Month: September 2008

Well, I had all kinds of things to say last night when I finished this up, but I left it for this morning to write, and I am absolutely empty of thoughts. Odd.
Anyway, just a couple of points. Watching the inception of the new Republican ‘Trickle Up Theory‘ of Economics is exciting beyond belief. I always feel privileged to insure that the shackles of Capitalism stay in place and I am honoured to do my bit to keep someone else in guccis’, penthouses, lear jets and cocaine. I feel it is our patriotic duty to keep that boot on our neck and pass it on to our posterity, don’t you? You too can do your part to keep the inequality going by not commenting on this to your local gov’t rep (who probably is in on this little dance), and to top it off kids, the Democrats capitulated on drilling for oil off our coast! Wow, both sides of the corporate party are dancing to this tune!
On our front: Sophie was found, and she is home. Rowan’s friends have all headed off to college, the leaves are falling, the cat is staying in for the night and the garden has reached it’s peak.
May your day be filled with love….
More Later!

Gwyllm

___________
On The Menu:

Where the hell is Matt?

The Fairy Dance

The Bard Of Ireland: William Butler Yeats

Jette – Ives: Darker than You

_________________
Now… this is a bit of loveliness. Major Loveliness. We need lunacy. I mean real Lunacy. Dancing in water lunacy, digging for ponies in horse manure lunacy. Lunacy to transform the world. Lunacy, that dares to live beautifully with all the crushing weight of the madness of civilization bearing down on you lunacy. Matt, has that gift of Divine Lunacy, yeah, now that is the type that gets it done.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Thanks to Graham St. John for sharing this! Here is some info:Matt Dancing!

Here is some more! Where The Hell Is Matt?

____________________
The Fairy Dance

The following story is from the Irish, as told by a native of one of the Western Isles, where the primitive superstitions have still all the freshness of young life.
One evening late in November, which is the month when spirits have most power over all things, as the prettiest girl in all the island was going to the well for water, her foot slipped and she fell, it was an unlucky omen, and when she got up and looked round it seemed to her as if she were in a strange place, and all around her was changed as if by enchantment. But at some distance she saw a great crowd gathered round a blazing fire, and she was drawn slowly on towards them, till at last she stood in the very midst of the people; but they kept silence, looking fixedly at her; and she was afraid, and tried to turn and leave them, but she could not. Then a beautiful youth, like a prince, with a red sash, and a golden band on his long yellow hair, came up and asked her to dance.
“It is a foolish thing of you, sir, to ask me to dance,” she said, “when there is no music.”
Then he lifted his hand and made a sign to the people, and instantly the sweetest music sounded near her and around her, and the young man took her hand, and they danced and danced till the moon and the stars went down, but she seemed like one floating on the air, and she forgot everything in the world except the dancing, and the sweet low music, and her beautiful partner.
At last the dancing ceased, and her partner thanked her, and invited her to supper with the company. Then she saw an opening in the ground, and a flight of steps, and the young man, who seemed to be the king amongst them all, led her down, followed by the whole company. At the end of the stairs they came upon a large hall, all bright and beautiful with gold and silver and lights; and the table was covered with everything good to eat, and wine was poured out in golden cups for them to drink. When she sat down they all pressed her to eat the food and to drink the wine; and as she was weary after the dancing, she took the golden cup the prince handed to her, and raised it to her lips to drink. Just then, a man passed close to her, and whispered–
“Eat no food, and drink no wine, or you will never reach your home again.”
So she laid down the cup, and refused to drink. On this they were angry, and a great noise arose, and a fierce, dark man stood up, and said–
“Whoever comes to us must drink with us.”
And he seized her arm, and held the wine to her lips, so that she almost died of fright. But at that moment a red-haired man came up, and he took her by the hand and led her out.
“You are safe for this time,” he said. “Take this herb, and hold it in your hand till you reach home, and no one can harm you.” And he gave her a branch of a plant called the Athair-Luss (the ground ivy). [a]
This she took, and fled away along the sward in the dark night; but all the time she heard footsteps behind her in pursuit. At last she reached home and barred the door, and went to bed, when a great clamour arose outside, and voices were heard crying to her–
“The power we had over you is gone through the magic of the herb; but wait–when you dance again to the music on the hill, you will stay with us for evermore, and none shall hinder.”
However, she kept the magic branch safely, and the fairies never troubled her more; but it was long and long before the sound of the fairy music left her ears which she had danced to that November night on the hillside with her fairy lover.
[a] In Ancient Egypt the ivy was sacred to Osiris, and a safeguard against evil.

_______________________
The Bard Of Ireland: William Butler Yeats

THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG
The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears

Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,

And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries

Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.

We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,

The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,

Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you,

Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.

—
THE SECRET ROSE
Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,

Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir

And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep

Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep

Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold

The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold

Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes

Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise

In Druid vapour and make the torches dim;

Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him

Who met Fand walking among flaming dew

By a grey shore where the wind never blew,

And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;

And him who drove the gods out of their liss,

And till a hundred morns had flowered red,

Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead;

And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown

And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown

Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;

And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,

And sought through lands and islands numberless years,

Until he found with laughter and with tears,

A woman, of so shining loveliness,

That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

A little stolen tress. I, too, await

The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.

When shall the stars be blown about the sky,

Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

—
HE TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS
I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,

For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;

And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood

With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:

I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay

Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,

Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair

Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.

—
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.”

