All the Quiet Ways

 

You; quietly vivacious. Largely unacknowledged thus far, yet modest and gallant. Someone I greatly admire. Not simply one of many to me. Instead, a soul full of uniqueness. Subtleties and nuance bright as lanterns, or stars. Treasured, cherished, set apart. I’ve seen your bravery in person, watching from my hidden perch of mythopoesis. If you could, you would surprise yourself and give every bit of your strength to the rising light. The influx of energies, hopes and dreams intended by higher realms to deepen human consciousness. But you can't give it all, sweet one. Why? Because beneath this flesh you are immortal, and it's a sacrifice impossible to make. But you, sublime in your integrity, can be a steward. A vessel, a medium of sorts. Drawing down vowel and consonant wrapped in rhythm, that people might rise in recognition of something greater. Guided to a higher plane of comprehension, beyond space or time. Music and words. This you can do, and have been doing quite brilliantly for many years now. Humble and yet so deft in self-expression. No vulgar solipsism, just disarming creativity. And frequent, common kindness. Unremarked and robust. I’ve seen it from my perch. All the quiet ways. You corralled the song of your heart and eventually honed its edge through a storyteller’s dedicated dreaming. You didn't want to be the one to speak but you spoke, nonetheless. You didn’t necessarily want to be among those who risk everything by standing and fighting for the people, yet you fought. Stumbling and uncertain, craving to see valour in men’s eyes. And so you shared your truths before a crowd, drawing little moments of justice and parity into the visible realm. No mean feat, believe me. I want you to know that unseen brothers and sisters were at your side. The first time and the last. Always. A wedge through the darkness of this world, a parting of ways that allowed in a little more of that rising light. Because you still fight for us with language and lilt, with song and heartfelt. And yet you cannot be all things. Not here. You can't accomplish everything. Brave, quiet girl. The war rages on. You cannot take the chains and yokes from around these children's necks, wish as you might. You cannot damn nor redeem their doubters and abusers through will alone. You are not God. Merely a servant of God. A daughter of the First Artist. This is not a chastening, of course. Merely a gentle reminder from a soul who yearns as you do. These are words of love, appreciation and respect. Sweet one, you have never walked alone here. Not ever. The light is not abstract or unknowable. It is the living continuity of your brightest self, and more. So much more. Lanterns and stars. A mark of your Father's design. Be at one with this light through a storyteller's dedicated dreaming, and know that it is enough. Anything is possible. You are working wonders with your art, and you are not alone. You are beautiful. Treasured, cherished, set apart. Vast, remarkable you.

The Intimacy of Ghosts

 

