Author: Gwyllm

First Friday: A quick one… I just got back from my friend Christa Grimm’s opening down at 537 SE Ash. She has some great art, you should pop in and check it out. Great Landscapes! Her kids were there, Bonnie, Autumn & Sam. They are all in their 20′s now, in their teens when we first met them. Christa comes from an artistic background, her father and mother are well known Portland artist…
I stopped in at the Muralist Show, saw several of the artist, and saw the new pieces that have been put up. Talked with Joanne, and we are making plans for some new murals… so stay tuned!!
Lots on this entry, and we may as well delve into it on this wonderful evening in Portland… Tomorrow is the Rose Parade, and we are going down town to a hotel to hang with friends watching the parade pass below… good fun!
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Fairy Thorn – An Ulster Ballad

Within’s Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution: 6/7/2008 Broadcast

The Orb: Vuja De (thanks Peter!)

A Few Words From Idries Shah

The Piper And The Puca

For Winter Rose & Mimi…. William Butler Yeats

The Orb – Fluffy Clouds (an oldie but goldie!)

Art: Edmund Dulac

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The Fairy Thorn – An Ulster Ballad
“Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning-wheel;

For your father’s on the hill, and your mother is asleep;

Come up above the crags, and we’ll dance a highland-reel

Around the fairy thorn on the steep.”
At Anna Grace’s door ’twas thus the maidens cried,

Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green;

And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside,

The fairest of the four, I ween.
They’re glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve,

Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare;

The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave,

And the crags in the ghostly air:
And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go,

The maids along the hill-side have ta’en their fearless way,

Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow

Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey.
The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim,

Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee;

The rowan berries cluster o’er her low head grey and dim

In ruddy kisses sweet to see.
The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,

Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem,

And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go,

Oh, never caroll’d bird like them!
But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze

That drinks away their voices in echoless repose,

And dreamily the evening has still’d the haunted braes,

And dreamier the gloaming grows.
And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky

When the falcon’s shadow saileth across the open shaw,

Are hush’d the maiden’s voices, as cowering down they he

In the flutter of their sudden awe.
For, from the air above, the grassy ground beneath,

And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between,

A Power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,

And they sink down together on the green.
They sink together silent, and stealing side by side,

They fling their lovely arms o’er their drooping necks so fair,

Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,

For their shrinking necks again are bare.
Thus clasp’d and prostrate all, with their heads together bow’d,

Soft o’er their bosom’s beating–the only human sound–

They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,

Like a river in the air, gliding round.
No scream can any raise, no prayer can any say,

But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three–

For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away,

By whom they dare not look to see.
They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold

And the curls elastic falling as her head withdraws;

They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold,

But they may not look to see the cause:
For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies

Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze;

And neither fear nor wonder can ope their quivering eyes,

Or their limbs from the cold ground raise,
Till out of night the earth has roll’d her dewy side,

With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below;

When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide,

The maidens’ trance dissolveth go.
Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,

And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain–

They pined away and died within the year and day,

And ne’er was Anna Grace seen again.

– Sir Samuel Ferguson

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Within’s Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution: 6/7/2008 Broadcast

Show #273

Time: 07 June 2008 (Saturday) at

19:00 UTC | PST-11am | EST-2pm | UK- 7pm | NZ-8am
High speed listen at: http://yage.net:9000/listen.pls

Dial-up listen at: [currently disabled]

Now Podcasting at: [currently disabled]

Duration: ~3h
On this week’s show:
New Rock Album: Elbow, The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)…been since 2005

that this UK band has been on this show…they’re back with a strange,

sometimes pretty, sometimes hauntingly melodic new record, full of

love songs and weirdness…very tasty…
Classic Rock Album: Brainticket, Cottonwoodhill (1971)…this band

formed in 1968 with Swiss, German, and Italian members, and in the

early ’70s released three amazing lysergic journeys…this was the

first of them…turn on…tune in…
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty of Breaking Open the Head: A

Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by

Daniel Pinchbeck…
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems…& this

week’s featured artist is The Rolling Stones, music from their

fantastic 1970 live album, *Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!*…they say all sorts

of excitement is gathering together, all kinds of hope wiggling

through the door, hurry, don’t miss it! Don’t…miss…it…
Webcasting to the globe & beyond from the People’s Republic of

Portland, Oregon!

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Thanks To Peter For This!

The Orb: Vuja De

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A Few Words From Idries Shah

A quote from: ‘A Perfumed Scorpion’
Hindsight shows how often yesterday’s so-called truth may become today’s absurdity. Real ability is to respect relative truth without damaging oneself by refusing to realize that it will be superseded. When you observe that today’s controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can endure this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others.

—

Quotes from: ‘The Commanding Self ‘
Nowadays, few people contest the importance of knowing about conditioning in order to examine belief-systems. Why, therefore, is it so difficult to communicate with so many people along these lines? The answer is very simple. We are at a stage in understanding human behaviour analogous to that which obtained when people began to try to talk of chemistry to those who were fixated upon the hope of untold wealth (or, sometimes, spiritual enlightenment) through alchemy. Like the alchemist or those who want easy riches, people want dramatic inputs (emotional stimuli, excitement, reassurance, authority-figures and the rest) rather than knowledge.
It is only when the desire for knowledge and understanding becomes as effective as the craving for emotional stimulus that the individual becomes accessible to change, to knowledge, to more than a very little understanding.
So learning must be preceded by the capacity to learn. THAT, in turn, comes about at least in part by right attitude. And THAT, again, is where the would-be learner has to exercise effort.
Surely there is not, cannot be, any better proof of imagination confused with real experience, than something which happened to me during a tour of holy places in the Middle East.
I was with a party of very devout people belonging to a certain faith, we need not say which one. They were visiting places reputed for their spiritual history and atmosphere, mostly belonging to another religious tradition.
Their guide was new to the job. To help matters, he read in detail from a Michelin guide as we went from place to place. ‘Here martyrs were killed …. Here is the site of the cell of a certain holy monk …. Here such-and-such a person had a holy vision ….’
Every single time the devotees stood respectfully, showing every sign of appreciating the deep spiritual feelings which suffused the places ….
Then, one day, we were taken to a site where the guide read out about the horrors which had been perpetrated there, how a certain tyrant had murdered scores of good men of God, and how the whole area was reputed to be cursed. All shivered and eagerly discussed how they felt the ‘very essence of evil’ surrounding them.
They were still exchanging accounts of their own bloodcurdling experiences at the hotel that evening when the guide shamefacedly called us together in the foyer and admitted that he had been mistakenly reading from the wrong page. In spite of the ‘very essence of evil’ which all had experienced, we had in fact been standing in the middle of a burial-place of saints ….

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The Piper And The Puca

Douglas Hyde
Translated literally from the Irish of the Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta.
In the old times, there was a half fool living in Dunmore, in the county Galway, and although he was excessively fond of music, he was unable to learn more than one tune, and that was the “Black Rogue.” He used to get a good deal of money from the gentlemen, for they used to get sport out of him. One night the piper was coming home from a house where there had been a dance, and he half drunk. When he came to a little bridge that was up by his mother’s house, he squeezed the pipes on, and began playing the “Black Rogue” (an rógaire dubh). The Púca came behind him, and flung him up on his own back. There were long horns on the Púca, and the piper got a good grip of them, and then he said–
“Destruction on you, you nasty beast, let me home. I have a ten-penny piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff.”
“Never mind your mother,” said the Púca, “but keep your hold. If you fall, you will break your neck and your pipes.” Then the Púca said to him, “Play up for me the ‘Shan Van Vocht’ (an t-seann-bhean bhocht).”
“I don’t know it,” said the piper.
“Never mind whether you do or you don’t,” said the Púca. “Play up, and I’ll make you know.”
The piper put wind in his bag, and he played such music as made himself wonder.
“Upon my word, you’re a fine music-master,” says the piper then; “but tell me where you’re for bringing me.”
“There’s a great feast in the house of the Banshee, on the top of Croagh Patric tonight,” says the Púca, “and I’m for bringing you there to play music, and, take my word, you’ll get the price of your trouble.”
“By my word, you’ll save me a journey, then,” says the piper, “for Father William put a journey to Croagh Patric on me, because I stole the white gander from him last Martinmas.”
The Púca rushed him across hills and bogs and rough places, till he brought him to the top of Croagh Patric. Then the Púca struck three blows with his foot, and a great door opened, and they passed in together, into a fine room.
The piper saw a golden table in the middle of the room, and hundreds of old women (cailleacha) sitting round about it. The old woman rose up, and said, “A hundred thousand welcomes to you, you Púca of November (na Samhna). Who is this you have brought with you?”
“The best piper in Ireland,” says the Púca.
One of the old women struck a blow on the ground, and a door opened in the side of the wall, and what should the piper see coming out but the white gander which he had stolen from Father William.
“By my conscience, then,” says the piper, “myself and my mother ate every taste of that gander, only one wing, and I gave that to Moy-rua (Red Mary), and it’s she told the priest I stole his gander.”
The gander cleaned the table, and carried it away, and the Púca said, “Play up music for these ladies.”
The piper played up, and the old women began dancing, and they were dancing till they were tired. Then the Púca said to pay the piper, and every old woman drew out a gold piece, and gave it to him.
“By the tooth of Patric,” said he, “I’m as rich as the son of a lord.”
“Come with me,” says the Púca, “and I’ll bring you home.”
They went out then, and just as he was going to ride on the Púca, the gander came up to him, and gave him a new set of pipes. The Púca was not long until he brought him to Dunmore, and he threw the piper off at the little bridge, and then he told him to go home, and says to him, “You have two things now that you never had before–you have sense and music (ciall agus ceól). The piper went home, and he knocked at his mother’s door, saying, “Let me in, I’m as rich as a lord, and I’m the best piper in Ireland.”
“You’re drunk,” said the mother.
“No, indeed,” says the piper, “I haven’t drunk a drop.”
The mother let him in, and he gave her the gold pieces, and, “Wait now,” says he, “till you hear the music, I’ll play.”
He buckled on the pipes, but instead of music, there came a sound as if all the geese and ganders in Ireland were screeching together. He awakened the neighbours and they all were mocking him, until he put on the old pipes, and then he played melodious music for them; and after that he told them all he had gone through that night.
The next morning, when his mother went to look at the gold pieces, there was nothing there but the leaves of a plant.
The piper went to the priest, and told him his story, but the priest would not believe a word from him, until he put the pipes on him, and then the screeching of the ganders and geese began.
“Leave my sight, you thief,” said the priest.
But nothing would do the piper till he would put the old pipes on him to show the priest that his story was true.
He buckled on the old pipes, and he played melodious music, and from that day till the day of his death, there was never a piper in the county Galway was as good as he was.

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For Winter Rose & Mimi…. William Butler Yeats

The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water-rats;

There we’ve hid our faery vats,

Full of berries

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you

can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim grey sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you

can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,.

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To to waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For to world’s more full of weeping than you

can understand.
Away with us he’s going,

The solemn-eyed:

He’ll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For be comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

from a world more full of weeping than you.

—

To A Child Dancing In The Wind
Dance there upon the shore;

What need have you to care

For wind or water’s roar?

And tumble out your hair

That the salt drops have wet;

Being young you have not known

The fool’s triumph, nor yet

Love lost as soon as won,

Nor the best labourer dead

And all the sheaves to bind.

What need have you to dread

The monstrous crying of wind?

—
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.
—

The Cap And Bells

The jester walked in the garden:

The garden had fallen still;

He bade his soul rise upward

And stand on her window-sill.

It rose in a straight blue garment,

When owls began to call:

It had grown wise-tongued by thinking

Of a quiet and light footfall;

But the young queen would not listen;

She rose in her pale night-gown;

She drew in the heavy casement

And pushed the latches down.

He bade his heart go to her,

When the owls called out no more;

In a red and quivering garment

It sang to her through the door.

It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming

Of a flutter of flower-like hair;

But she took up her fan from the table

And waved it off on the air.

‘I have cap and bells,’ he pondered,

‘I will send them to her and die’;

And when the morning whitened

He left them where she went by.

She laid them upon her bosom,

Under a cloud of her hair,

And her red lips sang them a love-song

Till stars grew out of the air.

She opened her door and her window,

And the heart and the soul came through,

To her right hand came the red one,

To her left hand came the blue.

They set up a noise like crickets,

A chattering wise and sweet,

And her hair was a folded flower

And the quiet of love in her feet.

—
The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus
Behold that great Plotinus swim,

Buffeted by such seas;

Bland Rhadamanthus beckons him,

But the Golden Race looks dim,

Salt blood blocks his eyes.

Scattered on the level grass

Or winding through the grove

plato there and Minos pass,

There stately Pythagoras

And all the choir of Love.

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The Orb – Fluffy Clouds

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“Love becomes perfect only when it transcends itself –Becoming One with its object; Producing Unity of Being.” -Hakim Jami
If any project is worth doing, it should be done in beauty, and with thoughtfulness. A hard lesson for someone who was once always in a hurry, but an apt lesson as well. Sloooow down. Take your time, create it with love, thoroughness and patience. We are about to start to prepare at long last to release Issues 1 and 2 of The Invisible College in print… followed by Issue 5. Can I say…. Submissions? Let me know!
We have uploaded new music to the radio station, and have begun to start to eliminate older tracks… If you get a chance give it a listen. The spoken word channel has been hopping as well, so take some time, relax and check the different streams out.

Radio Free EarthRites!
I just want to wish my sister Rebecca a happy birthday… a day late, but my thoughts go out to her. It has been a couple of years since we last saw her, and with the cost of fuel and all the attending circus of capitalism’s collapse, we may have to get down to Cali via hopping freights, or bicycle….
Anyway, Rebecca if you see this, drop us a line!

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On The Menu:

Brian Eno & Nitin Sawhney – Prophesy

Commercial Break: The Hymn to Ninkasi

The Sorceress (La Sorcière) Part One – Death of the Gods

Poetry: Maulana Jami on the Path

Sunset – Nitin Sawhney
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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Brian Eno & Nitin Sawhney – Prophesy

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—–

Commercial Break: At the celebration for Rowan’s graduation, our friend Morgan (who reps beer locally brought over some excellent samples from a brewery in Eugene – Ninkasi-
He brought 3 samples…

Total Domination IPA

Tricerahops Double IPA

Quantum Pale Ale
The Tricerahops Double IPA is to die for, and the others are excellent… so in honor of the Beery goodness of Ninkasi, I have included a little ditty from Sumeria about the deity herself!

The Hymn to Ninkasi – Making Beer

The Hymn to Ninkasi, inscribed on a nineteenth-century B.C. tablet, contains a recipe for Sumerian beer.)
Translation by Miguel Civil

Borne of the flowing water (…)

Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,

Borne of the flowing water (…)

Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,

Having founded your town by the sacred lake,

She finished its great walls for you,

Ninkasi, having founded your town by the sacred lake,

She finished its great walls for you

Your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,

Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake,

Ninkasi, Your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,

Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.

You are the one who handles the dough,

[and] with a big shovel,

Mixing in a pit, the bappir with sweet aromatics,

Ninkasi, You are the one who handles

the dough, [and] with a big shovel,

Mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date]-honey.

You are the one who bakes the bappir

in the big oven,

Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,

Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes

the bappir in the big oven,

Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,

You are the one who waters the malt

set on the ground,

The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,

Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt

set on the ground,

The noble dogs keep away even the potentates.

You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar

The waves rise, the waves fall.

Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks

the malt in a jar

The waves rise, the waves fall.

You are the one who spreads the cooked

mash on large reed mats,

Coolness overcomes.

Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads

the cooked mash on large reed mats,

Coolness overcomes.

You are the one who holds with both hands

the great sweet wort,

Brewing [it] with honey and wine

(You the sweet wort to the vessel)

Ninkasi, (…)

(You the sweet wort to the vessel)

The filtering vat, which makes

a pleasant sound,

You place appropriately on [top of]

a large collector vat.

Ninkasi, the filtering vat,

which makes a pleasant sound,

You place appropriately on [top of]

a large collector vat.

When you pour out the filtered beer

of the collector vat,

It is [like] the onrush of

Tigris and Euphrates.

Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the

filtered beer of the collector vat,

It is [like] the onrush of

Tigris and Euphrates.

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The Sorceress (La Sorcière)

by Jules Michelet

Part One – Death of the Gods
There are authors who assure us that a little while before the final victory of Christianity a mysterious voice was heard along the shores of the Ægean Sea, proclaiming: “Great Pan is dead!”
The old universal god of Nature is no more. Great the jubilation; it was fancied that, Nature being defunct, Temptation was dead too. Storm-tossed for so many years, the human soul was to enjoy peace at last.
Was it simply a question of the termination of the ancient worship, the defeat of the old faith, the eclipse of time-honoured religious forms? No! it was more than this. Consulting the earliest Christian monuments, we find in every line the hope expressed, that Nature is to disappear and life die out—in a word, that the end of the world is at hand.
The game is up for the gods of life, who have so long kept up a vain simulacrum of vitality. Their world is falling round them in crumbling ruin. All is swallowed up in nothingness: “Great Pan is dead!”

