The Earth has a skin

And that skin has diseases

One of its diseases is called man

Friedrich Nietzsche

Transformation 1

The Labyrinth

He no longer recalls the exact length of his confinement and the memory of first being brought here is vague. The only fact he can rely upon is that he was captured and confined here during the first of the great purges, which to his failing memory seems an age ago. In the early days the vast labyrinth of cells and examination rooms saw constant activity as new faces appeared hourly, each baring the sigil upon their brow that made of them renegade. Wasted and forlorn each resigned to the fate that awaited them. Each attended by a guard they were ferried between cell and interrogation room ceaselessly. The guards masked and clad in the darkest of robes and cloak bore an air of indifference to their charges as they simply went about their duty. A duty they neither relished or despised for like all servants they but followed orders. Those who gave the orders remained aloof and never was there so much as a sight of them. It was rumoured amongst the inmates, on the rare occasions when solitary confinement became communal, that they were outlanders from a far distant world bent on domination and empire building. But all of this speaks of a past and the present veiled in disbelief presents a very different picture for through the first transformation, as his interrogators called it, all would change and this much was found to be true. Having no measure of time he can but speculate upon the time he has walked the labyrinth unattended by others and as far as he knows he stands alone in this place. His first instinct, one of escape proves futile for though he has crudely mapped the labyrinth, each passage, each cell is a prefect reflection of the next and the next in endless procession. An eternal twilight serves as light, its source, unknown and to his ever attentive ears he catches but whispers upon the air, quickly replaced with silence that hangs like a shroud upon everything. His basic needs are met with powered grain, dried and desiccated fish and phials of water he discovers each morning and evening within his cell. Where they come from he knows not and though he has on many occasions sought to discover their origin never has he glimpsed another who might deposit them, it is as if they simply appear. During the time of the guards this was understandable but now, in the absence of another living soul it is a mystery. His time is spent in endless pursuit of meaning. What of my once fellow captives? What of the guards and what purpose is served by theses circumstances? He has no notion of any of this and as such the lode stone that determines his existence is centred around the first transformation that insinuated itself into his awareness, took root and flowered into a monstrosity of absence.

Long ago he resigned from holding memories of a time before this place as this but served to cause him pain and though that pain spoke of feeling and life it did but torment and in its absence did he know a species of peace called by some oblivion. So now he wandered the endless corridors, unrelieved by difference and when fatigue claimed him he fell to the floor and there he slept and upon waking always found himself in his cell and the presence of his meager sustenance fortified him sufficiently to commence the cycle of his ritual again and again. It became the foundation of his awareness that however far he appeared to walk the labyrinth in his cell he found himself on waking. This he knew by the small mark he had etched into the seamless surface of the wall to the left of its door, but perhaps this was also replicated? How could he know? His clothing, a second skin of a fabric light yet substantial was of the deepest black, matt and almost invisible were it not for the weight of it he could feel upon his skin. Occasionally it emitted a pale mist that he took to be its means of cleansing both him and itself. During this process he felt the dullest of sensations stirring deep within the vault of his memory. These he suppressed for as he learned long ago they did but serve to torment him, instead he gave himself over to reverie and phantasy and by virtue of this alone had he remained sane. The whispers he often sensed, if not heard, increased as if they would coalesce into shadows that revealed themselves in the slight shift in the perpetual twilight that attended him and as he began to pay attention to them a phrase, well almost a phrase insinuated itself onto the mirror of his mind. With ever repeating insistence that spiraled into frenzy, “come, for I await thee,” This accompanied by the slight shift of the twilight and the presence of musk upon the air informed him that he was no longer alone. But was this but the phantasy of his stimulus starved mind creating its own world born of need? If so the pressure in the air and the signs of a presence all but denied this and as he surrendered to the almost presence he wondered even more as to the purpose of this place and time. During the times that fatigue claimed him a clarity denied him during wakefulness granted him glimpses of something formed of shadow and dust held by the presence of musk into a semblance of form that pressed itself against the skin of his awareness and whispered unknown sensations into the barren field that was his mind. “Patience my dear one, the time is near” is all that he could translate from the frenzy of impressions that now assailed him without pause and upon wakening he was relieved by the unbroken silence that attended his days and the whispers were consigned to the well of fancy where doubtless they bred both angel and demon according to their fancy.