I'm a lot of things to a lot of people, Esme. Stranger, lover, teacher. A contradiction wrapped around absence and presence; well-intentioned but flawed like all of us. A curious angel of knives and words. Even a blind king of poets. For you I hope I'm something far simpler. A friend. A genuine inspiration. A source of vision and quickening. It's a strange thing being so touched by someone you've never really known, isn’t it? Touched on an emotional, spiritual level, for the better. It isn't a conceit when I say I built this gate for you. And then rebuilt it from the ground up during those dark, cataclysmic days. Genuine connection is what I've always been seeking here. Connection with myself or with those who enjoy these musings of a midnight sun. Kasi speaks obliquely in these pages though. Allusions and purple prose. Free verse. A way to explicate the intangible, giving form to the unseen. But I hope you of all people know that I'm a real person too. I'm not this verbose in my ordinary life, of course. I have no illusions of grandeur. Can you imagine how insufferable I'd be? It makes the downtowner in me chuckle a little. The inner-city kid. But again, Esme, I hope you of all people realise that this cadence isn't feigned either. It comes very naturally to me. This more esoteric, hidden aspect. There are people who don’t really care about truth anymore, only the appearance of truth. The click-bait commodities and soundbites now passing as real in this increasingly virtual society. Long-form writing like this is less fashionable now, I suppose. Abstract, subjective and deeply personal. But it's an authentic expression of my inner experiences – and in this curated, algorithmic world people crave authenticity more than ever. So, I hope these words find the select few who need or enjoy them. I don't care what most people think of me or these pages. But I do make exceptions. I care a great deal about your opinion, my friend. This blog is a discourse between the inner and outer dimensions of my life. Really, it’s a place of poetry and peace for me. But I hope that you've found something nourishing here too. You need no extra imagination from me, Esme. You have plenty of your own. I know that, but all artists hope for an audience. Even hobbyists and amateurs like me. I’m a lot of things, Esme. Things that most people haven’t the insight to understand. A proud father, a devoted friend, a guy still holding a torch all these years later. An artist unwilling to sacrifice his depth. So, what do I really want to say to you today? Shall I talk about magic and mystery? Angels, demons, and the War of Imagination? Or shall I try to change my cadence a little and leave the esotericism aside? I’ll try. I’ll always try for those who touch my soul. Even the ghosts. I love you, Esme. You've been an inspiration to me, and a friend. I love the nuance and subtleties of your art. I love the way you care about your family and friends. I appreciate the way you try to give yourself enough time alone when you need it, even though you're an exceptionally busy woman. I love how creativity makes you come alive. You seem to genuinely thrive when composing and revising a project. I know that feeling too. Only dancing and fucking come close to that kind of embodied bliss. Thank you for being the kind of woman who actually gives a shit about the less fortunate. And the riggers, gaffers and techs who work insanely long hours so that people like us get to shine brightly and briefly. Thank you for letting your sisters know that you have their backs come hell or high water. It's honourable, admirable, and sexy as hell. I've loved every moment of this journey with you, Esme. I like to think we share a unique kind of intimacy. Even as ghosts. It's been an absolute pleasure to know you. Even though, of course, I don't really know you at all. And you don't know me either. Nevertheless, let's keep dreaming side by side and imagine that we do. Take care of yourself, and the ones who need it. My name is Kasi, dear one, and I wish you well.

Time to Time

 

Things often end the way they begin. As if the secret of a thing's passing is somehow encoded in its formation. Birth, made all the more precious for containing within it a future echo of its own death. And dissolution, the ultimate counterpoint of a bloom at its fullest. At least, that's the accepted wisdom. Angels, magicians and poets have a far broader conception of time, and life itself. They say summer can't last forever. But of course it can. You just need to breach the known laws of causality. Tachyonic ebb and flow, like the tidewaters of an eternal dreaming. The blink of an angel's eye. Faster than light or lament. I suppose I've always hated endings even though I know better than most that life is change. Constant, transformative. Irksome. Which is why the notion of an eternal summer is so alluring to those of us who can bend time. The physicists have it wrong, you see. You don't need a vast amount of exterior energy to warp the continuum. I mean, it's one way, but not the only way. Truly, all you need is imagination, patience, and a lens. The blink of an angel’s eye, as I said. I'll stop there, lest I give away too many trade secrets. Poets and Magi have been doing this for aeons, of course. However, the garbled mess that men call chronology is not the result of true artists. No, those desolate horrors of history are the work of meddling wraiths and their occulted human priests. Spiritual wickedness in high places, as it says in Ephesians. But I don't write this to discuss those wraiths. Not today. Today is a beginning, even if witnessed in reverse. Because it’s not about what I lose. It's about what those I care for can gain. Experience, camaraderie. Even hard-won wisdom. Everybody needs a companion. Especially sailors and star-gazers. The ship gets lonely from time to time. The endless night, the shifting seas. But it takes courage to set a beloved shipmate ashore, to grant them the liberty and land they crave. It takes kindness too. I was once granted grace like that. Upon rivers, amid flowers. A lantern that led me back to myself. That magical night of a thousand stars. I cherish it still. I chase it always. So, the goal is never a permanent end to the loneliness. One must aim to simply inspire those who travel with us, and let them go when those ports begin to call. Summer can't last forever? Of course it can. That's what poetry is for. One of its many wonderous uses. Music, friendship, laughter; these things bind us in mutual affection. And for those brief moments we are seen and cherished. If there is any abundance left in this terrifying, beautiful cosmos then it is my oath to share it, as my Maker intended. In fact, such a divine oath was my very name once, hidden in angelic script. I use only epithets and titles now. Poet, teacher, healer. Madman. I crave depth, I suppose. And insight. But this insight, this inner clarity of vision, isn't found in things we acquire through time. It's found in the love we give away, those we let go when necessary. We bid them safe travels and good fortune, truly. And, if we're lucky, those same souls who once sailed with us will remember our connection. The numinosity of how we began. A sparkle in the eye, like a winking star.

