The Emerald Table of Hermes
True, without error, certain and most true: that which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above, to perform the miracles of the One Thing.
And as all things were from One, by the meditation of One, so from this One Thing come all things by adaptation. Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, the wind carried it in its belly, the nurse thereof is the Earth.
It is the father of all perfection and the consummation of the whole world. Its power is integral if it be turned to Earth.
Thou shalt separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from the coarse, gently and with much ingenuity. It ascends from Earth to heaven and descends again to Earth, and receives the power of the superiors and the inferiors.
Thus thou hast the glory of the whole world; therefore let all obscurity flee before thee. This is the strong fortitude of all fortitude, overcoming every subtle and penetrating every solid thing. Thus the world was created. Hence are all wonderful adaptations, of which this is the manner.
Therefore am I called Hermes the Thrice Great, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That is finished which I have to say concerning the operation of the Sun.
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Well… it has been a beautiful week up in Oregon. 70-80f, clear skies, low or no breeze. Went for a longish bike ride with my friend Paul mid-day on Thursday up the Johnson Creek corridor. to the east. Awfully pretty, trees changing, meadows golden, nice weather. We had a great time. My nephew Andrew and his intended, Catherine came over for dinner last night. I drove them home afterwards and then worked on the blog for awhile…
Fog this morning, on the radio they said that the weather would be cooler this weekend.
This has been a most wonderful Autumn!
Have a nice Weekend,
Gwyllm
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On the Menu
Pink Moon – Nick Drake
The Links
Dr. Con on Earthrites
Learning to be Silent
The Later Poems – Yeats
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Nick Drake – Pink Moon
I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It’s a pink moon
It’s a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.
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Well, the contest continues as no one got the answer correctly… remember, a Tee-Shirt! Therefore, let us do another… Why is Pink Moon the best known Nick Drake Song? Email me: gwyllm@earthrites.org with the answer!
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The Links:
Nev. religious leaders make case to legalize pot
New motor first to be powered by living bacteria
Cat Parasite Aiming For Global Male Domination
Giant Insects Might Reign If Only There Was More Oxygen in the Air
Alien “ID Chart” to Aid Search for Extraterrestrial Life
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Please Check out Dr. Concresence’s Poetry Page!
Yeah, we are pretty excited about it, and I think the good Doc is as well! Check it out! Check out other poets via this link:Earthrites Poetry Resources…
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Learning To Be Silent
The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them who were intimate friends promised one another to observe seven days of silence.
On the first day all were silent. Their meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night came and the oil lamps were growing dim one of the pupils could not help exclaiming to a servant: “Fix those lamps.”
The second pupil was surprised to hear the first one talk. “We are not supposed to say a word,” he remarked.
“You two are stupid. Why did you talk?” asked the third.
“I am the only one who has not talked,” concluded the fourth pupil.
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The Later Poems – Yeats...
HE TELLS OF THE PERFECT BEAUTY
O CLOUD-PALE eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:
And therefore my heart will bow, when dew
Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,
Before the unlabouring stars and you.
—-
THE BLESSED
CUMHAL called out, bending his head,
Till Dathi came and stood,
With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth,
Between the wind and the wood.
And Cumhal said, bending his knees,
“I have come by the windy way
To gather the half of your blessedness
And learn to pray when you pray.
“I can bring you salmon out of the streams
And heron out of the skies.”
But Dathi folded his hands and smiled
With the secrets of God in his eyes.
And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke
All manner of blessed souls,
Women and children, young men with books,
And old men with croziers and stoles.
“Praise God and God’s mother,” Dathi said,
“For God and God’s mother have sent
The blessedest souls that walk in the world
To fill your heart with content.”
“And which is the blessedest,” Cumhal said,
“Where all are comely and good?
Is it these that with golden thuribles
Are singing about the wood?”
“My eyes are blinking,” Dathi said,
“With the secrets of God half blind,
But I can see where the wind goes
And follow the way of the wind;
“And blessedness goes where the wind goes,
And when it is gone we are dead;
I see the blessedest soul in the world
And he nods a drunken head.
“O blessedness comes in the night and the day
And whither the wise heart knows;
And one has seen in the redness of wine
The Incorruptible Rose,
“That drowsily drops faint leaves on him
And the sweetness of desire,
While time and the world are ebbing away
In twilights of dew and of fire.”
—-
UNDER SATURN
Do not because this day I have grown saturnine
Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought
Because I .have no other youth, can make me pine;
For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone
On a fantastic ride, my horse’s flanks are spurred
By childish memories of an old cross Pollexfen,
And of a Middleton, whose name you never heard,
And of a red-haired Yeats whose looks, although he died
Before my time, seem like a vivid memory.
You heard that labouring man who had served my people. He said
Upon the open road, near to the Sligo quay–
No, no, not said, but cried it out–”You have come again
And surely after twenty years it was time to come.”
I am thinking of a child’s vow sworn in vain
Never to leave that valley his fathers called their home.
—-
A MEDITATION IN TIME OF WAR
FOR one throb of the Artery,
While on that old grey stone I sat
Under the old wind-broken tree,
I knew that One is animate
Mankind inanimate phantasy.
—-
THE CAT AND THE MOON
THE cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon
The creeping cat looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For wander and wail as he would
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet
What better than call a dance,
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
