HYPNAGOGIA

HYPNAGOGIA

I just had the strangest experience. 

I was working on a translation, correcting it for XXXXXX. It’s a translation into English of a 1930s French Guide to Beauty. She had warned me that it was precious and over the top, and full of repetitive nonsense, and it was. But as I read it, and her very skilful translation, I added flourishes and little grace notes to it, little filigrees of beauty to the words; the me of before, would indeed have found it frivolous and ridiculous, but after watching Dangerous Beauty, last night, (and falling asleep an hour in), and after talking to you about Glamour and Mirror Magick, I found that this text was not at all as superficial and light as it appears, and indeed it seems to contain Deep Magick. It speaks to the Art of the Courtesan. It speaks to that feminine magic that the French understand so well, and which has not disappeared. And I thought I must send you the translation (about half the text is done now).

But as I sat at my desk, in this quiet and lovely time, where XXXXXX and I are both peacefully working side by side without speaking, I was finding it hard to focus on the words, swimming on the screen in front of me. Only through an intense effort of will could I stay awake and conscious. It’s been like this for some days. Sometimes, I can apply myself to tasks, indeed I sweep through the House as if possessed of a New Wind, an Energy, an ability to see what is not useful, what is messy, what is decrepit and rotten, and rip it away, sweep it away, with a batting of the back of my hand. I stand taller, I walk more swiftly, I am capable.

I thought : “there has been never any doubt about my ability to achieve almost anything, should I apply my mind to it; it’s only the application of the mind that is problematic”. And then, I thought, why should I sit in dark and squalour, when all I need do is blast away cobwebs and swirl a broom, when all I need do is gather the detritus that mocks us, lying in uncared-for piles, the dust of years, the accumulation of useless clutter, in my mind, my heart, my living room. Why not be swift and ruthless, for once, instead of lying in useless contemplation, waiting for my life to happen, waiting for the Other to take things in hand, knowing she will not, both of us passive aggressively letting the other fail in their duty, resenting, bitter-tasting on the tongue, letting the rot build up and lie in wait? I have been so long wallowing in the mire of myself, in the stagnant pool in which I contemplate my own reflection … There must be fresh water, from the Source. There must be a Bright Wind, that carries all before it. 

On Christmas Eve, Lughaidh and I took our walk. I thought only to check the boundaries, to have a look. But the weather was crisp and cold, and dusk lasted all afternoon, and in the bright burning leaves against the soft greys and greens, I saw the Past, the Present, and the Time to Come. I bore my staff I found at the Faery Market in the Summer, Lughaidh his Sorcerer’s stick, with the gnarled top, cut now to his size, which I had thought was mine, but he has appropriated.

We walked past the Hollow Tree in which we fed the body of the Toad to the ants, around which they made their Hill of Black Earth, and stripped the bones. We walked among the Vines, and then along the Hollow Path. We went to the Menhir, and there we spoke to the Spirits of the Land, and I quietly told them : “I am to be your Steward, and your Guardian, Custodian of this Land. I pretend to no Lordship, nor no Fortune ; I am merely he who comes to carry the Torch ahead, and pass it on. This boy you see, who lives half in and out of Thisworld and the Otherwise, he is my Heir. I cannot inherit, only hold in Trust. He will one day look at all of this, and say, “This is mine, this is my Place, I am of This.”

And then we walked on, and threaded our devious way through the Vines to the rise on which squats the Fallen Tower, the Windmill o’ the Mage Kings. Lughaidh said we must mount, and we found our way up through thorns and brambles, up the Path that is worn by other feet than ours, too. We are not the only ones who go to make observance. The crooked door open, we descend into the green-moulded Well of Souls : there the holes around the door where nest the Parliament of Owls, who have seen me, and swooped down upon me, who have studied me and loved me, and who have come to my window on a Night of Eclipse and called their Hollow Howl to draw me out to play. I shuddered and refused, for I would not have found my way back, should I have run bare-chested, bare-footed, into that intoxicating Night.

In front of Lughaidh, who accepted with only a few little questions, I drew out my grey-horn-handled knife, and held the staff in the left hand, and with the right, the blade, I drew the wounds in the world, and I called in the Quarters, on a rise and fall and rise again of music, I call ye in “Bel, Crom, Lir, Dis” … The Four Fathers. In each quarter, with the blade, I draw the cross (North, South, East, West) and I encircle it deiseail. The Celtic Cross is far older than Christian : the four-armed equal cross within a circle. This is one of my “pentacles”. The others are the Triskele, and the three-pointed knot. I spoke a spell of welcoming and inviting in. Lughaidh watched, rapt. I told him he too would one day know to do this. 

