Tuesday, January 30, 2024

   All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Two of Pentacles: Jupiter in Capricorn


THE LESSER BANISHING RITUAL OF THE PENTAGRAM

Beginning with The Qabalistic Cross


   The rituals known as the Qabalistic Cross and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) help you to shift from the every day world to a spiritual focus. The Qabalistic Cross activates the aura in a balanced manner, linking the Divine with the higher self and preparing the subconscious mind for subtle forces. The LBRP, based on the equal-armed cross--which symbolizes the integrated personality and the harmony of the elements within manifestation--is normally performed immediately after the Qabalistic Cross and helps you to open even more to spiritual dimensions while clearing your ritual space and your mind of unwanted subtle energies. The LBRP protects you from unexpected astral influences and should be performed without fail after you open yourself spiritually to any subtle energy. Not to do so would be like opening your home to anyone on the street, except, of course, that subtle entities can be more powerful than any living human. At the risk of stating the obvious, I should mention that subtle forces usually cannot be perceived by the physical senses and therefore can end up being extremely troublesome. Banishing is a MUST.
   Performing these two rituals shows the subconscious mind and the universe that 1) you are opening your subtle senses and your heart for the purpose of living in your higher self, and 2) you are also opening your sphere of influence to subtle forces. Both your soul and the universe will take you seriously, so you should not perform these rituals unless you are ready to expand your concept of self and to invite spiritual energies into your aura. In addition, as you regularly clear your aura of unwanted energies, you will eventually begin to see what is interfering with your spiritual development, which means that you might very well become motivated to make changes that affect other people. Performing these rituals shows a commitment to spiritual development that should not be taken lightly.
   These rituals should be performed at least once a day if you are pursuing a spiritual path. You do not need any magical tools or regalia to perform the ritual, but you do need a small space and a little uninterrupted time (about twenty minutes or so). As far as space considerations are concerned, you should be in a room where you can at least turn and step forward in each of the four cardinal directions, east, south, west, and north, in that order. Many people choose to perform the LBRP twice a day, once in the morning and once the evening, due to the cleansing nature of the ritual. Before you begin, it helps to tense and relax the muscle groups in your body, from your toes to your scalp, while you are lying down. It also helps to imagine draining all the negative energy out of your aura into the Earth's magma and then filling your aura with light. The more relaxed and purified you feel, the more effective the ritual will be.

THE QABALISTIC CROSS

   The Qabalistic Cross, which is referenced at the end of the Lord's Prayer, activates specific spheres of the Tree of Life within the aura and helps you shift to spiritual concerns. You begin by bringing pure spiritual light and energy from the limitless Source through your crown chakra, then down below your feet to Malkuth, "the Kingdom," then back up to the heart center, over to the right shoulder, associated with Geburah, "The Power," then across to the left shoulder, associated with Chesed (also known as Gedulah, "The Glory") and then back to the heart center. After the energy has circulated through the aura, you release it back to spirit as you conclude with "Amen." As you perform the ritual, vibrate the words out loud (if you feel comfortable doing so), or in your head using what is called "The Great Voice," so that your whole aura seems to vibrate with the sound, the premise being that all matter is the vibration of energy: By vibrating the divine words you are tuning your mind to the highest vibration. The basic ritual is as follows.

STEP ONE: Imagine yourself in the middle of a circle and face east. Visualize a brilliant light from the Source descending slowly, a small fraction of the endless, limitless light which comes to rest on the crown of your head.

STEP TWO: Imagine your head filling with the brilliant light. Point to your crown and vibrate A-TOH ("Thine"). Direct the light with your finger down the middle of your body until you are pointing at the ground, with your hand covering your groin. Visualize the brilliant light going down through your body beyond your feet to the center of the Earth and beyond to eternity while you vibrate Mahl-KOOT ("The Kingdom").

STEP THREE: Now direct the light with your finger quickly up to your heart center and over to your right shoulder. Visualize this beam of light extending from your heart out to eternity as you vibrate Vih G'Boo--RAH ("The Power").

STEP FOUR: Direct the light with your finger across your heart center to your left shoulder. Visualize the light extending from your heart out to eternity on your left side while you vibrate Vih G'Doo-LAH ("The Glory").

STEP FIVE: Bring the light back to your heart center and clasp your hands as if praying. Visualize a brilliant golden glow in your heart. Vibrate Lih-Oh-LAHM ("forever") Ah- MEN.

   Essentially, you are linking the Divine with your higher self, directing the energy to the Earth, Malkuth, then back up to your heart center (associated with Tipareth, "Beauty"), then over to the middle sphere on the right pillar of the Tree of Life known as Geburah, then over to the middle sphere on the left pillar known as Gedulah. You are, in other words, saying as you perform the ritual, "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen," while you activate the aspects of your higher self represented by the Tree of Life in your aura.

