I begun working on a Vesper some years ago, devoted to Barbelo, this is an excerpt from it on occasion of the pause between the Assumptio Sophiae (on August 15th) and the Descent of Sophia.
I wrote it with the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) in mind, which also happens to be the birthday of my mother (sic!). In a dream my mother told me that I had to be patient and look towards the transformation of “God” through Sophia (Wisdom), which would be simultaneously my own redemption (in terms of the Agon going on in my heart concerning outward and interior religion) and the redemption also, of “him”. She told me this, in the dream, with an ambience of a rather rash bid on my own part (in the dream) to win her symphathy for my rejection of the God of the Old Testament, as she belongs to a denomination which belongs to a type of “Protestant Orthodoxy”. It is fair to say that whatever we may argue, the Imago Dei is constantly changing. Also, that such change is more dependent on a constant searching of the human heart; a patient observance of how that particular instrument responds to those sublime mysteries we know as
Divine,Suprasensual,True and Godly – than the mechanisms of outward society. Metanoia – as much as regeneration, resurrection and rebirth – occurs first in the interior of individual seekers and only then, through a most mysterious and incalculable process – find a way to affect also the outside world.
Unconsciously, my attempt to wed the traditional Feast of Annunciation, wherein God the Father, through the mediation of the Arhcangel Gabriel forewarns his servant, Mary, that she will be instrumental in the incarnation of God the Son – with the mystery of the Barbelo; approaches this in every turn and byway, where my words unifies with that of liturgy, whether heterodox, such as the one found in the Gospel of the Egyptians, a Sethian Gnostic text unearthed at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in August 1945, a brief week after the horror of Nagasaki, approximately _on_ August the 15th – I found it addressed this mystery; which is not untimely nor impious, for the traditions of the fathers say that God becomes Man so that Man may be glorified and godly; so that they may see Him, rather than hear about him in rumours and rusty reminisciences of the generations.
Celebrant voice:
Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou – before the becoming of the Aeons.
Holy art Thou, Mother of all the Aeons and the Four Lights – Barbelo!
Holy art Thou, the Virgin of Eternity, who shine in beauty and resounds
in Song, in this your Mystery which is interior to all beings!
Holy art Thou, Barbelo
Holy art Thou, Doxomedon, in eternities eternity
Holy art Thou, Protennoia, in eternities eternity
Holy art Thou, Kalyptos, in eternities eternity
Holy art Thou, Sophia, Our Mother, in all eternity, throughout all Aeons!
All:
Blessed be the Virgin who hovers above the Tabernacle of our souls!
Celebrant voice:
May we know Thee truely and safely through Thine Mysteries, so as to receive
superessential sustenance and grow in strenght and beauty; we are born conceived
in the Gnosis of thy most interior chamber; and we have ascended , by Thy Grace,
high above the foundation of the All.
Therefore, as we are Thine – receive the prayer of our heart: We praise Thee, in our great need and in the confoundment of the world.
We have assembled here in commemoration of the Logos, our Word and our Hope of Glory, who deigned to descend below the Limit, on our behalf.
We have attended to the selfsame Call in our inner Man; the Announciation of the Incarnation of the Most Holy Logos into our sleep of the flesh, of ignorance and spiritual atrophy. Our Adam – Forefather to the three people who wander the earth
without respite, and who has as only succour and rest the Heavenly Regions – Let
Him have ressurrection in and through Us.
Hearers voice:
Hear Us in our great need and our plight; Have compassion on Us and assist our
purification and completion; May the Seed that Thou hast sown into our earth
be glorified in Perfect Fruit, in which we have our glory and honour, in which
Thou has Thine glory in Us!
All: Amen