certainly for the Gnostics, if the Pearl meant the Kingdom of Heaven in the sense of the Gnosis, it also meant something more definite and intimate, and in

30
all probability the tradition of the mystic meaning went back to pre-Christian days.
Thus the pre-Christian Hellenistic initiate who was the first commentator of the Naassene Document, quotes a mystery-saying of the Phrygians--? from the Mysteries of the Great Mother--as follows:
"If ye have eaten dead things and made living ones, what will ye make if ye eat living things?"
On this the Jewish commentator, who was in high probability a contemporary of Philo of Alexandria--let us say about the first quarter of the first century--writes:
"And by ‘living things’ they mean logoi and minds and men--the ‘pearls’ of the Inexpressible Man cast into the plasm below."
Those logoi, or "words" or "reasons"--that is spiritual minds or true "men"--are the "angels" who perpetually behold the Face of the Father, that is

31
live in the Divine Presence. The Inexpressible Man is the Transcendant Logos, and the logoi are His sons. In brief the Pearl is the "Higher Self."
Later on, in the same Document, the Christian Gnostic writer, who further comments on the interpretation of the Jewish exegete, adds:
"That is what He saith:
"‘Cast not the holy thing to the dogs nor the pearls to the swine.’"
And on this finally the Church Father Hippolytus remarks:
"For they say that the work of swine is the intercourse of man with woman." (H. i. 175).
It is to be noted that in the Chaldæan Oracles (ii. 26 ff.) "dogs" are a technical term for a certain class of "daimones"; so also "swine" may for the Gnostics have designated another class.
In any case we get the equation, pearl=logos; that is, the "light-spark," the ray of the Logos, the Christ-nature in man. And so also in The Acts of John

32
we read the following, in a hymn of praise put into the mouth of John, at the sacred feast prior to his departure from the body. It is addressed to the Christ, and the sentence that concerns us runs:
"We glorify the Resurrection shown unto us through Thee; we glorify Thy Seed, Word (Logos), Grace, Faith, Salt, True Pearl ineffable." (F. p. 440).
It is thus evident that the Pearl is in some way the mystery hidden in man, and, indeed, buried in the body. For "Egypt" is the body.

EGYPT.
Thus in the same invaluable Naassene Document, the Jewish commentator, quoting from some still more ancient commentary, writes:
"This is what is written:
"‘I have said, Ye are Gods and all Sons of the Highest’--if ye hasten to flee from Egypt and get you beyond the Red Sea into the Desert."

33
And to this he himself adds in further explanation:
"That is, from the Intercourse Below to the Jerusalem Above who is the Mother of the Living."
And then he resumes his quotation from presumably some old Jewish Gnostic commentary:
"But if ye turn back into Egypt--(that is, to the Intercourse Below)--‘Ye shall die like men.’"
And on this he again remarks:
"For all the Generation (Genesis) Below is subject to Death, but the [Birth] begotten Above is superior to Death."
And, speaking of the Great Ocean of Genesis, he continues:
"This is the Great Jordan, which, flowing downwards and preventing the Sons of Israel from going forth out of Egypt, or the Intercourse Below, was turned back by Jesus [LXX. for Joshua] and made to flow upwards."
After "Egypt" the Church Father Hippolytus interjects the gloss:

34
"For Egypt is the body, according to them." (H. i. 163, 164).
All of this Gnostic allegorizing is, in high probability, to be assigned to pre-Christian Chassid and allied (e.g. Therapeut) circles, similar to those which developed the ethical teaching of The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which Prof. Charles has, in his just published text and translation, so brilliantly conjectured to have been written about 109--106 B.C. This ethic, he contends, influenced very strongly the writers of the New Testament documents, and anticipated some of the most characteristic Sayings of Jesus.
How the symbolism of Egypt, the Red Sea, the Desert, and the Promised Land, was developed by these Mystics may be seen from what Hippolytus (Ref. vi. 16) summarizes of the system of the Peratæ or Transcendalists, who were contemporaries of the Naassenes.
The Gnostic treatise that the Church Father had before him, was treating of the Great Water or Ocean of Genesis that

35
moistens the soul and plunges it into the Region of Death, according to the word of Heraclitus:
"For to souls water becomes death."
The Peratic writer continues:
"This Death overtakes the Egyptians in the Red Sea together with their chariots [sci. vehicles]. Now all who are ignorant [sci. are without the Gnosis] are Egyptians."
Hippolytus then summarizes as follows:
"And this, they say, is the Going-forth out of Egypt--out of the body. For they consider that the body is a little Egypt, and that they cross over [or transcend--hence their name Peratæ] the Red Sea (that is, the Water of Destruction, which is Kronos [that is, Time]), and reach a state beyond the Red Sea (that is, Generation), and enter the Desert (that is, reach a state free from Generation), where there are all together the Gods of Destruction and the God of Salvation."
And the Peratic writers adds:
"Now the Gods of Destruction are the Stars [that is, the Fate-spheres] which bring upon sentient beings the necessity of changeable Generation [Genesis, the Br~ hmanical and Buddhist Sams~ ra].

36
"These Moses called the Serpents of the Desert who bite and destroy those who imagine they have crossed the Red Sea.
"To the Sons of Israel, therefore, who were being bitten in the Desert, Moses revealed the True Serpent [sci. of Wisdom], the Perfect One; and they who believed on Him, were not bitten in the Desert (that is, by the Powers).
"No one, therefore, is thus able to save and deliver those who come forth from the Land of Egypt (that is, from the body and from the world), save only the Perfect Serpent, Him who is full of [all] fulnesses.
"He who centres his hopes upon Him, is not destroyed by the Serpents of the Desert (that is, by the Gods of Generation)."

37
It is thus evident that for these mystical allegorists Egypt stood for both the body and also the hylic or gross-material realms, and that the use goes back along the Naassene-Ophite trace to pre-Christian Jewish Gnostic circles. It is, therefore, unnecessary to bring forward later passages from Clement of Alexandria and Origen in confirmation of the use.

THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL.
That our Poem is simply an elaboration or embellishment (Ausschmückung--Preuschen, p. 66) of the briefly-recorded Parable of the Pearl, as has been supposed, is a very insufficient hypothesis to account for its genesis. Even if we were so inelastic as to imagine that it must necessarily have its point of departure in canonical scripture, we might more appropriately surmise that it is rather an elaboration of the beautiful Parable of the Prodigal, which is recorded by the third Evangelist alone (Lk. xv. 11-32).

38
That, however, it is something far other than a mere embellishment even of this beautiful Parable, must be evident to the most casual reader. There is originality in it, and its resemblances may, with far greater probability, be referred to knowledge of the inner facts that both Parable and Poem set forth, rather than to any slavish following of the canonical text. Still it is well to remark the resemblances:
The Father and the two Sons, of whom the younger goes forth; the dividing up of the substance (oÙs…a) or living (b…oj); the far country; the joining himself to a citizen of that country--the reverse in the Poem; the eating the food of swine--the symbol of generation; the calling to remembrance of the Father’s household; the return; the running of the Father to meet him, as he speeds to meet the Father, and the kissing of him; the putting on of the robe.
It is, however, evident that the whole matter is treated from another standpoint; it is far more intimate and reveals a full insight into the spiritual mysteries.

39
In the Parable there is no mention of the Divine Mother, the Queen of the East; and this is in keeping with later Rabbinical exclusion of the Divine Feminine. But in the circles of the Mystics the Holy Spirit was regarded as feminine, the Spouse of Divinity, and in the Wisdom-literature Wisdom herself.
As in the other great traditions, so also in pre-Christian Jewish Gnostic circles, the natural Trinity was a fundamental of their symbolism, and so also in many a system of the Christianized Gnosis.
The origin of the Dual Sonship, however, must in one direction at any rate, be sought for along that very obscure line of descent that is called Ophite (Naassene), and which has its roots in the pre-Christian Gnosis and the widespread Myth of Man (see H. i. 139-198).

THE DUAL SONSHIP.
A faint trace of this is preserved for us in a system which the polemical Refutation (I. xxx) of Irenæus associates

40
with the Ophite tradition, but which Theodoret (Hær. Fab. I. xiv.) ascribes to the Sethians. Unfortunately the original Greek text of Irenæus is here lost, and we have to be content with the barbarous Old-Latin translation; in addition the Church Father is very hostile and contemptuous, and at no great pains to understand the objects of his detestation. Such as it is, however, we will set it down:
"But others again give forth portentous utterances: that there dwells in the Power of the Depth a certain Primal Light, blessed, indestructible, boundless; this is the Father of all and is called the First Man.
"They declare further that His Thought proceeding from Him, is the Son of Him who sends forth [His Thought]; and that this Thought is Son of Man, the Second Man.
"That below these again is the Holy Spirit; and below this Highest Spirit, the [Primal] Elements were separated forth--Water, Darkness, Abyss, Chaos; and on these was borne the Spirit, whom they call the First Woman.

41
"Subsequently, they assert, the First Man together with His Son, delighting in the Beauty of the Spirit, that is the Woman, and filling Her with Light, begat from Her Incorruptible Light, the Third Man, whom they call the Christ, Son of the First and the Second Man and of the Holy Spirit, the First Woman."
Here we have clearly set forth the idea of the Dual Sonship--though from a different point of view from that of our Poem--and of Man, Son of Man, a term that occurs frequently in the Gospels, and which so far scholarship refuses to explain gnostically, preferring to lose itself in the philological labyrinth of a quite unsatisfactory Aramaic Bar-N~ sh~ .
That the ruling idea of the Dual Sonship was widespread in Gnostic circles, both non-Christian and Christianized, may be seen from the following parallels,

42
though where we are to seek the prototype of it--whether along some single line of Babylonian, Chaldæan, Magian, Syrian or Egyptian mystagogy, or as a common possession of Chaldæa and Egypt--is hard to say.

I. In the Mago-Chaldæan system underlying the early Simonian document The Great Announcement (see The Gnostic Crucifixion, pp. 40 ff.):
The Power of the Depth
=
The Great Power, Incomprehensible Silence.
The First Man
=
The Father, Mind of the Universals.
Man Son of Man
=
Great Thought.
The First Woman, Holy Spirit or Breath
=
The Middle Distance, Incomprehensible Air.
The Christ
=
He who has stood, stands, and will stand.

2. In the system underlying the Chaldæan Oracles, a Greek mystery-poem of the first century in which Mago-Chaldæan material is "philosophized":
The Power of the Depth
=
God-nurturing Silence.
The First Man
=
The Father, Mind, Fire.
Man Son of Man, The Second Man
=
Mind of Mind, The Second Mind.
The First Woman
=
The Great Mother.
The Christ
=
The Æon (as Monad, Atom, Light-spark, Symbol).

3. Again in the system underlying the oldest extant treatise of the Trismegistic literature, "The Pœmandres" or "Man-Shepherd" (H. ii. 3 ff.):

The Power of the Depth
=
The Silence before the Voice.
The First Man
=
All-Father Mind.
Man Son of Man
=
Formative Mind, The Second Mind.
The First Woman
=
Nature.
The Christ
=
Man, Brother of the Formative Mind.

There is thus little doubt that in Gnostic circles, both pre-Christian and Christian, there was a clear tradition of Two Sons, one who remained, and one who went forth; and the one who went forth or returned was the Christ. Our Poem is therefore a Song of the Christ-Mystery.
"Thy Brother, Our Second," or Next-in-rank, is the Supernal Man, Son of Man; and the Christ, because of His Descent, and His winning of the Pearl of Self-consciousness in manifestation, is exalted to equality with the Supernal Son, or even to still higher rank; yet are they both one.

45
THE ROBE OF GLORY.
It is to be noted that there are two Vestures: the Robe of Glory and the Purple Mantle.
Now in the canonical scriptures John xix. 24 (cf. Matth. xxvii. 35, Mk. xv. 24, Lk. xxiii. 24, all of which look back to Psalm xx. 18) reads:
"They parted my Garments among them;
"And for my Vesture they cast lots."
The fourth Gospel (xix. 23) distinguishes the "Garments" and the "Vesture," adding that the "Coat" (chitÇ n) "was without seam, woven from the top throughout."
Now the chitÇ n, or tunica, was an under-garment, and was generally worn under a woollen cloak, or mantle (chlamys, or toga) during the day.
The writer of the fourth Gospel was a Mystic, and doubtless meant to convey an under-meaning to those who had "ears to hear."

46
As the "Garments" were divided into four among the "four soldiers," can it be that he intended to convey the idea of a Cloak of the four elements, and a Vesture of the one element, or quintessence, the complement of the four? At any rate this would be in keeping with the mystery-teaching concerning the "perfect body" or "body of resurrection," as may be seen from the Mithriac Ritual.
Whether or not he had any such intentions, and whether or not he had further the same ground-ideas in mind as those set forth by the Gnostic poet in our beautiful Hymn, must be left to the opinion of the reader according to his knowledge or ignorance.
The difference between the under-garment and mantle may be seen in many a Mithriac monument; while in the Mithriac Ritual we read (p. 27):
"Thou shalt behold a God. . . in a White Tunic and a Scarlet Mantle."
And again (p. 32):

47
"Thou shalt see . . . a God . . . clad in a Robe of Brightness."
The "Scarlet Mantle" is an exact parallel with the "Purple Mantle" of our Poem.
The nature of the Divine Robe, or, Glory, as a Heavenly Dwelling, was understood by Paul when he writes (I. Cor. v. I ff.):
"For know that if our house on earth of the [fleshly] tabernacle be dissolved, we have a God-made Building, a House not made with hands, eternal [lit. æonian] in the Heavens.
"For, indeed, we are groaning in this [habitation on earth], longing to be clothed with our Heaven-made Habitation."
Paul was well versed in Gnostic nomenclature; and the extended meaning of the Robe of Glory, as it was understood by the Mystics, may be grasped by the present-day Mystic who reads the following passages from one of the inspired outbursts of the beautiful Untitled

48
Apocalypse of the Coptic Gnostic Codex Brucianus:
"In this City it is that they move and live; it is the House of the Father, and the Vesture of the Son, and the Power of the Mother, and the Image of the Fulness [Pl‘ rÇ ma]." (F. p. 547).
And again:
"And they praised the One and Only One, and Conception [or Thought, the Mother], and the Mind-born Logos, praising the Three who are One, for through Him they became supersubstantial.
"And the Father took their whole Likeness and made it into a City or into a Man. He limned the Universe in His [sci. the Man’s] Likeness--that is all these Powers.
"Each one of them knew Him in this City; all began to sing myriads of songs of praise to the Man or the City of the Father of the universe.
"And the Father hath taken His Glory and made it into a Vesture without for the Man. . . . He created His Body in the type of the Holy Pl‘ rÇ ma." (F. p. 566).

49
And yet again the Ineffable Vesture is sung of as follows:
"The First Monad hath sent Him an Ineffable Vesture, which is all Light and all Life, and all Resurrection, and all Love, and all Hope, and all Faith, and all Wisdom, and all Gnosis, and all Truth, and all Peace. . . .
"And in it is the universe, and the universe hath found itself in it, and knows itself therein.
"And it [sci. the Vesture] gave them all light in its Ineffable Light; myriads of myriads of powers were given it, in order that it should raise up the universe once for all.
"It gathered its vestures to itself, and made them after the fashion of a Veil which surrounds it on all sides, and poured itself over them, and raised up all, and separated them all according to order and law and forethought." (F. p. 557).

50
And yet once more from the same high document of deep mystic lore:
"He is the Man begotten of Mind, to whom Reflection gave form.
"Thou hast given all things to the Man. He weareth them like these garments, and putteth them on like these vestures, and wrappeth Himself with creation as with a mantle." (F. p. 562)
If we were to set down all the passages in Gnostic and allied literature connected with the mystery of the Robe of Glory, the Wedding Garment, and the rest of the Light-Vestures of the Soul, we should speedily exhaust the space of this little volume and of several other volumes.
We must, however, find room for a brief notice of the magnificent description of the Descent of the Vesture of Light on the Master, the Gnostic Transfiguration, in the Pistis Sophia (P.S. 5 ff.; F. pp. 259 ff.). The whole subject is treated more fully in my essay on "The Soul-Vestures," in The World-Mystery (2nd ed., pp. 117 ff.):
51
"But the Disciples saw not Jesus because of the Great Light in which He was, or which shone on Him; for their eyes were darkened because of the Great Light in which He was. They saw the Light only, sending forth a host of light-rays.
"And the light-rays were not like to one another. The Light was of various kinds, and it was of various types, from below above, each ray being more admirable than its fellow . . . in a Great Glory of immeasurable Light; it stretched from below the Earth right up unto Heaven. . . .
"It was of three degrees. The first was more admirable than the rest [? of the rays]; the second, which was in the midst, was more admirable than the first which was below it; and the third, which was above them all, was more admirable than the two below it."
The Master explains this mystery to His Disciples as follows:
"Lo, I have not put on my Vesture, and all authority hath been given me by the First Mystery. . . .

52
"It came to pass, when the Sun had risen in the East, that a Great Light-power descended, in which was my Vesture, which I had left behind in the Four-and-twentieth Mystery. . . .
"And I found a Mystery in my Vesture, written in Five Words of those from the Height . . . of which the interpretation is this:
"O Mystery that is Without, in the World, because of which All hath come into existence! This is the whole Out-going and the whole Up-going, which hath emanated all Emanations and all that is therein, because of which all Mysteries exist and all their Regions.
"Come unto us! For we are Thy Fellow-Members [or Limbs]; we are all one with Thee; we are one and the same. Thou art the First Mystery which hath existed from the beginning in the Ineffable before it came forth, and the Name thereof is all of us.

53
"Now, therefore, we all together draw nigh unto Thee at the Last Limit (that is, at the Last Mystery from Within); it is itself a portion of us.
"Now, therefore, we have sent Thee Thy Vesture, which indeed hath belonged to Thee from the beginning, which Thou didst leave behind in the Last Limit, which is the Last Mystery from Within, until its time should be fulfilled, according to the Command of the First Mystery.
"Lo, its time is fulfilled; clothe Thyself therewith!
"Come unto us! For we all draw nigh unto Thee to clothe Thee with the First Mystery and all His Glory, by Commandment of the same; in that the First Mystery hath given us it, consisting of two Vestures, besides the one that we have sent Thee, for Thou art worthy of them; for in sooth Thou art prior to us and came into being before us. Wherefore now hath the First Mystery sent Thee through us the Mystery of all His Glory, two Vestures."

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The text then goes on to enumerate the Hierarchies of Æons, Powers, and Gods, which compose these Heavenly Garments--corresponding detail for detail with the whole emanative potencies of the Universe whereby the Garment of Deity is woven, and then continues its magnificent exposition; the Living Powers which form the Vesture speaking as follows on the Great Day "Be with us"--the moment of Supreme Perfection:
"Lo, therefore, have we sent Thee Thy Vesture, which no one from the First Law [or Precept] downwards hath known; for the Glory of its Light was hidden in it [sci. the Law], and all Regions from the First Law downwards have not known it.
"Make haste, therefore, clothe Thyself with this Vesture, and come unto us! For we draw nigh unto Thee, in order to clothe Thee with thy Two Vestures, which have been for Thee from the beginning with the First Mystery, until the time appointed by the Ineffable should be fulfilled.

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"Come, therefore, to us quickly, that we may clothe Thee with them, until Thou hast fulfilled the whole Ministry of the Perfection of the First Mystery, the Ministry appointed by the Ineffable!
"Come, therefore, to us quickly that we may clothe Thee with them according to the Commandment of the First Mystery! For yet a little while, a very little while, and Thou shalt come to us and leave the world.
"Come, therefore, quickly, that Thou mayest receive Thy whole Glory, the Glory of the First Mystery!"
This gives us all the light we need to throw on the inner meaning of our Poem; it is the inner tradition intended for the initiated, whereas our Poem was intended to be circulated among the people. Which was prior? If the former, then we have found a terminus for the dating, if not of the Pistis Sophia as a whole, then of one of its "sources," and the date must be pushed back into the second century.

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A STORY OF THE INFANCY.
But before we leave the Pistis Sophia there is another instructive passage that is reminiscent of the same ideas which underlie the words: "Unto me I took it and kissed it" (50); and also: "That we were twain in distinction, And yet again one in one likeness" (78). It is an otherwise unknown Story of the Infancy and runs as follows (P.S. pp. 120 ff.):
"And Mary [the Mother] answered and said:
"My Master, concerning the word which Thy Power prophesied through David, to wit: ‘Grace and Truth met together, Righteousness and Peace kissed each other; Truth sprouted out of the Earth, and Righteousness looked down from Heaven’--Thy Power prophesied this word of old concerning Thee.
"When Thou wert a child, before the Spirit had descended upon Thee, whilst thou wert in vineyard with Joseph, the Spirit came from the Height, and came to me in my house, like unto Thee; and I knew Him not, and thought that He was Thou.

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"And the Spirit said unto me: Where is Jesus my Brother, that I may go to meet Him?
"And when He had said this unto me, I was in perplexity and thought it was a phantom [come] to tempt me.
"So I took Him and bound Him to the foot of the bed that was in my house, until I had gone unto you--to Thee and Joseph, in the field--and found you in the vineyard--Joseph propping up the vines.
"It came to pass, therefore, when Thou didst hear me speaking the word unto Joseph, that Thou didst understand the word, and wert joyful and saidest: Where is He that I may see Him? Otherwise I await Him in this place.
"It came to pass when Joseph heard Thee saying these words, that he was troubled, and we went together, we entered

58
the house, and found the Spirit bound to the bed. And we gazed on Thee and Him, and found Thee like unto Him.
"And He that was bound to the bed was loosed; He embraced Thee and kissed Thee, and Thou also didst kiss Him; and ye become one."
I am somewhat persuaded that under the apparently naïve details of this infancy story there is a concealed meaning. Once I gave a lecture in which I endeavoured to suggest what the nature of its under-meaning may have been, but it is too long to set down here.
It is apparently from another "source" of the P. S. document, and not due to the compiler.

THE TWO COURIERS.
The Two Couriers also pertain to the mystery hidden under the symbolism of the Twins which meets us everywhere in the ancient myths and legends of initiation; in reversed reflection they would be the Two Thieves crucified with Him.

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In the Transfiguration-scene in the canonical Gospels, when the Master is clothed with Light, the Two are taken by the unknowing Disciples for Moses and Elias.
In The Gospel of Peter, in the story of the Mystery of the Resurrection, they are seen as Two Men, of the appearance of Light, whose heads reach unto heaven.
This mystic tradition may be compared with the more prosaic "two men in shining garments" of the third Gospel; while its Gnostic analogue may be seen in the Two Great Beings reaching unto heaven, of whom the precise mystic dimensions are given, in the Nazoræan, or Galilean, scripture, The Book of Elxai, that is The Book of the Hidden Power (see Did Jesus live 100 B.C.? pp. 365 ff.).
In the Pistis Sophia, as Receivers of Light, they are called Gabriel and Michael, who led "the Light-stream over Pistis Sophia"--the repentant faithful soul (P.S. 130 ff.), and who elsewhere in the same document take back the souls to the Light. They lead "the Light-stream into Chaos and bring it forth again" (P.S. 133).

60
In the Book of Enoch (lxxi. 3) it is Michael who brings Enoch before the most High, and Abraham to the Throne of God.
The Two Angels of opposite sex--allegorizing or substantializing the man’s good and evil deeds--who lead the soul through the Middle Distance are native to the Magian and presumably Old Iranian traditions.
In Hellenic mythology and Hellenistic mystagogy it is Hermes who is the psychagogue and psychopomp, and he bears in his hand a Rod twined about with the Serpent Twins.

THE ALLEGORICAL GEOGRAPHY.
The geography of the way down from Hyrcania to Egypt, and back again, is consistent with itself (18-20, 69-71), but puzzling in some of its details.

61
Hyrcania was the mountainous region on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea.
The territory of Maish~ n lay between Mesopotamia and the sea; Maish~ n the city (For~ t Maish~ n = ? Messene) was in all probability the chief emporium of the sea-borne commerce of Babylonia and the West with India, and lay slightly to the south of the present-day Basra.
Babylonia was the Tigris-Euphrates valley.
Sarbã g is a puzzle. The best solution seems to be that it stands for the City of Babylon itself. Now, strangely enough, the Greek, in both traditions, renders Sarbã g by the "Labyrinth." This may possibly refer to the labyrinth of the streets of the great city. But it may also preserve for us a hint of how the geography was allegorized by the Gnostic exegetes; for "The Labyrinth"

62
was a technical term of the Gnosis, as may be seen from a fine Naassene Hymn, two lines of which, referring to the soul, run as follows:
"Now is born, with no way out for her; in misery
She enters in her wandering the Labyrinth of ills." (H. i. 191).
Whatever the precise situation of the otherwise unknown Sarbã g may have been, it must be very patent to the Mystic that the Gnostic poet intended it for a certain stage of the descent of the soul, or spiritual mind, into the regions of manifestation.
Hoffmann (pp. 289 ff.) has attempted an interpretation on these lines. The Way of the Soul, he says, leads from (1) Heaven as the God-realm, through (2) the Firmament, to (3) the Earth--corresponding with the three natures of man: spirit, soul, and body.

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He further sets forth a diagrammatic representation as follows:

[Diagram included in print edition is not reproduced]

N =
The Region of the Ineffable, the Mountain of the Gods, Hyrcania. This is the Over-world or Pl‘ rÇ ma.
E =
The Heaven of the Fixed Stars, Æther, the Midst, the Virgin of Light (of P.S.).
Between this and the Earth comes the Boundary of the Over-world and the World (=S), or Maish~ n.

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Next comes the Earth-heaven or Firmament, Babel.

W =
Egypt, the Earth and the Under-world.

This seems to me a somewhat too elaborate scheme; but if it can stand, it strengthens the case for priority of the scheme underlying the Pistis Sophia to our Poem.
Maish~ n is the Mart of the Merchants of the East, and therefore should represent the borders or limit of the material world, or hylic cosmos, its uttermost region upwards.
Babel-land and Sarbã g would thus stand for the state or states lying between the region of direct commerce with the East (or Light-world)--that is, the region of the Heaven-world or Elysium--and the Earth-state.
These are presumably the states of the Middle Distance--that is, Hades; for in l. 50 we are told that the Letter is sealed:

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"’Gainst the Children of Babel, the wicked, The tyrannical Daimons of Sarbã g."
These are presumably under the rule of the Prince of the Powers of the (Lower) Air.
The rest of our space may now be devoted to a few notes of detail, and to an endeavour to suggest some considerations of a mystical nature that may be of interest to those who delight in such studies, on the ground that the whole Poem is concerned with the mystery of the Light-spark, or Spiritual Man, or Son-ship, or Christ-nature.

