"How about The Star..."
...and again !
..... (where is that quote from ? )
Here is the full qoute. I bumped into it one day and found that it expressed my
pagan practice perfectly (i.e. why am I so fascinated with doing things at night under the light of the full moon?
):
"And where shall we get religion?
Beneath the open sky.
The sphere of crystal silence is surcharged with Deity.
The midnight earth sends incense up, sweet with the breath of prayer.
Go out beneath the naked night and get religion there!" - Sam Walter Foss.
" But to love me is better than all things: if under the night stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour. Ye shall gather goods and store of women and spices; ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in splendour & pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my joy. I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich headdress. I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me! "
Ah yes - I recognise the Goddesses charge.
Where does this quote come from ravenest??
Here is a brief re-working of it in the form of 'The Charge of The Goddess' by Doreen Valiente (the "mother of modern witchcraft' - witchcraft in the sense of modern British Wicca):
"...then shall you assemble in some secret place and adore the spirit of Me, Who am Queen of all Witcheries...
For mine is the ecstasy of the spirit, and Mine also is joy on Earth; My law is love unto all beings.
Here you the words of the Star Goddess... the dust of Who's feet are the hosts of heaven, and Whose body encircles the universe."
My favourite bit:
"I am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon amoungst the stars. ...the mystery of the waters and the desire in the heart of Man."
"And know, that if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee - for behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire".
(rather a lot of thees and thous etc. stuffed in here for an "aged" feel - but you get the gist of it).
Who are you ! ?
Who am I? (
the perfect Koan).
I am Tanga - my full names translating as: "The oracle that sees clearly, with appropriate womanly demeanor, descended from the Man with feathers-on-his-head (a great East African warrior ancestor apparently) and married to the Man descended-from-the-otter's-dell (some mysterious boggy place in the middle of Devon, UK).
Lol.
... I like this card EVEN MORE now !
For some reason I am thinking of 'shining', the idea of 'radiation' , as in Ki or Chi projection ; that is ... not just through a 'technique' one is executing with that part of the body, but the whole body; the fingers, the pores of the skin, and particularly the eyes (but that just might be because I am about to go to kobudo training ... I will take the star energy with me
)
Me too - on both counts.
Can I take The Star energy into my Wing Tsun class...
Aha! I see the setting for an exciting new persona in this arena coming on... thankyou ravenest!
A Star in the sky after all - is unattainable - like the idea of the 'The Ghost Warrior' (which is my Wing Tsun master's parallel imagery), they're not there when you try to get 'em - and oooh how they do shine with that calm (non-telegraphic) and alert demeanor. A constant that seems that it will go on indefinitely.
... hung on a hook > The Star > Tzaddi > fish hook .
There is something wonderful about the name Ereshkigal
Yeah - I forgot about that bit. Ofcourse the fish hook!
I've always loved that name Ereshkigal.
I always find this interesting as 'down' here we have no pole star ... our 'pole', is of course the 'opposite' just a dark void place (relatively), direction comes from nearby star calculations. A bit like we have a 'polar polarity' going (
... dhur ravenest! ) ; Hadit - star - north , Nuit - space - south.
No pole star - perfect polarity.
And you have mewling wombats and kicking kangaroos 'down' there (that kick right through "the centre line" -
aiming for "the heart of the centre line" being a Wing Tsun principle plus me remembering a fab youtube video of a pair of kicking kangaroos).
And from closrapexa's quote: "For me the Star represents many things, among them Silence, the essence of Self... Both Everything and Nothing."
Yes! - bring on the silence of the void!
One of my Stars (Gendron Tarot deck) is depicted as a cowled woman sitting in serene crossed legged meditation, floating in the middle of the sky - stars above, earth below, and her heart chakra glowing.
Finding "the essence of Self" - Advaita - Sanskrit for everything and nothing - at one with all.
The caption for this card here reads: "Holy One, I am filled with your Grace."
Yummy.
