A Critical Mass

“For the human race to survive, the human race must remain civilized.” - Rod Serling

Dreams form the space between heartbeats – life
advances by inhaling rain’s perfume, or listening
to the ocean’s roar; unrelenting torrents release
information in floods, at lightning speed. What are we
missing right now? Why must we yearn?
Knowledge appears complexly thorough,
yet remains a blank page to the superstitious.
Oh Clio! Lead me down your byway, to understanding’s harbor.

Kether
Anticipation
Unity > Infinity

An airless breeze hung
still, languidly unblowing
on a faceless void.

Breath suspended in still silence. Uniform
un-form sketched itself upon a blank
canvas. Uncondensed molecules, huelessly
unpainted, roamed where a needleless
compass failed to indicate.

Eternal nothingness floated
upon a waterless sea: Oceanos.
Behold Oceanos as the circle,
a completed, omnipresent circuit.

Latently, origin and terminus
co-situated non-existently.

Oceanos sat poised, ready
to beget endlessly,
self-satisfied within unprovoked potency,
a unified whole – unrealized contentment.

Singularity, coreless and unclothed,
rested: inertialessly inert.

Tranquil harmony tolled unimagined bells
with a soundless, polyphonic symphony,
unheard, desireless and unsung.

Oh immanent Oceanos, in Oneness
with Tethys, inseparably united
like the caduceus, you wind indivisibly
as Father/Mother: the Original Originator –
your realm transcends contemplation:
not of the Beyond, just the Beyond.

Pre-existent Pluto’s subatomic potential
hid in the yet to be conceived Underworld,
scalelessly balanced, an utterly
whole unmanifestation.

Dreamless sleep permeated
while Undifferentiated Unity soared
unexpressed, unaware and undesigned:
pre-cognitive, like Oliver Sacks’
“sleepy sickness” patients.

Chokmah
Action
Singularity = Duality

The monad yawned and stretched. A great,
insatiable, Supra-Massive Black Hole pulsed
incessant rhythm at Unity’s
heart – uncovering Splendor, impelling
Singularity to erupt from a critical mass.

Universal Supra-Consciousness, Ouranos,
emerged into Duality with Gaia: each saw
their reflections arise together upon Oceanos’
placid face – the looking glass,
where Ouranos’ and Gaia’s gazes awoke.

Ouranos, the great impeller,
Prime Mover, through Eros
you embolden Creation:

Copulation encouraged –
worth’s ultimate expression:
union through Loving intent.
Birth implicates meaning.

Mass and energy differentiated. Yang
quark encountered yin electron
intuitively. One mitosis yields two:
Adam/thesis/male/positive/active/energy/light
inferred a shadow reality –
Eve/antithesis/female/negative/receptive/mass/darkness.

Only awareness of other yields self-comprehension:
definitions express nuances in relationship.

Mercifully, from the primordial relativistic
jet and plasma beacon,
illumination flashed: lightning
bolted from nowhere –
a strobe light upon the vast nothing,
kick-starting energy’s ignition.

Compressed to implosive collapse,
a critical mass exerted pressure’s
presence from crevasse.

Binah
Fertilization
Triplicity ≠ Infinity

Primal Adam and Eve fell
in love at first sight, instantly
kissing and caressing –

potential energy kineticized
and condensed into dew
drops, atomic energy. Free
radicals initiated a revolution –
attraction manifested fusion and fission.

Exhibitionism’s brilliant explosion –
rainbow-hued fertilization: the Cosmic
Dialectic exacting synthesis.

Darkness cleaved itself
from light: Unity committed suicide.

Pre-eternity
spiraled in an Irish jig
hosting its own wake.

Gaia, Creation’s organic thread,
slowly poked her orphaned head
from a womb - expiring Unity.
Awareness, born from Death’s fertility,
sang out a joyous tune
for the palingenetic retinue
and deep respect for the loving gift
implicit in Saturn’s severe shift.

Adam’s sweet kisses and soft
caresses inflamed Eve’s passion.

Quarks fused randomly: protons
and neutrons invented
a tango. The dance lacked form until electrons
encircled nuclei. Their orbits consummated
dance, plucking notes (harmonic string vibrations) –
the Celestial Song, upon the lyre: spacetime.
hydrogen and helium configured.

Oceanos’ infinite potential
issued vas deferens’ river, chance,
through Ouranos’ uninterrupted current:
a primal stream inseminating fertility.
The incessant urge impregnated
Gaia’s eternal vaginal dance,
releasing fertilized eggs –
imagination’s embryonic proclivity.

Tension mounted. Atoms accumulated. Impelled
by an intuitive, yet inarticulate,
memory of Unity, (desire) Oneness
insisted union. Atoms shared adulterous
electrons, the dance’s grip tightened. Mutually
obsessive embraces urged erotic
copulation: nuclei devoured
nuclei, merging – increasing
complexity ≠ modeling – and expanding Splendor.

Passion’s heat intensified. Speed
persisted fomenting friction and prodded.
Adam and Eve wed, their marriage sanctified
by eternal vows. Perpetual mating, monogamy’s
ultimate expression, co-mingled
essences. Slowly passion secreted
pre-orgasmic fluids: the lovers’ ritual
shone forth as the original, active, galactic
pulse in cosmic darkness - a rapturous beacon.

Adam’s energy willfully inseminated Eve’s mass,
lewdly fueling expansion, impregnating her.

Atoms and molecules sparked
into existence. Ceaseless labor conceived
streams, painting spacetime’s curvature.

Imagine a spherical rosebud – petals unravel
in pairs, emanations stretch: each petal
a universe within a voidless void, infinite
fields where quarks’ and electrons’ energy
remains yet unkineticized. Our petal breathes
youthfully – still unfolding and becoming.

Adam and Eve’s petulant hearts
sustained, multiplied and diversified
nature through emanations - petal after unfolding
petal. Unending union sanctified and glorified each
pregnant, protruding universe, curving out
a dimension unique and complete unto itself.

You’ve just dined upon the fruit from the Tree
of Knowledge. The pulp, so succulent
and meaty, always perfectly ripe, nourishes
the cosmos. Devour it! Slurp up
the juices! Swallow the pit whole!
Only when yin and yang combine
is perfect sustenance provoked.
Without seasons’ spicy balance, the fruit
fails to satisfy: The Fall’s augury.