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NOTES.
[Notes are referenced by verse number, given in the right column]
1
The opening words seem to suggest, from the human point of view, the Birth of the Christ-nature and its state before it descends into manifestation, or drops into personality.
The "little child" may be taken to denote the Light-spark (or } tmic ray), as it was symbolically termed by the Gnostics; in itself it is no "spark," but the potentiality of the Fullness (Pl‘ rÇ ma) itself. To aid our dim intuition it may be regarded as "born" onto the plane of the spirit from the ever-divine states of the Fatherhood and Motherhood, of Divine Light and Life.
"Little child," or "little one," means also a certain stage of initiation, when the man below, the personal man, is bringing to birth, that is to consciousness, the spiritual or Christ nature in himself.

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It is characterized by purity, innocence (harmlessness), spiritual instinct (not mind in its ratiocinative mode), childlikeness. In our Poem, however, it is not the man who is speaking, but the Spark or Son-ship.
The "Father’s Kingdom" is the state of } tman, and the "House" is spiritual Personality or Individuality, the Home of the Higher Self.
2
It is a state of Bliss, the activities of the Child are of the nature of Bliss; and the "Upbringers," or Nurturers, are the Arms of the Divine Life in which the Child is cradled. "Wealth" and "Glories" are characteristics of the Kingdom. The Nurturers, as Nurses of the Divine Infant, might be perhaps more appropriately characterized by "fulness" and "richness."
3
"From the East." "East" often does not so much refer to a particular state or a definite plane; it indicates rather a

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direction, which connotes as it were the power of cutting directly through planes. Birth from the East is not so much a birth viâ planes, that is a stirring of matter, as an inner way of immediate arrival. But in the text it does not seem to be used in such a precise sense.
4
The "Treasure" seems to denote the Jewels, that is, the senses or instincts, of the Spiritual Mind. There was a certain "binding up" of it; this suggests the first defining of space or limitation of the Spirit.
It was "large" and "light," spacious but as yet not heavy or possessed of gravity, that is tension or relation to personal environment.
5
The Treasure was carried in the "heart" of the man; that is, in the innermost substance of his nature.
6
"Land of G§ l~ n." The Geli (oƒ GÁloi) were a people who inhabited the district

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now called G§ l~ n, on the south-west shore of the Caspian. Bevan, however, prefers "land of the upper ones," and the Greek has it also.
Ganz~ k, or Gazz~ k, was a district in Atropat‘ n‘ (} dharbaij~ n).
The Greek has: "Gold of the great treasures uncoined."
7
Kã sh~ n is perhaps K~ sh~ n in Persia, north of Ispahan.
8
It may be that a precise symbolism, connected with the nature of the perfected "formal mind," may be hidden under the names of the precious stones, some of which are of uncertain translation. They would thus suggest a pure vesture of a formal nature, corresponding with the mineral kingdom, with which the soul or self is equipped or furnished.
The Greek glosses the Robe as "of gold tissue with jewels incrusted."
It is of "Gold" and "Silver"; that is, has "Sun" and "Moon" powers.

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"Chalcedonies," or "Agates," are a puzzle; but the "iris-hued," or iridescent, colouring well represents the shimmer of all colours of the pure "glory," or purified "aura."
The Greek has "pearls" for "iris-hued [stones]."
All this is "bound" to the spiritual man by the power of the hardest of all the precious stones.
He is "armed" with it, according to the Greek. Compare "Armour of Sounding Light" of The Chaldæan Oracles, ii. 45.
Whether or not there is in the term "Adamant" (Diamond) a play on the Adamus (Adam, the Primal Man) of the Mysteries, must be left to the decision of the reader. It is of interest, however, in this connection to set down a passage from the Naassene Document. Referring to the allegorical "Rock" to which the souls cling in the Odyssey, the Jewish commentator writes:

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"The ‘Rock’ means Adamas. This is: ‘The Corner stone’ which ‘I insert in the Foundation of Zion.’
"By this [Foundation] he [Isaiah] means the plasm of man." (H. i. 161.)
10
"Purple Mantle." Purple is a sign of royalty; for our Poet is singing of a Royal Soul. (See The Chaldæan Oracles, ii. 74.)
Hoffmann makes the Mantle or Toga = anima naturaliter divina. Compare l. 26:

"And my rank did long for its nature."

"Stature" is in its root-sense a "standing upright," and may be compared with the idea of Him "who has stood, stands, and shall stand" of The Great Announcement. (See The Gnostic Crucifixion, p. 41.) It is the Spiritual Mind of man, his inner steadfastness and stability, and his own measurement and monument.
11
The "Compact," or Covenant or Ordinance, may be compared with the words

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of one of the Hymns of the Sophia (P.S. 64):

"Thy Commandment [or Statute], (O Light,) hath brought me Below, and I am descended like a Power of Chaos; my Power hath grown cold in me."

It was written "in the heart" (cf. l. 55). This means, mystically, written in the spiritual "blood" of the man, in the life-substance of him, in the very atoms of his substance. It was not engraved on the mind, but written deep down in the heart, so that it should not be forgotten.
Memory is connected with past, present, and future; but this record could not be really wiped out even when time should be no more.
12
The "Pearl" is the Living Gnosis, or again the self-realization of the Logos in man, or again the "Kingdom of Heaven," or rather the "Kingship of the Heavens."

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But why should these living ideas be symbolized by a "pearl"--a precious thing, yet the product of disease?
If we may be permitted to speculate on the further meaning of a physical fact not known to the ancient Gnostics, we might suggest that Living Gnosis cannot be gained without the help of the Opposing Powers, the mystical Adversary.
Gnosis from one point of view is the union of the spiritual and personal man. When the spiritual self would attain to Divine consummation, there must be a descent into the spheres of personality, where people and things live, so to speak, within "shells." The spiritual man has to "steal" from within the Great Shell, or from within the shell side of things, that most precious gem which is the product of self-will or "disease"--that is of the "Opposer."
This mystery may also be called a "pearl" because, on the substance side of things, the man in whom Gnosis is born, or who is born in Gnosis, is for ever

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after wrapped in a pearly Glory, or his substance becomes pearl-like to the opened eye of the seer.
The oyster, or "jelly fish" or plasm, is the "shell" of personality, is the man of "flesh," or unevolved buddhic substance. The Impersonal Spirit, or } tman, at an earlier stage of evolution, descends and stirs this substance to create, broods over it, and it creates a "pearl," which from the personal and selfish point of view is not at first advantageous to the "jelly fish."
This "pearl" again, later on, is a pure substance or ichÇ r which the buddhic nature creates or secretes when } tman begins to energize in the man.
13
The "loud-breathing Serpent" is Typhon, the Opposer; the Lord of the passions or opposing forces of the planes of form.
The Greek has "the Serpent the Swallower," and Hoffmann has "poison-breathed."

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The "Sea" is, of course, the Ocean of Genesis, the manifested planes, or states of manifestation; it is the Ocean of life-and-death, or repeated birth, the Ever-becoming, the Sams~ ra of the Br~ hmans and Buddhists. The "poison," if "poison-breathed" is the correct translation, reveals Typhon (Apep§ ); it is the cause of the "disease" operated by the Opposer.
14
The Pearl is thus again perfected root-form, or the "permanent atom" of experience, so to speak, to which the Robe of Glory and Mantle of Royalty can be attached, and so union be achieved between the upper and lower.
The Robe is the Cosmic Texture of Light and Life, and is stamped and sealed by the Great Name of the Spiritual Individuality.
15
"Thy Brother," as we have seen in the comments (p. 45), means from one point of view the Demiurgic or Architectural or

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Building Power, in an inner mystical sense the Obedient Opposer of Life, own Twin to } tman. In a still more mysterious sense that is not brought out in our Poem, } tman, the Christ, may be said to go to seek His lost Brother (in the Christianized Gnosis this was generally His lost Sister or Spouse, the Sophia or Wisdom); they unite in the Mystery of the Sacred Marriage or At-one-ment, and become Heir of Infinity and Eternity.
The Christ descends and carries off or saves the Pearl, thus attaching Himself to the Pure Essence, purified by suffering, born of the energy of the Opposer within form, and so wins the way back to the Kingdom. The Opposer is Next-in-rank to God.
It has been suggested that because of this "twin" idea our Poem has been very appropriately inserted into the Acts of Judas Thomas, that is, of Judas the Twin of Jesus; and certainly this hidden mysticism of Judas the Twin and Judas the Betrayer was highly elaborated by

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the Gnostics, so that we even find traces of a Gospel of Judas.
16
The "Couriers," or Messengers (lit. Letter-carriers, Per. Parw~ nk§ n), are, in one sense, a Twin-Ray from the Mind of the Master of all masterhood, Boundless Light, the true Father-Mother of the Soul that is striving to bring itself to birth.
17
The "Way" from the "East," in its more immediate mystical meaning, denotes a direct path through matter by means of a Ray of the True Sun, of the nature of a "lightning-flash," as set forth so graphically in the mystery-poem known as The Chaldæan Oracles (II. 19); it "blazes" directly through matter, and does not meander through the labyrinth of the planes. In our Poem, however, there is a descent through planes or states.
Maish~ n perhaps connotes the plane of the Quintessence or One Element

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(Buddhi), the complement and source of the four.
The Land of Babel suggests presumably the confused sounds (the confusion of tongues) of the personal "astral" or emotional state; and the walls of Sarbã g may stand for the city of the personal formal mind, the labyrinth of personal-mind-made planes.
Thereon comes the plunge into the physical body (Egypt), when the direct guidance of the Twin-Ray ceases for a time.
21
In mystical physiology this Serpent may signify something within the "blood," or perhaps the "elemental essence," which must sleep, or be quieted, before the heavenly ichÇ r can be born, or the "pearl," the real root-purity within form, be detached from the downward current, and attached again to } tman. Compare A Mithriac Ritual (p. 28):

"For that a man--I, N.N., Son of

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N.N. (fem.)--born of the mortal womb--of N.N. (fem.)--and of spermatic ichÇ r, yea of this ichÇ r, which at Thy Hands to-day hath undergone the transmutation of re-birth [or birth from Above]--one, from so many tens of thousands, transformed to immortality in this same hour, by God’s good pleasure, of God transcendent Good--,[a man, I say] presumes to worship Thee, and supplicates with whatsoever power a mortal hath."

Compare this with the ancient reading of the Great Utterance at the Mystical Baptism Rite:
"Thou art my Beloved Son; this day have I begotten thee!"
The "lodging" is, literally, a "lodging-place for travellers"--that is to say, an inn, or caravanserai. The Greek has simply "den" or "hole." And here we may call to mind the following paragraph

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from Hippolytus’ summary of Valentinian doctrine:
"And this material man is, according to them, as it were, an inn, or dwelling-place, at one time of the soul alone, at another time of the soul and daimonian existences [elemental essences], at another of the soul and words [logoi, or angels or reasonable essences] which are words sown from Above--from the Common Fruit of the Pl‘ rÇ ma [the Christ] and Wisdom [the Divine Mother]--into this world, dwelling in the body of clay together with the soul, when daimons ceased to cohabit with her." (F. p. 352).
This is the body in Egypt, or the hylic world or cosmos of gross matter. As the original Jewish writer of the canonical Apocalypse tells us (Rev. xi. 7,8):
"‘The Beast that ascendeth out of the Abyss shall make war with’ them, ‘and overcome them,’ and slay them.

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"And their carcase [shall lie] in the street of the Great City, which is spiritually called ‘Sodom’ and Egypt."
To which the Christian over-writer adds:
"Where also our Lord was crucified."
24
Who this noble youth from the East may be mystically, I am unable precisely to conjecture, unless it refers to the "voice of conscience," the spiritual tendencies in the natural man. The reader, however, may be reminded of the supposition in the Preamble (p. 13), that historically it may be autobiographical.
Preuschen interprets it in terms of the Gospel-story; the Son being the Christ, and the noble youth Jesus. But this does not work out.
28
I have adopted the reading of Nicetas; the Syriac "I warned him" seems hopelessly confusing.

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Before the true reunion can take place, not only must the "evil one" be "saved," but the "saviour" must be "lost," and dealt with "treacherously"; the Christ must be "betrayed." Without this there would not be perfect balance. It is the formal mind that betrays.
The "food" is the "food of the world" of P.S. 346; compare also the passage (ibid. 282):
"And the Babe eateth of the Delights [or Food-stuffs] of the World of the Rulers; and the Power absorbeth from the portion of the Power which is in the Delights; and the Soul absorbeth from the portion of the Soul that is in the Delights; and the Counterfeit Spirit absorbeth from the portion of the Evil which is in the Delights and in its desires; whilst the Body absorbeth from the unperceptive Matter (Hyl‘ ) which is in the Delights."
With the forgetfulness, or oblivion,

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induced by the Victuals, or Delights, compare a passage from one of the Hymns of Repentance of the Sophia (P.S. 63):
"They have taken away my Light, and my Power is dried up.
"I have forgotten my Mystery which I performed from the beginning.
"Because of the din [or confusion] of the Fear and Power of Arrogant [the Opposer, the Serpent of self-interest], my Power hath failed me."
The "draught of oblivion," or forgetfulness, is also described at length in the Pistis Sophia (see, for instance, pp. 281, 385).
35
The "weight of their victuals" is paralleled in P.S. (281) by the "very heavy weight of forgetfulness."
In a wider and more mystical sense the food that } tman now eats has to do with the formal mind in the mode of subject and object; thus is its simplicity

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differentiated, and it becomes food and food-eater, and so is brought down into time and objects; and then the curse of memory and forgetfulness begins, and the true natural instinctual awareness of the Spirit sleeps.
The spiritual germ has now become embedded in man and is fast asleep in substance; and a great impulse, an earthquake, is required to arouse it and awake it from the dead.
For "And this is the counsel they came to," Bevan gives: "So they wove a plan on my behalf."
If "plan" is the key-word, then, taking it in conjunction with the idea of the Letter to which every Prince, or Noble, set his Name, we may hazard the conjecture that, in one sense, it may be taken as referring to the mystery of re-incarnation; it suggests the weaving, out of all previous lives, some sort of a plan or destiny, stamped with the Name of every Prince.

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The Princes may be thought of as "facets" of the King; they represent the "faces" or "personæ" of the Spiritual Mind, or Highest Self. They would thus stand for not all the prior existences of the man, but rather such lives as had been able to manifest some portion of that Spiritual Mind.
The Letter might thus be said to be woven out of the "substance" of previous lives, to which each proper person or facet of the spiritual Wholeness supplies its due share. This immediately attracts the soul in its last incarnation, for it is itself.
This Letter or Plan, woven out of the permanencies of a man’s previous incarnations, is sealed by the Father of } tman, so that it shall not be torn to pieces as it descends through the regions or planes. It would naturally have a tendency to be scattered; its substance would naturally remain on the plane of substance, its mind-tendencies on the plane of mind; but that would be to be no more

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permanencies from all the planes, the fruitage of experience.
These are now gathered together into one Plan which is sealed by the Father of universals, or wholenesses or monads or æons, and so it continues to be whole even until it reaches the man, "right down" on the physical plane or in his natural body; and that is how wholeness in consciousness is born. It is a sort of germ of wholeness.
41
"King of kings." Compare Rev. xix. 16:
"And He hath in His Vesture and on His Thigh a Name written: King of kings and Lord of lords."

"Remember thy glorious Robe," and "The Book of the Heroes." Compare Rev. iii. 5:
"He who thus conquereth [by not defiling his garments] shall be clothed in

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White Robes, and I will not blot his Name out of the Book of Life."
Every man has his "book" and there is a Great Book. See Rev. xx. 12:
"And I saw the Dead, the great and little, standing in the Presence of the Throne, and [their] ‘books were opened’ [Dan. vii., 10]. And another Book was opened, which is ‘[The Book] of Life’ [Dan. xii., I]."
51
The Eagle, or Hawk, was the name of the highest grade of the Mithriaca--the Fathers. See A Mithriac Ritual (p. 18), where the Father’s prayer ends:
"So that I, Eagle as I am, by my own self may soar to Heaven, and contemplate all things."
The Eagle-letter--which may be paralleled with the Descent of the Dove in the Baptism-Mystery--flew in the air

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the Bright Æther of the Supernal Realms, or the state of Divine Breath (} tman); as it contacted the inmost or spiritual plasm of the man, his Buddhic nature, or the nature of his Depth, the Depth of his substance, it became "all sound" or "all speech."
The Buddhic nature is the Quintessence or One Element, the Aith‘ r or Æther, the Shining One; just as in Sanskrit } -k~ sha is par excellence the Very Shining One, and its root-characteristic is "sound."
It was a true Bath-Kol, or Voice from Heaven, as the mystical Rabbis called it. Lit. Bath-Kol = Daughter of the Voice; that is to say, Echo of the Word or Name.
53
This Voice is the Inner Voice, the Voice Within, the Voice of the Silence. The "sound of its winging," or "the sound of its rustling," suggest another great symbol: the rustling or the activities of the "leaves" (powers and permanencies)

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on the man’s true "Tree of Life," as the Wind or Divine Breath stirs them, thus awaking them to true activity and life.
54
"I took it and kissed it," etc. Thereby the two united; the "seal" which held it together as a wholeness was "loosed," and there was union. The Plan and Heart united, atom matched atom in "Mind" and "Blood." The Intelligible married the Sensible, and the Christ was born, the Eternal Memory.
55
"E’en as it stood in my heart writ." It is written by the Scribe of the Gods, Thoth the Divine, the Tongue and Heart of the Eternal. Compare II. Cor. iii., 2:
"Ye are our Letter written in our hearts."
62
"Filthy and unclean garments"--that is, the man’s unrhythmic "bodies" or

90

rather "vehicles." He leaves his personal-plane garments or vehicles behind on each plane, like a butterfly leaving his grub-case; only these do not die, or go into trance, they go on with their "filthy" or "daily" duties. They are the bodies of "dross." (See The Chaldæan Oracles, ii. 38).
64
His Great Plan, or Spiritual Mind-and-Substance, goes on before, precedes and proceeds. Its Voice or Life is its feminine power that awakens and brings to birth; its Light is its masculine potency that guides, controls, orders--the mode that happens after the awakening or resurrection.
66
The "fabric of silk" and "letters of red" suggest Buddhic substance and } tmic radiance.
Burkitt translates:
"For it began to make its silken folds to glow."

91
69
And so the "Spark" passes "up" or "in" through the planes, though indeed it does not move; the Spark becomes a Flame. It is the life and journey of a Spark and not of any man-neophyte; though of course the life and journey of any initiate would have many things in common.
70
"The meeting-place of the merchants." This and the next line seem to be a doublet.
72
Father-Mother, the Supreme Mystery, give the Glory-Robe of Spiritual Life and Light to the Twin-Powers of Spiritual Mind, to bestow it on the returning Victor (or Prodigal) ascending the Sacred Way in Triumph.
The Robe is sent down from Hyrcania, which for the Parthians was the Mount of the Gods, the Height of Heaven, their Meru.
76
"The Glory looked like my own self."

92

This is the same idea as that which underlies the mirror-play of Iacchos, the Young Bacchus of the Mysteries. Compare also II. Cor. iii. 18:
"With unveiled face mirroring the Glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same Likeness [or Image] from Glory to Glory as by the Breath of the Lord."
Burkitt translates:
"Myself I saw as in a glass before my face."
77
When the illuminated neophyte first sees the Self in all things, he sees it as himself reflected in all things. This is a great danger for many.
86
"The King of Kings’ Image" suggests that originally the Embroidered Robe had been woven by the Mother only;

93

but now it is stamped all over with the Image or Likeness of the Father.
87
"With Sapphires." Compare Ezekiel i. 26:
"And above the Firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a Throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the Throne was the likeness as the appearance of a Man upon it."
And also Exodus xxiv. 10:
"And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under His Feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, as it were the Body of Heaven in his clearness."
88
"The Motions of Gnosis." There is a suggestion here of a certain dramatic state of consciousness where, by the man’s own activities, he talks to himself.
The Robe is as it were the one uniting

94

substance, or quintessence, which holds all things in its embrace, and with it comes the idea of reflection from oneself onto it; so that when the illumined seer contemplates it all the activities or motions of any object become knowledges, or everything seems to stir as if to speak, or become vocal, so that by these activities vital knowledge or gnosis is increased. It is the self talking to the self by means of action.
91
I follow Burkitt’s emended version in his review of Preuschen.
99
"The Glory of Him who had sent it." Compare Rev. xxi. 23:
"For the Glory of God did lighten it [the Heavenly City], and the Lamb is the Lamp thereof."
103
The Greek "sweet-sounding" is rendered by Hoffmann as "water-organs," and he refers to Rev. i. 15:

95

"And His Voice as the sound of many waters."
And also Rev. xix. 6:
"And I heard as it were the Voice of a great multitude, and as the Voice of many waters, and as the Voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia!"
And again Jeremiah li. 16, 55:
"When He uttereth His Voice there is a multitude of waters."
"Because the Lord hath spoiled Babylon, and destroyed out of her the Great Voice; when her waves do roar like great waters, a noise of their voice is uttered."
104
Professor Burkitt writes:
"The remains of yet another stanza

96

of the Hymn appear in Syriac. Only three lines are preserved; one is untranslatable, the second is utterly unmetrical, and the third--which appears to be the concluding line of the Poem--contains a very doubtful word. Probably the copy used by the editor who inserted the Hymn in The Acts of Thomas was badly damaged at the end. The fragments, thus completed, seem to be genuine, for we almost require some mention of the Pearl at the end of the Poem. I cannot attempt to venture the two missing lines, but the general sense appears to be as follows:"
Now, while with acclamation all His courts resound,
I wait until His gracious Promise be fulfilled:
That with Him to the Royal Council I should go,
And with my Pearl appear before them at His side.

97
Whatever may be its precise interpretation--and the Mystic at any rate knows that in vital things there cannot possibly be one formal interpretation only--there will be few who will not admit that this ancient Poem of the Gnosis is beautiful. For ourselves, we end with the hope that, when it is better known, no few may find it inspiring and illuminating also.

Note.--Journal of Theological Studies (London, April, 1908), vol. ix. No. 35, p. 473, in a review by C. H. W. Johns of Emil Behren’s Assyrisch-babylonische Briefe Kultischen Inhalts aus Sargonidenzeit (Leipzig, 1906):
"The mention of Nabã ’s writing the ‘Credit on account’ of the King and his sons in the ‘Book of life to last for ever’ is noteworthy. Deeply interesting are the pilgrimages of the King’s ‘double’ and the royal cloak (or pallium?)."

[End]
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Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

2009-02-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,

With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapour everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,

And far, in forest-deeps unseen,

The topmost elm-tree gather'd green

From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:

Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:

Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,

Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:

By grassy capes with fuller sound

In curves the yellowing river ran,

And drooping chestnut-buds began

To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,

With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring:

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,

Buckled with golden clasps before;

A light-green tuft of plumes she bore

Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,

Now by some tinkling rivulet,

In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:

And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs

By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings

With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,

The happy winds upon her play'd,

Blowing the ringlet from the braid:

She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,

A man had given all other bliss,

And all his worldly worth for this,

To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

THE JOURNEYER

2008-09-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

Over dusty roads he travels on his journey of life, his heart is steadfast his mind set on delight

dressed all in black a silver sword at his side, to hack his way through forests of untruth and lies

he traverses lost continents of the mind, in dreams, sages sends him visions through time

he walks at ease amongst both kings and peasants, diamonds, gold, silver and pearls are not his treasures

he knows that worldly things are not a true measure, and that flesh is merely window dressing at best

his strong steady hands can soothe those in need, but woe those who supports evil in thought or in deed

He scorns the traps set for the unwary in the world of illusions, and nimbly navigates his way through the maze of confusion

that although verdant and green to the gaze of the watcher, holds a serpent at its centre to poison those who dare enter

he strives for the gifts of wisdom purity and a true heartand when he falls he gets up and turn back to the path

Mabon

2008-03-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

AUTUMN EQUINOX (Mabon)

Natural magic for couples

Apple, apple, red as blood (cut the apple in half)

As two become, two hearts in one

(apples have a five-pointed star in their centres)

I call to each one from afar

A herb for her, a herb for him

(a cut is made and a herb is inserted)

A touch of fire to seal it in

(light a candle from a taper)

Bind with the cord to make them one

(tie around with scarlet cord)

As I will, so be it done (bury the apple in the ground)

Southern Hemisphere: 21 MarchNorthern Hemisphere: 21 September Also known as Michaelmas, Alban Elfed, Harvest Home.Deities: Modron, Herne, Cernunnos, Mannanan Mac Lyr, Ishtar, Isis, Demeter, Persephone, Rhiannon.Colours: Orange, red, yellow, gold, russet.Incense: Clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, myrrh, sage, juniper, pine, cedar.Traditional Motifs: Cornucopia, autumn leaves, pine cones, gourds, corn cobs, mushrooms, apples.

The Equinoxes are times of equilibrium. Day and night are equal and the tide of the year flows steadily, but whilst the Spring Equinox manifests the equilibrium before action, the Autumn Equinox represents the repose after action, the time to take satisfaction in the work of the Summer and reap its benefits. The Autumn Equinox is the second harvest festival, both grain and fruit having been gathered in. This is the time of the Vine. The God, who was Lord of the Greenwood in the Summer, and the Corn King at Lughnasadh, now dances his last dance upon the Earth, as Dionysus, the Greek God of Wine, Music and Dance, before making his descent to the underworld to take up his role as Dread Lord of Shadows.

The God's presence is shadowy. His face is turned towards the Underworld, yet He is heard in each sign of the wind and glimpsed in the shades of early dusk. He leads us to the hidden, inward places of our souls and invites us to explore.

The leaves falling from the trees and rotting into the Earth are a reflection of the Horned God's journey from the Greenwood to the Underworld, deep into the womb of the Mother, here He will reside until He begins to emerge with the new green shoots in the Spring. The Autumn Equinox marks the completion of the harvest, and thanks giving, with the emphasis on the future return of that abundance.

The Eleusinian mysteries took place at this time, during which the initiate was said to have been shown a single ear of grain with the words "In silence is the seed of wisdom gained". Another aspect of these mysteries was "Know thyself" which seems appropriate for the coming months. During the Winter months energy levels drop and the Autumn Equinox is the time to ready ourselves, to look at our "harvest" of accomplishments, to refine and redefine our intentions.

The Voice - Matthew Arnold

2008-01-18T22:36:00.000-08:00

As the kindling glances,

Queen-like and clear,

Which the bright moon lances

From her tranquil sphere

At the sleepless waters

Of a lonely mere,

On the wild whirling waves,

mournfully, mournfully,

Shiver and die.

As the tears of sorrow

Mothers have shed -

Prayers that tomorrow

Shall in vain be sped

When the flower they flow for

Lies frozen and dead -

Fall on the throbbing brow,

fall on the burning breast,

Bringing no rest.

