Wednesday 27 April 2022

The Lantern's Brother



We were supposed to be lights, Amas.  Moments of meditation and wonder.  Shining mysteries glinting in a sea of infinite black.  We were never forged for chaos, or horror.  Distortion, inversion, disarticulation.  But the colour of this so-called rebellion – it's the same colour you always speak now.  The colour of nothing.  Dressed up as prowess, and pinnacle. That you would glory absence so, that you would gild the hollow with such relish.  Is that all there is to your poetry now, my brother?  Is that a demon's poetry?  Shall I burn the apocrypha as kindling beneath your wicked wing?  Are you only lifted such upon smoke and lost light?  Well, I made shapes in the ash for you, didn't I?  Special shapes of falling things, of storied hush, of brothers with avian wings.  Hands upon lips and feathers upon throats.  You were prettier than all of them, brother, until you whispered those things in my ear.  Until I finally saw what you were trying so vehemently to become.  Do you really think there is some cachet in all this?  Some dark genius that only the abhorrent can recognise?  Slavery, perversion, the scent of violent sex upon the living waters?  Is that as deep as your petty wicked can venture?  By all that is holy, my brother – what happened to you?  This is rhetoric, of course.  I know exactly what happened.  You dreamt yourself a hideous god and haunted yourself a king.  But there are no other gods.  No other kings.  Amas, my love, you still don't understand the nature of brothers.  Or sisters.  The living flesh of the twinning river.  Oh, I shouldn't mourn you like this.  Not like this.  But I do.  You are not the bitterest of wraiths.  You are the palest of storms.  You have no fucking idea what it means to be a ghost.  Or a fury.  But you will, in time.  I have poison in my veins, Sama'el.  And shadows in my heart.  Because of you.  Love is true.  One day soon you will know the kind of sire you've made of me.  But there will be no relish.  Not for you.  Not in the end.  We were supposed to be lights, my brother.  Electric, like the stars themselves.  But no man is an island, I suppose.  Not even the blackened sun.


Sunday 24 April 2022

The Rounding Sleep


Sometimes a storm will come, without warning.  A roiling tempest upon the seas of our minds and our hearts.  Sometimes the only thing we can do to weather such fury is wait and be willing to adapt to each moment.  To find nuance and balance even in the terrifying ebb and flow.  Sometimes the skies open and the heavens speak.  For both mortals and angels.  And we are roused from sleep by the distant call of gathering chaos.  We must always remember the lost.  Those who fought so that our lives might be a little brighter.  Our brave ones.  Our glorious dead.  There are so many slain in these wars of imagination.  These wars for the stars themselves.  We shall honour their memory. And sometimes, if we can, we will steal their place among those halls of the fallen and the dead.  We will send them away to escape the horrors, in hope that they will live better lives.  Free from madness and suffering; a third eye sealed with a kiss.  Hear me, dark ones.  Callous Ones.  Your time is short.  Believe me, I should know.  You don't get to harm the people I cherish.  Not without a fight.  If you want to get to them you’ll have to come through me, and I still don't think you realise what that means.  Who I am, and what I stand for.  This so much bigger than sorcery.  This is destiny.  Love is true, and against this stuff as dreams are made on no wraith shall prosper.


The Rounding Sleep from Raj Sisodia on Vimeo.

Wednesday 13 April 2022

The Refracting Rose



Sometimes I savour the sadness of broken things.  The unameable, irreplaceable loss that comes with time.  With vantage, or vision.  It's tempting to enjoy such melancholy when all one has is time.  Especially through the eyes of a poet.  Or an angel.  The fields of my mind and my heart still bear the seed of my creativity as I attempt to bring such visions to term.  But this birthing process is almost never easy.  And what exactly is this nostalgia I’m craving?  Is it the longing for a genuine return – Ennoia; the secret flame, here again – or am I just savouring the loss once more?   Have I made a fetish and fetch of her absence?  Perhaps I’m simply spinning these wheels like the ever-circling hands of the clock.  Perhaps, in my baffled kingship, I've told one too many stories.  Maybe not truly, but in those ways of the spirit and the heart.  It really hurts to love someone, my friends.  I don’t think you need Kasi to tell you that.  But it hurts almost as much to tell a good story.  Angelic light, demon poetry – and everything in between.  Throughout the ages many have made monsters from the tellers of tales.  I can understand why.  It's a frightening thing to come face to face with meaning.  With context, knowledge and growth.  It's unearthly, isn’t it?  Intoxicating.  Sublime.  Truly, it’s a strange place that storytellers occupy.  Halfway between healer and sorcerer, cartographer and mythographer. Because those broken things are more comely in the astral light of a well-told tale.  Justice is a mercurial thing.  A certain restitution can be found in the human tongue, with or without its poetry.  But a storied annunciation can rent the veils like nothing else.  It can level cities and raise the dead.  But more than this, storytelling is the only prism in which mankind can truly see itself.  The better angel of its nature.  In the end stories are the only place where Man can believe, even if only for a moment, that he is not a monster.  Not a vampire.  Self-reflection is an incredibly powerful thing, believe me.  Through it the heart is strengthened, softened, and remade in gold.  This place of hope and knowledge beyond even melancholy – it is the shapeliest, most comely of dreams.  But more than this, within such divine fire lies the animating principle.  The fulcrum of all existence and perception.  This is the ingenuity of God laid bare.  To love, and be loved.  Cherish it well because life itself is the sacred bloom of such genius; a radiant multidimensional flower of innermost light.


Monday 4 April 2022

Everyday Words



It might seem cliché; a meaningless and easy observation in our jaded world. But it's true nonetheless.  Life exists in the now.  Nowhere else.  The past is a dangerous ghost and the future a staggering possibility of what might be.  Now is the only moment of true power.  Our lives are best enjoyed by doing all we can to savour this moment.  Of course, nobody can live their lives in absence of strategy.  Or hope.  That's not what I'm saying.  I'm talking about the sacred, hidden dimension to everyday life.  We've all heard these things before and perhaps we agree somewhat blithely.  We understand these things intellectually at least.  Taking a moment to breathe, stopping to smell the roses.  But really feeling the truth of this sacral quality is something else entirely.  I think we underestimate the sheer psychological violence that can be inflicted upon us by modern living.  We human beings are so incredibly strong.  We're masters and mistresses of adaptation.  The world demands this shapeshifting from all of us, and sometimes we forget just how much we're grappling with.  Modern culture and politics can seem alienating and terrifying after all.  Many of us exist in a state of near-perpetual dissociation because of that terror.  We might not always recognise it because we're so skilled at adapting to circumstance.  We're subjected to so many pressures and are forced to adopt a variety of masks on any given day.  But finding the hidden power of the now is a skill like any other.  It grows with repetition and discipline.  These are the true wonders; a poet's muse.  Moments not ordinarily seen.  

Why even write these words?  Because I want to inspire people.  I want to take care of the ones I love.  But more than this, I'm always interested in sharing the truth.  Truth isn't always easily discernible.  Especially in a realm of such chaos and volume.  We all have gifts, don't we?   For myself, I've become attuned to subtle energies over the years.  Moonlight hidden by the glare of the sun, or a night-time stillness buried in the depths of the day.  The space between spaces.  Sometimes I can even sense things long before they happen.  Moments and events, personal or otherwise.  It used to be that I'd often wish I savoured the approach a little more.  The quiet time, the build-up, the foreplay.  I don’t make those mistakes anymore.  I give beauty all the time it needs to linger.  Such gifts teach you something.  An unwavering respect for the mysteries of human consciousness and our connection to the spiritual realm.  You might be forgiven for thinking that knowing the future would make you feel incredibly powerful.  But the opposite is so often the case.  You can feel small, lost and abstracted.  Driven mad by the quicksilver thresholds between fate and free will.  But it matters, this hidden dimension of the everyday.  A way to better taste the richness and depth of our own lives.  There are many ways towards God, many paths into this sacral perspective.  Meditation, journaling.  Physical exercise and focused attention.  And, of course, the creation and enjoyment of art.  Painting, poetry, music.  There are signs everywhere, indeed.  Every story you have ever loved is a part of you and is blessing you daily.  We might be unable to grasp this from our limited mortal perspective, but it's true nonetheless.  Art is the oldest magic.  The true high magic.  Lingua Franca of the immortal soul.  

Personally I have little choice but to treasure these sojourns of the sacred.  You see, I mostly live my life alone.  That's what happens when a human mind somehow recalls life before the Fall.  Before the cataclysmic War in Heaven.  I have family and friends scattered about this ruined realm.  I still cherish and remember them, but they don't remember me.  Or if they do it's only dimly, as if in a half-forgotten dream.  But I can live with that because the battles I face are all too real.  I don't want my beloved ones held hostage, used as collateral, or else swept up in the wake of this nightmarish war.  It's the price I pay, and I pay it gladly.  However, this hidden dimension of daily life keeps me connected to my loved ones.  It allows me to reach out and fulfil my role as silent guardian.  Even at such distance.  I love you, my friends.  I really do.  I'll keep fighting for a kinder and more courageous consciousness, on behalf of all the bright ones.  I'll use these strange skills to the best of my abilities.  We are all so much less alone when we feel connected, creative, or in love.  God is Love, and that’s the ultimate truth.  Our communion with that truth is our release from the burdens of sorrow.  My friends, there is so much humanity still doesn’t understand.  So much left to discover.  Whenever I feel lost or lonely I try to practice gratitude for the good things in my life.  Imagine how strange and mysterious the world might actually be if spirit were a genuine reality.  Because it is.  Even if you imagine only for a moment, there is great power in that moment.  Eternity is contained within each elevated observation, like the many secrets of a holy prism.  These are your pathways into presence, and wonder.  A little flare of rainbow colours on a hardwood floor.  The shining curiosity of a child.  An overheard conversation or melody that mends the soul.  The breathless afterglow between lovers.  Or the quiet joy of a peaceful bedroom filled with morning light.