This was not supposed to be my next blog, but this project has always been strange and demanding, and it picks its moments without caution as it continues to haunt me. Perhaps it is my own personal obsessions or pathologies that makes connections upon connections while following the intertangled webs. Maybe its a weird synthesis or a culmimation of events that are too freaking uncanny to be understood by the rational mind.
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| La Moreneta - Our lady of darkness. |
This screed began formulating in my head when I was at the abbey of Montserrat a few years back and I asked La Moreneta, the resident black Madonna, a question in which I was not prepared to hear the answer. For a long time I was bewildered instead of grateful that she decided to answer at all. People ask favors of her all day long. She must get sick of it. When I started this piece I was contemplating how La Moreneta is a force to be reckoned with and those who have visited her domain know this to be true. She is black and white - definitively - both sides of the coin, there are no shades of gray, and there is no slide area. The rest of the text has come together in different cities across Europe and America and is a bizarre mix of Gnostic creation myths, little known 16th century witchcraft traditions, seasoned with a little Emerald Tablet, Jung, transmutation, cosmogonic eons, Yeats and stellar nucleosynthesis. It's a strange kind of love to be certain...
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| (photo by Marnie Shelton-Klein) |
Sisters of the Wasteland
Never
ask a question first without being able to handle the answer. Not of
the Goddess and certainly not one older than the concept of time. She
never abandoned you. She never forsake you. Step by step, she
followed in the shadows. Letting you fail, and laughing when you did
so. Yes, she is fearsome, but there is beauty to her cruelty. That
is where you shut down (wings of brutality fly overhead as the
light drains out of the day). Conjuring. There are daemon's dreaming.
Three were the norm – past, present, and future, existing all at
once, or never at all. A conjuring trinity – three women were the
norm. Symmetry and organization.
Could
you dream them all at once and hold them within your mind's eye? This
was something we once did. Then things became confused, and we
forgot. We cannot find our back home. The mirror grew dim as we lost
this aspect. You cannot pray for the truth if you cannot
face the truth. How can you find your way home if you don't even
realize you're lost?
The
three are searching for what they already possess. Three sisters.
Three stages of alchemy. White, black, red. Blood on the chessboard.
They are the Fire hanging between the two pillars of creation.
“How
long has she slept?” “Three days. Three Ages. Three Aeons.”
“That
should do. Time to wake her.”
Did
you ever call its name in the dark? Nemesis. Rex Mundi. The demiurge.
The error. The defecit. Jaelousie... Can you feel him whispering the
words of forgetfulness as the lights dim, reality falls away, and
you dream dreams of ecstasy, despair, and oblivion. How loving is his gaze from the shadowy corner of the room watching you sleep
with psychotic glee. The one who knows there is a way home is the one
who makes you forget, pulling the wool over your eyes.
“The
moon is changing from milk to blood. Time to wake her.”
Once
upon a time the dark Mother was endless. She was the vast Immaculate
Darkness. Mistress on the sea of Infinity. Benevolent. Malevolent.
These terms mean nothing and are concepts of cattle. In the center of
her swirling chaos a cunning affliction unknowingly came to be.
Imperfection in perfection. Creation was conjured without consent.
How could perfection recognize Imperfection? And so She fell. Matter
took shape and became finite. It became trapped. Days became numbers.
Binding concepts. The error in the system. The Demiurge; mad, blind,
and insane. But being born out of a deficit, it never knew it was so,
and so it never knew any different. Like all of us it fights not to
cease to exist. But our light reflects its light. Our light reflects
our maker.
“May
the curse, cunning, and blessing be.”
“Wake
up!”
This
world has blinded the minds of the Unbelievers.
Nyx,
Nul and Nil: Sisters of the Wasteland
Nyx
is the earth, the core on which the waters lie.
Nul
is the power of the ever-changing tides.
Nil
is the breath of wind which guides and navigates.
Together
they make up the vessel which traverses the sacred waters.
Positioned
equidistantly around the table they ask a question, “who is
speaking to us now?”
“I
am the one who cast my fire upon this world and will watch it blaze
down to the very last ember.”
“And
what do we seek?”
“When
you can make three into one, and when you can make the inner like the
outer, then you will find the keys to the kingdom of the high and
low... Fire, sword, war... Do you know where you are?”
