Gwyllm.com

Praise be to Eros who loves only beauty
and finds it everywhere

…sharing his own soft wanton grace
with all who let his presence enter in
faithless as flowers, fickle as the wind-borne butterfly – Lenore Kandel

Lenore Kandel past away 2 years ago. She left a body of poetry and work that any poetess would be happy with. She tweaked the nose of the proper and prim, and explored a depth of life that few get to do.

I have always enjoyed her work, I first came acrossed it many years ago. This edition is a tip of the hat to her, it seems that someone has noticed; as Randomhouse is releasing a book of her works this coming April. You will find her poetry throughout this edition of Turfing of course. It strikes me funny how little poets are recognized; and especially women poets. Lenore held her own; She was the one female speaker on the podium of “The Human Be-In” in Golden Gate Park. I can name four, and she is among them.
—

So It’s Late Summer here in Portland, lots of hot nights. Working on Poetry Post/Boxes and the new Invisible College Magazine. I have found that my yoga is the work, without it I am indeed rudderless.

Hope all is sweet in your life!

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
The Links
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Morning Meditation, Sarod
Historical Essay (on Lenore Kandel & Her Obscenity Trial)
Lenore’s Poetry
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar
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The Links:
Lenore Kandel
Imagine – Thanks To Stephanie
For Leeann: Reggie Watts & Daniel Pinchbeck
Electric Ice Orchestra
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Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Morning Meditation, Sarod

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Historical Essay
by Jeffrey M. Burns
(Originally published in The Argonaut, Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 1994)

1967 press conference with Lenore Kandel, 2nd from right

Photo: San Francisco Chronicle

In 1971, Professors Howard S. Becker and Irving L. Horowitz suggested that San Francisco fostered a “culture of civility,”1 a culture which provided greater acceptance of “deviant groups” and cultures, such as the Beats, the hippies, and the growing gay community. Countercultural groups were allowed greater freedom in San Francisco than in any other city in the United States.

On the other hand, in 1993 journalist Mark Dowie wrote an essay in which he dubbed the century between the 1860s and the 1960s as the “Catholic century” in San Francisco.2 While Dowie’s essay is overstated, and marred by several factual errors, his essential contention is correct–the Catholic Church in San Francisco exerted enormous influence in defining the contours of San Francisco culture and society, though they were not the only group to do so. Regardless of the reality, Catholics in San Francisco considered themselves the cultural guardians of the City. As such, the Catholic culture contributed to the culture of civility; at the same time it often found itself in conflict with that culture.3 One such instance of conflict was generated by the publication of Lenore Kandel’s paean to love, the 825 word poem entitled simply “The Love Book.”

In November 1966, police inspectors Sol Wiener and Peter Maloney arrested Jay Thelen and Allen Cohen of the Psychedelic Book Shop in the Haight Ashbury and Ron Muszalski of City Lights Bookstore in North Beach for “knowingly possessing obscene matter [i.e. ‘The Love Book’] with the intent to sell.” What ensued was the longest Municipal Court trial in San Francisco history, pitting the City’s past and present countercultures against the City’s cultural mainstream. (A decade earlier City Lights was at the center of another obscenity trial for having published Allen Ginsberg’s classic, Howl.)

The trial, begun in late April 1967, on the eve of the Summer of Love, became a showcase for different visions of the City. The proceedings reflected the pre-eminent position of the Catholic Church as cultural authority within San Francisco. The composition of witnesses led defense attorney Marshall Krause of the American Civil Liberties Union to complain that the trial was more a “heresy trial” than an “obscenity trial.” Krause complained further, “I am distressed, for the prosecution seems to have taken a religious emphasis, with Catholics trying to apply their doctrine to the rest of the world. And I don’t think the testimony at this case is based on sound Catholic doctrine”4 What Krause failed to understand was that the witnesses were not merely projecting the Catholic party line; they were expressing the attitudes of a significant portion of the San Francisco populace, Catholic and non-Catholic. What had begun as a simple obscenity trial had now become a trial with much larger cultural ramifications. At odds were (1) the emerging counterculture and mainstream San Francisco culture and (2) old notions of Catholic morality versus new conceptions inspired by the recently completed Second Vatican Council.

What was exceptionally objectionable about the poem, beyond its description of a sexual encounter between a man and a woman, was its frequent use of several unmentionable four-letter words. The description of “gods” engaging in sexual acts also upset many. But the poem could be quite lyrical, as suggested by the following section:

I kiss your shoulder and it reeks of lust

the lust of hermaphroditic deities doing

inconceivable things to each other and

SCREAMING DELIGHT over the entire

universe and beyond

and we lie together… and

we WEEP we WEEP we WEEP

the incredible tears

that saints and holy men shed in the presence

of their own incandescent gods…

And it concludes:

we are transmuting

we are as soft and warm and trembling

as a new gold butterfly

the energy

indescribable

almost unendurable

at night sometimes I see our bodies glow.

Lenore Kandel herself expressed her intent in the most noble terms: “I believe when humans can be so close together to become one flesh, or spirit, they transcend the human into the divine. Unfortunately for Kandel, not everyone saw her poem in the same light.

From the moment of the initial arrests, the events surrounding “The Love Book” and its subsequent trial had a slightly comic quality about them, and suggest some of the excesses of the era. Mayor John F. Shelley immediately condemned the poem as “hard core pornography,” and opined, “I certainly wouldn’t want my kids to read it.” Police inspector Peter Maloney added, “I’m no prude… but where is the redeeming social importance in this book?”5

Typical of San Francisco, a group of professors from San Francisco State leapt to the poems defense. Professors Leonard Wolf, Mark Linenthal, James Scheville, and Jack Gilbert were hired by the City Lights Bookstore with wages of one dollar a day to sell the poem. The professors then sponsored a public reading at San Francisco State. A crowd of more than three hundred persons listened to the poem in “defiance” of the “City’s police censorship squad,”6 though the police were noticeably absent from the reading. The reasons the professors gave for supporting the poem were something less than sublime. One observed, “The book makes me want to make love–and I think that’s good.” And another added, “It seems to me it is a good thing for society to maintain a high degree of sexual excitability… (Prosecuting attorney Frank Shane countered during the trial, “If ‘The Love Book’ is so exciting, would it not cause hundreds of college students to rush into bed together after readings of the poem, such as been held in the Bay Area?”)7

The actual trial began in late April with the prosecution attempting to fashion a jury that “had little or nothing to do with the hippies.”8 The jury selected consisted primarily of married women.

The high point for the defense came with their initial witness — the poet herself, Lenore Kandel. Ms. Kandel added a theatrical dimension to the proceedings, appearing in “a brilliant orange turtleneck sweater, burgundy jacket, and vivid orange stockings.” She then read her poem to the jury in tones “more reverent than passionate.” In addition, she read selections from the “erotic” poetry of Brother Antoninus (William Everson) and St. John of the Cross. She defended her poem in language quintessential to the 1960s: “Love is a four-letter word,” she noted, observing that the really obscene words were “hate,” “bomb,” and “war”. “If we can recognize our own beauty, it will be impossible for any human being to bring harm to any other human being. We owe each other loving responsibility.” Finally, when asked if the poem was religious, she responded, “Yes, and everyone who makes love is religious.”9

The encounter between Prosecutor Shaw and Ms. Kandel also had its comic moments, and some not quite so comic, as the clash of world views became personalized. One reporter described Shaw in the following manner: “His voice shook with anger much of the time and he used the four-letter words with inflections of disgust for them. Ms. Kandel maintained her composure as Shaw threw “various Anglo Saxon shock words at Kandel and found himself being called beautiful by her.” Shaw was not converted. He accused Kandel of subverting fundamental moral values and attempting to “condition us into a new type of morality.”10

The rest of the defense witnesses defended the poem in a variety of ways. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti defended the poem’s artistic merit.

Professor Thomas F. Parkinson of the University of California at Berkeley was presented as a distinguished literary scholar, and “gave a whole day’s testimony on the nature of poetry and the poet’s call to truth.”11 Parkinson observed: “The sexual mysticism of the ‘Love Book’ is an attempt to show that through an abandon to the senses one may achieve a kind of spiritual revelation.”12 Two women, Mrs. Nina Beggs, the wife of a Congregational minister, and Mrs. Margaret Krebs, testified that the poem was a beautiful expression of sexuality from the “woman’s point of view.”13 Mrs. Krebs testified, “The general theme is love and it discusses the beauty and the spiritual heights possible in intercourse between man and woman, primarily from a woman’s point of view. I am a woman and I identify with it.”14 The testimony of both women encountered problems. Mrs. Beggs’s testimony was undercut by her statement that she “had never heard of two of the disputed words,” and Mrs. Krebs’s testimony was disallowed because the court determined that she could not be considered “an ordinary woman.”15 Several other witnesses, including G.W. Smith, a professional marriage counselor, Dr. J. M. Stubblebine, director of San Francisco’s Mental Health Services, and Rabbi Joseph Glaser, testified that the poem improved the City’s mental health by dealing directly and openly with the issue of sexuality. More harmful, they claimed, were the repressive notions of sexuality which had dominated society for too long and resulted in a variety of unhealthy manifestations.

After ten hours of deliberation, the jury found the defendants guilty. They concluded that “The Love Book” was obscene and had “no redeeming social value.” In 1971, however, the verdict was overturned.

The trial had two immediate results besides the fines imposed on the sales clerks. First, sales of “The Love Book” skyrocketed. Prior to the trial less than 100 copies had been sold; after the trial sales soared to 20,000 plus. In appreciation, Ms. Kandel donated one percent of the profits to the Police Retirement Association.16

While the trial of “The Love Book” may have little significance in itself, it does provide an interesting window to view several of the basic conflicts in San Francisco in the 1960s. First, despite the culture of civility, San Francisco was racked by the cultural conflicts of the times. Often, in romanticizing the 1960s and the Love Generation, we tend to overlook the profound trauma the counterculture generated for more traditional San Franciscans. On one level, the “Love Book” trial can be interpreted as an attempt to assert the basic values of mainstream San Francisco; values that were increasingly and vigorously being called into question.

Historian Charles Perry has suggested that the trial was not about obscenity at all but was a direct attack on the psychedelic counterculture of the Haight-Ashbury. The two defendants from the Psychedelic Shop were Allen Cohen, editor of The Oracle, the most significant paper of the Haight, and Jay Thelen, its publisher. It is noteworthy that the two stores singled out for violating the community’s obscenity standards represented the old counterculture (the Beats) and the new counterculture (the hippies). San Francisco, being a port town, always had a rather high tolerance for “vice.” At the time of “The Love Book” trial, topless night clubs were opening up in the City with little harassment from the courts. Perhaps the City was making a distinction between acknowledged vice–few would argue topless dancing had any socially redeeming value–and “vice” which presented itself as virtue. What was dangerous about “The Love Book” was that it was perceived to be presenting a new moral ethic without apology, and the new moral ethic ran counter to the accepted ethic of mainstream San Francisco. As such the trial was a manifestation of the public anxiety generated by the enormous cultural shocks and transitions of the 1960s.

Second, the “Love Book” trial brought to public awareness the conflict that was occurring within the Catholic Church. Catholic squabbling at the trial broke the united Catholic front on moral issues. And with the public squabbling came an erosion of the Church’s moral authority within the City. Increasingly it seemed there was no one Catholic voice in the City, but a variety of competing voices. As such, the Catholic influence on the life of the City began to dissipate. What was occurring within the Church, and within the culture at large, was a relentless questioning of the validity of authority at every level. And too often the response of the cultural authority was so muddled or ill-considered that the response served only to undercut further the authority of the challenged institution. In the case of the “Love Book” trial, well meaning Catholics attempted to reassert their position as cultural authority within the City–however, the result was disastrous. The complex story of the cultural transformation wrought by the 1960s in San Francisco is still to be written. One conclusion is certain, however–the “Catholic century” had come to an end.

Notes:

1. Howard S. Becker and Irving L. Horowitz, “The Culture of Civility,” in Howard Becker, ed., Culture and Civility in San Francisco (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1971).

2. Mark Dowie, “Holy Smoke,” SF Weekly 24 February 1993, II.

3. For an interesting discussion on the Catholic influence on Labor in the city see William Issel, “Business Power and Political Culture in San Francisco, 1900-1940,” Journal of Urban History 16 (November 1989), 52-77.

4. Anne Marie Ferrairis, “Local Testimony on ‘Love Book’ Trial,” San Francisco Monitor, 11 May 1967,3.

5. From the Oregon Journal, 26 November 1966, City Lights Bookstore Collection, Clippings File, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA.

6. From the San Francisco Chronicle, 24 November 1966. Ibid.

7. Donovan Bess, “Witness Explains His Reactions After Reading ‘Love Book’,” San Francisco Chronicle 12 May 1967, 3.

8. San Francisco Chronicle, 25 April 1967.

9. Donovan Bess, “Lenore Defends the Love Book,” San Francisco Chronicle, 6 May 1967, 3; Donovan Bess, “Love Book Poet Keeps Her Cool,” San Francisco Chronicle, 9 May 1967,3; Anne Marie Fertaris, “Local Testimony…”

10. Bess, “Love Book Poet Keeps Her Cool,”3.

11. Robert Brophy. “Brophy and the Love Book” (unpublished manuscript, 1993) Copy in the Archives for the Archdocese of San Francisco (AASF).

12. Donovan Bess, “Scholar’s Plea for the Love Book,” San Francisco Chronicle, 10 May 1967, 2.

13. Donovan Bess, “A Minister’s Wife Praises the Love Book,” San Francisco Chronicle, 13 May 1967, 2.

14. Sam Blumenfeld, “My Husband’s Birthday Gift,” San Francisco Examiner, 19 May 1967.

15. Ibid.

16. Charles Perry, The Haight Ashbury: A History (NY: Vintage Books, 1984), 195.
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Lenore’s Poetry….

