The Brooklyn Rail

APRIL 2023

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APRIL 2023 Issue
Poetry

from The Ones Who Listen (Book One of the Cywanu Trilogy)


from The Ones Who Listen (Book One of the Cywanu Trilogy)



Where the stars kiss the flowers a

soft red light is seen   Using tourmaline

to tune in to the Pleiades   The Emu

in the Sky   The core of the comet

becomes brighter   Comet Leonard


Inspiration sustains the world   Chanting

vibrationally activates internal organs   Invisible

pyramids waiting for the chant that will

herald their materialization


During  the  session yesterday  at one  point I had  the vision of a  kind of
ceremony / eucharist, where people gathered and made bread together -
in the  vision  it was  focaccia.        And  there  would  be  olive oil that was
infused with  cannabis, and people  would feast on bread and oil.


Obstruction Pass     The Sea Queen

Otohime   The longevity of oysters     The

odic barrier around each coral     Coral to

treat rabies     Coral to offset senility

Jasper stimulates the sense of smell     From

your odor, an animal instantly builds up

an image of the state of your psychological condition



This idea that animals do not see "us,"

they see our intentions



At  one point  I felt this  tube  /  shaft  /  beam of light  from my  third eye /
pineal   gland   down  to  my  throat.  Learning   that  just  being  here  and
working with Love  is "enough." I can send Love to anyone,  regardless of
what they may say  /  think about me. I can direct Love  their way without
them consciously ever knowing it. The Love you direct toward people you
don't  like creates a  force field around  you that makes you impervious to
their attitudes.

Invoking the Hugging Man.  I call  "him" the  Hugging  Man,  but  I do not
think   of   this   being   as   "male."   I   see   this   entity   in   various  forms.
Sometimes  in the guise of a  bearded old  wizard.  Sometimes as a kind of
yeti / sasquatch  who lives  under a tree beside  a waterfall.  This idea  that
the Hugging Man's  embrace is like an instant MDMA peak. This idea that
once  you've known  that feeling, you  can  always  draw upon  it,  you  can
enter that frequency and use that knowledge in healing.


The Book of the Lady of the Hidden Temple

Lady Arundel's Manchet   Receiving a blessing

at St Nicholas Church in Arundel   Abraham

in gingerbread   St Honoré, patron of bakers

The peel that becomes a mulberry tree   A

poppyseed, a fifteenth of an inch   The seed

of your own knowing   Strange bread tastes

bitter   St Marcellus's flood   St Helier picks

up his head and walks to the sea







An old magician named Mana   The

magician Teta demonstrates before the

pharaoh his power of revivification   Mimi,

the daughter of the wizard Weatherbold, is

turned into a goose   The magician throws

a copper bridge over the stream and then

changes himself into a wolf and waits

underneath   The gulf that exists between

me and my family cannot be bridged by language


At one point in the session yesterday I got all of this material about organ
music.  About the  psychoactive  effect  of  certain  sounds  /  harmonics  /
frequencies   /   pitches.  How   some  churches  were  constructed  with   a
knowledge  of sound  and  color.  How  stained  glass  and  the  sound of an
organ reverberating  off stone  combine to  create a space  that can  induce
trances / out-of-body states.


Sunshine miners   The genius who was

mistress of sunlight   Wisdom has come

early to Sunlight   Ruby and emerald

are amplified during a solar eclipse   A

glowing fragment of a larger whole   An

expanding cocoon   Each self is couched

in an infinite cocoon of being from which

it cannot fall, but ever emerge in changing

form







This idea  that in my sessions  I can do  things - healing-wise - that I could
not do  physically.  I can  be the  Hugging Man -  visualize  all  the  people  I
encounter  on Broadway,  etc  -  imagine  stopping  and  hugging each  one.
Imagine  putting my arms  around the person in  the doorway and imbuing
deep within them  an awareness of their worth.  Imagining all the children
living  with alcoholic parents - aggressive  /  chaotic  surroundings - where
they  are  scared, and  putting  my arms  around  those children  and  them
knowing they are loved.

I see  people  on their  deathbeds  and I stroke their hair.  I put  my palm on
their  forehead.  The Hugging Man  is beside the dying.  Those in fear.  The
Hugging Man stands / kneels beside those dying alone.