THE LESSER BANISHING RITUAL OF THE PENTAGRAM (LBRP)

   After you finish the ritual of the Qabalistic Cross, feeling the power of the Divine linking with your higher self within your aura, perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) to clear your ritual space and your sphere of sensation of unwanted subtle influences.

STEP ONE: Again imagine yourself in the middle of the circle. If you have room, step a few feet directly to the east; if not, simply face east. Draw a five-pointed star (known as a pentagram) in brilliant blue light, beginning with the bottom left point at your left hip, moving to the top point above your head, then down to the lower right point at your right hip, then over to the upper left point just beyond your left shoulder, then over to the upper right point just beyond your right shoulder, then back to the very point where you started.

STEP TWO: Inhale deeply, imagining that the energy of the Divine is entering your body and permeating your aura. As you inhale, raise your hands to the sides of your head next to your ears, with your index fingers pointing forward and the rest of your fingers closed into a fist.

STEP THREE: Step forward with your left foot while at the same time thrusting your hands, with index fingers still pointing forward, into the center of the pentagram. As you do this, exhale the Divine energy back into the cosmos and vibrate Yud-Heh-Vahv-Heh, which stands for the Hebrew letters Yod, Heh, Vau, and final Heh of the "Tetragammaton" (the letters of the unpronounceable name of God).

STEP FOUR: After you bring your hands back to your sides, bring your left foot back to its original position. Put your left index finger to your lips, giving the sign of silence. Put your left hand down by your side and extend your right arm, pointing with your right forefinger at the center of the pentagram. Move clockwise ninety degrees to the south at the edge of the circle (or simply turn east if you don't have room), mentally drawing a brilliant white line with your forefinger at the level of the center of the pentagram until you reach due south. Draw a pentagram as described in Step One and repeat Steps Two and Three, this time vibrating Ah-Doh-Nye ("Adonai").

STEP FIVE: Repeat the steps shown above, but go to the west and vibrate Eh-Heh-YEH ("Eheieh").

STEP SIX: Repeat the steps shown above, but go to the north and vibrate AH-Glah ("Agla").

STEP SEVEN: Complete the circle by drawing the white line to the center of the pentagram in the east, imagining that the white circle you have drawn expands into a brilliant white sphere, with the blazing blue pentagrams still in each quarter. Then move back to the center of the circle (if you have not been simply pivoting in the center). You are now in the center of a divine, protective sphere, with the pentagrams in each quarter charged and sealed with the names of God.


Archangel Raphael


STEP EIGHT: Form a cross with your body by holding your arms straight out to the sides. Imagine that your body is a brilliant cross of light. Imagine a towering figure in front of you in a bright yellow robe with violet hems and highlights. The figure holds a long, brilliant sword perfectly balanced straight up and down. As a breeze comes towards you from behind the figure, say, "Before me, Rah-Fay-EL." (You are vibrating the name of the Archangel Raphael--who symbolizes the element of Air.)


Archangel Gabriel

STEP NINE: Visualize a towering figure behind you in a bright blue robe with orange hems and highlights. The figure holds a golden chalice. As you feel the moisture in the air, say, "Behind me, Gahb-Ray-EL. (Vibrate the name of the Archangel Gabriel, who symbolizes the element of Water.)


Archangel Michael



STEP TEN: Visualize a towering figure on your right in a bright red robe with green hems and highlights. The figure stands in fire and holds a caduceus, a wand entwined with serpents symbolizing the life force. As you feel the heat of the fire, say, "On my right, Mee-Chai-EL (Vibrate the name of the Archangel Michael, who symbolizes the element of Fire. The "ch" in "Chai" should be gutteral, like "Bach.")


Archangel Auriel



STEP ELEVEN: Visualize a towering figure on your left dressed in a white robe with black hems. The figure stands in a fertile landscape and holds sheaves of wheat. Say, "On my left, Ohr-Ree-EL . (Vibrate the name of the Archangel Auriel).

STEP TWELVE: Imagine a brilliant blue pentagram outlining your body and say, "For about me flames the pentagram and within me shines the six-rayed star." Then Visualize a hexagram (also known as the Star of David) in your heart center. Repeat the Qabalistic Cross.

   If you perform a simple or advanced invocation using the Tarot after that, make sure that you repeat the Qabalistic Cross and the LBRP at the end.


(Please Note: Some practitioners imagine Raphael holding a caduceus wand and Michael holding a flaming sword. I started out trying to envision this, but could only envision Raphael holding a sword like the one representing the Suit of Swords in the Tarot, and Michael holding a caduceus wand. I have since discovered that other practitioners agree with me.)



