Tintern Abbey

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. – Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view                      
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem                  
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
                      
                                     These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: – feelings too                       
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,                                    
Is lightened: – that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on, -
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

                                                 If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft -                        
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart -
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

   And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,                              
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man                           
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. – I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,                                 
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. – That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes              
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels                               
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear, – both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul           
Of all my moral being.

                                       Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,                        
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all               
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,                      
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance -
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence – wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream                 
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love – oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

 

Composed by William Wordsworth, a few miles above Tintern Abbey, Wye Valley.

Dedicated here to the two times five years.  Never forgotten.

 

Hathor, Lady of the House of Horus

In the ancient world today was a sacred festival day of the Goddess Hathor.  This Goddess was also referred to as the Eye of Re, and her name means “House of Horus”, she is considered to be either (or both) the mother and consort of horus.  Her name also links her to the night sky and she can also be named as Lady of the Stars.  The best known depictions of Hathor shows her as a beautiful woman with a red solar disk and a pair of cow horns. 

Amongst the other names she was given in the ancient world is “Beautiful One” through which she was linked to female sexuality and motherhood.  She is then also linked to dancing and love, music, songs, drunkeness and pleasure.  At times she is referred to as the Lady of the Vulva and the Mistress of the Vagina.  The latter refers to a very well known story in which the Atum was unhappy and the Goddess Hathor decided to cheer him up, doing so be exposing herself so that the Atum laughed and rejoined the other gods. 

Though much of her associations are with pleasure and sensuality, Hathor was also the patroness and protector of exploits in foreign lands, such as the mining of copper, malachite and turqouise in the Sinai.  In this role she was referred to as the Lady of Turqouise, which was also a stone sacred to her.  Likewise all precious metals and stones were considered to be sacred to her, but maybe most famously the metal copper which was beaten and polished to make mirrors in ancient Egypt.  Mirrors as such can be considered a very important symbol of Hathor, with its associations both with beauty and with the metal copper. 

For the ladies who are reading this and who want to do something to mark her festival today, you may want to wear a red dress and make yourself as beautiful as you can.  Hathor was known as the Mistress of the Red cloth, and red was a colour associated with power in ancient Egypt.  You may want to dance for her, to some nice music, or play and instrument and sing a song to honour her.  Likewise if you are pregnant you can draw from spells which were done in Hathor’s name in the ancient world, where expectant mothers would bind knotted red ribbons in their hair to protect their unborn child until its birth.  Likewise the “Seven Hathors” a multiple form of this Goddess, was sometimes called upon to pronounce the fate of newborn children and to protect them in the womb.  The Seven Hathors were also called upon in love spells and their knotted red ribbons were used to bind poisons and dangerous spirits.

See www.heka.co.uk for more information on Egyptian Heka (Magic).

Wiccan Rede reviews PPS!

I woke up this morning to sunshine and beautiful blue skies here in the Welsh borders, and to a postal delivery (does this mean the strikes are over?) which included a parcel from the Netherlands containing copies of WICCAN REDE magazine.  This bilingual (Netherlands & English) magazine is published four times a year by “Silver Circle”  and more information can be found at www.silvercircle.org for those interested in subscribing, or in further information.  Producing this book was one of the most amazing experiences for me as a Priestess, and the end result is something I am very proud of – I hope that copies of this book will continue to find their way to women (&men) who will benefit from the experience of the women who contributed so much of themselves to this project and highly recommend it to anyone embarking on a journey of Priesthood into the mysteries, as well as those already there…

The magazine WICCAN REDE (English / Nederlands quarterly, bi lingual and published in the Netherlands) includes the following review of Priestesses Pythonesses and Sibyls in their latest magazine (Samhain 2009):

“This is not the first book Sorita has edited, and she describes this book as follows:

‘Priestesses Pythonesses Sibyls lifts a veils to reveal the mystery of trance as exerpienced by female magickal practitioners today. Through happiness and sorrow, myth and legend, art and poetry, through ritual and dance each woman expresses her own unique and personal transformative experiences of trance. Whether through trance possession, mediumship, Drawing Down the Moon, oracular or mantic states, dance, dreams or formal ceremony the experiences and knowledge gained during trance states can bring dramatic changes to one’s life. The practices represented in this volume are drawn from the experiences and research of more than twenty women from around the world, each providing a unique vision of their own experiences of the Divine.’

