The Crystalline

"The Crystalline know how to remain the center.
Between shifting worlds and strange times.
They tread the nameless path without
naming the narrowness.
They squeeze through the eye of the needle
with naked faith and raw trust.
They are the conquerors of the inertia of history.
They have found the secret gate.
Regenerated by their own tongues.
They speak only what is glorious.
Their minds dwell on Rainbow Light.
direct discovery
silent rapture
Nothing else exists
but this..."

(Author unknown)

Sudden Light

We have been here before,         
But when or how I cannot tell:     
I know the grass beyond the door,         
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound,
the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before, -         
How long ago I may not know:     
But just when at that swallow's soar         
Your neck turned so, Some veil did fall, -
I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?         
And shall not thus time's eddying flight     
Still with our lives our love restore         
In death's despite,
And day and night yield
one delight once more?

~Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Walk

"My eyes already touch the
sunny hill
going far ahead of the road
I have begun.
So we are grasped by what
we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even
from a distance.

And changes us, even if we
do not reach it,
into something else,
which hardly sensing it,
we already are;
a gesture waves us on,
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind
in our faces."

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Reach just a little bit higher...

"Child, child,
Do you not see?
For each of us comes a time
When we must be more than what we are."

~Lloyd Alexander

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.


We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.


Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.


Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.


Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.


This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

*Theodore Roethke

A Hymn to the Night

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

Sweep through the marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

From the celestial walls!


I felt her presence, by its spell of might,

Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night

As of the one I love.


I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,

Like some old poet's rhymes.


From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,--

From those deep cisterns flows.


Oh holy Night, from thee I learn to bear

What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care

And they complain no more.


Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

The best-beloved Night!


*Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

Again and Again

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love

and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,

and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others

fall: again and again the two of us walk out together

under the ancient trees, lie down again and again

among the flowers, face to face with the sky.


*Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Many Lifetimes

"Behold it is written in this roll. Read ye, who shall find
in the days unborn, if your gods have given you the skill.

Read O' children, of the future and learn the secrets of the
past, which to you is so far away and yet truth is so near.

Men do not live once only to depart hence forever, they
may live many times in many places, though not only in
this world.

That between each life is a Veil of Darkness. The doors
will open at last and show us all the chambers which
through which our feet have wandered from the beginning.

Our religion teaches us that we live on eternally...now
eternity having no end, can have no beginning: it is a
circle. Therefore, if one were true, namely that we live on
forever, it would seem that the other be true also...namely
that we have always lived.

To men's eyes, God has many faces.

Our Kas, which are our spiritual selves, show themselves
to us in various ways. Drawing from the infinite veil of
wisdom, hidden in the being of every man, they give us
who are instructed glimpses of truth and the power to
work miracles. Among the Egyptians the scarabeus beetle
is no god, but a symbol of the Creator, because it rolls a
ball of mud between its feet, and gets therein its eggs to
hatch; just as the Creator rolls the world around, which
seems to be causing it to produce Life.

All gods send their gift of love upon this earth, without
which it would cease to be. My faith teaches me more
clearly, perhaps than yours, that life does not end with
death, and therefore that love being life's soul, must
endure for all eternity. The strength of the invisible time
will bind souls together long after the world is dead. In
the end however, all the various pasts will reveal
themselves."

Anana, Chief Scribe and companion to Pharaoh Jentle Leti
II; about 1320 B.C.

Brahman

I sought Thee in the timeless halls of space

I sought Thee in the spaceless halls of time

But found that time and space do not exist.

I wondered 'Who am I?' and 'Who art Thou?'

And then I found Thee.

Thou in me and I in Thee.

'Twas then I knew that I do not exist.

For I am nothing; yet am everything

For evermore ...

and so we cannot die.

~Robert Goslin

I would live in your love

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,

Borne up by each wave as it passes,

drawn down by each wave that recedes;

I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,

I would beat with your heart as it beats,

I would follow your soul as it leads.

~Sara Teasdale

Goddess

Keep pure your highest ideals;

Strive ever towards them,

Let nothing stop you or turn you aside.


For mine is the secret door which opens upon the Land of Youth.

And minde is the Cup of the Wine of Life,

and the Cauldron of Cerridwen,

which is the holy Vessel of Immortality.


I am the gracious Goddess

who gives the gift of joy unto the heart of man.

Emergence

In the Hall of Mirrors, you are everywhere.

Which is the real you?

Find your original Self.

The one who perceives all the Reflections

and is amused by them.

Then you will recognize your path

and walk it.

No longer stumbling over your many

false selves.

La Gitana

Your hair was full of roses in the dewfall as we danced,
The sorceress enchanting and the paladin entranced,
In the starlight as we wove us in a web of silk and steel
Immemorial as the marble in the halls of Boabdil,
In the pleasuance of the roses with the fountains and the yews
Where the snowy Sierra soothed us with the breezes and the dews!
In the starlight as we trembled from a laugh to a caress,
And the God came warm upon us in our pagan allegresse.
Was the Baile de la Bona too seductive? Did you feel
Through the silence and the softness all the tension of the steel?
For your hair was full of roses, and my flesh was full of thorns,
And the midnight came upon us worth a million crazy morns.
Ah! my Gipsy, my Gitana, my Saliya! were you fain
For the dance to turn to earnest? - O the sunny land of Spain!
My Gitana, my Saliya! more delicious than a dove!
With your hair aflame with roses and your lips alight with love!
Shall I see you, shall I kiss you once again? I wander far
From the sunny land of summer to the icy Polar Star.
I shall find you, I shall have you! I am coming back again
From the filth and fog to seek you in the sunny land of Spain.
I shall find you, my Gitana, my Saliya! as of old
With your hair aflame with roses and your body gay with gold.
I shall find you, I shall have you, in the summer and the south
With our passion in your body and our love upon your mouth -
With our wonder and our worship be the world aflame anew!
My Gitana, my Saliya! I am coming back to you!

