To Limn the Sacred

Introduction

            “The magical and the scientific views of the world are quite similar.  In both, the succession of events is assumed to be e perfectly regular a and certain, being determined by immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated precisely: the elements of chance, of change, and of accident are banished from the course of nature.  The principles of association are excellent in themselves and indeed absolutely necessary to the working of the human mind.   Legitimately, applied they yield science, illegitimately applied they yield magic, the bastard sister of science._ "Magic"; triple-bodied, torch bearing, cur-hounded horrendous hateful howling Magic. •

 (What distinguishes sacrifice and prayer (religion) from magic?  Magic wants to be effective without entering into any relationship)_   “In one classic formulation, the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinawski argued that, science, means achieving practical results through direct physical action; magic, means seeking practical results through indirect, immaterial and some times supernatural means; and religion, mean seeking fellowship with the divine, totally apart from practical results...Prayer is a request and leaves the outcome to God’s decision.  magic is the attempt to exert power and establish control sometimes over forces regarded as demonic.”  _In so far as religion assumes the world to be directed by conscious agents who maybe  turned from their purpose by persuasion, it stands in fundamental antagonism to magic as well as science”._ 

             The scientific quest for truth and the religious quest for faith are equal effort._  “As reason is a rebel unto faith, so passion unto reason; as the propositions of Faith seem absurd unto reason, so the theorems of reason unto passion and both unto faith”_ 

            In the last analysis magic, (the last recourse of a vanquished race), theology and science are nothing but structural belief systems.  As science succeeded it’s predecessors, so it maybe itself succeed by a more perfect hypotheses._ A more perfect structural belief system that betters aids its  practitioners attain their goals.  The point is there is more than one way to see things, more than one way to understand things and these differing structural belief systems reach the same valid conclusions.

Between and Betwixt

The poet          Shakespeare said, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”[16]

 .  “The consecrated spot” cannot be formally distinguished from the playground.  The arena, the card table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice… are all in form and function play-grounds, forbidden spots, isolated hedged around, hallowed…”[17]  The great will not condescend to take any thing seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary.” [18]  .

 “In all the wild imaginings of mythology a fanciful spirit is playing on the border line between jest and earnest…  Conversely, no one is ever totally joking, there is always some degree of truth in their jest.

“In all the wild imaginings of mythology a fanciful spirit is playing on the he border line between jest and earnest.  The Japanese language exhibits this concept in polite speech, the mode of address used in conversation with people of high rank.  The convention is that higher classes merely play at all they do.  The polite form for “you arrive in Tokyo” is literally “you play at arriving in Tokyo”  And for “I hear you father is dead.”, “I hear that your father has played dying.”  In other words, the revered person is imagined as living in an elevated sphere, where only pleasure or condescension moves on to action”  -J.Huizinga-

The Great will not condescend to take anything serio8usly; all must be gay as the song of a canary.” - Emerson-

            DAWN is the time of enlightenment( the Fool).  DUSK the time of reflections(the Hermit)  DAWN is a time of enlightenment and magic.  It is also that twilight land between sleep and awake where things re often resolved in our head.  Speaking of twilight, it is also the DUSK that offers a bright shining moment of tranquility.  “AT Dawn my soul grows bright wings.  My face glows with white heat.  Above fields, I speak with the voice of a  hawk, my eye sharp as a blade against the wheat.  I speak the work from which I was made.  I speak of truth , splendor and strength.”  -Normandi Ellis-

           

"Performances do not occur on stage nor in the auditorium but in between the two, they are, in effect, exercises in the creation and occupation of thresholds." [George,

PERFORMANCE EPISTEMOLOGY: AN ESSAY, 1995]  

"Cyberspace is a consensual hallucination that these people have created.  Its like, with this equipment, you can agree to share the same hallucinations.  In effect they're

creating a world." [William Gibson in  Rucker, Sirius and Mu, MONDO 2000 USERS GUIDE TO THE NEW EDGE, 1992]

Like being at the theatre and being on the telephone,  being 'in' cyberspace necessitates the imaginative 'creation and occupation' of a third, consensually created,  liminal world.

Liminality is a term used by the Belgian folklorist Arnold van Gennep to denominate the second of three stages in what he called a "rite of passage". 

The liminal state is a transient time/space for the consciousness as it travels from one world to another.  This might be from bachelorhood to marriage, the ritual of the ceremony being the liminal phase when/where one is neither single or married.  Crucially, though, the liminality of  cyberspace differs to Gennep's linear "rite of passage" in

that it suspends the threshold to give the transient world the primary status (rather than tangible worlds that define it) that remains 'in-between'.  Two people share a virtual cappuccino in MOO-space . Whilst there would appear to be only two worlds in

this equation there are in fact three.  The meeting of  two time/spaces necessitates the construction of a third.  Cyberspace is neither 'here' in WORLD A, nor 'there' in

WORLD B but 'in-between' under constant negotiation within the suspended threshold of WORLD C.   Both time and space are ambiguous (but not artificial), the world being 'now'

but 'not now' and 'here' but 'not here'.  Without this time/space created in the imagination of the two people, communication could not occur for neither would understand

the other.  In the limen there are shifting yet implicit rules and codes which work to create and preserve the meeting ground.

Mircea Eliade, in Rites and Symbols of Initiation (1958), like van Gennep before him (Rites de Passage /I , 1909), outlines three stages in initiatory ritual; separation from or death to the old life, the intermediary state of chaotic ambiguity and ordeal, and rebirth in a new life and return to society as a new being.  The liminal state, Eliade

opines, is equivalent to the primal chaos. Crossroads, traditionally the place of uncanny happenings, are liminal places; Samhain and Beltaine are liminal times, offering a partial explanation for the weird and magical happenings associated with them, as are the twilight times of dawn and dusk, neither night nor day.            

Pareto’s Analysis

Pareto’s Analysis .  it was formulated by an  Italian economist, the Marquis Wilfredo Pareto.  He determined that  fifteen percent of the people of Milan possessed eighty-five percent of its wealth.  Joseph Juran  expanded and improved. eighty percent of the profits derive from twenty percent of the sales, or eighty percent of the revenue derives from twenty percent of the customers, twenty percent of the cars cause eighty percent of the traffic, twenty percent of the employees cause eighty percent of the boss’ headaches. "

SPELL "Give a spell, to work your will Dark Queen."

"If someone appears  seriously ill, heat up a cast iron frying pan, run outside and hit it really hard with a hammer until it breaks.  After which, bury the pieces and the person get better.  This ritual pretends to “breaking a fever”.  This reminds me of the Greek myth of a difficult birth.  Someone said the child would die about the same time the last long on the fire burned up.  The quick thinking midwife grabbed the log with her bare hand, plunged it into a vat of water (quenched the fever) wrapped up the log and buried it somewhere in the basement.    

A Dozen

, " A dozen mighty lords and ladies sit upon the gilded thrones of Olympus.  A dozen beautiful horaes accompany me during the day and a dozen horaes in a blessed night. So five-dozen minutes in a fleeting hour. Roughly five dozen time five dozen days in a year.  So three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle."

"This country was surveyed from sea to shining sea by townships.  A township equals three dozen “sections”.        A section is a mile wide.        A mile is eighty chains long. “Chains” are four rods long." "This explains the placement of telephone poles, fence posts and the stays in posts and the stays in bob-wire fences. " She explained. A “rod” is sixteen and a half feet.  "

The quizzical looks returned to their faces, the goddess only smiled in reply then added, "   A foot can be divided into a dozen inches.

  After time and distance pretty much everything else seems based on;

•           the number Pi (3.1415926…),

•           the Golden Section (1.61803 39887...) or conversely (0.61803 39887...)

•           and the Fibonacci Series (1,2,3,5,8,13…)

The Gaia Theory

The Gaia Theory was a ritual expounded by atmospheric chemist James Lovelock and evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis.  .  "I live." she announced, "And because I do, so the rocks that are my bones,  atmosphere that is my perfume and rolling oceans beyond that girds me . all organizations can be treated like organisms.   Organisms strive to survive be they the local university or the dandelions in the front lawn. "

            And remember you are all part of the organizations/organisms.  You are the Illuminati.  You create and maintain the very organizations victimizing you.   As a wise man said of, “We have meet the enemy and they are us.”

 Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion Effect, was crafted by the words of William Shakespeare and King David.  The research of Rosenthal and Jacobson in an elementary school further improved the ritual.  This ritual  allows the worshipper improve a person in a certain respect, by  just acting  as though that particular trait were already one of her outstanding characteristics.  Shakespeare said: “Assume a virtue if you have it not…for use almost can change the stamp of nature.[11]”  And it might be well to assume and state openly that the other party has the virtue you want her to develop.“[12]

            The Cyprian Pygmalion  was the best sculptor of this ritual.  He crafted a beautiful statue of the ideal woman.  With her pert lips, the sway of her hips, firm round breasts and the proverbial “alabaster thighs”, he knew it would move at any minute.  His masterpiece became his obsession.  His adoration so great he began to refer to the statue as his wife.  The goddess  took pity on the man, and his “wife” Galatea took on life. 

Reverse Logic

             It won’t rain on “August 28th”  It won’t rain that day because I’m planning a picnic.  And I wouldn’t plan a picnic on a rainy day.  Hence it won’t rain on August 28th

Walk in Myth

A neighbor’s “friendly” dogs came snarling and charging across his lawn one day as I walked by, like dread Hades’ mutt Cerberus, greeting his guests..  What did I do? 

A dragon, guarded the spring and destroyed most of those that were sent. In his indignation Cadmus killed the dragon, and by the advice of Athena sowed its teeth. When they were sown there rose from the ground armed men whom they called Sparti. These slew each other, some in a chance brawl, and some in ignorance. When Cadmus saw armed men growing up out of the ground, he flung stones at them, and they, supposing that they were being pelted by each other, came to blows. [15]

What did Cadmus do when the “teeth of the dragon”, those dogs of war, came snarling, growling, heavily armed and dangerous toward him?  He threw them a rock, a bone of the broad-bosomed earth; gold.  There weren’t any rocks nearby, but my hand found a piece of firewood.  The neighbor’s pack stopped instantly and sat back  Tails began to wag.  The stick sailed over Orthus’ heads and away it went in chase.

Men do best that they do for love.  It is love that makes a groom's bestman and bride the worst of enemies or best of lovers.

Actually, people don't want money, they want the things that money can buy. Hence power can be a good substitute.

Sadly, some men have no other reason for their behavior than "I was drunk." But, the things we say and do when we are drunk, are the things we wanted to say and do all along.

After all the lame justifications and excuses, sometimes, it just gets down to "Cause I want to."

              The New Year Baby soon replacing tired Father Time.  A simple story line.  But Father Time looks a lot like Cronus carrying his scepter; the sickle, soon to be dethroned by his last born, Zeus.  And as a rite of passage, New Year’s  Eve is proverbial; “Out with the old, in with the new.” , New Year’s resolutions and the obvious symbolism of the new generation taking over for the old.  Robert Graves and Jospeh Frazier were experts at this sort of interpretation.

            What Bride, torn from friend and family, cannot relate to Persephone kidnapped by Hades.  What young newly wed does not lament the lost of the spring time of their life when faced with the world of responsibility and   obligation.

            Admittedly, Persephone’s kidnapping might represent the worshippers of Hades claiming the fatherhood o Persephone for their deity and absconding with her from Ceres’ temple.  But the appeal of the story is the universality of Persephone’s rite of passage from a  carefree girl to duty bound wife.

            We all suffer rites of passage.  Too often we suffer alone.  The road is well mapped, all we need to do is remember how our predecessor and ancestors handled the situation.

            Every journey is a quest.  We always walk in myth.  We need simply to see the archetype to recall the answer.

Fairy Sight

            With wistful words we whisper of Wisdom, “getting the Big Picture”, truly “seeing”, summoning the second sight, the inner sight, insight.  may paths will sneak us to our hearts desire.  We secretly studied the Kabbalah, numerology, the tarot, dream interpretation, sycronicity, and philosophy.  We studied hard in solitude and muted light. “We know that the secret of the world is profound, but who or what shall be our interpreter we know not.  “From the day the Temple wad destroyed, prophecy was taken away from prophets and given to fools and children.”_  Children told Isis where Osiris body was hidden.  A mountain ramble, a new style o face, a new person, maybe put the key into our hands.”_   Then on some discreet occasion, some pretty passage in our books or startling sight in the sky moved us for a moment beyond the veil and we truly “saw”.  For one brief shining moment the Spirit fell upon us. Second sight, the ability to predict whether a thing will indeed prove to be as it seems. _  The Sight means you know things or can discern things.  That you have “in sight”.  Not that you can tell the future.  It means you can listen instead of just hearing, see instead of just look.

            Seeing is like navigating.  To understand what you seen now, you must remember where you have been.  You must creep out from some place you know.  A home port in the storm with a chart.  Some comfortable chair in a warm library with a great book.  Some cozy room in the attic with a deck of cards.  A bridge across a brook and a sprig of mint.  These are all keys to the door of knowledge.

            Think back on those discrete moments when the  Spirit moved you, when the second sight fell upon you with clarity and all the world was understandable.  Think about the topic or event, or place that triggered your vision.  Go back there.  Go back when it’s likely to happen again and do those things and think those thoughts.  Go to the boat, unroll the chart, only when it’s likely to happen.  Go to the library, turn the pages of the great book, when you are “seeing”.  Only go to the attic and shuffle the cards when you are getting the big picture.  Cross Hammer Slough and toss a sprig upon the water, only when you suffer the second sight.

            And in time when you unroll the scroll, turn the page, lay the card, wave the bough, you will always see.  One night during a cruise on the Eastern Mediterranean, the Judge wantted to make a wish upon the Deep, beneath the stars.  We went out on deck with a coin.  I wished for the sight.  I could see stars in the sky, light  on the blackened islands and if I concentrated the moonlight twinkling on the water; head, heart, and soul.  We went to the Other Side of the boat and I saw; nothing.

I see how hard we strive for truth and once attained, how easily we forget it. -Normandi Ellis-

Odin did not forfeit an “eye” to become all-knowing.  What king of “god” is that?  A magician might have “sacrificed an eye, but to whom?  Mimir was already dead.

            Admittedly, one eye was blind to this world, after a draught from the he Well of Mimir (at the baste of the Tree of Life.)  But it was  perfectly well into the next.  The gift of Mimir’s Well was not Wisdom, but Fairy Sight.

I watched Zero Ain’t Fixed approach for a moment when some motion on the ground caught my attention.  For one brief moment I saw the ship reflected in a skinny muskeg hole.  could that be like life.  Truth flies above in all her glory beneath a wide open sky, but below her image last only a fleeting moment.

“See ya on the Other Side” -”Ghostbusters”

            “I want to see beyond the veil”

            “Go back to your fields, old man.  There are no secrets here.”  They laughed and left me to thought...

            Then one afternoon-I don’t know why, perhaps the sun shone on me - a priest led me tot the room of secrets.  I saw a young girl spinning flax and an old woman baking raisin cakes.  Through a window I saw a man plowing his field, struggling to upturn a stone and calling to his stubborn donkeys.  A hawk circled overhead, while two children tossed a small fish back into  he river.