Consuming the fruit was never forbidden,
the act lay implicit in spacetime’s
petals’ flowering. Taboo lay
in discarding the seed.

Da’ath
Gestation
Unity/Singularity

The landscape forged unformed as substance
proliferated shapelessly. A kitten-like curiosity
resonated amid haphazard mewing musings.
Mystery sought adventure in Poseidon’s realm
through an Odyssey – wondrous encounters
across the Celestial Aegean. The mischievous
celestial sea, fertile contingency, inundated
Splendor with paradox, as Cronos
tick-tocked into existence.

Yin and yang coalesced awareness.
Knowah herded them onto the Ark,
Together they might navigate Cronos’
Chaos. All the while, our petal of spacetime’s
flower inculcated existence:
myriad machinations’ manifestations.

A Supra-Massive Black Hole – no where’s center,
nothing/all – discovered a seed at its core
and erupted in great jets, mass spewed: cosmic
dust, atoms, molecules and microwave
radiation. Then it all collapsed back
into the maelstrom’s insatiable black hole –

Creation fed upon itself, as Cronos ate
his own young. Then, Creation erupted:
just as Cronos’ young sprang from his gut,
vigorous actors upon the stage.

Adam and Eve’s tango’s tempo torturously torqued –
a dynamic, universal turbine. The perpetual motion
machine embarked on self-discovery’s journey,
consciously initiating Original Orgasm: The Big Bang!

Knowah scattered seeds across the Celestial Aegean.
Yin and yang germinated into Super-Massive Black Holes,
eyes in each new maelstrom: perpetual,
self-inseminating incubators – each wielding
a relativistic jet, pulsing – feeding
the black hole’s insatiable hunger,
simultaneously spewing forth material to populate
the vast, blankblack canvas. Thusly, Knowah birthed
galaxies across an instantly expanding spacetime.

Fecundating Love spread out like honey
on the rose petal, dripping and oozing into newly
formed reaches. Love pumped the lifeblood –
Splendor flowed through every expression.

Whirling, swirling clouds of cosmic mass
and primal energy warped
the expanding universal curvature.

Pregnant with possibility,
galaxies developed according to their own volition:
Oceanos’ halcyon waters slowly receded.

Mass condensed into matter:
stars were born from molecules,
collecting into white-hot furnaces.
Adam and Eve’s fruit: only
evolutionary death breeds revolutionary Splendor.

Matter’s denser collections spiraled
serenely across spacetime.

Evolution’s inertia
incited cosmic revolution’s
determined expression – liberating actualities.
As Adam and Eve perpetually copulated,
Knowah encouraged yin and yang, who populated
the universe with multiplying galaxies.

Mysterious Balance constantly reasserts itself.

Chesed
Expansion
(Air + Fire + Earth + Water) = Infinity (Unity/Singularity)

Profligate potential
imprinted our petal,
spacetime, with physical Laws.

When Moses encountered the Burning Bush,
he apprehended justice as an epitome,
Jupiter’s expression –
“Love and Creation are one!”

Life emerged from Unity’s merciful
sacrifice, hope vested in its child.

Chance’s soothing balm forested a desert’s
landscaped imagination with undreamed saplings.

A nascent eternal flame reflected wildly
in Moses’ cornea, etching upon his retinas
a vision: Adam and Eve’s perpetual union.

Mass gathered into white-hot cores, spinning
molecules collected, whirling masses corralling
electromagnetic fields, tightly compressing –
spheres. Constant combustion: stars blossomed
in the night like lily islands on a tranquil pond.

A Hebrew slave conceived and delivered Moses.
This child, as future lawgiver to a nation,
would impose Order upon Chaos.

In the beginning, Chaos dominated
spacetime. Super-Massive Black Holes sparked
flaming expansion where No-Thing once reigned.

Coupled, Adam and Eve spawned
generation’s random fountains. Our rose
petal wove a hive and structure bore fragrant symmetry,
just as Zeus orchestrated the Greeks from Olympus.
Accumulating atoms and molecules coalesced, balled
up – denser and heavier, energetic masses.

Gravity and electromagnetism bound
Infinity in limitations.

Moses, the child, floated on the Nile –
life’s river –
until discovered by Bithia;
she bequeathed him a legacy –
power, wealth and kingdom:
a proffered glorification to her own vanity.

Egyptian society arose from a schism:
Unity spawned Duality.

Temptations, power and greed revealed
a flaming eternal truth: rule by one
enslaves multitudes, rule by any –
tyranny. Complete, unbound, unfettered
Freedom liberates all. The only Laws?
Free Will, Opportunity, Respect,
Understanding and Acceptance.

Moses rejected dominion, traversing his desert,
ignorance; he found nourishment in union
With Zipporah: his necessary counterweight. Moses
overcame obsession by achieving Balance,
ascending a knowledgeable mountain.

The Burning Bush, a living
flame, revealed Unity in aspiration.

The Burning Bush inflamed Moses,
whose descent from the penultimate height
bridged a chasm separating Adam and Eve.
So, Moses mainlined insurrection’s injection
into Free Will’s bulging vein, releasing
Egypt’s Hebrew slaves.

The first primordial stars compressed
tightly, exploding mini celestial
orgasms. Mass spewed forth
from cores. Super-massive nebulae
and great clouds billowed cosmic
dust, demarcating seeded regions.

Electromagnetism and gravity
restricted dispersing mass: cosmic
dust swirled into elliptical orbits
collecting new galaxies:
stars, solar systems in billions,
planets, asteroids and comets.
Cohesion’s spell bewitched the rose petal.

Electromagnetism and gravity express
subservience to Attraction
in opposition to Repulsion –
together, they reflect a union, mass
and energy. Re-consecrating Adam
and Eve’s marriage wrought Symmetry
across spacetime’s fabric.

Moses returned to Egypt,
and lovingly liberated Free Will,
leading the former slaves through
a parted Red Sea. His nation’s birth rushed
headlong between menstrually mature,
labia-shaped, oceanic pillars, leaving
behind the security-blanket
placenta – Egypt – to suckle upon nourishing
breasts: happenstance, mother sea.

Harmonically Symmetrical spacetime
underlies cosmic Creation.
Evolution cuts a wake,
releasing ripples, possibilities,
from chaotic shackles
vibrating across celestial waters.

