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IX. Portal of Sagittarius
Introduction: The Blame and the Shame Game
Rite 1. The Three Seeds within the Lotus
Rite 2. Transformation
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy
By
Olivia Robertson
Tara of the Oracles
The Alchemical Twins Face the Fates
The Octagonal Temple of Alchemy
IX. Portal of Sagittarius: Introduction to Rituals One and Two
The Blame and Shame Game
“Blame others and you expose your own secret failings.”
When I was young – about seventy years ago – the prevailing fashion was to blame everything on MOTHERS. The original sin of our ancestress Eve, who brought about the downfall of Adam, was transferred to The Mother. This was ordained by a present Prophet of the Unconscious, Professor Freud. As he was a scientist and had a beard he was regarded as infallible as the Pope. Mother was the Spider lurking in a mine-field of complexes derived when we were helpless children.
My sister Barbara was a born leader, and enthusiastically joined in this entertaining Blame & Shame Game, as guide to myself and our two younger brothers. And what a Mother we had! She became a legend in her time – thanks to us.
My mother, Nora Parsons, was the only child of a British General. He adored hunting, so when his wife presented him with a mere girl, he had to face a choice – not a hard one. Another baby – hopefully a boy – or a horse. Naturally he chose the horse.
To adjust matters, he brought his daughter Nora up as a boy. From an early age in India she did not have an Ayah but a soldier servant to empty her potty. She had a little military uniform. I have a photo of her as a tiny soldier. She worshipped her father, who when she was five put her hands round a pole with a beefsteak bait wedged on the end, to tempt a shark. The cream of her successes came when she was seventeen and shot a crocodile.
Barbara would achieve a Freudian success with student boy friends by showing the crocodile’s head on a wall, with his bared teeth, and explain “my mother shot that!”
My grandmother, despised by her daughter as feminine, was determined to get her married. So Nora was forced to dress well. She was beautiful, with a strong tanned skin. She had an eighteen-inch waist for her wedding gown for her marriage to my father, aged 21 and 4 years younger. My father, a strong character with scientific bent, had been spiritually guided to propose.
He told me that they struggled for power throughout the honeymoon. He hadn’t a chance, so he decided to give in. So the Freudian view suited our family. One of my mother’s cousins, Marie Comerford, had roamed the Wicklow hills shooting British soldiers with a sawn-off shotgun. Another, the Hon Florence Gibson, had shot off a bit of Mussolini’s nose. And the rest of our neighbours followed the same pattern. Dominant women. Hen-pecked men. My brother, a clergyman and I were enthusiastic for the Cause of the Goddess. We were pioneers.
Late in the twentieth century, came a startling change against Patriarchy. It began with the words “Satanic Abuse”, and soon changed to “Clerical Abuse”. Most of us women were totally nonplussed. Apparently we were victims, and had been victims for millennia without realising it! The old Irish rhyme, “Women are evil: men are dumb: they torment them just for fun,” had to be changed. It was “Men are evil, women are dumb: men torment them just for fun.” We had to rescue fellow women in the Near and Far East – even with local wars.
So the Blame & Shame Game shifted dramatically, ably assisted by the Media. Patriarchy was to blame for all our misfortunes. To take an instance: Some Doctors had blamed mothers for killing their babies in “cot deaths.” Now it transpired it was the Doctors’ fault for recommending babies to sleep on their tummies – where they naturally tended to suffocate.
When the Blame & Shame Game gets going, the innocent and the guilty are both targeted. Paranoid fear led to the Inquisition, Witch burnings, and the Holocaust. Now the fearful minded dread “disguised alien reptilians disguised as human celebrities!” Making no exceptions, we blame Men for mistreating women, children – and animals with vivisection – inventing and using weapons of mass destruction, torture, and for creating global warming. Men are blamed for traumatising the rising generation, so that children dare not play in the streets, for fear of abusive men. The motto of the 3 Wise Monkeys has become its opposite: “think evil: see evil: hear evil.” Suicides are increasing.
There is good news! With my psychic capabilities, I have found that our parents, friends, and teachers exist in the next world and know what we say of them, and suffer accordingly. Finding this out, I hastily changed my Blame & Shame Game to the Appreciation Game. I remembered the rich treasures given to me by my mother and father and teachers. Wise were the Ancient Chinese to revere their ancestors! Friendly Spirits bestrew our paths with good fortune. Instead of blaming other cultures, other faiths for short-comings, I now appreciated the earth’s glorious history.