            I moved to speak, but the priest held up his hand.  “You must be silent now.  You are re staring into the face of God.”

For as the ibis pecks along the bank for a bit of food, so the scribe searches among his thoughts for some truth to tell. -Normandi Ellis-

“hitherto the goddess alone had been wise” -Graves-

            The forfeited eye of Odin is the sun reflected on the waters of the Well of Mimir.

            God’s eyes are the Sun and the Moon

                        “Osiris is the right eye of Rae. “ (Normandi Ellis) So Set is the left, the Moon. Red Osiris above black Set below.  Odin used his left eye to see here, right eye to see there.      “A great many wells were supposed to cure eye problems which scholars have traced to the magical perception of the well as the eye of a god. -Mara Freeman

            “I was like Horus, prince of the air...blind in one eye until the Moon arose” -Normandi Ellis-  Does this imply some spiritual beings can’t “see” on earth?

"Some phrases are guideposts to this truth;

            “as”,

            “than”,

            “how much more so”,

             and “like”

"The reflection of a house in water bears a relationship to the house on the shore. It’s reflection shimmers on the still waters below.  Does the reflection in the water bear the same relationship to the house on the shore that the world below bears to the world above?  What if angels pass through our world like swans gliding through the reflection, seemingly part of the scene, but not really?  Leaving just ripples in time like the wake of the unseen object.

I see thing other men, don’t see.  Secret words repeated in mirrors, bit of legend fallen from the he lips of slave girls. -Normandi Ellis-

            Approaching hammer Slough this morning I recalled that water is a boundary.  I began to smile, laid aside my routine worries and began to see thing differently.         Through the day, I kept losing the sight and had to get re-oriented.  This afternoon I decided it’s like navigating.  To know where you’re at you have to keep track of where you’ve been.  Otherwise you can only orientate yourself by the us of major landmarks like; bodies of water crossroads, mountaintops, deserts, etc.

            Walking - I walk down the street, cross the bridge at hammer Slough and climb back up the hill to work.  As it says in The Hobbit, “The Road goes ever, on and on, Down from the Door where it began.”  Adventure  waits without.  To cross water is to swim the collective subconscious, to transverse the veil of the abyss, to travel from here to there and be reborn anew.  Atop the bridge I toss a sprig to the gods and ghost of the place, to the green haired naiad and read its ripples on the veil of the deep.  Walking on, I am a student ready waiting for the dryad, teacher, or angel to appear at each intersection.

            Shoveling the Backyard - I tie my big black Labrador, Jake to the bumper of the truck.  I take a box to the backyard and more smear it around than shovel it into the  he box.  If Jake’s been digging holes, I’ll toss the poop into that earthen pond and cover it over with dirt.  When the box is full, I fold it shut as carefully s one nails the lid on a coffin and bury it in the b bottom of the garbage can.  I put jack back on his runner and throw my gloves on the mudroom floor as though ritually contaminate.  They wait the next time I do the laundry.  I forget to wash Jake as we often forget to console the surviving.

            Laundry - I stoop to open the Door, clear off the high plain of the washer and dryer tops, and begin to fold and place laundry in piles.  When they grow too high, I like the people at Babel, wander through my home depositing clothes and then return to finish the task.  I seek , the Door opens and I receive.  Like the rainments we wear in Heaven com our garment form the dryer, stainless.  Like our bodies from the baptismal pool come our clothes from  he washer, sinless and made clean daily by God’s Grace.  Like our souls returning to Heaven;  warm light and fluffy our clothes returning to our rooms.

            Dishes - I sort and drain the dirty dishes in the sink, piling them on the  he bank to the right.  I clean the sinks, then fill the right most with warm soapy water.  I wash a few things, leaving the hardest to soak longest before wiping them.  (It’s like going for communion after  the general forgiveness of sin; some of us need more forgiveness than others.)  I pull the soapy dishes from the sink like John the Baptist pulling the Lord from the River Jordan, placing them in the left sink until they pile up.  I risen them and    place them clean and sparkling like our souls made daily sinless and clean by God’s Grace on the dish drainer on the left bank.  I repeat the process until all the dishes shine or the drain’s full.  I often wash the sink.  When the dishes are dry as bones, I pull them from the drainer with my right hand.  Their are many rooms in our father’s mansion above.  My right hand seek the right place and my left hand opens the Door.  I settle them  time there with rest of the set or where it belongs.  I continue the process until the drainer below lies mostly empty.  Never thinking to wash and rise the drainer as the Flood once cleaned the world below.

            “There will be signs in; the sun, the moon, and the stars…the roaring of the sea and the waves.”[59]  I tossed a sprig of mint from the bridge hovering over Hammer Creek.  A stiff breeze carried it back to my feet.  The oddness of the event caught my attention.  Below the pollen rode the falling tide to the inevitable deep.  I stood to the mouth of the river of life.  Such little time left to drift.  But, the sprig had returned.  Maybe if the Spirit ran upstream, maybe that Holy Wind could carry me back up the creek, give me not more time, but another chance.  I tossed the spring.  It landed at my feet again.

             What they Say and What they Do

            Always start by wondering “Why?” people do and say the things they do.  There’s two way to judge people; by what they say or what they do.  Remember, women define friendship by what they say to one another.  Men define friendship by what they do with one another.

            We all do exactly what we want to do o.  If you complain and complain and do nothing about it, obviously the situation isn’t that bad.  Always wonder “Why?” a person says something, cause quiet often people don’t exactly say wheat they mean.  An excellent example comes from Robert Heinlein’s’ “Friday”  

            “Miss Baldwin is it not?  Do you have someone meeting you in Auckland?  What with the war and all, it is not a good idea for an unescorted woman to be alone in an international port”

            I answered, “Nobody’s meeting me, but I’m just changing for the South Island shuttle.  How do these buckles work?  Uh, do those stripes mean you’re the captain?”

s           “Let  ME SHOW YOU.  c YES, = Captain IAN Tormey.”  He started belting me in.  I let him.

            “Captain, Golly!  I’ve never met a captain before.”  A remark like that isn’t eve a fib when it’s a ritual in the ancient barnyard dance.  He said to me “I’m on the prowl and you look good.  Are you interested?”  And I had answered, ”You look acceptable but I’m sorry to have to tell you that I don’t have time today.”

            At that point he could adjourn with no hurt feeling or elect to invest in good will against a possible future encounter.  He chose the latter.

Live Our Dreams

            Anything a person finds worthwhile remembering can be  interpreted at three different levels; basic story line; the personal symbolic significance of each person, place or thing in a story and how each person, place, thing or event is an aspect of the dreamer.  The current fashion dictates this method for dream interpretation but it’s equally valid for strong memories of any sort.  “I commented that each person must read the great classic sources three times; once as a child for the plot, once as a young person for various levels of accumulated tradition and once as an adult to measure the source against life as one has come to know it. “ _

Four Basic Solutions to Any Problem

            Ice Cream Sandwiches

            Tequila and orange juice

            Oak Creek Canyon

            Forget about the problem

            That’s it!  Those four are the only possible solutions.  Sorry.  Oh okay, you can substitute rum and coke for T&OJ.  And I suppose you could take these symbolically.

            For example, let’s say , I’m overweight (by a little bit!)  1)Ice Cream sandwiches; well actually this could stand for eat something other food than the Danishes at mid-morning break and 2 bowls of ice cream before bed.  2)  Tequila and orange juice is a diet that would probably bring off the weight.  And if I drink enough, I won’t even worry about the weight.  3)  Oak Creek Canyon; everyone has a Oak Creek Canyon.  Some warm wonderful place to get away from it all.  From all the Twinkies, chocolate and fast food.  Besides, the hike down there would burn off a few sweets.  4)  Forget it!  I don’t have a problem if I don’t perceive it as a problem.

Choices

            Choices, choices, choices!  I hate having to sniff through the myriad choices and come up with the right one. Generally, my choices come down to two diametrically opposed choices. Should I buy a car or go on a vacation.?

            1)  Flip a coin!

            2)  Remember the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? they had a wonderful decision making tool.   To paraphrase, “A car will get you through time of no vacation better than a vacation will get you through times of no car.”  I got agree.  It’s a long walk to the grocery store.  Besides, if you have car you can take mini-vacations.

            3)  Do both!  Okay, compromise do neither!

The Fay

            I was reading about elves and fairies in “The Ethnology of Pre-history”.  the author asked “Who were these magical non-humans?  The enemy of “man” who could not touch iron?”  He then goes on to suggest they were the pre-Japhethic indigenous inhabitants of Europe.  magic is the last avenue of power   available to a subjected people.  “Human” and “man” were based on the Japhethic ethno-centric definition and the “Fay” couldn’t touch iron, cause they didn’t have any.  Were the Vanir their deities.?  or were they the souls of the ancient gods, these swarms of careless Fay, who escaped oblivion only to see their altars in decay.  Each evening does some chthonic underling bring them a vessel of water from the Lethe to quench their wretched thirst.  Each dawn does Aurora sprinkle ambrosia , like dew about their trysting places.  They  awake refreshed.  They have not tomorrow or yesterday.  They live only for today.  True, certainly among the Fay nobility, you have Oberon, Titania, and Queen Mab.  But they were parented by mere demi-gods and have no need to forget faded glory.

            I dreamt of being wrapped in an afghan, brooding in the darkness.  (The fay came to lead me off to their midnight revels.)  The Greek gods could “wrap themselves in darkness”  to make themselves invisible, insulate themselves form the world.  I do that when I’m angry , wrap myself in a cloak of darkness.  It’s why I grow so quiet when angry.  I know the words of power I can speak when truly angry.  They can destroy.  They cannot be taken back.  They take on a life of their own and march forth to destroy.  Thrice, I’ve let my anger get the best of me.  Twice it worked out from for the best, but all three experiences scared me.  They felt like out of body experiences in which I just observed.  And so I wrap myself in darkness to protect myself and the world from my anger, until it passes.  So, the same day while driving down he street I see a co-worker  doing something stupid.  I get so cranked up about it that I eventually observe I’m a little too concerned.  She was wrapping herself in denial rather than dealing with her problem.

A few days later at a friends funeral the priest encouraged us to “wrap ourselves in our grief”   Grief is a gift from the Holy Spirit, we should use it. 

            Likewise, anger is a gift from God.  A gift I rarely us.  The fay had attempted to pluck my afghan off me.  To remove my cloak of darkness is to reveal my naked rage.  “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”  I warned them each in words that were too quiet and calm for their jovial mood.  Power clung to those simple words.  Power sent from above.  Maybe I should use this gift or let it use me.

two children found around the turn of the century who were greenish and speechless, and thought to have come from deep inside the earth  They were the inspiration for Herbert Read's 1935 novel The Green Child.  The theme of a lost shadowy "better" (or at any rate, powerful and worthy of respect/careful handling) race of beings living in caves and under the earth, sometimes interbreeding with humankind, has always been a part of British storytelling tradition, from the Kingdom of Fairy to the wonderful dark stories of Arthur Machen.  The legend of green "fairy children" being found in England is at least  as old as the 16th century. The version current at that time is recorded in at least one chapbook (I'm doing this from memory. My sources are at home.) They reportedly said, after they had learned enough English to communicate, that their country was under the ground, and that it was always light there. The name of the country was St. Martin's Land, and the people were Christians (denomination unspecified :).) In this version, the boy died soon afterward, but the girl lived to grow up and marry. Needless to say, the similarity of this to British fairy lore and

various conceptions of the afterlife has not gone unremarked.  I distinctly remember reading a very clear reference to a leader or "father-like" individual known to the Green Children and surrounding peasants as simply “JACK THE GREEN” who later was regarded as a godlike figure much like Pan, and was considered by some to be the origination of what we now refer to as "Father Christmas".   He was considered King of the Little Folk and worshiped as a basic archetype pagan god.  He was leader, if you will, of the green children, and taught some of the chosen surrounding mortals something known as "Green Witchcraft" which can still be found today if one looks hard enough.                                          Evangeline BeauSoleil

A Garden

 “Buttercups heart was a secret garden and the wall (hedge) was very tall.”  -William Goldman in the Princess Bride.

This way of looking at the world is based on a concept as old as the Garden of Eden.  That our hearts are secret gardens surrounded by tall hedges.  We can perceive our small world as hedged off from the greater world and each thing in the secret garden; flowing fountain, apple bearing tree, woman at the well, as symbols  and ways of interpreting the events of our day-to-day lives. 

Under the red sky of first dawn

Stand a large blooming fruit tree.

Her tips reach up into the sky.

Her trunk down to world and sea.

Who sits beneath the apple tree?

She is Magdaline, the fairy.

The tree in the morning light casts

a cool oasis for her soul.

Her heart is a secret garden,

its hedges thick and high, we know.

Through this strip of green herbage, strewn

between home and the wild unknown,

strode the thirsting hero Odin[32],

whom her mother had forbidden.

“Once in my youth, I gave, poor fool,

a warrior apples and water

and may I die before you cool

such thirst as his, my daughter”[33]

 Hedges

            The division between here and there might not be so solid as it appears.  There are no walls just hedges. Only a thin veil separates this small world from the greater; this side from the other side of reality.   The hedge in our little secret garden is the blind eye we turn to things in our lives we don’t want to see.

Gardens

            “Life is a small garden we should not traverse in haste.” [37]  “At the gate of the garden some stand and look within, but do not care to enter.  Others step inside, behold its beauty, but do not penetrate far.  Still others encircle this garden inhaling the fragrance of the flowers, having enjoyed its full beauty; pass out again, by the same gate.  But there are always some who enter and become intoxicated with the splendor of what they beheld and remain for life to tend the garden” [38]

A woman awaits us in the heart of the garden; the rosy-cheeked naiad of the well.  She will gladly give us cool water to drink.  She might seem the meliad of the tree; the nymph of the apple tree growing there.  She will happily share with us her finest fruits.  She might be a favorite teacher, a wise friend, a caring parent, a guardian angel disguised as a stranger.  Too long we’ve confused the nymph at the well with wisdom.  She is not the source of wisdom, but can draw on it and quench our thirst.  As a woman gave water to the Lord at the well, so the kaballahist say that,  Binah distribute the Wisdom that is Chokmah[39].  She is the dryad of the tree of life, the Great Mother, the naiad of the spring at the tree’s roots, the keeper of the golden apples, the ephemeral fruits within her boughs.  She tends to wisdom and to the subconscious.  She expects our unconditional love, for never yet has wisdom hung on the arm of the conditional.

Tradition ran that the nymph had been the wife of the wise king Numa, that he had consorted with her in the secrecy of the sacred grove, and that the laws which he gave the Romans had been inspired by communion with her divinity…According to some, the trysting-place of the lovers was not in the woods of Nemi but in a grove outside the dripping Porta Capena at Rome, where another sacred spring of Egeria gushed from a dark cavern.[40]

Eventually we must leave the secret garden, leave the fairy sight behind,  behind us and return to the “real” world.   A wise man will veil his face and flee before his wisdom is recognized. INSERT ISAIAH

I live in the eye of the lady of flame.  I am light reflected by Hathor’s  mirror(the Moon).  The words of the goddess are bright and shining in my mouth I create myself -Normandi Ellis-

I have seen the great world and the small.  - Normandi Ellis-.