REQUIEM

 

Ithriis, of the first glyph. The ancient, feathered tongue. When music first formed the flesh of Man. Eth'iriis, of the first dreaming. Look, poets; tellers of the tallest tales. Look at the land. Hear it. Y'iththriil, of root, trunk, and howling branch. Forest wraith, wandering barefoot and mad. Hooded wolf in hollow tree. Star, angel, dragon. Seer and prophet? Bard or conjurer? Shapeshifter, in a word. Edgewalker. Before the Saxons or the Romans. Lake, forge, water, and fire. I should know. As an artisan I do not bend the arc for glory alone. Man is only wild if his wildness is explicable, else he is nature itself. Y'ithriin, ahba ahba. Protect the heart, old one. Dramatis personae. Here in these circles of salt, silver, and blood. Brighter than skyfire, the inward eye. Kasi, they call us in the Vedic tongues of river and sea. An epithet used by countless anonymous poets. Eth'rai, Eth'rai, of glyph and king. Father, father, haunt the tree and scare away the saddest songs with your lament. Because the act of dreaming yearns in distinction from waking. The anguished gulf between what is and what might be. So, men carry wolves with their echoes. Rest, and resurrection. Stars, angels, and dragons. Are we not anonymous? Nameless? Unassuming? Blood of blade, in lineage of light. Salt of sacred, for remembrance of all nameless innocent. Song of silver, for those who pray for hopes of a better way. Brothers, birthrights, sisters, and sons. Drawn from the circle of stone. Look, wanderers; keepers of the eldest truth. Look at the flesh, the rising belly of the land. Hear her. When music first sang the soul of Man.

The Rising Light

For many of us, this time of year is when we celebrate life's triumph over death. Rebirth, renewal, resurrection. The passing of the last traces of winter, the fullest bloom of spring. For some of us these stories have more specific, embodied meanings beyond the ebb and flow of the natural world. Themes of protection, guardianship, and sacrifice. He is Risen. “Hristos a Înviat. Adevărat a Înviat.” The Earth is no longer a sepulchre. No longer a tomb. The axis of reality itself has shifted. Through grace – divine love, essentially – mankind is no longer bound to time and space in quite the same way. Many become One. The place of the skull, called Golgotha in a certain tongue, is no longer the site of mere ruination. Instead, our minds become something more. A place of crossing and transformation. A holy light linking earth and heaven, a flame carried through faith into each homestead. Men might argue over the details of these beautiful stories, endlessly warring over the so-called truth of this or that version of their favoured legend. But I would hope we can all at least agree on the fact that, regardless of our own private beliefs, denominations or rituals, for many of us this is a time of new life, new light, and new opportunities. I can only speak for myself. But I've seen what can happen to human beings who are denied the sustenance of stories, the comfort of communities and the joy of shared celebrations. Given enough time, a dark, fallen psyche is always the eventual result. Warring with our fellow humans over the minutia of each faith is a fool's errand, believe me. Beauty, truth and good character are often lost in such pointless wars. But believing in nothing at all is even worse. I'm not asking men to become theists if they truly believe that doing so is to choose fable over truth, fiction over fact. But I am encouraging them to at least be open-minded. Sensitive to the wonders of Creation at work all around them. I would suggest our knowledge of physics is neither complete nor infallible, that the binary of religion versus science is a false one based on incorrect axioms and incomplete data. Men need both, don't they? Soul and sobriety? Imagination and reason? Perhaps a certain playwright was correct when he suggested there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. I have always believed in the human heart's capacity for love, imagination and connection. I hope you do too, my friend. As someone I love dearly recently explained to me, “Inimile noastre se înalță prin dragoste. Și iubirea e magia cea mai înaltă dintre toate.”