! ! !

Transformation 2

The Hall Of Mirrors

Awareness like smoke drifts upon the surface of a placid pool, breaks the membrane of sleep and awakes. A hard surface greets him and perpetual twilight is replaced by the brightest light and he sees his face before him. Lines etched into his skin speak of age and yet the sparkle that dances at the corners of his eyes tells a different story. Rising to a seated position he surveys his surroundings. All around him his reflection dances across every surface and he but sits at its still centre. There a child cradled in loving arms. To his left a young boy stretches his arms and legs testing them against the limbs of an ancient oak. To his right a young man steals his first kiss from the vision of beauty he holds in his arms. Upon the ceiling a man nestles his own child in arms both strong and gentle. Memories of his past cascade down the corridors of memory. There a gentle creature caught within a net of softest light and there, limbs entwined by a gossamer thin web of opalescence is he finally trapped within a labyrinth not of his knowing and now beholding all that passes before and through him the softest of whispers breaks the silence. ”Welcome traveller upon the shores of night, the second transformation now attends thee” as soon as heard silence drops like a curtain upon a tableaux of wonders. Rising to his feet the first of many faltering steps stir his legs from their somnambulance and he advances into an eternity of reflections that rise and fall like autumn leaves caught upon the breeze. For what feels to him like days he advances, legs growing stronger with each step and yet the horizon remains constant and he sees nothing that is not of himself. A labyrinth of a different form has he entered and where the first was of twilight this one is of light all but blinding in its intensity. Here he is no longer claimed by fatigue for here time ceases and the perpetual moment unfolds. Turns upon itself and casts its ever present self upon the surface he takes to be a distant point. Were there time he would measure the passing of events. In its absence the eternal moment but changes and his yielding mind surrenders itself to the second transformation and in its embrace he comes to rest within a valley, verdant as Eden’s first days and beneath the outstretched arms of an oak does he take his rest. Birdsong caresses ears once the sole possession of whispers and of this he drinks deeply. A dragonfly of mercurial wing alights upon his knee and dozes in the light and warmth of the sun above. A hind of deepest red grazes upon the grass, occasionally casting her gentle gaze towards him and as this scene unfolds he is absorbed into the entity he once would have known as tree.

Deeper he descends and moisture calls to him and in quest of this he enters the chambers wherein the mystery that is the world weaves her dreams and a mantle of softest earthlight is woven around his emerging form as upwards he now spirals through root, trunk, branch and leaf and soaks in sunlight like nectar and beneath an ocean of stars is he graced by starlight’s embrace. “Beloved Childe” whispered upon the night air raises his mind to the surface of the mirror and there before him its reflection shimmers and one more facet of the hall of mirrors reveals itself. One more veil drops to the leafmould beneath his feet and the surface transforms into the hardened diamond brightness that serves as his recall. Where once he beheld a face of ancient contours now he gazes upon that of newborn and in the depths of eyes violet memory stirs and the place of beginnings is recalled. “Yes beloved memory now serves as a maiden fair.” He smiles in his recall and casting all shapes aside he ascends and upon wings of liquid light does he perceive history revealed through the books of life and death. There an amniotic oceans embrace spills life onto a reluctant shoreline and the cyphers are cast in blood and bone. The second transformation serves as witness and into the cells of memories vault is all consigned as he drinks of the vapour that rises like incense upon the still air. The labyrinths of night and day now but a distant memory for here in the womb of time itself is all conceived and upon the mirror of form is its reflection cast within the hall of mirrors.

“Drink deep from the stream, lest your form evaporates into the void from whence you came.

Breathe deeply of the intoxication

that holds you bound by blood and bone.

Think deeply upon the thoughts that carry you from ecstasy to ecstasy through the tapestry of appearance.”

! ! !

