Ironic enough that it was finally my colleague, a Noted Pagan of Distinction who finally got me into her, much thanks homie, because I have some strange affinity with proto-renaissance chicks who commune with the divine.
Praise to you
Spirit of fire!
to you who sound the timbrel
and the lyre.
Your music sets our minds
ablaze! The strength of our souls
awaits your coming
in the tent of meeting.
There the mounting will
gives the soul its savor
and desire is its lantern.
Insight invokes you in a cry
full of sweetness, while reason
builds you temples as she labors
at her golden crafts.
But sword
in hand you stand poised
to prune shoots of the poisoned
apple --
scions of the darkest
murder --
when mist overshadows the will.
Adrift in desires the soul is spinning
everywhere. But the mind
is a bond
to bind will and desire.
When the heart yearns to look
the Evil One in the eye,
to stare down the jaws of
iniquity, swiftly
you burn it in consuming
fire. Such is your wish.
And when reason doing ill
falls from her place, you
restrain and constrain her as you will
in the flow of experience until
she obeys you.
And when the Evil One brandishes
his sword against you,
you break it in his own
heart. For so you did
to the first lost angel,
tumbling the tower of his
arrogance to hell.
And there you built a second
tower -- traitors and sinners
its stones. In repentance
they confessed all their crafts.
So all beings that live by you
praise your outpouring
like a priceless salve upon festering
sores, upon fractured
limbs. You convert them
into priceless gems!
Now gather us all to yourself
and in your mercy guide us
into the paths of justice.
Fiery Spirit,
fount of courage,
life within life
of all that has being!
Holy are you, transmuting the perfect
into the real.
Holy are you, healing
the mortally stricken.
Holy are you, cleansing
the stench of wounds.
O sacred breath O blazing
love O savor in the breast and balm
flooding the heart with
the fragrance of good,
O limpid mirror of God
who leads wanderers
home and hunts out the lost,
Armor of the heart and hope
of the integral body,
sword-belt of honor:
save those who know bliss!
Guard those the fiend holds
imprisoned,
free those in fetters
whom divine force wishes to save.
O current of power permeating all
in the heights upon the earth and
in all deeps:
you bind and gather
all people together.
Out of you clouds
come streaming, winds
take wing from you, dashing
rain against stone;
and ever-fresh springs
well from you, washing
the evergreen globe.
O teacher of those who know,
a joy to the wise
is the breath of Sophia.
Praise then be yours!
you are the song of praise,
the delight of life,
a hope and a potent honor
granting garlands of light.
I live to give.
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