Athena Chapter 5: Part 1: Bohemia: In the Bohemian Woods

TEMPLE OF ARTS – IN THE BOHEMIAN WOODS

Aiden: “We are fascinated, Sophia, that historical Bohemia still exists within this highly technical state! I wish you hadn’t lost your Name, “Bohemia”, which everyone in the world has heard of! “La Boheme” is the most performed of all operas.

Sophia: “That is not all we have lost. A whole magical tradition has dissipated, only kept alive in various esoteric societies, unknown to the world. I cannot tell you how many of such Orders I have joined – to no avail. The true mystery of “Rosa Alchemica” is kept from me. I am in despair.”

Elaine: “Dear Sophia, Take Heart! When the soul is in despair, then the Goddess manifests in all Her Light. Let us invoke the golden beauty of the Goddess Vesta of the Eternal Flame!”

Deirdre: “Already I feel the Presence of Vesta. This is a secret holy place revered in ancient times by the Goddess of the Melusina solar flow of Divine Life.”

Aiden (raises staff): “Holy Goddess Vesta, invisible to the eye of the profane, glorious in beauty to those who seek You, come among us to fill our emptiness!”

ORACLE OF THE GODDESS VESTA

“You call upon that which you have already! I speak through this visionary, yet I also come to you in silence, in darkness, when you are most in need. For I am the Divine Love that burns in the heart of all beings born of the Mother. And all are so born but are taught to ignore their own divine nature. Ambitious Teachers are possessed by a longing to create, to rule, to possess the souls of their followers. But when divine power is blocked, power diminishes, bringing despair. Then I come. But I must be sought for. It is your will which draws you to My Will, in freedom. Unity with my eternal flame from the holy darkness brings you rebirth into your greater Being. Now feel my Presence of Light through your bodies! I come from below with Love, and from above as Wisdom. Where these meet, flowers the Mystic Rose. You are no longer alone. My Rose joins heart to heart with joy, and wisdom brings harmony.”

Elaine: “We give thanks to the Goddess Vesta for Her Oracle.”

Aiden: “It is customary for us to hear in truth why we have been invited to this beautiful Temple hidden in a wood that has just lost its protective covering of snow. We expect your Narration.”

The Narration

Sophia: “My soul is dry. I ask you to play some music of our Nature composers, Smetana, Dvorak and Sibelius for the trance.”

“My upbringing had no such romantic emphasis. My mother died giving me birth, and my father named me Sophia Dorothea after an ancestress who had a disastrous love affair. He said from this misfortune I should learn wisdom from my name Sophia – not the name of any Goddess or Saint, but of abstract Wisdom. So I had the most extraordinary upbringing. My father was a Professor of Astrophysics in our local University, and from the age of five I was introduced to spiral galaxies, “Black Holes,” and the folly of astrology. He was an F.R.A.S. My father always got irritated when the words “Astronomy” and “Astrology” were linked. I had no Guardian Angel, as my father explained that to have wings an angel would need a gigantic chest bone to support them. Actually, he gave the number in feet.

His faith lay in the immutable Laws of Physics. Saints could not levitate against the law of gravity – but he had to reconcile Newton and Einstein. One’s only hope of soul survival, after death, lay in Samuel Butler’s offer of vicarious existence. One lived on in people’s memory. This did not appeal to me. Ghosts and such phenomena were due to some energy not yet understood – I gather a sort of television that recorded the passing show. So I had no soul, nor had anyone else. We did or could have a vague God as an hypothesis.

But it was my moral education that he centred on, as I was his only child, and I suppose he loved me, though he never mentioned this. He would give me little lessons as to the proper reaction I should display to show forth my correct attitude. He was by profession a distinguished engineer, and had an immense admiration for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

I was often told to imagine a bone-idle and drunken illegal immigrant lying by the Bridge in a stupor. I held a live bomb. I had the choice. Either I should blow up the useless drunk – or the Golden Gate Bridge! And I invariably gave the wrong answer. I insisted on blowing up the Bridge.

Another query was often repeated. This concerned the Louvre in Paris with its painting of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and other great works. Again I held a live bomb. I was either to blow up The Louvre – or a beggar boy sitting outside, cap for coins, busily defiling the pavement with graffiti of an objectionable sort. Once more I disappointed my father – I blew up the Louvre. Indeed, I animated both tramp and beggar into lively friends! So you can understand that having gained my degree in University to please him, I then rebelled against my father’s philosophy of the Greater Good – called Fascist, in going against the so-called laws of nature. I joined a group of drop-outs. Among these rebels I found a Lover.

At first he seemed ideal. He had long hair, was unshaved. He taught our group that we should do just what we wanted to. We should make love how and where we chose. He encouraged violent revolution – usually in the form of Protests in foreign countries where we could make the most upheaval.

However, things did not go well with our relationship. As I was told I had total control of love making, I refused. I think it was his habit of swallowing poached eggs whole. Like all of our group he had to have his own way. We were like angels when all went well – but demons if we were “crossed”.

When I rejected the Lover he suddenly showed another side to his character. Proudly he told me he was “vengeful.” I soon got to know what that meant. He wished to have his revenge on his parents for being capitalists. He wished to punish the authorities for banning drugs. And above all he wished to punish anyone for offending his vanity. I realised that he was indeed a Lover: A Lover of himself.

With difficulty I extricated myself from his group. But now I was completely alone. I was used to being instructed. I had learnt so much from my father that I had a Double First Degree in Physics and Mathematics in our University. And through the riotous years with the Lover and his eccentric friends I had made a reputation as a film maker. I even have my own television programme.”

Elaine: “Then you seem to have all you need. You were a follower of Masters – Luciferian of heights and Satanic of the depths – and you come out looking very elegant and competent. Why do you need the Fellowship of Isis?”

Sophia: “You see my Persona. I preside over programmes with the knowledge taught from my father, and the passionate feelings introduced by The Lover. But this learning and this passion, are not part of my real self! I feel I am becoming less and less real the more successful I become. My true self has become a shadow banished by a false Sophia forged by teachers.

So I hope to find myself. I do remember being a happy baby – before my education. I’ve had glimpses through music and friendship. But what finally terrified me was what happened to my father and The Lover. I have never told anyone this. But I must. My father has lapsed into deep “clinical melancholia.” He is shut in an icy realm where he is not aware of warmth, friends, even animals.

I did not recognise The Lover when I visited him in a basement flat in a rough part of his town. He was living in a secret world induced by hard drugs. He says he is in an underworld with blazing fires and many people – not beings I would care to meet, judging from his description. He had been so much in control of his followers – but now is dependent on outside help. He certainly needs it, but not from those to whom he turns, who are as ill as he is.

And I cannot help either him or my father. They have taken away my own self with their projections of what they wanted me to be. Perhaps they did love me as they thought I was….Then I met one of your members, a Priest of Isis, who said that I had given all I had to these two men and now I was empty of the life flow of the Goddess. They could not help me. Nor can I help them. So I turn to you.”

Note: These Rites may be used for meetings of the Muses Symposium and the Arcadians.

Please continue to Part 2. The Land of Macara of the Mystic Rose

Back to Athena: Arcadian Awakening

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