"The Rose of Story" – July 14, 2007

2007-7-14

The Books of Fae

2007-7-14 – "The Rose of Story"

"… In the Summer of 2007 I make my way once more to the Labyrinth Ball, there to have an encounter with the Goddess of Story herself who affirms my quest and grants me a golden rose with her promise of support for my story …"

Mountains of Tahingaard

I am clearing the land around the Academy when the shaping masks created by the Troll Prince find their way to me …

I open the box as the artifacts arrive, hand-crafted by the skill of the Maker. Like the Lion shaping he had created for me once before, they are thick with magic, resonant with the elemental essences I request woven into their form. Perfect for my entrance into the gala in the City of Angels.

We work on the land as part of our apprenticeship at the Academy, helping to construct and deconstruct the sweat lodge we use for purging, as well as generally assisting our teacher with her yard work. I’m deeply excited, for once again I’ve been granted access to the Labyrinth of Jareth, the mystical gathering created by my friend King Strider in the City of Angels.

In preparation for the gathering, I’ve commissioned Carl Bridge once more, tasking him to create for a me pair of masks for the event.

As they arrive, I marvel at the excellence of his abilities. Magic, a mastery of the Earth plane, radiates through the materials, flush with the impressions of Faerie.

Together we tended the structure for the sweat lodge, each clearing our portion of the land and sanctifying the space in preparation of the ceremonies.

Paths of Air

It is bright custom to bring a gift to the home of the people we visit along the way. While it is not implicitly necessary, there is beauty in the sharing of one world to another. As I make my preparations to head down to the City of Angels, I gather some candles and scented oils that have been enchanted by the magics of the Circle as a gift for the nobles of the Sypher Courts.

The Quest leads me down to the City of Stories once more, to the labyrinth of Jareth, a portal between the many realm. Here, I encounter the knights of Sypher and King Strider, granted ambassadorial access to witness the event from the inside-out.

Sitting on the airplane, the difference between the texture of my reality and that of my fellow passengers is astounding. Wanting to witness the moment into the Mythica, I pose for a photo I call “Keepin’ it Real”

I was on the way to Los Angeles, so I had to show my colors and represent. It was a ritual of entry.

The Raw Truth

The nature of the Mythica plays out as I stop at a raw cafe in Santa Monica, only to encounter a pair of priestesses just returned from a woodland workshop with the spirits of the land. I witness a photo of them, recognizing the resonance that brought us into synchrony along the path.

Witness the Subtle

It was so strange to me. There were so many fields of force and flow, washing across my senses. It was a spell, made of many moving parts. Flush with textures and tones in the fields beneath, that much I could see.

I saw it in the Mythica, a royalty of effort, the threadlines of it’s energy linked to my love of the Labyrinth movies early in life. The resonance of Faerie was here, manifesting as a mystical ball in the centre of the City of Stories.

While the underlands of the Mythica reveal a latticework of King Strider’s intentions for the ball, it is the knights who interest me, for it is through their sweat and effort that such visions come to pass. I felt them then, in service, a fellowship of effort to shape the realm into being.

I am coming to understand a bit more of the nature of how stories are told within the City of Angels. How the inhabitants of these realms work with the substance of story.

As always, my Fae eyes see the world from an elemental angle. Coming from the mountains of constant communion with the elements, I see the street clothes of the knights as simply that, the skins they wear when walking amongst the outer world. From such vantage, it is simply another costume sitting atop that which is more constant and true, the aka of knighthood and fellowship, of service to the greater realm, that sits beneath their skin.

There is rawness to it. Where distantly I recognize the labyrinth as a display of glamours, of things pretending to be other things, yet at the same time, becoming those very things in the process. Such blurred the line of truth and glamour for me, where my tendency to see beings as the Gods they were found both contrast and harmony. It was a significant moment, as the energies of transformation poured through the space, transforming the very substance of our stories.

Entering the Ball

I head outside, to see the entrance to the venue at night.