—
THE POET PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS
The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows

Have pulled the Immortal Rose;

And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,

The Polar Dragon slept,

His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:

When will he wake from sleep?
Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,

With your harmonious choir

Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,

That my old care may cease;

Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight

The nets of day and night.
Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be

Like the pale cup of the sea,

When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim

Above its cloudy rim;

But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow

Whither her footsteps go.
_______________________

Jette – Ives
Darker than You Promo Video

______________________

The Moorish Orthodox Catechism consists of no rules or dogmas, but only of adherance to the “Five Pillars” of Moorish Science as listed by Noble Drew: LOVE, TRUTH, PEACE, FREEDOM, JUSTICE to which we add a sixth, “Beauty.”—History & Catechism of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America

Come now, luxuriant Graces, and beautiful-haired Muses – Sappho
Well… this has been the longest with posting in quite awhile. Turfing went down, (the updating with photos etc., earlier last week. So, I had to pull a few things out of the hat and deal with providers to get it back up. I have been playing with this entry since Sunday. Sometimes it takes awhile to get it going. There are a couple of smaller entries before this that I didn’t notify people of… short and sweet, check them out.
Busy weekend; Rowan was filming at our house off and on from 10-6 on Saturday with a full crew, and then he hosted a D&D session on Sunday here. The house was packed for the whole weekend, it was nice, but loud.
Worked on the new system, and the house over the weekend. The change in weather here is nothing if not melodramatic! The cat stays in all night, I want to sleep and when awake just sit and read.
Deep Peace to You all.
Gwyllm

_____________
On The Menu:

Raoul Vaneigem Quotes

Erik Satie – Away – Monkmus

Account of Sappho

Poems Of Sappho….

Satiemania, by Zdenkó Gasparovich

______________________
Raoul Vaneigem Quotes
Raoul Vaneigem & Guy Debord
“Everything has been said yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not.”
“In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create.”
“In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption. The dictatorship of consumer goods has finally destroyed the barriers of blood, lineage and race.”
“Our task is not to rediscover nature but to remake it.”

________________
Erik Satie – Away – Monkmus

Account of Sappho

Sappho, whom the ancients distinguished by the title of the Tenth Muse, was born at Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, six hundred years before the Christian era. As no particulars have been transmitted to posterity, respecting the origin of her family, it is most likely she derived by little consequence from birth of connection. At an early period of her life she was wedded to Cercolus, a native of the isle of Andros; he was possessed of considerable wealth, and though the Lesbian Muse is said to have been sparingly gifted with beauty, he became enamoured of her, more perhaps on account of mental, than personal charms. By this union she is said to have given birth to a daughter; but Cercolus leaving her, while young, in a state of widowhood, she never after could be prevailed on to marry. The Fame which her genius spread even to the remotest parts of the earth, excited the envy of some writers who endeavoured to throw over her private character, a shade, which shrunk before the brilliancy of her poetical talents. Her soul was replete with harmony, that harmony which neither art nor study can acquire; she felt the intuitive superiority, and to the Muses she paid unbounded adoration. The Mytilenians held her poetry in such high veneration, and were so sensible of the hour conferred on the country which gave her birth, that they coined money with the impression of her head; and at the time of her death, paid tribute to their memory, such as was offered to sovereigns only. The story of Antiochus has been related as an unequivocal proof of Sappho’s skill in discovering, and powers of describing the passions of the human mind. That prince is said to have entertained a fatal affection for his mother-in-law Stratonice; which, though he endeavoured to subdue it’s influence, preyed upon his frame, and after many ineffectual struggles, at length reduced him to extreme danger. His physicians marked the symptoms attending his malady, and found them so exactly correspond with Sappho’s delineation of the tender passion, that they did not hesitate to form a decisive opinion of the cause, which had produced so perilous an effect. That Sappho was not insensible to the feelings she so well described , is evident in her writings but it was scarcely possible, that a mind so exquisitely tender, so sublimely gifted, should escape those fascinations which even apathy itself has been awakened to acknowledge. The scarce specimens now extant, from the pen of the Grecian Muse, have by the most competent judges been esteemed as the standard for the pathetic, the glowing, and the amatory. The ode, which has been so highly estimated, is written in a measure distinguished by the title of the Sapphic. Pope made it his model in his juvenile production, beginning—
“Happy the man—whose wish and care”—
Addison was of opinion, that the writings of Sappho were replete with such fascinating beauties, and adorned with such a vivid glow of sensibility, that, probably, had they been preserved entire, it would have been dangerous to have perused them. They possessed none of the artificial decorations of a feigned passion; they were the genuine effusions of a supremely enlightened soul, laboring to subdue a fatal enchantment; and vainly opposing the conscious pride of illustrious fame, against the warm susceptibility of a generous bosom. Though few stanzas from the pen of the Lesbian poetess have darted through the shades of oblivion: yet, those that remain are so exquisitely touching and beautiful, that they prove beyond dispute the taste, feeling, and inspiration of the mind which produced them. In examining the curiosities of antiquity, we look to the perfections, and not the magnitude of those relics, which have been preserved amidst the wrecks of time: as the smallest gem that bears the fine touches of a master, surpasses the loftiest fabric reared by the labours of false taste, so the precious fragments of the immortal Sappho, will be admired, when the voluminous productions of inferior poets are mouldered into dust. When it is considered, that the few specimens we have of the poems of the Grecian Muse, have passed through three and twenty centuries, and consequently through the hands of innumerable translators: and when it is known that Envy frequently delights in the base occupation of depreciating merit which it cannot aspire to emulate; it may be conjectured, that some passages are erroneously given to posterity, either by ignorance or design. Sappho, whose fame beamed round her with the superior effulgence which her works had created, knew that she was writing for future ages; it is not therefore natural that she should produce any composition which might tend to tarnish her reputation, or lessen that celebrity which it was the labour of her life to consecrate. The delicacy of her sentiments cannot find a more eloquent advocate than in her own effusions; she is said to have commended in the most animated panegyric, the virtues of her brother Lanychus; and with the most pointed and severe censure, to have contemned the passion which her brother Charaxus entertained for the beautiful Rhodope. If her writings were, in some instances, too glowing for the fastidious refinement of modern times; let it be her excuse, and the honour of her country, that the liberal education of the Greeks was such, as inspired them with an unprejudiced enthusiasm for the works of genius: and that when they paid adoration to Sappho, they idolized the Muse, and not the Woman. I shall conclude this account with an extract from the works of the learned and enlightened Abbé Barthelemi; at once the vindication and eulogy of the Grecian Poetess. “Sappho undertook to inspire the Lesbian women with a taste for literature; many of them received instructions from her, and foreign women increased the number of her disciples. She loved them to excess, because it was impossible for her to love otherwise; and she expressed her tenderness in all the violence of passion: your surprize at this will cease, when you are acquainted with the extreme sensibility of the Greeks; and discover, that amongst them the most innocent connections often borrow the impassioned language of love.” A certain facility of manners, she possessed; and the warmth of her expressions were but too well calculated to expose her to the hatred of some women of distinction, humbled by her superiority; and the jealousy of some of her disciples, who happened to be the objects of her preference. To this hatred she replied by truths and irony, which completely exasperated her enemies. She repaired to Sicily, where a statue was erected to her; it was sculptured by Silanion, one of the most celebrated staturists of his time. The sensibility of Sappho was extreme! she loved Phaon, who forsook her; after various efforts to bring him back, she took the leap of Leucata, and perished in the waves!
“Death has not obliterated the stain imprinted on her character; for Envy, which fastens on Illustrious Names, does not expire; but bequeaths her aspersions to that calumny which Never Dies. “Several Grecian women have cultivated Poetry, with success, but none have hitherto attained to the excellence of Sappho. And among other poets, there are few, indeed, who have surpassed her.”
____________________
The moon shone full

