The walls of (un)Familiar were decorated with poems and quotations which express some part of pagan or psychic experience. I decided to quote them on the website as well, so that benighted foreigners living beyond the reach of Edinburgh's fair(ish) city could still share that experience - could immerse themselves in the "touch of strange" which underpinned life as she was lived at (un)Familiar.
I have not yet got around to asking for formal permission to reproduce these, though I hope to do so eventually. I don't think there should be any serious copyright issues, though, because the poems are reproduced here without any commercial purpose, and serve as advertisements for the different authors concerned, bringing them to a new audience and with any luck bringing them new sales!
[Strictly speaking both the shop and the website were commercial of neccessity, since the shop had to pay for itself in an attempt to survive: but that wasn't its primary motivation, and certainly not the motivation for displaying these poems. If we had taken the poems down I don't suppose we would have lost a single sale thereby: we showed them only to share the sacred, luminous/numinous mood they create.]
in the beginning was nothing but fire and ice
when they came together, they made a sound
from that sound, everything else was born
sound is a horse: you can ride it where you want to go
Vanir creation myth
OM The Upanishads |
The House of the Hare
At the time I was four years old Naomi Mitchison |
The Good Shepherd
Because he would not abandon the flock for a lost sheep
Still, I knew there was only a thin line
During the day I lived my life in clover Stanley Moss |
The Green Man
Like antlers, like veins of the brain the birches
The hungry birds harry the last berries of rowan
The ashes are clashing their boughs like sword-dancers,
The alders are rattling as though ready for battle |
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In and out of the yellowing wands of the willow
The hedges of quick are thick with may blossom |
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Green Man becomes grown man in flames of the oak
The holly is flowering as hayfields are rolling
The hazels are rocking the cups of their nuts |
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The globes of the grapes are robing with bloom
The aspen drops silver of leaves on earths salver
The reedbeds are flanking in silence the islands
The bark of the elder makes whistles for children William Anderson [this poem he believes was communicated by the Green Man himself] |
Borolin
when the days of my childhood were dark
and I dreamed that I
lion that paces the green shade
and I dreamed that I
soul of the woods and the fields |
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Claire Jordan [describes something which happened to my assistant Dee, not to me] |
To Juan at the Winter Solstice
There is one story and one story only
Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,
Water to water, ark again to ark,
Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,
Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Much snow is falling, winds roar hollowly,
Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling, Robert Graves |
The Children of Cerridwen
We came then
We sought your presence on the wild hills of the north
O Mother of Mystery,
I am the hare, which leaps for thee beneath the moon Traditional ?? - this version from Wicca The Old Religion in the New Age by Vivianne Crowley |
Hanes Taliesin
Primary chief bard am I to Elphin,
I was with my Lord in the highest sphere,
I have been in Asia with Noah in the ark,
I have been with my Lord in the manger of the ass;
I have obtained the muse from the cauldron of Ceridwen;
Then I was for nine months |
Amergin's Charm
I am a stag: of seven tines, |
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I am a spear: that roars for blood, |
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I am the womb: of every holt, Robert Graves [reconstructed from mediaeval Irish & Welsh variants] |
The Rune of St Patrick The Faedh Fiada or The Cry of the Deer
At Tara in this fateful hour |
Stone and Fern
It is not that the sea lanes
Roads, but that I have listened
Who you are. And I have answered Leslie Norris |
Temps Perdu
I never may turn the loop of a road
I never behold the quivering rain -
There's never a rose spreads new at my door
The look of a laurel tree birthed for May Dorothy Parker |
There exists something that fits nowhere
There exists something that fits nowhere
See the waves under the sky. Storm is surface
There are universes, suns and atoms.
There is peace beyond all. Gunnar Ekelöf, trans. Robert Bly |
Druid Prayer for the Newly Dead
May your journey to the Summerlands, the Isles of the Blessed, to the heart of the God/dess, to the land of freedom and splendour, be swift and sure. You are blessed, you are blessed, you are blessed.
We ask that the blessing of the Spirits of the Tribe and of the Ancestors, of Time and of Place and of the Journey be with you.
We ask that the blessing of the Spirits of North and South, East and West be with you.
We ask that you might be blessed with fire and with water, with earth and with air and with Spirit.
We ask for the blessing of the Lord and Lady of the Animals and the Woods, the mountains and the streams,
And we ask that the blessing of the Uncreated One, of the Created Word, and of the Spirit that is the Inspirer, be always with you.
By the beauty of the fields, the woods and the sea, by the splendour that is set upon all that is, we send you our love and blessings. Go safely, go well, go surely. Our hearts are with you. There is no separation.
from druidry.org, posted w. re. the September 11th terrorist attacks
God is alive
God is alive. Magic is afoot.
God never sickened.
God was ruler
Many hurt men wondered.
Magic is afoot. God is afoot.
Though laws were carved in marble
But Magic would not tarry.
Many men drove magic |
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This I mean to whisper to my mind. Leonard Cohen |
This poem was famously set to music by Buffy St Marie. The original text by Leonard Cohen, from his book Beautiful Losers, was not broken into lines but was otherwise exactly as shown here, except that the marked lines read "Magic is afoot. God rules. Alive is afoot. Alive is in command." I have gone with Buffy St Marie's revision here, because IMO it reads much better than the original.
[On the subject of whether or not to believe in magic]
Them as believes nothing is seldom disappointed: but they do miss a lot of action.
Nicholas Stuart Gray
[mid 20th C children's fantasy author & playwright]