Songs of Silver

Poets, musicians, and artists often dream about the literacy of light. The unfathomable breadth of knowledge that might be found within genuine spiritual comprehension. Everything is connected, after all. Rhythm, scale and attenuation of force. All drawn down from higher realms into the multidimensional lexicons of human experience. Our various registers of discourse. One would hope that any spiritual or religious practice would embody the highest light and literacy. The depth, nuance, and subtleties of what it means to be an incarnate creature of imagination. A chivalrous being seeking love and purpose. But we artists and troubadours also recognise that our relationships with the ineffable are not always so sublime. Sometimes the musicality is harder to discern. Here in these extremes of polarity we cannot discount the darker, broader brushstrokes. The unfortunate politics of power. In this sense all religions begin as heresies. Rebellious offshoots and cults. Quiet, hidden practices led by monks, knights, and iconoclasts. Many of these rebels were vicious though, caring little about the sanctity of the inner realms; only interested in using their practice or dogma to acquire status and power.  Some were later reimagined as heroes with the passage of time and the safety of political distance. Made a poet's conceit and bestowed with virtues they never actually possessed. Forged into palatable avatars for the storytelling of a later Age. This is what legend and literature always does. As a species we prefer fiction over fact because what use is true history to the Fallen? What use is our imagined freedom if it is gained from the suffering and oppression of others? After all, the entire infrastructure of what we call civilisation was built upon the broken backs of countless slaves. That is the darkest way to claim dominion or divinity. And it is the part of ourselves we like the least. So, we massage the truth and occlude the facts. We would rather imagine our gallant knights and heroic kings as beyond reproach. Beyond the vicious barbarism that our mass graves imply. We would rather dream of the highest chivalry. Enchanted swords and maidens fair. The brutal horrors of history are both exhausting and dispiriting. Instead, we want to believe in some form of real magic. True enchantment. Well, dear one, let me tell you an incredible secret. A carefully hidden truth. Those benevolent wizards and good witches from your fairytales did exist. Those true Magi, gallant knights, and the Fay. They are not merely a child's idle fancy. Or a substitute for the hideous realities of military expansionism. No, both things were true, and both were happening at once. The darkness and the light. Those kind and courageous ones who lived with genuine honour and integrity, those whose magic was truly special – they still exist. Many of them are nameless now. Living humble, ordinary lives.  But they are the reason the Earth is not a smoking ruin. Don't you think the darkness would have laid waste to the entire world if it could? Don't you think we would all be slaves, shuffling through a desolate hellscape? We would. Listen to me. I have held Excalibur in my hands, and I am not the only one. I speak of genuine literacy, and light. All who are worthy can wield the blade of silvered song. And it is through the efforts of those kind, courageous ones that we are here now. Because beyond the arcane spell-craft and demonism of these various secret societies, there is still poetry, art and music. Rivers, flowers, and children still at play. The shadows have garnered quite a foothold in this realm, it's true. I won't lie to you about that. But neither will I lie to you about the light, or those true servants of the light. The real angels of the flesh. Protectors of wisdom and sweetness. As I've said many times, this is the real war. The War of Imagination, and it has been raging since the beginning. Or the false beginning handed to fallen humanity by the very wraiths who stripped us of our birthrights. Since men first stumbled from the deepest caves like amnesiacs, unable to grasp how they had survived the cataclysm. The destruction of the shining realm. Ishkara, Kashmira, Eth’iri. The world behind the world. It has many names. Today men talk of science instead of magic. They forget the silvered song and the world of miraculous light. However, this so-called science is a very recent human pursuit. Far younger than religion or myth. Nowhere as robust as it imagines itself to be. It has given us tools of great power, of course, but we have always had powerful tools. Especially in the hidden chambers beneath the earth and below the sea. But there is a far older gnosis. A true science. An ancient knowledge of multidimensionality only hinted at in the hermeticism of your so-called past, or the quantum physics of your imagined present. We are beings of infinite light and literacy, made in the image of our Creator. Spirit is not simply something we learn, it is something we are. A creative, combining faculty constellated around a divine spark – a fragment of eternity. This is the calibre of the crossing, the sword of the threshold. Pulled from carbon, silica and stone. I have lived these things, dear ones. I do not speak blithely. I have slept and dreamt as only poets and kings can. I pray that one day we will all wake at last, to build a better, fairer world. Until then, I dream songs of reflected light to keep the darkness at bay. I dream songs of silver.