Geburah
Disintegration
(Smell + Taste + Hearing + Sight + Touch) < Unity

Love,
physics,
evolution,
and natural selection
carry
a
metaphysical
DNA.

Mars bled struggle and strife
as limitation and death’s imposeur
Ares introduced the eternal battle:
orator facing orator in endless debate.

Evolution severely demarcated Universal
Boundary –
one thing’s was
transforms into
some will be to come.

Moses led his nation to a great mountain’s
foot. He ascended and received ten
Laws. The people forged a golden calf
and offered up wild reverie: idle idol worship.

The primal stars exploded in brilliant
supernovae. The giant plume
clouds, gas and dust: gestating wombs
which gave birth to all
elements and every chemical reaction
occurring in stars, solar systems
and planets unleashed Splendor.

These supernovae blossomed across
spacetime sowing fields –
solar systems in Gravity’s plowed
rows. Consciousness evolved
from “I am and you are”
into “I become as you sacrifice.”

Upon this stage, ten newly cast actors graced the playbill:
inertia, friction, combustion, dissipation,
reduction, definition, interaction,
inspiration, condensation and
creative expression.

The petal’s rosy expansion slowed
as color’s first blush
brushed in broad strokes:
Gravity curved a rainbow
from all wavelengths.

Moses promised his nation milk and honey –
entry’s right required rite’s passage.
Forty years the Israelites arduously
roamed the desert expanse fraught with hardship:
evolution exerts change slowly and exhaustively.

The dissonant jazz,
cacophonic counterpoint,
segued into a bolero
performed in adagio cadence.
Like a chalcedony chalice
bejeweled with emeralds and jade,
Order crystallized: chordal triads
echoing through the rose petal.

Seasonal cycles yielded eons – progressive permutations,
innumerable experiments in evolution’s
laboratory, editing the play
with Shakespearean craft.

Every law etched by Moses
upon the stone tablets ossified
wry smiles from marrow into bone.
A societal skeleton, framed on communal variety,
supported sinews, loosely linking every extremity.

The Israelites entered a mountain pass and stood
upon the borderline to the Promised Land.

Tipareth
Integration
The Heart = Infinity/Unity

Nuit gazed lovingly upon the Earth. Feminine
intuition informed her, this tiny-blue orb spiraling
through the heavens reached fertility. She ached
to express her Creative urge, so Nuit planted
two seeds into the rich, virgin soil.

Ptah saw life’s seeds gestating
in the Nile’s banks. Smiling broadly
upon Nuit’s impulse, his countenance
beamed bright, warming rays, life
activating, golden sunlight.

The Nile swelled with joy and flooded
its banks. First spring awoke Earth
from hibernation. The seeds
germinated, sprouted and bore fruit: Isis and Osiris
manifested – goddess and god incarnate.

Evolution spins a constantly diversifying
web, complexity. Solar systems throughout
the galaxies felt the heat in the tango’s beat,
whirling across the rose petal, rhythmically
to the Celestial Song. Natural pacing in planets’
orbits brought tranquil regularity to gravity.

On Earth, as it came from heaven, a violent
collision with a celestial body ripped off
some mass and formed a lunar satellite
(Athene was born from a lopped-off piece
of Zeus’s head), tilting the planet. The axial
tilt induced seasons’ forced labor.
Persephone, winter-death and spring-rebirth,
arose with fresh blossoms
from her Underworld descent, giving rise
to seasons on Earth and grains’ sprouts.

Comets and asteroids pelted
the Earth’s surface, depositing
water by the mouthfuls upon the sere
crust. In eons, oceans washed the globe.

Organic molecules and carbon compounds
carried on intergalactic winds
inseminated Earth though cosmic comets’
pelting, seeded with DNA.

Seasonal mysteries unraveled before
Osiris and Isis, agricultural masters. Together,
they tamed oxen to lessen burden’s
onus. They taught harvest and husbandry,
neither to dominate nor restrict
nature, rather, to advance Splendor.

Life on Earth stewed up from chance's
organic chemistry experiment, still occurring
right now, far off in interstellar space’s
cold reaches. A double helix wove within
chemical reactions. Molecular structures sparked
single celled organisms. Colony combining,
they cohered into multi-cellular
bodies. Eons ticked off.
Earth’s waters’ vitality teemed.

Above the seas’ reach, where moist
soil began to stretch, the first cyanobacteria
injected molecular oxygen into the sky.
Fungi spawned an atmospheric renovation. Insects
crawled from the seas and fed
upon fungi, explored the land, carrying seeds
away from the waters. As the atmosphere grew
oxygen rich, the double helix evolved –
plants proliferated and insects assisted,
abetting pollination’s conspiracy.

Aquatic beings migrated
to the land where socialism reigned:
all workers received complete sustenance,
sole payment, a natural expression –
their unique life force.

In a world ripe with nourishment,
life forms evolved in gigantic proportions.

Set’s personal expression, emotion,
entertained desire’s taint and perversion:
Set envied his brother
craving Osiris’ earned adulation.

Osiris and Isis administered
prosperity through integration.
Streaming under serenely flowing viaducts,
their barges navigated the Nile
carrying equal harvest to all.

Set sought to impose tyranny.
Through acquiring great storehouses,
he could amass wealth and wield power.

Domination interposed through dominion
lay within Set’s scheme.
Set sought to murder his brother
and wrongfully reign as king.
Plot, contrived and exacted,
Set sent to Osiris’ feet
his flesh, anticipating aggrandizement,
hidden in a jar, an offering.

Once the jar was presented,
Set broke through the confines,
thrust his blade into Osiris’
heart, hacked off each arm
and leg, along with head and phallus.

A lifeless trunk gaped open to flood –
hope’s escape: oozing drops, sacred blood.

The seven severed pieces
were strewn in separate regions.
Thus sat Set upon Osiris’ throne,
a narcissistic sycophant
indulging chaotic whims.

Infinite potential expressed
in Creative Love received
restriction within the boundless
appetite for size achieved.

Immanent in nature’s expression for huge
erections - living, throbbing, gristle, muscle,
blood and bone, a critical mass - insatiable
hunger - consumed every nutritious
root and life force sown.

Dinosaurs devoured the landscape, frenzied
by riot, looting what they conceived
as their own supermarket, sucking diversity dry.