It was no new evangel that the gods must die. More than one ancient cult is based on this very notion of the death of the gods. Osiris dies, Adonis dies—it is true, in this case, to rise again. Æschylus, on the stage itself, in those dramas that were played only on the feast-days of the gods, expressly warns them, by the voice of Prometheus, that one day they must die. Die! but how?—vanquished, subjugated to the Titans, the antique powers of Nature.
Here it is an entirely different matter. The early Christians, as a whole and individually, in the past and in the future, hold Nature herself accursed. They condemn her as a whole and in every part, going so far as to see Evil incarnate, the Demon himself, in a flower. 1 So, welcome—and the sooner the better—the angel-hosts that of old destroyed the Cities of the Plain. Let them destroy, fold away like a veil, the empty image of the world, and at length deliver the saints from the long-drawn ordeal of temptation.
The Gospel says: “The day is at hand.” The Fathers say: “Soon, very soon.” The disintegration of the Roman Empire and the inroads of the barbarian invaders raise hopes in St. Augustine’s breast, that soon there will be no city left but the City of God.
Yet how long a-dying the world is, how obstinately determined to live on! Like Hezekiah, it craves a respite, a going backward of the dial. So be it then, till the year One Thousand,—but not a day longer.
Is it so certain, as we have been told over and over again, that the old gods were exhausted, sick of themselves and weary of existence? that out of sheer discouragement they as good as gave in their own abdication? that Christianity was able with a breath to blow away these empty phantoms?
They point to the gods at Rome, the gods of the Capitol, where they were only admitted in virtue of an anticipatory death, I mean on condition of resigning all they had of local sap, of renouncing their home and country, of ceasing to be deities representative of such and such a nation. Indeed, in order to receive them, Rome had had to submit them to a cruel operation, that left them poor, enervated, bloodless creatures. These great centralised Divinities had become, in their official life, mere dismal functionaries of the Roman Empire. But, though fallen from its high estate, this Aristocracy of Olympus had in nowise involved in its own decay the host of indigenous gods, the crowd of deities still holding possession of the boundless plains, of woods and hills and springs, inextricably blended with the life of the countryside. These divinities, enshrined in the heart of oaks, lurking in rushing streams and deep pools, could not be driven out.
Who says so? The Church herself, contradicting herself flatly. She first proclaims them dead, then waxes indignant because they are still alive. From century to century, by the threatening voice of her Councils, 2 she orders them to die. . . . And lo! they are as much alive as ever!
“They are demons . . .”—and therefore alive. Unable to kill them, the Church suffers the innocent-hearted countryfolk to dress them up and disguise their true nature. Legends grow round them, they are baptised, actually admitted into the Christian hierarchy. But are they converted? Not yet by any means. We catch them still on the sly continuing their old heathen ways and Pagan nature.
Where are they to be found? In the desert, on lonely heaths, in wild forests? Certainly, but above all in the house. They cling to the most domestic of domestic habits; women guard and hide them at board and even bed. They still possess the best stronghold in the world—better than the temple, to wit the hearth.

History knows of no other revolution so violent and unsparing as that of Theodosius. There is no trace elsewhere in antiquity of so wholesale a proscription of a religion. The Persian fire-worship, in its high-wrought purity, might outrage the visible gods of other creeds; but at any rate it suffered them to remain. Under it the Jews were treated with great clemency, and were protected and employed. Greece, daughter of the light, made merry over the gods of darkness, the grotesque pot-bellied Cabiri; but still she tolerated them, and even adopted them as working gnomes, making her own Vulcan in their likeness. Rome, in the pride of her might, welcomed not only Etruria, but the rustic gods as well of the old Italian husbandman. The Druids she persecuted only as embodying a national resistance dangerous to her dominion.
Victorious Christianity, on the contrary, was fain to slaughter the enemy outright, and thought to do so. She abolished the Schools of Philosophy by her proscription of Logic and the physical extermination of the philosophers, who were massacred under the Emperor Valens. She destroyed or stripped the temples, and broke up the sacred images. Quite conceivably the new legend might have proved favourable to family life, if only the father had not been humiliated and annulled in St. Joseph, if the mother had been given prominence as the trainer, the moral parent of the child Jesus. But this path, so full of rich promise, was from the first abandoned for the barren ambition of a high, immaculate purity.
Thus Christianity deliberately entered on the lonely road of celibacy, one the then world was making for of its own impulse—a tendency the imperial rescripts fought against in vain. And Monasticism helped it on the downward slope.
Men fled to the desert; but they were not alone. The Devil went with them, ready with every form of temptation. They must needs revolutionise society, found cities of solitaries,—it was of no avail. Everyone has heard of the gloomy cities of anchorites that grew up in the Thebaïd, of the turbulent, savage spirit that animated them, and of their murderous descents upon Alexandria. They declared they were possessed of the Devil, impelled by demons,—and they told only the truth.
There was an enormous void arisen in Nature’s plan. Who or what should fill it? The Christian Church is ready with an answer: The Demon, everywhere the Demon—Ubique Dæmon. 3
Greece no doubt, like all other countries, had had its energumens, men tormented, possessed by spirits. But the similarity is purely external and accidental, the resemblance more apparent than real. In the Thebaïd it is no case of spirits either good or bad, but of the gloomy children of the pit, wilfully perverse and malignant. Everywhere, for years to come, these unhappy hypochondriacs are to be seen roaming the desert, full of self-loathing and self-horror. Try to realise, indeed, what it means,—to be conscious of a double personality, to really believe in this second self, this cruel indweller that comes and goes and expiates within you, and drives you to wander forth in desert places and over precipices. Thinner and weaker grows the sufferer; and the feebler his wretched body, the more fiercely the demon harries it. Women in particular are filled, distended, inflated by these tyrants, who impregnate them with the infernal aura, stir up internal storm and tempest, make them the sport and plaything of their every caprice, force them into sin and despair.
Nor is it human beings only that are demoniac. Alas! all Nature is tainted with the horror. If the devil is in a flower, how much more in the gloomy forest! The light that seemed so clear and pure is full of the creatures of night. The Heavens full of Hell,—what blasphemy! The divine morning star, that has shed its sparkling beam on Socrates, Archimedes, Plato, and once and again inspired them to sublimer effort, what is it now?—a devil, the great devil Lucifer. At eve, it is the devil Venus, whose soft and gentle light leads mortals into temptation.
I am not surprised at such a society turning mad and savage. Furious to feel itself so weak against the demons, it pursues them everywhere, in the temples and altars of the old faith to begin with, later in the heathen martyrs. Festivals are abolished; for may they not be assemblages for idolatrous worship? Even the family is suspect; for might not the force of habit draw the household together round the old classic Lares? And why a family at all? The empire is an empire of monks.
Yet the individual man, isolated and struck silent as he is, still gazes at the skies, and in the heavenly host finds once more the old gods of his adoration. “This is what causes the famines,” the Emperor Theodosius declares, “and all the other scourges of the Empire,”—a terrible dictum that lets loose the blind rage of the fanatic populace on the heads of their inoffensive Pagan fellow-citizens. The Law blindly unchains all the savagery of mob-law.
Old gods of Heathendom, the grave gapes for you! Gods of Love, of Life, of Light, darkness waits to engulf you! The cowl is the only wear. Maidens must turn nuns; wives leave their husbands, or if they still keep the domestic hearth, be cold and continent as sisters.
But is all this possible? Who shall be strong enough with one breath to blow out the glowing lamp of God? So reckless an enterprise of impious piety may well bring about strange, monstrous, and astounding results. . . . Let the guilty tremble!
Repeatedly in the Middle Ages shall we find the gloomy story recurring of the Bride of Corinth. First told in quite early days by Phlegon, the Emperor Hadrian’s freedman, it reappears in the twelfth century, and again in the sixteenth,—the deep reproach, as it were, the irrepressible protest of outraged Nature.

“A young Athenian goes to Corinth, to the house of the man who promises him his daughter in marriage. He is still a Pagan, and is not aware that the family he hopes to become a member of has just turned Christian. He arrives late at night. All are in bed, except the mother, who serves the meal hospitality demands, and then leaves him to slumber, half dead with fatigue. But hardly is he asleep, when a figure enters the room,—a maiden, clad in white, wearing a white veil and on her brow a fillet of black and gold. Seeing him, she raises her white hand in surprise: ‘Am I then already so much a stranger in the house? . . . Alas! poor recluse. . . . But I am filled with shame, I must begone.’ ‘Nay! stay, fair maiden; here are Ceres and Bacchus, and with you, love! Fear not, and never look so pale!’ ‘Back, back, I say! I have no right to happiness any more. By a vow my sick mother made, youth and life are for ever fettered. The gods are no more, and the only sacrifices now are human souls.’ ‘What! can this be you? You, my promised bride I love so well, promised me from a child? Our fathers’ oath bound us indissolubly together under Heaven’s blessing. Maiden! be mine!’ ‘No! dear heart, I cannot. You shall have my young sister. If I groan in my chill prison-house, you in her arms must think of me, me who waste away in thoughts of you, and who will soon be beneath the sod.’ ‘No! no! I call to witness yonder flame; it is the torch of Hymen. You shall come with me to my father’s house. Stay with me, my best beloved!’ For wedding gift he offers her a golden cup. She gives him her neck-chain; but chooses rather than the cup a curl of his hair.
“’Tis the home of spirits; she drinks with death-pale lips the dark, blood-red wine. He drinks eagerly after her, invoking the God of Love. Her poor heart is breaking, but still she resists. At last in despair he falls weeping on the bed. Then throwing herself down beside him: ‘Ah! how your grief hurts me! Yet the horror of it, if you so much as touched me! White as snow, and cold as ice, such alas! and alas! is your promised bride.’ ‘Come to me! I will warm you, though you should be leaving the very tomb itself. . . .’ Sighs, kisses pass between the pair. ‘Cannot you feel how I burn?’ Love unites them, binds them in one close embrace, while tears of mingled pain and pleasure flow. Thirstily she drinks the fire of his burning mouth; her chilled blood is fired with amorous ardours, but the heart stands still within her bosom.
“But the mother was there, though they knew it not, listening to their tender protestations, their cries of sorrow and delight. ‘Hark! the cock-crow! Farewell till to-morrow, to-morrow night!’ A lingering farewell, and kisses upon kisses!
“The mother enters furious, to find her daughter! Her lover strives to enfold her, to hide her, from the other’s view; but she struggles free, and towering aloft from the couch to the vaulted roof: ‘Oh! mother, mother! so you begrudge me my night of joy, you hunt me from this warm nest. Was it not enough to have wrapped me in the cold shroud, and borne me so untimely to the tomb? But a power beyond you has lifted the stone. In vain your priests droned their prayers over the grave; of what avail the holy water and the salt, where youth burns hot in the heart? Cold earth cannot freeze true Love! . . . You promised; I am returned to claim my promised happiness. . . .
“‘Alack! dear heart, you must die. You would languish here and pine away. I have your hair; ’twill be white to-morrow. 4 . . . Mother, one last prayer! Open my dark dungeon, raise a funeral pyre, and let my loving heart win the repose the flames alone can give. Let the sparks fly upward and the embers glow! We will back to our old gods again.’”

Footnotes
4:1 Compare Muratori, Script. It., i. 293, 545, on St. Cyprian; A. Maury, Magie, 435.
5:2 See Mansi, Baluze; Council of Arles, 442; Tours, 567; Leptines, 743; the Capitularies, etc. Gerson even, towards 1400.
6:3 See the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, and the authors quoted by A. Maury, Magie, 317. In the fourth century the Messalians, believing themselves to be full of demons, were constantly blowing their noses, and spitting unceasingly, in their incredible efforts to expectorate these.
10:4 At this point of the story I suppress an expression that may well shock us. Goethe, so noble in the form of his writings, is not equally so in the spirit. He quite mars the wonderful tale, fouling the Greek with a gruesome Slavonic notion. At the instant when the lovers are dissolved in tears, he makes the girl into a vampire. She curses because she is athirst for blood, to suck his heart’s blood. The poet makes her say coldly and calmly this impious and abominable speech: “When he is done, I will go on to others; the new generation shall succumb to my fury.”
The Middle Ages dress up this tradition in grotesque garb to terrify us with the devil Venus. Her statue receives from a young man a ring, which he imprudently places on her finger. Her hand closes on it, she keeps it as a sign of betrothal; then at night, comes into his bed to claim the rights it confers. To rid him of his hellish bride, an exorcism is required (S. Hibb., part iii. chap. iii. 174). The same story occurs in the Fabliaux, but absurdly enough applied to the Virgin. Luther repeats the classical story, if my memory serves me, in his Table-talk, but with great coarseness, letting us smell the foulness of the grave. The Spaniard Del Rio transfers the scene from Greece to Brabant. The affianced bride dies shortly before the wedding-day. The passing-bell is tolled; the grief-stricken bridegroom roams the fields in despair. He hears a wail; it is the loved one wandering over the heath. . . . “See you not,” she cries, “who my guide is?” “No!” he replies, and seizing her, bears her away to his home. Once there, the account was very near growing over tender and touching. The grim inquisitor, Del Rio, cuts short the thread with the words, “Lifting the veil, they found a stake with a dead woman’s skin drawn over it.” The Judge Le Loyes, though not much given to sensibility, nevertheless reproduces for us the primitive form of the legend. After him, there is an end of these gloomy story-tellers, whose trade is done. Modern days begin, and the Bride has won the day. Buried Nature comes back from the tomb, no longer a stealthy visitant, but mistress of the house and home.

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Maulana Jami on the Path (of Tasawwuf)
It is recorded in the tradition of the Shaykhs that Jami once said, when asked about hypocrisy and honesty:
“How wonderful is honesty and how strange hypocrisy! I wandered to Mecca and to Baghdad, and I made a trial of the behavior of men.
When I asked them to be honest, they always treated me with respect, because they had been taught that good men always speak thus, and they had learned that they must have their eyes downcast when people speak of honesty.
When I told them to shun hypocrisy, they all agreed with me.
But they did not know that when I said ‘truth’, I knew that they did not know what truth was, and that therefore both they and I were then being hypocrites.
They did not know that when I told them not to be hypocrites they were being hypocrites in not asking me the method. They did not know that I was being a hypocrite in merely saying, ‘Do not be hypocrites’, because words do not convey the message by themselves.
They respected me, therefore, when I was acting hypocritically. They had been taught to do this. They respected themselves while they were thinking hypocritically; for it is hypocrisy to think that one is being improved simply by thinking that it is bad to be a hypocrite.
The Path (of Tasuwwuf) leads beyond: to the practice and the understanding where there can be no hypocrisy, where honesty is there and not something which is man’s aim.

__
One who travell’d in the Desert

Saw MAJNUN where he was sitting

All alone like a Magician

Tracing Letters in the Sand.

‘Oh distracted Lover! writing

What the Sword-wind of the Desert

Undeciphers so that no one

After you shall understand’.

MAJNUN answer’d — ‘I am writing

Only for myself, and only

“LAILA” —if for ever “LAILA”

Writing, in that Word a Volume,

Over which for ever poring,

From her very Name I sip

In fancy, till I drink, her Lip’.

—
God said to the Prophet David–

‘David, whom I have exalted

From the sheep to be my People’s

Shepherd, by your Justice my

Revelation justify.

Lest the mis-believing—yea,

The Fire-adoring Princes rather

Be my Prophets, who fulfill,

Knowing not my WORD, my WILL’.

translated by Edward Fitzgerald

—

Verses from the book Jami: Yusuf And Zulaikha

“No one ever suffered on the path of faith, who did not find the remedy for his pain. Let the remedy for Jami’s pain be that pain itself: let his medicine be his own ever-sorrowing heart.”

————-
“It has long been known in this ancient abode that without bitterness, life can never become sweet. For nine long months the child must drink blood in its mother’s womb; and how many tortures must the ruby endure, imprisoned in rock, before the sun finally illuminates its gorgeous hue!”

————-
“The lover who sincerely commits himself to the path of love will himself ultimately attain to the title of beloved.”