HARD CORE LOVE

To Whom It Does Concern

Do you believe me when I say / you’re beautiful
I stand here and look at you out of the vision of my eyes
and into the vision of your eyes and I see you and you’re an
animal
and I see you and you’re divine and I see you and you’re a
divine animal
and you’re beautiful
the divine is not separate from the beast; it is the total crea-
ture that
transcends itself
the messiah that has been invoked is already here
you are that messiah waiting to be born again into awareness
you are beautiful; we are all beautiful
you are divine; we are all divine
divinity becomes apparent on its own recognition
accept the being that you are and illuminate yourself
by your own clear light

GOD/LOVE POEM

there are no ways of love but / beautiful /
I love you all of them

I love you / your cock in my hands
stirs like a bird
in my fingers
as you swell and grow hard in my hand
forcing my fingers open
with your rigid strength
you are beautiful / you are beautiful
you are a hundred times beautiful
I stroke you with my loving hands
pink-nailed long fingers
I caress you
I adore you
my finger-tips… my palms…
your cock rises and throbs in my hands
a revelation / as Aphrodite knew it

there was a time when gods were purer
/ I can recall nights among the honeysuckle
our juices sweeter than honey
/ we were the temple and the god entire/

I am naked against you
and I put my mouth on you slowly
I have longing to kiss you
and my tongue makes worship on you
you are beautiful

your body moves to me
flesh to flesh
skin sliding over golden skin
as mine to yours
my mouth my tongue my hands
my belly and my legs
against your mouth your love
sliding…sliding…
our bodies move and join
unbearably

your face above me
is the face of all the gods
and beautiful demons
your eyes…

love touches love
the temple and the god
are one

TO FUCK WITH LOVE PHASE III

to fuck with love
to love with all the heat and wild of fuck
the fever of your mouth devouring all my secrets and my alibis
leaving me pure burned into oblivion
the sweetness UNENDURABLE
mouth barely touching mouth

nipple to nipple we touched
and were transfixed
by a flow of energy
beyond anything I have ever known

we TOUCHED!

and two days later
my hand embracing your semen-dripping cock
AGAIN!

the energy
indescribable
almost unendurable

the barrier of noumenon-phenomenon
transcended
the circle momentarily complete
the balance of forces
perfect
lying together, our bodies slipping into love
that never have slipped out
I kiss your shoulder and it reeks of lust
the lust of erotic angels fucking the stars
and shouting their insatiable joy over heaven
the lust of comets colliding in celestial hysteria
the lust of hermaphroditic deities doing
inconceivable things to each other and
SCREAMING DELIGHT over the entire universe
and beyond
and we lie together, our bodies wet and burning, and
we WEEP we WEEP we WEEP the incredible tears
that saints and holy men shed in the presence
of their own incandescent gods

I have whispered love into every orifice of your body
As you have done
to me

my whole body is turning into a cuntmouth
my toes my hands my belly my breast my shoulder my eyes
you fuck me continually with your tongue you look
with your words with your presence

we are transmuting
we are as soft and warm and trembling
as a new gold butterfly

the energy
indescribable
almost unendurable

at night sometimes I see our bodies glow

–

Small Prayer for Fallen Angels

too many of my friends are junkies
too many of my psychic kin tattoo invisible revelations on themselves
signing their manifestos to etheric consciousness with little
hoofprint scars stretching from fingertip to fingertip
a gory religiosity akin to Kali’s sacred necklace of fifty human heads

Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother; Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother
too many of my friends are running out of blood, their veins
are collapsing, it takes them half an hour to get a hit
their blood whispers through their bodies, singing its own death chant
in a voice of fire, in a voice of glaciers, in a voice of sand that blows
forever
over emptiness

Kali-Ma, remember the giving of life as well as the giving of death
—-Kali-Ma…
Kali-Ma, remember the desire is for enlightenment and not oblivion
—-Kali-Ma…
Kali-Ma, their bones are growing light; help them to fly
Kali-Ma, their eyes burn with the pain of fire; help them that they see
with clear sight

Kali-Ma, their blood sings to death to them; remind them of life
that they be born once more
that they slide bloody through the gates of yes, that
they relax their hands nor try to stop the movement of the flowing now

too many of my friends have fallen into the white heat of the only flame
may they fly higher; may there be no end to flight

from Word Alchemy
Grove Press, 1967
—-

Enlightenment Poem

“We have all been brothers, hermaphroditic as oysters
Bestowing our pearls carelessly.
No one yet had invented ownership
Nor guilt, nor time.

We watched the seasons pass,
We were as crystalline as snow
And melted gently into newer forms
As stars spun round our heads –

We had not learned betrayal.

Our selves were pearls,
Irritants transmuted into luster
And offered carelessly.

Our pearls became more precious and our sexes static
Mutability grew a shell, we devised different languages
New words for new concepts, we invented alarm clocks
Fences, loyalty.

Still… Even now… Making a feint at communion
Infinite perceptions
I remember
We have all been brothers
And offer

Carelessly.”
—

Blues for Sister Sally

I
moon-faced baby with cocaine arms
nineteen summers
nineteen lovers

novice of the junkie angel
lay sister of mankind penitent
sister in marijuana
sister in hashish
sister in morphine

against the bathroom grimy sink
pumpink her arms full of life
(holy holy)
she bears the stigma (holy holy) of the raving christ
(holy holy)
holy needle
holy powder
holy vein

dear miss lovelorn: my sister makes it with a hunk
of glass do you think this is normal miss lovelorn

I DEMAND AN ANSWER!

II
weep
for my sister she walks with open veins
leaving her blood in the sewers of your cities
from east coast
to west coast
to nowhere

how shall we canonize our sister who is not
quite dead
who fornicates with strangers
who masturbates with needles
who is afraid of the dark and wears her long hair soft
and black
against her bloodless face

III
midnight and the room dream-green and hazy
we are all part of the collage

brother and sister, she leans against the wall
and he, slipping the needle in her painless arm

pale fingers (with love) against the pale arm

IV
children our afternoon is soft, we lean against
each other

our stash is in our elbows
our fix is in our heads
god is a junkie and he has sold salvation
for a week’s supply

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Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar

__________________________________

I cannot be satisfied until I speak with the angels
I require to behold the eye of god
to cast my own being into the cosmos as bait for miracles…
“I demand the access of enlightenment…
“the presence of unendurable light…
“(as) the child of man demands his exit
from the safe warm womb – Lenore Kandel

Hot days here in P-town. Up in the low 90′s yesterday, and upper 80′s today. We live in a brick house, affectionately known as “the oven” as in brick oven in the summer, and as the brick ice house in the winter. Not much insulation in these old places. Still, I love the house, the garden and the neighborhood.

So many of my friends are getting ready for Burning Man. Roberto was talking about 115 degree heat. I know that I could never do a week of that. Love the concept, but the temperature would be such a challenge for me.

A couple of notes on this entry. The music is a real favourite of mine: Carbon Life Forms. If you are unfamiliar with it, you are in for a treat. The art (except for the poetry piece) is from the Danish Artist Gerda Wegener. It is a departure from the usual themes that we pursue here. It is erotic, and in my mind, quite fun and endearing.

Hope This Finds You Well!

Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
Carbon Based Lifeforms – Metrosat 4
Mahmūd Shabistarī – The Secret Garden
Carbon Based Lifeforms – Rise To Tomorrow
Art: Gerda Wegener

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Carbon Based Lifeforms – Metrosat 4

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Mahmūd Shabistarī – The Secret Garden

The Marriage of the Soul

Descending to the earth, that strange intoxicating beauty of the unseen world
lurks in the elements of nature.

And the soul of man,
who has attained the rightful balance,
becoming aware of this hidden joy,
straightaway is enamored and bewitched.

And from this mystic marriage are born
the poets’ songs, inner knowledge,
the language of the heart, virtuous living,
and the fair child Beauty.

And the Great Soul gives to man as dowry
the hidden glory of the world.
—

The Wine of Rapture

The wine, lit by a ray from his face,
reveals the bubbles of form,
such as the material world and the soul-world,
which appear as veils to the saints.
Universal Reason seeing this is astounded,
Universal Soul is reduced to servitude.

Drink wine! for the bowl is the face of the Friend.
Drink wine! for the cup is his eye, drunken and flown with wine.
Drink wine! and be free from cold-heartedness,
for a drunkard is better than the self-satisfied.

The world is his tavern,
his wine-cup the heart of each atom;
reason is drunken, angels drunken, soul drunken,
air drunken, earth drunken, heaven drunken.

The sky, dizzy with the wine-fumes’ aroma,
is staggering to and fro;
the angels, sipping pure wine from goblets,
pour down the dregs to the world.
From the scent of these dregs man rises to heaven.
Inebriated from the draft, the elements
fall into water and fire.
Catching the reflection, the frail body becomes soul,
And the frozen soul by its heat
thaws and becomes living.
The creature world becomes giddy,
forever straying from house and home.

One from the dregs’ odor becomes a philosopher.
One viewing the wine’s color becomes a relater.
One from half a draft becomes religious.
One from a bowlful becomes a lover.
Another swallows at one draught
goblet, tavern, cupbearer, and drunkards;
he swallows all, but still his mouth stays open.
—

The Mirror

Your eye has not strength enough
to gaze at the burning sun,
but you can see its burning light
by watching its reflection
mirrored in the water.

So the reflection of Absolute Being
can be viewed in the mirror of Not-Being,
for nonexistence, being opposite Reality,
instantly catches its reflection.

Know the world from end to end is a mirror;
in each atom a hundred suns are concealed.
If you pierce the heart of a single drop of water,
from it will flow a hundred clear oceans;
if you look intently at each speck of dust,
in it you will see a thousand beings.
A gnat in its limbs is like an elephant;
in name a drop of water resembles the Nile.
In the heart of a barleycorn is stored a hundred harvests.
Within a millet-seed a world exists.
In an insects wing is an ocean of life.
A heaven is concealed in the pupil of an eye.
The core at the center of the heart is small,
yet the Lord of both worlds will enter there.

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Carbon Based Lifeforms – Rise To Tomorrow

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(Robert Venosa – Angelic Awakening)

Why Cling

Why cling to one life
till it is soiled and ragged?

The sun dies and dies
squandering a hundred lives
every instant

God has decreed life for you
and He will give
another and another and another
– Rumi
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Dear Friends,

I have put off posting this entry for a week, as our friend Roberto Venosa has past away at his Colorado home. (please see below)

I hope this finds you well. In the last week, we have seen our son Rowan turn 21, and now he is in New York filming a documentary along with his friends Colleen (she is Directing) and Adam (he’s the DP). Whilst in New York, Rowan will probably get a chance to visit with our old dear friend Nels Cline, and his wife Yuka. Nels has known Rowan since he was a wee button, and it has been about 8 years since the last time they got to hang out together. Ah, a perfect summer occasion!

We got to spend time with our friends Kyle and Trish and their son McKenna (2.5 years old!) this past week! It was delightful seeing them again. Nothing better than friends, kids, hanging out eating and drinking together!

Working on lots of art, the magazine and various projects. Spending some special time with Mary. I do love her company. The yard is an absolute riot of green. We are eating our way through the continual harvest of beans, peppers and aubergine. This is perhaps our best garden in awhile. Mary is the champ with the green thumb.

I hope this finds you well.

Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
The Links
Younger Brother – Spinning Into Place (Acoustic Mix)
Robert Venosa Memorial Event/ August 21st/ Boulder Colorado
For Roberto
Robert Venosa Art
Rumi: Life & Death
Younger Brother – Train

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The Links:
Flight In Medieval England
Desktop Jellyfish Tank
Obama Is Asked To Defend His Administration’s Opposition To Medical Cannabis — He Can’t
Zoologger: The world’s smartest insect
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Younger Brother – Spinning Into Place (Acoustic Mix)

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Robert Venosa Memorial Event/ August 21st/ Boulder Colorado

Please Join All of Us.
For a Memorial Life Celebration
We will be honoring Robert Venosa’s life and art

Sunday, August 21, 2011
Ceremony from 3 pm till 5 pm

At the
Boulder Events Center
boulderintegral.org
2805 Broadway
Boulder, CO 80304
(Right across Balsam from Boulder Community Hospital)

We invite you to arrive before 3 pm

Robert loved life and celebration and once said: “when I die please just throw me a party!”

So we are honoring his wishes and inviting the community to gather for an after party with conversations, sharing food and cheer at the ‘Harburg Residence’,
one of Boulder’s great landmarks, also known as the ‘Wedding Cake House’,
located on 1020 Mapleton Avenue, on the West side of Broadway.

Please bring a dish or drink to share. A grill station will also be available to all.

Please join us, even if you were not invited personally but feel called to celebrate Venosa’s memory .

We do welcome love donations to the ‘Robert Venosa Foundation’.
Make checks payable to:
Wells Fargo Advisors
Attn. Laura Hay
1155 Canyon Blvd. #200
Boulder, CO 80302
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(Robert Venosa – Garden Of Delights)

_________________________
For Roberto:

I found out last week when I awoke one early morning that Robert Venosa had passed away early the previous evening.   I had known that he was ill for quite awhile, but still it took me by surprise. Robert’s work had been part of my life off and on since my late teens. We had a personal relationship going back some 10 years, and had spent time, most delightfully together on a few occasions. It seemed an impossible event, but yes it had happened.

I have watched the reaction to his passing on the web. Many people were moved by Robert, and there has been a large outpouring of emotion and thoughts regarding him and his work. I have held back for a few days, trying to get my thoughts aligned before I put this out. I hope it conveys some of what I have been thinking and feeling about his life, and works.

