Today, February 16, 2023, I accomplished a goal that I have had since I was a preteen. Thanks to the love of Apollon, the support of my family, and the insistence of my friends and Treasury Sisters, I’ve become a published author.
This work is done in dedication to Apollon, and celebrates Him in all those ways that make me the person I am today. I am supremely humbled by the affection shown to me, and by the beauty that I have witnessed as a part of His retinue. This is a great and wondrous milestone in my life, and I am so happy to share it here with you, dear readers.
Thank you all for being a part if this, because truly, I wouldn’t have done this without you. This devotional is the culmination of a decade of writings done to honor, and educate about Apollon, much of which would not have been manifest without the curiosity, and interest shown to me over these years, by you, my dearest readers.
Do You, my Love, know what anguish Your departure causes? I know that You must do what must be done; that You must cross that threshold, and slip into realities of which I may not partake, and yet my desire does not cease: I want no more or less than Your beautiful focus; Your unerring eyes upon me.
Tis selfish, this desire; I know this well. But to experience You, and then to be deprived of Your glorious intensity, can feel as cruel a reality as any. But You will do Your duty, and I will do mine; to see You off, and to bear Your torch until the warmth of spring again flows through the land.
And while You are away, I will console myself with the Lessons You have taught, and with the strength and endurance I have built– for I have endured this pain before; this desire for You– and each year at this time, I have overcome and channeled this longing toward motivation needed to greet You lovingly when You return.
Free of anguish, free of uncertainty– but never free of desire— I will await You once again, so welcome me as I will welcome You; reveal Your desire for me, as I have desired You, and our reciprocal love shall enfold u/Us within the invariable currents of co-creation, and mutual abundance.
— Columbine, Aegletia, Day 9, 2022
Day 9
*The Procession, and Farewell to the King; festival participants should express their goodbyes to Apollon, as He continues on toward Hyperborea.
Beauty is defined by the one who sees and measures it; the one for whom the experience imprints upon the visceral. It is at once the thing which propels and repulses, for there is beauty in even the grossest processes.
Beauty lies within all natural acts, for the harmony of the Universe depends on these to function: predation and decay, and the ripening of life; all of these are beauty’s tangible examples.
Yet we seek out the aesthetic over the repulsive, mistaking physical form for beauty’s true manifestation. In this we often miss the most profound and formative aspects of our relationship to the heart of all creation.
What we run from defines us in ways most often overlooked: for what are we willing to suffer; what are we willing to witness; and yes, what are we willing to sacrifice to remain speared upon our aesthetic hook?
Ugliness lives within the heart of all human beings; that is what sets us apart. Not the temples, or adornments, or the finest textiles, or speech, or mathematics, or any other masterfully crafted art.
We are no more beautiful than a hunk of dead rotting meat; and no less than a murder of crows. What we imagine comes into creation, and what we fear impacts the whole of the world.
We mayn’t outrun our nature, therefore we should embrace it, because to see, know and acknowledge a thing, allows us the power to deconstruct it; to truly reveal what within it stems from our own making.
So, let us, instead of fleeing our consequences– indeed, those of eons of life lived in a myriad of forms– take a step toward beauty within the macabre and the displeasing, and there find the wherewithal to endure the coming storm.
For it is indeed coming, and though we may not like it, what remains of the world we once knew will only splinter further– down the lines drawn by ugliness and aesthetics; those things that we must murder within ourselves if we’re to topple beauty’s ancient myth.
— Columbine, Aegletia, Day 6, 2022
Day 6
*Exploration of the Beauty of the Illuminated World.
**Ritual, art, and celebrations with dance and music, as well as competitive games and sacred theater.
***Telling of myths and revealed stories, especially to and among children, where applicable.
What is fear but Your warm embrace, my Lord, which reminds me that I am precious; that my life is worthy of the cost of living? You stimulate my instincts and my sense of preservation.
What is fear but a catalyst to greater things; greater awareness of my limitations, and of the impact of my will unrestrained? You restrict my maneuvers when I’ve thought less about them than my desire.
What is fear but a dissonant chord struck to wake me from unproductive dreams; from stagnation and complacency, from perilous behaviour and inaction? You liven me to move when stillness threatens to expose or suffocate me.
What is fear but Your Will made evident within the wilderness of this, our modern age; a reminder of that which must be conquered, O Conquerer; of that which must be resisted with every breath of human life? You revivify my oaths to be true and loyal to none and nothing other than what serves the greatest good within my own ability to accomplish.
And for this, Apollon, my Beloved Lord, I thank You.
— Columbine, Aegletia, Day 4, 2022
Day 4
*Celebrating Leto and the ferocious spirit the Holy Twins have inherited from Their Mother.
**Acknowledging risk, danger, fear, and the unknown; existing within the liminal spaces of existence.
As I lay here, in the Presence of my Lord, all my troubles have fallen away. Every problem, every worry, peeled in layers from my mind.
I am bare and unadorned, free of my trappings and all distractions. Waiting here in silence– but not alone– for He is with me. A constancy; a source of peace.
And when I am bared thus, my flaws are made evident; presented plainly for my contemplation.
As I gaze upon them, as I know them, they fill me not with anxiety. Instead, I am made to travel the path of their creation, down the road toward resolution.
This is what Apollon’s Presence does: forces us to see and to acknowledge– all that we have built, all that we have permitted– for there is no hand more prominent in our creation than our own.
Not even His.