"Show
us the way, Father.”
The
festering breath envelopes them. “Open your eyes Sisters of the
Wasteland. Here you find the reality of your garden of delight.”
The
scorched earth ripples in a heat haze in front of them, A world of
ash and fire, scrub and rock. A world burned clean where nothing can
grow. The mountains rise with jagged peaks around them, casting
unnatural shadows as they huddle together for protection and warmth.
Ravens turn in the skies, the only other inhabitants of this place.
Winged messengers of the coming storm.
Nil:
“This cannot be.”
Nul:
“This world is a carcass, picked clean by the blind.”
Nyx:
“Prepare sisters, prepare. For the trouble we expect will come.”
We
are dreaming again. And from this dream we cannot awaken.
The
three at the table: “Who holds the keys of knowledge?”
Outside
of time: “They were lost by those who would not pass themselves,
and they have made it so no one else can pass.”
The
three at the table: “Does Pamphile know where?”
Outside
of time: “Sleep in ignorance. For you should have found a better
answer...”
Seeking
shelter the sisters have gone to the cave to weather the storm,
hiding frozen in one finite point amongst the chaos.
Clotho
– spinner
Lachesis
– alloter
Atropos
– unturnable
As
sly as snakes and as quiet as doves, sisters, see yourselves, and
spin us a new tale.
A
voice whispers in the Darkness. The remnants of broken threads
envelop them. Then, the spark of first light. Luminescence. A
refraction of quartz which has never used its reflective skin before.
One solitary chamber in the belly of the beast. Airless. Deathless
Grace. So cool to the touch. How long have they been there now? Like
roots they have grown into the earth, percolating in their shroud.
Three
days. Three Ages. Three aeons.
Time
to wake up!
And
at that base was a stone from the sky, one which wept blood. From
this aerolite, mixed with tears, fear, and fire, they forged new
blades. The daggers from heaven, born of exile. Blow by blow they
hardene until they were strong enough to rip the fabric of
creation itself.
Born
of fire we are forged stronger now. A warm breeze catches the spark.
The dross of matter burns brightly, bringing with it the breath of
intention. We will turn the wine back to water. Hand in hand and
heart to heart we conjure you.
Sisters
of the Wasteland together in the cave: “We call on you Mother,
Mistress, First and Always.”
She
comes robed in silver and night and walks in dreams and darkness
amongst the lovely, baleful stars.
She:
“Can you answer this? When does One become Two. Two become Three,
and out of the Third comes One as the Fourth?”
Nil:
“First the circle.”
Nul:
“Than the square.”
Nyx:
“Than the triangle.”
Body,
Soul, and Spirit. Realized together they exceed the limits of Nature.
The spirit is free of its fetters. The Lux in Tenebris, the light that shines in the
darkness is the fourth.
Nil:
“I wish to see the sunrise.”
Nul:
“I wish to feel the warmth on my skin.”
Nyx:
“I wish to taste the wind.”
Leave this place by the secret sign told to us at our reckoning.
We know the answer now. Conjunction.
Rock
scraping across rock. Stone turns to liquid as the lower
vibrations of nature work in reverse. The cave mouth opens as
they stumble outside. An all encompassing bombardment. New
eyes, new senses, new colors. The sun burns low in the sky as the
first star gleams in the twilight. The desert is awash in in oranges
and reds under the cover of deepening blue. The warm wind brings a
fine sand which stings like a sunburn. The wasteland remains, yet
they have become a part of it now, like hardened stone sentinels. The
trial is not over, the veil persists. They will not witness the dawn.
A
manic laugh spreads around them, rippling like a heat haze. “Do you
not see with new eyes? Your wish has been granted. Nihil Extraneum.”
In
that word there is a heartbeat. Wake again. In that word is expansion.
Psychic stretching. Incubating. Collating. It is a Solution. There
is Nothing from outside. For new life does not develop outside
of us, but within us. Everything that happens has already been so.
The
voice is silenced.
Ghostly emanantions. A trace
memory. Point and counter-point. See those
strange poppies which bloom in the wasteland? Fragile, merciful and
afflicted. Birthed in blood and torment. Crawling black beetles mar
their surface. Misdirection. Subterfuge. Polluted. For truth casts no
shadow outside it. And in the gloom of fallacious imagination,
creation lies wasted.
