I’ve decided to put this long and stressful day behind me. I’ve done enough work to make my working class ancestors beam with pride, and it’s time for a break. I need to buckle down and study later tonight, but for now I’m half-watching a Robert Johnson documentary, tossing around my tarot cards and reading poetry. Ach, I seem corny, don’t I? — I should be drinking our overrated, grossly expensive absinthe instead of this Diet Coke, eh?
Tonight’s fixation is Yeats, apropos of my impending grade advancement.
The Travail of Passion
When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide;
When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;
Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way
Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,
The hyssop-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kidron stream:
We will bend down and loosen our hair over you,
That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew,
Lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream.
The Valley of the Black Pig
The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,
And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,
Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.
The Heart of the Woman
O what to me the little room
That was brimmed up with prayer and rest;
He bade me out into the gloom,
And my breast lies upon his breast.
O what to me my mother’s care,
The house where I was safe and warm;
The shadowy blossom of my hair
Will hide us from the bitter storm.
O hiding hair and dewy eyes,
I am no more with life and death,
My heart upon his warm heart lies,
My breath is mixed into his breath.
The Blessed
Cumhal called out, bending his head,
Till Dathi came and stood,
With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth,
Between the wind and the wood.
And Cumhal said, bending his knees,
‘I have come by the windy way
‘To gather the half of your blessedness
‘And learn to pray when you pray.
‘I can bring you salmon out of the streams
‘And heron out of the skies.’
But Dathi folded his hands and smiled
With the secrets of God in his eyes.
And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke
All manner of blessed souls,
Women and children, young men with books,
And old men with croziers and stoles.
‘Praise God and God’s mother,’ Dathi said,
‘For God and God’s mother have sent
‘The blessedest souls that walk in the world
‘To fill your heart with content.’
‘And which is the blessedest,’ Cumhal said,
‘Where all are comely and good?
‘Is it these that with golden thuribles
‘Are singing about the wood?’
‘My eyes are blinking,’ Dathi said,
‘With the secrets of God half blind,
‘But I can see where the wind goes
‘And follow the way of the wind;
‘And blessedness goes where the wind goes,
‘And when it is gone we are dead;
‘I see the blessedest soul in the world
‘And he nods a drunken head.
‘O blessedness comes in the night and the day
‘And whither the wise heart knows;
‘And one has seen in the redness of wine
‘The Incorruptible Rose,
‘That drowsily drops faint leaves on him
‘And the sweetness of desire,
‘While time and the world are ebbing away
‘In twilights of dew and of fire.’
I had the most glorious reading just now. I’m not feeling perky enough to go in-depth, suffice to say that it was very positive and showed me that I seem to be going in the right direction with current business endeavors and money-oriented choices. This is a welcome change from the all-prevalent Tower from years past.
Today’s card:
Ok, enough procrastinating. I need to hit the books, grab the ol’ Lotus Wand and get to work.
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