————-
“Happy is he who is able to escape from self, and feel the gentle breeze of frienship. His heart is so full of the beloved, that there is no longer room for anyone else. It is the beloved flowing through his every vein and nerve like his very life: there is not an atom of his body that is not filled with the friend. The true lover can no longer perceive either the scent or the color of his own self: he has no interest, either friendly or hostile, in anyone other than the beloved. His heart is attached neither to thorne nor crown; all greed and lust have packed their bags and left his street. If he speaks, it is to the friend; if he seeks, it is from the friend. He no longer takes himself into account, and lives only for love. He leaves the raw and turns to the ripe, abandoning completely the abode of the self.”

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Sunset – Nitin Sawhney

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“If the scissors are not used daily on the beard, it will not be long before the beard is, by its luxuriant growth, pretending to be the head.”-Hakim Jami

_____

Tonight, Rowan graduates from High School. We had a gathering of friends for him yesterday, and it went nicely. Sweet people, and a wonderful time. My thanks and love go out to you all.
It has been a long haul for the lad, but he came out of it well, finishing on the honor roll and with premiering a one act play this past week that has never been performed in the US… (Picnic on a Battlefield – originally from Spain)
We have been blessed with these last 4 years. It has gone quickly but there is a sweetness to it all.
Life goes swiftly, and so much has occurred… this one is for Rowan, and all that he brings into the world by his presence.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:

Rachid Taha – Bara Bara

The Poems of Paul Éluard

Rachid Taha – Rock El Casbah

Rachid Taha – Bara Bara

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The Poems of Paul Éluard

She is standing on my lids

And her hair is in my hair

She has the colour of my eye

She has the body of my hand

In my shade she is engulfed

As a stone against the sky
She will never close her eyes

And she does not let me sleep

And her dreams in the bright day

Make the suns evaporate

And me laugh cry and laugh

Speak when I have nothing to say

—

To Live

We both have our hands to give

Take mine I shall lead you afar
I have lived several times my face has changed

With every threshold I have crossed and every hand clasped Familial springtime was reborn

Keeping for itself and for me its perishable snow

Death and the betrothed

The future with five fingers clenched and letting go
My age always gave me

New reasons for living through others

For having the blood of man other’s heart in mine
Oh the lucid fellow I was and that I am

Before the pallor of frail blind girls

Lovelier than the delicate worn moon so fair

By the reflection of life’s ways

A trail of moss and trees

Of mist and morning dew

Of the young body which does not rise alone

To its place on earth

Wind cold and rain cradle it

Summer makes a man of it
Presences is my virtue in each visible hand

Only death is solitude

From delight to fury from fury to clarity

I make myself whole through all beings

Through all weather on the earth and in the clouds

Through the passing seasons I am young

And strong for having lived

I am young my blood rises over my ruins
We have our hands to entwine Nothing can ever seduce better

Tahn our bonding to each other a forest

Returning earth to sky and the sky to night
To the night which prepares an unending day.

—

Hunted

A few grains of dust more or less

On ancient shoulders

Locks of weakness on weary foreheads

This theatre of honey and faded roses

Where incalculable flies

Reply to the black signs that misery makes to them

Despairing girders of a bridge

Thrown across space

Thrown across every street and every house

Heavy wandering madnesses

That we shall end by knowing by heart

Mechanical appetites and uncontrolled dances

That lead to the regret of hatred
Nostalgia of justice

—

Head Against The Walls

There were only a few of them

In all the earth

Each one thought he was alone

They sang, they were right

To sing

But they sang the way you sack a city

The way you kill yourself.
Frayed moist night

Shall we endure you

Longer

Shall we not shake

Your cloacal evidence

We shall not wait for a morning

Made to measure

We wanted to see in other people’s eyes

Their nights of love exhausted

They dream only of dying

Their lovely flesh forgotten

Bees caught in their honey

They are ignorant of life

And we suffer everywhere

Red roofs dissolve under the tongue

Dog days in the full beds

Come, empty your sacks of fresh blood

There is still a shadow here
A shred of imbecile there

In the wind their masks, their cast-offs

In lead their traps, their chains

And their prudent blind-men’s gestures

There is fire under rocks

If you put out the fire

Be careful we have

Despite the night it breeds

More strength than the belly

Of your wives and sisters

And we will reproduce

Without them but by ax strokes

In your prisons
Torrents of stone labors of foam

Where eyes float without rancor

Just eyes without hope

That know you

And that you should have put out

Rather than ignore
With a safety pin quicker than your gibbets

We shall take our booty where we want it to be

_______

Rachid Taha – Rock El Casbah

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A quick one for Friday Night, Saturday Morning… Just got in from having dinner with Ed & Janice & Mary after we all went to Rowan’s school to watch the senior directed one acts (Rowan directed one!)
Excellent evening, spent with wonderful young people performing and creating. I do believe that the ball is still rolling, and we will see wonders from this generation.
I contemplate often what defines the Bohemian Aesthetic… I saw it formulating tonight with these young ones… dedicated to their art, their joy in creating, and their beauty in motion. Heady stuff.
Anyway, enough of my meanderings…
More Tomorrow, or Sunday….
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

_______
On The Menu:

The Links

Ray Soulard Jr.’s “Within Within”

Skateboarding in Eugene, “Saltarello”

Poetry of Perter Orlovsky

Medieval Music #1: “Rain Saltarello”

_______
Links:

This is fairly brilliant…!

It’s In the Blood…Amanda Feilding, Lady Neidpath

Jesus Made Me Puke….

and in theme…

Jesus has a runny nose…

_____

Ray Soulard Jr.’s “Within Within” Show #272
Time: 31 May 2008 (Saturday) at
19:00 UTC | PST-11am | EST-2pm | UK- 7pm | NZ-8am
High speed listen at:

http://yage.net:9000/listen.pls

Dial-up listen at: [currently disabled]

Now Podcasting at: [currently disabled]
Duration: ~3h
On this week’s show:
New Rock Album: Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs (2008)…it’s

been three years since this Seattle-area band blew up the world with

*Plans*, and now they’re back with a decided turn for the

dark…musically adventurous, lyrically strange…a longer time in

finding its deep fine groove, but it’s there…
Classic Rock Album: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pendulum

(1970)…this was the final album by CCR as a quartet…they pulled

out every stop for it…the rockers, the rants, the beautiful crazy

music only this band made, and for too short a time…
Storybook Time: Chapter Twenty of Breaking Open the Head: A

Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by

Daniel Pinchbeck…
Readings from Labyrinthine fixtion & Many Musics poems…& this

week’s featured artist is Led Zeppelin, more cuts from their recently

remastered 1976 live album, *The Song Remains the Same*…moving along

in time, back and forth, keep an eye for the sun, for the best grove

of trees, for what music becks you near, for dreams that linger all

day…
Webcasting to the globe & beyond from the People’s Republic of

Portland, Oregon!

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Skateboarding in Eugene, “Saltarello”

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Poetry of Perter Orlovsky

First Poem
A rainbow comes pouring into my window, I am electrified.

Songs burst from my breast, all my crying stops, mystery fills

the air.

I look for my shoes under my bed.

A fat colored woman becomes my mother.

I have no false teeth yet. Suddenly ten children sit on my lap.

I grow a beard in one day.

I drink a hole bottle of wine with my eyes shut.

I draw on paper and I feel I am two again. I want everybody to

talk to me.

I empty the garbage on the table.

I invite thousands of bottles into my room, June bugs I call them.

I use the typewriter as my pillow.

A spoon becomes a fork before my eyes.

Bums give all their money to me.

All I need is a mirror for the rest of my life.

My first five years I lived in chicken coups with not enough

bacon.

My mother showed her witch face in the night and told stories of

blue beards.

My dreams lifted me right out of my bed.

I dreamt I jumped into the nozzle of a gun to fight it out with a

bullet.

I met Kafka and he jumped over a building to get away from me.

My body turned into sugar, poured into tea I found the meaning

of life

All I needed was ink to be a black boy.

I walk on the street looking for eyes that will caress my face.

I sang in the elevators believing I was going to heaven.

I got off at the 86th floor, walked down the corridor looking for

fresh butts.

My comes turns into a silver dollar on the bed.

I look out the window and see nobody, I go down to the street,

look up at my window and see nobody.

So I talk to the fire hydrant, asking “Do you have bigger tears

then I do?”

Nobody around, I piss anywhere.

My Gabriel horns, my Gabriel horns: unfold the cheerfullest,

my gay jubilation.
Nov. 24th, 1957, Paris

—
Second Poem
Morning again, nothing has to be done,

maybe buy a piano or make fudge.

At least clean the room up for sure like my farther I’ve done flick

the ashes & butts over the bed side on the floor.

But first of all wipe my glasses and drink the water

to clean the smelly mouth.

A knock on the door, a cat walks in, behind her the Zoo’s baby

elephant demanding fresh pancakes-I cant stand these

hallucinations any more.

Time for another cigarette and then let the curtains rise, then I

knowtice the dirt makes a road to the garbage pan

No ice box so a dried up grapefruit.

Is there any one saintly thing I can do to my room, paint it pink

maybe or install an elevator from the bed to the floor,

maybe take a bath on the bed?

Whats the use of living if I cant make paradise in my own

room-land?

For this drop of time upon my eyes

like the endurance of a red star on a cigarette

makes me feel life splits faster than scissors.

I know if I could shave myself the bugs around my face would

disappear forever.

The holes in my shoes are only temporary, I understand that.

My rug is dirty but whose that isn’t?

There comes a time in life when everybody must take a piss in

the sink -here let me paint the window black for a minute.

Throw a plate & brake it out of naughtiness-or maybe just

innocently accidentally drop it wile walking around the

table.

Before the mirror I look like a Sahara desert ghost,

or on the bed I resemble a crying mummy hollering for air,

or on the table I feel like Napoleon.

But now for the main task of the day – wash my underwear –

two months abused – what would the ants say about that?

How can I wash my clothes – why I’d, I’d, I’d be a woman if I did

that.

No, I’d rather polish my sneakers than that and as for the floor

its more creative to paint it then clean it up.

As for the dishes I can do that for I am thinking of getting a job in

a luncheonette.

My life and my room are like two huge bugs following me

around the globe.

Thank god I have an innocent eye for nature.

I was born to remember a song about love – on a hill a butterfly

makes a cup that I drink from, walking over a bridge of

flowers.
Dec. 27th, 1957, Paris

—
My Bed is Covered Yellow
My bed is covered yellow – Oh Sun, I sit on you

Oh golden field I lay on you

Oh money I dream of you

More, More, cried the bed – talk to me more –

Oh bed that took the weight of the world –

all the lost dreams laid on you

Oh bed that grows no hair, that cannot be fucked

or can be fucked

Oh bed crumbs of all ages spilled on you

Oh yellow bed march to the sun where yr journey will be done

Oh 50 lbs. of bed that takes 400 more lbs-

how strong you are

Oh bed, only for man & not for animals

yellow bed when will the animals have equal rights?

Oh 4 legged bed off the floor forever built

Oh yellow bed all the news of the world

lay on you at one time or another
1957, Paris

—

Peter Reading

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Snail Poem
Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired

& handsome felt,

Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at

blown up cloud.

Ear turns close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound

of rain dribble thru this layer

down to the roots that will tickle my ear.

Hay grave, my toes need cutting so file away

in sound curve or

Garbage grave, way above my head, blood will soon

trickle in my ear –

no choice but the grave, so cat & sheep are daisey

turned.

Train will tug my grave, my breath hueing gentil vapor

between weel & track.

So kitten string & ball, jump over this mound so

gently & cutely

So my toe can curl & become a snail & go curiousely

on its way.
1958 NYC

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Medieval Music #1: “Rain Saltarello”

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Angus & Hetty

________
So I pay the tab for the Website for another year, and go to check on Turfing, and it is a complete mess. I have spent 2 days trying to get someone awake over at the ISP, to no frickin’ avail… Thanks to Doug Fraser’s calming influence, I restored it from files on my computer. Bless Yer Cotton Soxs’ Doug…
I am featuring, well, Lots of stuff on this one. An entry or two from Memorial Day, rememberances of days darkly remembered, and a few hints to a better future. It is all here. Life barrels on, and we best jump on it…
Anyway, “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable…” which was the perfect antidote to early Hippiedom, with East Village modalities and Gerald Malanga’s bull-whip in-tow, defined itself in Mr. Warhols’ warped perceptions, and the Velvets… Oh yeah, the Big Banana. They were a preview of the big dark, Oh, they were the messengers who colonized my ears.
Enough of all of this, I am heading for a rest.
Talk Later!
Gwyllm

________
On The Menu:

The Links

I’m Waitin’ For My Man….

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable

The Botany Of Desire…. Michael Pollan – (Cannabis)

War Is A Racket

Poetry Of Resistance

Sunday Morning

_________
The Links:

The Rebellion Within…

Zombies!

Excellent News! People Driving Less!

___________
I’m Waitin’ For My Man….

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The Exploding Plastic Inevitable

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The Botany Of Desire…. Michael Pollan – (Cannabis)
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War Is A Racket

by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient

Major General Smedley D. Butler – USMC Retired
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep’s eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.
The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other’s throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell’s bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?
Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in “International Conciliation,” the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:
“And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace… War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it.”
Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter’s dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.
Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the “open door” policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays high dividends.
But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?
Yes, and what does it profit the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn’t own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became “internationally minded.” We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington’s warning about “entangling alliances.” We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.

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Poetry Of Resistance

The Internationale:
Arise ye workers from your slumbers

Arise ye prisoners of want

For reason in revolt now thunders

And at last ends the age of cant.

Away with all your superstitions

Servile masses arise, arise

We’ll change henceforth the old tradition

And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction

On tyrants only we’ll make war

The soldiers too will take strike action

They’ll break ranks and fight no more

And if those cannibals keep trying

To sacrifice us to their pride

They soon shall hear the bullets flying

We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.
No saviour from on high delivers

No faith have we in prince or peer

Our own right hand the chains must shiver

Chains of hatred, greed and fear

E’er the thieves will out with their booty

And give to all a happier lot.

Each at the forge must do their duty

And we’ll strike while the iron is hot.
Eugene Pottier

—
Democracy
Democracy will not come

Today, this year

Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right

As the other fellow has

To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course.

Tomorrow is another day.

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
Freedom

Is a strong seed

Planted

In a great need.
I live here, too.

I want freedom

Just as you.
Langston Hughes

—
England in 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, –

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow

Through public scorn, -mud from a muddy spring, –

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, –

A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, –

An army, which liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, –

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;

Religion Christless, Godless -a book sealed;

A Senate, -Time’s worst statute unrepealed, –

Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
– Percy Shelley

—
Curfew

What else could we do, for the doors were guarded,

What else could we do, for they had imprisoned us,

What else could we do, for the streets were forbidden us,

What else could we do, for the town was asleep?

What else could we do, for she hungered and thirsted,

What else could we do, for we were defenceless,

What else could we do, for night had descended,

What else could we do, for we were in love?
-Paul Eluard

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Sunday Morning

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I remember seeing her first in Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits, or 8 1/2… she fairly floated into the frame… ah, that beautiful visage…

Sweet Nico

Saturday Arrives… and we are heading off to work…. (sigh) and the weather has tipped back to cold n cloudy here in the North Lands. The hills are soft with clouds, and there is rain off and on. I went from shorts to sweats over the last couple of days.
Rowan’s final day of High School was yesterday (except for the one act plays this week and graduation) He is floating! He has progressed so far in the last couple of months, his take on the world and his dealings with people seems to be pretty right-on. He is all about prepping for college in the fall, when he will begin to start attending The Art Institute of Portland…
Lots of new music on the radio! Tune in at: http://78.105.9.201:8000/ We added 6 more hours of music, and more is on the way. Also, our spoken word channel is chock a block full of poetry, lectures and comedy… We are planning to start having featured radio-shows if time allows. (new magazine/journal coming up…) So check the station out!
(From what I understand Earthrites in general will be getting a facelift over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for that as well.)
Good news from Oz: Undergrowth Magazine Is about to launch their first printed publication: Journeybook Rak Razam and friends have received funding to get this little darling off the ground, and I am very excited about it! Hopefully we will have some of the crew over later this summer for a stop at Burning Man, and points around on a promotional tour. (That would be very cool!)
Well, gotta hop. Life beyond the screen is calling, and there is beauty to be revealed!
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Links

Cultural Linkage: The Animated Mural…

Diegueño Creation Myth

Poetry From Mike Hoffman

Vibrasphere – Radio Edit In Control

Art: Lawrence Alma-Tadema

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The Links:

Vandals Attack Stonehenge

Sharks Face Extinction…

San Francisco Leads The Way…

Cannabis News From Oz

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From My Friend Paul R! Enjoy!