Transformation 3

The Cave Of Hypnos

Reflections cease and the mirrors that bore them dissolve into the starlight from whence they came. Sleep, for that it might yet be called, grips him in its velvet embrace and into the depths of matter is he cast. Granted form and an awareness with which to comprehend, the third transformation is entered and his borrowed form quakes in the presence of the voice that fills the cathedral like proportions of the cave of hypnos. Stone slick with moisture holds myriad pools of sulphurous light through which cascades the ocean of possibilities contained within the dreaming moment. Here he is granted recall and the labyrinth is recalled and the time of his service within its twilight corridors. Once again the mirrors rise briefly within the labyrinth and he recalls the time of his devotion to all that is named Grace and it is here that the pillars of justice claimed him and granted him his name and voice. The cave wherein he now sits stretched into infinity and yet his comprehension embraced all within its grasp. Reason, long departed had cast him upon exotic shores and play with him they do as they peel back layer upon layer of personal form and leaving the shoreline enter the ocean wherein is the one being encountered and likewise stripped of all that pertains to the real. Treasured belief is turned to dust and falls to the cavern floor within the palace of dreams. Beloved knowledge, its pages ashes and smoke rise upon the still air and enter the hall of forgetfulness, perhaps to be turned by another future soul, perhaps not? Power cowers like a shrunken beast in the presence of its mistress before whom it can but yield its scepter of brass. Grace alone survives the third transformation as it is grace alone that grants it. The doorway unto eternity but a hairs breadth away, forever open, forever closed. Grace incarnate reveals her final mystery within the chambers of a stilled heart wherein her whispers discerned as thunder strike and break the mould that is form.

Long ago was the battle fought and won

When life and death stood upon opposing shores and glimpsed each other

Death looked upon life and smiled whilst life like a maiden shy upon her bed of roses coyly looked aside

The twin pylons that supported the entrance to the cave burst into flame. One of opal, its reflections dance upon eyes he cannot close. The other ebon light diffused by a golden globe enters what were once pores of a transparent skin likewise dissolve and all that now remains is a mote of consciousness, adrift within the unfolding moment that masks eternity. Had he from he would rise and sit between the twin pylons that call to him. Absent such he can but passively absorb what appears upon the screen of his awareness as with each passing tableaux further is he rendered into the azoth that holds all within its embrace. The voice, now a constant presence uplifts what was once a heart as with a final caress she whispers, ”bend your head and join with me.” The wave washes over him and he is claimed by the current and all is returned to the pristine state of innocence as stain upon stain is erased from the book of memory and he rises a shooting star, tail blazing as he is projected through he portal of otherness wherein the Archons and Vesicas lay forever dreaming. The third and final transformation reveals herself a maiden fair who extending her hand grasps the air before her and brings him to her breast upon which he lays his head and sleeps. The ages, countless unfold and during this time of sleep all that has been, all that is and al that is yet to be writes itself upon the adamantine pillars of memories passing. A gentle breeze raises him from the kingdom of reverie and he wakes, check immersed in the amber liquid upon which he floats and as the tide waxes into the infinite ocean he is cast to be no more upon the stage of life’s calling. One tiny drop of iridescent is all that now remains and this too is evaporated in the fires of creations heart and within the fabled city the Grigori in enraptured celebration raise their voices as one and greet one more errant son into their midst within the night of time and he finally ceases the movement that has compelled him and deposited him upon the shoreline of infinite silence.

! ! !

Transition

Aethyrs Burnished Gold

Liber Sigillum vel Daath

A cypher wrought in glyph and sigil. Fleshed by bloodbeat and heart’s pulse, echoes the timelessness of other.

Other cast adrift upon ink black night, yields to starlight and the breath it takes until yet again by hand and eye is once more cast upon the eternal aethyrs.

Drink deep from the stream, lest your form evaporates

into the void from whence you came.

Breathe deeply of the intoxication that holds you bound by blood and bone.

Think deeply upon the thoughts that carry you from ecstasy to ecstasy through the tapestry of appearance.

Octave One

Inception Conscious Attention saturated, stilled. Vertical surface, unspecified. Horizontal surface, unspecified. Conscious dialogue ceases. No image, sound, or feeling. Poised, attentive, emptied. Surfaces deepen and from the wellspring a different form arises, as alignment takes place. Who is this one? What is this place? This shape? A new language? A new Art of Knowing? Difference that echoes through blood, bone and flesh, seeking new images and structures through which to make itself known. Known to Whom or What? No longer locked, a slave to appearance, but grasping the tenuous foreshadowing of a different view, a different knowing. A knowing of the cells, a knowing of tissue saturated by life and life’s energy. Considers ..... Selects ..... Becomes.