And when the maidens stood around the altar…

Poems Of Sappho….

HYMN TO APHRODITE
Throned in splendor, immortal Aphrodite!

Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee

Slay me not in this distress and anguish,

Lady of beauty.

Hither come as once before thou camest,

When from afar thou heard’st my voice lamenting,

Heard’st and camest, leaving thy glorious father’s Palace golden,

Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;

Swift to the darksome earth their course directing,

Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven

Down through the ether.

Quickly they came. Then thou, O blessed goddess,

All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal,

Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering,

Why now I called thee;

What for my maddened heart I most was longing.

“Whom,” thou criest, “dost wish that sweet Persuasion

Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho?

Who is it wrongs thee?

“For, though now he flies, he soon shall follow,

Soon shall be giving gifts who now rejects them.

Even though now he love not, soon shall he love thee

Even though thou wouldst not.”

Come then now, dear goddess, and release me

From my anguish. All my heart’s desiring

Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime,

Be thou my ally.
—
THE MOON
The stars about the lovely moon

Fade back and vanish very soon,

When, round and full, her silver face

Swims into sight, and lights all space.

—
ODE TO A LOVED ONE
Blest as the immortal gods is he,

The youth who fondly sits by thee,

And hears and sees thee, all the while,

Softly speaks and sweetly smile.

‘Twas this deprived my soul of rest,

And raised such tumults in my breast;

For, while I gazed, in transport tossed,

My breath was gone, my voice was lost;

My bosom glowed; the subtle flame

Ran quick through all my vital frame;

O’er my dim eyes a darkness hung;

My ears with hollow murmurs rung;

In dewy damps my limbs were chilled;

My blood with gentle horrors thrilled:

My feeble pulse forgot to play;

I fainted, sunk, and died away.

—
TO ONE WHO LOVED NOT POETRY
Thou liest dead, and there will be no memory left behind

Of thee or thine in all the earth, for never didst thou bind

The roses of Pierian streams upon thy brow; thy doom

Is now to flit with unknown ghosts in cold and nameless gloom.

—
SONG OF THE ROSE
If Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,

He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it;

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,

Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it!

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,

Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,

Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers that sit in the glow unaware.

Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup

To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!

Ho, the rose having curled its sweet leaves for the world

Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,

As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west.

—

Satiemania, by Zdenkó Gasparovich 1978

Zdenko Gasparovich’s 1978 film, Satiemania, set to the music of Eric Satie. Part of the Zagreb animation school. Presumably copywritten by Mr Gasparovich..
You can find the full version on rapidshare, with some searching.

Only as Bill Hicks could see it….!

Enjoy!
Gwyllm

The weekend started out beautifully, with a gathering for Scot Taylor with his companion Amanda visiting from Australia. Cymon hosted the gathering, and it was very nice. Scot gave an impassioned talk on the Cetacean Nation as well. Something has happened to Turfing so I cannot up load new pics, but once I get that sorted out, I will have some nice shots…. The local EarthRites members were there, even from as far as the Dalles and Eugene! Nice to see everyone! Scot and Amanda have since flown back to Australia…
The next day, well… things changed. We were moving furniture and re arranging stuff, and Sophie, our dog got out the front door. We now understand that she was picked up by some street kids down by the 7-11 on Saturday. We have been posting flyers, and driving around but to no avail at this point. Light a candle for our pup!
Talk Later….
Gwyllm
______________

Psychedelic Prayers -Timothy Leary

d’après le Tao Te Ching
I)Prayers for preparation – Homage to Lao Tse

I.5 All Things Pass
All things pass

A sunrise does not last all morning

All things pass

A cloudburst does not last all day

All things pass

Nor a sunset all night
But Earth… sky… thunder…

wind… fire… lake…

mountain… water…

These always change
And if these do not last

Do man’s visions last?

Do man’s illusions?
During the session

Take things as they come
All things pass

—
I.6 The Message Of Posture
During the session

Observe your body

Mandala of the universe
Observe your body

Of ancient design

Holy temple of consciousness

Central stage of the oldest drama
Observe its structured wonders

Skin… hair… tissus…

Bone… vein… muscle…

Net of nerve
Observe its message

Does it merge or does it strain?

Does it rest serene on sacred ground?

Or tilt, propped up by wire and sticks?
On tiptoe one cannot stand for long

Tension retards the flow
Superfluous noise and redundant action

Stand out-square, proud, cramped

Against the harmony
Observe the mandala of your body

—
II) The experience of elemental energy – Homage to the atom

II.5 Sheating The Self
The play of energy endures

Beyond striving
The play of energy endures

Beyond body
The play of energy endures

Beyond life
Out here

Float timeless

Beyond striving

—
II.8 Hold Fast To The Void
Notice how this space

Between Heaven and Earth

Is like a bellows
Always full, always empty
Come in here, go out there
Breathing…

Silence
This is no time for talk

Better to hold fast to the void

—
II.9 Take In-Let Go
To breathe in

You must first breathe out

Let go
To hold

You must first open your hand

Let go
To be warm

You must first be naked

Let go

—
III) The experience of seed-cell energy – Homage to DNA

III.3 Clear Water
The seed of mystery

Lies in muddy water
How can we fathom this muddiness?

