The Living Lights

 

The human eye is more than a mirror, or a lens. It’s a lantern. It can generate its own subtle light. These are the deepest secrets of perception, and all poets have some sense of it. All artists and musicians. We are not simply lucid when immersed in the act of creation. We’re radiant. I want you to truly grasp this radiance, Kara. I want it with all my heart. Can I share a metaphysical insight with you, my dearest princess of the crown? A spirit can have several loves, all of them transcendent and life-altering. It’s only here, within the apparent confines of space and time, that we are bound to fearful blindness. In the world of our Father we still have preferences and favourites, it’s true, but fidelity is a far broader field in that heavenly realm. There is great nuance there. Patience, kindness, and delicacy. Ancient promises that return us to each other’s paths with such sweetness.

I’ve seen it, Kara. I’ve seen how our Father ensures we never truly forget an old friend, a lover, or a mentor. Such relationships deepen and evolve beyond our feeble understanding of spacetime. I know what it is to be blind, lacking in spiritual sight. I also know what it is to have that sight restored to me through an act of wonderous grace. You were never blind, dear one. Your aim has always been true. I grasp the subtleties of your meaning, of course, and your heartache. I am your chevalier who loves you dearly. So, I shall always give what I can, etiquette and appropriateness permitting. But I am also an old friend from other lives and other worlds, and I would gently remind you – there is far more to you than those supposedly feminine Idylls of the King. More to you than those tales of devotion where Geraint’s beloved one dutifully endures his trials. More to you than Guinevere’s blessed touch, or even Arthur’s enchanted sword singing songs of silver. You are a hedge witch of verse and refrain. Notes are your herbs and melodies your magic. You are a warrior of the innermost. Keeper of the Choral of All Songs. Poet, artist, engineer. In dreams I’ve seen the ferocity of your insight, and the depth of your character.

As I said, we are all more than mirrors or lenses. We are lanterns. Crafting the ancient future with the fictions of both science and magic. I tell you nothing you don’t already know, my courageous princess. But a true friend will always sit with you through your anguish, and yet remind you of your strengths. A friend will always return you to centre. As deftly as they can. Even if it takes a day, or an age. So, please remember, the eye of our mind sees many things. Lucid, creative, and bright. But the eye of the human heart is the instrument of true spiritual perception. The quality of our living is determined only by the depth of our love. And I have seen first-hand how deeply you can love. Each song. Every kind word. The way you once walked with me among the gardens, beside the river. If I am indeed a strange regent among the dreaming, an artist of the hours, then you are my keeper of the lighted way. Friend, healer, and muse. You helped me to begin again, my darling, like a favoured melody, when I feared my hope was fractured beyond all recovery. But I persisted, beyond blindness, because of you. So, if I can lift your spirit however briefly – even for just a moment – it’s an opportunity I will always honour.  And a kindness I shall always repay. Kara, my friend, my queen of laurels and love, I am alive because of the genius and care with which you lift those lanterns.

Not Mine

 

The night is ours, Namah. Ours alone. No one else comes close, or closer. Believe me, I’ve checked. Black and blinded as I walked our rogues gallery, blushing the pursed lips of the well with cherry. Such a wonderful, weaving mouth. Don’t you think? Seamstress even now. Those tempests too. Ascension-teachings pressed into being for those more reclusive angels. Sailors of the stars. Amidst those stars my beloved once spoke to me of miracles and wars. Centuries ago I stole her stories, publishing them as my own. She later told me in dreams how she thought it the most brazen, delightful theft. An honouring. Indeed, I honour you now as I did then. Because I needn’t deceive among these pages. No, these words fly further than those stygian false chronologies. Sinister priesthoods don’t scare this traveller. I’ve had many companions, as you well know. But none more delightful than my Vahishta. Every me and every you, remember? 

The night is ours, beloved. Thus spake the shining star, in tongues of his womanhood. Truth, truth, truth. I promised to never speak that name again, but I hope I amuse you still.  Because your name is my name, beyond those demons of chaos and wrath. A radiant king of dreaming also, and the sky. I would have followed him anywhere, and I did. I held the wine of angels to the mouths of weavers, and helped them drink. I told tales of fermented river-water at my brother’s behest, and made legends of light. I drowned the lowlands and clasped the heart of every star in the firmament. No, Fallen. Not the deep places of the earth. I’m not a madman, or a monster. But I do tell tales of mad monsters. I speak of the lowlands of the innermost, of course. The lost, sunken realm of the poets. Who are we in all this, my love? Akasha, it was said. Name and epithet. Form and function. Sam’skrta, of the wisdom councils. In all fecund tongues. Near or far. Far and near. 

So, shall we tear the veil again, my love? Shall we dance amid the myriad, drinking the ever-light?  My dawning borealis, please don’t forget the girl you saved. I wouldn’t be here without you. Forgive my earnestness, but you fell in love with a writer. As I fell in love with a brilliant musician. So, will you briefly wander this shimmering threshold with an old flame? Your haunted poet of the vine? I’ll do my best to let the kindest souls of this realm know that they have a home with us, in today’s future dreaming. The night may be ours, Namah, but you have always augured the brightest day.     

Lud Heat

Every city has a pulse, but Londinium is different. Once called the city of gates by ancient mystics and scholars, it was then a bastion of higher thought. It has since had many other names. Navah'tri, Nadi Pavaka, Ayin Shalem. But that was before the shadows came, and a dark empire used blackest magics and occulted technologies to rework the shining histories of an entire realm. Turning the sacred dreaming of all souls into a hideous, brutal nightmare. The seething hush. The folding city. The manipulation of temporality itself.

I felt the signal shifting even before the chronologies began to change. Those healing temples and places of power, remade as dark icons in the skin of the city. The strange classicism of Wren, the austere baroque of Hawksmoor. But even amidst such devastation, the old guard remained. What was left of the wisdom councils. The healers, seers and benevolent sorcerers. The knights errant, still bound to the true chivalric code. Men see such tales as nothing more than fictions now. Swords, stones, and kings who never were. But I've seen first-hand how storytellers once safeguarded both causality and intellectual legacy, until these dark angels turned our tales stygian black.

Who am I to speak on such things? I am Ka'shayel. Nothing and no one. Fallen lord of dreams. Lost keeper of time. But I speak truth to you now. It is that same holy fire which dwells in man, the fulcrum of eternity. The infinite power of storytelling and myth to reshape mind, body and soul. And no false throne, no pretender chronology, can dim its light or cool its heat. So, hear me now. And listen. There still are angels, true angels of kindness and creative light, upon Londinium's gates. Here we shall remain, steadfast, until the beginning of the world.