O Gnostic, O Knower

of the unity of love and wisdom,

the androgyny of heaven and earth,

nature and spirit.

O Knower of the Great Goddess,

the Great Mother

Who calls Herself Sophia.

Holy is Her Name.

Sophia, co-creator of all things

earthly and divine.

Divine Love lives with Eternal Wisdom

together as One,

as a child

in its mother's womb.

Sophia gathers all of Her children.

O Gnostic, to you She calls

to fulfill the prophecy,

to manifest the vision

of Peace on Earth.

                          In Search of The Phoenix


Ancient and modern myths tell of the magic and mystery
of the transforming powers of a magnificent, mystical,
mythological bird that could or could not exist, or be.

Spanning continents, cultures and eons of time, the phoenix
has long been a rich and complex symbol of human nature and an image of the human soul graced with extraordinary qualities and abilities that could be called divine and the phoenix alludes to degrees of perfection, vitality and power that are found inside the human heart and mind.

Inside the human heart I have seen a death come from despair.  A heat like no other come from anger.  A chill like no other come from fear.  A joy that invigorates the nerves and a comfort that comes from hope and love near.

Since I was young I have seen rape and killing and war; and friends and loved ones die and no one has been able to tell me why.  Not knowing whether to join my laughing or weeping friends, I began the journey that has no end.

I heard of this fabulous bird that has the powers to cast out disease and ease human sorrow and pain; whose feathers constitute a glorious medicine to make the old young again.

I spent a fortune, endured every hardship, travelled the world in search of a bird with qualities reflecting the human soul that could or could not exist much like the philosopher's gold.

Among other things, the phoenix is a symbol of wholeness, completion and androgyny, equal parts of male-female so it can be called he or she.  For our purposes here we will refer to the phoenix as she.  And it will be your task, to remember that 'she' includes 'he'.

The phoenix, the Queen, the Empress of all birds is said to have gifted the world with the musical scale.  Seven notes divided into two tetrachords corresponding to masculine and feminine elements by repeating the note of origin to bring the world to one again.  Her songs of heavenly proportions and propensity are of such sweetness that they bring tears to a heart of stone and anyone that hears her sing never feels alone.

On the edge of a branch, high in a tree, in the sun's full light, the phoenix builds her nest of fragrancy with aromatic twigs of cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh and it becomes her funeral pyre on the first nite that the moon disappears.

The sun sets the nest on fire and the phoenix sits and waits until it burns itself to ashes in the flames.  For three nites no one can see the moon or the nest of the phoenix burning high in the tree.  A nest built as a sacred altar becomes through purification her victory.  On the fourth nite when the moon reappears, a new phoenix emerges from the ashes.

A luxurious plummage of crimson, deep purplish red feathers gives the phoenix her name.  Her wonder working properties and her virtues give the phoenix her fame.

It is truly wondrous what the phoenix can do.  The phoenix can live for a thousand years and more.  She has the ability to always exist, to choose when to die and to recreate herself and to regenerate.  The phoenix has long been a spiritual symbol of the synthesis of the life force of human nature and fate.

It's a sacred art to know when life closes and to have a secret way to restore a new existence or so great sages say.  It's amazing to be known and loved even though you may or may not exist.  But truth without proof is the theme of the myth.

There is only one phoenix living in the world at one time.  It is unique and one-of-a-kind.  I searched the world for one feather and the question is still open.

Is there a bird named Phoenix?  Is it possible or impossible?  Is it believable or absurd?  Who in the world has ever seen such a bird?

@2003 Aurora Terrenus

Taoderf:   "Why do you think you had a vision of Sophia?
                   Do you think you would have had it if you hadn't    
                   heard the word Sophia growing up?"

Aurora:  "As I have said, I speak and write Greek and I did
               attend a Greek Orthodox Cathedral with my parents
               when I was growing up.  The priest would come out
               of the vestibule and raise both arms to the heavens
               and announce to the congregation. 
                'Aghia Sophia, orthe kai akousame.' 
                'Holy Sophia, stand and attend.'
               I would ask my mother, 'Who is She?'
               And my mother would say, 'Sophia is Wisdom.  He
               is asking us all to stand and attend 'Wisdom'.

               But at the same time, people all over the planet have
               had and are having visions of Sophia or some sort of
               manifestation of
               Sophia and never really thought about the word.  I
               do know most people do know that philosophy is 'love
               of wisdom' and theosophy is 'divine wisdom'.

               The summer of 1951 when I was nine years old, I
                went to Greece with my family.  The ship stopped in
                Pompeii and I saw the devastation of a volcano and
                then when we got to Greece, I saw the devastation
                of World War II.  It did make quite an impression on
                me.  I saw starving people and bombed buildings.

                If Love is all there is, or if Love is the answer, I
                did wonder how people would come to that realization
                without wisdom.

                When I was in Greece again in 1961, my father's
                 family told me how their house had been occupied
                 by German generals.  My father had purchased the
                 ex-mayor's mansion for his parents and the German
                 generals took it over except for one room that my
                 grand-parents stayed in and were allowed garden
                 visits for one hour a day.

                 Also, when the communists took over, the commanders
                 and troops would gather all of the men in the village,
                 and line them up.  One day they would shoot every
                 other man, the next time, maybe every seventh man,
                 and so on. 

                 There are also the stories of the women of the villages,
                  that would sing and dance off the cliffs to their deaths,
                  not to be raped by the conquerors.  (The beginning
                  of the spiral dance?)

                  When Sophia appeared to me in the New Forest
                   in 1971 something deep in my heart resonated
                   with 'I knew you had to be a beautiful feminine
                   spirit.'

Sophia Re-Emerging For Me....

New Forest, England ~ Summer Solstice ~ 1971

Sophia re-emerged for me brighter than the noon day sun.

"Now it was the darkest hour before dawn, the hour, they say when only the wise can see;
That a sense of awe did awaken and mystify me.
Descending from a throne, on a pillar of clouds, in royal splendor ~

An image of feminine divinity, I did see and I fell in love with Her beauty as I saw face to face the most magnificent symbol of the spirit of solace and grace. 

"Instantly.  Totally.  Inescapably.
Indescribable, immeasurable, unconquerable and impervious to time, was this beauty of the Love above all loves, that connected her heart and mine.

And in the silence of her reflection, of what was, and is, and forever more will be;
I felt the power of the Queen of Enchantment, Herself unchanging, fill me from within, make me new, and Love did consume and conquer me."


quotations from 'My Sister the Unicorn' @1988 by Aurora Terrenus

island lady

                                      Island Lady

After a head-on-collision that totalled my car and almost totalled me, I was resting in bed trying to read "The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation" when I opened to a page that said, "forget everything that you have ever read."  So I closed the book and began meditating during my prescribed periods of rest.

Excruciating pain kept me from resting peacefully but I continued my meditations.  During my meditations, a beautiful island lady, old and full of years, appeared walking on a solitary silver sand beach with the ocean softly lapping away her footprints in the sand.

I did not know her; I only knew that whenever she appeared, she lifted me in body and spirit.

A year and a half later, still in pain, I was walking on a deserted beach in Hawaii.  As I turned to return home, I noticed one path of footprints in the sand and they were my own.

Ancient Hawaiian legend says if you step into the footprints of another, you may get their karma.  So usually when I walked on a beach with footprints, I would dodge the footprints.

But this day, as I turned, I stepped into my footprints on the beach and in a magical moment I knew they were the footprints of the island lady that I had seen walking in my meditations.  Now I was the island lady walking on the beach ~ she and I were one ~ and I was healed. 

Great Mother of Peace Prayer

On our altar we have a Peace Candle.
In the daily lighting of this candle, we offer this prayer:

O Great Mother of Peace,
in the names of your children
and the children of your children,
We light this candle.
In reverence, in honor,
in gratitude and in remembrance of you.

O Holy Mother, O Spiritual Mother
of the Divine Spark of Light
that you reflect and ignite in our souls,
Be here now.

We are called the Peacemakers,
Blessed are our ways.
We are known as the true children
of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom,
your spiritual children on Earth.

O Holy Mother, gather all of your children
and grace us with Peace on Earth now.

In extinguishing the candle:
O Holy Sophia,
May the sacred smoke from the fire
cover the earth like a mist,
May all people and nations
be under your influence and power
So that we might understand
the true meaning of love
and fulfill our dreams for Peace on Earth now.
Amena.*
c. 1990. Aurora Terrenus
The Holy Order of Wisdom
(Also included in John Matthew's book, "Paths to Peace")

Amen is a Hebrew word that means 'truly'.

Amena is an Arabic word that menas 'to make complete'.

Because we feel that it is the divine feminine that is lacking

to make the world complete, we use Amena at the end of our prayers.

"Called 'Hypatia' .. a towering abstract sculpture of a nude woman is cut from slabs of steel and shows the outline of a graceful woman with full breasts.  It is named after a female mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher of ancient Alexandria.  A placard on the statue notes that Hypatia was murdered by people 'who considered her one of the defenders of paganism and the Classic era, but she was actually a victim of fanatic ideologists."
The sculpture of Hypatia is in the "Library of Alexandria, a gleaming, modern facility that opened in 2002 a short distance from the site of its Ptolemaic predecessor, the most significant library of ancient times."
National Geographic, May 2012
A footnote to "IS LOVE STRONGER THAN DEATH?" 

They Are Only Words

(Sibyl comes via Latin from the Greek word sibylla, meaning Prophetess ~ she can reach forward and back thousands of years by her voice by the aid of the goddess.)
This story is based on true events.*
THEY ARE ONLY WORDS
"They are only words" said the King to the Sibyl (or Prophetess) who stood before him offering nine of her books for sale for 300 pieces of gold.
She stood before him, hauntingly beautiful. Her eyes were deeper than any abyss. She wore an earth colored dress, wrapped in a mid-night blue cape studded with stars.
This old woman, in a voice of magnificence, energy and power said to the King:
"Yes. Words. Words that begin the night before the sun was born and narrate a sacred history of ancestral memories and all of the wisdom of the ancients. Words create and destroy in a multitude of meanings. I tried to paint a picture of words so precise, so perplexing that all would understand and see perchance my paint dripping from their hands. I wanted to invoke a feeling and a love for the quest for the fruits of the inner life ~ that individually and collectively they could have an experience of the deepest significance."
"It is preposterous that you ask such an enormous price," said the King. "I am lead to believe that you are a madwoman."
"Three books ~ if you do not attend ~ are burned together in the end ~ Three books you do not desire ~ to be exalted in the fire." she chanted.
Before his eyes, the Sibyl burned three books and asked the same price for the remaining six books.
Now the King was totally convinced that she was a madwoman.
The smoke from the fire of the burning books rose and she spoke as if her voice was a vapor from the flames:
"A psychograph sets out the picture of the soul. Is there a soul? What is the fate of a Soul after Death? Does a philosopher whose thoughts transcend this world commit so absurd an act as dying? Or do they disdain to die and only disappear? Is there an apocalypse of the world within? Are we wonder workers? Can we be two or more places at the same time?"
The King shook his head signifying a 'no' to the enormous price of the remaining six books.
"Three books if you do not attend ~ are burned together in the end~ Three books you do not desire ~ to be exalted in the fire." she cited again.
And the Sibyl proceeded to burn three more books before his eyes and the price for the remaining three books remained the same - 300 pieces of gold.
With spiritual determination and a mystic force the Sibyl pointed to her remaining three books and to the King and said:
"To you then who have absolute power, I speak, in hopes that you might love wisdom ~ the ways of wisdom and words of wisdom and not lead your people astray. What is to become of a world without wisdom? A world without imagination, forgiveness, inspiration, poetry, art, intuition, music, dreams, visions? Who will explore the unknown and communicate the incommunicable? Who will attempt to speak of the ineffable and the incomparable beauty of love and wisdom? Who will adhere to the maxim: Know thyself?"
The King immediately changed his mind and bought the remaining three books for her original asking price of 300 pieces of gold.
These famous Sibylline Books were kept in the Capitoline Temple in Rome and consulted in emergencies by the Senate. But they were burned along with the Temple in 83 BC.
Why? I do not know. They are only words.

©Aurora Terrenus, 2006


* The oracles of the Cumaean Sibyl composed nine books and she offered them to Tarquin the Proud, the last of the seven kings of Rome. She did burn the books in threes until the King bought the remaining three for her price of nine books. The three books were burned in 83BC along with the temple. Modern archaeologists are satisfied that they have identified her cave at Cumae.

Sophia Re-Emerging

Sophia Re-Emerging

The feminine in Western Spirituality

re-emerging in this New Age is the hauntingly

beautiful splendor and sacred awe of the spirit

of Sophia; the Gnosis and Wisdom not of

some passing age, but an inexhaustible spiritual

power, impervious to time, that connects

the Elect of all ages.

From a cloud of Peace, in a mist of Silence,

She spans the world to create a synthesis, to

unite the opposites, to pervade and permeate

all hearts with the inner light of love.