I first became aware of Robert’s work in his collaboration with Mati Klarwein on Santana’s album covers. I would see his work show up on various albums over the years, and then in the 80′s, I started seeing his work in various magazines. All of it was engaging. In the 90′s after I re-emerged into the culture after a hiatus, I became distinctly aware of his art. It seemed everywhere. His work was lauded by Terence McKenna, and others. I was enthralled by what he was producing. I wrote him a couple of times via email, and he responded. We finally met in the early part of this century at Mind States, where he and Martina were giving an artistic presentation, and participating on the art panel. We spent many hours hanging out over the course of the event. It was absolutely delightful. A few years later, I had the pleasure of them visiting our home on their way back from a gallery opening in Eugene. We stayed in touch, and talked frequently over the years.

Robert and Martina have been the nexus point for what is called “Visionary Art” for lack of a better descriptor for the last 3 decades. Their work alone, and together has laid the foundations for the emerging generation of current artist. Robert’s studies under Ernst Fuchs, Mati Klarwein, and his time living and studying with Salvador Dali ties him firmly in with the pathway from Symbolist, Surrealist, Visionary. It is from this context that Robert’s and Martina’s works delineate perfectly where the vanguard has been for over 30 years. Robert was the real deal. He put in his time, studied with the masters, and his work stands, and will stand the test of time.

Robert had a generous nature, when he found out that I had a passion for Orientalist painting, he sent off a copy of “The Orientalist” (Western Artist in Arabia, The Sahara, Persia & India) by Kristian Davies. Just like that. He was deeply involved along with Martina with the foundations of “The Invisible College Magazine”. I told them my idea about having a journal that would capture the currents of culture and art, and they enthusiastically supported it by suggestions, ideas and allowing us to use their art for the first two editions (PDF’s at this point). Martina had been working with me over the last year helping to assemble the re-issues as she could whilst taking care of Robert at their home. Their support was invaluable emotionally and artistically.

A dear friend described Robert’s & Martina’s relationship as “perhaps one of the great love stories of our times”. From where I am, I must concur. The energy between them seemed to be of common delight. It was an immense pleasure to be in their company. They thoroughly were in the moment when I spent time with them. Present, and thoughtful.

From my POV there was defining elements of Robert’s art. His work was unique. You knew it was his when you saw it. Can this be said for many artist? He captured a moment of eternity in all of his works. I am moved time and again as I go through his paintings. Some move me to such emotion that I am transported to the timeless moment. His gifts I would describe as Light, Luminous, and especially the sense of “Presence”. What he painted, many had experienced on the inner journey. It was a beautiful gift that the Muse had bestowed, and he did not squander it, but shared, and gave freely of.

His kindness and artistic gifts shall perhaps outlive us all, and that is perhaps as it should be.

Adios Roberto, thank you for all that you shared and gave.

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

(Roberto Venosa)

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Robert Venosa: Paintings

There are so many good ones to choose from. I have put them in no particular order except that the portrait of Martina is one of my favourites…

(Robert Venosa – Martina de Duoro)

(Robert Venosa – Dos Angeles)

(Robert Venosa – Yage Guide)

(Robert Venosa – Ayahuasca Dream)

(Robert Venosa – Cerebralation)

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Rumi: Life & Death

(Robert Venosa – Portal to Edentia)

Life & Death

look at love
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love

look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life

why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad
pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all
the known and the unknown
see how the unknown merges into the known

why think seperately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together

look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don’t get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows
right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be
—

come on sweetheart
let’s adore one another
before there is no more
of you and me

a mirror tells the truth
look at your grim face
brighten up and cast away
your bitter smile

a generous friend
gives life for a friend
let’s rise above this
animalistic behavior
and be kind to one another

spite darkens friendships
why not cast away
malice from our heart

once you think of me
dead and gone
you will make up with me
you will miss me
you may even adore me

why be a worshiper of the dead
think of me as a goner
come and make up now

since you will come
and throw kisses
at my tombstone later
why not give them to me now
this is me
that same person

i may talk too much
but my heart is silence
what else can i do
i am condemned to live this life
—

i’ve come again
like a new year
to crash the gate
of this old prison

i’ve come again
to break the teeth and claws
of this man-eating
monster we call life

i’ve come again
to puncture the
glory of the cosmos
who mercilessly
destroys humans

i am the falcon
hunting down the birds
of black omen
before their flights

i gave my word
at the outset to
give my life
with no qualms
i pray to the Lord
to break my back
before i break my word

how do you dare to
let someone like me
intoxicated with love
enter your house

you must know better
if i enter
i’ll break all this and
destroy all that

if the sheriff arrives
i’ll throw the wine
in his face
if your gatekeeper
pulls my hand
i’ll break his arm

if the heavens don’t go round
to my heart’s desire
i’ll crush its wheels and
pull out its roots

you have set up
a colorful table
calling it life and
asked me to your feast
but punish me if
i enjoy myself

what tyranny is this
—

you mustn’t be afraid of death
you’re a deathless soul
you can’t be kept in a dark grave
you’re filled with God’s glow

be happy with your beloved
you can’t find any better
the world will shimmer
because of the diamond you hold

when your heart is immersed
in this blissful love
you can easily endure
any bitter face around

in the absence of malice
there is nothing but
happiness and good times
don’t dwell in sorrow my friend

Translated by Nader Khalili “Rumi, Fountain of Fire”
Cal-Earth Press, 1994
______________________

(Robert Venosa – Celestial Tree)

_______________________
Younger Brother – Train

_______________________

(Roberto & Martina, Portland Outside Our Home)

Lovers

O lovers, lovers it is time
to set out from the world.
I hear a drum in my soul’s ear
coming from the depths of the stars.
Our camel driver is at work;
the caravan is being readied.
He asks that we forgive him
for the disturbance he has caused us,
He asks why we travelers are asleep.

Everywhere the murmur of departure;
the stars, like candles
thrust at us from behind blue veils,
and as if to make the invisible plain,
a wondrous people have come forth.

-Rumi

I Come and Stand at Every Door

I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.

I’m only seven although I died
In Hiroshima long ago
I’m seven now as I was then
When children die they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame
My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit, I need no rice I
need no sweet, nor even bread
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of this world
May live and grow and laugh and play.

– by Nâzım Hikmet

_____________________________

_____________________________

For the children.

Blessings,
Gwyllm

Behold how this drop of seawater
has taken so many forms and names;
it has existed as mist, cloud, rain, dew, and mud,
then plant, animal, and Perfect man;
and yet it was a drop of water
from which these things appeared.
Even so this universe of reason, soul, heavens, and bodies,
was but a drop of water in its beginning and ending.

…When a wave strikes it, the world vanishes;
and when the appointed time comes to heaven and stars,
their being is lost in not being.

– Mahmūd Shabistarī

What a week. I think perhaps we are seeing the beginning, the true beginning of a centuries old system moving rapidly into collapse. With the US losing its credit rating, everything appears to be settling into a new phase where the cracks in the visage of capitalism should now be visible to all. In a way, I feel I could wax nostalgic, but it may be a bit too early for that. What will emerge will perhaps be a better way of life, for a greater number of people.

It may be a bumpy ride, that will challenge the majority of us, but be of good heart; We can now bring a better future about for those that come after us.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm
______________________

Today’s Turf revolves around Mahmūd Shabistarī, who I have long admired as a poet. We toudh bases with another favourite, Peter Gabriel, and the wonderful art of Georges Jules Victor Clairin. I hope you enjoy this entry.

On The Menu:
Random Quotes
The Links
Peter Gabriel – The Nest That Sailed The Sky
Mahmūd Shabistarī -The Perfect Face Of The Beloved
Peter Gabriel – Make Tomorrow
Art: Georges Jules Victor Clairin
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Random Quotes:
“Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.” – John Benfield
“History is the short trudge from Adam to atom.” – Leonard Louis Levinson
“There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.” – Albert Guinon
“Never confuse movement with action.” – Ernest Hemingway |
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The Links:

New technologies, tires reconstruct ancient bison hunts
Tooth filing was a worldwide craze among Viking men
Going underground: The massive European network of Stone Age tunnels that weaves from Scotland to Turkey
‘Multiverse’ theory suggested by microwave background

___________________________________________
Peter Gabriel – The Nest That Sailed The Sky

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From The Secret Rose Garden…Mahmūd Shabistarī

The Perfect Face Of The Beloved: The Eye And The Lip

What is the nature of the eye and the lip?
Let us consider.

Coquettish and intoxicating glances shine from His eye.
The essence of existence issues from His ruby lip.
Hearts burn with desire because of His eye,
And are healed again by the smile of His lip.

Because of His eye hearts are aching and drunken.
His ruby lip gives soul-garments to men.
His eye does not perceive this visible world,
Yet often His lip quivers with compassion.

Sometimes He charms us with a touch of humanity,
And gives help to the despairing.
It is His smile that gives life to man’s water and clay;
It is His breath that opens heaven’s gate for us.
A corn-baited snare is each glance of that eye,
And a wine-shop lurks in each corner.

When He frowns the wide world is laid waste,
But is restored every moment by His kiss.
Our blood is at fever point because of His eye,
Our souls demented because of His lip.

How He has despoiled our hearts by a frown!
How He has uplifted our souls by a smile!
If you ask of Him an embrace,
His eye will say “Yea,” His lip “Nay.”
He finished the creation of the world by a frown,
Now and then the soul is revived by a kiss.
We would give up our lives with despair at His frown,
But would rise from the dead at his kiss.

. . . When the world meditates on His eye and His lip,
It yields itself to the intoxication of wine.

The Mole

The single point of the mole in His cheek
Is a centre from which circles
A circumference.
The two worlds circle round that centre.
The heart and soul of Adam evolved from there.

. . . Hearts bleed because they are a reflection
Of the point of that black mole,
And both are stagnant; for there is no escape
Of the reflection from the reflect.

Unity will not embrace Plurality,
For the point of Unity has one root only.

. . . I wonder if His mole is the reflection of my heart,
Or my heart the reflection of His mole.
Was my heart created from His mole’s reflection?
Or may it be seen shining in His mole?
I wonder if my heart is in His face,
Or if His mole abides in my heart.
But this is a deep secret hidden, alas! from me.

. . . If my heart is a reflection,
Why is it ever so changing?

Sometimes tired like His brilliant eye,
Sometimes waving to and fro as His curl waves,
Sometimes a shining moonbeam like His face,
Sometimes a dark shadow like His mole,
Sometimes it is a mosque, sometimes a synagogue,
Sometimes a hell, sometimes a heaven,
Sometimes soaring above the seventh heaven,
Sometimes buried far below this earth.

. . . After a spell the devotee and ascetic
Turns again to wine, lamp, and beauty.

The Curl

If you ask of me the long story
Of the Beloved’s curl,
I cannot answer, for it contains a mystery
Which only true lovers understand,
And they, maddened by its beauty,
Are held captive as by a golden chain.
I spoke too openly of that graceful form,
But the end of the curl told me to hide its glory,
So that the path to it should be twisted
And crooked and difficult.

That curl enchains lovers’ hearts,
And bears their souls to and fro
In the sea of desire. A hundred thousand hearts
Are tightly bound, not one escapes, alas!

No single infidel would remain in the world
If he could see the shaking aside
Of those black curls,
And on the earth there would not remain a faithful soul
If they were always in their place.
Suppose they were shorn. . . . No matter,
Day would increase and the night disappear.

As a spider spreads its nets to ensnare,
So does the Beloved in wantonness
Shake His locks from off His face.

Behold His hands plundering Reason’s caravan
And with knots binding it tight.

Never at rest is that curl,
Ever moving to and fro
Making now night, making now morning,
Playing with the seasons in wonder.

Adam was created when the perfume of that
amber-scented curl
Was blown by the wind on his clay.

And I too possess an ensample;
I cannot wait for a moment,
But breathlessly start working anew
To tear my heart out of my breast.
. . . Sore troubled am I by that curl
Which veils my longing soul from His face.

The Cheek And The Down

The theatre of Divine beauty is the cheek,
And the down is the entrance to His holy presence.
Beauty is erased by His cheek, who says,
“Without my presence you are non-existent.”
In the unseen world the down is as green meadows
Leading to the mansion of Eternal Life.
The blackness of His curl turns day into night,
The down of His cheek holds the secret of life.
If only you can glimpse His face and its down,
You will understand the meaning of plurality and unity.
His curl will teach you the knowledge of this world,
His down will reveal hidden paths.

Imagine seven verses in which each letter
Contains oceans of mysteries;
Such is His cheek.
And imagine, hidden beneath each hair of His cheek,
Thousands of oceans of mysteries;
Such is His down.

As the heart is God’s throne in the water,
So is the down the ornament of the soul.
__________________________________________

Peter Gabriel -Make Tomorrow

_________________________________

Your eye has not strength enough
to gaze at the burning sun,
but you can see its burning light
by watching its reflection
mirrored in the water.

So the reflection of Absolute Being
can be viewed in the mirror of Not-Being,
for nonexistence, being opposite Reality,
instantly catches its reflection.

Know the world from end to end is a mirror;
in each atom a hundred suns are concealed.
If you pierce the heart of a single drop of water,
from it will flow a hundred clear oceans;
if you look intently at each speck of dust,
in it you will see a thousand beings.
A gnat in its limbs is like an elephant;
in name a drop of water resembles the Nile.
In the heart of a barleycorn is stored a hundred harvests.
Within a millet-seed a world exists.
In an insects wing is an ocean of life.
A heaven is concealed in the pupil of an eye.
The core at the center of the heart is small,
yet the Lord of both worlds will enter there.
– Mahmūd Shabistarī

The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.

So…
Kinda on a role here. 3rd Turf in 3 days, whoa!

