Melusina, Life Centres of the Goddess
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
Opening the Eye of Vision
Ritual no. 10
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS BRIGHID THROUGH HER PRIESTESS
Priestess: (Invocation) Triple Goddess Brighid; Bride, Queen, Enchantress, bring us Thy purity, strength and wisdom! At Thy time of Imbolc Thou dost wander as a poor homeless woman seeking shelter at each door. We open the door of our hearts to Thee!
Oracle: Hard it is to open the door to Truth! It is easier to bask in the warm fire of love in a closed family circle. To welcome the stranger is dangerous. Your whole lives may be transformed in an instant! In my Manifestation as the White-veiled Bride, I represent the hidden Truth that lies behind appearances. I call you to follow Me out of your home into the wilds! I draw you to a stream that flows into the Well of Wisdom at the World's End. You must cross the stream in order to reach the mysterious realm of eternal youth, Tir na nOg. You take one shoe off and place your foot in the water. At that moment you are between two worlds, the material and the spiritual. You see with the Eye of Vision. You are reborn!
When you reach the other side, you face Me as Queen. From Me you learn, with your Eye of Light, to transform your own future, and in so doing, to change the world! You may safely travel during night across the stream as long as you return at day as the swan returns to its nest after long flights. So though in a mortal body, you shall shine forth as an immortal Spirit.
A further Initiation leads you at last to reach the Well of Truth, which is both its matrix and its source. Here you meet Me as an ancient woman, hooded in a black cloak. Many dread Me in this form, for I am Death. But as I throw back my hood you see no skull, but rather the Enchantress Who has guided you through many incarnations! You gaze at the still water of the Well and you understand the meaning of all suffering and evil; love and joy. And in this understanding you awaken the Eye of Truth within you. I smile and I embrace you and I hand you my cloak.
Priestesses wear copper serpent crowns, blue mantles and carry serpent wands: Priests, copper headbands, saffron mantles and bear oak staffs. Women companions wear green mantles, men, saffron. Candidate is in white. Mantles are worn as togas fastened with shoulder broaches. On altar are three lighted candles, a silver vessel containing a stone, burning incense, a sprig of rosemary and a crystal ball. Music may be played throughout. The Harp is suitable.
Priest Hierophant: Companions, we are assembled to open the Eye of Truth dormant within us. The Rishis of India describe this lotus as white with two petals. The Goddess presiding over the lotus of Command, Ajna, is the Shakti Hakini.
Priestess Hierophant: Hakini is white with six faces each with three eyes, has six arms and is enthroned on a white lotus. Her mind is pure. Above Her is Atma, Spirit, manifesting as lightning. Around this lotus is a Light which by its own lustre makes visible all worlds. Around Ajna in its cosmic manifestation is a space bright with the brilliance of ten million suns.
Priest Hierophant: Hakini has as a Sister the White Goddess of the Western Isles, Bride. Let us receive water from Bride Who presides over all springs and wells.
1st Priestess: (anoints each brow with water from the Silver Vessel) May the Light of Truth shine within you!
Priestess Hierophant: (offers incense and makes sign of Aquarius with wand) I invoke the Triple Goddess Brighid, Bride, Queen and Enchantress!
Priest Hierophant: (offers incense and makes sign of Neptune with Staff) I invoke the God of Wisdom, Manannan of Atlantis!
1st Priest: Behold a Candidate who would open the Eye of Truth! Candidate is presented by Priest and Priestess.
Priest Hierophant: (to Candidate) Harken to the words of the Writer, William Sharp, of how prophecy was given to a poet of Scotland, in the late Victorian age.
THE PROPHECY OF BRIGHID
(Enter Writer, William Sharpe)
Writer: One day, on the Isle of Iona, by the haven of Port-na-Churaich, I came upon the poet Mary MacArthur. She was resting on a granite ledge, an old woman worn out with picking up driftwood from the shore. Behold! This is what she told me.
Exit Writer.
Enter Mary MacArthur wearily picking up sticks.
Mary: Weary work it is, picking up sticks on this cold sea-shore! Heavy is the burden on my old shoulders, bent under my sack.
Enter Lady, hooded and cloaked. She picks up the sticks and throws them into the sea.
Mary: What will you be doing, Lady, throwing away my kindling that keeps life in my old bones?
Lady: 'Tis your sorrows I'm throwing away.
Mary: It is glad of that I am, for it is many of them I have.
