DESCEND NOW, INTO THE FORGE OF DESPAIR

Initial Poetic-Dictation Triptych (3/3)

[A wordless vision came first, particularly powerful, of the Seven Colored Falling Stars in order descending to the Smith at the Forge of Despair; and immediately afterwards came a similar vision (though in greater detail) with poetic dictation accompaniment] Received 4/22/2023 | ~2:30-3:30am

DESCEND NOW, INTO THE FORGE OF DESPAIR
Where one pounds paralytic, as in para-Lysis, 
Upon the dread door of courage depleted
In the exhaustion of our rage is
A cold place, deathly cold, frozen marrow
You cannot move. You cannot breathe. 
A silence stalks us here, preying upon
Us, upon our leeching life blood
Draining down limp limbs, frustrated
Endlessly frustrating.
Move!
You cannot move. 
Not a sound can be made in this holy
Place, a cathedral to our horror
An ark of our inadequacies.
Is this it? Is this the end? 
Shrieks of soundless abandon escape
My lips, blue and black, bruised
Sparkling with the resin of 
Ten thousand embalming beetles, crushed
And delicately applied, a funerary
Rite, our rights of passage
Down further, until down becomes
Up, and Up becomes Out, and
Out becomes In, and In becomes
Through, and Through pries our
Cold, frozen hands open, and 
Places in them a hammer, 
Made of Grace and carved of Suffering
And whispers in our ears
"Move." 
The hearth lights within and to our
Side, our eyes turn sideways
And find an anvil, made of our love
Our beloved's back arched in that form
of immutable stone, crowned
with a sole ingot of avalonium steel. 
The heart beats, like a haunted
Echo, that wakes one from a deep
Slumber in cold sweats in the dark
of Night's hallowed and harrowed 
Depths. 
When all courage has been expent, 
Spent, currency collapsed and hope
Extinguished, the true raging fire 
of the darkly lit star of hope shall
Shine; shine and fall, down
Not one star, but seven in order
Each came down and, softly
with a great ferocity and brilliance,
landing and joining onto the steel 
on the beloved's stony back. 
"Strike! Strike now. For the fate
of all you've never known shall
Spring forth from the artful blows
of a heart once calcified. 
Now soften in sweetness, now harden, resolute." 

The first star shone a dark black,
Smoke-gray its tail of glittering ash
Subtle in body and fresh of form
It laid itself over the steel, 
Softening its once impervious nature
We raise our arm, and find—we can! 
The starred steel is struck, and rings
Out a shallow clang, the first toll.

The second star detaches itself then
from the loosening firmament above
and comes racing down to the smith
Bright blue this one, awakening a
Candor of soul in the core of the 
Earth, lungs of life inspired, inspiritus
With the inhale, power courses in
and reaches every far-reaching growth
of flesh and substance
The arm came down and struck
With a genuine force of authenticity
And the starry steel sang out, crying
To be set free, to be released.

The third star fell, a rich blood red,
A heart beating insoluble, resolved
Color came into the mind's eyes
A warmth of character and quality
Surety, assurance, a promise unpromised,
Promising and Pure.
The hammer came down again. 
This time wearing a smile on its
sleeve, celestial moss sprouting forth
between fingers, sealing cracks in
The fragmented foundation stone
10 lost fingers, reunited with 
2 hearty hands, palms like tree
roots, mycelial thrones and networks
Net labors, birthing new pains,
New ekstasies of feeling, of finding.

The fourth star to fall was bright,
Blinding white, blistering, soothing
Exciting, uniting. 
The white light hinted at something
Greater, something of meta(eu)phoric
Superconsciousness, vestments dis-
Integrating, dissolving in gainful
Destructive splendor
As this star too joined the process, 
The metal ore began to take new Shape
A round glowing Stone, radiating
Crystalline rays of faint praise
The strike made no sound, and no 
Separation.
Time stretched out along every moving
Axis, playing in curling toroidal rings
Spiraling faster and slower about 
The bailing edge gaps of our becoming
Being, being, been.
There is nothing and everything to be,
And beyond this being, awaits—

The Fifth Star, barreling, beaming 
Towards us, iridescent gold, yellow
Like the sun, commanding us
In loving compulsion of Spirit, to
Watch, with interdimensional eyes, wide
with the all-reaching, all-merciful
light of its expiring gaze. 
Upon contact with the luminous steel
The round stone became molten gold,
lengthening of its own accord;
The surface of the anvil top flattened
and formed a narrow inner groove,
framing the liquid metal, housing
its emergence: something new, something
Needed, unimagined, unimaginable.
At the very base of despair is where
Miracles are made, and born, and
Brought, gasping, into the world. 
Fully armed and fully formed
And ready to lead
The miracle is an instruction, given 
Plainly and Certainly, a recipe
To be followed, to a T, through
To the world that awaits us.
The hammer came down again, 
And had never not been down.
And struck, with impossible force
And broke, split down the middle,
The father's crested head.
A hand reached up and grasped
The solidifying golden lance, still
Hot, still glowing, still in flux of all
States and Phases and Ways of matter
Immaterial, immemoriam, an ancient
Elden story reforged, a goddess reborn
Who had never truly died.

The Sixth Star crashed down to meet
Her; it was an embodiment of 
Black-light, the Luminous Night. 
She raised her magmatic spear
To the heavens with no hesitation
The point pierced the falling star 
And its dark light spilled down
The weapon, covering it in ragged
Black sheathing, uncorroding and 
Still glowing, yet in an invisible,
Undeniable way.
She stepped fully up, out of
the stony patriarchal womb,
and it closed again, an empty tomb.
She smiled, a sharp and witless
Smile, disarming. The hammer 
Vanished, the anvil unfurled
and too stood straight, a stoic
figure, in full blissful self-possession.

The final, seventh star twinkled in
Announcement of its own descent,
The last of its kin, and the most 
Welcome, and Welcoming.
In a lilting way it flitted down,
A butterfly's passage, emerald
Green, lush and shining, distilling
Glory. The green light shone ultragreen,
or perhaps hypergreen. More
Green than could ever be seen,
Let alone withstood. 
It came all the way down, 
and then stopped, amidst us
The divine center, it expanded
filling everything and everyone and
Everywhere, until all was green and
Nothing Else. And All were here
and Nowhere else. 

Where Fear and Desire align, 
yOur destiny lies.
Do not falter, when the hammer comes down.
You can not falter.
We were made for just this moment.
The TorMentorship is ended
The deed is done
Relax, and ease, and slow, and lie
Down, upon the forge of your despair.
The most holy of places.
The very house of sacred grace.

---

The Pleiades (1885), Elihu Vedder

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