If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.

-George Herbert


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

A Vision

I walked from the moonlit beach thru the tunnel of faintly luminous stone.  The sand was cool around my feet and everything sloped slightly down.  Turned left thru the doorway into the little fenced garden.  The moon was shining to the left above the apple trees.  Raguel was there like an orange flame, and Tom was there too.  When I saw him smiling, I started to cry for happiness.  I held R and T's hands and told them I wanted to speak to the moon.  (Just yesterday I had summoned Gabriel and beseeched him to initiate me into the mysteries of the Moon.)

Down came Selene like a beautiful naked woman of pure silver light.  I asked her what she wanted from me in return for her friendship and help, and she asked for one kiss, which I gave her, on the mouth.  She gave me a wand of pure silver, like glass, and told me it was not earthly silver, but lunar silver, pure alchemical silver.  It had, at each end, a long, narrow, fiercely glowing crystal, and it fit into a black leather sheath which I could wear at my left hip, slung on a strap from my right shoulder.

I asked her to grant me her initiation and she told me to kneel down.  I asked R and T if it was alright and they nodded yes.  I knelt down in front of S with R and T standing on either side of me, and S put her hands on my head and flooded me with silver light.  She said she was granting me knowledge of and the ability to draw upon the power of the microcosmic and macrocosmic tides, the power to walk in visions and dreams, the power to manifest and draw forth from the etheric substance, and the help and friendship of the faeries of the night.  I saw them all around me and felt their love.  Neffie was there, too, like a glorious moth queen, and presiding above everything I saw Gabriel all violet and blue.  It was as if all this was happening inside him...as an emanation of his being.

I sat with S for a long time in the glory of her silver light until she told me it was time to go.  She returned to her heavens, and I back thru the tunnel to this world.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Evening Salutation

Hail unto Thee, O Thou One Eternal Light,
in Whom we live and move and have our being forever,
Whose living regent of the Sun now descends in the West;

Hail unto Thee, O Lord of the Worlds,
Infinite Love, Infinite Beauty, Infinite Joy;
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of the Evening.


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Alan Moore on Austin Osman Spare

Quite interesting, this. Alan Moore is pretty much responsible for revitalizing comics/graphic novels as an art form.

Friday, July 15, 2011

THE RETURN OF PERSEPHONE, by Lord Frederick Leighton

c. 1891

THE NIGHT JOURNEY

The Prophet Muhammad carried to Jerusalem by angels.

PARVATI

A modern print.

LET'S NOT REMAIN ADORING, by Yunus Emre

Let's not remain adoring,
Come, let's go to the Friend, my soul.
Let's not die longing, imploring,
Come, let's go to the Friend, my soul.

Let's leave this city and this land:
Let's weep, shedding tears for the Friend,
With the cup of love's wine in hand;
Come, let's go to the Friend, my soul.

From this world we'd better be gone;
Why be duped, it couldn't live on.
Let's not be split while we are one;
Come, let's go to the Friend, my soul.

As I take the road, be my guide;
Let's set out for the Loved One's side.
Let's not look behind or ahead;
Come, let's go to the Friend, my soul.

Before the news of death arrives,
Before my marked soul vainly strives,
Before Gabriel routs our lives,
Come, let's go to the Friend, my soul.

Let's go to the truly sacred;
Let's ask for the news about God,
And taking Yunus on the road;
Come, let's go to the Friend, my soul.

- Yunus Emre (1238-1321) translated from the Turkish by Talat S. Halman

Monday, July 11, 2011

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY, by Arthur Hughs

An engraving to illustrate George MacDonald's book, At the Back of the North Wind. Image scanned by George P. Landow at http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/hughes/1.html

Monday, July 4, 2011

Edwin Muir - One Foot in Eden

One foot in Eden still, I stand
And look across the other land.
The world's great day is growing late,
Yet strange these fields that we have planted
So long with crops of love and hate.
Time's handiworks by time are haunted,
And nothing now can separate
The corn and tares compactly grown.
The armorial weed in stillness bound
About the stalk; these are our own.
Evil and good stand thick around
In fields of charity and sin
Where we shall lead our harvest in.

Yet still from Eden springs the root
As clean as on the starting day.
Time takes the foliage and the fruit
And burns the archetypal leaf
To shapes of terror and of grief
Scattered along the winter way.
But famished field and blackened tree
Bear flowers in Eden never known.
Blossoms of grief and charity
Bloom in these darkened fields alone.
What had Eden ever to say
Of hope and faith and pity and love
Until was buried all its day
And memory found its treasure trove?
Strange blessings never in Paradise
Fall from these beclouded skies.


(One of my absolute favorite poems)

Sunday, July 3, 2011

SUMMER DAY

Reading in the heat of noon
I grow sleepy, put my head
On my arms and fall asleep.
I forget to close the window
And the warm air blows in
And covers my body with petals.

- by Yuan Mei (1716-1797) translation by Kenneth Rexroth

SUMMER MOUNTAINS

Three Poems on Sleep

Sonnet XXXIX

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof, shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw;
O make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind of light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

- Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), from Astrophel and Stella

To Sleep

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

- John Keats (1795-1821)

Lights Out

I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.

Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends,
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.

There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter and leave alone
I know not how.

The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.

- Edward Thomas (1878-1917)