The Descent of
THE SILVER DUSK

By Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule

Illustration:  ‘Maenadflower’ ­digital wo/manipulation of an original pen drawing ©2oo3 Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule. Drawn in Vienna, Austria.
 
 

Nespin vortshchnimmnen
Glukken sil feeret bimmm
 

Undulating  ssserpents
of Sshivering solar supplenesss
Emanating  emerald irridescence from  sshimmering
Scales of Virulent ssucculent  presence
Corruscating  illuminated  essence
Fermentatin gsanctimony assimilated
In the crescent mooon glowing
In the evanescent  tune going
back and forthcoming  sequels

Sequence of unquenched desire
Secrets of nu-drenched respite
A-spiring to reside upon the hour
Of divine interDiMensTional  portals intervening
Mortality incalculable  determined  by
Mercurial amnesty
A travesty of strange attractors latched unto the bed for thee
 
 
 

Dusk, December full mooon 2oo3:

   Participants gathered in the last hours of the sun’s rays, and as the dark began we entered the Circle of Thirteen Trees in Edinburgh Gardens (North Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia).

 We sat in circle-centre and discussed for a while why we had come together and what may come of this. The objective was to initiate magickal circles in the Melbourne vicinity upon full mooons which would focus on local concerns rather than the more globally-orientated nature of our new moon circles linked with the transcontinental work of the Horus-Maat Lodge.

  We set out to find common elements and objectives between those gathered (as well as a larger network of Melbourne magickians in absentia but potentially involved) and garner from them some kind of collective identity with which to further these commonalities in ongoing creative collaboration…

   There seemed to be no general intent as such evident, other than obvious concerns of well-being, for those present and the species at large. There were however commonalities in the methodology employed:  We are all artists, although of diverse media, and approach magick from an artistic (whether through music, dance, painting…) rather than scientific angle.

   And so the Silver Dusk counterpoints the magickal legacy of the Golden Dawn’s solar, scientific and reason-based magickal revival with lunar, artistic and intuition-based magicks ­using multiple mediums as magickal menstruum and direct apprehension of the mysteries of the subconscious or ‘occult’ (hidden) mysteries through artistic expression.
 

    The circle proceeded directly from introductory discussion. No real framework was established other than the expression of this identity through and within spontaneous creative activity. Active performative ritual seemed befitting for a circle on a full moon rather than the often more meditative nature of a new moon circle.
   Freeform song, sound and dance seemed to be the general form the celebration took ­with bursts here and there of invocation, poetry, mantram and mudra.
 I sang of the Descent of the Silver Dusk midst harmonic droning and wheeling violin, spiralling widdershins from circle’s centre to rim and back…    Kestral’s harmonic chanting and dance interwove, as did the twirling and wailing of Bex Hexabranchus. Dhana took various asanas with tongue extended Kali-like throughout, while Bonny swayed and shimmered.
 At one point I got into a really fine dervish spin for quite an extended period, whirling in silver splaying silken skirt out to the outer orbit of the large circle of thirteen elms, spinning around before each one in turn… and turn… and re-turn… to cycle’s start ­getting very high on my increasing momentum. During this blur of dizzy depths I glimpsed a shadowy presence on the edge of the circle of great trees  ­seated, smoking, watching…  ?

   A more structured ­though formatted very rapidly by those present in its execution’s process- constituent of the rite was one sprung from humour, but humour with intent:   Bex’s suggestion of all giving each other a good kick up the butt was reified literally as well as symbolically, becoming a reel, kind of like a circular CanCan (snakesnake in Mayan), clap clap ‘a 1, 2…’  with the person ahead in the ring copping the kick on the ‘…3!’ This circular domino effect was then desrever (NacNac, the reflex serpent) with gentle and encouraging vindication.  Then it was a 1, 2… slap the next person’s face on the …3!  ; counter-pointed by a 1, 2… and the holding of the hands upon one’s heart with love -in alternation. So when the placing of the hands upon each other’s hearts (across the circle now drawn close and intimate) was introduced it had of course to be countered with the slapping of one’self across the face.
  Ridiculous as all this sounds it did purvey an amount of gnosis I found quite surprising, and also a real connectivity and affinity between us all in the joy of play. And it was also, of course, motivating…
 

   Then it was back to free-form sound and movement as we moved apart and together again in various formations. Kestral chanted Egyptian prayers, I exalted the lunar essence with lucrous violin tones and the refrain from  Liber Qoph vel Hecate…

 Pictures from Metamorphic Ritual Theatre co.’s dance performance of ‘Liber Qoph vel Hecate’, as a part of ‘Emit fo yrotsreH feirB A’ to launch Orryelle’s book of the same name; April  2002.
 

