Fortuna, Creation Through the Goddess
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
The Plumed Serpent Awakens
Ritual No. 8
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS MAYA
Invocation: Divine Goddess Maya, Who shines through the stars with the copper-coloured radiance of love, bring us into your rainbow network that unites all hearts.
Oracle: I am the Cosmic Mother and from My matrix emerge all beings. My encircling strands of hair form the galaxies and my eyes are twin stars. My limbs form the constellations and my dark womb receives the stars when they come to their final rest, to be reborn in another sphere.
Yet My fingers draw the delicate spider's web and My eyes look at you with the sad gaze of the timid fawn. I see you with the eyes of friend and enemy, of those who threaten you and those who protect you. It is My singing you hear when your heart responds to music and My face gazes upon the world through paintings and woven cloth. When you love anyone or anything you love Me.
Yet I am also the distorted mirror image in the sphere in which you are entrapped: the five-barred prison of the senses. Your questing minds cannot know more than your prison permits, for you are lost Gods and Goddesses entrapped by the grid of the stars. You seek for release and this very wish brings it about! The moment you acknowledge the Greater, the Greater make way for you. You create the prison: you determine your own release.
We, your Fathers and Mothers, your Sisters and Brothers, may not respond to your anguished prayers, when you make no effort to help yourselves! You with your longing and hard work create the pyramid of earth that reaches to the stars. In response, we extend our luminous Cone of Light downwards, until its point reaches your hearts.
The End Times have come which are the beginning of a new Creation. Recognise yourselves as immortal and lo! You are so! You never awaken into eternal reality in the past or the future: only in the ever-living Now. We are here. We are coming. Approach and meet Us.
Priestesses wear copper serpent crowns and carry copper wands. Priests wear gold headdresses and carry staffs. Both wear green robes. All others wear red white, black and yellow robes. On green draped altar are 5 lighted candles, a ceramic bowl, burning incense, a reed and a feather and cards VII and XIII of the Marseilles Tarot Deck. Music with flute and drum may be played throughout.
Priest Hierophant: Fellow practitioners of magic, we are assembled to awaken the luminous Plumed Serpent concealed within our bodies.
Priestess Hierophant: (makes sign of Aries and offers incense) I invoke the Goddess above All, She of the Robe of the Stars, Maya, and Her Divine Daughter, Coatlicue of the Robe of Serpents. Coatlicue, Whose serpents form the spirals of space and time, bring us to the centre of Creation!
Priest Hierophant: (makes sign of Mars and offers incense) I invoke the God Cuculcan, revered by the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl, and known to the Irish sages as the hero Cuchulan. You Who incarnated as a fallible man, help us to face the ordeals of successive earthly lives. We fail many times, as you did. May we like you finally conquer and ascend to the stars!
1st Priest: Who will be Apprentice?
1st Practitioner: I will. I wish to awaken the power within.
1st Priest: So be it. (shows tarot cards) Describe these two cards designed by a Mage.
Apprentice: Number VII, "Le Chariot", shows a crowned king in a chariot, holding a golden sceptre. He is standing under a canopy upheld by 2 red and 2 blue pillars. The chariot is drawn by 1 red and 1 blue horse, designated "Sun and Moon". The other card, number XIII, has no title. It shows a skeleton reaping a harvest of blue and yellow plants from a field scattered with severed human heads, hands and feet.
1st Priestess: What do you read from these cards?
Apprentice: I learn that to discover one's immortality one must face suffering and death with equilibrium.
Priest Hierophant: You are accepted as apprentice. To study this matter further, we present our play for you, entitled "The Lost Children", set in a South American Republic at this present time.
PLAY: THE LOST CHILDREN
Drumbeats. Enter Priestess and Priest in Mexican robes and masks.
Priest: Learn from us, Guardians of Time, The Ahuacan Wise Serpents. We tell of the 4 ordeals undergone by the God Cuculcan, Who descended 9 steps from the planet Venus to save humanity from Mitnal, hell. He was protected by his friend, the dog Hunhau. Cuculcan refused to kill any creature, human, animal or bird. So the deities appointed as his Tempter the War God Tezcatlipoca.
