Isis of Alchemy, Transformation Through the Goddess
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
The Opal Pylon of Uranus
The Octagonal Temple of Alchemy
Ritual no. 6
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS MUMUNA
Invocation: Holy Goddess Mumuna, known as the Great Mother Who Made Us All, bestow on us the art of creation.
Oracle: The ambition of Humans leads them to strive for that which is theirs already! What the Deities achieve in their greatness, creating galaxies, is likewise performed perfectly by the humble snake, the shark, the kangaroo! Birth is the Great Mystery which is known to all yet understood by none. Physical birth is a reflection of the progress of every creature to rebirth in Eternal Spiritual Reality. During past ages, women believed that they alone had been given the privilege of child creation which they paid for through the agony of labour. But during succeeding centuries, men discovered their own role in conception. Unfortunately they wrongly decided that only men possessed the seed of life, which they planted in women, who were only the nurturing earth. So they became the dominant sex, and ruled both women and all they claimed as their property. And their property included territory which they fought for in wars that destroyed the very land they fought over.
Now that this violence involves the misuse of science, the planet - to us a nursery - is endangered. We the custodians of earth whom you call deities, exist. We love. We intervene. You can help us. Bring about partnership between men and women, humans and animals, and harmony for all nature. Through harmony you will awaken from this dream of life, and in the eternal Spirit Word, learn to co-create with the deities.
On a grey draped altar let there be 6 lighted candles, a bowl of water, and a lamen of the planet Uranus. Women Adepti wear pearl tiaras, and hold silver wands: Men Adepti wear silver headdresses and carry staffs. Women Practitioners wear silver circlets: men, silver headbands. All wear rainbow-coloured robes. Music may be played throughout. Percussion is used and if possible clappers and a digeridoo. A boomerang lies on the altar.
1st Adeptus: Magic practitioners, we are assembled to uncover the alchemy of the planet Uranus-Urania. The opal coloured rays of the planet conceal the power of cosmic rebirth.
1st Adepta: (makes sign of Uranus with wand) I invoke the Great Mother Mumuna, She who made us all. Divine Mumuna, you who pervade the ocean of space and time, and from thence draw forth all beings from your starry body, bring us Divine rebirth!
1st Adeptus: (makes sign of Uranus with staff) I invoke the Hidden God Walangada, concealed by the encircling constellations of the Milky Way. As above, so below. From your greatness bring from our littleness, our own inner star.
2nd Adeptus: Who is the Candidate?
Candidate is lead forward by sponsor.
2nd Adepta: Have you the courage to face cosmic rebirth?
Candidate: This is my goal. I would transcend my pettiness. I long to be divine!
2nd Adepta: You seek what is within yourself (to Sponsor) Is this candidate prepared?
Sponsor: This student is balanced in mind and emotions and so may qualify to attain greater consciousness.
2nd Adeptus: So be it. The preliminary step before many years work is to witness a Mystery Drama. This was the method used by the sages of Ancient Australia.
3rd Adepta: (anoints each brow with water) May your inner vision awake.
MYSTERY DRAMA. TRAVELLING THE RAINBOW SERPENT
SCENE 1. THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN DESERT 1849
Enter Ngunug, bearded and holding long staff.
Nqunug: Know me as Ngunug, who guides seekers around the spirals of the rainbow serpent. I take you through Space and Time, to Victorian Australia, deep in the Western Desert. I await three lost fugitives from a penal colony.
Enter Bridgit, Kathleen and Brian, in the last stages of exhaustion.
Brian: Forgive me: I should have not brought you to this desert.
Bridget: We chose to escape. Better to die in the clean air than in that penal hell-hole.
Brian: It was I who stole for you both, Bridget and Kathleen, rather than watch you starve in the Great Hunger. But I should not have let you hide me.
Kathleen: May the blessed Virgin save us! We escaped starving in Ireland and death in a coffin ship only to die here. (Crosses herself. Screams suddenly.) The saints preserve us ... a savage!
Ngunug approaches with billycan. He gives them water.
Brian: And we call you a savage ... our folk shoot you for sport, like so many wild animals. Why do you help us? Can you understand my words?