 I went out to the circle’s wide rim again to bless the Thirteenth Tree in the circle, the one that has been replanted only a few years ago after a superstitious religious zealot cut the original thirteenth tree there down. I cast my love out to this little sapling, praying that it grow and flourish and with it the Thirteenth Tribe in all its wondrous diversity, thus connecting our activities within this 13-tree circle to the
 Thirteenth Tribe Weaving  at Glastonbury near six moons prior, where I had woven together twelve representatives of the Twelve Tribes or source-races of humanity via chest piercings …
 During this prayer again I saw the lurker on our periphery, and wondered if she was actually in the same place though it seemed the other side but perhaps I was disorientated from my dervish dancing then…? …

 Photograph: Orryelle’s  13-star tattoo, executed by Nathan. Photo by Mary Hedger. See The
MUTATION ENCYCLOPSEDIA for more images of this work.
 

    As we regrouped somewhat in circle’s centre, she suddenly stepped in, apologizing for her possible intrusion but that it was compelled by intuition. For she had come to this circle of trees upon this full moon night with specific intent, and upon finding it occupied had observed for a while, at first awaiting our possible departure to allow her entrance to perform her own rite, and then (upon realizing we could be quite a while) on consideration of whether she could perform it conjunct with our own activities there…
   She had decided to find out and we welcomed her to perform her ritual there, bidding her sit. She took out a braided thread and held it forth to be by the candle lit, explaining that she had foolishly given her power away six months ago, and it was time to reclaim it.
  She then burnt the thread with focused intent, it being a talisman from the June full moon, completing some kind of cycle for her.  I realized as we watched the thick smoke rise in silence that this was right near the time (June solstice) of the Thirteenth Tribe Weaving at Glastonbury I had linked us to just before her entrance…
   As she focused on her task, the full moon rose slowly and majestically behind her, looming luminously over the rooftops at the edge of the gardens. We howled and crooned at Her beauteous ascent and impeccable timing.
    Once our visitor had completed her spell we congratulated her on taking her power back, she thanked us and we her, and she went to depart. However then she ran back into the circle with a gift, saying that she felt we had helped her with her rite and thus she was returning the energy…   and with that she deposited a small heart-shaped rose quartz crystal in the centre of the circle.  Trite perhaps, but apt for the 13th Tribe Weaving had been the Global Heart Chakra Working at Glastonbury, Gaia’s own Anahata.

  We remarked on this and the whole magickal incident, how sudden and wondrous it was, and speculated that she may not have joined us if we had cast a circle at rite’s beginning ­which is something most of us normally would do with such a gathering, yet for some un-mentated reason tonight not one of us had ­perhaps feeling naturally protected by the circle of Trees itself. Our visitor had certainly seemed some kind of messenger, perhaps a Secret Chief in disguise to affirm our inauguration of the Silver Dusk.
 It seemed fitting that performing spontaneous magick with no real specific intent, someone with a more direct purpose would come to make use of the energy raised ­and return it…

  We sang and danced some more in celebration, then as the energy lulled we came together to close and consolidate. Kestral and Bex said they hoped they could still get a tram home. Our earlier visitor ­Elyssa- returned as if on cue and offered them a ride.
  Before departing we all gathered around the new Thirteenth Tree as Kestral planted the quartz heart at its base…
 

ILLUSTRATION:  ‘The Spider-Queen of Space Weaves the 13-Star from Afar…’  ©2oo3 Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule.

   In its cultural environment the Golden Dawn was revolutionary in accepting magick as a scientific discipline. In an encroaching Age of Reason ‘Magick’ has since been presented in an ever more delineated fashion to attempt to give it credibility within the dominant paradigm of scientific materialism in our age (eg. Peter Carrol’s scientific presentation of Chaos Magick). However this logic-based reductionism has had its day. As the military-industrial complex and political power-games continue to ravage our earth and the mainstream media demeans our very aesthetics with its sterile banality, we can do naught but revolt and revel in pure unbridled magickal artistic free expression, unconstrained by any tenets of a farcical and destructive ‘Age of Reason’…  to reclaim the occult as the realm of uncensored artistic surreality and poetic mystique, rather than reduce it to another set of clinical and inhibiting formulae…

 …For the Ma-nifestat-ion of Nuit is at an End;  Thus the Silver Dusk shall end the Cosmic Day begun by the Golden Dawn, as a Cosmic Night begins…
 

ILLUSTRATION: Kalieyeweb. ©2oo3 Orryelle, from hir book ’Emit fo yrotsreH feirB A’
 

 The magick of the Silver Dusk is primarily of an Arachnean nature, this pertaining to the lunar and stellar currents it deals with, the weaving of disparate elements with artistic intuition in the Kali Yuga (Aeon of ChAOS).
  Soon after its inauguration Orryelle held two Spider Magick workshops within a web installation twixt four trees at the Confest festival new year 04 in the bush near the border of Victoria and NSW. The Crossroads was aligned with these four trees and the diagonal rays, time spiral and spaces in between also projected, as we mapped time onto the spatial plane within our magick circle with a spider-web mandala veve of flour. This template was then used to explore immediate-future potential-paths and choice nodes, and also past selves.
 'Odu Legba, Papa Legba, Open the Gates, your Children are Here...'