Sophia is, will be, and has always been the

elixir of life; the philosopher's gold; the oneness

and essence of the physical world-self, the

Quinta Essentia.

Before time began, before the creation,

in the beginning, Sophia was co-eternal, co-existing

with God, and She shall remain forever.

Sophia is the resplendent, Holy Spirit

benevolent to mankind.

The spiritual and psychical pursuit of Sophia

must be achieved if we are to live, world-wide,

in Peace and Prosperity.

Preface in The Shroud of Sophia

@1986 Aurora Terrenus

Wisdom the Divine Spirit - Ajijic, Mexico 2006

WISDOM: THE DIVINE FEMININE SPIRIT  

                    @2006 Aurora Terrenus

 Bells are symbols of the feminine and the dorje is a symbol of the masculine.

This is the beauty and harmony of masculine and feminine coming together.

Tibetan monks use bells to put them in a meditative state.  Meditation is a Sanskrit word that means direct perception of wisdom.

Bells are also used to call in the angels so if you have been wondering why you are here ~ it is because I have been calling you in.

I am a high priestess in the Holy Order of Wisdom.

I come in peace.  I have no weapons. I honor your soul.

I invite you into Her temple.

On our altar, we have a Peace Candle.  In the daily lighting of this candle we offer this prayer:

O Great Mother of Peace, in the names of your children and the children of your chldren, we light this candle.  In reverence, in honor, in gratitude and in remembrance of you.  O Holy Mother, O Spiritual Mother of the divine spark of light that you reflect and ingnite in our souls, Be here now.  We are called the Peacemakers.  Blessed are our ways.  We are known as the true children of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, your Spiritual children on Earth.  O Holy Mother, gather all of your children and grace us with Peace on Earth now.  Amena.*  Amen is a Hebrew word and means truly.  Amena is an Arabic word and means to make complete.  Because we feel it is the divine feminine that is lacking in the world today, we use Amena at the end of all of our prayers.

It is an honor for me to speak in Ajijic again among so many faces of friends and so many friendly faces.

In the words of Yogi Berra.. "it feels like deja vu all over again."

The topic today is Wisdom: the divine feminine spirit.

Wisdom says of herself:  "I am that I am.  I am deeper than the ocean.  I set my compass on the depths.  I permeate and pervade all things.  I was before the beginning.  Love me and I will give you a garland of grace and a crown of glory."

How did it begin for me?  This love of wisdom?  Thru Wonder.

In 1971, my husband and I and our two small children were in England.

It was a time of turmoil for me and it was like now, a time of war.  I was wondering about the meaning of life and asking, "Is this all there is?"

A vision of light appeared to me.

It was like Light coming in the form of a female divinity.  She said, "I love you.  Love me.  I am Sophia."

It seemed as if this was a very magical and mystical place, so the next day, I asked a farmer if people had visions or saw things in the forest.  And he said, "Seen an angel, huh?  O they can be quite a bother sometimes."

I am of Greek descent.  I read and write and speak Greek.

I knew Sophia as wisdom as philosophy is the love of wisdom, as theosophy is divine wisdom, etc.

After the vision, I started doing research on Sophia.

It seems as if in all holy books and holy traditions there is a magnanimous love of wisdom.  And the one common denominator of all religions is a belief in the immortality of the soul.

Soul, in Greek is psyche and feminine and Wisdom is Sophia and feminine.

The feminine in western spirituality re-emerging in this new age is the hauntingly beautiful splendor and sacred awe of the spirit of Sophia.  The gnosis and wisdom not of some passing age, but an inexhaustible spiritual power impervious to time that connects the Elect of all ages.

From a cloud of Peace, in a mist of silence, she spans the world to create a synthesis, to unite the opposites, to pervade and permeate all hearts with the inner light of love.

Sophia is, will be and has always been the elixir of life, the philosopher's gold, the oneness and essence of the physical world-self, the Quinta Essentia.

There is nothing that I can tell you that you do not already know if you remember in the true sense of the word, give members to, become one with your soul.

The Goddess religions might be called the oldest in the world.. and in some parts of CA goddess is a verb!

The first writer in history or herstory - (from Greek histor) meaning for finding out or learned or wise woman or man..

The first writer whose name and works have been preserved was Enheduanna born ca 2300 BC, a priestess of the moon goddess. (Sumer)

She writes of her image of the goddess Inanna

and the Divine Essences..