Its plain the Bible means

That Solomon grew wise,

while talking with his queens.  -W.B.Yeats-

Too long we’ve confused the Dryad at the well with Wisdom.  Women are re not the source of Wisdom, but they can draw on it and quench our thirst.  As a woman gave water to the Lord at the well, so Binah distribute the Wisdom that is Chokmah.

Never yet has Wisdom hung on the arm of the conditional

A wise man will veil his face and flee before his wisdom is recognized. INSER ISAAIAH

She is the Dryad of the Tree of Life, the Great Mother, the naiad of the spring at the trees roots, the keeper of the golden apples., the ephemeral fruits within it’s boughs.  She attend to wisdom to the subconscious.

I live in the eye of the lady of flame.

I am light reflected by Hathor’s mirror (the Moon).

The words of the goddess are bright

And shining in my mouth I create myself. [41] 

            DOORS and GATES is where Wisdom waits.  What then are the doors and gates to our soul?  Are not the eyes the “Window on the Soul”?   Does not wisdom enter through our senses?

 

The Tree

The wise know a tree, named Yggdrasil[42] in the secret garden of their heart.  Sparkling showers shed on her leaves dripping dew into the dales below.  By Mimir’s well she waves evergreen, standing over the still pool. [43] Her bodily adornment looks like the bark and her freely given spiritual gifts like the fruit.[44]   She is the tree of life.  All the wise wish to lay in the shade of the tree on a hot day “with a book of verse beneath the bough, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou”.[45] To abide in the shadow of the Almighty is to dwell in the Holy Spirit.  Childhood itself lies buried at the foot of that tree: a few turns of the spade and it will be out in the light again. [46]

Many “trees” grow in the forest of philosophy.  This woods is called the “field of apple trees”.[47]   The expression, “Can’t see the forest for the trees.“ suggests so many “trees”; kabbalah, tarot, dream interpretation, I-ching, Christianity, Islam, etc, that a wise man’s mind can get boggled trying to use or comprehend them all.  We find ourselves silently walking among the trees looking for wisdom by the light of the fiery moon.   The shaggy forest can appear as a place of darkness, chaos, and uncertainty in contrast to the order and openness of our cultivated lands.  To those who show no fear, it may be a place of peace and refuge. Psychologically, it is a symbol of the unconscious where secrets wait to be discovered like yellow iris about to bloom.  Dark emotions and faded memories long to be faced.[48]

Every lushly leafed or sharply needled tree is a “Yggdrasil” in the mane on Mt. Philosophy.  Beside each tree stands a dryad dispensing wisdom; a nymph, if we’re discussing wild oats[49] or a fairy beneath the petals of a blossom[50].  Each of these “trees” is known by her fruits and “branches on the same tree, tend to bear the same fruit.” [51] Tufts of wheat, ripe brown cones, shining golden apples, or brightly colored flowers present these fruits. 

            Walking to work tomorrow, notice how proudly each stalk of grass and flowering forbs holds her first fruits or finest blossom up to the Lord, as a bird offers up its song of praise.  Every fast growing tree and lush plant stretches towards Heaven, even a snag.  A lifeless rotting corpse of a tree reaches towards Heaven even in death standing like a legacy.  Something lasting beyond the grave, like teaching our children to say grace at the table. 

            If a man wanted to shake a tree with his hands, he couldn’t.  But the wind, which we do not see tortures and bends her in whatever direction it pleases.  The more the tree aspires to the height and light, the more strongly do her roots strive earthward down into the ...deep [52] such is the strength of a tree growing alone.  This strange wind that always blows on the edge of the woods.[53]

 If these yggdrasils are individual paths in the field of apple trees, why does the wandering wind blow their upraised branches about?  Why does the Holy Spirit shake the tree of life?  So, some of her fruits might drop to us.

“A book of verse beneath the bough,

a loaf of bread a jug of wine and Thou”

                                    -Omar Khayyam-

Did you know “cross” means tree?

There are many “trees” in the occult forest.  The expression, “Can’t see the forest for the trees. “ suggests that there are so many “trees”; Kabbalah, Tarot, dream interpretation, I Ching, etc, that one’s mind can get boggled trying to use or comprehend them all./

“silently walked among the trees looking or him by the light of the moon.”

-their bodily adornment (which is like the bark) and their spiritual gifts (the fruit)- Baltasar Gracian in “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”

“As the vine is the lowliest of trees and yet rules over all the trees.” - Everyman’s Talmud-

If I wanted to shake this tree with my hands,  I should not be able to do it.  But the wind, which we don not see tortures and bends it in whatever direction it pleases.  The more (the tree aspires to the height and light, the more strongly  do her roots strive earthward down into the ...deep -Nietzsche-

The Dryad within

“a field of apple tree” -Zohar-

The tree...the embodiment of life, the point of the union of the three realms, (Heaven, Earth and Water) and a world axis around which the entire universe is organized ...The forest is a place of darkness, chaos, and uncertainty in contrast to the order and openness of cultivated land.  To those who show no fear, however it maybe a place of peace and refuge.  Psychologically, it is a symbol of the unconscious where there are secrets to be discovered and perhaps dark emotions and memories to be faced -David Fontana-

Wind

This strange wind that always blows on the edge of the woods.  -Albert Camus-

If trees are individual paths in the forest of philosophy, why does the Wind blow their upraised branches about?  Why does the Holy Spirit shake the Tree of Life?  So, some of it’s fruits might drop to us.

“-the upright pillars of the temples, the trunk of the sycamore-” -Normandi Ellis-.

Christmas

(Santa) comes and goes by way of the chimney and...arranges gifts around the Christmas tree...he is the spirit of  the Yule log, which was once burned upon the hearth. -Phillip F. Waterman-

In hollies, ashes, maples, and some yew, juniper and ginkos, a dryad maybe “male” or female.  In areas bordering a grassland or desert, dryads are often stunted and gnarled.

Before the dawn they arose, my frantic father first among them to begin their journey upon he vast subconscious Inside passage.

            I served as a Charon, ferrying them through the inky black and heavy rain from eh warmth and light of my home to the cold cavernous Blue Canoes.

            I shuttled these little Balders to the ferry terminal, first Steve, Dad and the luggage.  the Mom, Suzi and my nieces.  Each load seemed to carry the ideas of “family” and “home” from my storm bound Nordic abode.

            By their own hand, by their own will, I left them there on the far short of the dark river Oceanus.

            I hugged Suzi, kiss3ed Mom, Steve shook my hand and Dad hugged. me.  They walked into the darkness and I traveled back to the cold stove and dim light s of my house.

“A   I am the tree with candles in it’s fingers, the tree with lights, Menorah, Yule flame, Tree of Life” -Judy Grahm; Queen of Wands-

Fruit

            A full apple offered itself to my hand,

a ripe golden apple with cool soft velvet skin,

thus the world offered itself to me.

As if a tree waved to me, broached branch,

strong willed, bent as a support,

even as a footstool for one weary of his way.[54] 

Such forbidden fruit seems the fairest.  Think of Snow White, Adam & Eve, the Norse gods and myriad Greek heroes.  The apples offered by goddesses grant immortality, fame, death, and resurrection.  Was not the giant-slayer Odin the fruit of the tree Yggdrasil?  “I wont that I hung on the wind-tossed tree all of nights nine, wounded by spear, bespoken to Odin, bespoken myself to myself, upon that tree of which none tell from what roots she does rise.  Neither horn they upheld nor had me bread; I looked below me aloud I cried.”[55] The wise know “cross” means tree.  Was not our Lord, our salvation, the fruit of the cross?

           

After fording Hammer Creek on my way to work, I forced myself down the rarely used wood-planked Birch Lane.   A tree stood along the road, I’d never noticed before.  It looked like a mountain ash.  It grew in the branches of a full dark spruce.

             If you know a tree by her fruit the spruce didn’t say much, but the “mountain ash” she held up was heavy with bright orange fruit.

            As an author with a self-published novel, free-lance news articles and “To Limn the Sacred” I’m certainly producing.  Is my wife the strong silent spruce sheltering me and standing beside me?

            In everyday of our lives we see a Yggdrasil loaded with fruit, a dryad offering us “apples and water” and the Mimir’s Well.  Probably not?  True, but in every situation we should be looking for the fruit that it yields, the guardian angels sent to us, and the opportunities for refreshment.

Every tree is a Tree I the forest of Philosophy.  Besides each a stands a dryad dispensing wisdom or (according to Piers Anthony, if we’re discussing wild oats; a nymph) or a fairy beneath eh petals of a blossom.  Each of these “trees” maybe be know by it’s fruits.  Be it tufts of wheat, cones, apples, of flowers, all these first fruits are being offered up the  Lord, as a bird offers up it’s song of praise.

“You’ll know a tree by it’s fruit.”

“branches on the same tree, tend to bear the same fruit.” - Phillip G. Davis in Goddess Unmasked.

Walking to the airport one day I saw how proudly each stalk of grass and flowering form held its first fruits or finest blossom up to the Lord.  Every fast growing tree and lush plant stretches towards Heaven.  Even a snag.  A snag?  I saw it too reaching toward Heaven even in death: a legacy.  Something that last beyond the grave, like what we teach our children.  Like saying grace. 

I wont that I hung on the wind-tossed tree all of nights nine, wounded by spear, bespoken to Odin, bespoken myself to myself, upon that tree of which none tell from what roots it does rise.  Neither horn they upheld nor had  me bread; I looked below me aloud I cried.  -Havamal-

I know an ash tree, named Yggdrasil;

Sparkling showers are shed on its leaves

‘That drip dew, into the dales below,

By Urd’s well it waves evergreen,

Stands over that still pool -Voluspa- 

Laying in the Shade of the Tree on a hot day.

The strength of a tree growing alone.

“Childhood itself lies buried at the foot of that tree in the paddock: a few turns of the spade and it will  be out in the light again. -Humphrey Carpenter-

The apples that the triple goddesses offer, grant immortality, fame, death, and resurrection.

“Forbidden fruits the fairest” - Fersk

Think of Snow White, Adam, the Norse gods and myriad Greek heroes.

“Ask if a full apple offered itself to my hand, a ripe golden apple with cool soft velvet skiing, thus the world offered itself to me.  As if a tree waved to me, broach branched, strong willed, bent as a support, even as a footstool for one weary of His Way.” -Nietzeche-

The heart is called bosom.  It shall be referred to by calling it corn or stone or apple or nut or ball - Skaldskaparmal-

Buried Treasure

            According to Robert Thurman (Parabola, Winter 1994)  “In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition there is this idea of teachings hidden as treasurers.  he (the Buddha) entrusted the teachings to dragons.. that live in the ocean, under deep bottomless lakes and under the earth.”  The treasure in the Deep, is wisdom buried in the subconscious.  The things we know, but do not know we know, unless we are willing to face certain demons.

            Likewise, the hoards of gold buried in the earth are guarded by dragons.  Tanists guarding the treasury of the goddess’ temple.  The oracular hero reborn in serpent form.

            “The Euro-American treasure legend usually involved pirates who bury their ill-gotten wealth and kill one of their crew, whose ghost guards the ...gold” -William Simmons-

            “the Native tradition in America frequently included interring material possessions as “grave goods’ to go in spirit with the deceased” -Joseph Bruchac-

            In ancient Greece, Egypt, and China servants were sometimes buried with their masters.  This form of human scarifies were based on the belief t that in the after world the deceased continued to need their services.

The River of Life

            A river flows from the fountain of wisdom[56] at the base of the tree of life in the garden of our hearts.  The river of life looks red. [57]  Like the rivers of the desert Southwest during a mid-summer flash-flood.  We travel up the river of life from youth to old age.  The tangents represent the temptations a man encounters at sharp bends along the way. Even when you loose your way in the fog, the river of life keeps on rolling.  Sometimes the stream of life washes out the road we intended to travel.  Then we back track and try another way.  The water would engulf us.  The river would sweep over our souls.  But, if we make it to the headwaters, there, the Majestic One, the Lord, shall be for us, at a place of rivers and wide canals, on which no boat with oars shall go and on which no mighty ship shall pass.[58]

Row, row, row your boat

Gently UP the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream

            Life, like a river rises from the depths of the subconscious to the peaks of enlightenment.  Likewise, the slimy, pre-WWII Civilian Conservation Corp trail took me up through the dark spruce old growth to the pond girded heliport high above Falls Lake.  A stream rose up the shear granite cliff above the heliport.  No wise man would follow the stream’s path.  A wise man would weave his way back and forth across the ridge.  But, this little stream of life, took a simple vertical leap of faith.

The Ark

            Moses mother put him in a pitch covered ark and set him adrift on the he River of life.  Princess Miriam drew him from the water.  (The had that rocks the cradle.)

            God put Noah in a pitch covered ark and set him a drift upon the deep.  The Holy Spirit guided its course and drew Noah forth.

            Graves says many, as children arrive in moon boats.  Helios sails home upon the ocean stream in a reflection of  the moon  and is awoken by Eos, the dawn.

            All were resurrected.

 Wisdom

But a mightier power and stronger

Man from his throne has hurled

for the hand that rocks the cradle

is the hand that rules the world.

                        -William Wallace

            At the head of Jap Creek, laid little patches of snow like icebergs stranded by some unbelievable tide.  At the mouth of the creek icebergs jammed the sand bar.  At the peak of enlightenment lie the same nuggets of truth found floating on the surface of the deep.  “As Above, So Below”

She is the Dryad of the Tree of Life, the Great Mother, the naiad of the spring at the trees roots, the keeper of the golden apples., the ephemeral fruits within it’s boughs.  She attend to wisdom to the subconscious.

           

Red Cord

Scarlet Thread

The scarlet thread of redemption is wrapped around the scroll of your life; your soul.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end. -Nietzsche-

“The soul comes to take on a resemblance to it’s preoccupation.” -St. Basil-

Man is a rope tied between beast and overman - rope over the abyss.  -Nietzsche-

Walked to work today and didn’t notice it was raining until I saw the raindrops hitting the surface of the water at hammer Slough.  Just another reminder that even our bare head can’t comprehend things that we feel (see) in our soul.

