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.