Earthrites

On The Music Box: OOOOOMMMMMMMMMM………
Kinda a fun end to the week…
On The Menu:
Artwork: Gwyllm
Links: Musical (give ’em a try!)
Links: Regular ones as well!
Article: LSD, Dogs and Me – by Robert Anton Wilson
Poetry:Poems dedicated to Salvia Divinorum by Laura Pendell
Enjoy!
(Magma-Gwyllm Llwydd)

Music Links:
America Is Waiting…
Praxis
Bill Nelson… David Sylvian
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Link Links:
Homeland Security Porn Police
Red State, Meet Police State
Daley wants security cameras at bars
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LSD, Dogs and Me
by Robert Anton Wilson
[writen for a Swiss magazine, on the 60th anniversary of Dr Hoffman’s discovery of LSD.]
Greetings to Dr. Albert Hoffman on the 60th birthday of his “problem child!” And greetings to the Free World in general from the occupied U.S.A.! Two major factors have rendered me incapable of believing in the dominant mechanistic-materialist model of mind and the universe: [1] dogs, all of my life, and [2] LSD, since 1962.
About dogs I will write elsewhere; here I will say only that no matter how much mechanistic biology I read, no dog who ever lived as a guest in my house ever seemed like a machine to me. They all seemed like four-legged people.
Every LSD voyager has his or her own unique reports to offer; here I offer only my own recollections of my own experiences, expressed in my own favorite metaphors.
After my first LSD voyage, dogs not only seemed even less like machines than before, but so did bugs and trees and birds and the starry sky itself. After my 100th trip, even I seemed less like a machine.
I have not embraced pantheism or even panpsychism as a philosophy; rather, I have given up on philosophies entirely. I live amid wonders, which I file under the law of general semantics which states that no map can ever show “all” the territory. In fact, I think we should ban the word “all” from ordinary speech and restrict it solely to pure mathematics.
Let me explain that a bit. Consider any large city you know well — Zurich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, whatever. For the sake of illustration, let me write “Dublin” and you may think of any other city you prefer. Do you think any map of Dublin can show the locations and directions of all the mice in that city? Even if you regard this absurdity as theoretically possible, this map still would not include the flowers, fleas, microbes, etc. — nor would it depict the emotions, joys, sufferings of the people [or the dogs] — and it would remain relatively accurate for only seconds. [It could not remain totally accurate for even a nanosecond.]
Now consider our other kinds of “maps” — our beliefs, our arts, our sciences. Does quantum mechanics tell “all” or even most of the reasons George W. Bush wants to kill Saddam Husein? Does Freudian theory, Marxism, postmodernism, bile samples, or oil prices — alone or combined into a mega-model –tell “all” about that?
Does Van Gogh tell more or less about vegetation than Beethoven’s Sixth, Darwin’s Origin of Species or the latest papers on botony? Which geometry reveals “all” the truth about the starry sky above Dublin — Euclid, Gauss, Lobatchevsky, Buckminster Fuller?
To fully grasp what I mean here, try the following simple experiment: try to say “all” about the page [or computer screen] on which you see these words. Assuming you have it in hard copy, try to write down all you know about the chemical composition of the ink and the paper; if you don’t know enough, do some research.
Try to learn “all” about how it got from me to you, even if that requires six months of computer science and electronic theory. Who asked me to write this? Find out “all” you can about her or him. Don’t neglect the others involved in the production of this page — their salaries, their worries, their religions if any, their politics, their sex-lives usw.
And don’t forget me: why did somebody ask me to write about LSD and why did I agree? Try to investigate “all” about me. [Hint: in doing this exercize, I discovered that among the infinite reasons I became a writer I could not omit the Danes over-fishing the North Sea 15 centuries ago.*]
——————————————————
*My paternal grandmother had the name O’Lachlann, which means “son of the Dane” in Gaelic. The Danes took to invasion and conquest, of Ireland and elsewhere, after the fish problem arose…..
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If you continue this search for “allness” reasonably long enough [about two years minimum], the page will have yellowed and the ink might have faded, which will require more nvestigation into chemistry and even political history —e.g. the paper would last longer if made of hemp; why did the publisher use wood pulp instead?
Now imagine these gigabytes of information entering your brain not in two years, but in two nanoseconds, and radiating not just from this page but from the fruit on the table, the wall paint, the pencil, the cars passing in the street….. and the furthest stars.
That’s why LSD has altered the world for so many of us in the last 60 years. Like English poet William Blake we have found “infinity in a grain of sand” and the deeper we look, the deeper the abyss grows. And like Nietzsche, we often suspect that as we gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into us……
LSD seems to suspend the imprinted and conditioned brain circuits that normally control pereption/emotion/thought, allowing a flood — an ocean — of new information to break through. The experience will seem either very frightening or exileratingly educational, depending on how rigidly you previously believed your current map contained “all” the universe. Since I learned that no model equals the totallity of experience long before I tried LSD, I never had a bad trip; but I have seen enough anxiety atttacks and downright wig-outs in cases of the naive and dogmatic that I have never favored or advocated LSD’s promiscuous use by the general population. As J.R. “Bob” Dobbs says, “You know how dumb the average ccitizen is? Well, mathematically, by definition, half of them are even dumber than that.”
While splashing about and trying not to drown in this ocean of new information, you generally experience a second LSD surprise: an explosion of newfound energy within your own body. Whether you call this kundalini or bio-electricity or orgone or libido or Life Force, it can trigger muscle spasms, unbridled Eros or just “warm and melting” sensations — or all three in succession, or all three almost simultaneously — usually followed by something loosely called “near-death experience” or “out of body experience.” Again, this can seem either psychotically terrifying or “religiously” ecstatic, and can imprint short-or–long-term tendecies toward paranoia [“everything wants to destroy me”] or metanoia [“everything wants to help me.”] In either case, one tends to retain a heightened awareness of those peculiar coincidences that Jung called synchronicities and Christian conspiracy buffs attribute to hostile occult forces.
In my case, after a few years I found myself seemingly forced to choose, not between paranoia and metanoia — both by then appeared pitiful oversimplifications — but between mysticism and agnosticism. I solved that problem, for myself anyway, by choosing agnostic mysticism in the tradition of Lao-tse:
Something unknown, unspeakable,
before Earth or sky,
before life or death,
I do not know what to call it
So I call it Dao
What do I think we should do with Dr. Hoffman’s “problem child”? Well, no commodity becomes safer when its manufacture, sale and distribution all fall into the hands of professional criminals; and prohibition, of alcohol and all other drugs, inevitably has that effect, followed by police corruption and public cynicism. Maybe governments should leave this arena entirely and let professional scientists, medical and otherwise, write the guidelines?
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2 Poems on Salvia Divinorum: Laura Pendell
(Ska Pastora-Gwyllm Llwydd)

WHERE SHE TAKES ME
it starts suddenly with a circle
circular motion
a sense of movement
going counterclockwise
and it feels
it feels like it comes
out of my mouth
out of my forehead
the left side of my face
a scatter pattern
a pattern
a scatter
left to right
a pull and circularity
around me above me
from me
inside a huge room
a cathedral
I am both
the inside and the outside
and I don’t know
I don’t know how
I don’t know how to
move
or swim
through this space
and I keep thinking
it’s growing
growing out of my face
out of my body
spinning
out of my body
and wondering
where my body
is
I want to relax
just wonder
at the beauty
of it all
and part of me
is saying
where am I
not as in what is this place
where is this place
but
where is my body
because it’s
pure consciousness
without
any physical sense
and I feel like I
should be inside
this space I’ve created
instead
I
am
the
space
and this time it is pastel green
but another time it was
pink luminescent light
and it’s made of
me
it’s made of
my face my body
repeating
over & over & over & over &
like a patchwork
or finely woven fabric
and it would be peaceful
except for me
wondering
where my body’s gone
and if it will ever come back
or will I ever find my way back

so I let go and swim and
it’s huge
it’s vast
it’s cavernous
and afterwards
there is this
deep profound
sense of
regret
because I couldn’t
stay
longer
this place I have always
wanted to be
this place I have always
looked for
—–
THE DIVINE GODDESS
sometimes she is filled with light
sun light
moon light
radiant light
rainbow light
sunrise light
sunset light
call it the kingdom of the oracular
sometimes she is filled with dark
forest dark
jungle dark
a green so dark it is almost black
call it the forbidden that never is
always a path ahead and behind
inside and outside
before and beyond
now/then/and
different
like walking on your hands
she sings to you
& you know the voice you know
the song she sang to you
before you were
the rush of hidden water
what weeds sing when the wind rides them

she touches you with soft fingers
caresses the part of you that always asks
until there is nothing left to ask
and the world is held together with
surface tension
it is being inside her mind
it is being her mind
just now
just then
and
just so
————
(Oracle- Gwyllm Llwydd)

“Liberty means responsibility. That’s why most men dread it.” – George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
—————-
Well, we went to Kendricks’ Memorial. We figure some 400-500 people were present. It was an awesome event. The music superb, and the personal notes from his Sisters and Friends were very moving. His good friend and student Michael Broumage was very stirring on the tales of their friendship, and Michael’s realization of Kendricks influence and persuasiveness to the path were very profound and moving. Lots of Tears, Lots of Laughter.
It was long. Yet the depth of music and feeling made it worthwhile. I chaffed at the ministers’ preaching, I have to admit. I revelled in the Sacred Chants. The Eastern Rites, like rock. Pick up a CD of Capella Romana. This is as good as testament as any for his works.
We got to see many people who we knew, all the neighbors, and the suprises of all who actually knew Kendrick.(running into friends who we had never connected with him)
Anyway, we were there.
——-

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.
————
Musical Links:
I Am Your Shadow
The Host Of Seraphim
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Pictorial Link:
Photojournalism: 30 years in Afghanistan
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Returning is the motion of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
The ten thousand things are born of being.
Being is born of not being.
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Truthful words are not beautiful.
Beautiful words are not truthful.
Good men do not argue.
Those who argue are not good.
Those who know are not learned.
The learned do not know.
The sage never tries to store things up.
The more he does for others, the more he has.
The more he gives to others, the greater his abundance.
The Tao of heaven is pointed but does no harm.
The Tao of the sage is work without effort.
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Kendrick at the BBC 2004…

On The Music Box: HMS Donovan
(Kendrick and Loki Photo Courtesy of Michael Broumage)
Today is the memorial for Kendrick Perala. Rowan, Mary and I will be attending. His passing has been in the forefront of my thoughts since we had the news from Julia and Seymour. (Julia was one of Kendricks’ sisters, Seymour, her husband.)
Just as spring was coming, the weather turned quite chill. It seems like a greater pattern being reflected in our lives…
One thing that Kendrick had in abundance was passion. Passion for his music, for his friends, his family. He had a passion for spirit, and expressing it in maybe one of its purest forms, through song. In a way, Kendrick was born out of his time. His musical passions were for ancient songs. He was born in many ways for a time when an artist had the patronage of the City, of the Burgher, of the Church. The society we live in often finds itself uncomfortable with the artist among us. In spite of this, Kendrick remained true to his art, and carried on in his own special way. He was as keen of a piano tuner as singer; and he pursued his love of the Linux OS as only a true believer could.
Kendrick was Kendrick, and that was a loving artist, an honest man, and a good friend. I am sure he would be bemused by all the ruckus from the ones on this side of the shore, but he would have appreciated it as well, after all he was an artist…
Here is to your voyage to the Western Lands Kendrick…. Bright Blessings on your sojourn there.
Gwyllm
———–
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
— William Butler Yeats
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His Obituary:
Choral community mourns Perala
Life of music – The Cappella Romana member died of injuries suffered in a kitchen fire
Saturday, February 18, 2006
JAMES McQUILLEN
Portland’s choral community lost a great voice and a great friend Feb. 8 when 54-year-old Kendrick Perala died from injuries suffered in a kitchen fire Feb. 7..
The eldest child of Nestor and Myra Perala, he was born in Greeley, Colo., in 1952. The Peralas moved to Southeast Portland that year. Kendrick joined the choir at St. Peter’s Episcopal when he was 6. As his voice deepened with maturity, he accomplished the unusual feat of singing all four choral parts of Handel’s “Messiah,” a favorite work he performed more than 120 times throughout his life.
In the early 1970s, Perala studied piano technology in Boston, where he also trained as a builder and technician at Dowd Harpsichord. After a stint at Dowd’s Paris workshop in 1975, he returned to Portland and began a career as a tuner, technician and choral singer. He sang with many choirs, including Oregon Repertory Singers, Portland Baroque Orchestra Chorus, Cantores in Ecclesia and, from 1996 until his death, Cappella Romana.
Music was a major part of Perala’s life but far from its sum total. The message board on Cappella’s Web site, www.cappellaromana.org, attests to what I recognized when I had the pleasure of singing with Perala many times as a member of Cantores in Ecclesia: He was a man of voracious curiosity, quick wit and a ready laugh; an eager listener and thoughtful speaker; and a gentle yet expansive personality whose many enthusiasms knew no bounds. Steeped in sacred music, he belonged to no church; as his sister Christine said last week, “He was deeply religious. He just couldn’t find a church to belong to, except for the choirs he sang in. That was his church. He was able to keep faith with the rest of mankind through music.”
Perala is survived by his father, Nestor, and sisters, Christine Perala Gardiner and Julia Hanfling. The family has suggested that donations in remembrance be directed to Cappella Romana, 3131 N.E. Glisan St., Portland, OR 97232; and to Oregon Burn Center at Legacy Emanuel Hospital and Health Center, 3001 N. Gantenbein Ave., Portland, OR 97227.
Perala’s family, fellow singers and other friends will gather for a service at 7 p.m. Monday at Westminster Presbyterian, 1624 N.E. Hancock St. [Note: the Oregonian printed 8:00pm, which is incorrect]. The music will include a memorial by composer and conductor Ivan Moody, written immediately after Moody learned of Perala’s death; and the last piece Perala performed, a Serbian hymn offered as an encore at Cappella Romana’s most recent concert in January, which Moody conducted. The text is hauntingly apt: “I go calmly at Thy call, either to abide in eternal sleep in Thy lap or in immortal choirs to glorify Thee forever.”
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Musical Link

