Click here to discover theGuest blog by Renate Wernet For my 40th birthday, I got a rather unusual gift: a picture frame full of money and flyers for spiritual workshops. But I was more surprised by the words glued to the middle of this picture frame: A ticket for your new life Clearly, my friends could see what I [Read More...]
Boy! O child! O child wind-whipped hair in forlorn night, O boy! Sweet boy, O elfin youth, how silver-sheen your eyes, like mine! Yes, me, here up above! Hollow sounds my voice? I think in ivory on the wind, in pewter tones the moonbeam’s strings beharp into the lonely air below! With smooth and honeyed wine matured in months and months of ticking moon, with sliver sickle-turning tusk to fullest pearl, I lunar serenade, and sing the soft of evening’s glow to down below, the sleeping creatures! Yet seen you once, I’ve seen you twice, for second sight was gift of mine from long ago the crone and keeper of the hollow cavern’s well! For I have strolled and sailed the black-bay silent seas below, and know, O friend, a thing or two, a secret, something craved by you …
You seek the up-above, a maiden spider-dew embroidered veil, with crepe-enpetalled blooms a crown atop her flaxen mane! But down-below, O child, you must go, for closing eyes of mine, I see through yours, what salt has burned upon your iris, knots and tangles thick within her amber, flowing locks, and these cannot be cut without a sharpened edge, without a sword so swift and subtle, wool thrown on the waves, and wandered towards its blade would cleave the yarny threads between! For one whose grain of headlands is a’knotted cannot love, nor see, but pine away in tangled dreams! And how to cut those knots, let loose the griping tangles, lest a sweeping swish of subtle fire-from-the-forge of ore-made-ice with tongs and hammers? How?
Clasped and locked in woody branches, viny gnarls nine-leagues thick, it lies, this wonder iron-of-the-shiny-tongue-of-silver, deep within a hollow housed beneath the hanging roots of hoary tree. They say a sorceror insidious sated blade with hate of fiery ice, and slipping starlight from the darkness, stolen shafts of light, he mallet-hammered into edge of awe the sweeping strike of thunder’s fire fast within its tortured ore! And subtle things, unlikely things, at edge of world’s horizon stalked, he caught, and fleeting, nimble, forced mercurial spirits in damascine steel upon his anvil! All his wicked, wild hate, a winter’s windstorm never sated, frost-enbreathèd sparkle blew into the blade! Till spirits chilled in fright! I lit the way in darkness, dwarves of deep reflecting subtle splendor mine upon their shields, to let the nether-king reconnoiter, and seize this banshee-besom of the iron bogs! For stout and doughty smiths beneath the earth, mere rumor of its edge upon the chilling wind, had woven clasps of living leather, thick, enwoven ring-mail, might of adamantine roots the mountains hold within their bosoms, so to hold it close and clasp it tight to tree, where none might free it, fell the world on falter of the fleet yet deadly sorceror-enwhisp’ring blade! A peril poured in steel, a whirring rush adrenaline-bemetalled! Yet, my lad, O youngish elf, a spell indeed in hilted ore! O hoard’s so secret sword might swift and once-for-all with scissor’s nip untangle locks florette of lovely maiden, slip between the gnarled knots, and win your prize!
O why with eyes of coiled vertigo wonder upwards towards me, lad? What will you say? How may a blade so deep and tied titanium to a trusty tree be won? Why, wonder not, observe this scythe I carry, shadowed! Bright its polished claw so curved. It cuts the cords of tangled fate, when tragic knots have formed, and so is ever sought by sires of the wyrdless ones, who wander, hovering, o’er abyss, the fall of fate to which their tangles tie! O wish is swiftly strong to attain this ghostly scimitar, a gift the daubing giant-crones below once yore-days gave to me for deeds of valor former days had seldom seen! A blade above, with bend of bow, that cuts the tangles down below, to give for blade below that may the tangles up above undo with flash of flourished sweep! For keepers of the clasps below have secret weep, a sorrow sad that burns their bones and churns their gnawed and gnashing bellies! The nether-king a daughter has, O maiden of the wondrous night, whose belly’s bud the sorceror enseeded with his seething, frosty hate, and what has blossomed is a son, whom second-sight reveals might follow fast the father’s fevered craze! And such a shadow son’d is sun enshadowed, so they weep behind a wall of frozen face. A’pace to whip the reins of antlered deer, my lad, and pull thy sleigh through northern caverns, winding down, and find thy prize below! For up above, thy prize awaits!