Adam’s involuntary vasectomy
spawned an eviscerating hysterectomy,
constraining Eve.
her un-inseminated fertility
yearned for Adam’s virility.
She longed to nurture and conceive.

Evolution’s abortion reduced abundance.
Capitalism, a rampant consumerism and illusive
affluence yielded universal poverty: diversity
gave way to monstrous edifices unable
to sustain themselves, monopolizing all paths
to prosperity – completely consuming
an economy not really their own.

Osiris navigated Styx,
the Underworld’s river. Maat weighed Osiris’
Ka upon the scale of deeds, finding
Balance against the feather.

The greater a being’s bearable lightness,
the less weight borne by the soul.

Maat admitted the divine son, unladen by personal
desire, into Abydos’ Elysian Fields. Osiris lacked
the obesity self-gratification accumulates through
stockpiling. The Osirian sacrifice opened Abydos’
doors for all who pass Maat’s test. A redeemer
and re-vitalizer, Osiris sat upon a rightful throne –
paradise unrestrained in the Underworld.

Under the world,
Earth’s bowels poised to hurl
up a rotting botulism, a dead end, for –
Splendor’s expansion found inhibition in self-absorbed,
gluttonous, consumptive demands: dinosaurs
insatiably consumed all inferior competitors,
monopolizing the marketplace with bully tactics,
and dominating the new world order’s didactics.

The dinosaur strategy to global, economic
ecology evidenced a naïve belief: its market
share could expand. The more they ate,
the hungrier they grew: ever-expanding
appetite in a world with limited resources.

Undaunted by their oxymoronic faith, have-more
dinosaurs subjugated the have-less classes –
order, genus and species, too! Dominion exerted
through hostile takeovers – have-less corporate
bodies led down the inevitable road
marked by a street sign named extinction.

Evolution refused to be imprisoned,
and appealed its sentence. A court with higher
authority, Nemesis, granted certiorari, and overturned
the verdict. The illegal search and seizure
inherent in the domination exerted by Splendor
over itself thwarted Adam and Eve’s free
expression. Splendor’s encroaching
corpus delicti rendered habeus corpus moot.

The decision Nemesis drafted stated:
“Self-preservation does not confer legitimacy
upon pre-emptive incursions! Honor, security,
civilization subsist through wisdom – equitable
distribution, and reverential respect for all life forms.”

A brilliant, heavenly ball crashed
into the Earth releasing
a firestorm which consumed
many huge, corporate bodies.

A free marketplace’s pressures directed
all wealth into obese bellies, the most massive
economic units. The schism between classes spread
out in the widest chasm, the entire economy grew
perilous, until the market crashed in a momentary
flash from the cataclysmic event.

Nemesis, acting in evolving Earth’s name, imposed
her own revolution against tyranny by spewing
a pestilence from within Gaia’s bowels.
She erupted with great clouds - methane, sulfuric
acid and ash - amid molten lava oceans. Crystals
cut esophagi and poisoned lungs.
Dark clouds blotted out
light’s elixir and froze
the planetary surface. Wintry eons
consumed the opulent dinosaur monstrosities –
as, tiny mammals, the meek, entered,
and trod evolution’s stage.

With a revised manuscript, natural
selection began its task anew:
the vasectomy was reversed
and a critical mass averted, when
evolving mammalian DNA rose
from within the eddying gene pool.

Isis refused submission to grief:
motherhood yearned from within her.
She searched every remote locale
and gathered six Osirian extremities.
Only the phallus eluded her grasp.

It came to pass in her wanderings
that a fish explained to Isis
tt had swallowed the member,
still whole in its belly.
Isis begged for phallus’
release. The fish agreed
to sacrifice its own desires and life
so Osiris might raise his scepter again.

The fish swam into Isis’ open hands.
She gave thanks for selflessness, sliced open
the fish, grasped the phallus and exposed it
to the Sun’s brilliance. Isis blessed
the fish, and sewed closed its wound,
returning it to the Nile. It swam away.

Isis gathered together each body
part and reassembled Osiris lifeless form
upon an expectant altar. She placed
the phallus inside her womb and rocked
herself on the member. Finally, Isis kissed
life’s breath back into Osiris’ lungs.

Ptah and Nuit sanctified their offspring’s
copulation. Osiris shuddered, and issued forth
into Isis’ womb, conceiving Horus, as
Osiris rose from the dead.

The earth moved from the conjugal explosion
and Set was non-violently toppled
from the precarious throne
aggrandizing self sets atop tranquil Splendor.

Netzach
Opulence
7 Chakras = Infinity/Unity (Air + Fire + Earth + Water)

Consciousness evolved in bounds and leaps.
Through invention, neurons and synapses,
a ladder was built upon the tree
igniting a chain, synaptic complexity:
the path to a doorstep, humanity.

Venus reflects in morn and eve.
Hypnotic glints attract
neurotic hallucinations,
indulging voluptuous appetites.

Cronos excised Ouranos’ phallus
from whence it fell into the ocean;
the restless waves tossed the member
upon wild abandon’s currents.

White foam gathered about the phallus –
waves’ crests issued from Poseidon.
The frothy, foamy white coalesced
into a phosphorescent maiden
with beauty and countenance
no mortal ever laid eyes on.

Aphrodite swam and surfed as if she floated
till she reached Cyprus’ shore.
Mystified, Zeus awarded
a charge and office well adorned:
over whispering maidens, laughter and hoaxes,
sweet lust, kindness and over lore,
upon beauty, Love and all art forms
Aphrodite reigned, forevermore.

Individuals mated, consorted, and bred,
grouping as families through intuitive
urges - synaptic evolution.

Aphrodite’s heart radiated rainbows
and songs, pulsing through her core
from high above into every noble human
endeavor. Harmony rained
like doves’ feathers fluffed.
Unremitting frolic cavorted through the woods
as Balance reigned over Splendor through Love,
till arose a new infection:
with base emotions was this reign rebuffed.

Aphrodite’s charm, so chilly, encouraged
elitism and manifested imagined
destiny. Entranced by pleasure, leisure yielded
desire, and Aphrodite decanted insatiability
in her lust for insouciant luxury.

Mother Earth warmed again to nurture
human clans. Nature’s scale redefined
size with touches subtle and refined: grandiose
passed from fashion, a new sensibility arose.