At another time when Hillel the Elder took leave of his disciples upon concluding his studies with them, they asked him, “Master, where are you going?”  he replied, “To bestow a kindness upon a guest in my house.”  They asked, “have you a guest everyday?” He answered, “Is not my poor soul a guest in my body?” - Jewish Legends of the Second Commonwealth

The body is the soul’s record.  And when a man’s life ends his body is given back to God and God shall see what use his laws have been.  -Normandi Ellis-

a man’s deeds become his fate.-Normandi Ellis-

My body is a rolled papyrus tied with a red string. -Normandi Ellis-

I myself, am the maker of thing that happen. -Normandi Ellis-

We create ourselves in the eh forms we imagine.  Years pass.  We are what we have spoken. -Normandi Ellis-

Triple

Kabbalah

They became Heaven and Earth so that the sun might move between that it might ride over and under the bodies of the two worlds giving both it’s light...Yet because they had lain so long together, Heaven and Earth were still part of each other.  Spirit manifested in matter and mater in fused with spirit.  Between them ran three pillars or air, earth and water, and these were named thought, form and desire

Man

Sitting on the steps of the Frye Museum, waiting for it to open, I saw a sparrow nest in a naked tree.  Rather than build on the bole of the tree they built their fragile next on the outer edge of the tree amongst the flexing twigs.  I always thought my soul should nest on the bole of the great tree, even though I’d been warned to avoid the Arrow path.  But maybe life is not meant to be lived in balance and  bliss.  Life is in the extremes.  We are not meant to dwell constantly in the Holy Spirit nor live our lives in sacrifice nor to yet know the Godhead.  It is easier to alight on the outer edges of Holiness and flit from branch to branch to reach the center of that bruit bearing tree.  That mean we should only pass through Yesod and Tihareth, but dwell most often in Hod, Nexachte, Beburah or “Blue”

The Abyss

“the Abyss, Daath” - Peter Redgrove

Dog

T’is sweet to hear (Jake’s) the watch dog’s honest bark,

bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home.

T’is sweet to know,  there is an eye will mark

our coming and look brighter when we come.

                                                                        Lord Byron “Don Juan”

Dogs guarding our wold, fetching the branches that have fallen from the family tree, splashing through the unknown for us, tearing up the flowers and lying on the lawns. Dogs rule the day.  Wolves rule the night.

The dogs are the jackals of the Egyptian Anubis, guarding the Gates of the East and the West, show by the two towers between which lies the path. -Cynthia Giles -   (Why am I reminded of the Everlasting Hills?)

In magic you need a familiar in dreams a guardian; in life a pet if you want to live longer.

Pets serve as messenger between the spiritual and physical worlds.  As Moses sent forth  dove, which could dwell in heaven or Earth, so the Lord sent forth the Dove, Who can dwell in either realm and so we send forth pets who can see and hear far better than us.

I turned onto sixth, without even thinking that by so doing I avoided that snarling Cereberus of Shane’s, he calls a collie.  Normally, fear and pride rise my ire against the nasty mutt.  But upon reflection: the  otherworld dogs guard mankind, warning us by  their barking and behavior.  Maybe it’s best to avoid that section of the street, not because of the dog, but because of the situation that  made the dog  that way.  Maybe he’s warning me to stay away for my own sake.

The fairy sight; the Spirit, was upon me strongly, when my thought were interrupted by a guardian of mankind who stray by.  He didn’t have to bark, he nudged me and brought me back.  Was he worried that I might bet lost over there (like Frankie).  Odin only had one eye that saw beyond the veil.

Helispots

            As the Jet Ranger can’t lift or land just anywhere in the forest world we call Southeast Alaska, so the leap from this world to the next, just can happen anywhere.  Mostly we pass from Earth to Heaven  (and vice versa) in such places as; the shore, crossroads, mountaintops, places designed for such activities like airports, (and churches) deltas, sandbars, and muskegs.  We lift at dawn and settle at duck.

            James Joyce says “Any object, intensely regarded maybe a gate of access to the aeon of the gods”.  Still at some places it’s easier to cross to the Other Side than at others.  (Sometimes it’s easier to talk to the gods than other.)  That being the case one has to wonder if there aren’t places with in me, where it’s easier to cross to the other side.  Using the places listed below and the correspondence between city and body, I present the following thoughts.

The Shore

            The rocky clam encrusted  shoreline may be a good place to cross between worlds  when the fiery moon rises correctly and the tide swings “out”.  As the sacred shore is the thin strip between conscious reality and the subconscious deep, so it is the thin and easily passable strip between worldliness and spirituality. Indira promised the demon Namuci not to kill him by day or by night, not with what was wet nor what was dry.  But he wretched off his head in the morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea.[67]  Powers lies in sea foam, in swirlings and imaginings, in an urge or idea, [68]and in the sea-borne mighty Aphrodite.  “Lord, all I ask for is water and a strong sailing wind, and a delta island on which to raise my children, wheat and cattle.”[69]  Anything less seems unthinkable.

Wells and Fountains

            Wells and fountains are another sacred place between here and there, because they too are the “shore”.  The dryad sits there to offer us cool water.  Here, we make look down the well of the subconscious and in the reflection at the bottom and “see”.  Sometimes we don’t like what we see on the other side.  

            Next time you see “Babes in Toyland” look for the old toys, the broken toys, the toys that are okay, but not that popular.  Ask yourself, why the toys are blessed with a sunny world where everything appears beautiful and everyone cute.  Ask yourself, why the monsters are condemned to some subterranean world straight from Dante’s “Inferno”  Ask yourself, down which well of the subconscious do they toss the baby toys with additional digits.

 Dreams, Memories and Emotions

“I commented that each person must read the great classic sources three times; once as a child for the plot, once as a young person for various levels of accumulated tradition and once as an adult to measure the source against life as one has come to know it. “ [70] Anything worth remembering can be interpreted at three levels.[71]

Strong emotions can lead to moments of insight and inspiration.  Strong memories too can provide the same opportunity.  Our dreams too; the things following us into the early born dawn when our barge returns upon the River Ocean and we step onto the sacred shore of knowing. Dawn seems a time of enlightenment and magic.  It is also that twilight land between sleep and awake where things are often resolved in our heads. 

These three things; memories, emotions or God-sent dreams must rest in our hearts first, because the Spirit can’t reveal what our hearts don’t already know. “The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” [72]

  Anything a person finds worthwhile remembering;  can be interpreted at three different levels[73];

•     The basic story line;

•     The symbolic significance of each person, place or thing in a story. 

•     How each person, place, thing or event seems  an aspect of the dreamer

The Crossroads

At intercessions on shot rock logging roads between the dark stands of spruce the crossroads give us myriad choices here on the green hills of earth .  The triple goddess Hecate, ancient titaness of magic and mystery.  She offers the soul opportunities to slip the sky blue shroud that dresses broad-bosomed black earth and visit the other side. 

If the roads of the city correspond to the roads followed by the army of words marching from my mouth, that “crossroads” would correspond to that rare and magical moment when two people say the same thing. 

The Mountaintops

You must know this; mountains are neither the human world nor of the heavenly world. [74]   With their awe inspiring vistas of the shining waters of the Gulf of Alaska, the ice-encrusted Coastal Range, shaggy mountains veiled in stands of spruce, hemlock, and alder, and birds-eye view of home-sweet-home mountaintops give earthbound men access to the wind-weaving sky; give our spirits a taste of Heaven.  “In Thee, O lord, I have taken refuge...Be Thou to me a rock of habitation, to which I many continually come.  Thou hast given commandment to save me.  For Thou art my rock and my fortress.  Rescue me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked out of the grasp of the wrongdoer and ruthless man.  For Thou art my hope.” [75]

            Everlasting Hills, Fortress, House of God, the Rock, all are names for the holy mountains in our lives.  The high places in which we can come face-to-face with God.

“The Tower may be seen as an image

of sudden spiritual crises’

which mark the shaman’s passage

from this realm to another.[76]

            “At home, the wife is the foundation of a man’s house in as much as it is by virtue of her that the Presence does not leave the house...the desire of the “everlasting hills” (by which is meant the supreme female... and also the lower female)...is for the man when his is married and two females one of the upper, one of the lower world are to give him bliss.”

            Mountaintops might correspond to our higher selves or nobler motives.  Surely, they like holy mountaintops can bring us closer to God. 

 Places of Worship

 As airports give experienced pilots access to the wind-weaving sky, so the consecrated confines of God’s holy house give regular worshippers ready access to their spirituality.   The holy church should stand at the heart of the ideal city, just as a man’s heart lies at the core of his body.  Whether it appears a small red sandstone cathedral with white washed saints in the facade’s niches or a clapboard steepled Lutheran church like in the old country, here we learn to pray, affirm the consequence of those prayers and give thanks to God.  Here we learn the habit of worship.  Here the Spirit most frequently falls upon us.

My roommate in college studied avidly.  He enthusiastically attended a workshop  on studying.  The instructor said, “Find a spot where you can study well, go there when you are in the mood to study and eventually every time you go there you’ll study well out of habit.”  Great theory, unfortunately, Chris tired it late at night for several weeks.  Instead of falling into the habit of studying well at his favorite seat in the library, he fell into sleep habitually.  But it’s a good theory.

 Openings in the Forest

Large muskegs, which might correspond to the large parks, prairies, and deserts of the lower 48 states, are void of the day-to-day distraction of the world.  There are many “trees” in the apple orchard of philosophy.  My mind can get boggled trying to use or comprehend them all.   As the deep small streams of life giving water work their way up into the high desert, giving easier access to the higher realms, so in the desert, life seeps up into a higher realm giving easier access to the spiritual.   Deserts and muskegs are also low points.  In the low points of peoples’ lives often bring them back to God.

Bridges

            I tossed a spring from the he bridge.  A stiff breeze carried it back to my feet.  The oddness of the event caught my attention.  Looking down at hammer Slough I watched the pollen ride the falling tide to the inevitable Deep.  I thought about how close I was to the mouth of the River of Life.  How little time I had left to drift.

            Then I thought about the spring that had returned.  Maybe If the Spirit was running upstream, maybe that Holy Wind could carry me back up the creek, give me not more time, but another chance.

            I tossed the spring.  It landed at my feet again.

            WELLS and FOUNTAINS are another sacred place between her  and there, because they too are  re the shore. It is ironic that a structure whose mundane purpose is to facilitate safe crossing has become a place of danger, linked inextricably with the workings of death. Indeed, bridges are perennially notorious for the attraction they exert upon potential suicides. The Golden Gate Bridge of

San Francisco is a prime example, a genuine suicidal ‘black spot’. The Bridge of Sighs is famous as the bridge in Venice over which prisoners were taken to be executed; but it is also an old nickname for London’s Waterloo Bridge, which used to be a popular venue for suicides, and was the inspiration for Thomas Hood’s poem The Bridge of Sighs:

One more Unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death.

DELTAS and SANDBARS lay at the mouth of the River of Life where it tumbles into the seas.  “Lord, all I ask for is water and a strong sailing wind, and a delta island on which to raise my children, wheat and cattle.” -Normandi Ellis-

Indira promised the demon Namuci not to kill him by day or by night, not with what was wet nor what was dry.  But he killed him in the morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea.

“With me along some Strip of herbage strewn,

that just divides the desert from the sown.

Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is know

and pity Mohamed on his throne.” -Omar Khayyam-

In sea foam, in swirlings and imaginings.  I am fish, tadpole, crocodile.  A am urge, an idea. - Normandi Ellis-

           

            He who cannot dance will say, “The drum is bad.”

            There are four basic reasons for doing anything;

1)        Love or Lust

                                               i.     Best Man and the Bride

                                             ii.     One usually succeeds in what one does for love - Dumas-

2)        Power or Money

                                           iii.     You don’t ’ need money; you need the things money can buy.

                                            iv.     The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do - Walter Bugehot-

                                             v.     Gawain’s story

                                            vi.     No one is ever totally joking

                                          vii.     A dog’s bark is not might but fright

3)        Drugs

                                        viii.     What you do and say when you’re drunk , is what you wanted to say all along

4)        “Just cause I want to.”

Men do best that they do for love.  It is love that makes a groom's bestman and bride the worst of enemies or best of lovers.

Actually, people don't want money, they want the things that money can buy. Hence power can be a good substitute.

Sadly, some men have no other reason for their behavior than "I was drunk." But, the things we say and do when we are drunk, are the things we wanted to say and do all along.

After all the lame justifications and excuses, sometimes, it just gets down to "Cause I want to."

The City

 “The city of which we are founder...exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such a one anywhere on earth.  In Heaven, there is laid up the pattern of it, me thinks, which he who desire may behold and beholding may set his own house in order.  But whether such a one exist in fact, is no matter; for (the man of understanding) will live after a manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.”[60]  “The planners also pinpointed the umbilicus of a city by studying the sky...as if the map of the sky were mirrored on earth.  Knowing its center, the planners could define the town’s edge, here they tilled a furrow in the earth, … which was a sacred boundary.[61]

One should be able to walk across a “city” in one day.  From everywhere in that city you should be able to hear the cathedral bells.[62]  Petersburg looks like a Norwegian fishing village on an island in Alaska surrounded by wilderness areas.  The fact the harbor lies in the heart of Petersburg says a lot.  Maybe the fire siren and midday whistles at the canneries could serve as our “cathedral bells” 

 The Tlingit and Scandinavian pioneers of this area buried their beloved across the river-like Wrangell Narrows on Sasby Island.  Didn’t the ancients believe  the dead live on the Isle of the Blest to the west of the River Ocean?. 

Fields, dumps, and the watershed aren’t exactly part of the ideal city. If Frederick Sound and Wrangell Narrows are the fields of Petersburg;  don’t wives run the same risk sending their men to the fields or woods that they run sending them into the wind-weaving sky or rolling sea.  Any field of endeavor holds risks but those outside the city limits offer unique risks and opportunities.  Boggy muskegs, open fields, riparian sloughs, rippling creeks and strips of dark spruce stands slip through the “city limits” hedging in our town.   The old growth forest can appear as a place of darkness, chaos, and uncertainty in contrast to the order and openness of our “cultivated lands”.  It seems  a symbol of the unconscious, where secrets wait to be discovered and perhaps dark emotions and memories long to be faced. [63]  Do such intrusion by the forest/wilderness offer the same risks and opportunities?  Is that why I like to take the short cut to work?

While hanging out in downtown Seattle, it occurred to me that a disproportionate number of people acted “crazy”.  They seem attracted to the city center.  Why not other heavily populated areas?  On further reflection the place reminded me of a border town, like those I’d experienced in my youth along the edge of the Navajo reservation. 

  Could it be the border with the Other Side?  Are loony tunes  attracted to the sacred places?   Drawn by the light,  like in “Poltergeist”?  People “who talk to God” gravitate to where its easier to talk to God?  To quote Din Steinsalze in “The 13 Petalled Rose”, “Indeed the powerful uplifting appeal of a holy place is frequently counterbalanced by feelings precisely of denial and rebellion against this holiness.  Because wherever there is holiness there are also those parasitic forces irresistibly attracted to holiness, seeking to live off it and at the same time to destroy it.”

 “There are a lot of roads to Los Angeles!” My friend Mac observed.  Many roads converge on the city.  They form a five-lane highway running into two.  One lane, sometimes more popular than another.  All roads lead to Rome.    The roads entering the heart of the city offer diversity and option galore.  But, we forget that as the freeway rushes out into the country it narrows.  Lanes split off and race away. The main road splits, detours, fans out on off ramps to boulevards, county and forest roads.  It spreads out as residential streets, country lanes and dirt tracks.  The options and diversity still exist, but many of us just see one road into our towns.  From our windows we just see a few option, a few roads to the city.  But, oh the ways are myriad.

Alexandria

He prayed for their safe return to the harbor.  I recalled the harbor plans for Alexandria.  Alexander’s face carved in the cliff.  The two jetties defining the harbor are whittled into his arms.  Like all embracing Mother Earth, welcoming her love back from the he sea.  I though about that terrible risk women take sending their lovers out on the Deep, the Great Subconscious; the storm tossed jade seas.  I thought about Pat Ray losing her love to this seductress.  I wondered what risks my takes launching my “ship” into the Heavens.

