Part VI

A table of carnal pleasures spread out with the magic of perfumer,
Could arouse the desire of the driest of souls, even sexual late-bloomer.
Who could resist the altar of that compelling delightful allure,
Whose lusty aromas elicit eager declarations full of je ardour.
To heartily partake of this fine feast on you it is thoroughly incumbent,
While you lie there obsessively fixated, inhaling prone and recumbent.

The trick to magick is never question the truth of this supposition:
Magick is real, not merely the fickle result of gross superstition.
Deeply inhale the adamant essence of that aromatic fumage,
Wafted through an airy atmosphere by fans of peacocks’ plumage.
Even in mythological olden days, the most eldritch, ancient Druid,
Had in his hoary medicine kit many a mind-bending aromatic fluid.

A tender assault of many odiferous concoctions, primal and elemental,
Relay olfactory rhymes to quell even the hotly temperamental.
Like the gleam of golden electrum is the desirous fire of spices’ strife;
Cool herbal prescriptives whose moisture is the healing water of life.
Bask in the pristine air of fragrant soothing flowers’ flights,
And nestle into the eternity of liquified earthiness of resinous delights.

Lavished on maidenhood’s fair delicate skin, lilies so pale and lunar,
The attack of a lascivious nasal orgy of a wild, sensuous communer.
Rich-smelling oils to sooth the complexion and lubricate the derma,
Skate over the body on emotional thin ice or trustworthy terra firma.
We are gently driven by the immediate scent of organic compulsion,
Then married together in a lusciously viscous therapeutic emulsion.

The sexual desire of concupiscence makes luminous flourescence,
Alchemistic magick even led to the discovery of phosphorescence.
As the notes concur, let them settle down and not evaporate too rapid;
Let the scents converge and condense, never spiritless nor vapid.
Now enthralled by the taboo of perfumer’s delicious mystique,
Incence casts an olfactory spell, a tableau very direct, not oblique.

Condensation from gaseous to liquid state is an effervescent waterfall,
The delightful vaporization of which has kept many a beau in thrall.
Eau de toillete and rich pomades of  beeswax, the emollient component,
Make the best use of the vaporous enflourage, the headiest exponent.
Each perfumer has their own signature, formulae ravishingly stylistic;
We keep trying to match the magnetism of pheromones, very idealistic.

Cool camphor and aloes, skim over us like a sea-breeze, balmy,
Or the sandalwood and patchouli that remind us of an eastern swami.
Capturing our immediate attention, perfume casts a fabulous glamour,
Recalling visions of days of lassitude on a high-seas windjammer.
Each fragrance captures a quintessence and therein lies the moral,
Awakening slumbering emotion, dreams of musk, amber and coral.

Who could have guessed from common experience as natural breather;
Who has not had that experience past perfect, now, nor future, either?
Just mere intake of these mystical scents can make us erotically exalted,
And locks in close memories, which our vanity keeps forever vaulted.
Turn the tables; nose and lungs are no longer just organs of breathing,
Their true function is for a sacred atmosphere of sanctity bequething.

In the Book of Jubilee,
We hear of mystic cosmogony.
A time of rest each of years fifty,
Is not just an anniversary for Jewry.

At the announcement of the ram’s horn,
Each of us can be spiritually reborn.
From the exile of corporeal embodiment,
Dispersed in soul’s physical defilement.

We can each be set free from slavery,
By a living mystical decree.
Unburdened by taste of forbidden fruit,
And remarried to the Absolute.

Suffering the fray of universal war,
Can wound us to the very core.
Meditation quells the fight of light and dark,
And helps us to erase the bestial mark.

The entire tapestry of Aramaic history,
Contains the panoply of concealed mystery.
A balance of tradition and revelation,
Conceals the means of spiritual emancipation:

The masterpiece, Kether Malkuth, or Royal Crown,
Celebrates the greatness of God and our own:

A young student, proud of his knowledge,
Asked the master to explain truths solid.
“Why can’t we see eternal truth and end sorrow,
Living right now with no care for the morrow?”