Christmas Day, and all its perennial enchantment came and went, and on that, I pass. 

But on Stephen’s Day, the Feast of Stephen, the 26th, I went out at Dusk, and went tuathalach, widdershins, around the boundaries of the immediate Domaine, and went to the Druid Rock in the Glade, below the slope of the Wood. There I called upon them all ; the Angelic Powers of the East, the Light, Saint Michael and Saint Raphael, Hermes, and Odinn is there too, the Wanderer, good old friend. His version of it is more tricksy, more subtle and ironic. The Angels are Blasting Light of All-in-One, and I like little to deal with them. But Saint Michael has made himself known, and wishes to be a part of the Work. I must grant Him that, for when an Archangel speaks, it would be well to listen. In the South, I called all the Living Beasts, the Souls of Blood and Embodied Fire : the Torc na Coille, the Fia Bairr (the Boar of the Woods, and the Horned Stag) the Toad of the Marshy Ground, the Screech Owl, the Dame Blanche ; these are Real and Fleshly, and yet they are also mystical avatars of the Land of the Domaine. In the South, the Living Souls, the Animal Kingdom, the Fauns and Fauna. The screech, the bellow, the howl. These are my Calendar Beasts. To the West, the Sunset Lands, the Fae : here the Good Green Folk, the Hidden Folk, the playful dancing presences just outside the line of sight.

I had not realised, before, to what extent they have been always with me. I had not realised, had no idea, that I was of them. That in some important way, I am not the Child of my Parents, not the Child of the Sunlit World, but that I was born between the Dark and Light, in the half-light of the dusk, that I always did perform my solemn dance, alone, to music only I could hear. That my words and visions, from earliest childhood, spoke of another life that happened far away, under Other Stars, that do not set, that do not twinkle : bright pinpoints in the velvet night, the gathering gloaming. Under those Eternal Trees, that never lose their leaves, but only change from green and pale to the Fires of Autumn, and back again, in a wheel of seasons that we cannot see ; there is a Far Home that is mine, that I have never known, that I have never seen, only in the wildest and the most vibrant and violent of dreams.

When I think, sometimes, of taking ship into the West, to join my own people once more, I weep bitterly, for I never never will. I have had moments, opportunities. There have been times when I could disappear. When I felt them, close, close as breath, close as my shadow, but unseen. They were next to me, then, and their chiming music sounded, on the edge of hearing, and I rose, and nearly went. But in the end, the World called me back, and I could not leave the ones I loved. I could not leave this life, for all its pain and frustrations, its sterile dull and aching moments of impotent yearning. For I learned to see the unfurling magic of a flower in every fleeting moment of the turning of the light upon the walls of cities, of the crisp silvering of frost upon the grass, or the crackle of the hearthfire and the singing kettle boiling to make tea. I learned that all these day to day magicks and mysteries, the homely, the wholesome, the nourishing ; these were mine too, if only I would accept them. In Elfhame, there is nothing comforting and cosy ; there is only terrible beauty, and enchanting song, wild revels and dreamy wandering all the night. There is never a warm bed, a hearty meal, a child’s hot sleepy limbs that you enfold as they murmur into dreams, comforted by your steady presence. None of this belongs to the Fae, and how they envy it. Their breasts are only perfect, they give no milk. Their sexes are only furled flowers and proud stamens, dripping with the ichor of unimaginable pleasure ; they bear no children, they are unfruitful. Just as I am. But for whatever strange design they had, they left me here among the Living Folk, and left me gifts and talents, and then left me to myself. I would sink or swim, depending on how well I learned to Pass. I did. It nearly killed me, but I did.

And now, though years have gone by of merely passing, merely trying to survive according to the Laws of Thisworld, I realise that I cannot renounce my Nature and my Inheritance either, but must be blessed and cursed to live between the worlds and cross back and forth the Hedge. Walk between the Worlds, and lead others on their journeys too, for I am that rarest of things, a Native Guide, the Familiar and the Strange, how one becomes the Other, so easily, so liquidly, so quicksilver, so elusive. That haunting strain of music, that little phrase that dallies just beyond our common hearing : I must not grasp at it, but only tune the ear to Nowhere, turn the Sight to vague and soft, and then I feel and hear and see the Things that go on all around us, around me, and they are mine and I am theirs. But I am my Human Family’s too, and there never was more Human, than the one who had to learn it as a Stranger.

