blithe oracles

"All this hurrying
soon will be over.
Only when we tarry
do we touch the holy." - Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

In the end, I was thoroughly racing to arrive in New Orleans, quite ungallantly. A thoroughbred on steroids. Pulling all-nighters packing and cramming as if for a very important date with a college exam. According to "the" schedule, I left too late. Finally pulled out of the stable exactly 4:44 a.m. on January 10, 2008 (oh, and a 1-1-1 stargate unbeknownst to me at the time).

Racing feels so much the old ways and old highways and byways and old days.

I made it as far as a desert border town straddling the two states of Kali and Zones before the rear axle gave way on the car.

""In this card," Crowley points out, "is the one link between the archetypal and formative worlds. The Abyss she traverses is, quite literally, the desert of the soul, and like the desert camel, she is the only vehicle capable of crossing that terrible wasteland." - The High Priestess card section, Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot

And thus was I stopped dead in my tracks for two days entire in a town named after a word dripping in meanings "of a lighthearted and carefree nature." {Blithe: Etymology: Old English bliþe "joyous, kind," from P.Gmc. *blithiz "gentle, kind" (cf. O.S. bliði "bright, happy," O.N. bliðr "mild, gentle," O.H.G. blidi "gay, friendly," Goth. bleiþs "kind, friendly, merciful").}

They say that oracles are layered in riddles and difficult, obscure, hidden, mysterious meanings. That may have been so perhaps in ancient eras. Now oracles are more like a feeling - talk of light/dark, or negative/positive doesn't register here. Either I sense heaviness, weighted down, or that which is enlightening my load, bouyant and free. Like a child's innocent exuberant fresh voice:

The Oracle of the Gods is the Child-Voice of
Love in thine own Soul! hear thou it!

Heed not the Siren-Voice of Sense, or the
Phantom-Voice of Reason: rest in Simplicity,
and listen to the Silence. - Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth

Art credits Young Oracle in Repose by Yuni

p.s. A twitter friend writes of my tweets lately:   @eve11 Sounds like you're living out Joni's "Hejira" record, NOLA style.

Yes. The album itself's a journey truly and metaphorically and horizontally and vertically, and "prominent imagery including highways, small towns and snow. 

[Joni] Mitchell said of the album: "the whole 'Hejira' album was really inspired... I wrote the album while traveling cross-country by myself and there is this restless feeling throughout it... The sweet loneliness of solitary travel.""

This feels like a self-mastery year, 2008, to me? Does it to you?

Comments

[mystic7]

Welcome back to NOLA! I was feeling inspired this morning when I had the idea of starting a religion in Second Life. But how would it look?

[donna]

Sorry for your travel troubles, Evelyn. Glad you've arrived safely, though. ;^)

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Mystic, Why just SL? Anyhow, I have an idea that might take root before next round of outrageous property taxes are due in this parish, January 31st, 2009. Why not every house declare itself a house of religion, a so-called church? Thus exempt from local prop taxes, and underscore that each and every is divine, and sovereign unto itself. You have your religion, I have mine, and she hers, and each its unique expression... I then took it to idea of also starting our own overlaid cities and governments too ;)

Donna, Thanks. No worries. After all, it got me to stop for forty-eight hours, and contemplate the lighteness of being.

[Rebecca Lewis]

"This feels like a self-mastery year, 2008, to me? Does it to you?"

At the beginning of the year, one of my best friends and I did a series of readings for the new year.

The six of pentacles came up. A lot. And the queen.

He's a transient alchemist at heart, and I"m a phoenix in a dream, way down below. But this year is a year for focus, and managing resources, and managing ourselves to take all the little physical steps towards achieving tangible goals. There's a lot of self-mastery going on around here.

[Alberto]

I had been feeling quite tired and 'flat' lately, and I had put it due ti stress, work... I needed a vacation! So when the time came I searched on the internet and checked out a fresorts, I went to Thailand. To a little island on the Gulf called Koh Samui, and from all the spa resorts I choosed Kamalaya Koh Samui (www.kamalaya.com).

Once there, I saw that they had a wide array of tratments, therapies, programs, retreats... So I decided to do something for me on the holiday. I went for a detox retreat.

I cannot stress enough how good that was for me, I feel great in myself. And it's not only the holiday period, normally I feel quite depressed to come back to work. Detoxing is one of the best things I have ever done for myself, I feel too quite inspired to begin new projects and take good care of myself.

Thank you for all the detox information and inspiration, it helps me to have more knowledge and living even healthier.

Alberto