5 December (Nuit) Liber CCXX, 1:57
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57. Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God.
All these old letters of my Book are aright; but צ is not the Star. This also is secret: my prophet shall reveal it to the wise. -
(From an old diary entry.)
"Invoke me under my stars!" Probably to be taken literally. It resembles v. 12, "Come forth, o children, under the stars, and take your fill of love!" I'm inclined to take this one very simply: Nuit is best invoked outside, at night, under a beautiful sky of stars.
The verse admonishes care in perceiving love. (N.B. I have yet to find a place in this Book where I really believe the word "fool" has an Aleph meaning. The clearest reading is always given, so far, by the more common meaning.) Discrimination is warranted, "for there are love and love. There is the dove and there is the serpent. Choose ye well!" Compare this to Hadit's statement in 2:26 where He expresses the difference between "lifting up" and "drooping down" his head - union with the earth, or union with Nuit. In the present verse, based on classic symbols, we can understand the dove and the serpent as referring to these two options. However, there is at least some room for debate about which route is the dove, and which is the serpent. The rule is simple: The dove descends; the serpent rises.
The dove is primarily (not exclusively) related to Venus, and the serpent to Mars. This gave me the original view that the mystically pure love was the dove, and the sexual-physical expression is the serpent. But the rising serpent of kundalini is that wherein Hadit "lifts up" His head unto Nuit; and the descending dove, though a symbol of the Holy Ghost and the descent of ecstasy, is the sexual expression. It is the dove that breeds life, that carries life from one home to another in the continuity of the generations.
However, the Book doesn't tell us that one is better than the other. It only says we must choose, and choose well. And it specifically says that each is love. Each is "lawful" - but not necessarily for each star in each situation.
"Choose ye well!" There is a qabalistic mystery here, I am sure of it! These words say more than they seem to say on the surface. Of course, "ye" is again YH, Yod-Heh - we are to choose Yod-Heh, a true uniting of "self and other." But my mind continues to be drawn to "well." Is it so simple as enumerating it in Hebrew, VHLL = 71? Should it be rendered in another language? Does it refer to "a well?" I truly do not yet know. 71 is a dark and haunting number. Oh my gosh! 71 is the value of YNVH, "dove." Is this to be taken so literally? If so, then the sentence can validly be read, "Choose YH, the Dove," where YH, Yah, is expressive of Chokmah and True Will, and the dove is the symbol of the descending chrism of the Divine.
We are next told that AC himself has chosen. Good. Fine. Nice to know. However, the most useful part of this sentence, to most of us, is that since AC has already chosen, the instruction to "choose ye well!" must apply only to the rest of us. AC's choices, we are told, were made based on his knowledge of the law of Peh, the Tower, the House of God. (Note: dove, serpent, Tower = 3 reciprocal paths, Daleth, Teth, and Peh = 93.) I don't know that it is necessary that the rest of us understand the part that may be private to AC; but, then, why not try? Peh, 80, corresponds to YSVD, Yesod; so it is clear what force is being employed. In Latin, 80 is both anima amore, "spirit of love," and cor Nus, "heart of Nu." AC's knowledge of Peh up until that time was primarily from the G.D. 27th Path ritual, wherein some answers may be hidden (the ritual deals a lot with kundalini): The tarot card speech deals primarily with the descent of Divine Consciousness into the structure of human existence, the "fortress" of human ego.
A.C., in his O.C., elects (as though for all of us) "the serpent love, the awakening of the Kundalini."
Anytime I get into a verse with so much technical stuff, I go away feeling I have lost the real thread; so let me backtrack and recapitulate. The essential message is of love. To love freely under the stars, to worship Nuit there. Any love, carnal or otherwise, is worship of Nuit. It breaks down the warded fortress, it transforms a crumbling structure into a House of God, BYTh AL.
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Invoke me under my stars!
"A woman on top, surmounted by the stars...
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Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well!
"This brings to mind the idea that the two "loves" are not separate and distinct, only different phases.
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He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God.
"The first phase, "Love of the Serpent," the force by which the Aspirant is carried up the Tower.
Upon union, the second phase is initiated "Love of the Dove," where instead of falling with the Tower, one floats down - at peace, possessing the gift of Nu. -
Of course, being a Dove - the Tower is no longer required to go up and down...
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""Choose ye well!" There is a qabalistic mystery here, I am sure of it! These words say more than they seem to say on the surface. Of course, "ye" is again YH, Yod-Heh - we are to choose Yod-Heh, a true uniting of "self and other." But my mind continues to be drawn to "well." Is it so simple as enumerating it in Hebrew, VHLL = 71? Should it be rendered in another language? Does it refer to "a well?" I truly do not yet know. 71 is a dark and haunting number. Oh my gosh! 71 is the value of YNVH, "dove." Is this to be taken so literally? If so, then the sentence can validly be read, "Choose YH, the Dove," where YH, Yah, is expressive of Chokmah and True Will, and the dove is the symbol of the descending chrism of the Divine."
Choose YH VHLL...
Choose the uniting of self and other for yourself *in a way that results in *the dove(?) Would that make it make sense for either choice?
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Atu V, the first time the serpent and dove are in the same card; the serpent is impailed to the rose by nine nails, while the dove decsends over his shoulder...
I always think of the 9 of swords here, Cruelty.
Forcing the snake into a refined power(kundalini, through the sheer Cruelty of devoted asana), as opposed to letting it free to consume ceaselessly, making quite a mess.It seems there is a certain lean towards clearing a path for the dove to fly free and create ceaselessly.