Sacred Sounds: Music of the World, Songs of the Soul
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Poetry: Lalla Ded
Lalla lived in Kashmir during the first part of the 1300s. In that period, Kashmir was home to devotees of Shiva and devotees of Vishnu, to Islamic Sufis and to followers of Tantric Buddhism. Lalla’s poems reflect all she learned from these, but synthesized to become the expression of her own devotion in colloquial Kashmiri, rather than the Sanskrit of contemporary philosophical writing. The variety of her names reflect the wide appeal of her poems: In Hindi, she is Lal Ded (grandmother Lal); in Sanskrit, Lalleshwari (Lalla the yogini); while to Muslims, she is Lal Arifa.
Lalla was apparently from a family of Brahmins near Pampore; her poetry shows her knowledge of Sanskrit and of the Hindu scriptures. Tradition says that she left her husband after some years of an unhappy marriage to become a student of Hindu and Sufi teachers. Then she became an itinerant preacher throughout the Kashmir Valley, singing her vakhs (songs) of Shiva and of the search for truth, for an inner spirituality rather than dogma and ritual.

What is worship

What is worship? Who are this man
and this woman bringing flowers?
What kinds of flowers should be brought,
and what streamwater poured over the images?
Real worship is done by the mind
(Let that be a man) and by the desire
(Let that be a woman). And let those two
choose what to sacrifice.
———-
Would That God heard my prayer

With a rope of loose-spun thread am I towing
my boat upon the sea.
Would that God heard my prayer
and brought me safe across!
Like water in cups of unbaked clay
I run to waste.
Would God I were to reach my home!
————
I was passionate

I was passionate,
filled with longing,
I searched
far and wide.
But the day
that the Truthful One
found me,
I was at home.
There is a liquid that can be released
from under the mask of the face,
a nectar which when it rushes down
gives discipline and strength.
Let that be your sacred pouring.
Let your worship song be silence
————-
Think On
Think within thee, till the light of day
Be as the darkness of very night—
Till the self-illuminated Way
Show thee the Darkness to be but Light.
Then shall the bounds of the solid Earth
Mingle with the liquid of the Sky:
Then shalt thou gain freedom from Re-birth,
Merging into Shiv the Self on high.
When the nectar of the waning Moon
Riseth to feed the awaiting Sun,
What is it aught but an empty boon?
Booty that the maw of Rah hath won.
Yet shall Self-illuminated Thought
Show another picture, late or soon:—
Ignorance blind—as a demon caught;
Rah himself as booty of the Moon.
There be that to know and to be known.
There be knowledge, too, to know them by.
By the Light in thee shall both be shown,
Thinking and thinking, if thou but try.
Rah it was came booty for the Moon;
Now shall the Moon be booty of thine.
Think on, and both shall a void soon:
Only shall remain the Thought Divine.
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Biography of Lalla Ded
Lalla was a great saint and mystic from the Kashmir province of India. She lived in the 14th Century, which was a period of great religious upheaval and change. He home province of Kashmir had a tradition of fusing religious traditions. For example although Buddhism has almost disappeared it was still a significant influence on the different Hindu traditions. In the fourteenth century the people of Kashmir came under the influence of Islam. However the Islam which was brought by mystics such as Bulbul Shah was heavily influenced by Mahayana Buddhism and Upanishadic philosophy. Thus the people of Kashmir were sympathetic to the branch of mystic Islam that Lalla embodied.

Lalla was married at an early age but was badly treated by her mother in law. However despite her bad treatment and lack of food she acted with forebearance and equanimity. However this cruel upbringing encouraged her to enter the life of a renunciant and she found a guru called Sidh Srikanth.

Lalla excelled in spiritual practices and is said to have reached a lofty height of self realisation, “The abode of nectar”. However Lalla also wished to manifest and reveal the spiritual truths she had received. Therefore she took to the life of a wandering pilgrim, travelling around the county teaching those who were receptive.
During her life Lalla composed many hundreds of songs. Primarily these spoke of her great longing and love for her beloved Shiva. Indeed there are many similarities between her life and her near contemporary Mirabai. Her poems or Vakyas, formed an important part of Kashmiri language and culture and are still very much revered today.

The Saturday Delivery….

The Links
Flying Pig
For Our Own Good…
SECRETS OF THE LOST CANYON
Webzen
________
Music
… Natacha Atlas!
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Viking smile suggests Norse were vain warriors
Updated Wed. Feb. 15 2006 10:10 AM ET
Associated Press
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Viking raids gave Norsemen a reputation in medieval Europe as bloodthirsty marauders. Recent archaeological finds show they may also have been vain – caring as much for the brilliance of their teeth as the bite of their swords.
A study of skeletal remains from 1,000-year-old burial sites in southern Sweden suggests some Norsemen used iron files to carve grooves into their teeth, probably to insert colourful decorations, anthropologist Caroline Arcini said.
She believes the grooves, which she found in the teeth of 10 per cent of male skeletons but none of the women, were either pure decoration or meant to show affiliation to a social class or trade group.
Tooth filing was widespread among Indian tribes in America at the time, but Arcini’s discovery is the first indication it was also used among medieval Europeans.
Although researchers believe the Vikings were the first Europeans to reach America in the 11th century, Arcini said her discoveries don’t necessarily mean the two cultures exchanged ideas on dentistry.
“It is probably just a coincidence,” she said. “Things pop up in different places in the world without there necessarily having been any contact.”
The Vikings entered recorded history in the late eighth century, when they set out in their long ships to raid the coasts of northern Europe. Starting out as minor expeditions by adventurous chieftains, the raids eventually escalated into full-scale invasions in England and northern France led by Norwegian and Danish kings and earls.
Swedish Vikings headed east, crossing the Baltic Sea and sailing up the rivers of Russia and reaching as far as Constantinople.
Arcini’s study, first published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, found horizontal grooves across the upper front teeth of 24 men in 557 skeletal remains of men and women at four grave sites.
The grooves, often in pairs or triplets, were too carefully made to be the result of chance, she said.
Arcini, who works for the Swedish National Heritage Board, said it was unclear what colours were used to fill the grooves, but it was likely black or red.
“I think it was rather pretty,” she said. “What they had in common was that they had to laugh pretty hard” for the teeth to be visible because the grooves were quite high up.
Arcini hopes further studies will reveal where the practice arose and how it spread.
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Poetry: Israel and Palestine…

I’m a man
who murdered love
simply
with his own two hands
took
and snapped its neck
like a lamb
and then, with his fee,
his slaughterer’s fee
promptly turned
into
a groisser hocham
– a wise ass –
wise at night
and wise on his ass …
– from Love & Selected Poems, by Aharon Shabtai
——–
After we die,
and the weary heart
has lowered its final eyelid
on all that we’ve done,
and on all that we’ve longed for,
on all that we’ve dreamt of,
all we’ve desired
or felt,
hate will be
the first thing
to putrefy
within us.
– from Twigs, by Taha Muhammad Ali
————
It was not in vain that we awaited the barbarians,
it was not in vain that we gathered in the city square.
It was not in vain that our great ones donned their official robes
and rehearsed their speeches for the event.
It was not in vain that we smashed our temples
and erected new ones to their gods;
as proper we burnt our books
that have nothing in them for people like that.
As the prophesy foretold the barbarians came,
and took the keys to the city from the king’s hand.
But when they came they donned the garments of the land,
and their customs were the customs of the state;
and when they commanded us in our own tongue
we no longer knew when
the barbarians had come to us.
THE BARBARIANS (ROUND TWO)
Amir Or
——–
My life is a gift
Given to me
On my zero birthday.
Today I pulled out the ribbon,
Unwrapped the Box
And found lots of things,
Ordinary,
But also wonder-full:
A watch of gold,
And of gold
Is every hour in one’s life;
A jack-in-the box
Which makes you laugh
Or scares you to death, it depends;
Two beautiful baby-dolls,
The first a toy,
The second is not;
A prisoner’s crown and the shackles of a king;
I also found a Jack of Spades
You turn him upside down
He stays the same;
I found books;
I found a long video tape labeled
‘Fifty years of conflict between the Zionists and the Arabs’;
I found hell in an inkpot,
And heaven in an inkpot too;
I found an Arab horse on a race track
Covered with glue;
I found a stove with no flames;
At the bottom of the box,
I found a white card with my name on it,
The rest has not yet been written.
I did not know what to do with all these things!
Oh, God, thank you,
But why the trouble?
I put them all back in the box,
I closed it,
Wrapped it,
Tied the ribbon,
I threw it skywards and up it went,
The gift turned into a host of flying doves
That I will follow forever.
Why did I do that?
I really do not know!
gift – Tamim al-Barghouti
_____________