Water becomes clear through stillness
How can we become still?

By moving with the stream

—
III.8 Fourfold Representation Of The Mystery
Before Heaven and Earth

There was something nebulous

Tranquil… effortless

Permeating universally

Revolving soundlessly

Fusing
It may be regarded as the Mother

Of all organic forms
Its name is not known nor its language

But it is called Tao
The ancient sages called it “great”

The Great Tao
Great means in harmony

In harmony means tuned in

Tuned in means going far

Going far means returning

To the harmony
The Tao is great

The coil of life is great
The body is great

The human is designed to be great
There are in existence four great notes

The human is made to be one thereof
When you place yourself in harmony with your body

The body tunes itself to the slow unfolding of life

Life flows in harmony with the Tao
All proceeds

Naturally

In tune

—
III.10 This Is It
The seed moves so slowly and serenely

Moment to moment

That it appears inactive
The garden at sunrise breathing

The quiet breath of twilight

Moment to moment to moment
When we are in tune with this blissfull rhythm

The ten thousand forms flourish

Without effort
It is all so simple

Each next moment…

This is it!

—-
III.11 Gate Of The Soft Mystery
Valley of life

Gate of the Soft Mystery

Beginnings in the lowest place

Gate of the Soft Mystery

Gate of the Dark Woman

Gate of the Soft Mystery

Seed of all living

Gate of the Soft Mystery

Constantly enduring

Gate of the Soft Mystery

Enter

Gently…

—
III.12 The Lesson Of Seed
The soft overcomes the hard

The small overcomes the large

The gentle survives the strong

The invisible survives the visible
Fish should be left in deep water

Fire and iron kept under ground

Seed should be left free

To grow in the rhythm of life
IV) The experience of neural energy – Homage to the external senses

IV.1 Seeing
Open naked eye

Light… radiant… pulsating…

“I’ve been blind all my life to this radiance”
Retinal mandala

Swamp mosaic of rods and cones

Light rays hurtle into retina 186,000 miles per second
Cross scope

Retinal scripture
The Blind I

Recoils at glittering energy

Impersonal, mocking

Illusions of control

“Too bright! Turn it off!

Bring back the shadow world!”
The Seer Eye

Vibrates to the trembling web of light

Merges with the seen

Merges with the scene

Slides down optical whirlpool

Through central needle point

—
IV.2 Hearing

Sound waves, sound waves

Uncover lotus membrane

Trembling tattoo of

Sympathetic vibrations

Float along liquid canals
Single piano note

Meteor of delight

Collides with quivering membrane
Eternal note

Spins slowly

On vibrating thread
Ear you are

Sound waves

—
V) The experience of the chakras – Homage to the internal senses

V.1 The Root Chakra
Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose your way?

Can you dissolve softly?

Decompose?

Can you rest

dormant seed-light

buried in moist earth?

Can you drift

single-celled

in soft tissue swamp?

Can you sink

into your dark

fertile marsh?

Can you spiral slowly

down the great central river?

—
V.3 The Heart Chakra
Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose your way?

Flow with fire-blood

Through each tissued corridor?
Can you let your heart

pump down red tunnels

stream into cell chambers?
Can you center on this

Heart-fire of love?
Can you let your heart

pulse for all love

beat for all sorrow

throb for all pain

thud for all joy

swell for all mankind?
Can you let it flow

With compassion

for all life?

—
V.4 The Throat Chakra
Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose your way?

Breathing

Can you drift into free air?

Rise on the trembling vibration

of inhale and exhale?
Can you ascend the fragile thread of breath

into cloud-blue bliss?

Can you spiral up through soft atmosphere

Breathing

Catch the moment between in-breath and out-breath

Just there…
Can you float beyond life and death

Breathing

—
V.6 Ascending Ladder Of Chakras
Drift along your body’s soft swampland

where warm mud sucks lazily
Feel each cell in your body communicating

in serpent-coiled rainbow orgasm
Feel the sensuous rhythm of time

pulsing life along the arterial network
Bring the ethereal breath of life into

the white rooms of your brain
Radiate golden light out to

the four corners of creation
VI) Re-entry: the experience of the imprinted world – Homage to the symbolic mind

VI.1 The Moment Of Fullness
Grab hold tightly

Let go lightly
The full cup can take no more

The candle burns down

The taut bow must be loosed

The razor edge can no long endure
Nor this moment re-lived
So now…

Grab hold tightly

So now…

Let go lightly

—
VI.5 The Lesson Of Water
What one values in the game

is the play
What one values in the form

is the moment of forming
What one values in the house

is the moment of dwelling
What one values in the heart

is the beating
What one values in the action

is the timing
Indeed

Because you flow like water

You can neither win nor lose

—
VI.6 The Utility of Nothing
The Nothing at the center of the thirty-spoke wheel…
The Nothing of the clay vase…

The Nothing within the four walls…
The goal of the game is to go beyond the game
You lose your mind

To use your head
You lose your mind

To use your head

—
VI.10 Illustration Of A Tao Imprint
He stands apart

serene

curiously observing
He stands quietly

looking forlorn

like an infant who has not yet

learned to know what to smile at
He is a little sad for what he sees
While others enjoy their possessions

he lazily drifts, a homeless

do-nothing, owning nothing
Or he moves slowly close to the land
While others are crisp and definite