~Aleister Crowley

"Praesepe" A Short flash I wrote

Praesepe glitters in silent stillness of space and time, as my spirit floats near the Cauldron of Life and Rebirth. The eery cold and darkness in this womb of Ain, of Void is enveloping, enfolding. I sense the familiar tingle of spirits gathering closer to me, awaiting their plunge to return. Waiting for Mother to invite them into the Cauldron and subsequently tip them through the open Gates of Praesepe. The Astral Doorway to reincarnate upon the earth plane.

Movement begins like a tidal wave in the ocean as I am suddenly thrust forward without warning. A whooshing, whirring boom fills my ears, deafening worlds around, engulfing my spirit. I can barely make out the thousands of cries of the screaming spirits surrounding me. Panic, as some realize they can't turn back. Yet excitement exudes from those who've waited ages to return. I feel myself rushing along at a dizzying rate. Then in fluid spirals and twists, the great fall begins.

I barely see the illuminated particals passing me in one great black and white spectrum. This tunnel is a tube of fast spiritual descent. If any of us held the essence of physical breath at this point it would have escaped us most definitely! I am in for the ride!

Finally time slows down and images collate to allow distinct clarity. I gaze in awe at the wonders of the universe. I smile until the stars become broken bits of light against a velveted obsidian backdrop.

Suddenly there is no light. I feel confined and uncomfortable tasting liquid and feeling my body being tossed upon a chaotic bordered Sea. This Sea is in a violent upheaval. The confinement is becoming more severe! I try to protest with my tiny mouth but no words escape it.

Cramping. Contracting, my small body is regurgitated through a pinced structure. Water is flowing around me and over me. I am born of this Sea. Unconscious, unknowing darkness and then the sting of life!

Sudden intakes of breath. My first moment in this life has marked my destiny in this new earthen vessel. Tiny, delicate, fragile proportioned. I work to gaze at the sea of faces surrounding me, floating on their harmonious voices. Am I dreaming?

Memories start to fade of my previous human death...

 © CC

Cailleach

Your breath blows cold Mother.
I can see the steam from your nostrils
rising softly upward from the frigid earth.

My hands are cold Mother.
As you place your hand over mine,
As mothers do.

Old tears fall like ice Mother.
As I place the past softly
in its bedded grave
and wave goodbye to it forever.

You wipe my tear streaked face with your cold, bare hand Mother.
My face turns as dark and blue
As yours
We are One now
Mother and Daughter.

We gaze into each others eyes, Mother.
And time melts away.
The stars shine.
I can be reborn now as new.

You smile Mother.
And I know this journey was well worth it.

 © CC

Bees under the crab-apple trees

As a child I spent many happy hours sitting on an old stool under Grandmother's crab-apple trees speaking with the bees. I watched them through a child's inquisitive eyes as they buzzed busily round the crab-apples, not quite sure what they were doing, but knowing they were intent on doing it! I laughed with them, discussed daily life with them, cried with them, joked with them, and asked them what it was they were so intent on finding in those hard little apples. The bees buzzed their replies, and nope I didn't understand a word of it! ha ha! But there was still a communication transpiring between us. We each were different, but got along just swell. (It was right good we did too, as later in life I learned I am allergic to their sting!)

I learned Tolerance and determination from their acceptance of me intruding in their space, and the fact that they never gave up on their quest to find something in and around those little apples that Grandmother could make a fine jelly out of. I thought about the jelly and wondered if they knew the apples had to be boiled, have things added to them, the warm liquid poured into jars and then sealed with parafin wax. Was this what they were seeking under those trees, on all of those hot, sweltery days, with me chattering away to them? Somehow though, I doubted that.

Later someone took the time to explain to me what was really happening and so it removed the mystery, but added a new dimension as well. Nature and the creatures in Her beautiful abode have their own processes, and their own ways of being, doing and collecting.

I have always been different. I have always been drawn to the unknown and the Occult. Each process, especially the bees under those lovely, green leaved, red ladened crab-appled trees, created a life-long thirst for knowledge and understanding. Then the wisdom to apply it. I can see my entire life reflected in their persistent, gentle humming efforts.

Bees are synonymous with the Goddess, with secret knowledge and second sight. They are defenders of their own. They are virtuous and industrious in their work. I can see throughout my life the Mother Goddess has been with me-(not just God). The hand of Her influence has been leading and guiding me through it all, every day of my life and in each lesson given and learned. I realized this when I had finally obtained sufficient Occult knowledge and underwent a myriad of life experiences.

Perhaps the bees were whispering their secrets to me after all...

Rokeby

What gales are sold on Lapland's shore,
How whistle rash bids tempests roar,
Of witch, of mermaid, and of sprite,
Of Erick's cap and Elmo's light.
Or of that Phantom Ship whose form
Shoots like a meteor through the storm,
When the dark scud comes driving hard,
And lowered is every topsail-yard,
And canvas wove in earthly looms,
No more to brave the storm presumes!

*Sir Walter Scott