On the Menu:
The Links: (Cloudbursting)
The Article: The Elusive Little People
The Poetry: Abu Nuwas…
Enjoy, and have a good weekend!
Gwyllm
____________
The Links:
DMT… Obviously!
The Old Ways…
Cloudbursting
________________
The Elusive Little People
Leprechauns… elves… fairies… they’re all just characters of folklore, figments of the imagination… right? Amazingly, there are eyewitnesses who claim they are very real!
Of all paranormal phenomena, the existence of “little people” – whether they be fairies, elves or leprechauns – is among beliefs that receive little serious attention. These myths are ancient and reside deep within the folklore of many cultures. But no one today really believes in these tiny, magical beings…
… Or do they?
Steve K. relates this story of “frolicking fairies” at Paranormal Confessions:
After my buddies on a camping trip had turned in for the night, one friend and I stayed up talking for awhile. Late in the night, after my friend had gone to sleep, I was looking out the screen when I noticed a strange blue light flitting through the woods. I continued to look at this light and soon it was joined by other blue lights. This lasted for some 10 minutes and the lights were playfully chasing each other. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear I saw little outlines of people in those lights. Then I moved and accidentally scrapped my sleeping bags zipper against the tent and the lights flew away blazingly fast. Back home, I read a book on fairies and after flipping through it, I think it was a troupe of fairies that I saw in the woods that night.
Was this the product of a tired mind and an active imagination? Quite possibly. But, like stories of ghost encounters, these tales are related by serious people who will usually swear that they were not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and that their experiences seemed entirely real.
In Jerome Clark’s book, Unexplained!, he retells the story of 13-year-old Harry Anderson who had a strange encounter on a summer night in 1919. Anderson claimed to have seen a column of 20 little men marching in single file toward him. The bright moonlight made them clearly visible, and Anderson could see that they were dressed in leather knee pants with suspenders. The men were shirtless, bald and had pale white skin. They paid no attention to Anderson as they passed and seemed to be mumbling something unintelligible all the while.
In Stowmarket, England in 1842, a man claimed this encounter with “faries” when walking through a meadow on his journey home:
There might be a dozen of them, the biggest about three feet high, and small ones like dolls. They were moving around hand in hand in a ring; no noise came from them. They seemed light and shadowy, not like solid bodies. I… could see them as plain as I do you. I ran home and called three women to come back with me and see them. But when we got to the place, they were all gone. I was quite sober at the time.
Worldwide phenomenon
The legends of these wee creatures are told all over the world. While the Irish have their gold-rich and clever leprechauns, the Scandinavians have their trolls, and in Central America the small dwarflike beings are known as ikals and wendis. The ikals were described by the Tzeltal Indians as being about three feet tall, quite hairy and living in caves like bats.
Iceland also has its elves who are said to be very protective of their habitations. Those who attempt to disturb them are in for trouble. One story is told of the construction of a new harbor at Akureyri in 1962. Repeated attempts to blast away rocks continually failed. Equipment malfunctioned and workers were regularly being injured or falling ill. Then a man named Olafur Baldursson claimed that the reason for the trouble was that the site of the blast was the home of some “little people.” He told the city authorities that he would work out a deal with the little people. When he came back and reported that the little folks were satisfied, the work proceeded with no problems.
Icelanders – citizens of one of the most literate nations in the world – take their elves quite seriously. Even today, Iceland’s most well-known “elf-spotter,” Erla Stefansdottur, has helped Reykjavik’s planning department and tourist authorities create maps that chart the haunts of hidden folk. The public roads authority quite often routes roads around hallowed boulders and other spots believed to be inhabited by the elves.
Sightings today
Sightings of the little people continue right up to the present day. In fact, there have been several postings on the Paranormal Phenomenon Forum from readers who have either heard stories of such encounters or have experienced them first-hand. Here are some examples:
“I learned that a bored young boy playing along a creek near Bend, Oregon, saw two little people who crossed the creek and stood looking at him. He said they were no more than 15 to 18 inches high and very dark complected. They wore skins as garments, and after a period of 10 to 15 seconds, walked back across the creek and into the forest. The boy showed their footprints to his parents, who had contracted to a logging company to clean up slash piles. The prints were obvious and his parents were flabbergasted, but chose not to follow the little beings into the woods. He believes now that the little men weren’t happy about the logging and destruction in the forest.”
“The last time I saw little people was around 1957 in Fort Worth, Texas. I had been sleeping and something made me open my eyes. I saw two small people looking back at me. I was too tired and sleepy at the time to pursue further investigation of these two little guys who had very little hair and wore shabby strange clothes. They sort of smiled at me and I fell back to sleep. I know what I saw and they were real.”
“I don’t know if what I saw was a “little person,” but when I was younger, around seven or eight, these little shadows or elves, maybe the size of a pinky, would come out in my room. I can’t remember the feelings I had. I wouldn’t go to bed with the lights out and I insisted that my parents stay with me in my room until I fell asleep. I think they thought I was crazy or something! But I know what I saw. Most of the time, they walked on my window, but then when I turned the other direction, they would jump in front of me as if they wanted me to see them. I don’t think I was all that scared, but I can still remember clearly what they looked like. Over a period of time, they disappeared. I think it lasted a year. Also, I remember that when I wanted them to go away, I would ask them to leave. If they didn’t, then I would try to smack them with my hand, but they would disappear before I could. I don’t recall them talking. It was strange, but I know it happened.”
“Last year when my daughter and friends were four- wheeling in the woods in Washington state, they were stuck and having problems getting out. When working at getting out, an elf- like person came out and looked at them. The elf had a bow and arrow, pointed hat and pointed ears. Six people saw it.”
At a site called Unknown History, Paul Wilson has written an article called The Little People in which he says, in part:
In March 1967, as a 16 year old boy… I was hunting rabbits in a secluded area along the Purgatory River in a place called Nine Mile Bottoms south of Higbee, Colorado. The area was and still is very sparsely populated. The closest farm or house was approximately seven miles away, so I was surprised to come across the bare foot prints of a small child. I immediately became concerned, believing that I had come upon the tracks of a small child that had somehow gotten lost in the area. The tracks were approximately 4 1/2 to 5 inches long, bare foot and headed away from the river into a side canyon. As soon as it became apparent that I had lost the tracks and could not find the child, I headed back as fast as I could to the nearest house where we reported the incident to the sheriff. When the sheriff and his deputy arrived, they called in a local man who had tracking dogs by radio to help with the search. When the dogs arrived, to everyone’s bewilderment, they refused to track the child. Whining and whimpering with there tails between their legs around their owners feet. After first smelling the tracks, no matter how much coaxing or begging anyone did, no one could get the dogs to participate. With great disgust the Sheriff and the men started out with out them on what turned out to be a two-day fruitless search. Several months later, as the whole affair continued to bother me, I mentioned the incident to an old Indian fellow who lived in Lamar that I knew. He only smiled at my concern and said that I should never be worried about the little people. That they were earth spirits and very elusive. He said that since I had been the one to come across the tracks first, I should take it as a sign that they wanted me to know about them and learn everything that I could from them. So 30 years later, I am still tracking them. I have had many experiences with them since and have learned a great deal about them. But he was right for sure about one thing. They are elusive indeed.
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Poetry: Abu Nuwas

Critic, relent!
Your hope for repentance
Will meet with disapppointment.
For this is the life,
Not desert tents,
Not camel’s milk!
How can you set the bedu
Beside Kisra’s palace?
You, mad to expect repentance,
Tear your robe all you want;
I will never repent!
————
From Prison
What a lesson, O, Ibn ar-Rabi, have you given me
And the excellent habit of austerity.
Not as pointless, not as dumb, my inclination now
Tends to chastity and solitude.
…
Want to witness an amazing matter?
Set me free, and see how often God I flatter.
I have been so long in jail,
Will happiness come from your generosity?
————–
Always I have and will
Scatter god and gold to the four winds.
When we meet, I delight in what the Book forbids.
And flee what is allowed.
————–
I bought abandon dear
And sold all piety for pleasure.
My own free spirit I have followed,
And never will I give up lust.
————
Love in Bloom
I die of love for him, perfect in every way,
Lost in the strains of wafting music.
My eyes are fixed upon his delightful body
And I do not wonder at his beauty.
His waist is a sapling, his face a moon,
And loveliness rolls off his rosy cheek
I die of love for you, but keep this secret:
The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope.
How much time did your creation take, O angel?
So what! All I want is to sing your praises.
—————–
Wine of jar bright,
sun of black night,
tear of the eyes,
wine of Paradise!
Sun globe of yore,
yellow hellebore,
eye of a Persian
cast into prison!
I saw a savage
come from my village:
the jar he struck
with one blow he cracked.
Forth burst the wine
incarnadine,
mellower far
aged in the jar.
Aromas wafted
of wormwood in flower,
for freedrinkers crafted,
under skies a-glower.
An evil brew
This wineboy pours you:
water from rain
with wine entrained.
He flashes a wink,
a lethal drink!
and as he saunters
your mind wanders…
——————
Abu Nuwas loved to reminisce. “When I was still young,” he told us one day, “I fell head over heels for a youth of Basrah, and I was possessed with burning desire to make love to him. One time I ran into him on the Mirbad, where the philosophers were wont to gather. I begged him to look with favor on my passion.”
“If that is truly your wish,” said he, “then first find us one of those foxy songstresses who’s skilled at her trade, and get her to receive me.” Just then a shapely young woman passed by, and he exclaimed, “There! That one is precisely the condition of our meeting. Are you up for it?” I jumped up and could not help putting my hand on the woman’s arm. Immediately she started to scream and call for help. Right away a crowd gathered, so that we were surrounded on all sides. Hands were raised to seize me. The youth in the mean time had edged away, and I could see him not far off, trying to hold in his laughter. I had to resort to all the treasures of my cunning to get out of that bind.
————–
On meeting an old friend…
A young man, Badr by name, had in his youth gathered with the other gay blades of Basrah, even serving as go-between at times. Abu Nuwas had been one of his lovers, under cover of the friendship which tied them to one another. Later they drifted apart, much time passed, and they saw each other no longer.
Many years later he told this story: “One day, when I was in Baghdad together with my children I ran into Abu Nuwas; he was riding a gray mare, and had obviously recognized me. He seemed familiar to me also, but I could not think of his name for the life of me. He greeted me, and as I was standing there looking puzzled he exclaimed, Misfortune upon your head, O Badr! don’t you recognize me?’ No,’ I said. I am Abu Nuwas!’
I started asking him about his life, but he only wanted to know one thing: Who are these young boys you have with you?’ These are my children,’ I answered. There is no God other than Allah!’ he cried out. And to think that once upon a time you might have borne me children, which would certainly have happened had I only stayed a bit longer with you, and had our deeds come to fruition.’
Go get lost, and may Allah strike you ugly,’ I threw back, and may he curse all your doings!’ Nonetheless the truth is as I have told it,’ he replied with restraint, and rode off doubled over with laughter.”
______________
Abu Nuwas, the first and foremost Islamic gay poet
Abu Nuwas, “Father of Curls,” so named for his long flowing hair that hung down to his shoulders, was the greatest Arab poet of his time, or as some claim, the greatest Arab poet of all time. His full name was Abu Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami. Abu Nuwas’s mother, Golban (Rose) by name, was a Persian weaver, and his father, whom he never knew, a soldier from Damascus. The mother sold the young Abu Nuwas (b. 756) to Sa’ad al-Yashira, a Yemeni druggist, who took him from Ahvaz, the town of his birth (presently in south-western Iran) to his home in Basrah (presently in south-eastern Iraq), in those days a great seaport, and abode of the mythical Sinbad the Sailor.
In Basrah, the boy studied the Qur’an and grammar at mosque. His grace and beauty attracted the attention of his older cousin, the handsome blond poet Waliba ibn al-Hubab (d. 786). The druggist having granted the boy his freedom, Waliba became his lover and teacher, taking his student to live with him in Kufa. A couple of year later, the adolescent Abu Nuwas returned to Basrah to study under Khalaf al-Ahmar, a master or pre-Islamic poetry. He then spent a year among the Bedouin (desert nomads) to gain purity of language. But the young man, already a lover of the finer things in life, was not enamored of the primitive life of the ascetic nomads

On The Menu:
Notification…for Dale Pendell’s new book
Archive of Aural Delights (everything strange)
Notification…for Lynn Anderson’s new CD
Antonin Artaud… a life
Poetry: Bibi Hayati 19th century Sufi from Iran
Enjoy!
Gwyllm
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Dale Pendell’s new Book, Pharmako Gnosis is now available at Amazon.com !

Something Modern, Something Old, Everything Strange…
All is full of Love
Finding the Holy Grail….
Oh You Pretty Things…
Sunday Morning…
_____________________
Our long time friend Lynn Francis Anderson has a new album out… please check out her site, and give her tunes a listen! Lynn’s Web Site…

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A Poem of Antonin Artaud Quotes:

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.
It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.
Antonin Artaud
All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar’s teeth.
Hell is of this world and there are men who are unhappy escapees from hell, escapees destined ETERNALLY to reenact their escape.
No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.
With society and its public, there is no longer any other language than that of bombs, barricades, and all that follows.
Tragedy on the stage is no longer enough for me, I shall bring it into my own life. …
————-
The Vice of Surrealism

Antonin Artaud:
Surrealism is above all a state of mind, it does not advocate formulas. The most important point is to put oneself in the right frame of mind. No Surrealist is in the world, or thinks of himself in the present, or believes in the effectiveness of the mind as spur, the mind as guillotine, the mind as judge, the mind as doctor, and he resolutely hopes to be apart from the mind. The Surrealist has judged the mind. He has no feelings which are a part of himself, he does not recognize any thought as his own. His thought does not fashion for him a world to which he reasonably assents. He despairs of attaining his own mind….
———-
The Dance of TuTu guri
———-
MANIFESTO IN A CLEAR LANGUAGE
by Antonin Artaud
If I believe neither in Evil nor in Good, if I feel such a strong inclination to destroy, if there is nothing in the order of principles to which I can reasonably accede, the underlying reason is in my flesh.
I destroy because for me everything that proceeds from reason is untrustworthy.I believe only in the evidence of what stirs my marrow, not in the evidence of what addresses itself to my reason. I have found levels in the realm of the nerve.
I now feel capable of evaluating the evidence. There is for me an evidence in the realm of pure flesh which has nothing to do with the evidence of reason. The eternal conflict between reason and the heart is decided in my very flesh, but in my flesh irrigated by nerves. In the realm of the affective imponderable, the image provided by my nerves takes the form of the highest intellectuality, which I refuse to strip of its quality of intellectuality. And so it is that I watch the formation of a concept which carries within it the actual fulguration of things, a concept which arrives upon me with a sound of creation. No image satisfies me unless it is at the same time Knowledge, unless it carries with it its substance as well as its lucidity. My mind, exausted by discursive reason, wants to be caught up in the wheels of a new, an absolute gravitation. For me it is like a supreme reorganization in which only the laws of illogic participate, and in which there triumphs the discovery of a new Meaning. This Meaning which has been lost in the disorder of drugs and which presents the appearance of a profound intelligence to the contradictory phantasms of the sleep. This Meaning is a victory of the mind over itself, and although it is irreducible by reason, it exists, but only inside the mind. It is order, it is intelligence, it is the signification of chaos. But it does not accept this chaos as such, it interprets it, and because it interprets it, it loses it. It is the logic of illogic. And this is all one can say. My lucid unreason is not afraid of chaos.
I renounce nothing of that which is the Mind. I want only to transport my mind elsewhere with its laws and organs. I do not surrender myself to the sexual mechanism of the mind, but on the contrary within this mechanism I seek to isolate those discoveries which lucid reason does not provide. I surrender to the fever of dreams, but only in order to derive from them new laws. I seek multiplication, subtlety, the intellectual eye in delirium, not rash vaticination. There is a knife which I do not forget.
But it is a knife which is halfway into dreams, which I keep inside myself, which I do not allow to come to the frontier of the lucid senses.
That which belongs to the realm of the image is irreducible by reason and must remain within the image or be annihilated.
Nevertheless, there is a reason in images, there are images which are clearer in the world of image-filled vitality.
There is in the immediate teeming of the mind a multiform and dazzling insinuation of animals. This insensible and thinking dust is organized according to laws which it derives from within itself, outside the domain of clear reason or of thwarted consciousness or reason.
In the exalted realm of images, illusion properly speaking, or material error, does not exist, much less the illusion of knowledge: but this is all the more reason why the meaning of a new knowledge can and must descend into the reality of life.
The truth of life lies in the impulsiveness of matter. The mind of man has been poisoned by concepts. Do not ask him to be content, ask him only to be calm, to believe that he has found his place. But only the madman is really calm.
_______
Antonin Artaud (September 4, 1896–March 4, 1948) was a playwright, actor, and director.
In his book Theatre and its Double, Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theatre, particularly the Balinese Theatre. He admired Eastern theatre because of the codified, highly ritualized physicality of Balinese dance performance, and advocated what he called a “Theatre of Cruelty”. By cruelty, he meant not sadism or causing pain, but rather a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality which, he said, lies like a shroud over our perceptions. He believed that text had been a tyrant over meaning, and advocated, instead, for a theatre made up of a unique language halfway-between thought and gesture. He also believed that sexual activity, including masturbation, was harmful to the creative process and should be avoided if one hoped to achieve purity in one’s art.
Antonin Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all expression is physical expression in space. Although he advocated a system of “social therapy” through theatre, Artaud was institutionalized for some time because he was considered insane.
The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid.”
– Antonin Artaud, The Theatre of Cruelty, in The Theory of the Modern Stage (ed. Eric Bentley), Penguin, 1968, p.66
________________
Poetry: Bibi Hayati