Marvellous are the ways of the Goddess! Our Temple of Isis, in this new century, began to change, helped by my brother and other Spirit friends. I have found myself inspired to paint Isis and Osiris as twins on our interior windows. The glorious Company of the Goddesses are beginning to acquire new friends. The Sea God Manannan has joined Brighid at our Well. Poseidon, The God of Atlantis, has joined the Goddess Derceto in our Pisces shrine.
Above all, the Great Winged Isis in the painting in our Healing Chapel, has a newcomer. Behind the brilliant Winged Isis of the Stars now appears Osiris in spiritual blue-green form, with outspread wings. And below, the bust of Tutankhamen, instead of portraying a gold mummy’s clay head is reborn as a mischievous boy, ruddy-faced, amused by our ways. The Deities laugh with joy as we humans awaken.
These rites may be used as alternatives to those in “Psyche”
For initiates on the Spiral of the Adepti
Tara of the Oracles
The Alchemical Twins Face the Fates
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
IX. Portal of Sagittarius
The Three Seeds within the Lotus
Ritual No. 1
To Change the Outcome, Look Within
The Octagonal Temple of Alchemy
Priest of Alchemy: (to the twin apprentices, Aiden and Elaine) The Ninth Portal of Sagittarius offers the culmination of past efforts: Rebirth. We give birth, and also ourselves are reborn. So we need humility to face the end of all our endeavours, in order to accept what is new. To do so we need the peaceful serenity of the Goddess Parvati.
Priestess Alchemist: (raises her lotus wand) I invoke Thee, Holy Lady of the Lotus of Immortality, Who despite all outer tumult remains seated entranced by the lotus pool, surveying Thy own reflection in the rippling waters. Consort of the God Siva, Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, be with us now at this time of the death and rebirth of the Aeon.
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS PARVATI
In your dreaming is your awakening. All that you regard as real, shows itself as a delusion, shimmering in a pool of desires. What you have achieved becomes as dust, as passing generations tread your creations to drifting sands.
Therefore look for Divine Reality not in the passing play you create to satisfy your longings, but rather remain still and all that you hope for will come to you easily, joyfully!
A mother suffers pain in giving birth, and yet is filled with the joy of The Creator when she holds her newborn child: so it is with the Deities when you yourselves are reborn and look up at them and smile!
Be still, and you will cause greater rivers to flow, bringing abundance to all. Play a small tune on a flute and you cause mighty trees to grow upon green hills. For all the world you see around you is created by thought, imagination and the passions. Find your minds, your dreams, your passions within the Divine Life hidden in your hearts. This is the jewel concealed within the heart of My Lotus.
End of Oracle
Priest Alchemist: Thanks are given to the Goddess Parvati for Her Oracle.
Priestess Alchemist: (to Elaine) Elaine, we know how ardently you strive to help humans and animals. Yet you feel frustrated, because by nature you are an artist and love to be alone, seated under a tree. Now know that the way of the flower is to sit under a tree, and through this to extend into the tree, the land, the earth, the cosmos. Thus your hopes are fulfilled for yourself. But you may not force others to accept your way! They tread their own pilgrimage and do not respond to coercion, however well-meant. Will you undergo the Initiation of the Lotus?
Elaine: I never can understand why people object to our giving them schools and aid and modern amenities. How like a school-mistress I sound! I had better undergo this initiation! I will understand why international aid is not always received with due gratitude…
Priestess Alchemist: (shows Elaine a card from the Marseille deck) Describe this Tarot Card.
Elaine: I suppose this is correct, as the cards derive from India. Ah! The Ninth Gate of Change! This is “l’Hermite”. It shows a bearded pilgrim holding aloft a lantern. His left hand holds a staff. This is my Pilgrim’s Way.
Priestess Alchemist: So be it. You will enter trance. We will be with you but may not help you.