My walking with Mary and Sophie have helped me reassemble the latest form of the creative self. We to often think of our selves as something static I think, whilst we are anything but. My adventures in various realms of consciousness doesn’t give me great confidence in the static model. We are made of colonies of bacteria on one hand working in cooperation with each other and other rudimentary forms of life, yet we see ourselves as discreet individuals, isolated in our field of precious self-consciousness. The layers of the onion… peel a bit away, and another appears, until one is at the heart of it, then; nothing.

I have found that we are eternally winkling in and out of existence. We are here, then we are not. We do it all the time with shifting focus, and emerging personalities that rise to the surface, and then submerge back into the sea of “self, non-self”. “Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.” ~ John Lancaster Spalding

We are consciousness thinking we are human, or not.

Blessings,
Gwyllm

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On The Menu:
The Golden Rule Through The Ages
Amon Tobin – At The End Of The Day
Visu the Woodsman and the Old Priest
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro 4 Poems
Ariwara no Narihira – 4 Poems
Galerie Stratique – Horizons Lointains
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The Golden Rule Through The Ages

“This is the sum of duty. Do not unto others that which would cause you pain if done to you.”
– Mahabharata 5:1517, from the Vedic tradition of India, circa 3000 BC

“What is hateful to you, do not to our fellow man. That is entire Law, all the rest is commentary.”
– Talmud, Shabbat 31a, from the Judaic tradition, circa 1300 BC

“That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself.”
– Avesta, Dadistan-i-dinik 94:5, from the Zoroastrian tradition, circa 600 BC

“Hurt not others in ways that you find hurtful.”
– Tripitaka, Udanga-varga 5,18 , from the Buddhist tradition, circa 525 BC

“Surely it is the maxim of loving kindness, do not unto others that which you would not have done unto you.”
– Analects, Lun-yu XV,23, from the Confucian tradition, circa 500 BC

“Be charitable to all beings, love is the representative of God.”
– Ko-ji-ki, Hachiman Kasuga of the Shinto tradition, circa 500 AD

“No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”
– Koran, Sunnah, from the Islam tradition, circa 620 AD

———————————

Amon Tobin – At The End Of The Day

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Japanese Folk Tales:
Visu the Woodsman and the Old Priest

Many years ago there lived on the then barren plain of Suruga a woodsman by the name of Visu. He was a giant in stature, and lived in a hut with his wife and children.
One day Visu received a visit from an old priest, who said to him: “Honorable woodsman, I am afraid you never pray.”

Visu replied: “If you had a wife and a large family to keep, you would never have time to pray.”

This remark made the priest angry, and the old man gave the woodcutter a vivid description of the horror of being reborn as a toad, or a mouse, or an insect for millions of years. Such lurid details were not to Visu’s liking, and he accordingly promised the priest that in future he would pray.

“Work and pray,” said the priest as he took his departure.

Unfortunately Visu did nothing but pray. He prayed all day long and refused to do any work, so that his rice crops withered and his wife and family starved. Visu’s wife, who had hitherto never said a harsh or bitter word to her husband, now became extremely angry, and, pointing to the poor thin bodies of her children, she exclaimed: “Rise, Visu, take up your ax and do something more helpful to us all than the mere mumbling of prayers!”

Visu was so utterly amazed at what his wife had said that it was some time before he could think of a fitting reply. When he did so his words came hot and strong to the ears of his poor, much-wronged wife.

“Woman,” said he, “the Gods come first. You are an impertinent creature to speak to me so, and I will have nothing more to do with you!” Visu snatched up his ax and, without looking round to say farewell, he left the hut, strode out of the wood, and climbed up Fujiyama, where a mist hid him from sight.

When Visu had seated himself upon the mountain he heard a soft rustling sound, and immediately afterward saw a fox dart into a thicket. Now Visu deemed it extremely lucky to see a fox, and, forgetting his prayers, he sprang up, and ran hither and thither in the hope of again finding this sharp-nosed little creature.

He was about to give up the chase when, coming to an open space in a wood, he saw two ladies sitting down by a brook playing go. The woodsman was so completely fascinated that he could do nothing but sit down and watch them. There was no sound except the soft click of pieces on the board and the song of the running brook. The ladies took no notice of Visu, for they seemed to be playing a strange game that had no end, a game that entirely absorbed their attention. Visu could not keep his eyes off these fair women. He watched their long black hair and the little quick hands that shot out now and again from their big silk sleeves in order to move the pieces.

After he had been sitting there for three hundred years, though to him it was but a summer’s afternoon, he saw that one of the players had made a false move. “Wrong, most lovely lady!” he exclaimed excitedly. In a moment these women turned into foxes and ran away.

When Visu attempted to pursue them he found to his horror that his limbs were terribly stiff, that his hair was very long, and that his beard touched the ground. He discovered, moreover, that the handle of his ax, though made of the hardest wood, had crumbled away into a little heap of dust.

After many painful efforts Visu was able to stand on his feet and proceed very slowly toward his little home. When he reached the spot he was surprised to see no hut, and, perceiving a very old woman, he said: “Good lady, I am amazed to find that my little home has disappeared. I went away this afternoon, and now in the evening it has vanished!”

The old woman, who believed that a madman was addressing her, inquired his name. When she was told, she exclaimed: “Bah! You must indeed be mad! Visu lived three hundred years ago! He went away one day, and he never came back again.”

“Three hundred years!” murmured Visu. “It cannot be possible. Where are my dear wife and children?”

“Buried!” hissed the old woman, “and, if what you say is true, you children’s children too. The Gods have prolonged your miserable life in punishment for having neglected your wife and little children.”

Big tears ran down Visu’s withered cheeks as he said in a husky voice: “I have lost my manhood. I have prayed when my dear ones starved and needed the labor of my once strong hands. Old woman, remember my last words: “If you pray, work too!”

We do not know how long the poor but repentant Visu lived after he returned from his strange adventures. His white spirit is still said to haunt Fujiyama when the moon shines brightly.
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Kakinomoto no Hitomaro 4 Poems

From the heights of Tsuno Mountain

In Iwami,
From the heights of Tsuno Mountain,
Even through the trees,
My waving sleeves,
My darling must have seen.
—

From uncountable Ôtsu

From uncountable
Ôtsu, she came and,
On the day I met her,
Glanced at her but briefly,
So, now, regret fills me.
—

Harvested Jewelled Seaweed

Harvested jewelled seaweed
At Minume; passed on,
Lush as summer grasses,
To the point at Noshima,
My boat draws near.
—

Heaven’s Clouds

Heaven’s clouds,
Layer on layer, conceal
The rumbling thunder:
Sound alone-
Must I continue just to hear?
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Ariwara no Narihira – 4 Poems

The purple
Hue is deep-now is the time
Every sprouting shoot-seen from afar
Throughout the fields-of trees and plants
Is equally dear.
—

Letter
c. mid-ninth century
Princess
I know not whether
Is was I who journeyed there
Or you who came to me:
Was it dream or reality?
Was I sleeping or awake?
Narihira
Last night I too
Wandered lost in the darkness
Of a disturbed heart
Whether dream or reality
Tonight let us decide!
Princess
Shallow the inlet
If the traveler wading it
Is not even wetted
Narihira
I shall cross again to you
Over Meeting Barrier.
—

Upon this pathway,
I have long heard others say,
man sets forth at last –
yet I had not thought to go
so very soon as today–
—

For sorrowing sons
who would have their parents live
a thousand long years –
how I wish that in this world
there were no final partings.

———————————
Galerie Stratique – Horizons Lointains

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“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?” ~Chuang Tzu

PREHISTORIC ORIGINS OF DNA

Its rising is not bright
nor its setting dark

Unceasing, continuous
Branching out in roots innumerable
Forever sending forth the serpent coil
of living things
Mysterious as the formless existence
to which it returns

Twisting back
Beyond mind

We say only that it is form from the formless
Life from spiral void

-Tim Leary — from Psychedelic Prayers
________________

Return

Return to the source
honing in on the signal
a bee to nectar.

-Gwyllm
_____________

Here is to source, and finding ones way. Here is to helping the traveler on their way. Here is to bravery of every chosen path…

I have become enamored of a past I am just discovering, understanding how others lit my way when even I was not aware of it. This is praise, for voices unknown, whose generosity of spirit, and adventuring of soul laid the way open for all that has come forth.

There is nothing like the present, I will grant you that. Without those who blazed the trails, where would we be now I ask?

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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Our last entry for July. This one came together, like the early morning it was conceived upon. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed bringing its diverse elements together.

On The Menu:
Marianne Faithfull – Si Demain
The Were-Wolf In The Middle-Ages
Sky Taste Alive Inside
Marianne Faithfull – Lullaby
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The voice! Ah!
Marianne Faithfull – Si Demain

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A further exploration of the shape-shifter, from an earlier time. – G

The Book of Were-Wolves, by Sabine Baring-Gould, [1865]

The Were-Wolf In The Middle-Ages

Stories from Olaus Magnus of Livonian Were-wolves–Story from Bishop Majolus–Story of Albertus Pericofcius–Similar occurrence at Prague–Saint Patrick–Strange incident related by John of Nüremberg–Bisclaveret–Courland Were-wolves–Pierre Vidal–Pavian Lycanthropist–Bodin’s Stories–Forestus’ Account of a Lycanthropist–Neapolitan Were-wolf

OLAUS MAGNUS relates that–”In Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, although the inhabitants suffer considerably from the rapacity of wolves throughout the year, in that these animals rend their cattle, which are scattered in great numbers through the woods, whenever they stray in the very least, yet this is not regarded by them as such a serious matter as what they endure from men turned into wolves.

“On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a multitude of wolves transformed from men gather together in a certain spot, arranged among themselves, and then spread to rage with wondrous ferocity against human beings, and those animals which are not wild, that the natives of these regions suffer more detriment from these, than they do from true and natural wolves; for when a human habitation has been detected by them isolated in the woods, they besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors, and in the event of their doing so, they devour all the human beings, and every animal which is found within. They burst into the beer-cellars, and there they empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile up the empty casks one above another in the middle of the cellar, thus showing their difference from natural and genuine wolves. . . . Between Lithuania, Livonia, and Courland are the walls of a certain old ruined castle. At this spot congregate thousands, on a fixed occasion, and try their agility in jumping. Those who are unable to bound over the wall, as; is often the case with the fattest, are fallen upon with scourges by the captains and slain.”[1] Olaus relates also in c. xlvii. the story of a certain nobleman who was travelling through a large forest with some peasants in his retinue who dabbled in the black art. They found no house [1. OLAUS MAGNUS: Historia de Vent. Septent. Basil. 15, lib. xviii. cap. 45.] where they could lodge for the night, and were well-nigh famished. Then one of the peasants offered, if all the rest would hold their tongues as to what he should do, that he would bring them a lamb from a distant flock.

He thereupon retired into the depths of the forest and changed his form into that of a wolf, fell upon the flock, and brought a lamb to his companions in his mouth. They received it with gratitude. Then he retired once more into the thicket, and transformed himself back again into his human shape.

The wife of a nobleman in Livonia expressed her doubts to one of her slaves whether it were possible for man or woman thus to change shape. The servant at once volunteered to give her evidence of the possibility. He left the room, and in another moment a wolf was observed running over the country. The dogs followed him, and notwithstanding his resistance, tore out one of his eyes. Next day the slave appeared before his mistress blind of an eye.

Bp. Majolus[1] and Caspar Peucer[2] relate the following circumstances of the Livonians:–

[1. MAJOLI Episc. Vulturoniensis Dier. Canicul. Helenopolis, 1612, tom. ii. colloq. 3.

2. CASPAR PEUCER: Comment. de Præcipuis Divin. Generibus, 1591, p. 169.]

At Christmas a boy lame of a leg goes round the country summoning the devil’s followers, who are countless, to a general conclave. Whoever remains behind, or goes reluctantly, is scourged by another with an iron whip till the blood flows, and his traces are left in blood. The human form vanishes, and the whole multitude become wolves. Many thousands assemble. Foremost goes the leader armed with an iron whip, and the troop follow, “firmly convinced in their imaginations that they are transformed into wolves.” They fall upon herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, but they have no power to slay men. When they come to a river, the leader smites the water with his scourge, and it divides, leaving a dry path through the midst, by which the pack may go. The transformation lasts during twelve days, at the expiration of which period the wolf-skin vanishes, and the human form reappears. This superstition was expressly forbidden by the church. “Credidisti, quod quidam credere solent, ut illæ quæ a vulgo Parcæ vocantur, ipsæ, vel sint vel possint hoc facere quod creduntur, id est, dum aliquis homo nascitur, et tunc valeant illum designare ad hoc quod velint, ut quandocunque homo ille voluerit, in lupum transformari possit, quod vulgaris stultitia, werwolf vocat, aut in aliam aliquam figuram?”–Ap. Burchard. (d. 1024). In like manner did S. Boniface preach against those who believed superstitiously in it strigas et fictos lupos.” (Serm. apud Mart. et Durand. ix. 217.)

In a dissertation by Müller[1] we learn, on the authority of Cluverius and Dannhaverus (Acad. Homilet. p. ii.), that a certain Albertus Pericofcius in Muscovy was wont to tyrannize over and harass his subjects in the most unscrupulous manner. One night when he was absent from home, his whole herd of cattle, acquired by extortion, perished. On his return he was informed of his loss, and the wicked man broke out into the most horrible blasphemies, exclaiming, “Let him who has slain, eat; if God chooses, let him devour me as well.”

As he spoke, drops of blood fell to earth, and the nobleman, transformed into a wild dog, rushed upon his dead cattle, tore and mangled the carcasses and began to devour them; possibly he may be devouring them still (ac forsan hodie que pascitur). His wife, then near her confinement, died of fear. Of these circumstances there were not only ear but also eye witnesses. (Non ab auritis tantum, sed et ocidatis accepi, quod [1. De Λυκανθρωπία. Lipsiæ, 1736.] narro). Similarly it is related of a nobleman in the neighbourhood of Prague, that he robbed his subjects of their goods and reduced them to penury through his exactions. He took the last cow from a poor widow with five children, but as a judgment, all his own cattle died. He then broke into fearful oaths, and God transformed him into a dog: his human head, however, remained.