And why? Why, gracious me, to give you scythe of polished quicksilver? For what? A single hope, my hope-forlornèd elf : that you might bring this blade beclasped in leather still, yet sheathed, to homes of heaven where your maiden waits. Delay thee not, nor tarry : fast, as if the earth were fire feet might burn, escape, and flee, towards where the rain’s enshimmered ebb does bow, and there, I’ll lift you, lad, and give you lift upon my silver ship, to ride along the rainbow bridge to where your love in chests of ruby rims ensconces kisses for thy lips alone! But let the whispered sorrow of the sword’s enbladed shriek beguile thee not! For siren of the smith, the edge seduces men to vengeance seek, and if you falter, all might fall within your soul, and how you’ll reel, and who knows what this madness might engender in your latter days, O friend! The cycle of the feckless feud is fueled by foolish rashness, and, enswirled to might, becomes a cyclone, as a scythe or blade betwirled, that severs heads of many sires’ sons! Beware! And let thy feet be swift, boy! Better days beckon ; heed the haunts below, and keep my rede.
I will never be anyone’s beloved again, it feels. I’m banished from the places of true glamor and shining light. My words, long practiced, long polished, are for dung, so it seems. Hacks and mediocretins gain their multiple accolades, but wondrous beings won’t even look my way. Cursed, cursed, cursed. I howl at the moon. I am tied in place by Halfdan’s bonds. I rescued her for nothing. Nothing! The wind is more giving than her words! How its blue lips blow ice-kisses upon me more freely! What? What do you mean there’s a sword in the underworld? And how would I, a wretch roped ‘round an oak, be concerned with such trivia?
O moon, if I could be as crazy as you, I might not go mad, but as it is, I stare, and my eyes lie the darkness before me, for even light is darkness without her immortal spark bespeaking blessings on my worthless charade of a life. Are these tears? Ice falls from my eyes in this blizzard, crashes, falling dust in the snow. Therein a multiple hundred times in fragments I see your shining face, O moon, see you, and wish I might fly so high and smooth like gliding white against the small pin-pointed-broken black. Your words fall out as snow crystals, strange letters, twisted, falling. I see strange patterns in the sentence-blizzard. Are you speaking to me, O moon? What strange adventures you call me on!
Who said I was an elf? Mine own glow seems to shade, self-swallowed by shame and grief, a mere mortal in the eyes of a swallowing world, engulfed. Why not implore me fall within the depths, O moon, why not? For I am there already. If you asked me how much lower I could go, why I could not begin to answer. Thus, indeed, I take your charge, and downwards thence shall go. A blade? What cuts more than this pain? A blade? The wind is sword the more for frozen slash! And mere suggestion that this blade delivered — though how to heavens high above I’ll heave I cannot fathom — might enwoo me single kiss of she who holds the world’s enchantments in her charm, the blossoms woven in her starlit hair of awesome might, pours magma, embers hot from smithy’s forge, within these bones-made-ice and melts my stillness. A thousand blades I’d buy with track and tread of feet to win that single kiss — if sole she would, if sole she’d give to me a single glance, most blossom-bosomed bursting lovely maiden of the heaven’s hills!
Yet fetters, mere flax before, now woven, plaited into binding hands of twine that let their grip go not install me, frozen, to this tree. How shall I free myself? Yegads, what say ye, moon? What will and wish within, what say ye? Song within my breast? A song to dash the fetters? Yes! O yes, I say! Within my breast! Indeed! O sorrow had forgotten me this special spell implanted there so long ago by fallen mother! Then what shall say we? Flaxen fetters, or sorrow much the more? For sorrow, seems, was fetters more than flaxen plaited ever was! What binds or blinds me from my memoire, glade of silken, silver songs and dreams, is bondage deeper than a rope or iron manacle! I shall sing, and singing, flee! Flee this wretched place, adieu … Exeunt.
In the celebration of the Navratri holiday coming up soon (starting September 28th), we are re-posting this short text+ video on the Goddess Durga. I myself am on my way down to Yoga Kula in Berkley, to spend the weekend in an immersion in the three faces of the Goddess, lead by master philosopher Douglas [Read More...]
Recent observations at CERN, the world’s largest physics laboratory, show certain sub-atomic particles traveling faster than light.
Similar observations have been made in the past, but the margin for error allowed for the particles possibly traveling …
The autumnal equinox festival of Our Mother God is called Cuivanya or the Feast of Divine Life. What is the spiritual meaning of this ancient harvest celebration?
“It you want to be passionately in love, begin with being passionately in love with yourself.” ~ Lisa Schrader A few times every month I leave my beloved, the boys + the cat to relish in their own boyish life- style, to spend the night in the Shakti house with Lisa and Suzan (my cat, [Read More...]
This Chapel of Our Mother God has long been one of the more popular religious sites on the Internet. Not up there with the mega-churches, but big by independent site standards and huge by feminine Faith standards.
We average around 600-700 unique visi…
The task of spirituality is to construct and maintain a doorway between the realm harbinged by dreams, and this surface-world. It is an enormously difficult task, because this surface-world has a tendency to reify itself, to declare the film that forms…
Arthur Evans, 1942 – 2011, author of ‘The God of Ecstasy’ and ‘Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture’, gay activist, and scholar. Arthur Evans, Radical Faery, English’d lyric-lover of Euripides, fallen bard! Alas, the last days of Castro’s gadfly-st…
Even the devil, as the old folk saying goes, probably incorporating archaic, heathen understandings about Loki, must be given his due. Loki and Heid are the sacred carriers of the baed, that which is not quite good, but not yet quite…
News of Friday September 30: Beloved sisters, we are maxed out again, so no more requests for now please. We will do it again soon! It is Monday night, and I am just back from our Northern California Women’s Temple. My skin contains pure space only. My beloved and I slow-dancing in the [Read More...]
Dear Sisters, Since the first time we gathered on the magical island of Corfu five years ago, our practice and connection to the ancient lineage of feminine practitioners have deepened in ways I could never have imagined. Together we have created a sanctuary for the feminine. We do it together. And together, we evoke real [Read More...]
I want to share with you a taste of all the beautiful inspiration flowing through my life in this past week. :: Suzan, the Goddess of Communication for Awakening Women is just the brightest light and the truest sister you can imagine. When she sent out the reminder for Saturdays Goddess Sadhana Tele-retreat she included [Read More...]
A brilliant talk by a woman on fire. She is embodying feminine leadership, showing us how a purpose bigger than yourself gives you the fire to create miracles. We can expand beyond imagination when we as women hold each other - when we wobble and when we shine. Visit the treesisters.org website Welcome to [Read More...]
Sweet pine, callous hands caress your curves, carved to upsweep rough, then polished smooth, to prows with fierce faces … Floorboards, the dipping deck, the swaying sea in dock … A ship, shoresmen-built to meet the other side, to dare the waves, …
At the very beginning of time there existed a single sublime couple: the lovely mother earth, Gaia, and the magnificent heavenly sky, Uranus. Gaia was so beautiful that Uranus desired to make never-ending love with her. This celestial lovemaking produced awesome gods, pretty human beings and unwholesome frightful monsters. Ever maternal, she loved them [Read More...]
Women are dancing, everywhere Feel the rhythm, move those hips This IS the time Join the movement Get your Shakti blast The Art of Leading a Womens Temple group. Free Tele class
The basis for all spiritual exploration in the Women’s Temple Group is the insight that that which we are longing for is who we already are. Thus our practice is not towards a goal of attainment in the future, it is a process of melting, of unraveling the wisdom and beauty already inherent in each [Read More...]
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