Octave Two

Dreamzone One A portal of azure upon a landscape of emerald undulations. Each heartbeat a ripple upon the surface of this liquidity. Amorphous shapes shifting, focusing, dissolving as the mind in quest of meaning releases, permits, contains. Each breath travels to the surface of the skin, travels outwards, contacts not I, as a shifting focus, superimposed upon a liquid shoreline. Incandescence, light, beyond the ability to see. Sound ripples upon the surface of that I know as I. Landscape dissolves, for now it is the surface of skin. Ripples, undulating, inform the process of dissolution, finally reaching outward beyond all I am able to hold. Silence. A void, lustrous, dark and welcoming, velvet softness, as I move through layer upon layer of amorphous, shifting perspectives. Yet I focus upon form, angularity arises as I greet another portal that casts me into a deeper dream.

Octave Three

The Dreamquest of Azrael In each moment do I dwell attentive to each thought, each sensation, each dream. Each breath etches a line, an angularity within and upon the surface you know as I. Each breath a passing moment, a new form and texture, as the tapestry of the world, your world, unfolds. Was I not with thee when first you drew breath? Have I not shared your moments of triumph? Have I not also shared your shame? As your one true companion, have I not aided thee, though unseen, unknown? Your form grants me substance as I quest upon the way. Each of you a tiny atom within the surface of my body. History knows me in many forms, for am I not Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent? Thou seeks to turn away? There am I also - Awaiting. Awaiting the time when with the last breath drawn, the last line etched, I reach out and claim thee as mine. For this am I known as the friend to life. For this am I known as the Initiator. For this am I greeted in masked form, each form a shadow, an echo of my nature. Look around you: there is no place I have not been, no place I have not seen, have not taken unto myself. Know this and live, for your time with me is eternal.

Octave Four

The Serpent Rises And through that portal did I step, my angel attendant, a shadow, a shimmering of velvet light, a light radiating upward and outward, dissolving as it touches, each shape, each form, cleansing me of association and knowing. By its breath is the flesh dissolved. By its breath is the mind dissolved, as upwards it courses. Abstracts arise, products of higher mentation. Geometrical intrusions seeking form and shape, yet malleable and transient. A surface of flatness through which I penetrate and perceive. Yet this too is dissolved as life, as heat enters a still centre. Ice surrounds what was once verdant, as I am stilled yet further. Crystals arise. Each breath a sight, a knowingness, bereft of form yet rich in texture, dissolves as yet again a surface appears, a surface of silence as the light itself dissolves. I of no name, I of no nature, callest unto thee, from silence to silence complete.

Octave Five

The Portal of Lucidity And now I dream, conceive of new shapes, new textures. That which defined me as I no longer holds sway. My surface extended, reaches out and contacts all that might become. My surface once defined by difference, now draws unto itself shape, form, texture, a perception of distance, of height, of depth arises. As lightning swift, caught upon the wings of perception I move inward yet outward also. A tiny mote yet containing all. My chosen vehicle, its angularities gentle, curvaceous, permitting of ease and comfort in description. Mine to choose, mine to accept. What choosest thou? Models, maps, all transitory. There is only that which remains as language, as description is stripped away like a veneer that coats us, that secures us, that would entrap us. Choose well, for only the strongest of swimmers might enter the deepest of oceans. Words, description, all but artifice, a lure, seducing, enthralling, yet sterile. Time, space and mind stand witness and in so doing, wonder, as do I.

Octave Six

The Realm of Otherness Consciousness drifts and of itself formulates another. Its memory of the one it knew before was hard of outline, clear of definition. This one yields, is soft and mobile, shifting from form to form, shape to shape. Space is its domain, Time likewise a solid through which it passes with ease. Atavisms of a dark past arise, instinct borne along striations of dream, corridors, endless, eternal. Others arise, each one bearing a gift, a message, a welcome. Stay with us for are we not at peace? Dwelling between the moments your former self occupied. Stay with us and dream eternally, our thoughts your forms, our forms your dreams. What would you know of? This we impart, this we offer. Stay with us and dream in palaces of crystal and starlight. The surface of skin stretches, accommodates, isolates, becomes yet again as ancestral memories arise. Form after form, human, mammal, reptile and beyond, converging in vegetable life, arboreal forms, lichen, primordial ponds where life itself was seeded. All this is I, yet not I. I stand, I witness. Witness of the ages adrift in timelessness, formlessness. In dreams I visit you, inspiring passion and vision to arise. Know this: Thou art all things, all times and places.