Lady: You shall have peace, Mairi ni Ruaridh Donn, and great joy, and your songs and your beauty will never die!
Mary: It is only an Aisling you are ... a dream and a vision!
Lady: No! And by the same token, I'll tell you the song you were singing down there on the shore: 'O Manannan God of the sea, fill the sea-wave with store of good weed, to feed the soil that will give us food.'
Mary: Ah my heart is fearful - yet filled with gladness!
Lady: (throws back her hood) I am Brighid!
Mary: (failing to her knees) You are the fair Foster Mother of Christ!
Lady: I am older than Brighid of the Mantle, Maire, and it is you that should know that! I put songs and music on the wind before ever the bells of the chapel were rung. I am Brighid of Many Names and I am older than Aona and I am as old as Luan. I preside over the three heavens of Tir na h'Oige. And I have been a breath in your heart.
The day shall dawn that will see Me coming into the hearts of men and women like a flame upon dry grass, like a flame of wind in a great wood. For the Time of Change is at hand. When you come to us you shall see all things in the pools of life yonder.
Mary: Sweeter is Thy voice than the sweetest lute. Exeunt Lady and Mary. Enter Writer.
Writer: There come to me words from a poem by Mary MacArthur. 'O burning soul, can hills of ice assuage this burning fire?' I believe that we are close upon a great and deep spiritual change; I believe a new redemption is even now conceived of the Divine Spirit in the human heart. Who shall save us anew shall come divinely as Woman. That woman forlorn and poor in her old age is loved by Brighid the White, Who even yet may use the voice of Mary MacArthur to lead the wild trumpets of Revelation! Exit Writer.
End of Prophecy
Priest Hierophant: (to Candidate) What do you feel from this account?
Candidate: I accept its truth in my heart. My intellect blocks my inner vision. I long to awaken the Eye of Truth as did that poet.
1st Priest: (to Candidate) To do so, you need to make a visionary journey to the planet Neptune! We need to create a shining sphere around us, so forming the ship of Cesara in the ether.
Omnes create a luminous sphere around them by dance.
1st Priestess: We have as guide Cesara, who escaped the deluge that sank Atlantis. She reached Ireland, bringing with her in her ship the ancestor of all the tribes of Europe! Lo, she stands before us, a woman of over six foot, in saffron mantle, and she holds a trident. She tells us to be seated in a circle and to shut our eyes, and see through the Third Eye. We may see rainbow colours which begin to form pictures.
3rd Priest: The floor of our Temple falls away beneath us * * * our ship rises into the sky like a swan * * * faster than light we dart by the moon * * * by Mars, the Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. * * * Our ship slows down as we approach Neptune.
HY BRASIL, HEAVEN OF LOST WORLDS
3rd Priestess: We have reached the moon Nereid that follows a wide leisurely orbit around Neptune. Here is the etheric Heaven of Lost Worlds, Hy Brasil, presided over by the Goddess Dana and the God Manannan of Atlantis. We face a great granite dolmen.
3rd Priest: (to Candidate) Hear of the Vision of Dana that came to John Doran, seventh son of a seventh son, the Seer of Tinahely in County Wicklow. On the 8th August 1984 John told Olivia Robertson: "I am in a grassy dell and around me are spotted deer. But the grass is withering and there is rusty wire. I must go in the opposite direction, up a hill. I climb up a rocky path that reaches the sky. On the hill-top is a Woman with a face as bright as the sun and She is surrounded by Light. Her arms are outstretched to me. By Her is a white greyhound. She has snake bracelets on her arms and jewels on Her gold dress. Her silver mantle has a white lining. Her hair is braided with jewels and Her crown is of white and pale pink roses, and there are roses at Her feet. She is so beautiful! I am shown four letters: D A N A. She opens two long cylinders and I read: 'Go on. Do well. Preach My Name. I am Queen of the whole earth!'"
3rd Priestess: (to Candidate) Pass through the dolmen, that with the Eye of Vision you may gather the treasures of the past Golden Age. We shall follow you.
Contemplation
3rd Priestess: It is time for us to return to the ship. (to Candidate) What have you learnt?
Candidate: Now I see that I do not need to lament loss, because all that is wonderful, beautiful and noble is eternal. So I can now enjoy the present!
3rd Priestess: Cesara smiles and gives you a sprig of rosemary.
