Udhjat-Cleopatra Selene

(The words that follow are my version of historical truth, it is true that Cleopatra 'Queen of Kings and the Living Isis' bore twin children to Marc Anthony. These children of hers were Aleksander Helios ( lord of the sun) and Cleopatra Selene (mistress of the moon). When the vengeful Roman's invaded Egypt and destroyed the Pharos Lighthouse and the Great Library of Alexandria, she commited suicide and her children were taken to Rome to be part of Octavius's victory parade. The young Aleksander Helios ran away and history bears no further record of him. Cleopatra Selene however went on to become absolute monarch of Muaritianna and wife to a son of Julius Caesar. Her face appears on coins and she single handedly moved the centre of Isis worship to Muaritianna by building the world's largest temple to her great goddess. History records that Octavius favoured Selene and she was a favourite of the people of Rome and all it's provinces. This was largely due to the spread of the Isis cult. In these pre- christian days worship of Isis had spread to almost all parts of the known world, shades of Isis were celebrated in all the great goddess worshipping regions. Now the cool thing was that in texts found in Isis temples dated years before Selene's birth, her birth was prophesized and she was meant to be a great liberator of her people and a warrior for Isis. Cleopatra even dedicated her infant daughter to Isis following the letter of the prophecy. The records and monuments sill stand in Egypt today. All documents around Selene note some common things: she was a warrior princess with fearsome fighting skills, she worshipped Isis all her days and She single handedly revived and kept the cult of Isis alive in the face of advancing monotheist religions like (Christianity and Islam). She dissappeared during a sea voyage and was survived by her son.
Whether she was the favoured of Isis or had the magical powers Isis was noted for is unknown but I found her real life story so fascinating I made a myth just for her! )


Selene Isis of the House of Ptolemy was tired. Her back muscles roared with fire, her arms ran slick with gore, great gouts of blood anointed her armor, yet she still braced herself for more. Just a fortnight past she had been a resident of Alexandria, greatest of ancient cities. A princess, the daughter of Cleopatra herself. Selene was a priestess of Isis Most High, like her mother before her,. Promised to the goddess from the day of birth, her mother had prophesized that Selene would change the fate of the world. She had walked the paths of the seven mysteries. She had read from the millions of scrolls gathered in the Great Library of Aleksandria, and studied at the feet of great thinkers from around the known world, who had gathered about her enlightened mother like moths to a flame. She still remembered the late night discussions where her mother would discuss the spirit of discovery, of growth and research that she wished to cultivate in her Egypt. Selene could still see the wonder on the faces of sailors who came to the port of Aleksandria, and thanked the Gods for the Wonder of the Pharos Light House. She had been revered amongst the Egyptian people as the a living embodiment of Isis, The All Mother.

Today she was a prisoner of Rome . She had been brought over the seas in the dark underbelly of Roman vessels still clad in her blood stained mourning robes. She had been paraded through the Roman Streets as a sign of Octavian's victory over the 'serpent' Queen Cleopatra. She had been beaten bloody for not bowing and starved for her insolence. The had delighted in laying the lash on the 'heathen'. She could still picture that Roman Armor on the streets of her home. The dying men who were left to rot in streets, with out the proper burial rights. The shrieks as women were raped. The 'heathen' bled but she did not cry out for what could compare to watching Aleksandria burn.

She remembered the Emperor Octavian's boastful speech at the forum, 'He had not taken even a cup out of darkest Egypt' but her mothers famed pearls hung on his wife's neck and her golden bracelets wend around his wrists. The Romans had risked the curse of Isis herself by daring to rob the tombs of Aleksandria's dead. Though even more than the loss of their treasures, more than the torture of watching the great library burn, Selene felt the loss of Isis. For even as the soldiers dragged her away, she felt Isis slip away from her. For all her days, Selene had walked with Isis, she had known the bliss of a deep personal relationship with Isis, she had felt the warmth of the goddess radiate from her like living thing. The familiar warmth of the Heka, source of all her magickal power and evidence of her connection to the Great Goddess was gone. The comfortable ease of having Isis's spirit touch her own, was gone. She felt like an empty cup and in the space where the Goddess had been, Selene spilled anger. Anger for her family, anger for her people, anger for her Aleksandria and anger for all Egypt.

