27 May - (Air) Liber LXV, 2:39-40
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Just posted in the interest of keeping the same format as Tephilah set forth originally.
These versus give me the effect of transformation and a sort of exaltation. The dolphin turning to a bird and the harp player turning to the pan pipe give me an impression of ecstacy in a sense. Possibly, both are symbols of the air - the bird and the pipe - and of course Pan being a symbol of ecstacy in himself. It feels like an upward swing and joy. Very nice at this point.
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39. Then the dolphin delighted therein, and put off his body, and became a bird.
40. The harper also laid aside his harp, and played infinite tunes upon the Pan-pipe@mojorisin44 said
"exaltation"
"Large Red Man Reading by Wallace Stevens
There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost
And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves
And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was uglyAnd laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,
The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:
Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,
Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are
And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.""...Lift thine head! Breathe not so deep—die!
—Liber Al, 2:68"Love and Will
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@mojorisin44 said
"**39. Then the dolphin delighted therein, and put off his body, and became a bird.
- The harper also laid aside his harp, and played infinite tunes upon the Pan-pipe**"
Yesterday, in the first "installment" of this new parable, I found myself in the sea of all consciousness - the sea of life, really - a Nephesh being running through my animal life... until I heard His song! Ah, that music was so sweet, held me so, fixed me so, that I soared. I soared.
And, being changed in state myself, the same song now appears different. It now embodies mystery, something ancient that draws me. Again, I am fixed, and, with the speed of flight, I dive toward the source of it all.
These verses once ignited me to write hymns to Adonai. Today, I just note that my practice is, today, to soar in response to anything that will touch me, and to hear, keenly and with focs, the song of ancient mystery. (Meanwhile, I have to finish the fine points on the three-day seminar I'm about to start teaching
- but here's one of those songs from 1999, a commentary on the Pentagram Ritual.)
[attachment=0:3ucnl0m3]<!-- ia0 -->locked in love.JPG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:3ucnl0m3] -
I'm being told a story. It is a story of someone, or something, or a story of many things being led, enticed to change.
In my attempt to figure out how to have my own own process in regard to this text I have rejected outside authorities, like Crowley. That left me as the sole authority, but this was also unacceptable—I am no authority. My reasons for doing things are studies in darkness. In my frustration I made one last, logical deduction: there was only one other viable authority in all of this, or there was none!
In Magick I have come to slowly appreciate a special type of receptivity that is part of almost everything: divination, skrying, invocation. An opening is made where one allows oneself to be led, informed, inspired.
I read the lines of today's passage, but what is important is not to figure anything out, but just to hear the intent of my higher self in leading me further and further from my original state. I am being told a story so I might learn to listen. This undoes me—solve.
And this is the second most important thing I have learned, yet again it seems because I remember sort of knowing this already, but needing to be reminded nonetheless. The first is to work, and trust the work.
Love and Will
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When I pay attention to “and put off his body”, I think I may be seeing a paradigm here. This paradigm appears to show that the dolphin listened and decided to change, but instead of just changing, it “put off its body”, shape or form and then became or accepted a new body, shape or form.
This is something very different than just changing from one to the other. This is not like blinking an eye and changing from one type of clothing to the other or slowly changing from one to the other. This goes beyond changing by letting go or becoming ‘naked’ and then putting on.
I am not sure where this synthesis of change is taking me as I realize that at the in-between point or the naked point, I feel the most vulnerable.
I also see this harper let go of his harp and pick up or start holding a pan pipe, which shows that my change may have affected what I see or what is now presented to me. Although the notes are of a different instrument they still may be the same notes showing that as I change what I see may have changed but the harper and possible guardian and teacher are still the same.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@mojorisin44 said
"**[attachment=0:3uqqegr2]<!-- ia0 -->locked in love.JPG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:3uqqegr2]"
"
Superb poem. Truly worth many rereadings. -
@gmugmble said
""To work" is a procedure -- it's something I can do now. "To trust the work" is a result that I have not obtained, and do not know how."
Work can be onerous. Avoidance of work was a big problem for me for a long time—still is at times. But for whatever reason I also have this idea that nothing is truly possible with out work. So, I have been hard at work working to change my relationship to work.
We work at those jobs we are paid to do, otherwise we risk losing the job; we work hard to keep our commitments to others or we risk being thought a dead beat. It is when we consider the work we do for ourselves that we are challenged to find more in the work itself, to treat it as more than a procedure.
"2:11
I see thee hate the hand & the pen..."The kind of work that matters only to ourselves is spiritual by definition because it profits nothing other than our soul; and there is always a time when we are happy to do this work, until it gets hard, or we get bored, or we despair. Then we either stop the work or we get real. This desperate passage involves sacrifice and affirmation; it requires trust, not because this is logical, but because this is how we survive the desperate passage, by evincing our love.
"2:66
Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in working..."Love and Will