A Thief of Angels

Many have called me a liar or a thief in the midst of life's endless dreaming, but few have ever said it to my face. It's true that I can move about unseen when needed. Also, in dreams faces can change and shapes can shift. It can be difficult to keep track of who's who. But perhaps the real reason I've been called a trickster so often is simply this: few of us comprehend the limitless generative power contained within.  Those elements that grant us our cognition are hinged upon the fulcrum of eternity.  We are, all of us, made in the image of God.  But the power inherent in such an image is a terrifying thing to grasp.  Not many have the tenacity to confront the truth of something like this. Something we still don't really understand.  The depths of our own being. I have spoken these words before, long ago. Back then I was called a teacher, a wise one. Then a heretic. A blasphemer. And finally, a dangerous threat to the established order. I never once claimed that Man was God, or equal to God. Such later interpretations are both imprecise and woefully unimaginative. I only spoke the truth. That each of us contains a divine flame, a fragment of eternity that is the signature of our Father’s design. It is from this fire that all song and science spills. Perhaps I do have the ink and imagination of a dreamer, but there is really no reason to be afraid of me. I’m no saint nor demigod, and never claimed to be, but I want the very best for all cultures. Men, women and children of varying custom. Every family, tribe or religion has its cherished stories. Like sojourners gathered around the fire.  As a storyteller myself I find them all fascinating. But I have seen men kill for their stories.  I have witnessed wars waged over a single book of songs.  It still happens today.  Isn’t that unsettling? People are so deserving of peace, regardless of who they are or the songs they hold dear. Other men are not beasts simply because their scriptures and their angels differ from yours. Have you lost your mind, Fallen? There is darkness in every culture, and light also. Both is found in every human heart. To varying degrees, of course. A man must be judged on his merit. His honour, intent and action. Not his differences of belief. That way lies madness, and endless bloodshed. Look around you at the radicals and extremists of every kind, many of them funded and sanctioned by the State. They all believe they are righteous, and they all ignore the ugliest aspects of their own actions. Petty grievances are quickly whipped into a frenzy. Tribal disagreements become cruelty, then bloodshed, then genocide. This is nothing new. It can take frighteningly little time for a man to lose his wings and his soul.  Do you know true history, both hidden and overt? The sickening transgressions committed by the men and women of your own faith? I do. Religious violence of every kind is ancient, and far too common. It is predicated upon the dehumanisation and othering of those from different cultures.  Those with different stories, or different skin. Even a single faith can fracture into numerous denominations, all of them claiming exclusive rights on the supposed truth. But it has always been my belief that human beings of every religion deserve to live unmolested. It is insanity that such a statement was considered incendiary back then and still is to so many.  How dare you reduce divinity to mere division? To childish favouritism, politics and war? But I suppose men are always hesitant to defy empires and emperors, aren’t they? Especially when they are led to believe such figures are genuine representatives of the divine. I was never under any such illusions. Never afraid of being somewhat provocative. Still, I chose my words and my moments very carefully. A wise man can do nothing less if he wishes to succeed. Context is everything, and an orator must know his audience. My words were still twisted though, despite the precision with which I spoke.  Letters rewritten. Rhetoric that I never once uttered was later placed into my mouth.  A man first lives as flesh. If his work is resonant enough, he becomes legend, then literature.  He becomes a useful avatar for all kinds of opposing ideologies.  Little has changed in that regard. But I'm still fighting for the same thing I always was, many lives and many years later. A world free of the machinations of these venomous occultists. The dark designs of the wraiths, slave-masters and traffickers who rule this realm. Who wouldn't dream a little in the depths of such darkness? Yet I've been deemed far worse than a fantasist over the years. Agitator, revolutionary, dark angel. Perhaps I’m guilty on all charges.  Nothing more than a sinister oracle. Tell me, Fallen, is that what's become of the sun at midnight? Is that who I am now? A demon-prince in your inverted cosmology? Another paltry antichrist in your quest for colonisation? I admit that I'm a magician of sorts. Wounded, and fond of phantasmagoria. But I would like to believe that I also possess a level of genuine rigor. A code of conduct. A true warrior's heart. Because I really do care about the innocent. The lost, lonely and broken whom you trample so mercilessly. It's why I'm still doing this. Why I'm still a thing of vision despite the wild tempest such pursuits have wrought. Poetry is painful. I know this better than most. It can make a wreck of man’s imagination if done well. Even if done very carefully. As the Ragged Magi once pondered, "Are we not creatures of clay, forged of star and sea?" Indeed, we are. Formed from the radiant imagination of the Living God. Myriad and mysterious. Older than temple, politic or parable. Larger than any text or testament.  Perhaps this still sounds like wildest heresy even to modern ears. But that matters little to a Syrian. An angel of Antioch. As I said, I've been called so many things in this dreaming of a thousand years. Fantasist and heretic are by far the mildest of those slurs. We are all wedded to our dreaming. Even in this deceptive, aberrant chronology. Thus, we cannot cleave ourselves from our own perceptions. We can only refine them through context. Imagination, experience and wisdom. So, let it be known that I am nothing special.  I’m just like you. Not a liar or a trickster.  Neither demigod nor saint. Merely an artist trying to inspire others to the better angels of their nature.  Trying to understand the world in which he lives through the tools he knows best.  Dreams, stories and song.  Hoping to kindle that divine fire I spoke of. That wisdom of the heart.