THE SUPREME INVOKING RITUAL OF THE PENTAGRAM (SIRP)


   The Archangels Raphael (Air), Michael (Fire), Gabriel (Water), and Auriel (Earth) rule the elemental energies represented by the Tree of Life, which ripple out as the energies of the zodiac and the planets. Therefore, this ritual enables you to touch the dimensions of Universal Consciousness. One of the main goals of any significant spiritual tradition is to return the mind to a state of radical innocence where one "returns to paradise." The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram creates an extremely rare state of liberty--the mind becomes completely open and the emotions become free of negativity and anxiety. Invoking the Great Archangels of the Elements can establish spiritual "innocence" as well as enable you to experience a profound sense of eternity. In other words, the SIRP, if performed effectively, cleanses and purifies the spiritual, mental, emotional, and etheric levels of the psyche. A relationship with these Archangels is important because, quite simply, they are four of the most powerful beings of harmony in the universe that we can know. This ritual, therefore, can lead to major changes because it creates a unified frequency within the aura and because the resulting state of purity and balance inevitably inspires close examination of social and religious values as well as the behavior of others around us.
   At first, this ritual might not do anything for you, or it might cause you to feel disoriented because of the way society has conditioned you. Performing this ritual might also make you a target of negative spiritual beings, which means that you might need to work with the Archangels to neutralize dark forces to create balance. I ask you to consider performing this ritual only if you are dedicated to creating harmony and balance on a subtle spiritual level for humanity and this planet. If you do, and you are like me, you will change completely, and you might not be able at first to understand the changes you are experiencing. You might, for instance, be tempted to use your spiritual powers like a sorcerer, for your benefit alone. If, however, you invoke the Archangels to cause harm or disorder, you might find your negativity directed right back at you....
   The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram packs tremendous spiritual power into a relatively brief ceremony. Even if you feel awkward at first while performing the ritual, you may find that you experience startling results. In my opinion, you should not perform this ritual unless you truly desire to have a new perspective on yourself, the world, and your spirituality. Like I did, you might each time open a portal to the spiritual dimension, so you must, without fail, perform The Lesser Banishing Ritual immediately afterwards every time. I speak from experience--I made the mistake of not performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual once and had one of the most bizarre spiritual experiences in my life. Not all inhabitants of this world are made of sweetness and light. That is true of the spiritual dimensions as well. (Worse, the occupants of other dimensions are usually invisible to human beings.) As with everything else, you simply need to take the appropriate precautions.
   Many guiding lights of civilization have performed the rituals associated with the mystical Qabalah, including William Butler Yeats, who is considered one of the greatest poets of the Twentieth Century; Dion Fortune and Israel Regardie, both influential writers who have brilliantly clarified the tradition; and Arthur Edward Waite, who was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck. This ritual incorporates Hebrew and an Angelic language known as "Enochian," recorded in late sixteenth century England in the private journals of John Dee, a consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. Working with the seer Edward Kelley, Dee laid the foundation for a powerful and mysterious system of magic, which has had an enormous impact on modern occult practices, mainly through the influence of the esoteric order The Golden Dawn. Despite the fact that no one knows precisely how to pronounce the language, Enochian has gained great popularity, perhaps due to its uncanny effect on the psyche.
   I designed the Tarot Pentagram Spread specifically to fit into the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram to add power to the invocation of living images because each Tarot card corresponds to an elemental state of being. Remember that each Tarot card corresponds to the Tree of Life and with a dimension of Universal Consciousness. This ritual super-charges any ritual you create with Tarot cards. You can seamlessly incorporate the Tarot Pentagram Spread into the ritual if you pay close attention to the elemental attributes of the cards. (See example in Step 11.) This ritual, of course, can serve any spiritual purpose, with or without Tarot cards. I have discovered that establishing and maintaining a reverent relationship with the Angels and Archangels, which is accomplished through a desire to serve the Divine Will for the highest possible good, is perhaps the most necessary element of the ritual.
   This ritual is awesome and sacred. It is not intended to be a mere experiment or a game. You are in danger of becoming greatly unbalanced and could experience serious trials if you are not working to create harmony for the highest possible good of yourself, your friends or family members, or humanity and the planet.

   1) Perform the Qabalistic Cross and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP). See link below.


