The Great Mother: an abomination and glory:
A mystery ...
I lived with the Great Mother for seven long years ...
I searched her womb and consumed her everlasting body ...
I rode her, my white mare, down the roads of dream ...
In horror and ecstasy I wandered in her great ghost,
Till this world floated phantom-like and I peered out through the mist of the mother, white-faced, at a people who were symbols,
And hills and streets that were signs ...
She took my strength from me: she bled me white:
She cast decay on my youth and made the rapids of my laughter a tinkling trickle ...
I was enervated: I was listless: I was in love with drowning:
The days of my youth were over ...
O whore of Babylon, that the ancients sang of,
City of Fornication and Abominations,
Incestuous Lorelei-alluring Mother!
And I rose like one from the grave and fought her ...
But she was many ...
She was a city, a host, a people, a heaven of stars ...
What did the ancient one say?
I became a stallion, she became a mare,
I became a bull, she became a cow,
I became a nymph, she a god,
I the adored Virgin, she my Son,
I was a Serpent, and she a maiden,
I the Devil, she my concubine ...
For every appearance in which I clothed myself she took on the opposite appearance ...
I surrendered or I fought: it was all one ...
My soul went glimmering in the abyss of her ghost ...
She had swallowed me down, a hot mouthful, and I lay in her belly ...
When the horror was deepest on me she appeared before me as the one beautiful,
The one adored and beloved ...
She struck me with her hoof like Pegasus and song gushed like a fountain from the trampled earth of my soul ...
She was unconquerable because she was within me and yet I within her ...
And because her phantoms walked out of me and clothed men and women with her likeness,
And I was dragged to these men and women by the phantoms that left me ...
And so living women became the mare to my stallion, the nymph to my satyr, the mother to my son ...
And so I fought a helpless and hopeless battle with these women,
As though they were a city and a host and a people and the heaven of stars and moons and suns ...
Great Mother who has been called by all wonderful and terrible names ...
Universe, she is called, and Nirvana, and Satan,
The Great Snake that coils about the heavens and the earth and the heart of a child,
Leviathan and Monster of the Deep, Jehovah, God ...
Her name is Wisdom, her name is Saviour, her name is Christ ...
A man is lost who enters into God who is a city whose gates may never be taken ...
Yet a man is great who enters into God and is lifted into the cosmic and eternal battle between man and God ...
He who conquers God shall overcome and be crowned with power and peace ...
The conquered God becomes the comrade of a man ...
Universe-wisdom mates with his ...
He shall have the Mother for wife ...
How shall one conquer the never-to-be-overcome?
How shall a man tame the universe?
How ride astride the mare whose feet are in the east and the west beyond the stars?
A strange way: a mystery ...
It is a terrible and a fatal word that whispers through his soul ...
" Renunciation! renunciation!"
He knew that word whose arms were stretched on wood and his hands nailed through,
And whose body sagged on the straight beam ...
Save that ye cease from love of the Mother,
Save that ye cease from the great love that makes you the child of the Mother,
Cease from desire to be in that womb,
Cease from longing for the horror and glory, the abomination and mystery,
Cease from the wish to be God by piercing God,
Ye shall not conquer her ...
Ye must be willing to be born and be naked and be nothing but a human man,
Little and of no account, swinging no more in abysses where stars drop like cinders,
Done with the sweats of ecstasy and the dung of horror,
That, severed from her, she may now go at your side, perfect in beauty and glory ...
She is conquered by your cleavage from her,
She is yours, because you are no longer hers,
She is subdued to equality because you choose to be solitary ...
She has no strength on them who do not desire her ...
Her abominations cease, because they were the offspring of your own wishes ...
She becomes forever beautiful and strange to you ...
Jerusalem shining like a star on the hills of heaven.
A mystery ...
I lived with the Great Mother for seven long years ...
I searched her womb and consumed her everlasting body ...
I rode her, my white mare, down the roads of dream ...
In horror and ecstasy I wandered in her great ghost,
Till this world floated phantom-like and I peered out through the mist of the mother, white-faced, at a people who were symbols,
And hills and streets that were signs ...
She took my strength from me: she bled me white:
She cast decay on my youth and made the rapids of my laughter a tinkling trickle ...
I was enervated: I was listless: I was in love with drowning:
The days of my youth were over ...
O whore of Babylon, that the ancients sang of,
City of Fornication and Abominations,
Incestuous Lorelei-alluring Mother!
And I rose like one from the grave and fought her ...
But she was many ...
She was a city, a host, a people, a heaven of stars ...
What did the ancient one say?
I became a stallion, she became a mare,
I became a bull, she became a cow,
I became a nymph, she a god,
I the adored Virgin, she my Son,
I was a Serpent, and she a maiden,
I the Devil, she my concubine ...
For every appearance in which I clothed myself she took on the opposite appearance ...
I surrendered or I fought: it was all one ...
My soul went glimmering in the abyss of her ghost ...
She had swallowed me down, a hot mouthful, and I lay in her belly ...
When the horror was deepest on me she appeared before me as the one beautiful,
The one adored and beloved ...
She struck me with her hoof like Pegasus and song gushed like a fountain from the trampled earth of my soul ...
She was unconquerable because she was within me and yet I within her ...
And because her phantoms walked out of me and clothed men and women with her likeness,
And I was dragged to these men and women by the phantoms that left me ...
And so living women became the mare to my stallion, the nymph to my satyr, the mother to my son ...
And so I fought a helpless and hopeless battle with these women,
As though they were a city and a host and a people and the heaven of stars and moons and suns ...
Great Mother who has been called by all wonderful and terrible names ...
Universe, she is called, and Nirvana, and Satan,
The Great Snake that coils about the heavens and the earth and the heart of a child,
Leviathan and Monster of the Deep, Jehovah, God ...
Her name is Wisdom, her name is Saviour, her name is Christ ...
A man is lost who enters into God who is a city whose gates may never be taken ...
Yet a man is great who enters into God and is lifted into the cosmic and eternal battle between man and God ...
He who conquers God shall overcome and be crowned with power and peace ...
The conquered God becomes the comrade of a man ...
Universe-wisdom mates with his ...
He shall have the Mother for wife ...
How shall one conquer the never-to-be-overcome?
How shall a man tame the universe?
How ride astride the mare whose feet are in the east and the west beyond the stars?
A strange way: a mystery ...
It is a terrible and a fatal word that whispers through his soul ...
" Renunciation! renunciation!"
He knew that word whose arms were stretched on wood and his hands nailed through,
And whose body sagged on the straight beam ...
Save that ye cease from love of the Mother,
Save that ye cease from the great love that makes you the child of the Mother,
Cease from desire to be in that womb,
Cease from longing for the horror and glory, the abomination and mystery,
Cease from the wish to be God by piercing God,
Ye shall not conquer her ...
Ye must be willing to be born and be naked and be nothing but a human man,
Little and of no account, swinging no more in abysses where stars drop like cinders,
Done with the sweats of ecstasy and the dung of horror,
That, severed from her, she may now go at your side, perfect in beauty and glory ...
She is conquered by your cleavage from her,
She is yours, because you are no longer hers,
She is subdued to equality because you choose to be solitary ...
She has no strength on them who do not desire her ...
Her abominations cease, because they were the offspring of your own wishes ...
She becomes forever beautiful and strange to you ...
Jerusalem shining like a star on the hills of heaven.
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