Octave Seven

The Dreaming Attention As other gains ascendancy, awareness shifts to this new vehicle, known to some as the dreaming body, by others as the double, having characteristics of the somatic self, yet granted the freedom of exploration. In dreamtime it opens portals upon myriad’s of perceptual possibilities, intending worlds that it might explore otherness completely. This becomes the true home of the seer. Maintaining the appearance of dual realities, yet in truth granting each its value. In earthtime it explores the world of every day events, stalking the world as others might stalk prey. The appearance of self and other dissolves as familiarity is acquired through the softening of world views. What was once total, clear of definition, softens, yields, as power enters the system and defines it further. Dreamtime enters earthtime and the coding is complete. In which form do you travel? Borne aloft upon pinions of vision, exploring upon the wings of perception, carried ever onward by the current of intent. Thou art now truly dissolved, lost to human form and history, a mystery of time and space, freedom beckons.

Octave Eight

Daathian Intrusions And from this place of dream, the earth below, the stars above, thou art poised, aligned as the gateway of gateways arises, opens, beckons. Polarity like unto an oscillating matrix serves as the key. And in what place was this key forged? What material used in its construction? Many in pursuit of wisdom walk the path from the kingdom unto the crown, they travel the highway of becoming, for us the little known path beckons. Our foundation, the sphere of the moon, of formulations, of dream and the secrets of power guised in word and gesture, fleshed in vision and ability, leads us unto the palace of knowledge, a palace cast within a void, an abyss of seething possibilities. For we recognise no spirit or matter, but that which expresses both as unity. Art fused with knowledge births a vehicle of transcendence. Time and space but a secondary equation to that of being. A palace of many mansions and paths, each an eternity, each a possibility. Octaves of being careering along timelines, fleshed as worlds, as forms. The key held, the portal accessed, power is granted, for in power lies the ability to transcend that which is rendered pedestrian by the equation of thought and tongue. Cast thy mind, thy body as a mighty sigil of power, enter the gateway of true mystery and become.

Octave Nine

Dreamzone Two Memory rises, acts as a lure that draws me onwards and outwards. Memory of what I have been, what I would become. Thought echoes outwards, shape and texture arise yet serve as metaphor for a time and place of true dissolution. Each heartbeat thunders across galaxies, each breath the kindling of starborn existence. Each thought shapes itself, fleshes itself into that which I might choose to describe. I gaze into nothingness from which I take form and description. I stand upon the path which is the polarity of time, one gateway, an observer conceiving of what will be, another witnessing what has been. As lord of time I arc through the ages, accelerating beyond the realm of sight and sense, until I finally merge with the totality of all that was, that is and will be. The name of this dreamzone, eternity, infinity and the wellspring of creation. And as I gaze into the lustrous waters of this reflection, I am stilled, completed yet again and from this place, this time, perceive another, who stands before me regal yet humble, blessed by knowledge, yet wrapped in a mantle of humility, wise with the wisdom that stems from witnessing the passage of eternity, the passage of stars.

Octave Ten

The Manifestation of Ionthe And wouldst thou walk with me child of terra’s ink black night? I greet thee as brother, as lover. Thy toils but a second in the passing of my history, a history shaped by those you have known and those you have not. By name you may know me as Ionthe, a convenience to make simple that which is more so. Like my brother Azrael have I quested. His path to be the companion of all that is, all that lives. My way that of the essence. For as a miasma am I cast forth within creation, for I am its spirit. Of myself I am nothing, yet am granted shape, given definition by the aspirations of all that which exists. From the tiniest microbe casting forth upon the aethyrs its dream, its aspiration, to the stars turning their spirals in contemplation of the aeons. From all this was I made, from all this did I take form, now I would enter a final form, that which will be my last, for I have remained unseen these long ages, yet my whispers inform the hearts and minds of all that which exists. I greet thee and in thy form will explore a world of simplicity, of totality. For my time has come and now I would walk with thee brother, sister and lover.