Before there was a hint of civilization
Before there was a hint of civilization
I carried a memory of your loose strand of hair,
Oblivious, I carried inside me your pointed tip of hair.
In its invisible realm,
Your face of sun yearned for epiphany,
Until each distinct thing was thrown into sight.
From the first instant time took a breath,
Your love lay in the soul,
A treasure in the secret chest in the heart.
Before the first seed shot up out of the rose bed of the possible,
The soul’s lark took wing high above your meadow,
Flying home to you.
I thank you one hundred times! In the altar
Of Hayati’s eyes, your face shines
Forever present and beautiful.
———-
How can I see the splendor of the moon
How can I see the splendor of the moon
If his face shines over my heart,
Flaming like the sun?
The Turks in his eyes charge through my soul,
While untrue curling hair
Defeats faith.
Yet if he lifted the veil from his face,
The world would be undone,
The universe astounded.
He walks through the garden
With grace, erect,
His exquisite posture mocking even the straight cypresses.
He charges, riding his gnostic horse
Into the holy space of divinity,
The sacred sphere.
Tonight the Saki with its red-stained ruby lips
Pours wine for the luxury of every drunk,
And sates every reveler’s taste.
As Hayati has drunk his ecstasy,
Her soul now satisfied by the wine of his pure heart,
How can she drink any other nectar?
—————
Is it the night of power
Is it the night of power
Or only your hair?
Is it dawn
Or your face?
In the songbook of beauty
Is it a deathless first line
Or only a fragment
copied from your inky eyebrow?
Is it boxwood of the orchard
Or cypress of the rose garden?
The tuba tree of paradise, abundant with dates,
Or your standing beautifully straight?
Is it musk of a Chinese deer
Or scent of delicate rosewater?
The rose breathing in the wind
Or your perfume?
Is it scorching lightning
Or light from fire on Sana’i Mountain?
My hot sigh
Or your inner radiance?
Is it Mongolian musk
Or pure ambergris?
Is it your hyacinth curls
Or your braids?
Is it a glass of red wine at dawn
Or white magic?
Your drunken narcissus eye
Or your spell?
Is it the Garden of Eden
Or heaven on earth?
A mosque of the masters of the heart
Or a back alley?
Everyone faces a mosque of adobe and mud
When they pray.
The mosque of Hayati’s soul
Turns to your face.
—————–
Bibi Hayati was born into a Sufi family in the early 1800’s in Persia (Iran). She was raised by her brother, who guided her in the early stages of her spiritual life. She was later formally initiated into the Sufi path, studying the great Sufi saints and philosophers of the past, including Rumi and al-Arabi.
Hayati married the Sufi master Nur ‘ali Shah and, at his request, she composed her divan (collection) of poetry.

Welcome to Wednesday.
Colder day by day. A front moving in from Alaska. Plants migrating to the basement…
Gwyllm
On the Menu:
The Links
The Article: Victor Noir (Love Cult in Paris)
Poetry: Marjorie Agosin

The Links:
Clearing up all that stuff about Valentine’s Day…
Video Interactive….Did you click on this yesterday? well, ya should have!
An Interview with Jacques Vallee
One of my favourite places (don’t forget Highgate!)
Stone Age marvels which inspire and astonish
____________
Victor Noir, (July 30, 1848 – January 10, 1870), was a French journalist.
Born Yvan Salmon at Attigny, Ardennes, he went to Paris where he became a popular journalist for the newspaper “La Marseillaise” where he adopted the name Victor Noir as his pseudonym.
In 1870 he was shot and killed during an argument by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, the great-nephew of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, after arriving to challenge the former to a duel on behalf of politician Paschal Grousset. A public outcry followed and on January 12, led by political activist Auguste Blanqui, more than 100,000 people joined his funeral procession to a cemetery in Neuilly.
At a time when Napoleon III was already unpopular, Pierre’s acquittal on the murder charge caused enormous public outrage that erupted into a number of violent demonstrations which helped set the stage for the Emperor’s regime to be overthrown on September 4, 1870. Following the establishment of the Third Republic, the body of Victor Noir was moved to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
A life-size bronze statue depicting Noir as he lay dying was sculpted by Jules Dalou to mark his grave. The sculpture was created with a very noticeable “life-size” protuberance in Noir’s trousers that has made it one of the most popular memorials for females to visit in the famous cemetery. Myth says that placing a flower in the upturned tophat after rubbing the statue’s genital area, lips, and foot will enhance fertility, bring a blissful sex life, or, in some versions, a husband within the year. As a result of the legend, those particular components of the tarnished bronze statue are rather well-worn.
In 2005 a fence was erected around the statue of Noir, to deter people from touching the statue. Due to the protests of the female population of Paris however, it was torn down again.
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Poetry:Marjorie Agosin
Quintrala
I
The women say,
so many women,
they say as if in a broken whisper,
they say as if afraid and joyful
with their chests lit up
like dragons in love
that near Melipilla
at the crack of dawn
when night enters the clarity of day,
in gallops ìMs Quintralaî,
queen of insomnia,
owner of all the lands,
the other Chilean that
left men mute with a ring.
That is what the women of Melipilla say.
II
Mrs Catalina of the rivers, they called her
when in her carriage she raised the haze,
the fog, the sleepy flowers,
and the women were frightened and made the signs of faith
when they saw her go by
and the women also
wanted to be her,
to play naked,
whip the trees,
love the slaves,
look at themselves naked in the streams,
soften the crevices of the body with oil
and violet oceans.
III
They, the women of the town,
they said that in the midst of silence,
that in the midst of the evening prayer,
Mrs Catalina of the rivers arrived
offering herself incense and the faith of sex.
All of this they said,
the women of Melipilla
when the gentlemen arrived
in modern and antique carriages
to ask where is the house
of Mrs Catalina
—————
Ariadne

I
I unwove my weaving
and like all those crazy women
who wait
in the moist fires
of certain love letters
I unwove and planned
your shroud
knowing you were alive
and that you played with the enchantments
of oblivion.
II
I was like all of them
those who wait
in the sites of death
those who wait in the hallways
uninhabited by hunger.
I was like all of them
and like none at the same time.
—————-
Violeta Parra
I
Violeta
of the Andes, Violeta of the highlands,
Violeta of the Pacific,
indomitable and serene,
you sing transfigured, you tell us what you call them,
loving the renegades,
the soulless insanity.
“What feelings can,
knowledge cannot.”
II
You are a guitar of breaths
and murmurs
a guitar that howls in the darkness
of the absent.
Violeta chilensis.
III
You undress in the heaven of your voice
you are a field of wild blackberries,
a constellation of violets between the sky and the earth.
IV
We remember you now, after death
because you died
of love,
dancing with death
who feared only you.
V
Violeta, you sing
beyond the night and its horizons
as if there were only you
and Violeta,
uninhabited women,
like a guitar, like a hand rocking
the precious child of absence.
VI
Violeta when you sing
more than light, I am filled with souls and smokes,
more than your voice
it is your birdlike hands and your lively lutes
your voice like a hurricane
rocking us,
waking us up in the wild
barren plains of our loneliness.
———–
Isadora Duncan

I
Isadora cloudy and luminous,
in the savage fog,
and so ungainly,
how long was your hair
like a beheaded stork?
In which legend
did they tell you
to undo your hair?
II
In this spring
of insomniac sleeping pills,
you approach love
on tiptoe,
your body a circle where the velocity
of that which is earthly rests.
III
Your arms, beloved Isadora
are two domes where no time
finds its defeat,
like the most fleeting of fogs,
like the most opportune guest,
you turn your feet
into mouthfuls of smoke, reachable stars.
Your happiness is contagious.
Isadora, even the beggars,
the abandoned ladies,
the fish,
the women of vocation and idleness,
they clap with their skirts of water
when they see you Isadora, winged
with your ominous bones.
IV
Among the foliage beyond the light,
my beloved,
dressed in your suit of algae
where did you leave your crown of light?
_________
MARJORIE AGOSIN
is well known as a poet, critic and human rights activist. Her family left her native Chile in 1974, a year after a military coup overthrew President Allende’s government. Books translated into English include Circles of Madness: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Sargasso, and the book of essays Ashes of Revolt (all White Pine Press), and Melodious Women (Latin American Literary Review Press), from which these poems, translated by Monica Bruno Galmozzi, were selected. Her poetry has been awarded the coveted Letras de Oro award. She is editor of White Pine Books’ acclaimed Secret Weavers Series and is Professor of Spanish at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, US.
————–

Well, it is about to snow in Portland. Bring the plants in one more time. We had a rat in the attic, caught him in a catch and release trap this morning, but had to leave to visit a clients site. After work, I came back, went up to get the trap and take the little blighter down to the river bank and let him go. Well, he died from a heart attack or something. I know, I know, the social meme sez Rats are bad, but hey…. A living little being.
Here we are at Valentines Day…. and with that here is todays entry…
On The Menu:
Where is the Wine? A Sufi Tale
The Links
Introduction to the Sufi Path by Peter Lamborn Wilson
Poetry: Several By Ezra Pound
Art: Frederick Arthur Bridgman
Enjoy,
Gwyllm
___________
Where is the Wine?
My grandfather was the Halveti Shaikh of Yanbolu, now in Bulgaria. The Shaikh’s brother, my granduncle, one day found a stranger at his door and brought him inside, as God’s guest. He ordered his servants to kill a lamb and roast the whole lamb for dinner. The guest sat down and my granduncle served him. That was an Ottoman custom, for the owner of the house himself to serve the guest, even if the guest is a penniless wanderer. My granduncle did not even know whether this man was a Muslim or a Jew or a Christian. It didn’t matter.

With the beautiful roasted lamb placed in front of him, the guest said, “Ah, it is wonderful, but this lamb can’t be eaten just like that.” The host said, “What do you need?” “Ah, if one would have a nice bottle of wine.” Imagine, this was the house of the brother of a Shaikh, and in Islam not only is drinking strictly against the law, but even to offer a drink is unlawful. But my uncle did not object. He went out of the house to get wine. It was night and he had to go to a nearby Bulgarian village. His own town was Islamic and there was no wine there. He got on his horse to leave. Imagine now, here was a Turk, a Muslim and a Shaikh’s brother going to buy wine from the Bulgarians in the middle of the night. That is the value of a guest.
As my uncle was leaving, the guest came to the door and shouted out to him, “And let it be good, old wine!” So he went, embarrassed, and brought some wine from the neighboring village. When he returned the guest was gone. But the roasted lamb had come alive and was walking on the table, and there were pots of vinegar which had turned into thick, boiling honey, bubbling to the top, but not spilling over.
Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak
_________
The Links
Video Interactive….
In Honor of Albert…
My First Screen Kiss
Handy identification chart for Vice-Presidential hunting trips:
What is good for Yahoo…
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Introduction to the Sufi Path
by Peter Lamborn Wilson

Of all the strands of thought, tradition, and belief that make up the Islamic universe, Sufism in its doctrinal aspect stands out as the most intact, the most purely Islamic: the central strand. Opponents of Sufism often charge it with having originated outside Islam, but a close study of the various schools of philosophy and theology, and a comparison with “primordial” Islam as revealed in the Koran and hadith (authentic sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), will vindicate the Sufis’ claim of
centrality, of strict adherence to the original purity of the Revelation.
In the context of the history of thought, in fact, Sufism – always insisting on a return to the sources of the Tradition – can be seen to have functioned at times as a positive and healthy reaction to the
overly rational activity of the philosophers and theologians. For the Sufis, the road to spiritual knowledge – to Certainty – could never be confined to the process of rational or purely intellectual activity, without sapiential knowledge (zawq, “taste”) and the direct, immediate experience of the Heart. Truth, they believed, can be sought and found only with one’s entire being; nor were they satisfied merely to know this Truth. They insisted on a total identification with it: a “passing away” of the knower in the Known, of subject in the Object of knowledge. Thus, when the fourth/tenth century Sufi Hallaj proclaimed “I am the Truth” (and was martyred for it by the exoteric authorities), he was not violating the “First Pillar” of Islam, the belief in Unity (tawhid), but simply stating the truth from the mouth of the Truth. So the Sufis believe.
This insistence of total involvement in “mystical” realisation, and on a participative understanding of religious doctrine, sharply distinguished Sufism from other Islamic schools of thought. In fact, considering themselves the true core of Islam, Sufis appeared as outsiders not only to the philosophers and theologians, but even to “ordinary” Muslims. Their peculiarity, their distinctness, manifested itself in every aspect of their lives: their daily activities, their worship, social relations,
and even style or means of expression. Like mystics in all Traditions, they tended to remake language and form for their own purposes, and as in all Traditional civilisations, the potency and directness of their expression tended to flow out and permeate other areas not directly
related to mysticism in the narrow sense: literature, the arts and crafts, etc.