It is so distinctive, to step in and out of the ball, feeling myself step through the gossamer fabric of Strider’s worldweaving. I feel it so profoundly, like crossing a membrane, a bubble of iridescent light holding space for an entire reality, a moment of majesty for the gathered peoples where they may see themselves amongst the lights.

The nobles stand at the door, ready to usher the people within.

Inside the space, the people morphed and changed, their sense of self shifting. Sometimes it was slight, the edges of their subtle siouette changing barely a bit. In others, it was vast, their sense of self dissolved and reborn inside the cauldron of the masquerade.

Though I have been granted inner access, I am led to wander outside, to witness the people entering the sacred space.

There is a majesty to this. It has been so long since I have walked through the realms of such manifestation, of lines and entry, red carpets and rose. Such reminds me of the days in Great York, when I wanders the streets of that metropolis in search of dancing and delight.

I love the labyrinth. The weaving of Sypher Courts. It is a places of faces and souls. Of paint that reveals what lay beneath the surface of the skin.

The many faces gathered here are quite beautiful, playing out as sacred archetypes through the subtle fields of the Mythica …

To witness such a thing is majestic. The mythos of the thing, wrought into the current form. Kings, Queens, Faeries and Fellowship in their archetypical format, pushing up through the cracks in the pavement in perpetual bloom.

Behind the Curtain, Between the Realms

I love the weaving of magics so very much. As I wander backstage, I encounter the pre-show invocation by Lucent Delerium Circus. There’s something so fascinating to me. Coming from the mountains, I witness the wash of colors and textures moving beneath the surface of what looks like Lucent Delerium in their preparations. A shimmering harmonic of balanced off-kilter gravities moves across the space, the lines beneath the land coming into cohesion as facepaint and feathers on the surface.

I have always had an affinity for the circus arts, for my fellow performers amongst the Free Folk. There is a tie that binds between us, a tenuous thread between madness and majesty, that dares to walk between the worlds and illuminate the way. Circus magic is particular to me. A primal scent of sweat and faceprint, of chaos harnessed to clouds of ever-dissolving horizons, where the edges of the Worlds sing their song in bright and gaudy colours.

The Brilliant Ball

I loved it. It was a revelry of misrule and mischief, of selves shaped into being for a moment of precious expression. With every wave of the incoming people I felt more appreciation for what was wrought, the intricacy of shifting tones that played out as the characters within the ball.

I senes a kinship with this Kyle. A potency of energy and influence that sings from within his form. An air of mythos radiates in the space between, made more resonant as I witness him in conversation with Strider, playing out as the meetings of Kings & Heroes across the underlands the Mythica.

The many faces gathered here are quite beautiful, playing out as sacred archetypes through the subtle fields of the Mythica …

The Lucent Delerium was such a beautiful spell, singing across the underlands like an amorphous intricacy of archetypical embodiment, a pantheon of characters falling into divine geometry as a single organism of expression. Such was deeply fascinating to me, for the circus was kin to me, part of the dreamscape horizon of the Mythica.

It was a magical moment, where I recognized the myth of my wearing of deeply authentic mystically created items coming from the mountains of Faerie herself into the city, acting as an ambassador from the worlds within the woods to the peoples at the endless ball.

Sanctuary of Frogs

As the Labyrinth closes her doors for the evening, I make my way towards a place to rest. It is a tiring and confusing time, driving from one motel to another within the city. Over and over I see signs of ‘No Vacancy’. I scent the subtle threads in the air, feeling a starkness, and I come to doubt that I’ll find a place and that I must sleep in the van.

There must be another way to do this, I consider to myself. Setting an intention, I open up sacred space with the elements, listening for the threads of intuition that will lead me forward.

I continue to make my way through the midnight city. All the motels appear to be full, and I wander, shifting through the streets and listening to the voices of the deva leading me onward …

It is the faeries. Always the faeries, the elemental intelligence that lay within and between the fabric of the Worlds.

The Rose of Story

As morning comes, I have a day to spend before the second night of the ball. Trusting my intuition, I find my way to an outside mall, where a knotwork of mosaics awaits me, the tiles carved with Stories of famous avatars arrival into the towne of Hollywood. A sense of pathwork arrives for me, reminding me of my time with the Pilgrim during the "Estrella" episode of 2006.

