Hall of Stars
This Hall is on the way to the Chamber of the Sun. In the base level, the hall is devastated, a hazard to walk through. In the higher regio (+6) it is a dream from the past. Along both sides stellar imagery is depicted, interspersed with even stranger mosaics and Greek poetic fragments.
(1st, left side)
The Image of a tall, young woman with a round, pale face and long, thick, moderately curly, platinum blond hair. She wears a long, midnight blue robe, decorated with six stars surrounding a central moon, and with flowers and fruit hanging from the borders. Her black mantle, drawn from behind, over her shoulders and up from behind her waist, is knotted in an X on her chest; her arms are bare. She looks like she might be pregnant.
On her forehead is a silver disk with arcing serpents on each side, suggesting simultaneously crescent moons and horns; a garland of flowers is in her hair. Her right hand holds a glowing silver sistrum, and her left, a golden vase, decorated on the base with pomegranates and palm leaves; its handle looks like a snake swollen with venom.
The woman sits in a throne in a chariot, drawn by two horses (black on her left, white on her right). The background behind the chariot is hidden by its billowing canopy, in midnight blue with 27 stars, which is supported by two poles surmounted with silver crescent moons. The chariot emerges from a dark river which can be seen flowing behind her on either side of the canopy. Cerberus, a three-headed black dog, sits beside her.
Beneath her is inscribed:
The Shining Queen, who rules the velvet night,
And nurtures nascent growth, concealed from sight,
Transforms and changes, light and dark by turns,
And seeks the Sun to sire the spark that burns
Within the water, newborn Child of Light.
(1st, right side)
It is twilight, and a man is sitting in a golden bowl-shaped chariot, which floats in the ocean and is pulled by two hippocampi (black on his left, white on his right). The sides of the chariot are decorated with heliotropes and laurel leaves. A wolf sits beside the man on his left.
He is a grey-haired, beardless old man, ithyphallic, with ruddy skin and folded wings. He is barefoot, wears a radiate crown of red gold with seven rays curving upward, and a long, gauzy red chiton (tunic), sleeves to elbows, which billows in the wind. In his right hand he holds the handle of a saw in the form of a sideways metal semicircle, which glows red-hot, with 16 teeth on the circumference and the alchemical symbol for sulphur (a cross under a triangle) in the middle. In his left hand he holds a golden vase, from which he pours red wine into the ocean.
Beneath this is inscribed:
The Sun obscured by night, the heavens' fire,
Inflaming lunar waters, looks to sire
The Child, and purify the world with scorn
Severe, that scorches errors earthly born.
He holds the heights to which we all aspire.
(2nd, left side)
Beneath the constellation Gemini is inscribed:
Desire draws the Moon and Sun to hold
Each other; hid in darksome depths, the bold
Embrace of sibling spirits joined in love
Unites the world below with sky above.
Unasked, the Dart of Passion strikes; be bold!
(2nd, right side)
Beneath the constellations Adromeda and Ursa Major is inscribed:
With gentle hand and eye she charms the beast
And teaches him the time to speak. Released
From fear of one another, freedom grows
For each, a bond that blossoms like the rose.
It's love, not fear or hate, that tames the beast!
(3rd, left side)
In the twilight an old man with a long, white beard walks to the left, carrying in his right hand a flint sickle shaped like an old crescent moon (i.e. concave toward him), and in his left hand a large hourglass, with conical chambers; most of the black substance has flowed into the lower chamber. He is dressed in black and dark shades of brown; his head is covered by a dark blue hood. Asphodels grow on the ground around his feet.
Beneath him is inscribed:
No power impedes the measured step of Time,
Which eats away from everything its prime,
For nought endures for long. Yet passing years
May grant us peace and wisdom, free from fears.
Attend the tread of Time: stark, yet sublime.
(3rd, right side)
The viewpoint is fromthe edge of a dark sea towards its shore, which is lit by the narrowest crescent of a young, pale yellow moon shining in the dark blue sky. Glowing tear drops (15 white, 15 reddish) fall in three streams (5 reddish and 5 white each) from the recumbent crescent, which is open to the upper left.
A scorpion, with a scarab-shaped, crab-like body and its tail raised, has paused half in and half out of the dark blue water; silvery sparkles of light dance across its surface and glow like fish eyes in its depths. An encrustation of dried salt is visible at the water's edge.
On the reddish-brown sand of the desolate shore two canines stare at the moon, a dark wolf or jackal stands baying on the left and a white, domesticated dog, wearing a collar, lies on the right. Just beyond them, on either side of the path, are two plants. Their stems are red and veined in black, and each plant has thirty small yellow flowers, like those of marjoram. In the distance are two tall, square towers (light on the left, dark on the right), beyond which the grassy twin-peaked eastern mountain is visible in the misty distance. There is a hint of a sunrise between the peaks.
Three indistinct paths meet near the scorpion. One follows the shore to the left (north), another to the right (south). The third path (east) winds from the scorpion, becoming more distinct as it passes between the dogs, plants, and towers, until it disappears in the misty distance.
Beneath it is inscribed:
The Nascent Moon controls the sunless skies,
And offers wisdom for whoever tries
To cross the desert. Guardians must be
Appeased to make the passage from the Sea.
Approach the dreadful Dark with insight's eyes!
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Last modified: Thurs Nov 19, 1998 / Jeremiah Genest