Leaving This World Behind
Buddha founded his Path on the human fact of suffering. Islam gives the basic situation in which we find ourselves a slightly different interpretation: man in his ordinary state of consciousness is literally
asleep (“and when he dies he wakes,” as Mohammad said). He lives in a dream, whether of enjoyment or suffering – a phenomenal, illusory existence. Only his lower self is awake, his “carnal soul.” Whether he feels so or not, he is miserable. But potentially the situation can be changed, for ultimately man is not identical with his lower self. (The Prince of Balkh, Ibrahim Adham, lost in the desert while hunting, chased a magic stag, which turned on him and asked, “Were you born for this?”) Man’s authentic existence is in the Divine; he has a higher Self, which is true; he can attain felicity, even before death (“Die before you die,” said the Prophet). The call comes: to flight, migration, a journey beyond the limitations of world and self.

Awakening
Imprisoned in the cage of the world (the world in its negative, “worldly” sense, not in the positive sense of the world-as-icon or Divine Manifestation), man is exiled and forgetful of his true home. To
keep his part of the Covenant, to be faithful to his promise, he must set out on the Path from sleep to awakening. It is only the blessed few for whom this Path lasts no longer than a single step, although in theory all that is needed is to “turn around” or “inside out” and be what one is. For most seekers the Path is long; one Sufi speaks of “a thousand and one” different stages.
“Everything perishes save His Face”; the first step on the Path is to begin to contemplate the futility of the world of dust, the world in which one’s lower self is doomed. The seeker must renounce it all,
including his own self, and seek that which is Everlasting. He must travel from things to Nothing, from existence to Nonexistence.
How does one get lost on purpose? Our present state is one of forgetfulness toward the Divine – the true Self – and remembrance of worldly affairs and the lower self. The cure for this is a reversal:
remembrance of the true Self, the Divine within, and forgetfulness toward everything else.
In Sufism the basic technique for this is invocation or “remembrance” (zekr) of the Divine Name, which is mysteriously identical with the Divine Being. Through this discipline the fragments of our directionless minds are regathered, our outward impulse turned inward and concentrated. This is the act of a lover who thinks of nothing but his beloved.
______________
Poetry: Ezra Pound

Ts’ai Chi’h

The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
——–
Alba

As cool as the pale wet leaves
of lily-of-the-valley
She lay beside me in the dawn.
——–
Song of the Bowmen of Shu
Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots
And saying: When shall we get back to our country?
Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen,
We have no comfort because of these Mongols.
We grub the soft fern-shoots,
When anyone says “Return,” the others are full of sorrow.
Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty.
Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return.
We grub the old fern-stalks.
We say: Will we be let to go back in October?
There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort.
Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country.
What flower has come into blossom?
Whose chariot? The General’s.
Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong.
We have no rest, trhee battles a month.
By heavn, his horses are tired.
The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them.
The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and
quivers ornamented with fish-skin.
The enemy is swift, we must be careful.
When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring,
We come back in the snow,
We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,
Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?
————-
La Regina Avrillouse

Lady of rich allure,
Queen of the spring’s embrace,
Your arms are long like boughs of ash,
Mid laugh-broken streams, spirit of rain unsure,
Breath of the poppy flower,
All the wood thy bower
And the hills thy dwelling-place.
This will I no more dream;
Warm is thy arm’s allure,
Warm is the gust of breath
That ere thy lips meet mine
Kisseth my cheek and saith:
“This is the joy of earth,
Here is the wine of mirth
Drain ye one goblet sure,
Take ye the honey cup
The honied song raise up,
Drink of the spring’s allure,
April and dew and rain;
Brown of the earth sing sure,
Cheeks and lips and hair
And soft breath that kisseth where
Thy lips have come not yet to drink.”
Moss and the mold of earth,
These be thy couch of mirth,
Long arms thy boughs of shade
April-alluring, as the blade
Of grass doth catch the dew
And make it crown to hold the sun.
Banner be you
Above my head,
Glory to all wold display’d,
April-alluring, glory-bold.
——–
Portrait D’une Femme

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you–lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind–with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale or two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that’s quite your own.
Yet this is you.
——–
In Tempore Senectutis

When I am old
I will not have you look apart
From me, into the cold,
Friend of my heart,
Nor be sad in your remembrance
Of the careless, mad-heart semblance
That the wind hath blown away
When I am old.
When I am old
And the white hot wonder-fire
Unto the world seem cold,
My soul’s desire
Know you then that all life’s shower,
The rain of the years, that hour
Shall make blow for us one flower,
Including all, when we are old.
When I am old
If you remember
Any love save what is then
Hearth light unto life’s December
Be your joy of past sweet chalices
To know then naught but this
“How many wonders are less sweet
Than love I bear to thee
When I am old.”
————-
Ezra Pound
(1885 – 1972)
Ezra Loomis Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho in 1885 but spent his formative years in Wyancote, Pennsylvania, where his father was an assayer to the United States Mint. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania for two years then transferred to Hamilton college, receiving a degree in 1905.
After teaching Romance Languages at Wabash College in Indiana for two years, he resigned and travelled to Spain, Italy and England, where, as the literary executor of the scholar Ernest Fenellosa, he became interested in the poetry of the Chinese and Japanese. Ezra Pound founded the Imagist movement in poetry, which encouraged experimenting with different verse forms, and opposed representational art in favor of abstract forms.
Ezra married the artist Dorothy Shakespear in 1914 and in 1922 began a life-long relationship with violinist Olga Rudge. In 1924 he moved to Italy and became involved in Fascist politics, and did not return to the United States until 1945, when he was arrested for broadcasting facsict propaganda via radio to the United States during WWII, on charges of treason.
In 1946, he was acquitted, deemed unfit for trial, and declared insane. He was committed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. After many letters and appeals from friends and writers, including Robert Frost, Ezra won his release from the hospital in 1958. He soon returned to Venice, where he died, a recluse, in 1972.
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>

Monday again, and off soon to work. Today we have a couple of Poems Cadmus & Harmonia (Matthew Arnold), and a very interesting work by Robert Anton Wilson: commentary on The Cantos of Ezra Pound. This is a delightful work.
All the art today is by Evelyn De Morgan, one of my favourite Pre-Raphaelite painters. I have featured her works before, but this is a little more in depth. There is a small bio after this section on her.
A Plug for The Home Page:
Please Check out Earthrites.org home page: Earth Rites Home Page! for some new treats, articles and the like. Check out the Radio, The Sacred Elixirs Poetry and Talk Section, Dale Pendell’s Poetry, Diane Darlings article…and more! Stay Tuned, more on the way… The Poetry section will be expanding over the weeks, and we will be having semi-regular radio shows as well.
So come back frequently, and enjoy yourselves!
Talk Later,
Gwyllm
_____
The Featured Artist: Evelyn De Morgan
AKA Evelyn Pickering
Born: 30-Aug-1855
Birthplace: London, England
Died: 1919
Cause of death: unspecified
Remains: Buried, Brookwood Cemetery, London, England
British Pre-Raphaelite painter
De Morgan studied at the Slade School. She lived in Florence for a while with her Pre-Raphaelite painter uncle John Rodham Spencer Stanhope. She was influenced by Edward Burne-Jones and Sandro Botticelli.
Her best known painting is probably Ariadne in Naxos. Other well known paintings by De Morgan include Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund, Gloria In Excelsis, and The Love Potion.
Husband: William de Morgan (ceramicist; married 1887; died 1917)
Father: Percival Pickering (lawyer)
Mother: Anna Maria Wilhelmina Spencer-Stanhope
___________
The Links:
It took them 24 hours how to break the news that Mr. Cheney is not to be trusted with a gun…
Where do you stand?
Victorian Porn…
1967 anatomy book shows Japanese monster innards
Furnished home found in storm drain
___________
Cadmus & Harmonia (Matthew Arnold)

Far, far from here,
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the green Illyrian hills; and there
The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,
And by the sea, and in the brakes.
The grass is cool, the sea-side air
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
More virginal and sweet than ours.
And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes,
Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia,
Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore,
In breathless quiet, after all their ills;
Nor do they see their country, nor the place
Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills,
Nor the unhappy palace of their race,
Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more.
There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes!
They had stay’d long enough to see,
In Thebes, the billow of calamity
Over their own dear children roll’d,
Curse upon curse, pang upon pang,
For years, they sitting helpless in their home,
A grey old man and woman; yet of old
The Gods had to their marriage come,
And at the banquet all the Muses sang.
Therefore they did not end their days
In sight of blood, but were rapt, far away,
To where the west-wind plays,
And murmurs of the Adriatic come
To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and there
Placed safely in changed forms, the pair
Wholly forgot their first sad life, and home,
And all that Theban woe, and stray
For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.
__________________

