Liber Aureus Accipiter: The Book of the Hawk of Gold

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      0.       The Fool came to the victorious city, to dance with tigers; and he found Not
                  that he sought.

I. Then did the sorcerer weave a web of words; then did the juggler spin the worlds; then did the trickster and the thief despoil the ill-ordered house, and steal away the holy of holies into the night surrounding (point of light shadowed by the ape).

II. The priestess of the arrow star sat dreaming by the fountain, and gazed upon the mirror of the moon; even as the camels set out across the desert. She has sealed the secret knowledge into a book of flesh.

III. While the earth reeled in her delight, as a new child was born, and a new age declared.

IV. Sceptered and crowned the King ruled in exile, in secrecy and serpent-cunning; and a new law came up like the dawn, with swords and with spears. In silence he readies the third table of time.

V. The high priest saw the temple desecrated, and cried out; the screams turn to laughter in his throat, he is free of gods in the empty shrine, and dances.

VI. By evening in the garden, two lovers meet in secret, embrace upon a bed of flowers, under the hair of the trees of night, where glitters the peacock angel’s gaze. They share the double elixir merged, under the arching stars.

VII. The warrior-prince rides out in his chariot, armor gleaming in the sun; he goes to hunt leopards in the noontime, with a falcon on his wrist and twin sphinxes to draw him on his way. Before the day is done he shall lose all, and begin the quest of the grail.

VIII. (In secret, masked, the harlequin laughs. With sword she makes the double-edged judgment. The scales of balance weigh the heart against the feather. Truth changes all in time.)

IX. By a well in the outer desert sat a hermit in prayer; another lay in a gem-canopied bed of purple in the palace. Their calls rose together in the night-sky and were one, but their light of their lamps they hid away and concealed.

X.  And the wheel did turn, and the gods did dance, and all manner of things were well.

XI. In the hot night of the victorious city the Dancer is whirling, drunk with scarlet wine; stripping the veils from her flesh, tossing her jewels out like stars, keening the serpent-call of lust. Naked in ecstasy, she rides the many-headed Beast to a goal beyond their knowing. The virgin becomes the harlot, the whore cries out to naught.

XII. Then we crossed the great water and came in the night, the vine-crowned image of the god was bound to the mast of our ship; the dragon of the deep writhed beneath us like a drowning star. The storm encompassed all.

XIII. The four horsemen came to the world as Death, even as plague and famine and war, and the rider on a pale horse. All perished, even children, but lo! The desert flowers bloomed.

XIV. Then an angel clothed in light as of suns poured out fire and water upon the black land, and men rose up shining in their stars to become adept in the art. The spider wove a circle-web to catch the dew of dawn.

XV. The wild goat danced the Dance of Pan upon the high mountains, for he knew the secret that was set up in his staff. His eyes of seeing laughed, but the blind eye wept, creating worlds.

XVI. When a King dies in the city an old tower falls in wailing and a new one is builded up; the tablets of the law are broken and scattered, the bridges are cast down and rise anew (the mouth devours time and space).

XVII. A new star rises in the company of heaven, to shed a light both blessed and accursed, to herald the flooding of the Nile that turns the dry land green; to call the children away into the wilderness and make them as strangers to the shadows of the city. Light pervades every corner of a world of crystal, embracing every soul to set the heart afire, unfolding the rainbow wings of genius.

XVIII. The witch-moon of blood shone upon strange and frenzied rites, women and beasts in the procession of the great one; wolves howling in the midnight hunt, the waxing and waning of tides, the waves of changing light. The scarab-beetle turned thrice about in the egg.

XIX. In the morning were there phoenix-fires on the hilltops in the open eye of the sun. Twin hawks circle in the sky and slay; the earth was shaken.

XX. There is a terrible and glorious and abiding light. The abomination of desolation is set up in the secret temple, when the Hawk-Headed Lord awakens the kingdom with his word, burning all with fury and fire. The royal child is hidden away in an azure jewel of silence, in a lotus on the deep.

XXI. And the Dancer spirals and the worlds reel and all things are alive again, immortal and shining like never before (half in the clear light, half in the dark). The whore is becoming the virgin.

0.        The Fool came out of the city, who had found Naught that he sought; wild
           tigers danced with him as he went free upon his way; the blood of the grape
           fell ripe and rich into his mouth.

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 Comment: the preceding was scribed in 1984, as part of a devotion to Ra-Hoor-Khu. The verses correspond to the Atus of the Tarot, and the theme is the transformation of the world by Thelema: inspired and illuminated by my holy guardian spirit.
 Fay ce que vouldras,
     Shade Oroboros 817