22 April - (Earth) Liber LXV, 1:28-29
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**28. My head is jewelled with twelve stars; My body is white as milk of the stars; it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible.
29. I have found that which could not be found; I have found a vessel of quicksilver.
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** I have found that which could not be found; I have found a vessel of quicksilver.
**A vessel full of quicksilver, or a vessel made of quicksilver? I prefer the latter, but the text is not specific on this point. To my mind it would be possible to find a vessel that is full of the slippery metal, and impossible to find something that is made of it, which would imply it can do something it shouldn't be able to do—hold a fixed (salt) shape!
Imagistically, the whole selection suggests the tarot card of the Star: the vessel, the milk white body, the abyss of stars, blueness, the idea of quicksilver/change... The path of the Star, Heh, flows from Chokmah, the sphere of the zodiac—the head jeweled with twelve stars. It is in its passage through the abyss that all the various elements of its journey are appropriated by the speaker as images appropriate to describe him/herself.
My head is jewelled with twelve stars; My body is white as milk of the stars; it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible.
The idea of clothing, or taking the characteristics of things to form a body comes to my mind. All things are masks of Adonai. In this reading Adonai fills the vessel.
Love and Will
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I have always taken this as a vessel made of quicksilver, yes; and (going from memory) that was Crowley's view of it.
This is one of the clearest Chokmah representations in the book. He defines himself first in terms of Mazloth, the sphere of the zodiac, or of the fixed stars in general. The second verse shows the moving, living ("quickened"), streaming nature of consciousness held incredibly in a still, fixed place - "Stability is Change, Change is Stability," etc.