Master agreed to answer, but needed to drink,
And asked the seeker for water before he could think. 
He went out for water to quench the master’s thirst;
His fate was sealed when he knocked on the door first.

He gazed on the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen;
He fell in love and got married, forgot where he’d been.
They found joy in children, property, and wealth;
After years of happiness came troubles with health.

Death snatched away both children and sweet wife;
A prosperous lifestyle became one of tears and strife.
All his property and house were destroyed by dire flood,
He was left all alone, the only one left of his blood.

As he sat at home brooding, a knock came on the door,
Reminding of his purpose, what he was really here for.
The master was there, and “Where’s my water” did ask;
He realized his whole life long he’d forgotten the task.

In the mysteries, the chief priestess who impersonated the Moon Goddess, herself, was “married,” once a year, to a man impersonating the male principle, the Priapic God.  While the mystery was enacted in the holy place, the worshippers kept vigil in the temple.  At the consummation of the rite attendant priestesses came forth from the shrine bearing the new Sacred Fire which had just been born through the renewal of the power of the goddess.

The chief characteristic of the goddess in her crescent phase is that she is virgin.  Her instinct is not used to capture or possess the man whom she attracts.  She does not reserve herself for the chosen man who must repay her by his devotion, nor is her instinct used to gain for herself the security of husband, home and family.  She remains virgin, even while being goddess of love.

She is esentially one-in-herself.  She is not merely the feminine counterpart of a male god with similar characteristics and functions, modified to suit her feminine form.  On the contrary she has a role to play that is her own, her characteristics do not duplicate those of any of the gods, she the Ancient and Eternal, the Mother of God.

The god with whom she is assoicated is her son and him she necessarily procedes.  Her divine power does not depend on her relation to a husband-god, and thus her actions are not dependent on the need to conciliate such a one or to accord with his qualities and attitudes.  For she bears her divinity in her own right.

In the same way the woman who is virgin, one-in-herelf, does what she does--not because of any desire to please, not to be liked, or to be approved, even by herself; not because of any desire to gain power over another, to catch his interest or love, but because what she does is true.  Her actions may, indeed, be unconventional.  She may have to say no, when it would be easier, as well as more adapted, conventionally speaking, to say yes.

But as virgin she is not influenced by the considerations that make the nonvirgin woman, whether married or not, trim her sails and adapt herself to expediency.  I say whether married or not, for in using this term virgin in its psychological connotation, it refers not to external circumstances but to an inner attitude.  A woman who has a psychological attitude to life which makes her dependent on what other people think, which makes her do and say thing she really does not approve, is no virgin in this meaning of the term.

Psychological virginity can only be attained through the ravishment of a god, through a hieros gamos, or sacred marriage.  Through the power of the hieros gamos, the complete sacrifice of egotism and of the possessive attidue toward oneself and one's own emotions and instinct which that ritual involves, is born this Hero-child, the ability to start again, even after disaster and failure and to start on a different level with new values and new understanding of life.

In psychological terms, one who has attaineed to the realm of the full, or complete, moon has gained knowledge of the unconscious, as past, source, origin; and gained the power in this present world; and has insight into the realm of the future.  He has become in a certain sense timeless, he transcends the limitations of time.  He has gained immortality.  It is not a continuation in a state of perfection, but is an ever-renewed life like the moon's own, in which diminishing and dying are as essential as becoming.

There is a passage in the Hermetic text, The Veil, which says that the veil, "signified the Veil of the Universe, studded with stars, the many colored Veil of Nature, the famous Veil or Robe of Isis, that no 'mortal' or 'dead man' has raised, for that veil was the spiritual nature of the man himself, and to raise it he had to transcend the limits of individuality, break the bonds of death, and so become consciously immortal."

To raise the Veil of Isis means to see Nature as she really is, not veiled any longer by custom or convention, by rationalization or illusion.

