On the Occasion of a Lunar Eclipse On the Night of Good Friday

What is this, this darkest night of the year,
Made the darker by this earthen darkness?
That night that causes all good men to fear,
Is made the worse by Moon's shining redness.

The King is fallen to the nothingness.
The Powers of this world have had their way.
The root of the tree is shining in brightness,
The blood of God the tide of sin to stay.

Now in the darkness who may find their way?
The certitude of Reason's Sun is dead
And Lunar Faith is hidden far away.
By human sin is cast the darkest red.

And yet, past night there comes the morning dawn:
Infinity in human form has won.

The Pestilence that Stalks in Darkness: A Portrait of He Who is Not

         “I can’t see you anymore.” That was what my friends said to me when I first figured out what it could do, what the ring could do. I had found it, long considered a mere myth by Plato to illustrate a point. I had found the Ring of Gyges, I was invisible. “I can’t see you anymore”, that is what they said, such a beautiful phrase, such a freeing phrase. That phrase is the very source and foundation of all liberty itself. When you were young, and you were stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, you could proceed without guilt or feel that you weren’t under any authority unless you knew somebody was watching. If a younger sibling came and saw you when you were doing it, the very fact that you knew you were being seen would cause you to realize the authorities over you. And who were they, to rule over me? Who were they, to say that I could not have a cookie? The same worked the opposite way too, the observation of somebody else gave you power. If you saw a friend in the act of doing something bad, then you could hold it over them, threatening to tell the school teacher. It gave you power. We have free will, so let us do with it what we want, don’t go observing me. And what does it matter, really, if you deny it to others, they aren’t you, and you are not them. What am I doing, talking about you, you are not me, and I am not you. Let me dispense with talking about you, and begin with me. I have free will, I can choose to be whatever I want to be. It is within my power. Power, what a wonderful word.

When I first got the ring, I thought to myself about what I wanted. What should I use my free will for? Pleasure is pleasurable, I thought to myself, let me seek that. All the money I could hope for was now at my disposal. What to seek first but good food. So I ate. What to steal first, how about a television, for boredom is so annoying. In it I could just watch people without any requirements on my part. I could have power over them to turn them on and off. What power there is in entertainment. And why should I care if it is good for me, what I see. See what power I had, being invisible, for I could do whatever I wanted without being accountable to anyone for it. What would it matter if I watched violence, how could it damage me, for here were people who were not afraid to show the goal of living, of seeking the power inherent in free will to rule over those who seek to “serve others”, to be each other’s “servants”? And if it didn’t bother me, and nobody could interfere in the process by seeing me, by making me feel any guilt, why shouldn’t I do it? What would it matter if I watched such sexual and pornographic materials as were available?  In it their nakedness, their utter openness to observation, gave the most power that could be wanted through observation. The act itself, in which another’s will might be made subservient to my own, proved most powerful. If it did not bother me, and nobody else saw, why shouldn’t I, and how would it hurt me? If I was allowed by my own free will, why should I not seek power. More to the point, why should I not also do the things I saw, for who would know, and how would it harm me? There was the first one, she could not slip away. But the great tragedy of it was that touch itself is observation in a way isn’t it, and my desire gave her power over me. When observation was required, then wasn’t the removal of the observer necessary. Remove observation and observe for the sake of power. So this then was what it was to be an incubus, and I loved the power of it. So this is why demons would act in such animal ways, for they seek power.

But touch is observation, and such is also desire, both things that I found binding to the expression of my free will. So this was why demons are not generally incubi, because they are so far below it. Below it, what am I saying, I mean above it, for by seeking power they gain it. The rest of the pleasures likewise faded, except one. They were just stones dragging me down, keeping me slave to mere objects and my passions.  Violence was still appealing, the ending of another for the sake of the expression of my power. And why not? No, that was not the reason for violence, that implied I was dependent on the existence of another so that I could end it. What was it then but the desire for power expressing itself in the desire that all other things might not be. The ring could only protect me from their eyes, but their existence, their very memory of me, needed to be destroyed. I was no longer man, I was dynamite. I was focused on destruction itself, for the sake of freedom, for the sake of power, for the sake of life, not others’ lives, but mine. No, not for the sake of life, unless by life one means power. Life limited me to the rule of my own body. Suicide then, that would be it. Embrace freedom from the constraint of the body in a glorious blast of chaotic destruction, ending those who would be my masters and observers.

