11 July (Fire) Liber LXV, 4:1-2
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1. O crystal heart! I the Serpent clasp Thee; I drive home mine head into the central core of Thee, O God my beloved.
2. Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God! -
O crystal heart! I the Serpent clasp Thee; I drive home mine head into the central core of Thee, O God my beloved.
This verse brings to mind CCXX II:6 and it sounds like the summons on high from chapter 1 is being answered.
Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God!
I really like this verse. I think it's a bit romantic. But I'm confused. Why is the Angel referring to the Adept as its Lord and God?
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1. O crystal heart! I the Serpent clasp Thee; I drive home mine head into the central core of Thee, O God my beloved.
Fire, discontent, energy, passion...
Fire burns at the core...The serpent as the thing that brings dis-ease—it is that which is best described as incorrigible willfulness—the taint of previous chapters. The 'serpent and the heart' as symbol have been with us throughout. Has the relationship been swapped—who is heart and who is serpent now? I the Serpent... Has it always been so and I just imagined the roles had been reversed in previous chapters?
"I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness."
2. Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God!
This is a poetic reiteration of the first line.
The Mitylenes have always been a willful people, troublesome. The poetess is probably Sappho. Creation here is wet, of water. Sappho is the type of an unquenchable spirit, incorrigible, fiery. Love makes her bold, masculine even.But the most important part for me is the sentiment: I burn, bright, shamelessly... I can say it as myself and feel it—here, at the center of creation, I burn.
Love and Will
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@Shadonis said
"Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God!
I really like this verse. I think it's a bit romantic. But I'm confused. Why is the Angel referring to the Adept as its Lord and God?"
That is exactly the right question.
(You caught that one very well.) - I think I'll leave you with the valuable unanswered question, rather than barter it for a cheap and easy answer. -
"I think I'll leave you with the valuable unanswered question, rather than barter it for a cheap and easy answer."
Thanks Jim. This is a bit of a game changer or perhaps we're just seeing the same game from a different perspective. The whole of idea of the Adept being addressed as the Lord and God of the Angel is kind of overwhelming. What I have noticed is at the end of each chapter the Adept realizes that he and the Angel are one. What I'm getting is, from the Adept's perspective, he/she finds his/her infinite expression in the Angel and the Angel finds its finite expression in the Adept. But the Lord/God reference still escapes me.
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I typed out a pretty long response and hit the wrong combination of buttons and it all vanished
I noticed the "role switch" too - perhaps this is due to the Adept and the Angel getting so lost in each other that they are "finishing each other's sentences" or something like that. What I found more interesting is the lesbian sexual imagery here - "wet heart of creation" sounds to me like Binah, or like a Cosmic Vagina. Perhaps the Angel is leading the Adept into Binah here (or alluding to it at least)?
93, 93/93.
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"What I found more interesting is the lesbian sexual imagery here - "wet heart of creation" sounds to me like Binah, or like a Cosmic Vagina. Perhaps the Angel is leading the Adept into Binah here (or alluding to it at least)?"
I took that to be a little sexual myself. I think we've left Binah and the Adept is in Chokmah now with the Angel in Kether. Remember the Adept identifying himself as the Fool in one of the last few verses of Chapter 3?
What's coming to my mind (and this is in line with your last post Jim) is the Yod of the Tetragrammaton beginning to extend itself.
This is kinda heavy for me but man it's getting the juices going for sure.
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One idea that keeps occurring to me in regards to the homoerotic and lesbian love themes is that these options do not engender offspring—all the joy and expressions of intimacy without the risk of pregnancy.
Metaphorically, it could be an indication of a type of union with the divine that does not result in more evil—another cycle of creation, fall, and redemption. In other words, it's karma free love.
Love and Will
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I think insufficient attention is usually paid to the fact that these four chapters correspond not so much to the Elements in the abstract, as to their specific expression in the grades of initation corresponding to Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, and Netzach - the prinmary Earth, Air, Water, and Fire expressions below Tiphereth in the Path of Initiation. This has crept out at us many times through the prior three chapters but, for some reason, it always slams home to me most resoundingly in Chapter 4. This is, especially, a representation of the relationship of the Adept and the HGA through the filter of the experience of Netzach as Fire and the sphere of Venus.
The whole Mitylene thing - and Sappho as high priestess and poetess of Lesbos - is vibrantly Netzach. The romance and sexual passion of the verse is vibrantly Netzach.
And yet it is also Chokmah - that is, we are drawn from the first line into the point of view of the Angel as the Yod (as we have seen thus far throughout); and here, especially, we see that One who plunges from the metempirical heights in a vertical plunge into the depths of the mortal beloved (to paraphrase and repurpose Beethoven).
The adept is a crystal heart: I am reminded that each of us is crystalline in nature, i.e., it is our inherent structure (one might say crystalization pattern) that determines how undifferentiated light passing through us comes forth in unique in distinctive forms - making us, indeed, each look like little stars. Crystalization is all about structure - our form - even our sharp angles. (The word comes from a Greek word for ice in particular - it is the same cry- as in cryogenics.)
It is into this distinctive crystalline form that the Angel plunges - into this perfect imperfection of ice that fire forces itself. For an image of beauty, just envision the visual effect of the light of intense fire gleaming through a finished or raw clear crystal.
He "drives home [his] head into the central core." The imagery is fiercely erotic, and also rivettingly descriptive of the experience (at least, of my experience) of the Angel's impact in the initial stages of union.
And the Angel recognizes that the human with which it is paired, his beloved, is a God. This sentence dismantles normal hierarchical - it doesn't mean, for example, "God" in the sense of king, ruler, or "one above and commanding me" - stripped of all of those attributes, perhaps of any a priori attributes at all except that of being the Angel's beloved, the Adept is perceived by the Angel as being a God.
"2. Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God!"
Besides the visually gripping, beautiful imagery, this vertical plunge, from "wind-swept heights" into the depths of that which is created, is a powerful idea. Looking at it from a Chokmah perspective, I'm struck with its similarity to the particular Great Work of a Magus (an initiate of Chokmah).