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

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Religious Practices of the Diegueño Indians, by T.T. Waterman, [1910],

Diegueño Creation Myth…

(- This is one of the few ethnographic studies of the original religious practices of the Native American residents of San Diego county. Called Diegueño by Europeans after the mission which named the city, they today call themselves Kumeyaay, a term of unknown meaning. Waterman wrote that his consultants called themselves Kawakipai, or ‘Southern People.’ This monograph includes songs with text in Diegueño and English, descriptions of ceremonies, ceremonial objects, gambling games, sand paintings and origin myths. This text will be of immense value to contemporary Native Californians as well as scholars and students.
Of note is what appears, in hindsight, to be an early description of the UFO activity that continues over southern California to this day. Waterman, with nothing to compare it to, decided that the being called Tcaup was actually ball-lightning. However, here is his description of the native accounts: “The being described in the myths is widely thought to be accompanied by thunderings, to have a ‘bright’ or ‘beaming’ appearance, and to fly about close to the surface of the ground.” -)
In the beginning there was no earth or land. There was nothing except salt water. This covered everything like a big sea. Two brothers lived under this water. The oldest one was Tcaipakomat.
Both of them kept their eyes closed, for the salt would blind them. The oldest brother after awhile went up on top of the salt water and looked around. He could see nothing but water. Soon the younger brother too came up. He opened his eyes on the way and the salt water blinded him. When he got to the top he could see nothing at all, so he went back. When the elder brother saw that there was nothing, he made first of all little red ants, miskiluwi (or ciracir). They filled the water up thick with their bodies and so made land. Then Tcaipakomat caused certain black birds with flat bills, xanyil, to come into being. There was no sun or light when he made these birds. So they were lost and could not find their roost. So Tcaipakomat took three kinds of clay, red, yellow, and black, and made a round, flat object. This he took in his hand and threw up against the sky. It stuck there. It began to give a dim light. We call it the moon now, halya. The light was so poor that they could not see very far. So Tcaipakomat was not satisfied, for he had it in mind to make people. He took some more clay and made another round, flat object and tossed that up against the other side of the sky. It also stuck there. It made everything light. It is the sun, inyau. Then he took a light-colored piece of clay, mutakwic, and split it up part way. He made a man of it. That is the way he made man. Then he took a rib 149 from the man and made a woman. This woman was Sinyaxau, First Woman. 150 The children of this man and this woman were people, ipai. They lived in the east at a great mountain called Wikami. 151 If you go there now you will hear all kinds of singing in all languages. If you put your ear to the ground you will hear the sound of dancing. This is caused by the spirits of all the dead people. They go back there when they die and dance just as they do here. That is the place where everything was created first.
A big snake lived out in the ocean over in the west. He was called Maihaiowit. 152 He was the same as Tcaipakomat but had taken another form. This big snake had swallowed all learning. All the arts were inside his body—singing, dancing, basket-making, and all the others. The place where the snake lived was called Wicuwul (Coronado Islands?) The people at this time at Wikami wished to have an Image Ceremony. They had made a wokeruk, ceremonial house, but did not know what else to do. They could neither dance nor make speeches. One man knew more than the others. He told them they ought to do more than just build the house, so that the people who came after them would have something to do. So they made up their minds to send to Maihaiowit and ask him to give them the dances. Another sea monster, Xamilkotat, was going to swallow everyone who tried to go out to Maihaiowit. So the people said the man who went had better change himself into a bubble.
So the man who had first spoken about the matter changed himself into a bubble. The monster swallowed him anyway. When he found himself down inside he first went north, but he could find no way out. Then he went south, east, and west but could find no way out. Then he reached his hand toward the north—he was a wonderful medicine-man—and got a blue flint, awi-haxwa. He broke this so as to get a sharp edge. Then he cut a hole through the monster and got out. Then he went on and on till he got to the place where Maihaiowit lived. The snake had a big circular house, with the door in the top. The man went in there. When the snake saw him he called out:
Mamapitc inyawa maxap meyo (Who-are-you my-house hole comes-in?)
The man answered:
Inyatc eyon enuwi (I it-is, Uncle) .
“Tell me what you want,” said the snake.
“I came over from Wikami,” said the man. “They are trying to make a wukeruk ceremony there, but they don’t know how to sing or dance.”
“All right,” said the snake, “I will come and teach them. You go ahead and I will come slowly.”
So the man went back. The monster came after him reaching from mountain to mountain. He left a great white streak over the country where he went along. You can still see it. The people at Wikami were expecting him, so they cleared a space. He came travelling fast as a snake travels. He went to the wukeruk. First he put his head in. Then he began slowly pulling his length in after him. He coiled and coiled, but there was no end to his length. After he had been coiling a long time the people became afraid at his size. So they threw fire on top of the house and burned him. When they put the fire on him he burst. All the learning inside of him came flying out. It was scattered all around. Each tribe got some one thing. That is the reason one tribe knows the wildcat dance and another the wukeruk and a third are good at peon. Some people got to be witches or medicine-men (kwusiyai), and orators, but not many.
The head of Maihaiowit was burned to a cinder. The rest of his body went back west. It did not go very far. In the Colorado river there is a great, white ridge of rock. That is his body. A black mountain near by is his head. The people go to the white rock and make spearheads.
After the house was burned up, the people were not satisfied, so they scattered in all directions. The people who went south were the oldest. They are called Akwal, Kwiliyeu, and Axwat. The rocks were still soft when the people scattered abroad over the earth. Wherever one of them stepped he left a footprint. The hollows around in all the rocks are where they set down their loads when they rested.
Even a hasty reading of this myth makes evident its dissimilarity with the ordinary Luiseño and Mohave accounts of creation. It may be well to add in this place that a systematic comparison of the narratives in detail confirms the impression of dissimilarity conveyed at first blush by the general structure and underlying idea of the story. 153 A certain external relation between the myth outlined above and the Mohave story 154 is of course apparent. The mountain Wikami, for instance in the present story, and the monster Maihaiowit, correspond to the Mohave “Avikwame” and the monster “Humasareha.” This relationship does not seem to extend down into the story-elements proper.
It is of course impossible to determine at this time, either from the myth just quoted or from other versions, just what elements enter properly into the Diegueño myth. All the evidence extant, however, points quite unmistakably to the conclusion that as far as the mythology of Creation is concerned, the Diegueño are thoroughly independent of the Shoshonean peoples north of them.
It must be noted in passing that the “meteor&#82
21; or electric fireball, Diegueño Tcaup or Kwiyaxomar (Cuyahomarr), Luiseño Takwish, Mohave Kwayu, is also prominent in all the mythologies of the Mission area. 155 As a corollary to the theme discussed just above, it is to be observed that the Diegueño give this subject, too, a characteristic treatment of their own. The physical phenomenon which is the basis of the stories is apparently the same everywhere, namely, ball-lightning. A certain confusion has arisen in this regard, owing to the use in various papers of the word “meteor” to describe the manifestation. The presence of this word in the literature of the subject is in all likelihood to be charged to a loose employment of the term, in the first place, by uneducated native informants. The being described in the myths is widely thought to be accompanied by thunderings, to have a “bright” or “beaming” appearance, and to fly about close to the surface of the ground. These traits unmistakably characterize ball-lightning rather than meteors. 156 The terrific action of the electric fireball would, at least in the mind of the present writer, account in part for the terror in which the being is held by all the Mission peoples. However this may be, the Luiseño and Mohave “cannibal meteor” stories offer almost no similarity (outside of concerning the same subject) to the corresponding Diegueño tale. This being, who as we have seen is the culture hero of the Diegueño, is apparently regarded as a malevolent demon among the Luiseño and Mohave.
It is perhaps too early to say that the Diegueño have no myths other than the Chaup and Creation stories. We may safely conclude however that these two are by far the most important types of myth. It is also safe to say concerning Diegueño mythology that while it seems to be restricted in scope, its affiliations are to be sought, not among the mythology of the Shoshoneans as has at times been suggested, but among that of the peoples, related linguistically to the Diegueño, who live to the south and east.

Footnotes
338:148 Miss DuBois gives Tuchaipa as the elder and Yokomat or Yokomatis as the younger, but says (Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XXI, 229, 1908; and Congr. Intern. American., XV, Quebec, II, 131, 1906) that the two names are sometimes given in one: Chaipakomat.
339:149 This may be an original element and not a gloss from the Biblical myth. The informant is a “bronco” (unbaptized) Indian, who has never been under the influence of the missionaries.
339:150 From siny, woman, and axau, first; apparently the same as Miss DuBois’ Sinyohauch (Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XVII, 222, 1904), in which the final ch is guttural.
339:151 Cf. present series, VIII, 123, 1908; Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 315, 1906; Am. Anthropologist, n.s. VII, 627, 1905.
339:152 Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 315, 1906; XXI, 235, 1908; Am. Anthr., n.s., VII, 627, 1905.
341:152a A full account of the Yuma creation story has been contributed by Mr. John P. Harrington to the Journal of American Folk-Lore, XXI, 324, 1908. The relationship between the above schematic account and Mr. Harrington’s full version of the Yuma story is at once evident.
341:153 See Am. Anthr., n.s. XI, 41-55, 1909. Thirteen prominent story elements are there chosen for study. Of these, it develops that the Mohave and Luiseño myths have nine in common. The Diegueño story, on the other hand, has only three elements in common with the Luiseño, and but two in common with the Mohave. This is quite insignificant, since any two totally unrelated mythologies might to this limited extent be similar.
341:154 Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, XIX, 314, 1906.
342:155 Ibid., 316. Ibid., XVII, 217, 1904. Ibid., XIX, 147, 1906.
342:156 The present writer has never met the word “meteor” in this connection among native informants, and has found the being in question identified both in Luiseño and Diegueño territory with the electric fireball.

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Poetry From Mike Hoffman…
Light
Phantom photons, wily waves

everywhere, all at once.

Light knows the future,

because it’s already there,

alive and intelligent,

with philosophic qualities.

Light can see through you,

because it is you,

it will talk to you,

if you will listen,

with your mind’s eye.
We are sculptures of light

creating shadows,

and expressing ideas;

we are an idea.

Light purifies and cleanses,

dries our clothes,

and makes our garden grow.

Light is an invisible medium,

existing in other dimensions,

and in many colors.

Because of its intelligence,

light is infinite and knows all,

it can creep up on you,

tap you on the shoulder,

and step into you.
—
Into Your Own
Does anyone really know

the true definition

of a mistake?

Pulling out of trouble

is a calibrating realization,

it’s the decision that’s important,

not what you decide.

We only see a sliver

of what’s really going on,

decisions define us;

the recovery is what matters.
No-one has to know

why it is what it is.

It’s not possible to know

the complexity of a mistake

the little slips

will always be there

to refine us, into our own.

Wily events define our luminosity,

an indirect gaze

will let all the light in,

and it will come to you.

—
Life After Death
Give it up early

before the body falls away

Concerns of the flesh

will die with the flesh

Our lives begin every moment

willing the pain body

with a longing,

a feeling,

that leavens flesh,

with shining eyes,

to different points of reference.
The intent of awareness

is the will to do so.

Practice the move

into permeating presence

manifesting subtle realms.

With magical methods of engineering

the mutant’s form of intent

will find each other,

along with the certainty,

that the end,

can be your friend.

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Vibrasphere – Radio Edit In Control

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The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye. The story of love is hello and good-bye…

until we meet again.

– Jimi Hendrix

Working on art, houses, and re-integrating back into city life after a couple of days at the beach with good friends, good food, drink, and weather… beauty indeed!
I have found that I am being propelled along with the art work, and ideas. I need to journal again to start bringing it all back in focus…
I picked up a bike helmet, and started to ride again. I had forgotten what a pleasure it is. Back up at it, and hopefully keeping at it.
Politics everywhere it seems, Barack Obama took Oregon and Sam Adams took the job of Mayor. I am happy for Sam, he has long been an advocate for the local artist! I hope good things come from his administration.
Congrats to Obama, but please, may we have a platform to mull over?
Take care, and enjoy your Turfing!

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On The Menu:

Chant Sephardic Andalou – Maroc

DMT ~ Water Spirit A Magical Link

The Sacred Poetry of Solomon ibn Gabirol

Tlemcen de Tetma le doux chant Andalou

Art: Rudolf Ernst
Enjoy Your Day!
Gwyllm

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Chant Sephardic Andalou – Maroc

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DMT ~ WATER SPIRIT A MAGICAL LINK
Taken from The Essential Psychedelic Guide by D.M. Turner – Copyright 1994, Panther Press