he seems indecisive
He does not appear to be making his way

in the world
He is different
A wise infant nursing at the breast

Of all life
Inside

—
VI.11 Keep In Touch
The Tao flows everywhere
Keep in touch

Be at home

Everywhere
He who loses the contact

Is alone

Everywhere
Keeping in touch with the Tao

Is called

Harmony

—
IV.13 The Conscious Application Of Strength
Force recoils

But

The time comes

When there is nothing to do

Except act consciously

With courage

—
VI.14 Victory Celebration
Celebrate your victory

with funeral rites

for your slain illusions
Wear some black at your wedding

—
VI.15 Along The Grain
The Tao is nameless

Like uncarved wood
As soon as it is carved

There are names
Carve carefully

Along the grain

—
VI.16 He Who Knows The Center Endures
Who knows the outside is clever

Who knows the center endures

Who masters others gains robot power

Who comes to the center has flowering strength
Faith of consciousness is freedom

Hope of consciousness is strength

Love of consciousness evokes the same in return
Faith of seed frees

Hope of seed flowers

Love of seed grows

Well…

Life moves at a pace. I completed another yearly revolution around the sun on Thursday, I awoke almost to the minute I came into the world. Later on after a day of working, Mary, Rowan and I went to a great restaurant for a quiet celebration. Wonderful place: Vindalho ‘Spice Route Cuisine’ (Yum!). I would suggest it to anyone! It was a lovely way to ease into another year.
Somehow I also managed to tweak the old back again, which has hampered any and all activities for the last three days. Saturday was almost a complete wash. Still dealing with it today…
Working on various projects, setting up the new computer system (a nice quad-core!) to handle the publishing end of things…

—–

Radio Free EarthRites: Lots of nice stuff on their recently, you should check it out. I listened to Jack Kerouac reciting poetry yesterday when I was laid out….

So… for today, I have picked a few items that you might like. There are two Niyaz remixes of note (if Youtube.com stays up) to check out. I have a real thing for Azam Ali… I have listened to her music for a very long time, from the first album of Vas until now. She gets better and better! We have a variety of linkage… and poetry as well.
Have a nice autumn day!
Blessings,

Gwyllm

__________
On The Menu:

The Links

Niyaz – Khuda Ki Marzi

Enchanted Woods

Poetry For The Early Days Of Autumn…

Niyaz – Allahi Allah ( Midival Pundiz Remix)

__________
The Links:

Drug expert facing criticism for claiming ecstasy better than binge drinking

Animal Lovers Angry Over Puppy (Body Bag) Offer

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Spy Software Could ID You By Your Shadow

_________
This is an interesting remix… Not keen on the time spent on the images, but the music is very sweet. If you have a copy of this… let me know!
Niyaz – Khuda Ki Marzi

_________

—–

Enchanted Woods

-William Butler Yeats

I
LAST summer, whenever I had finished my day’s work, I used to go wandering in certain roomy woods, and there I would often meet an old countryman, and talk to him about his work and about the woods, and once or twice a friend came with me to whom he would open his heart more readily than to me, He had spent all his life lopping away the witch elm and the hazel and the privet and the hornbeam from the paths, and had thought much about the natural and supernatural creatures of the wood. He has heard the hedgehog–’grainne oge,’ he calls him–’grunting like a Christian,’ and is certain that he steals apples by rolling about under an apple tree until there is an apple sticking to every quill. He is certain too that the cats, of whom there are many in the woods, have a language of their own–some kind of old Irish. He says, ‘Cats were serpents, and they were made into cats at the time of some great change in the world. That is why they are hard to kill, and why it is dangerous to meddle with them. If you annoy a cat it might claw or bite you in a way that would put poison in you, and that would be the serpent’s tooth.’ Sometimes he thinks they change into wild cats, and then a nail grows on the end of their tails; but these wild cats are not the same as the marten cats, who have been always in the woods. The foxes were once tame, as the cats are now, but they ran away and became wild. He talks of all wild creatures except squirrels–whom he hates–with what seems an affectionate interest, though at times his eyes will twinkle with pleasure as he remembers how he made hedgehogs unroll themselves when he was a boy, by putting a wisp of burning straw under them.
I am not certain that he distinguishes between the natural and supernatural very clearly. He told me the other day that foxes and cats like, above all, to be in the ‘forths’ and lisses after nightfall; and he will certainly pass from some story about a fox to a story about a spirit with less change of voice than when he is going to speak about a marten cat–a rare beast now-a-days. Many years ago he used to work in the garden, and once they put him to sleep in a garden-house where there was a loft full of apples, and all night he could hear people rattling plates and knives and forks over his head in the loft. Once, at any rate, be has seen an unearthly sight in the woods. He says, ‘One time I was out cutting timber over in Inchy, and about eight o’clock one morning when I got there I saw a girl picking nuts, with her hair hanging down over her shoulders, brown hair, and she had a good, clean face, and she was tall and nothing on her head, and her dress no way gaudy but simple, and when she felt me coming she gathered herself up and was gone as if the earth had swallowed her up. And I followed her and looked for her, but I never could see her again from that day to this, never again.’ He used the word clean as we would use words like fresh or comely.
Others too have seen spirits in the Enchanted Woods. A labourer told us of what a friend of his had seen in a part of the woods that is called Shanwalla, from some old village that was before the weed. He said, ‘One evening I parted from Lawrence Mangan in the yard, and he went away through the path in Shanwalla, an’ bid me goodnight. And two hours after, there he was back again in the yard, an’ bid me light a candle that was in the stable. An’ he told me that when he got into Shanwalla, a little fellow about as high as his knee, but having a head as big as a man’s body, came beside him and led him out of the path an’ round about, and at last it brought him to the lime-kiln, and then it vanished and left him.’
A woman told me of a sight that she and others had seen by a certain deep pool in the river. She said, ‘I came over the stile from the chapel, and others along with me; and a great blast of wind came and two trees were bent and broken and fell into the river, and the splash of water out of it went up to the skies. And those that were with me saw many figures, but myself I only saw one, sitting there by the bank where the trees fell. Dark clothes he had on, and he was headless.’
A man told me that one day, when he was a boy, he and another boy went to catch a horse in a certain field, full of boulders and bushes of hazel and creeping juniper and rock-roses, that is where the lake side is for a little clear of the woods. He said to the boy that was with him, ‘I bet a button that if I fling a pebble on to that bush it will stay on it,’ meaning that the bush was so matted the pebble would not be able to go through it. So he took up ‘a pebble of cow-dung, and as soon as it hit the bush there came out of it the most beautiful music that ever was heard.’ They ran away, and when they had gone about two hundred yards they looked back and saw a woman dressed in white, walking round and round the bush. ‘First it had the form of a woman, and then of a man, and it was going round the bush.’