Priestess: First Cuculcan underwent the Ordeal of the Mirror. The War God showed Him a mirror in which Cuculcan saw Himself as an ugly old human being, ripe for death. So He fell into despair and forgot His Divinity. Next the War God persuaded his victim to assume many masks. So he became a salamander, a jaguar, a green quetzal bird and the fire-bird, Kinich-Ahau. And he transformed himself into the shaman Votan, the Corn God Hum Kaa and Itzamna the God of Medicine. Finally he became the Wind God Ehecatl and restored to life the skeleton Ah Puch. But still he forgot his own Divinity.
Priest: Next the Ward God entrapped Cuculcan with the intoxication of delusions, so that he thought he was King of the earth! But he did not know that he was a God. Finally the War God gave him his last ordeal. He bound Cuculcan with the bonds of obsessive passions so that he lost his will power.
Priestess: But suddenly Cuculcan saw a vision of his Divine Mother Coatlicue. And he repented his degradation. He ascended 3 steps to the house of the 5th sun, higher even than Venus. And the War God rejoiced in his brother's victory!
Priest: This is the spiritual journey of each one of us today. Behold the sorrows of a grandmother and a mother who lament the loss of their children in a modem Mexican city.
Enter Grandmother and Mother, shabbily clad.
Grandmother: Oh yes indeed, we have a fine Fiesta de la Muerte! Sugar skulls in plenty and corpses in our crypt for tourists to gape at - and not one living grandchild!
Mother: Why did we ever leave our mountain? This is no city for a widow. They tell me we were once a great people before the white men came. But now our children roam the streets, with no father to protect their innocence. The police may have shot them - as they do in Brazil.
Grandmother: Our tribe was never great. That is why we hid in the mountains. White men, red men, yellow men - they're all the same. We are the everlasting poor. Who will help us?
Enter Young Man and Young Woman in torn clothes.
Young Man: Can you hide us? We were heading for a protest march against the exploitation of the poor - the police are searching for us.
Grandmother: Protest! What a waste of time!
Mother: Quick! There is a door concealed within that cupboard - hide there.
Young Man and Young Woman hide. Enter two police.
1st Police: Have you seen two terrorists? A man and a girl?
Grandmother: I've seen no terrorists.
Mother: Nor I.
Police make a search.
2nd Police: There's not room for a rat in this filthy shack. These peons live like animals, let's get out.
Exeunt.
Music. Enter Young Man and Young Woman attired as Mexican deities. Grandmother and Mother kneel.
Young Man: Do not kneel. (Grandmother and Mother rise.) We are your ancestors! I am the Sun God Cuculcan returned to earth to reap the Harvest of Souls.
Young Woman: I am the Moon Goddess lx-huyne. Our Mother is the Goddess Coatlicue. Dear Mothers, return with us to your sacred mountain. There we guard all lost children in a haven of love and joy.
Mothers are led out by the deities. Drumbeats.
End of Play
1st Priest: (to Apprentice) What do you understand from this?
Apprentice: I learn that spiritual alchemy transmutes suffering and sin to the pure gold of love.
Priest Hierophant: You answer well. To experience the Shaman journey of Cuculcan you need to take the spiritual pilgrimage to the constellation of Aries.
2nd Priestess: (anoints each brow with water) May the third eye awaken!
3rd Priestess: Let us be seated in a circle, with eyes shut. (All do so.) We visualise a brilliant landscape with stars sending forth rays of differing colours, each with its own note of music *** Before us is a grassy hill like an emerald pyramid - and crowning it is the Temple of the Zodiac. We climb this hill *** We reach the Temple Portico, flanked by lofty female and male sphinxes, their wings reaching the stars. We enter *** In the centre is the altar of the perpetual flame composed of many coloured rays. It is guarded by a bull, lion, eagle and angel with outspread wings. There are 12 stained-glass windows in the Temple, and we approach the Window of Aries in the East. Let us contemplate its picture.
3rd Priest: It portrays a God and Goddess with bodies of copper-coloured light. The God holds aloft a sword of fire and the Goddess holds a flaming torch. They lead a winding procession of old people, the disabled, young children, animals and birds towards the stars.
3rd Priestess: A sudden powerful wind throws open the window and we are faced by the triangle of the stars of Aries. Gaze upon two of the stars, Sharatan which is pearly-white and Mesartin, which is white and grey. Between these two is the realm of the depths of space, Maya Oc.