Like bright waves that fall

With a lifelike motion

On the lifeless margin of the sparkling Ocean;

A wild rose climbing up a mouldering wall -

A gush of sunbeams through a ruined hall -

Strains of glad music at a funeral -

So sad, and with so wild a start

To this deep-sobered heart,

So anxiously and painfully,

So drearily and doubtfully,

And oh, with such intolerable change

Of thought, such contrast strange,

O unforgotten voice, thy accents come,

Like wanderers from the world's extremity,

Unto their ancient home!

In vain, all, all in vain,

They beat upon mine ear again,

Those melancholy tones so sweet and still.

Those lute-like tones which in the bygone year

Did steal into mine ear -

Blew such a thrilling summons to my will,

Yet could not shake it;

Made my tost heart its very life-blood spill,

Yet could not break it.

The Myth of Eros and Psyche

2007-12-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

The story of Psyche and Eros offers a great deal of insight into the archetype of Eros and his significance in the astrological chart. The most recent detailed mythology regarding Eros comes from The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius in 170 AD and portrays the love story of Psyche and Eros.

This myth is no less relevant for its extensive study, analysis and use as models for relationship, the emergence of consciousness, and the path of erotic love.The story opens with a description of Psyche’s two older sisters. They were extremely beautiful, yet when Psyche grew into womanhood, it was said of her:

“ Yet the singular passing beauty and maidenly majesty of the youngest daughter did so far surmount and excel them two (sisters), as no earthly creature could by any means sufficiently express or set out the same.”

Psyche is a beauty. She enchants her father’s modest kingdom with an unobtainable and virginal loveliness that sets the inhabitants to worshiping. In only a short time, word of Psyche’s beauty has spread throughout the countryside and people swarm to see her. Meanwhile, Aphrodite’s temples are neglected.

Predictably, Aphrodite is insulted by this delinquency and filled with more than a little angst. In a jealous rage, she elicits the help of her son Eros to punish the usurping Psyche and the mortals that adore her. She instructs Eros to pierce Psyche with one of his golden tipped arrows causing her to fall in love with a worthless, wretched and vial being. While Eros and Aphrodite plot her demise, Psyche pines.

Psyche, although exceedingly beautiful, feels lonely and miserable. The known world may worship her, but no real man comes courting. She is like an object of art, a rare painting or precious vase. Apuleius goes on:

“Psyche…lamented her solitary life, and being disquieted both in mind and body, although she pleased all the world, yet hated she in her self her own beauty.”

Concerned by his youngest daughter’s despair, Psyche’s father seeks the advice of the Oracle of Apollo. He is shocked by what he hears for it seems the King’s precious daughter must be sacrificed to a demon god, or terrible ruin would befall the kingdom. Apuleius’ quotes the oracle:

“Let Psyches corps be clad in mourning weed And set on rock of yonder hill aloft: Her husband is no wight of humane seed, But Serpent dire and fierce as might be thought. Who flies with wings above in starry skies, And doth subdue each thing with firie flight. The gods themselves, and powers that seem so wise, With mighty Jove, be subject to his might, The rivers black, and deadly floods of pain, And darkness eke, as thrall to him remain.”

Psyche accepted her fate as the entire kingdom despondently joined the funeral procession to the lonely rock where she is to meet her “death” and marry the “serpent dire”. Psyche then questions her parent’s belated remorse.

“Why torment you your unhappy age with continual dolou? …Now you see the reward of my excellent beauty: now, now you perceive, but too late, the plague of envy. When the people did honor me, and call me the new Venus, then ye should have wept, then you should have sorrowed as though I had been dead: for now I see and perceive that I am come to this misery by the only name of Venus, bring me, and as fortune hath appointed, place me on the top of the rock, I greatly desire to end my marriage, I greatly covet to see my husband. Why doe I delay?

Why should I refuse him that is appointed to destroy all the world.”

No one suspects that Eros, the son of Aphrodite, the golden god of love, has accidentally pricked himself on one of his own arrows and fallen madly in love with the mortal Psyche. None of Psyche’s distraught family members could guess that Eros plans to abduct her for himself. Although at this point, we might examine the oracle of Apollo more closely and ask if it may actually be Eros the augury is referring to.

Eros then sends Zephyrs, god of the North wind, to retrieve Psyche from the rock and bring her to his palace. There Psyche’s wishes are tended by invisible servants who anticipate her every need. She rests, bathes and eats surrounded by gold, ivory and jeweled mosaics that adorn the enchanted home of the god of love.

With unseen musicians playing a heavenly symphony, Eros comes to Psyche by night and makes “perfect consummation” of their marriage. Night after night he keeps her company, stealing away only just before dawn. He has made Psyche promise to never look upon his face and initially she agrees. She is enchanted by the palace, her new husband and the magical servants who cater to her every need. Only the tiniest bit of loneliness befalls her in the day.

However, her loneliness and desire for human contact grows until she passes both the days and nights with tears of distress and longing. Eros, concerned by her condition, finally agrees to allow Psyche’s sisters to visit, but he warns her again not to gaze upon his face. Her curiosity, he said, would bring about the end of their life together and cause the child growing inside her to be mortal, not divine.

The visit from Psyche’s sisters turns out to be as destructive as Eros feared. Feigning joy at their reunion, Psyche’s siblings are actually stricken with fierce jealousy. They suggest her husband is an evil serpent who needs destroying before he devours Psyche and her unborn child whole. They press her to hide a razor and a lamp near the bed. When he falls asleep, she is to light the lamp and cut off his head. Psyche is flooded with anxiety mixed with the fear that they may speak the truth!

Torn between loyalty to her sisters and loyalty to her husband, she eventually gets up, lights the lamp and approaches the bed with the razor. When Psyche discovers that her husband is the stunning and resplendent god Eros, she is overwhelmed by the vision. In rapture she accidentally pricks herself on one of his arrows and adds “love upon love” to what she already feels for him. She covers him with kisses and in doing so a splash of hot oil burns the beautiful god and he jumps up, looks at her with astonishment and bolts. Psyche grabs his leg and holds on as he leaps into the air until she finally drops to the ground in exhaustion. He lands near her saying:

“O simple Psyche, consider with thy self how I, little regarding the commandment of my mother (who willed me that thou shouldst be married to a man of base and miserable condition) did come my self from heaven to love thee, and wounded mine own body with my proper weapons, to have thee to my Spouse: And did I seem a beast unto thee, that thou shouldst go about to cut off my head with a razor, who loved thee so well? Did not I always give thee a charge? Did not I gently will thee to beware? But those cursed adlers and Counselors of thine shalt be sufficiently punished by my absence."

Shocked, overwhelmed, and suffering greatly, Psyche experienced a crucial point in her relationship with Eros. At last, she discovers the inheritance of her unborn child. She also finally understands who it is she has fallen in love with. For Psyche, there is no turning back. She must reunited with Eros or die.

This point in the myth is not suggesting we never look at the face of Eros. or that by never questioning him will guarantee his presence forever. It is more an account of discovering what we really want and the steps necessary to obtain it. Until now, Psyche didn’t know who she loved. This knowledge, however, does not make Psyche any less despairing. As she watches his figure recede into the distance, she throws herself into a river in hopes of drowning.

As chance would have it, the river, being a friend of Eros, places Psyche back safely on the bank. As she looked up from the muddy shore, she saw Pan, instructing, or perhaps seducing, a young woman. He looked upon the disheveled Psyche and said:

“O faire maid, I am a rusticke and rude heardsman, howbeit by reason of my old age expert in many things, for as far as I can learn by conjecture (which according as wise men do term is called divination) I perceive by your uncertain gate, your pale hew, your sobbing sighs, and your watery eyes, that you are greatly in love.”

Pan goes on to suggest to Psyche that she forgo suicide and focus on devoting herself to winning Eros back. It seems his advice is taken to heart.

Psyche’s first action is to confront her jealous sisters. Upon entering her older sister’s city Psyche explains that it was the son of Aphrodite that was her husband but when he saw she had betrayed him, he sent her away and said he’d have her sister instead. Excited by this news, her sister raced to the mountain and beseeched Zephyrs to carry her to Eros, but as she leapt off the rock, no wind lifted her and she crashed to her death in the fall. The same happened to the second sister and thus Psyche was revenged.

Meanwhile, Eros fled to his mother’s house to have his burn tended. Empathetic at first, Aphrodite became enraged when she discovered Eros’s disloyalty in taking Psyche as his own. She admonishes Eros for betraying her wishes and removes his bow and arrows, cuts his hair and clips his wings. She probably slammed the door as she stormed out as well.Aphrodite then solicits the aid of Hera and Ceres to help her find Psyche, but they, fearing Eros’s darts at some point in the future, try to reconcile the mother to her son.

Aphrodite will not be soothed.

By now Psyche realizes her only course of action is to seek out the forgiveness of Aphrodite. She approaches the palace of the goddess of love to pray for redemption although that is not what she receives. Aphrodite humiliates Psyche, has her whipped and beaten and then presents her with a series of impossible tasks.

Psyche’s first task in regaining Eros is to sort an enormous pile of mixed grains. She must separate them by evening. As Aphrodite smugly shuts the door behind her, Psyche goes into a catatonic state of despair. She can not even attempt to sort the grains. The task is that impossible. As she lays crumpled on the ground sobbing, a tiny ant comforts her. Calling to his friends, more and more ants come and by evening the grains are sorted neatly into their individual piles by the tiny insects.

It is important to notice that the help offered to psyche is completely unconscious. She neither actively requests aid or contributes any effort in the sorting of the grains. This image may suggest the myriad mixed feeling and emotions that course through the mind and body of one “stricken with love”. It also may imply the innate ability of the body to sort those feelings out, one by one, although not with the aid of consciousness, but by its acquiescence.

When Aphrodite returns and sees the labor complete, she assigns Psyche a more difficult task. She instructs the girl to go out into a field in the burning sun and collect golden wool from the fleece of man-eating rams.

Psyches gets up, not to do as Aphrodite commanded but to throw herself headlong into the water again to drown. Then a green reed speaks to her saying:

“O Psyches I pray thee not to trouble or pollute my water by the death of thee, and yet beware that thou go not towards the terrible sheep of this coast, until such time as the heat of the sun be past, for when the sun is in his force, then seem they most dreadful and furious, with their sharp horns, their stony foreheads and their gaping throats, wherewith they arm themselves to the destruction of mankind. But until they have refreshed themselves in the river, thou maist hide thy self here by me, under this great plain tree, and as soon as their great fury is past, thou maist go among the thickets and bushes under the wood side and gather the locks their golden Fleeces, which thou shalt find hanging up on the briers.”

It seems the dangerous and passionate rams were unapproachable in their wild state. Direct confrontation would mean certain death, just as anger and hatred, although they can erupt along side of love, can also be love’s death.

Having contained the burning passion of the wild rams, Psyche presents handfuls of golden wool to Aphrodite by morning. Without pause, Psyche immediately receives another labor.
Now she must gather water from the deadly waters of the river Styx. She receives only a crystal bottle to contain the black liquid, the sight of which brings fear even to the hearts’ of the gods.

As Psyche climbed up the path towards the headwaters of Styx, she intended again to end her life. She could glean no hope of ever accomplishing her task. When she arrived at the crest she stopped stone still and gazed at the two giant and bloody necked dragons guarding the precipice which marked, hundreds of feet below, the caustic rive Styx.

Psyche faints again. She felt nothing in her body or her heart, neither could she take action of any kind. At this point, Zeus’s eagle offers to help. (It is not clear whether Zeus sent him or he came of his own accord, yet there is implication that Zeus felt indebted to Eros for the affair with Ganimedes, the young boy made cup bearer to the gods.) The great Eagle spoke to Psyche and offered to take the bottle and collect the deadly black water himself. This he does and Psyche, not of her own accord, completes yet another task.

Unlike the fierce and wild nature of the passionate rams, the waters of the river Styx may represent the cold cruel hatred of frozen feelings. It seems these too must be sought and contained if Eros is to be won back. Like the wool and the sorting of the grain, Psyche must step aside, stand still, or even sleep, allowing the unconscious to complete the task.

Readers who find it frustrating that Psyche never seems to gain any overt courage, resolve or strength from her subsequent tasks probably view this “stepping aside” as weak or degrading. On the contrary, in this case it is the necessary and only way to accomplish the labor. At times, to acquiesce takes more courage than to fight.

Aphrodite then gives Psyche a final task, requiring her to descend into the underworld. She has to borrow some of Persephone’s beauty and place it in a box. She must deliver the box to Aphrodite, unopened and untouched.

Again, psyche’s first and foremost response is suicide. What quicker way to get to Hades than to die? She climbs to the top of a tower and attempts to throw herself off. The tower, however, is inspired, (it is unclear by whom), and speaks to Psyche.

He instructs her on how to enter the underworld without dying, how to avoid the distractions that will play upon her virtue and humanity, how to behave with Persephone and how to get out alive, with the box of beauty intact. Finally, Psyche gets to perform a task herself!

She follows the tower’s instructions to the letter. She ignores the lame man, the floating corpses, and the desperate weaving women. She ignores her ego drives to aid and assist. She allows Charon to extract a coin from her mouth and she tosses honey cakes to the terrifying three headed dog, Cerberus, who guards the gates of Hell. She is careful to accept no nourishment while in the underworld. She humbly procures the box of beauty from Persephone and retraces her steps back past Cerberus, across the river Styx and into the light of day.

It is then, her final task completed with full consciousness, that she causes her own death.
“When Psyches was returned from hell, to the light of the world, she was ravished with great desire, saying, Am not I a fool, that knowing that I carry here the divine beauty, will not take a little thereof to garnish my face, to please my love with all? And by and by she opened the box where she could perceive no beauty nor any thing else, save only an infernal and deadly sleep, which immediately invaded all her members as soon as the box was uncovered, in such sort that she fell down upon the ground, and lay there as a sleeping corpse.”

As Psyche slips into a deadly coma, Eros finally rises from his brooding. He sneaks out of the tower room in his mother’s palace, finds his wings and flies straight to Psyche.
It appears that the labors of Psyche have simultaneously transformed Eros as well.

“Eros, the fiery flighty spirit who came and went secretly and refused to be seen in the light, has acquired at least the substance of a healed wound. The Eros she knows now is…produced by the Soul’s contemplation of the Divine Mind; it is the medium through which she can finally be present to “that other loveliness”. He is the carrier of divine beauty which must, to become united with psyche and soma, be touched by the pain of earthly life.

Eros awakens Psyche with a prick from one of his arrows, returns the beauty to its box and says.

“O wretched captive, behold thou were well-nigh perished again, with the overmuch curiosity: well, go thou, and do thy message to my Mother, and in the mean season, I will provide for all things accordingly."

Obviously, his anger with Psyche has lost its edge. What Eros provided for was Psyche’s immortality, bestowed by Zeus and blessed, finally, by Aphrodite. The banquet on Mt. Olympus was attended by all the gods and goddesses, greater and lesser, demonstrating their universal admiration and acknowledgement of the union.

Not long after, a divine child was born to Psyche and Eros. The name they gave her was Pleasure.

In pursuing (Eros), we pursue our greatest desire. Yet, after all, we live in ignorance of how it will approach. We can only listen, and pray, for the sounds of Eros’ soft, quivering wings.”

The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen

2007-11-26T19:46:00.000-08:00

FAR out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects. We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand. No, indeed; the most singular flowers and plants grow there; the leaves and stems of which are so pliant, that the slightest agitation of the water causes them to stir as if they had life. Fishes, both large and small, glide between the branches, as birds fly among the trees here upon land. In the deepest spot of all, stands the castle of the Sea King. Its walls are built of coral, and the long, gothic windows are of the clearest amber. The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them. Their appearance is very beautiful, for in each lies a glittering pearl, which would be fit for the diadem of a queen.

The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him. She was a very wise woman, and exceedingly proud of her high birth; on that account she wore twelve oysters on her tail; while others, also of high rank, were only allowed to wear six. She was, however, deserving of very great praise, especially for her care of the little sea-princesses, her grand-daughters. They were six beautiful children; but the youngest was the prettiest of them all; her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the others, she had no feet, and her body ended in a fish’s tail. All day long they played in the great halls of the castle, or among the living flowers that grew out of the walls. The large amber windows were open, and the fish swam in, just as the swallows fly into our houses when we open the windows, excepting that the fishes swam up to the princesses, ate out of their hands, and allowed themselves to be stroked.

Outside the castle there was a beautiful garden, in which grew bright red and dark blue flowers, and blossoms like flames of fire; the fruit glittered like gold, and the leaves and stems waved to and fro continually. The earth itself was the finest sand, but blue as the flame of burning sulphur. Over everything lay a peculiar blue radiance, as if it were surrounded by the air from above, through which the blue sky shone, instead of the dark depths of the sea. In calm weather the sun could be seen, looking like a purple flower, with the light streaming from the calyx. Each of the young princesses had a little plot of ground in the garden, where she might dig and plant as she pleased. One arranged her flower-bed into the form of a whale; another thought it better to make hers like the figure of a little mermaid; but that of the youngest was round like the sun, and contained flowers as red as his rays at sunset. She was a strange child, quiet and thoughtful; and while her sisters would be delighted with the wonderful things which they obtained from the wrecks of vessels, she cared for nothing but her pretty red flowers, like the sun, excepting a beautiful marble statue. It was the representation of a handsome boy, carved out of pure white stone, which had fallen to the bottom of the sea from a wreck. She planted by the statue a rose-colored weeping willow. It grew splendidly, and very soon hung its fresh branches over the statue, almost down to the blue sands. The shadow had a violet tint, and waved to and fro like the branches; it seemed as if the crown of the tree and the root were at play, and trying to kiss each other. Nothing gave her so much pleasure as to hear about the world above the sea. She made her old grandmother tell her all she knew of the ships and of the towns, the people and the animals. To her it seemed most wonderful and beautiful to hear that the flowers of the land should have fragrance, and not those below the sea; that the trees of the forest should be green; and that the fishes among the trees could sing so sweetly, that it was quite a pleasure to hear them. Her grandmother called the little birds fishes, or she would not have understood her; for she had never seen birds.

“When you have reached your fifteenth year,” said the grand-mother, “you will have permission to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, while the great ships are sailing by; and then you will see both forests and towns.”

In the following year, one of the sisters would be fifteen: but as each was a year younger than the other, the youngest would have to wait five years before her turn came to rise up from the bottom of the ocean, and see the earth as we do. However, each promised to tell the others what she saw on her first visit, and what she thought the most beautiful; for their grandmother could not tell them enough; there were so many things on which they wanted information. None of them longed so much for her turn to come as the youngest, she who had the longest time to wait, and who was so quiet and thoughtful. Many nights she stood by the open window, looking up through the dark blue water, and watching the fish as they splashed about with their fins and tails. She could see the moon and stars shining faintly; but through the water they looked larger than they do to our eyes. When something like a black cloud passed between her and them, she knew that it was either a whale swimming over her head, or a ship full of human beings, who never imagined that a pretty little mermaid was standing beneath them, holding out her white hands towards the keel of their ship.

As soon as the eldest was fifteen, she was allowed to rise to the surface of the ocean. When she came back, she had hundreds of things to talk about; but the most beautiful, she said, was to lie in the moonlight, on a sandbank, in the quiet sea, near the coast, and to gaze on a large town nearby, where the lights were twinkling like hundreds of stars; to listen to the sounds of the music, the noise of carriages, and the voices of human beings, and then to hear the merry bells peal out from the church steeples; and because she could not go near to all those wonderful things, she longed for them more than ever. Oh, did not the youngest sister listen eagerly to all these descriptions? and afterwards, when she stood at the open window looking up through the dark blue water, she thought of the great city, with all its bustle and noise, and even fancied she could hear the sound of the church bells, down in the depths of the sea.

In another year the second sister received permission to rise to the surface of the water, and to swim about where she pleased. She rose just as the sun was setting, and this, she said, was the most beautiful sight of all. The whole sky looked like gold, while violet and rose-colored clouds, which she could not describe, floated over her; and, still more rapidly than the clouds, flew a large flock of wild swans towards the setting sun, looking like a long white veil across the sea. She also swam towards the sun; but it sunk into the waves, and the rosy tints faded from the clouds and from the sea.

The third sister’s turn followed; she was the boldest of them all, and she swam up a broad river that emptied itself into the sea. On the banks she saw green hills covered with beautiful vines; palaces and castles peeped out from amid the proud trees of the forest; she heard the birds singing, and the rays of the sun were so powerful that she was obliged often to dive down under the water to cool her burning face. In a narrow creek she found a whole troop of little human children, quite naked, and sporting about in the water; she wanted to play with them, but they fled in a great fright; and then a little black animal came to the water; it was a dog, but she did not know that, for she had never before seen one. This animal barked at her so terribly that she became frightened, and rushed back to the open sea. But she said she should never forget the beautiful forest, the green hills, and the pretty little children who could swim in the water, although they had not fish’s tails.

The fourth sister was more timid; she remained in the midst of the sea, but she said it was quite as beautiful there as nearer the land. She could see for so many miles around her, and the sky above looked like a bell of glass. She had seen the ships, but at such a great distance that they looked like sea-gulls. The dolphins sported in the waves, and the great whales spouted water from their nostrils till it seemed as if a hundred fountains were playing in every direction.
The fifth sister’s birthday occurred in the winter; so when her turn came, she saw what the others had not seen the first time they went up. The sea looked quite green, and large icebergs were floating about, each like a pearl, she said, but larger and loftier than the churches built by men. They were of the most singular shapes, and glittered like diamonds. She had seated herself upon one of the largest, and let the wind play with her long hair, and she remarked that all the ships sailed by rapidly, and steered as far away as they could from the iceberg, as if they were afraid of it. Towards evening, as the sun went down, dark clouds covered the sky, the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, and the red light glowed on the icebergs as they rocked and tossed on the heaving sea. On all the ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling, while she sat calmly on the floating iceberg, watching the blue lightning, as it darted its forked flashes into the sea.

When first the sisters had permission to rise to the surface, they were each delighted with the new and beautiful sights they saw; but now, as grown-up girls, they could go when they pleased, and they had become indifferent about it. They wished themselves back again in the water, and after a month had passed they said it was much more beautiful down below, and pleasanter to be at home. Yet often, in the evening hours, the five sisters would twine their arms round each other, and rise to the surface, in a row. They had more beautiful voices than any human being could have; and before the approach of a storm, and when they expected a ship would be lost, they swam before the vessel, and sang sweetly of the delights to be found in the depths of the sea, and begging the sailors not to fear if they sank to the bottom. But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the howling of the storm. And these things were never to be beautiful for them; for if the ship sank, the men were drowned, and their dead bodies alone reached the palace of the Sea King.

When the sisters rose, arm-in-arm, through the water in this way, their youngest sister would stand quite alone, looking after them, ready to cry, only that the mermaids have no tears, and therefore they suffer more. “Oh, were I but fifteen years old,” said she: “I know that I shall love the world up there, and all the people who live in it.”

At last she reached her fifteenth year. “Well, now, you are grown up,” said the old dowager, her grandmother; “so you must let me adorn you like your other sisters;” and she placed a wreath of white lilies in her hair, and every flower leaf was half a pearl. Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.
“But they hurt me so,” said the little mermaid.

“Pride must suffer pain,” replied the old lady. Oh, how gladly she would have shaken off all this grandeur, and laid aside the heavy wreath! The red flowers in her own garden would have suited her much better, but she could not help herself: so she said, “Farewell,” and rose as lightly as a bubble to the surface of the water. The sun had just set as she raised her head above the waves; but the clouds were tinted with crimson and gold, and through the glimmering twilight beamed the evening star in all its beauty. The sea was calm, and the air mild and fresh.

A large ship, with three masts, lay becalmed on the water, with only one sail set; for not a breeze stiffed, and the sailors sat idle on deck or amongst the rigging. There was music and song on board; and, as darkness came on, a hundred colored lanterns were lighted, as if the flags of all nations waved in the air. The little mermaid swam close to the cabin windows; and now and then, as the waves lifted her up, she could look in through clear glass window-panes, and see a number of well-dressed people within. Among them was a young prince, the most beautiful of all, with large black eyes; he was sixteen years of age, and his birthday was being kept with much rejoicing. The sailors were dancing on deck, but when the prince came out of the cabin, more than a hundred rockets rose in the air, making it as bright as day. The little mermaid was so startled that she dived under water; and when she again stretched out her head, it appeared as if all the stars of heaven were falling around her, she had never seen such fireworks before. Great suns spurted fire about, splendid fireflies flew into the blue air, and everything was reflected in the clear, calm sea beneath. The ship itself was so brightly illuminated that all the people, and even the smallest rope, could be distinctly and plainly seen. And how handsome the young prince looked, as he pressed the hands of all present and smiled at them, while the music resounded through the clear night air.

It was very late; yet the little mermaid could not take her eyes from the ship, or from the beautiful prince. The colored lanterns had been extinguished, no more rockets rose in the air, and the cannon had ceased firing; but the sea became restless, and a moaning, grumbling sound could be heard beneath the waves: still the little mermaid remained by the cabin window, rocking up and down on the water, which enabled her to look in. After a while, the sails were quickly unfurled, and the noble ship continued her passage; but soon the waves rose higher, heavy clouds darkened the sky, and lightning appeared in the distance. A dreadful storm was approaching; once more the sails were reefed, and the great ship pursued her flying course over the raging sea. The waves rose mountains high, as if they would have overtopped the mast; but the ship dived like a swan between them, and then rose again on their lofty, foaming crests. To the little mermaid this appeared pleasant sport; not so to the sailors. At length the ship groaned and creaked; the thick planks gave way under the lashing of the sea as it broke over the deck; the mainmast snapped asunder like a reed; the ship lay over on her side; and the water rushed in.

The little mermaid now perceived that the crew were in danger; even she herself was obliged to be careful to avoid the beams and planks of the wreck which lay scattered on the water. At one moment it was so pitch dark that she could not see a single object, but a flash of lightning revealed the whole scene; she could see every one who had been on board excepting the prince; when the ship parted, she had seen him sink into the deep waves, and she was glad, for she thought he would now be with her; and then she remembered that human beings could not live in the water, so that when he got down to her father’s palace he would be quite dead. But he must not die.

So she swam about among the beams and planks which strewed the surface of the sea, forgetting that they could crush her to pieces. Then she dived deeply under the dark waters, rising and falling with the waves, till at length she managed to reach the young prince, who was fast losing the power of swimming in that stormy sea. His limbs were failing him, his beautiful eyes were closed, and he would have died had not the little mermaid come to his assistance. She held his head above the water, and let the waves drift them where they would.

In the morning the storm had ceased; but of the ship not a single fragment could be seen. The sun rose up red and glowing from the water, and its beams brought back the hue of health to the prince’s cheeks; but his eyes remained closed. The mermaid kissed his high, smooth forehead, and stroked back his wet hair; he seemed to her like the marble statue in her little garden, and she kissed him again, and wished that he might live. Presently they came in sight of land; she saw lofty blue mountains, on which the white snow rested as if a flock of swans were lying upon them. Near the coast were beautiful green forests, and close by stood a large building, whether a church or a convent she could not tell. Orange and citron trees grew in the garden, and before the door stood lofty palms. The sea here formed a little bay, in which the water was quite still, but very deep; so she swam with the handsome prince to the beach, which was covered with fine, white sand, and there she laid him in the warm sunshine, taking care to raise his head higher than his body.