In a time when many of us are looking at ways in which we can experience the mysteries first hand this is an invaluable anthology. Beginning with three essays describing historical figures such as the ‘The Pythia of Apollo in Delphi’ (Caroline Tully) the second part is devoted to recollections of personal experience.

From different traditions the essayists let us peek into their ‘kitchens’. From Katie Gerrard writing from the Seidh tradition, to Marielle Holman writing as a dancer, to Naomi Ozaniec as a Priestess of Isis.

Each has describe their own highlights and sometimes lowlights.

Naomi in fact raises the question of the reason for sharing experiences.

“I now find myself wondering which personal stories to share and what purpose might be gained in their telling. The magical injunction: “to be silent” holds much wisdom since intense personal experience is often too intimate to carry a general significance”

Yes it is a dilemma of our times. When to keep silent? I think that the art is to describe something of an experience, which can serve to inspire others. I certainly found this book inspiring and encouraging at the same time.

———-

For more information on this anthology see Priestesses Pythonesses and Sibyls or visit  the Avalonia website at http://www.avaloniabooks.co.uk/catalogue/titles/priestesses.htm for order information etc. (free P&P worldwide on all Avalonia titles!)

Ode to Autumn

Sometimes the words to express something has already been birthed and empowered:

                                     TO AUTUMN.

                                                               John Keats, 1819

                                            1.

    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                            2.

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                            3.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

The Goddess, Wicca & The Qabalah

As David Rankine and I prepare for the release of our (very overdue!) Practical Qabalah Magick (details at www.avaloniabooks.co.uk soon), I have been reflecting quite a bit on the universal nature of the qabalah as a map of conciousness and as a symbolic glyph of the universe.  I have also been thinking about the general divide there is between some of the magical traditions today and how often there is a misunderstanding that the qabalah is somehow very patriarchal, or that it is not compatible with some traditions.  So in the first of a series of blogs on the subject, I decided to reproduce an article I wrote on the subject of The Goddess, Wicca and The Qabalah some time ago for the “Magickal Buffet”.  I have resisted the urge to update parts of the article to reflect some of our more recent research and ideas on the subject, as it serves as a very good introduction as it stands.

————————————–

The Goddess, Wicca & The Qabalah
By Sorita d’Este (March 2007)

“She is called the Spirit of Life and through Her do all men understand Wisdom.”

Zohar, 13th century

The Goddess occupies a central role in a number of magickal traditions. These include obvious instances such as the Wiccan tradition, and also less obvious ones such as the Qabalah. In Qabalah the Goddess is commonly known as the Shekinah, a Hebrew word which comes from the root shakhan, meaning “to dwell”. This meaning fits in with the Qabalistic idea that a fragment of the Shekinah is present within every living person, literally the divine spark of the Goddess in all of us!

The best known image in the Qabalah is the glyph of the Tree of Life, representing both the universe and man, and embodying the old magickal axiom of ’As above, so below.’ The Shekinah is sometimes described as the Tree of Life itself, as in Proverbs 3:17-18, which declares:

“Her ways are of pleasantness, and her paths are peace.  She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her; and happy is every one that retaineth her.”

On the Tree of Life the Shekinah is also particularly associated with the sephira of Binah (“Understanding”) at the top of the feminine Pillar of Severity. Significantly this Pillar is also known as the Black Pillar, and is on the left as you look at an image of the Tree of Life. Balancing this is the masculine Pillar of Mercy or White Pillar. In Wicca these pillars are represented on the altar by the black and white candles of the goddess and god, which are positioned in the same manner, showing their Qabalistic roots. This symbolism of the pillars is also referred to in the Great Rite, and discussed further in the book I wrote with my partner David Rankine, WICCA: Magickal Beginnings.

The Tree of Life can be seen as a symbol map on which different magickal traditions can be mapped, this is particularly true of the Wiccan tradition. Amongst the many divisions and layers of the Tree of Life we can see many parallels with the Wiccan tradition.

Looking at the act of blessing the salt and water to consecrate the magick circle in the Wiccan tradition, we see it is full of Qabalistic significance. The water and salt are blessed, corresponding to the lower spheres of Malkuth (the salt) and Yesod (the water). Yesod is the sphere of the Moon, representing the astral and subtle realms, so by uniting the salt and water you are symbolically uniting the astral and the physical realms. The resulting salt water is also symbolic of the sphere of Binah, the Great Mother, which corresponds to the sea. So from a symbolic perspective the blessing of the salt and water and lustration represents the blessing of the circle with the energy of the mother goddess (Binah), and the journey between the worlds (union of Moon and Earth, Yesod and Malkuth).

The magick circle itself is another symbol shared by Wicca and Qabalah. One of the Qabalistic creation myths (from ninth century CE Germany) tells of how the Shekinah is the circle of fire who surrounds God, and that through their union the universe, human souls and angels come into being. In fact the Shekinah is seen in two forms in Qabalah, as the Greater Shekinah and the Lesser Shekinah. As the Greater Shekinah she is the great goddess who unites with god to create the universe, considered to be unmanifest and omnipresent, and is also known as the Superior Mother, who can be seen as the Great Mother Goddess of Wicca. A description of the Shekinah translated by MacGregor Mathers in The Kabbalah Unveiled shows the similarity in perception of the goddess with Wicca:

“From Her do they receive their nourishment, and from Her do they receive blessing; and She is called the Mother of them all.”

The relationship of the goddess and god, so central to Wicca, is also seen repeatedly on the Tree of Life. As well as the feminine and masculine pillars, it is also seen in the balanced pair of Sephiroth at the top of the pillars, Chokmah (‘Wisdom’) and Binah (’Understanding’), and in the relationship of the central solar Sephira of Tiphereth (’Beauty’) with the bottom Sephira of Malkuth (‘Kingdom’).

Malkuth has many titles and it is also equated to the Lesser Shekinah. This is because Malkuth is the sphere of the elements, and corresponds to the physical world we live in, and nature. Hence we see titles for Malkuth such as the Bride, the Queen and the Mother of all things. As the Bride, Malkuth is said to be married to the Husband sphere of Tiphereth, symbolising the union of the sun god and the earth goddess as also seen in Wicca. Tiphereth as the child of Chokmah and Binah also corresponds to the Child of Promise, reborn at Yule.

These Sephiroth of Chokmah, Binah, Tiphereth and Malkuth can also correspond to the great unpronounceable name of Qabalah, the Tetragrammaton, usually pronounced as Jehovah or Jahweh. This name is comprised of four letters, IHVH, and these letters have many attributions. Amongst these attributions are Father – Mother – Son – Daughter; Fire – Water –Air – Earth; Past – Future – Space – Present. A cursory glance immediately shows have familiar concepts from Wicca are also seen with these attributions, such as Fire and Air as the masculine elements and Water and Earth as the feminine ones. Likewise the relationship between the mother and daughter is emphasised by them both being attributed to the same letter, Heh, which is repeated in the unpronounceable name.

Returning to Tiphereth, the Solar Sephira, it has a unique and interesting position on the Tree of Life, at the centre of the glyph. It is connected by paths to all of the other Sephiroth apart from Malkuth. This means there are eight Sephiroth around the sun, mirroring the symbolism Wheel of the Year, where the sun passes through the year and the eight Sabbats.

So whilst this is only a brief glimpse, hopefully it demonstrates that the Tree of Life can be found in many places with many layers of symbolism and meaning, and that wherever you look, the Goddess is universal.

The Origins of Angels

A short extract from my introductory essay to the anthology Both Sides of Heaven is now available at: http://bothsidesofheaven.avalonia.co.uk/origins_of_angels.htm providing an overview of the origins of angels, something which is covered in more detail by some of the contributors in the anthology too of course.  A list of contributors, with short biographies for each of them, can also be found on http://bothsidesofheaven.avalonia.co.uk/ 

Enjoy!