Psyche, Magical Journeys of the Goddess
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
Part II. The Rays of Ishtar
Magical Journey to
The Southern Cross. Ray VI
Ritual no. 6
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS HAUMEA
Priestess: (Invocation) Beautiful Goddess Haumea, Mother of us all, come to our aid! Thine is the Eternal Tree of Changing Lives. We would partake of Thy fruit of immortality.
Oracle: You seek in vain to enjoy the fruits of My Tree by eating them! For, torn from the tree, both flowers and fruit lose the sacred Mana sap which flows through the tree-trunk from the roots. Thus they wither and die, and can bring you no good. The leaves of your recurring lives, when deprived of Mana, also die. Yet you do well to long for eternal life, which is the birthright of every creature.
Return to My arms! Accept Me as your Mother. My body is the trunk of the Tree, and My legs come from where Mana springs. My arms reach through the Ten Heavens and the galaxies are the flowers that are My garland. Yet the smallest bird is My beloved child.
Lean back against the Tree itself, arms intertwined with Mine. You will feel the sacred Mana, life-blood of the immortal Deities, rise up within your spine. When you are one with Me you will no longer believe yourselves to be as withering leaves. Your lives will be lovely and without blemish, for you will be rooted in reality. For flowers and fruit of the Tree of Life are within yourselves.
When you have partaken of heavenly Mana, you are spiritually reborn of My Eternal Body. This joy is known to a humming-bird and butterfly - but lost to humans. Be guided by My wise husband, the God Wakea and the Dream-Walkers, Who will show you how to create Dream-Times. It is the Deities Who create the Star Dream-Zones and these are the myriad Heavens. You, Our young children, are learning to make intricate patterns of your lives, set within the Dream-Places that are the planets. Planets, though formed in transient time and place, yet are Colleges of Learning. For those who are willing to understand, the eternal verities of love, beauty and truth are manifested through planetary Mystery Dramas. Such Mysteries form the underlying fabric of people's intertwined relationships.
Tragically a Dream Zone, a teaching planet, can become so contaminated by ugly and diseased group imagination, that the Deities call upon the Dream-Walkers, Spiritual Guardians, to rescue the prisoners thereon. So it is now with the human race. My children, do you not call people insane, who are trapped in fantasies of their own creation? When they become dangerous, you incarcerate such patients in Mad-Dream Houses. Yet this is your own plight! But because all of you in your planetary Dream-Time are in such a deluded state, you do not notice it. You share each other's unhealthy fantasies. And the most disastrous delusion of all is that you only exist through a physical body, and so die.
The time is come for you to awaken! The sonic and colour rays We are now sending forth are thinning the veil between the Zones. Thus you are beginning to experience expansion of consciousness: you see, hear and realise new realms of being. This is the time of Rebirth through the Mother Goddess. Enjoy the Great Change! Come to Us Who are the Dream Creators. Thus you shall transform your world into a Heaven of joy, love and beauty. Centered in the Tree of Eternal Reality, join with Me in the Drama of Creation!
Priestesses wear silver star crowns and carry jade wands. Priests wear silver headdresses and carry jade tipped staffs. All wear white and yellow robes. Women Voyagers wear silver circlets, men, white headdresses; all wear yellow and coral coloured robes. Altar is draped in yellow and on it are 4 lighted candles, a silver bowl of water and burning incense, a shell, a crystal, coral and a leaf. Nearby are glasses of water.
1st Priest: Fellow voyagers, who seek to find the ecstasy of Dream-Time, we are gathered together to make a dream voyage to the Constellation of the Southern Cross, near the positive pole of our earth. Harken to the words of Bulwer Lytton, chronicler of the Adepti:
"Then did I feel as one who, much perplext
Led by strange legends and the light
Over long regions of the midnight sand
Beyond the red tract of the Pyramids,
Is suddenly drawn to look upon the sky,
From sense of unfamiliar light, and sees,
Reveal'd against the constellated cope,
The great cross of the South."
May the Priesthood invoke the Deities of Oceania!"
1st Priestess: (offers incense. She raises wand.) I invoke the Goddess Haumea, the Creator. Thou Who art adored by the Peoples of Oceania, come unto us that we may bring harmony with all peoples on earth!
"Many bodies hath this Goddess Haumea,
Great Haumea the wonderful.
She dwelleth with Her Daughter,
Pele the Volcano Goddess,
Haumea, Mother of us all."
1st Priest: (offers incense and raises staff) I invoke Thee, the God Wakea the Mighty. Thou Who art divine Husband of Haumea, come to us that we may bring harmony between man and woman!
"Great and good is the God Wakea,
Mighty God of the deeps,
Keeper of Whales and the lordly sharks,
us that we may bring harmony between man and woman!
Bringer of rains and fertile crops for all."
2nd Priestess: (offers incense and raises wand) I invoke the Goddess Kunapipi of Australia, Mother of all Nature.
"Tidal water flowing, white foam on the waves.
Fresh water from the rains flows into the river.