In my descriptions of psychedelic experiences thus far, I have attempted to describe the range of effects that most users encounter. However, in some cases psychedelic experiences can become quite unique and personal. I’ve had a most unusual relationship with N.N. DMT, which has led to my discovering a magical alliance between N.N. DMT and the spirit of water.
When I first encountered N.N. DMT I quickly became an aficionado, and began smoking either 5-MEG or N.N. DMT two or three times each week. Over the next two years I used DMT approximately 100 times.
My natural curiosity has led me to take psychedelics in as many different settings as possible. I’ve taken psychedelics in the peaks of the Sierras and at mountain lakes, in desert wilderness and rugged canyons, in local parks and open space preserves, at the ocean, in tropical forests, in airplanes, even while hanging upside-down in amusement park rides. I’ve also had numerous experiences in a variety of indoor environments. Given this inclination, it’s an unlikely coincidence that I never smoked DMT near a body of water until I’d been using it for several years. It was the contrast between this experience and my many other DMT trips which provided the basis for my discovering this magical link.
When I began smoking N.N. DMT my experiences over the first few months were bright, positive, enjoyable, and ever touching new dimensions. Some aspects of certain experiences had been quite frightening. However, the scary episodes only led to a deeper understanding of myself and the realms to which DMT introduced me.
After about four months of use I began to lose some of the rapport I had experienced with DMT, accompanied by a reduction in the frequency of my use.
Shortly thereafter I took a vacation to Arizona with plans to take psychedelics while backpacking in several desert areas. The first leg of my journey brought me to the vicinity of Mt. Lemon, just south of Tucson. This was to be my first experience smoking DMT in the Southwest, and I was anticipating an experience as magical as my previous trips in the desert.
However, the results were entirely different than what I’d expected, and completely unlike any of my previous DMT experiences. I felt a deep fear which is hard to speak of. I sensed the presence of death, despair, and loneliness. I felt haunted by some mysterious evil, and I thought of the word “spooky” to describe the unsettling feeling this experience left me with. The feeling of “enchantment,” which is normally delightful on DMT, had become something sinister. And I was quite baffled as to how this occurred.
From Mt. Lemon I drove south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, In this beautiful “green” desert I took Ketamine while outdoors for the first time. This proved to be an excellent journey, and I found that the environment entered into the Ketamine experience even though I was quite unaware of my body and surroundings. The next day’s “trip” entailed consuming a large section of Trichocereus macrogonus, which I had brought with me, and small pieces of two local cacti, the Organ Pipe cactus and the Saguaro. The latter of these is said to contain psychoactive alkaloids.
The third stop of my journey was in Sedona where I hiked into the red rock cliffs. Not one to be intimidated by any psychedelic experience, I tried smoking DMT again. This experience was even more frightening than the last. I was overwhelmed by dread and terror. And although it was a cool March evening at 7,000 ft. elevation, I produced so much sweat on my forehead that it dripped down my face while the rest of my body remained dry. I’ve heard the analogy of someone being so scared they produced beads of sweat on their forehead, but I never knew this was literally possible.
I saved the Grand Canyon for the last portion of my journey, since I knew that no other sight could match its spectacular beauty and intensity. A few years back I had a wonderful experience taking acid in the Grand Canyon, and I dropped a couple hits as I began my descent. I was again in awe as I walked through “God’s playground” where every rock became a jewel and each bend in the trail exposed more of this impossible work of art. Inside the Canyon I find that I enter a non-linear time state. While the erosion which created the canyon presents a vast timescape, I experience the ever-changing terrain as always alive within a continual state of flux. Formations that appear dead from one perspective are beginning a new phase of life from another. The music and lyrics of Hendrix capture the feeling of the moment. “I float in liquid gardens way down in Arizona’s new red sands. “,
Some people claim that LSD is too cold and synthetic to provide a mystical nature experience. I have not heard this from anyone who’s dropped acid and hiked into the Grand Canyon, although T noticed an even larger amount of synergy when I had the opportunity to take synthetic mescaline in the Canyon a couple years later.
After returning home from Arizona, whenever I smoked DMT I would do so with trepidation. I found it difficult to access the realms which I had previously enjoyed on DMT. Despite my determination to break through any barriers, I was not able to succeed. A brief flash of visuals was the highest attainment on most of my trips, and the feeling of magical enchantment had all but departed. I frequently felt that some metaphysical force was preventing my progress, and I now believe this must certainly have been the case. Although I continued to work with DMT, as the satisfaction of the experience diminished, so did the frequency of my use. I logged only 15 DMT tryps between my vacation to Arizona and my “water” experience over a year later.
It was a clear, cool May night beneath a new moon when my relation with DMT took a turn. I had joined a group of friends for a boat ride up the Petaluma River off of San Francisco Bay. I’m not much of a seafarer and had never tripped on a boat before. The majority of my boating experience has been on the choppy waters of the sea or the bay, and the thought of spending a trip puking over the side of a boat never much appealed to me. This evening I was in for a surprise!
I had brought along some acid and a bit of DMT. I had no intention of pre-dosing with Harmala alkaloids and smoking enough DMT for the full effects, but I thought that some light DMT “dusting” may be enjoyable for all. We cruised up the river for an hour or so and threw the anchor. There we would float for the next nine hours under a sky full of stars and where the current flowing downstream mingled with the ebb and flow of the tide in San Francisco Bay.
I began the evening by dropping 250 mics of acid. This was consumed by nearly all present. I then took a hit of ecstasy since they were being passed around. And after I mentioned that I brought some DMT, one of my friends whipped out some ground Syrian Rue seeds and a pipe.
Smoking non-extracted Syrian Rue can hardly be considered a satisfactory method of assimilating enough Harmala to act as a DMT potentiator, but it does produce an effect. Smoking just a few hits of these seeds while high on acid produced a pleasant buzz. And we figured that the small amount of Harmala would also act as a synergistic enhancement for the DMT.
I was the first to take a hit of DMT, probably about 15 mg. worth. I took my hit in the cabin of the boat and was rewarded with beautiful and enchanting visions. None of the menace that had plagued my recent DMT tryps was present, and the luxurious and magical qualities had returned. I continued to load small hits of DMT in the pipe and pass it amongst my friends, each of whom reported a serene and beautiful experience.
Before taking my second hit I left the cabin of the boat, snuggled under blankets with friends, and ventured into the brisk air outside on the deck. I had been planning to take my second hit lying on the roof of the
boat looking up at the stars. However, one member of our group just had his first-ever DMT experience while on the deck of the boat. And after listening to his fanatical hooting, hollering, and raving about how “it started with the patterns in the water and went up into the air, then it came down from the stars and connected in the sky…”, I decided to take my second hit while looking out over the water.
I smoked my hit and the effect was truly magical. Although I was not too high to observe my surroundings, the experience had all the qualities that I desire in DMT. The profound effect the water imparted to my experience was immediately obvious. The current, tide, and wind, playing with the surface of the water, and the reflected light from the sky was absolutely mesmerizing and enchanting. The synchronism between the visions I saw with my eyes open, and those seen with my eyes closed was phenomenally amazing. It seemed that the patterns on the water were responsible for these visions, as well as the profoundly magical and harmonious mental/emotional state to which I found myself transported.
At this time I was in the midst of reading Terence McKenna’s True Hallucinations. This book describes his psychedelic adventures in the Amazon jungle, many of which took place on the banks of the Amazon River. It immediately dawned on me that the river must have played a large part in creating the setting for his mystical trips. The harmony between DMT and the river was clearly present.
It was not until a day later that I became aware of the magical link between DMT and water, and that DMT is most compatible when used in the vicinity of water. This knowledge actually came to me not while high on DMT, but while tripping on Ketamine and a 2-CB-like substance, with Ketamine being the primary factor.
Both Ketamine and N.N. DMT can take me to a world where leprechauns and munchkins chatter with me, and I can understand the language of the birds chirping away. With Ketamine I enter this world frequently if I’m taking it in combination with psilocybin or 2-CB. It was while in such a state that one of these leprechaun creatures whispered in my ear that “DMT is a Water Spirit plant.
In addition to the “verbal” message, this elfin creature also transmitted thoughts, images, and knowledge, the essence being that the DMT spirit likes to be in the vicinity of water, that DMT is more likely to bestow peaceful visions and experiences on those who use it while maintaining this link, that DMT detests being away from water, and those who use DMT removed from water will often experience its wrath.
Simultaneous with this transmission I was able to see how my own experience with DMT fit this pattern. 1 have described my experiences using DMT in the desert in areas devoid of water. These were the negative extremes.
I’ve also smoked DMT in moist areas. I distinctly recall my two DMT tryps in Hana on Maul. My first experience was done indoors during the evening. The sliding door to the back patio was open, and through it floated the sounds of a stream with splashing pools and waterfalls that flowed by some 30 feet away. My second experience took place on the front yard of the estate during the daytime. The stream was still audible, and had I been sitting up I could have looked out over the ocean less than a mile away.
When I took this second hit I lay down under a giant coconut palm, staring up into its bountiful clusters of fruit while sunlight filtered through its giant drooping fronds. These were two of the most luxurious, peaceful, and magical DMT tryps I’ve had. In front of my closed eyelids the creative force was generating intricate visions of beauty at a rate approaching a billion per second! I saw harmonious and magically charged scenes which intermingled nature, plants, animals, spirits, people, and what I took to be ancient Hawaiian Gods.
I can also remember some experiences smoking DMT at home when it was raining outside. These tryps stood out from the norm as being delightfully enchanting, with the elfin energies being extremely abundant and rambunctious.
Another odd point that struck my awareness was the coincidence of the places I have not smoked DMT. I’ve already remarked that it was an unusual coincidence that I had never smoked DMT near water, given my penchant for taking psychedelics in a multitude of outdoor environments. This is exaggerated by the fact that I live near the ocean, and my normal routines take me jogging or bicycling along the beach once or twice each week.
There could be two logical explanations for this as well. One is that DMT is not something one tends to use in public, reducing the likelihood of my smoking DMT at the local beach. The second reason, which I discovered soon enough, is that with the normally windy conditions of the California coast it is difficult to keep a lighter burning, much less get a proper hit of DMT.
However, based on internal perceptions from my many DMT tryps, I feel that something which exists in a metaphysical realm was trying to prevent me from gaining knowledge of the DMT-Water Spirit connection. It seems that these energies are somehow threatened by my having this knowledge, and that my discovery of this information and subsequent spreading of this knowledge is an unleashing and upheaval of powerful shamanic forces. Indeed on the first evening following my discovery I had dreams throughout the night where I was battling or fending off malevolent non-physical entities.
One other occasion at which I did not smoke DMT should also be noted. Seven months prior to my “water” experience I went backpacking in Death Valley. Although I brought along Peyote, LSD, and Ketamine, I did not bring any DMT. This could have been due to the poor rapport I was experiencing with DMT at the time. But it may have been the result of some omen, instinct, or intuition, which caused me to avoid bringing DMT to the driest spot in the country.
Another notion which this leprechaun imparted to me is that in the Amazon region, where DMT has been used by the natives for millennia, it is most frequently consumed in the Ayahuasca beverage. Another traditional method of administration is the snorting of concentrated DMT snuffs. However, I’ve never heard of a native method of consumption which involves burning, or putting a flame to the DMT. Yet some of the native preparations would certainly have produced a strong effect if used in this manner. Up to this time all of my DMT journeys had been through smoking, but this would soon change.
My discovery of the DMT – Water Spirit connection took place shortly before I was to go to Hawaii. There I would have many opportunities to smoke DMT where waterfalls, streams, pools, and ocean abound.
While in Hawaii I smoked DMT twice along the awesome and beautiful Napali coast of Kauai. I was anticipating experiences similar to what I’d had on the boat. But I received another lesson that DMT experiences are never predictable, or subject to fitting into my preconceptions. The energy of natural environments seems to frequently affect a DMT tryp, and this was quite prevalent in this intense setting.
For my first hit I was sitting naked in the middle of a stream, on the ledge of a waterfall, with my legs dangling over the side and water flowing over my body from the waist down. As I took the hit I was looking seaward, and focusing on the stream. The sensation was peaceful, yet not the deep serenity I had experienced on the boat. As I lay down to submerge my back in the water I found myself staring up into a grove of Koa trees. The energy from these trees was sharp and lively, much more vibrant than any of the trees I’d been around when smoking DMT in California. The Koa trees’ energy shattered the sensations I’d experienced while looking at the water, but it was a pleasant, shimmering intensity. I then stood up, turned around, and looked into the majestic, silken-sheened mountains behind me. My response to the m
ountains’ energy nearly made me fall over. The mountains of the Napali coast are like no others in the world. The highest rainfall levels on earth have eroded these volcanic remains into sheer, razor-sharp contours covered with a dense blanket of tropical foliage. They rise to nearly 4,000 ft. in just a short distance from the sea. At the time of my visit these mountains were even more ferocious looking than usual. The hurricane which devastated Kauai the previous fall had stripped off nearly all foliage and branches above 10 feet, leaving thousands of silver tree skeletons in its wake.
The sight of these mountains invoked a fear in me. Not of something evil, but of something so powerful and durable that human frailty is greatly magnified. To get an idea of this feeling try to imagine an ant in the midst of an elephant stampede, suddenly becoming cognizant of the situation.
I then tried switching my vision between the mountains and the stream. I found that the water acted as a grounding force, preventing me from being overwhelmed by the intensity of the mountains.
A couple months later I began experiments with ingested DMT which I’ve found to be very significant. As mentioned before, DMT is never smoked or burned in the cultures where a shamanic tradition exists. It seems to me that DMT is adverse to fire. It may yield positive results to those who begin with, or only know of this method of use. But in my case at least, it eventually led me to this preferred ancient method of use.
Before ingesting the DMT I take four grams of Syrian Rue and wait until MAO inhibition is in effect. I’ve had good results using about 160 to 200 mg. of DMT. This is far more than is required for smoking, but it produces a three to four hour experience. I’ve found it best to consume the DMT over half an hour to allow for a more gradual inebriation. With smoked DMT the “flash” is part of its legendary effects. But a more gradual ascent allows the experience to unfold in a more natural manner, as occurs with LSD, mushrooms, mescaline, or the Ayahuasca beverage.
The content of an ingested DMT experience is quite different than the traditional psychedelics. And after my first such experience I came away with the conviction that this was deep and serious, making LSD and mushrooms seem like child’s play in comparison. The experience tends to unfold before me, and I find I must maintain sharp awareness to understand the messages being conveyed. The scenes are rich, vivid, emotionally charged, and filled with symbols and archetypal images that feel imbued with deep meaning and significance. The speed at which visual images develop is slower than with those that accompany the “flash” of smoked DMT. I’ve found that this allows me to absorb the content of the images more fully.
With ingested DMT I’ve had visions which challenge Ketamine visuals for vastness and cosmicity. Yet these DMT visuals had a degree of realism I’ve never before encountered. The images were so real, so alive, palpable, and tangible that I could almost taste them. And I nearly felt that I could reach into their dimension and physically touch them. At times it was as though I was a spectator watching a performance of the grand universal theater. But at other times entities in the visions were quite aware of my presence, and were able to metamorphose as a means of communicating to me. The play-like elfin chatter which accompanies many smoked DMT tryps has also been present during these journeys. In nearly all manners, these ingested DMT tryps have exceeded my experience of smoked DMT.
In order to find out if DMT affected other people similarly when used near water, I interviewed friends that have used DMT several times. I found that most of them have not used DMT outdoors at all, and only a few have used DMT near water or in a desert. None of these people knew what I was seeking when asking about their DMT experiences in different outdoor environments. Yet approximately 75% of those who had used DMT near water reported some of their most profound tryps in this environment. A couple people who had not smoked DMT near water also had water play an important role in their experiences. The one person who had smoked DMT in a desert had begun on a powerful shamanic journey, but had to disengage as the intensity and fear that he couldn’t handle the ride increased. And a few people reported experiences too intense to enjoy when using DMT in the presence of fire.
Since discovering this link I have spent lots of time thinking about its application. That this knowledge can be used by DMT smokers to increase the chances of a positive experience is the most obvious use. This may allow DMT smokers to gain reliable access to DMT’s magical aspects, and through developing this alliance, to enter into the shamanic world. However, since becoming aware of this connection I feel that mastery of the DMT experience is still many steps away, or that it may even be something which one can never truly have a firm grasp on.
Perhaps this is a stepping stone in humanity’s reestablishing its relationship with DMT. We may be at a turning point where DMT will be removed from obscurity and become a “mainstream” psychedelic.
I’m also curious as to what science will find in relation to this theory. Since DMT is normally present in the brain, blood, and spinal fluid of humans, it would be interesting to see how the levels change in people who live in dry or wet areas, or who travel between these areas. I’d also like to see how DMT is metabolized by the brain and the body in different climates. I suspect it would be different.
Another useful study would be to chart the numerous plants throughout the world that contain DMT. To my knowledge most of these plants grow in areas with abundant water, but a study done by an expert botanist would be more conclusive. And from a cultural perspective, do any of the native users of DMT ascribe a link between DMT and water, and is this link present in their rituals and practices?
Something else I’ve speculated about is whether DMT is one portion of an alchemical formula. If DMT corresponds to water, is it possible that some other substances correspond to earth, air, and fire? And would a combination of these substances bring one to the ultimate state of consciousness” ?
If this is so, there are many possible candidates for the other substances. Could the psilocybin mushroom be an Earth Spirit? What would happen if one were to take psilocybin away from earth, say in a space shuttle or an airplane? The Harmala alkaloids are also an important factor here. I should note that this link I’m describing exists between N.N. DMT and water. Whether a similar link exists for 5-MEO-DMT I can not presently say. And virtually all of my N.N. DMT experiences have been done in combination with Harmala alkaloids.
One of my courses for future study will be to continue psychedelic use in different areas. I will be looking for distinct differences in the experiences produced in different settings. In the past I have focused on combinations where I’d expect a positive synergy. This has often been the natural habitat of the substance I was consuming, like taking cactus in the desert or mushrooms in the forest. I have yet to try many opposing combinations such as mushrooms in the desert or cactus in snow-covered mountain peaks.
As of yet though, DMT is the only psychedelic to produce highly positive results in one natural environment, and equally negative results in a reversed environment. Since becoming aware of this connection my relationship with DMT has become strongly positive. I feel I now have an ally for venturing into this fascinating world of the unknown.

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The Sacred Poetry of Solomon ibn Gabirol

AT THE DAWN
At the dawn I seek Thee,

Rock and refuge tried,

In due service speak Thee

Morn and eventide.
‘Neath Thy greatness shrinking,

Stand I sore afraid,

All my secret thinking

Bare before Thee laid.
Little to Thy glory

Heart or tongue can do;

Small remains the story,

Add we spirit too.
Yet since man’s praise ringing

May seem good to Thee,

I will praise Thee singing

While Thy breath’s in me.

—
LET THE ISLES REJOICE
Let the numerous isles rejoice with trembling,

For He is high and exalted and acknowledged as One

In the height of the firmament.

The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice.

The clouds acclaim Thee beyond every other power,

In every mouth is thy unity uttered,

And by the people of God is Thy praise proclaimed.

And who is like to Thy people Israel,

The one nation on earth,

To give thanks to Thee upstanding,

O God inhabiting the heights,

And to proclaim Thee as One?

The Lord reigneth, let the nations quake.

He sitteth among the Cherubim, let the earth tremble.

The scattered shalt Thou assemble and the sighing redeem,

To Thy holy house Thou shalt lead them with rejoicing,

And from earth’s four corners gather the exiles.

—
TO MY SOUL
Be wise, my precious soul, and haste

To bow to God in reverence.

Let vanities no more be chased,

Bethink thee ere this world lies waste,

The world that waits thee going hence.
Thy life to God’s life is akin,

Concealed like His beneath a veil,

Since He is free of flaw or sin,

Like purity thou too canst win,

To reach perfection wherefore fail?
And as His arm upholds the sky,

Do thou thy dumb brute body lift,

Thou, soul, to which we can descry

No like on earth—O magnify

The God of whom thou art the gift.
Greet then, my soul, thy Rock with praise,

Hail him, my inmost heart, with song

Unceasingly throughout my days,

And let all souls their voices raise

My benediction to prolong.

—
INVOCATION
Root of our saviour,

The scion of Jesse,

Till when wilt thou linger,

Invisible, buried?

Bring forth a flower,

For winter is over!
Why should a slave rule

The lineage of princes,

A hairy barbarian

Replace our young sovran?
The years are a thousand

Since, broken and scattered,

We wander in exile,

Like waterfowl lost in

The depths of the desert.
No man in white linen

Reveals at our asking

The end of our Exile.

God sealed up the matter,

And closed up the knowledge.

—

THREE THINGS CONSPIRE
Three things conspire together in mine eyes

To bring the remembrance of Thee ever before me,

And I possess them as faithful witnesses:

Thy heavens, for whose sake I recall Thy name,

The earth I live on, that rouseth my thought

With its expanse which recalleth the expander of my pedestal,

And the musing of my heart when I look within the depths of myself.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, for ever and aye!

