Nigredo

Raven carried her ball of light into the sky,
so we no longer live in darkness.

The old self image must die
Death must precede the
Psychological revolution that is welling
the creative reorganization demanding to
Unblock the flow of psychic energy and
Give life new meaning

Into the cauldron Raven
Beautiful soul maiden gently places
Black seeds from my shadow
Black wormseed from my ego
to incubate, regenerate and
Facilitate rebirth

A beginning, the end
Dying to the senses, withdrawing
Voluntarily entering the dark inner world of the soul
at home in the darkness of suffering
Only in death is a greater thing born
Only within the darkness lie germs of recovery

The Teaching of Raven

image courtesy of Susan Seddon-Boulet Trustees.

In the beginning the world was a great shapeless mass.

First there was nothing, just wind and the dark abyss. In the immense clefts of nothing, the deeper Abyss, Raven formed and with her dark raven wings, she flew to wind's arms and their passion, this procreative force, became known as Chaos.

Raven gave birth to wind's egg. From this egg rose the Goddess of Love, the one who arouses desire and fuels creation. This Goddess who represent the spirit of love,fertility and creation, was the oldest and at the same time the youngest of the Goddesses. It was the Goddess, the matchmaker, who agitated(libido) and paired heaven and earth, ocean and and the land. Before Her no immortal beings existed. From the Goddess of Love came libido which in turn birthed the immortals who sprang to life on the wings of ravenous love.

It is the Goddess of Love, the procreative principle(libido) that permits the work of creation to continue. The ability to bring something new into existence is fundamental to the creative process. Reference is often made to somebody’s ‘fertile mind’, or to an inhibition of this creativity as ‘creative sterility’.

Many successfully creative people use procreative metaphors in saying something about their experience because, as artist's know too well, when a person's performance, work output or art doesn't have soul it lacks passion or libido. Without passion or libido, without the inevitable tension of opposites, the artist lies, wretched, impotent, sterile.

A Bolt of Inspiration

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
--Mark Twain



Lightning, whose electricity,
Held the universe together,
Scowled malevolently
Through sword shaped eyes
That pierced the void as
Ravenous Raven, lady of birds and beasts
Erotically danced with promiscuous Wind

Emboldened
Charged by atoms, electrons, protons
Lightning hurled a bolt along a wire of air molecules
That collided upon earth's stage
At the very spot in Dodona where
a single oak tree stood
Igniting fire.

Raven who lived on peaks of mountainsides,
Who lived in caves
Who rested on the boughs of this very tree
Looked up in wonder
Captivated, mesmerized by
Capricious Lightning's audaciously bright, flashy show

The gift of fire, of electricity
Bought by Lightning to this most sacred place
His fired passion for Raven
Lives on in the bowels of
the mountains, the caves, the trees
Is told by birds and beasts
Lightning man's imagination

To this day the Dododan Oak Tree has the property of attracting lightning and the places where lightning struck was regarded, continues to be regarded, as sacred.

In ancient Rome, members of the College of Augurs divined the will of the gods by observing the southern sky for lightning, birds, and shooting stars. A lightning bolt passing from left to right was a favorable omen; a lightning bolt passing from right to left was a sign that Jove did not approve of current political events. Furthermore, whenever the augurs reported any sign of lightning, the magistrates of Rome were required to cancel all public assemblies on the following day. The augurs' reports became politically useful to postpone unwanted meetings, delay the passage of laws, or prevent the election of certain magistrates by popular assemblies..

Metaphor Seeds Imagination

Metaphor Seeds Imagination

From the formless void
Motes, particles, miniscule molecules of matter
Slowly began to stir
Drawn by an invisible procreative,
Primordial force
They gravitated
Clinging together tenaciously
Swelling into a giant cluster
A sensual shape with
Dark raven wings

Inflaming, arousing desire, Raven
Spread her wings
Dancing, gyrating provocatively
Upon Wind’s fingertips
Wind and raven's coming together
Borne of frenzied passion
Was a union, an act of love?
From which was birthed
An exquisite silver, moon egg
Swollen with life.

Curled within the silver womb
Amid deep silence
Lay the Goddess of Love,
Goddess of erotic love, fertility
Wrapped in the very wings
Upon which would ride, ravenous
Procreative inspiration
The all powerful
Creative energy
That fuels the universe

After The War

If I could write
I would write about
when the war ended
I would record how
we threw our ration cards
into the air
and danced into the night
hugging one another

I would marvel
using superlatives
to describe
Little things like
Spring lambs gambolling in the fields
The song of
crystalline Castalian waters
gurgling over ancient stones

I'd tell of
pulling out sheer silk stockings
and my golden organza ball gown
to wear at the celebratory ball
of waltzing
with my one true love
to the sounds of
Horrie Dargie's Rag Time Band

Maybe
After the war
I will write.

The Waiting Room

not a noun
but an adjective
describing the place
I sit waiting
waiting, hoping
that he will be
one of the
seventy percent
whose cancer responds

join the queue
welcome to the
suffering of
human kind

It is the waiting that really gets to you. How to fill in one's time during the long waiting hours? I pack a bag and take a pen, my journals, a magazine and a book but it is a bit like taking these things with me when I go to the beach. I am distracted and cannot concentrate and I end up staring at the silent walls, wondering. Sometimes I journey off into another world. Every so often the fog that surrounds me is pierced by and idea and something emerges on the page. This is from my 'Waiting Room' journal.

If The World's A Stage

If the world is a stage and I am a player
would the director of this ruddy melodrama
in which I have taken a lead role
for five long years
please find a replacement.

If the world is a stage and I am a player
would the director of this theatre troupe
acknowledge that I have done melodrama
and Greek Tragedy very well and need a turn
at some light hearted romantic comedy.

If the world is a stage and I am a player
I am officially happy to enter by the front door and
Be ushered to the best seats in the house where I could sit
Munching popcorn and slurping coke
While someone else struts their stuff