This is the Heart of the City

Behind this stands the idea that Jerusalem is the physical locus of the (Holy Spirit) and even though the temple has been destroyed and no tangible sing remains, the Holy Spirits still rest there.  One feature of Jerusalem topography absent from almost every other city is the immense necropolis centered on the Mount of Olives -- burials have been taking place there continuously since biblical times, at least.  The Israeli version of Arlington and the Holocaust memorial are simply modern sections of one of the oldest cemeteries in the world. - Jeffrey Smith-

While hanging out I Seattle, downtown it occurred to me that a disproportionate number of people downtown acted crazy.  They seem attracted to the city center.  Why not other heavily populated areas?  On further reflection the pace looked like border town.

            could it be the border with the Hereafter?  Loony Tunes are attracted to the sacred helispots, “drawn by the Light” like in “Poltergeist”.  People “who talk to God” gravitate to where its easier to talk to God.

             To quote Din Steinsalze in “The 13 Petalled Rose”, “Indeed the powerful uplifting appeal of a holy pace is frequently counterbalanced by feeling precisely of denial and rebellion against this ’ holiness.  Because wherever there is holiness there are also those parasitic forces irresistibly attracted to holiness, seeking to live off it and at the same time to destroy it.”

Between and Betwixt

Chessboard

            The Meaning of Masonry by W. L. Wilmhurst:(pg. 95-97) "The Floor, or groundwork of the Lodge, a checker-work of black and white  squares, denotes the dual quality of everything connected with terrestrial life and the physical groundwork of human nature-the mortal body and its appetites and affections....Everything material is characterized by inextricably blended good and evil, light and shade, joy and sorrow,

positive and negative....The dualism of these opposites governs us in  everything, and experience of it is prescribed for us until such time as, having learned and outgrown its lesson, we are ready for advancement to a condition where we outgrow the sense of this checker-work existence and those opposites cease to be perceived as opposites, but are realized as a unity of synthesis."

            "Why is the checker floor-work given such prominence in the Lodge-furniture?  The answer is to be found in the statement in the Third Degree Ritual: "The square pavement is for the High Priest to walk upon." Now it is not merely the Jewish High Priest of centuries ago that is here referred to, but the individual member of the Craft.  For every Mason is intended to be the High Priest of his own person temple and to make of it a place where he and Deity may meet.  By the mere fact of being in this dualistic world every living being, whether a Mason or not, walks upon the square pavement of mingled good and evil in every action of his life, so that the floor-cloth is the symbol of an elementary philosophical truth common to us all.  But for us, the words "walk upon" imply much more than that.  They meant that he who aspires to be master of his fate and captain of his soul must walk upon these opposites in the sense of transcending and dominating them, of trampling upon his lower sensual nature and keeping it beneath his feet in subjection and control."

            Jon and I played a little chess tonight, so I could observe the patterns of light and dark upon the board of life, the paths of bad and good, the alternate patterns of this world and the next.  I noticed that men and women (king and queen) have a choice, being able to move in almost any direction.  The Devil and Heirophant (bishops) can only play upon their predetermined paths.  The knights (as in the deck) have to start from the dark to leap to the light.  Castles (towers, the house of God, the mountain) can pass through the light and the dark.  Put the pawns can only move forwardly blindly.

AS the cock crew, those who stood before the Tavern shouted “Open then the Door!”  You know how little while we have to stay and  once departed may return no more.

Shadow

A dark shadow on the earth is just a white bird passing through a blue sky.

The shadow is a symbol of the soul.  So to abide in the Shadow of the Almighty is to dwell in His Holy Spirit.

The shadow of the ship flew along side us yesterday.  Our Guardian Angels fly and are always with us, like our shadows.  The image in the mirror knows what’s best, what’s right, what’s smart.  Maybe we are but reflections in a mirror cracked of our guardian angels who disguise themselves in the mirror and as our shadows.

Ritual

Breaking the Fever

“One such thing, which she  love to talk about...Is when someone is deathly ill, she heats up a cast iron frying pan, runs outside and hits it really hard with a hammer until it breaks.  After which, she  then buries the pieces and the person get better.”

            A friend explained that this was “breaking a fever”.  wouldn’t heating a bowl in the oven and throwing it in a bucket of ice water be more effective?

            This reminds me of the Greek myth of a difficult birth.  Someone said the child would die about the same time the  he last long on the fire burned up.  The quick thinking midwife grabbed the long with her bare had, plunged it into a vat of water (quenched the fever) wrapped up the long and buried it somewhere in the basement.

             So, a housewife could break up a heated cup.  as soldier could break a heated sword or knife, a logger qu3nch a torch, etc.  (Cups, swords, Wands...get it?)

Creation

Aphrodite is the same wide-ruling goddess who rose from Chaos and danced on the sea.  -Graves-

We have laughed to see the sails conceive and grow bellied with the wanton wind. -Shakespeare-

Holy Matrimony

(Note; homeopathic magic is “As above, so below.”  Sympathetic magic is produced by affinity.)

Marriage is s homeopathic ritual, a holy sacrament we perform in recognition of the unity of binge; past, present and future.  Mormons can’t reach Heaven without it.  Cabalist can’t rend the veil with out it and I’ll live longer cause of it.

            The masculinity and femininity with the Lord are wed to insure the unity of the universe. The end of this marriage, would be the end of the world (Death). 

            Sex, as Crowley proved, is homeopathic magic; the ritual of creation.  Jehovah said “Let there be light” and Elohim brought it forth.  Adam said “Give me a son.” and Eve saw it don.  And Christ will beget the new world upon His Bride.

Friendship

            Friendship emphases our individuality through sympathetic rituals.  By surround ourselves with individuals like us, we preserve our own individuality.

            Hence Jehovah said “in our own likeness.”  Christ said John 15:14 and a man picks friends similar to himself.

            “What is the face of your friend anyway?  It is your own face in a rough and imperfect mirror” _Nietzsche-

            The goodness we see in friend is the attributes of God shining through the looking glass.

            I was with you when time began.  I’ve not denied you.  To do so would be to deny myself.  Because I delight in fresh bread, the smell of clover and the thighs of women, I live; therefore, you live with me.  We are the same - more than brothers.” - Normandi Ellis-

Giants

            The violent forces of  he Earth or her worshippers

            “The Gigantes thus seem to be a sort of earth-spirit, responsible for such phenomena as earthquakes and volcanoes.” -Standard Dictionary. of Myth and Folk.-

            “Cyclopes...one of a race of giants...storm gods three in number - Rages (the Shiner) Stirpes (the Lightning), Brontes (the Thunder)” -Standard Dictionary.. of Myth and Folklore.

            Weren’t the Norse giants all Frost, Ice, Mountains, fire , Water, etc?

Snake/Eagle

her champion, her nephew, his brother, his tanist, The resurrected hero.

Without it’s head the snaking nothing but a rope, “In my beak I hold the Poison”  Even in death the snake within the eagles talons might be a weapon

Witches

They become witches by breaking taboos and must continue to do so to retain their power.

White Bird in a Golden Cage

            “White bird in a golden cage.  White bird must fly or she will die.”

            The white bird is the symbol of the soul.  hence the Holy Spirit as a white dove.  We’ve all had that feeling that we were dying inside.  That  we were “pushing our soul into a deep dark hole and following it in.”  That if we didn’t get out of this place or situation we were just going to go crazy or just die.

            Where do you dare draw the line?  Where do you “Screw this!”  When do health and happiness take priority over money and security?  (Money and security that’s the gold cage.)

            It’s easy to say that health and happiness are always our priority, but often we sacrifice a little present happiness to great future happiness.  It’s a beautiful day, you want to stay home and enjoy it, but instead you go to work, so you can enjoy the beautiful weekend to come.

            But how long do you work a dead end job praying for an opening?  How much shit should one take from their boss?

            People say, live each day as though it’s  your last.  Would you live your last day cleaning toilets at a FS campground.  (You might split wood and clean the bathroom or the sake of those you leave behind.)

            I supposed the answer lies in asking if the means justifies the ends.

Jason

What Jason did with the “teeth of the Dragon”, the soldiers of the Consort, those dogs of war, came snarling, growling, heavily armed and dangerous toward him?  He threw them a rock , a bone of the earth, a bone of their Mother, gold.

Masada

A rock in a desert on the shore of a poisonous sea.

Kerovac

            I told him a dream I had about a strange Arabian figure that was pursuing me across a desert; that I tried to avoid, that finally over took me just before I reached the Protective City.

            “Who is it?” said Carlo

            We pondered it.  I proposed “myself” wearing a shroud.  That wasn’t it.  Something, someone, so e spirit was pursuing us across the desert of life and was bound to catch us before we reached heaven.

            Naturally, now that I look back, there is only death: death will overtake us before heave.

Tight End

            Two big guy are bound and gagged in the sitting position to what could be a weight lifting machine.  Their gold chains around their throats kept them from moving their head

            Interpretation/ it’s the weight lifting scene from “North Dallas Forty”.  The football player look tied to the machines  Bound to keep lifting for the sake of their muscles.  As to the gold choker, I always find necklaces just that; chokers. They were bound by their jobs and slowly suffocated by their wealth.

            I wonder why two guys?

The Poison Dagger

Hatred, in the he course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delight in nursing it in his bosom. -Casanova-

Gossip, the poison dagger.

H,X,Y,C,T, and L

Due to it’s upright slab shape, I named the top for the Hill for the god of the Aztecs.  His name has a h,x,y,c,t, and l in it and has always looked unpronounceable to me.  As we neared the base of the idols’ pedestal, I suddenly had to laugh.  I name my own bad omen by associating the pinnacle to a  god needing human sacrifice.

            “At least Matt will be safe”

            Then I remembered the Aztecs ate dogs.

            We lost the trail in some slickrock and I was having a hard time finding away onto the pedestal.  Which struck me as odd, because who would erect such a statue without providing a path for worshippers.  Of course, I found the prescribed entrance, but it was a big surprise.  Out in the middle of nowhere there was steel rebar ladder cemented into the rock.

Ladders

I saw someone working on Anne Lewis’ house.  They erected a scaffolding, put a stepladder on it and from there used the roof ladder.  It occurred to me, I use two ladders to clean the chimney  Maybe that’s how it is in any undertaking.  To achieve the zenith in that field you have to use a series of ladders and tools.  Very rarely, will one ladder, tool, technique get you to the top.

Bird Over the Abyss

Fish

When a fish (the manifestation of the collective subconscious) leaps from water to water, in the moment of arc, he is a creature of air.

 

The Abyss

“the Abyss, Daath” - Peter Redgrove

 

The Swallow

“I am the swallow spinning at dawn, through whom light enters the sky.” - Normandi Ellis-  The swallow over the depths raises the sun like the dove raising the dry earth.  Bringing enlightenment from the subconscious.

Job 7:12_   _

__  _"Am I the sea or the sea serpent,

__  _that Thou does set a guard over me?"

_   _

     Robert Graves says, "serpents...were held to be incarnate spirits of oracular heroes." the tanist of the Great Mother.  And Dion Fortune says the sea is the Great Mother, the Great Unknown, the Subconscious of God.

    In all the myths and legends of the world, no one ever set a guard over a dragon.  Maybe the Princess Royal.  But in point of fact it was the Dragons guarding the Princesses from the Aryan invaders, not the over way around.  Look at the Greek myths.  None of the monsters attacked their Mother the Earth, rather they tried to defend her from the Aryan gods. 

    So, the answer to Job's riddle is that he is the Sea.  Living out the doubts of our collective subconscious.  Dreaming our nightmares for us.

    And the serpent in our Sea?  The snake in our garden?  It is the manifestation of our Subconscious will.  "-the sea serpent which Thou hast formed to sport in it." (Psalms104:26).  It is the passions that surprise us liking boiling water.  It is our obsessions, and habits, and odd little quirks that help us, like Job, work out the unthinkable and the unknowable.

 

 

Veil

One veils that which is different aspects is earthy or heavenly, fallen and incorruptible, animal and divine. -Frithjok Schwa-

Israel (the World) is veiled by the Deep (Wisdom).  The Lord is veiled by the Light (His Son.)

The eye is a window on the soul, so what about those curtains (veils)?

The appreciation of grandeur  in moments of otherworldliness is itself a glamour.  The most significant spiritual power is that which remains unnoticed but is at the same time most effective.  The most powerful angels and the most powerful saints are those that are never noticed and never recognized.

I saw the MV Chugach afloat in the North Arm of Farragut through heavy drizzle.  A fog bank grew about it as I watched from the air.  Then the veiling rain squall passed it was the reflection of a fog back growing around the boat.

Elijah veiling his face corresponds to Tara (the gold medal winner during the national anthem) closing her eyes to make the moment last longer.

Water is but a veil on the Deep.  Is a well to the collective subconscious any less an entrance to other side when it’s full of water?  Is a dry riverbed leading tot he mountain peak any less significant.  Is the spring at Chimayo any less sacred cause it’s dry now?

The Styx fills the Abyss.  As does the Deep

 

 

Two Pigeons

            I emerged from the thick overgrown underbrush, entering the higher street under a cloudless sky.  A sky made hazy by distant forest fires in Canada.  The light and wrath from the warm rising sun streamed down upon me.

            I started thinking about the pleasure given me by the two people who love me most, move me best, move me unconditionally.  My eyes rose up to two pigeons sitting on a line above me, silhouetted against the sun.  Two doves over the warm waters of my life.  My two great comforters.  As I approached, I watched to see which would abandon me first.  Neither ever did.

            White doves fluttering like the bliss of a content man -Dumas-  Ducks pooping up and diving like creative thoughts.  Two ducks and a drake on the deep at Hammer Slough, two ducks and a drake.  Two thirds of our creative though can produce things; impact reality.  One third can only inspire (impregnate others.)

            Thoughts that come on dove’s feet guide the world. -Nietzsche-

            Ducks on the deep are but reflections of doves in the sky

            A sunbeam pierced the veil of Heaven striking the mud flats at the mouth of Petersburg Creek.  Flocks and flocks of white gulls

            A sunbeam pierced the Veil of Heaven, striking the mud flats at the mouth of Petersburg Creek.  Flocks and flocks of white gulls swarmed northward to the spot.  They hover above the tide line.  But flying down the narrows opposite the flow, was a solitary raven.  One black thought amongst so many happy one.

            I saw a flock of gulls over the narrows, from my perspective they flew in a row; one happy thought following another.

The higher they flew (the sea gulls) the deeper they see into the seas. -Virginia Woolf-

            A pair of hawks circled above him.  They were his mother Isis and her sister Nephtys.  They dropped two plumes.  Feathers are not message from above.  They are  gifts of the spirit.  Like truth... a tail feather dropped from a falcon in a cloudless sky.  he placed the plumes on his forehead, two gifts that fell from the sky - intuition and love, gifts from the goddesses - that he might walk toward Heaven and his Father and never lose hi way.  Together they are twilight and dawn. -Normandi Ellis-

A black raven is a white dove seen against the Sun.