Angel of Knives

 

It’s a thin line between pride and shame, beloved ones. Razor-thin. Enough to cut ourselves deeply, or another. Like a thorn in the flesh. I believe there is great insight in knowing the solemnity of such uncomfortable truths. That place in human storytelling where light gives way to shadow. Sometimes a darkness can be birthed in the fervour of protecting our own, and we become the very thing we hate. It’s the lament of many poets, isn’t it?  And warriors who wished desperately for some other way.  But sometimes the sky of a mind can darken, and you are hunted by jackals in the wilderness. Suddenly, you find yourself prowling like a jackal too. It’s easy to discuss the polity of occupation from a distance. I suspect it is something else entirely to be ravaged by it. To see your children ravaged by it. In such instances some men truly believe that they are forced to take up the sword.  But eventually, it is always the innocent who suffer most.  The children on both sides.  Violence is always an anguished lament to those of sufficient soul. I’ve wept like that, in dreams. I’m still not sure if my soul is sufficient, but like all true initiates of the hidden way I once knelt before the burnished Mountain of God, praying that a man might not be forced to become a wraith to defeat an army of even darker wraiths. Cruelty is no glamorous thing, believe me. Neither is war. There are so few heroes in war. I’m no hero either, but I’ve been called many things across this dreaming of a thousand years. A ghost, a charlatan. An angel of thorns, or knives. Like that wretched Prince of Sicarii. Well, such titles are not entirely unwarranted. As I’ve said elsewhere in these epistles, your enemy is still your brother. And spilling the blood of your brother is always a matter of terrible, hideous shame. Saltire or not. Regardless of what side you’re on. All causes are righteous to men of burning conviction. In a climate of such hate, hostility and viciousness only a fool would consider himself righteous, without shadow or flaw. I once walked among such men, in my nightly sojourns. Honour and integrity were beyond so many of them. Beloved ones, I want you to realize that fiction is a prerequisite to religion, as all writers of merit understand. Storytelling is thus often the business of crafting more palatable heroes. Pacifists and polemicists. I know this because I was a storyteller even as a boy, long before I was blinded by vision.  Long before I watched my many brothers and sisters curl their fingers around the hilt of a sword. I tried to renounce such revolt and pledged myself to the Mysteries of Rhacotis, like any true seeker of that time and place. There I learned many things. What my enemies might call magic or malefica. But more than that, I learned secrets of imagination. What one might call spiritual technologies. I learned that no text is a dry recital of dispassionate fact. All texts are dramaturgies. Even this one. Full of religiosity, sympathies and antipathies. Occulted aspects. I quickly realised that our words are full of incredible revelation, and our actions also. Not a single soul is without agency. From peasant to prince. Man and woman. There are no true hierarchies save those forged in the mind. Regardless, some say a dark angel birthed those sinister hooded ones. The shrouded ones. Some say this angel led them to the mount. Men and women of dagger and cloak.  What know you of these darker things, Fallen? Josephus, Celsus, Origen? Are these your measures of supposed fact? Listen to me. You know only what the Magi have allowed you to know. These mysteries, these hidden things – they are not discontinuous. There is a lineage of light stretching back to those times long before the temple fell.  The Cult of First Dreaming. We who recall the shining realm.  We who rebuke these slavers and traffickers in all forms. Do you really suppose ichthys and anchor were the only signs of revolution? Do you think swords are the only weapons? Hear me now, lost Roma. I don’t need to kill. Insight is a far sharper blade. And it cuts both ways. Your empire collapsed in the end, didn’t it?  Just as my namesake did at Damascus. It was only a matter of time.  And poetry. As I said, it’s a thin line between peace and war. Razor-thin. Perhaps the difference between pieces of divine light and pieces of silver. Just ask those vicious zealots, or the sicarii. I know who I am, and what I’ve been working toward. Protection for the little ones. Voices for the voiceless. Insight and comprehension between all clashing ideologies. Perhaps it sounds naive to a warlord or a demoniac, but I have no interest in slaying my enemies in some paper-thin parable of good versus evil. I’ve seen far too much horror for that.  But you will have to face yourselves in the end, Fallen. Just as I did, in the crucible of my dreaming. Owning up to every wretched sin. See, my concern was never counterfeit.  My love is not entirely lost.  I value my heart and my shame, even as an angel. It means I dare not make the same mistakes again. Instead, I shall find other ways. Gentler, hidden ways. A warrior of the innermost. For I am not without imagination. All souls deserve freedom and decency. A fair trial beyond claims of sedition, regardless of their fealty or their faith.  Even you. It is no laughing matter, Fallen.  I take it very seriously. Lay down your daggers, all of you, and take up a different kind of blade. For Kasi tells you now, we are all equal in the eyes of my Father. Praise be to God and his grace.  That I almost never was, nor shall I ever be again. There is a great wisdom in that, even for a humbled storyteller.

