(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
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