The Earth

The depth we attribute to matter are no more than the reflection of the heights of spirit. -Chardin-

Angels

If the sea serpent is the will of the collective subconscious, what manifests the will of the spirit?  Angels?

Wings can’t outstrip Fear.

Talk about a bummer of a job; Hitler had a guardian angel trying to lead him on the path of righteousness.

Are feather messages from above?  No, gifts from the Spirit.

Truth...a tail feather dropped from a falcon in a cloudless sky. -Normandi Ellis-

The Invisible Playmate is the child’s Holy Guardian Angel.

The “Library Angel” effect, whereby books, people or information turn up magically just when they’re wanted, is well know.  -Andrew Fitzherbert-

The Deep

Golden carp in the dark water are sunspots on  he surface of the dabbled depths.

Bays and inlets creep inland just as the subconscious creeps into the conscious.  from these bays arise the rives of life that lead to the heights of knowledge and enlightenment.  But each man is an island, with a unique coastline.  And these quince inlet for the subconscious determine our own unique way to God.

Armor

Take the helmet of Salvation and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph6:17)  The Sword is a euphenism for the right hand; the hand of judgement, Christ as Judge.  The Shield is the left hand; mercy.  God’s faith and favor for us is our Shield against adversity and key to our salvation

Alexandria

He prayed for their safe return to the harbor.  I recalled the harbor plans for Alexandria.  Alexander’s face carved in the cliff.  The two jetties defining the harbor are whittled into his arms.  Like all embracing Mother Earth, welcoming her love back from the he sea.  I though about that terrible risk women take sending their lovers out on the Deep, the Great Subconscious; the storm tossed jade seas.  I thought about Pat Ray losing her love to this seductress.  I wondered what risks my takes launching my “ship” into the Heavens.

Secrets

“You two telling secrets, sowing little seeds of romance.” -Gina Ingoglia

Shadow

I watched some flies buzzing busily against the windowpane.  A few feet away a shaded doorway stood open.  Sometime the way to the Light is through the darkness.   The shadow seems a symbol of the soul.  So to abide in the Shadow of the Almighty is to dwell in His Holy Spirit.  The shadow of the ship flew along side us yesterday.  Our Guardian Angels fly and are always with us, like our shadows.  The image in the mirror knows what’s best, what’s right, what’s smart.  Maybe we are but reflections in a mirror cracked of our guardian angels who disguise themselves in the mirror and as our shadows.

            A dark shadow on the earth is just a white bird passing through a blue sky.

The Night

Eos, the dawn, known as Aurora to the Romans, is called mistress, golden-throned, saffron-robed, rosy-fingered, early-born, and the dawn-maiden. Eos appears young, highly spirited and lovely. Her eyelids are snowy, her cheeks rosy and her head crowned with beautiful, dewy tresses. She has rosy arms and fingers.  Her wings are large and white.  She wears a radiant crown or a single star on her brow, and sometimes she is veiled. Her robes are saffron yellow or dazzling white and purple, with yellow slippers. Golden-throned Eos lives by the River Ocean at the eastern end of the broad-bosomed earth. According to some, this is on Ortygia (or Delos), the Isle of the Rising Sun, where the pestilence-sender,  Apollo and his twin sister the huntress Artemis were born.  (Sunbeams, the darts of Apollo deliver fever and heat strokes.  Moonbeams, his sister’s shafts deliver lunacy.  The death of Niobe’s children could not have been pretty.  “You will not be afraid of the terror (madness) by night, nor the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence (fever).[86])

The cock calls Eos early each morning.  The swallows dance above her bed.  She awakes and leaps eagerly from the couch of Tithonos, the deathless Trojan prince who is her husband.  She leaves her court, glowing with rosy light, and opens the purple eastern gates of pearl upon the pathway strewn with roses. Swiftly she rides forth in her rose-colored, purple or golden chariot drawn by two white horses, Lampus (Shiner) and Phaethon (Blazer). She floats in air, holding in one hand a pitcher of water from the sacred River Lethe, from which she sprinkles the dew.

A fresh wind is felt at dawn's approach when starry Astraios embraces his beloved Eos.  To Astraios, the ancient father of the stars, she bore Hesperus, the evening star and the other gleaming stars crowning Heaven. The starry sky united with dawn to, also,  engender the morning star called Phosphorus.  Who carrying a torch  flies by his own wings before her chariot. 

Or again she may come riding on Pegasus and carrying a torch. The dawn-maiden accompanies her brother the sun, riding or walking ahead of his chariot. His sister Eos and their sister the fiery moon precede the far-shooting sun god on his course.  Eos is the wilder and more turbulent of the two.  Saffron-robed Eos lifts the veil of ancient Night and chases away the hosts of stars. (So also the souls of the dead depart at daybreak.) The first light of Dawn is white; the color of her wings. Next we see the golden radiance from her saffron robe and yellow shoes. Finally her rosy arms and fingers stretch across the heavens. The bearded yellow iris, the shamed hemlock, the proud spruce, aromatic mint and all the other  flowers and plants, drenched by the dew that she pours from her pitchers, lift their faces to her in gratitude for the new day.

his shining chariot rises and hurries into the two lands of the living; the black earth and red joined by a buckle of sky.  Embrace the horizon. - Beautiful is the new sailing in a river of sky in the boat of morning.[87] “At dawn my soul grows bright wings.  My face glows with white heat.  Above fields, I speak with the voice of a hawk, my eye sharp as a blade against the wheat.  I speak the work from which I was made.  I speak of truth, splendor and strength.”[88] Imagine when the evening boat draws near the far horizon.  The sun comes to meet  the edge of the red sky, edge of the river, the thin blade of time.  It arrives and he happily steps from the sacred shore of knowing. In black waters boats ferry dead men and the slumbering sun god.  It seems quiet here, full of stars.  Boats slice through the water. [89]

The day is done and the darkness falls from the wings of night like a feather wafting downward from an eagle in his flight; [90] a gift from Heaven, free pasturage, a limitless field. [91] Oh, most fair Night thou bring all good things; home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, to the young bird the parent’s brooding wing; the welcome stall to the overlabored steer. Whatever of peace about our hearthstones clings, whatever our household gods protect of dear, are gathered round us by thy look of rest.  [92] Oh Night, nurse of the golden stars, her unreigned chariot advances on wings of swift, obedient hours, on her state the stars attend.  Come darkling. Oh, majestic queen, rise from the abyss.  Oh, thou divine Night! How slowly thy chariot threads its way through the starry vault, across the sacred realms of the air.  Come Night and lay thy velvet hand upon my wearied brow whilst thus I prayed, amid the thickening air the Night supervenes, the greatest nurse of care and, as the goddess spreads her sable wings my fears decay, and courage springs. The sable-vestured Night came floating up over the wide firmament and brought her boon of sleep.[93]

"O Night, nurse of the golden stars,

 her unreign'd car advances

on wings of swift, obedient Hours,

on her state the stars attend.

Come darkling.

O Night, majestic queen,

 rise from the abyss of Erebus

 Oh! thou divine Night!

how slowly thy chariot

threads its way through the starry vault,

 across the sacred realms of the Air.

 Come Night and lay thy velvet hand

upon my wearied brow”

Whilst thus I prayed,

 amid the thick'ning air

 the Night supervenes,

the greatest nurse of care

 and, as the Goddess spreads her sable wings

my fears decay, and courage springs.

The sable-vestured Night

came floating up over the wide firmament

, and brought her boon of sleep.

I heard the trailing garment of the Night

Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

From the celestial was!

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

The 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 cistern flows.

O 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 broadwinged flight,

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

The best beloved, Night!

            Now, Night is the swarthy daughter of the giant Marve... called by the Aesir, Mimir. They say the hanged-god Odin, father of hammer-yielding Thor,  forfeited  an “eye” to the father of fairest Night to be all-knowing.  What kind of “god” is that?  A magician might have “sacrificed an eye”, but to whom?  Mimir was already dead.  T’is true one eye seemed blind to this world, after a draught from the well of Mimir, at the base of the tree of life.  But it saw perfectly well into the next.  The gift of Mimir’s well was not wisdom, but fairy sight.  The forfeited eye of Odin is the sun reflected on the waters of the well of Mimir. [94] God’s eyes are the sun and the moon.  “Osiris is the right eye of Ra“  So, Set is the left, the shining one, the moon. Hence, Odin used his left eye to see here, right eye to see there.  Conversely “Horus, prince of the air...blind in one eye until the moon arose.” [95]      

Dark looks her hair like her father’s entire race and her eyes soft and benevolent.  She brings rest to the toiler, refreshment to the weary, sleep and sweet dreams unto all.  To the warrior she gives strength so that he may win victory.  Care and sorrow she loves to take away.  Night is the beneficent mother of gods.  Three times she wed.  Her first husband was Nagelfare of the stars, and their son Aud of bounteous riches.  Her second husband was Annar, “Water”, and their daughter, Jord, the earth-goddess, was Odin’s wife and the mother of Thor.  Her third husband was Delling, the red elf of the early born dawn, and their son was Dagr, which is day.  Thrice-prayed for Night and her son received jeweled chariots to drive across the world, one after the other, in the space of twelve hours.  Billing is the elf-guardian of the western heaven towards which she flies  When the chariots of day, night, the sun and of the moon arrive there and enter the Forest of the Varns, , they pass though the lower-world realms of Mimir and of Urd towards the pearly gates of golden-throned dawn in the east.[96]

  In black waters boats glide ferrying dead men and the slumbering sun god.  It seems quiet here, full of twinkling dreams and boats that slice the water. [97]   When best beloved Night reaches Hell, where she must rest, darkness falls around her and the blessed and the damned are given sleep.[98]

Source of the Nile

Misery  lays hold of me, as I sit on the Great Throne in the Palace, my hair is gray with worry and my heart is grievously afflicted because  Nilus failed to come forth during the period of my reign to his full height for two years. Grain is very scarce, herbs and vegetables are lacking altogether, and everything which men eat for food is of the poorest. A man now robs his neighbor, men wish to walk, but are unable to move, the child wails, the young man draggeth his limbs along  and the hearts of the aged are crushed with despair; their legs give way under them and they sink to the ground, and their hands are folded inside them. The nobles are destitute, and the storehouses are closed, and there cometh forth from them nothing but wind. Everything is in a state of ruin.

My mind hath remembered going back to a time past, that I asked "Where is the place of birth of River God Nilus? Which is the town of the Nile flood? Who is the God to whom sacrifices should be offered up therein?"  I was in mourning on my throne, ….I tossed a sprig upon the Deep.  I consulted with Nilus.  I read the flow of the River.  I quired the sages.  I saw the wake of the unseen object.
“…there is a hooved river god…”
I knew the source of the Nile. On temple walls, he is sometimes shown as holding a jar, with the precious water flowing out of it. He who lives on the banks of the Great River Ocean. He brings forth the indunation of the river, he makes the land black and fertile, he gives we of the delta islands,  the sun-golden wheat, strong cattle, wild geese, fish and all things of which we live.    

I journeyed up the River of Life to visit his temple.  It opens towards the the south-east, from the porticol one dawn- lit morning I saw the chariot of the Sun rises  opposite it. South of it the water seeps for a mile. A titanic wall called Gebel Elba Mountains is guarded day and night separates the our small world from the Great River Ocean beyond.. There is a mountain massif  containing all the ores, all the crushed (weathered) stones (aggregates suitable for agglomeration), all the products  sought for building the temples of the gods, the pyramid for the king, all statues that stand in temples and in sanctuaries. Moreover, all these chemical products are set before the source of the Nile and around him.

Here the Sun sets each evening, received by the horned god.  The Sun meets the Earth and arms himself with powerful magic plus his companions creative authoriative utterance and wisdom combined with  understanding.  From here the Sun steps from the shore of knowing into his barque and journeys upon the Great River Ocean back to his home in the east. Guarded in his slumbers by the  war god Ares
These were the things which I learned and my heart was glad. I entered the temple now white haired in loose attire. I was sprinkled with water. I went into the secret places, and a great offering was made of cakes and wine, and geese, and oxen, and all good things,  to the god and goddesses upon the sacred isle Elephantine, below.
I lay on a couch with life and strength in my heart When I was asleep, my hear tsighed in life and happiness. For, Oh my soul, in my dream I saw a hoary satyr come here by a pool to drink. I found the god standing Two horns like sense and reason implanted in your forehead.  He was the son of the mountain’s sky.  His dusty hooves tramped an old trail.  In that moment my heart knew this rock on which we live, this secret garden, this little patch of ground we travel in no haste, would  endure.  This was ram god, that forest god who comes down from the mountain to the river.  He is the hooved source of the nile.

“Lord of cool water” I whispered.  I caused him pleasure by worshiping and adoring him.

He made himself known to me and said: "Fear not.  I am the source of the Nile, your creator, My arms are around you, to steady your body, to safeguard your limbs. First I bestow on you rare ores upon rare ores... since creation nobody ever processed them (to make stone) for building the temples of the gods or rebuilding the ruined temples and sculpting chapels.

I thanked and praised the river god.  Then with head bowed so as to not offend the hooved one I mumbled my request.  “Those of the palace were in grief….because Nilus had failed to come in time. In a period of seven years, Grain was scant, Kernels were dried up…Every man robbed his twin…Children cried…The hearts of the old were needy…Temples were shut, Shrines covered with dust, Everyone was in distress.”   When his voice echoed off the river banks again, I was unsure if he heard or not. 

The Source of the Nile said, “ I have scuplted these gates upon the shores of the the Great River Ocean and at my  pleasure the Nile rises.  The door-bolt is in his hand, the wings of the door open according to my wishes.    For I am the master who makes, I am he who makes himself exalted to the River God Oceanus, who first came forth.  I am he who hurries  Nilus at my will. I am living on the shore of knowing. My island below you,  splits the river into  two channels. It is up to me to let loose the Deepl. I know  Nilus, urge him to the field, I urge him, life appears in every nook and cranny. As one urges cattle to the field.  I will urge on old Nilus.  I will make the Nile swell for you, without there being a year of lack and exhaustion in the whole land, so the plants will flourish, bending under the weight their fruits   everything will be brought forth by the millions and every woman will bear sons. The land of Egypt is beginning to stir already, The shores are shining wonderfully.  Wealth and well-being  dwell with your people, as they have been before.”

Then I woke up in happy mind, my courage returned, my heart was at rest,

Eagle/Serpent

That once, an eagle stricken with dart, said when he saw the fashion of the shaft, “With our own feathers, not by other hands, are we now smitten” -Aeschuylus-

Don’t griffins (eagle/lions)guard the Tree of Life and the golden apples thereupon?

I am the sun roaring beside two lions named Yesterday and Tomorrow.  -Normandi Ellis-

A snake writhing the  talon is poison.  A Cluster of arrow indicates the number of allies or organizations that can be called upon.  Wheat is wealth.  An Olive branch is    the weapon of peace.  An orb the weapon of sovereignty.  The sword of the  Spirits it the word of God.  A snake without a head is a whip.

