A realization of the Mysteries All quiet and slow with bird’s singing popping on my head and soul as I walk, hear and feel my feet into the soil. Bathed in light that is golden and warm into my skin, this heavenly fire. Lost in this maze of Earth green and colorful sparkling by spirits unseen to those who cannot see, but showed to us. For we are one with them: Blood from Earth and body from Stars. Under the ever watching Eye of our Queen on Her throne Alpine. - H. Gibaldi
This piece came into my mind some weeks ago, while I was walking in the gardens of the Venaria Reale in Torino, where I had the privilege to visit my first exhibition dedicated to the work of William Blake and his contemporaries. Inspired by the art and ideas presented at the exhibition, and in communion with the denizens of the invisible world of that garden.
Of course I could never claim my work to be in the same level as Blake`s, but he has a direct influence on me, both artistically and spiritually, since I found a pocket translation of his “The marriage of heaven and hell” in an small newsstand in Rio de Janeiro over 12 years ago.
The magic of polarity -
Much of what interests me from Blake`s work, comes from his claims about receiving a revelation from the spiritual realm, and his poetry and paintings being some sort of a prophetical work. Glimpses of a higher reality.
In ‘The marriage of heaven and hell’, the book begins with "The argument" and "The Voice of the Devil":
The argument:
"As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its advent: the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb: his writings are the linen clothes folded up. Now is the dominion of Edom and the return of Adam into Paradise (see Isaiah, chapters XXXIV and XXXV) Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell”
The voice of the Devil:
"All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:
1. That Man has two real existing principles, viz. a Body and a Soul.
2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body, and that Reason, called Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.
But the following Contraries to these are True.
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body, and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight."
I found these two parts very interesting for some reasons:
The argument talks about the contraries that are necessary for human progression, which is pretty much the basis of a book on polarity magic: ‘Bending the binary’, by Gardnerian and Minoan-Sisterhood Priestess Deborah Lipp.
Which shouldn`t be a surprise since Blake was alive during the time period where all these ideas of polarity and duality started to become ingrained in British occultism, something that Deborah herself mentions on her book. These passages also remind me of the concept of the ‘Divine Twins’ and the 3 souls of the Feri tradition of Witchcraft. With all opposites and polarities being the Twins made manifest: Beauty and pain, light and dark... the Holy Dove and the Winged serpent.
The duality of Good = Reason and Evil = Energy, relates to me as "good" being the Talker (The rational soul), and "Evil" being our raw energy and potential of the Fetch (The animal soul).
And our Fetch is Eternal delight, experiencing all the world`s pleasures and sensations.
‘The voice of the Devil’ has some interesting points about the body and soul being the same, that the body is just our souls experiencing the five senses, and that our Energy/Fetch is our life force that acts inside the limits of our Reason/talker. Another similarity with Deborah Lipp`s work, where she presents the polarity of Force&Form.
The proverbs of hell -
Here Blake claims to have being taken by an angel through Heaven and Hell, and wrote the wisdom he received there.
"As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity, I collected some of their Proverbs; thinking that as the sayings used in a nation mark its character, so the Proverbs of Hell show the nature of Infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings or garments. When I came home: on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat-sided steep frowns over the present world, I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock; with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence, now perceived by the minds of men, and read by them on earth: How do you know but every Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses five?"
Proverbs of Hell:
"In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy."
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
"He whose face gives no light shall never become a star." "Eternity is in love with the productions of time"
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
"The pride of the peacock is the glory of God."
"The lust of the goat is the bounty of God."
"The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God."
" The nakedness of woman is the work of God."
"Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you."
"Exuberance is Beauty."
As Blake`s work is very simbolic, I think there is no precise interpretation of the proverbs could mean. I see them as statements serving as a starting point for spiritual and philosophical contemplation, if one is familiar with Blake`s world view. They are keys that we can give to our “Fetch” to unlock deeper layers of reality, hiddin to our “Talker”.
The world of Faery -
"The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged and numerous senses could perceive."
And his conversation with the prophet Isaiah:
"The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them, and whether they did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, and so be the cause of imposition. Isaiah answered: ‘I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organic perception; but my senses discovered the infinite in everything..."
Even if Blake's intentions and ideas were different from my own, I relate to the idea of the Gods and the ‘world of Faery’ being the senses of nature, and to connect with them you just need to open you perception to the "Infinite in everything"
“The Giants and the Witches and Ghosts of Albion dance with Thor and Friga. And the Faeries lead the Moon along the Valley of Cherubim” - Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion.
“ While many people would dismissed fairies and spirits as make-believe or superstition, they never helles persisted in the visual arts of the time. Artists like Blake and Henry Fuseli brought new imaginative life to the fairy and spirit realm. Their images were frequently populated by female characters, who appeared in enticing and enchanting ways. Faeries became closely intertwined with fantasy women in art and literature of the day, offering a kind of guilty pleasure for viewers. Both might be dangerous in their desirability, reflecting contemporary anxieties about female sexuality. They also stand in for the imagination itself, suggesting its freedom but also its potentially transformative effect on the subject and body - for better or worse.”
Leaving the pieces of British 18th century misogyny aside, another point of convergence is the folk origins of Faeries, as the union of angels and demons.
The Magical Children of this perfect marriage of Heaven and Hell, the very definition of polarity, limiality and creative impulse.
I had never come across the idea of the world of faery being the senses of Nature, but I love the poetry of it 🖤