THE REALM OF MAYA OC OF ARIES
3rd Priestess: This sphere is ruled by Ix-huyne the Moon Goddess and Chac the Rain god. Here is the lowest point in our spiritual journey, where we may transform past experience into the gold of understanding. Our discarded masks of many lives lie here, awaiting retrieval.
Apprentice: Are you prepared to descend the nine steps down to Maya Oc, place of birth?
Apprentice: I am willing. I cannot fly without a nest to fly from!
Priest Hierophant: Hear words from the past: "All moons, all years, all days, all winds, reach their completion and pass away. So does all blood reach its place of quiet, as it reaches its power and its throne. Measured was the time in which they could know the sun's benevolence. Measured was the time in which the grid of the stars would look down upon them; and through it, keeping watch over their safety, the Gods trapped within them would contemplate them."
Priestess Hierophant: Even the Gods were once trapped before attaining eternity: "Coral is my tongue and emerald my beak. I open my eyes and weep before my Fathers; how shall we now reach the stars?"
3rd Priest: (to Apprentice) Pass through the window and descend to Maya Oc. We shall follow.
Meditation
3rd Priest: Let us return from Maya Oc, Place of the Beginnings. (to Apprentice) What did you experience?
Apprentice: I learnt that only be surrendering to the Mother may I myself become a creator! I am born and therefore shall bring others to birth. I shall create planets!
3rd Priestess: A courageous answer! Take this reed. Let your spirit play through it.
2nd Priestess: Let us now gaze upon the brightest star of Aries, Arietis, golden Eye of the Ram, Proclaimer of the Dawn, the Messenger of Light. Within its penumbra is the Heaven of Mayapan.
HEAVEN OF MAYAPAN
2nd Priest: This heaven is ruled by the fire-bird, Kinich Ahau and the Goddess Mayahuel, Maiden of Joy, Son and Daughter of Coatlicue. At its centre grows the green Tree of Life, surrounded by 4 trees, yellow, red, white and black. Here are flower and blossom maidens, Eagle Warriors and benevolent manikins playing reed flutes.
Priest Hierophant: Hear the chant of a Magician: 'I tie a rope to the Sacred Tree, I plait it with 8 strands so that I, a Magician, may descend to the magical house! Intone your song in the Hall of the Flames. Chant praise in the House of the Sun."
Priestess Hierophant: Learn of the beauty of Mayapan: "My heart blossoms. I was born in Paradise. I come from the place of flowers. Be ye happy under the flower-bush, many coloured like the quetzal-bird singing to the gods. Listen to its flute by the river in the House of Reeds."
2nd Priestess: (to Apprentice) Ascend to the Paradise of Mayapan by the 13 steps of the Moon.
Meditation
2nd Priestess: Let us return. (to Apprentice) What did you find?
Apprentice: I found the joy of facing truth and so may gain the power of creation. Anything false cannot stand: Pictures fade, writing and music are meaningless and buildings crumble. But that which is created through the Light of Truth endures forever.
2nd Priestess: The plumed serpent stirs within you. Yet this is a shadow of what may come. Accept this green feather.
Priestess Hierophant: Friends, let us gaze upon the stars and contemplate their beautiful Goddess Maya! The Light of Truth shines from Her eyes, and from Her heart proceed the divine twins, God and Goddess, Who Were and Are and Shall Be.
VISION OF THE GODDESS MAYA
1st Priest: We turn away from the stars and re-enter the Temple of the Zodiac *** We leave by the great Portico *** and descend the pyramid hill *** We find ourselves back in our earthly bodies in our Temple.
Reports are given. Radiations of courage and joy are sent forth. The Apprentice if deemed successful is given the reed and feather. Thanks are given to the deities.
Sources: "The Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas: Aztec, Maya, Inca", Victor Wolfgang Von Hagen, Panther Books Ltd., London, 1967. "Mexican and Central American Mythology", Irene Nicholson, Hamlyn Publishing Group, Ltd., London, 1967. "New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology", Introduction by Robert Graves, Hamlyn Publishing Group, Ltd., London, New York, 1969.
Note: "Star Names" by Richard H. Allen and the Marseilles Tarot Deck are used for each Rite in Fortuna.
The tarot deck used for this ritual was provided by a friend of Rt. Rev. Olivia Robertson, the Rev. Joan Countess de Frenay, who is a gifted reader of the tarot. This particular deck is dated 1740.
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