“We looked up and saw a number of eagles fighting.  Feathers floated down.  We tried to catch them.  Germanicus and Castor each caught one before it fell and stuck it in his hair.  Castor had a small wing feather, but Germanicus a splendid one from the tail  Both were stained with blood.  Spots of blood fell on Postumus’ upturned face and on the dresses of Livilla and Agrippina.  And then something dropped through the air.  I do not know why I do so, but I put out a fold of my gown and caught it.  It was a tiny wolf-cub, wounded and terrified.”  - Robert Graves, in “I, Claudius”  The interpretation follows.  The little “eagles” all fought much bloodied, but only Claudius won the prize, “As Above, So Below.”  Germanicus and Posthumus at least received the gift of glory.

Ty’s Cabin

At a distance I noticed movement and  then spotted it’s cause.  The cause was a German Shepherd about Matt’s size.  “A dog out here?  It must be a coyote and that must be a crow beside it.  They’re feasting on a road killed deer.”  As I drew closer I wonder, “Why hasn’t the coyote chased the crow off?”

            AS I cam upon hem k the dog/coyote ran off, but the crow didn’t’,.  IT was a golden  eagle.  By the time I turned around  and got out the camera out a logging truck came over the hill and scared them both off. 

            I remember the Aztecs looking for a snake eating eagle perched in a prickle pear.  I t watts there , where the imperial eagle devoured the queen’s  taints (devoured wisdom the all consuming night) and they built their empire.

            But, what does a deer eating eagle guarded by a dog (the guardian of humanity mean to me?)

The City

Culture can’t be built on deception -Dudley Young-

            One should be able to walk across a “city” in one day and that from everywhere in that city you should be able to hear the cathedral bells.  The fact the harbor lies in the heart of Petersburg says a lot.  maybe the fire siren could serve as our “cathedral bells”

            “The city of which we are founder...exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such a n one anywhere on earth.  In Heaven, there is laid up the pattern of it, me thinks, which he who desire may behold and beholding may set his own house in order.  But whether such a one exist in fact, is no matter; for he (the man of understanding) will live after a manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.” -Plato-

            Aren’t the cemeteries always south of American cities? (Natives and Europeans are buried on  eh Island of the Blest to the West of the River Ocean).  The airport is the road out of Petersburg.  The fire department siren should be heard from Hungry Point tot he ball field to the Old Folk’s home to the cemetery.

            Fields, dumps, and the watershed ain’t exactly part of the city, but kind of. If the seas is the fields of Petersburg then, don’t wives run the same risk sending their men to the field or woods that they run sending them into the sky or sea.  I suppose any field of endeavor holds risks but hose outside the city limits offer unique risks and opportunities.  So, now I wonder about the fields, sloughs and river, and forest that slip through the limits that hedge in our town.  Do such intrusion by the forest/wilderness offer the same risks and opportunities .  Is that why I like to take the short cut to work?

            “The planners also pinpointed the umbilicus of a city by studying the sky...as if the map of the sky were mirrored on  eh earth.  Knowing it’s center, the planners could define the town’s edge, here they tilled a furrow in the earth, called the “pomerium” which was a sacred boundary.  To violate the pomerium, Livy said, was like deforming the human body by stretching it too far.”

            “communities...are adapted not to average, but to extreme conditions.” -Marvin Harris-

            Many roads converge on the city.  They form a five lane highway running into two.  One land, now more popular than another.  All roads lead to Rome .  All paths lead to heaven.

            The roads entering the heart  of the city offer diversity and option galore.  But, we forget that as the freeway rushes out into  he country it narrows.  lanes split off and race away. The main road splits, detours, fans out on off ramps to boulevards, count and forest roads.  It spreads out as residential streets, country lanes and dirt tracks.  The options and diversity still exist, but many of us only have a few roads in our towns.  From our windows we only see a few option, a few paths to the city.  But, oh the ways are myriad.

            “There’s a lot of roads to LA.!” -Mac Heller-

As Above, So Below

“from below must come the impulse to move the power above.  Thus to form clouds vapor ascends first from the earth.” -Zohar-

In the still black waters of Scow Bay, the street light and path above reflect perfectly.  The things of the sky, the Spirit, are often reflected in the Deep, the Subconscious.  The Spirit cannot tell us what the heart doesn’t already now.  “no, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth ant in your heart for you to observe.” -Deu 30:14-

“Thus the gods did; thus men do. “ -Taittiriya Brahmana-

“Two horns, like Sense and Reason” -Normandi Ellis-  Horus wore love and intuition like horns.  They  were gifts, like truth from above.

“To me, faith represents that people can...reach out and contact God and Grace represent that God is always reaching toward people” -Peace Pilgrim-

The ripples of the pastor‘s hand in the baptismal font mirror the tsunamis that baptism causes in heaven.

What if the reflection in the water of a house bears the same relationship to the house on the shore as the world below bears tot he world above?  What if angels pass through out world like swans glide through the reflection, seemingly part of the scene, but not really.  Leaving only ripples in time like the wake of the unseen object

The Path

“I walked (the Path) between everlasting mountains, longer than nights, whiter than salt, where the hearts of men are made fragrant as hyacinths nodding.  To the Field (of Apple Trees), I’ve traveled an d back.  I am the same man made new.” - Normandi Ellis-.

As Above so Below

As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.  As a child I read about “inauspicious beginnings” and omens.  I thought it all old superstitions.  But as I grew older I experienced more and more the truth of these superstitions.  The events of my wedding day truly indicated the rest of my marriage.  The first day of my stepson Shawn’s visit represented perfectly the rest of the summer.  Things are as they will be. Alpha-Omega.

Beauty

Beauty above, truth below.  “Beauty without graces is a hook without bait.” - Emerson- The naked truth, like a baitless hook is rarely desired nor swallowed by anyone.

Candle

“-a wick burning in a blue bowl of oil.“ -Normandi Ellis-

Kabbalah

Crown

A “crown is the “head” of a people.  A halo is a crown of glory.  Jon is his mother’s halo.

Throne

Your throne is your place of power.  A chariot is a throne on wheels.  the Cross was the Lord’s earthly throne

“Fill our hearts, His humble thrones.” -”Built on a Rock” Lutheran Book of Worship

Trinity

I watched a kissing fish in an aquarium.  Through deflection and reflection I saw three images.  Only two at a time were mirror images, so there wasn’t a whole lot of obvious affinity amongst the Trinity until I noticed the timing of their movements betrayed their corresponds.

La Querencia

            “But Floyd Trujillo’s mother knew where to look.  She took her children and confidently made her way to the same corner of one particular meadow.  And there the horse were, every time.

            That spot, that corner of meadow where the grass was no more and no less lush than anywhere else, was the horses’ querencia.  It was, according to Trujillo, where the horses felt safe and comfortable, where memories of early days with the mother mare might have lingered.  It was where they were drawn by an attraction without logic, yet with an undeniable force.

            La Querencia.  It is an old Spanish word that defies easy translation into English.  Derived from the verb querer, to love or desire, it means homeland, a place in the heart the place to which one is deeply drawn and drawn back time and again if one wanders away,  it is the soul’s comfort, the heart’s joy.”

our two-thousand year-old traditions of gematria represent the superstitious mystification of four-thousand year old engineering manuals.  At the same time, remembering Umberto Eco's description of Pi as "that number which binds together the diameter and circumference of all Circles", I wonder if  mysticism isn't just an attitude of reverence which can be beneficially applied to all aspects of life, engineering included. - cmorgan@gems.vcu.edu

Miscellanous

In the spring, large numbers of Magpies often gather to resolve territorial conflicts and social standing. These gatherings, called parliaments, probably gave rise to the many nursery rhymes and poems about Magpies.  In American the logic is applied to “counting crows” , whose gatherings are called murders.

One for sorrow,

two for mirth, (or joy)
Three for a wedding (or girl),

four for a birth, (or boy)
Five for silver,

six for gold,
Seven for a secret not to be told.
Eight for a wish,

nine for a kiss;
Ten for a bird that's best to miss.

                                                                        http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/magpie.htm

Date:    Sat, 7 Feb 1998 18:47:06 -0500

From:    Sara

Subject: Tarot, Healing, and the Flu

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I have not had the flu since 1993.

I've got it now.

But now I have the Tarot, don't I. And I am looking for ways to use the

cards for healing - using the images and the power behind those images.

I have started with Temperance. (Using Mary's suggestion in Tarot for

Yourself.)And felt the Angel Michael (it is Michael, isn't it?) in front of

me, pouring and mixing the healing ingredients.

It is a lovely experience. Looking at the card and letting Temperance just

flow into me.

I thought about the other three angels in the Tarot - Raphael (Lovers),

Gabriel (Judgment), and Oriel (Devil.) I remember Amber Jayanti in Chicago

talking about them and chanting, bringing them close.

I read of another way - using The Star, The World, Strength, and the Three

of Cups. All very positive. Wonderful images that you can get right into.

When you all are sick, how do you use the cards to promote healing?

I haven't felt this bad in a long time, but I swear working with Temperance

for a while made me feel better, and I wanted to get on the computer and

talk about it.

            General Safety Precautions Against Evil Spirits and other Troubles

Alfalfa ashes (if you do not grow alfalfa you might find alfalfa pellets at the pet store or alfalfa hay at the equine supply store) strewn about the yard can ward off evil spirits.
Hang a few sprigs of fennel and St. John’s Wort (just a whiff of this one causes evil spirits to fly away) over the door along with Angelica, a preservative against witchcraft as well as evil spirits. Ever handy, Snapdragon (Antirrhinum magus), scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) and toadflax will guard against witchcraft, too.
To chase away evil spirits, burn some fennel to create smoke (Fumitory or Fumaria officinalis) and be sure to carry some Mullein. A pot or two planted up with Vinca major (the Sorcerer’s Violet) will exorcize spirits. For protection from all evil, take a lead from the Druids and use a little mistletoe (Viscum album.)
Dill was often used in charms against witchcraft as was woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara.) Peony seed necklaces and Geum (or Avens) amulets can be worn for protection. Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is useful as well, and may be woven into a crown.
Rue (Ruta graveolens) has very special powers, ranging from being antimagical to possibly giving second sight. The nearly all powerful wood betony (Stachys betonica) will protect both body and soul against evil spirits as well as despair and nearly whatever else ails you; wear it as an amulet or charm

Anise:  sleep on anise seeds to ensure sleep free from nightmares; fresh anise leaves protects the magic circle and ward off evil

Sprigs of rosemary were placed under pillows at night to ward off evil spirits and bad dreams

Ash Magical properties:  The representation of Ygdrasill, the world tree, and one of the Fairy Triad: oak, ash and thorn.  Ash represents the power which resides in water for use in sea rituals.  Carrying a piece will protect against drowning.  A staff of ash hung over a doorway will ward off malignant influences.  Scatter the leaves in the four directions to protect a house.  Ash attracts lightning so it will not protect against that.

Marigold Medicinal properties: stomach cramps and diarrhea, fever, vomiting, salves, sores Magical properties:  Add calendula to your bath to win the respect and admiration of your peers.  String garlands of calendula around the outside doors to stop evil from entering the house.

HawthorneMagical properties:  If there is Hawthorne growing on your property, no evil ghosts will enter.  It also protects against lightning and damage from storms.  Hawthorne is sacred to fairies and is part of the Fairy Triad:  "oak, ash and thorn"

Holly Magical properties:  One of the best protection herbs, holly guards against lightning, poison and evil spirits.  Plant it around the house.  Since it is a male plant, men should carry holly for luck  (Women should carry the female plant Ivy).  After midnight on a Friday, in silence, gather nine holly leaves

_ The accepted modern Kabbalistic interpretation is that any reference to "the king", without using the (human) king's name, is actually a reference to the Deity, in the book of Esther. So when the text of Esther reads, "And Ahashverus the king said,...." it refers to something the (allegedly) historical king Ahashverus (allegedly) actually said; when the text of Esther reads, "And the king did such and such," it refers to something done by God. How this ties in to the phrase Keter Malkuth I leave to your cogitations. Jeffrey Smith f901030k@bc.seflin.org Hodu l'Adonai ki tov--ki l'olam chasdo. Give thanks to God, because of Good: because for all the world is His Mercy. ---- Tehillim 136:1  

            _

“Where does God live?”

With this question, the Kosker surprised some scholars who were guests

of his.They laughed at him: “How do you speak! The world is full of his glory!”

But he answered his own question: “God lives, where he is let in.”

(Tales of the Hasidim)

But what does it mean: “God takes his dwelling place within man”?

At first, it means the actual annulment of the difference between religiousness

and secularity. Everyday life is no less imbued with belief than the “deified

high hours”. It is only this way that the unity of life is

achieved, and only a religion which does not view religiousness merely

in some kind of sentimentality and rejects all reason can lead humans to

this unity. The human being does not fight against urges, he does not have

to expel evil out of him: he is supposed to live in the world and

with God, he is supposed to become the vessel of holiness within the world.

And by sanctifying the whole everyday life, Hasidism takes “the

other world into this world”. The present time, the world, is the

place where faith is made real, where God reveals Himself. God is not the

far-away ruler of the world who will bring redemption some time (this is

said against the exaggerated messianic hopes), but God wants “to conquer

the world he created through the human being”.

 God does not want to complete his creation in any other way than with

our help. He does not want to reveal his realm before we have founded it.

He does not want to put on the crown of the King of the World but by receiving

it from our hand.

(The Hasidic Message)

It is from here that the true dialogical relation between God and man

becomes possible: on the one hand, the difference between God and man is

not given up in any way (thus no panentheist “God in all”), man

is believed to be able to contribute to the history of salvation himself

- and even called for to do so -, on the other hand, God's nearness is

emphasized as strongly as in hardly any other religious movement: God dwells

within the world, but he is not absorbed by it (immanence and transcendence).

 Rabbi Bunam once told: Watching the world, it sometimes seems to me

as if every man is a tree in the wilderness, and God has in this world

no-one but him alone, and he no-one to turn to but God alone.

(Tales of the Hasidim)

From here, he calls this twofoldedness, the basis for any dialogical

relation: Primary distance and relation.

As Buber himself wrote in his autobiographical fragments, his dialogical

thought evolved from his occupation with Hasidism. In the relation to God

(which he calls the relation to “the eternal thou” in his dialogical

philosophy), Buber realized that human existence is determined by two fundamentally

different kinds of relation: I-It relations and I-Thou relations. It is

characteristic for I-Thou relations that only in them real encounter happens

when all is left behind, all preconceptions, all reservedness is given

up, when one fully engages in the encounter with the other and carries

on a real dialogue with him.

 The relation to the Thou is immediate.

Between I and Thou there is no terminology, no preconception and no

imagination, and memory itself changes, since it plunges from singularity

into the whole.

Between I and Thou there is no purpose, no greed and no anticipation;

and longing itself changes, since it plunges from dream into appearance.

All means are impediment. Only where all means fall to pieces, encounter

happens.

(I and Thou)

The real novum in these thoughts is the expansion of the notion of relation

over interhuman and God-man relations to the whole of existence. My whole

existence is determined by the kind of relation I have to the elements.

I can have an I-It relation toward my life when I imagine it as a destiny

imposed upon me or a targetless accident, but I can also have a dialogical

relation toward it, I can conceive it as an address to me, as an request

to give answer. This means that I have to respond to the actual situation

- and not to have to make plans for it and realize them, i.e. self-responsibilty

instead of self-realization, or in short: response.