II
I often entangle myself in argument more complicated than even those paths of Inchy as to what is the true nature of apparitions, but at other times I say as Socrates said when they told him a learned opinion about a nymph of the Illissus, ‘The common opinion is enough for me.’ I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away when we are walking in pleasant and quiet places. Even when I was a boy I could never walk in a wood without feeling that at any moment I might find before me somebody or something I had long looked for without knowing what I looked for. And now I will at times explore every little nook of some poor coppice with almost anxious footsteps, so deep a hold has this imagination upon me. You too meet with a like imagination, doubtless, somewhere, wherever your ruling stars will have it, Saturn driving you to the woods, or the Moon, it may be, to the edges of the sea. I will not of a certainty believe that there is nothing in the sunset, where our forefathers imagined the dead following their shepherd the sun, or nothing but some vague presence as little moving as nothing. If beauty is not a gateway out of the net we were taken in at our birth, it will not long be beauty, and we will find it better to sit at home by the fire and fatten a lazy body or to run hither and thither in some foolish sport than to look at the finest show that light and shadow ever made among green leaves. I say to myself, when I am well out of that thicket of argument, that they are surely there, the divine people, for only we who have neither simplicity nor wisdom have denied them, and the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them. They live out their passionate lives not far off, as I think, and we shall be among them when we die if we but keep our natures simple and passionate. May it not even be that death shall unite us to all romance, and that some day we shall fight dragons among blue hills, or come to that whereof all romance is but
‘Foreshadowings mingled with the images

Of man’s misdeeds in greater days than these,’
as the old men thought in The Earthly Paradise when they were in good spirits.

___________

Poetry For The Early Days Of Autumn…
A blade of grass

Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.”
Said the leaf indignant, “Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”
Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again — and she was a blade of grass.
And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, “O these autumn leaves! They make such a noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.”

-K. Gibran

—-
Autumn Song
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the heart feels a languid grief

Laid on it for a covering,

And how sleep seems a goodly thing

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
And how the swift beat of the brain

Falters because it is in vain,

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf

Knowest thou not? and how the chief

Of joys seems–not to suffer pain?
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the soul feels like a dried sheaf

Bound up at length for harvesting,

And how death seems a comely thing

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

-Dante

—-
10,000
Ten thousand flowers in spring,

the moon in autumn,

a cool breeze in summer,

snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded

by unnecessary things,

this is the best season of your life.

-Wu Men

—-

Autumn
The autumn comes, a maiden fair

In slenderness and grace,

With nodding rice-stems in her hair

And lilies in her face.

In flowers of grasses she is clad;

And as she moves along,

Birds greet her with their cooing glad

Like bracelets’ tinkling song.

A diadem adorns the night

Of multitudinous stars;

Her silken robe is white moonlight,

Set free from cloudy bars;

And on her face (the radiant moon)

Bewitching smiles are shown:

She seems a slender maid, who soon

Will be a woman grown.

Over the rice-fields, laden plants

Are shivering to the breeze;

While in his brisk caresses dance

The blossomed-burdened trees;

He ruffles every lily-pond

Where blossoms kiss and part,

And stirs with lover’s fancies fond

The young man’s eager heart.

-Kalidasa

—-
Echoing Light
When I was beginning to read I imagined

that bridges had something to do with birds

and with what seemed to be cages but I knew

that they were not cages it must have been autumn

with the dusty light flashing from the streetcar wires

and those orange places on fire in the pictures

and now indeed it is autumn the clear

days not far from the sea with a small wind nosing

over dry grass that yesterday was green

the empty corn standing trembling and a down

of ghost flowers veiling the ignored fields

and everywhere the colors I cannot take

my eyes from all of them red even the wide streams

red it is the season of migrants

flying at night feeling the turning earth

beneath them and I woke in the city hearing

the call notes of the plover then again and

again before I slept and here far downriver

flocking together echoing close to the shore

the longest bridges have opened their slender wings

– W.S.Merwin

________

Another tasty Niyaz remix!

Niyaz – Allahi Allah ( Midival Pundiz Remix)

<

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.

-William James

____________

On The Menu:
The Links
William James Quotes
The Other Gods
Selected Poetry: For A Monday Afternoon…
Art: Henry Siddons Mowbray

_____________
The Links:

‘Lost towns’ discovered in Amazon
Cthulhu’s Holiday Photos
A wonderful collection of H.P. Lovecraft!
EPA is Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information
How to explain Consciousness Shifts
Priest’s potty gift from God

_____________
William James Quotes:

Belief creates the actual fact.