 

Legends of Ludgate

 

In the old stories they used to speak of a fractured king with two faces. Half flesh, half myth. Folded through artworks and songlines beyond linear time. Buried on the holy hill beside the river, beneath Navahtri's white lantern of stone. An angel of Rhacotis, some say. Or a giant. A winged messenger of dreams bearing the oldest mark; one who was both the end and the beginning. My brothers have never forgotten these stories, but such legends are mere fancies among a plethora now. A panoply of fictions regarding what my people once called the City of Gates. The place of both ways. Libraries and lighthouses.  Navah has other names now, and other histories. Framed and favoured with the blood-dimmed heraldries of officialdom. But there have always been other voices. Alternate histories. Even when raven-touched sorcerers remind men of these things they are often sadly disbelieved. Ignored by those same souls they wish to liberate. The now familiar lies of the Church are offered as an almost instinctive rebuttal.  Lies made holy writ by royal sanction. "There is but one truth, one history, and it was forged by Rome." Oh, Fallen. You know nothing of Rome. Of Peter or Paul. You know so little of true divinity, or art, therefore your grasp of history is tenuous at best. Hear me, and men like me. My brethren are among the Cult of First Dreaming. All Dreaming. Pearls of great price and serpents of the sea.  Those who watched the Watchers even as the war began. There have been a thousand names for London, Shalem and Rome. Countless visions of Albion. And innumerable fires. Sacrifices made ritual. Like a board being cleared of its pieces, being reset. But even these local genocides have crow-like echoes and strange secrets. Many places, becoming one. As I said, the Fallen know little of magic. I don't know everything, of course. But likely I know more than you. My wisdom is debatable, but I studied diligently, and my years have more breadth than I care to admit. Regardless, gates and wings does not an angel make. You need a message. A vision. And believe me, despite my flaws I am a creature of vision indeed. True scholars know that we become what we fear if we're not careful. Do you fear night-wraiths, as I once did? Well, I was once a king among wraiths. A wild gypsy-king standing defiant in the sand before the burnished Mountain of God.  But I was humbled.  Brought to my knees.  This is what it means to be a thing of fractured dreaming. Hear me now, dear ones.  You exist in a false, aberrant chronology. Your most ancient compendiums and memories are counterfeit, or else very partial truths. The splendour and vastness of the myriad, of which you are key, has been hidden from you. Who did this, you ask? Who engineered such darkness? Such sinister oppression? You know who did. The gatekeepers did this, the day they buried the angel alive. On the hill, by the river of Temesh.  You were a keeper of gates once, even if only in dreams. I know you were. I remember you at Rhacotis.  This is nothing new, lost ones. I've said all this before. Souls of great sweetness and depth have revealed all these things to you in various ways. But, I admit, it is a terrifying thing to grasp. A horror to reconcile. That dreaming – reality itself – was hijacked by malevolent, adversarial forces. Satanic forces. The devil wears many faces, say the Christians. Whereas the pagans say that wraiths ruthlessly shape themselves to all expedient folklore, and whisper through the veil to any mortals who can hear them. Both groups are correct, of course. Both have stories worth hearing. You see, I was once a Christian. And a pagan. I am still both, as are you. There is no getting around it, dear ones. You dream and imagine. You are a thing of gates whether you like it or not. A creature of madness and logic. Brothers and sisters, know this. Golgotha weeps at the breadth of your soul's dreaming. As do the circles of stone. Sacrifices were made to keep you intact despite the Fall. Despite the hush that seethed. That which stole your true memories and your birthright. But you are not alone.  Artists and Magi now walk this ruin with you. Marked and marginalised – offering pieces of the old songs in lament. Two faces, both ways. Beyond linear time. And yet, those far less brave than the carpenter or the raven wish to call me a fantasist.  They wish to lecture men like me on the nature of history and dreaming. I would laugh, if not for my brother's weeping. Yeru'shalem, the old ones say of the places of peace. Mira'shalem. Blood is indeed a miracle, as is storytelling and love. Listen to your brother. He knows far more than I do. There are greater kings, unburied. I'm just a scribe. A poet of bold vision but imperfect grammar. I am not the fallen angel of songs redeemed by the sacrifice of sky. I am not the winged one interred on the hill of gates, made bright by the benevolence of his brother. You are, dearest one. Of course you are.  Knowing this secret, a great and dangerous secret, it is my genuine hope that you dream well.   

