Below the seven steps he sits, amid the safety of a sacred space ... his space.
His ancient identity shrouded by the visage of the angry, the sorrowful and the raging.
He is deliberate with his disguise ... he uses The Trickster to perfect effect,
No mortal does he trust with the face he sees beyond the illusion ...
He stands poised, proud ahead of himself ... the dancer, the enlightened fool
The noose which the uninitiated see around his neck merely a prop,
His true visage merely the reflection of that which he portrays,
For that is the way of him ... the way of the magic of the student of the lore.
His lore is ancient ... powerful ... forgotten
With it he summons the reflections of those come before him ... so he understands;
So he can wisely judge and offer the most enlightened advice at hand,
In truth, the reflections he summons are merely the portrayal of they within him.
He manifests their energy onto himself, and through alchemy becomes they
Then with eye wide open, as higher immortal, he walks on their behalf
Understanding implicitly the lore ... the conception of ‘so above so below’;
His lore is his closest friend; the only one he trusts ... his life, his mission, his grail.
He grows in stature ... through all the sacrifices made;
He has lived with anguish all his life on the outside;
But deep within he knows, he sees, he understands ... he is so grateful to be alive
Hidden in obscurity he completes his study ... his application of ancient lore;
His integration of its magic in the ‘modern day’.
With ease he disconnects and distances himself from the mortal visage;
Permitting his true image to shine through that clay disguise when on his own,
His soliloquy unchanged in a thousand centuries, he’s always been this way
When safe ... when unobserved ... he brings down the hood of his cloak ...
Permitting his mind to reach out to the consciousness of the lore;
Familiarising himself once more with the familiar once more in mortal form
Practising his arts to perpetuate his recognition of self ... true self ...
The self completely separate to the self created by the visage of the outer shell.
His lore ... the discipline which permits him this respite from the deeds and the lessons
His lore ... the ancient magic still alive in the desperate and dreary modern world
For the student this is so vitally important, for this moments keep him sane
These moments being the unbroken strand which connects him to his first moments in form.
Reassuring for him ... so he is able to ‘communicate’ with his other outer shells at will.
Matthew James 15 May 2004