Ghosts bring their own light with them

Coming into the rose light   I like to

watch the sky turn colors   We should avail

ourselves to anything that offers hope and wonder


A novel set in a Ouija board factory

The parable of the vinegar   Otters in

the snow   Our Lady of Guápulo   The Learned

Men of the Magic Library form a guild at

the Serapeum in Memphis   Guillaume

Le Roy, the first printer in Lyon   The

Carolingian miniscule, lowercase letters

of the epoch of Charlemagne







It is said Charlemagne held court while

relaxing in a huge warm bath   The baths

of Darius I   The baths of Diocletian could

accommodate 18,000 bathers at once   The

public vapor baths of Paris   Vincent

Priessnitz's cold water treatment


Quiver leaf, trembling tree   In case of

famine, a person could live for some time

on the inner bark of slippery elm   A flute

cut from the center of a seven year old

cherry tree   Under rough bark lies smooth

wood and sweet kernel   Green stimulates

psychic abilities   Trees are the answer


As Vesta is a remnant of Maldek   As

it is said Hawaii was a key part of Lemuria

A city whose foundation stood upon eggs

buried in the depths of the sea   A temple to

Imhotep on the island of Philae   The invocation

having been made in the temple, the response was

awaited in sleep
   Divination by incubation







The king throws himself into a carved

chair filled with crimson cushions   Carve

your grievance into a pumpkin   Let go

of the fear of retaliation   Let go of the fear

that if you are true to your vision, you will

be punished   Learn to trust in your own

goodness / your right to exist / to be

Trust that by being true to yourself you

surround yourself with protection


A messenger in the form of the moon   Gaze

within and examine the inner Moon   Opening

the heart chakra with kunzite   Open all the

doors   Loudly let the trumpet bray We are

made innocent through experience


Funerary feasts in the Raqefet Cave

The pituitary gland, the crystal cave   Insights

and revelations come to you when you allow space

for them   Possessing the mantic gift   Melampus

and Cassandra acquired their mantic powers

after their ears had been cleansed by the tongue

of a serpent







The oracles of Ea were announced with the

sound of the roaring surf   The king of the

watery deep with his dream oracle   Zakar

and Mamu, god and goddess of dreams   One

who knows water   Common water, the best

cure for fevers The statue of the Corinthian

general Pelichos was said to cure fever


Dhanvantari, the Health Bestowing One, god

of medicine, god of herbs and water, arose

from the Ocean of Milk holding a staff and a

bowl of amrita


The seed floating through space is sure of

its being / meaning / purpose   The Tree of

All Seeds   The walnut tree in Benevento

Baalim, Phoenician nature spirits who represented

holy stones, trees, water and mountains


The mask of philosophical exemption   The

strange ferryman whose face is backward

Cutting one's hair on the new moon   Transfigured

night   A libation of the night   A guild of

professional mediums called katochoi who

incubated on behalf of suppliants





When Alexander the Great was ill in Babylon,

his generals slept for him in the temple of

Marduk, in hopes of receiving a revelation by

which he might be cured


Thoth's healing temple at Hermopolis

Neith's healing sanctuary at Sais

Shamash, lord of visions   Virgilius

the Sorcerer   As an auger, Calchas had

no rivals   Edgar Cayce gave a trance

reading for FDR in the White House


Smoking a bowl of Northern Lights by the light of a salt crystal lamp. I
see another incarnation, smoking a pipe by the light of a candle or of a
whale oil lamp, centuries ago.


The first drawn circle brings a sense

of power   Diamond draws toxicity

out of the body   An elixir of Herkimer

diamond releases stress and tension

throughout the body; this stone is a

great storer of information









It's long been believed jade could cure

kidney disorders   The curative powers

of a spiritualized river   Yakima River

Hoback River   Steam coming off the

Yellowstone River   As Astarte discovered

a meteorite that breathed a prophetic

spirit and cured diseases


Your mobile consciousness travels out

of your physical body via the astral

body At what speed do you wish to go?

Like the wind? Like thought? Like desire?

Or like a curse? The Kingdom of the Wind

The air up here is worth sixpence a pint


Crystal-powered flying ships You

have different vessels available for your

out-of-body travels The astral body

is a component of the total multidimensional

human being and, like the etheric body,

is usually superimposed over the physical

frame
Human beings as living crystals

Contributor

Whit Griffin

Whit Griffin is a poet-medium and semi-professional hermit dwelling in Colorado. Author of such nonlinear metaphysical epics as We Who Saw Everything (Cultural Society) and Uncanny Resonance (Book Two, Lunar Chandelier Collective). With visual artist Timothy C. Ely he collaborated on the book Interior Voice / The Great Practice (Granary Books). Along with Eric Baus he is a resident wizard at Common Name Farm, through which he freely gives away visionary elixirs.

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The Brooklyn Rail

APRIL 2023

All Issues