Visionaries often dream in black, of
black rock. The raising of works to an
imagined centre. Some hidden perennial philosophy. Easier to see the luminescence of sigil and
sign against the canvas of night, I suppose.
Studying the occulted registers of those polyhedral gates by the
water. Those risen places of oldest
Kathari. Now chasing the imagined
spirits of composite ghosts. Fulcanelli,
or Flamel. Our Lady of mercurial tempest, on silver rivers further
reaching than the Seine. This blackening
earth. Sword of Eth'iir. It is raining beneath the nave, in ways
beyond profit or purchase. Kashi speaks,
as you imagine daemons might speak. Spirits
of genius. How dare you,
wraith-lords? Lesser kings. How dare you claim these gates as your
own? You didn't shape our stones nor
raise our learned schools. Liars. You slay and then steal the work of others,
pretending ownership. Things you can lazily
repurpose without grasping the true majesty of those works. These gaudy fables of erudition you invented.
Well, it takes little skill to murder
teachers, conceal their ancient texts and poison their gardens. You call yourselves masters of
a craft? Don't make me laugh. Your
tales of Egypt and antiquity. These lies
of lineage. Would you like to see a real
gypsy's magic? I think not. You can't even look at me, can you? Tell me, what do you really know of
chrysanthemums, or chrysopoeia? Hallowed
fire kissing water in that upward fall you so fear. Head to head.
A language of respiration, and birds. A language
you didn't invent either. Chlorophyll
nymphs among the unseen forests of the vestry.
At the heart of our endless cathedral of trees. Shepherd and sheep. Rupes Nigra, as you call it. Dark as Albion Black. All the better to trace stars upon the wheels
and blades of procession. Aether; place
of the crossing, and the cross. Polaris
and his prism. Night-lights dancing
before dawn. Stones that breathe among angels and aster. Hurry now to the krater of living
waters, I say. As Offerus did, carrying
the child through churning grey. I too
was grey, once. Across rivers further
reaching than you know. This was never about semiotic games, Fallen. Never about cliques, power or exclusion. Quite the opposite. This is about the Word. About service. Tending the wounded and the lost. Uplifting the least of our brothers and
sisters, of every song and faith. As it was of our true history, beyond your false chronologies. Beneath
this reigning nave is a gate of healing; a dreaming forest of fractals and
higher thought. Our doors are open to
everyone. From beggar to king. You cannot lie to the chymic nor the
wedding. Nascent works made golden in
the waters. And nameless. So, tell me again your so-called secrets of
the rose? Tell me to my face.
I have seen a path of roses and a path
of ruined dreaming. I have walked them
both countless times. I walk them still.
Shadow and spear. Fever and darkness. A light of heaven almost glimpsed amid the
smoke. Tell me something, Fallen. In this thousand-year chastity of emerald and
thorn, do you really assume I still wish to avoid torment? I was forged of torment. And fire. Born of witches, mystics and
soothsayers. The devil's ilk, according
to some. There were stories told in the
days of hush and seething, as I’m sure you recall. That I was foretold. A dark renaissance, born half-formed. The union of whore and demon. An affront to Christendom itself. But I tell you now, betrayers. I am no devil's son. No lesser king. I do nothing by halves, as all heresies
attest. The Kathari and others know well
of my ghost beneath the bell. Sous-terre,
and lower still. You pledge yourself to
infernal hierarchies but you only exist because I allow you to exist. Perhaps there is something unnatural about me
after all. These offers of redemption, transformation. Only a poet or a demon prince would bother
with such fancies. Or perhaps a bright
winged thing; an archangel in some bizarre attempt at devotion and grace. In any event, I have seen freshwater and
flowers spring from the polyhedral secrets of Kathari stone. Cloisters, and comprehension. Like a feather upon the throat of darkness
itself. Xashi, Esme, Osarai. I am many things, betrayers. But first and foremost I am a guardian. I did what I said I would do, didn't I? I lied to you. With flair and wondrous mirth. I have fashioned a tall tale of carnal
treachery from the hair of a maiden's crown. The crown of a seer. But I didn't do it alone. I teach as I’m taught. As I take, so too am I taken. Here at the high place, where love is true and
needs no recompense. Do you honestly
think I’m making amends for some imagined fall from grace? I’m laughing at you, Fallen. In that ugly, half-formed way of mine. Witches and demons and thin gypsy thieves? Is that all you think this is? No, acolytes. Kashi has made a mockery of your sickening,
infernal hierarchies. Blood-hungry and
unclean, all of them. Any supposed god
who revels in the tears of children is my enemy. Make no fucking mistake. And I have countless enemies. There are a million wraiths and more who wish
to devour me. But I’m like poison in the
well, or gristle in the throat. Favoured,
stubborn, indigestible. You would do
well to remember that, Callous Ones. Lest
you choke on my maidenhead. I’m a
misshapen, twisted thing. But I can move
like a dancer when necessary. Here, at
these mysterious gates of procession. I
wonder, can you say the same? Could you
stand like a sentinel amidst the ashes and the sand, as I did? Could you change your name; sacrificing
everything you are, everything you'll ever be, for love? I don’t think so, but I like to dream. Let me tell you a secret now, fallen ones. You won’t understand it though, because your
dead hearts remain un-animated by divine fire. Untouched by guilt,
recognition of sin, or sorrow. Still,
the demon-poet in me loves the idea of possibility. An open door. So hear me, wraiths. You are living within a rosebud of
unfathomable splendour. An infinite
cathedral of light. You are the mere
shadow of a miracle. The shadow of all
miracles. Messengers of the eternal
radiant, with wings bright as dawn. Even
your sickness and lust is proof enough of angels.
Once,
in time immemorial, the place of my childhood was a vast forest of oak. I was raised at a high place. One of the highest places in London. Along the ridge of what was once the Great
North Wood. A place the locals still
sometimes call Beggar's Hill. You can
see for miles from this high place. Towards
the steel and glass towers of Central London to the stunning green slopes of
the North Downs. Alas, most of the
legendary forest is gone now. Felled
long before I was born; sacrificed by nobles as raw materials offered to the
ever-swelling presence of medieval London. It used to make me sad as a child, that
knowledge. That my home on the hill was
once a mysterious ancient landscape of oak trees that scaled the entirety of
the Norwood Ridge. As a boy nothing
stirred my imagination more than forests and high places. Knowledge of the loss of that landscape felt
palpable sometimes. It still does. But there were fragments that survived all
along the uplands of the clay ridge even as the sprawling forests were tamed by
Man, becoming coppice and wood pasture. Wild
fragments. Streatham Common Woodland, Biggin Wood, Spa Wood, the majestic
tangle of Beaulieu Heights. It was here
I went wandering recently with my beloved, on a beautiful spring afternoon. It always feels strange returning home, but
this felt different somehow. I wanted to
show her my high place. My formative
years. I wanted to share a little more
of myself than I had before. It gets
lonely at the edge sometimes, doesn't it? No matter how bravely we love. We held hands
as we wandered this remnant of the North Wood. In a red dress and with warm eyes she listened
as I told her pieces of my past. We
talked and laughed and kissed beneath green canopies. I still wonder
about the Norwood Ridge, the countless oaks that once stood. There are many place-names here that speak of
ravens, evoking an image of the old forest as a vast nesting ground. Thousands of crows among the branches, before
Man ever came to fell the trees and raise the city. Even my old High School was named for a raven.
Sometimes as a boy I would sense a strange
presence upon the hill, something older than the legends of beggars and gypsies
and the galleon of Francis Drake. Something
ancient, druidic and supernal. I often
wondered if the unseen spirits of tree-guardians wandered the ridge in
lament. Perhaps they were watching as my
lover and I explored the remains of their remit.
Only
a stone's throw from the wooded remnant at Beaulieu Heights sits the church of
All Saints. A beautiful building of dark
stone that was badly damaged by a bomb during the Blitz. It is the nearest church to my childhood home
and so holds a place of prominent significance for me now. Again I felt a strangeness as I invited my
girlfriend on a whim to wander with me through the gravestones of its
churchyard. The afternoon was warm and
bright and the grass seemed lit with an even greener vitality. Life and death, I thought. Side by side, as one. Robert Fitzroy, famous Vice-Admiral of the
Royal Navy, is interred among the stones of All Saints. We stood at his grave and read aloud a verse
from Ecclesiastes etched into the headstone:
"The wind goeth toward the
south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the
wind returneth again according to his circuits."
It’s
then that I notice something standing out among all the other gravestones. What I assume at first is an obelisk. Once we get closer I realise that in fact a
tall stone cross is standing in the open churchyard. A Celtic cross, like the ancient quartered
sun. For a moment I'm taken aback. Breathless, uncertain. I don't want to alarm my girlfriend, but I
sense how much this could potentially mean to me. I feel a frisson of deep strangeness in the air. Like spirits have gathered and the oaks are
all around. There is a narrow paved pathway
leading to the weathered monument. My
girlfriend notices a name on one of the memorials placed at the invitation to
the path, and reads it out to me. Donald Rose.
I smile, trying to laugh the name away, but I know this is a powerful
sign. I can feel it. Her eyes tell me that maybe she can feel it too.
At the end of the pathway I finally
grasp why I sensed such strangeness in the air. The Celtic stone cross is perhaps eleven feet
high. It seems one of the oldest things
in the churchyard; a central feature of the original design from the 1820s. There are no inscriptions or names etched into
the base. If any were there before, all
trace of them have long since weathered away.
To my astonishment, along the central shaft of the stone cross a mighty
broadsword is carved. Its cross-guard is
aligned to the quartered ring and its blade runs the length of the monument
toward its base. I gaze in speechless wonder
at the sight of this carved sword. Here,
on this literal path of a rose. I have
no conscious memory of ever having seen this thing as a child, or even setting
foot within the churchyard of All Saints. To my mind I had only passed by the church on
my way to greater adventures, occasionally glancing up at the church
tower in vague appreciation. My childhood
was filled with books, fields and remnants of woodland, not gravestones and
churchyards. But gazing then I wondered.