S. Patrick is said to have changed Vereticus, king of Wales, into a wolf, and S. Natalis, the abbot, to have pronounced anathema upon an illustrious family in Ireland; in consequence of which, every male and female take the form of wolves for seven years and live in the forests and career over the bogs, howling mournfully, and appeasing their hunger upon the sheep of the peasants.[1] A duke of Prussia, according to Majolus, had a countryman brought for sentence before him, because he had devoured his neighbour’s cattle. The fellow was an ill-favoured, deformed man, with great wounds in his face, which he had received from dogs’ bites whilst he had been in his wolf’s form. It was believed that he changed shape twice in the year, at Christmas and at Midsummer. He was said to exhibit much uneasiness [1. PHIL. HARTUNG: Conciones Tergeminæ, pars ii. p. 367.] and discomfort when the wolf-hair began to break out and his bodily shape to change.

He was kept long in prison and closely watched, lest he should become a were-wolf during his confinement and attempt to escape, but nothing remarkable took place. If this is the same individual as that mentioned by Olaus Magnus, as there seems to be a probability, the poor fellow was burned alive.

John of Nüremberg relates the following curious story.[1] A priest was once travelling in a strange country, and lost his way in a forest. Seeing a fire, he made towards it, and beheld a wolf seated over it. The wolf addressed him in human-voice, and bade him not fear, as “he was of the Ossyrian race, of which a man and a woman were doomed to spend a certain number of years in wolf’s form. Only after seven years might they return home and resume their former shapes, if they were still alive.” He begged the priest to visit and console his sick wife, and to give her the last sacraments. This the priest consented to do, after some hesitation, and only when convinced of the beasts being human beings, by observing that the wolf used his front paws as hands, and when he saw the [1. JOHN EUS. NIERENBERG de Miracul. in Europa, lib. ii. cap. 42.] she-wolf peel off her wolf-skin from her head to her navel, exhibiting the features of an aged woman.

Marie de France says in the Lais du Bisclaveret:–[1]

Bisclaveret ad nun en Bretan
Garwall Papelent li Norman.
* * * *
Jadis le poet-hum oir
Et souvent suleit avenir,
Humes pluseirs Garwall deviendrent
E es boscages meisun tindrent

There is an interesting paper by Rhanæus, on the Courland were-wolves, in the Breslauer Sammlung.[2] The author says,–”There are too many examples derived not merely from hearsay, but received on indisputable evidence, for us to dispute the fact, that Satan–if we do not deny that such a being exists, and that he has his work in the children of darkness–holds the Lycanthropists in his net in three ways:–

“1. They execute as wolves certain acts, such as seizing a sheep, or destroying cattle, &c., not changed into wolves, which no scientific man in Courland believes, but in their human frames, and with their

[1. An epitome of this curious were-wolf tale will be found in Ellis’s Early English Metrical Romances.

2. Supplement III. Curieuser und nutzbarer Anmerkungen von Natur und Kunstgeschichten, gesammelt von Kanold. 1728.] human limbs, yet in such a state of phantasy and hallucination, that they believe themselves transformed into wolves, and are regarded as such by others suffering under similar hallucination, and in this manner run these people in packs as wolves, though not true wolves.

“2. They imagine, in deep sleep or dream, that they injure the cattle, and this without leaving their conch; but it is their master who does, in their stead, what their fancy points out, or suggests to him.

“3. The evil one drives natural wolves to do some act, and then pictures it so well to the sleeper, immovable in his place, both in dreams and at awaking, that he believes the act to have been committed by himself.”

Rhanæus, under these heads, relates three stories, which he believes be has on good authority. The first is of a gentleman starting on a journey, who came upon a wolf engaged in the act of seizing a sheep in his own flock; he fired at it, and wounded it, so that it fled howling to the thicket. When the gentleman returned from his expedition he found the whole neighbourhood impressed with the belief that he had, on a given day and hour, shot at one of his tenants, a publican, Mickel. p. 62 On inquiry, the man’s Wife, called Lebba, related the following circumstances, which were fully corroborated by numerous witnesses:–When her husband had sown his rye he had consulted with his wife how he was to get some meat, so as to have a good feast. The woman urged him on no account to steal from his landlord’s flock, because it was guarded by fierce dogs. He, however, rejected her advice, and Mickel fell upon his landlord’s sheep, but he had suffered and had come limping home, and in his rage at the ill success of his attempt, had fallen upon his own horse and had bitten its throat completely through. This took place in the year 1684.

In 1684, a man was about to fire upon a pack of wolves, when he heard from among the troop a voice exclaiming–”Gossip! Gossip! don’t fire. No good will come of it.”

The third story is as follows:–A lycanthropist was brought before a judge and accused of witchcraft, but as nothing could be proved against him, the judge ordered one of his peasants to visit the man in his prison, and to worm the truth out of him, and to persuade the prisoner to assist him in revenging himself upon another peasant who had injured him; and this was to be effected by destroying one of the man’s cows; but the peasant was to urge the prisoner to do it secretly, and, if possible, in the disguise of a wolf. The fellow undertook the task, but he had great difficulty in persuading the prisoner to fall in with his wishes: eventually, however, he succeeded. Next morning the cow was found in its stall frightfully mangled, but the prisoner had not left his cell: for the watch, who had been placed to observe him, declared that he had spent the night in profound sleep, and that he had only at one time made a slight motion with his head and hands and feet.

Wierius and Forestus quote Gulielmus Brabantinus as an authority for the fact, that a man of high position had been so possessed by the evil one, that often during the year he fell into a condition in which he believed himself to be turned into a wolf, and at that time he roved in the woods and tried to seize and devour little children, but that at last, by God’s mercy, he recovered his senses.

Certainly the famous Pierre Vidal, the Don Quixote of Provençal troubadours, must have had a touch of this madness, when, after having fallen in love with a lady of Carcassone, named Loba, or the Wolfess, the excess of his passion drove him over the country, howling like a wolf, and demeaning himself more like an irrational beast than a rational man.

He commemorates his lupine madness in the poem A tal Donna:–[1]

Crowned with immortal joys I mount
The proudest emperors above,
For I am honoured with the love
Of the fair daughter of a count.
A lace from Na Raymbauda’s hand
I value more than all the land
Of Richard, with his Poïctou,
His rich Touraine and famed Anjou.
When loup-garou the rabble call me,
When vagrant shepherds hoot,
Pursue, and buffet me to boot,
It doth not for a moment gall me;
I seek not palaces or halls,
Or refuge when the winter falls;
Exposed to winds and frosts at night,
My soul is ravished with delight.
Me claims my she-wolf (Loba) so divine:
And justly she that claim prefers,
For, by my troth, my life is hers
More than another’s, more than mine.

Job Fincelius[2] relates the sad story of a farmer of Pavia, who, as a wolf, fell upon many men in the open country and tore them to pieces. After much trouble [1. BRUCE WHYTE: Histoire des Langues Romaines, tom. ii. p. 248. 2. FINCELIUS de Mirabilibus, lib. xi.]the maniac was caught, and he then assured his captors that the only difference which existed between himself and a natural wolf, was that in a true wolf the hair grew outward, whilst in him it struck inward. In order to put this assertion to the proof, the magistrates, themselves most certainly cruel and bloodthirsty wolves, cut off his arms and legs; the poor wretch died of the mutilation. This took place in 1541. The idea of the skin being reversed is a very ancient one: versipellis occurs as a name of reproach in Petronius, Lucilius, and Plautus, and resembles the Norse hamrammr.

Fincelius relates also that, in 1542, there was such a multitude of were-wolves about Constantinople that the Emperor, accompanied by his guard, left the city to give them a severe correction, and slew one hundred and fifty of them.

Spranger speaks of three young ladies who attacked a labourer, under the form of cats, and were wounded by him. They were found bleeding in their beds next morning.

Majolus relates that a man afflicted with lycanthropy was brought to Pomponatius. The poor fellow had been found buried in hay, and when people approached, he called to them to flee, as he was a werewolf, and would rend them. The country-folk wanted to flay him, to discover whether the hair grew inwards, but Pomponatius rescued the man and cured him.

Bodin tells some were-wolf stories on good authority; it is a pity that the good authorities of Bodin were such liars, but that, by the way. He says that the Royal Procurator-General Bourdin had assured him that he had shot a wolf, and that the arrow had stuck in the beast’s thigh. A few hours after, the arrow was found in the thigh of a man in bed. In Vernon, about the year 1566, the witches and warlocks gathered in great multitudes, under the shape of cats. Four or five men were attacked in a lone place by a number of these beasts. The men stood their ground with the utmost heroism, succeeded in slaying one puss, and in wounding many others. Next day a number of wounded women were found in the town, and they gave the judge an accurate account of all the circumstances connected with their wounding.

Bodin quotes Pierre Marner, the author of a treatise on sorcerers, as having witnessed in Savoy the transformation of men into wolves. Nynauld[1] relates that in a village of Switzerland, near Lucerne, a peasant was [1. NYNAULD, De la Lycanthropie. Paris, 1615, p. 52.] attacked by a wolf, whilst he was hewing timber; he defended himself, and smote off a fore-leg of the beast. The moment that the blood began to flow the wolf’s form changed, and he recognized a woman without her arm. She was burnt alive.

An evidence that beasts are transformed witches is to be found in their having no tails. When the devil takes human form, however, he keeps his club-foot of the Satyr, as a token by which he may be recognized. So animals deficient in caudal appendages are to be avoided, as they are witches in disguise. The Thingwald should consider the case of the Manx cats in its next session.

Forestus, in his chapter on maladies of the brain, relates a circumstance which came under his own observation, in the middle of the sixteenth century, at Alcmaar in the Netherlands. A peasant there was attacked every spring with a fit of insanity; under the influence of this he rushed about the churchyard, ran into the church, jumped over the benches, danced, was filled with fury, climbed up, descended, and never remained quiet. He carried a long staff in his hand, with which he drove away the dogs, which flew at him and wounded him, so that his thighs were covered with scars. His face was pale, his eyes deep sunk in their sockets. Forestus pronounces the man to be a lycanthropist, but he does not say that the poor fellow believed himself to be transformed into a wolf. In reference to this case, however, he mentions that of a Spanish nobleman who believed himself to be changed into a bear, and who wandered filled with fury among the woods.

Donatus of Altomare[1] affirms that he saw a man in the streets of Naples, surrounded by a ring of people, who in his were-wolf frenzy had dug up a corpse and was carrying off the leg upon his shoulders. This was in the middle of the sixteenth century.

[1. De Medend. Human. Corp. lib. i. cap. 9.]

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This is the second themed poem that I have published of George Andrews. Both poems were retrieved from “The Psychedelic Review”

(Gwyllm – MacGreggor Mathers)

Sky Taste Alive Inside

George Andrews

I feel like a rocket that has just been launched
brain waves travel at the speed of light
shot through by all the stars
tense liquid movements turn me inside out
I am in all the worlds at once
after I have made a flute from the bones of my own skeleton
then I can begin to dance
my own ghost is holy and it is all I have
mother earth alive within me
calling all her children home
lost ones playing in the sky
I am in all your eyes
we are all inside each other’s bones
all wearing jewels from the same ocean
radioactive salt sounding in each ear
it is working just like magic sure as shit
writing with my own intestines
writing in my own intestines
signatures of maker sealer in order of the chromosomes
supreme secret foundation of the empire
protector of what is fine in all the worlds
of what in all the worlds holds true
coming up from beneath out of the abyss
tortoise shell oracle from the depths of time
seed of the space tribe planted before history began
rainbows oscillate through the flesh
innumerable worlds revolving in the galaxy of each individual sack of skin
each sensitive hungry island universe of an ego
has been alive in all the centuries
all the centuries are alive in me now
all is here now
all that ever was since time began
sea of primal radiance foam from which beauty springs
rare mountain fragance snowdrop breath
organic rainbow constellation
from inside the tissues paradise rays transform the flesh
revolution of the beautiful in the protoplasm
micro-explosion in the nucleus
morning glory story older than the earth we walk on
electromagnetic apple in the ecstatic garden
the scimitar of lightning severs my head from my shoulders
celestial earth within my flesh awakens the subtle part of my solid self
as caterpillar becomes butterfly so man becomes
a luminous giant thundering anthems
crown jewel on the forehead of our star the earth
recognize the other world in this one
the light takes me apart then puts me together again
bird in the mouth of the jaguar saved by a virgin’s hand
the markings on the tiger skin are in the language of the diamond back rattlers
zero in on one of those acts bathed in the fragance of the night
scars of passion like the markings on an animal’s coat
tell-tale traces of past experience
mother’s broth of many generations of lamentations
sort all the ingredients out
put each one in its proper place
now let’s begin again
the family of the forces in harmony
all back home again in one stew
traces of yesterday stirring in today’s home cooking
the dead in conscious contact with the living
ancestral traits alive and speaking
true nobility is this memory engraved in the bones
transformation thrice sanctified of the fossil into a living being
all the joy of what never was at last has a chance to be
scintillating at the peak each atom has danced its glory
when really pinned down up here
there is a lot of fast action for enormous stakes
scurrying of insect feet wars of species
whole lifetimes of energy being oozled up in a few instants
the marrow of the soul extracted
look into the fiery opal listen to the djinn
empty place between the eyes
space animal hidden in the human form
royal tiger science king game
armor of chain lightening links each star to its nerve
incredible night-hawks on the frontier of the open sky
extreme weathering of time along the seams of matter
cut that queen bee nectar with a knife of pollen
rainbow amoebas in my organism I am an organism of
crystallized light chords
each cell is an instrument in the orchestra of the body
floating cushion of joyous resonance
sound box swinging through the structure of the being
each cell in the body can communicate with any cell of any body
cosmic joke being played in the navel of the radiance
in the cauldron of exploding ether
you may think you are pissing it out of you
but it is in the salt of the bones forever
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Short Interview, then an amazing piece of music. Enjoy.