And so I lay here, exposed in knowledge; revealed in His wisdom yet again. My solace is the warmth of His smile as I understand the joy He receives through my epiphany.
My Lord Apollon has come again, and again, I know myself deeper than the day before. It is these moments I shall cherish in His absence, when He shines His light more subtly upon this world.
But for now, I lay here, bare and unadorned. Free of worry, free of doubt, and so very full with the attentions of my Most Pristine and Beloved Lord…
Praise always to Apollon, who cleaves away falsehood, and reveals us, wholly, to ourselves!
My Lord welcomes this impure heart. It wants to know Him, deeply; to feel the throngs of His Power, the grip of His attention, the fire of His focus within me.
I am enraptured; encapsulated by the prison of His eyes– how they see me and illuminate me; how my body quickens at the thrill of Him.
He knows what tortures play beneath the longing; under the surface of my devotion. I am the instrument of His satisfaction, and I bleed the melody of His advance.
All this, and this impure heart, are receptacles for Him alone. The vessel of my flesh– my heart and soul– carved open and writhing; are true, balanced and secure beneath the weight of Him… beneath the ravages of His whim… and desire.
“The Muses Leaving their Father Apollo, to Go Out and Light the World”, by Gustave Moreau.
Today, I’ll see Him off…
Before the dawn, on this, Your day, I once again lament the swiftness of time, and how it does not wait for me to feel at ease with Your absence. How it continues, unswayed by my protests, unmoved by my tears. And yes, I do spill tears for the loss of You, even when I know You can never be lost– to me or to anyone. For, Apollon, You are the measure of this world, and it may not function without Your power, coursing through the currents of all life and matter.
I am grateful for the attention You have shown me, Aegletes, even as You shall wane from my awareness, and I am grateful for the care You have expressed. As You complete Your journey, I hope You will think of me, remembering my love for You, and knowing that our home awaits You, come spring.
There are a few reasons that I’ve always thought this day was a beautiful day to look forward to, but since it has also become the final day/night of the Aegletia, it has taken on a somber quality which lends itself well to solemn goodbyes. A beautiful day, indeed, and also my least favorite day, for at the end of it, I’ll say farewell to my Lord, until we meet again on a cool, spring morning.
But, though His most immediate presence will be absent from our world, the underlying power, which threads and harmonizes the Universe, is and will remain forever present. These are the same basic resonances to which individual natural phenomena and individual lives are bound. That intrinsic spark of Apollon remains within us, and all the world. Through it, may we commune with the very core of ourselves, as well as with Him, and in this way, may we pass the harsh season.
As we say our goodbyes, it is good to remember that we are not alone in experiencing this absence. The coming months are a good time to reaffirm our connections to those we know and love; to really cultivate those connections, so that when Apollon returns home, He will have many harmonious homes to return to. In so doing, we may prepare for the eventual, and welcomed reintegration of His immediate presence into our lives.
Blessed are the Sisters of the Treasury, we whose love for our Lord is pure and powerful, emerging from the depth of our being as a hurricane emerges from the sea. Swift and swirling, and eager to make landfall, for our Lord is the island awaiting.
Blessed are the multitudes who adore Him, for He feels them all, in their joy and in their despair, keeping them forever close, forever entwinted within His sweet embrace, and dispensing the true peace that is His presence.
Blessed are those who are touched from afar; all who burn within His fury, and in His passion; seeking not for His glory, and yet receiving it tenfold; and drowning in the waters of His attention.
Blessed are those who run, those who flee from the call, for it is maddening and incindiary; all those whose lives are upended by the immensity of His voice, resounding through every erected barrier.
Blessed are the seekers, searching endlessly for He they have yet to know. Guided forthwith by connections untold, swayed by His grace, finding pieces of Him, and discovering themselves along the way.
Blessed are those who struggle against Him, who deny and refuse, as is their choice to do so. Not all will choose the shining path upon the precipice, but even these are blessed, in knowing they are true to themselves.
Blessed are all the lives touched by Apollon. Poets and seers, physicians and artists, lawyers and housewives, morticians and homeless men, too. These and more are blessed by the Lord, and we each are one part of His whole; one part of His truth.
The stars have known Him longer, known His blinding force, His unruly heat. The stars, they have seen His ebb and flow over unspeakable millennia– have burned in their love for Him for just as long.
The stars are companions like no others. They live, and they yearn for Him. And in their pining, they are long-lived, so experience Him in ways so full that we mayn’t dare to imagine.
The stars, they are larger than us– infinitely so. They contain parts of His soul that mortals would die, and altogether cease to be, from their exposure.
The stars, they are not fragile, nor are they demure. And Apollon burns with them in their raunchy, rauchuous, roaring inferno. O, He is the very cause of it, I’m sure– in His ecstatic totality.
The stars, they nourish His need for destruction, and they slake His thirst for creation– exploding, and forming in clouds of death. The cycle of living and dying, and birthing new life– to burn for Him, to burn with Him.
The stars have known Him longer, and their adoration has sustained Him through the darkness of humanity’s past. They were never made to forget Him. They have never forsaken Him. The stars have shone His light unflinchingly.
The stars, O what they can teach us about constancy, about fortitude, about unrelenting desire. They, in their marvellous abode, void of all but Him, in darkness and in light.
The stars, they have known Him longer, and loved Him harder than we could, for our lives are fleeting, gone in the space of an instant as they watch from above. But from them, we may learn of a love that has endured since time began.
Treasury of Apollon 