The Bluebell*

Bluebells & Wild Garlic ©Shullie H Porter, The Delightful Mrs P, 2013-23

A fine and subtle spirit dwells
In every little flower,
Each one its own sweet feeling breathes
With more or less of power.

There is a silent eloquence
In every wild bluebell
That fills my softened heart with bliss
That words could never tell.

Yet I recall not long ago
A bright and sunny day,
‘Twas when I led a toilsome life
So many leagues away;

That day along a sunny road
All carelessly I strayed,
Between two banks where smiling flowers
Their varied hues displayed.

Before me rose a lofty hill,
Behind me lay the sea,
My heart was not so heavy then
As it was wont to be.

Less harassed than at other times
I saw the scene was fair,
And spoke and laughed to those around,
As if I knew no care.

But when I looked upon the bank
My wandering glances fell
Upon a little trembling flower,
A single sweet bluebell.

Whence came that rising in my throat,
That dimness in my eye?
Why did those burning drops distil —
Those bitter feelings rise?

O, that lone flower recalled to me
My happy childhood’s hours
When bluebells seemed like fairy gifts
A prize among the flowers,

Those sunny days of merriment
When heart and soul were free,
And when I dwelt with kindred hearts
That loved and cared for me.

I had not then mid heartless crowds
To spend a thankless life
In seeking after others’ weal
With anxious toil and strife.  

‘Sad wanderer, weep those blissful times
That never may return!’
The lovely floweret seemed to say,
And thus it made me mourn.

*Ann Bronte

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Hymn to Aphrodite

Greiffenhagen, Maurice; Aphrodite; Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/aphrodite-138547

Hymn to Aphrodite

Throned in splendor, immortal Aphrodite!
Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee
Slay me not in this distress and anguish,
Lady of beauty.

Hither come as once before thou camest,
When from afar thou heard’st my voice lamenting,
Heard’st and camest, leaving thy glorious father’s Palace golden,

Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;
Swift to the darksome earth their course directing,
Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven
Down through the ether.

Quickly they came. Then thou, O blessed goddess,
All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal,
Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering,
Why now I called thee;

What for my maddened heart I most was longing.
“Whom,” thou criest, “dost wish that sweet Persuasion
Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho?
Who is it wrongs thee?

“For, though now he flies, he soon shall follow,
Soon shall be giving gifts who now rejects them.
Even though now he love not, soon shall he love thee
Even though thou wouldst not.”

Come then now, dear goddess, and release me
From my anguish. All my heart’s desiring
Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime,
Be thou my ally.

Sapho by Theodore Chasseriau (1819-1856) 1849 

*Sappho

Forest of Life – The Four Aces

So this first week we have been asked to look at, meditate on and create with
the Four Aces.  I decided as I mentioned in my previous post, that I am going to use the cards as prompts.

Today I pulled out the first 4 decks on my table.  If I’m being honest these are the ones that I used yesterday and had not yet put back,  – untidy/busy person that I am.

They were: 

Thoth Tarot Deck – Aleister Crowley

Tarot of the Mystical Moments – Catrin Welz -Stein

Blood & Ink, – Elise Oursa

Smith- Waite Tarot Deck – Centennial Edition

I shuffled each deck first and asked for the appropriate Ace, to show itself and then went through until I found the first one.

I did this until I had the four laid before me, then I sat for a while, meditated,  and then I started to write.

Ace of Discs

In the Beginning was the Word, and She was the Word and the Word was Her.

Nothing was created without her Whisper, and nothing ended without her Say.

Her Voice sang us into existence, and through Her Logos did we Become.

Ace of Wands

Thus, when her Logos became the Book, we grew from and out of it. Stretching towards the Heavens,

Our fragrance saturates the skies, like clouds of iridescent Hope.

Our leaves, like wings, imbibed by sunlight, lifted us until we transcended Imperfection and flew.

Ace of Spades

So sure of ourselves we forgot Her and cast Her aside, not knowing, illiterate to the Truth.

Only as we fell, spiralling down to the chthonic, into Her Interior. Where She, who begat it all, opened her bough and consumed us, did we understand

Laying Between and Betwixt, cradled in Her engorged Breasts, we waited for a new Nirvana. Such was our Belief.

Ace of Cups

And as Her waters broke, we rose from Virgin Territory. Girdled in Her Knowledge, Sanctified by Death.

Consecrated. Refreshed and repurposed, Transmuted by Dea, our Creatrix, our Queen of Heaven,

Like Lilies upon a Silent See, we floated towards Oblivion.


©Shullie H Porter, The Delightful Mrs P, 2023

Forest of Life Calendar

Peter Duchemin, an amazing magical man and magician is the creator of the wonderful Meta Magic Matrix Forest of Life Calendar.

His system is very unique and based on the Venusian Calendar.

Each week he focuses on a card of the Tarot as he (and we ) journey through The Venusian Year creating as we go along.

A new year/cycle has just begun and so he has kindly invited people to join him on this most wonderful magical path.

This week begins with the Aces.

He is asking people who join ( free of charge), to reimagine and meditate with the Aces, in order to get a deeper understanding of the tarot system itself. You can then ‘create’ in any way that you feel drawn to, be that by drawing, painting, writing, singing or by, ‘just being. ‘

His hope is that by the end of the year, we/ you will have created an entire tarot deck of your own. His ‘ mission’. is ‘to see the birth of 10,000 Tarot decks… all using the rhythm of this amazing calendar.’

Here is the link to Peter’s Instagram page if you feel called to join – the more the merrier!
https://instagram.com/the_forest_of_life_calendar?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This year, I am using it to try and write more, as such, I am going to use the cards as prompts. It may be poetry, prose (Short fiction/story) and/or a mixture of both,

What you see/read here will be on the whole first drafts, with very little editing, done after meditating, and led by Spirit.