Robert Anton Wilson commentary on
The Cantos of Ezra Pound

CANTO II
Ez told his father, Homer[!] Pound, that
the theme of metamorphoses dominates this canto
[I think Ez has multiple realities, not just mutltiple fathers.
He walks an uneasy waltz between Method Acting and Multiple
Personality Disorder, like some nitwit “channeling,”
but instead of producing their horsesht he somehow
produces great poetry. Robert Graves, oddly, said
all first-rate poetry emerges in semi-trance.
And Batty Billy Blake said a buncha naked angles
dictated his poems to him.]
This Canto seems psychedelic……..
HANG it all, Robert Browning,
a] Emphatic departure from
archaic style & subject of Canto I —
metamorphosis of English language/paideuma
over centuries
b] parody of the typical Browning opening
–abrupt, colloquial and definitely somebody
speaking to somebody else
c] parody of Ez’s own frequent use of that
style of opening in his early poems
(1907-1912)
there can be but the one “Sordello.”
But Sordello, and my Sordello?
The central “problems” of the Cantos–
can we know historic truth? And even
if we do, can we transmute it into
poetry without distorting it?
Which Sordello means more or has
the most accuracy — Browning’s?
Pound’s? The academic historian’s?
Metamorphosis of Sordello from
live man to dead man to man living
again in 3 forms: Browning’s
poetic imagination; Pound’s poetic
imagination; academic history…
Lo Sordels si fo di Mantovana.
One bit of certitude — the earliest biograpical
reference to Sordello begins with that
sentence. [EP quotes it in his earliest
prose work, The Sprit of Romance, 1909,
with author and date.] If we accept this “primary source,”
Sordello came from Mantovana;
if we doubt it for any reason we still retain a fact:
at least one contemporary
thought Sordello hailed from thar.
We shall hear more of Sordello.
Meanwhile:
So-Shu churned in the sea.
A sarcasm by Li Po about a rival poet;
it introduces China and re-introduces
the sea…[Li Po meant that So-Shu
created more foam than waves;
cf EP’s polemics against “mere
ornament” and Frank Lloyd Wright’s
similar & contemporary revolution
against “mere ornament” in architecture.]
Seal sports in the spray-whited circles of cliff-wash,
Sleek head, daughter of Lyr,
eyes of Picasso
Under black fur-hood, lithe daughter of Ocean;
And the wave runs in the beach-groove:
Lovely use of Imagism, I think.
Can’t “see” a seal anymore without
seeing that Picasso eye…
Metamorphosis of sea theme — Mediterranean [Canto I]
to Chinese waters
[So-Shu] to Irish Sea
Sea-god’s name also changes from
[Latin] Neptune to [Irish] Lyr
Seals as daughters of Lir = familiar
theme in Irish legend. Some seals even
metamorph into human women
and marry men. The men always become
heartbroken when the “wives”
turn back to seals and return
to the sea.
“Eleanor, Elenaus and Eliptolis!”
Metamorphs Helen of Troy — Elena
in Greek — to Eleanor of Acquataine,
coming up in Canto VI. Both women
credited with fantastic beauty and
blamed for wars somebody else started.
Cf later theme of “dangerous beauty”…
The dark [Kali] side of the Goddess.
Elenaus, Eliptolis = destroyer of
ships, destroyer of cities [from
Aeschylus] pun on Elena/Eleanor
And poor old Homer, blind, blind as a bat,
Not Ez’s dad, but the Greek poet [poets?];
Ez may also have in mind the author
of Ulysses, then struggling with blindness
Ear, ear for the sea-surge, murmer of old men’s voices:
Wunnerful, how the sea-surge enters the
rhythm as it entered the ears of the
blind poet
“Let her go back to the ships,
Back among Grecian faces, lest evil come on our own,
Evil and further evil, and a curse cursed on our children,
Moves, yes she moves like a goddess
And has the face of a god
and the voice of Schoeney’s daughters,
And doom goes with her in walking,
Let her go back to the ships,
back among Grecian voices.”
Translation from the Iliad, old men
of Troy worrying about Greek armies
coming to get Elena back.
Edith Sitwell loved the sea sound in
this passage. I love the way it mingles
that sea-rhythm with current speech patterns.
Classics no longer archaic as in
Canto I; EP making
Homer contemporary [just like Joyce]
“And doom goes with her on walking”:
I love that line; also love
“a curse cursed on our childen”
in which Sitwell heard two waves smashing
And by the beach-run, Tyro,
Twisted arms of the sea-god,
Lithe sinews of water, gripping her, cross-hold,
The rape of Tyro by sea-god Poseiden…
Why Greek gods often serial
rapists? Or do I digress? Schlain
blames it on the alphabet in
The Alphabet versus the Goddess…
Many hints in these early Canti of
overthrow of goddess religions
by god religions?
& I keep sensing Bucky Fuller’s
“mathematizing sea-god”….
“Lithe sinews of water”: Imagism +
sea and sea-gods as identical…
many names for same “thing”….
phantapoetics + logopoetics
[amid a lot of melopoetics]
From an early LSD trip: “The ancients
didn’t ‘think’ of the sea as a god —
they SAW it as a god!”
Sea as symbol of metamorphosis.
[EP detested symbolism in general
but that didn’t keep him from
using it when apt*]:
*”Beauty is aptness to purpose” — Ez,
Machine Art, 1930
Glare azure of water, cold-welter, close cover,
Quiet sun-tawny sand-stretch,
The gulls broad out their wings,
nipping between the splay feathers;
Snipe come for their bath,
bend out their wing-joints,
Spread wet wings to the sun-film,
Pure Imagism/phantopoetics
and IMO quite extraordinarily lovely
Now the major metamorphosis
via Ovid, Euripides and EP’s own
vivid imagist imagination:
And by Scios,
to left of the Naxos passage,
Naviform rock overgrown,
algae cling to its edge,
There is a wine-red glow in the shallows,
a tin flash in the sun-dazzle.
Those last 2 lines there may not rank
as greatest imagist couplet ever
but they have at least one nomination…
The ship landed in Scios,
men wanting spring-water,
And by the rock-pool a young boy loggy with vine-must,
“To Naxos? Yes, we’ll take you to Naxos,
Cum’ along lad.” “Not that way!”
“Aye, that way is Naxos.”
And I said: “It’s a straight ship.”
And an ex-convict out of Italy
knocked me into the fore-stays,
(He was wanted for manslaughter in Tuscany)
And the whole twenty against me,
Beginning of the story of Dionysus
kidnapped into slavery….
Mad for a little slave money.
Two of the major evils in Pound’s
universe — avarice and slavery —
joined in one line. Introduction
of economics theme. Note the
“mad”: in Richard St Victor, a major
source of structure in Cantos,
all obsessions = madness,
due to lack of balance.
These sailors thus continue the
Inferno of Canto I in a new form,
by metamorphosis
St Victor divided mind’s functions
into three: 1] mind without discipline,
driven by passions and obsessions;
2] disciplined rationality; 3] mind
united with objects or with allness
by love. EP uses these as analogs
of Dante’s Hell, Purgatory [purification/
alchemical Great Work] and Paradise.
More on that as we proceed!
And they took her out of Scios
And off her course…
And the boy came to, again, with the racket,
And looked out over the bows,
and to eastward, and to the Naxos passage.
God-sleight then, god-sleight:
Ship stock fast in sea-swirl,
Ivy upon the oars, King Pentheus,
Acoetes, the honest sailor, now in
Euripides Bachae, telling this story
as warning to Pentheus. Pentheus
tried to stamp out Dionysian relgion:
first image of religious bigotry
in the poem
Maybe EP also had in mind
what he later calls “the
constriction of Bachus” in U.S.
— alcohol prohibition.
grapes with no seed but sea-foam,
Ivy in scupper hole.
Aye, I, Acoetes, stood there,
and the god stood by me,
Water cutting under the keel,
Sea-break from stern forrards,
wake running off from the bow,
And where was gunwale, there now was vine-trunk,
And tenthril where cordage had been,
grape-leaves on the rowlocks,
Heavy vine on the oarshafts,
Emphasis on Dionysus as god of
vegetation, not just of wine
And now the great cats of Dionysus
appear, first as sound and sensation:
And, out of nothing, a breathing,
hot breath on my ankles,
Then starting to manifest in vision:
Beasts like shadows in glass,
a furred tail upon nothingness.
Smell, sound and sight combined:
Lynx-purr, and heathery smell of beasts,
where tar smell had been,
Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
eye-glitter out of black air.
The sky overshot, dry, with no tempest,
Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
fur brushing my knee-skin,
Rustle of airy sheaths,
dry forms in the aether.
And the ship like a keel in ship-yard,
slung like an ox in smith’s sling,
Ribs stuck fast in the ways,
grape-cluster over pin-rack,
void air taking pelt.
WoW!!! especially “void air taking pelt”
Those Magick Cats of Dionysus — Ez had a thing about
cats. Always had a dozen or more. Often a lot more.
Took in strays, the works. Hemingway called Ez
& Dorothy’s pad in Rapollo “the cat house.”
Lifeless air become sinewed,
feline leisure of panthers,
Leopards sniffing the grape shoots by scupper-hole,
Crouched panthers by fore-hatch,
And the sea blue-deep about us,
green-ruddy in shadows,
And Lyaeus: “From now, Acoetes, my altars,
Fearing no bondage,
fearing no cat of the wood,
Safe with my lynxes,
feeding grapes to my leopards,
Olibanum is my incense,
the vines grow in my homage.”
Lyaeus: anudder name for Dionysus.
I’ve read an interlinear [Latin/English]
Ovid and find his sound [melopoetic]
great as Pound’s but in imagery [phantapoetic]
EP wins by a neck. At least in this passage.
The back-swell now smooth in the rudder-chains,
Black snout of a porpoise
where Lycabs had been,
Fish-scales on the oarsmen.
And I worship.
I have seen what I have seen.
When they brought the boy I said:
“He has a god in him,
though I do not know which god.”
And they kicked me into the fore-stays.
I have seen what I have seen:
Medon’s face like the face of a dory,
Arms shrunk into fins. And you, Pentheus,
Had as well listen to Tiresias, and to Cadmus,
or your luck will go out of you.
Fish-scales over groin muscles,
lynx-purr amid sea…
The greedy sailors metamorphed to fish =
Pound’s view of avarice descending
to pre-human evolution.
And of a later year,
pale in the wine-red algae,
If you will lean over the rock,
the coral face under wave-tinge,
Rose-paleness under water-shift,
Ileuthyeria, fair Dafne of sea-bords,
The swimmer’s arms turned to branches,
Who will say in what year,
fleeing what band of tritons,
The smooth brows, seen, and half seen,
now ivory stillness.
Ileuthyria — Pound’s invention, combining
Eleuthyria, freedom, with Ieliethria,
goddess of childbirth. Cf later creation
of “Isis Kuanon,” final name of goddess
in closing Cantos — Egyptian goddess of
childbirth [and other mysteries] +
Chinese goddess of infinite mercy.
Arms to branches = metamorphosis
again. Cd refer to several classic myths
And So-shu churned in the sea, So-shu also,
using the long moon for a churn-stick…
Foam on the waves? + repeat
Lithe turning of water,
sinews of Poseidon,
Black azure and hyaline,
glass wave over Tyro,
Another repeat. Structure of Cantos
more like symphony than traditional
poesy. But do look at the montages
of Griffith’s Intolerance as another
influence.
Close cover, unstillness,
bright welter of wave-cords,
Then quiet water,
quiet in the buff sands,
Sea-fowl stretching wing-joints,
splashing in rock-hollows and sand-hollows
In the wave-runs by the half-dune;
Glass-glint of wave in the tide-rips against sunlight,
pallor of Hesperus,
Grey peak of the wave,
wave, colour of grapes’ pulp,
Olive grey in the near,
far, smoke grey of the rock-slide,
Salmon-pink wings of the fish-hawk
cast grey shadows in water,
The tower like a one-eyed great goose
cranes up out of the olive-grove,
Sometimes a tower like a one-eyed great goose means a tower
like a one-eyed great goose. “Call pork pork in your
proposals,” one of EP’s favorite Chinese Emperors
instructs his subalterns.
The haiku also influenced EP — not
the 5-7-5 rule but the juxtaposition
of precise images.
And we have heard the fauns chiding Proteus
Proteus: yet another sea-god but also
a god of metamorphoses…
in the smell of hay under the olive-trees,
And the frogs singing against the fauns
in the half-light.
And…
Fauns: permanence? Frogs: change?
I think of the fauns as permanent
because Crazy Uncle Ez defined gods, nymphs, dryads etc
as “eternal states of mind.”
Ends in mid-sentence again/
——–
CANTO XX
This Canto seems to me a summation of Cantos 1-19
with variations — new ideograms [concrete particulars]
illustrating major themes.
Sound slender, quasi tinnula,
Sou…slen…quas…
nice aliteration without Swinburnian
tub-thumping;
quasi tinnula, “as if ringing” [Catullus];
you can almost hear the ringing
Ligur’ aoide
“Sweet song” [Homer]; Odysseus from Canto I,
this time tempted
by the Sirens…more Odyssean themes will recur
in this Canto, and later
Ligur’ aoide: Si no’us vei, Domna don plus mi cal,
Negus vezer mon bel pensar no val.”
Si…us…plus…gus…pens…..
“And if I see you not, lady who enflames me,
No sight is worth the beauty of my thought”
[Bernart de Ventadom];
seductive beauty, like the Sirens’ song,
but not destructive [leads to
Tantrik contemplation
not to crashing on rocks];
recorso of Provencal cult -of- love theme
[Cantos 4-6]
Between the two almond trees flowering,
Two almond trees flowering: the uniquely
Poundian mix of simplicity and loveliness
The viel held close to his side;
And another: s’adora”.
“She is adored” [Cavalcanti]. I think Ez
takes this literally, a deliberate heresy against
Catholic orthodoxy,
and continuation of Provencal theme.
Cf Provencal/Cavalcaanti theme in Canto 6.
See EP’s essays “Psychology & Troubadours”
and “Cavalcanti” and maybe my Ishtar Rising.
[Dante put at least 2 of the Cavalcanti family
in Hell for heresy….]
“Possum ego naturae
non meminisse tuae!”
“Can I forget thy nature” or “thy inwit”
or “thy soul” [Propertius, praising Cynthia
for beauty not visible but felt];
EP cites this often in his prose as
proof that the troubadours did not
“invent” love, as cynics claim;
actually, Propertius praises Cynthia’s
kindness; cf Cunniza da Romano “who freed
her slaves on a Wednesday” [Cantos 6 & 30]
Qui son Properzio ed Ovidio.
Advice to go read Propertius and Ovid on amor
This “overture” combines English, Latin, Provencal,
Greek & Italian into a totally unique melodic structure
The boughs are not more fresh
where the almond shoots
take their March green.
Loverly, loverly
And that year I went up to Freiburg,
And Rennert had said: Nobody, no, nobody
Knows anything about Provencal, or if there is anybody,
It’s old Levy.”
Rennert & Levy: leading scholars in Provencal
language and poetry — the subject of Pound’s M.A.
thesis and a source of many of his translations.
One minor but persistent theme
in the Cantos: Ez’s effort to discover
what the troubadours really meant….
And so I went up to Freiburg,
And the vacation was just beginning,
The students getting off for the summer,
Freiburg im Breisgau,
And everything clean, seeming clean, after Italy.
An ideogram: German towns always seem
clean after Italy. Chew on it.
And I went to old Levy, and it was by then 6.30
in the evening, and he trailed half way across Freiburg
before dinner, to see the two strips of copy,
Arnaut’s, settant’uno R. superiore (Ambrosiana)
Not that I could sing him the music.
Note echo of sea-surge rhythm recurrent
since Canto I.
(the two strips of copy,
Arnaut’s, settant’uno R. superiore (Ambrosiana)):
MS. in which Dante uses a Provencal “word,” noigandres,
from troubadour Arnaut Daniel. The meaning of
this “word” remains in dispute
And he said: Now is there anything I can tell you?”
And I said: I dunno, sir, or
“Yes, Doctor, what do they mean by noigandres?”
And he said: Noigandres! NOIgandres!
“You know for seex mon’s of my life
“Effery night when I go to bett, I say to myself:
“Noigandres, eh, noigandres,
“Now what the DEFFIL can that mean!”
Levy did have a guess, which follows shortly
Wind over the olive trees, ranunculae ordered,
By the clear edge of the rocks
The water runs, and the wind scented with pine
And with hay-fields under sun-swath.
Agostino, Jacopo and Boccata.
You would be happy for the smell of that place
And never tired of being there, either alone
Or accompanied.
Sound: as of the nightingale too far off to be heard.
Sandro and Boccata, and Jacopo Sellaio;
The ranunculae, and almond,
Italian landscapes and painters [and aromas]
hinting of the paradiso terrestre coming at the climax
of the poem
Boughs set espalier.
Duccio, Agostino; e l’olors –
The smell of that place – d’enoi ganres.
Espalier: against the wall
l’olors: the aromas
d’enoi gangres: staves off boredom
[Old Levy’s surmise! it’s two words]
Air moving under the boughs,
The cedars there in the sun,
Hay new cut on hill slope,
The last line uses monosylables to create
a chopped effect, as in EP’s Chinese translations.
He thought English verse had become too legato.
And the water there in the cut
Between the two lower meadows; sound,
the sound, as I have said, a nightingale
Too far off to be heard.
And the light falls, remir,
from her breasts to thighs.
remir: I gaze; another Provencal word
from Arnaut. This part of the paradiso
seems Franco-Italian….
He was playing there at the palla,
Parisina – two doves for an altar – at the window,
” E’l Marchese
Stava per divenir pazzo
after it all.” And that was when Troy was down
Parsina Malatesta, cousin of Sigismundo [Cantos 8-11]
married Nicolo d’Este [El Marchese.]
When convinced she had an affair with his
son, Nic had them both beheaded.
Stava per divenir pazzo: and then he went
nutz [presumably from grief/guilt?]
Echo of Helen of Troy [Canto 2]
In general, Pound sees Rennaisance “villians”
as passion-driven, modern “villians” greed-driven.
[& once again, unlike Dante, Ez allows
for ambiguities and mixed cases]
Borso d’Este, 3rd son of Nic, continually
tried to bring peace between warring
Italian states.
And they came here and cut holes in rock,
Down Rome way, and put up the timbers;
And came here, condit Atesten…
History of d’Este family
“Peace! keep the peace, Borso.”
Borso d’Este, 3rd son of Nic, continually
tried to bring peace between warring
Italian states.
And he said: Some bitch has sold us
(that was Ganelon)
Nic Este becomes Roland, betrayed to the Moors
by Ganelon. Cf editing in Griffith’s Intolerance
[EP follows Chanson Roland, poem not history//
cf openings of Cantos 2 and 8….]
“They wont get another such ivory.”
[Roland’s horn high quality]
And he lay there on the round hill under the cedar
A little to the left of the cut (Este speaking)
By the side of the summit, and he said:
“I have broken the horn, bigod, I have
“Broke the best ivory, l’olofans.”
Jumping back and forth between Este and Roland:
the common theme, betrayal of trust
The ivory was from an elephant;
Roland broke the horn over the skull of
an Arab sent to finish him off…..
Understated irony: Roland is dying
but fusses about a broken horn
And he said:
“Tan mare fustes!”
Roland’s last words, in the Chanson.
“The wrong time.” EP often cited this as an example
of the power of brevity.
pulling himself over the gravel,
“Bigod! that buggar is done for,
“They wont get another such ivory.”
And they were there before the wall, Toro, las almenas,
(Este, Nic Este speaking)
Este “becomes” the Spanish national hero, El Cid,
no longer “being” Roland.
[“bigod,” “bugger” etc.: EP believed in following
the tone & style of the original, not making
all antient script sound like Queen James Bible.]
Under the battlement
(Epi purgo) peur de la hasle,
And the King said:
“God what a woman!
My God what a woman” said the King telo rigido.
“Sister!” says Ancures, “‘s your sister!”
Alf left that town to Elvira, and Sancho wanted
It from her, Toro and Zamora.
“Bloody spaniard!
More scraps from the Poema del Cid.
The king got a hard-on [telo rigido] and then felt
abashed to learn the woman was his sister.
We see Eros in many forms in this Canto.
Neestho, le’er go back…
The English translates the Greek. Echo from
Canto 2: Helen again. “Let her go back to the ships”
in the autumn.”
“Este, go’ damn you.” between the walls, arras,
Painted to look like arras.
Jungle:
Glaze green and red feathers, jungle,
Basis of renewal, renewals;
Rising over the soul, green virid, of the jungle,
Lozenge of the pavement, clear shapes,
Broken, disrupted, body eternal,
Wilderness of renewals, confusion
Basis of renewals, subsistence,
Glazed green of the jungle;
Post-Darwinian view of nature as process,
not “thing.” Subject-rhyme with the many appearances
of Dionysus & Chinese fertility-gods. Damn
good rhythms in there too.
Zoe, Marozia, Zothar,
loud over the banners,
Glazed grape, and the crimson,
Este thinking of other unfaithful wives;
imagery of delerium
HO BIOS,
cosi Elena vedi,
LIFE,
where Helen walked