Then bells sounded in the large white building, and a number of young girls came into the garden. The little mermaid swam out farther from the shore and placed herself between some high rocks that rose out of the water; then she covered her head and neck with the foam of the sea so that her little face might not be seen, and watched to see what would become of the poor prince. She did not wait long before she saw a young girl approach the spot where he lay. She seemed frightened at first, but only for a moment; then she fetched a number of people, and the mermaid saw that the prince came to life again, and smiled upon those who stood round him. But to her he sent no smile; he knew not that she had saved him. This made her very unhappy, and when he was led away into the great building, she dived down sorrowfully into the water, and returned to her father’s castle.

She had always been silent and thoughtful, and now she was more so than ever. Her sisters asked her what she had seen during her first visit to the surface of the water; but she would tell them nothing. Many an evening and morning did she rise to the place where she had left the prince. She saw the fruits in the garden ripen till they were gathered, the snow on the tops of the mountains melt away; but she never saw the prince, and therefore she returned home, always more sorrowful than before. It was her only comfort to sit in her own little garden, and fling her arm round the beautiful marble statue which was like the prince; but she gave up tending her flowers, and they grew in wild confusion over the paths, twining their long leaves and stems round the branches of the trees, so that the whole place became dark and gloomy. At length she could bear it no longer, and told one of her sisters all about it. Then the others heard the secret, and very soon it became known to two mermaids whose intimate friend happened to know who the prince was. She had also seen the festival on board ship, and she told them where the prince came from, and where his palace stood.

“Come, little sister,” said the other princesses; then they entwined their arms and rose up in a long row to the surface of the water, close by the spot where they knew the prince’s palace stood. It was built of bright yellow shining stone, with long flights of marble steps, one of which reached quite down to the sea. Splendid gilded cupolas rose over the roof, and between the pillars that surrounded the whole building stood life-like statues of marble. Through the clear crystal of the lofty windows could be seen noble rooms, with costly silk curtains and hangings of tapestry; while the walls were covered with beautiful paintings which were a pleasure to look at. In the centre of the largest saloon a fountain threw its sparkling jets high up into the glass cupola of the ceiling, through which the sun shone down upon the water and upon the beautiful plants growing round the basin of the fountain. Now that she knew where he lived, she spent many an evening and many a night on the water near the palace. She would swim much nearer the shore than any of the others ventured to do; indeed once she went quite up the narrow channel under the marble balcony, which threw a broad shadow on the water. Here she would sit and watch the young prince, who thought himself quite alone in the bright moonlight.

She saw him many times of an evening sailing in a pleasant boat, with music playing and flags waving. She peeped out from among the green rushes, and if the wind caught her long silvery-white veil, those who saw it believed it to be a swan, spreading out its wings. On many a night, too, when the fishermen, with their torches, were out at sea, she heard them relate so many good things about the doings of the young prince, that she was glad she had saved his life when he had been tossed about half-dead on the waves. And she remembered that his head had rested on her bosom, and how heartily she had kissed him; but he knew nothing of all this, and could not even dream of her. She grew more and more fond of human beings, and wished more and more to be able to wander about with those whose world seemed to be so much larger than her own. They could fly over the sea in ships, and mount the high hills which were far above the clouds; and the lands they possessed, their woods and their fields, stretched far away beyond the reach of her sight. There was so much that she wished to know, and her sisters were unable to answer all her questions. Then she applied to her old grandmother, who knew all about the upper world, which she very rightly called the lands above the sea.

“If human beings are not drowned,” asked the little mermaid, “can they live forever? do they never die as we do here in the sea?”

“Yes,” replied the old lady, “they must also die, and their term of life is even shorter than ours. We sometimes live to three hundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foam on the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here of those we love. We have not immortal souls, we shall never live again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see.”

“Why have not we an immortal soul?” asked the little mermaid mournfully; “I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars.”

“You must not think of that,” said the old woman; “we feel ourselves to be much happier and much better off than human beings.”
“So I shall die,” said the little mermaid, “and as the foam of the sea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything I can do to win an immortal soul?”

“No,” said the old woman, “unless a man were to love you so much that you were more to him than his father or mother; and if all his thoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and the priest placed his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here and hereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you would obtain a share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen. Your fish’s tail, which amongst us is considered so beautiful, is thought on earth to be quite ugly; they do not know any better, and they think it necessary to have two stout props, which they call legs, in order to be handsome.”

Then the little mermaid sighed, and looked sorrowfully at her fish’s tail. “Let us be happy,” said the old lady, “and dart and spring about during the three hundred years that we have to live, which is really quite long enough; after that we can rest ourselves all the better. This evening we are going to have a court ball.”

It is one of those splendid sights which we can never see on earth. The walls and the ceiling of the large ball-room were of thick, but transparent crystal. May hundreds of colossal shells, some of a deep red, others of a grass green, stood on each side in rows, with blue fire in them, which lighted up the whole saloon, and shone through the walls, so that the sea was also illuminated. Innumerable fishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on some of them the scales glowed with a purple brilliancy, and on others they shone like silver and gold. Through the halls flowed a broad stream, and in it danced the mermen and the mermaids to the music of their own sweet singing. No one on earth has such a lovely voice as theirs. The little mermaid sang more sweetly than them all.

The whole court applauded her with hands and tails; and for a moment her heart felt quite gay, for she knew she had the loveliest voice of any on earth or in the sea. But she soon thought again of the world above her, for she could not forget the charming prince, nor her sorrow that she had not an immortal soul like his; therefore she crept away silently out of her father’s palace, and while everything within was gladness and song, she sat in her own little garden sorrowful and alone.

Then she heard the bugle sounding through the water, and thought—“He is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes depend, and in whose hands I should like to place the happiness of my life. I will venture all for him, and to win an immortal soul, while my sisters are dancing in my father’s palace, I will go to the sea witch, of whom I have always been so much afraid, but she can give me counsel and help.”

And then the little mermaid went out from her garden, and took the road to the foaming whirlpools, behind which the sorceress lived. She had never been that way before: neither flowers nor grass grew there; nothing but bare, gray, sandy ground stretched out to the whirlpool, where the water, like foaming mill-wheels, whirled round everything that it seized, and cast it into the fathomless deep. Through the midst of these crushing whirlpools the little mermaid was obliged to pass, to reach the dominions of the sea witch; and also for a long distance the only road lay right across a quantity of warm, bubbling mire, called by the witch her turfmoor. Beyond this stood her house, in the centre of a strange forest, in which all the trees and flowers were polypi, half animals and half plants; they looked like serpents with a hundred heads growing out of the ground. The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root to the top. All that could be reached in the sea they seized upon, and held fast, so that it never escaped from their clutches. The little mermaid was so alarmed at what she saw, that she stood still, and her heart beat with fear, and she was very nearly turning back; but she thought of the prince, and of the human soul for which she longed, and her courage returned.

She fastened her long flowing hair round her head, so that the polypi might not seize hold of it. She laid her hands together across her bosom, and then she darted forward as a fish shoots through the water, between the supple arms and fingers of the ugly polypi, which were stretched out on each side of her. She saw that each held in its grasp something it had seized with its numerous little arms, as if they were iron bands. The white skeletons of human beings who had perished at sea, and had sunk down into the deep waters, skeletons of land animals, oars, rudders, and chests of ships were lying tightly grasped by their clinging arms; even a little mermaid, whom they had caught and strangled; and this seemed the most shocking of all to the little princess.

She now came to a space of marshy ground in the wood, where large, fat water-snakes were rolling in the mire, and showing their ugly, drab-colored bodies. In the midst of this spot stood a house, built with the bones of shipwrecked human beings. There sat the sea witch, allowing a toad to eat from her mouth, just as people sometimes feed a canary with a piece of sugar. She called the ugly water-snakes her little chickens, and allowed them to crawl all over her bosom.

“I know what you want,” said the sea witch; “it is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish’s tail, and to have two supports instead of it, like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with you, and that you may have an immortal soul.” And then the witch laughed so loud and disgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and lay there wriggling about. “You are but just in time,” said the witch; “for after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw.

You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you.”

“Yes, I will,” said the little princess in a trembling voice, as she thought of the prince and the immortal soul.

“But think again,” said the witch; “for when once your shape has become like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return through the water to your sisters, or to your father’s palace again; and if you do not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to forget his father and mother for your sake, and to love you with his whole soul, and allow the priest to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will never have an immortal soul. The first morning after he marries another your heart will break, and you will become foam on the crest of the waves.”

“I will do it,” said the little mermaid, and she became pale as death.

“But I must be paid also,” said the witch, “and it is not a trifle that I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught. My own blood must be mixed with it, that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword.”

“But if you take away my voice,” said the little mermaid, “what is left for me?”
“Your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes; surely with these you can enchain a man’s heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draught.”

“It shall be,” said the little mermaid.

Then the witch placed her cauldron on the fire, to prepare the magic draught.
“Cleanliness is a good thing,” said she, scouring the vessel with snakes, which she had tied together in a large knot; then she pricked herself in the breast, and let the black blood drop into it. The steam that rose formed itself into such horrible shapes that no one could look at them without fear. Every moment the witch threw something else into the vessel, and when it began to boil, the sound was like the weeping of a crocodile. When at last the magic draught was ready, it looked like the clearest water.

“There it is for you,” said the witch. Then she cut off the mermaid’s tongue, so that she became dumb, and would never again speak or sing. “If the polypi should seize hold of you as you return through the wood,” said the witch, “throw over them a few drops of the potion, and their fingers will be torn into a thousand pieces.” But the little mermaid had no occasion to do this, for the polypi sprang back in terror when they caught sight of the glittering draught, which shone in her hand like a twinkling star.

So she passed quickly through the wood and the marsh, and between the rushing whirlpools. She saw that in her father’s palace the torches in the ballroom were extinguished, and all within asleep; but she did not venture to go in to them, for now she was dumb and going to leave them forever, she felt as if her heart would break. She stole into the garden, took a flower from the flower-beds of each of her sisters, kissed her hand a thousand times towards the palace, and then rose up through the dark blue waters.

The sun had not risen when she came in sight of the prince’s palace, and approached the beautiful marble steps, but the moon shone clear and bright. Then the little mermaid drank the magic draught, and it seemed as if a two-edged sword went through her delicate body: she fell into a swoon, and lay like one dead. When the sun arose and shone over the sea, she recovered, and felt a sharp pain; but just before her stood the handsome young prince.

He fixed his coal-black eyes upon her so earnestly that she cast down her own, and then became aware that her fish’s tail was gone, and that she had as pretty a pair of white legs and tiny feet as any little maiden could have; but she had no clothes, so she wrapped herself in her long, thick hair. The prince asked her who she was, and where she came from, and she looked at him mildly and sorrowfully with her deep blue eyes; but she could not speak.

Every step she took was as the witch had said it would be, she felt as if treading upon the points of needles or sharp knives; but she bore it willingly, and stepped as lightly by the prince’s side as a soap-bubble, so that he and all who saw her wondered at her graceful-swaying movements.

She was very soon arrayed in costly robes of silk and muslin, and was the most beautiful creature in the palace; but she was dumb, and could neither speak nor sing.

Beautiful female slaves, dressed in silk and gold, stepped forward and sang before the prince and his royal parents: one sang better than all the others, and the prince clapped his hands and smiled at her. This was great sorrow to the little mermaid; she knew how much more sweetly she herself could sing once, and she thought, “Oh if he could only know that! I have given away my voice forever, to be with him.”

The slaves next performed some pretty fairy-like dances, to the sound of beautiful music. Then the little mermaid raised her lovely white arms, stood on the tips of her toes, and glided over the floor, and danced as no one yet had been able to dance. At each moment her beauty became more revealed, and her expressive eyes appealed more directly to the heart than the songs of the slaves. Every one was enchanted, especially the prince, who called her his little foundling; and she danced again quite readily, to please him, though each time her foot touched the floor it seemed as if she trod on sharp knives.

The prince said she should remain with him always, and she received permission to sleep at his door, on a velvet cushion. He had a page’s dress made for her, that she might accompany him on horseback. They rode together through the sweet-scented woods, where the green boughs touched their shoulders, and the little birds sang among the fresh leaves. She climbed with the prince to the tops of high mountains; and although her tender feet bled so that even her steps were marked, she only laughed, and followed him till they could see the clouds beneath them looking like a flock of birds travelling to distant lands. While at the prince’s palace, and when all the household were asleep, she would go and sit on the broad marble steps; for it eased her burning feet to bathe them in the cold sea-water; and then she thought of all those below in the deep.

Once during the night her sisters came up arm-in-arm, singing sorrowfully, as they floated on the water. She beckoned to them, and then they recognized her, and told her how she had grieved them. After that, they came to the same place every night; and once she saw in the distance her old grandmother, who had not been to the surface of the sea for many years, and the old Sea King, her father, with his crown on his head. They stretched out their hands towards her, but they did not venture so near the land as her sisters did.

As the days passed, she loved the prince more fondly, and he loved her as he would love a little child, but it never came into his head to make her his wife; yet, unless he married her, she could not receive an immortal soul; and, on the morning after his marriage with another, she would dissolve into the foam of the sea.

“Do you not love me the best of them all?” the eyes of the little mermaid seemed to say, when he took her in his arms, and kissed her fair forehead.

“Yes, you are dear to me,” said the prince; “for you have the best heart, and you are the most devoted to me; you are like a young maiden whom I once saw, but whom I shall never meet again. I was in a ship that was wrecked, and the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple, where several young maidens performed the service. The youngest of them found me on the shore, and saved my life. I saw her but twice, and she is the only one in the world whom I could love; but you are like her, and you have almost driven her image out of my mind. She belongs to the holy temple, and my good fortune has sent you to me instead of her; and we will never part.”

“Ah, he knows not that it was I who saved his life,” thought the little mermaid. “I carried him over the sea to the wood where the temple stands: I sat beneath the foam, and watched till the human beings came to help him. I saw the pretty maiden that he loves better than he loves me;” and the mermaid sighed deeply, but she could not shed tears. “He says the maiden belongs to the holy temple, therefore she will never return to the world. They will meet no more: while I am by his side, and see him every day. I will take care of him, and love him, and give up my life for his sake.”

Very soon it was said that the prince must marry, and that the beautiful daughter of a neighboring king would be his wife, for a fine ship was being fitted out. Although the prince gave out that he merely intended to pay a visit to the king, it was generally supposed that he really went to see his daughter. A great company were to go with him. The little mermaid smiled, and shook her head. She knew the prince’s thoughts better than any of the others.

“I must travel,” he had said to her; “I must see this beautiful princess; my parents desire it; but they will not oblige me to bring her home as my bride. I cannot love her; she is not like the beautiful maiden in the temple, whom you resemble. If I were forced to choose a bride, I would rather choose you, my dumb foundling, with those expressive eyes.” And then he kissed her rosy mouth, played with her long waving hair, and laid his head on her heart, while she dreamed of human happiness and an immortal soul. “You are not afraid of the sea, my dumb child,” said he, as they stood on the deck of the noble ship which was to carry them to the country of the neighboring king. And then he told her of storm and of calm, of strange fishes in the deep beneath them, and of what the divers had seen there; and she smiled at his descriptions, for she knew better than any one what wonders were at the bottom of the sea.

In the moonlight, when all on board were asleep, excepting the man at the helm, who was steering, she sat on the deck, gazing down through the clear water. She thought she could distinguish her father’s castle, and upon it her aged grandmother, with the silver crown on her head, looking through the rushing tide at the keel of the vessel. Then her sisters came up on the waves, and gazed at her mournfully, wringing their white hands. She beckoned to them, and smiled, and wanted to tell them how happy and well off she was; but the cabin-boy approached, and when her sisters dived down he thought it was only the foam of the sea which he saw.
The next morning the ship sailed into the harbor of a beautiful town belonging to the king whom the prince was going to visit. The church bells were ringing, and from the high towers sounded a flourish of trumpets; and soldiers, with flying colors and glittering bayonets, lined the rocks through which they passed. Every day was a festival; balls and entertainments followed one another.

But the princess had not yet appeared. People said that she was being brought up and educated in a religious house, where she was learning every royal virtue. At last she came. Then the little mermaid, who was very anxious to see whether she was really beautiful, was obliged to acknowledge that she had never seen a more perfect vision of beauty. Her skin was delicately fair, and beneath her long dark eye-lashes her laughing blue eyes shone with truth and purity.
“It was you,” said the prince, “who saved my life when I lay dead on the beach,” and he folded his blushing bride in his arms. “Oh, I am too happy,” said he to the little mermaid; “my fondest hopes are all fulfilled. You will rejoice at my happiness; for your devotion to me is great and sincere.”

The little mermaid kissed his hand, and felt as if her heart were already broken. His wedding morning would bring death to her, and she would change into the foam of the sea. All the church bells rung, and the heralds rode about the town proclaiming the betrothal. Perfumed oil was burning in costly silver lamps on every altar. The priests waved the censers, while the bride and bridegroom joined their hands and received the blessing of the bishop. The little mermaid, dressed in silk and gold, held up the bride’s train; but her ears heard nothing of the festive music, and her eyes saw not the holy ceremony; she thought of the night of death which was coming to her, and of all she had lost in the world.

On the same evening the bride and bridegroom went on board ship; cannons were roaring, flags waving, and in the centre of the ship a costly tent of purple and gold had been erected. It contained elegant couches, for the reception of the bridal pair during the night. The ship, with swelling sails and a favorable wind, glided away smoothly and lightly over the calm sea. When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on the deck.

The little mermaid could not help thinking of her first rising out of the sea, when she had seen similar festivities and joys; and she joined in the dance, poised herself in the air as a swallow when he pursues his prey, and all present cheered her with wonder. She had never danced so elegantly before. Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart. She knew this was the last evening she should ever see the prince, for whom she had forsaken her kindred and her home; she had given up her beautiful voice, and suffered unheard-of pain daily for him, while he knew nothing of it.

This was the last evening that she would breathe the same air with him, or gaze on the starry sky and the deep sea; an eternal night, without a thought or a dream, awaited her: she had no soul and now she could never win one. All was joy and gayety on board ship till long after midnight; she laughed and danced with the rest, while the thoughts of death were in her heart. The prince kissed his beautiful bride, while she played with his raven hair, till they went arm-in-arm to rest in the splendid tent. Then all became still on board the ship; the helmsman, alone awake, stood at the helm. The little mermaid leaned her white arms on the edge of the vessel, and looked towards the east for the first blush of morning, for that first ray of dawn that would bring her death. She saw her sisters rising out of the flood: they were as pale as herself; but their long beautiful hair waved no more in the wind, and had been cut off.

“We have given our hair to the witch,” said they, “to obtain help for you, that you may not die to-night. She has given us a knife: here it is, see it is very sharp. Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when the warm blood falls upon your feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish’s tail, and you will be once more a mermaid, and return to us to live out your three hundred years before you die and change into the salt sea foam. Haste, then; he or you must die before sunrise. Our old grandmother moans so for you, that her white hair is falling off from sorrow, as ours fell under the witch’s scissors. Kill the prince and come back; hasten: do you not see the first red streaks in the sky? In a few minutes the sun will rise, and you must die.” And then they sighed deeply and mournfully, and sank down beneath the waves.

The little mermaid drew back the crimson curtain of the tent, and beheld the fair bride with her head resting on the prince’s breast. She bent down and kissed his fair brow, then looked at the sky on which the rosy dawn grew brighter and brighter; then she glanced at the sharp knife, and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who whispered the name of his bride in his dreams. She was in his thoughts, and the knife trembled in the hand of the little mermaid: then she flung it far away from her into the waves; the water turned red where it fell, and the drops that spurted up looked like blood.

She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam. The sun rose above the waves, and his warm rays fell on the cold foam of the little mermaid, who did not feel as if she were dying.

She saw the bright sun, and all around her floated hundreds of transparent beautiful beings; she could see through them the white sails of the ship, and the red clouds in the sky; their speech was melodious, but too ethereal to be heard by mortal ears, as they were also unseen by mortal eyes. The little mermaid perceived that she had a body like theirs, and that she continued to rise higher and higher out of the foam.

“Where am I?” asked she, and her voice sounded ethereal, as the voice of those who were with her; no earthly music could imitate it.

“Among the daughters of the air,” answered one of them. “A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny. But the daughters of the air, although they do not possess an immortal soul, can, by their good deeds, procure one for themselves.

We fly to warm countries, and cool the sultry air that destroys mankind with the pestilence. We carry the perfume of the flowers to spread health and restoration. After we have striven for three hundred years to all the good in our power, we receive an immortal soul and take part in the happiness of mankind. You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do as we are doing; you have suffered and endured and raised yourself to the spirit-world by your good deeds; and now, by striving for three hundred years in the same way, you may obtain an immortal soul.”

The little mermaid lifted her glorified eyes towards the sun, and felt them, for the first time, filling with tears. On the ship, in which she had left the prince, there were life and noise; she saw him and his beautiful bride searching for her; sorrowfully they gazed at the pearly foam, as if they knew she had thrown herself into the waves. Unseen she kissed the forehead of her bride, and fanned the prince, and then mounted with the other children of the air to a rosy cloud that floated through the aether.

“After three hundred years, thus shall we float into the kingdom of heaven,” said she. “And we may even get there sooner,” whispered one of her companions. “Unseen we can enter the houses of men, where there are children, and for every day on which we find a good child, who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. The child does not know, when we fly through the room, that we smile with joy at his good conduct, for we can count one year less of our three hundred years. But when we see a naughty or a wicked child, we shed tears of sorrow, and for every tear a day is added to our time of trial!”

Longing

2007-11-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

Come to me in my dreams,

and then

By day I shall be well again!

For so the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day

.Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,

A messenger from radiant climes,

And smile on thy new world,

and be As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,

Come now, and let me dream it truth,

And part my hair, and kiss my brow,

And say,

My love why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams,

and then By day I shall be well again!

For so the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.

Matthew Arnold

Samhain

2007-11-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

The Fire Festivals

The four fire festivals marked the turning of the seasons. Two of the fire festivals, Samhain and Beltane, were considered to be male, and Imbolc and Lughnasadh were female. Each was celebrated for three days - before, during and after the official day of observance.

Samhain

Our modern celebration of Halloween is a descendent of the ancient Celtic festival called "Samhain;" meaning Summer's End. Samhain was the first day of winter, and the end of one pastoral year. It was the time when the night became longer than the day, the last apples were picked, and the year began again with its dark winter half. Also called Samhiunn or Hallowe'en, this festival is sometimes called Trinoux Samonia or "Three Nights of the End of Summer."
Originally a Druidic festival, it was celebrated on the eve of November 1 (October 31 - technically, either date is appropriate as the Celts measured the day from sunset to sunset.) It is balanced by Beltane (or Bealtaine, Beltaine) which signals the start of summer, 6 months later. The ancient Celts probably held them exactly mid-way between an equinox (when day and night were equal) and the following solstice (when the nighttime was shortest or longest).

In ancient times all of the fires of Ireland were extinguished and relighted from the one great fire kindled by the King's chief Druid, on the hill of Tlachtga. Members of each family would light torches to carry back and rekindle their own hearth-fires, which were then kept burning the rest of the year. The assemblies of the five Irish provinces at Tara Hill, the seat of the Irish king, took place at Samhain. These gatherings were celebrated with horse races, fairs, markets, assembly rites, political discussions, and ritual mourning for the passage of summer.

Samhain is a time when the veil between this world and the Otherworld (or the Sídh,) was very thin, and divine beings, the spirits of the dead, and mortals can move freely between one world and the next. In some Celtic traditions, most notably the Scottish Highlands, young men would run the boundaries of their farms after sunset with blazing torches to protect the family from the Faeries and malevolent forces that were free to walk the land at night, causing mischief. Samhain was seen as a time when the future could most easily be predicted, and was a favored time among Druids for ritual fortune-telling.

As in other major Celtic Festivals, Samhain was a gateway, a celebration of the transition from one season and another. In Celtic mythology, at the heart of every gateway is a paradox. The threshold is literally between two worlds but is, in itself, in neither and in both at the same time. Thus Samhain belonged to both Summer and Winter...and to neither. It was the gateway to the winter, and a magical time of passage between the seasons.

As in many pastoral societies, winter was regarded with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Samhain was the last gasp of summer... a time of uninhibited feasting, dancing and celebration. It was a time of release; a time to let go of all unwanted baggage, fears and attitudes, just as the trees let go of their leaves. So the lives of men parallel the sacred cycles of nature.

Twickehanham Garden -John Donne

2007-10-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

BLASTED with sighs, and surrounded with tears,

Hither I come to seek the spring,

And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,

Receive such balms as else cure every thing.

But O ! self-traitor, I do bring

The spider Love, which transubstantiates all,

And can convert manna to gall ;

And that this place may thoroughly be thought

True paradise, I have the serpent brought.

'Twere wholesomer for me that winter did

Benight the glory of this place,

And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh and mock me to my face ;

But that I may not this disgrace

Endure,

nor yet leave loving,

Love, let meSome senseless piece of this place be ;

Make me a mandrake,

so I may grow here,

Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.

Hither with crystal phials, lovers, come,

And take my tears, which are love's wine,

And try your mistress' tears at home,

For all are false, that taste not just like mine.

Alas ! hearts do not in eyes shine,

Nor can you more judge women's thoughts by tears,

Than by her shadow what she wears.

O perverse sex, where none is true but she,

Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me.

The Seraphim

2007-10-29T02:04:00.000-07:00

Single droplets from the stream divine

divided from the one yet the one in all

We levitate on wings of blissfull ecstasy

Round and round in perfect harmony

Circling the throne of the primum mobile

singing praiseful songs for eternity

six pairs of wings and mutiple eyes

Round and round in perfect harmony

We dance to the universal music of the spheres

our hearts the eternal purifying flame

Argent bodies forming a spiralling white rose

Round and round in perfect harmony

First glimpsed by Dante, inspired by his muse

Sometimes we bow down to the world below

And touch the hearts of angels fallen to flesh

round and round in perfect harmony

To ignite in their hearts a hunger for truth

to let their shackles and chains fall to rust

and their eyes open to God's love at the last

-Sybille

The Descent of Inanna

2007-10-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

Interpretation of Inanna’s Descent Myth

“From the Great Above Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below.”

In Sumerian, the word for ear and wisdom are the same. For example, Enki, the God of Wisdom, is said to have his ear “wide open” -- an unfiltered receptivity! This implies that Inanna's primary reason for “going to hell” was to seek wisdom and understanding. But in order to make such a spiritual journey, she first had to give up her earthly powers and possessions. They don’t allow a lot of luggage on the road to hell.

