Saturday, May 24, 2014

Lord of Life, Lord of Death, Rising Sun, and Man's Last Breath...



A candle. A stick of incense. A broken heart. Little did I know that these things three would act as the beginning of the greatest spiritual transformation of my life. The first capitulation to the sudden and incessant presence of One I had not recognised, yet undeniably felt. His name a whisper of forgotten memories, dancing with all the ethereal laughter of ancient boughs on a summer wind.

"Cernunnos....Cernunnos....Cernunnos..."

A name, a title, yet so much more. Wearing eons for a cloak, and antlers for a crown. And how do you describe the majesty of such things? Being in a darkened room. Knowing neither peace nor confidence in what you are doing, yet only that do it you must. A whispered apology for nothing to offer this One, and rather than reproach, or the silence you expect after silence for so long, feeling the very air around you weighted with a power so dense, so all encompassing, that it steals the breath in your lungs with awe and electrifies your soul. So foreign that it frightens you. And you cannot turn away, for to Him you have come, and His ear has He given.

The gentle voice, so strong and wild, that soothes you. "Worry not, child. Compared to how things once were, do you know how few even speak to me, anymore?"

I forgot that He had called me there. Such a place had ceased to be my room. Transfigured into a crossroads. A unification of worlds, and the destruction of the one I had known. I lingered in that moment, the closest I had ever been to eternity and nothingness at once. I felt bidden to speak, for He was here to listen. I asked that I might know Him. Befriend Him. And whether He wished to do the same. One strong yes, after another, danced by the string of a pendulum.

I asked to see Him then. For Him to manifest to me. And in that request, His first lesson began. Overcome was I then. A feeling so jarring, and severe, seperating my conscious mind from my physical surroundings. I was utterly unprepared for it, and I asked Him to stop. He did, and as quickly as it washed over me, it was gone. A chuckle, then. The amused laughter of a teacher with which I have become so familiar.


"I thought that's what you wanted."
Stuttering, I asked to end the meeting. That fatherly warmth prickled my skin again, still full of laughter. Again the answer was yes. Skepticism flooded my thoughts as I extinguished the candle and incense. This was all in my head. Yes, of course.

Then aslumber, I dreamt. Of rugged and archaic trees, standing as sentinels around a clearing that I would return to again and again. Emerging from those darksome woods and into the light stood He, smiling. As if to say, "This is all I was going to show you."

The next morning, my mother described to me the energetic charge in the air that kept waking her from sleep, until she saw dancing points of light in the blackness of her room. Lingering only for a moment before departing with a friendly laugh. And I knew then, that it was not in my head.

"I have already taught you something, haven't I?" His voice returned, independently of me. "This is an older way of belief. Things do not work in the way you are used to. You must take care what you ask for, and what you call into being, for you will certainly get it." I asked Him to appear to me. I wanted a sign. Yet I did not know what that could mean, and so his initial, and most powerful lesson to me has been to always, always consider the consequences. He was there for more, however.

I could not have known it would be to facilitate my death.

Not the physical one, you understand. (Though Lord Cernunnos is also seen as a psychopompous.) Death has been the most prominently apparent aspect of his personality in my relations with Him. That for one thing to be, another must cease. That what is "good" must be exchanged for what is better. That inhibitions, where they prevent you from growing, must be culled.


"You will not even recognise yourself before we are through."
Through him, I have learned that change, while sometimes painful, is the conduit through which life can flourish. That all things begin, and all things end, yet that is never the final destination. That life is a never ending labyrinth, where in getting lost, you can be found. I feel like I'm shedding my skin, to become something new entirely.

Magick is, above all, the process of transformation. And like all personal transformations, begins as an internal process. It is a realignment of attitude, whereby through focus, will, and intent, the world we experience is changed, manifested into external reality by what we hold in our minds.

Without Him, I do not think I would be experiencing this. "The Long Death." Yet it should instead be called, "The Great Rebirth."

For that is exactly what it is turning out to be.


"The only way, young one...is forward."

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