The Weaver's War

 

I speak to you now, black-as-crown.  Hear me.  Hear your brother, husband and father.  Rune and relic.  Sigil and stone.  There is always a war where art is concerned, isn’t there?  Between the beauty of form and the utility of function.  Reality versus representation.  You know well of this war, seamstress.  Storytellers always do.  They grapple often with the eternal question.  When to share the truth, or else offer a comforting deceit.  And then there are those rare, confusing moments when both are one.  But the human soul requires both.  The black is blinded without it, believe me.  It cannot survive on fact alone.  Soul requires fiction to grow, to express the fullness of its myriad nature.  Heaven and Earth.  Dreams, and dirt.  Like a seed.  My dreams were threadbare after the Fall, and I went seeking after Fates.  Norns living at the Mouth of Weavers.  The lip of Urd’s Well.  The legends told of a massacre.  During the seething hush, when the cities themselves began to darken and fold.  It was announced as so, but the Fates were not truly slain.  I wouldn’t have allowed that.  Instead, they were hidden away.  In the Book of Doors.  A pocket place.  A threshold realm that only artists and storytellers truly understand.  Even angels are a little wary of the book.  After all, it is a place where anything can happen.  Fire, and death.  This place.  This haunted earth.  Afkárr, hear me.  I am the storm, as your sisters know well.  Some men call me an angel of thorns, or knives.  Others call me a king of ravens.  But what I truly am is a storyteller.  I am not the story itself.  At least, not entirely.  Then again, we build our world through imagination and memory.  Don’t we?  Just like the legends claim.  I suppose I am a thing of mystery, and secrets.  Aren’t we all?  Artists especially?  Isn’t it the Christians who say, if thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light?  Our stories put it another way, but the secrets remain the same.  As I said, the black is blinded without deceit.  Without sweet lies that tell of greater, hidden truths.  This is indeed a war, Afkárr.  A War of Imagination.  You see it all around.  These sickening lords of genocide.  But there is a greater light, seamstress.  A greater purpose we must find for ourselves amid the chaos.  That dance we must graciously undertake, or else endure unwillingly.  Between function and form.  Utility and beauty.  You are not lying to yourself when you turn from the horror for a moment and imagine with an artist’s eye.  You are full of light, my wild one.  Fierce, pale as shadow, and crowned.  How do I know?  Because it is I who crowned you, in the world before worlds.  Not for myself.  Not for glory.  But because you held steadfast to both sides of the soul, even when it was difficult.  Mind, and sense.  I shall never forget that.  Storm or not.  Be well, un-slain Fate.  Be well, my Queen.