Eros combines joy, love and the continuation
of fertility? Sorta…
In the sunlight, gate cut by the shadow; And then the faceted air: Floating. Below, sea churning shingle. Floating, each on invisible raft, On the high current, invisible fluid, Borne over the plain, recumbent, The right arm cast back, the right wrist for a pillow, The left hand like a calyx, Thumb held against finger, the third, The first fingers petal’d up, the hand as a lamp, A calyx. From toe to head The purple, blue-pale smoke, as of incense; Wrapped each in burnous, smoke as the olibanum’sSwift, as if joyous.Wrapped, floating; and the blue-pale smoke of the incense Swift to rise, then lazily in the wind as Aeolus over bean-field, As hay in the sun, the olibanum, saffron, As myrrh without styrax; Each man in his cloth, as on raft, on The high invisible current; On toward the fall of water; And then over that cataract, In air, strong, the bright flames, V shaped;
Another kind of paradiso–but Ez does not identify
it immediately
Nel fuoco
D’amore mi mise, nel fuoco d’amore mi mise…
& yet another kind of paradiso: St Francis’s
“In the fire of love He has me,
in the fire of love He has me”
Yellow, bright saffron, croceo;
And as the olibanum bursts into flame,
The bodies so flamed in the air, took flame,
“…Mi mise, il mio sposo novello.”
[“… has me, my new spouse.”
This Canto may record indirectly the beginning
of Ez’s affair with violinist Olga Rudge and
his wife’s briefer affair with an unknown Egyptian.]
Shot from stream into spiral,
Or followed the water. Or looked back to the flowing;
Others approaching that cataract,
As to dawn out of shadow, the swathed cloths
Now purple and orange,
And the blue water dusky beneath them,
pouring there into the cataract,
With noise of sea over shingle,
striking with:
hah hah ahah thmm thunb, ah
woh woh araha thumm, bhaaa.
And from the floating bodies, the incense
blue-pale, purple above them.
Shelf of the lotophagoi,
[lotus-eaters from Homer. It was their Paradise
we visited before St. Francis’s!]
Le paradis ne c’est pas artificiel
but is jagged
For a flash
for an hour
Then agony.
Then an hour
— Canto 90-something
writ in ye olde bugg house
paraphrasing baudilaire
I think he meant Baud was stoned on dope but he, Ez, wasn’t;
I see no evidence that Ez ever got stoned.
But he did pranayama everyday and spent
40some years meditatin’
on Chinese ideograms like cloud over
falling rain over
dancing shaman
which he finally rendered “sensibility.”
Chinese + pranayama may = “stoned” perception……
Aerial, cut in the aether.
Reclining,
With the silver spilla,
The ball as of melted amber, coiled, caught up, and turned.
Lotophagoi of the suave nails, quiet, scornful,
Voce-profondo:
” Feared neither death nor pain for this beauty;
If harm, harm to ourselves.”
[Wot all us dopers say….]
And beneath: the clear bones, far down,
Thousand on thousand,
” What gain with Odysseus,
” They that died in the whirlpool
” And after many vain labours,
” Living by stolen meat, chained to the rowingbench,
” That he should have a great fame
” And lie by night with the goddess?
” Their names are not written in bronze
” Nor their rowing sticks set with Elpenor’s”;
Nor have they mourned by sea-bord.
” That saw never the olives under Spartha
” With the leaves green and then not green,
” The click of light in their branches;
” That saw not the bronze hall nor the ingle
” Nor lay there with the queen’s waiting maids,
” Nor had they Circe to couch-mate, Circe Titania,
” Nor had they meats of Kalupso
” Or her silk shirts brushing their thighs.
” Give! What were they given?
Ear-wax.
” Poison and ear-wax,
[so they wdn’t hear the Sirens’ song]
and a salt grave by the bull-field,
” neson amumona, their heads like sea crows in the foam,
” Black splotches, sea-weed under lightning;
” Canned beef of Apollo, ten cans for a boat load.”
Ligur’ aoide.
“Sweet song” — used ironically now.
This powerful and powerfully rhythmic passage
marks a turning point. Occidental individualism
seen as flawed at the root. Cf “the poor devils
dying of cold” in Cantos 9, 10; the trenches
of World War I in Canto 16….
Rescuing a sane
individualism and merging it with a
sane holism represent the major task
Ez set himself in the Cantos
And from the plain whence the water-shoot,
Across, back, to the right, the roads, a way in the grass,
The Khan’s hunting leopard, and young Salustio
And Ixotta; the suave turf
Ac farae familiares, and the cars slowly,
and the panthers, soft-footed.
Malatesta wealth….leopard from an unknown Khan…
ac farae familiares: wild animals
[sounds like Citizen Kane’s Xanadu];
Salustio Malatesta: murdered by his brother;
Ixotta: Sigismundo’s beloved, to whom the
Temple is dedicated.
Plain, as the plain of Somnus,
the heavy cars, as a triumph,
Gilded, heavy on wheel,
and the panthers chained to the cars,
Over suave turf, the foam wrapped,
Rose, crimson, deep crimson,
And, in the blue dusk, a colour as of rust in the sunlight,
Out of white cloud, moving over the plain,
Head in arm’s curve, reclining;
The road, back and away, till cut along the face of the rock,
And the cliff folds in like a curtain,
The road cut in under the rock
Square groove in the cliff’s face, as chiostri,
The columns crystal, with peacocks cut in the capitals,
The soft pad of beasts dragging the cars;
Cars, slow, without creak,
And at windows in inner roadside:
le donne e i cavalieri
smooth face under hennin,
The sleeves embroidered with flowers,
Great thistle of gold, or an amaranth,
Acorns of gold, or of scarlet,
Cramoisi and diaspre
slashed white into velvet;
Crystal columns, acanthus, sirens in the pillar heads;
And at last, between gilded barocco,
Two columns coiled and fluted,
Vanoka, leaning half naked,
waste hall there behind her.
The images and sounds transcend even Canto 2…..
” Peace!
Borso…, Borso!”
A cry for Borso d’Este, who tried to bring
peace to Italy
commentary Copyright: Robert Anton Wilson
___________

Dealing with Celtic Themes… Tir-na-n-Og is a central theme of the belief system of the Tribes that lived in Ireland, though the theme is repeated amongst other Tribes, say in Britain etc. This is the lands to the west, immortal, joyous, where the soul ventures to after death for renewal before rebirth. It is not restricted to the dead though, for bold voyagers and adventurers made their way there and came back to tell the tales of there times there.
You will find an article and 2 poems dealing with the Theme today, plus the usual links.
A blessing on your house.
Gwyllm
___________
The Links:
Deadline with a feline
New Analysis Shows Three Human Migrations Out Of Africa – Replacement Theory ‘demolished’
Stone Age tribe kills fishermen
Baby feeds on dog’s milk
A Sun Pillar in Red and Violet
Germany’s gay zoo penguins still fending off female advances
________
The Article: T’YEER-NA-N-OGE
There is a country called Tír-na-n-Og, which means the Country of the Young, for age and death have not found it; neither tears nor loud laughter have gone near it. The shadiest boskage covers it perpetually. One man has gone there and returned. The bard, Oisin, who wandered away on a white horse, moving on the surface of the foam with his fairy Niamh, lived there three hundred years, and then returned looking for his comrades. The moment his foot touched the earth his three hundred years fell on him, and he was bowed double, and his beard swept the ground. He described his sojourn in the Land of Youth to Patrick before he died. Since then many have seen it in many places; some in the depths of lakes, and have heard rising therefrom a vague sound of bells; more have seen it far off on the horizon, as they peered out from the western cliffs. Not three years ago a fisherman imagined that he saw it. It never appears unless to announce some national trouble.
There are many kindred beliefs. A Dutch pilot, settled in Dublin, told M. De La Boullage Le Cong, who travelled in Ireland in 1614, that round the poles were many islands; some hard to be approached because of the witches who inhabit them and destroy by storms those who seek to land. He had once, off the coast of Greenland, in sixty-one degrees of latitude, seen and approached such an island only to see it vanish. Sailing in an opposite direction, they met with the same island, and sailing near, were almost destroyed by a furious tempest.
According to many stories, Tír-na-n-Og: is the favourite dwelling of the fairies. Some say it is triple-the island of the living, the island of victories, and an underwater land.
—————

Poem: HY-BRASAIL–THE ISLE OF THE BLEST
Gerald Griffin
On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,
A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;
Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,
And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest.
From year unto year on the ocean’s blue rim,
The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;
The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,
And it looked like an Eden, away, far away!
A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,
In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;
From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,
For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest.
He heard not the voices that called from the shore–
He heard not the rising wind’s menacing roar;
Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day,
And he sped to Hy-Brasail, away, far away!
Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,
O’er the faint rim of distance, reflected its smile;
Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore
Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;
Lone evening came down on the wanderer’s track,
And to Ara again he looked timidly back;
Oh! far on the verge of the ocean it lay,
Yet the isle of the blest was away, far away!
Rash dreamer, return! O, ye winds of the main,
Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.
Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss,
To barter thy calm life of labour and peace.
The warning of reason was spoken in vain;
He never revisited Ara again!
Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,
And he died on the waters, away, far away!
___________
Poetry: The Voyage of Bran
To the Land of the Living
It was fifty quatrains the woman from unknown lands sang on the floor of the house to
Bran son of Febal, when the royal house was full of kings,
who knew not whence the woman had come, since the ramparts were closed.