Marianne Faithfull – Lullaby

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1.
The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and
unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and
unchanging name.

(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven
and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all
things.

Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.

Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but as development
takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them
the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that
is subtle and wonderful.

(Gwyllm – Infinite Bunny)

THE TREE ABOVE —THE TREE BELOW

What is above is below
What is without is within
What is to come is in the past
Tall… deep… tree… green… branching… leaf
Root… above… below… thrusting… coiling
Sky… earth… stem… root
Leaf… green… sap
Soil… air
Seed
Soil… visible
Hidden… breathing… sucking
Bud… ooze… sun… damp
Light.. dark… bright… decay… laugh
Tear.. vein.,. rain… mud branch… root

What is above is below
What is without is within
What is to come is in the past

These wooden carvings displayed in her endless shelves
Await
Within each uncut branch—
The carver’s knife

—from Psychedelic Prayers
Timothy Leary
__________________

Dreaming of
that perfect
annihilation
Everything within
white light.

Blessings,
Gwyllm
____________________
On The Menu:
Pentangle – Light Flight
Annihilating Illumination
A Glass Of Ayahuasca
Pentangle – House Carpenter
Art – Gwyllm (mostly)
__________________

Pentangle – Light Flight

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Annihilating Illumination

GEORGE ANDREWS

While being struck by lightning in slow motion
the fire sears away layer after layer
sizzles me down to my ultimate ash
I quiver shrieks of laughing crystals
the radiant frenzy of the storm’s soul dwells in the guts of the dragon
the bomb in my belly blasts my body to bits
a million suns burst into being
naked free no ring around me but my own desire
I hold the lightning in embryo in my arms
the blood of the cactus is the blood of a snake and the blood of a star
magnetic dragon throbbing in each corpuscle
shining snake of the light wave our beings are based on
glyph of the nucleus of the cosmos
original flash of let there be light
the boat of the sun navigates through the underworld of my intestines
perpetual pilgrim doomed to wander through the chromatic repercussions
the intimate structure of the transparent signs
flower of light flowing through the blood of the universe
I wander through the mazes of the glory and the horror of the life
slime
vital jelly swarming in all possible creatures
I see the dead and the living merge
the dead call to us the living may we recognize them at last
the dead are in our blood each corpuscle an ancestor
the day all the living die the dead shall live
herald of the apocalypse sound the doomsday horn
‘Man stop the wheel of creation and look inside
the stars are all contained within our organs
galactic music spins inside the bones
coruscating symphonies coalesce iridescent vibrations
coupled poles of attraction combust the salt of a fantastic caprice
philosopher’s stone cooking in the cauldron of my skull
drain the bitter cup to its last drop
potent is the sorcerer’s broth
mighty as the giant bird who swoops down and carries me away
to the motionless point around which all motion spins
I see touch and count the seeds of destiny
I see how fate weaves its webs
dreaming worlds into being from the ooze of my own brain
God born of the goo of my membranes
and has suffered ever since the intricate combinations of the opposites
afloat forever a bubble on the surface of reality
O to make one perfect thing at last of all the worlds of wandering
a ransom for the soul’s pain
drink liquid lightning from the sacred river while it is before you
don’t miss a drop no one sees it twice
fire swims and pulses through each cell of my being
the seed of strong delight stirs .
myriad joys feel at home in an angel’s nest
revolving wheels of splendor palpitate potent beauty
clear colors cascade undulating reflections
of the diamond in the brain the pituitary gland decalcified
the mirror in the mind
the heavenly heart awakens the first beat tells the worlds
germ in the guts of God or God in the guts of a germ I am that I am the same dance is everywhere
the one law of cyclic change
that constantly accelerating fugue of incandescent experience
flaming sequences of rhythm patterns
I am alive within the living God
I throb unique among the infinite variations
and so what if all the evolution of consciousness only leads to the knowledge
that I am a germ in the guts of a greater being
I am older than creation older than all beings
the stars revolve within me
I voyage through the inner space between my atoms
I take space ships to the different parts of my body
each organ becomes a constellation as I spread across the sky
wheeling through the zodiac weaving the fate of future races
conceive a cosmos where life does not need to kin to live
create a system free from pain
in the spawn and seethe of the primeval ocean
out of chaos I pass the current
immortal diamonds shimmering on the foam of the instant now
scintillating images of the flux that never fixes
explode into extreme intensities
constantly generating golden brilliance
face to face with the annihilating illumination
how much revelation can an organism sustain and stay alive
mortals beware the rays of the absolute
Nerval: “They consider me insane but I know
that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods.”
glistening tender stars in the organs of all forms of life
trembling jewels flicker as they crawl like snakes
hidden energy roots of the soul body contact
subtle link between the sun and our life metabolism
invisible fiery wheel inside me
one spark that transforms everything
I’ve been to paradise and out the other side
zoomed through it like the midnight express through a whistle stop
I have been torn apart by the fingers of the flash
flayed alive on my electric skeleton
pulverized by the power of the spasm
I am the bridge between the living and the dead
I am the spirit in the shaman’s drum
I quiver to the rhythm of the Sphinx
I visit my own body as a stranger
incredible paroxysms of the luminous protoplasm
kindle multiple modulations of rare royal reality
to know that at each moment the crown jewels of the absolute
are dancing in the slime of my tissue
the play of the light in the growing cell
pours through the pulse of my perception
phoenix singing in my flesh
bird that breathes lightning as we breathe air and fishes water
intricate egg of fire fluctuating
in the magnetic field of my affinities and repulsions
where myriads of globules circulate crosswires hum
most amplified fantasy of the diamond body harvest
I free my nucleus gathering ecstasy for the ages
MY psyche digests the apocalyptic wisdom
interplanetary nausea
perfection signals tremor on the skin
O frail fine blue star
your faint fragile tonalities swoon triumphant rainbows
as the berserk fury of the thunder’s roar fades into words on paper.
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(Gwyllm – Uncle Allen 2)
A GLASS OF AYAHUASCA
by Allen Ginsberg

in my hotel room overlooking Desamparados’ Clanging Clock,
with the french balcony doors closed, and luminescent fixture out
“my room took on a near eastern aspect” that is I was reminded of Burroughs
with heart beating—and the blue wall of Polynesian Whorehouse, and
mirror framed in black as if in Black Bamboo-and wooden slated floor
and I in my bed, waiting, and slowly drifting away
but still thinking in my body till my body turned to passive wood
and my soul rocked back & forth preparing to slide out on eternal journey
backwards from my head in the dark
An hour, realizing the possible change in consciousness
that the Soul is independent of the body and its death
and that the Soul is not Me, it is the wholly other “whisper of consciousness”
from Above, Beyond, Afuera—
till I realize it existed in all its splendor in the Ideal or Imaginary
Toward which the me will travel when the body goes to the sands of Chancay
And at last, lying in bed covered my body with a splendid robe of
indian manycolors wool,
I gazed up at the grey gate of Heaven with a foreign eye
and yelled in my mind “Open up, for I am the Prince of eternity
come back to myself after a long journey in chaos,
open the Door of Heaven, My Soul, for I have come back to claim
my Ancient House
Let the Servants come forth to Welcome me and let Silent Harp make music
and bring my apparel of Rainbow and Star show me my shoes of Light and
my Pants of the Universe
Spread forth my meal of myriad lives, My Soul, and Show up thy
Face of Welcome
For I am the one who has dwelled in the secret Temple before,
and I have been man too long
And now I want to Hear Music of Joy beyond Death,
and now I am be who has waited to Welcome myself back Home
The great stranger is Home in his House of Joy.”

or words or thoughts or sensations & images to that effect.

Thus for an instant the Sensation of this Eternal House passed thru my hair
tho I couldn’t liberate my body from the bed to float away—
tho did glimpse the foot of the thought of the gate of Heaven—

Then opened my eyes and Saw the blast of light of the real universe
when I opened the window and looked at the clock on the R R Station
with its halfnaked man & woman with clubs, creators of time and chaos,
and down on the street where pastry venders sold their poor sugar
symbolic of Eternity, to Passerby-and great fat clanking beast of Trolley
with its dumb animal look and croaking screech on the tracks
Powered by electric life,, turned a corner of the Presidential Palace
where Bolivar 200 years ago in time planted a secret everlasting Fig-tree
and a fog from another life crept thru its own dimension
Past the cornice of the hotel and travelled downward in the street
To seek the river-had a bridge with little humans crossing, faraway
—and up in the hills the silver gleam of sunlight on the horizon thru thick fog
—and the Cerro San Christobal—with a cross atop and Casbah of poor
consciousness ratted on its hip—
and overall the vast blue flash & blast of open space
the Sky of Time, empty as a big blue dream
and as everlasting as the many eyes that lived to see it
Time is the God, is the Face of the God,
As in the monstrous image of the Ramondi Chavin Sculptured Stone Monument
A cat head many eyed sharp toothed god face long as Time,
with different eyes some upside down and 16 sets of faces
all have fangs—the structure of one consciousness
that waits upstairs to Devour man and all his universes
—turn the picture upside down—the top eyes see more than the human bottom rows
Indifferent, dopey, smiling, horrible, with Snakes & fangs—
The huge gentle creature of the Cosmic joke
that takes whatever form it can to Signify that it is the one that has come to its Home
where all are invited to Enter in Secret eternally
After they have been killed by the illusion of Impossible Death.
Lima, Peru
May 1960
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Pentangle – House Carpenter

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(Gwyllm – Dharma Wheel)

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Surrealism… in its broader sense… represents a spiritual crisis that stems from the ideological developments of the nineteenth century, and has succeeded in producing a technique of writing and painting that conveys a materio-mystical vision of the universe. – Anna Balakian

Friday, Portland.
Working on this entry off and on for the last few days.
We have been scrambling, off to Astoria to see friends at their new seaside cabin, to visiting clients, working on the new edition of The Invisible College Magazine (Lucky #7!) and generally getting things done.

Our friends Leslie & Roberto drove past on Interstate 5 yesterday, sadly they couldn’t stop as they were running late for setting up for a show in Seattle. Hopefully we can visit them and other friends down in my favourite California town later in the year if the weather holds back in October and early November.

It is beautiful here right now. The little birds are all fledgling out, ready to take to the sky only if the parents keep feeding them. I swear, most of them are larger than their parents. Perhaps we are seeing some sort of mutation happening to multiple species in our back yard!

Anyway, hope this finds you well. Another themed entry, enjoy!

Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
STS9 – The Shock Doctrine
Surrealist Quotes
The Links
La Pieuvre Des Arbres
Scottish Fairytales: Fairy Transportation
The Surrealist Song Of Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos Biography
Layo & Bushwacka – Sleepy Language
Art: Ernst Fuchs
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STS9 – The Shock Doctrine

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Surrealist Quotes:

The mind which plunges into Surrealism, relives with burning excitement the best part of childhood. (Andre Breton)

One can understand why Surrealism was not afraid to make for itself a tenet of total revolt, complete insubordination, of sabotage according to rule, and why it still expects nothing save from violence. (Andre Breton)

Surrealism is embedded in the everyday, in the daily experience. (Katharine Conley)

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision. (Salvador Dali)

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality. (John Lennon)
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The Links:

Stepping Into The Distant Past…
Are Cancers New Forms Of Parasites?
Drug Testing Via Your Fingerprints…
The Art Of Failing
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La Pieuvre Des Arbres

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Scottish Fairytales: Fairy Transportation

The power of the fairies was not confined to unchristened children alone; it was supposed frequently to be extended to full-grown persons, especially such as in an unlucky hour were devoted to the devil by the execration of parents and of masters; or those who were found asleep under a rock, or on a green hill, belonging to the fairies, after sunset, or, finally, to those who unwarily joined their orgies. A tradition existed, during the seventeenth century, concerning an ancestor of the noble family of Duffus, who, “walking abroad in the fields, near to his own house, was suddenly carried away, and found the next day at Paris, in the French king’s cellar, with a silver cup in his hand. Being brought into the king’s presence, and questioned by him who he was, and how he came thither, he told his name, his country, and the place of his residence! and that on such a day of the month, which proved to be the day immediately preceding, being in the fields, he heard the noise of a whirlwind, and of voices, crying ‘Horse and Hattock!’ (this is the word which the fairies are said to use when they remove from any place), whereupon he cried ‘Horse and Hattock’ also, and was immediately caught up and transported through the air by the fairies, to that place, where, after he had drunk heartily, he fell asleep, and before he woke, the rest of the company were gone, and had left him in the posture wherein he was found. It is said the king gave him the cup which was found in his hand, and dismissed him.” The narrator affirms “that the cup was still preserved, and known by the name of the Fairy Cup.” He adds that Mr. Steward, tutor to the then Lord Duffus, had informed him that, “when a boy at the school of Forres, he and his school-fellows were upon a time whipping their tops in the churchyard, before the door of the church, when, though the day was calm, they heard a noise of a wind, and at some distance saw the small dust begin to rise and turn round, which motion continued advancing till it came to the place where they were, whereupon they began to bless themselves; but one of their number being, it seems, a little more bold and confident than his companions, said, “‘Horse and Hattock with my top,’ and immediately they all saw the top lifted up from the ground, but could not see which way it was carried, by reason of a cloud of dust which was raised at the same time. They sought for the top all about the place where it was taken up, but in vain; and it was found afterwards in the churchyard, on the other side of the church.”

