Brigid of the Rainbow Planets
Adventures of the Alchemical Twins
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
Realm of the Planet Uranus: To Have and to Hold
Ritual No. 6
To Bind Another is to Bind One's Self
THE TEMPLE OF ALCHEMY
Priestess Alchemist: (to Twin Apprentices) The arts of magic inspire the soul - but tempt it to control rather than to aspire. For wise use of magical powers, let us invoke the Goddess Urania, of the planet Uranus!
Priest Alchemist: Before even the Olympian Gods showed Themselves to humanity, You, Urania, with Your twin brother Uranus, were among the Titans Who created the elements of planetary being. Now that some humans are reaching maturity, help us to achieve the stars!
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS URANIA
Oracle: Your souls have been brought into being in this nursery planet to achieve this very purpose! Yours is the arduous task of millions of years to transform the basic biological elements into spiritual Light. Some tread the hard-working path of Epimetheus, the scientist who measures the past, that which is known, and so can be evaluated and used. Many pursue the path of the householder, loving and caring for others. But amongst you are my special children, those who dare to steal the fire of the Gods - such a man was Prometheus.
I cannot and do not wish to change your human nature. Such a forced transformation would be tyrannous. The conversion that is forced is no enlightenment but rather slavery. So I do not emphasize the terrible fate of Prometheus, who abused Cosmic Fire and paid the penalty. He is restored through the aeons of time. Rather do I encourage you to dare and to do - but always with the proviso that you consider others! For true love is that which sets free, whether an Elemental spirit, a country you rule - or a fellow human that you either love or hate.
Come to me - but be not bound by me! Find your own way to the stars!
Priestess Alchemist: (to Aiden) My friend, you are too apt to follow the agendas of so-called Masters without using your own intuition, given by the Muses. Urania is Muse of Magic. If you so choose, enter the Gateway of Uranus. We shall be with you - but not to help you.
Trance
Aiden: I am eager for this magical journey! I feel ready to use my own inner powers *** I make my way swiftly up the avenue to the Temple of the Planets shining brightly with rainbow colours. I enter and face the central Golden Sphere emanating the Powers. I approach the mighty portals of the planet Uranus in the Southwest wall *** On one side is a statue of the Titan Uranus, pale and towering, clouds concealing His features. On the other side is the Goddess Urania, Her face also concealed with mist through which glimmer countless constellations. Above Them is the insignia of Uranus, a giant H bisected by a line terminating in an iridescent globe. I part silvery curtains and enter the foggy land beyond. I feel fearful yet expectant. This is my time, this is my place.
As I think this, the place unfolds itself to my wish, and I realise how potent my latent powers are! I have always longed to be a sculptor, but doubted my talent. This is a sculptor’s studio, filled with half-worked blocks of marble. So here lies my buried talent! A woman in a grey shawl busies herself, sweeping up stone chippings. I gesture her to leave. Can I be a Michelangelo?
I notice a huge block of white marble in a raised alcove, ready for my skill. Dare I hack a this stone? I have not much physical expertise in this line. Why not try magic? I think: “Let there be a human body showing forth from this stone!” Already I see a figure pleading for release.
To my astonishment the marble begins to shape-shift. A roughly formed body stands before me on the plinth. All my passion, all my secret longings invade my very soul. I command the stone: “Reveal to me my Immortal Beloved!” I hear celestial music as the marble reveals itself in the form of a divinely beautiful woman! I fall on my knees. In my head I hear the words: “Command me to speak!” I command: “Speak!”
I tremble. For I hear her low lovely voice. “Give me a mind!” I give her all my mind, my thoughts, my ideals. She begins to glow. Then she speaks again with indescribable charm: “Give me your heart!”
I open my heart to her - all my longings, my dreams of love. She becomes enveloped in a shining rose and gold aura pouring from her heart.
She then pleads with me. “My god, my creator, give me life!” I bestow on her my life’s flows, which endows her with movement. She laughs and stretches out her arms towards me, and steps from the plinth. I am enraptured. I cry out from my heart. “You are My Immortal Beloved. Come to me. You are mine, utterly, forever!” But even as I utter these words in ecstasy, I feel my life beginning to ebb away from me and flow towards the Beloved in a golden stream. I am dying. Her arms embrace me. As my senses recede, I hear her voice. “You are my Immortal Beloved. You are mine utterly, forever!”
To my terror she is changing into a gigantic spider! In vain I struggle in her sticky web, which she had formed from my life’s flow. Just as I lose consciousness I hear distantly a woman’s voice: “Shape-shift! Peck your way out!”
I assume the form of a sparrow - and I peck myself free from the web. The Beloved transforms herself into a hawk to seize me … I become a hare and flee … She becomes a hound and chases me … I hide in a river as a trout … She becomes a pike to devour me … With my remaining vestige of strength I hide as a grain of wheat … But she finds me in her form as a hen. She swallows me. I find myself gyrating, falling down a black tunnel … I am imprisoned in a cave … I take endless ages to break my way through its walls … I make a last effort … the walls crack - and I am free! There comes a mighty crash and I am back in the studio. My Masterpiece, my marble statue of the Beloved is shattered! And the woman in the shawl has returned and is sweeping up the fragments with her broomstick. I catch a glimpse of her hair. She is my friend, the red-haired witch.
After Aiden returns from trance, the company are laughing at his adventures, but all agree that he has earned his alchemical degree as a latter-day Pygmalion. Elaine remarks that really he was safer with his masters of the wisdom, protected from women by an occult order! Thanks are given to the Deities.
End of Rite
Sources: “A New Translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into English Prose”, Ovid, Joseph Davidson, translator, London, 1748 and 1759. “Hesiod, Homeric Hymns and Fragments of the Epic Cycle, Homerica”, Hugh G. Evelyn-White, translator, Loeb Classical Library no. 57, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England, first published 1914, introduced as Loeb Classical Library volume in 1970. “Timaeus. Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles", Plato, translated by R. G. Bury, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 234, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1929. “The Transformation of Gwion,” from “Ystoria Taliesin: The Story of Taliesin”, Elis Gruffydd, edited by Patrick K. Ford, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1992. (Elis Gruffydd, sixteenth century, wrote an account of the mythological life of Taliesin based on an oral tradition of Welsh folklore, which includes the Welsh myth of Cerridwen and Taliesin.) “The House of the Titans and Other Poems”, AE (also A.E. or Aeon the pen name of George William Russell), Macmillan & Co., New York, 1934. "Lebor Gabala Erenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland", R. A. Stewart Macalister, D. Litt., translator, a series of five volumes, edited and translated with notes by Dr. Macalister. Published for the Irish Texts Society (Volumes 40 - 44) by the Educational Company of Ireland Ltd., Dublin, published between 1941- 1956.
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