Chapter VII

Walking down the path and into the mist, large drops of water slid from the trees and splashed against his face running down his neck and into the fabric of a shirt now clinging fast to his body. He almost didn’t notice for his mind was taken up with other things, things like thoughts about something called “source” and “intention” and what if he weren’t ready to transform before the moon and sun conjoined?

Surely he could do this, after all he had a clever mind didn’t he? But his thoughts just spiraled into chaos and he couldn’t get them to settle and focus. Fear built up as he realized that he might have missed something important that the old man had given him, something that would mean either light and life or just darkness and death. If he couldn’t find it he could be trapped behind the eclipse forever.

Then he remembered that all too often the brain sends one in the wrong direction blowing like the wind through the trees and making one believe that something is real that actually was not.  A thought whispered from below and though almost ignored by the all too busy mind it was barely caught and brought to consciousness, “Your cleverness only separates you from reality”. It said. Another thought intruded into the maelstrom, “This is not just about you”. It whispered. “Caring only about your own condition will lead only to doom– your doom and the doom of us all. That is the wrong direction to travel.”

The boy stopped walking and looked about him as though trying to find the source of the voice that had so successfully penetrated his fears. And the voice continued.

“Stop trying to be so clever. All your thinking, all your so-called knowledge will only lead you further astray. There is a Way, but it is not through your mind. There are no answers in the chaotic voice of your head. It knows only itself.

Your wisdom does not lay within the voice of this clever little fellow that you think is the real you. You must reason beyond this voice. You have the power to use this reason but like so many others you have lost your way because you have forgotten the Way. You had it once when you were very young but it was just too hard to hear over the din of the older ones and you soon forgot.

You cannot ‘do’ the Way, or think yourself through it. All that will do is confuse. The more ingenious you try to be the more strange things tend to happen. Be content that there is an order within the chaos but that you cannot find it by searching for it. Desire of any kind will hide all but the edges of reality.”

“But everything is so crazy around me. How can I do this?” Pleaded the young man.

“Be simple. Be empty. Be at one with the dust. Do not resist the end for it is just a beginning. To have only ‘mind’ is to suffer death, to be in touch with the mother, the source of us all,  brings freedom from that. Seek not answers from outside the mother. Create while not claiming, be the Way.”

“What must I do?”

“Create while not claiming, be the Way. Give up your mind. Be not of one way or the other, but be it all. Let the conflict come to balance in you and you will have found your mother. Stop behaving as an adult for they know nothing but cleverness and knowledge. Let go of your adult knowing until you are empty of all you have learned. You cannot experience your mother through knowing. Stop doing and just be for a moment. Be small and your greatness will grow. See simplicity in the complex. And above all be last among all men.”

The rain had stopped and the clouds had begun to clear. Patches of blue peeked out from the grayness and the voice that had kept him company through the day and night was now gone. Sometime during the night he had let go of himself and now blended with the surrounding forest. Bewildered the boy looked about him. Craning his neck upward he saw the rising sun partially occluded by the full moon. The conjunction had begun.

He marveled in its beauty and the simplicity of its movement. The fear that earlier consumed him had been replaced with quiet certainty. Where he had once felt alone he now felt connected to everything about him and turned and faced the universal coniunctio taking place both above and below, without and within. Death had no power over him now for he had become small and in doing so became everything around him. He had found the mother, he had found the source, she had been there all along.

Drenched, but happy, the young man ran back toward town and virtually hopped into the old man’s apartment. Sitting by the warming fire the magus raised his cup in acknowledgment of the young man’s successful return. Nodding his receipt of the acknowledgment the boy walked into the kitchen, tested the warmth of the kettle by lightly touching its side, grabbed a cup at the sink, and poured himself something hot then returned to the fire and plopped down into the available chair.

“All’s well?” Asked the old man.

“It is.”

“Then we have much work to do you and I.” Said the old wizard over the edge of the cup he was drinking from. He then put it down and got up. “Come, I have something to show you.” The young man put down his cup and followed the old man out the door and into the street. The old wizard motioned him toward a newly painted sign that had been affixed beside the door. The younger man read it quietly and smiled.

“Yes there is a lot to do.” He agreed jovially.

As they walked arm on shoulder back into the flat, anyone, had they been looking, could not have helped but notice the new sign on the wall,

 

Hermes and Adam LLC

  Purveyors of quality magic