Footnotes
126:1 Sir Waiter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
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The Surrealist Song Of Robert Desnos

Dove in the Arch

Cursed!
be the father of the bride
of the blacksmith who forged the iron for the axe
with which the woodsman hacked down the oak
from which the bed was carved
in which was conceived the great-grandfather
of the man who was driving the carriage
in which your mother met your father.
—

The Ring of Stars

In order to make a star with five branches
Where six would have been the same
A circle must first be drawn
In order to make a star with five branches …

A ring!

One did not take so many precuations
In order to make a tree from many branches
Trees that hide the stars
Trees!
You, full of nests and song birds
Covered with branches and leaves
That you lift as far as the stars!
—

Cascade

What sort of arrow split the sky and this rock?
It’s quivering, spreading like a peacock’s fan
Like the mist around the shaft and knot less feathers
Of a comet come to nest at midnight.

How blood surges from the gaping wound,
Lips already silencing murmur and cry.
One solemn finger holds back time, confusing
The witness of the eyes where the deed is written.

Silence? We still know the passwords.
Lost sentinels far from the watch fires
We smell the odor of honeysuckle and surf
Rising in the dark shadows.

Distance, let dawn leap the void at last,
And a single beam of light make a rainbow on the water
Its quiver full of reeds,
Sign of the return of archers and patriotic songs.
—

—
Sky Song

The flower of the Alps told the seashell: “You’re shining”
The seashell told the sea: “You echo”
The sea told the boat: “You’re shuddering”
The boat told the fire: “You’re glowing brightly”
The fire told me: “I glow less brightly than her eyes”
The boat told me: “I shudder less than your heart does when she appears”
The sea told me: “I echo less than her name does in your love-making”
The seashell told me: “I shine less brightly than the phosphorus of desire in your hollow dream”
The flower of the Alps told me: “She’s beautiful”
I said: “She’s beautiful, so beautiful, she moves me.”
—

The Voice of Robert Desnos

So like a flower and a current of air
the flow of water fleeting shadows
the smile glimpsed at midnight this excellent evening
so like every joy and every sadness
it is the midnight past lifting its naked body above belfries and poplars
I call to me those lost in the fields
old skeletons young oaks cut down
scraps of cloth rotting on the ground and linen drying in farm country
I call tornadoes and hurricanes
storms typhoons cyclones
tidal waves
earthquakes
I call the smoke of volcanoes and the smoke of cigarettes
the rings of smoke from expensive cigars
I call lovers and loved ones
I call the living and the dead
I call gravediggers I call assassins
I call hangmen pilots bricklayers architects
assassins
I call the flesh
I call the one I love
I call the one I love
I call the one I love
the jubilant midnight unfolds its satin wings and perches on my bed
the belfries and the poplars bend to my wish
the former collapse the latter bow down
those lost in the fields are found in finding me
the old skeletons are revived by my voice
the young oaks cut down are covered with foliage
the scraps of cloth rotting on the ground and in the earth
snap to at the sound of my voice like a flag of rebellion
the linen drying in farm country clothes adorable women
whom I do not adore
who come to me
obeying my voice, adoring
tornadoes revolve in my mouth
hurricanes if it is possible redden my lips
storms roar at my feet
typhoons if it is possible ruffle me
I get drunken kisses from the cyclones
the tidal waves come to die at my feet
the earthquakes do not shake me but fade completely
at my command
the smoke of volcanoes clothes me with its vapors
and the smoke of cigarettes perfumes me
and the rings of cigar smoke crown me
loves and love so long hunted find refuge in me
lovers listen to my voice
the living and the dead yield to me and salute me
the former coldly the latter warmly
the gravediggers abandon the hardly-dug graves
and declare that I alone may command their nightly work
the assassins greet me
the hangmen invoke the revolution
invoke my voice
invoke my name
the pilots are guided by my eyes
the bricklayers are dizzied listening to me
the architects leave for the desert
the assassins bless me
flesh trembles when I call

the one I love is not listening
the one I love does not hear
the one I love does not answer.
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Robert Desnos Biography

Desnos, Robert (rôbĕr’ dĕsnôs’), 1900-1945, French poet. Among the best-known surrealist poets, he was one of the chief proponents of so-called automatic writing. He put himself in a trance before writing many of his works. They include La Liberté ou l’amour [liberty or love] (1927), Corps et Biens [bodies and blessings] (1930), État de veille [wakefulness] (1943), Contrée [thwarted] (1944), Félix Labisse (1945), and Choix de poems [choice of poems] (1945). He also wrote a novel, Le Vin est tiré [the wine is killed] (1943), and a surrealistic drama, La Place de L’étoile (1945). During World War II, Desnos died as a prisoner in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
—
Desnos, Robert (1900-45). French poet. A very inventive Surrealist, he made contact with Breton in 1922. In the experiments with hypnotic sleep, he turned out to be the best subject, capable of writing in a trance. Even if the aphorisms of Rrose Sélavy (1922-3) were not the result of transatlantic telepathic communication with Marcel Duchamp, the latter provided the model. Desnos’s first published book, Deuil pour deuil (1924), an almost unclassifiable prose text, paved the way for the erotic fantasy La Liberté ou l’amour (1927). In his lifetime he brought out two major volumes of poetry: Corps et biens (1930), covering the decade from 1919 until his exclusion from the Surrealist group, includes the linguistic experiments of ‘L’Aumonyme’ and ‘Langage cuit’ (1923), the lyrical apostrophe ‘A la Mystérieuse’ (1926) and ‘Les Ténèbres’ (1927); Fortunes (1942) shows how he continued to explore the whole gamut of poetry, despite his radio and newspaper work. He also wrote two cantatas with Milhaud, Pour l’inauguration du Musée de l’homme (1937) and Les Quatre Eléments (1938), a novel, Le Vin est tiré (1943), a ‘play’, Le Place de l’Étoile (1945), and essays, e.g. Félix Labisse (1945). A Resistance poet, he died in a concentration camp. His posthumous publications include Choix de poèmes (1946), Domaine public (1953), Cinéma (1966).

[Keith Aspley]

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Layo & Bushwacka – Sleepy Language

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Like all revolutions, the surrealist revolution was a reversion, a restitution, an expression of vital and indispensable spiritual needs. – Eugene Ionesco

Dorothy Parker: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

The Golden Index:

Dimidium Animae Meae… You know it when it happens. That merging, the conversations, the long nights that vanish so quickly, the rising and falling of the sun, the seasons. You become as one. I praise the one who holds my heart, and soul.

In The Golden Index, we stand, measured in our time, a unique moment together. Civilizations rise and fall, the seasons and seas change, but in that one eternal moment, we are.

—
This is an entry of random selections, put together on a muggy Sunday afternoon. Here is to the Beauty we dwell in. Here is Love.

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
The Random Quotes
Laika – Almost Sleeping
The Were-Wolf In The North
Sulpicia’s Verses
Laika – Breather
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The Random Quotes

George Eliot: “We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.”
E. V. Lucas: “I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.”
Barry Commoner: “Nothing ever goes away.”
William Faulkner | “The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.”
W. L. George: “Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.”
J. Robert Oppenheimer: “Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.”
George Burns: “I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.”
Steven Weinberg: “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
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Laika – Almost Sleeping

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The Book of Were-Wolves
by Sabine Baring-Gould
Chapter III: The Were-Wolf In The North

(Arthur Rackham – Odin)

Norse Traditions – Manner in which the Change was effected – Vœlundar Kvœda – Instances from the Völsung Saga – Hrolf’s Saga – Kraka – Faroëse Poem – Helga Kvida – Vatnsdæla Saga – Eyrbyggja Saga

In Norway and Iceland certain men were said to be eigi einhamir, not of one skin, an idea which had its roots in paganism. The full form of this strange superstition was, that men could take upon them other bodies, and the natures of those beings whose bodies they assumed. The second adopted shape was called by the same name as the original shape, hamr, and the expression made use of to designate the transition from one body to another, was at skipta hömum, or at hamaz; whilst the expedition made in the second form, was the hamför. By this transfiguration extraordinary powers were acquired; the natural strength of the individual was doubled, or quadrupled; he acquired the strength of the beast in whose body he travelled, in addition to his own, and a man thus invigorated was called hamrammr.

The manner in which the change was effected, varied. At times, a dress of skin was cast over the body, and at once the transformation was complete; at others, the human body was deserted, and the soul entered the second form, leaving the first body in a cataleptic state, to all appearance dead. The second hamr was either borrowed or created for the purpose. There was yet a third manner of producing this effect-it was by incantation; but then the form of the individual remained unaltered, though the eyes of all beholders were charmed so that they could only perceive him under the selected form.

Having assumed some bestial shape, the man who is eigi einhammr is only to be recognized by his eyes, which by no power can be changed. He then pursues his course, follows the instincts of the beast whose body he has taken, yet without quenching his own intelligence. He is able to do what the body of the animal can do, and do what he, as man, can do as well. He may fly or swim, if be is in the shape of bird or fish; if he has taken the form of a wolf, or if he goes on a gandreið, or wolf’s-ride, he is fall of the rage and malignity of the creatures whose powers and passions he has assumed.

I will give a few instances of each of the three methods of changing bodies mentioned above. Freyja and Frigg had their falcon dresses in which they visited different regions of the earth, and Loki is said to have borrowed these, and to have then appeared so precisely like a falcon, that he would have escaped detection, but for the malicious twinkle of his eyes. In the Vælundar kviða is the following passage:–

I.
Meyjar flugu sunnan
Myrkvið igögnum
Alvitr unga
Orlög drýgja;
þær á savarströnd
Settusk at hvilask,
Dró sir suðrœnar
Dýrt lín spunnu.

II.
Ein nam þeirra
Egil at verja
Fögr mær fíra
Faðmi ljósum;
Önnur var Svanhvít,
Svanfjaðrar dró;
En in þriðja
þeirra systir
Var i hvítan
Háls Völundar.

I.
From the south flew the maidens
Athwart the gloom,
Alvit the young,
To fix destinies;
They on the sea-strand
Sat them to rest,
These damsels of the south
Fair linen spun.

II.
One of them took
Egil to press,
Fair maid, in her
Dazzling arms.
Another was Svanhwit,
Who wore swan feathers;
And the third,
Their sister,
Pressed the white
Neck of Vœlund.

The introduction of Sœmund tells us that these charming young ladies were caught when they had laid their swan-skins beside them on the shore, and were consequently not in a condition to fly.

In like manner were wolves’ dresses used. The following curious passage is from the wild Saga of the Völsungs:–

“It is now to be told that Sigmund thought Sinfjötli too young to help him in his revenge, and he wished first to test his powers; so during the summer they plunged deep into the wood and slew men for their goods, and Sigmund saw that he was quite of the Völsung stock. . . . Now it fell out that as they went through the forest, collecting monies, that they lighted on a house in which were two men sleeping, with great gold rings an them; they had dealings with witchcraft, for wolf-skins hung up in the house above them; it was the tenth day on which they might come out of their second state. They were kings’ sons. Sigmund and Sinfjötli got into the habits, and could not get out of them again, and the nature of the original beasts came over them, and they howled as wolves–they learned “both of them to howl. Now they went into the forest, and each took his own course; they made the agreement together that they should try their strength against as many as seven men, but not more, and. that he who was ware of strife should utter his wolf’s howl.

“‘Do not fail in this,’ said Sigmund, ‘for you are young and daring, and men would be glad to chase you.’ Now each went his own course; and after that they had parted Sigmund found men, so he howled; and when Sinfjötli heard that, he ran up and slew them all-then they separated. And Sinfjötli had not been long in the wood before he met with. eleven men; he fell upon them and slew them every one. Then he was tired, so he flung himself under an oak to rest. Up came Sigmund and said, ‘Why did you not call out?’ Sinfjötli replied, ‘What was the need of asking your help to kill eleven men?’

“Sigmund flew at him and rent him so that he fell, for he had bitten through his throat. That day they could not leave their wolf-forms. Sigmund laid him on his back and bare him home to the hall, and sat beside him, and said, ‘Deuce take the wolf-forms!”‘–Völsung Saga, c. 8.

There is another curious story of a were-wolf in the same Saga, which I must relate.

“Now he did as she requested, and hewed down a great piece of timber, and cast it across the feet of those ten brothers seated in a row, in the forest; and there they sat all that day and on till night. And at midnight there came an old she-wolf out of the forest to them, as they sat in the stocks, and she was both huge and grimly. Now she fell upon one of them, and bit him to death, and after she had eaten him all up, she went away. And next morning Signy sent a trusty man to her brothers, to know how it had fared with them. When he returned he told her of the death of one, and that grieved her much, for she feared it might fare thus with them all, and she would be unable to assist them.

“In short, nine nights following came the same she-wolf at midnight, and devoured them one after another till all were dead, except Sigmund, and he was left alone. So when the tenth night came, Signy sent her trusty man to Sigmund, her brother, with honey in his hand, and said that he was to smear it over the face of Sigmund, and to fill his mouth with it. Now he went to Sigmund, and did as he was bid, after which he returned home. And during the night came the same she-wolf, as was her wont, and reckoned to devour him, like his brothers.

“Now she snuffed at him, where the honey was smeared, and began to lick his face with her tongue, and presently thrust her tongue into his mouth. He bore it ill, and bit into the tongue of the she-wolf; she sprang up and tried to break loose, setting her feet against the stock, so as to snap it asunder: but he held firm, and ripped the tongue out by the roots, so that it was the death of the wolf. It is the opinion of some men that this beast was the mother of King Siggeir, and that she had taken this form upon her through devilry and witchcraft.”–(c. 5.)

