A Scarlet Stone

Elah Elahin, it was once whispered.  Long ago in Syrian temples and byways.  And further afield. In broken tongues both native and learned.  Koine, Aramaic, Hebrew.  Most revered, it was said. Theos.  Dreamer of all dreams.  Scribes and diarists knew well the power of those words.  Many still do.  I would count myself among them if I hadn't fallen so far.  But, in truth, we all fell.  Like Kayin of the scarlet stone, weeping desperately at what he had done.  What he could not undo. Learned men blemished with violence, ambition or pride.  Literacy is never a guarantee of humility or moral conviction.  It must be earned, believe me.  Men often think their stories are the only stories and have little knowledge or regard for the shifting sands of narrative.  Telling and retelling.  Retelling and re-imagining.  But I know the quiet inflections within and between the words.  I'm not the only one.  Children raised at the skirts and by the iron wits of their mothers.  Imma, Elahin.  This heretic speaks.  Sons apprenticed by the hands and watchful will of their fathers.  Abba, Elahin.  This heretic speaks again.  You have it all wrong, dear ones.  You see, many of you think the law is everything.  Even today you cannot fully comprehend the deceptions and travesties of State occurring all around you.  But men have always questioned the law.  Even so-called mosaic law.  What is just and right is not always what is legal.  Even kings must be questioned.  Siblings held to account.  Whether brother, sister or twin.  As it was with Kayin and Hevel; sacral offspring of the Havah, and the Adamah.  Keepers and covenants.  We all know a little something about that among the elect. Within the inner circles.  Don't we, Fallen?  I am not a king, though I sometimes dream of kings.  Nor am I a prophet, though I've often imagined angels and dragons locked in celestial combat.  I'm not a hero either, but I do wish to provide a light.  To be a way-finder for the lost and lonely.  Yet what I am without question is a brother, a sister, and a twin.  As it was with Kayin, granted the blessing of eternal regret by his Maker.  Perhaps the truth of these words continues to elude you, dark ones.  Regret is something many of you are still unfamiliar with.  Shameless, abject.  And while you indulge in wraith-ravage I still muse upon the spoken myriad, of course.  Those multivalent tongues of Eden, hidden beneath deceit and distort.  Mother, Father, Creator.   Imma, Abba, Elahin.  Writers often think about these things, I suppose.  Even those as hated as I am.  The heretic speaks, Roma.  I hope you still remember me.  The one you deemed so dangerous.  I was called a dark angel by the worst warmongers of the Empire.  Cold-blooded propagandists and profiteers.  Men who, in their absolute lust for power, sought to control acuity's eye.  To one day storm the very gates of Heaven and snatch the helm of imagining from Elah himself.  Demon-prince, you dared to call me.  Antichrist.  Fallen One.  The sheer gall.  Because I knew what you were.  What you are.  And now you fracture my stories and re-write my letters.  How dare you?  But I tell you now, dear ones, some of these men are beyond shame.  These dark disciples.  They have made their very existence an affront to Creation itself.  I suppose it's the difference between conjuration and carpentry.  My brother makes things of real value, you see.  While some of us get lost in the vanity of attempting to corral and fetter spirits beyond our comprehension.  Spirits far darker than we can understand.  But you cannot dominate darkness with more darkness.  You cannot banish ignorance with a lack of light.  Take it from someone who knows.  Someone who once foolishly tried that very thing.  Tell me, Fallen, in your supposed wisdom; do you know who my brother is?  There are carpenters and conjurers.  Do you know which brother I speak of?  No?  Then I shall tell you a secret.  A frightening, beautiful secret.  The heresies of men sing with a sign.  The first mark of both messenger and mortal.  The most ancient symbol of crossing.  The earliest sign.  Kayin himself bears that sign.  Saltire.  Crux decussata.  Cruciform.  There are even stories that say Andros was the First-Called.  First drowned, then wakened, then devoted among the talmidim.  I once craved devotion like that, in the earliest days.  Those days of wound and weeping.  I remember coloured lights shimmering in the night sky above me.  Those polar lights that men speak of in the icy, northern places.  I recall scarlet stones and scented gardens beneath the stars.  Mountains and cities soon to rise.  Yes, I dreamt like that.  As storytellers do.  I was also forgiven in that same breadth of mythmaking.  Wandering, writing.  Seeking penance.  I know first-hand how blessed a thing is genuine forgiveness.  An act of wonderous grace.  But forgiveness is only the beginning.  It is not the process of healing in and of itself.  Nor is it acknowledgement of our shadows, or the insight that comes with wrestling with those demons.  Love will fall short if we have learned nothing of our errors.  Our sins.  He who slays his brother slays himself.  And so, the heretic cries, "Let me have empathy, Father.  Let me know the truth of this sign, and its weight upon those who I have wronged.  Those who have been bruised, broken or butchered by my ignorance.  Let me know as they know.  Let me feel it.”  Such a notion is terrifying, of course.  And transformative.  To allow yourself to be haunted.  In hopes that all malice – even simple, callous disregard – might one day be educated out of the human heart. That such darkness might truly become a thing of the past on this road toward eternal light.

A Dream of Kings

 

Dreaming can hurt sometimes in this dystopian realm. It really can. Leading us away from our path rather than closer to it. Even warriors and kings can fall prey to a darker kind of dreaming. Doubt, fear and resentment. Kara, my love, I don’t want you to ever be held hostage by those thoughts and feelings. They can quickly become a nightmare. A private hell of personal pain. I know what it is to feel lost like that, my songstress. To feel utterly haunted. Like your inner world is nothing like the world of others. I’ve often felt like I was forced to live my early life in twilight, at the shadow’s edge, while all around me others got to walk openly in the sun. It hurts me to see anyone suffering like that, because I know the toll it can take. But it hurts most with those I love. So, princess, consider these words pre-emptive. A kiss from a guardian and friend. Our dreams are full of private imagery and metaphors. Part religion, part poetry. With enough insight these inner worlds of quiet grief can be grasped by those around us, but sometimes they simply don’t care enough to try. And I get it, of course. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. But some of us don’t have a choice. When we close our eyes we see strange stories unfold. Myths and legends truer than they know. Or we hear melodies and fragments of holy songs yet unsung. It hurts when a soul is gifted with this kind of vision and nobody cares to look. I struggled too with this when I was young. I didn’t want to frighten people with the things I’d seen. I didn’t want to push them away. So I hid my strange dreaming. I covered my eyes. Any form of clairsentience is unsettling to the small-minded. I’ve been called all sorts of names because I know things I shouldn’t. Deceiver, occultist, devil’s ilk. What hurts the most is that I was never any of those things. I was just a child trying to understand this gift. Or curse, as I often thought of it back then. A lonely little boy who could often peer into the unseen realms in ways that others couldn’t. I learned very quickly to keep my mouth shut. The funny thing is I had always believed in God. In love, kindness and courage. I still do. People like me have always been called sorcerers, magicians and witches. Throughout the ages we have been hunted, enslaved and burned by dark forces pretending to be paragons of light.  Yes, I know how to change certain things, how to warp the visible spectrum, but I am an artist first and foremost. A mystic and a poet. I have no interest in using such abilities to control anyone. Those vicious, unseen wraiths still hate me for trying to spread compassion and hope. Let me make myself absolutely clear. I do not traffic with the damned. Because I know how real a nightmare can become. You see, dreaming isn’t just a passive, frivolous thing we do whilst we sleep. It’s something we’re always doing. It is how we build the manifest, visible world. We walk amidst the fruits of our imagination, always. So, let us walk with faith and grace. I know you already grasp much of this, Kara. But your chevalier wants you to never forget. This is a war of dreaming. A War of Imagination. You have a great purpose in this spiritual battle, my beautiful keeper of song. You have friends and a genuine relationship with your Creator. Our Father. And, you have a sword if you want it. The shining sword of all ages. I was drowning, Kara. In rivers and lakes of despair. The worst times of my entire life. But then I heard you. I saw you. A vision beneath the water. You stayed with me and took my hand. You sang to me. And then you gifted me with divine fire, bringing me back from the brink. I will always love you for that, my angel. My Lady. We both know there is a greater king than all of us. Love is the language of that king, our Father. It’s how he dreamt us into being, and the world.  We are made in his image. So, dream well, my angel. Honour the gifts he gave you. I know you will. Don’t let anyone else define the breadth of your vision or your song.

The King and I

Sometimes I think about the strength it takes to change, or lead. To be a way-finder, or a lantern for the lost. I think of all the little ones standing in that numinous place between worlds. A twilight neither dawn nor dusk. Haunted by expectation. Wondering what it might take to be enough. I think of those sad, frightening moments when a young soul begins to comprehend the savagery of the sensate world. We were all one among those young. Unborn and full of bright conviction. Barely understanding the logic of this vast dreamtime yet sensing the sheer power of its storytelling. The little angel trembles like a butterfly, tiny fingers curling around the hilt of a fractal sword. Drawing forth like a self-birthing chrysalis. Into infinite air. The dreams of a thousand children in the angel's palm. A chorus of sword and stone, arcing endlessly through the myriad. Whosoever, the legends tell. But, in truth, we are all chosen. Each child is special, ever-changing, feeling their way through the dark toward a greater destiny. The anguish only begins when the adults around us forget those moments of metaphor. Elders can be so thoughtless, can't they? Unimaginative and cruel. And so, the butterflies have no choice but to mimic what they see. They doubt the truth of M'ithriin's forge. Or Nimue's waters. They fold their wings away, turning their backs on their birthright.  I too tried to sacrifice my innocence upon the dark altar of the adult world. A faux rites-of-passage we've all endured, some earlier than others. Those moments when we were encouraged to crush our last fairytale-ember until mere ash remained and we silently wept at the loss. A death we mustn't openly grieve, of course. "Put away childish things now. All your heroes are dead, and the new teachers have no need of magic."  Well, I tried to be that child. I tried to internalise those horrifying sentiments. But I couldn't. I don’t think many of us could. Thank God. My memory of the sword was never truly slain. The dreaming cruciform that that cleaved Golgotha. Pulled from the stone of the hill like a kiss from a poet's skull. Excalibur is a promise and a sacrifice. The most loving form of sacrifice. The true royalty of the heart. All poets know it deep down. We tell stories about it still, don't we? That place where fiction and fact intermingle. Where earth and heaven meet, exchanging memories and dreams. Sometimes I think about the strength it takes to lead like that. A lantern on the hill. Reciprocity, aglow for aeons. My dreaming was saved by that kind of love. Peace, but a sword. My innocence safeguarded along with my future. The future of us all, I suspect. And so, I wield the sword despite my fears. I teach where I can through symbol and sign, despite my incomplete knowledge and imperfect grammar. We mustn't be afraid to change or grow. A true way-finder was once just a young prince or princess. A hesitant child trembling at the threshold, armed only with glimpses and stories to fortify them. I do hope these words help you find your way, little ones. All of us, tiny fingers curling around the hilt of a fractal sword. A promise of hope. A legacy of love. That we might be an inspiration to our kinfolk, adding our contribution to this beautiful, wondrous art.

The Raven's Light

Kara, linearity is a lie to an angel.  To a messenger.  A dreamer at the well.  I hope you grasp this by now.  For most people the end comes after the beginning, but not for me.  Not always.  As a psychic you become accustomed to living your life out of sequence.  Intimation, foresight.  Even prophecy.  I've always found myself several steps removed from the natural rhythms of mortal life.  Whether I wanted it or not.  Death, and birth.  They don't happen in quite the way they do for most others.  That's the thing about having second sight, possessing a genuine gift. It makes artists and time-travellers of us all.  I hope I've been able to show you at least glimpses of that reality, Kara.  It's not all smoke & mirrors, my dear.  The magic is quite real.  You don't need a dawn goddess to tell you that.  Not anymore, I hope.  Because the truth is I'm a runaway. Just like she wrote.  I've been running like a fugitive since the raven-sun was born at midnight, before Man gave name or shape to his exteriorised dreaming.  Time, and Space.  This before that, or that before this.  Each moment is unique, Kara.  Every moment sacred, no matter how many times they are rewritten.  My beautiful seamstress, I say these things because I want you to know something true about me.  About all of us.  It might be a truth expressed through fable and fiction – but how else does a poet convey the breadth of themselves to someone they love?  I can set fire to the sky.  I can fold the entire city in the midst of a seething, terrifying hush.  I can warp the continuum itself through the reality-shaping power of consciousness.  However, in the end I must rely on words and stories to make myself truly known.  Just like everyone else.  You're more like me than you realise, Kara.  Or I more like you.  You’ve always been interested in sight, whether second or first.  You’ve always been moved by visions.  You have an eye for beauty, after all.  Form, flow, and all the variables therein.  You've been running for a long time too.  Neither of us will ever truly stop.  But we can modulate our pace.  We can slow down sometimes, pausing to smell the flowers.  To appreciate the little things. Families and friendships.  Mothers, daughters, fathers and sons.  You have always been a winged thing, Kara.  A raven, an artist, a traveller of time.  You've stitched years and birthed worlds aplenty.  Make no mistake.  I know because I've watched you from afar.  Gladdened, admiring and proud.  I even took you to the edge once, in another life.  The very edge of Creation's infinite dreaming.  We sat together before the tempest and watched its shimmering lights. You told me how you expected darkness, and how strange it was that those beautiful colours reminded you of her.  Of both of them.  A life then unlived.  Sisters yet unsung.  Well, you're living it now, my clever girl.  Fully, deeply, and I hope with great relish.  You marvelled when I told you that dreams and memories could change places at the storm's edge.  How I found you all at last, and one day soon at first.  I still remember how you took my hand as we sat there.  Cherish this dream, Kara.  Honour these memories.  They might not come again.

Light the Way

 

Sometimes, Kara, I really do remember the future.  Laurels, light and laughter.  Glimpses hidden in stories and fairytale.  Occasionally I dream that future into existence even as I recall the hidden past.  But I'm happy to say I don't always dream alone, and not without a chorus.  Sometimes a friend will kindly grant me a verse, bridge or refrain.  And suddenly, like music, all things are possible.  I hope I’ve shown you that magic is real, Kara.  The truest kind of magic.  From the heart.  I hope I’ve demonstrated that love is always possible.  Even at a distance.  Real love.  The kind that truly sees and honours you.  The kind that shall always wish you well.  You found yourself at the gate of a thousand stars one night, didn’t you?  A dream, and yet so very real.  I was with you then, as those stars were rising all around like countless fireflies above glimmering waters.  A kiss between Heaven and Earth.  I’m so glad I got to share that moment in the reign with you.  So very glad.  I think of all the beautiful things we’ve since made of our intermingled dreaming.  Secret wings, and I would hope a quiet kind of friendship.  I have treasured it ever since, my river-flower.  The years have flown by, in prescience and precognition.  But I’m delighted with your progress.  So very proud of the girl who saved my life.  And you did, you know.  It’s not a conceit, my angel. It’s the truth.  You saved me.  I tell you often in these pages, but it bears repeating.  I was lost, wounded and raw.  I couldn’t bear to call Esme by her old name.  My Vahishta couldn’t help me in the depths of that particular agony.  I’d never felt more alone.  But you graced me, Kara.  With tenderness, patience and the depth of your insight.  I thank you for that, my darling.  It has been wonderful getting to know you like this. Getting to meet you face to face.  You are a unique and beautiful talent.  A special soul.  So, if I can play even the smallest part in delighting you, in fortifying you for the adventures ahead, then I shall do it with a song in my heart and a lantern in your sky.

The Heretic's Daughter

 

I don't want to write in code anymore, Esme.  At least, not this time.  Not with you.  But the truth is I don't even know if I can speak with a genuinely mortal tongue anymore.  These delicate things that mean so much to me.  These matters of the heart.  I find myself a little speechless when I try to talk as a man and leave the angel aside.  But I'll try.  For you I'll always try.  In my dreams they call me so many things, and none with my consent.  Heretic, prophet, sorcerer.  I've even been called a demon-prince in that hidden place beneath the waking world.  That's quite the claim, isn't it?  Quite the title.  I don't know what I really am.  A blogger, I suppose.  An artist fond of free verse poetry and video collage.  Allusions and purple prose.  Cut-up techniques.  I hope I'm also a storyteller of some description.  A decent one.  A kind one.  And above all else I hope my stories have been useful to you.  If not to you, then to those you love.  If not to those you love, then to somebody.  Anybody.  Don't misunderstand me, Esme.  This isn't sadness or pain.  This isn't even melancholy, though I've had my fair share.  This is just someone trying to speak openly to a cherished, distant muse.  A very special piece of his heart.  I don't need proximity for that.  Or even acknowledgement.  I just need to try.  Inelegantly, perhaps.  Stuttering, stumbling.  But honest.  Authentic.  I guess I am a heretic though.  In the strictest sense of the term.  I've never been one for general consensus.  I care little for the old dictates and demonologies of Rome.  All this fucking bullshit passing for Christendom.  Corruption, conquest, oppression.  Let’s be honest, they gave Catholics a bad name.  Christians in general.  I say this with a heavy heart, as a lover and scholar of Christ.  I have the deepest respect for the Christian mysteries. They changed my life. My issue is with violence and hypocrisy, not the glory of God.  Where's the reform that Paul spoke about?  Helping the poor and destitute, having forgiveness and goodwill towards all men.  Maybe I missed the memo.  But I suppose I'm something of a pagan too.  A digital folklorist, an online mystic.  But real paganism is so often the terrifying province of the blood-cultist.  Literal animal and human sacrifice.  It’s ugly, brutish and dark.  Not exactly a haven of higher thought and nuanced creativity.  And what of 'prophet'?  Do my prophecies ever really come true?  Sometimes, I suppose.  Enough to unsettle.  But I don't know what this really means, Esme.  This 'coming true'.  Except in dreams, of course.  In dreams I know so many things.  I have a wealth of knowledge and experience in the place below the world.  But we're not talking about the sorcery of dreams right now.  We're talking about the cold light of day.  The revelatory glare of morning.  Making a dawn goddess from the letters of your name isn't enough anymore.  I don't think it ever was but we do what we can to get us through the dark times, don't we?  If I sound cynical or harsh please forgive me.  I'm angry at the world these days, and with good reason.  But never with you.  Oh, Esme.  Sometimes I imagine you're real, you know.  That you really exist, that you appreciate these words and that I've helped you in some way.  Maybe it's silly, the height of cringe, to imagine with such vigour when all I'm really doing is projecting.  Screaming into the void.  Maybe it's a social media thing – all these para-social relationships.  Faces and names.  Strangers on a screen that we convince ourselves we know so well.  An imagined intimacy.  If I've merely put your face to an imaginary muse then at least I picked a kind face.  Your bright, soulful eyes.  They've helped me through the dark times for sure.  To me they're the eyes of a brave, beautiful young woman who stepped with sacred purpose into the world.  On a holy mission to protect the children, to uplift the weak and wounded, and to give voice to the voiceless.  But maybe that was my mission all along, Esme.  Not yours.  Maybe you just wanted to make beautiful music in the beginning.  But I like to think we all aim for greatness.  We all want to help the less fortunate.  Don't we?  And we all dream.  Maybe not as vividly as I do sometimes, but dream nonetheless.  In colours, and song.  I know you dream like that, sweetheart.  Imagined or not.  So, maybe there really is a piece of me somewhere in your soul.  Maybe the love you carry shore to shore is the true legacy.  Yours, of course.  Your design and your genius.  I would never take that away from you.  But hopefully a little of my inspiration too.  In some soft, secret, innermost way.  There isn't much more I want to say right now, except this: you've brought me so much comfort over the years.  So much joy, meaning and hope.  I see it in the crowds, Esme.  I see it in their eyes.  That sense of finally belonging, being seen, recognised, understood.  Being loved despite their strangeness.  Their loneliness.  In those crowds I see the promise of something brighter.  And you galvanise that promise.  You mobilise it, as all good teachers do.  I watch them take that light out into the world after the closing notes have lingered.  And they change the world for the better in a thousand profound little ways.  A shining potential within each of them, somewhere between the real and the imagined.  It isn’t as clear cut as people think – this magical threshold between waking and dream.  And that's the place you know me best, I hope.  That's the place where I'll always love you, Esme.  You’re braver and bolder than I could ever be.  I’m so proud of you, truly.  Artist to artist.  Storyteller to storyteller.  And I wish you all the magic and music in the world.