_________

Tlemcen de Tetma le doux chant Andalou

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Portland’s first sunny weekend, and I am typing away trying to get outside and enjoy the beauty that is Oregon in May. It was ungodly hot yesterday (97f well for me hot!), and may do the same today.. so hold onto your hats!
Lots on the weekend entry, and don’t forget Radio Free Earthrites! Much going on if you want to give it a listen.
Rowan has two weeks left in his High School Career. He is chuffed about it, but yet finds it hard to drag himself down to school every day. Off to college soon!
Have A Good Weekend!
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

Visions Of Frisco

Ah… Suze Rotolo

Suze Rotolo & Robert…

Apparitions from Fairyland

Poetry: Teixeira de Pascoaes-Portuguese Mystic…

A wee tip of the hat: Bertolt Brecht Collage

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Visions Of Frisco

Walter Medeiros has released the long anticipated opus of Wilfred Satty, ‘Visions Of Frisco’… Walter has assembled after long years doing research, and raising funding to finally publish his friends Satty’s last work. This is an amazing book, and being a limited edition very desirable for the collector. We have included a handy ordering form for you to order it with, or check out Amazon at this time. Hopefully it will soon be in at Powell’s.
Walter did the wordsmithing on this, and it reads beautifully, and is visually stunning. (of course) It is a rich assemblage, and does honor to Satty’s final collage project.
Pickit up for beauties sake, and to explore the early history of San Francisco in a wonderful hallucinogenic visual portrayal.
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Ah… Suze Rotolo. One of those iconic images from another time. Generally speaking I am not nostalgic for periods in my life. I mean, right now is pretty good, and I have much to be thankful for. Oh yeah, I ache in places where I used to party, and it does take me by surprise…
There are times I am nostalgic for, but they are generally removed from the period of our lifetime, or the moments I ponder are like this photo-shoot in New York, removed and so familiar.
I listen mostly to music that is very current. I abhor getting stuck in past periods, though I do dip into them on occasion. Edith Piaf, Bertolt Brecht, Bob Dylan, Moondog, Eric Satie… all visit the cd player. Yet, I sit now listening to Solar Fields, being transported to a place of bliss…. 80) Okay, I am rambling.
Suze Rotolo has a new book of interest, and this interview:Suze Rotolo on NPR
Check out the book:New York Times Review of Freewheelin’ Time…
and purchase it here: A Freewheelin’ TIme, by Suze Rotolo
I listened to the interview the other day, and I am considering buying the book… A wonderful time in our collective history.

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Suze Rotolo & Robert…

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Apparitions from Fairyland
[Note: This is taken from W.Y. Evans Wentz’s The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries.]
Clondalkin
THE TESTIMONY OF A COLLEGE PROFESSOR
Our next witness is the Rev. Father – ‘a professor in a Catholic college in West Ireland, and most of his statements are based on events which happened among his own acquaintances and relatives, and his deductions are the result of careful investigation :-
Apparitions from Fairyland.- ‘Some twenty to thirty years ago, on the borders of County Roscommon near County Sligo, according to the firm belief of one of my own relatives, a sister of his was taken by the fairies on her wedding-night, and she appeared to her mother afterwards as an apparition. She seemed to want to speak, but her mother, who was in bed at the time, was thoroughly frightened, and turned her face to the wall. The mother is convinced that she saw this apparition of her daughter, and my relative thinks she might have saved her.
‘This same relative who gives it as his opinion that his sister was taken by the fairies, at a different time saw the apparition of another relative of mine who also, according to similar belief, had been taken by the fairies when only five years old. The child-apparition appeared beside its living sister one day while the sister was going from the yard into the house, and it followed her in. It is said the child was taken because she was such a good girl.’
Nature of the Belief in Fairies.-
‘As children we were always afraid of fairies, and were taught to say “ God bless them! God bless them!” whenever we heard them mentioned.
‘In our family we always made it a point to have clean water in the house at night for the fairies.
‘If anything like dirty water was thrown out of doors after dark it was necessary to say “ Hugga, hugga salach!” as a warning to the fairies not to get their clothes wet.
‘Untasted food, like milk, used to be left on the table at night for the fairies. If you were eating and food fell from you, it was not right to take it back, for the fairies wanted it. Many families are very serious about this even now. The luckiest thing to do in such cases is to pick up the food and eat just a speck of it and then throw the rest away to the fairies.
‘Ghosts and apparitions are commonly said to live in isolated thorn-bushes, or thorn-trees. Many lonely bushes of this kind have their ghosts. For example, there is Fanny’s Bush, Sally’s Bush, and another I know of in County Sligo near Boyle.’
Personal Opinions.- ‘ The fairies of any one race are the people of the preceding race-the Fomors for the Fir Boigs, the Fir Boigs for the Dananns, and the Dananns for us. The old races died. Where did they go? They became spirits – and fairies. Second-sight gave our race power to see the inner world. When Christianity came to Ireland the people had no definite heaven. Before, their ideas about the other world were vague. But the older ideas of a spirit world remained side by side with the Christian ones, and being preserved in a subconscious way gave rise to the fairy world.’
EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY ROSCOMMON
Our next place for investigation will be the ancient province of the great fairy-queen Meave, who made herself famous by leading against Cuchulainn the united armies of four of the five provinces of Ireland, and all on account of a bull which she coveted. And there could be no better part of it to visit than Roscommon, which Dr. Douglas Hyde has made popular in Irish folk-lore.
Dr. Hyde and the Leprechaun.-
One day while I was privileged to be at Ratra, Dr. Hyde invited me to walk with him in the country. After we had visited an old fort which belongs to the ‘good people’, and had noticed some other of their haunts in that part of Queen Meave’s realm, we entered a straw-thatched cottage on the roadside and found the good house-wife and her fine-looking daughter both at home. In response to Dr. Hyde’s inquiries, the mother stated that one day, in her girlhood, near a hedge from which she was gathering wild berries, she saw a leprechaun in a hole under a stone :- ‘He wasn’t much larger than a doll, and he was most perfectly formed, with a little mouth and eyes.’ Nothing was told about the little fellow having a money-bag, although the woman said people told her afterwards that she would have been rich if she had only had sense enough to catch him when she had so good a chance.
The Death Coach.-
The next tale the mother told was about the death coach which used to pass by the very house we were in. Every night until after her daughter was born she used to rise up on her elbow in bed to listen to the death coach passing by. It passed about midnight, and she could hear the rushing, the tramping of the horses, and most beautiful singing, just like fairy music, but she could not understand the words. Once or twice she was brave enough to open the door and look out as the coach passed, but she could never see a thing, though there was
the noise and singing. One time a man had to wait on the roadside to let the fairy horses go by, and he could hear their passing very clearly, and couldn’t see one of them.
When we got home, Dr. Hyde told me that the fairies of the region are rarely seen. The people usually say that they hear or feel them only.
The ‘Good People’ and Mr. Gilleran.-
After the mother had testified, the daughter, who is quite of the younger generation, gave her own opinion. She said that the ‘good people’ live in the forts and often take men and women or youths who pass by the forts after sunset; that Mr. Gilleran, who died not long ago, once saw certain dead friends and recognized among them those who were believed to have been taken and those who died naturally, and that he saw them again when he was on his death-bed.
We have here, as in so many other accounts, a clear connexion between the realm of the dead and Fairyland.

THE TESTIMONY OF A LOUGH DERG SEER
Neil Colton, seventy-three years old, who lives in Tamlach Towniand, on the shores of Lough Derg, County Donegal, has a local reputation for having seen the ‘gentle folk’, and so I called upon him. As we sat round his blazing turf fire, and in the midst of his family of three sturdy boys-for he married late in life-this is what he related :-
A Girl Recovered from Faerie.-‘ One day, just before sunset in midsummer, and I a boy then, my brother and cousin and myself were gathering bilberries (whortleberries) up by the rocks at the back of here, when all at once we heard music. We hurried round the rocks, and there we were within a few hundred feet of six or eight of the gentle folk, and they dancing. When they saw us, a little woman dressed all in red came running out from them towards us, and she struck my cousin across the face with what seemed to be a green rush. We ran for home as hard as we could, and when my cousin reached the house she fell dead. Father saddled a horse and went for Father Ryan. When Father Ryan arrived, he put a stole about his neck and began praying over my cousin and reading psalms and striking her with the stole; and in that way brought her back. He said if she had not caught hold of my brother, she would have been taken for ever.’
The ‘Gentle Folk ‘.- ‘ The gentle folk are not earthly people; they are a people with a nature of their own. Even in the water there are men and women of the same character. Others have caves in the rocks, and in them rooms and apartments. These races were terribly plentiful a hundred years ago, and they’ll come back again. My father lived two miles from here, where there were plenty of the gentle folk. In olden times they used to take young folks and keep them and draw all the life out of their bodies. Nobody could ever tell their nature exactly.’

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Poetry: Teixeira de Pascoaes-Portuguese Mystic…

POET
When the first tear welled up

In my eyes, divine clarity

Lit up my village homeland

With the sad light of longing.
How I glow, poor humble things,

As sorrow in your darkness. . .

I am, in the future, time past.

In me, old times are new ages.
I’m a mountain cliff, an astral

Mist, a figment in the morning,

The earthen image of a soul.
I’m man fleeing from himself,

A raving phantom, a living mystery,

God’s delirium, dreams, nothingness.

—
THE MASK
That living and unfettered light

Arriving from a distant, mysterious star

And reflecting off our face,

Making it shine with a strange glow. . .

That hidden lamp which turns our mask

Transparent and radiant

With joy, sorrow or despair

And still other feelings arisen

From an angel’s or a demon’s heart. . .

That true and ideal portrait composed

Of soul and body and whose frame

We are, aimlessly wandering. . .

That’s it, yes, our apparition, us,

Made of stars, shadows, raging winds

And countless centuries, finally emerging

Out here, on earth, in the light of the sun.

—
WIND OF THE SPIRIT

I felt a mysterious wind pass by

In a profound and cosmic whirl.

It took me in its arms; I avidly

Went; and I saw the Spirit of the World.
Earth’s solitary things, glowing

Like an unconscious gaze of night,

Like a tear’s dead light, felt none

Of that tragic gust, which ruffled
Only my soul! O lofty wind!

Wind of Prophecy and Exaltation!

Wind that blows in waves of mystery,

Stirring me up, making me ecstatic!
Strange wind, raging without touching

The tenderest flower! But it inflames

My entire being, causing it to give off

God’s light, love’s light, infinite light!
O wind that nothing resists except

An invisible shadow. . . A forest

Or rough stone is, for you, a wispy

Essence, and I am a rugged cliff.
At night, O crazy wind, you pound

My troubled soul, and a loud whoosh wraps it

And swoops it away; and so it passes

From life to life, and from death to death.
Wind that took me to I don’t know where. . .

But I know I went, and I saw close up,

Before my eyes, the burning mist that hides

God’s ghost, hovering over the desert!
And I also saw the hazy light

That loomed out of the darkness, enlightening

My heart, which soars beyond life,

Shedding its burden of tears.
That great wind overturned

My calm existence; and ancient sorrow

Drenched my mean and feeble body,

Like rain the tatters of a beggar woman.
In a great wind I went; I went and saw:

I saw God’s Shadow. And in that shadow

I lay down, ravished, and felt within me

The earth in bloom and the sky aglitter.

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A wee tip of the hat: Bertolt Brecht Collage

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A short midweek entry… lots of great stuff, take a look!
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Links

Painting the Fantastic

Sparky The…

A Fairy’s Blunder

Old Songs… Sheer Poetry

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The Links:

Melt Into This…

n Wicca We Trust! Is America Ready For A Pagan Or Atheist President?

Okla. governor gets student religious-expression bill

Skeptic, James Randi Breaks-Off Negotiations on DogsThatKnow Experiment

Giant Pythons Could Spread Quickly Across South

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Painting the Fantastic
June 27, 2008 – July 4, 2008

Rhinebeck Campus: Rhinebeck, NY (US)

Tuition: $595 (does not include accommodations or commuter fee)

Course: SM08-2307-367

Tuition discounts are not available. Limited enrollment, register early. More information or a list of things to bring is provided after registration.
This 7-day workshop offers the rare opportunity to learn oil and portrait painting with internationally renowned visionary art masters Robert Venosa and Martina Hoffmann.

Open to both beginner and accomplished artists alike, this workshop takes us on a creative adventure into expressing our personal visual language.

From the initial exercises of free-form painting through to the detailed finished work, we tap into the technical expertise and creative abilities within our reach, while discovering the joy and illuminating power of visionary art.

The program includes introduction and application of the misch technique, oil painting, portrait painting, a power-point lecture on the history of visionary art, presentations by and about the instructors, and a group exhibit.
The visionary art of Robert Venosa has been exhibited worldwide and is represented in major collec-tions. He has done film design (sketches and conceptual design for the movies Dune, Fire in the Sky, and Race for Atlantis), and his work has been featured on several CD covers, including those of Santana and Kitaro. www.venosa.com
German-born artist Martina Hoffmann’s work has been exhibited internationally and has been published in books, calendars, and magazines such as True Visions, Noospheres, Illuminatus, The Return of the Great Goddess, Shaman’s Drum, and WellBeing. She teaches visionary painting techniques around the world with her husband Robert Venosa.

www.martinahoffmann.com
To register please visit:

http://www.eomega.org/omega/workshops/e0687f34bf5d032a5fccd4e45af62ee4/

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Sparky The…

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A Fairy’s Blunder

Once upon a time there lived a fairy whose name was Dindonette. She was the best creature in the world, with the kindest heart; but she had not much sense, and was always doing things, to benefit people, which generally ended in causing pain and distress to everybody concerned. No one knew this better than the inhabitants of an island far off in the midst of the sea, which, according to the laws of fairyland, she had taken under her special protection, thinking day and night of what she could do to make the isle the pleasantest place in the whole world, as it was the most beautiful.
Now what happened was this:
As the fairy went about, unseen, from house to house, she heard everywhere children longing for the time when they would be ‘grown-up,’ and able, they thought, to do as they liked; and old people talking about the past, and sighing to be young again.
‘Is there no way of satisfying these poor things?’ she thought. And then one night an idea occurred to her. ‘Oh, yes, of course! It has been tried before; but I will manage better than the rest, with their old Fountain of Youth, which, after all, only made people young again. I will enchant the spring that bubbles up in the middle of the orchard, and the children that drink of it shall at once become grown men and women, and the old people return to the days of their childhood.’
And without stopping to consult one single other fairy, who might have given her good advice, off rushed Dindonette, to cast her spell over the fountain.
It was the only spring of fresh water in the island, and at dawn was crowded with people of all ages, come to drink at its source. Delighted at her plan for making them all happy, the fairy hid herself behind a thicket of roses, and peeped out whenever footsteps came that way. It was not long before she had ample proof of the success of her enchantments. Almost before her eyes the children put on the size and strength of adults, while the old men and women instantly became helpless, tiny babies. Indeed, so pleased was she with the result of her work, that she could no longer remain hidden, and went about telling everybody what she had done, and enjoying their gratitude and thanks.
But after the first outburst of delight at their wishes being granted, people began to be a little frightened at the rapid effects of the magic water. It was delicious to feel yourself at the height of your power and beauty, but you would wish to keep so always! Now this was exactly what the fairy had been in too much of a hurry to arrange, and no sooner had the children become grown up, and the men and women become babies, than they all rushed on to old age at an appalling rate! The fairy only found out her mistake when it was too late to set it right.
When the inhabitants of the island saw what had befallen them, they were filled with despair, and did everything they could think of to escape from such a dreadful fate. They dug wells in their places, so that they should no longer need to drink from the magic spring; but the sandy soil yielded no water, and the rainy season was already past. They stored up the dew that fell, and the juice of fruits and of herbs, but all this was as a drop in the ocean of their wants. Some threw themselves into the sea, trusting that the current might carry them to other shores–they had no boats–and a few, still more impatient, put themselves to death on the spot. The rest submitted blindly to their destiny.
Perhaps the worst part of the enchantment was, that the change from one age to another was so rapid that the person had no time to prepare himself for it. It would not have mattered so much if the man who stood up in the assembly of the nation, to give his advice as to peace or war, had looked like a baby, as long as he spoke with the knowledge and sense of a full-grown man. But, alas! with the outward form of an infant, he had taken on its helplessness and foolishness, and there was no one who could train him to better things. The end of it all was, that before a month had passed the population had died out, and the fairy Dindonette, ashamed and grieved at the effects of her folly, had left the island for ever.
Many centuries after, the fairy Selnozoura, who had fallen into bad health, was ordered by her doctors to make the tour of the world twice a week for change of air, and in one of these journeys she found herself at Fountain Island. Selnozoura never made these trips alone, but always took with her two children, of whom she was very fond–Cornichon, a boy of fourteen, bought in his childhood at a slave-market, and Toupette, a few months younger, who had been entrusted to the care of the fairy by her guardian, the genius Kristopo. Cornichon and Toupette were intended by Selnozoura to become husband and wife, as soon as they were old enough. Meanwhile, they travelled with her in a little vessel, whose speed through the air was just a thousand nine hundred and fifty times greater than that of the swiftest of our ships.
Struck with the beauty of the island, Selnozoura ran the vessel to ground, and leaving it in the care of the dragon which lived in the hold during the voyage, stepped on shore with her two companions. Surprised at the sight of a large town whose streets and houses were absolutely desolate, the fairy resolved to put her magic arts in practice to find out the cause. While she was thus engaged, Cornichon and Toupette wandered away by themselves, and by-and-by arrived at the fountain, whose bubbling waters looked cool and delicious on such a hot day. Scarcely had they each drunk a deep draught, when the fairy, who by this time had discovered all she wished to know, hastened to the spot.
‘Oh, beware! beware!’ she cried, the moment she saw them. ‘If you drink that deadly poison you will be ruined for ever!’
‘Poison?’ answered Toupette. ‘It is the most refreshing water I have ever tasted, and Cornichon will say so too!’
‘Unhappy children, then I am too late! Why did you leave me? Listen, and I will tell you what has befallen the wretched inhabitants of this island, and what will befall you too. The power of fairies is great,’ she added, when she had finished her story, ‘but they cannot destroy the work of another fairy. Very shortly you will pass into the weakness and silliness of extreme old age, and all I can do for you is to make it as easy to you as possible, and to preserve you from the death that others have suffered, from having no one to look after them. But the charm is working already! Cornichon is taller and more manly than he was an hour ago, and Toupette no longer looks like a little girl.’
It was true; but this fact did not seem to render the young people as miserable as it did Selnozoura.
‘Do not pity us,’ said Cornichon. ‘If we are fated to grow old so soon, let us no longer delay our marriage. What matter if we anticipate our decay, if we only anticipate our happiness too?’
The fairy felt that Cornichon had reason on his side, and seeing by a glance at Toupette’s face that there was no opposition to be feared from her, she answered, ‘Let it be so, then. But not in this dreadful place. We will return at once to Bagota, and the festivities shall be the most brilliant ever seen.’
They all returned to the vessel, and in a few hours the four thousand five hundred miles that lay between the island and Bagota were passed. Everyone was surprised to see the change which the short absence had made in the young people, but as the fairy had promised absolute silence about the adventure, they were none the wiser, and busied themselves in preparing their dresses for the marriage, which was fixed for the next night.
Early on the following morning the genius Kristopo arrived at the Court, on one of the visits he was in the habit of paying his ward from time to time. Like the rest, he was astonished at the sudden improvement in the child. He had always been fond of her, and in a moment he fell violently in love. Hastily demanding an audience
of the fairy, he laid his proposals before her, never doubting that she would give her consent to so brilliant a match. But Selnozoura refused to listen, and even hinted that in his own interest Kristopo had better turn his thoughts elsewhere. The genius pretended to agree, but, instead, he went straight to Toupette’s room, and flew away with her through the window, at the very instant that the bridegroom was awaiting her below.
When the fairy discovered what had happened, she was furious, and sent messenger after messenger to the genius in his palace at Ratibouf, commanding him to restore Toupette without delay, and threatening to make war in case of refusal.
Kristopo gave no direct answer to the fairy’s envoys, but kept Toupette closely guarded in a tower, where the poor girl used all her powers of persuasion to induce him to put off their marriage. All would, however, have been quite vain if, in the course of a few days, sorrow, joined to the spell of the magic water, had not altered her appearance so completely that Kristopo was quite alarmed, and declared that she needed amusement and fresh air, and that, as his presence seemed to distress her, she should be left her own mistress. But one thing he declined to do, and that was to send her back to Bagota.
In the meantime both sides had been busily collecting armies, and Kristopo had given the command of his to a famous general, while Selnozoura had placed Cornichon at the head of her forces. But before war was actually declared, Toupette’s parents, who had been summoned by the genius, arrived at Ratibouf. They had never seen their daughter since they parted from her as a baby, but from time to time travellers to Bagota had brought back accounts of her beauty. What was their amazement, therefore, at finding, instead of a lovely girl, a middle-aged woman, handsome indeed, but quite faded–looking, in fact, older than themselves. Kristopo, hardly less astonished than they were at the sudden change, thought that it was a joke on the part of one of his courtiers, who had hidden Toupette away, and put this elderly lady in her place. Bursting with rage, he sent instantly for all the servants and guards of the town, and inquired who had the insolence to play him such a trick, and what had become of their prisoner. They replied that since Toupette had been in their charge she had never left her rooms unveiled, and that during her walks in the surrounding gardens, her food had been brought in and placed on her table; as she preferred to eat alone no one had ever seen her face, or knew what she was like.
The servants were clearly speaking the truth, and Kristopo was obliged to believe them. ‘But,’ thought he, ‘if they have not had a hand in this, it must be the work of the fairy,’ and in his anger he ordered the army to be ready to march.
On her side, Selnozoura of course knew what the genius had to expect, but was deeply offended when she heard of the base trick which she was believed to have invented. Her first desire was to give battle to Kristopo at once, but with great difficulty her ministers induced her to pause, and to send an ambassador to Kristopo to try to arrange matters.
So the Prince Zeprady departed for the court of Ratibouf, and on his way he met Cornichon, who was encamped with his army just outside the gates of Bagota. The prince showed him the fairy’s written order that for the present peace must still be kept, and Cornichon, filled with longing to see Toupette once more, begged to be allowed to accompany Zeprady on his mission to Ratibouf.
By this time the genius’s passion for Toupette, which had caused all these troubles, had died out, and he willingly accepted the terms of peace offered by Zeprady, though he informed the prince that he still believed the fairy to be guilty of the dreadful change in the girl. To this the prince only replied that on that point he had a witness who could prove, better than anyone else, if it was Toupette or not, and desired that Cornichon should be sent for.
When Toupette was told that she was to see her old lover again, her heart leapt with joy; but soon the recollection came to her of all that had happened, and she remembered that Cornichon would be changed as well as she. The moment of their meeting was not all happiness, especially on the part of Toupette, who could not forget her lost beauty, and the genius, who was present, was at last convinced that he had not been deceived, and went out to sign the treaty of peace, followed by his attendants.
‘Ah, Toupette: my dear Toupette!’ cried Cornichon, as soon as they were left alone; ‘now that we are once more united, let our past troubles be forgotten.’
‘Our past troubles!’ answered she, ‘and what do you call our lost beauty and the dreadful future before us? You are looking fifty years older than when I saw you last, and I know too well that fate has treated me no better!’
‘Ah, do not say that,’ replied Cornichon, clasping her hand. ‘You are different, it is true; but every age has its graces, and surely no woman of sixty was ever handsomer than you! If your eyes had been as bright as of yore they would have matched badly with your faded skin. The wrinkles which I notice on your forehead explain the increased fulness of your cheeks, and your throat in withering is elegant in decay. Thus the harmony shown by your features, even as they grow old, is the best proof of their former beauty.’
‘Oh, monster!’ cried Toupette, bursting into tears, ‘is that all the comfort you can give me?’
‘But, Toupette,’ answered Cornichon, ‘you used to declare that you did not care for beauty, as long as you had my heart.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said she, ‘but how can you go on caring for a person who is as old and plain as I?’
‘Toupette, Toupette,’ replied Cornichon, ‘you are only talking nonsense. My heart is as much yours as ever it was, and nothing in the world can make any difference.’
At this point of the conversation the Prince Zeprady entered the room, with the news that the genius, full of regret for his behaviour, had given Cornichon full permission to depart for Bagota as soon as he liked, and to take Toupette with him; adding that, though he begged they would excuse his taking leave of them before they went, he hoped, before long, to visit them at Bagota.
Neither of the lovers slept that night–Cornichon from joy at returning home, Toupette from dread of the blow to her vanity which awaited her at Bagota. It was hopeless for Cornichon to try to console her during the journey with the reasons he had given the day before. She only grew worse and worse, and when they reached the palace went straight to her old apartments, entreating the fairy to allow both herself and Cornichon to remain concealed, and to see no one.
For some time after their arrival the fairy was taken up with the preparations for the rejoicings which were to celebrate the peace, and with the reception of the genius, who was determined to do all in his power to regain Selnozoura’s lost friendship. Cornichon and Toupette were therefore left entirely to themselves, and though this was only what they wanted, still, they began to feel a little neglected.
At length, one morning, they saw from the windows that the fairy and the genius were approaching, in state, with all their courtiers in attendance. Toupette instantly hid herself in the darkest corner of the room, but Cornichon, forgetting that he was now no longer a boy of fourteen, ran to meet them. In so doing he tripped and fell, bruising one of his eyes severely. At the sight of her lover lying helpless on the floor, Toupette hastened to his side; but her feeble legs gave way under her, and she fell almost on top of him, knocking out three of her loosened teeth against his forehead. The fairy, who entered the room at this moment, burst into tears, and listened in silence to the genius, who hinted that by-and-by everything would be put right.
‘At the last assembly of the fairies,’ he said, ‘when the doings of each fairy were examined and discussed, a proposal was made to lessen, as far as possible, the mischief caused by Dindonette by enchanting the fountain. And it was decided that, as she had meant nothing but kindness, she should have the power of undoing one half of the spell. Of course she might always have destroyed the fatal fountain, which would have been best of all; but this she never thought of. Yet, in spite of this, her heart is so good, that I am sure that the moment she hears that she is wanted she will fly to help. Only, before she comes, it is for you, Madam, to make up your mind which of the two shall regain their former strength and beauty.’
At these words the fairy’s soul sank. Both Cornichon and Toupette were equally dear to her, and how could she favour one at the cost of the other? As to the courtiers, none of the men were able to understand why she hesitated a second to declare for Toupette; while the ladies were equally strong on the side of Cornichon.
But, however undecided the fairy might be, it was quite different with Cornichon and Toupette.
‘Ah, my love,’ exclaimed Cornichon, ‘at length I shall be able to give you the best proof of my devotion by showing you how I value the beauties of your mind above those of your body! While the most charming women of the court will fall victims to my youth and strength, I shall think of nothing but how to lay them at your feet, and pay heart-felt homage to your age and wrinkles.’
‘Not so fast,’ interrupted Toupette, ‘I don’t see why you should have it all. Why do you heap such humiliations upon me? But I will trust to the justice of the fairy, who will not treat me so.’
Then she entered her own rooms, and refused to leave them, in spite of the prayers of Cornichon, who begged her to let him explain.
No one at the court thought or spoke of any other subject during the few days before the arrival of Dindonette, whom everybody expected to set things right in a moment. But, alas! she had no idea herself what was best to be done, and always adopted the opinion of the person she was talking to. At length a thought struck her, which seemed the only way of satisfying both parties, and she asked the fairy to call together all the court and the people to hear her decision.
‘Happy is he,’ she began, ‘who can repair the evil he has caused, but happier he who has never caused any.’
As nobody contradicted this remark, she continued:
‘To me it is only allowed to undo one half of the mischief I have wrought. I could restore you your youth,’ she said to Cornichon, ‘or your beauty,’ turning to Toupette. ‘I will do both; and I will do neither.’
A murmur of curiosity arose from the crowd, while Cornichon and Toupette trembled with astonishment.
‘No,’ went on Dindonette, ‘never should I have the cruelty to leave one of you to decay, while the other enjoys the glory of youth. And as I cannot restore you both at once to what you were, one half of each of your bodies shall become young again, while the other half goes on its way to decay. I will leave it to you to choose which half it shall be–if I shall draw a line round the waist, or a line straight down the middle of the body.’
She looked about her proudly, expecting applause for her clever idea. But Cornichon and Toupette were shaking with rage and disappointment, and everyone else broke into shouts of laughter. In pity for the unhappy lovers, Selnozoura came forward.
‘Do you not think,’ she said, ‘that instead of what you propose, it would be better to let them take it in turns to enjoy their former youth and beauty for a fixed time? I am sure you could easily manage that.’
‘What an excellent notion!’ cried Dindonette. ‘Oh, yes, of course that is best! Which of you shall I touch first?’
‘Touch her,’ replied Cornichon, who was always ready to give way to Toupette. ‘I know her heart too well to fear any change.’
So the fairy bent forward and touched her with her magic ring, and in one instant the old woman was a girl again. The whole court wept with joy at the sight, and Toupette ran up to Cornichon, who had fallen down in his surprise, promising to pay him long visits, and tell him of all her balls and water parties.
The two fairies went to their own apartments, where the genius followed them to take his leave.
‘Oh, dear!’ suddenly cried Dindonette, breaking in to the farewell speech of the genius. ‘I quite forgot to fix the time when Cornichon should in his turn grow young. How stupid of me! And now I fear it is too late, for I ought to have declared it before I touched Toupette with the ring. Oh, dear! oh, dear! why did nobody warn me?’
‘You were so quick,’ replied Selnozoura, who had long been aware of the mischief the fairy had again done, ‘and we can only wait now till Cornichon shall have reached the utmost limits of his decay, when he will drink of the water, and become a baby once more, so that Toupette will have to spend her life as a nurse, a wife, and a caretaker.’
After the anxiety of mind and the weakness of body to which for so long Toupette had been a prey, it seemed as if she could not amuse herself enough, and it was seldom indeed that she found time to visit poor Cornichon, though she did not cease to be fond of him, or to be kind to him. Still, she was perfectly happy without him, and this the poor man did not fail to see, almost blind and deaf from age though he was.
But it was left to Kristopo to undo at last the work of Dindonette, and give Cornichon back the youth he had lost, and this the genius did all the more gladly, as he discovered, quite by accident, that Cornichon was in fact his son. It was on this plea that he attended the great yearly meeting of the fairies, and prayed that, in consideration of his services to so many of the members, this one boon might be granted him. Such a request had never before been heard in fairyland, and was objected to by some of the older fairies; but both Kristopo and Selnozoura were held in such high honour that the murmurs of disgust were set aside, and the latest victim to the enchanted fountain was pronounced to be free of the spell. All that the genius asked in return was that he might accompany the fairy back to Bagota, and be present when his son assumed his proper shape.
They made up their minds they would just tell Toupette that they had found a husband for her, and give her a pleasant surprise at her wedding, which was fixed for the following night. She heard the news with astonishment, and many pangs for the grief which Cornichon would certainly feel at his place being taken by another; but she did not dream of disobeying the fairy, and spent the whole day wondering who the bridegroom could be.
At the appointed hour, a large crowd assembled at the fairy’s palace, which was decorated with the sweetest flowers, known only to fairyland. Toupette had taken her place, but where was the bridegroom?
‘Fetch Cornichon!’ said the fairy to her chamberlain.
But Toupette interposed: ‘Oh, Madam, spare him, I entreat you, this bitter pain, and let him remain hidden and in peace.’
‘It is necessary that he should be here,’ answered the fairy, ‘and he will not regret it.’
And, as she spoke, Cornichon was led in, smiling with the foolishness of extreme old age at the sight of the gay crowd.
‘Bring him here,’ commanded the fairy, waving her hand towards Toupette, who started back from surprise and horror.
Selnozoura then took the hand of the poor old man, and the genius came forward and touched him three times with his ring, when Cornichon was transformed into a handsome young man.
‘May you live long,’ the genius said, ‘to enjoy happiness with your wife, and to love your father.’
And that was the end of the mischief wrought by the fairy Dindo
nette!

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Old Songs… Sheer Poetry

The Banished Man
There were three ladies lived in a bower,

Eh vow bonnie

And they went out to pull a flower.

On the bonnie banks o Fordie
They hadna pu’ed a flower but ane,

When up started to them a banisht man.
He’s taen the first sister by her hand,

And he’s turned her round and made her stand.
‘It’s whether will ye be a rank robber’s wife,

Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?’
‘It’s I’ll not be a rank robber’s wife,

But I’ll rather die by your wee pen-knife.’
He’s killed this may, and he’s laid her by,

For to bear the red rose company.
He’s taken the second ane by the hand,

And he’s turned her round and made her stand.
‘It’s whether will ye be a rank robber’s wife,

Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?’
‘I’ll not be a rank robber’s wife,

But I’ll rather die by your wee pen-knife.’
He’s killed this may, and he’s laid her by,

For to bear the red rose company.
He’s taken the youngest ane by the hand,

And he ‘s turned her round and made her stand.
Says, ‘Will ye be a rank robber’s wife,

Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?’
‘I’ll not be a rank robber’s wife,

Nor will I die by your wee pen-knife.
‘For I hae a brother in this wood.