I entered the building, invisibly carrying the bomb. The rain of debris and glass and blood was the last of the mere bodily things that I observed, all in my power. Such beautiful power. Such violent expression of the desire for power. It certainly was fine to desire power, for how could power have power over me if it were my power.

I stood then, before a vast throne, and God sat upon it. Oh, I saw at last. The omnivident, the all seeing himself, he who in utter goodness observes all things. Utter goodness, what am I saying, how could a God who had given up the whole of the universe, all that power, to become Man and die for such a trivial thing as love be in any way good. How could I call good he who said, “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.” This omnivident one was the greatest threat of all to my freedom, to my free will, to my power. I screamed at him, “I have done good, even if you do not call it so. If you are good, recognize the good of my power.”

“I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity,” he proclaimed to those of us who spoke in this manner. “I never knew you”. This was the ultimate “I can’t see you anymore”. My power was complete. Yes! He rejects all claims to have observed me, he rejects having remembered me. I had not needed the ring of Gyges here, he, the source of all non-me observation, had no memory of me.

There was darkness, yes, darkness. And it was wonderful, I could do anything here, for nobody would see, there was no one and no thing to limit me. There was no reality to depend upon for power, I observed everything that was capable of observation. Such was true power. My work on earth was complete here, suicide unto power had reached its culmination. And the heat, such as the heat of the bomb that gave me power, surrounded me. They had all been wrong, this was heaven, my great power keeping me company. I did nothing to anything, for they had all been annihilated. I could still glory in my power, for that was the remaining desire left for those with power. “O great and powerful I, ruler of all things”.

I, that is a strange word. Why should such a word have the power to define the true power? Let it be abolished. Haha, I is abolished. I is nothing. Power has abolished I. I can’t think because I is abolished. I can’t think and I is not. Power, funny word to have power over power. Power is abolished by nothing. Hurrah! (Hm, let them be unabolished for a second, for they are needed for the abolition of other things.)

         Why should my power be hindered by the rules of grammar, and why should words have the power over me and power. Behold, let the tyrant Grammar be destroyed, and words meaning things along with it. I is abolished. Hm, still grammatical. Abolished power. Hm, better, no subject. Abolished. Hm, expresses. Wol. Flum. Igglefordshire. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Traluphalorhum. Words, tyrannical. Scream instead.

While There is Love There is Hope

            The universe had decided to kill itself. All the peoples of all the planets of all the galaxies of the universe had convened, and they had decided to end the universe.

            “All good things must come to an end,” they said to themselves, “Is that not the principle of the universe itself. People are born and then they die. Relationships are formed and then are broken. Beautiful creations are made and after some number of generations they are forgotten. Explorers have come to new frontier after new frontier, but before long all the frontiers are closed. The universe itself, for all we know, may have a similar cycle. It may be like the phoenix that destroys itself after many ages and is then reborn from the ashes. A leads to B leads to C leads to A, and the cycle continues. People flourish, love, are loved, and then they die. To what purpose was that life? To what purpose was that death? Are we not as a spark that once lit shines for half a second and then dies? What then is the purpose of life, if it is to end, though igniting other sparks which will do the same? Are we not as men who daily wait in a wasteland for some person, who never comes? In that waiting people may pass by, and we may see glorious things, and invent glorious things, but the purpose for which we stand there, to see that one person, is never reached, for he himself will not come, for he does not exist. Being in a universe that repeats, we have no purpose. Memory is lost. History repeats. Nothing truly happens. Nothing lasts. But even so, there comes nothing new under the many suns. The ideas of one age, the good and the bad, are reinvented by a later age. All invention is conceit, for it has come before. A person may know much, but with that knowledge comes sorrow, the knowledge of knowing the depths to which human kind may sink. A person may know many people, but when they leave him he is left to greater loneliness. These cycles are inevitable, they go nowhere. Thus, for our own sake, let us end these meaningless cycles. Let us end that which is, for that which is is meaningless.”