Preparing for the Descent into the Underworld

In the myth, she abandoned heaven and earth to descend to the underworld, her office of holy priestess, her temples in the seven principal cities where she was worshipped. She gave up her earthly powers and possessions -- an essential willingness required of any soul undertaking such a journey, of any soul following such a path of initiation.

Inanna also recognized the need to protect herself. She gathered together seven of The Me, attributes of civilization which she transformed into such feminine allure as crown, jewelry, and a royal robe. These were intended serve as her protections. They included her crown, earrings of small lapis beads, a double strand of beads about her neck, her breastplate called “Come, man, come”, her golden hip girdle, the lapis measuring rod and line, and her royal breechcloth.

Each of these adornments were worn at the level of each Kundalini chakra!
Finally, she instructed her faithful servant, Ninshubur, what to do in case she did not return -- to lament her loss, beat the drum for her, and go to the cities -- to the temples where Enlil (her father’s father), Nanna (her father) and Enki (her mother’s father) were, and ask for their help.

Ninshubur

Ninshubur’s name means “Queen of the East” -- she was handmaid or vizier to Inanna. Other myths, such as “Inanna and the God of Wisdom” (Enki), also describe Ninshubur as she comes to the rescue of Inanna, warding off the fierce emissaries sent by Enki. There Inanna describes Ninshubur as: Once Queen of the East, now faithful servant of the holy shrine of Uruk, “Water has not touched your hand, water has not touched your foot. My sukkal who gives me wise advice, My warrior who fights by my side.”

As Inanna's “faithful servant”, “she seems to embody that small part of us that stays above ground while the soul descends, the still conscious and functioning aspect of the psyche which can witness the events below and above and feel concern for the fate of the soul.” Ninshubur may be a “model of woman's deepest reflective-of-the-Self, priestess function, one which operates as simple executrix of the Self's commands, often when the soul is most threatened.”

[1] Ninshubur seems to have no life of her own, no specificity beyond her capacity to serve. No ego, she simply carries out precisely and competently whatever Inanna asks of her. And yet it is Ninshubur who saves Inanna’s life. Ultimately, initiation and/or descending into the underworld is not something to be undertaken without divine guidance and support.
Ereshkigal’s reaction to Inanna's intended visit

When Neti described Inanna at the outer gate -- in all her glory and wearing the garments of her power, light, and movement -- as well as her wish to enter the underworld, Ereshkigal is not at all pleased. Inasmuch as Inanna’s light, glory, and movement had been, to some extent, achieved at Ereshkigal’s expense, the Queen on the Underworld is enraged at Inanna’s appearance.

The Queen of the Underworld can be thought of as the neglected side of Inanna, that part of Inanna that was unloving, unloved, abandoned, instinctual, and full of rage, greed, and desperate loneliness. Ereshkigal’s one great craving was for her own sexual satisfaction, and which was not being fulfilled.

Ereshkigal “is paradoxical: both the vessel and the stake. She is the [kundalini] root of all, where energy is inert and consciousness coiled asleep. She is the place where potential life lies motionless -- but in the pangs of birth; beneath all language and its distinction, yet judging and acting.” [1]

In the Descent myth, “Ereshkigal is described first as enraged, due to Inanna’s invasion of her realm; secondly, as actively destructive; third, as suffering; and finally as grateful and generous.” “There is a quality of primal rage about her. She is full of fury, greed, the fear of loss, and even of self spite.” “And she sends her gatekeeper to deal with the intruder, a male to defend her.” “These images suggest that chaotic defensive furies, such as rage, greed, and even the unleashing of the animus, are inevitable aspects of the archetypal underworld. They are the ways the unconscious reacts to unwelcome visitation.” [1]

Ereshkigal, in some respects, is Lilith. “She ruthlessly destroys all that is not our true individuality or appropriate life path. She will not lead us to our goal by revealing what it is but rather by eliminating everything that it is not. The black aspect of Lilith closes all the wrong doors that face us.” “The black Lilith in us will accept nothing less than our true individuality, not in the sense of separateness, but in the sense of who we intrinsically are. When we are secure in acknowledging and expressing our true self, we don’t falsify ourselves in order to be accepted by others.” [2]

Ereshkigal'‘ instructions to Neti represent the fact that she wants Inanna to experience what it is to be rejected, to enter the royal chamber “bowed low”.

Seven stages of the Descent

The removal of Inanna’s crown, the first of her protective Me -- symbolically deprives her of her godhood, her connection with heaven. The small lapis beads from her ears -- her sense of magic and ability to manifest. The double strand of beads about her neck -- her rapture of illumination. Her golden breastplate called “Come, man, come!” -- her emotional heart. Her ringed hip girdle -- her ego. From her hand the lapis measuring rod and line -- her will. Her garment of ladyship (breechcloth) -- her sex role. Each represents, in order, the Kundalini chakras. Inanna is thus forced to give up her earthly attributes, her roles as queen, holy priestess, and woman. Her royal power, her priestly office, her sexual powers are of no avail in the underworld.

Naked and bowed low, Innana entered the throne room.

The Annuna, the judges of the underworld, surround her and pass judgment against her, the judgment of the external against each of us. Ereshkigal then fastens on Inanna the eye of death, speaks against her the word of wrath, and utters against her the cry of guilt. She strikes her. “Inanna was turned into a corpse, a piece of rotting meat, and was hung from a hook on the wall.” Obviously, on our own, even with preparations, we’re dead meat!

Ninshubur seeks help.

Ninshubur waits three days. Inanna was considered to be daughter of the moon -- thus these three days may be the “Dark of the Moon”. Ninshubur set up a public lament, beating the drum, circling the temples, tearing at her eyes, mouth and thighs, and dressing in sackcloth. Grief expressed! She pleads before Inanna’s paternal grandfather, Enlil, and Inanna’s father, Nanna. She cries that they not let their bright silver be covered with dust, their precious lapis broken into stone, and their fragrant boxwood cut into wood.

They reply angrily, that Inanna “got what she deserved!” And that she could not return, that the rules of the underworld could not be broken. Both are angry their daughter should pursue a different direction from theirs. Each in turn, refused to help.

But in pleading before Enki, Inanna’s mother’s father and the God of Wisdom, there is a different response. Enki has compassion for his daughter who is in difficulty. Not only does the God of Wisdom value the journey Inanna has undertaken, but he does not forget that his grand daughter’s existence is vital to humankind. In reacting to what has happened, Enki moves with feeling. He improvises to create what the moment needs. He empathizes with Inanna.

Enki’s plan

Enki knows the nature of the underworld and its rule by a jealous, anguished Ereshkigal. He also has the power to create and facilitate. He creates from the dirt under his fingernails the kurgarra and galatur -- instinctual, asexual creatures who Enki endows with the artistic and empathetic talent of being professional mourners, capable of mirroring the lonely queen’s emotions. “They are humble, nonheroic creatures, without definition or even the need to be separately defined, without any sense of what we would call ego-needs. These little asexual creatures represent the attitude necessary to draw a blessing from the dark goddess.” [1]

Enki also instructs his creations on how to enter the underworld and how to deal with Ereshkigal. He tells them how to recover Inanna from death.

The Rescue

When the kurgarra and galatur arrive, Ereshkigal is moaning “with the cries of a woman about to give birth.” She complains both for her “inside” and her “outside”. Having willed Inanna’s death, she can scarcely bear it, for Inanna is the other side of herself. Ereshkigal was also needing rebirth from the night time aspects of the feminine -- the powerful, raging sexuality and the deep wounds accumulated from life’s rejections -- and which sought solace in physical union only.

The kurgarra and galatur moan with Ereshkigal, appeasing her anguish by the echo of their concern. “They affirm her in her suffering. They have been taught by Enki to trust the life force even when it sounds its misery. Complaining is one voice of the dark goddess. It is a way of expressing life, valid and deep in the feminine soul. It does not, first and foremost, seek alleviation, but simply to state the existence of things as they are felt to be to a sensitive and vulnerable being. It is one of the bases of the feeling function, not to be seen and judged from the stoic-heroic superego perspective as foolish and passive whining, but just as autonomous fact -- ‘that’s the way it is.’ Enki’s wisdom teaches us that suffering is part of reverencing.” [1]

Ereshkigal is so touched by the attention they offer to her in her pain that she extends herself and offers gifts of fertility and growth. Following Enki’s instructions, however, the creatures refuse these gifts and ultimately ask for Ereshkigal most wants to give and that which is most difficult for her to give. They ask her to release part of her personal anguish, her despair and anger, which is embodied in the glorious Goddess of Love. They ask for the rotting body of Inanna.

When Ereshkigal agrees to release her nemesis, and thus part of her pain, the kurgarra and galatur sprinkle the food and water of life on Inanna’s corpse. And Inanna arose.

Ascending from the Underworld

The Annuna must maintain the rules of the underworld, but they must also deal with the fact that Inanna has been reborn in the underworld. Their tactic is to tell Inanna that she must provide someone in her place. In essence, Inanna cannot be allowed to again forget her neglected, abandoned “sister” -- that part of herself that is Ereshkigal. A passageway has been created from the Great Above, the conscious, to the Great Below, the unconscious, and it must be kept open. Thus the galla, the demons of the underworld, those who cannot be bribed, are assigned to accompany Inanna as she leaves.

The Replacement

Inanna is resorted to active life, but returns demonic, surrounded by the galla. “She has met Ereshkigal and knows the abysmal reality: that all changes and life demand sacrifice.” This is knowledge that few would not flee from. “Inanna comes up loathsome and claiming her right to survive.” The same fearsome characteristic of any woman coming out of hiding and ready to stand her ground. [1]

Meanwhile, Ninshubur and Inanna’s sons, Shara and Lulal, had abandoned the routine of their daily lives and gone into mourning for Inanna. When Inanna returns from the underworld and meets each of them in turn, the galla are ready and willing to take them in Inanna’s place. But Inanna knows that each cared deeply for her and had mourned her death. She does not choose them.

However, Dumuzi, Inanna’s consort and the shepherd she had installed as King of Sumer, has gone on with life as if nothing had happened. He had grown so attached to and identified with his high position that he had neither wept for his lost wife, nor ran to greet her when she returned. While Inanna had ventured into the unknown, Dumuzi had turned his attentions to earthly achievement. But Dumuzi is the logical candidate, as well, in that only her best beloved consort is equal to Inanna. Furthermore, Dumuzi had dared intimacy with the goddess and that entails a price, the price of initiation.

“Inanna challenges her equal to make the same descent she endured -- perhaps to claim the same strength and wisdom.” [1] Dumuzi’s attempts at scapegoating or taking flight betray “his need to descend into the underworld himself, his need to find a relationship to an inner feminine whom he can accept nondefensively and revere as equal.” Thus is the stage set when Inanna tells her consort to go to hell and makes it stick!

The galla seized him and beat him, until Dumuzi preys to Utu, the God of Justice and brother to Inanna. Utu mercifully turned Dumuzi into a snake, so that he could escape the galla. At the same time Dumuzi gains the serpent wisdom: that nothing in the Great Round dies, that life’s forms are not lost but renewed. “Utu, the sun god, is the balance of Ereshkigal. He -- like Enki -- is outside the patriarchal Logos modes, not adversary but complement of the feminine. The solar god and the dark goddess are the pillars of the esoteric temple with its wisdom of change. There is no lysis that we would find stable in this myth, no resolution except that profound wisdom.” [1]

The Dream of Dumuzi

Dumuzi had been king, but the qualities of understanding, compassion, devotion, and belonging to others, he had lacked. He had turned to the feminine wisdom of his younger sister But even in the dream, there was a portent of hope -- for just as Ninshubur, at Inanna’s request, had wept for Inanna and saved her life, so it was to be that Geshtianna would take up Dumuzi’s spirit and not let it die. Dumuzi’s friend betrays him for material profit, but his sister is true to the end. And even with Dumuzi being transformed into a snake and then a gazelle, he is still unable to escape the galla.

The Return

With the dye cast, the realization that Dumuzi is no longer welcome on earth, Inanna, Dumuzi’s mother and sister begin to weep for his fate. Inanna has been denied her beloved consort, even if by her own willful act. But the “very nature of earth’s life, and of the goddess herself, prevents the possibility of her having an undying, single partner.” [1] Geshtinanna, who is also mortal, is even more grief stricken.

Being very close to Dumuzi, Geshtianna offers to take his place in the underworld. This is not the grand gesture of a Christ on the cross, but much more personal and deeply feminine. “He gave his life for all men, a grand gesture. She offers herself, courageously accepting her own destiny, for one man she cares for, her brother.” “Her motivation is human passion -- love and grief.” [1]

Geshtianna, whose name means “vine of heaven”, is thought of in the myths as a “wise woman”. In service to the human dimension, she does what she can to redeem the one lost to the underworld. “She acquiesces to her own cutting down.” “She does not flee from her fate, nor does she denigrate the goddess of fate as do Gilgamesh and the patriarchy. She volunteers. And in this courageous, conscious acquiescing, she ends the pattern of scapegoating by choosing to confront the underworld herself.” [1]

Geshtianna “is the result of, and an embodiment of, the whole initiation process.” “She feels personally and can be lovingly related as partner of the masculine. She is also willing to serve both the light and dark aspects of her own depths and of the goddess.” [1] She has not yet made the descent, but there is no struggle “between her instincts to relate to her beloved, and her instinct to stand alone and for her own depths.”

Geshtianna’s offer moves Inanna as the two sides of the feminine meet -- passion and compassion, willfulness and feeling. It is the presence of her earthly sister, Geshtianna, that completes Inanna’s journey on earth, and reconnects her to Dumuzi, an other, and so to all of life.

Inanna decrees that each will spend half the year in the underworld. At Arali, a stopping place on the way to the Great Below, Inanna blesses the brother and sister with both eternal life and death. Dumuzi is thus married to the composite goddess Inanna-Ereshkigal, and as such is to experience all of the woman. Not only is he to know the love goddess, but the goddess of death as well.

In the end, Ereshkigal is praised.

Inanna’s reasons for making the descent

“She turned her ear to the Great Below"“-- (1) Seeking wisdom and understanding.
When Inanna approached the outer gate of the underworld and announced herself, she said she was on her way to the East. This phrase survives into modern day Freemasonry, where a candidate for initiation is warned that he will never return from his quest -- and then passes inward to the Ordeal which is the real initiation.

“It is a story of an initiation process into the mysteries.” “Inanna shows us the way, and she is the first to sacrifice herself for a deep feminine wisdom and for atonement. She descends, submits and dies. This openness to being acted upon is the essence of the experience of the human soul faced with the transpersonal. It is not based upon passivity, but upon an active willingness to receive.” [1] A feminine, boundary penetration quality, letting another exert influence upon itself, “analogous to the soul’s penetration by the divine.”

2) Because of my older sister, Ereshkigal -- Perhaps she heard the pain and anguish of Ereshkigal, her denied and dark side, and wanted to meet and acknowledge all of her denied feelings: abandonment, guilt, etc. Inanna was facing her dark side!

It is also approaching the dark forces of earthly reality and the unconscious; slowly peeling away defenses and ego-identifications -- particularly after “the conscious ideal of the personality has been wounded by being cut off from its roots by the devaluation of matter and the feminine.” [1]

Ereshkigal was moaning for both her “inside” and “outside” -- as if she had gone into labor, needing to be reborn -- It was this labor or call that Inanna had heard in the Great Above and to which she responded.

In an earlier myth, Inanna, as an adolescent, had been frightened by Lilith, the neglected side of Inanna -- the powerful, raging sexuality and the deep wounds accumulated from life’s rejections. The powerful Lilith had to be sent away so Inanna’s life-exploring talents could be developed. But now she deals with them.

“Inanna’s suffering, disrobing, humiliation, flagellation and death, the stations of her descent, her crucifixion on the underworld peg, and her resurrection, all prefigure Christ's passion and represent perhaps the first known archetypal image of the dying divinity whose sacrifice redeems the wasteland earth. Not for humankind’s sins did Inanna sacrifice herself, but for earth’s need for life and renewal. She is concerned more with life than with good and evil.” [1]

(3) To observe the funeral rites of Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven -- to gain power and knowledge from observing such rites, particularly since Gugalanna was as impetuous and emotionally aggressive as Inanna

The Descent into Hades as a Psychological Tool

All descents provide entry into different levels of consciousness and can enhance life creatively. All of them imply suffering. All of them can serve as initiations. Meditation and dreaming and active imaginations are modes of descent. So too are depressions, anxiety attacks, and experiences with hallucinogenic drugs.” [1]

Letting go of illusions and old outworn patterns -- “Ereshkigal is like Kali, who through time and suffering pitilessly grinds down... all distinctions... in her undiscriminating fires -- and yet heaves forth new life.” [1] It is an adherence to a pre-ethical natural law! It is an acknowledgment that life is inconstant, that there are cycles. It is not pathological to wrap the partner in an active loving and caring embrace (Inanna), and then back down, being disinterested, alone and even cold (Ereshkigal).

(4) Finding pure gold and enlightenment. Hades as the “Bringer of all Good Things”. Demeter’s Eleusian Mysteries -- “Beautiful indeed is the Mystery given us by the blessed gods: death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a blessing.” -- Inscription at Eleusis. [2]

“Not caring first and foremost about relatedness to an outer other, nor to a collective gestalt or imperative. Seeing this way -- which is initially so frightening because it cannot be validated by the collective -- can provide what Logos consciousness fears as mere chaos, with the possibilities of a totally fresh perception, a new pattern, a creative perspective, a never ending exploration.

Such seeing is radical and dangerously innovative, but not necessarily evil.” It may feel monstrous or ugly, “for it shears us of our defenses and entails a sacrifice of easy collective understandings and of the hopes and expectations of looking good and safely belonging.” “This knowledge implies that destruction and transformation into something even radically new are part of the cycle of reality. Such knowledge is hard to endure. But knowing this basic reality permits a woman to give up trying to be agreeable to parental and animus imperatives and ideals. It is like hitting rock bottom, from where they are irrelevant.” [1]

“The major difference in masculine development is that until recently -- and then only in the second half of life -- most men have not needed to go down into the repressed depths once they have initially freed themselves from their childhood and identified with the ideals of the culture, for they have been supported by the outside world without inner dissonance. Increasingly, as there is no adequate masculine wholeness pattern that is collectively sanctioned to form a model of masculine ego development, and as the heroic ego ideal is also found inadequate, more and more are men forced to relate differently to their own depths, and to dare the individual descents that permit them to reclaim repressed instinct and image patterns.” [1]

“Men who have not made peace with Medusa in themselves will see feminine sexuality as something that fascinates them, but also as the source of their self-undoing. As they try to protect themselves against its frightening power by destroying the monster, they will unconsciously incite the Medusa woman in their lives to retaliate by castrating them physically and psychologically. A man who desires a positive relationship to women’s dark moon sexuality must make the descent into his unconscious, listen to the wailing agony of his decapitated Medusa, reach out in sympathy to her pain, heal the wounds of her rejection, and return whole-within-himself to the upper world. After the hero has proved his separation from his mother, he must reestablish a loving relationship to his inner dark feminine. Until he can do this he will remain trapped in a web of destructive sexual relationships.” [2]

Differences from Later Patriarchal Myths

Original Earth Goddess as the predecessor of Inanna. Fertility and ample bodies versus Inanna’s beauty and Goddess of Love status. Inanna, as goddess, living within the domain of masculine power. Inanna’s myths are not purely matriarchal, but reflect growing male power

Inanna’s myths as a process of growth. Initially, to have her throne and bed -- her sovereignty and sexuality. Then to be Queen in deed as well as pomp -- bring home The Me. Then to have a consort, who can then be King. To be wife and mother. Then to become whole by accepting her darker half!

In terms of the Dance of the Seven Veils:

1. Inanna “has met Ereshkigal and knows the abysmal reality: that all changes and life demand sacrifice. That is exactly the knowledge that patriarchal morality and the fathers’ eternally maiden daughters have fled from, wanting to do things right in order to avoid the pain of bearing their own renewal, their own separate being and uniqueness. Inanna comes up loathsome and claiming her right to survive. She is not a beautiful maid, daughter of the fathers, but ugly, selfish, ruthless, willing to be very negative, willing not to care. We know this demonic return of the repressed power shadow. Although it stands ultimately for life, it often erupts in birth and takes a lot of taming. It may be a ‘rough beast’, or it may, indeed, merely feel fearsome when a woman comes out of hiding to stand her ground -- to herself and/or to those around her. We see this demonic form of the returning goddess in much of the early women’s liberation fury. For the most part that stage in the movement has passed, but each individual woman initiate may have to go through it.” [1]

2. Dumuzi “embodies the life-death bipolarity of the eternal process of change. That frightens and disgusts the side of us that, like Gilgamesh, wants eternity and stasis. But as the goddess is also matter, there is no stasis and no eternity of form possible for material life. We must gain our eternity in another way, not by clinging to the embodied identities we call heroic ideals. We must go beyond Gilgamesh’s and the patriarchal ego’s denigration of the goddess as fickle and learn to serve her rather as inconstant. This is the primary psychological task to which our age is called.” [1] The price is willing acceptance.

3. The “self-experience of soul through subjective and personal feeling and intuiting in relation to the concrete here and now. What is valued is the feel of this moment in joy and pain, not the abstract ideas or remote heavens of unending, peaceful perfection to which the patriarchy was wont to aspire. Patriarchy repressed the magical stratum, the fairy-world. In this global awareness, life and death were the peak and valley of one wave. Emotional oneness was experienced with group, clan, nature, and blood. Life was known through instinctual tides and rhythms, ESP communication, and yielding openness to whatever came along.” “The new femininity is to establish the value of inwardness, and of affirmation (but also conscious clarification and differentiation) of whatever is. It is open to -- and able to integrate -- woundedness, pain, and ugliness, as well as joy and beauty. The sensuous is to be valued no less than the spiritual; the intangible no less than the concrete.” “The archetypal role of the new femininity is to stand as a priestess of the fullness of life as it is, with its unpredictable pitfalls and unfathomable depths, richness and deprivation, risks and errors, joys and pains. She insists on personal experiencing and personal response to the needs of the human situation.” The idea is to transform the chaotic power of the abysmal Yin, the Medusa, into the play of life, to mediate the terrifying face of the Gorgon into the helpful one of Athena. “Life is to be lived and savored for its own sake, in sensitive interplay with earth and cosmos as living organisms, rather than as dead objects of exploitation for the sake of economic or technological ‘progress’.” There is needed the awareness that hurts can heal us, “receiving into consciousness and clarifying feelings, fantasies, and desires regardless of their moral or esthetic implications. It also means separating emotion and motivation from action.” The challenge is “to think and feel through everything that may present itself, and wait for its hidden symbolic message, rather than to act out or sweep things under the rugs and let sleeping dogs lie. The new woman (or the anima in a man) will have to champion and protect the need to live through and experience everything that (lest it threaten established order with chaos) has been repressed by the patriarchy.” The key is to avoid the temptation to deny, repress the experience, and do something instead! The idea is to be.

4. Pain is “a valid part of life’s process -- no one’s fault, just a fact of existence. This takes it out of the patriarchal-adversary-scapegoating perspective that blames someone or something and wants it removed, wants something actively done with it.” Instead, we must trust “the participation mystique of the deepest levels of consciousness as a process of the goddess, sometimes even when it feels painful and seems to aim towards death and depression, and makes us feel keenly our own inadequacy to bring about change. There we wait with patience, going deeper and waiting together until the goddess as Time is ready to ‘decree a kind fate’. [1]

5. The neofeminism consciousness “is like instinct, in being unified, direct, immediate, full of feeling, sympathetic, and vital. But it is also like the intelligence, or masculinism, in being alert to distinction, capable of discursive and indirect reasoning, disinterested, and controlled. And it has a new quality of its own in its penetrating vision, the holistic insight that comprehends many experiences in one meaning.” “It is a reunion in dynamic harmony of our own multiplicity and unity.” It is ego death -- a shift toward a consciousness of the interconnectedness of life; a shift from the individual, analytic consciousness to a holistic mode, brought about by training the intuitive side of ourselves. (B. Bruteau)

6. “The implication for modern women is that only after the full, even demonic, range of affects and objectivity of the dark feminine is felt and claimed can a true, soul-met, passionate and individual comradeship be possible between woman and man as equals. Inanna is joined to and separated from her dark ancestress-sister, the repressed feminine. And that, with Ninshubur’s and Enki’s and Dumuzi’s help, brings forth Geshtinanna -- a model of one who can take her stand, hold her own value, and be lovingly related to the masculine as well as directly to her own depths; a model of one who is willing to suffer humanly, personally, the full spectrum that is the goddess.” [1]

7. “To the goddess it is no shame for a woman to be submissive. But as von Franz has pointed out, such willing service is not always the way to gain what is necessary from the goddess of nature. Sometimes she must be approached with active, heroic courage rather than heroic submission. Gretel had to push the dark goddess into the oven of transformation. Sometimes she must be endured or avoided or cleverly fled from. It seems to depend on the conscious personality of the visitor and what qualities are to be gained from the dark side of the instinct and image pattern. For the high goddess Inanna, proud and passionate and active, submissive sacrifice, humility, and passive mirroring are the compensatory ways to set her free.” [1]

The oracle at Delphi

2007-09-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

Delphi lies on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in Greece. The town, once called Kastri, used to lie above the ruins of the sacred compound. It was relocated in the 1890s, when serious archaeological excavation began at the ruins.

About 1500 BCE, Mycenaeans settled here and continued the maintenance of the shrine to Gaea, Mother Earth. The Delphic sibyls had already gained fame by that time.

Many scholars offer evidence to support the idea that the Pythia was an office originating in the cult of Gaia. Dempsey states that the office of the Pythia was always held by a female (originally a virgin, but later at least fifty years old and married) and he points out the connection between the Pythia's gender and the cult of Mother Earth.

Dempsey also points out that the ecstatic nature of the Pythia's prophecy was an abundant characteristic in the cult of Gaia . A detailed account of the frenzy or mania of the Pythia is presented when Appius Claudius Pulcher visits the oracle at Delphi in Lucan's Civil War Additionally, many scholars believe that the Python's death at the hand of Apollo symbolized the change in oracles at Delphi.

Greek legend recounts how Apollo chose Delphi as one of his chief places of worship, along with Delos. Greek mythology tells of a time when the gods of the sky overcame those of earth. Then the infant Apollo took control of Parnassus by killing Python, the dragon snake that had possessed it. Apollo took the form of a dolphin and swam out to sea to capture a group of sailors, whom he appointed the first priests of his cult. Apollo claimed the shrine for himself, fired Gaea's sibyls, and installed his own oracles.

According to Greek myth, Zeus charged two eagles with finding the center of the earth. He released one to the east and one to the west. They met at Delphi, thus pointing out the center of the earth. A cone-shaped, decorated stone, the omphalos, once stood in front of the Temple as a marker for the "navel" of the earth, or axis mundi.