Trance Journey
Elaine: I mount the Hill of the Zodiac, pondering on the various meanings people have given to the stars. Is our choice of names and division into twelve signs arbitrary, or were we guided? I enter the Temple and pay my respects to Vesta of the Vestal Flame within all that is. I find my way to the Portal of Sagittarius. It depicts the Archer, half man, half horse, but in a new way. It looks as if the man is struggling to escape from his body. On the other side of the portal is shown a young girl standing upon a mountain, and beckoning the man to dangerous heights. She is safe….She has wings.
I part the heavy tapestry curtains of the Portal and pass through ******** How beautiful! I am in a pastoral landscape with small primitive looking huts and walls. I see a small gateway of rough stone and feel that this where I must go. But before I reach it, an old woman approaches me, extending a thin hand. She wears a threadbare sari. Although she speaks in a foreign tongue, I can understand what she says.
She tells me she needs my help now. She is a poor widow who has been turned out of her home because her dowry has proved worthless – debased coinage. Unless I help now, she fears she will die of hunger.
I feel my pockets – I have nothing. I tell her that I am going on pilgrimage to Parvati’s Pool, and shall return with help. Reluctantly I leave her, and pass through the gateway. I find myself in a field with cattle grazing. I pass through two more small gates as the ground begins to rise. At the Third Gateway a young woman rushes towards me. She implores my help. Her tale is as old as the hills and as new. She is wearing a beautiful gold sari. But, she says, all her ornaments are in vain. Her husband has fallen in love with her enemy, a sly courtesan. She wants me to poison her rival – a fate that should befall all cunning courtesans. I am taken aback. She gathers that I am a Priestess, but apparently she thinks my Goddess is Kali. I reply that there must be a less deadly solution. I am making pilgrimage to Parvati’s Pool and will return with help. I beg her not to kill her rival in the interval. I will hurry.
I follow the grassy winding path as it becomes more rough, with sheep rather than cattle grazing. At the Sixth Gate a small boy is seated crying. He looks poor and hungry. I sit down and try to understand what he is saying. I gather he is the illegitimate offspring of a large family. He is consistently ill-treated, especially by the other children, who beat him and call him ugly names. He would like to drown himself in the fast-flowing stream that runs by the field.
I command him with a mother’s voice not to drown himself. I am making pilgrimage to Parvati’s Pool, and will return, and bring him all that he needs. I dry his eyes and once more set forth.
By this time I am very weary but travel on and upwards, and as the hill rises I see a lovely landscape of pale blue mountains, some snow capped and others rich with forests. A river winds downwards to where I had begun my journey. I could follow it homewards but I continue. I reach the Ninth Gate.
This Portal is of exquisite ironwork, between very high crenulated walls leading to some great estate. I cannot push aside the huge gates as they are too heavy. But, concealed by bushes, is a small gateway with a wooden door and this I can enter, lowering my head.
I find myself in the most beautiful garden, laid out with flowering trees and rich grass. What I like is that deer are roaming under the trees, and in open flowery spaces are various young animals. I look up and am hit with an apple, expertly thrown by a monkey! The music of bird-song is on every side especially the cooing of doves.
I approach a pool drawn from a double waterfall, and from the trees appears a very tall man with wild long white hair. I know at once He is an immortal. He has the strangest eyes, like moonstones, and a calm gaze.
He speaks to me. I have learnt not to drop on my knees, but to listen with care.
“My dear daughter,” he says, “All your life you have been making this pilgrimage. Now is the time of the culmination. I am He Who was, and is and shall be, Creator, Preserver, Destroyer. My Dance is of the cosmic stars and the time has come when the matrix of my encircling wheel will open upon worlds as yet unknown. Gaze now into a lotus in this pool and you will enter my wheel and attain what you seek. But listen well. You will gain only three seeds of the flower of Life, that gives three wishes. You may give these to others if you wish. Be careful how you choose.”
All the faery tales I have always loved are now coming true! The God has vanished, and I find myself leaning over the pool and gazing into the golden heart of a white-petalled lotus.******** The flower becomes larger and larger and within it is a giant black hole – I find myself falling into it – down and down. I feel dizzy and clutch a golden rod. On it hang three golden spheres. I take them to me, and push them into my pockets. I rapidly ascend – once more I am my own normal size – and the lotus is not a giant vortex but a simple flower; I have its three seeds. ********* I have chosen my three wishes, Peace, Love and Happiness.
