A Novena to Holy Wisdom: Day 5

Meditation: Atu XVII

Reading: Novalis' Hymnen an die Nacht 3.  Also recommended: Charles Williams' "The Death of Palomides," in Taliessin Through Logres.

Prayer: "Netzach is the name of the Victory in the Blessing: / For the Lord created all things by means of his Blessing."  As you have blessed me once before, come forth and bless me yet again.  Yet i will always sing to your praises.

A Novena to Holy Wisdom: Day 4

Meditation: Atu X

Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

Prayer: Recordare Virgo Mater Dei.

Notes: Waite cites the permutation "Rota Taro Orat Tora Ator."  i have a hard time believing that.  All i see when i gaze on this card is dukkha.  Similarly, i have a hard time imagining today's god, a god of thunder, a male god with bare arm and lightning spear, as "merciful."  On such a day i see only the weeping Mother.  (Today is her day, the Day of her Seven Sorrows.)  She alone does not grovel, because she has no need.  The rest of us grovel before Fortune, before Time, before the manly bare-armed god.  Her God is no god at all, or only an upside-down god.

A Novena to Holy Wisdom: Day 3

Meditation: Atu IX

Reading: Rúnatal Óðins (Hávamál 138-145)

Reflection: The Traveler's look conceals the journey's length.

Prayer: O Hertýr, Rune-Smith, take our fear of that dreadful suspension. Instruct us in the courage of the whet-stone, that Wisdom known only through sacrifice. If we must war against ourselves, then let us take up arms with you at our head, the heavenly host among us. When you ask, "Do you know how to sacrifice?", let our answer always be Yes. This i ask in the Name of the Consummation of the Pattern. Amen.

Notes: i can't help but associate the Hermit with Odin the Wanderer. The title "Hertýr" means Elohim Tzabaoth; other Names of Odin might be illuminating.  i prefer the association of the Hermit with Virgo, rather than Scorpio.

A Novena to Holy Wisdom: Day 2

Meditation: Atu XII

Reading: T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," lines 37-41

Reflection: Helplessness

Prayer: The last few lines of Eliot's "Ash Wednesday":

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto thee.

A Novena to Holy Wisdom: Day 1

Timing:  Coincidence times the start of this Novena with the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and therefore the full moon.  The traditional associations make this appropriate.  While one should need no reason to seek Wisdom, i have a particular cause for this invocation.

Preparation: A walking Rosary, preferably outdoors, in sight of the full Moon.

Meditation: Atu II.

Reading: Proverbs 2:13-20.

Prayer: O Holy Wisdom, long have i sought You, in things material and spiritual.  You are indeed a Tree of Life to those who grasp You.  Look now with mercy upon your projection on earth, the one who first taught me the path of the Open Hand and the Inner Book, from whose face i first learned to turn my gaze upwards.  Show your daughter the means to cross the inner desert.  Bearer of the Secret Name, bless her with open hand.  This i ask in the Name of the Eternal End, Amen.

"The secrets of evolution are time and death."

The title of this post quotes Carl Sagan in "Cosmos," as it occurs in a lovely autotune remix.  Hearing this quote, I realize that for me it contains an additional layer of meaning beyond what Dr. Sagan intended: spiritual evolution, as well as physical evolution.  This reflection brings conflicted feelings.  Time and death are great enemies, but time introduced mutations and environmental changes into life, and death refined its ability to survive and manipulate its environment.  Time and death made our ancestors crawl out of the ocean, stand on two feet, and pick up tools; they made us contemplate our ends and our end.  I've often wanted nothing more than to "smash the clock," to destroy that awful Moloch ticking away deadlines; yet with time I matured, and the thought of death makes me value every moment.  So yes, the secrets of evolution are indeed time and death.

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire. 

-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ, "Toward the Future," 1936, XI, 86-87

Freyja to the Metrotheos via Guanyin

A status post by a blogger friend alluded to the mythological origins of Friday -- "Freyja's day" -- which by the interpretatio romana is consecrated to Venus.  Thinking of this, i caught a glimpse of the Guanyin pendant i wear all the time.  i must admit not being particularly attracted to Venus, but the sight of "She who perceives the world's lamentations" reminded me not to limit the Roman god-form to vulgar fertility.  (There's no more vulgar portrayal of Venus to me than the end of C. S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength," where CSL kills off science and then truncates the goddess' influence to a falsely-chaste dismissal of birth control.)  "Netzach," cry the pair of Spanish Kabbalists in Charles Williams' "The Death of Palomides," which maps to Venus in a supremely nonsexual way, a way gloriously barren.

Gazing at Guanyin reminded me of the transition from Friday to Saturday.  Guanyin bridges two mythologies: Friday's fertility cult (Guanyin is sometimes portrayed holding a baby, suggesting she could grant children to the barren), and Saturday's worship of a higher order -- Saturday, the day of the Theotokos and Metrotheos.  Guanyin mythologically "interpolates" between Freyja and the Metrotheos, just as (s)he interpolates between genders ("Is Guanyin a man or a woman?" "Yes.") and more importantly, between divine Emptiness and the needs of physically-bound entities.