The Western Gate

To Curse a person and cause their downfall.

Foreword: In lucid dream, over years I began crafting rituals, and then pathworking the strange avenues of the Qabbalah, and then also the wanderings of the wayfarer, at last, as the sun set I wandered to the western gate where I came upon a garden, and there would do no more than discourse with the wanderers too, that happened upon its sanctuary.

I sat amongst the secluded garden, a strange call of a bird, it appeared over in the corner where a small sunken pond was hidden from view, the Royal Ibis bird looked upon its own reflection, broke the stillness of the water with its fine beak and observed each ripple reproducing, each subsequent child ripple, perhaps slightly distorted or slight askew from the original. In stillness they were all the same. It looked over to me and then to the figure next to me, Rumi had come and sat there observing the bird, he said nothing of the contrived philosophy occurring in this imagery, and I spoke

” I wish to know”, I said hesitantly, ” of curses, of hexes, of the conjuring of maladies…”

Rumi never once objected, or snapped his fingers to halt the question, never berated me.

He looked deep into a scene before him that I could not see, his mind wandering through the corridors of ancient libraries where wisdom and testament arose as imagery and a play, and his only task was to relay what he saw.
” Now a dabbler in the finest arts,” he began, ” though many would say the dark… for all things unknown come from the shadows, you see, so wished to curse one, whose very presence and influence in his life caused calamities afoot, and attrition.
For him the path was clear, to damn and curse and spit and stamp and belittle and destroy.
With eagerness and power, with all the regalia and sympathy known to him he cursed the subject by full moons light and watched its spirit wither to the black moon as day by day he abused a created effigy baptised in the victims name, the model of clay drawn from earth upon which the adversary walked, and then watched it wither away under running water, sinking slowly into the abyss, he would pluck the model, and gently offer it solace, a sickening false display of pity, before cruelly consigning it to the Earth with laughter and betrayal, the hitherto seeming sympathy, at night the effigy buried in the earth was enamoured by the moon, empowering its destruction as she waned, her reflective light casting no hope of illumination.
You see, even in the daylight, there are shadows, but in the darkness… there is no light. The approaching dark moon casting a poison over the effigy, the nemesis, the queen of shadow that breeds every fear living in the corner of our wardrobes or darkest recess under our bed, the crawling snatching spectres in the attics where all things discarded breed.
The creatures of the soil in which the damned effigy was entombed , clawed, and trod and burrowed and further ate away, gnawed at the buried clay model imbued with scent familiar to the adversary, clothed also in cloth stolen from the adversary, carved with the runes of favour to destruction, the sickle, the empty sand timer, the tombstone, the skull.
…and clothed it was also , with poisonous herbs, to sink into its body, to eat away its soul, the flora to the fauna….
Day by Day he cursed and rejoiced at his power, visualising his name in huge boardwalk lights and the adversaries underneath it, smaller, a child like scrawl, he visualised his statue, huge and magnificent and the adversaries but a speck, a slave hoping to be acknowledged by the person whose statue now overwhelmed him.”

And Rumi continued, his emotions at times raging, describing the downfall, the horror, at times I understood somewhat how… how this obsession with someone’s power over you was irrelevant, why would it so concern you, why devote your life to feeding that oppression. Rumi was animate, acting as a shaman, waving his hands emulating the signs of destruction, the wielding of the scythe, the severing of the throat, the clasping hands to entomb the adversary….
The Ibis bird flew near to see the spectacle
Rumi stopped and looked at the bird, its delicate beak that so created from the gentlest of probes a magnificent dance, that echoed, repeated and returned upon the stillness of the water.

“Of course…..” said Rumi acknowledging something the Ibis bird had taught him, for in this garden, as it were, we are all of the same song.

Rumi looked at me, quite a different aura emanating from within, a different and altogether serene soul from the figure of hate previous as he had relayed the tale of the black alchemist conjuring destruction, “…. Of course,” began Rumi again acknowledging the Ibis with an outstretched hand as an offering, ” Instead of willing the destruction of the adversary, one could, just as well, wish everyone in the adversaries circle of acquaintances to be exceedingly happy, content, such that everyone who the adversary came into contact with was joyous, and full of love and light. Would those ripples not return and break the boundaries of his enclosure?”