When the Roman soldiers had brought her to the great arena of gladiators, They brought her to die. The General announced her as 'the illegitimate daughter of the whore of Egypt Cleopatra'. Selene had not known the purpose this great space, her mother had would have been horrified at this killing for sport, in front of baying crowds driven wild with blood lust. Isis was the All Mother even the animals which died here for sport were part of her great circle. Such senseless death was unthinkable in Egypt. The Rows upon rows of Roman Citizens had jeered and spat at her as the soldiers had shoved her roughly in the arena. The women had gasped at the protection tattoos that flowed down her arms, the beads of lapis bound in her hair and the sigil of the Wadjet eye on her neck that marked her a priestess. Selene had borne it all, her head held high as if the double crowns of Egypt sat upon it, her steady Nile green gaze on the emperor in his golden box. She remembered her mothers last words to her the same words writ over the doors to Isis's temple: 'Daughter, Thou art a Queen of Kings!'. Selene knew that to each Roman eye watching, She was Egypt and Egypt did not bow! They had first pitted her against a Nubian slave girl. Selene watched the emperor sit forward waiting for her blood to spill to the sand. Drawing her sword from its belt, she offered the Nubian women, the salute of the honorable death. Egypt would not die today.

The first fight was swift, Selene trained in the killing arts of all the five peoples, used force with deadly precision. The house of Ptolemy did not raise frightened cosseted women, Selene was descended from a line of Queens who had led armies into battle. Inside her lay the Fury of Cleopatra's defeat of the Hysops , her victory over the Nubians, her triumphs over the Pathans, her mothers fury boiled in her blood. After Selene's first kill, came the Gladiators, trained to murder. Selene swung her blade like a deadly whirl wind. Destruction followed the deadly swing of her beaded hair. She cut a bloody swathe in the wall of muscled destroyers. Her sword slashing through muscle, crushing through bones, as she hamstrung a large Mediterranean looking giant. She grabbed his double edged kitana, with a blade in each hand, she brought forth floods of blood staining the arena red. Selene felt glorious, in the full roar of battle, each strike of her fatal blades, a strike into the heart of Rome. In the full flight of her battle frenzy, Selene could no longer hear the crowd of gladiator arena regulars, the Romans were silent. Selene was killing like a battle born goddess, the rabble was silent. She looked like a thing out their worst nightmares, a woman killing like an instinctual predator, their women were possessions things to be traded in marriage for wealth and position, Selene was nothing they recognized as female. Selene not hear the silence of the rabble, she did not hear the king order in the animals, the sound of her own heartbeat drummed in her head and though her hands were slick with blood, she never loosened her hands on the cross guards. And as the caged beasts were set free, she thrust her swords heavenward, the arena thundered with her cry: for Isis!
As the last echoes of Selene's cry echoed through the packed arena, Octavian understood why her mother had conquered Caesar and disarmed Mark Antony, she had been like her daughter: unshakable and without fear. Selene stood unmoved as the tide of every beast the African plain had to offer stormed toward her. She regretted that they would die, but she know she must kill or be killed. With a roar of her own, she launched herself across the arena. As she ran Selene felt something she had missed in all the long darkness of Rome. She felt Isis, in the soft scent of sandalwood that danced in the air, in the warmth that rolled in her veins. Isis walked with her again, the same yet, something was infinitely different. Selene felt the familiar warmth of her magick gather in her belly, hotter that before, ferocious like the flames of a smith forge.
Selene was bent double in pain, the gathering of Hekka laid her low. The animals drew closer still. The silent Roman crowd was almost disappointed, they wanted the bloody and fury of her battle fever. The animals were almost upon her now, but Selene saw naught.
Her bowed body still slumped in the sand but her spirit stood in a space she did not know. Before her she saw the green waters of the Inundated Nile, she saw the millions of incandescent sparks as the life-bearing sunshine touched the waters that seemed to swirl before her. She saw the life that teemed in the Nile, the cold slide of alligators, The multitudes of crystal scaled fish, the hippopotami that yawned on her banks, the leaping antelope that drank on her banks, at peace with the desert lions garlanded in pale gold manes. She felt the frisson of joy that swept through Egypt at the fertility, at the life that was unleashed. Then the picture changed she saw the crops wither on the stalk, the dry salt caked mud of the riverbanks grow white with dehydration, the animals weakened fall to sword and claw, eventually the people grew gaunt and died

, not only the diverse people of Egypt but she saw the great emperors of Rome, unable to feed their massive empire, Egypt the breadbasket of Rome was finally spent.