 I had been unsure for a while whether to put the installation there at the Pagan Grove village or down by the water in The Hollow. I thought for a while I had made the wrong decision having it away from the river as in the intense heat everyone was hanging out down there and the workshops in the vicinity of the water and shade were much more well attended. But I moved my chakra tones chanting workshops down to a space by the river and maintained the Spider Magick workshops up at the web I had woven twixt four trees at the Pagan Village, and was by the end very glad of this -for the sessions were of an intensity that may have disturbed others if in a more accessible area, and the smaller numbers were actually perfect for the work -too many participants would have been difficult. Again, intuition had proved fruitful with this work, and had guarded the circle naturally rather through enforced order or restrictions ­the workshops were open to anyone at the festival, yet only those prepared to make the effort to journey further out in the intense heat ­confirming their intent- came…
 The first workshop (introductory concepts and choice nodes) was with eight people thus corresponding well with the eight rays of the web, the second towards the end of the festival had five, again this was perfect with the elemental crossroads and centre being cast, then I stepping out as circle guardian while the others delved deep into the DNA pool using the same path-working (via Rain) I had crafted my 8 Gates shamanic play from. The 8 spaces between the rays of the web veve were each charged as portals to different selves as a means to experience atavistic resurgence...

  Any more people I realized would have cluttered the space too much and made it difficult for people to go as far with the work. Also the right people came:- about half present were people who all knew each other well and had even worked ritually together, but those few strangers who turned up from the workshop notice-boards also had strong wills and a focused application to the working.
 My last-minute decision to gate-keep rather than go into full trance myself also proved to be an apt intuition, as some people walking past were disturbed by a participant's expression of their experiences and emotional purging and I was able to let them know everything was alright without the workshop being interrupted.
 I was delighted how well things flowed, considering that most of the techniques and methods I presented had been developed in solo rites and not before tested in a group context...
 I wondered if people's individual journeys would have interrupted each others', but they actually interwove in a non-direct but wonderfully synchronous manner. Tessa's goblin-like expressions in the fungal gateway filtered through into Seth's experience in the Plant gateway next door. Her sounds meshed with his memory of being a forest eco-system as animals seemed to scamper across his many limbs in a kind of frenetic energy passage from the altered perspective his slowed-down floral consciousness.
  Madelyne's experience of beginning to be born was disturbed by Tesssa's confrontation in the same human lives gateway, and she began to retract, remaining on the verge of incarnation, but after a while she realized she had actually rolled onto the ray/line between the Human Gateway and the Spirit Gateway -where realms between incarnations could be experienced- and thus on the cusp of incarnation...!

  It was fantastic how immersive this workshop seemed to be for everyone involved, and I look forward to further experiments and development of these techniques - which I have also expressed in my book, 'Emit fo yrotsreH feirB A' in future rites and circles of the Silver Dusk...

  Since new year direct activity of the Silver Dusk has been minimal in Melbourne. There was one fruitful musical recording session, where Kestral invoked the God/dess ThemUsIKa (=156=Babalon=KhAOS) and five of us channelled this essence into divine harmonies which we managed to successfully capture on an 8-track. Some of this may be presented on the audio CD accompanying the forthcoming http://www.crossroads.wild.net.au/silkmilk2.htm SILKMILK MagiZain spool #2, which is itself another secretion from the Silver Dusk’s stellar teats…
  Yet tangential manifestations abound. And this is surely how this mysterious weaving works…
  A parallel artists’ collective has arisen in Melbourne soon after the inauguration of the Silver Dusk, which many of the same people are becoming involved with. Although this growing collective does not openly pursue the occult mysteries as a whole, many of its members do, and it covers the full spectrum of artistic activities from performative arts such as music and theatre to painting, digital, sculptural etc. wo/manifestations. How the esoteric circles here interweave with this more outer forum will unfold in …timemit…

  Meanwhile it seems pertinent to open the Silver Dusk- via this Silver Star drifting in its inky depths- to an intercontinental audience in its ma-nifestat-ion upon this Earth, with a view to some of its artistically-inclined observers potentially becoming involved… Contact is to be addressed to inspiral@excite.com.
 
 

SPECIAL VIDEO PRESENTATION:
 

A Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Production:
Liber Qoph vel Hecate

http://www.crossroads.wild.net.au/q1.mov
Liber Qoph vel Hecate-First Gate

http://www.crossroads.wild.net.au/q2.mov
Liber Qoph vel Hecate- Second Gate

http://www.crossroads.wild.net.au/q3.mov
Liber Qoph vel Hecate- Third Gate

Filmed by Michael Schoell
 Written, Narrated & Edited by Orryelle
 

Dancers:

Clotho ­Heidi
 Lachesis ­Wren
Atropos ­Belle

Performed at
Orryelle’s Alchymic(self-)Wedding, EquiluXoniuqE 2000.