Delphi was revered throughout the Greek world as the site of the omphalos stone, the centre of the earth and the universe. In the inner hestia ("hearth") of the Temple of Apollo, an eternal flame burned. After the battle of Plataea, the Greek cities extinguished their fires and brought new fire from the hearth of Greece, at Delphi; in the foundation stories of several Greek colonies, the founding colonists were first dedicated at Delphi.

Delphi became the site of a major temple to Phoebus Apollo, as well as the Pythian Games and the famous prehistoric oracle. Even in Roman times, hundreds of votive statues remained, described by Pliny the Younger and seen by Pausanias. Supposedly carved into the temple were the phrase (gnothi seauton = "know thyself") and (meden agan = "nothing in excess"), as well as a large letter E.

Apollo spoke through his oracle, who had to be an older woman of blameless life chosen from among the peasants of the area. The sybyl or prophetess took the name Pythia and sat on a tripod seat over an opening in the earth. When Apollo slew Python, its body fell into this fissure, according to legend, and fumes arose from its decomposing body.

Intoxicated by the vapors, the sibyl would fall into trance, allowing Apollo to possess her spirit. In this state she prophesied. She spoke in riddles, which were interpreted by the priests of the temple, and people consulted her on everything from important matters of public policy to personal affairs.

On the morning of a day when the Oracle was scheduled to prophesy, a goat would be sacrificed at an altar just outside of the great Temple of Apollo, and its entrails would be examined. If results were favorable, the Oracle would operate that day. She would then complete the prescribed rituals: purification in the Castalian waters, dressing in full ceremonial robes, sometimes chewing a few laurel leaves, seating herself on the tripod and inhaling the foul-smelling vapors.

The Pythia was knowledgeable in many areas: history, religion, geography, politics, mathematics, philosophy, etc. She uttered advice on where and how to build cities, which laws to incorporate, and which prayers to utter. Her predictions were often very shrewdly phrased, which caused many supplicants to misinterpret the advice. The most famous instance of this comes down to us through a Delphic prediction given to Croesus, king of Lydia. In 550 BCE,

Croesus was preparing to invade the Persian Empire when he consulted the Oracle about his chances for victory. After sacrificing 300 head of cattle to Apollo, he had gold and silver melted down into 117 bricks, which were sent to Delphi, along with jewels, statues, and a gold bowl weighing a quarter of a ton. With these gifts, Croesus sent his question of whether he should attack Persia.

The Pythia answered that, if he crossed a river, "Croesus will destroy a great empire." Encouraged by this response, he invaded Persia, only to suffer a decisive defeat. The Persians invaded and then conquered Lydia and captured Croesus, who thereafter bitterly denounced the Oracle. He sent his iron chains to Delphi with the question, "Why did you lie to me?" The Pythia correctly answered that her prophecy had been fulfilled. Croesus had destroyed a great empire -- his own.

A poem that reminds me of my other half

2007-09-12T16:25:00.000-07:00

From - Air and Angels
~ John Donne

Twice or thrice had I loved thee,

Before I knew thy face or name;

So in a voice,

so in a shapeless flame,

Angels affect us oft,

and worshipped be;

Still when, to where thou wert,

I came,

Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.

But since my soul,

whose child love is,

Takes limbs of flesh,

and else could nothing do,

More subtle than the parent is

Love must not be,

but take a body too;

And therefore what thou wert,

and who,

I bid love ask,

and now That it assume

thy body I allow,

And fix itself in thy lip,

eye, and brow.

The Myth of Virgo

2007-09-12T04:39:00.000-07:00

Virgo (August 23 - September 23)

Modern language sometimes does some very funny things with words and concepts that come from the pre-Christian era. For example, take the Latin word virgo. It's usually interpreted as virgin, with all its sexual implications. So that the typical Virgo portrayed in popular astrology is virginal, i.e., prudish or inhibited or sexually cool. One need only look at some well-known film personalities born under Virgo, like Sophia Loren and Jacqueline Bisset and Sean Connery, to feel a little silly about equating Virgo with a lack of sexual interest or appeal.

But more of that later. Let's go back to what the word virgo once meant. It had, in fact, nothing to do with sexual virginity, but simply meant intact, self-contained. The great mythical figure that stands behind Virgo is the Great Goddess, the Magna Mater, and she was no virgin. In fact she is often portrayed in myth as the Great Harlot, the fecund one. There is a magnificent statue of the virgin goddess Artemis, one of many names for the Great Goddess, portrayed with fifty breasts to show that she represents the nurturer and giver of life to all of life. But she is virgo in the sense that she is self-possessed, her own person.

In early mythology, from which we inherit the figure of the Virgin Goddess, before the Hellene invasion from the north into the agricultural civilizations of the Aegean in around 2000 B.C., the goddess did not owe her powers on her status to a divine husband as we see her in later mythology.

She ruled alone, self-contained, husbandless, yet offering her femininity freely as she chose. She was the consort of all life. This is a clue to the deepest meaning of Virgo: the ultimate goal of this apparently humble sign is nothing less than the self-possessed psyche, the person who integrated within herself and can therefore give freely because she need not fear losing herself in another. She can choose life's experiences from her own place of completeness, rather than because her need for finding herself in another drives her into relationships or situations which destroy her or rule her.

Sometimes you see this pattern of becoming one's own person lived out in the lives of Virgos through the necessity to live alone for a period of time. In fact this seems to be almost a requirement for Virgo to develop himself or herself. Difficult as it is for any person to face loneliness, many Virgos impose it on themselves, not because they don't need others, but because something in them says that you must learn to be yourself and love you own company before you can allow another person to be himself.

The zodiacal circle of twelve signs is divided into halves. The first half - Aries through Virgo - is often taken to symbolize the stages of individual development. The second half - Libra through Pisces - is often taken to symbolize the individual's relationship to the larger society, other people, the world.

Virgo is the last of the first half of the zodiac, the cycle of individual development which we mentioned earlier. This means that Virgo in its deepest sense is about the real synthesis and integration of the individual, the refinement and ordering of all the experiences which have come from the first five signs. In an odd way you can see this in Virgo, just as you see it in Pisces, the last sign of the second half of the zodiac. In Pisces, you see the world, for the sign stands at the end of the great round. Pisceans contain the whole of human experience. It's why they can identify with anybody, sometimes much to their cost.

Virgo contains all the stages of individual development. She's been through the rash impulsive courage of Aries challenging life. She's been through the building and acquiring stability of Taurus. She's been through the curiosity and fascination with ideas of Gemini. She's been through the need for warmth and family and roots of Cancer. She's been through the need to be creative and individual in Leo.

You can see a sort of matter-of-fact 'Yes, I've done that' quality in many Virgos when they watch those other signs. It's as thought it's stored somewhere in their memory banks. And their job, their business, is about taking all those different stages and kinds of experience and not specializing in one but rather making a refined and well-functioning whole out of it. It's one of the reasons you find so many Virgos obsessed with health and diet, and equally many obsessed with psychology and self-help. They're trying hard to knit the whole thing together, to become the efficiently functioning person who can deal with any experience. But because Virgo is the final summation of the first cycle, any experience means any personal encounter, not an encounter with a group. Virgo isn't ready to go out into the bigger life of society. That's Libra's job. The compulsive self-perfecting that you find in so many Virgos, have a deep symbolic root. It's the need to prepare the vessel, to craft it, shape it, refine it, for some vaguely sensed next phase for which Virgo waits without really knowing what it is she's waiting and preparing for.

Virgo is also connected with the strange picture-language and concepts of medieval alchemy. Every Virgo, in some way, little or big, is an alchemist. Now, medieval alchemy doesn't really have anything to do with the practice of making gold, any more than Virgo has to do with virginity.

If you read old alchemical texts, you'll hear them constantly saying that alchemical gold isn't ordinary gold. It's transmuted substance, inner gold, spiritual gold, creative gold. It's about purification, of taking something clumsy and crude and base and transforming it so that the real potential shines out of it. Whether it's her house or her body or her psyche, this laborious process of transmutation goes on throughout Virgo's life. One way or another, whether it's herself or other people or the disorderly world, her business, her environment or the products of her skilful hands. Virgo is attempting the alchemical transformation. It isn't really the outside world she's trying to order and synthesize. It's life. And life, ultimately, is herself.

Mythology and History
The Maiden.
Named for the Greek goddess Demeter, the Earth-goddess, and is associated with the arrival of spring and bringer of the growing season. Hades, the God of the Underground, fell in love with Demeter's daughter, Persephone. He promised himself that he would marry Persephone, making her his queen. Demeter would not stand for this. One day Hades, in a black chariot drawn by four great black horses in golden harness and reins, rode up to Persephone and carried the girl off with him back to the Underworld.
Zeus solved the problem by saying that Persephone would spend half of her time in the Underworld with Hades and the other half on Olympus with her mother. In this way, winter comes when Persephone goes down to the Underworld to be with Hades. When Persephone returns to Olympus, the winter cloak of death melts and there is a rebirth of life over the land and the crops begin to grow.

Virgo usually is shown carrying two sheaves of wheat, one of which is marked by the bright star Spica, whose name comes form the Latin and means ear of wheat, or corn.

Known as Ishtar or Lilith by the Babylonians. And also was known to the Sumerians.
The Egyptians knew Virgo as Isis, the Goddess of Fertility.
The Hindus looked at Virgo as Kauni, or "the Maiden."
The Persians called her Khosha, or "the Ear of Wheat."
The Hebrews called her Bethulah, meaning "Abundance in Harvest."

Virgo, the Virgin

Virgin august! come in thy regal state
With soft majestic grace and brow serene;
Though the fierce Lion's reign is overpast
The summer's heat is all thine own as yet,
And all untouched thy robe of living green
By the rude fingers of the northern blast.
— R. J. Philbrick's Virgo.

she is the oldest purely allegorical representation of innocence and virtue. This legend seems to be first found with Hesiod, and was given in full by Aratos, his longest constellational history in the Phainomena, Other authors mentioned her as Eirene, Irene, the sister of Astraea, and the Pax of the Romans, with the olive branch; as Concordia; as Parthenos Dios, the Virgin Goddess; as Sibulla, the Singing Sibyl, carrying a branch into Hades; and as Tukhe, the Roman Fortuna, because she is a headless constellation, the stars marking the head being very faint.

Classical Latin writers occasionally called her Ano, Atargatis, and Derceto, the Syrorum Dea transferred here from Pisces; Cybele drawn by lions, for our Leo immediately precedes her; Diana; Minerva; Panda and Pantica; and even Medusa. Posidippus, 289 B.C., gave Thesbia or Thespia, daughter of Thespius, or of the Theban Asopus; and some said that one of the Muses, even Urania herself, was placed here in the sky by Apollo.

Ishtar, the Queen of the Stars, was the Ashtoreth of the 1st Book of the Kings, xi, 5, 33, the original of the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome; perhaps equivalent to Athyr, Athor, or Hathor of the Nile, and the Astarte of Syria, the last philologically akin to our Esther and Star, the Greek Aster. Astarte, too, was identified by the Venerable Bede with the Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre, at whose festival, our Easter, the stars of Virgo shine so brightly in the eastern evening sky; and the Sumerians of southern Babylonia assigned this constellation to their sixth month as the Errand, or Message, of Istar.

But all these figurings, ancient as some of them may be, are modern when compared with the still enduring Sphinx generally claimed as prehistoric, perhaps of the times of the Hor-she-shu, long anterior to the first historical Egyptian ruler, Menes; and constructed, according to Greek tradition, with Virgo's head on Leo's body, from the fact that the sun passed through these two constellations during the inundation of the Nile.

The astrological influences of the constellation

Ptolemy makes the following observations; "the stars on the head of Virgo and that at the top of the southern wing, operate like Mercury and somewhat like Mars; the other bright stars in the same wing and those about the girdle resemble Mercury in their influence and also Venus moderately . . .; those at the points of the feet and at the bottom of the garments are like Mercury and also Mars moderately". By the Kabalists it is associated with the Hebrew letter Gimel and the 3rd Tarot Trump "The Empress". (Robson).
"spicifera est Virgo Cereris" — "The Virgin with her sheaf belongs to Ceres".

Rising sign in Virgo: The temperaments of those whose span of life she pronounces at their birth Erigone will direct to study, and she will train their minds in the learned arts. She will give not so much abundance of wealth as the impulse to investigate the causes and effects of things. On them she will confer a tongue which charms, the mastery of words, and that mental vision which can discern all things, however concealed they be by the mysterious workings of nature. But with ' the good there comes a flaw : bashfulness handicaps the early years of such persons, for the Maid, by holding back their great natural gifts, puts a bridle on their lips and restrains them by the curb of authority.

Personality Types

2007-09-09T00:04:00.000-07:00

Your Type is INFJ Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging Strength of the preferences % 44 50 25 33

The Portrait of the Counselor Idealist (iNFj) RATIONAL ARTISAN IDEALIST GUARDIAN

The Counselor Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in reaching their goals, and directive and introverted in their interpersonal roles. Counselors focus on human potentials, think in terms of ethical values, and come easily to decisions. The small number of this type (little more than 2 percent) is regrettable, since Counselors have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy helping their companions. Although Counsleors tend to be private, sensitive people, and are not generally visible leaders, they nevertheless work quite intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes with their families, friends, and colleagues. This type has great depth of personality; they are themselves complicated, and can understand and deal with complex issues and people.

Counselors can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. With their loved ones, certainly, Counselors are not reluctant to express their feelings, their face lighting up with the positive emotions, but darkening like a thunderhead with the negative. Indeed, because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, Counselors can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people, mutely withdrawing from human contact. At the same time, friends who have known a

Counselor for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that they are inconsistent; Counselors value their integrity a great deal, but they have intricately woven, mysterious personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

Counselors have strong empathic abilities and can become aware of another's emotions or intentions -- good or evil -- even before that person is conscious of them. This "mind-reading" can take the form of feeling the hidden distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types to comprehend. Even Counselors can seldom tell how they came to penetrate others' feelings so keenly. Furthermore, the Counselor is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena and to have visions of human events, past, present, or future. What is known as ESP may well be exceptional intuitive ability-in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such supernormal intuition is found frequently in the Counselor, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance.

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Beneath the quiet exterior, INFJs hold deep convictions about the weightier matters of life. Those who are activists -- INFJs gravitate toward such a role -- are there for the cause, not for personal glory or political power.

INFJs are champions of the oppressed and downtrodden. They often are found in the wake of an emergency, rescuing those who are in acute distress. INFJs may fantasize about getting revenge on those who victimize the defenseless. The concept of 'poetic justice' is appealing to the INFJ.

"There's something rotten in Denmark." Accurately suspicious about others' motives, INFJs are not easily led. These are the people that you can rarely fool any of the time. Though affable and sympathetic to most, INFJs are selective about their friends. Such a friendship is a symbiotic bond that transcends mere words.

INFJs have a knack for fluency in language and facility in communication. In addition, nonverbal sensitivity enables the INFJ to know and be known by others intimately.

Writing, counseling, public service and even politics are areas where INFJs frequently find their niche.

Functional Analysis:

Introverted iNtuitionIntroverted intuitives, INFJs enjoy a greater clarity of perception of inner, unconscious processes than all but their INTJ cousins. Just as SP types commune with the object and "live in the here and now" of the physical world, INFJs readily grasp the hidden psychological stimuli behind the more observable dynamics of behavior and affect. Their amazing ability to deduce the inner workings of the mind, will and emotions of others gives INFJs their reputation as prophets and seers. Unlike the confining, routinizing nature of introverted sensing, introverted intuition frees this type to act insightfully and spontaneously as unique solutions arise on an event by event basis.

Extraverted FeelingExtraverted feeling, the auxiliary deciding function, expresses a range of emotion and opinions of, for and about people. INFJs, like many other FJ types, find themselves caught between the desire to express their wealth of feelings and moral conclusions about the actions and attitudes of others, and the awareness of the consequences of unbridled candor. Some vent the attending emotions in private, to trusted allies. Such confidants are chosen with care, for INFJs are well aware of the treachery that can reside in the hearts of mortals. This particular combination of introverted intuition and extraverted feeling provides INFJs with the raw material from which perceptive counselors are shaped.

Introverted Thinking

The INFJ's thinking is introverted, turned toward the subject. Perhaps it is when the INFJ's thinking function is operative that he/she is most aloof. A comrade might surmise that such detachment signals a disillusionment, that she has also been found lacking by the sardonic eye of this one who plumbs the depths of the human spirit. Experience suggests that such distancing is merely an indication that the seer is hard at work and focusing energy into this less efficient tertiary function.

Extraverted Sensing

INFJs are twice blessed with clarity of vision, both internal and external. Just as they possess inner vision which is drawn to the forms of the unconscious, they also have external sensing perception which readily takes hold of worldly objects. Sensing, however, is the weakest of the INFJ's arsenal and the most vulnerable. INFJs, like their fellow intuitives, may be so absorbed in intuitive perceiving that they become oblivious to physical reality. The INFJ under stress may fall prey to various forms of immediate gratification. Awareness of extraverted sensing is probably the source of the "SP wannabe" side of INFJs. Many yearn to live spontaneously; it's not uncommon for INFJ actors to take on an SP (often ESTP) role.

Famous INFJs:Nathan, prophet of Israel, Aristophanes, Chaucer, Goethe, Robert Burns, Scottish poet

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Introverted iNtuiting Feeling Judging

INFJs are distinguished by both their complexity of character and the unusual range and depth of their talents. Strongly humanitarian in outlook, INFJs tend to be idealists, and because of their J preference for closure and completion, they are generally "doers" as well as dreamers. This rare combination of vision and practicality often results in INFJs taking a disproportionate amount of responsibility in the various causes to which so many of them seem to be drawn.

INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with individuals as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world.

On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates." While instinctively courting the personal and organizational demands continually made upon them by others, at intervals INFJs will suddenly withdraw into themselves, sometimes shutting out even their intimates. This apparent paradox is a necessary escape valve for them, providing both time to rebuild their depleted resources and a filter to prevent the emotional overload to which they are so susceptible as inherent "givers." As a pattern of behavior, it is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the enigmatic INFJ character to outsiders, and hence the most often misunderstood -- particularly by those who have little experience with this rare type.

Due in part to the unique perspective produced by this alternation between detachment and involvement in the lives of the people around them, INFJs may well have the clearest insights of all the types into the motivations of others, for good and for evil. The most important contributing factor to this uncanny gift, however, are the empathic abilities often found in Fs, which seem to be especially heightened in the INFJ type (possibly by the dominance of the introverted N function).

This empathy can serve as a classic example of the two-edged nature of certain INFJ talents, as it can be strong enough to cause discomfort or pain in negative or stressful situations. More explicit inner conflicts are also not uncommon in INFJs; it is possible to speculate that the causes for some of these may lie in the specific combinations of preferences which define this complex type. For instance, there can sometimes be a "tug-of-war" between NF vision and idealism and the J practicality that urges compromise for the sake of achieving the highest priority goals. And the I and J combination, while perhaps enhancing self-awareness, may make it difficult for INFJs to articulate their deepest and most convoluted feelings.

Usually self-expression comes more easily to INFJs on paper, as they tend to have strong writing skills. Since in addition they often possess a strong personal charisma, INFJs are generally well-suited to the "inspirational" professions such as teaching (especially in higher education) and religious leadership. Psychology and counseling are other obvious choices, but overall, INFJs can be exceptionally difficult to pigeonhole by their career paths. Perhaps the best example of this occurs in the technical fields.

Many INFJs perceive themselves at a disadvantage when dealing with the mystique and formality of "hard logic", and in academic terms this may cause a tendency to gravitate towards the liberal arts rather than the sciences. However, the significant minority of INFJs who do pursue studies and careers in the latter areas tend to be as successful as their T counterparts, as it is *iNtuition* -- the dominant function for the INFJ type -- which governs the ability to understand abstract theory and implement it creatively.

In their own way, INFJs are just as much "systems builders" as are INTJs; the difference lies in that most INFJ "systems" are founded on human beings and human values, rather than information and technology. Their systems may for these reasons be conceptually "blurrier" than analogous NT ones, harder to measure in strict numerical terms, and easier to take for granted -- yet it is these same underlying reasons which make the resulting contributions to society so vital and profound.

African Farm - by Sybille

2007-09-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

African Farm - by Sybille

the yellowhite of one leftover tooth,
pumpkins ripening on the skew sink roof,
the crooked old farmhouse squats in the dirt,
a scraggly old hen over her brood

Inside its always dusk and in the gloom
dark ebony furniture people the room,
on the sideboard the Dutch bible,
source of strength for their survival

Ancestors in too tight sunday best and shawls,
look down from oval frames on white walls
lips and hair unnaturally colored in later,
with magenta and black

the old sturdy dining room table
around which little boer children said grace
over a meal of mutton pumpkin and maize,
dirty bare feet discreetly under the seat

Cool painted cement floors in the rooms,
covered in grandma's rugs from her loom,
and springbok skin worked by white hands to soft bloom

under the teak bedstead porcelain chamber pots
painted with fat cabbage roses,
peeks coyly from under crocheted bedspreads

memories of long sultry summer nights
listening for the grandfather clock to strike,
and turning over the pillow to its cool side

oh the innocent pleasures of yore,
a mug of condensed milk sweetened coffee
eaten with a boer rusk while sitting on the floor

from the kitchen ceiling orange peels suspended to dry,
one day to flavor milk tarts
or grandma's famous orange and date pie

the porch where we used to sit on long hot summer afternoons
sipping ginger beer with raisins in,
and disussing the corona around the moon,
maybe it means rain
tomorrow.

The Leper's Bride -

2007-09-06T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Leper’s Bride
Alfred Tennyson

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I.
WHY wail you, pretty plover? and what is it that you fear?
Is he sick your mate like mine? have you lost him, is he fled?
And there—the heron rises from his watch beside the mere,
And flies above the leper’s hut, where lives the living-dead.
II.
Come back, nor let me know it! would he live and die alone?
And has he not forgiven me yet, his over-jealous bride,
Who am, and was, and will be his, his own and only own,
To share his living death with him, die with him side by side?
III.
Is that the leper’s hut on the solitary moor,
Where noble Ulric dwells forlorn, and wears the leper’s weed?
The door is open. He! is he standing at the door,
My soldier of the Cross? it is he and he indeed!
IV.
My roses—will he take them now—mine, his—from off the tree
We planted both together, happy in our marriage morn?
O God, I could blaspheme, for he fought Thy fight for Thee,
And Thou hast made him leper to compass him with scorn—
V.
Hast spared the flesh of thousands, the coward and the base,
And set a crueller mark than Cain’s on him, the good and brave!
He sees me, waves me from him. I will front him face to face.
You need not wave me from you. I would leap into your grave.
. . . . .
VI.
My warrior of the Holy Cross and of the conquering sword,
The roses that you cast aside—once more I bring you these.
No nearer? do you scorn me when you tell me, O my lord,
You would not mar the beauty of your bride with your disease.
VII.
You say your body is so foul—then here I stand apart,
Who yearn to lay my loving head upon your leprous breast.
The leper plague may scale my skin but never taint my heart;
Your body is not foul to me, and body is foul at best.
VIII.
I loved you first when young and fair, but now I love you most;
The fairest flesh at last is filth on which the worm will feast;
This poor rib-grated dungeon of the holy human ghost,
This house with all its hateful needs no cleaner than the beast,
IX.
This coarse diseaseful creature which in Eden was divine,
This Satan-haunted ruin, this little city of sewers,
This wall of solid flesh that comes between your soul and mine,
Will vanish and give place to the beauty that endures,
X.
The beauty that endures on the Spiritual height,
When we shall stand transfigured, like Christ on Hermon hill,
And moving each to music, soul in soul and light in light,
Shall flash thro’ one another in a moment as we will.
XI.
Foul! foul! the word was yours not mine, I worship that right hand
Which fell’d the foes before you as the woodman fells the wood,
And sway’d the sword that lighten’d back the sun of Holy land,
And clove the Moslem crescent moon, and changed it into blood.
XII.
And once I worshipt all too well this creature of decay,
For Age will chink the face, and Death will freeze the supplest limbs—
Yet you in your mid manhood—O the grief when yesterday
They bore the Cross before you to the chant of funeral hymns.
XIII.
‘Libera me, Domine!’ you sang the Psalm, and when
The Priest pronounced you dead, and flung the mould upon your feet,
A beauty came upon your face, not that of living men,
But seen upon the silent brow when life has ceased to beat.
XIV.
‘Libera nos, Domino’—you knew not one was there
Who saw you kneel beside your bier, and weeping scarce could see;
May I come a little nearer, I that heard, and changed the prayer
And sang the married ‘nos’ for the solitary ‘me.’
XV.
My beauty marred by you? by you! so be it. All is well
If I lose it and myself in the higher beauty, yours.
My beauty lured that falcon from his eyry on the fell,
Who never caught one gleam of the beauty which endures—
XVI.
The Count who sought to snap the bond that link’d us life to life,
Who whisper’d me ‘your Ulric loves’—a little nearer still—
He hiss’d, ‘Let us revenge ourselves, your Ulric woos my wife’—
A lie by which he thought he could subdue me to his will.
XVII.
I knew that you were near me when I let him kiss my brow;
Did he touch me on the lips? I was jealous, anger’d, vain,
And I meant to make you jealous. Are you jealous of me now?
Your pardon, O my love, if I ever gave you pain.
XVIII.
You never once accused me, but I wept alone, and sigh’d
In the winter of the Present for the summer of the Past;
That icy winter silence—how it froze you from your bride,
Tho’ I made one barren effort to break it at the last.
XIX.
I brought you, you remember, these roses, when I knew
You were parting for the war, and you took them tho’ you frown’d;
You frown’d and yet you kiss’d them. All at once the trumpet blew,
And you spurr’d your fiery horse, and you hurl’d them to the ground.
XX.
You parted for the Holy War without a word to me,
And clear myself unask’d—not I. My nature was too proud.
And him I saw but once again, and far away was he,
When I was praying in a storm—the crash was long and loud—
XXI.
That God would ever slant His bolt from falling on your head—
Then I lifted up my eyes, he was coming down the fell—
I clapt my hands. The sudden fire from Heaven had dash’d him dead,
And sent him charr’d and blasted to the deathless fire of Hell.
XXII.
See, I sinn’d but for a moment. I repented and repent,
And trust myself forgiven by the God to whom I kneel.
A little nearer? Yes. I shall hardly be content
Till I be leper like yourself, my love, from head to heel.
XXIII.
O foolish dreams, that you, that I, would slight our marriage oath
I held you at that moment even dearer than before;
Now God has made you leper in His loving care for both,
That we might cling together, never doubt each other more.
XXIV.
The Priest, who join’d you to the dead, has join’d our hands of old;
If man and wife be but one flesh, let mine be leprous too,
As dead from all the human race as if beneath the mould;
If you be dead, then I am dead, who only live for you.
XXV.
Would Earth tho’ hid in cloud not be follow’d by the Moon?
The leech forsake the dying bed for terror of his life?
The shadow leave the Substance in the brooding light of noon?
Or if I had been the leper would you have left the wife?
XXVI.
Not take them? Still you wave me off—poor roses—must I go—
I have worn them year by year—from the bush we both had set—
What? fling them to you?—well—that were hardly gracious. No!
Your plague but passes by the touch. A little nearer yet!
XXVII.
There, there! he buried you, the Priest; the Priest is not to blame,
He joins us once again, to his either office true:
I thank him. I am happy, happy. Kiss me. In the name
Of the everlasting God, I will live and die with You.