"Lady of all the essences, full of light, good woman clothed in radiance whom heaven and earth love.

In the evening you shine, brilliant and lovely.  In the morning you shine, mighty and radiant.

In the heavens you stand like the sun and the moon.  On earth you are known for your greatness and beauty.

To you, I now pray holy priestess of heaven.

To you I now pray, Inanna to you."

(Babylonian song)

The goddess represents an archetype of order, wholeness, deliverance and salvation~ bringing messages of hope and a wholeness in time.

Where there is no conflict between thinking and feeling or reason and emotion.  (Jung)

The soul relates the individual to the world in a meaningful way.. beyond here and now.. to the numinous, the sacred, the mystical.

Einstein said, "The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion."

If we go back to around 500-600 BC, we find seekers of wisdom all over the planet.  This was a time before the internet, when it took months, maybe years for ideas to cross the globe.

The Egyptians had circumnavigated Africa,but still these were not internet days.  It might take a whole year for a monk to write a manuscript.

And yet, in India Buddha was writing "Tripitakia ~ the three baskets of Wisdom."

Zoraster in Persia and the Greek philosophers Pythagoras, Heraclitus among many others in Greece and Jewish prophets in Israel, Egypt and Babylon were also writing about Wisdom.  King Solomon wrote:

"Sophia I loved above all things.  I loved Her above sceptre and throne and at the time, I still did not know Her as the Mother of Life."

In China, Lao-Tsu wrote:

"There was something complete and mysterious existing before heaven and earth.  Silent, invisible, unchanging, standing alone, Unceasing, ever in motion.  Able to be the mother of the world, I do not know its name ~ Call it Tao."  (The Way of the Ultimate)

"Can you still your animal soul, hold to the one, and never leave it?  Can you still your breath, quietly to the softness of a child's breath?  Can you purify your mystic vision and clear it until it is spotless?  Can you love all of your people and rule over the land without being known?  Can you in opening and closing the heavenly gates, play always the female part?"  (Chap. 10. The Mystic Virtue)

One of the seven Chinese Taoist Immortals is a woman who waits for you at the heavenly gates and welcomes you with open arms and with a kiss.

If a dying Sufi master has a vision of a young beautiful girl ~ this is his assurance of Immortality.

One of the most amazing things that came out during this period of time is the axiom of Maria the prophetissa, who was in Egypt.  It is written that all of the art of alchemy is based on the Axiom of Maria.. out of the one...

"One becomes two; two becomes three, and from the ternary comes the four ~ then new unity, or new order as One."  (Jung)

Lao-tzu came up with the same formula in China.

In alchemy, black is the initial germinating stage ~ the dark earth Mother Diana of Ephesus, was depicted with black hands and face, recalling the black openings of caves and grottos.  Black sometimes symbollizes time and white symbollizes timelessness and ecstasy and white, too, traditionally is a feminine color.

Red the color of birth and re-birth, passion, fire and purification and in alchemy red and white is the conjunction of opposites.  Red is also the color of the first chakra and Kundalini rising.. the spiritual feminine.

In Christian art, red stands for charity and love and when the risen Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, she hurried off to tell the other disciples.  On her way, she met Pontius Pilate and told him of the wondrous news.  "Prove it" Pilate said.  At that moment a woman carrying a basket of eggs passed by and Mary Magdalene took one in her hand.  As she held it up before Pilate, the egg turned a brilliant red.  In Jerusalem, in the Cathedral of Mary Magdalene there is a beautiful statute of her holding a colored egg - a reminder of her ability to perform miracles.  The gnostics also believe that Mary Magdalene is a personification of Divine Wisdom, Sophia.

In alchemy, the three main phases of "The Great Work" - a symbol of spiritual evolution were (1) prime matter (corresponding to black) (2) mercury (white) and (3) sulphur  (red) culminating in the production of the stone (gold) or the state of glory.

So that the series black - white - red - gold, denotes the path of spiritual ascension.

The golden crown of divine love and divine wisdom is the symbol of majestic totality, of unity of wholeness and holiness.

A crown of victory and glory.  The golden crown of divine love and divine wisdom is placed on your head as a symbol of the union of the divine powers within you.

Now I would like to read a short alchemial story - "My Sister the Unicorn"

They are only words

(Sibyl comes via Latin from the Greek word sibylla, meaning Prophetess ~ she can reach forward and back thousands of years by her voice by the aid of the goddess.)