(Selene's storry will reach completion next week!)

The stairs unfurl before me like they have materialized from the very air itself, I know that it is simply the mist thinning but the castle before me is swathed in legend thicker than the perpetual mist surrounding it and it is all too easy to believe the stories. The insubstantial silk of the wedding gown swirls on the wind and I draw my whisper thin veil closer to my bare shoulders. This is not the vision I had of my wedding night. Just a day past, I had been a peasant girl of the Village-in-the-Mist. I had done the things all other girls do, filling the water, getting the evening meal for my father and brothers, a normal work a day life. I had no dreams of the castle of the hill or it’s notorious master. I had never participated in the Choosing, the ceremony that happened whenever a wife was required for whoever the lord of the keep was in need of a wife. I had never fancied the longevity of the job! Yet here I was climbing up the stairs to the keep, officially wed by proxy to the Beast of the Mists. When his Lordships man had knocked on the cottage door, my father had welcomed him with the finest mead and bread, and shaken hands over a deal that would make him the richest man in our village. Yes, for bolts of Orient silk, gold and gems, my father had sold me to the Beast. He had dismissed my fears and signed on the banns. My brothers brought me as far as the knights would allow, and now as the feast fires burned bright in the village far below I was climbing to an unknown fate.

The pale disk of a winter moon finally crept over the horizon and in the rising dark, the stone crags of the Lair became visible. The castle rose from the mountain like a great dagger, each of the windows illuminated with the yellow light of tallow candles. I had expected a waiting party, some servants, or at least a knight but the castle doors remained shut. Their iron studded exteriors seemed forbidding in the extreme. I briefly considered running back down the jagged stairs, back to the confines of my room with the white drapes, but the retribution of the Beast and the fate of my brothers, the youngest of whom had cried when leaving me at the monastery, stopped my steps. I knocked firmly on the door and stood back. The door opened silently, and silhouetted in the light streaming from the castles empty door, stood a woman I recognized from the village. During the witch-hunts, priests from outside our village had come despite protests from our own monks, they had picked out women from our village. Women like Goodwife Riche, who had saved my mother’s life when my youngest brother came into the world feet first, were tried and uniformly killed. Despite the women of our village protesting , the men had lit the pyres, I still remembered my mothers cries ad Goodwife Riche burned. She stood before me whole and unharmed. The jagged crevice of fear inside my belly opened wider, I looked in wide eyed terror for an escape, from this place where the dead seemed to walk whole! Was Goodwife Riche a ghost, a vampire? The legends of the Beast must be true! I thought hard to vespers and the lord’s prayer, of which I remembered naught! Goodwife Riche looked at me, my heart stopped as she reached across the threshold to touch my face. She touched the curve of my face and exclaimed in her low voice: ‘Ava Lisabeth’s Daughter, I never thought I would see those grey eyes again.’ Goodwife Riche had been there at my birth, her blue eyes had been the first to see the silver grey of my pupils. Her hand was warm and her voice still stirred my memories, I allowed myself to be drawn over the threshold.