There are the paperback trees: their soft
Bark falls into the water.
Rain falls from the clouds.
Waters of the river are swirling.
Lo! Kunapipi cometh forth, and blesses river and land."
2nd Priest: (offers incense and raises staff.) I invoke the Sky God Rangi of the Maori people!
3rd Priest: (offers incense and raises wand.) I invoke the Goddess Papa of the Maori people, our Earth Mother. When this loving Husband and Wife are torn apart by Their Son, Tano, terrible is their anguish. The tears of Rangi fall upon the earth as rain, and the sighs of His beloved Papa rise as breezes to join His tears. And Lo, tears and breezes become one! In mist Rangi and Papa are united. Sky and earth are in harmony and soft rain brings rich food. Po, darkness, is united with Ao, Light. From this harmony cometh forth Creation. Hear the Chant of Creation of the Maoris.
"From the conception the increase,
From the increase the swelling,
From the swelling the Thought,
From the Thought the Remembrance,
From the Remembrance the Consciousness,
The longing for "Nu-amea," Heaven.
2nd Priestess: Let us receive dream vision through this spring water! (She anoints each brow with these words) May you receive true dreams
BUILDING THE DREAM CANOE, AOTEA
3rd Priest: We would travel beyond the speed of light to reach the Southern Cross! To accomplish this let us build a dream canoe. We shall name her the Aotea, in memory of the Maoris who sailed to New Zealand in canoes of this name. (Music. He makes circle with staff.) May the Sacred Emu help us create the deck! (All help make deck through dance.)
3rd Priestess: We need a surrounding shell for our canoe! (She creates a circular shell with wand.) May the Whale, Friend of Tinirau, assist! (All dance to create shell around and above them.)
2nd Priest: We need Mana as energy for our canoe that so may we reach the Four Sacred Stars. May the Rainbow Snake, Worumbi, bring us a column of Power within our canoe! (He marks out column of power in centre, helped by Voyagers through dance.) Behold, the Axis Mundi, which the Australians believe links the Three Zones of Dream Consciousness.
WHARE WAKANGA, THE COLLEGES OF SACRED LEARNING
3rd Priest: To guide us on our way through the Three Zones and the Three Voids, we need the aid of a Dream Walker. May Tupaia, he who guided Captain Cook in his ship to New Zealand, act as a Guide that We may bring good to Oceania! Lo, a door appears in our canoe, and Tupaia comes! On his head are yellow and red feathers that shine like rays of light, and he wears an orange coloured sarong. He raises his jade adze to signify that our journey begins. We are seated in a circle within the transparent shell of our dream canoe and now we shut our eyes . . . Soft Music. The door closes. The Aotea rises softly from the floor and ascends through the ceiling like a feather, as if ceilings and landscape were but mists! We rise above our land and the people are as ants and some gaze up at us and wonder. Higher still we rise until the earth herself is like unto a sea-shell iridescent with green and gold colours, encircled by a blue sky. Now we enter the darkness of that limitless sea of space from which the Australians say all life comes. Constellations rush past like fireflies and planets sail by as if they were giant grey whales passing a ship! We begin to slow down, and as we do so we begin to hear music.
Music.
3rd Priestess: Ah! It is as I hoped! I see the great constellation of Centaurus! She encircles the Southern Cross like a starry mantle. We come to the realm of the God Rangi and the Goddess Papa, who preside over this sphere. Here are Colleges of Learning, known to the Maori people as Whare Wakanga. It is an honour to be admitted. The philosophers of Greece knew Centaurus to be the domain of the Adepti of Wisdom. Among them is Chiron the Centaur, well versed in botany, music, astronomy, divination and medicine.
3rd Priest: "On Pelion, on the grassy ground,
Chiron, the aged Centaur lay,
The young Achilles standing by.
The Centaur taught him to explore
The mountains where the glens are dry
And the tired Centaurs come to rest,
And where the soaking springs abound.
He told him of the Deities, the Stars.
Chiron's art with golden stars
Had marked the sphere celestial.
He instructed him to mark the stars,
Their rising and their mysterious setting."
The music takes on a faster tempo. We approach the double star, Alpha Centauri, earth's nearest neighbour. Gaze well upon its white radiance! This is no less than Serk-T, worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians, who oriented many temples to the star. It is known in China as Nan Mun, the Southern Gate. And so it is - for here we are challenged at the entrance to Whare Wakango! Our boat hangs motionless before the Star Gate, while Tupaia speaks on our behalf to Mahui, Keeper of Fire and the Underworld. Tupaia tells him that we seek wisdom and wish to share it with others. Mahui opens the mighty Gate for us. Beyond, we see a vista of divine beauty! Here is a sapphire-coloured sea, in which leaping dolphins and seals disport themselves in complicated games of skill. White-crested waves break upon golden beaches glittering with pearls, shells and crystals. The beaches are shaded with high coconut-palms, and fragrant eucalyptus trees. Parrots and Cockatoos fly from branch to branch, speaking to each other in verse. Shining like snowy mountains are the Maneabas, the Colleges of Sacred Learning. They are formed of coral and sea rocks. Unearthly music wafts from them, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, from shells and crystals which are suspended from the roofs by coloured cords. Tupaia beckons us to leave the Aotea and enter this Paradise of Wisdom. Let us do so.