“Man lives in a thick cloud of incense which he burns to himself so that his own countenance may be veiled from him in the smoke.” C.G. Jung

The Great Work can’t be reduced to spiritual technology,
Even though our mystery is cloaked in divine terminology.
More than a state or series of radical experiences and insights,
It encompasses more and less than a group of imaginal flights.

There are many versions of ego’s counterfeit enlightenment;
The real treasure exists and consists of immortal attainment.
But this attainment is hard to gain, a Pearl of Great Price,
A rugged journey to annihilation, nothingness, and sacrifice.

A spiritual tradition helps, the support of a cultural matrix,
No homegrown philosophies of our own spiritual genatrix.
Release the fantasy self-image of all redemptive salvations,
Giving up all attachment is the greatest spiritual challenge.

We must question our apparent goals and our dark motives,
Which quench the living flames of our spiritual votives.

Shatter all pictures of the nature of true enlightenment,
All concepts and notions of any dramatic, momentous event.
Sages say, rightly so, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,”
Because they willingly give up all hope and self to be clear.

It has nothing to do with finely developed spiritual fitness,
Only His will; grace is the result when God is our witness.
Denying ego and separateness and even our seeming bliss,
For the sake of the divine caress and that spiritual kiss.

The nature of this evolutionary condition is perhaps the oddest;
To make claims of premature enlightenment is truly immodest.
Dying daily is a life-long, self-transcending, never-ending process,
Not a measure of our intrinsic worth, constant work and progress.

When will you believe I’ve found the most ancient kingdom?
A far cry from distant Sumeria and the gardens of Eden.
We have all been there, but can you kiss away the tears,
Gradually accumulated over tens of thousands of years?
Then take your fill, and drink deeply from the Well of Sorrow,
And make me forget yesterday, thinking only of tomorrow.

Riding in so free and bold, the king’s court you did usurp,
Rescuing fair maid from pain with loving heart, superb.
I cannot compose myself to sleep until I see you,
Kisses stinging on my mouth, sweet as morning dew.
Wildly, we form together one great serpent sinuous,
Radiant glow of a suspended moment, fragile and tenuous.

Love reborn, ever anew, arrriving fresh on an Easter dawn,
You to me, and me to you, galvanized and magnetically drawn.
Come now, and softly speaking to me with absolute candor,
Drown me in words like priestess of Aphrodite, Hero and lover Leander.
See my perspective, a point of view, my vision apprehend,
It could be that you might revision, and your own worldview amend.

You can be carried to Olympus, like beautiful young Ganymede,
But all old notions of yourself, you must slough off or supercede.
The price?  Everything you were, are, or might be--the ransom;
That’s a small fee for a spiritual treasure, so precious and handsome.
Look up! Climb the rest of the mountain, quit being a mere spectator,
Feed your soul on emptiness and become your own life’s curator.

For now, just please and comfort one so tender and heartbroken,
Keep up that love that feeds us both, while remaining so outspoken.
Express yourself in the essence that is you, the light-bringing bonder,
But always remember to cleave unto me, the dark, silent co-responder.
What else is love, but the enlightenment of the relaxed mind?
Maybe not union with godhead, but of a spiritually analogous kind.

The constant immediacy of my wholehearted consort,
Inflames irresistable impulses to which we resort.
Standing fully revealed in all your naked charms,
Making up for lost time, take me in your arms.

I implore you in words too soft to hear the vocal timbre,
Almost silently exuding from your lover, lithe and limber.
Taken by sweet surprise when you came into the chamber,
I uttered sounds always spoken by the eternal exclaimer.

Unrehearsed, such love uninhibited and multi-positional,
Can be brilliantly lustrous, uncontrived and intuitional.
Graspingly seize me and caress me, kiss me about the face;
Come to me now, so tempted, be ever lively in your embrace.