            This was their statement. This was their thesis. It was agreed to. And beyond this, they had the means to do it. They erected the gallows for the universe, a mechanism that would cast the universe back into nothing, if indeed from nothing it had come. They insisted that they should have truly universal agreement. On all the worlds of all the galaxies they set up little rooms for each person. And in the center of these rooms stood podiums, upon which was placed a button. Once all the people had pushed all of these buttons the mechanism would be activated, but only then, for only then would they be sure of universal agreement. It was built.

            The people all entered these rooms, closed the doors, and one by one, they began to press the buttons. One by one, world by world, galaxy by galaxy the buttons were pressed. Then, at last, only one button was left unpressed. The Universe had condemned itself to death, had built the scaffold, had placed the noose around its own neck, and now waited for the executioner, the last button, to pull the lever and remove the trapdoor.

            The universe waited. They had all agreed before this that they would want to see who would be the last, the one who had so long hesitated that they would be the executioner, and had thus put cameras into all of the rooms to broadcast the last words of the universe to all.

            And behold, it was a young child looking at the button, seeing the recording light on the camera lit, knowing that its decision was the last of them.

            “No, I won’t,” the child sobbed, “ I won’t. Things should end happily, like in fairy tales. ‘Happily ever after’.  This wouldn’t be a happy ending, I want to live. I want my family to live too. I love them, my parents, my siblings. Even if I can’t live ‘Happily ever after’ I can hope for it can’t I? You say all good things end. Why do they have to? Can’t we keep the good things for ‘ever after’.  Forever, never ever ending.  I know I’m just a kid. I don’t know what you all know, but even if things are as sad as you say, can’t we believe love lasts ‘forever’, even if it isn’t true?”

            And thus that hope without which the universe would cease to exist still existed: that great hope that love is greater than death itself; that great hope that there will be a “happily ever after” for the universe. The hope that the universe has some purpose, called by humanity ”love”.

The Wanderings of Wilbert the Wondrous Waffle

My breakfast began with bacon

And was followed with fluffier foods:

A waffle with white sails of whipped cream

Sailing on a sea of sugary syrup.

My mind meandered meaninglessly

About the amazing armament

Such a ship should store

Against the perilous pancake pirates

And the frightening French toast fiends.

Now a name seemed necessary for this new nautical novelty,

Wherefore “Wilbert the Wondrous” was written

In streams of syrup on its side.

This boat began its being with a bagel battle

With cream cheese and croissants crossing

In awesome arcs across the sea,

Before the bagels were beaten with a breakfaster’s bite,

Well welcomed by the Wondrous Wilbert.

The English muffins and eggs effected an edict,

A treaty with the Texas toast,

To prevent the pancakes from proving a problem,

By arranging an army to augment

The Waffle’s wondrous workings.

This friendly force fried the French toast fiends

While our protagonists plunged the pancakes off a pastry precipice.

Wilbert the Wondrous wafted westward,

Sailing the shining syrup sea,

Entering erroneously to its end.

A fork finished the fearless flagship.

Wilbert, though, was wanted widely for the wars,

Because breakfast had barely begun.

The Descent of the Stars Part 3 of 3

Now sing angels to their liege lord,

Pain they have at their great parting,

Orbs long did they inhabit,

Matter theirs while in they dwelt.

Matter good for form it taketh,

Planets good for habitation.

These are now forever formless,

Ever lordless, ever guideless.

Form and matter there were parted,

Lovers gone and never meeting,

Severed as the soul from body

At the moment of last breathing,

For the spirit is of breathing,

Life in blood and means of speaking.

See the plan, the great unfolding,

God, the lord, all self-sufficient,

All for Love, in great abundance,

Made the world, a something other,

Matter first, then form descending,

Out from mind, the great Ideas.

See these now upon the grasses,

In this very woodland meadow

Now they gather dancing logic,

Subtlety may there be found,

Slithering upon the woodland,

Strength is there, a great high lion,

Casting forth his mighty power,

Over all that stands or withers.

