There is something we were never told, and this is that there is a tradition of no tradition.
A tradition of Wild Mystics or Wild Gnostics, that don’t fit into any theological or academic classification: A tradition of spiritual nomads that would not be shackled to any system or scripture; that would write their own myths and stories with the blood of their own experiences, which source can be found within their own entrails, within the marrow of their bones; within the dust of the grave, beyond what can be called experience, but that comes within their every breath.
These mystics recognize and borrow everything that speaks true to the reality of their bones without binding themselves to the rest of their traditions, but most of all, they speak with their own voice. Their voice cannot be classified or pegged to any known tradition.
tradition is violence
As soon as a scholar thinks he or she has found their source, another scholar finds that they were mistaken; for scholars, as St. John of the Cross said, argue long but never leave the ground.
Scholars speak of Gnosis and of dualism and try to explain Gnostic writings without ever having experienced gnosis, and therefore, gnosis remains unfamiliar to them and to their poor mislead readers.
Their arguments are filled only with words and a reasoning that can make a case, but that fails the source and has no substance. That is a tragedy, for they not only don’t know, they don’t even know what they don’t know, and that they don’t know.
We don’t decide to become Gnostics, but we discover that’s what we were all along. We don’t adhere to beliefs or views imposed from the outside, but our worldview comes from our inner experience. Sometimes that experience comes with the sound of cannons. Most of the time it happens quietly and gently but nevertheless is life altering, even though most external observers won’t notice the difference. We are un-made and remade from the inside out rather than from the outside in.
“… When the chips are down and for one reason or the other you begin to recognize that you are not going to be on this earth forever … your body is falling apart … you’ll be there and you’ll say: “I lived 60 years; I lived 70 years, or whatever it is; and I still don’t know anything; I don’t know where I came from, and more importantly, I don’t know where I am going; I don’t know anything mportant at all!! …
I’ve been so reasonable, I’ve been so rational, I’ve been so sober; and now I stand before the door, and I am shaking like a leaf, and I am scared and I am miserable, because I haven’t learned what is important; I haven’t learned the truth — the essence of my own being; I have not been confronted with any reality … I tried to fit into the picture so nicely.”
You know what – the picture that you tried to fit into is going away – from you… be there [at the door] and there’s no picture, no society, no family, none of the things that you thought were so important – just you and a great stupendous mystery which will remind you:
“From that time you came into this world, I was available to you to be discovered; I was available to you to be known with your gnosis, but you haven’t done it at all; you didn’t pay any attention – you went after the reasonable will–o’–the–wisp and the unreasonable will–o’–the–wisp, but you didn’t take a look at this [great mystery]!”
I think it’s only fair /warning/ to provide the last line, first:
“To know these ten principles of gnostic Christianity is to court disaster.”
“The Gnostic Christians of the second century believed that only a special revelation of knowledge rather than faith could save a person. The contents of this revelation could not be received empirically or derived a priori. They considered this special gnosis so valuable that it must be kept secret. Here are the ten major principles of the gnostic revelation:
“The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation” (1978)
The creator of this world is demented.
The world is not as it appears, in order to hide the evil in it, a delusive veil obscuring it and the deranged deity.
There is another, better realm of God, and all our efforts are to be directed toward: a. returning there b. bringing it here.
Our actual lives stretch thousands of years back, and we can be made to remember our origin in the stars.
Each of us has a divine counterpart unfallen who can reach a hand down to us to awaken us. This other personality is the authentic waking self, the one we have now is asleep and minor. We are in fact asleep, and in the hands of a dangerous magician disguised as a good god, the deranged creator deity. The bleakness, the evil and pain in this world, the fact that it is a deterministic prison controlled by a demented creator causes us willingly to split with the reality principle early in life, and so to speak willingly fall asleep in delusion.
You can pass from the delusional prison world into the Peaceful kingdom if the True Good God places you under His grace and allows you to see reality through His eyes.
Christ gave, rather than received, revelation; he taught his followers how to enter the kingdom while still alive, where other mystery religions only bring about anamnesis: knowledge of it as the “other time” in “the other realm,” not here. He causes it to come here, and is the living agency of the Sole Good God (i.e. the Logos).