And it is the same with history, an element of life extremely important

to Buber and man in general. How do I conceive the river of times: without

target or determined by a ruler of the world? Or after all as a dialogue

betweeen this “ruler of the world” and man:

 If history is a dialogue between God and mankind, then we can perceive

its purpose respectively there where the address hits us, and only

in so far as we let ourselves be hit by it.

The purpose in history is no idea I can formulate independently of my

personal life, it is only with my personal life that I can absorb it, for

it is a dialogical purpose.

(Geschehende Geschichte)

With man being called to respond, man having to be able to be responsible,

it should not be misunderstood that a human being only finds his I with

the help of a Thou. For at the same time it has to be clear: there can

be no Thou without an I, for without an I there can be no facing, no encounter:

<

It is true that a child first says Thou before it learns to say I; but

on the height of personal existence one must be able to say truly I in

order to experience the secret of Thou in its whole truth.

Human relations are the place where dialogic life takes place; that

does not mean that one has much to do with people; but it is a life “in

which one has really to do with the person one has to do with.”

<

Then, it requires me time after time to thank my fellow-man even when

he has not done anything special for me. But for what? For encountering

me for real when he encountered me; for opening his eyes and perceiving

reliably what I had to tell him; yes, for opening what I talked to: the

well-closed heart.

After this landmark discovery in his thought, he turns back to religion.

Starting at the central thought of dialogue between God and man, Buber

sets out for the primary source of biblical tradition from where religious

thought in Judaism took and takes its life. He finds back to the occurence

at Sinai, back to the revelation of God's name to Moshe:

 Moshe spoke to God:

There I come then to the sons of Yisrael,

I speak to them:

The God of your fathers has sent me to you,

then will speak to me: What about his name?

What do I speak to them?

God spoke to Moshe:

I will be there as the one I will be there.

And he spoke:

That's what you shall speak to the sons of Yisrael:

I AM THERE sends me to you.

Exodus 3:13-14

Proceeding from this passage, Buber develops the principles of the faith

in God in early Judaism. God is the God being there, the God freeing, leading,

going along, feeling with you, but at the same time also the unseizable,

the unavailable God of whom you cannot make an image. In their translation

of the passage, Buber and Rosenzweig liberate it from the incorrect Septuagint

translation “I am who I am” (which is clearly influenced by Hellenism),

a translation still included in many “modern” translations. “I

am who I am” would mean that it is philosophically forbidden to speculate

about God's existence.

In this central occurence, together with its national: the exodus out

of Egypt, and its social pendant: the revelation of the Torah at Mount

Sinai, Buber views the primary source which has not become irrelevant for

modern man. In an age of subsiding scientism and intellectual atheism,

he offer to this “modern man” the rediscovery of biblical tradition.

He does not try the impossible (which is, by the way, tried by many religious

groups hostile to any form of progress): calling back a time of naiveté,

no, he views the reality of the modern times having brought fundamental

and irreversible changes:

 It is not about a “return to the Bible”. It is about resuming

of the original biblical unity life with the whole of our existence entangled

in our time, with the whole weight of our late diversity on our souls,

the unseizable matter of this historical hour undimishedly present in our

minds; it is about standing our present situations with biblical openness

toward faith in dialogical responsibility.

(Modern Man and the Jewish Bible)

The rational “modern man” is not responsible because he does

not respond, and he does not respond because he does not hear the question

anymore which approaches man from generation to generation in form of human

life and tradition. Man must once again hear the question, hear the questioner,

he must learn anew asking questions and answering. In short: he has to

learn dialogue.

In his religious life, Buber is not occupied with dogmatic issues, he

accomplishes the anthropological turn-about of theology more thoroughly,

more credibly, and more methodologically founded than most of his Christian

colleagues, who have seen this problem as well. One cannot speak about

God as if being not involved, as if watching from outside the universe,

as if being able to decide what is allmighty, as if being able to know

what truth is, as if being able to track and evaluate God's acting, man

is always involved, he does not know what allmighty is, how

he can seize truth, he does not have any undeceivable sense

organ for God's acting. The world of faith has to be opened from the point

of view of human possibilities, of human existence, and faith has to be

lived in the middle of human possibilities, lived in every minute of existence,

lived in the field of tension between creation, revelation and redemption.

Creation for Buber, like for Jewish tradition, happens in every

second, one only has to perceive it: in every second new life comes into

being. But also redemption happens already today and not only in a far-away

future, already today man can experience traces of what will happen some

day. And only because man does experience creation and redemption, he can

can conceive from his human point of view what they mean, only because

man experiences revelation in his present time, God's revelation to him,

the encounter of two beings.

And just from the experience of the divine in one's own life, one can

conceive why Buber, who shows respect for tradition in general and the

Bible in particular, also states that one always has to decide in favor

of the God in whom one believes and against the God whose image was handed

on to me, in case that one cannot believe in the God of tradition. This

is one point that makes up Buber's living relation to tradition.

The Bible is for Buber the one document of the great facing of God and

man where happened and happening history are interpreted as one big dialogue

between God and man.

 Judaism, for which all events in world history, from creation to redemption,

stand under the sign of language, feels that the course of human existence

is nothing but a dialogue. Man is called by all that happens to him, what

is sent to ihm, by his destiny; in his acting and not acting he can answer

to this call,he can answer for his destiny.

Buber realizes the necessity of a new translation of the Bible

soon, even though he lacks the methodic principles for its accomplishment.

He realizes inadequacy of the former translations, he realizes most of

all that the Bible is only read as a well-known classic, but no longer

encountered, man no longer faces the Bible:

 The Hebrew Bible itself is read as a translation, as a bad translation,

as a translation into the worn down language of terms, allegedly well-known,

in reality only current. Respectful intimacy with sense and sensuality

as required by Scripture has been replaced by viewless familiarity.

The methodic principles of the Translation of the Bible, which Buber

owes mostly to his co-operation with Franz Rosenzweig are reflected by

his philosophical principles. He wants to retransform the Bible into spoken

word. For this, Buber uses a language rich in images and sensitive

to rhythm; instead of verses, he divides the Bible into short passages

determined by meaning and breathing technique. By reproducing the Hebrew

pivot style, Buber uses a feature that helps to conceive the innerbiblical

coherence immediately - with nothing but the word. Like a red thread, one

can follow a word or a root throughout chapters and books of the Bible.

The unique about Buber's translation is that he does not only try to translate

word uniformly, but whole roots. This leads him to the frontiers of German

language, and the first impression of the translation often bewilders the

reader.

But the importance is only realized when it is faced existentially:

Buber opens up many terms and innerbiblical connections anew by working

out the relation component out of terms of the “detached mind”,

which originates in its primary Hebrew meaning. Truth becomes faithfulness,

inner and outer faithfulness, justice becomes proving, the judicial term

becomes a state of living, a “relation to reality”:

 The truth that can be owned is not even a creature, it is a ghost, a

succubus, with which to live man can only effectively fancy, but he cannot

really live with it. You cannot devour truth, it is not cooked in any pot

of the world, you cannot even gape at it, for it is not a thing. And nonetheless

there is a taking part at the existence of the inaccessible truth - for

the one who proves himself. There is a “real relation” of the

whole human prson toward the unowned, unownable truth, and it is only completed

in proving. This “real relation” is, whatever called, the relation

to existence.

And he breathes life back into the sacrificial terms which have lost

their meaning for us by translating as a nearing, an offer-nearing (Darnahung),

a giving high and thus as a contrast to traditional sacrifice as an aiming

at meeting God. If people nowadays are no longer ready to sacrifice, it

it is not their “self-centrism”, but the fact that sacrifice

does no longer mean meeting for them. Instead of that, the God of the Old

Testament is portrayed imperious and despotic because he required sacrifices.

But in reality, this God enabled and enables people to meet him.

The spiritualized term of the Holy Ghost gains back its sensual life

by translating it from its Hebrew primary meaning as “God's breeze”.

The new opening of God's name JHWH in Early Judaism as “I will

be there as the one I will be there” puts the stress onto the relation,

onto the nearness in the relation and onto the distance in the relation.

Buber and Rosenzweig have long thought it over how to translate this name

of God in the text, adequate to German language's need. They have decided

on the pronoun, since only this can reflect the nearness and familiarity

of the primary meaning: the old “God the Lord” becomes a plain

“HE”.

It was inevitable that Buber had to face Christianity when freeing the

Bible from a patina laid on it mostly by a bimillinarian Christian theology.

But its results are different from what one could expect: he does not polemize,

he does not attack openly, his voice is low and matter-of-fact, like among

good friends. He does not deride what he cannot believe in. And the fact

that Christian view the Messiah in Jesus was always a “fact of highest

seriousness” to him, even though Jesus could be “no more”

than an outstanding and unparalleled person in Jewish tradition and a “brother”.

And last but not least, he viewed him, Jesus of Nazareth, as a Jew who

radically tried to make real with God's addressability.

But at the same time, his criticism is unmerciful: he uncompromisingly

points out that Paul's understanding of faith was perverted by Hellenism.

The relation of faith in Christianity is no longer viewed a relation of

trust as in Judaism, but as a holding-true of facts, facts of faith. This

is what leads to disputes on dogmatism and heretics:

 There are two, and after all only two, types of faith facing one another.

There is a large variety of contents of faith, but faith itself is only

known in two primary forms. Both of them can be illustrated by plain facts

of our lives: that I have trust toward somebody without being able to give

reasons for it, the other evolves from the fact that I, also unable to

give sufficient reasons, acknowledge facts as true.

The person of Paul already is the point of time where Christianity branches

off from the Jewish type of faith and becomes an inferior type of faith,

whereas the message of Jesus still is deep-rooted in Judaism.

 Of course, Jesus asked as whom he is seen, but he does not require somebody

to see him as anyone. For Paul it is the gate to salvation that one acknoledges

Jesus with the whole power of faith as the one he teaches.

But it is not only the notion of faith that Christianity has given up,

but also the prohibition of images. By deifying Jesus, people make an image

of the unseizable God, He is brought down to earth, his presence is forced

in form of an image - and thus the real access to that God who “will

be there as the one he will be there” is shut:

<

Imageless and full of images is the Christian God at the same time,

more imageless, however, in the religious idea, full of images in the lived

presence. The image covers the imageless.

[1]Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough 1922

[2]Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science, & Religion and Other Essays, Double Day 1948  

[3] Eliott

[4]Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough 1922

[5] Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

[6] The Non Pareto Principle; Mea Culpa  J.M. Juran

[7] Gaia was the primordial goddess of the earth according to the ancient Greeks.

[8] James Lovelock, taken from The Ages of Gaia

[9] Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton,  1957

[10] The Elements of Logic, Barker

[11] Hamlet; Prince of Denmark, Act III, Scene IV, Line 180

[12] How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie, Pocket Books, New York

Feb. 1957 Page195

[13] Proverbs 23:7

[14] Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils' Intellectual

Development (1968; expanded edition 1992),

[15] Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James

George Frazer

[16] As You Like It, Shakespeare

[17] Homo Ludens, J.Huizinga

[18] Heroism by Ralph Waldo Emerson

[19] Homo Ludens, J.Huizinga

[20] Everyman’s Talmud   

[21] An important pair in the Egyptian pantheon, representing civilization and resurrection among many other things.  Osiris was brother and murder victim of Set.

[22] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[23]  Frithjok Schwa

[24] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[25] Zohar

[26] Taittiriya Brahmana

[27] Steps Toward Inner Peace : Harmonious Principles for Human Living

by Peace Pilgrim,

[28] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press  

[29] Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche)

[30]Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[31] William Goldman in “The Princess Bride”.

[32] Odin was King of the Aesir, an important faction in the Nordic pantheon.  A might warrior and giant-slayer like his son Thor, but also considered a sorcerer and very wise.

[33] The Book of (Ugh!) Poems, Wm Hamilton, unpublished

[34] Why You Say It by Webb Garrison (Rutledge Hill Press, 1992)

[35] Shakespeare

[36] Hosiah. ii. 6

[37] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[38] The Garden of the Heart, compilation by Frances Esty, Roycrofters, NY (1930)

[39] The second and third sephiroth respectively, on the kaballahist Tree of Life.

[40] The Golden Bough by James G. Frazer

[41] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[42] The tree/axis of the world in Nordic mythology.

[43] Voluspa

[44] Baltasar Gracian in “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”

[45] The Rubbiyat of Omar Khayyam

[46]  Secret Gardens: The Golden Age of Children's Literature

            by Humphrey Carpenter Houghton Mifflin,

[47] Zohar

[48] The Secret Language of Symbols : A Visual Key to Symbols and Their

Meanings  by David Fontana

[49] Piers Anthony

[50] In hollies, ashes, maples,  some yew, juniper and ginkgoes, a dryad maybe “male” or female.  Hence Santa can come and go by way of the chimney to arrange gifts around the Christmas tree, because  he is the dryad of  the Yule log, once burned upon the hearth. (Phillip F. Waterman )  “ I am the tree with candles in her fingers, the tree with lights, Menorah, Yule flame, Tree of Life” ( Judy Grahm; Queen of Wands)

[51] Phillip G. Davis in Goddess Unmasked.

[52] Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche)

[53] Albert Camus

[54] Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche)

[55] Havamal

[56] Proverbs 8:14

[57] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[58] ????????????

[59] Luke 21:25

[60] The Republic by Plato

[61] ????????????????????

[62] ?????????????????????

[63] The Secret Language of Symbols : A Visual Key to Symbols and Their

Meanings  by David Fontana

[64] Mircea Eliade, in Rites and Symbols of Initiation (1958),

[65] “I Never Promised you a Rose Garden”

[66] The Rubiyatt of Omar Khayyam

[67] Rig Veda, Hymn xiv

[68] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[69] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[70] Blumenthal, David  Understanding Jewish Mysticism

[71] Everyman’s Talmud   

[72] Deu 30:14

[73] Hall, James, A. (1983). _Jungian Dream Interpretation: A handbook of

Theory and Practice Inner city Books: Toronto, Canada

[74] Dogen Zenji in Mountain and Water Sutra

[75] Psalm 71

[76] The Tarot : History, Mystery and Lore    Cynthia Giles; Paperback 

[77] Alexander Dumas

[78] Walter Bugehot

[79] THE AGE OF CHIVALRY by Thomas Bulfinch

[80] Matthew 7:7

[81] The Rubbiyatt of Omar Khayyam

[82] On the Road with Jack Kerovac

[83] Phenomenon of Man    Pierre Teilhard De Chardin 

[84] The Book of (Ugh!) Poems, Wm Hamilton, unpublished

[85] The Meaning of Masonry by W. L. Wilmhurst:(pg. 95 97)

[86]  Psalm 91:5

[87] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press  

[88] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[89]Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[90] The Day is Done Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[91] Virginia Woolf

[92] Lord Byron in Don Juan

[93] The Thesmophoriazusae By Aristophanes

[94]  Mara Freeman

[95] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press.  Horus was the avenger of the slain god Osiris in

Egyptian mythology

[96] Mackenzie, Donald: Teutonic Myth and Legend,  

[97]Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis, Phanes Press

[98] Mackenzie, Donald: Teutonic Myth and Legend,