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| Mandarin Ducks in Snow, Koson Ohara |
To Chloé.
Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I have just performed the A ka Dua, “the holiest of all mantras” (Sir Aleister Crowley dixit), twenty-four hours non-stop! — Do as I do! Let us work in synergy!
The personal technique matters little here… Repeat it as your favorite cartoon character would repeat it, or as though afflicted with a Danish accent, or as an adolescent onanist hyperventilating while moaning “JLo, JLo, JLo” etc., or as a parrot, or as an old man muttering to himself.
Otherwise, today’s holy reading is Liber A’ash vel Capricorni Pneumatici sub figurâ CCCLXX, verses 21 to 24, where we read notably:
These animals are sacred unto me; the goat, and the duck, and the ass, and the gazelle, the man, the woman and the child. — A’ash, 21.
Of this verse, Frater Achad said:
“duck: I do not know why, unless it is a symbology related to its eggs.”
To which the Prophet (blessing & worship to him!) replied that he did not know either.
Leptopoecile Sophiæ once told us: “The allusion in this verse is to the aix galericulata, the mandarin duck” — but as he did not elaborate further, his word initially slipped from my mind: it was only after his death in 2010 e.v. that I endeavoured to penetrate its meaning.
The mandarin duck is, above all, an ideal of conjugal harmony — The male and female are always attentive to one another, always gentle and kind in their manners, never noisy nor quarrelsome, but invariably calm and peaceful.
They form the ultimate model of abolition of the binary: wonderfully beautiful, totally imperturbable in difficulties, they remain together (being a wintering species) when all other birds have migrated and stay close to one another regardless of the climate.
Among the sacred animals, which, being seven, correspond to the stages of the Middle Pillar, it is therefore perfectly normal that the mandarin duck should be Yesod.
I therefore say, concerning our charming bestiary of a verse:
Goat = Malkuth, temporal power, matter, Capricorn, etc.
Duck = Yesod, then, for the reasons set forth above.
Ass = Path of Pé, the tragedy of existence and the obstinacy in following the vertical way at the Crossroads.
Gazelle = Tiphareth, that which the lion feeds upon, i.e. the solar principle.
Man = Path of Teth, the Adam’s apple.
Woman = Intersection of the Paths of Daleth, Venus, and of Gimel, the Moon.
Child = Kether, obviously, the crown of the High Lord Heru-Ra-Ha and the open fontanelle.
Technically, of course, neither man, nor woman, nor child are, strictly speaking, animals: but it is by acquiring what I would call “the four cardinal virtues of the Ceremonial Magician” (the ardour of the goat, the vigilance of the mandarin duck, the impudence of the ass, and the swiftness of the gazelle) that they become humans worthy of the name.
Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.
Warm kisses from the Bahamas.
Love is the law, love under will.
— ☉ in 24° ♑︎ : ☽ in 13° ♐︎ : ☿︎ : Vxi.
𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌
