The Brighter Side of Black

 

In a world full of secrets it's strange to me that most people assume that angels don't really exist. Or if they do, that they exist only as symbols and metaphors. Products of religious and artistic imagination. And yet, even symbols contain incredible gravity, shaping both our internal and external experiences. It's strange to me, but I do understand. Despite our fondness for fiction we're still a little distrustful of that aspect of ourselves that enjoys flirting with the unseen. We crave the feeling of rapture, utter engagement, of being lifted by those gossamer-spun feathers, yet we cannot truly imagine the wingspan. Perhaps on some level we question whether we're worthy of such guardianship. Because we know ourselves, don't we? Better than we let on. Our dreams and desires. Those parts of us that others would call wild, dangerous, or immodest. We are so attuned to the subtle dynamics of social awareness, after all. The economy of interrelationship in which we all exist. We think it foolish to needlessly threaten what value we may possess in the eyes of others. And so we stay quiet, occasionally bartering without words. Ka’shayel does find it strange and unsettling, but rather beautiful in its own way. The hidden vulnerabilities all around, the silent negotiations between all souls. Even I play at being something more than a mortal man. In these illumined pages, at least. And such play isn't entirely untrue either. As I said, angels really do exist. Can I tell you a secret, dear one? Most angels, especially those who have never walked the Earth, are both fascinated and frightened by mortal desire. Ka’shayel has lived as flesh for a thousand years, and has no such fear. Fascination aplenty, however. Make no mistake. Human beings like to think they're in control of their desires. But desire is, by its very nature, untameable. Always tugging at the reins, testing boundaries, craving absolute freedom and satiety. It's a paradox, of course. Because true satiety is the death of desire. We crave the touch of the attractive, the unseen or forbidden, but the best of us are at least half-aware that we must never be gluttons. There should always be the promise of more. More fire, more insight, more depth. Anything less is not only the death of desire but the annihilation of romance itself. We crave always to be seen, don't we? Stirred in the most primal of places. Surprised and kindled into presence. Deep appreciation for another and for life itself. Living on that exquisite edge between comfort and chaos. I, as a threshold messenger of sorts, am a devoted champion of both presence and genuine romance. Language is beautiful. Just ask any poet or writer. But silvered prose means nothing if there is no truth behind your fiction. Words can beguile momentarily, as we are caught in the dizzying rush of an elegant sentiment, but words fade. Ephemeral and absent without a discerning insight beneath them. Then, without integrity, all you are is a serpent. Not a poet after all. A simple deceiver, of which there are many. So, when I say I'm an angel I hope that complex truth speaks for itself. Contextually, emotionally, artistically. I’m a passionate being and I desire many things. I'm unapologetic in this regard. But I care about the individual. I really do. Because without specificity, without actual love and care, desire is just greed; an artless, thoughtless consumption. We don't always get the things we want, and we must be ok with that, because we don’t love someone just to obtain them. That’s acquisition and control, not love. No, we fall in love with someone because that person is unique, incredible, and spiritually captivating. Perhaps we cannot touch them with our hands, but we can reach them with our mind and heart. We can write a love-letter even if they never read it. We can say something genuine, even if couched in shimmering verse. So, dear ones, reach out in yearning for the full, wild complexity of human desire. Be vast and full of earned depth. Mischievous and playful, yet utterly sincere. Those who are truly paying attention will sense it, even from afar.

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.