Was it possible? Had I seen this glorious sword once before and
cast it completely from my mind? My
girlfriend noticed my awe but not quite how shaken I was by the discovery. I explained some things, as best I could. I told her of pathways, poetry and spirits
among the trees. Kings and coronations. I touch the carved blade in an attempt to draw
some of its essence into my psyche. It's
then that I was overcome with the feeling that the quartered cross was only a
leitmotif to some greater, older secret. As though the Great North Wood wasn't
gone at all, but remains somehow. Through some act of druidic sorcery. Ancient folk music hidden within the stone.
Having
discovered a sword in this haunted wood of my imagining, I knew the way was
open. A leading way that would carry my
beloved and I along the ridge and down past my childhood home. The area is a quiet Victorian suburb filled
with grand houses once owned by wealthy families in the nineteenth century. Our home was a modest affair in comparison, yet
I never felt out of place as a boy. Never
a pretender or interloper. I felt like I
belonged there among the ghost-forests of the high place; a witness to things
other people couldn’t see or hear. As I walked
beside my girlfriend I knew exactly what was needed to complete this particular
path-work. We found our way to the recreation grounds where I used to play as a
boy. Grounds that were sung to Oriana
when first opened. All Creatures Now. Echoes of ancient folk songs latterly dressed
in madrigal garb. At the edge of those
fields is Rockmount Primary School, where I first learned to read. Where I discovered my love of the written
word. The Ingram boy had returned home
at last, it seemed. Like a raven among
his own. There at the edge of my green
and pleasant land stood the old drinking fountain. The thing that so fascinated me as a child. I had seen far grander fountains as a boy, but
this particular one seemed a curiosity and drew me repeatedly. A little monument of polished granite that was
broken and dry long before I found it. Quiet,
lonely and regal. I still remember an
old photo my mother had once taken of me sitting atop the fountain like a
living statue. The fountain felt ancient even in my childhood. But it was still adorned with the silver
plaque dated 1891. And a strange keyhole
in the plaque's centre – a keyhole that as a child I was convinced would open
to reveal some glorious mystical mechanism.
If only I possessed the key. I
was sure an active portal or gate of some kind was concealed within, that the
monument was only pretending to be a drinking fountain in order to hide itself
from unworthy eyes. But I had sensed its
secret power, having trained my sight enough to be deemed worthy. My beloved smiled at me as I recounted the
stories, warmed by my childish wonder and delight. There was such love in her expression. Like living water itself, as pure and true as
the natural springs that once surfaced amid the oaks along the Norwood Ridge. It felt so right, I thought to myself. Being returned home like this, to the high
place and ghost-forests of my youth. Stone
swords and imagined kings. These enchanted
lands had shaped me. These were the places
that first taught me how to listen and see. The fountain's strange gravity always
perplexed me as a child, as did my curious love of it. But, happily, it makes rather more sense to me
now.
In the garden of well waters, I
stand. At the ever-flowing spring. Guided, strengthened. From those subtle places. Prompted to know the truth even whilst lost. Seeking amidst every confusion. It is only this: a hand upon the heart. For when a voice is hidden within a voice, and
an eye within an eye – then a kingdom is found in the mists. There is a hidden river, a living path, known
only to the woman in man. The wife of his
husband's wife. Prince of her maiden's apostolic theurgy. Beyond covenant, convent or coronation. This is more than Mass. More than bread, or wine. Isn't it? Daughters cradle those mothers who birth the
sons, who thus nurture fathers like seeds in their breast. For there is nothing buried that shall not be
raised. These song-lines are folded in
ambient and stone. Turrets of living
spring, unseen. Freshwater and flowers. Because sometimes it's not enough to be
touched by an angel, blessing though it is. Truly, we all cry out for the embrace of our
beloved in the end. Don’t we? Whether met, known or merely dreamt. Faint or flesh. Mourning, at dawn. I've felt those agonies too. Such tempest upon this Marian sea. This rage is only the ghost of the depths of
my love. An ocean of behest. I hope you know that, my friends. Kashi hasn't forgotten his brother's kiss or command.
Neither have you. Not truly, which is why we’re all here. Perhaps. To know again, in the old ways. As it was in those shining temples of the
first dreaming. In those chronicles of
the rose. The mehndi on my palms, the
hooded crimson shawl. These dark
alabaster hands. Hebrew, Sanskrit,
Greek. Not mere letters, but light. Hallows of the hidden. The sacred teachings of the innermost passing
unrecognised before the profane. Teachings
of union, multiplicity and recognition. Hear
me. All true kings are crowned only by a
beggar's grace. Pleading in every
tongue. To be heard, seen, and attended.
Thus, let a voice be with a voice and an
eye with an eye. Lest these wraiths burn
everything and place horrors and falsity at the feet of our name. But we are not without humour, are we? Or élan. Temesh, of the healing waters. Where the fishers dwell. It flows like a thousand stars through these
secret books of the vessel. Yet far more
than vessel. A many-splendored mirror. A chalice of the leading way. An ever-flowing spring. To drink from this lamp of the heart is not
to obtain an unconquerable power, it is to begin a truly meaningful life of
incomparable study. My love taught me
that. So tell me, Kathari, whom does the
grail serve?