We are more human, we live the joys and pains, the agonies and ecstasies more vividly, more raw, because we were never meant for these brute days, these nights of sweat and lust and blood; The Fae do not lust, nor mourn, they only tremble in an ever-yearning agony of Desire, that can never be satisfied, that can never be extinguished. Do I make myself clear? I hope not. I am not Clear, and Simple. I am Hidden, behind layers and layers and Veil after Veil and having once shed them all in a Ritual Dance, it becomes apparent there is no substance underneath, but a swirl of dead leaves and twigs, Autumn’s Leavings, and whoever me is, is already gone, vanished, always-already somewhere else.

Do I make sense? I know not, only the deepest, darkest senses, only the ones we learn early to discount, as leading us astray. The Ignis Fatus, the Fool’s Fire, that lights our way out upon the Marsh, away from the Path, and leads us to our Doom. Their Doom. We are the ones that hold the lantern, not the ones it leads astray. We are the strays, the Hidden Ways, the Fae.

And finally, all that being said, an envolée lyrique, there is the North, the Stone, the Tomb, the foul rag and bone shop of the heart, where we lie down where all the ladders start. The Silence of the Grave. The chthonos, the Underworld. This is the one that scares them the most, and this is the one they are all warning me about. Because She, the Veiled One, the Dark Lady, this is her Realm. Death, my Bride. Hella? Hekate? Persephone? All, and None. Black Annis, Mother Crone, Baba Yaga : they warned us about Her. But we know better. We know that long ago, there was a Deal Made with the Dark, and that only those of us who are Chosen can venture there, to pay the price and claim the prize. Most will lose their way, and that way madness lies. Most will die of horror, and, confronted by the rotting corpses and the carrion birds, the dank chill of the Tomb, Her Womb, will shudder and shut the door, and hang up charms against Her and Her many Daughters, for the Night is not their element. Most want to live by Day, and banish all thought of the long oblivion through which we all shall pass; She is the Void, and the Abyss : we have gazed into it, and It into Us, and we liked what we saw.

They warn you: there is a Dark Thing that sucks your lifeblood, it feeds upon you, your vital fluids are sapped, this way leads to disaster and destruction and despair. What little they know! If I open a wound upon my breast and bring the Darkling Bird to suckle at it, am I not blessed? If I leave my window open at night, and the Screech Owl, and the wildly wheeling bats, the Death-moth, the Conqueror Worm ; if all these come to my Call, the Toad, the Serpent, the crawling, lowly things, the things of Earth and Darkness, do they not see that I am Gifted, Chosen, Wise beyond compare? For who can call upon the Powers of Darkness in full knowledge that there is no Evil here, no Wrong, no Malice, only that which goes so far beyond those petty concepts. This is the Great Dark Before, the Silence After. This is the Night, Lila. This is the Formless, that came before the Firmament. This is the Chaos, the Materia, the Rotting, Fruitful Matter from which All Blooms. Spiders weave upon our skin, and skittering beetles spew from in our mouths.

The Ancients knew it, and the Few, today. This is not Performative Dark Aesthetics. This is pourriture, and rot, and decay, and the End of All Things. This is to embrace the glorious transience, and the Here and Now, sub specie aeternitatis. Small beneath the Sky at Night. In darkened sylvan amphitheatre, I, light headed, heavy footed, cast eyes to the Heavens, and reel beneath their void expanse. The Night. You know my thoughts on this ; it is where we are begotten, born, and die. It is our Last Home, the only one that will never cast us out. Under the cover of the Dark, beyond the Veil, we dream, we fuck, we whisper our names to each other, for nothing yet can take this away from us. 

And so that night, I went down to the Spring, to that little altar to Manannán, my patron, my foster father. There I called him in, and called in Aisling, my fetch-mate, my companion : in meditation and vision she showed herself to me, all arrayed in Autumn, flaming reds and browns, her hair alight with bronze and fire. She lay me down among the crisp dead leaves, and her berry-brown raiment did she open, and cast off, and her long lithe pale limbs did she entwine me with, and her wild-honey kisses did she bestow, and the crisp fur of her was like the moss upon the trees, and wept for me. But for all her lover-sister-companionable embraces, she knew I had to go much deeper and much darker, later that night. I drank a bottle of stolen wine, and reserved some to pour out for the Dead. 

