Yesterday I walked an oblique hill. I felt called and it seemed the thing to do. I sat for a while in a churchyard, at the site
of Powles Crosse. Thinking about
folkmoots and dragon's blades hidden in ancient stone. Tales of heralds and spiritual light. Locusts and wild honey. Stories far older than themselves. Myths of demigods, warlords and medieval princes.
Our notions of imagined kingship. Eventually I entered the cathedral; a white
lantern at Ludgate's summit above the twinning river. I sat amidst the splendour and the
strange. The statues, paintings and
gilded edges. I stood on the surface of
the sun, at the centre of a star, and clasped my palms with a willingness that
was not at all feigned. Souls around me
were grieving, others ambivalent or quietly hopeful. Praying that God and the good might grant them
some measure of grace. I wanted to tell
them that such grace is given perpetually.
Sometimes explicit, but often hidden in symbol and sign. And not without pain. But I know how brutal it can be. The trauma and the loss. The occluded path. No longer understanding the right thing or the
needed remedy. Standing waist-deep in
the river and still feeling like you’re drowning. Oh, I know.
Talk of grace during a soul's darkest moments can seem like a boast. Or worse, a hideous lie. So I'm silent among my peers. I pray with them in this basilica of the Apostle.
This mercurial ghost with whom I share
my name. An enigmatic and some say
frightening being who lived millennia ago. A fiction, a fact. An angel of epistles. Sometimes I pretend to be a scholar of such
things. The Abramic faiths, the Enochian
mysteries, but in truth I know very little about these legends. I'm simply a diarist at best. A wounded fantasist at worst. Like many failed poets, I suppose. Yet I
am not without humour, or élan. So I sit
there in that grand temple of stone and I quiet my rage. I think about destiny and distortion,
reflection and responsibility. Paths not
taken, or taken too often. I think of
all the hidden slaves, and slavers. The
unacknowledged prisons and unmarked graves. These sickening by-products of industry and Empire.
I tell you now, my friends. It's a difficult thing to quiet your rage when
one is sighted as I am. When you can
dreamwalk and peer into the shadows as others can't. You hear the keening of lost children, broken
mothers and the innumerable casualties of this hidden war. That's why the hill is oblique. Seen and yet unseen. There and not there. Amidst all this horror and tragedy people
begin to doubt the notion of a higher order of things. A loving Creator. I can understand why, but I’m far too
occulted to share these doubts. I’ve
seen too much. Do you have any idea the
things that move across the rooftops of Navah'tri? There is an ancient ecology hidden upon the
hill. Just as Blake sensed. Brythonic wraiths, Gaulish magic – long
before the light of the realm was darkened and the histories rewritten. I should know.
As a diarist I had a hand in the time-keeping of the old chronology. As a fantasist I helped transcribe and
preserve the mythologies of the shining realm. The true throne is of the heart, you
know. Closest to our Maker. So, I might be a lost soul in a temple forge,
chained against my will to a black star. But my Father is with me in these shadows. Because of his perpetual grace I am given a
certain immortality. I'm older than
stars, or chains. I'm older than the
blackest ash. I’m not afraid of wild
honey, or locusts. I might be angry. A furious, raging phantom, but I’m not alone. The living flame of every kind and courageous
soul is with me whether they know it or not. Our Father connects us all. None of this magic is mine. I'm just an earnest seeker. Hear me, Fallen. A true king doesn't require riches. He doesn't need the gaudy or the gold-leaf. After all, he is only the spiritual servant of
his subjects. His people. He is not their better nor their oppressor. You pretty your beds whilst these good people
sleep upon stone. Such is the height of
hypocrisy. I will never champion such
cruelty. Mine is a world of visions,
ladders and folding cities. Do you
understand? None are abandoned, said my
brother. Do you know who my brother is? Resurgam, the legends tell. I Shall Rise Again. All are welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven, but
you have to be willing to serve. So, tell
me, what fool would dare to claim the throne for himself?
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