Active and Passive Spirit Invoking Pentagrams

   2) Facing east, imagine yourself in the middle of a circle. If you have room, step a few feet directly to the east; if not, simply face east. Inhale deeply, imagining that the energy of the divine is entering your body and permeating your aura. As you exhale, vibrate the word of power EXARP (Ex-ahr-pey) while drawing the Active Spirit Invoking Pentagram, visualizing it in brilliant white light: Begin at the bottom right point (Fire) at your right hip, moving to the upper left point (Air) at your left shoulder, then over to the upper right point at your right shoulder (Water), then down to the lower left point at your left hip (Earth), then up to the top point just above your head (Spirit), then back to the lower right point where you started. You should be sounding out the last syllable as you make the Sign of the Enterer to charge the pentagram. Make sure to save enough breath so that you can charge the pentagram as you are vibrating the last syllable, "pey." Remember to vibrate the words, either out loud (if you feel comfortable doing so) or in your head using the “The Great Voice," so that your whole aura seems to vibrate with the sound, the premise being that all matter is the vibration of energy--and by vibrating the divine names you are tuning your mind to the highest vibration.
   As in the LBRP, to make the Sign of the Enterer, raise your hands to the sides of your head next to your ears, with your index fingers pointing forward and the rest of your fingers closed into a fist. Step forward with your left foot while at the same time thrusting your hands, with index fingers still pointing forward, into the center of the pentagram. In the SIRP, thrust the hands forward at the end of the word of power.


Spirit Pentagram with Spirit Wheel in Center

   Draw the spirit wheel in the center of the pentagram, making a circle clockwise in brilliant white, starting and ending at the top. Next, draw the vertical line, then the horizontal line, then the two diagonal lines. Vibrate EHEIEH (Eh-heh-yeh) while making the wheel. Again make the Sign of the Enterer by thrusting your hands forward at the end of the word of power.


Invoking Pentagram for the element of Air

   3) Still facing east, make the invoking Pentagram of Air, visualized in purple light, directly over the Active Spirit Invoking Pentagram. In other words, start at the upper right hand point, near your right shoulder, then continue over to your left shoulder, then down to your right hip, and so on until you are back where you started. Vibrate ORO IBAH AOZPI (Oh-row Ee-bah-hah Ah-oh-zohd-pee) while drawing the pentagram. Charge the symbol by thrusting the hands forward in the Sign of the Enterer. Then draw the Aquarius symbol in bright yellow within the pentagram. (Please note that Air, Fire, and Water elemental pentagrams contain "flashing" colors; that is, the primary symbol is drawn in the color of the element, and the pentagram is drawn in the complementary color.) Vibrate YHVH (Yod-heh-vav-heh) while making the symbol. Charge the symbol by again thrusting the hands forward.
   Then imagine sylphs, like tiny points of brilliant light, flowing towards you from the Archangel Raphael, who is dressed in a bright yellow robe, trimmed and flecked with violet. Imagine the sylphs completely filling your aura with their light.


Spirit Pentagram

   4) Move clockwise to the south, making a line of brilliant white light. Every time you move to a different cardinal direction, point with your index finger to make a brilliant white line that connects the pentagrams in the center. Make another Active Spirit Invoking Pentagram, visualized in white light. Vibrate BITOM (Bee-toh-em) while drawing the pentagram and charge by thrusting the hands forward. Draw the wheel within the pentagram. Vibrate EHEIEH while making the wheel, then charge the symbol.


Invoking Pentagram for the element of Fire

   5) Make the invoking Pentagram of Fire, visualized in bright green light. From the top of the star, move down to the lower right point and continue from there back to the top point. Vibrate OIP TEAA PEDOCE (Oh-ee-pay Tay-ah-ah Pay-doh-kay) while drawing the pentagram. Draw the Leo symbol in bright red within the pentagram. Vibrate ELOHIM (El-oh-heem) while making this symbol. (In the rest of the ritual, vibrate all of the words of power and charge the pentagrams and symbols in the same way.)
   Imagine salamanders, like tiny points of brilliant fire, flowing towards you from the Archangel Michael, who is dressed in a bright red robe, trimmed and flecked with green. Imagine the salamanders completely filling your aura with their fiery light.


Spirit Pentagram


   6) Trace the circle clockwise to the west, carrying a line of brilliant white light. Make the Passive Spirit Invoking Pentagram, visualized in white light, this time starting at the lower left point and moving to the upper right point and continuing from there. Vibrate HCOMA (Hay-coh-mah) while drawing the pentagram. Draw the wheel of spirit within the pentagram. Vibrate AGLA (Ah-glah) while making the wheel.


Invoking Pentagram for the element of Water

   7) Make the Invoking Pentagram of Water, visualized in orange light. Vibrate EMPEH ARSEL GAIOL (Ehm-pay-hay Ahr-sel Gah-ee-ohl) while drawing the pentagram. Draw the head of an eagle in bright blue within the pentagram. Vibrate EL while making this symbol.
   Now imagine undines, like tiny drops of brilliant water, flowing towards you from the Archangel Gabriel, who is dressed in a bright blue robe, trimmed and flecked with orange. Imagine the undines completely filling your aura with bright, cleansing water.


