Excerpts from the full text:
June 17th, 1255
I have performed my devotions as I was taught. I have set aside the histories I should not have read. I no longer speak either of the Knot nor the Unconquered Sun. The Cardinal was quite clear on all of that. But still, in my dreams, St Agnes comes to me now and then, and now is tonight.
St Agnes walks in smoke, crushing violets beneath her narrow pale feet. St Agnes carries keys and a bright knife and a sharp candle and, in the last of her slender hands, her own martyred head. St Agnes lifts her face above my shoulder to kiss my forehead, and I open to her, like a door. When I wake, my heart is racing, my skin is pricking, my limbs jitter: I have begun to leak.
August 9th, 1256
St Agnes is the St of openings and of thresholds. By the mortification of her flesh, she learned the mysteries of gates. Afterall, what is a wound if not an opening?
St Agnes reads to me by the light of her sharp candle. She teaches anew the story of the Nazarene Messiah, and of his ascension through the openings of his body. 'Seven were the wounds of His body, seven the doors of the House. Seven the lesser aspects of the Hours, and Knock the aspect above all, for the Mother of Ants is the Mother of Salvation.'
January 21st, 1258
My people stand before me, voices raised in song, faces upraised, aflame. There are doors that few ever see - fewer yet ever open. If I am willing to suffer the consequences, I might some day become one of those doors, for my congregation to pass. 'Knock, and Ye Shall Be Opened.'
When I open, I open like the arms of the Mother, and open I will remain, as the shell from which the pearl is taken. The space where I was will be a postern-gate in the fortress of days, that only my initiates will ever pass.
Comments