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

____________
___________

The Other Gods

-H.P. Lovecraft

Atop the tallest of earth’s peaks dwell the gods of earth, and suffer not man to tell that he hath looked upon them. Lesser peaks they once inhabited; but ever the men from the plains would scale the slopes of rock and snow, driving the gods to higher and higher mountains till now only the last remains. When they left their old peaks they took with them all signs of themselves, save once, it is said, when they left a carven image on the face of the mountain which they called Ngranek.
But now they have betaken themselves to unknown Kadath in the cold waste where no man treads, and are grown stern, having no higher peak whereto to flee at the coming of men. They are grown stern, and where once they suffered men to displace them, they now forbid men to come; or coming, to depart. It is well for men that they know not of Kadath in the cold waste; else they would seek injudiciously to scale it.
Sometimes when earth’s gods are homesick they visit in the still of the night the peaks where once they dwelt, and weep softly as they try to play in the olden way on remembered slopes. Men have felt the tears of the gods on white-capped Thurai, though they have thought it rain; and have heard the sighs of the gods in the plaintive dawn-winds of Lerion. In cloud-ships the gods are wont to travel, and wise cotters have legends that keep them from certain high peaks at night when it is cloudy, for the gods are not lenient as of old.
In Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, once dwelt an old man avid to behold the gods of earth; a man deeply learned in the seven cryptical books of earth, and familiar with the Pnakotic Manuscripts of distant and frozen Lomar. His name was Barzai the Wise, and the villagers tell of how he went up a mountain on the night of the strange eclipse.
Barzai knew so much of the gods that he could tell of their comings and goings, and guessed so many of their secrets that he was deemed half a god himself. It was he who wisely advised the burgesses of Ulthar when they passed their remarkable law against the slaying of cats, and who first told the young priest Atal where it is that black cats go at midnight on St. John’s Eve. Barzai was learned in the lore of the earth’s gods, and had gained a desire to look upon their faces. He believed that his great secret knowledge of gods could shield him from their wrath, so resolved to go up to the summit of high and rocky Hatheg-Kla on a night when he knew the gods would be there.
Hatheg-Kla is far in the stony desert beyond Hatheg, for which it is named, and rises like a rock statue in a silent temple. Around its peak the mists play always mournfully, for mists are the memories of the gods, and the gods loved Hatheg-Kla when they dwelt upon it in the old days. Often the gods of earth visit Hatheg-Kla in their ships of clouds, casting pale vapors over the slopes as they dance reminiscently on the summit under a clear moon. The villagers of Hatheg say it is ill to climb the Hatheg-Kla at any time, and deadly to climb it by night when pale vapors hide the summit and the moon; but Barzai heeded them not when he came from neighboring Ulthar with the young priest Atal, who was his disciple. Atal was only the son of an innkeeper, and was sometimes afraid; but Barzai’s father had been a landgrave who dwelt in an ancient castle, so he had no common superstition in his blood, and only laughed at the fearful cotters.
Banzai and Atal went out of Hatheg into the stony desert despite the prayers of peasants, and talked of earth’s gods by their campfires at night. Many days they traveled, and from afar saw lofty Hatheg-Kla with his aureole of mournful mist. On the thirteenth day they reached the mountain’s lonely base, and Atal spoke of his fears. But Barzai was old and learned and had no fears, so led the way up the slope that no man had scaled since the time of Sansu, who is written of with fright in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts.
The way was rocky, and made perilous by chasms, cliffs, and falling stones. Later it grew cold and snowy; and Barzai and Atal often slipped and fell as they hewed and plodded upward with staves and axes. Finally the air grew thin, and the sky changed color, and the climbers found it hard to breathe; but still they toiled up and up, marveling at the strangeness of the scene and thrilling at the thought of what would happen on the summit when the moon was out and the pale vapours spread around. For three days they climbed higher and higher toward the roof of the world; then they camped to wait for the clouding of the moon.
For four nights no clouds came, and the moon shone down cold through the thin mournful mist around the silent pinnacle. Then on the fifth night, which was the night of the full moon, Barzai saw some dense clouds far to the north, and stayed up with Atal to watch them draw near. Thick and majestic they sailed, slowly and deliberately onward; ranging themselves round the peak high above the watchers, and hiding the moon and the summit from view. For a long hour the watchers gazed, whilst the vapours swirled and the screen of clouds grew thicker and more restless. Barzai was wise in the lore of earth’s gods, and listened hard for certain sounds, but Atal felt the chill of the vapours and the awe of the night, and feared much. And when Barzai began to climb higher and beckon eagerly, it was long before Atal would follow.
So thick were the vapours that the way was hard, and though Atal followed at last, he could scarce see the gray shape of Barzai on the dim slope above in the clouded moonlight. Barzai forged very far ahead, and seemed despite his age to climb more easily than Atal; fearing not the steepness that began to grow too great for any save a strong and dauntless man, nor pausing at wide black chasms that Atal could scarce leap. And so they went up wildly over rocks and gulfs, slipping and stumbling, and sometimes awed at the vastness and horrible silence of bleak ice pinnacles and mute granite steeps.
Very suddenly Barzai went out of Atal’s sight, scaling a hideous cliff that seemed to bulge outward and block the path for any climber not inspired of earth’s gods. Atal was far below, and planning what he should do when he reached the place, when curiously he noticed that the light had grown strong, as if the cloudless peak and moonlit meetingplace of the gods were very near. And as he scrambled on toward the bulging cliff and litten sky he felt fears more shocking than any he had known before. Then through the high mists he heard the voice of Barzai shouting wildly in delight:
“I have heard the gods. I have heard earth’s gods singing in revelry on Hatheg-Kla! The voices of earth’s gods are known to Barzai the Prophet! The mists are thin and the moon is bright, and I shall see the gods dancing wildly on Hatheg-Kla that they loved in youth. The wisdom of Barzai hath made him greater than earth’s gods, and against his will their spells and barriers are as naught; Barzai will behold the gods, the proud gods, the secret gods, the gods of earth who spurn the sight of man!”
Atal could not hear the voices Barzai heard, but he was now close to the bulging cliff and scanning it for footholds. Then he heard Barzai’s voice grow shriller and louder:
“The mist is very thin, and the moon casts shadows on the slope; the voices of earth’s gods are high and wild, and they fear the coming of Barzai the Wise, who is greater than they… The moon’s light flickers, as earth’s gods dance against it; I shall see the dancing forms of the gods that leap and howl in the moonlight… The light is dimmer and the gods are afraid…”
Whilst Barzai was shouting these things Atal felt a spectral change in all the air, as if the laws of earth were bowing to greater laws; for though the way was steeper than ever, the upward path was now grown fearsomely easy, and the bulging cliff proved scarce an obstacle when he reached it and slid perilously up its convex face. The light of the moon had strangely failed, and as Atal plunged upward through the mists he heard Barzai the Wise shrieking in the shadows:
“The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth’s gods… There is unknown magic on Hatheg-Kla, for the screams of the frightened gods have turned to laughter, and the slopes of ice shoot up endlessly into the black heavens whither I am plunging… Hei! Hei! At last! In the dim light I behold the gods of earth!”
And now Atal, slipping dizzily up over inconceivable steeps, heard in the dark a loathsome laughing, mixed with such a cry as no man else ever heard save in the Phlegethon of unrelatable nightmares; a cry wherein reverberated the horror and anguish of a haunted lifetime packed into one atrocious moment:
“The other gods! The other gods! The gods of the outer hells that guard the feeble gods of earth!… Look away… Go back… Do not see! Do not see! The vengeance of the infinite abysses… That cursed, that damnable pit… Merciful gods of earth, I am falling into the sky!”
And as Atal shut his eyes and stopped his ears and tried to hump downward against the frightful pull from unknown heights, there resounded on Hatheg-Kla that terrible peal of thunder which awaked the good cotters of the plains and the honest burgesses of Hatheg, Nir and Ulthar, and caused them to behold through the clouds that strange eclipse of the moon that no book ever predicted. And when the moon came out at last Atal was safe on the lower snows of the mountain without sight of earth’s gods, or of the other gods.
Now it is told in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts that Sansu found naught but wordless ice and rock when he did climb Hatheg-Kla in the youth of the world. Yet when the men of Ulthar and Nir and Hatheg crushed their fears and scaled that haunted steep by day in search of Barzai the Wise, they found graven in the naked stone of the summit a curious and cyclopean symbol fifty cubits wide, as if the rock had been riven by some titanic chisel. And the symbol was like to one that learned men have discerned in those frightful parts of the Pnakotic Manuscripts which were too ancient to be read. This they found.
Barzai the Wise they never found, nor could the holy priest Atal ever be persuaded to pray for his soul’s repose. Moreover, to this day the people of Ulthar and Nir and Hatheg fear eclipses, and pray by night when pale vapors hide the mountain-top and the moon. And above the mists on Hatheg-Kla, earth’s gods sometimes dance reminiscently; for they know they are safe, and love to come from unknown Kadath in ships of clouds and play in the olden way, as they did when earth was new and men not given to the climbing of inaccessible places.
_____________
Selected Poetry: For A Monday Afternoon…

