Athena Chapter 5: Introduction: Bohemia: Where is Bohemia?

"Sophia, the Lion and the Rose" by Olivia Robertson

Fellowship of Isis Liturgy

By

Olivia Robertson

Athena - Arcadian Awakening

5. Bohemia: Where is Bohemia?

Introduction

“Where your heart is, there is home.”

Encouraged by my defusing the terror of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by introducing the “Four Sacred Donkeys of the Zodiac,” I began noticing other creatures unfairly despised or feared by our aggressive humanity. For instance, wolves are unfairly thought of in a creepy way. I made friends with a wolf in Arizona and was photographed with her in my bed. Her eyes shone like lamps. Far away in Ireland, when I was having bother psychically, this Wolf projected in my room and asked: “Are you all right?” The translator in the brain turned this query into English. I said: “Thank you for asking. I’m fine!” In America one says that. In Ireland with an Irish wolf I would have said: “Not so bad.”

Wolves are our Robertson protectors, shown as such in our Coat of Arms. But what about our treatment of their descendents, dogs? They get kindness, even compassion, as we train them to be good to children, severe to thieves, and dangerous to our enemies. But though in England dogs are permitted to lie on sofas and beds – they lack dignified status. Cats were Goddesses in Egypt, and still keep their pride. Pekinese were Royal in old China. But they have been bred to be tame miniature lions, like Japanese Bonsai mini-trees. Like dogs we train them as we choose.

The lack of Divinity in dogs was brought home to me in a Bohemian restaurant in Arizona. I saw on one vast wall, a magnificent painting of the Last Supper as recorded by Leonardo da Vinci. But then I looked closer with astonishment Christ presided benignly over the supper as a fox-terrier. On his chest reclined a beautiful Afghan dog, with long, blonde ringlets. The Apostles were depicted as various breeds including a dachshund. On the table were cups including the Holy Grael, I presumed.

I was so delighted with the picture that someone suggested I should get a coloured photograph to bring back to Ireland. But already trouble was brewing! A man objected, saying the Afghan with ringlets was Mary Magdalene, rather than the Beloved John. “I must be tactful,” I said, “bringing a photo. They are Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. They would think I was insulting their faith. Some call dogs ‘Brute Beasts.’ A friend suggested hopefully I might get shot! “No,” I said. “We are not that religious nowadays – except in certain counties… But I would not dream of showing saints as dogs.”

However, the honour of dogs has been restored! I was explaining to a friend how the Jackal God Anubis came to our temple. She asked: “The Jackal-headed Anubis with a man’s body?” “No”, I replied, “An animal Jackal, seated on a throne. He is a God, Son of the Goddess Nephthys and the God Osiris.”

A Priestess gave me an old Egyptian appliquéd wall hanging of the Goddess Muth, with Anubis on his throne below. I duly put this in our Temple. That night I was awakened by the sound of a rumpus in the Temple. I projected psychically down four flights of stairs to the Temple, and found our orange cat Honey-Howler in a mock battle with what I thought was a black dachshund. But he had long upstanding ears and long legs. He jumped up into my arms and licked my face! I wiped it off, and he tentatively licked me again. It was Anubis!

So now in our Cave of the Mothers, Anubis is depicted as a Jackal on his throne, on the altar with a painting of Isis and Osiris, rising into the starry sky. For Anubis is Guide to the constellation of Orion and the Sirius star of Isis. He can also be our Guide so that we too may know our own immortality.

Where can the eccentric, rejected and the abused find their true home, where they are accepted with respect and love? Where else, but Bohemia?

I found the perfect answer in Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia herself. Shakespeare wrote her story in “The Tempest.” She was Miranda, the Philosopher Prospero her father. The romantic lover, Ferdinand, found her in a startling island with faeries and a witch, and other unusual characters. Strangely Elizabeth’s own real life story came some years later. Her Romantic Rosicrucian initiation ended with a tempest.

The idealistic pair, the Winter King and Queen of Bohemia – came, one should think, from some distant ideal planet – brought through initiations of the Rosicrucian enlightenment. They would not have been surprised by seeming disaster. To lose their kingdom to enemies who laughed at them – would be a Test. Frederick was killed in battle, and Elizabeth was exiled in the Hague in Holland.

Ah – but this is what interests me. From there she created the mythic Bohemia that spread throughout the world. It flourishes in Manhattan, Chelsea, Moscow, Tokyo – wherever Utopia is sought for, not through Empire or violent revolution, but through Art and Nature.

People flocked to her court of every kind of unusual characters – “weird”, animal-lovers, pantheists, performers, pagans, anyone with originality. They had been driven out of Bohemia itself, and any land where people who had creative originality were persecuted or laughed at. Elizabeth surrounded herself with every sort of animal and bird, including a monkey which must have removed any of that pomposity associated with courts. Elizabeth deserved her title of Queen of Hearts and Shakespeare’s Miranda.

Yes, I have been happy in Bohemia in France, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Hawaii, Yucatan and in eight states in the United States. I am writing this in our Irish Bohemia, with a giant black mountain dog, a miniature dachshund, two pot-bellied black pigs, white, black and orange cats – a varied family and friends. We welcome Spirit friends, usually discouraged in other old castles. Like Kipling’s Irish Kim, we are friends to all the world.

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