This is a story that took place somewhere around 600 BC in Greece.

                    THEY ARE ONLY WORDS

"They are only words" said the King to the Sibyl (or Prophetess) who stood before him offering nine of her books for sale for 300 pieces of gold.

She stood before him, hauntingly beautiful.  Her eyes deeper than any abyss.  An old woman, in an earth colored dress, wrapped in a mid-night blue cape studded with stars.

In a voice of magnificence, energy and power she said:

"Yes. Words.  Words that begin the night before the sun was born and narrate a sacred history of ancestral memories and all of the wisdom of the ancients.  Words create and destroy in a multitude of meanings.  I tried to paint a picture of words so precise, so perplexing that all would understand and see perchance my paint dripping from their hands.  I wanted to invoke a feeling and a love for the quest for the fruits of the inner life ~ that individually and collectively they could have an experience of the deepest significance."

"It is preposterous that you ask such an enormous price," said the King.  "I am lead to believe that you are a madwoman."

"Three books ~ if you do not attend ~ are burned together in the end ~  Three books you do not desire ~ to be exalted in the fire."

Before his eyes, the Sibyl burned three books and asked the same price for the remaining six books.

Now the King was totally convinced that she was a madwoman.

The smoke from the fire of the burning books rose and she spoke as if her voice was a vapor from the flames:

"A psychograph sets out the picture of the soul.  Is there a soul?  What is the fate of a Soul after Death?  Does a philosopher whose thoughts transcend this world commit so absurd an act as dying? Or do they disdain to die and only disappear?  Is there an apocalypse of the world within?  Are we wonder workers?  Can we be two or more places at the same time?"

The King shook his head signifying a 'no' to the enormous price of the remaining six books.

"Three books if you do not attend ~ are burned together in the end~ Three books you do not desire ~ to be exalted in the fire."

And the Sibyl proceeded to burn three more books before his eyes and the price for the remaining three books remained the same - 300 pieces of gold.

With spiritual determination and a mystic force the Sibyl pointed to her remaining three books and to the King:

"To you then who have absolute power, I speak, in hopes that you might love wisdom ~ the ways of wisdom and words of wisdom and not lead your people astray.  What is to become of a world without wisdom?  A world without imagination, forgiveness, inspiration, poetry, art, intuition, music, dreams, visions?  Who will explore the unknown and communicate the incommunicable?  Who will attempt to speak of the ineffable and the incomparable beauty of love and wisdom?  Who will adhere to the maxim:  Know thyself?"

The King immediately changed his mind and bought the remaining three books for her original asking price of 300 pieces of gold.

The Sibylline books were carefully preserved in the temple of Apollo for 1,000 years and burned as heresy in 408 AD.

Why?  I do not know.  They are only words.

@Aurora Terrenus, 2006

Is Love Stronger than Death?

Is Love Stronger Than Death?

                               by @2006 Aurora Terrenus

(this story takes place sometime between 430-500AD)

"Father, I cannot believe you are leaving mother for an older woman" said the young boy.

The father drew his young son slose to him and kissed him on his forehead.

"No, my son, I am not leaving your mother for an older woman.  I am leaving your mother for an old woman.  But I will return.

I am sailing tomorrow to the island of Samos to seek an old wise woman who lived in Alexandria during the height and decline of its renaissance and perhaps may be the only witness that is free to tell us what really happened. She wrote some books on Alchemy too."

"But, Father, can't you just read her books?"

"No, my son, the books she wrote were burned along with hundreds of thousands of books in the great fire of the Royal and Public Libraries in Alexandria.  When I return I will tell you all of her stories, but I am compelled now to go and meet her for she is very, very old."

"Father, what is her name?"

"Alithea of Alexandria."

Now this is one of Alithea's stories....

          IS LOVE STRONGER THAN DEATH?

Alexandria had become a beacon of light and a rainbow bridge uniting three continents - Asis, Africa and Europe celebrating a new spirit and a renaissance of culture, art, science, math and more.

Scholars, philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, the greatest thinkers, the greatest minds, the greatest writers of the ancient world were drawn to Alexandria making it the world's first major learning center and the oldest university in the world.

The Alexandrian Library was the largest most magnificent library.  It had from four hundred thousand to seven hundred thousand priceless hand-written papyrus scrolls.