Probably the real, secret Christian church still exists, long underground, with the living Corpus Christi as its head or ruler, the members absorbed into it. Through participation in it they probably have vast, seemingly magical powers.
The division into “two times” (good and evil) and “two realms” (good and evil) will abruptly end with victory for the good time here, as the presently invisible kingdom separates and becomes visible. We cannot know the date.
During this time period we are on the sifting bridge being judged according to which power we give allegiance to, the deranged creator demiurge of this world or the One Good God and his kingdom, whom we know through Christ. To know these ten principles of gnostic Christianity is to court disaster.”
Selections from “The Exegesis” By Philip K. Dick
Ashes to Light.
Lent (n.)
“period between Ash Wednesday and Easter,” late 14c., short for Lenten (n.) “the forty days of fasting before Easter” in the Christian calendar (early 12c.), from Old English lencten “springtime, spring,” the season, also “the fast of Lent,” from West Germanic *langitinaz”long-days,” or “lengthening of the day” (source also of Old Saxon lentin, Middle Dutch lenten, Old High German lengizin manoth). This prehistoric compound probably refers to increasing daylight in spring and is reconstructed to be from *langaz “long” (source of long (adj.)) + *tina- “day” (compare Gothic sin-teins “daily”), which is cognate with Old Church Slavonic dini, Lithuanian diena, Latin dies “day” (from PIE root *dyeu-“to shine”).
Compare similar form evolution in Dutch lente(Middle Dutch lentin), German Lenz (Old High German lengizin) “spring.” But the Church sense is peculiar to English. The -en in Lenten(n.) was perhaps mistaken for an affix.
to be returned to the people, to all be-ings, to them
with my bones or ash interred, one day
the Sun, Moon, Rain, Wind, Clouds, Sky and Stars kiss me at all hours
did you see me open up this Autumn?
after a Summer spent crying,
wet, yet fruitless spent Spring wading into lies instead of soft blossoms and new grass Winter approaches, maybe the frost will kill this disease,
for good
For now, I bathe
nearly naked in sunshine, cold rainstorms, wetland pools and moonlight
unapologetically
|out in the open|
unabashedly
baptising my face, hair,
and eyes, my breasts vulva
and legs, my lips, throat, spine,
and my wild heart
ceremonially, first with wine, like Magdalene, anointing and anointed, in the name of the mother, Sun and holy ghosts
|cabernet henna| then, with rainwater from the willow’s edge, like Ophelia, lying in the woodland and meadow, flooded to cleanse or drown [to be, or not to be] in the name of the Moon
|I ponder the stone cistern laden with glacial deposits and ruminant bones|
the woodland is abundant with new mushroom, new overnight growth
[puhpowee]
the hint of ancient circles supplants my judgment with instinct and overrides decorum with new delights | and old delights, revisited |
an aged grapevine is rooted deep, climbing, trailing, snaking hidden in plain sight, everywhere and I’ve intuitedItas Ol’ Scratch, I take a hatchet to quell Its influence, here
You, Your windows are not true eyes Your lamps are not enlightenment
So, bless the dark
of the night
of the country night sky
And the Moonset
of my moon
it’s been decades,
but
this place wants to birth or impregnate me,
A clear glimpse
A clear thought
on this clear June night
Of age,
and Alzheimer’s
An old-timer’s disease
A clear memory recorded and archived tonight
An acute awareness of myself
tonight, in time and place
a new track to play on loop for a listener in my future life
a husband, friend, or son
a caregiver, a kind one
a visitor, volunteer, or nurse,
a grandson, or maybe, no one
A reddish dog, eating mulberries
from the sidewalk in shadows
Mottled concrete in the dim light of a city street lamp
obscured by the canopy of that beautiful, June, fruit tree
A woman, middle aged, seems so young, even a tad pretty, in her mind’s eye
Stretching her still strong body upward for plump, dark berries
Reaching for branches trimmed too high by the urban foresters
or arborists or surgeons, I forget what they’re called
On her tippy toes
grabbing, pulling, picking
squeezing the dog’s leash between her thighs
don’t get loose in the dark, don’t get skunked in the dark
Some of the best ones are lost in the awkward tussle