Silence
Fellow voyagers, it is now time to return to the Aotea, bringing with us knowledge gained in the Whare Wakango.
UNGUD OF THE DREAM WALKERS
2nd Priest: Once more we take our seats and Tupaia closes the door. Our canoe rises swiftly beyond Centauri and makes for the constellation of the Southern Cross. A feeling of solemn awe comes upon us, as our boat becomes enshrouded in a deep indigo light . . . This is changing to violet and blue, deep rich colours unknown to our earthly spectrum. Friends, we approach the extraordinary realm of Ungud, abode of the Dream Walkers! We see now the four blazing stars of Crux and a paler companion. They are surrounded by a host of lesser luminaries. But what is this mighty black cloud that bars our way? What is it that can even blot out the stars? Tupaia signifies that we approach Rua, the Abyss, which we call the Magellanic Cloud. It is here that we are challenged by no less than Worumba, the Rainbow Serpent, who arches the sky over Rua. Tupaia explains to him that we approach Ungud that we may create good dreams for ourselves and others. Worumba permits us to pass through the cloud . . .
2nd Priestess: We see through a violet-grey mist the most remarkable landscape, if such it can be called! It is made of shifting shapes and forms, and if we look at any part, it changes according to our thought! If we fear, it becomes dingy. When we hope, it shines! Here reign the Dream Walkers, and it is in their dreams that we dwell, in joy and sorrow, love and anger. Here reign the Four Offspring of the Female sun, the Djanggawuls; two Sisters, Djanggau and Djunkgao, their brother, and their companion Bralbal. With them is Garirinji who unleashes the tornado, and the Muramura Maidens, who were drawn here by a magical cord through the Pleiades and Orion's starry belt. By them are the Lightning Brothers. Kalwadi the Ancient Woman sits alone, brooding. But the most remarkable of all are the Wondjina! These Primal Beings have haloes of alternating bands of red and orange rays, and they wear black robes marked with lines of white rain. By them is Warana the Eagle Hawk. We can hardly see Walangada of the Undefined Form, He Who belongs to the Milky Way! Bravely let us follow Tupaia into Ungud, to create our dreams of living.
Silence
Let us return to our canoe, guided by Tupaia. Once more Aotea rises into the sky. But how different, how lovely is this voyage! We are surrounded by myriad many-coloured birds all singing melodiously.
THE HIDDEN LAND OF KANO
1st Priest: On wonder! What appeared like little birds are in verity a cluster of stars surrounding our canoe! These exquisite stars sparkle like jewels with green, blue and yellow lights, and each emits a singing tone that mystically chimes with its colour. We approach the ruby jewel of the Southern Cross, the triple star Acrux. This conceals the Hidden Land of Kano, of the Wandering Isles. The realm is known to the Polynesians as the domain of the Goddess Haumea. But to reach this abode of love, joy and harmony we must pass through the Three Voids. From Huna teachings we learn that only when our own three selves, higher, middle and lower, are in harmony may we pass the Triple void. Tupaia explains to the Guardian Spirits, the Aumaka, that we seek harmony with all beings, and exclude none. So the Aumaka say we too are not excluded! Our Aotea sails through the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Voids and reaches the Land of Kano.
1st Priestess: All that we have dreamt of as Heaven is here, for it is from here that all dreams are created! For the Dream Walkers receive the Mana which is the sustenance of dreams from Haumea's Tree of Life. This rises above these radiant Isles, and its leaves are the changing lives of the cosmos. We each have a leaf upon this everlasting tree. let us enter the Land of Kano of the Wandering Isles.
Silence
1st Priestess: Let us now return to Aotea for our return journey, bringing with us all that the Benign Deities have bestowed upon us!
2nd Priest: Our dream canoe returns from Kano through the triple Void and reaches the Southern Cross constellation. * * * Beyond the speed of light it glides to the Whare Wananga of Centaurus. * * * It passes the Southern Gate. We dart past Orion and the Pleiades * * * we reach our little star system. * * * We sail past our sun and slow down when we reach the moon. * * * Now, fellow voyagers, the Aotea drops gently like a falling leaf through our house until it lands like a gleaming sea-shell upon the floor.
2nd Priestess: Let us dissolve our dream canoe Aotea!
Omnes dissolve Aotea in reverse order through dance. Rays of love, joy and harmony are sent forth to all beings. Water is drunk to ensure return from trance. Thanks is given by the priesthood to the deities Haumea, Wakea, Kunapipi, Rangi and Papa.
Sources: "Ocean Mythology", Roslyn Poignant, Hamlyn. "World Mythology", Larousse, Hamlyn. "Rites and Symbols of Initiation", Mircea Eliade, Harper Torchbooks.
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