Kore

-Frederic Manning
Yea, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves,
And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms,
And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves.
Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms,
Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist,
And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.
With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes,
And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep,
With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,
She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep;
While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware
Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.
The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams;
There was no sound amid the sacred boughs.
Nor any mournful music in her streams:
Only I saw the shadow on her brows,
Only I knew her for the yearly slain,
And wept, and weep until she come again.
(This poem was published under the title of ‘Persephone’ in the December 1909 edition of the ‘English Review’.)

—
A Cosmic Outlook

-Frederick William Henry Myers (1843-–1901)

Backward!—beyond this momentary woe!—
Thine was the world’s dim dawn, the prime emprize;
Eternal aeons gaze thro’ these sad eyes,
And all the empyreal sphere hath shaped thee so.
Nay! all is living, all is plain to know!
This rock has drunk the ray from ancient skies;
Strike! and the sheen of that remote sunrise
Gleams in the marble’s unforgetful glow.
Thus hath the cosmic light endured the same
Ere first that ray from Sun to Sirius flew;
Aye, and in heaven I heard the mystic Name
Sound, and a breathing of the Spirit blew;
Lit the long Past, bade shine the slumbering flame
And all the Cosmorama blaze anew.
Onward! thro’ baffled hope, thro’ bootless prayer,
With strength that sinks, with high task half begun,
Things great desired, things lamentable done,
Vows writ in water, blows that beat the air.
On! I have guessed the end; the end is fair.
Not with these weak limbs is thy last race run;
Not all thy vision sets with this low sun;
Not all thy spirit swoons in this despair.
Look how thine own soul, throned where all is well,
Smiles to regard thy days disconsolate;
Yea; since herself she wove the worldly spell,
Doomed thee for lofty gain to low estate;—
Sown with thy fall a seed of glory fell;
Thy heaven is in thee, and thy will thy fate.
Inward! aye, deeper far than love or scorn,
Deeper than bloom of virtue, stain of sin,
Rend thou the veil and pass alone within,
Stand naked there and feel thyself forlorn!
Nay! in what world, then, Spirit, wast thou born ?
Or to what World-Soul art thou entered in ?
Feel the Self fade, feel the great life begin,
With Love re-rising in the cosmic morn.
The inward ardour yearns to the inmost goal;
The endless goal is one with the endless way;
From every gulf the tides of Being roll,
From every zenith burns the indwelling day;
And life in Life has drowned thee and soul in Soul;
And these are God, and thou thyself art they.

—
A Memory of Loss

-William Wilsey Martin
I
The Beauty-cup that held his Joy was frail,
He knew, and brittle under shock or strain;
This knowledge gripp’d his heart till heat of pain
Burnt up his Joy and left him only bale.

II
His Beauty-cup still smiles–a dream of bright
Art-woven rays; but all it held has fled;
A ghostly fear has kill’d it, and instead
A Memory of Loss cries through the night.

—
A New Orphic Hymn

-Sir Lewis Morris
The peaks, and the starlit skies, the deeps of the fathomless seas,

Immanent is He in all, yet higher and deeper than these.
The heart, and the mind, and the soul, the thoughts and the yearnings of Man,

Of His essence are one and all, and yet define it who can?
The love of the Right, tho’ cast down, the hate of victorious Ill,

All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficient Will.
Oh, mystical secrets of Nature, great Universe undefined,

Ye are part of the infinite work of a mighty ineffable Mind.
Beyond your limitless Space, before your measureless Time,

Ere Life or Death began was this changeless Essence sublime.
In the core of eternal calm He dwelleth unmoved and alone

‘Mid the Universe He has made, as a monarch upon his throne.
And the self-same inscrutable Power which fashioned the sun and the star

Is Lord of the feeble strength of the humblest creatures that are.
The weak things that float or creep for their little life of a day,

The weak souls that falter and faint, as feeble and futile as they;
The malefic invisible atoms unmarked by man’s purblind eye

That beleaguer our House of Life, and compass us till we die;
All these are parts of Him, the indivisible One,

Who supports and illumines the many, Creation’s Pillar and Sun!
Yea, and far in the depths of Being, too dark for a mortal brain,

Lurk His secrets of Evil and Wrong, His creatures of Death and of Pain.
A viewless Necessity binds, a determinate Impetus drives

To a hidden invisible goal the freightage of numberless lives.
The waste, and the pain, and the wrong, the abysmal mysteries dim,

Come not of themselves alone, but are seed and issue of Him.
And Man’s spirit that spends and is spent in mystical questionings,

Oh, the depths of the fathomless deep, oh, the riddle and secret of things,

And the voice through the darkness heard, and the rush of winnowing wings!