There is another story bearing on the subject in the Hrolfs Saga Kraka, which is pretty; it is as follows:–

“In the north of Norway, in upland-dales, reigned a king called Hring; and he had a son named Björn. Now it fell out that the queen died, much lamented by the king, and by all. The people advised him to marry again, and so be sent men south to get him a wife. A gale and fierce storm fell upon them, so that they had to turn the helm, and run before the wind, and so they came north to Finnmark, where they spent the winter. One day they went inland, and came to a house in which sat two beautiful women, who greeted them well, and inquired whence they had come. They replied by giving an account of their journey and their errand, and then asked the women who they were, and why they were alone, and far from the haunts of men, although they were so comely and engaging. The elder replied–that her name was Ingibjorg, and that her daughter was called Hvit, and that she was the Finn king’s sweetheart. The messengers decided that they would return home, if Hvit would come with them and marry King Hring. She agreed, and they took her with them and met the king who was pleased with her, and had his wedding feast made, and said that he cared not though she was not rich. But the king was very old, and that the queen soon found out.

“There was a Carle who had a farm not far from the king’s dwelling; he had a wife, and a daughter, who was but a child, and her name was Bera; she was very young and lovely. Björn the king’s son, and Bera the Carle’s daughter, were wont, as children, to play together, and they loved each other well. The Carle was well to do, he had been out harrying in his young days, and he was a doughty champion. Björn and Bera loved each other more and more, and they were often together.

Time passed, and nothing worth relating occurred; but Björn, the king’s son, waxed strong and tall; and he was well skilled in all manly exercises.

“King Hring was often absent for long, harrying foreign shores, and Hvit remained at home and governed the land. She was not liked of the people. She was always very pleasant with Björn, but he cared little for her. It fell out once that the King Hring went abroad, and he spake with his queen that Björn should remain at home with her, to assist in the government, for he thought it advisable, the queen being haughty and inflated with pride.

“The king told his son Björn that he was to remain at home, and rule the land with the queen; Björn replied that he disliked the plan, and that he had no love for the queen; but the king was inflexible, and left the land with a great following. Björn walked home after his conversation with the king, and went up to his place, ill-pleased and red as blood. The queen came to speak with him, and to cheer him; and spake friendly with him, but he bade her be of. She obeyed him that time. She often came to talk with him, and said how much pleasanter it was for them to be together, than to have an old fellow like Hring in the house.

“Björn resented this speech, and struck her a box in the ear, and bade her depart, and he spurned her from him. She replied that this was ill-done to drive and thrust her away: and ‘You think it better, Björn, to sweetheart a Carle’s daughter, than to have my love and favour, a fine piece of condescension and a disgrace it is to you! But, before long, something will stand in the way of your fancy, and your folly.’ Then she struck at him with a wolf-skin glove, and said, that he should become a rabid and grim wild bear; and ‘You shall eat nothing but your father’s sheep, which you shall slay for your food, and never shall you leave this state.’

After that, Björn disappeared, and none knew what had become of him; and men sought but found him not, as was to be expected. We must now relate how that the king’s sheep were slaughtered, half a score at a time, and it was all the work of a grey bear, both huge and grimly.

“One evening it chanced that the Carle’s daughter saw this savage bear coming towards her, looking tenderly at her, and she fancied that she recognized the eyes of Björn, the king’s son, so she made a slight attempt to escape; then the beast retreated, but she followed it, till she came to a cave. Now when she entered the cave there stood before her a man, who greeted Bera, the Carle’s daughter; and she recognized him, for he was Björn, Hring’s son. Overjoyed were they to meet. So they were together in the cave awhile, for she would not part from him when she had the chance of being with him; but he said that this was not proper that she should be there by him, for by day he was a beast, and by night a man.

“Hring returned from his harrying, and he was told the news, of what had taken place during his absence; how that Björn, his son, had vanished, and also, how that a monstrous beast was up the country, and was destroying his flocks. The queen urged the king to have the beast slain, but he delayed awhile.

“One night, as Bera and Björn were together, he said to her:–’Methinks to-morrow will be the day of my death, for they will come out to hunt me down. But for myself I care not, for it is little pleasure to live with this charm upon me, and my only comfort is that we are together; but now our union must be broken. I will give you the ring which is under my left hand. You will see the troop of hunters to-morrow coming to seek me; and when I am dead go to the king, and ask him to give you what is under the beast’s left front leg. He will consent.’

“He spoke to her of many other things, till the bear’s form stole over him, and he went forth a bear. She followed him, and saw that a great body of hunters had come over the mountain ridges, and had a number of dogs with them. The bear rushed away from the cavern, but the dogs and the king’s men came upon him, and there was a desperate struggle. He wearied many men before he was brought to bay, and had slain all the dogs. But now they made a ring about him, and he ranged around it., but could see no means of escape, so he turned to where the king stood, and he seized a man who stood next him, and rent him asunder; then was the bear so exhausted that he cast himself down flat, and, at once, the men rushed in upon him and slew him. The Carle’s daughter saw this, and she went up to the king, and said,–’Sire! wilt thou grant me that which is under the bear’s left fore-shoulder?’ The king consented. By this time his men had nearly flayed the bear; Bera went up and plucked away the ring, and kept it, but none saw what she took, nor had they looked for anything. The king asked her who she was, and she gave a name, but not her true name.

“The king now went home, and Bera was in his company. The queen was very joyous, and treated her well, and asked who she was; but Bera answered as before.

“The queen now made a great feast, and had the bear’s flesh cooked for the banquet. The Carle’s daughter was in the bower of the queen, and could not escape, for the queen had a suspicion who she was. Then she came to Bera with a dish, quite unexpectedly, and on it was bear’s flesh, and she bade Bera eat it. She would not do so. ‘Here is a marvel!’ said the queen; ‘you reject the offer which a queen herself deigns to make to you. Take it at once, or something worse will befall you.’ She bit before her, and she ate of that bite; the queen cut another piece, and looked into her mouth; she saw that one little grain of the bite had gone down, but Bera spat out all the rest from her mouth, and said she would take no more, though she were tortured or killed.

“‘Maybe you have had sufficient,’ said the queen, and she laughed.”–(Hrolfs Saga Kraka, c. 24-27, condensed.)

In the Faroëse song of Finnur hin friði, we have the following verse:–

Hegar íð Finnur hetta sær.
Mannspell var at meini,
Skapti hann seg í varglíki:

Hann feldi allvæl fleiri.

When this peril Finn saw,
That witchcraft did him harm,
Then he changed himself into a were-wolf:

He slew many thus.

The following is from the second Kviða of Helga Hundingsbana (stroph. 31):–

May the blade bite,
Which thou brandishest
Only on thyself,
when it Chimes on thy head.
Then avenged will be
The death of Helgi,
When thou, as a wolf,
Wanderest in the woods,
Knowing nor fortune
Nor any pleasure,
Haying no meat,
Save rivings of corpses.

In all these cases the change is of the form: we shall now come to instances in which the person who is changed has a double shape, and the soul animates one after the other.

The Ynglinga Saga (c. 7) says of Odin, that “he changed form; the bodies lay as though sleeping or dead, but he was a bird or a beast, a fish, or a woman, and went in a twinkling to far distant lands, doing his own or other people’s business.” In like manner the Danish king Harold sent a warlock to Iceland in the form of a whale, whilst his body lay stiff and stark at home. The already quoted Saga of Hrolf Krake gives us another example, where Bödvar Bjarki, in the shape of a huge bear, fights desperately with the enemy, which has surrounded the hall of his king, whilst his human body lies drunkenly beside the embers within.

In the Vatnsdæla Saga, there is a curious account of three Finns, who were shut up in a hut for three nights, and ordered by Ingimund, a Norwegian chief, to visit Iceland and inform him of the lie of the country, where he was to settle. Their bodies became rigid, and they sent their souls the errand, and, on their awaking at the end of three days, gave an accurate description of the Vatnsdal, in which Ingimund was eventually to establish himself. But the Saga does not relate whether these Finns projected their souls into the bodies of birds or beasts.

The third manner of transformation mentioned, was that in which the individual was not changed himself, but the eyes of others were bewitched, so that they could not detect him, but saw him only under a certain form. Of this there are several examples in the Sagas; as, for instance, in the Hromundar Saga Greypsonar, and in the Fostbræðra Saga. But I will translate the most curious, which is that of Odd, Katla’s son, in the Eyrbyggja Saga.–(c. 20.)

“Geirrid, housewife in Mafvahlið, sent word into Bolstad, that she was ware of the fact that Odd, Katla’s son, had hewn off Aud’s hand.

“Now when Thorarinn and Arnkell heard that, they rode from home with twelve men. They spent the night in Mafvahlið, and rode on next morning to Holt: and Odd was the only man in the house.

“Katla sat on the high seat spinning yarn, and she bade Odd sit beside her; also, she bade her women sit each in her place, and hold their tongues. ‘For,’ said she, ‘I shall do all the talking.’ Now when Arnkell and his company arrived, they walked straight in, and when they came into the chamber, Katla greeted Arnkell, and asked the news. He replied that there was none, and he inquired after Odd. Katla said that he had gone to Breidavik. ‘We shall ransack the house though,’ quoth Arnkell. ‘Be it so,’ replied Katla, and she ordered a girl to carry a light before them, and unlock the different parts of the house. All they saw was Katla spinning yarn off her distaff. Now they search the house, but find no Odd, so they depart. But when they had gone a little way from the garth, Arnkell stood still and said: ‘How know we but that Katla has hoodwinked us, and that the distaff in her hand was nothing more than Odd.’ ‘Not impossible!’ said Thorarinn; ‘let us turn back.’ They did so; and when those at Holt raw that they were returning, Katla said to her maids, ‘Sit still in your places, Odd and I shall go out.’

“Now as they approached the door, she went into the porch, and began to comb and clip the hair of her son Odd. Arnkell came to the door and saw where Katla was, and she seemed to be stroking her goat, and disentangling its mane and beard and smoothing its wool. So he and his men went into the house, but found not Odd. Katla’s distaff lay against the bench, so they thought that it could not have been Odd, and they went away. However, when they had come near the spot where they had turned before, Arnkell said, ‘Think you not that Odd may have been in the goat’s form?’ ‘There is no saying,’ replied Thorarinn; ‘but if we turn back we will lay hands on Katla.’ ‘We can try our luck again,’ quoth Arnkell; ‘and see what comes of it.’ So they returned.

“Now when they were seen on their way back, Katla bade Odd follow her; and she lea him to the ash-heap, and told him to lie there and not to stir on any account. But when Arnkell, and his men came to the farm, they rushed into the chamber, and saw Katla seated in her place, spinning. She greeted them and said that their visits followed with rapidity. Arnkell replied that what she said was true. His comrades took the distaff and cut it in twain. ‘Come now!’ said Katla, ‘you cannot say, when you get home, that you have done nothing, for you have chopped up my distaff.’ Then Arnkell and the rest hunted high and low for Odd, but could not find him; indeed they saw nothing living about the place, beside a boar-pig which lay under the ash-heap, so they went away once more.

“Well, when they got half-way to Mafvahlið, came Geirrid to meet them, with her workmen. ‘They had not gone the right way to work in seeking Odd,’ she said, ‘but she would help them.’ So they turned back again. Geirrid had a blue cloak on her. Now when the party was seen and reported to Katla, and it was said that they were thirteen in number, and one had on a coloured dress, Katla exclaimed, ‘That troll Geirrid is come! I shall not be able to throw a glamour over their eyes any more.’ She started up from her place and lifted the cushion of the seat, and there was a hole and a cavity beneath: into this she thrust Odd, clapped the cushion over him, and sat down, saying she felt sick at heart.

“Now when they came into the room, there were small greetings. Geirrid cast of her the cloak and went up to Katla, and took the seal-skin bag which she had in her hand, and drew it over the head of Katla.[1] Then Geirrid bade them break up the seat. They did so, and found Odd. Him they took and carried to Buland’s head, where they hanged him. . . . But Katla they stoned to death under the headland.”

[1. A precaution against the “evil eye.” Compare Gisla Saga Surssonnar, p. 34. Laxdæla Saga, cc. 37, 38.]
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Sulpicia’s Verses

I Love Proclaimed

Love has come at last, such love that to hide it in shame
would be worse than being spoken of for showing it.
Won over by my Muse, Venus of Cythera,
brought him, and placed him here in my arms.
Venus fulfils what she promised: let my joy be told,
spoken by him who has no joy of his own.
I wouldn’t want to order any of my letters sealed
so that none can read them before my lover does.
I delight in my sin: I loathe composing my looks
for public opinion: let them declare worth meets worth.

II The Hateful Journey

My hateful birthday’s here, to be spent in sadness,
in the wretched country, and without Cerinthus.
What’s sweeter than the city? Is a villa fit for a girl
or the chilly river that runs through Arretium’s fields?
Peace now, Messalla, from over-zealous care of me:
journeys, dear relative, aren’t always welcome.
Snatched away, I leave my mind and feelings here,
she whom coercion won’t allow to make her own decisions.

III The Journey Abandoned

Did you know the threat of that wretched journey’s
been lifted from your girl’s spirits? Now I can be in Rome
for my birthday. Let’s all celebrate this birthday
that comes to you, now, by unexpected chance.

IV Her Reproach

Be grateful I’d not suddenly fall into evil foolishness,
now you allow yourself free reign, and are careless of me.
Any toga, any whore loaded down by a basket of wool
is dearer to you than Sulpicia, Servius’s daughter.
But they’re anxious for me, those for whom the greatest
reason for grief is lest I give myself to an unworthy bed.

V In Sickness

Have you any kind thought for your girl, Cerinthus,
now that fever wastes my weary body?
Ah, otherwise I would not want to conquer
sad illness, if I thought you did not wish it too.
And what use is it to me to conquer illness, if you
can endure my trouble with indifferent heart?

VI Her Apology

Let me not be such a feverish passion to you, my love,
as I seem to have been a few days ago,
if I’ve done anything in my foolish youth
which I’ve owned to regretting more
than leaving you, alone, last night
wishing to hide the desire inside me.
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Laika – Breather

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