It hurts, doesn’t it? These forgotten
myths of the father. These lost legends of stone. Pater noster, qui es in
caelis. The true Magi have said it before in many tongues, by the earthlight of
the polar places. Beneath the ethereal night-shimmer of a dancing sky. The
bright shadow of Simon falls upon the sick, making them whole. The rivers of
Paul wash us with blinding light. We’ve forgotten so much, and it hurts more
than any of us can articulate. I suppose that’s why we make birds of men and
women, and why we tell tales of fabled, winged youth. We’ve lost our
depth, I think. Our spiritual hygiene and moral certitude. We no longer protect
our young or old. We merely erode their hopes, dull their cognition, and then
banish them to the ends of the earth.
I’ve heard a lot about second stars
in my thousand-year exile. But what about the first? You trust wraiths,
marauders and pirates with the intellectual and emotional legacies of an entire
generation? Really? It’s no wonder that you’ve forgotten my name. And the names
of each winged progeny. Believe me, it’s a nightmarish thing to watch your own
body broken on the sands of dream. As a child or an adult. But what’s even more
horrifying is being ordered at knifepoint to bequeath your memory to a dark
empire built by vampires. Even now, you haven’t the faintest idea, do you? In a
realm where nothing is hidden anymore, yet all is still lost amidst a gaggle of
garish counterfeits.
The woodland boy in the book was only
a partial truth. I’m so tired of this editorializing of the sacred by men who
claim to know magic. When all they understand is elitism. Woe, and workhouses.
Nonetheless, the most kind and courageous among us drink from a deeper cognitive
well. I for one still chart the sky and the hidden places of the earth. I do it
right here, in the liminal glow of a midnight sun. And I’ve been doing it since
warlords and false kings first bound the book. Apocryphon. Feared, supressed,
rewritten. All fathers, souls, and stone. There was a time when true teachers
and shepherds didn’t have to speak in riddles. Those times are long gone. Fear
not though, my friends. Even time isn’t what it used to be. My brothers and
sisters of the Magi have taken care of that. Even as lions become wending
wolves, there shall come a day when lambs will live. Soon we shall negate these
ghoulish, scarlet altars.
I speak of true harmony, of course,
and reconciliation. Beyond the vicious brutalism of the so-called natural
world. My friends, are you afraid of the snake, or the bacterium? You needn’t
be. They are simply the ancient mineral dreams of an immature earth. Dreams of
contrast and extremity. Hydrogen, helium, oxygen, and carbon. The entire song of
creation explicates with these polarising notes. But you are implicate, eternal,
and can imagine with ever greater subtlety through the infinite realms of
dreaming. Hear me, beloved ones. What is your name? If you know the name of a
thing you can bind it, or help it flourish. There is a reason why I and others
like me use epithets and nom de plumes. To elude those sinister priesthoods of
the Fallen.
So, tell me, are we children of
darkness or light? Do we continue to hinder or heal one another? Our father has
made a place for us. A playground full of delight, and dastardly villains. Our
imaginations are limitless but also very real. After all, maturity is nothing
if not the recognition of consequence. We can become increasingly reptilian if
we so choose – garish and violent, with a bellyful of hours and blood. Living
among charlatans and shipwrecks. Or we can find our way to insight and mutual
recognition. The light of true knowledge. We can soar with our many brothers
and sisters. No longer lost, upon wings that carry us all home. So, again, tell
me. But do so with your heart, not your words. Who are you, and what is your
name?