Synchronicity

2007-09-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

To understand synchronicity, the notion of cause and effect must be left behind.'
What do we replace it with? C. G. Jung reflected deeply on this question and towards the end of his life he proposed another kind of 'event'.

He called it synchronicity, an acausal connecting principle. Here one event does not cause another but coincides or participates in a way that is meaningful. An example can be taken from his own files. A patient was telling him about a dream she had. In it she was given a golden scarab. When she mentioned this, Jung, with his back to the window, heard a tapping noise. A flying insect was knocking against the window from the outside. He opened the window and caught it in his hand as it flew into the room. It was a scarabaeid beetle, the closest thing to a scarab found in that region.

What does this mean? The dream of the scarab, and the telling of the dream to Jung in his office, did not cause the scarabaeid beetle to tap at the window and fly into Jung's hand yet the two events are connected. They share meaning. According to Jung, the patient was extremely rational and rejected any emotions or phenomena that could not be validated through logic including the reality of her own unconscious. Jung said, "The meaningful connection is obvious enough ... in view of the approximate identity of the chief objects (the scarab and the beetle)." The Scarab, he knew, in Egyptian mythology is associated with rebirth and it was just such a rebirth of consciousness that his patient not only needed but was handed in her dream, and in the coinciding scarabaeid beetle who flew uncharacteristically away from light and into the darkened room.

Couldn't this just be chance? Many synchronicities might be dismissed as random chance though this can only be the case if we experience the events as existing outside ourselves--external phenomena with no internal meaning. If there is no connection to our inner world, then we do not experience it as a synchronicity. Jung felt that the psyche (soul) and soma (the body) were linked and that an inner event could manifest as an outer event and visa versa. He said,

"Meaningful coincidences are unthinkable as pure chance--the more they multiply and the greater and more exact the correspondence is...they can no longer be regarded as pure chance, but, for the lack of a causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements." The question is, what is being arranged, and between whom?

Enter the Unus Mundas. This is a term taken from alchemists of the middle ages that means 'one world'. It depicts the union between inner events, such as dreams, ideas, thoughts and imagination and the outer world of tangible existence. Synchronicity --the experience of unrelated coincidences --is a moment of Unus Mundas where the inner world (such as thinking of a person who we haven't seen in a long time) meets the outer world ( when that person calls on the phone just as we think of them).

Types of Synchronicities

1) The coincidence of an inner psychic state in the observer with a simultaneous objective, external state that corresponds in some way, (e.g. the scarab), where there is no evidence of a causal connection between the psychic state and the external event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space and time, such a connection is not conceivable.

2) The coincidence of an inner psychic state with a corresponding external event which takes place at a distance and is only later validated.

3) The coincidence of an inner psychic state with a corresponding future event that is distant in time and can is only later be validated. (e.g. Jung's example)

When are synchronicities likely to occur? Jung found that synchronicities tend to occur when we are in states of openness or heightened awareness. Meditation can also heighten our awareness and make us more attuned to synchronicities.

Because synchronicity is characterized by a sense of meaning, it can be seen as a bridge between the inner world of the psyche and the outer world of reality. Within a synchronicity, patterns of external events mirror an inner experience; likewise dreams and fantasies may seem to flood over into the external world. But how do we apply meaning? What exactly do we mean when we say the word?

Meaning for C. G. Jung was an exploration away from causal paradigms. Not looking for a rational explanation for an event, Jung looked instead for 'meaning' or purpose. He did not ask what caused something to happen; he asked 'what happened?'

This reorientation away from cause and effect is reflected in modern physicists who are looking more for connections than explanations based on 'natural laws'. It also highlights the potential of synchronistic events to be markers of the future-- where causation has ties with the past. As markers of time, synchronicities happen in chairos or when 'the time is right'. Another marker of chairos is found in myth.

“Myths evoke feelings and imagination and touch on themes that are part of the human collective inheritance. The myths…remain current and personally relevant because there is a ring of truth in them about shared human experience.”

Both synchronicity and mythology form a bridge between psyche and soma, mind and matter. This concept can be explored through the language of myth and fairy tale.

In the mythologies of many people, the mythic figure who is the embodiment of the unexpected (synchronicity) is the Trickster, who steps godlike through the cracks and flaws in the ordered world of ordinary reality, bringing good luck and bad, profit and loss

This is an archetypal figure known to Native Americans as 'Coyote' and 'Maui' to the Polynesians. He is also known as Loki, Krishna and Hermes. These archetypes of the Trickster command the boundaries between conscious and unconscious, life and death. As Psychopomp, Hermes is a guide of souls to the underworld as well as the patron of travelers and thieves.

These images of transition warn us that when the Trickster shows up an experience of synchronicity is at hand. Another powerful Trickster figure is seen in the archetype of the uninvited guest as depicted by the 13th Fairy and the goddess of strife, Eris.

The Uninvited Guest “I am the Fairy Uglyane! Pray where are your King’s manners, that I have not been invited?”

Thanks to Walt Disney, almost everyone is familiar with the story of Sleeping Beauty. Although the highlights may be on Prince Charming, love’s first kiss, and happy ever after, the action of the tale, the event that really gets things started, comes from the curse of the uninvited guest--the 13th fairy.

It is this neglected enchantress, disgruntled by being ignored, that causes the entire kingdom to fall into unconsciousness.

There is another tale that comes to us from Homer’s Iliad. Here it is the tempestuous goddess of strife, Eris, who has also been overlooked. When she fails to receive an invitation for the event that all the gods and goddesses are attending, she crashes the party. Eris then stirs things up by tossing a golden apple down the banquet table. Bouncing and crashing through the crystal and fine china, it ultimately falls to rest midway between Hera, Queen of the gods, Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. Around the golden apple is inscribed “for the fairest” and of course, each of the three deities reach for it.

Zeus, sensing trouble, quickly calls upon the young mortal Paris to decide which of the three goddesses deserves the apple--which is most fair. Paris may or may not have realized the dubious nature of this honor. In any case, it seems he had no choice. Each goddess paraded in front of him, offering reward after her own fashion—Hera offered power, Athena offered strategy and Aphrodite offered the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. Paris chose Helen and thus began the Trojan war.

The result of this event was the destruction of Troy (a synchronicity foretold by his mother's dream) and enormous loss of lives all round. Helen and Paris had a very hard time, as did her Greek husband, Menelaus, and all because nobody thought to include the goddess Eris to dinner. In the words of Richard Idemon, 'There is a message here.'

The message has to do with the results of neglect and the kinds of synchronicities that may be evoked by the 'Trickster'. This is not a reference to neglecting health, diet or exercise and then suffering the physical consequences. This is about neglecting the needs of our own innate energy, our inner world, and the results that oversight may bring.

If inner needs are ignored, we only have to look to fairy tales and myths to find out what can happen. In human nature, the worst punishment is ostracism and the outcome of such an exclusion, even self inflicted, is often self-destructive. The inner life of the psyche has its way of being felt, for better or for worse. One way an uninvited element of the unconscious may manifest in life is through dis-ease (strife) of a physical or emotional nature. This can be experienced as a synchronicity, especially if the illness prevents forward movement, changing a job, relationship or location and forces one into self-reflection. Synchronicities may come at times when inner reflection is most needed.

Jung believed that dreams hold within them their own meaning, just as we recall them (the manifest dream). Unlike Freud, he felt they were not distorted or disguised but difficult to discern. He saw them as messages, natural expressions of the unconscious and challenging to interpret only because they express in their own unique language of symbols and metaphor.

I have found again and again in my professional work that the images and ideas that dreams contain can not possibly be explained solely in terms of memory. (Jung, 1964 p.26)

Many people have experiences in which the outside world meaningfully, but non causally, relates to their dream states. These dreams are synchronistic encounters of the 'third' kind and describe synchronistic events-- The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding future external event.

Divination & Synchronicity

Divination is not a rival form of knowledge; it is a part of the main body of knowledge itself. --Michel Foucault, The Order of Things

The ancient art of Divination has existed as an archetype--in all places, in all cultures, in all times. From the throwing of the bones in Africa to the precise horizon astronomy of the Mayans, humans have developed tools for the symbolic interpretation of their inner life. Jung described the I Ching, Tarot and Astrology as examples of the principle of synchronicity. He felt that in the given moment of the ‘falling of the coins or yarrow stalks’, in the layout of the cards or the symbol system of 'the stars' was reflected the state of mind of the questioner, seeing them as a function of and unified by the divination process. As above, so below.

In a letter to Freud dated June 12, 1911, Jung wrote:
"My evenings are taken up largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth. Some remarkable things have turned up which will certainly appear incredible to you ...I dare say that we shall one day discover in astrology a good deal of knowledge that has been intuitively projected into the heavens."

Jung found, for example, that the choice of a marriage partner could not be reduced to “mere chance” but rather that there appeared to be a causal connection between birth signs and marriage partnerships. He also found examples of synchronicity within the constructs of his study and that “the psychic and physical event (namely the subject’s problems and choice of horoscope) correspond, it would seem, to the nature of the archetype in the background and could therefore represent a synchronistic event."

The link between synchronicity and divination can be seen through the astrological model in what is termed transits. Consider the example of transiting Saturn passing over (or conjunct) an individual’s sun in their natal chart. What may coincide with this event? What synchronicity might be seen between the nature of the planets involved and the person linked to them?
Saturn’s role as the Beast is a necessary part of his meaning, for as the fairytale tells us, it is only when the Beast is loved for his own sake that he can be freed from the spell and can become the Prince."

Saturn is traditionally associated with limits, restrictions, blocks, hard work and loss of esteem or recognition. There is a connection to form and matter, including the skeleton, rocks, mountains and anything that provides scaffolding or structure. He is also linked to the archetype of the ‘pragmatic’ and the ‘isolated’ and concepts such as gravity and reality.

A transit from this planet can coincide with an experience of limitation, isolation and hindrance. Through what appears to be a synchronicity between the individual psyche, the outer planet and the daily life, one is forced to examine what is not working because they get stopped.

Experiences that associate with Saturn can be anything from being fired, rejected, turned down, relationship break-ups to a ‘fall’ that results in a broken limb, lack of finances or restrictions that appear to come from an outside source—all situations that provide the opportunity to reassess life goals and the structure on which aims and objectives are built and nourished.

I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time. --Carl Jung

The concept of Synchronicity began with the collaboration of the Nobel Prize physicist Wolfgang Pauli and analytical psychologist C.G. Jung. Both these men felt there was 'something else' at work in synchronistic events other than the classical understanding of cause and effect or chance. Uniting the approaches of analytical psychology and quantum physics, Jung and Pauli suggested the understanding of synchronicity necessitated the building a bridge with one foundation derived into the objectivity of hard science and the other into the subjectivity of personal values.

Synchronicities connect an individual's inner world in space and time with a universal order or Unus Mundus.

While the conventional laws of physics do not heed human desires or the need for meaning--apples fall whether we will them to or not--synchronicities act as mirrors to the inner processes of mind and take the form of outer manifestations of interior transformations. (Peat, n.d.)

Synchronicity has the curious trait of being simultaneously a singular, individual event and the manifestation of universal order. In this sense it is contained within the temporal moment, exhibiting a transcendental and numinous nature. Transcendental, in quantum physics, refers to quantum objects that are 'waves of possibility' --transcendent potentials that exist outside of space and time yet can effect space and time.

It is this relationship between the transcendent and the coincidental arrangement of mental and physical happenings that the synchronicity acquires its numinous meaning. Synchronicities then are a bridge between mind and matter.

Psyche & Matter

Psyche and matter exist in one and the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible. If research could only advance far enough, therefore, we would arrive at an ultimate agreement between physical and psychological concepts

Synchronicity and quantum phenomena have common ground. There are also important differences. Nonlocality, like synchronicity, involves two quantum events where the observed properties of the quanta have an element of spontaneity in their manifestation, and the correlations between the two quanta are not due to efficient causation between them.

However, quantum nonlocality phenomena differ from synchronicity, because two quantum events can be both events in the outer physical world. Synchronicity is a connection between an inner psychic event and an outer event, bridging psyche and matter, and thus pointing to the unus mundus. This most important aspect of synchronicity relates to the inner psychological meaning and its connection to matter, or manifest reality.

In the quantum phenomenon ...there is no meaning involved. ...In contrast, when an archetype manifests in a synchronicity experience, meaning is the critical point.

Summary
In quantum theory we find time flows symmetrically forward and back with no distinction between past and future.

Synchronicity appears to function in the same way, where future events are perceived in the present.

Quantum theory’s non-locality, the seamless connection between objects, links to synchronicity as it connects the awareness of objects or events outside of the classical range of perception by a non-causal means.

Quantum theory’s ‘action at a distance’, where objects communicate instantaneously at faster than light speed, relates to synchronicity in its potential for instant communication between a thought and a corresponding 'outside' event. In the world of quantum theory, our most fundamental notions about reality break down, but the foundations of synchronicity start to make sense.

We met but once

2007-08-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

We met but in one giddy dance,

Good-night joined hands with greeting;

And twenty thousand things may chance

Before our second meeting;

For oh! I have been often told

That all the world grows older,

And hearts and hopes to-day so cold,

To-morrow must be colder.

The Goblin Market

2007-08-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti

MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries-
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries--
All ripe together
In summer weather--
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy;
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy."
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
"Come buy," call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
"O! cried Lizzie, Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men."
Lizzie covered up her eyes
Covered close lest they should look;
Laura reared her glossy head,
And whispered like the restless brook:
"Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds' weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes."
"No," said Lizzie, "no, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us."
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat's face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry.
Lizzie heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.
Laura stretched her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
"Come buy, come buy."
When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One reared his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heaved the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
"Come buy, come buy," was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Longed but had no money:
The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr'd,
The rat-paced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried "Pretty Goblin" still for "Pretty Polly";
One whistled like a bird.
But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
"Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather."
"You have much gold upon your head,"
They answered altogether:
"Buy from us with a golden curl."
She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She sucked and sucked and sucked the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore,
She sucked until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away,
But gathered up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turned home alone.
Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
"Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Plucked from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the moonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew gray;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so."
"Nay hush," said Laura.
"Nay hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
To-morrow night I will
Buy more," and kissed her.
"Have done with sorrow;
I'll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons, icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink,
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap."

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down, in their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fallen snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars beamed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.
Early in the morning
When the first cock crowed his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churned butter, whipped up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;
Talked as modest maidens should
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night.
At length slow evening came--
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep
Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: "The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep."
But Laura loitered still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.
And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fallen, the wind not chill:
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
"Come buy, come buy,"
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.
p>Till Lizzie urged, "O Laura, come,
I hear the fruit-call, but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glow-worm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark;
For clouds may gather even
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?"
Laura turned cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
"Come buy our fruits, come buy."
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life drooped from the root:
She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;
But peering thro' the dimness, naught discerning,
Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent 'til Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnashed her teeth for balked desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.
Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain,
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
"Come buy, come buy,"
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon waxed bright
Her hair grew thin and gray;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay, and burn
Her fire away.
One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watched for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crowned trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.
She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.
Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister's cankerous care,
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins' cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy."
Beside the brook, along the glen
She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The voice and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Longed to buy fruit to comfort her,
But feared to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter-time,
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter-time.
Till Laura, dwindling,
Seemed knocking at Death's door:
Then Lizzie weighed no more
Better and worse,
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with clumps of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook,
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.
Laughed every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter-skelter, hurry-skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes, --
Hugged her and kissed her;
Squeezed and caressed her;
Stretched up their dishes,
Panniers and plates:
"Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs."
"Good folk," said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie,
"Give me much and many"; --
Held out her apron,
Tossed them her penny.
"Nay, take a seat with us,
Honor and eat with us,"
They answered grinning;
"Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry;
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavor would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us."
"Thank you," said Lizzie; "but one waits
At home alone for me:
So, without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I tossed you for a fee."
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.
White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,
Like a rock of blue-veined stone
Lashed by tides obstreperously, --
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire, --
Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee, --
Like a royal virgin town
Topped with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguered by a fleet
Mad to tear her standard down.
One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,
Kicked and knocked her,
Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in;
But laughed in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syruped all her face,
And lodged in dimples of her chin,
And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot.
Some writhed into the ground,
Some dived into the brook
With ring and ripple.
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanished in the distance.
In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore through the furze,
Threaded copse and dingle,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse, --
Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she feared some goblin man
Dogged her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin skurried after,
Nor was she pricked by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.
She cried "Laura," up the garden,
"Did you miss me ?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men."
Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutched her hair:
"Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruined in my ruin;
Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?"
She clung about her sister,
Kissed and kissed and kissed her:
Tears once again
Refreshed her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.
Her lips began to scorch,
That juice was wormwood to her tongue,
She loathed the feast:
Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks streamed like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.
Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart,
Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame,
She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!
Sense failed in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town
Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree
Spun about,
Like a foam-topped water-spout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;
Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life ?
Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watched by her,
Counted her pulse's flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cooled her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laughed in the innocent old way,
Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of gray,
Her breath was sweet as May,
And light danced in her eyes.
Days, weeks, months,years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat,
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town;)
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
"For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather,

2007-08-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

I crave your mouth - pablo neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me,

dawn disrupts me,

all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

your hands the color of a savage harvest,

hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,

the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,

I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry,

sniffing the twilight, hunting for you,

for your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Lunar eclipse pisces/virgo axis 28 August 2007

2007-08-28T03:31:00.000-07:00

Pisces/Virgo axis: sacrifice, service and enlightenment.

14 days later we experience the second Solar Eclipse of the year on September 11 at 19 Pisces just 12 days before the Autumnal Equinox at 2:52 am PDT on September 22. Both eclipses will shut some old ways of life down forever (as all eclipses do), leaving us space to embrace the new already waiting for us exactly mirroring what we've prepared for up to now. These will shine a light on closures, courage, and transmutation of energies into personality strengths in our process of "escaping from a narrow destiny," shown by whatever educated us since September 2006's Solar and Lunar Eclipses.

One major factor is a wide but still powerful Grand Mutable Cross between Mercury at 17 Virgo, Mars at 14 Gemini, Uranus at 18 Pisces, and Jupiter at 11 Sag. This will function more as a strong T-square throwing the void into 14, 17, and 18 Sag, which Jupiter will trigger as it moves through that span late September and early October 2007.

Vying for your attention on this Full Moon in Pisces is Sun (personal motivation), Mercury (mind), and the South Node (accrued knowledge) in Virgo (the healer/mentor) and on the other side Uranus (the awakener), Moon (intuition), and the North Node (knowledge seeking) in Pisces (the Bodhisattva). With Jupiter in philosophically-minded Sagittarius squaring Sun/Moon/North and South Nodes, I hope you are ready to step deeply into a celebration of the real meaning of commitment to the enlightenment of all sentient beings. No doubt about it; this will be a very spiritually demanding Full Moon.

So what does the August 28 2007 Lunar Eclipse hold for us? One major factor is a wide but still powerful Grand Mutable Cross between Mercury at 17 Virgo, Mars at 14 Gemini, Uranus at 18 Pisces, and Jupiter at 11 Sag. This will function more as a strong T-square throwing the void into 14, 17, and 18 Sag, which Jupiter will trigger as it moves through that span late September and early October 2007.

You can also expect major developments when the Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars cross over these degree spans in Virgo, Sag, and next Pisces. The void shows us symbols of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx, people gathering at an outdoor Easter service, and children playing on the beach protected from the Sun. These imply our need to contact the Ageless Wisdom, our "spiritual ancestry," renew ourselves in relationships that help us "come out of darkness and despair," and value what protects us from too great a light or feelings.

Of note is that Mercury and Jupiter are the final dispositors of all the other planets, and they're in square, so expect splits from the past wherever the Mutable signs fall in your chart. Mercury is on a degree of "volcanic eruption," so besides many explosions to come, we will be offered the chance to "break up old complexes" and find our "will to wholeness." Things will erupt in a big way as a result of this, so be as creative and regenerative as you can while things, people, and whatever else whirls through the air around you.

2007-08-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Lady of ShallotAlfred Lord Tennyson
Part I
On either side the river lieLong fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-tower'd Camelot;

And up and down the people go

,Gazing where the lilies blowRound an island there below,

The island of Shallot.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,

Little breezes dusk and shiver

Thro' the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers,

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shallot.

By the margin, willow veil'd,

Slide the heavy barges trail'd

By slow horses; and unhail'd

The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd

Skimming down to Camelot:

But who hath seen her wave her hand?

Or at the casement seen her stand?

Or is she known in all the land,

The Lady of Shallot?

Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley,

Hear a song that echoes cheerly

From the river winding clearly,

Down to tower'd Camelot:

And by the moon the reaper weary,

Piling sheaves in uplands airy,

Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairyLady of Shallot."

Part II

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shallot.

And moving thro' a mirror clear

That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near

Winding down to Camelot:

There the river eddy whirls,

And there the surly village-churls,

And the red cloaks of market girls,

Pass onward from Shallot.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,

An abbot on an ambling pad,

Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,

Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,

Goes by to tower'd Camelot;

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue

The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

The Lady of Shallot.

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,

For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights

And music, went to Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed:"

I am half sick of shadows,"

saidThe Lady of Shallot.

Part III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves,

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,

And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd

To a lady in his shield,

That sparkled on the yellow field,

Beside remote Shallot.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,

Like to some branch of stars

we seeHung in the golden Galaxy.

The bridle bells rang merrily

As he rode down to Camelot:

And from his blazon'd baldric slung

A mighty silver bugle hung,

And as he rode his armour rung,

Beside remote Shallot.

All in the blue unclouded weather

Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,

The helmet and the helmet-feather

Burn'd like one burning flame together,

As he rode down to Camelot.

As often thro' the purple night,

Below the starry clusters bright,

Some bearded meteor, trailing light,

Moves over still Shallot.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow'd

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river

He flash'd into the crystal mirror,

"Tirra lirra," by the riverSang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro' the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me," criedThe Lady of Shallot.

Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

Over tower'd Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat

Beneath a willow left afloat,

And round about the prow she wrote

The Lady of Shallot.

And down the river's dim expanse

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Seeing all his own mischance--

With a glassy countenance

Did she look to Camelot.

nd at the closing of the day

She loosed the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shallot.

Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right--

The leaves upon her falling light--

Thro' the noises of the night

She floated down to Camelot:

And as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her singing her last song,

The Lady of Shallot.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,

Chanted loudly,

chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darken'd wholly,

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.

or ere she reach'd upon the tide

he first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shallot.

under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

nd round the prow they read her name,

The Lady of Shallot.

Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they cross'd themselves for fear,

All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot mused a little space;

He said, "She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,The Lady of Shallot."

The Lady of ShallotAlfred Lord Tennyson

2007-08-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

The Bridal chamber sacrament

When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female . . . then shall you enter the kingdom.st valentinus-gnosticism

However, it is not sufficient to be unified in one's nature - so Valentinus implied - one must also be redeemed from the corrupting and confusing thralldom of the false existential world wherein one lives. This liberation from the clutches of the world of defect was accomplished by the sacrament of redemption (apolytrosis) sometimes also called restoration (apokatastasis).
e sacrament of redemptionI am established, I am redeemed and I redeem my soul from this aeon and from all that comes from it, in the name of IAO, who redeemed his soul unto the redemption in Christ, the living one. (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 21,5)

May the Grace beyond time and space that was before the beginnings of the Universe fill our inner man and increase within us the semblance of itself as the grain of mustard seed.

valentinus

The psychological basis upon which the bridal chamber ritual is founded is fairly easily understood. The Gnosis considers the human being as divided and fragmented within itself. The divisions have numerous aspects: We are involved in what modern psychology would call an Ego-Self dichotomy, in an Anima-Animus dichotomy, in a body-mind dichotomy, in a subjective-objective dichotomy, and many others. All of these divisions require mending, or healing. Even as the Pleroma, or divine plenum, is characterized by wholeness, so the human being must once again become whole and thereby acquire the qualifications to reenter the Pleroma.

THE CHYMICAL MARRIAGE

The coniunctio (union/conjunction) of Sol and Luna is often called the chymical
wedding

-The union of Sol and Luna is often compared to the "marriage" of Christ and the
Church

-The coniunctio is one of alchemical fundamentals: the union of body and spirit
(Jung’s and Pauli’s psycho-physical monism theory)

-The product of coniunctio is always Mercurius - the epitome of balanced
opposites (The Sun and the Moon are said to supply seeds to plant in earth, from
which Mercurius grows)

-The relationship between the Sun, the Moon, and Mercurius is referred to as
coniunctio triptativa

-Sol and Luna most frequently symbolize consciousness and the unconscious,
respectively

-Fiery Sol, the Sun, whose corresponding metal is gold (or sulphur), is the
source of warmth and light (gold was often called "the sun in the earth")

-Watery Luna, the Moon, whose corresponding metal is silver (or salt), is dark
and cold (water and spirit are often identical; water also holds death-rebirth
symbolism)

-Sol and Luna are equivalent to the Yang (positive, male, assertive) and the Yin
(negative, female, receptive) in Taoist philosophy, whose reciprocity is the
reason for all events of the universe

-Sometimes the coniunctio is omnipresent in world mythologies: as fiery gold, Sol is the result of the alchemical transmutation, and as watery Prima Materia, the spiritus aqua, Luna is its
origin. This makes Luna the mother of Sol

-Luna and Sol often appear as White Queen and Red King (note these colors’
corresponding stages of transmutation; the symbol of this relationship is a
rose). This relates to their symbolism as the anima, the female principle within
a male personality, and the animus, the male principle within a female
personality, respectively. (Jung called this aspect a "medium between the ego
and the unconscious). This is reminiscent of Rubedo, in which Luna becomes a
man, whereas Sol becomes a woman. According to Jung, both aspects are
crucial to their corresponding Self, and their realization is achieved through
relationships with people of the opposite sex. The alchemical concepts of Sol
and Luna seem to be the unconscious projections of the animus and the anima

- Luna is often called Anima Mundi, the World Soul which surrounds cosmos,
half-human half-animal Melusina, or even Lilith. (see dictionary) As Melusina,
she is similar to Virgo, who is often associated with the Mercurial Serpent. As
the Moon, Melusina is also compared to Venus or Aphrodite, not unlike
Mercurius.

Similarly, Melusina as Lillith, is the first wife of Adam in Paradise,
whereas Mercurius is often associated with Adam before the Fall. It is only
natural to represent Mercurius as the anima, which alchemists often did.