before she can palm them, save them, taste them
She triggers a reverberative rain from boughs on high
That precise, delicate sweetness of the bounty in her mouth
The dog’s belly full of the ripe windfall
sustained by both gravity and woman
His name was Woody, or Digby, I think
He used to climb into our sleep
Smashed and whole
The street, sidewalk and cars stained
by the impressive purple mess
the dark grass hiding perfect treasures for doves tomorrow morn
She and that dog
Always urban foragers and gleaners in June
All month long, her fingertips, heels and lips
tinted with their fuchsia dye, didn’t think to check his paws
A clear, melancholy recollection
This day, that day was also her son’s birthday
The first birthday he spent away from home, Nebraska, or Alaska, I think
That glorious tree, that good dog, that golden boy
This feels like an arrow
Made from a tree
That rose from
An acorn
That I gathered and stored
In another life
Scribed with a message continually
piercing my heart
I wasn’t only wounded though,
I was woke
into a clarity
that I was already sighting in my dreams,
writing with words
mortal and eternal
You once said, proclaimed or whispered
Every single thing
that I ever believed
My own truths embarrassed in the shadow of your confidence
My inner voice silenced in your animated persuasion
Believing you so completely – for the better of my years
Becoming like and unlike you because of it,
but not be-coming me,
Un-be-coming me every day
I ain’t even mad
You don’t know this – still,
You don’t want
to hear,
or listen;
Our time is running out
Even this admission
Is sure to haunt me one day,
and guilts me today
But I can’t call you confidant or crone
If you refuse to learn,
to evolve,
From this one archetype
The wide and long view
seems to escape you
You live in the moment in the least way, the worst way
And I don’t worship here or there, any more
The faith in your godliness is gone,
It is unfamiliar
For me to pity you
You, deaf and tone deaf
You had all the answers
In the morning shallows, perhaps
But evaporation revealed even those
Were anchor-less, yet stationary
An algae
Mucking up the colorless perfection of sunlit water
But in the deep, or dark, or quiet pools, you were always so lost
And in the ocean, at night
You drown even in its calm
You have ridden civil swells and storms,
I’ll give you that
But have you ever communed with waves
Allowing them to be part of you
Swallowing and absorbing the mystery
Becoming the colorless perfection of dark water
You seem to stay parched
Your belly’s hollow from impious fasting and pious thirst
You do know that’s where your heart sits?
But let’s agree to come around again, friend
We’ll swap places and next time
I’ll be the mother,
and the son,
and the husband,
and the elder,
and the babe,
and the foreign one,
I’ll become The Other One
because,
I want the chance to know
You
The Well at Kom Ombo AWIB-ISAW: The Well at Kom Ombo A deep well at the Ptolemaic temple at Kom Ombo, which functioned as a nilometer. The well is also thought to have been used in the ritual worship of the crocodile. by Iris Fernandez (2009) copyright: 2009 Iris Fernandez (used with permission) photographed place: Omboi (Kom Ombo) [pleiades.stoa.org/places/606346]
Get to the bottom of this.
This, means You
Get to the bottom – of Your Self
Do you have to be thrown
down the well
through loss, by the grave, or near-grave
What if
instead,
we pulled the rug out from under ourselves
to reveal the formidable trap door
What if we climbed down into the dark cellar, willingly
to enter our infinite interior
to touch the well
the ancient aquifer within
where the gods reside and respite with our Twin Selves,
our other-halves waiting for discovery
This infinite, eternal presence
be-neath our weathered houses
What if we willingly descended
Into it
Unto it
And we learned to crave the Original Dark
and its companionship
Where we delve deep into our imaginations, dreams, nightmares,
That connect us primally
to the pool of imaginations, dreams and nightmares of every one,
Of every being that ever existed
Collective Unconscious
made Self Conscious
The dark, deep well
we may all draw from
Pour out your false light
reveal the truth:
the unbearable emptiness of being
Cup your hands
Or wade into the well
Deeper and deeper
submerge, swallow
you’ve been bone dry for so long
Do you see that now?