I reasoned that the fate of being shunned that awaited me in the village, could not be worst than the fate that awaited me in the castle. My father would surely shun me, if I came back and he had to return my bride price. No one would dare trade with me or help me plough, if I returned I would surely die. If I stayed, I was warm and though I would eventually die I would satisfy the one question that had been burning in my mind since I was in my 13th year. That day had been the first time the monks had allowed me in the Vespers. The library was filled with stories and I desperately wanted to read. Only my brothers knew their letters and numbers and then too only enough to trade and keep the records of births and deaths, reading was a luxury few men indulged in, and no women was allowed to read.
Widow Gwen who lived on the edge of our village had always been kind to me, often when I was fetching water, she would give me warm ginger bread, as I had grown up and after my mother passed, she had taught me fine sewing and cooking, and whilst I practiced she had read out aloud from large tomes she kept hidden in the floor of her cottage. The books had to be kept secret for it was a crime a women could be beaten for, but I loved her stories. The tale she loved to tell was of Nephilium, a race of angels who had loved man so much they had remained on earth, to teach them the ways of civilization. Certain Nephilium had even loved and married mortal women, producing children who safeguarded mortals and had the angelic wings of their fathers though not in golden white but inky black. Her stories made me forget that my father would not let me ride, or made me wear a veil on market day. She had taught me certain letters and with much help I could sound out words but I longed to look at the strange symbols and make tales. When Widow Gwen had told me of the library at Vespers, I had to see, walls of books! I had completed my chores early and whilst my brother s and father made the journey to market two nights away, I had used our oldest horse to ride Vespers. The monks were kindly though a little surprised, a bent old monk had brought me to the library. I had slid out the first book with a red leather binding, it was unwieldy but somehow I brought it to the table. The library was empty, so I began to sound out my letters to read the richly illuminated page.

The sound behind me had informed me that someone else was in the room. I had turned at once, afeared of finding a monk to throw me out or my father to drag me home, it had been the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. His eyes were luminous and golden, the planes of his place carved perfectly , my breathe caught in my throat. It was the time when I had first noticed boys, but none of the boys had the grace or dignity of the golden eyed boy. He had sat down beside me and helped me sound out the letters. In the weeks that followed each market day I had returned to Vespers and each week he had come, until one day whilst we were reading , a woman’s voice had sounded from outside the room. ‘Gabriel’ The boy had turned and left, and in the all the times I returned to Vespers, he had never returned. His seat empty next to me had worried me, had he been punished? All I knew was his name, and even as I became a young woman and my father had offers for my hand. The golden eyed boy had haunted my dreams. I imagined all a manner of fates, maybe the Beast of the Lair had captured and harmed the golden eyed boy. Maybe the golden eyed Gabriel was killed by the Beast! Now as I followed the Goodwife Riche into the Beast’s Lair, I could finally question my husband, The Beast, had he murdered the golden eyed boy?

Goodwife Riche chattered away as she led me up the Lair’s great curving staircases, she was as she had always been. I longed to ask her how she was alive, but I wondered whether this question would lead me to dungeon somewhere. The walls of the Lair were not the gloomy stoney crags the stories spoke of, they were finely painted and hung with all a manner of art. Torches lit all the sconces and the fires created warmth that quickly dissipated the goose bumps on my skin. In all the village there had never been rooms like these. The richness and comfort were overwhelming. The Beast was certainly wealthy, from the gold and jewels paid for my bride price and the finely armored knights that had escorted me to Vespers, I had guessed at his holdings but now in the light of his Lair, I now realized he had amassed far more coin than one man could in a lifetime. Surely this coin was ill gotten gain, no man through ploughing and trade would amass such wealth. I was now the mistress of a lot of coin of dubious origin. As I passed row upon row of armored portraits each with eyes that seemed to glow out the frame, my fear increased, Goodwife Riche finally opened the door to a room at the end of this long hall. She let me into a bright room and intoned mysteriously yet with a strange smile: ‘his lordship will be with you soon’. I expected to find myself inside a bedroom, the girls who had dressed me had told with giggles of the night, yet the thought of the Beast of the Lair ran my blood cold. I shut my eyes and prayed my hardest not to the male god of Vespers but to the old Goddess the women of my village prayed to. I prayed that this wedding night would not be the last night I took breathe. Anyways I comforted myself, if I died I have at least seen more in these few hours than the women of the village saw in a lifetime, I had read great works and brought wealth to my father.