2nd Priestess: Our ship is now approaching the most odd moon, Triton! Whereas nearly all planets and moons move one way, Triton moves in a contrary right-hand orbit around Neptune. Here is the astral Heaven of Tir na nOg, that holds the future.
TIR NA nOG, HEAVEN OF THE FUTURE
2nd Priestess: (To Candidate) Harken to the words of Aeon, Bard of Eire, explaining why he avoided opening the Eye of Light.
2nd Priest: "Once at the apex of meditation, I awoke that fire in myself of which the ancients have written, and it ran up like lightning along the spinal cord, and my body rocked with the power of it, and I seemed to be standing in a fountain of flame, and there were fiery pulsations as of wings around my head, and a musical sound not unlike the clashing of cymbals with every pulsation; and if I had remembered the ancient wisdom I might have opened the eye which searches infinitude * * * woe to him who awakens it before he has purified his being into selflessness".
2nd Priestess: Our ship is floating before a crystal dolmen, gateway to Tir na nOg. Turquoise blue rays of Light come through its aperture. This Heaven is protected by The Morrigan with Her Single Eye of Prophecy, and Her Husband, the Dagda of the Cauldron of future bounty. (to Candidate) Enter therein, that with the Eye of Light you may know the future! We shall be with you.
Contemplation
2nd Priestess: Let us return! (to Candidate) What have you discovered?
Candidate: I see that the Past is the root, the Present is the tree and the Future grows in the nuts of the Hazel Tree of Knowledge. I create my own future.
2nd Priestess: Cesara gives you a crystal ball.
1st Priest: Companions, we are now approaching Neptune itself in its spiritual form. Our ship rests before a low bluestone dolmen, from which emerges rays of silver, turquoise blue and violet rays.
THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END
1st Priestess: (to Candidate) Hear of the Apparitions of a Lady to a child, Joanne of the Visions, at a holy well by a foothill of Mount Leinster. The Lady told Joanne that She was Our Lady, Queen of the Golden Roses. On October 20th 1987, when Joanne Farrell was eight, she received this message when going up for milk for her grandmothers. The Lady said: "Joanne, something bad will happen, and all might die - even the goodness might die." The Lady was beautiful, and wore a blue cloak, white dress, gold beads and had two roses at Her feet. On September 20th 1988 she asked Joanne to go to the river. "Bring a candle. Get a stone for the last time. Every time the water flows by it means your life is ticking away, just like a clock. Next time bring your wellingtons and walk the river, and see God's wonders of the world."
1st Priest: (to Candidate) The White Goddess Bride presides over this spiritual realm of Divine Reality. Bend your head and pass through the dolmen. With your Eye of Truth face what you see there! We shall be with you.
Contemplation
1st Priest: Let us return to our ship. (to Candidate) What have you seen?
Candidate: I see that without Truth, nothing exists. A lie is the only "nothing". Love, Beauty, Happiness - all must be honest, or they have no value. Love becomes betrayal, Beauty decays, and Happiness vanishes, without Truth.
1st Priestess: You have passed the third trial! Cesara gives you a stone, drawn from the stream which springs from the Well at the World's End. She tells us to return to our ship. We feel a downpouring of White Light coursing through us like a waterfall, and we have shining brows! Our ship rises into the sky. We look back and we see a great triangle of White Light joining Aquarius, Neptune and our moon. And within this triangle is a still centre, the Closed Eye of Brighid in deep Contemplation. Our ship flies past the planets faster than the speed of light * * and we reach our moon. We slow down as we come to the earth * * We see a small light which comes from our temple * * * like a moon-beam our ship glides through our temple and rests upon the floor.
1st Priest: Cesara tells us to dissolve her ship through dance. She tells us that the Eye of Truth is best gained through the Eye of the Child within each of us. She blesses us, and vanishes.
Ship is dissolved through dance. Blue, violet and white rays are sent forth to all, bringing lovely visions. If the Candidate is deemed successful, rosemary, crystal ball and stone are presented. Reports are shared. Thanks are given to the Deities.
Sources: "The Serpent Power", Avalon, Theosophical Society. "The Winged Destiny", Fiona MacLeod (William Sharp), Chapman & Hall. "Handbook of Astronomy", Ridpath, Orchard. "The Candle of Vision", AE. (George Russell), MacMillan. Booklet: "Apparitions at the Ballinacoola Well, Co. Wexford". Messages to Joanne recorded by her mother, Ann Farrell.
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