Spirit Pentagram

   8) Trace the circle clockwise to the north, carrying a line of bright white light. Make the Passive Spirit Invoking Pentagram, visualized in white light. Vibrate NANTA (Ehn-ah-ehn-tah) while drawing the pentagram. Draw the wheel within the pentagram. Vibrate AGLA while making the wheel.


Invoking Pentagram for the element of Earth

   9) Make the Invoking Pentagram of Earth, visualized in dark green light. Vibrate EMOR DIAL HECTEGA (Ee-mohr Dee-ahl Hek-tay-gah) while drawing the pentagram. Draw the Taurus symbol in shiny black within the pentagram. Vibrate ADONAI (Ah-doh-nye) while making this symbol.
   Imagine gnomes, like tiny points of brilliant light, flowing towards you from the Archangel Auriel, who is dressed in a white robe trimmed with black. Imagine the gnomes completely filling your aura with their light.

   10) Complete the ritual circle clockwise to the east. Return to the center. Imagine the white line that connects the pentagrams expanding to form a sphere of brilliant white light that surrounds you.

   11) Perform your magic. If you are creating an artificial elemental (living image) with the Tarot Ritual Pentagram Spread, lay the foundation cards down and all other cards on your altar in the direction of the element you are emphasizing in the invocation.
   Then lay down the modifiers on the appropriate Ace, first the card representing the zodiac sign, then the card reprenting the planet, then a Number Card, if appropriate.
   Remember, if you are invoking the elemental energy of a card related to Air, you and the cards should face east, and you should use the Active Invoking Spirit Pentagram and the Air Pentagram.
   If you are invoking the elemental energy of a card related to Fire, you and the cards should face south, and you should use the Active Invoking Spirit Pentagram and the Fire Pentagram.
   If you invoking the energy of a card related to the Water element, face west and use the Passive Invoking Spirit Pentagram and the Water Pentagram.
   If you invoking the energy of a card related to the Earth element, face north and use the Passive Invoking Spirit Pentagram and the Earth Pentagram.
   Lay down the Major Arcana card representing the zodiac sign. Say the name of the card and its related zodiac sign while tapping the card.
   Lay down the Major Acrana card representing the planet and say the name of the card and its related planet while tapping the card. Do the same with any Number Card, tapping the card while saying the decan.




Active and Passive Spirit Invoking Pentagrams

   After laying down the cards, draw the Invoking Spirit Pentagram and the spirit wheel in the air in brilliant white above the central Tarot card on the altar, charging the pentagram and the symbol of the element in the usual way with the Sign of the Enterer. As you visualize the living image of the Tarot card floating in the middle of the Pentagram, imagine that the appropriate elementals flow from the Archangel and fill the living image while at the same time points of light flow from your aura and fill the living image as well.
   Say, "I name you Lord (or Lady) of ______," based on the alternate title of the card.
   Say, "Reflect the quality of ______ from the astral light into my aura," based on the spiritual principle revealed in the card. This can be anything from a sentence to a whole paragraph.
   Say, "Perform this task until ______ (providing a date), then return to your element, doing no harm."

   12) Always finish with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram!






Sunday, June 18, 2023

  All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.


One Mortar, One Pestle


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THE VOW



On the way up, I needed
words to calm myself,
on this winter day when smog
smothers the valley again, grays
the rocks half a mile away
where the creek shines like chrome.
All afternoon I explored the paths
webbing down to the creek
where pounding stones and trails
are all that remain of the tribe
that once settled on cleared,
gentle inclines. I ventured up
the steep slopes toward the top
to claim it as my own in the late
afternoon sun. For all of an afternoon
I trespassed, perhaps not meant
to look down anymore
on the grayness below that never
clears. At the edge of the cliff I lost myself
easily in the breath of trees and grasses,
above chemicals ruining mind
and body, knowing I cannot protect
these hillsides. Not long ago
the tribe was ravaged by sickness
and finished off by murder and
starvation, the air and water
and the remaining creatures no longer
belonging to the earth. I have always
kept some faith in my feet, and I hiked
past cattle that fled in absolute terror
of me or refused to budge
when I approached, all
without horns. Those animals
could have done me great harm,
but didn't. I have brought you here
to the edge of this cliff to remember
the valley as it was before the earth
was sold. I will remain
as a few magic words that fly
from this cliff over the valley
to write the language of flowers
gone forever, to bear witness
for the air and water passing
through everything living, to ease
the desolation of those who believe
that all must wisely share the earth,
and although I may not even be meant
to be the voice, my words will take you
part of the way, past the last trees
to the rocks at the top behind which
a mother is lying beside her newborn calf,
a young bull grazing, so powerful
and unconcerned you might think them
godlike and pure, untouched
for generations, the huge horns
without garlands, without blood.


__________



The ancient trail died in foxtails,
emerging on the other side
of the hill, heading down
to a stretch of Sycamore Creek

where we had never been before,
the trail snaking to a pounding stone covered
with pestles. Terrifying the cattle,
I ran straight to other pounding stones,

once again along that creek
certain that I had lived
before, gathering acorns
and grinding them in the mortars.

You said you believed, as I
stooped to pick up an acorn,
one great, peaceful breath settling
on the woodlands, my self lost

long ago and again too soon,
the cattle rooting out
the acorns, our home
nowhere and everywhere.


__________



In the foothills, by a vernal pool, I once picked up a toad
that had escaped from my childhood and squeezed it
gently so that it wouldn't squirm or pee in my hand.
The toads disappeared from town long ago. Once,

when I was a flagger, I couldn't outrun the viscous
rain dropped from a cropduster. I showered,
drank a glass of milk, but still didn't feel okay, nearly
passing out. Another man ate with the poison

still on his fingertips; he stopped breathing
for two minutes before they revived him, the boss
not wanting to pay for an ambulance. After that, I noticed
the only grasslands along an avenue that stretches

across the entire valley. A lone owl perched
on a metal fence post, and eight kingbirds flitted
from barbed wire to the grass after bugs
and flitted back, the fence enabling them adapt

to cultivated land, the other birds that once used the flyway
long gone. Years later, I stood at the entrance to a canyon
among flowers whose names I didn't know until middle age,
the self unselfing, the eternal experiencing itself

for a moment, the delicate purple eyes of fiesta flowers
open on vines hanging all over poison oak, a swallowtail
exploring the filaments of the thistle, unafraid
while I watched a foot away, the first oriole of spring

suddenly winging over my head across the river to sway
on a bare buckeye branch and then return toward me,
veering away suddenly to eye me from a nearby oak
as I swayed on the cliff. On the canyon floor,

the call of the phainopepla, a heavy drop
plopping into still water, mingled
with the long musical call
of the grosbeak. I lay by the river,

gazing upward as the clouds
flowed over, and I could believe
that I have lived in wetness with the toad,
that my vines, heavy with flowers, have blanketed

bushes and limbs, that I have clung to one leaf
for ages waiting for some animal to pass,
that I have winged, a brilliant flame, from tree
to tree, eternal and forever changing, only now

aware of a possible end without grace, and I vowed
never to rob life with its splendor
from mountain or valley
or from any human being on this earth.





Please note: We have reached the end of this journey, for now at least. In the near future, I plan to focus exclusively on my other blog: Insanity is the New Normal.

www.newnormalinsanity.blogspot.com



Sunday, June 11, 2023

  All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Root Surrounded by Ithuriel's Spears



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MY NEW LIFE



My new life began on a rural avenue
that twenty years before was miles
from the edge of town, the pastureland,
vineyards and orchards slowly erased

by houses and businesses. Near
the freeway, close to the river
on the south side, secure subdivisions
now crowd together along

the bluff. For years, I had taken
the rural avenues north of the river
to witness the seasons, never aware
that the city was sprawling so far north

as I gazed at orchards in bloom
or bearing fruit or bare, in spring mustard
and purple vetch choking the roadside and the rows
of some orchards. No longer grazed, pastures blossomed

with fiddleneck and owl's clover, one, almost wild,
with harvest brodiaea, the umbels crowning blonde grass
with purple, the leaves of vineyards with brilliant auras
in slanted sunlight. On the first afternoon

of my new life, I drove the avenue homeward
and saw on Avenue 40 the first bulldozers lined up
in a place where I had sighted a yellow-headed blackbird,
not far from a post where once a roadrunner perched,

the only one I have sighted on the valley floor. Ahead
stretched acres of grasslands and the plateaus,
the base of the foothills. The county had rezoned
the land so that in twenty years a city

could grow there as far as the eye could see,
from the river all the way into the foothills.
Then, I would be living my new life
without wild flowers on land where 

song birds cannot forage, a land without roots,
a river with roots of rain but with water
that can never find an ocean.






Sunday, June 4, 2023

   All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Ancient Trail


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THE ANCIENT WEB



I park near a load of rubbish
dumped by the road, and, struggling
up a hillside, follow a path not sure
it is thousands of years old, but finding

destinations, the leaves of sycamores
floating onto pounding stones
or into the stream where they are dragged
along by the current and sucked under.