Octave Eleven

Adrift Upon the Aethyrs Hand in hand, heart in heart, mind in mind did we merge. And in that act a vortex opens, and through its ever increasing spirals were we cast adrift. At first the void, a place of emptiness, of potentials. Compression, alignment and the stars arise. Slowing - life arose and within the immensity before us, that I now call I, a distant form, a distant sparkle beckons. And towards that distance did I travel, heart uplifted, mind awash, like plasma coursing through vein and sinew. Slowed further - time arose and granted duration, the recognition of difference: difference that now defined self and the concept of other, as onwards I course towards my destination. Slowed even further - language, description, a code arises and within my view, worlds hanging within the lustrous body of our holy lady, she who is but divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union. And within that body of worlds one now beckons, one which I now enter, one which I now become. The oceans stir me, the breeze carries me aloft, as I enter all forms, all nature, all singularities.

Octave Twelve

Emergence Into Singularity

For long aeons did I lie, did I wait. Above me galaxies lived and died within a twinkling, a moment between the breaths that I took. Below me the oceans roiled, casting new life upon the masses of land I witnessed in their rising. Forms evolved, yet I waited still. I witnessed, I recorded, I remembered. A power now surges and I am called forth into singularity, for am I not kin of Azrael, the kin of Ionthe and the spirit of life? I fragment and enter each and all, thereby knowing my totality. Look for me in no place, seek me in no time, for I am but an echo, solid yet amorphous by turn, I visit, I witness, I pass on. Now I solidify into singularity further, a heart, a mind, a body of substance. I enter the dreamtime of other and experience difference, that which now defines me from other. And now I observe a moving hand, words crafted from the essence of thought, wrought in ink, each one carrying a heartbeat, each one the fleshing of a dream, each one existing in this moment, through this moment and beyond this moment, and from this moment, as I rise finally into singularity and say: welcome.

Octave Thirteen

Dreamzone Three And from this time, from this place and with this one, I enter the dream of dreams and walk amongst the shadow beings that surround me, yet know me not. One mask is affixed, then another, yet another. Within the conceptions that arise, a memory of all that I have seen, all that I have witnessed. Ionthe guides me, makes deep and rich the tapestry that unfolds before my senses. Azrael counsels me in the matter of adopting singularity. The earth supports and nurtures me. The stars beckon and cherish me, as again I walk forth a stranger in a strange land. Greeted by others I enter their worlds, sometimes as friend, sometimes as foe. My path, my vision burning brightly, a lambent flame, continuous, evolving. I but a molecule within the body of our holy lady, seeking the ecstasy that lies within life, extracted from the crude material of existence. I walk this world complete, and offer greeting, and in passing, utter a simple word: adieu.

! ! !

The New Flesh

The Phoenix Rises

Benediction

Amidst shadows and smoke does he rise Splinters of light adorn his torn visage

Thorns rend flesh, rivers of blood embrace limbs, barely formed.

Shadows coalesce and in the frozen moments does he remember Limbs once broken begin to heal as the elixir flows

drop by iridescent drop Nectar sweet, laced with bitter gall enters eyes, yet dim of sight

Enters nostrils, a benediction.

Shadowed forms limned in lightning attend the moment A chorus of cries and whispers

Echoes into eternity, the moment.

Once upon a hill of flint he stood Raising hands and calling forth his Elohim as his form dissolved

The Seals opened and the dance unfolds.

Once into a pool of quicksilver did he gaze Fingers drawing forth tendrils of form cast upon the air, they rise

Summoning the rays of Solus Noir, they descend.

Once beneath the ocean did he reach out and clasp his sisters hand In embrace they dance upon aethyrs burnished gold A dark stain rises and consumes all within its path.

Once upon a lightning bolt did he descend and entered fairest Lilith’s domain

A stranger, cast upon shores, foreign and exotic.

Once within the heart of a star he slumbered Bound by chains of liquid light

Called forth by life, his nemesis.

Once as Azrael he seeded himself into the unfolding pageant

And once he Became.

Amidst shadows and smoke does he rise Splinters of light adorn his torn visage

Thorns rend flesh, rivers of blood embrace limbs, barely formed.

! ! !

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Long Live The New Flesh

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