*So be kind!*

I

Yule

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive.

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us—listen!

All the long echoes, sing the same delight,

This Shortest Day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And now so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome, Yule!

*photograph ©Shullie H Porter 2022

**The Shortest Day – © Susan Cooper see also The Lost Land of Susan Cooper

Our Lady of Rennes, 3rd November

Also known as Our Lady of Miracles

LADY OF MIRACLES

Since you walked out on me
I’m getting lovelier by the hour.
I glow like a corpse in the dark.
No one sees how round and sharp
my eyes have grown
how my carcass looks like a glass urn,
how I hold up things in the rags of my hands,
the way I can stand though crippled by lust.
No, there’s just your cruelty circling
my head like a bright rotting halo.

by Nina Cassian

**Feature Image © Rohini 2010, free to share

Lucifer

“A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.”

Paradise Lost- John Milton

Lucifer in Starlight*

On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.

Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend

Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,

Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.

Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.

And now upon his western wing he leaned,

Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened,

Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.

Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars

With memory of the old revolt from Awe,

He reached a middle height, and at the stars,

Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.

Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,

The army of unalterable law.

Now for sale at The Delightful Mrs P’s Cabinet of Curious Delights

*Lucifer in Starlight by George Meridith

Pimping – yet again

So I wanted to share with you some great news. For those of you who live in the North of England or indeed ever plan to visit – I am now showing and selling my wares and bits and bobs at the wonderful Airy Fairy.

The Delightful Mrs P at Airy Fairy

Airy Fairy is a wonderful and magical shop in Sheffield, which is full of the most magical pieces, books, crystals and art work. They have ‘been serving pagan and magical communities in and beyond Sheffield for as many years as the number of cards in the Fool’s journey described by Tarot. ‘ They also have a fabulous cafe, and home made cakes.

Upstairs they have a Temple Space dedicated to The Goddess and a place open for quiet contemplation.

So if you want to see my work in the flesh so to speak then why not pop in and have a look, and a gander around the shop- which is filled with the most wonderful treasures.

October 1st – Harbinger

Harbinger

/ˈhɑːbɪn(d)ʒə/

Everyone thinks a Harbinger is all about death or even Death him/her /themselves (it’s hard to ‘genderise’ the Harbinger as he/she/they as they appear different to each and everyone).

No one thinks of a Harbinger as being something or someone that announces beauty, hope and joy. For example, and I am not just saying this, I’ve checked the Dictionary.

A Harbinger can announce the seasons such as Spring, Summer, Autum and my favourite Winter. They can announce the beginning of a work of Joy such as a new opera, a new symphony, or a piece of Rock & Roll.

They can announce the birth of a child, the news that you have been selected and/or shortlisted for a prize as well as news of Stage 4 Cancer.

You see everyone thinks it’s all doom and gloom when it comes to the Harbinger, even the Great Pratchett Himself, made it all about Death. and I want to change it. I want to change people’s views.

I see Harbinger as something or someone who has multiple meanings, multifaceted, and multi-complex.  Someone who is much more and less two-dimensional than the one found on the page.

Take me, for example, I see my role as more of a Herald, as a messenger, one who comes and brings a better kind of news. News of change, news of a new social order. News of Peace on Earth and all that. I like to believe that I am more of an agent of conflict resolution, than one of destruction

Yes in the early days, I’ll be the first to admit, there were a few mistakes. I hold my hands up to that.  I may have been a tad over the top, and let the small fact I ruled a fifth of the Heaven Hosts and was Commander of two million or so, go to my head.   But now, I’ m changed Harbinger and that’s what I really want to say.

 I’m changed. I appreciate the Joys of Spring and the smell of newborn lambs, cooked to perfection.

I appreciate the sound of new symphonies, new operas, or even those annoying chart-topping song that gets the kids all high and sweaty.  

I appreciate the cry of newborn babies taking their first breath in war-torn rubble, of women using scissors to cut their hair before the black-clothed men beat them to death. Of people opening their homes to refugees fleeing regime change, then making the homeless because they can’t cope with the trauma. 

I appreciate the sounds of celebration as men, women and children see the White Cliffs in the distance before the weight of their hope and dreams sink the unseaworthy dinghies.

See, just as I told you, I Am a new Harbinger, remade, remodelled, and reenvisioned for a modern time.  

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) Life and Death

For Trish Nicholds amazing piece check out https://trishnichol.com/harbinger/

Pan – God of the Wild.

I have a couple of small Pan Devotional Portable Pantings for sale on my site.

I thought I’d share them here in case any of you wonderful people were looking for one – or even two.

Pan

This is a Portable Shrine and Devotional Portrait of the Old Pan, God of the Wild.

He’s, as I am sure you know, associated with woodland, nature, and pasturelands, and is to be found out in the Wild, in Nature, Caves or Grottos.

Though I have met him recently in the Urban Woodland close to my home.

He can sit on your personal altar at home and away. He can be discreet if need be or can take centre stage.

This piece, as all of my pieces do, has sat under the Dark /New Moon and is consecrated before being offered for sale.

The Second piece is;

Here we see him in his full form, the bottom half of a goat and the top of a man. This is a younger Pan, though an older image.

I am happy to combine postage if you are drawn to both.

While my Etsy says UK delivery only if you do live elsewhere drop me a message here, or to my email – thedelightfulmrsp@gmail.com – and we can work out postage and packaging.

For those of you who want to take a look at my Etsy page, you can find Pan and other items here.

Or just look for ‘The Delightful Mrs P’ on Etsy. I look forward to seeing you there.

Allyson Shaw, Author of Ashes and Stones

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