And gin ye kill me, it ‘s he’ll kill thee.’
‘What’s thy brother’s name? come tell to me.’

‘My brother’s name is Baby Lon.’
’0 sister, sister, what have I done!

0 have I done this ill to thee!
’0 since I’ve done this evil deed,

Good sall never be seen o me.’
He’s taken out his wee pen-knife,

And he’s twyned himsel o his ain sweet life.

—-

Mill Chant used by Witches in Devonshire
Air, wheel, Air blow,

Make the mill of magic go

Turn the power we send to you

Eman hetan, hau he hu!
Fire bright, Fire burn

Make the mill of magic turn.

Spin the power we send to you.

Eman hetan hau he hu!
Water bubble, water flow,

Turn the mill of magic so.

Grind the power we send to you,

Eman hetan, hau he hu!
Earth ye be our kith and kin,

Make the mill of magic spin.

Send the power we send to you,

Eman hetan, hau he hu!

—–
Tom o ‘Bedlam’s Song
From the hag and hungry goblin

That into rags would rend ye,

The spirit that stands by the naked man

In the Book of Moons, defend ye.

That of your five sound senses

You never be forsaken,

Nor wander from your selves with Tom

Abroad to beg your bacon,

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.
Of thirty bare years have I

Twice twenty been enragèd,

And of forty been three times fifteen

In durance soundly cagèd.

On the lordly lofts of Bedlam

With stubble soft and dainty,

Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips, ding-dong,

With wholesome hunger plenty,

And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.
With a thought I took for Maudlin,

And a cruse of cockle pottage,

With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,

I befell into this dotage.

I slept not since the Conquest,

Till then I never wakèd,

Till the roguish boy of love where I lay

Me found and stript me nakèd.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.
When I short have shorn my sow’s face

And swigged my horny barrel,

In an oaken inn, I pound my skin

As a suit of gilt apparel;

The moon’s my constant mistress,

And the lovely owl my marrow;

The flaming drake and the night crow make

Me music to my sorrow.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.
The palsy plagues my pulses

When I prig your pigs or pullen

Your culvers take, or matchless make

Your Chanticleer or Sullen.

When I want provant, with Humphry

I sup, and when benighted,

I repose in Paul’s with waking souls,

Yet never am affrighted.

But I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.
I know more than Apollo,

For oft when he lies sleeping

I see the stars at mortal wars

In the wounded welkin weeping.

The moon embrace her shepherd,

And the Queen of Love her warrior,

While the first doth horn the star of morn,

And the next the heavenly Farrier.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.
The Gypsies, Snap and Pedro,

Are none of Tom’s comradoes,

The punk I scorn, and the cutpurse sworn

And the roaring boy’s bravadoes.

The meek, the white, the gentle,

Me handle not nor spare not;

But those that cross Tom Rynosseross

Do what the panther dare not.

Although I sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.
With an host of furious fancies,

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows

I summoned am to tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:

Methinks it is no journey.

Yet I will sing, Any food, any feeding,

Feeding, drink or clothing;

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

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Posting this on the fly….
On The Menu:

Curve – ‘Clipped’

The Fiftieth Millennium

The Poetry of Isaac Luria

Tree Of Life – Isaac Luria

Quotes From Hafiz

Curve – ‘Ten Little Girls’
Have a good week, more on the way soon.
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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Curve – ‘Clipped’

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The Fiftieth Millennium

– Gary Snyder

(Resurgence 192 (January/February 1999): 12-15)

LET’S SAY WE’RE about to enter not the twenty-first century but the fiftieth millennium. Since the various cultural calendars (Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Christian, Japanese) are each within terms of their own stories, we can ask what calendar would be suggested to us by the implicit narrative of Euro-American science – since that provides so much of our contemporary educated world-view. We might come up with a “homo sapiens calendar” that starts at about 40,000 years before the present (BP) in the Gravettian-Aurignacian era when the human tool kit (already long sophisticated) began to be decorated with graphs and emblems and when figurines were produced not for practical use but apparently for magic or beauty.
Rethinking our calendar in this way is made possible by the research and discoveries of the last century in physical anthropology, palaeontology, archaeology and cultural anthropology. The scholars of hominid history are uncovering a constantly larger past in which the earlier members of our species continually appear to be smarter, more accomplished, more adept, and more complex than we had previously believed. We human beings are constantly revising the story we tell our Self about ourselves. The main challenge is to keep this unfolding story modestly reliable.
One of my neopagan friends, an ethnobotanist and prehistorian, complains about how the Christians have callously appropriated his sacred solstice ceremonies. “Our fir tree of lights and gifts,” he says, “has been swept into an orgy of consumerism, no longer remembered as a sign of the return of the sun,” and “People have totally forgotten that the gifts brought from the north by Santa Claus are spiritual, not material; and his red clothes, white trim, round body and northern habitat show that he represents the incredibly psychoactive mushroom Amanita muscaria.”
My friend is one of several poetscholars I know who study deep history (a term he prefers to “prehistory”) – in this case that of Europe – for clues and guides to understanding the creature that we are and how we got here, and better to steer our way into the future. Such studies are especially useful for artists.
I WENT TO FRANCE last summer to further pursue my own interest in the Upper Palaeolithic. South-west Europe has large areas of karst plateau, which allows for caves by the thousands, some of them enormous. Quite a few were decorated by Upper Palaeolithic people. With the help of the poet and palaeo-art historian Clayton Eshleman, my wife and I visited many sites and saw a major sampling of the cave art of south-west Europe, in the Dordogne and the Pyrenees. Places like Pêchemerle, Cougnac, Niaux, El Portel, Lascaux and Trois Frères. The cave art, with its finger tracings, engravings, hand stencils, outline drawings and polychrome paintings, flourished from 10,000 to 35,000 years ago. The Palaeolithic rock and portable art of Europe thus constitute a 25,000-year continuous artistic and cultural tradition. The people who did this were fully homo sapiens and, it must be clearly stated, not just ancestors of the people of Europe but (in a gene pool that old) ancestors to everyone everywhere. The art they left us is a heritage for people of the whole world.

This tradition is full of puzzles. The artwork is often placed far back in the caves, in almost inaccessible places. The quality fluctuates wildly. Animals can be painted with exquisite attention, but there are almost no human figures, and the ones that are there are strangely crude. Almost no plants are represented. Birds and fish turn up only two or three times (one cave provides an exception). Many animal paintings appear unfinished, with the feet left off.
The theories and explanations from the twentieth-century cave-art specialists – the great Abbé Breuil and the redoubtable André Leroi-Gourhan – don’t quite work. The hunting-magic theory, which holds that the paintings of animals were to increase the take in the hunt, is contradicted by the fact that the majority of animal representations are of wild horses, which were not a big food item, and that the animals most commonly consumed, red deer and reindeer, are depicted in very small number. The horse was not yet domesticated, so why this fascination for horses? (My wife, Carole, suggests that maybe the artists were a guild of teenage girls.)
The other most commonly represented animals, the huge Pleistocene bison and the auroch, or wild cattle (which were living in the forests of northern Europe up until the sixteenth century), were apparently too large and dangerous to be major hunting prey. Ibex, chamois and leopard occasionally show up, but they were not major food items. (There are also pictures of animals long extinct now – woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, cave bear, giant elk.)
In the art of early civilized times, there was a fascination with large predators – in particular, the charismatic Anatolian lions and the brown bears from which the word arctic derives. Big predators were abundant in the Palaeolithic, but sketches or paintings of them are scarce in all caves but one. It was the bears who first used the caves and entirely covered the walls of some, like Rouffignac, with long scratches. Seeing this may have given the first impetus to humans to do their own graffiti.
The theory that these works were part of a shamanistic and ceremonial cultural practice, though likely enough, is still just speculation. There have been attempts to read some narratives out of certain graphic combinations, but that too cannot be tested.
AFTER SEVERAL DECADES of research and comparison, it came to seem that cave art began with hand stencils and crude engravings around 40,000 BP and progressively evolved through time to an artistic climax at the Lascaux cave. This is the most famous of caves, discovered during World War 11. It is generally felt to contain the most remarkable and lovely of all the world’s cave art. The polychrome paintings are dated at around 17,000 BP. Last summer I had the rare good fortune to be admitted to la vraie grotte of Lascaux (as well as the replica, which is in itself excellent and what all but a handful of people now see). I can testify to its magic. There’s a fifteenfoot-long painting of an auroch arcing across a ceiling, twelve feet above the floor. A sort of Lascaux style is then perceived as coming down in other, later caves, excellent work, up to the Salon Noir in the Niaux cave in the Ariège, dated about 9000 BP. After that, cave art stopped being made, and many caves closed up from landslides or cave-ins and were forgotten.
Until quite recently everyone was pretty comfortable with this evolutionary chronology, which fits our contemporary wish to believe that things get better through time. But in 1994 some enthusiastic speleologists found a new cave, on the Ardèche, a tributary of the Rhône. Squeezing through narrow cracks and not expecting much, they almost tumbled into a fifty-foot-high chamber and a quarter mile of passageways of linked chambers full of magnificent depictions that were the equal of anything at Lascaux. There are a few animals shown here that are totally new to cave art. Images of woolly rhinoceros and the Pleistocene maneless lion, which are rare in other caves, are the most numerous. This site is now known, after the lead discoverer, as the Chauvet cave.
The French scientists did their initial carbon dating, were puzzled, looked again, and had to conclude that these marvellous paintings were around 33,000 years old: 16,000 years older than those at Lascaux almost as distant in time from Lascaux as Lascaux is from us. The idea of a progressive history to cave art is in question. A new, and again larger, sense of the homo sapiens story has opened up for us, and the beginnings of art are pushed even further back in time.
I wrote in my notebook:
“Out of the turning and twisting calcined cave walls, a sea of fissures, calcite concretions … stalactites … old claw-scratchings of cave bears floors of bear-wallows & slides; the human fingcr-tracings in clay, early scribblings, scratched-in lines and sketchy little engravings of half-done creatures or just abstract signs, lines crossed over lines, images over images-, out of this ancient swirl of graffiti rise up the exquisite figures of animals: swimming deer with antler cocked up, a pride of lions with noble profiles, fat wild horses great-bodied bison, huge-horned wild bulls, antlered elk; painted and powerfully outlined creatures alive with the life that art gives: on the long-lost mineralled walls below ground. Crisp, economical, swift, sometimes hasty … fitting into the space, fitting over other paintings, spread across . . . outlined in calligraphic confident curving lines. Not photo-realistic, but true.”
To have done this took a mind that can clearly observe and then hold within it a wealth of sounds, smells, and images and then carry them underground and re-create them. The reasons elude our understanding. For sure the effort took organization and planning to bring off. we have found the stone lamps and evidence of lighting supplies and traces of ground pigments sometimes obtained from far away. The people must have gathered supplies of food, dried grass for bedding, poles for scaffolding, and someone was doing arts administration.
One important reminder here is that “There is no progress in art.” It is either good, or it isn’t. Art that moves us today can be from anywhere, from any time.
The cave paintings had their own roles to play back in the late Pleistocene. Having been protected by the steady temperatures of the underground, they return to human eyes again today and across the millennia can move us. No master realist painter of the last 500 years could better those painted critters of the past: they totally do what they do, without room for improvement.
This is quite true, in certain ways, for the literary arts as well.
WHAT WAS THE future? One answer might be, “The future was to have been further progress, an improvement over our present condition.” This is more in question now. The deep past also confounds the future by suggesting how little we are agreed on what is good.
If our ancient rock artists skipped out on painting humans, it just may be that they knew more than enough about themselves and could turn their attention wholeheartedly to the nonhuman other. In any case the range of their art embraces both abstract and unreadable signs and graphs and a richly portrayed world of what today we call “faunal biodiversity”. They gave us a picture of their animal environment with as much pride and art as if they were giving us their very selves.
Maybe in some way they speak from a spirit that is in line with Dögen’s comment, “We study the self to forget the self. When you forget the self, you can become one with all the other phenomena.”
We have no way of knowing what the verbal arts of 35,000 years ago might have been. It is most likely that the languages of that time were in no way inferior in complexity, sophisticati
on or richness to the languages spoken today. I get this opinion in a recent personal communication from the eminent linguist William Bright. It’s not far-fetched to think that if the paintings were so good, the poems and songs must have been of equal quality.
One can imagine myths and tales of people, places and animals. In poetry or song, I fancy wild-horse chants, “salutes” (as are sung in some parts of Africa) to each creature, little lyrics that intensify some element in a narrative, a kind of deep song – cante jondo – to go together with deep history, or quick “bison haiku”.

It was all in the realm of orality, which as we well know can support a rich and intense “literary” culture that is often interacting with dance, song and story. Such are our prime high arts today: opera and ballet.
Today, then: the Franco-Germanic-Anglian creole known as English has become the world’s second language and as such is a major bearer of diverse literary cultures. English is and will be all the more a future host to a truly multicultural “rainbow” realm of writings. The rich history of the English language tradition is like a kiva full of lore, to be studied and treasured by writers and scholars wherever they may find themselves on the planet. It will also continue to diversify and to embrace words and pronunciations that will move it farther and farther from London Town. Even as I deliberately take my membership to be North American and feel distant from much of European culture, I count myself fortunate to have been born a native speaker of English. Such flexibility, such variety of vocabulary! Such a fine sound system! And we can look forward to its future changes. Performance and poetry, storytelling and fiction are still alive and well. Orality and song stay with poetry as long as we are here.
Multiculturalism is generally conceived in synchronic terms: cultures and peoples of this historical time frame, in their differences. I’m suggesting we also be open to a diachronic view and extend our tolerance back in time. It would do no harm to take a sympathetic, open and respectful attitude toward the peoples of the deep past. We can try to hear their language coming through paintings of lions and bison. This is now part of what our past will be.
Then we can also wonder through what images our voices will carry to the people 10,000 years hence – through the swirls of stillstanding freeway off-ramps and onramps? Through the ruins of dams? For those future people will surely be there, listening for some faint call from us, when they are entering the sixtieth millennium.
Gary Snyder is a poet and Professor of English at the University of California. His latest book is A Place in Space, published by Counter Point and available through Schumacher Book Service.
© Resurgence 1999

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The Poetry of Isaac Luria

A Poem for the Small Face
sons of his palace

were shy

who witness rays from

the small face
these to be here

at this table

the king cuts

grooves from his ring in
be pleased with

this meeting

this center of powers

all winged
to bring joy to it

now

is his hour of peace

without anger
draw near me

thou see my companions

be night without

judgment
those dogs

wild with chutzpah

keep out

may not enter
but send for

Ancient of Days

exchanging

the jewel in his forehead
his peace

as he sees it

releases the light from

the shells
& will flow with it

into each orifice

these will conceal

under domes
will be here

in praise of the evening

a poem for

the small face

—
A Poem for the Shekinah on the Feast of the Sabbath
I have sung

an old measure
would open

gates to
her field of apples

(each one a power)
set a new table

to feed her
beautifully

candelabrum
drops its

light on us
Between right & left

the Bride
draws near in

holy jewels
clothes of the sabbath

whose lover
embraces her

down to foundation
gives pleasure

squeezes his strength out
in surcease of

sorrow
& makes new faces

be hers
& new souls

new breath
gives her joy

double measure
of lights & of

streams for her blessing
o Friends of the Bride

go forth
all’s sealed

within her
shines out from

Ancient of Days
Toward the south

I placed
candelabrum

(o mystical)
room in

the north
for table

for bread
for pitchers of wine

for sweet myrtle
gives power to

lovers
new potencies

garlands
give her many

sweet foods to taste
many kinds of

fish
for fertility

birth
of new souls

new spirits
will follow the 32 paths

& 3 branches
the bride with

70 crowns
with her king who

hovers above her
crown above crown in

Holy of Holies
this lady all worlds are

formed in
of words for her

70 crowns
50 gates

the Shekinah
ringd by

6 loaves
of the sabbath

& bound
all sides to

Heavenly refuge
the hostile

powers
have left us

demons you feared
sleep in chains

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Tree Of Life – Isaac Luria

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Quotes From Hafiz

“A truce to your volumes, your studies, give o’er: for books cannot teach you love’s marvelous lore”

“We have come into this exquisite world to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom and light!”

“This sky where we live is no place to lose your wings so love, love, love.”

“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”

“Remember for just one minute of the day, it would be best to try looking upon yourself more as God does, for She knows your true royal nature.”

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Curve – ‘Ten Little Girls’

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