Bibliomancy for a scorpio full moon

'all things are as they should be' all rights reserved 08

"It is frightening to see how many people seek help for human expressions of aliveness, such as grief reactions to loss, overt expressions of anger, feelings of jealousy or frustration or stress. And it is especially frightening because I know that many therapists would give medication or even hospitalize these healthy people when an intensive period of attention and being listened to would accomplish much more." - Deldon Anne McNeely (Mercury Rising p.101)

transition

".the blue transit between black and white is like that sadness which emerges from despair as it proceeds towards reflection.."

nigredo

sing in me...

Muse..

The Un-Named One leans into the shallow pool toward the reflection of fruit hanging overhead from branches of a Pomegranate tree. His knobby brown hand dips into the water and scoops from it one perfect ripe red globe, splitting it off its stem and opening its waxy skin to reveal its flesh.

“Ah, fruit of the underworld.." he coos, stroking it lovingly. "So very misunderstood..hm?"

"Humans are just too literal.” He declares in his best Pompous Narrator's voice, and laughs. Always a performance, even if only for a pomegranate.

Lowering his mouth to its open wound he sucks theatrically at its sweet pink pearls, groaning with pleasure. As he eats he admires his reflection – dark almonds for eyes above wide cheekbones and an almost-too-large nose. A goatee and moustache outline full - rude- lips and black unkempt hair flops across his forehead hiding horn buds. His naked body is oiled and loose after his night of preparations.

“so goddarn beautiful.” He says to himself, turning his head this way and that, enjoying the full irony of the compliment along with his reflection in the pool. He allows his attention to drop below his waist;

“what a shame to have to let these go” he drawls to no one in particular, nodding toward his goat legs and hoofs and sighing at the inefficiency of human feet, “but this time I’ll have to walk”.

Discarding the husk of his little feast, The Un-Named One spends a moment in serious contemplation of his task. One hand drifts up to tug on the tuft of hair between his lower lip and his chin, eyes narrowed in concentration.

The story needs to be told but he’s aware of the danger of planning it out in his mind before it even begins – for him doing things that way is never as good. A quick fuck, over before he knows it and not worth revisiting. No, this has to unfold as it must.

“and she needs me” he tells himself, brightening considerably.

Standing now, the Un-Named One stretches out in his new human form, getting the feel of his legs. With a grin he reaches between his legs to assess the condition of his manly parts.

“Ha!. Not so like a mortal after all!” He shouts, laughing and delighted.

He looks back down at the pool and sees her standing by and open window, the dark red curtain of her hair lifting slightly in the breeze revealing one white shoulder. He watches her watching something in the street outside and waits for her to notice his eyes on her skin. Slowly she turns away from the window toward the mirror, green eyes opening wider, lips parting as she takes a sharp breath in –

“You!” she whispers.

So it begins.

my god, phobia

"I'm moved by another intention: to warn. And warning, too, belongs to the negredo, for it speaks with the voice of the raven, foretelling dire happenings that may result from the seduction of black."

(James Hillman)

Phobia is described by most dictionaries as any kind of fear or dread, sometimes irrational, but as mostly implying strong aversion and morbid hatred. Its a dark idea, as far as ordinary human emotion goes, but if we have it, then we need it.

A cursory glance into the etymology of the word - and I can't claim to understand any concept without knowing its origins and essence - reveals its roots, or rather wings, in phobos - flight.

This, to my mind, points towards a mythical and therefore primordial style of fear - something that defies simple rationality and goes further and higher into the realm of the Gods. Its not just 'being afraid of spiders' its a deep-seated primal and polar postion against the very 'spiderness' of life itself.

In a pantheistic world view Phobia is an archetype and part of the larger story we're all subject to in our mortal human lives. More than that, the particular form or manifestation that phobia takes brings definition and becomes a pre-condition for action, behaviour and event. Phobia is an identity or role to be played out.

Suffice to say that if Phobia is true to its own shape, then to say that someone has a phobia is allopathic and untidy - its truer to say phobia has that someone. One is phobic.

So, this archetype, this force, Phobia - a character in its own right - is lived into experience in epic journeys and returns and battles in varied ways. Perhaps as a 'shadow' persona or villain that must be violently overcome; an anti-hero who's pain has entered, like all things divine, via a wound or trauma; a beautiful but divided soul to be healed and integrated; a healer; an outcast, lone-wolf or hermit. Or as the unclaimed parts of hero's, saviours, kings and queens. Encounters with giant insects, reptilian devouring creatures, vile odours, dark green creeping decay. Episodes of falling into dangerous hidden places, being buried and confined or abandoned to the dangers of nature.

Its ancestry in flight also places phobia in the realm of air - pneuma - and comes cawing and circling from above; birds of prey; carrion scavengers; open exposure to vast empty spaces; searing light and blindness. Its pneumatic nature calls attention to its language and ability to create out of its images; warlocks and witches and their winged messengers appear; uncanny abilities of mind-reading and control; repetitive destructive thoughts and voices calling and singing for death.

Just as phobia serves the narrative, phobia is served by the narrative - the story of phobia keeps the archetype in power. A strange irony (poetry?)- while phobia is defined and contained, it breaks free, provokes adrenaline-surged slow motion corridor runnning and lung-burning screams, and no escape. It will always fly faster.