I make my way down the hill. At the Sixth Gate I find the little boy and give him a seed, his wish. At once he declares he wants revenge on his brothers, and to be adopted by an important family. I know this will happen. I don’t think he has a very nice character – wanting revenge.
At the Third Gate I find the beautiful, wronged wife. She accepts my seed eagerly. She says she has now no need to kill her rival, because her husband will die, according to her wish, leaving her all his fortune. What an unpleasant woman! What can I do?
At the First Gate I find the starving old widow, and by now expect her to choose something unpleasant with her wish. Much is my relief when she says now she can have riches, which she will share with her family and friends. She forgives them all because she loves them.
Suddenly I burst out laughing! I’ve spent all my wishes and don’t mind. And I hear the words of the God Siva coming to me as from a mountain top. “Elaine, you are now peaceful, loving and happy because you have found your own hidden Self.”
Elaine slowly returns from trance and accepts her alchemical degree thoughtfully. Reports are shared, healing sent forth. Thanks are given to the Deities.
Recommended Reading: “The Ramayana & The Mahabharata,” trans. by Dutt, Everyman. “The Vedas”, trans. by Max Muller, Indological Book House, Delhi. “Indian Mythology”, Veronica Ions, Hamlyn, “The Goddesses of India, Tibet, China & Japan.” Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, Cesara Publications, Clonegal Castle. “Autobiography of a Yogi,” Yogananda. “Strange News from Another Star and Other Stories,” Hermann Hess, Penguin. “The Celestine Prophecy,” James Redfield, Warner Books.
These rites may be used as alternatives to those in “Psyche”
For initiates on the Spiral of the Adepti
Tara of the Oracles
The Alchemical Twins Face the Fates
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
IX. Portal of Sagittarius
Transformation
Ritual No. 2
To Achieve the Whole is to Become Each Part
The Octagonal Temple of Alchemy
Priest Alchemist: (to twin apprentices, Aiden and Elaine) The cosmos is composed of myriad individual beings. To achieve awareness of this, we need to invoke the Goddess Kali.
Priestess Alchemist: (raises serpent wand) Come amongst us, Kali of the four arms that are the sacred elements! Bring us Thy Divine Dance of Life that is ever renewing itself through Love and Joy and Passion! You, Who even trampled upon your Divine Consort Siva, Lord of Passing Time, bring us Eternal Life.
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS KALI
To attain immortality, you need to love life – not with wisdom, nor virtue alone, but with all your heart and soul. The ever-living flame glows as strongly in one snake shedding its skin as it does in a mighty God. Every atom pulsates with life.
When humans attain their true mission on this earth, eternal life will be achieved, because deeply desired. Eternity is not in time. It is ever NOW. The true task of humanity is to act as interpreters between Gods and men: Goddesses and women: Nature Spirits and all living creatures. Invoke therefore, each one of you, your own Guardian Deva or Devi, your Angel, your animal, friend, and unite spirit and matter by your participation in both.
So will earth show Herself in Her true eternal Being. Prithivi, the earth, awaits your transforming touch. Call on Me and I shall instruct you in your dreams, dramas. The dancing Gandarvas and Upsaras will come to you, and the souls of your own earthly friends, along with bird, animal, reptile, insect. Awaken into what you are and why you are on earth!
End of Oracle
Priest Alchemist: We give thanks to the Goddess Kali for Her Oracle.
Priestess Alchemist: (to Aiden) Aiden, you long to know what the effect shall be of all your passionate work for a better earth. Yet you fear that all conservation projects may be brought to nought. Are you willing to face the shape of things to come?
Aiden: I am willing. Otherwise, why do we work so hard and yet face a ruined planet?
Priest Alchemist: “Therefore you must face the Initiation of Kali. (shows card from the Marseille deck) Examine this card. What do you make of it?
Aiden: Just what reflects my mood, of despondency. “Le Diable”. This is a rather nice, funny devil – mediaeval. It depicts a hermaphrodite figure, I note, along with cloven hooves; his horns form the Crown chakra. His wings are bat-like – but he has them! But tied to his throne by the neck are two smiling imps, also bisexual, content to be bound. So this devil binds people who like it. Nonetheless, I want freedom to move – to grow.