Chair and Table, Earth and Water,

Snub and Point, lords Red and Blue,

Yellow, Book, and Seedling greening,

All these Forms upon the woodland,

Coming out from all creation,

Whither they had gone most gladly,

Seeing good in Matter present,

At the Architect’s commanding.

“O Matter, why do we leave you,

Oh, our friend in bygone ages,

You who found us, lonely, wan’dring,

Gave us home and rest and greeting,”

Thus the song of all the Angels

And the Forms there in that meeting.

Making Man last in his image,

God did make the first creation,

Made to grow into his likeness.

Casting off this glorious calling,

Man did fall at serpent’s prompting,

Dancing higher, dancing lower,

Than their roles were meant to travel.

Thus they now descend to nothing,

Ever downward, ever deathward,

Leaden natures ever heavy.

Far from God there is no being,

Far from God now they were seeking,

Though they held the spark he gave them,

Holding being, ever dying,

Needing him to come and save them.

Thus the Reason of all being,

Architect, the high and noble,

Came into an earthly vessel,

Infinite as finite being,

Came indeed as man among us,

Showing us how we should be.

We, despising, scorned and mocked him,

Set him on the four branch tree,

Upward, downward ever going,

Unified in him upon it,

Left and right contrary reaching,

Unified in him upon it,

War within Creation ceasing,

Form and Matter, Man and Woman,

Now great peace is made between them,

They at war since loss of Eden,

May they come at last to share in

That great peace on that day purchased.

There was he, the lord of Being,

Separated from himself there,

Son by Father there forgotten,

Though all knowing and all seeing.

There to face the great unbeing,

For our sake, we fading lost ones.

Lord of being Nothing breaketh,

For how could the Nothing hold him?

How the Darkness ever break him?

See the Easter morn arising,

Christ ascending, Christ arising,

Bringing light to all who follow,

Falling, rising, in his footsteps,

Holy Water out of Nothing,

In which we his path do follow.

Holy Bread and Drink of Being

Now do bring the transmutation

Of our Souls and of our Bodies,

Under Spirit’s ghostly leading.

Form and matter once divided,

Soul and body once were sundered,

Brought to Death in painful breaking,

Now rejoined in Glorious union,

In the Life of Christ are risen.

In this Life the Church was founded,

Those transformed by this his Passion.

He the leaven of salvation,

Now throughout the world is blended,

New world brought out from the old one,

That one fading, this one clearing.

Now is time for greatest union,

Church and Christ to marriage coming,

Bride most holy and most lovely,

Groom most loving and defending.

That once broken now is mended.

Stars sing now about their homeland,

Forms sing now about their instance,

That dear Matter that they loveth.

Christ doth hear their protestations,

He is present in the Matter,

He is present in the Formal,

He is able to unite them,

Brought to Death for Resurrection,

For they needed such division,

So that they may come together,

In a perfect union holy,

In a new created Heavens,

Break and glue in rightful dancing,

Thus is brought the transformation,

Thus is brought the transmutation.

Now to them again they come,

Joyful at their new reunion,

Form with Matter one is builded,

Guide with Orb a planet formed.

Now to mark out different seasons

In this newly made creation,

Choirs of angels round the planets,

Now line in four groups of triples,

On the walls of that great city,

New Jerusalem descending,

These four groups on these four bulwarks,

That enwall this mighty city.

Now the yearly flowing circle

Now is squared, with time restoring,

Now they show for days and seasons,

God his time has now established.

Form and Matter, under new law,

Cease to groan from Death and anguish,

As the new day is appearing,

All is bright and all is holy,

In the Light of Christ the risen.

The Descent of the Stars Part 2

Now behold the choirs of angels.

Water bearing or capricious,

Are beholden to lord Saturn.

Standing at the yearly doorway,

Bringing to us death and rising.

Time of light and time of darkness,

Time of year when light is bleakest.

Sol dies not though leaden tempered,

But begins the yearly rising.

Showing yearly what our great Lord

Did when tomb could never hold him.