The outer library or public library had more than forty thousand books.  The libraries were next to the palace and the museum and the seafront where there were warehouses of books.

It seems as if for hundreds of years all of the kings of Alexandria loved books.  They had custom officials search every ship that came into Alexandria harbor and there were many for the lighthouse Pharos at Alexandria was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world making Alexandria one of the busiest ports.

The kings paid ransoms and searched ships not for exotic treasures of gold or silver or silk or spices but for original manuscripts.  In return for their manuscripts, the owners were paid huge deposits of gold and silver coins.  And it is told that all deposits were forfeited by all kings making books more valuable than gold or silver.

Then the mood of Alexandria began to change.  The decree of all books forbidden not only to read but forbidden to own was followed by the decree that ordered all books considered heresy to be committed to the fire.

I left Alexandria after Hypatia was murdered, after the library was burned, but before people began destroying their own private libraries of cherished books not to be caught, condemned or murdered for owning certain books.

Hypatia was the last great teacher before the library was burned.

Hypatia was a scientist always loving the assumption that any time, any place, the same physical causes give the same physical results.  In mathematics, that past, present and future equations ended in the same results.

Hypatia was also a philosopher of the oldest school of wisdom accepting that insight, intuition and creative imagination birth genius.

When Hypatia, which in Greek means 'highest', stood at the podium in the auditorio of the great Royal Library all were captivated not only by her words but also by her beauty.  Some even said that it was as if the goddess Athena with all of the beauty and wisdom in the world was standing before them and speaking.  Hypatia was the most popular teacher.  Her lectures had sometimes as many as five thousand people.

I always knew when Hypatia entered the front gate of my house.  There was a certain way that the gate swung open, as if a little breeze was blowing and then instead of coming up the front steps, Hypatia would walk around to the side garden and sit in the shade under the fig tree and call to me.  "Alithea, come!"

A week before Hypatia was murdered, she told this dream to me:

"I dreamed that I went through a purification ceremony and somehow came out on another side without my mortal flesh.

It was as if I was spiritual energy experiencing ultra-life.

As if I had been purified by fire; and love and wisdom and peace were the triumphant powers.

I dreamed four angels took me up through celestial spaces to a beautiful garden of the blessed where love and wisdom welcomed me with open arms and a kiss.

I sat beneath a singing tree laden with blue roses and I experienced love and happiness and an illumined center of eternity.

Alithea, I do not know how to say it exactly but I knew in an instant Life without Death."

On the morning of Hypatia's murder, I went three times to the door thinking that I heard her footsteps approaching.

All the while, unknown to me, a mob met Hypatia on the road as she left the library.

Hypatia, the scientist, the mathematician, the author, the thinker, a genuine human being and my friend from the cradle was killed because she was also a philosopher, a priestess of the goddess and a pagan.

To believe something different, is that a crime punishable by death?

And what a bloody, barbarous, brutal death.  Before they burned what remained of her in the churchyard, they had dragged her through the city, had beaten her and they had scrapped off her skin with abalone and pottery shells.

As if killing her would destroy the memory ofher, her works and her existence.

Had her dream been a harbinger of a divinatory or prophetic secret?

That day that Hypatia told her dream to me is the last time that I saw her.

The last thing Hypatia ever said to me as she left my house that day was ~

"We are one with the world, the All.  And the world and the All are one with us.

Let's pass it on, Alithea.

Love IS stronger than Death."

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notes:

There are contradictory dates among historians about when this really happened.

Hypatia 335-370 AD

Suda Lexicon, a 10th century Encyclopedia lists Hypatia as a famed philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and author of:

- A Commentary on the Arithmetica of Diophantus

- A Commentary on the Conics of Apollonious

- Editor of one of her famous father Theon's book - Commentary on the Almagest of Ptolemy

inventor of the astrolabe and the hydrometer.

March 10 - Martydom of the divine Hypatia

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1995 Egyptian and British archaeologists discover site of Great Library in Alexandria with auditorio capable of holding 5,000 persons.

Great Library - complete annihilation 409AD

Decree to destroy all things pagan 391 AD

Alexander the Great 356-323 BC

Library had sections on law, medicine, tragedy, comedy, religion, lyric poetry, mathematics, science, miscellanea - Taoist writings, Buddhist texts, Old and New Testament Books, Goddess religions, alchemy, 2 million lines of Zoroastrianish, history of Babylon in Greek.