Priest Alchemist: You are ready for the Ordeal of Kali. Enter trance. We shall stay with you, whatever happens - but not help you.
Aiden: I expected you to say that – I am ready for the ordeal.
Trance Journey
Aiden: I climb the Hill with some trepidation, knowing Kali’s reputation. If she can make mincemeat of Her husband – Siva Himself - what will She do to me? ******** Here I am, at the Temple of the Zodiac. I could turn back – but don’t. I pay my respects to Vesta’s Flame. Then I find the Ninth Portal of Sagittarius ***** It is much as Elaine describes – except that the Centaur seems to enjoy his dual self and is aiming his arrow to reach the stars. I am suspicious of the little girl waving me upwards and onwards with a white feather. If I fall – it won’t help her, but be the end of me…..
I find myself in a wild landscape with gorse and bracken. I hear the howling of wolves – just what I would expect. Like a Dracula movie. But wait! A friendly wolf approaches me. And I’m not afraid. Why? It is ridiculous – but he is talking to me! At least I can understand him. He tells me the wolves are having problems with landslides. Could I place the pack’s complaints to the local Spirit of the earth?
I am astonished. I didn’t know there was such a being. I vaguely remember Irish Leprechauns. Gnomes. Children’s fairy stories. I hear a cool voice speak quite distinctly and I look round. I see the most extraordinary creature made of some ethereal energy. He is about three feet tall and is weirdly thin, like a reed. But what is bizarre is his hair. It hangs down in a very thin plait nearly reaching his feet. I think: “I suppose this is the latest Elf fashion!” To my embarrassment the creature answers my thought: “No. A few thousand years old. We are bringing it through now to a human poet we like.”
I find the being has a clear logical mind. I explain the wolves’ predicament, and he grasps the situation. He says they did not care to interfere with the earth’s crust, but they will look into the matter, and try to shift the problem elsewhere. I thank him profusely and convey his message to my friend the wolf. He is relieved. He tells me they find it hard to get nature spirits’ attention. Their language is so high and remote.
I am beginning to feel in good heart. I’ve done something. People always like giving other people directions when they ask the way. What happens next is completely surreal. I see a small suburban house – well and good. But gazing into the house’s second floor window is an enormous bird about fifteen feet tall.
“This is not possible!” I exclaim.
“Oh yes it is,” replies the bird. “Remember the country-man on seeing a giraffe in the zoo: ‘There’s not such a creature.” “I’m here. I’m a bird. I’m peering through this window to greet the owner. All that you get wrong is the date. This is in your earth’s future.”
I sit down weakly. “What can I do for you,” I ask. “You seem capable of anything.”
“Not everything,” replies the eagle fixing me with a brilliant beady eye. “We are having trouble with tornadoes in these parts. They are reaching up to sixty thousand feet. We can’t get hold of the Upsaras – Angels you’d call them. Too distant a vibration. Would you lodge our complaint? The tornadoes are endangering our mating season.”
I’m beginning to get the hang of all this. I’m being educated through a weird story. It can’t be true.”
“Oh, but it is,” comes a silvery voice. To my amazement and awe, an exquisitely lovely Angel is floating before me with far-reaching wings, her lovely golden hair floating in a hurricane of wind. “People have always seen us Angels, except for a short while when humans got entrapped by their own mechanical inventions. What is your prayer?”
Funny, I feel vaguely sulky at having to pray to some Angel, however glamorous. “It’s not my request. It’s the eagles’. Your tornadoes are endangering their mating season. The Angel replies sweetly. “We do not care to disturb air currents that bring monsoons. But we grant your prayer. We will withhold the tornadoes for the specified season.”
She vanishes in a blinding flash of light as swiftly as she had appeared. The eagle said he could see the Angels but found it hard to converse. He thanked me. I felt useful. I had made intercession at the Throne of Grace, and received Grace. Mediaeval. Very odd.
“Not so very odd!” says a voice. I might have expected this, but it still makes me jump. What I see is a lizard, a peaceful iguana attached to a tree, where it clearly remains for hours in peace and quiet.
“No longer peace and quiet,” says the iguana. “I’m glad you passed by. The earth is trembling. There is a volcano destroying our part of this forest. You know Pele. Would you care to ask for Her help?”
