aithne | happy Solstice!

And in honor of the occasion (I've posted this before, but hey, it's topical):

imrama na anam

Kneel at the first gate.
Taste the stories of those who
have gone before, the names
of the remembered and forgotten.
Carry two coins for Charon,
a silver dagger for Scathach,
a length of linen and a handful of resin for Isis.
A blindfold, lest you come upon Orpheus.
A cloth for Loki's fevered brow.

Take the hand of the oak-crowned king
and lead him down into the darkness.
The staircase is long, and the man
is withered; patience is required
to pass through all of the gates.

Your living heart is the only thing
that flutters here, in the realm
where you walk in the shadows of bones
ancient and strange. The second gate
is the gate of remembering, and the third gate
the gate of forgetting.

Past the third gate, there is a dark river.
Pay the boatman, move on.

The fourth gate is leavetaking.
The fifth is breath; the sixth is absence.

Tell the man who walks slowly beside you,
it won't be long now.
Mean it, though it is untrue.

At the seventh gate, there are things
dark and bright that mutter with bladed voices
to the missing moon. Fear them, but walk past anyway.
The eighth gate holds something sleeping.
Walk quietly, lest it come awake.

There is a boy at the ninth gate.
He has a knife in his hand.

Wait. The confrontation is swift and fatal.

The ninth gate is a choice; forward, or back?
Forward and like Kore you may never return.
Back and like Osiris you may discover
what you have left behind.

But if you turn your back on perfection
and walk upwards, retracing your steps
with a holly-crowned boy at your side,
you will begin to hear once more:

the thin wind in high places
the thousands of stories that have gone before
the turning world relit with candles
the slumbering heartbeat of the world.

Kris Millering, 2005