5 June - (Air) Liber LXV, 2:55-56
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55. Then let the End awake. Long hast thou slept, O great God Terminus! Long ages hast thou waited at the end of the city and the roads thereof. Awake Thou! wait no more!
56. Nay, Lord! but I am come to Thee. It is I that wait at last. -
55. Then let the End awake. Long hast thou slept, O great God Terminus! Long ages hast thou waited at the end of the city and the roads thereof. Awake Thou! wait no more!
56. Nay, Lord! but I am come to Thee. It is I that wait at last.The first actor, if it was Thespis, probably blew everyone's mind the first time he stood up and spoke the words of an ancient hero, as if he were that hero. Before that moment there was story telling and possession in the temples, but this was new, it was different. But having happened, we knew what it was as though we had always known. It's the mudra of acting, a sacred posture or attitude that is one of the great letter-forms in the magical-mystical alphabet.
The same is true of waiting—assumption of the attitude and aspect of the god who waits. To wait is a devotional practice. As such, waiting is not passive—it is fire, that in the refinement of its burning is utterly still—a frozen picture of unmoving flame—because that is the only way it can burn even hotter.
As one rises, the intermittent flashes of physical ecstasy are taken up and burned for the heavy fuel used to escape earths gravity; then one switches to the devotional ardor of love and soars even higher; eventually this yearning leaves one standing on that high prominence, alone. At this point all that is left to do is wait.
I imagine myself as Penelope awaiting Odysseus, or as the farmer who has just finished sowing his seed and now must wait for the fulfillment of the promise in Summer and Fall. No matter where I am this works, whether I am awaiting the first gentle caress, or the final convulsion of time/space that will end all separation forever. In the attitude of the one who waits I stand on the shore of a great ocean and watch for the mast head of the ship of my lord to appear on the horizon.
I do not understand these versus, I only know that they have helped me to generated an idea, an image of waiting, that I will attempt to put into practice.
Love and Will
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It is interesting that the End is awakening, rather than the Beginning. This begs the question - is awakening "the end" or is "the end" awakening and beginning its movement (I guess it would be animadversion?) toward "the beginning"...? or have I been swayed by Dan Gunther's opinion a little too much..... lol
Always one of my favorite lines in LXV.
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is it not the tail-end where the awakening begins?
terminus is the end of the line and the boundary that signifies the change.
i like this for today.
"waiting is not passive—it is fire, that in the refinement of its burning is utterly still—a frozen picture of unmoving flame—because that is the only way it can burn even hotter. "
key!
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The awakening has always been there from the beginning. Did God not say "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." (Revelation 1:8)
At the end of a day there is a beginning of another day. At the end of the year, a beginning of another year. At the end of a decade, another decade, A century another century, a millennia another millennia.
This would make the beginning and the end the same or “I am”. For him to say that he now waits at the end may mean that he has come to understand this duality of always being awake but awakening to the understanding that he is awake.
But why wait at the end? Is it because he wants to awaken with and be part of the great “I am” and have the same understanding or does he know that his understanding may never be as Gods and his duality will always be waiting for him to catch up and understand what the duality already understands.