By the pounding stone, a lip
of earth extends from the slope,
large enough for a bed.
A house pit? Below that,

rocks stacked on
each other--a miner's grave?
Beyond the creek, five trails
join at a hub between the river

and the creek, where a rancher
dropped blocks of salt, the questions
asked a moment before lost
in the grass, empty in the curl

of a leaf. According to mystics
the ether contains records
of every moment within eternity,
a memory of every individual

experience within the physical
plane. Somehow I know where
to find the pounding stones
and house pits and trails

along the creeks, as though some
inner sight has been granted me--
a man powerless, gauche,
and unworthy. Wildcat Mountain

looms in the distance from many points
of the ancient trails, the distance
undisturbed, no one approaching
with news of forces sent to capture me

or drive me off the land,
the mansions planned
for forty acre lots. I dig
into mortars brimming

with grass and earth, the dry
oak leaves needling my fingers,
the pounding stones deep
as icebergs, the air, smelling

of rain, still in the quiet woods.
I find a pestle and turn
the tapered end
toward the hub. This web

once kept a community
alive, yet I
am lost, searching
the valley for signs

of the city in the smog
and finding none, nothing keeping
the rancher from selling off
to some developer, the trails,

snaking between buckeyes
and oaks, etched for thousands
of years in the earth, always
vanishing in the grass.






Sunday, May 28, 2023

  All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.


San Joaquin River Gorge


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I BELIEVE IN ANGELS


Cocking its black head, the angel calmly gazed
through underbrush, its speckled wings closed
on fire, the white breast feathers slightly
ruffled, aware that I returned its gaze,

both of us still, separated by a few twigs, until
it resumed rummaging in dead leaves.
Trespassing in the angelic realms, we were taking
the breath of trees and flowers,

each species with its own piece of heaven,
a brown towhee leaping at titmice
that hid in mistletoe, then at goldfinches
which hovered in a panic, rootless yellow flowers,

returning to their stems after a few moments,
a flycatcher on a snag, butterfly wings extending
from its beak, the orioles streaks of flame
above the earth's tapestry of light--

goldfields interwoven with lupine and poppies.
You told me your dream of floating down river,
the boat suddenly swirling through white water
and just as suddenly slowing into a gentle,

sunlit rain which jeweled the strands of a spiderweb
strung between alder trees, where a kinglet flitted
from twig to twig, missing the web, a newt struggling
up slick rock and sliding down again, and a bullfrog

leaping at eyes floating above the water, vanishing,
and resurfacing by the bank, the kingfisher,
loud and persistent, protesting intrusion, perching
a moment behind sycamore leaves, then whirring

back and forth, taunting from a distance,
testifying as though it mattered, the bushtits
like leaves above the water blown
from one tree to another--the current

carrying you through so many
communities until the river
stopped flowing,
a littered wastewater sump

for the filthy valley. Then
you found your friend and dragged him
to the bathtub, his skin blue, and all
you could do was wait to see if he would live,

but there was no fear, only a strange
radiance in the needle and the skin,
the gleaming drops plopping every few
seconds from the faucet as warblers flitted

in a tree outside. I remembered gliding
by the church we attended
the night we first rocked each other,
the tawdry street teeming with sparrows,

and I realized that I'd worked years later
as a janitor three blocks away, not far
from the market where we'd shopped

in some other life, our range

proclaimed by all the angels.
For you, I have made our dreams
one dream where the angels
never lose their connection

to the range of light, the cedar waxwings
above the still river pecking at seeds,
their faces masked, tails dipped in gold,
startled, and flying....





Sunday, May 21, 2023

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Lupine after the Rough Fire


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MAPPING THE FLOWERS



Chinese houses are sprouting on north-facing slopes
and in shady washes, sharing their niche with fairy lanterns,
grass nuts, larkspur, while twenty miles away, the skeletal
steel frame of a children's hospital sprouts on the bluffs,

on land donated by the developer, rising above condemned
vineyards and pasture, a "behemoth of bad planning"
inducing the growth of a new city through the expansion
of one clogged artery of traffic just north of the river.