Humans found the warming world
generally to their liking, relocating
from their caves, claiming the most valuable
real estate, even erecting homes they designed –
so momentous in the Earth’s annals, nature
now had a competing creator
who would will, for better or for worse.

The riven bark from the myrrh tree yields
a resinous gum, fragrant and sweet. A god-child
condensed from this substance, more handsome
than any mortal man, miraculously born
and elegantly chiseled – he could bear
only the name, Adonis. Love’s goddess, struck
with lightning by the apparition, awe provoking
perfected male. Her lust deepened with the myrrh
tree’s roots and branched through the heavens,
ever-unfolding, her seductive fragrance
permeated the firmament. Aphrodite sought
Beauty in variation. Vagaries and chance
excited her curiosity. Every succulent pomegranate
leaving flavor’s aroma on Aphrodite’s tongue whet
her palate for wine, grapes demanded cheese, and love,
for Love’s goddess, insisted Adonis.

Aphrodite shared Adonis with the sweet
Persephone. Zeus decreed this. The two goddesses,
together, nurtured Adonis from child
to adult. Since both showered him,
unbridled lust demanded a claim.

Zeus opined, “Love does not own,
nor does it ever restrict;
Love’s meant to rain in torrents,
freely, unfettered and unfixed.”

Since they expressed Love as a selfish need,
neither Aphrodite nor Persephone earned,
entitlement to take Adonis’ seed.

One third year was awarded to each,
to compensate for the debt,
while a third Zeus bestowed on Adonis
to wield from his own intent.

“Through free expression does true Love flow,”
decreed Zeus, in wisdom’s course.

As humans tamed fire, they arose from ashes
as gods. The wheel revealed the calendar,
calculated the seasons,
propelled the barrow,
encouraged agriculture,
and charted stars’ movements across the night.

Aphrodite, having so much,
feared losing even a little.
She ached for more, cowering
at notions that pleasure be whittled.

Open minds shine light in dark places.
Narcissus’ spawn cloaks in shadows,
and into lucid daydreams casts nightmares’ traces.

Aphrodite’s languid, petulant mercy
induced a permeating perfume
enticing infinite permissiveness.

Hierarchies’ paradigms
amid schisms’ permutations
ingrained human lore
with fascinations for machinations.

Classes – doers and deciders –
divvied up the spoils all wrong!
A few embezzled premium grade –
the many shared meager survival.
Greed and jealousy sailed desert ships,
telling tales – glory and revenge. Nightmarish
fascinations incited destructive passions.

Hod
Curiosity
Wavelengths = Duality (Air + Fire + Earth + Water)

Socrates entertained Mercury’s realm as he passed
knowledge while asking questions.
Plato refined and revealed Socrates. They both sought
answers to the most impenetrable deliberations.

Impetuous Aristotle placed himself above those learnèd
teachers. He boldly believed he could intelligently
design answers from his imagined logic.

Thoth collected, transcribed,
interpreted and taught thought.
Thoth informed all Alexandrian wisdom.

From thought arises conscience.
Consciousness of insatiable appetites
instills conscience with remorse.

Civilization’s sprawl incessantly encroached
upon newly conquered regions. Animals’
habitats shrank. Human population’s swell
diminished diversity, the census, and the life
quality for all generations and every genus.
Communities built fences, segregating wild
Splendor from bland regularity: civilization consumed.

Osirian/Isian Balance was forgotten.

Merlin also exemplified Mercurial force.
His story recounted: a wizard,
wizened by eons’ existence,
wielding magical potency
with sage insight and grandfatherly advice.

Merlin taught fellowship and fraternity
through rationality. He sought
a gentle, human approach
to other-than-self, altruism made manifest –
the Round Table’s cooperation.

The Grail embodied these qualities
through an admonition,
“The king and the land are one,”
a co-efficient for “Love and Creation are one.”

All nature expresses Unity. The king’s sacred
role, Merlin taught, evoked essence in embrace.
The Grail quest enriches
everyone who undertakes it.
Its responsibility demands
moderate appetite and respect for exquisite Splendor.

The self-willed search for pre-eminence,
dictated entry into empire’s age.

Seti, Khan, Alexander or Caesar;
Mongol, Viking, Cossack or Hun;
Nixon, Hitler, Napoleon or Bush;
comrade, terrorist, Netanyahu or nun:
all are one.

Affection’s fragile chalcedony chalice –
the Grail’s very picture –
was smashed by the golden calf,
re-forged and worshiped anew.

History’s annals glorify conquerors –
marching progress legitimizes devastation.

The Grail lay hidden in the golden calf’s
belly. Altruism’s brilliant light obscured
by carbon emissions’ clouds! Intellect sacrificed
wisdom, suffering subjugation to privilege's cult.

Nemesis unleashed a plague, war, infecting
humanity. Its spore spread, an endemic epidemic,
diffusing dark despair: dread. Disease disseminated
disaster. Dulcet voiced doses declared
from royal daises and pompous, papal pulpits.

Human seed’s waste
lay spent upon the ground,
lifeless weeds spread
maimed, homeless and orphaned all around.

A stern severity, divisive decadence,
raucously revels at its own reflection
upon a mirror, marshaled by Mercurial,
mental pre-eminence unbridled with Venusian
affection for the virtuous virtuosity
only obviated in a messianic manifestation:
evolution’s unremitting revelation – variation.

Yesod
Dreams, Myths and Gods
A Reflecting Orb = The Heart (Infinity/7 Chakras)

A realm in shadows slowly creeps
across a wintry landscape’s face;
a crystal ball clouds up within
from smoky fingers’ inkless trace.
The light from stars, not dimmed or diffused,
reveals that hope still shines through gloom;
though sunsets darken after dusk
the night’s illumed by yonder moon.

Selene, sister to Helios, appeared
in slivers, quarters, and all her phases.
She arched through the bright, night sky so clear,
wrapping the Earth with tender embraces;
reflecting light from her silvery sphere
in delicate webs and shimmering laces,
she conjured dreams in the mind’s sheer veneer,
dripping, like dew, on mornings’ awed faces.

It’s in sullen, silent darkness when
consciousness cedes imagined
dominion – loosening synaptic bootstraps’
laces, as the mind dips into cool,
placid waters: sleep.

Where will the I go when eyes go shut
and ego sinks below sunset’s strut?
When lust and desire find rest,
a grander awareness manifests.

Endymion, a mortal youth, bore features
rivaling the gods’, his aura glowing
as he hunted. Selene trained a close eye
on the mortal, captivated by innocent strength,
and his knack for reflecting Olympian light,
so akin to her own seductive mystery:
reflecting the sun’s rays while Helios slept.

Endymion’s name transcended the personal
in significance for all human travails.
His name’s meaning, “He who finds himself within,”
allowed an oracle for all human destiny
to whisper on zephyrs through woods’.

Fantastic phantasms exposed demons and angels,
laying dormant in thought’s untapped regions,
as yet-unborn conceptions, images,
unvoiced conversations and songs.
Yes, even in scenes unseen and settings un-sat
upon, which some mind
(is it one’s own or some god’s?)
blocks out the action
the playwright described –
those plots within tales
unimagined in daylight.
Could the phantoms within
reveal our true selves to scrutiny?

Selene, a temptress and seductress
so sweet and alluring, mysteriously
found her beloved Endymion
sleeping nightly in her own dear cave,
the place where she disappeared
just before each new dawn,
behind her beloved and shimmering
Latmos’ mountain crest.

First soul conceptions sparked in Cro-Magnon mind
from the elusive visions
which nocturnal emissions’
active synapses un-designed.
Revealed within dreams –
angelic imagery and demonic schemes –
soaring serenity and cacophonic confusion
harkened, as harbingers, superstitious illusion.
Explanations required otherworldliness entwine.

It was in that cave beyond fair Latmos
where Selene and Endymion stole snippets from thyme;
they spoke in shadows reflecting starry passion
until one morning yawned, and Eos ushered Helios
into the sky. Endymion bade his belovèd Selene
spare him from cruel death’s sting
by granting the gift of eternal slumber.
In their secret cave of wonder,
with lovers’ caresses they would adore each other’s
reflected light beyond eternity’s last breath.

To this request Selene consented, though
she added one lingering longing. Her own
dear yen she grafted onto the chore: she’d whisper
Unity’s secrets and guide Endymion
to that self within while his love would forever
wash over her, even through his slumber.
With eyes always agape Selene unendingly
would see love shine through his gaze.

The sweet nothings Selene whispered
to Endymion in his unbroken slumber
shone as pyrite picture dreams. Reveries
examined facets’ gleams within, revealing
an intransigent, glittery fiction. With blind eyes
open to the world around him,
Endymion unlocked his mind to second sight.
Selene tended Endymion, who she taught
to see through whims’ deceptions.
From trips into other, no words would uncover
relationships to the mundane.
Through every reverie, profane and heavenly,
our nonsense reigned over our brain.
From nocturnal seeds, grew superstitious creeds
vain humans disdained to contain.

Out from our confusion and dark disillusion
Gaia’s needs in her seed convey
some hint in Order that through nature’s border
all Balance sings scales in play.
So, a man named Lao-Tze searching deep did pursue
within and without him The Way.

The Tao: a path with steps which respects and accepts,
and aims never to meddle.
Through silent insistence, paths least resistant
are never marred by a nettle.
By disdaining extremes and all personal dreams
no one infers we settle,
since all natural roads lead us to high abodes
everything gleams monumental.

A path wanders though harmonious glens
past reflective pools into lush, wide
pastures. No personal needs for stuff elevate
desire. By honoring Adam and Eve’s eternal
mating and the Universe they’re creating,
Splendor embraces Unity without
approaching a critical mass.

Malkuth
Transcendence
(Multiplicity x Infinity)/Prismatic Refraction = Unity

Blue green orb which floats on an eddy
ticking through space and inching through time,
spin and revolve through cycled spirals
and wake ripples through fabric sublime;
your issue teems beyond a child’s count
how many-splendored embraces surround
this still, just barely begun, evolution
where all possibilities abound.

No hurry resides in natural selection.
Every song is played till coda concludes.
No race need have been run,
since all that was won -
potential’s diffusion.

The Buddha explained a caustic paradox
within the symbiotic tribulations in life:
suffering accrues from accumulating karma –
resulting from both pleasure and strife.
As deeper passion electrified the living,
sorrow and suffering grew rife.

One day, as Gautama ambled through India,
heat and exercise took its toll.
Seeing a lone bodhi tree on a hillside,
the man acquiesced to break his stroll.
Right there he sat to rest and relax,
and gain from suffering a brief parole:
from calm meditation came freedom from longing.
It’s said the Buddha never left that grassy knoll.

Humans insist the right to change
any natural phenomenon
according to expediency.
Humans possess the might to raze
and replace pastoral invention
with egotistic pre-eminency.
Might never makes right and blindness
to global interdependence
yields social degeneracy.

Karma in Sanskrit means doing – how we spend
our lives. Rewards’ and punishments’ accumulation
meted out by an ethereal, conscious judge
expresses no similarity to the Buddha’s teachings
on karma, it simply arises as a product –
one’s own doing, not a gold star, time out, or user error.

The Wheel, Karma, accumulating attachments, reveals
an exponentially growing, insatiability: all our fleeting
unattainable and unending stream of desires lead
to suffering – our own karma through our own doing.

As long as the moon circles the Earth,
waves will continue to crash on sandy shores.
Whenever the sun’s warm rays shine above,
plants will photosynthesize and create oxygen.
Where ever water rains down from the heavens,
animals will congregate to drink and feed.

If humans interpose will too widespread,
they can so diminish Splendor
as to endanger the Mammalian Age.

Mother Nature’s intent
will only invent
new models’ differential
from her infinite potential
to repopulate woods, tors,
plains and shores.

Our belovèd mother and benefactress,
the hostess through whose virtue and grace
we exist, has a warped eternity to express
evolution’s unending possibility. Natural
selection will toss humanity upon its scrap heap
one day, so, we should re-evaluate
our subscription to entitlement.

Reconfiguring the landscape to fit
human designs, while destroying
the wild, causes a critical mass –
extinction, strangling the planet.

It is often thought that when Gautama taught
emulate him to reach Nirvana,
he meant, “Stop all doing.”
Procreating is doing. The Buddha
really intended we discard desire.

Throughout humanity’s recorded history
a precious few control wealth, perpetuating
their dominion over all others while critically
exercising executive privilege’s health. People’s
response – acquiesce to power’s consolidation,
usurped with or without stealth.

