Poetry for the Esbat: Flow Moon, 2016

Dancer Delilah (Flynn) crafting her Art, underwater.

There is a powerful synthesis happening. Strands of my life way, my cosmology, my relationships, my body, which did not seem to connect now find themselves intimately woven in the most sensible ways.

Everything keeps making sense & that is just a bit freakish.

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In the past, when asked about whether I would be willing to "teach," I replied, "I only teach my accident." It was a gentle way to decline. 

But strange things & strange persons happen. And sometimes, they change the rules. Or, perhaps they unveil rules you never knew existed. And in this change or unveiling, I began to teach. Of course, it has not been in the manner to which I originally consented or anticipated, but isn't that just the way of things?

Flow.

One of my True Loves is Sigil Magick. Yet being a critter of much privilege & little for which to want, my practice of the Arte is often lacking impetus. Perhaps this is why I needed to teach the art to others.

Here on this Esbat I find myself working out the last details of a traditional Golden Dawn style talisman for presentation -- but also for myself -- the pieces of which seem to be attempting to tie my worlds together. The focus of this talisman, in brief, is Flow. Hence the card for this Esbat, "Going with the Flow," the Ace of Water from the Osho Zen Tarot -- a deck I discovered while working on this particular project. 

Ace of Water, Osho Zen Tarot.

"The figure in this card is completely relaxed and at ease in the water, letting it take him where it will. He has mastered the art of being passive and receptive without being dull or sleepy. He is just available to the currents of life, with never a thought of saying "I don't like that," or "I prefer to go the other way."

Every moment in life we have a choice whether to enter life's waters and float, or to try to swim upstream. When this card appears in a reading it is an indication that you are able to float now, trusting that life will support you in your relaxation and take you exactly where it wants you to go. Allow this feeling of trust and relaxation to grow more and more; everything is happening exactly as it should." -- OZT

And isn't that just so very apropos for this Lunar occasion?

Concurrently, my studies in dance have been directed at this subject of Flow & somehow (ha!) this brought me to discover the underwater dance images of American belly dancer Delilah:

Her flowing (quite literally) being so illustrative of a condition I seek to realize for myself.

Not only in Dance, but in Life. (And are they not the same thing?)

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This brings me to the poetry for this Esbat. In keeping with all the flowing & synthesizing & surrendering, I present a poem I have been sitting on (in my Poetry Foundation App) for several years now. The reasons for this I do not know, perhaps it was just not time. If I am honest with myself, I actually think I never quite understood it completely -- until now. 

[As if the moon could haul through you], by Neil Fischer

As if the moon could haul through you

Its tremor of light and stone,

Be cleared of sound. Plough

The mind's noise until it's a shine

In the purl of south-bending river that bears

Itself toward a blacker part of the forest.

If you hum, hum through the motes of air,

Perhaps your nerves will find at last

A tone to which they will succumb.

Be still. Be not so heavy-hearted

For a moment. All is not a tomb,

Blind sarcophagus staring dumb, thwarted

Pleasures nailed inside. These fireflies

Sweep their tracings on the evening.

Weep if you must, but board what falls

Away, abdomens flaring—

The brief, nomadic intervals.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.