Veiled lsis, Aphrodite of the Sea.

Thou Mother-Goddess of the thousand names

Thou in all women, and they all in Thee -

Thou of the chalice flanked by candle-flames;

Marah, Levanah, bitter-sweet, benign,

Thou mother, mistress, lover, sister, wife,

Who art at once the water and the wine,

The gate of death. the bringer-in of life.

 

Take this my will, my spark of urgent fire,

Gestate it in Thine all-enfolding womb,

Sharpen and cleanse my arrow of desire;

 

Make me the shuttle, and the world the loom.

Until the warp and weft of magic make

A web the claws of Qliphoth cannot break.

 

(Copyright Stewart Farrar, June 1970)