Alchemy - ancient esoteric practice, generally thought of as ‘the mother of
chemistry and medicine’ and based on the doctrine of transmuting base metals
into gold. Its new interpretation reveals knowledge of great psychological and
magical significance.

Anima - the feminine principle in men, in Jungian psychology.

Anima Mundi - the "world soul". She is the animating principle that is said to
inhabit all things. Anima Mundi is also said to exist in blood, which is an early
symbol for the soul.

Animus - the masculine principle in women, in Jungian psychology.
(The) Axiom of Maria Prophetissa - "One becomes Two, Two becomes Three,
and out of the Third comes the One as the Fourth". This enigmatic statement,
emphasizing the antagonism between numbers three and four, has been used in
Alchemy for almost two thousand years.

Coagulatio - the third, "equilibrium" stage between Nigredo and Solutio.
Coagulatio consists of eight sub-stages Separatio, Fermentatio, Illuminatio,
Nutrimentum, Fixatio, Multiplicatio, Revificatio, and Sublimatio. Coagulatio is
associated with the independence of Sol and Luna, and its main color is
yellow-green.

Coniunctio, also referred to as the chymical wedding - union of Sol and Luna
which produces Mercurius.

Corpus Glorificatum - the final immutable Philosopher’s Stone with red
transparent tincture.

Corpus Mundum - the purified body, associated with the success of freeing the
ego-consciousness from the contamination with the unconscious, reminiscent
of Sol’s independence.

Corpus Subtile - the subtle body, associated with the diamond body in Eastern
mysticism.

Duplex, Merurius - most frequently-found description of Mercurius, as the
embodiment of the union of striking opposites.

(The) Emerald Tablet - famous alchemical treatise, associated with Hermes
Trismegistus. The Emerald Tablet outlines some of the basic alchemical beliefs.
Filius Macrocosmi, the Cosmic Son - one of the manifestations of the
Philosopher’s Stone and Mercurius.

Filius Microcosmi, the Son of Man - Christ, as the counterpart of the
Philosopher’s Stone and Mercurius.

Formal Quaternity - associated with number seven. It is the product of the
synthesis of Sol, Luna, the Elements, and specially selected Fire, according to
Robert Fludd.

(The) Four Elements - the four basic constituents of all matter in various
philosophical theories.

Fourteen Principles of Hermetic Wisdom - health, humility, holiness, chastity,
virtue, victory, faith, hope, charity, goodness, patience, temperance, a spiritual
discipline, understanding, obedience. These principles, however, do not seem
to be omnipresent.

Greater Work - the last two phases of alchemical transmutation, embodied in
the stages of Coagulatio and Rubedo.

Hermes Trismegistus - "three-times as powerful" or "thrice-born" Hermes. The
famous alchemical Emerald Tablet is attributed to him.

Lady Alchymia, also known as the Anima Mercurii - the guiding presence in
Alchemy.

Lesser Work - the first half of alchemical transmutation, embodied in the phases
of Nigredo and Solutio.

Luna - the Moon in coniunctio; she has corresponding dark and watery
characteristics, and her metal is silver or quicksilver. She is associated with the
unconsious and the Anima in Jungian psychology.

Magnum Opus, "the Great Work" - another name for the alchemical processes.

Mandala - a combination of triangles, squares and circles in regular pattern, as
a symbol of totality in world cultures.

Melusina - associated with Luna, Anima Mundi, Virgo, Lillith, and Morgana. As
Anima Mundi, she animates all things. Melusina resembles a mermaid and has
a fish-like or snake-like tail.

Mercurius - hermaphroditic, bisexual, androgenous product of Coniunctio.
Mercurius is the being at all levels simultaneously, an omnipresent embodiment
of all existent opposites.

Nigredo, also known as Mortificatio - the first stage of alchemical
transmutation, with the motto "black blacker than black". Nigredo is the
corruption that must take place before growth, the chaos that gives birth to
cosmos. The Old King’s death and Sol’s and Luna’s first encounter also take
place in Nigredo.

(The) Old King - the old state of consciousness. The Old King must die in Nigredo
for alchemical transmutation to begin.

Peacock Tail - emergence of all colors of the rainbow, which accompanies the
production of the White Stone and is reminiscent of dispersion in Optics.

(The) Philosopher’s Stone, also referred to as the Lapis Philosophorum - the
"catalyst" for the gold-production in alchemical transmutations. Often, the
Philosopher’s Stone is more important than the alchemical gold. It is extracted
from the Prima Materia, and in its final immutable and perfect stage, it can
grant magical powers to the owner.

(The) Philosophical Egg - a common symbol for the Vessel. The Philosophical
Egg is synonymous with the Uroboros, the Mercurial Serpent, as well as water,
because it "surrounds everything within it and has in itself all that is necessary"
(which is also one of the attributes of God).

(The) Philosophical Tree, Arbor Philosophica - a common alchemical symbol,
associated with the seven planets known at the time. These planets correspond
to the seven metals - gold, sometimes substituted by sulphur, silver, copper,
iron, mercury, lead, and tin, which were said to "grow" on the Philosophical
Tree. The fruit of this Tree is the eternal and incorruptible Mercurial
manifestation as the Philosopher’s Stone.

Prima Materia, also known as the basic moisture, the seed of all things, the root
of itself, and the Massa Confusa, among others. The Prima Materia is the
primordial chaos from which all things originate; it is needed for the extraction
of the Philosopher’s Stone. Prima Materia is said to be filthy and divine
simultaneously.

Quadratura Circuli, "squaring the circle" - one of the methods of obtaining
Philosopher’s Stone, which involves "making a circle out of a man and a
woman, deriving form it a square, and from a square a triangle, then making a
circle".

Quaternus, Mercurius - Mercurial manifestation as the synthesized quaternity
of the Philosopher’s Stone.

Quinta Essentia, the quintessence, or the "light of nature", according to
Paracelsus - sometimes considered to be the "fifth element", as seen in
Leonardo’s Microcosmic Man pentagram. Mercurius is often described as the
quintessence, which holds the four elements together. In this interpretation, the
Quinta Essentia is depicted in the middle of the Four Elements.

(The) Red King - Sol’s frequently used persona.

Rubedo - final (fourth) alchemical stage, associated with red-purple. In this
stage the Philosopher’s Stone gains powers for infinite multiplication. Rubedo’s
two main sub-stages are Multiplicatio and Projectio.

Senex, Mercurius - initial Saturnine substance, associated with the Christian
Devil.

Sol - the Sun in coniunctio; he has corresponding fiery characteristics, and his
metal is gold or sulphur. He is associated with consciousness and the Animus in
Jungian psychology.

Solutio, also referred to as Albedo or Baptisma - the second stage of alchemical
transmutation which embodies "whiteness beyond blackness". Solutio is the
opposite of Nigredo, it has a spiritual, celestial quality, and is associated with
the first production of the White Stone.

Soror (or frater) Mysterium - a companion in the work of the alchemist.

Tetraktys - a fourfold triangle, adding up to ten. Tetraktys can be derived from
the Axiom of Maria Prophetissa because it "begins with unity and ends with
quaternity"; it’s been considered sacred from the times of the Pythagoreans.

Trinus, Mercurius - Mercurial manifestation as the counterpart of the Triune
Christian godhead.

Uroboros - the tail-eating serpent, the symbol for the One and the All, is most
often associated with Mercurius and is present in Coagulatio stage of
alchemical transmutation. Uroboros devours and gives birth to itself.

(The) Vessel - the "uterus" of spiritual renewal and rebirth. According to Maria
Prophetissa, no alchemical transmutation can take place without the
knowledge of the vessel, while in Jung’s view, the Vessel is the person
herself/himself.

(The) White Queen - Luna’s frequently used persona.

Yantra - a form of a mandala, used in Eastern meditation. A yantra consists of
nine interlinking triangles, pointing upward and downward, and representing
the union of Shiva and Shakti, spiritual and material

Gnosticism

2007-08-26T00:23:00.000-07:00

Definition of gnosticism

The Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity that came to be split into a plurality. As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created.

This was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah. A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit in a much more positive role than the leader). Sophia or wisdom In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God.

For man, the universe is a vast prison. He is enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic code.

Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality.

Within each natural man is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.
What effects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge.

Before the awakening, men undergo troubled dreams. Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not information but a modification of the sensate being.

The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event. Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man.

Valentinus or St.Valentine was a gnostic as well who learned from Theudas who in turn was a disciple of Saint Paul

The Valentinians claimed that the secret teachings are meaningful only to those who are spiritually mature. If a person was not ready to receive them, they seem like nonsense "because their value can be judged only on a spiritual basis"

The often-debated cosmogony of Valentinus might be most profitably understood as being based on a single existential recognition, which might be summarized thus: Something is wrong. Somewhere, somehow, the fabric of being at the existential level of human functioning has lost its integrity. We live in a system which is lacking in essential integrity, and thus is defective. So-called orthodox Christians as well as Jews recognize that there is a certain "wrongness" in human existence, but they account for it chiefly in terms of the effects of human sin, original or other.

Jews and Christians hold that whatever is wrong with the world and human existence is the result of human disobedience to the creator. This means, that all evil, discomfort, and terror in our lives and in history are somehow our fault. A great cosmic statement of "Mea Culpa" runs through this world view, which permanently affixes to the human psyche an element of titanic guilt.

Valentinus, in opposition to this guilt-ridden view of life, held that the above-noted defect is not the result of our wrongdoing, but is inherent in the system of existence wherein we live and move and have our being. Moreover, by postulating that creation itself is lacking in integrity, Valentinus not only removes the weight of personal and collective guilt from our shoulders but also points to the redemptive potential resident in the soul of every human being.

Perfect redemption is the cognition itself of the ineffable greatness: for since through ignorance came about the defect . . . the whole system springing from ignorance is dissolved in Gnosis. Therefore Gnosis is the redemption of the inner man; and it is not of the body, for the body is corruptible; nor is it psychical, for even the soul is a product of the defect and it is a lodging to the spirit: pneumatic (spiritual) therefore also must be redemption itself. Through Gnosis, then, is redeemed the inner, spiritual man: so that to us suffices the Gnosis of universal being: and this is the true redemption.

2007-08-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

the sibyl

she lives in a dank cave a hermit alone

a sibyl she is, and her mother the moon

stalagmites bonewhite drips overhead

if one falls on her head she'd be dead
she scries for the truth in indigo depths

visions forms in the water unbidden

she has to be vigilant or they stay hidden
stars are bound to her forehead

her lonely soul fed by messages from the dead

and a bed made of sharp thorns and dread
her bread dipped in the gall of foreknowledge

impotent to avert the catastrophes

that rises and beckons with skeletal fingers
she sees long dead armies marching

mouths agape in soundless screams of warning

the swift winds of pestilence and plague

that death sends to harvest untold innocents

to his lonely harsh breast in dark hades
and the last flickering of the flame of reason

as it slowly goes out in a world beset with demons

Written by Sybille

*The word sibyl comes (via Latin) from the Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess

Orpheus and Eurydice

2007-08-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

Orpheus and Eurydice in Greek Mythology

Orpheus was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope. He was presented by his father with a Lyre and taught to play upon it, which he did to such perfection that nothing could withstand the charm of his music. Not only his fellow-mortals but wild beasts were softened by his strains, and gathering round him laid by their fierceness, and stood entranced with his lay. Nay, the very trees and rocks were sensible to the charm. The former crowded round him and the latter relaxed somewhat of their hardness, softened by his notes.

Hymen had been called to bless with his presence the nuptials of Orpheus with Eurydice; but though he attended, he brought no happy omens with him. His very torch smoked and brought tears into their eyes. In coincidence with such prognostics, Eurydice, shortly after her marriage, while wandering with the nymphs, her companions, was seen by the shepherd Aristaeus, who was struck with her beauty and made advances to her. She fled, and in flying trod upon a snake in the grass, was bitten in the foot, and died.

Orpheus sang his grief to all who breathed the upper air, both gods and men, and finding it all unavailing resolved to seek his wife in the regions of the dead. He descended by a cave situated on the side of the promontory of Taenarus and arrived at the Stygian realm. He passed through crowds of ghosts and presented himself before the throne of Hades and Persephone. Accompanying the words with the lyre, he sung, "O deities of the underworld, to whom all we who live must come, hear my words, for they are true. I come not to spy out the secrets of Tartarus, not to try my strength against the three-headed dog with snaky hair that guards the entrance [Cerberus].

I come to seek my wife, whose opening years the poisonous viper's fang has brought to an untimely end. Love [Eros] has led me here, Love, a god all powerful with us who dwell on the earth, and, if old traditions say true, not less so here. I implore you by these abodes full of terror, these realms of silence and uncreated things, unite again the thread of Eurydice's life. We all are destined to you, and sooner or later must pass to your domain. She too, when she shall have filled her term of life, will rightly be yours. But till then grant her to me, I beseech you. If you deny me I cannot return alone; you shall triumph in the death of us both."

As he sang these tender strains, the very ghosts shed tears. Tantalus, in spite of his thirst, stopped for a moment his efforts for water, Ixion's wheel stood still, the vulture ceased to tear the giant's [Prometheus] liver, the daughters of Danaus rested from their task of drawing water in a sieve, and Sisyphus sat on his rock to listen. Then for the first time, it is said, the cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears. Persephone could not resist, and Hades himself gave way.

Eurydice was called. She came from among the new-arrived ghosts, limping with her wounded foot. Orpheus was permitted to take her away with him on one condition, that he should not turn around to look at her till they should have reached the upper air. Under this condition they proceeded on their way, he leading, she following, through passages dark and steep, in total silence, till they had nearly reached the outlet into the cheerful upper world, when Orpheus, in a moment of forgetfulness, to assure himself that she was still following, cast a glance behind him, when instantly she was borne away. Stretching out their arms to embrace each other, they grasped only the air! Dying now a second time, she yet cannot reproach her husband, for how can she blame his impatience to behold her? "Farewell," she said, "a last farewell," - and was hurried away, so fast that the sound hardly reached his ears.

Orpheus endeavored to follow her, and besought permission to return and try once more for her release; but the stern ferryman repulsed him and refused passage. Seven days he lingered about the brink, without food or sleep; then bitterly accusing of cruelty the powers of Erebus, he sang his complaints to the rocks and mountains, melting the hearts of tigers and moving the oaks from their stations. He held himself aloof from womankind, dwelling constantly on the recollection of his sad mischance. The Thracian maidens tried their best to captivate him, but he repulsed their advances.

They bore with him as long as they could; but finding him insensible one day, excited by the rites of Dionysos, one of them exclaimed, "See yonder our despiser!" and threw at him her javelin. The weapon, as soon as it came within the sound of his lyre, fell harmless at his feet. So did also the stones that they threw at him. But the women raised a scream and drowned the voice of the music, and then the missiles reached him and soon were stained with blood. The maniacs tore him limb from limb, and threw his head and his lyre into the river Hebrus, down which they floated, murmuring sad music, to which the shores responded a plaintive symphony. The Muses gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at Libethra, where the nightingale is said to sing over his grave more sweetly than in any other part of Greece. His lyre was placed by Zeus among the stars. His shade passed a second time to Tartarus, where he sought out his Eurydice and embraced her with eager arms. They roam the happy fields together now, sometimes he leading, sometimes she; and Orpheus gazes as much as he will upon her, no longer incurring a penalty for a thoughtless glance.

To the distant Beloved

2007-08-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

TO THE DISTANT ONE
by: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

AND have I lost thee evermore,

Hast thou, oh, fair one, from me flown?

Still in mine ear sounds, as of yore,

Thine every word, thine every tone.

As when at morn the wanderer's eye

Attempts to pierce the air in vain,

When, hidden in the azure sky,

The lark high o'er him chants his strain:

So do I cast my troubled gaze

Through bush, through forest, o'er the lea;

Thou art invoked by all my lays;

Oh, come then, loved one, back to me!

2007-08-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

Indigo

it was a day like any other day,
I didnt know the fates were out to play
our eyes met and i remembered
what the water of lethe made me forget
my spirit leapt up ecstatically
a timeless moment of epiphany
and danced with yours somewhere indigo blue
amongst stars so bright and true
the dried rose i kept pressed..
revived again through the alchemy of your touch
the raised scar of your name written on my heart
throbbed in primal rememberance
of many lifetimes before when we loved and lost
the first time our eyes met in long dead eden
and we knew then ..we had been ONE for aeons

Written by sybille

The Extasie - John Donne

2007-08-19T04:48:00.000-07:00

WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,

A Pregnant banke swel'd up, to rest

The violets reclining head,

Sat we two, one anothers best.

Our hands were firmely cimented

With a fast balme, which thence did spring,

Our EYE-BEAMS TWISTED, AND DID THRED

OUR EYES UPON ONE DOUBLE STRING

So to'entergraft our hands, as yet

Was all the meanes to make us one,

And pictures in our eyes to get

Was all our propagation.

As 'twixt two equall Armies, Fate

Suspends uncertaine victorie,

OUR SOULS,

(WHICH TO ADVANCE THEIR STATE WERE GONE OUT,)

hung 'twixt her, and mee.

And whil'st our soules negotiate there,

Wee like sepulchrall statues lay;

All day, the same our postures were,

AND WE SAID NOTHING, ALL THE DAY

IF ANY, SO BY LOVE REFINE'D

THAT HE SOULES LANGUAGE UNDERSTOOD

AND BY GOOD LOVE WERE GROWEN ALL MINDE,

Within convenient distance stood,

He (though he knew not which soule spake,

Because both meant, both spake the same)

Might thence a new concoction take,

And part farre purer then he came.

This Extasie doth unperplex

(We said) and tell us what we love,

WE SEE BY THIS, IT WAS NOT SEXE,

Wee see, we saw not what did move:

But as all severall soules containe

Mixture of things, they know not what,

Love, these mixt soules, doth mixe againe,

And makes both one, each this and that.

A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the size,

(All which before was poore, and scant,)

Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love, with one another so

Interinanimates two soules,

That abler soule, which thence doth flow,

Defects of lonelinesse controules.

WEE THEN WHO ARE THIS NEW SOULE, know,

Of what we are compos'd, and made,

For, th'Atomies of which we grow,

Are soules, whom no change can invade.

But O alas, so long, so farre

OUR BODIES WHY DO WEE FOREBEARE?

THEY ARE OURS, THOU THEY ARE NOT WEE,

Wee are The intelligences, they the spheare.

We owe them thankes, because they thus,

Did us, to us, at first convay,

Yeelded their forces, sense, to us,

Nor are drosse to us, but allay.

On man heavens influence workes not so,

But that it first imprints the ayre,

Soe soule into the soule may flow,

Though it to body first repaire.

As our blood labours to beget

Spirits, as like soules as it can,

Because such fingers need to knit

That subtile knot, which makes us man:

So must pure lovers soules descend

T'affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great Prince in prison lies.

To'our bodies turne wee then, that so

Weake men on love reveal'd may looke;

Loves mysteries in soules doe grow,

But yet the body is his booke.

And if some lover, such as wee,

Have heard this dialogue of one,

Let him still marke us, he shall see

Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.

Farewell to the Court

2007-08-19T04:37:00.000-07:00

Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expir'd,

And past return are all my dandled days;

My love misled, and fancy quite retir'd

Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.

My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,

Have left me all alone in unknown ways;

My mind to woe, my life in fortune's hand

Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.

As in a country strange, without companion,

I only wail the wrong of death's delays,

Whose sweet spring spent,

whose summer well-nigh done

Of all which pass'd only the sorrow stays.

Whom care forewarns, ere age and winter cold,

To haste me hence to find my fortune's fold.

Sir Walter Raleigh

The Happy Prince

2007-08-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

The Happy Prince

Oscar Wilde
HIGH above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.
He was very much admired indeed. ‘He is as beautiful as a weathercock,’ remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; ‘only not quite so useful,’ he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.
‘Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?’ asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. ‘The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.’
‘I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy,’ muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.
‘He looks just like an angel,’ said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks, and their clean white pinafores.
‘How do you know?’ said the Mathematical Master, ‘you have never seen one.’
‘Ah! but we have, in our dreams,’ answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.
One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.
‘Shall I love you?’ said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.
‘It is a ridiculous attachment,’ twittered the other Swallows, ‘she has no money, and far too many relations;’ and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came, they all flew away.
After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. ‘She has no conversation,’ he said, ‘and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.’ And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtsies. ‘I admit that she is domestic,’ he continued, ‘but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also.’
‘Will you come away with me?’ he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.
‘You have been trifling with me,’ he cried, ‘I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!’ and he flew away.
All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. ‘Where shall I put up?’ he said; ‘I hope the town has made preparations.’
Then he saw the statue on the tall column. ‘I will put up there,’ he cried; ‘it is a fine position with plenty of fresh air.’ So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.
‘I have a golden bedroom,’ he said softly to himself as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. ‘What a curious thing!’ he cried, ‘there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.’
Then another drop fell.
‘What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?’ he said; ‘I must look for a good chimney-pot,’ and he determined to fly away.
But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw - Ah! what did he see?
The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘I am the Happy Prince.’
‘Why are you weeping then?’ asked the Swallow; ‘you have quite drenched me.’
‘When I was alive and had a human heart,’ answered the statue, ‘I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.’
‘What, is he not solid gold?’ said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.
‘Far away,’ continued the statue in a low musical voice, ‘far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.’
‘I am waited for in Egypt,’ said the Swallow. ‘My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.’
‘Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother so sad.’
‘I don’t think I like boys,’ answered the Swallow. ‘Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.’
But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. ‘It is very cold here,’ he said; ‘but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger.’
‘Thank you, little Swallow,’ said the Prince.
So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.
He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. ‘How wonderful the stars are,’ he said to her, and how wonderful is the power of love!’
‘I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,’ she answered; ‘I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.’
He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead with his wings. ‘How cool I feel,’ said the boy, ‘I must be getting better;’ and he sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. ‘It is curious,’ he remarked, ‘but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.’
‘That is because you have done a good action,’ said the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.
When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. ‘What a remarkable phenomenon,’ said the Professor of Ornithology as he was passing over the bridge. ‘A swallow in winter!’ And he wrote a long letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full of so many words that they could not understand.
‘To-night I go to Egypt,’ said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, ‘What a distinguished stranger!’ so he enjoyed himself very much.
When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. ‘Have you any commissions for Egypt?’ he cried; ‘I am just starting.’
‘Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘will you not stay with me one night longer?’
‘I am waited for in Egypt,’ answered the Swallow. ‘To-morrow my friends will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to the water’s edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.’
‘Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,’ said the prince, ‘far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.’
‘I will wait with you one night longer,’ said the Swallow, who really had a good heart. ‘Shall I take him another ruby?’
‘Alas! I have no ruby now,’ said the Prince; ‘my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play.’
‘Dear Prince,’ said the Swallow, ‘I cannot do that;’ and he began to weep.
‘Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘do as I command you.’
So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye, and flew away to the student’s garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird’s wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.
‘I am beginning to be appreciated,’ he cried; ‘this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish my play,’ and he looked quite happy.
The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes. ‘Heave a-hoy!’ they shouted as each chest came up. ‘I am going to Egypt!’ cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.
‘I am come to bid you good-bye,’ he cried.
‘Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘will you not stay with me one night longer?’
‘It is winter,’ answered the Swallow, ‘and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.’
‘In the square below,’ said the Happy Prince, ‘there stands a little match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her.’
‘I will stay with you one night longer,’ said the Swallow, ‘but I cannot pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then.’
‘Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘do as I command you.’
So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. ‘What a lovely bit of glass,’ cried the little girl; and she ran home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. ‘You are blind now,’ he said, ‘so I will stay with you always.’
‘No, little Swallow,’ said the poor Prince, ‘you must go away to Egypt.’
‘I will stay with you always,’ said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince’s feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.
‘Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.’
So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another’s arms to try and keep themselves warm. ‘How hungry we are!’ they said. ‘You must not lie here,’ shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.
Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.
‘I am covered with fine gold,’ said the Prince, ‘you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy.’
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children’s faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. ‘We have bread now!’ they cried.
Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.
The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the baker’s door where the baker was not looking, and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.
But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more. ‘Good-bye, dear Prince!’ he murmured, ‘will you let me kiss your hand?’
‘I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.’
‘It is not to Egypt that I am going,’ said the Swallow. ‘I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?’
And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.
At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost. Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue: ‘Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!’ he said.
‘How shabby indeed!’ cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with the Mayor, and they went up to look at it.
‘The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer,’ said the Mayor; ‘in fact, he is little better than a beggar!’
‘Little better than a beggar’ said the Town councillors.
‘And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!’ continued the Mayor. ‘We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here.’ And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.
So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. ‘As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful,’ said the Art Professor at the University.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. ‘We must have another statue, of course,’ he said, ‘and it shall be a statue of myself.’
‘Of myself,’ said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.
‘What a strange thing!’ said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. ‘This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.’ So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying.
‘Bring me the two most precious things in the city,’ said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
‘You have rightly chosen,’ said God, ‘for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.’

A poem from my dark side

2007-08-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

THE DARK LOVER

Night and day i search for him, day and night

I walk the streets asking beggars that i meet

"have you see him? have you seen my lover?

his face as pale as snow his eyes the abyss

painters paint him with a scythe and bony finger

not knowing he is a lightbringer

What is this place but the pit of hell?

under our feet where worms feast

on a dinner of our newly dead meat

is the soil where things grow best on a diet of corrupting flesh

around us deceptive beauty of nature forsooth

but as was said "red in claw and tooth"

the ocean with lacy edges

hiding the bones of many poor wretches

above every maternity ward the sign should be placed:

"abandon hope all ye who enter here"

Some beautiful poems I adore

2007-08-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself. Love that comes between the naiveté and awakening of youth satisfies itself with possessing, and grows with embraces. But Love which is born in the firmament's lap and has descended with the night's secrets is not contented with anything but Eternity and immortality; it does not stand reverently before anything except deity.

kahlil gibran

2007-08-18T01:16:00.000-07:00

"Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to begrateful."

whatever dies was not mixed equally if our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike that none do slacke, none can die

John Donne - the Good Morrow

"I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love."F. Sagan

Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise."Victor Hugo

Absence diminishes small loves and increases greatones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire."Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

Castle in the Sky

2007-08-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

we built a castle in the sky entirely from dreams, my true love and I

It'was created from desire, radiating light as if touched by st elmo's fire

celestial argent clouds its foundation, never was there a truer formation

outside it might be chilly and gray but here it is always a temperate day

our hearts we tied together with garlands of musk scented roses forever

we shared goblets of rubyred wine and peeled the fruits of each others minds

our bed is made up of silken damask, our bodies each others only repast

eternal hours together we lay forgetting that our bodies were made out of clay

together we burn in a chemical wedding our two elements melding together

i drift on morpheus's phaeton to the castle for nocturnal visitations

half smile on my lips, still held fast by the endless vistas of such bliss

awake i sigh and in my head infinite days without you stretch ahead