Ngunug: My young friends, I speak all languages. (music) Mumuna, goddess of the lost continent of Mu, returns to us. The Great-Mother-Who-Made-Us-All summons us to this desert. Brian, I see the bloody marks of your chains. I know the sufferings of your sisters. I am your path leader, Ngunug the ferryman...
Brian: (laughing) That's a good one, a ferry in a desert!
Ngunug: I come to take you to a land from which all creatures are born.
Bridget: Oh you mean the Dreamtime. That's your fairy story.
Ngunug: Not Dreamtime - that is the name your people give it, who have lost all knowledge of heaven. I bring you eternal spirit time.
Kathleen: I see you are a holy man. You have light around you. Take us to your spirit land as long as we can come back!
Ngunug: You shall return, though you will not wish to.
SCENE 2. BLUE MUD BAY
Music. Ngunug makes magical movements with staff. He points staff at each of the travellers who enter semi-trance.
Ngunug: (chants) Wonderful the mighty Rainbow serpent Julungar, with her shining starry body. She coils herself around her children, the eggs that are the planets. Her head is raised into the highest heaven. Wongar, Home of Mumuma, She-Who-Makes-Everything. Below her head is the encircling cloud land of Bralgu, domain of Spirits. Lowest of all, held by Julungar's tail, is the mortal realm of earth, Yirkalla.
My children, I bring you the first times of earth, when black men and women came to Australia, twenty thousand such years ago. Behold, two loving sisters, Djanggawul and Djunkgao sail their canoe with their brother Bralbral from the place of death to the place of the sun. The sisters carry a sacred mat and dilly bag. Hear their chants.
Music. Dancers and chanters, the Guidanas, spirit guides, mime the words.
1st Sister: (chants) I Djanggawul, look back and see the rays of light leading back to our Island of Braigu. Light falls on the paddles as they are dipped into sand drawn from the ocean. Light that spreads form the star's rays.
2nd Sister: (chants) The Morning star is skimming the Oceans surface like a radiant bunch of feathers floating on a cord. Dancing spirits carry the star. Foam and bubbles rise to the waters surface. A large wave carries us on its crest.
Bralbral: (chants) The roar of the ocean, the sound of our paddling, the spray of the waves, the salty smell intoxicate me. My sisters keep from me their sacred mat and dilly bag. Within are hidden the sacred Ranga which gives them power to produce babies. Our mother Mumuna favours them with her gift. Am I not her son? Let the waves drown my words.
1st Sister: I am tired. Let us stop here by this blue mud cove. My sister and I will search for shellfish. You Bralbral, can find fresh water.
Women leave.
Bralbral: What folly! To neglect to bring them to my comrades. So shall we men rule the earth and women. (He steals mat and bag and creeps out swiftly.)
Enter women who discover their loss and bewail. Joined by Women Spirits and Guldana, who mime the words of the chants.
1st Sister: (chants) Women of earth, women of spirits, mothers of every creature, lament us. Our brother Bralbral has stolen our sacred Ranga, our secret of creating children entrusted to us by Our-Mother-Who-Made-Us-All.
All lament.
2nd Sister: (chants) We must kneel in the mud. (All kneel and crawl in the ground.) We shall carry the grinding stone, we shall tie bags of fibre from our foreheads, we must collect food. We must grind the cycad nut and whiten our hands with flour, making bread for the men. The men have stolen our rituals and will use them to have power over All that is. We are condemned to serve them.
All lament.
1st Sister: (chants) We have lost the gifts of our Mother. We must obey the men's words or they will beat us and beat our children. The men will neglect our crops and our sea harvest. Instead they will hunt the wild beasts and eat them. They will make us travel through the cruel bush in pursuit of each other. Instead of using our holy blood in ritual, they will offer blood sacrifices of animals and their prisoners.
All lament.
Enter triumphant procession of men led by Bralbral holding boomerang. They bang on clappers and use the digeridoo.
Chant.
Bralbral: We are mighty. We shall conquer our enemies. We shall seize their lands. We have conquered women. We have seized upon their moon.
Displays boomerang. We have captured the Voice of Spirits! Shows digeridoo.
1st Hunter: We shall entrap the Guldana spirits into amulets so they will obey us. With our pictures we shall compel our ancestors to protect us. Our rituals will control the Rainbow Serpent, and so we shall cause the sun to shine. The stars will obey us. We shall be as gods.