As I opened my eyes I exclaimed in delight, instead of the shadowy bedroom of my imaginings I found myself in a library! A great bright room, filled from floor to ceiling with books of great variety. I was overwhelmed by the sheer luxury of these unread books waiting for me, even if the Beast was beastly, these books reassured me, for what evil would choose to spend so much time and coin on books! I heard the door of the library open and then shut with a soft snick. I turned at once. Before me his golden gaze in a finely planed face was Gabriel. He still was the most beautiful but he was now a man. A man the likes of which had never been seen in all of the world. I gazed at him in wonder,
‘ The silver eyed girl’
He smiled at me crossing the room in slow relaxed strides. As he came to a stop almost nose to nose with me.
‘The Golden eyed boy’
He smiled down at me, and I looked at him his skin seemed to glint with metallic glimmers, his black hair glowed with a life of its own. He was too beautiful to be real, I was at once elated and afeared, I drew back from him until my back hit the shelves. Surely the Beast was using magic to become the boy who had become the object of my musings for years. The smile melted into a rueful look as he began to unbutton his shirt, as his fingers unclasped his silver buttons, I felt a strange compulsion to reach over to him, yet I was strangely afraid, the human I was did not recognize him as one of us. As he drew his shirt from his shoulders, wings unfurled from his shoulder. I opened my mouth to speak but the word escaped on a breathe
‘Nephilium’


My entire body shook, Window Gwen’s stories were true, and before me was a real Nephillium. He gazed at me waiting for me to speak, yet I could not. Discovering someone you had thought of incessantly for 10 years was actually a mythical creature, had an impact the likes of which I cannot express in mere words. He gazed at me, the light in those golden eyes fading, he began to draw his shirt back on as he spoke:
‘You will be settled in the nearest town, with enough gold to live a wealthy life, the knights will escort you on the morrow’
He was sending me away? I did not want to leave the golden eyed boy when I had just found him.
‘You do not wish to escape the village, it was what the other women wished’
At once it dawned upon me, the Lord, the Beast had not married and disposed of many women, the women chosen had always been those at risk of beatings , those who could be possibly burned as witches. He had used his reputation and his wealth to rescue these women. I crossed the room at once.
‘I wish to escape the village, but I am married to you’
The dizzing smile returned.
‘I have waited a whole lifetime to marry you, Ava. Looked forever for the girl with silver eyes, and now I have found you. Even as my wings came in and I couldn’t return to Vespers, I never stopped searching for you.’
As he enveloped me in the double embrace of his arms and his wings, I felt the sense of comfort that Gabriel had always given me. At last together the golden eyed boy and the silver eyed girl, who had met in fairytales found each other in the hard world outside it’s pages.

A Love Letter...

In the circle of those fine made arms, crafted and soothed by divine fingers, watching the sinuous motion of your muscles I arrived home, to the place that saw to the very soul of me. The soft meeting place, where your neck flows into your shoulder which holds evidence of my secret tears, there lies the heart of the riddle that is me. Your face is an impossible dream, I have chased all my days.

In the low words you speak only to me, in whispered admissions and the sunshine of our laughter is the salvation of this jaded heart. You are the silent contemplation of a painting so fine made, my human eyes can not accept that such perfection stalks the blighted earth. Seeing the multitudes of beauties in you, brings me faith in a higher thing. The touch of calloused hands cupped in the curve of my face, just for the feel of my skin, infinitely more precious than all the gems in all the world. Reciting sonnets in the language of touch, brings me to tears, making me remember the thrill of first things. Making me pure. Enslave me with out games, no manipulations, the clean edges of your want breaking down my walls.

Engaged this razor mind, laying your heart open, talking truths to me, making my spirit name you its equal. Equal to me, unafraid and unbowed, you are the master here, and I give you dominion of this place, of me. That you see my deep six darkness and walk with me in the absence of light, makes my cynic mind acknowledge miracles. Among the masses you alone are anointed with the love undying, that would give my life to preserve yours.

You are my Knight, My Precious Thing, A Forever After and I am unafraid. I gamble it all, render down the treasure of this life for this one chance to walk your paths. Iam the salt of the tears you can not cry, I go with you whether you descend to hell or climb the stairways of heaven.

Unattainable legend, You are the love I deserve, My equal, Body, Mind and Spirit...Although like a legend, you exist inside the confines of my mind. The way I think Love should be, With out artifice, free of one up man ship, soul deep. Devastating and recreating...

why...

"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light."