To my disappointment I do not see the Goddess Pele. What I do see is what I do not believe in. No-one does. The Phoenix, sole Arabian Bird that is reborn from its own fire, is seated far too near me, preening its feathers.
“You can’t always expect beautiful humans,” it says. “Stop calling me ‘It’. I’m She… Why shouldn’t Beings have bodies of pure energy? I do. Humans knew this for thousands of years, and are doing so again – after a short period when they were in denial, imprisoned in physical matter, and grey cellular ‘thought’. Anyway, now you’re here, what do you want? You needn’t pray. Just speak distinctly.”
Suddenly light dawns. “I know what all this is!” I cry. “It is a story – made up by the new Indigo star children!” “Correct,” says the Phoenix. “But do you know why they do this? They do it because we are real – as real, that is, as humans. What do you want of me?”
“Nobody loves peace and quiet more than reptiles,” I say. “They are a wise, moderate race, especially iguanas. These earthquakes are disturbing their peaceful wood.”
“Is that all?” exclaims the Phoenix. “That is easily altered. We don’t move our volcano. We move the reptiles. Dedicated human wild life workers will move them to another habitat tomorrow. Thanks for mentioning it.” And she dives into her nest, and the iguana goes off to sleep again….
I find myself becoming very sleepy. I sit down and shut my eyes. I doze off and awaken to the sound of splashing. I find myself on a seashore, and a baby seal is flapping by me. “Don’t tell me!” I say. “You are a seal woman in disguise.” “Wrong,” says the seal. “All seals can talk, though not as much as women. We say what we have to say. Listen! We are sick and tired of tsunamis. We somehow cannot get into touch with the Heavenly Dragon of the Eastern Ocean to stop them. Can you try?”
“I’m willing to believe in anything now,” I say. “After all, dinosaurs are a sort of dragon.”
“No they aren’t,” says a sharp feminine voice. I turn and see a mermaid. Well, a sort of mermaid. She is greenish and has scales. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she has gills. For once I am not in danger of falling in love.
“You are not so attractive yourself,” she says, “a sort of jumped up chimpanzee without their pathos. Know that I am Lung Nu, Third Daughter of the Dragon King. What is your supplication?”
I explain the seals’ fear of tsunamis, as they have their cubs among the rocks. Suddenly there is an amazing change. The fish-girl transforms into a mighty Dragon made of living jade. I hear her voice like the rushing waves: “Henceforth I shall issue a warning to all these coastal creatures when I send a tsunami. Also humans will be warned so all will reach safety in the hills.”
She slowly fades into the sky becoming mingled with the stars. She changes into the Phoenix, the Angel, the Elf in rainbow colours. I become part of Her as a human, yet I am as individual as each of them. So this is our future earth ****** It is here awaiting us in the eternal Now.
Aiden slowly returns from trance, dazed. He has earned his degree for he has touched omnipresence. Reports are shared and healing sent forth. Thanks are given to the Deities.
Recommended Reading: “The Serpent Power,” Arthur Avalon, Ganesh & Co., Vasanta Press. T.S. Adyar Press, Madras. “Hindu Scriptures", edited by Macnicol, Everyman. “Images of Devi in Pahari Paintings,” Choti Bharany, Clarion Books. “The Silmarillion,” J.R.R. Tolkien, Unwin. “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” J.K. Rowling, (donated by the author to the children’s High Level Group). “Fairies – Magical Beings,” Cassandra Eason, (Chapter on Devas & Elementals.) Piatkus Books.
Note: The first line in this ritual originally identified the Priest as Hierophant rather than as Priest Alchemist. All the other rituals in this series designate the officiating Priestess and Priest as members of the Priesthood of Solar Alchemy. We are awaiting confirmation from Olivia Robertson via the Hon. Secretary of the Circle of Brigid to see if indeed the inclusion of 'Hierophant' in this ritual was what Olivia intended - if so, the rite will be changed back to the original form. The Isian News staff acknowledges here and thanks Minette for all of her fine work.
Confirmation received May 5, 2010 from the Hon. Secretary of the Circle of Brigid: FOI Co-Founder Olivia Robertson, author of the FOI Liturgy has confirmed that "Priest Alchemist" is correct.
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