To my jaded heart laid bare, we share the same sexual taste;
To draw sustenance from the Well of Souls we fleetingly race.
Like pastoral Daphnis and Chloe, on the same frequency,
Naturally desirous of love full-blown, with no aura of secrecy.

At this confection of the sensual image of the Loved One,
Is it any great wonder we mutually come undone?
Lathered stallion riding into the depths of a moist valley,
I guide my blind favorite into a winding exitless alley.

Has there ever been such a mischievous sex ploy,
Even since the legendary fables of Helen of Troy?
With heroically sweet violence, inflict those pleasures,
Which others perceive contain vast troves of treasures.

I implore you again and again to come inside,
And let the breeze whip you like the salty seaside.
That fine spray rapidly dissolves our senses in a geyser,
That ushers in illumination, a tantric spiritual advisor.

Short gasps of an extremely melodious ambrosian chant,
Need to breath deeply of air like fine wine to decant.
Oh, what final joy to succumb to this urgent obsession,
In a myriad of ways a polymorphous trans-gression.

Now quietly sheltered in the warm hospitality of eternity,
The loving union of our close-conspiring dual commitee.
Who wouldn’t terminate the day with an anointing ritual,
Drawn from well-springs replenished by an art so spiritual.

Allusions are many in the language of the heart,
Spoken from one transfinite soul to its other part.
The seat of pleasure is not sole organ of desire,
The fueled mind can also be enflammed or set afire.

She longs to drink at the jade fountain of the bull;
He to enter the silken gateway of jade till full. 
Wrapped in the strength of a seductive abductor,
Yielding thighs scream surrender to he who stole her.

Who can resist the ardour of strenuous inventiveness?
Which hotly fans the fires of voluptuous desirousness.
Great strength of will determines which most endures,
And which of the partners the most pleasure secures.

For there is more to this significant sacrament,
Than mere volition, friction, or the urge to beget.
Indeed, soul embodied is the first seed of the spirit,
And all who perceive this do homage to revere it.

So come now, and urgently knock on my door,
Pick my lock, and love me like never before.
Let angels sing and bells peal with redolence;
Peel me and take your pleasure in supine indolence.

There is no ingenuous charade in this hot fling,
Our eyes now see only an auric pyrolith, manifesting.
Mesmerized by your lover, a succubus sanctified,
When each of us with joy is thrilled and liquified.

Love is a lesser version of a soul possessed by god,
It elevates and comforts us, and assuages nature’s bod.
Its acts are always more pure pleasure than effort,
An infinite circle which we ever seek to re-court.

A trance suspending spacetime in spinning vertigo,
Leaves its traces in the palpable vision of afterglow.
Who could account for such golden transfiguration,
Which surely is much more than the result of sensation?

Enclosed in your arms, amid the silken pillows,
You’ve had me like the sky has had cloud-laden billows.

“Don’t be afraid...taste everything,”*
Easy to say, with a sound sure ring.
Maybe not the typical approach technique,
Probably, in most cases, unwelcomed--unique.

You wear your passion like a crown,
When you are its servant, in love drown.
The allure of intensity and rare sensations,
Leads too far passed your border of hesitations.

For the virtuoso worship of the divine yoni,
Comes from the playing of a kinesthetic symphony.
Sacred lingam ever resides in lovely Parvati,
Deep in her spirit cave anointed with patchouli.

Exquisite sensibilities of a voluptuous Baudelaire,
Are, indeed, difficult to find and exceedingly rare.
When you come to me, I gladly house my guest,
And fulfill all your secret desires at your behest.

Mea Culpa, if I must assume guilt before the act,
Go ahead and accuse me of lacking all tact.
Being different than you is not a character disorder,
Artistic temperament is carved in stone, hard to alter.

Enthused means aroused by something inside;
Excitement is stimulation by something outside.
Uniting them both is the One Taste of Zen,
Something delicious is about to happen.

Taste everything. . .enjoy me for what I am;
Don’t condemn me for what I am not.

*Ernest Hemingway