In moonlight, in freezing cold, I went down between the mere and the frog-pond, and to the Ruins. There, where in the Summer it was Hidden by the flourishing weeds and wildflowers, the Winter had laid bare the entrance, a broken doorway set deep, now, in the Mound that Time has erected around what’s left of the old Keep. A deep door into the Undercroft. I had feared to go there before. Superstition, or a worry about how solid those walls are, about falling debris and masonry. Not now though. I went to it gladly. We had explored it, a little, by daylight with the children for our first time. I knew the lay of the Land.

Inside, the floor is wet earth, now, oozing mud from weeks of rain ; around, the cold damp stone is solid, the dirt floor mounting towards it in each corner. But towards the back of this underchamber, the floor rises, a pile of debris. In the middle of it, an opportune rock, a place to sit solidly ; I did, and faced the doorway, above which is a murder hole. The pale-lit door back out into the World reminded me of a great Keyhole, and I sat in the midst of the Dark, and looked towards this weak and silvery light from the door. And in my right hand, the grey-horn-handled knife, and in my left, the Faery Staff, fire-hardened. I sat in meditation, and let the Dark and Cold come in.

I sat in perfect stillness, and silence, and then my vision flickered out, my eyes half closed, and I could see nothing, but only Darkness Visible. I whispered, chanted, called Her in. Invocation. Drips of frigid water echoed in the corners of the Chamber. I was in Death’s Antechamber, I knew once more what it was to be a Soul that patiently awaits its Incarnation. I felt soft Veils of cold, cold silk sweep round me. I felt a whisper, rising, unutterable Silence. I spoke to Her. I went to her, not as a supplicant and subject, but as a Proud Magician and Warrior. I recited to Her all my titles, all my Traditions, all my Works of Hands and Days, for she does not wish me for an Acolyte or a Blind Slave ; no, she welcomes me, a Prodigal Son at last come home. A brother, a comrade, a lover. I intoned my titles and achievements, to show Her, yes, I am a worthy Mate for you.

There was a soft whisper of Wind around us now, even within the Chamber. I felt the Night draw Breath, and then exhale, and Her quiet chill breath upon the back of my neck. I threw myself into Her embrace, and it felt like Home. And I felt my body sway with the sublime power of it, the mystery and the madness of it. I bowed beneath its weight, and then leaned forward, as if my chin was drawn by a long slender finger, cold as ice, pale as corpse. And I felt her kiss. The soft, cold, blast of it, harnessed now into the gentlest of kisses; this is my body, this is my blood ; drink, eat, and be merry, for tomorrow, we die. 

I felt her kiss, even as I reached for it, yearned for it. Her cold and speaking tongue slithered into my mouth, and the pale and freezing life within sought echo in the Outside, and found it. And then, once done, I turned from the Stone Seat, and struggled up through the “hole in the Ritual Chamber”, above. I planted my staff as I clmbed, and struggled out through bindweed and ivy, and then brandished my knief int he RItual Chambner; bursting out of the “HOle in the Ground” I came back up into the air that seeme so suddenly crystal cold and  Clear. I was in the Ritual Chamber, under the Moon, once more. A bird fluttered and burst out of ivy and bays to flutterng explosion off into the Nihght. There were hootings and holerings.  I cast the Circle again, and thanked na, marbh, no o pj

My Love. I can barely keep conscious; the Dark is pulling me in iince again. I myst wwrllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

[the communiqué ends here, trailing off into the Dark of the Unconscious …]

MARK DEVLIN

Born in Australia to Irish parents, Mark Devlin spent most of his childhood in Ireland, with occasional spells in the United States. As a child, he was obsessed with fantasy literature and roleplaying games, but kicked the habit in his mid-teens, when he realised that sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, and being a Dungeon Master, were mutually exclusive. He would still read The Earthsea Trilogy at least once a year, but he didn’t talk about it. After studying English and Philosophy at University College Cork, he became a secondary school teacher in an all-girls Catholic school and started a theatre company. When his nerves couldn’t take it anymore, he applied for a position as a lecteur in English literature at Université de Paris-Nouvelle Athènes. One thing led to another, and he ended up getting sucked in by academia again. Initial enthusiasm gave way to diffidence and procrastination, and he defended his very pedestrian thesis in 2015, after spending five years researching irrelevant and esoteric topics in the dark corners of the internet and furtively reading RPG forums, and one year desperately typing the thing that he ended up calling his dissertation.

Eventually, he gave up pretending and started writing a fantasy novel. He very much enjoys hiking and camping, and communing with Nature. He lives in Montmartre with his wife and two children. He works as a Passeur, a Guide and Translator, a Smuggler across borders of people, ideas, culture.