Baptize
The only way
To rebirth yourself
Into something worth birthing
Into something worth being
is by this sacrament, anticeremonially, un-ceremonially
Knowing now the bottom is
The only place where alchemy happens
Where wine is turned into eternal water,
instead of that story first told to you, by them
And the mystery
the wet, deep, dark becomes you,
Envelops you so completely
You want to drown beautifully
But you must taste the bitters of the surface
Swallowing down your thoughts
Before you drink of the All
To finally collapse in on yourself
Into beautiful nothing
becoming nothingness
Prima materia
In coniunctio
Drenched in Mystery
quenched with Truth
imbibed with Revelation
Reborn
for an endless moment
The perpetual well
archives your eternal experience
as the deja vu
Memory though will evanesce,
even as droplets cling in the hollows of your vessel
Now that you Know
Truth and Mystery
Exist
so near, just beyond,
yet
within you,
Reascend resplendent
Reemerge humbly
the Gods send a daily postcard:
Wish you were here.
We are in love with absolute strangeness
Strangers weaving desperate bits of truths with swatches of lies and patches of mystery together
into idols of flesh-like beings ready to exist in the garden of the unknown
We begin as avatars,
with our hollows filled in with wishfulness and wistfulness
Our first chore: fashion a blanket from our shared thoughts and song
and beneath it, together
We’ll conceal our new being from them, for a while
Conceal our new world from them, for a while
Our whole, true selves rarely revealed
to each other,
or to the other-others
to our-selves
Who are You?
I think,
Better to not know your You,
Not wanting to dispel the myth
of the You I’ve created: my You
Not wanting to deconstruct the perfectly vague architecture
of the You I’ve created: my You
Wanting You only as my own creation
knowing You, owning You, or owing You
or revealing to You,
can never be what I have conjured on my side of our bed,
under our cover, in our garden
Making You up whole,
completing You with my imagination
is godlike,
You, the Adam
I, the Creator and the Ethereal Eve
I give you the role you think you want
But just for this remote rendezvous
A scripted dialogue has gone awry with dangerous improvisation
A genesis of intangible intimacy, here,
Your being and words disembodied, afar,
is enough, for now.
To know You,
whole and complete and present
as [hu]man Incarnate
Near,
Potential,
Warm,
Muse
The angels hold their breath
What will she [i] [they] do?
For now, in the now, I am curiously
content in this undetermined, undefined serving of You
whether,
an apple to bite, to taste,
or an orchard for my harvest
⊕
What remains, if it’s taken all away,
if I die or am killed today;
If I were never born today;
If I were reborn today;
If I were unborn today;
if I choose to strip all of it away,
if I strip It all away
I
strip
It
all
away
My birth;
My parentage;
My race;
My ethnicity;
My nationality;
My family history;
My name;
My family;
My childhood;
My background;
My home;
My neighborhood;
My city;
My country;
My back-story;
My culture;
My religion;
My friends;
My loves;
My partner;
My marriage;
My child;
My progeny;
My legacy;
My intellect;
My politics;
My beliefs;
My ethics;
My talents;
My labor;
My education;
My skills;
My occupation;
My associations;
My friendships;
My relationships;
My temperament;
My attitude;
My affection;
My cowardice;
My courage;
My humor
My hate;
My prejudice;
My justice;
My wins;
My losses;
My habits;
My flaws;
My knowledge;
My personality;
My indignation;
My judgment;
My judgments;
My action;
My inaction;
My anger;
My rage;
My compassion;
My strength;
My kindness;
My goodness;
My shame;
My joy;
My pain;
My ideas;
My words;
My speech;
My secrets;
My expression;
My face;
My body;
My womb;
My motion;
My taste;
My scent;
My touch;
My sound;
My body,
my temple
my aperture
my dwelling;
My mind;
My humanity;
My morality;
My dignity;
My presence;
My universe;
My heart;
My love;
My experience;
My gods;
My death;
Who am I
Without them?
What am I
Without them?
What remains, then,
without them?
Who remains, then,
without them?
Then What am I
Then Who am I
Who am I
What am I
Still am I?
am, I?
Am I
Am I, I
Am I Am
Am I sound
Am I essence
Am I origin
Am I alpha
Am I omega
Am I always
Am I all ways
Am I everything
Am I nothing
Am I every thing
Am I no thing
Am I light
Am I dark
Am I god
Am I energy
Am I vibration
Am I consciousness
the limineen | poet & crone 