The Western Gate

I had not consciously tried to lucid dream, I did not watch myself slip into sleep and into the dreamworld. I was already asleep and then in dream I realised I was dreaming. I looked at my hand to see them melt like the wicked witch of the East. “I wish,” I said to the dream, “To meet Thoth..” There was no movement.
“Illuminate, make clear, come forth Thoth”

“Put away that book” said Thoth.
Though I couldn’t understand what language he spoke I seemed to know what he meant. The words I remembered sounded like “Toopoo Sooloou Nadi”, I remembered this phrase as it was the first thing he said to me, but all others I dismissed, instead, remembering only the context of what was being asked of me. I cannot say that every time he spoke a mental image of what he said spontaneously arose, it were just that …I knew… and yet, I don’t know how I knew. Or why.
I was writing in my journal, or more perhaps, my own grimoire, it looked as though I was at the beginning, pictures of the ‘tools of the craft’.
“What need?” said Thoth.
“To remember,” I replied.
Thoth looked at some of the drawings I had made.
“Answer this, The knife, the wand, the pantacle, the cup.
When you eat what does the knife do?”
“It severs, it reduces, it cuts, attacks.”
“And the wand, the stang or the fork?”
“It holds, it assists, it keeps still, and directs.”
“And the pantacle that plate?”
“It collects, it stores, it gifts.”
“And the cup, the chalice.”
“It nurtures, it restores, it enlivens.”
” And, so, again I ask, of what use then is a book?”
“To remember? to write the tale that others may see.”
“hast thou no mind, are they too the fools that need be lead”
“It is my progress… my wandering.”
“Fare thee well,” said Thoth, ” Then I give you one page, write well…”
At once he told me of the birth of existence. It were not as darkness where one light exploded into the dark firmament, one thought, one singularity that reached out, and the story I knew well, that consciousness itself arose and cried aloud, “What am I?” and to see itself, to know itself divided that by reflection it would understand, and thereupon all existence came into being. Yet Thoth, although did not dismiss this imagery showed another, that exactly, simultaneously and all at once, billions of lights were lit. They came not from one point, but of their own station, yet each and all acted in unison.
“There was no point, no big bang” said Thoth, ” eternal is this dance…”
I saw again, billions and billions of illuminations, in unison alight and each then danced with others, well, of that image I cannot say, but the whole of creation spontaneously arose, and it were just that I knew… and yet, I don’t know how I knew. Or why.

Header Image ~ excerpt from, The Starry Night ~ Vincent Van Gogh ~ 1889