Sorrow’s Sun

By Tacere

Copyright 2001/2004 North Door Associates, All Rights Reserved

Sorrow's Son I am called. Nursed upon bitterness, coddled with blows and taught silence by those who screamed, I have left my grandmother's house behind and I hold a key to Hell in my left hand.
Cunning over blood, I am my own demons.

Taught the pale Christ's words of weakness, I am a rebellious spirit made flesh. Cast off and alone, I broke the bonds of slavery and I stand free in the shadow of my choices and the lingering echoes of my tears.

I speak the word of an Aeon no other will know, and three more besides. I see a Vision before me that no other will share, and more, so very much more. I touch the Veil and know that I am not free of it yet, I've never fully left it's embrace. There is no angel to roll away the stone for me, no jailer to open the door before me, no ladder out of this pit.

Fire within my head, I am surrounded by razor-sharp walls of ice. Iron thorns wrap around my heart and I bleed light into the void as my wings keep time with the slow fading drum within my wounded chest.

Burningfreezingemptysadnesspainlonginglostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlostlost

In this place and in this time I know my path.
In this place and in this time I face my past.

In this place and in this time I open myself to the Ancestors, the Gods, and the Others who have walked besides me from the time I first remember...and before.

In this place and in this time, I call forth the Crossroads and braid together the strands of my life.

With Pain I do call forth my Memories of Who I Am.

With deepest Rage I do call forth my Sense of Who I Am.

With Sorrow I do call forth my Knowing of Who I Am.

With Blood and Fire I do call forth my Feelings of Who I Am.

With Emptiness I do call forth my Thoughts of Who I Am.

With Words and Deeds, Rites and Rhythms I do call forth my Gnosis and the small measure of Grace hidden within my bones that I might be Free, that I might act with integrity, and finally taste the world of my True Self.

Candles, smoke and rum--mirrors, sigils, and cords--I have cast the Circle.

Enflamed the pentacles with my sweaty prayers and in the hour of the most dread desire I drop to the hard ground and soar into the depths of Hell Above, tearing, clawing, slashing my Way through the broken Shells of the Qliphoth, past the towering egregoric structures of the blindtribes and the cacophonous Storm of the ignoranti. I break through the wards and webs of the Archuud, I burn past the banners of the Brothers of Ego except for one--my own. And I Know my Angel's touch, if not Her Name.

Screams and howls,
blood upon my tongue,
thrashing in ecstatic frenzy,
something breaks,
something is lost.

Diving upwards, crucified upon a thousand sunsets, bleeding and broken, disemboweled by demons wearing masks cut from my own skin, I am consumed by flames even as I reach out to touch the golden door and I watch as my hand transforms into a taloned appendage no man ever wore and I am enveloped, enwrapped, entombed within the fires of creation and my ashes are scattered upon the winds of change.

But I endure, I still know this Vision, I am still upon the Path, I am still Who I Am and I will not be dissuaded from my journey. I feel Her beside me, within me. I hear the Others now, more clearly. I have been here before. I will be here again. I am Legion. Liberty is before me, as near as my skin, as close as my own breath. Do I have the courage to make the assay?

Yes.

I throw aside the doors of gold and stride into the Temple. I approach the North and ascend the steps to the Throne that is there, and seeing that it is empty, I call down the Lightning to destroy this false place of illusion, that I might climb the Serpent's Path back to the Abyss, and my waiting destiny. In arrogance I bring the end to what was balance, in ignorance I lay waste a Holy place, and in truth I have broken free of the most pernicious prison one can know...but even so, it still infects my memories and re-knits it's fabric even as I move onwards.

No Sword do I carry, No Wand do I need, No Cup have I been given, No Coin do I own. Barren, bereft, and destitute, all I have is the song of Who I Am. What petty and cruel god would I make in my own image as a scapegoat to blame this all on? None other than myself. I hang upon the Tree and a thousand thousand alphabets curl upwards like smoke from the roots of the Tree to strangle and choke me as the black rain begins to fall, washing the blood from my hands.

Silence swallows everything. I look down into an endless chasm between ultimate brilliance and ultimate darkness and I see the rainbow between them, around them, and within them. I laugh with the realization of the puzzle, and I leap completely and utterly to my death in this crystalline, perfect moment of understanding and desolation.

With a rush I find myself pushed into the light and I try to breath, but the fluid still fills my throat and the instinct is still raw as I shatter into conscious awareness and am reborn. Again.
 

"Remember all ye that existence is pure joy,
that all the sorrows are but as shadows,
they pass & are done;
but there is that which remains.”

(Liber AL vel Legis II, 9)