I felt Her so strongly in those moments. Lady Story. The embodiment of Story itself. I could feel the shape of her aspect all through this “Hollywood”, fueling the dreams of it’s people.

All around me I could feel the threads of Story. Sense the movement of modern mythology in both glamour and authenticity. I could feel the pulse of Story as She had moved through my life, how the devotion I had made in my childhood had led me to a truly magical life.

In that moment, flush with Gratitude, I thanked her. Deeply and truly, for the opportunity to embody that sacred Quest. It was then I heard the Goddess of Story speak to me, her voice a thing of gold beneath the tinsel.

“I will support your Story” she said, and I felt a wave of recognition move through me, transforming my shape.

It was in that exact moment that a pair of maidens appeared, bearing a fabricated rose of gold. One of them leans over to me with it. I have the sense of affirmation, that such is the surface expression of Calliope's blessing manifest.

Bowing slightly, I accept it, feeling the golden rush of the Holy Wood, of the lands of myth and legend whose echo plays upon the silver screen.

July 14, 2007 – Ceremony and Circumstance

As I descend into the festivities I sense a change. The nobles of Sypher gathering together. A flash of flickering faerie-fire tickles the edge of my senses and I see Pixie Spindel, using her talents of photography to witness the event.

In the underlands of the Mythica, lines of force and fellowship create a container, where Ruslan, one of the knights, stands before the double waterfall with his betrothed.

It is beautiful to see this. To see the knights and dames of Sypher coming together to honor the wedding of their fellows. I knew the knights of Sypher only briefly, and always under the grace of Strider’s grant of diplomatic exploration, and was thankful to even catch a glimpse of the intimacy of the moment. To see the way in which they stood alongside their brother and sister, embodying the qualities that defined nobility itself in a moment of fae-fire witnessed by the Spindel was a thing of true-magic. Of what lay beneath poking it’s feathers through the surface in colors and bright.

That such a thing even exists in such manner in this Age is heartening to me, a reminder that virtue exists within the Worlds.

The Closing of the World

It is so deeply the archetype of the thing, it’s aka, playing out through the surface of our stories.

It is fascinating to me to witness the unraveling of the World, to see how the threadwork of the spell is unveiling herself back into the empty. To see the movement of the people as expressions of that thing, singing across the field of my mindseye.

The closing of a portal is as magnificent as it’s creation, a flash of impermanence and inspired effort that creates and dissolves itself over a span of time. While I am still coming to understand the nature of temporal reality, the fractal of it is clear – a Universe, orchestrated into being by intention and resolve.

I cannot speak highly enough about Strider. About the manner in which the Kingship of olde plays out in the currents. I admire so deeply his character, the way in which he works his magic and service to Story.

It is an honour to come here, to experience myself as a visitor from Faerie, coming to a gathering of all the realms like a tourist onto the Earth. I love to the see the magic, the weaving of the people and the circumstance, the ways in which Strider leads the harmony of a collective effort. Where they build a portal to the Mythica, a bubble of making yourself believe at the ball of endless wonder.

I find Strider’s magic so beautifully erudite. The way in which the deva of Story moves through him, creating the multi-layered harmonic, the entire realm of that Kingship expressed as the Courts of Sypher.

Princess Rose

Before I leave I am led to visit Kirsten Rose in the Topanga Canyon …

Paths of Air – The Golden Light

As I gaze upon a book on swordsmanship on the mantle of Strider’s home, I reflect on his mythos, the clarity of his movements, the discernment, these are the qualities of the Sword. It is a beautiful thing, and rare in this Age, for the clarity of Strider’s swordsmanship is balanced by his heart. By the essence of the Chalice of Love and care for the people.

Yet within this a well, I remember him telling me of the golden threads within his heart, and such is the exquisite balance of the Sword and the Chalice.

Characters

Cassandra Banks

Dream Rockwell

Evon Eisenberg

Kyle Shinners

Pixie Spindel

Regan Remy (Mozingo)

Shawn Strider