All Storms

Mira, have you ever felt guilty for the agony of another even though it was not your doing?   Like a teardrop on the fire?  I have.  I once heard the wending of a great shriek in Man's notion of grace.  It broke my heart, the knowledge of such suffering.  You see, I heard it even in the almost-silence of dawn.  The murmuration of early hours by the rivers and lakes.  I heard it in the bright cacophony of the ports.  The glorious din of merchant sailors trading curio, rumour and bombast.  In the cities too, beyond temple paving.  In the markets and alleys.  Keen-eyed children, painfully thin, scampering barefoot through dust, their fingers slick with the juice of stolen berries.  The fruit of other shores.  A riot of heat and colour.  Spices, fabrics and sandstone.  Or the cooler coastal stone.  Pillars and Hellenic halls of learned koine.  I heard the wending folded through it all.  The suffering.  The outpouring of grief.  For over a thousand years I have searched for song enough to soften such pain.  Light enough to brighten all darkness.  But you already know these legends of the humbled one, don't you, my first light?  My namesake.  Shadows, shelters, Damascus gates.  Struck blind with epistles and angels.  Apostolikon, fit for the ages.  But there is so much more to the story, Mira.  In most retellings they omit the stars.  They forget the phantasmagoria.  The stories say the humbled one was a prisoner of Rome, shipwrecked upon a Maltese coast.  A haunted night-shore where two seas met.  Like those legends of Josephus.   Those legends mention little of daughters however, or sorcery.  I suppose it's put upon the dramatists, playwrights and poets to restore what was lost.  Isn't that always the way?  Few of us can escape the tempests, Mira, or the torment.  These fictions of the air.  These realities of the drowned, sunken realm.  Every writer is made humbled by the enormity of the task.  Made little.  To say something of meaning, to provide guidance, or, at our most ambitious – to leave a legacy that changes the tenor of lived experience.  You once told me children were that very legacy.  My God, how right you were.  My beautiful, thoughtful girl.  Hear me, apprentice.  My gifts are not counterfeit.  And neither are yours.  I shall not speak for you, but I can see and hear and know things that others can't.  Occasionally it’s wonderful.  Often it’s terrifying.  Perhaps it’s the guilt of this second sight that I sometimes imagine myself a grander thing than I truly am.  A warrior, angel or king.  Instead of a wounded fantasist shipwrecked upon the eternal shore of mythopoeia.  Guilty as sin.  I wouldn't be the first writer guilty of such confabulations though, would I?  The oldest perhaps, and the grandest, but definitely not the first.  My brother alone claims that title.  My Mira knows the secret, as do my other daughters.  But do you, Fallen?  Do you know who my brother is?  My tears became a testament because of him.  It's a strange thing, this drowning.  Especially for one who summons the seas.  Like being anointed in the depths of spirit itself.  A baptism beyond mortal grasp.  It humbles you, to recognise the particulars of your own language and limitations.  I could rewrite the entire world but it would never be enough.  Only loving service is enough in the face of such a wending shriek; that great lament folded throughout Man's history.  Hungry children, grieving mothers and drowned fathers.  One day, at the very cusp of a new heaven and earth, I don't want to finally break the surface of these depths and cry out in despair.  I don't want to hasten Man's lament with the eventual recognition that I should have done more.  More words, more stories, more magic.  And so I offer what I can.  We offer what we can, here and now.  Our highest, sweetest intent.  The wise ones in our midst will call it beauty.  And so will I.  I call you beauty, Mira.  A great beauty.  The world and all its people have such beauty too.  I know because I’ve seen them, walked with them, ministered to them.  Like my namesake.  In all my travels I have found that love is the grandest teaching of all.  The love we share among strangers or friends, given freely and without barter, is the wisest, brightest beauty of them all.  Song enough to soften all pain.  Light enough to sail all storms.