REST AND BE BLESSED

Missive #41 - Transcribed Poetic Dictation

[On April 8th, I and my beloved partner were joined in union under the dark-lit alignment of the Sun & Moon during the total solar eclipse in Vermont, our marriage officially pronounced right around the close of the totality at 3:29pm. We were surrounded by love: the love of those around us, the love we held for those around us. We remain surrounded by this love. Before, and long after, the love shall remain evermore. This divine event was inspired and driven by vision, received over the past 4 years as we planned and awaited the precise moment we were to be wed in a wondrous display of cosmic drama. A good opportunity for theatre is never to be missed! And so we caught it, and were caught by it; and it couldn’t have gone more perfectly. We let go and allowed the events to unfurl, allowed our many-limbed preparations to act on their own behalf. What delight for the best-laid plans to fall into place better than one could hope for! Rewrite the established script—any story is possible. Which one do you wish to live? Which one no longer needs to be relived? Such questions fall upon us, and are our realm in this ever-expanding now.
When Calvin and I returned home on the 10th, we were in ecstatic crush, barely functional, our intrepid Outback more packed than it had ever been before. That night, in the afterglow faint of initial unpacking, two missives arrived together in the 11th’s pre-dawn dim. I thought perhaps I could birth them fully then, in the sleepless ecstasy of the moment. But it was not to be—rest beckoned! And recovery. I was soon given unto a mild four-day fever, which happily facilitated and encouraged my sleep. Fever, to me, is a kind of somatic reflection of a system-wide firmware update process, comprehensive. I am always eager to undergo them, and see what new features might be awaiting me on the other side. Yesterday was my first full day post-fever, and I felt on cloud nine (or eleven—or twelve! Thirteen~) This past night my head began to split wide open, Athenine. After a short nap, I woke to REST AND BE BLESSED in full delivery. I wondered if perhaps I should wait to publish it until the rest of #42 FOREVERLOVE came through too (as they both arrived at the same time with their first two or three lines on the 11th), but was clearly instructed to send this one through first; #42 would come after. Perhaps later today, with a little more storytelling, and a little more love. Until then, may you all receive the blessings of Calvin’s and my love, boundless and bountiful, for you, in all directions~] Received 4/11 & 4/18/2024 | 3:18-4am (4/11) & 4-4:18am (4/18)

Listen to the Recitation:

REST AND BE BLESSED
Reciprocity is Prophecy!
The 11th active principle gives way
To the 12th and 13th, simultaneously
Rest and Reciprocity intermingle interweave
In the complete submission surrender to trust
Of the whole operation, the whole endeavor
Imminence is implicate order, unearthed
From a mountainous horde, the golden treasure
Heap, hurling healing eons of foul fungicide
Overbearing madness crops unrelenting and
Relentless, bleeding knight of the red cross
Blazoned brightly on his crest, laid barren before
The bright shining faerie queene, receiving tales
Of six dreaded sins and their dreaded overlord,
Who ride on camels and horseback and come
Bearing gifts for the new millennium, the new age
"New Earth" they call it: listen to the birds
Who survived cataclysm after cataclysm to be here,
To sing to you and me and all of us, here,
At the end of times, dillying and dallying busybodied
Weevils, sore everywhere covered in sores, tight
Taut strokes of tendon and tone, toning shape
And sound, atoning for unknown memories left
To writhe and write in the dally dales of yesteryear
Song gulches and valley ferns crunching up
Numbers as calculators, dragons as questenders
Not to slay, not to court, but to query.
There is no one to rescue, and no one to rescue you;
But rest may yet accomplish the impossible task
Before us, the blessing taskforce vanguard led
By a bullring chain, tugging urging pulling along
Six or seven long earned keeps, past many trials
Overcome. We are overcome. We have overcome
Ourselves. Hungry and satiated, simultaneously
Ripping and roaring the ring out of sight to the
Candid quarry of surreal expectations dug dove
Down into the bellyheart of the sentient waters
"The Sentient Lake" becomes the key to unlock
The primordial silvers, the treasure which awaits
Just beneath the shore of our ancestral callings;
Roll the wheel to the well-worn side, where it is wont
To roll. The wheel is made of fourteen different bodies,
Fourteen faces in varied frozen state contortions
All cast in silver form, hands grasping weaving
Interweaving one all one as they move as all one all
Lurching gulping the fresh experience of land upon
Their long worn face, kissed by air only for ten thousand
Years, but half patina'd in shimmer and dull glow
The wheel settles into its new place and the
Waters curtain drain move sweep apart to reveal
Something long awaited—the primordial silvers!
The fulfillment of an oft-forgotten prophecy,
The murmur of a ghost's echo from around the corner
In a half-dead hedge maze, or perhaps a labyrinth,
With no great threat lurking, no imminent doom
To motivate or fear or freeze; but hope, plenty,
And joy, in droves! Woe becomes meaningless and
Complete in its accomplishment; we are arrived
At this next luminous place: a place to put ourselves
Down, and down, and down a down-derry die
Into life, unto death, the grave lies still
And swerves its wheel lightly, ever yonder.
Be still my breath, and yield the firmest crop
A gift to the feathered maiden, crownéd with flowers
The priestess of spring, the daughter of winter's hold,
Who laughs and tilts and tumbles and cracks up
The whole day on its end, spilling out the contents
Of a year's dues, a monsoon'd psalm or paltry
Fumigated sounds of smoke and sense. She,
Sitting on a lounging stone, leans over towards me
With a smile, turns up her nose, and, index and thumb
Together, twists her left hand inward, to the right
And the whole world reflects in on itself, and turns
Over, a red-tipped branch a-burst with buds, leaves
Begging to bound forth into this newly dawned day
—But wait! She pauses, a lull in the chorus~
Her eyes close, the wind goes still, the birds quiet,
No rustle or twitch or effort stirred, in the hallowed
Out moment, not even beckoning, not even promising,
But holding, being held, empty, emptied of itself,
The destined desolate, no mere calm before chaos:
A gentle wish for rest. A prayer, that you might rest.
In the rest, you shall be blessed. All blessing arrives
Through rest—but this cannot be why you venture
There, nor quest therein.
A blessed rest cannot be a quest;
But a pleasant guest, met along the way
And journeyed thencewith.

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Winslow Homer, Mr. Marsh at the Tiller of His Sailboat off Cape Ann (a sketch, 1880)