The eternal quest for man has always been immortality... Everyone wishes to live forever. To be eternal and unchanging. Not a brief blink but a long unflinching gaze. The motivation behind it all is a deathly fear of being forgotten, for it to have been as if you never existed...
Mortal life is so transient that we seek every possible way, to leave a mark, something to remind the universe that brief and sputtering though it may have been, our lights shone. The secret to immortality does not lie in alchemy, occult practises or preserving your skin using chemicals...
True immortality lies in legacy, those we have loved, the lives we have touched, the joys we engineered!
The secret is not in length of life but in how it was lived.
Life is a secretive mistress and only the brave may glimpse her true face.
A life lived in fear is a life half lived...Love recklessly and often as if your heart has never known hurt, be that free joyful thing that confounds the world. Those who are afraid of life can never embrace life, fear of thing will never grow in to love from the thing...
There is light unknown in you, potentials, places... whole multiverses of the magnificence of you letting your light shine. While others toll in the dark, it is your light that lifts their gazes higher, that dares those on the cliff to fly...
You will then truly live forever seared on the consciousness of all you encounter, your legend will outlive your breathe...

I am

I am the hope my ancestors had as they left the green fields of home, the wings of the prayer that kept them afloat as they sailed the spice sea. I am the strength that never could bow, I am the power of those shoulders that made sand fruitful. I am the dignity of untouchables, I am the pride of royalty, the golden of their sub continental skin, the bite of chilli in their blood.

I am the deep dark place in the heart of all men, I am covert and secret. I am anger unleashed with murderous intent. I am the primal thing, killing before I am killed. I am the dark blessed shelter of night, in which all manner of deviancy is possible. I am unseen bone deep wrenching want which destroys the very object of its desire.

I am the light inside the dreams of children, the fragility of their innocence. I am innocence untouched, the naivety of untried wings. Iam the smooth brow of childhood, the guiless conversation. I am the preserver of all things, un-artifaced beauty.Iam like smooth music, once heard never forgotten. I am the unbridled crazy dancing under full moons. I am the Rhythm inside your hips when they hear a drum beat.

Iam the honesty of words that slip out, the truth of late nigh whispers. I am that first rush of attraction, racing like adrenalin. I am the joy of finding your mate, a mirror in the rocky world. I am that sensation of flying when you are actually falling in love. I am the blind optimism of a broken heart that grows dreams in its shady cracked places. I am the beatification of someday, even in the face of nothing.I am the unknown dreams curled beneath the hearts of those that love forgot

I am all, I am many. I am everyman and no man, I am woman.

Moon Light...

Gleaming bone pale in the dark night, the domes of the old tomb rose before him. Like a the steady torture of a waking dream, he hears her voice calling out to him from the echoing recesses of its marble confines. Before his blind eyes, the mists of imagination draw the face of the men he killed to protect the beauty before him. The once and lost king dreamt the blood of carnelians, the cool forest of malachite and dark traceries of obsidian, he saw the flow and flush of the ingrained riches in the ice marble walls, all that he had dreamt but had never seen. Through the bars of his high prison, his dimming eyes continued the vigil, every now and then his daughter would visit but even then he could not look away from the mausoleum. It was his pain, his only pleasure, each day when the muzzein sounded he prayed the same litany, that he be layed to rest by her side. Even in his wakeful sleep he dreamt the domes had cracked open or the fort been razed to the ground, he would wake with a start and make sure. The tomb stood there a silent testament to his power, his will and ultimately his love. Sometimes he thought he had fallen short, for wonderous white as it's walls of marble were, they, could not equal the golden glow of her skin, as detailed and amazing as was the tombs geometry, they could not equal the symmetry of her face, as rich and opulant as were the tombs finishings, they could not equal the lush curves of her body , the vivid colour of her mouth. The tomb he had long discovered was a silent thing, it could talk low words of poetry. Though they may call him and archetect of the ages, the building he built was cold comfort. Every second of his vigil, he felt her loss like a constant ache. Wonder though it was for all who came and saw, to him inside below the ground, lay the greatest treasure of this unimaginable place. He watched the tomb until that night he saw her again. In unimaginable light every inch gleaming and renewed, she came at last to bring her lord home. In the morning, his daughter came and said the mourning prayer. Her brother was of iron resolve but even he was moved and under the central dome next to his wmother, he lay the body of his father. And as the last muzzien sounded and prayers were said, the citizens turned as one to the tomb. Suspended in the marvel of white marble, they finally saw what the old king watched: love .

Fire Bird

Phoenix in charcoal with oil eyes