Friday 3 December 2010

Empyrean Dawn

 

I don't normally react deeply or positively to Methodist hymns. As my favourite Gospel singer, the late Larry Norman, sang in the early 1970's, " I don't like none of  those funeral marches, I ain't dead yet!"As a child, Methodists always came across as being even nicer than Anglicans. More a case of "cake and more cake" rather than Eddie Izzard's "cake or death."

However, recently, when I heard Irish songstress Joanne Hogg sing the first two verses of an Iona song, "Empyrean Dawn," my heart melted and my spirit soared:


"How wonderful this world
A fragment of a fiery sun
How lovely and how small
The smallest seed in secret grows
Thrusting upward and so soon
The bidding of the Light

The bud unfurls into a rose
The wings within the white cocoon
Are perfected for flight
The migrant bird in winter fled
Shall come again with spring
And build, in this same shady tree"

Beautiful imagery from a hymn by Methodist Frederick Pratt Green and put to fantastic music by Iona in their album "The Circling Hour."

Celtic F.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

"The Meaning"

Margaret Lumley Brown was one of the finest trance medium’s of the 20th Century. However, for me her most important life experience was her training, service and work with Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light. While I am fortunate enough to know people present and deceased who worked with her, I never met her and am often left with a feeling that she would have been a great person to have had round for a cup of tea and a slice of cake! Alas, I never had that chance. She corresponded with Arthur Conan Doyle and some other notable figures. Fortunately Gareth Knight has published some excerpts of her poetry, psychic experiences and “communications” in his book “Pythoness”. The “communications” have the strange depth and resonance that are typical of contacted work. It remains a long standing wish of mine that one day her work will be widely and publically available by book or the internet for seekers to enjoy and ponder. Following a short excerpt in “Pythoness” Gareth Knight has recently published the whole text of her wonderful “The Litany of the Sun” on his blog. It is a powerful Apollonian invocation, rich for meditation and visualization. Guaranteed to blast away the darkness! Please take a look at his blog. I thought I would return the favour by sharing her poem “The Meaning” She dedicated the piece “To those who only read poetry for a 'message' or a 'philosophy of Life.'"


THE MEANING

Seek for such things where they abound,
In dusty tomes, none here are found
Saving the meaning of the ground

Which holds the legend of the rose,
The silver lore of rains and snows,
Man's prologue and his drama's close!

The meaning of the lonely sod
Where some see but a space untrod
And others footprints of a god!

The meaning which strikes lovers dumb
When through the world's harsh waters come
The ravelled sails of Actium!

IRENE HAY (Margaret Lumley Brown).

Monday 1 February 2010

A simple but profound pondering.....




"You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters."

Bernard of Clairvaux - Epistle, French Abbot, Saint and Co-founder of the Knights' Templar Rule

Sunday 24 January 2010

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"

Somebody recently asked me what was the correct way to pronounce a particular letter in Classical Greek. There was a difference of academic opinion on the letter in question.

My response was that I don't much get concerned about the correct pronunciation of classical greek, latin or hebrew. The intent and meaning behind it should really be the paramount focus and concern. If I had more time to spend on research I may hold a different view - but I don't!

In terms of esoteric working, it only becomes a real problem when there is such an extreme difference in pronunciation that other participants in your working don't recognise what you are intoning or saying. That's pretty rare.To make a illustrative comparison, a Geordie will still understand a Liverpudlian accent in 99% of cases and vice versa.

Somewhat surprisingly the discussion reminded me of my Gran. Let me elaborate. My sister and I went to different schools. She went to a state school while I went to private school. There was family havoc when we were both learning latin because we were both taught a number of different pronunciations to each other. As can be expected, on one occasion this caused a very loud and angry episode of sibling rivalry over whose was the correct one. Only when my 80-year old Gran stepped in singing the song "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" did we get back to finishing our homework! Its still a favourite song of mine:


You say "either" and I say "either"
You say "neither" I say "neither"
"Either" "either", "neither" "neither"
Let's call the whole thing off
You say "potato," I say "patattah"
You say "tomato", I say "creole tomata"
Oh, let's call the whole thing off
Oh, if we call the whole thing off
Then we must part and oh
If we ever part, that would break my heart
So, I say "ursta" you say "oyster"
I'm not gonna stop eatin' urstas just cause you say oyster,
Oh, let's call the whole thing off
Oh, I say "pajamas", you say "pajamas"
Sugar, what's the problem?
Oh, for we know we need each other so
We'd better call the calling off off
So let's call it off, oh let's call it off
Oh, let's call it off, baby let's call it off
Sugar why don't we call it off,
I'm talking baby why call it off
Call it off¡­
Let's call the whole thing off

(PS Its much more fun if you sing it loud with a partner of the opposite sex!)

The Springtime of Dion Fortune

There she is staring out at you...or maybe that should be "in to you"! Whether writing as Violet Firth, Violet M Steele...