Awaken from raving delusions – people exerting
dominion over nature! Who are you to believe
your life force is most worthwhile? Dominion
only meant we’d overcome Neanderthal, not
evolution. So, Cro-Magnon invented
a god in his own image who promised no Earth
without sapiens; what a small grasp of infinity.

We’ve all become wind-ups, our keys
being turned so we can march off to place
our cog-selves into that wheel which is
the economy to amass ever-increasing
fortunes for the elite class from every generation,
who, we are taught and cajoled,
to celebrate and idolize.

Now, we sit at time’s edge:
our geometrically expanding population
approximately doubling every 35 years
threatens to strangle all life, including
our own, with a critical mass -
insatiable mouths to feed and bodies to house,
claiming, in time, all the land for human use,
strangling all other life on the planet.
Our war weapons prey to extinguish
all life on the planet
with a critical mass –
arising from a button’s push
threatening to vaporize every living thing.
Our waste chokes the air
and infects all water on the globe –
a critical mass of pestilence looms
as the air becomes un-breathe-able and we
murder coral reefs with our excrement,
refuse, and preheated, carbonated oceans,
killing the Mother-of-Life-on-Earth.

Nemesis sends warning to everyone, invoking an ancient
oath – mandatory attendance at a critical mass
of spiritual hearts, expressing love and reverence
to our Mother, the Earth. Promise to cease
eradicating Splendor. Vow to leave some
wilderness for diversity to blossom and bloom.

Mother Earth scolds us,
“Children, play nice.
can’t you all just get along?”

Nemesis requires open hearts
expressing joyous gratitude
for life’s gift, to avoid a critical morass.
Life abhors will’s path. Both
mind and heart must fully engage.

Mass expresses variations on denser octaves
etching energy’s formative reflections.

Variety, diversity, multiplying endlessly –
subtle distinctions imply, commendlessly,
that every blade on every lawn
soaks up light from Original Dawn.
Our planet is a single-family dwelling
within a ‘hood of brothers and sisters swelling –
as life proliferates love must grow!
Let acceptance and understanding flow.

The sky, the sun, the stars, the sea,
your wife, his mom, her dad, our auntie,
they and more waddle pregnantly
through Splendor’s immanence in Unity.

Smiles and laughter and giggles and glee,
kisses, caresses, snuggles, even urgency,
snow-cones and ice cream and chocolate and tea,
are these not enough to fill eternity?

No edifices will survive humanity long.
In time, no traces will remain:
all that really survives and persists –
the love we create and share.

Twelve pelicans form a line, gliding on the air –
barely inches above the sea’s rolling waves,
while a glowing red ball slowly inches lower,
far behind the rocky crag of a jetty,
beyond where land curves out from the bay’s
border, further, still, than the horizon’s edge.
The planet revolves as gentle winds rustle
through palm fronds, and shadows lengthen
across sundial faces.
Gaia inhales. Ouranos exhales.
Cronos winks a constant beat.
Zeus balances the scales by disarming Mars.
Merlin allies all competing interests
into agreement and a respectful Round Table.
Selene and Endymion reflect Osirian/Isian Balance
as they entwine into a new caduceus,
and that red, glowing, incandescent ball
sinks slowly into the cold, blue, eternal sea.

Endnotes for A Critical Mass

Homer called Oceanos the origin of both the gods and all of creation. Oceanos, a river god, was the river which continued to flow to the outermost edge of the Earth and back, forming a circle. From Oceanos, all rivers, streams, seas and oceans were said to have issued.

Tethys was the Greek Great Mother Goddess and original water goddess who conceived all of creation.

Pluto, in astrology, represents atomic power, the potency of the unseen, death and regeneration.

The underworld was the realm populated by the dead; the Greek god Hades (also called Pluto by the Romans) ruled over this realm, the dead, death, change, regeneration, wealth and precious metals in the earth.

Oliver Sacks, M.D. related in his book, Awakenings, First Vintage Books, 1973, rev. ed. 1990, case studies of post-encephalitic patients who suffered from what he termed “sleepy sickness” symptoms. They scarcely moved, but occasionally experienced moments of release, moving with great energy and force. However, they returned to their previous, motionless states after brief moments of release. The patients were “awakened” from the malady for significant time periods when Dr. Sacks’ used the drug L-dopa in their treatment. While awakened, the patients never recalled thoughts, memories, dreams or sensations from during the “sleeping” state.

Ouranos was the Greek god of the sky who came to earth at night to mate with his wife, Gaia, and sired by her the first generation of Greek gods and goddesses. Ouranos hid his children in the hollows of the earth. Cronos, one of Ouranos’ sons, cut off Ouranos’ phallus, which, according to myth, gave birth to Aphrodite and led to the transfer of pre-eminence over the gods and goddesses from Ouranos to Cronos.

Gaia was Ouranos’ wife and mother of the first generation of the Greek gods and goddesses as well as of the Erinyes, Giants and Ash Nymphs. Gaia is also often identified as Mother Earth.

Ouranos and Gaia combine as symbols of polar opposites expressed as duality: self and other-than-self.

Eros, Hesiod explained, was the loveliest of the gods and ruled over all gods and men. He compelled the mating of Oceanos and Tethys.

Synthesis, according to G. W. F. Hegel, is the resolution of conflict between a thesis and antithesis, but on a higher plane of being, and exemplifying progress. Hegel believed in a Universal Mind and, in his broad view of human history, asserted that all change was progress and all progress arose out of the conflict between competing ideas, people and/or events. I do not assert all change is progress nor that change only arises from conflict. However, I suggest that change is inevitable and arises out of the natural interaction between ideas, people and/or events (interaction between thesis and antithesis). The interactions result in a slow evolution of incremental variations forming a procession of syntheses leading to a generally progressive historical flow. I suggest this progressive flow can best be pictured as a spiral which alternately cycles through positive and negative effects, constantly re-balancing one another as the Planetary, Solar, Galactic and Universal Consciousnesses continue to express their intrinsic purpose through the creation of infinite complexity and diversity.