This is the beginning of the story. One day,
in the neighbourhood of his stronghold,
Bran went about alone, when he heard music behind him.
As often as he looked back, ’twas still behind him the music was.
At last he fell asleep at the music, such was its sweetness.
When he awoke from his sleep,
he saw close by him a branch of silver with white blossoms,
nor was it easy to distinguish its bloom from that branch.
Then Bran took the branch in his hand to his royal house.
When the hosts were in the royal house,
they saw a woman in strange raiment on the floor of the house. ‘
Twas then she sang the fifty quatrains to Bran,
while the host heard her, and all beheld the woman.
And she said:
‘A branch of the apple-tree from Emain
I bring, like those one knows;
Twigs of white silver are on it,
Crystal brows with blossoms.
‘ There is a distant isle,
Around which sea-horses glisten:
A fair course against the white-swelling surge,
Four feet uphold it.
‘A delight of the eyes, a glorious range,
Is the plain on which the hosts hold games:
Coracle contends against chariot
In southern Mag Findargat.
‘Feet of white bronze under it
Glittering through beautiful ages.
Lovely land throughout the world’s age,
On which the many blossoms drop.
‘An ancient tree there is with blossoms,
On which birds call to the Hours.
‘Tis in harmony it is their wont
To call together every Hour.
‘Splendours of every colour glisten
Throughout the gentle-voiced plains.
Joy is known, ranked around music,
In southern Mag Argatné
‘Unknown is wailing or treachery
In the familiar cultivated land,
There is nothing rough or harsh,
But sweet music striking on the ear.
‘Without grief, without sorrow, without death,
Without any sickness, without debility,
That is the sign of Emain –
Uncommon is an equal marvel.

‘A beauty of a wondrous land,
Whose aspects are lovely,
Whose view is a fair country,
Incomparable is its haze.
‘Then if Aircthech is seen,
On which dragonstones and crystals drop
The sea washes the wave against the land,
Hair of crystal drops from its mane.

‘Wealth, treasures of every hue,
Are in Ciuin, a beauty of freshness,
Listening to sweet music,
Drinking the best of wine.
‘Golden chariots in Mag Réin,
Rising with the tide to the sun,
Chariots of silver in Mag Mon,
And of bronze without blemish.

‘Yellow golden steeds are on the sward there,
Other steeds with crimson hue,
Others with wool upon their backs
Of the hue of heaven all-blue.
‘At sunrise there will come
A fair man illumining level lands;
He rides upon the fair sea-washed plain,
He stirs the ocean till it is blood.

‘A host will come across the clear sea,
To the land they show their rowing;
Then they row to the conspicuous stone,
From which arise a hundred strains.
‘It sings a strain unto the host
Through long ages, it is not sad,
lts music swells with choruses of hundreds-
They look for neither decay nor death.
‘Many-shaped Emne by the sea,
Whether it be near, whether it be far,
In which are many thousands of motley women,
Which the clear sea encircles.
‘If he has heard the voice of the music,
The chorus of the little birds from Imchiuin,
A small band of women will come from a height
To the plain of sport in which he is.

‘There will come happiness with health
To the land against which laughter peals,
Into Imchiuin at every season
Will come everlasting joy.
‘It is a day of lasting weather
That showers silver on the lands,
A pure-white cliff on the range of the sea,
Which from the sun receives its heat.
‘The host race along Mag Mon,
A beautiful game, not feeble,
In the variegated land over a mass of beauty
They look for neither decay nor death.
‘Listening to music at night,
And going into Ildathach,
A variegated land, splendour on a diadem of beauty,
Whence the white cloud glistens.

‘There are thrice fifty distant isles
In the ocean to the west of us;
Larger than Erin twice
Is each of them, or thrice.
‘A great birth will come after ages,
That will not be in a lofty place,
The son of a woman whose mate will not be known,
He will seize the rule of the many thousands.

‘A rule without beginning, without end,
He has created the world so that it is perfect,
Whose are earth and sea,
Woe to him that shall be under His unwill!
‘Tis He that made the heavens,
Happy he that has a white heart,
He will purify hosts under pure water,
‘Tis He that will heal your sicknesses.

‘Not to all of you is my speech,
Though its great marvel has been made known:
Let Bran hear from the crowd of the world
What of wisdom has been told to him.
‘Do not fall on a bed of sloth,
Let not thy intoxication overcome thee,
Begin a voyage across the clear sea,
If perchance thou mayst reach the land of women.

Thereupon the woman went from them,
while they knew not whither she went.
And she took her branch with her.
The branch sprang from Bran’s hand into the hand of the woman,
nor was there strength in Bran’s hand to hold the branch.
Then on the morrow Bran went upon the sea.
The number of his men was three companies of nine.
One of his foster-brothers and mates was set over each of the three companies of nine.
When he had been at sea two days and two nights,
he saw a man in a chariot coming towards him over the sea.
That man also sang thirty other quatrains to him,
and made himself known to him,
and said that he was Manannan the son of Ler,
and said that it was upon him to go to Ireland after long ages,
and that a son would be bom to him,
even Mongan son of Fiachna-that was the name which would be upon him.
So he sang these thirty quatrains to him:
‘Bran deems it a marvellous beauty
In his coracle across the clear sea:
While to me in my chariot from afar
It is a flowery plain on which he rides about.
‘What is a clear sea
For the prowed skiff in which Bran is,
That is a happy plain with profusion of flowers
To me from the chariot of two wheels.
‘Bran sees the number of waves beating across the clear sea:
I myself see in Mag Mon
Red-headed flowers without fault.
‘Sea-horses glisten in summer
As far as Bran has stretched his glance:
Rivers pour forth a stream of honey
In the land of Manannan son of Ler.
‘The sheen of the main, on which thou art,
The white hue of the sea, on which thou rowest about,
Yellow and azure are spread out,
It is land, and is not rough.
‘Speckled salmon leap from the womb
Of the white sea, on which thou lookest:
They are calves, they are coloured lambs
With friendliness, without mutual slaughter.
‘Though (but) one chariot-rider is seen
In Mag Mell of many flowers,
There are many steeds on its surface,
Though them thou seest not.
‘The size of the plain, the number of the host,
Colours glisten with pure glory,
A fair stream of silver, cloths of gold,
Afford a welcome with all abundance.
‘A beautiful game, most delightful,
They play (sitting) at the luxurious wine,
Men and gentle women under a bush,
Without sin, without crime.
‘Along the top of a wood has swum
Thy coracle across ridges,
There is a wood of beautiful fruit
Under the prow of thy little skiff.
‘A wood with blossom and fruit,
On which is the vine’s veritable fragrance,
A wood without decay, without defect,
On which are leaves of golden hue.
‘We are from the beginning of creation
Without old age, without consummation of earth,
Hence we expect not that there should be frailty,
The sin has not come to us.
‘An evil day when the Serpent went
To the father to his city!
She has perverted the times in this world,
So that there came decay which was not original.
‘By greed and lust he has slain us,
Through which he has ruined his noble race:
The withered body has gone to the fold of torment,
And everlasting abode of torture.
‘It is a law of pride in this world
To believe in the creatures, to forget God,
Overthrow by diseases, and old age,
Destruction of the soul through deception.
‘A noble salvation will come
From the King who has created us,
A white law will come over seas,
Besides being God, He will be man.
‘This shape, he on whom thou lookest,
Will come to thy parts;
‘Tis mine to journey to her house,
To the woman in Line-mag.
‘For it is Moninnan, the son of Ler,
From the chariot in the shape of a man,
Of his progeny will be a very short while
A fair man in a body of white clay.

‘Monann, the descendant of Ler, will be
A vigorous bed-fellow to Caintigern:
He shall be called to his son in the beautiful world,
Fiachna will acknowledge him as his son.
‘He will delight the company of every fairy-knoll,
He will be the darling of every goodly land,
He will make known secrets-a course of wisdom-
In the world, without being feared.
‘He will be in the shape of every beast,
Both on the azure sea and on land,
He will be a dragon before hosts at the onset,
He will be a wolf of every great forest.
‘He will be a stag with horns of silver
In the land where chariots are driven,
He will be a speckled salmon in a full pool,
He will be a seal, he will be a fair-white swan.
‘He will be throughout long ages
An hundred years in fair kingship,
He will cut down battalions,-a lasting grave-
He will redden fields, a wheel around the track.
‘It will be about kings with a champion
That he will be known as a valiant hero,
Into the strongholds of a land on a height
I shall send an appointed end from Islay.
‘High shall I place him with princes,
He will be overcome by a son of error;
Moninnan, the son of Ler,
Will be his father, his tutor.
‘He will be-his time will be short-
Fifty years in this world:
A dragonstone from the sea will kill him
In the fight at Senlabor.
‘He will ask a drink from Loch Ló,
While he looks at the stream of blood,
The white host will take him under a wheel of clouds
To the gathering where there is no sorrow.
‘Steadily then let Bran row,
Not far to the Land of Women,
Emne with many hues of hospitality
Thou wilt reach before the setting of the sun.’
Thereupon Bran went from him. And he saw an island.
He rows round about it, and a large host was gaping and laughing.
They were all looking at Bran and his people,
but would not stay to converse with them.
They continued to give forth gusts of laughter at them.
Bran sent one of his people on the island.
He ranged himself with the others,
and was gaping at them like the other men of the island.
He kept rowing round about the island.
Whenever his man came past Bran,
his comrades would address him.
But he would not converse with them,
but would only look at them and gape at them.
The name of this island is the Island of Joy.
Thereupon they left him there.
It was not long thereafter when they reached the Land of Women.
They saw the leader of the women at the port.
Said the chief of the women: ‘Come hither on and,
O Bran son of Febal! Welcome is thy advent!’
Bran did not venture to go on shore.
The woman throws a ball of thread to Bran straight over his face.
Bran put his hand on the ball, which clave to his palm.
The thread of the ball was in the woman’s hand,
and she pulled the coracle towards the port.
Thereupon they went into a large house,
in which was a bed for every couple, even thrice nine beds.
The food that was put on every dish vanished not from them.
It seemed a year to them that they were there
,-it chanced to be many years.
No savour was wanting to them.
Home-sickness seized one of them, even Nechtan the son of Collbran.
His kindred kept praying Bran that he should go to Ireland with him.
The woman said to them their going would make them rue.
However, they went,
and the woman said that none of them should touch the land,
and that they should visit and take with them the man whom they had left in the Island of Joy.
Then they went until they arrived at a gathering at Srub Brain.
The men asked of them who it was came over the sea.
Said Bran: ‘I am Bran the son of Febal,’ saith he.
However, the other saith: ‘We do not know such a one,
though the Voyage of Bran is in our ancient stories.’
The man leaps from them out of the coracle.
As soon as he touched the earth of Ireland,
forthwith he was a heap of ashes,
as though he had been in the earth for many hundred years.
‘Twas then that Bran sang this quatrain:
‘For Collbran’s son, great was the folly
To lift his hand against age,
Without any one casting a wave of pure water
Over Nechtan, Collbran’s son.’
Thereupon,
to the people of the gathering Bran told all his wanderings from the beginning until that time.
And he wrote these quatrains in Ogam, and then bade them farewell.
And from that hour his wanderings are not known.