In fields near the hospital, weeds still
hide mice and rabbits, obscuring coyotes
in the dim halls of orchards, releasing clean air
into an ocean of smog. I had almost forgotten

that you can stand in an ocean of breath
and merge your breath with brilliant tribes
struggling into the sun, that you can sit by a creek,
no more than the stillness of the grass, sensing

the timeless spirit at the root of form, forgetting
your face as the battered moon rises again above
the evening hills. Golden eagles sliced through the air
side by side, just above me, down through the wash,

swooping between the trees and gliding out
over the valley until I lost them in the clouds,
and an hour later, as I scrambled up the slope,
the eagles stepped out of the oaks above me

and floated--almost large enough to carry
me away--gliding higher until they were specks
and then gone. Sure of our end, I wanted
to sleep forever in the woods, the valley

stretching out for miles in the haze below me,
the landmarks strangely small, the strident whistle
of the titmouse calling me back, a network
of trails linking the creeks and woodlands--

still pristine (except
for the cattle), the trails webbing
the entire range blocked by pockets
of development, the land owners all

connected. I teetered on the edge
of that high slope, the city so obscured
by smog I couldn't see it--perhaps
gone a century--a web slightly billowing

in the breeze, and I chased a meadowlark
at the edge of a large flock downhill,
a squirrel scurrying over its own thin trail
from one rock pile to another, ants slowly

discarding husks from their tunnels. Overhead,
a flock of acorn woodpeckers set up an alarm, cackling
maniacally as I passed through their territory,
the trail weaving into a clearing where I found

a pounding stone, one mortar sprouting grass,
the other black with stagnant water, the roots
of a buckeye breaking the rock in two.
I followed every path by the creek, finding

more pounding stones wherever I turned,
clearly in view of each other or parts
of the village on both sides of the creek.
That day I felt a radiance that remains

in the village sites, the mortars healed over
and sprouting grass, others collecting rain,
most of the house pits quilted by cow pies
sprouting living jewels, the hillsides

nearby torn and washed away, streaked
with ochre, yellow, black, one pit--
with a fence post in the middle dangling
from a strand of barbed wire--so deep

I could not see the bottom, another filled
with lime-green water, the slopes
near the mines scored by mule and horse paths.
That day I lost myself on the trails,

and when I stepped across a creek,
I had a vision of the harmony
of things--a golden, equal-armed cross
behind manifestation blazing

in my inner eye as though it were always
just beneath the outer robe of concealment,
the energy radiant in each leaf and petal--and I
had taken just enough steps to see it.

A massive oak kept reaching higher
within an infinitely vast fabric of energy,
the sun, between its branches, still
weaving tapestries of flowers in its shade.






Sunday, May 14, 2023

   All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Oversoul


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SHAMAN OF THE CONFLUENCES



Leaping from rock to slippery,
Unstable rock in Big Creek,
I cross in search of artifacts,
Scrambling up a steep slope
To find shotgun shells sprinkled
On a house pit, mortars claimed
By humus and moss. Trampled and
Uneven, a trail snakes along a cliff
To a confluence where I choose
A faint path unmolested by cattle,
The trail soon vanishing under dry
Sycamore leaves webbed by tribes
Of spiders. Poison oak blocks
One side of the ravine and a buckeye 
Looms on the other side,
So I grab a long, dry branch and hoist
Myself onto a boulder that topples
To the stream bed as I leap
To another rock. Nobody knows
Where I am. I scramble higher,
Grasping grass and roots, finding
Primeval woodlands above the lip
Of the waterfall, and I plod forward,
Without much faith in my feet,
Sure that I'm being watched by
Something, animal or spirit,
Not human. When I discover
A pounding stone with two pestles,
I am afraid. A skirt of dried earth
And moss clings to each tapered stone
After I pull them from their mortars.
Like a shaman from some other time, 

I feel the Over-Soul
Is aware of me, but there has not yet
Been a parley. A rattlesnake,
Camouflaged by roots that stick out
From the embankment, shatters
The stillness and slithers
Into a hole, the Over-Soul
Aware of me like I
Am aware of the snake.
I open my senses,
To feel what it's like
To be a newt or frog or snake
Or waterfall or redbud reflected
In still water, and I let
An image of her rise from a deep pool.
I fashion a living image for her spirit
To ensoul, her hair winding down
To her feet like shiny black rivulets,
A crown of moons in different
Phases, a bobcat at her feet,
Doves fluttering nearby, green robes
Gleaming with embroidery
Of gem-like flowers, behind her
A towering oak, the branches
Like streams, its trunk like
A river plunged into earth.
I invoke awkwardly
At first, then more powerfully
As I stand on the pounding stone
With her form in my imagination--
And ask the Over-Soul to pour 
Her essence into my soul, a channel
Into the soul of the race. At first
I am black, primordial ooze,
Fetid decay, suddenly warm
And compact, webbed by veins,
Then rivulets trickling down
The ravines into still pools
And down to a river that once
Flowed to the ocean under an ocean
Of breath, and then I am all
The plants and animals, one love
Of everything ever connected
To this stream, the Over-Soul 
Suddenly pouring into me
A timeless peace.




    All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins. Two of Pentacles: ...