You
are dreaming awake now!
Three
sisters. Three aeons. Three ages. All-in-all. The totality of
existence.
Movement
and Repose. From the conception, the increase. From the increase, the
thought. From the thought to remembrance. From remembrance the
consciousness. From the consciousness, the desire.
Depth.
Mother. Second Manifestation. Daughter. Water. Darkness. The Abyss.
Chaos.
Thrice
powerful Barbelo. Collapsing clouds
of gas and dust. Wind, rain, lightning, the coming storm slithers in.
It rides the west wind like a four winged serpent and its swiftness
is terrible to behold. Tapered together by force, sky and water. The
shimmering snake that swallows the sun. The undulating spine of
the heavens. The sacred made manifest like a dazzling neon mirage at
the end of a darkened road.
Unseen,
unrelated, inconceivable, uninferable, unimaginable, indescribable.
The
sisters stand, huddled together: “We are afraid. There is no where
left to hide.” The skeletal remains of an ancient tree offers no
refuge.
Nil:
“Annihilatus.”
Nul:
“Annul.”
Nyx:
“Nemesis.”
Glittering
helios. Born of the Boreal and the goddess who rose naked out of
Chaos. Pythonidae Erebos. Ophion. The personification of darkness who
destroys its enemies with the breath of fire shining over the whole
earth. Brighter than a thousand suns. God of Dissolution. Thee
all-receiver who wipes his tears on an iron cloak. Prope serpens who
descends like angels breath against a frosted sky. A black hole
resides in its heart.
Closer
now...
From
the deep hollows of the terra firma comes the vibratory motion, the
luminferous Aether which fills the interstellar spaces. Hungry.
Predatory. Omnivorous. Concealed. Measure and number clothes itself
in artless wrath. A loveless land filled with temporal signs.
Fight it. Take on the Unknown form. Embrace that which you most fear.
Let it shake you to the core. Become that which you dread. The three points which hang from
the crucified star.
A
radiant form calls out across the waters at the midpoint between
light and darkness. “Do
not be afraid. In death you shall not die. Rather your eyes shall be
opened and your glory will be like the moon when fully radiant. Make
apparent that which has been hidden. Find the imperishable
light.”
Destruction.
Disorder. The Outer Darkness. Our Mother who is in Secret. She bends
the arrow of time.
Faith
is our earth, that in which we take root.
Hope
is the water through which we are nourished.
Love
is the wind through which we grow.
The
fourth is knowledge. It is the light. It is the answer.
We
came from the light. The place where light came into being of its own
accord.
The
sisters cry out in unison: “Please take us home!”
Shockwave.
Velocity. Turbulence. Gravitational collapse because the center
cannot hold. Wise fire of the sages burn off the dross of matter.
Temperature and Pressure. Flames and contraction. Cosmic order and
dissonance. The Truth, without error. Certum et verissimum.
Acceleration. Momentum. Resonant peaks and scattering strength. The
flesh willingly yields to a chain reaction. Disintegration.
Absorbtion. Saturation. The cup is closed, the seals are broken.
Flashpoint. Then blessed Nothingness...
Their
screams are silenced. The equation is equal now.
Once
upon a time the dark Void was endless. It was where the One breaks
into many. It was the blank wall of timelessness – exploding and
dissolving. It was a wheel rolling unto itself. Creator. Preserver.
Destroyer. And through the turbulation of primeval matter fabulous
forms were poured into being. It was a place where the many were
reconciled within the One. Then, the cosmic spider god wove its web
around us and trapped our essence. Hyle astrum – the demiurge.
Yliaster. Fire. Wind. Water. Earth. We must break free of this
mechanical trap and return to Chaos. She is waiting for us. Our
mother of the prima materia. She who will not be discrete, nor
determined. She is the temporal veil between the worlds above and the
worlds below who binds and breaks us. Heavy elements into heavier
synthesis. Past, present, and future is merely existence and
occurrence. There is nothing from the outside. She crushes us
whole and spreads our light throughout infinity.
The
reign of the tyrant ends and a new world pulses with life set to
begin again.
Never
ask a question first without being able to handle the answer...
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Much love from where the worlds touch,
S - xx
*Sisters of the Wasteland, Copyright
© 2015 by Scarlett Amaris
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