Do not what you desire -
do what is necessary.
Take all you are given -
give all of yourself.
What I have I hold!
When all else is lost, and not until then,
prepare to die with dignity.
do what is necessary.
Take all you are given -
give all of yourself.
What I have I hold!
When all else is lost, and not until then,
prepare to die with dignity.
- + Robert Cochrane
Ifá states that we are all born good and blessed. Baudelaire said in one of his prose writings that we are all marked for evil. I believe both are right. Ifá further describes iwa – conscience or mind as immature and curious. I believe this is right. And then we have Eros, devil of Venus of the winged heart with arrow and bow that makes life a dance of growth and love. In this dance we are constantly charged in relation to the promise of birth and our mark – in other words there is a battle between manifesting our immortality and sharing our immortality – but not sharing so much that we experience a loss of Self. In this enters the essence of Lilith which frustrates our desires and Self concepts. She dares us to be ruthlessly honest. This is why she is considered prime evil. That daring honesty kills even ourselves – if we are honest…
Lilith brings to us the essence of desire and necessity. She is the consequence of possibility and spirit of phrenzy. She is the angel who took hold of Dionysus and contaminated his maenads and she is the spirit of exile and holy draught that intoxicates at the edge and end of all worlds.
In doing this she provides an example in St. Sebastian, who in the Christian mythology was martyred by treason – while in reality he was given up by friends who broke their word. Seeing that all was lost – he prepared to die with dignity…
And for him dignity was the word and the cure. And as such he gave his flesh to be subject for the death of Cupid – a thousand arrows that melted his flesh into honey so sweet that the beloved Irene took him to her house… and here nursed him back to celestial ecstasy.
It is said that Sebastian and Irene were sanctified for the rescue of Marcellian and Mark, Roman Converts to Christianity, that I understand from the purely mythological material in Christianity as being a rescue of the Marassa, the divine twins, the hands of God that restitute the world constantly. And in this I say only, Aybobo, because so much can be said as I give my silence in this day of St. Sebastian.