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Category: Poetic Wisdom

The world is sacred

The world is sacred

The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

—Tao Te Ching

The very deep did rot

The very deep did rot

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Fire burn, cauldron bubble

Fire burn, cauldron bubble

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

—Shakespeare, Macbeth

Greeting to Arianrhod

Greeting to Arianrhod

Greetings to you, Arianrhod, Silver-Wheel.
Greetings to you, Crown of the North.
You who deny in order to fulfill, I greet you.
You, Queen of Witches, Initiator of Bards
May I remember my times in your Caer
And embrace the Stars that wheel around you.

—Rhyd Wildermuth

 

Featured image by Alfredo J G A Borba via Wikimedia Commons

Charge of the Star Goddess

Charge of the Star Goddess

Hear ye the words of the Star Goddess,
she in the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven;
whose body encircleth the Universe.

I, who am the beauty of the green earth,
and the white Moon among the stars,
and the mystery of the waters,
and the heart’s desire, call unto thy soul.
Arise and come unto me.

For I am the Soul of Nature,
who giveth life to the universe;
from me all things proceed,
and unto me must all things return;
and before my face, beloved of gods and mortals,
thine inmost divine self shall be unfolded
in the rapture of infinite joy.

Let my worship be within the heart that rejoiceth,
for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
And therefore let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion,
honour and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.

And thou who thinkest to seek for me,
know thy seeking and yearning shall avail thee not,
unless thou know this mystery:
that if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee,
thou wilt never find it without thee.

For behold, I have been with thee from the beginning;
and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.

—Doreen Valiente

A stream of rainbow

A stream of rainbow

On a Sunday, at the time of dawn,
Between the bird of wrath and Gwydion
Thursday, certainly they went to Mona
To obtain whirlings and sorcerers.
Arianrhod, of laudable aspect, dawn of serenity
The greatest disgrace evidently on the side of the Brython,
Hastily sends about his court the stream of a rainbow,
A stream that scares away violence from the earth.
The poison of its former state, about the world, it will leave.

— Taliesin, The Chair of Cerridwen

 

Featured image by Jiaqian AirplaneFan—Rainbow near of Montmorency waterfall, CC-BY-3.0

Laws of nature prayer

Laws of nature prayer

I know the Laws of Nature are you, Lady.
Keep me mindful that I step upon Your Body, with your feet,
that my sorrows are Your sorrows,
and that a healthy priestess makes all things sound.
I feel Your breath in the wind, and Your hand in mine.
Keep me sincere.
Give me Your work,
which is to be joyous, and to tend all things,
because all things live, of themselves, and with Your spirit.
Your will through mine, so mote it be.

—Francesca De Grandis

 

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons

Instructions for the afterlife

Instructions for the afterlife

To the left side of Hades’ palace is a spring;
close by stands a ghostly cypress tree.
Here, souls descending to the underworld may dissolve.
Do not approach this spring;
go on to the spring of chill waters from the Lake of Memory.
The Guardians there will interrogate you;
asking what you seek in the gloomy underworld.
Say:  ‘I am a child of Earth and of starry Heaven,
but my lineage is of Heaven: this you know yourselves,
and I am parched with thirst and perishing;
refresh me with the waters from the Lake of Memory.’
And they will present you to King Hades,
and give you drink from Memory’s lake.
And then you will follow the sacred path
that many other renowned initiates take.

—Orphic Mysteries

 

Featured image: Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Invocation to Arianrhod

Invocation to Arianrhod

O Arianrhod of the Silver Wheel,
By all the many names men give to thee —
We, all thy hidden children, humbly kneel
Thy truth to hear, thy countenance to see.
Here in the Circle, cast upon the Earth
Yet open to the stars — unseen, yet real —
Within our hearts give understanding birth,
Our wounds of loss and loneliness to heal.
Isis Unveiled, and Isis Veiled, thou art;
The Earth below our feet, the moon on high.
In thee, these two shall never be apart —
The magic of the Earth, and of the sky.

—Janet & Stewart Ferrar, The Witches’ Goddess

 

Featured image by Brian Tomlinson—Tree and Star Trails, CC-BY-2.0