Palingenesis is a term used in philosophy, theology and biology. In philosophy, it denotes Pythagoras’ theory that the human soul does not die with the body, but is born again in new incarnations (reincarnation). Schopenhauer narrowed the application in his system to indicating the will does not die, but manifests itself again in other individuals. Schopenhauer repudiated reincarnation. His ideas did not incorporate transmigration of souls. Rather, he believed it was the will alone which passed on from living being to living being. To the Stoics, palingenesis traces its origins back through the word palingenesia to signify a perpetual and continuous re-creation of the Universe by the Demiurges. In the Bible, the word appears twice, referring to baptism and the state of repentance. To modern biologists, the word signifies the exact reproduction of ancestral features through inheritance, the passing of traits through genes.

Saturn, in astrology, is a symbol of hardship, challenges and lessons, all necessary to promote progress.

My reference to the Tree of Knowledge is a reference to The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil mentioned in the Torah which is part of the Tanakh, also commonly referred to as the Old Testament of The Bible. The biblical story involving the Tree of Knowledge provides an implication that knowledge led to “the fall,” implying knowledge, itself, is a form of evil. It certainly would always have been considered by organized religions as being in their own best interest to maintain an ignorant population since any detailed study of nature only disproves Judeo-Christian-Islamic dogma in terms of Creation, as the history of the advancement of our knowledge of the natural world can attest.

Yin and Yang generally represent feminine and masculine principles, respectively. I use them to illustrate polar opposites, vis-à-vis thesis and antithesis, prior to interaction, synthesis and balance.

Poseidon was the god of the sea with a palace in the depths of the Mediterranean.

Cronos, the son of Ouranos, usurped pre-eminence from his father upon severing Ouranous’ phallus. This ushered in the Golden Age. Cronos married Rhea. Together they begot the second generation of gods and goddesses (including Zeus). Cronos jealously guarded his dominion knowing his overthrow was fated to be executed by a powerful son. So, he swallowed his children. However, Rhea was aided by Gaia in protecting Zeus, who eventually overcame Cronos, usurped authority and freed his siblings. Cronos also symbolizes time and transitions.

In Knowah, I created an intentional variation for the spelling of Noah, who, according to the Torah, built an ark and collected a male and female pair of every animal on Earth prior to its alleged flooding.

Science has discovered super-massive black holes at the center of all observable galaxies and postulates their presence at the core of all galaxies. These super-massive black holes appear to recycle enough mass and energy to perpetuate their existence and to fuel their galaxy with sufficient energy and mass to assure continued perpetuation of that galaxy for eons. A super-massive black hole might be another name for a quasar, which also spews out incredible jets of mass and energy even as it sucks in everything within a certain gravitational radius. Enough spews out not only to keep feeding the core of the super-massive black hole, but for more to escape the black holes’ gravitational fields and thus feed the galaxy with sufficient mass and energy to sustain the galaxy.

Jupiter, in astrology, is a beneficent influence and is the planet of justice and good fortune.

Chaos comes from the Greek word chaos, signifying the void and implying a yawning. Later, it acquired a secondary meaning of turmoil and confusion.

Zeus became King of the Gods after he overthrew Cronos. Zeus married Hera, and they begat the third generation of Greek gods and goddesses. Zeus was a philanderer who consorted with many goddesses and mortal women, to Hera’s consternation. He also provided wise counsel, and was a fair judge and arbiter of disputes.

Mars, in astrology, is attributed as being the planet of war, conflict, temper, anger and revenge.

Ares was the Greek god of war.

Ten actors on the playbill is a reference to the ten laws allegedly received by Moses.

Nuit, the Great Mother Goddess of Egypt, symbolized for the night sky, the canopy of the stars and the celestial sea.

Ptah preceded Amoun as the most ancient father/king god of Egypt.

Isis and Osiris were sister and brother, goddess and god, and according to myth, queen and king of Egypt. I also use them to represent the twin entwining strands of DNA (this reference is enhanced by references to the caduceus).

Athene, the daughter of Zeus, was the equal of her father in wise counsel and courage. As patron to Athens, she also blessed the city with her protection.

Persephone, Demeter’s daughter and goddess of seasons, harvests and grains, was Queen of the Underworld.

Set, brother to Osiris and another god of Egypt, represented war, anger, greed, lust, gluttony and selfishness.

Egyptian religious beliefs expressed that a departed Pharaoh’s soul was required to navigate the river through the underworld to find Maat in order to be judged worthy of eternal life. I believe Pharaoh’s fate extended to his people as well, that his motives and actions embodied the collective Egyptian soul and morality. In that sense, I believe the redemption of the Pharaoh symbolized redemption for all his subjects. Thus, the public works projects for entombing Pharaohs would have been toil gladly engaged in by the Egyptian public – not just a duty to Pharaoh, but also sacred toils allowing them to earn their place in the afterlife as well.

Maat judged the recently departed Pharaohs by weighing them on the scales of justice against a feather; a just soul would not contain the weight of sin, and therefore would be equal in weight to a feather.

Ka was the Egyptian term for the soul.

Abydos was the name of the abode of the heavenly afterlife for ancient Egyptians.

Elysian Fields was the name for the Greek after life abode or heavenly paradise for those worthy to enter. It was situated at the end of the world, the place where those chosen by the gods were sent after death.

Nemesis was the Greek goddess charged with the duty to exercise righteous anger against all who violate universal and natural order.

Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris. He was the god who represented the era of the reign of balance on Earth.

In astrology, Venus is the planet of love, beauty and the arts. Venus was a Roman goddess with those same attributes.

Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, beauty and the arts.

Adonis was a Greek god of regeneration and resurrection as well as being considered the epitome of masculine appearance.

Narcissus’ story is of a human lad whose beauty was so great all the girls longed to be his. However, he expressed no interest in any of them. One day, he looked into a clear pool, saw his own reflection and fell so in love with his own image nothing could induce him to stop staring into the pool. He died, pining away, staring at his own reflection.

Mercury, in astrology, is the planet of mind, communication and knowledge.

Thoth (and I am purposely intending the pronunciation to be the same as the word “thought”) was the Egyptian god of knowledge and communication. He was Osiris’ brother and also his scribe.

The line "The King and the land are one," was borrowed from the 1981 movie, Excalibur, screenplay adapted by Rospo Pallenburg.

Selene was a Greek moon goddess.

Helios was the Greek Sun god.

Endymion was a mortal who was Selene’s lover.

Eos was the Greek goddess of the dawn.

Lao-Tzu was a Chinese philosopher who gave humanity the philosophy known as The Tao (in English, The Way).

Nirvana, for Buddhists, is a state of perfection and bliss.