Archer and the Fish surround them,

Ruled by Jupiter the kingly,

See not fish but Lord of fishers,

Seeking souls that he should save them,

From the death that had befallen.

See the Archer, sign of Eros,

Image of the great Creator,

Bringing order out of Chaos,

Striking down the great Behemoth,

Water battle with the sea snake,

The Leviathan, that monster,

That did terrify the waters,

And cast Ziz from out of heaven,

That had blackened star and moonlight.

Scorpion and then the Ram,

These are under Martial guidance.

Scorpion the great divider,

Poison is he ever bringing,

To the detriment of many,

As the Snake mankind deceiving.

Then remember Isaac, promised

To the sacrifice demanded,

‘Til was made the great replacement,

In a Ram so fitly coming.

Blood descending, life uplifting.

Bull and Scales around them rising,

One is Stubborn, other Equal,

Under Venus, bringing nature.

Stubborn nature oft downbringing,

Far from he who would redeem us,

Bringing balance with his great Love,

So that we may not be wanting,

“Tekel” shall not be our writing.

Twins and Virgin, subtle, coming,

Under Hermes find their meaning.

Single face in different being,

Mirror of the One as Triple,

And the Three in One as gathered,

And the One of double nature,

Fully human fully Godhead,

Born on Earth of Virgin holy,

Bringing hope of our salvation.

Crab the next, Orion slaying,

Under Luna’s silver lighting.

All the earthen creatures crying

For salvation from the hunter.

Unlooked for the cure is sended,

The faith of all the evidence bringing.

Last the mighty Solar Lion,

Light of Gold the dark defeating,

Leaden weight now turned to lightness,

World remakéd, death defeated.

The Descent of the Stars Part 1

Stars descending out from heaven,

Bright and Shining, Night enlightening,

Twilight made as clear as Noon day,

Summoned out from dark abysses

By their Lord who made the heavens,

Out from Orbs now darkened always

Formless now for they are Lordless,

Guiding angels far departed.

Sky now darkened, void and formless.

On the ground come they to brighten,

Shining angels nobly dancing.

Seven planets circling fitly,

Treading verdant earthen grasses,

Choirs of angels, twelve in number,

Dance the year round these great seven.

Luna first, the ever changing,

Monthly lighting, monthly fading,

Amongst earth and heaven gliding,

Part unchanging, part mutating,

Double movement earth to heaven,

Sky to dust is then returning,

Bringing out from doubtful pathways

Certain knowledge of the sure things.

Hermes next, the dark’ning bright’ner,

Back and forth is ever leading,

Breaking, washing, always hiding,

Gluing that which once was broken,

Downwards, Upwards, Gravely leading

Down to Death though ever laughing,

Stealing, Joking, ever Crying,

All is one and all is twofold

 In this merry dance of Hermes.

Venus’ circle next is present,

Brightest star of all the heavens,

Gained when lord thereof had fallen,

Taking third of angels with him.

Out of death new life she beareth,

Merely shadow though she may be

Of the Holy Queen of Heaven.

Sol is next, the golden burning,

Reason bringing, law upholding,

Men from out of cave enlightening,

Freeing men from dark unknowing,

Lighting Earth so man may see it,

Showing justly how God’s Reason

Bringeth things illumination

Hidden from mere mortal senses.

Mars doth follow, sword unsheathing,

Like to Michael’s image, bringing

War to Devil’s armies raging.

Winter gone, now spring upbringing.

Jove now comes, in counter temper,

Laughing loudly, sounding jolly,

Image of the king of Heaven,

Ruling justly, sending mercy,

For the just and all of mercy

Find in him their happy union.

Wearing cloak of purest whiteness,

But for spot of bloody ruby

Image of the death of the King

For his people life providing.

Crushing serpent and strong lion,

These the very signs of tyrants,

Force and Fraud most truly naméd.

Last of all the lord most dreadful,

He the lord of aging darkness,

Though the lord of aged wisdom.

Stars are gathered in his presence,

For he knows their lordly dances.

Rust and moth are his great servants,

Age and death to bring destruction.

All surrounding, all discerning,

Such the woeful way of Saturn.