They drive the women away, laughing. Exeunt.
SCENE 3. AUWA, ABODE OF THE WONDJINA
Music.
Ngunug: My friends, prepare to attain a holy state of being. (He makes sign with staff.) You are surrounded by heavenly light. We have entered the noblest spiral of the Rainbow Serpent. Auwa, Abode of the Wondjina!
Enter Procession of Wondjina, robed in white with rainbow stoles. They wear golden halo headdresses.
1st Wondjina: I Wallangada, have received a complaint about the planet earth, from Mumuna, Regent of the Pleiades.
Enter Mumuna in gold robes.
Mumuna: Fellow Wondjina, you know well my maternal care for our solar nursery, the earth. We all wish its creatures to grow up freely, each according to its nature. But when one group of human oppresses the rest, denying them freedom of choice, and when the planet is in danger from misused science, we must act.
Waran: (in eagle mask) We've heard Ngunug's narrative. I, Waran the eagle hawk suggest that we deal with one simple and yet most ancient case, Australia, so we can lay our plans for wide spread intervention. I will encourage conquerors from overseas to give these men a taste of their own medicine!
Kunapipi: Surely this is no cure? It is using the same male method as the wrong doers. I the goddess Kunapipi, have another idea. I shall descend as a mortal woman in Blue Mud Bay, and redress the wrong with compassion.
Waran: Kind regent of the Morning star, you'll need more than your usual gentleness. Without my common sense, you won't survive. Remember our rule when we descend? We cannot receive miraculous help, but must accept whatever happens to us. I'm coming with you. You idealistic Goddesses have every quality except practicality. I'm joining the expedition to protect you. Anyway, I like humans. They amuse me.
Exeunt to processional music.
SCENE 4. BLUE MUD BAY
Ngunug: (points staff at the three who are still in a trance) Fellow travellers of the Rainbow Serpent, return to your earthly bodies!
The three return to bodies and stand. Music.
Ngunug: (to Bridget) Bridget, you know your divine self as Mumuna, who in ancient days incarnated as Djanggawul, who lost the Ranga.
Bridget: I am Mumuna. The sun is about me.
Ngunug: (to Kathleen) Kathleen, know yourself as Kunapipi, who in ancient days incarnated as Djunkgao, who lost the Ranga.
Kathleen: I am Kunapipi. The Morning Star shines upon me.
Ngunug: to Brian) Know yourself as Waran, the eagle hawk.
Brian: I am Waren Eagle Hawk. I stretch my wings of Light.
Ngunug: The first awakening is to discover your own divinity. The great awakening is when you recognise the divinity in all that is. (to Brian) You incarnated as Bralbral. You return. What is your purpose?
Brian: Yes, I confess I was Bralbral. I have committed three great thefts. In ancient Mu I stole the Goddess's secret. But it did me no good. All I created were souless Homunculi who could not reproduce. My second theft in this land has led to the destruction of my people by conquest. My third theft was to give power to my secret brotherhood. But my followers were hanged, and I bear the blood marks of chains. I have decided to try the Path of Love. I shall restore the Ranga to my sisters.
Bridget: Now we do not need the Ranga. The true Ranga is within our bodies and souls.
Kathleen: Dearest brother, now you do not need to steal our Women's secrets! We cannot perform these without priests. We shall share them.
Bridget: In celebration, let us perform the dance of the Rainbow Serpent!
Music. Dance with Guldana Spirits.
End of Play
1st Adeptus: (to Candidate) What have you understood from this ancient mystery?
Candidate: I have a problem with my ego! We all need each other. To deprive anybody of anything is to deplete ourselves.
1st Adepta: You have passed this test. (gives boomerang) Accept this moon boomerang! Remember, whatever you do will always come back to you.
1st Adeptus: Friends, let us contemplate the alchemy of Uranus-Urania.
Contemplation
Reports. Creative rays are sent forth. Thanks are given to the deities.
Sources: "Ocean Mythology", Roslyn Poignat. "World Mythology", Larousse, both Hamlyn. "Rites and Mysteries of Initiation", Mircea Eliade, Harper Torchbooks.
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