Who are exiles? as for me
Where beneath the diamond dome
Lies the light on hills or tree
There my palace is and home.

We are outcasts from Deity, therefore we defame the place of our exile.
But who is there may set apart his destiny from the earth which bore
him? I am one of those who would bring back the old reverence for the
Mother, the magic, the love. I think, metaphysician, you have gone
astray. You would seek within yourself for the fountain of life. Yes,
there is the true, the only light. But do not dream it will lead you
farther away from the earth, but rather deeper into its' heart. By it
you are nourished with those living waters you would drink. You are
yet in the womb and unborn, and the Mother breathes for you the diviner
airs. Dart out your farthest ray of thought to the original, and yet you
have not found a new path of your own. Your ray is still enclosed in
the parent ray, and only on the sidereal streams are you borne to the
freedom of the deep, to the sacred stars whose distance maddens, and to
the lonely Light of Lights.

Let us, therefore, accept the conditions and address ourselves with
wonder, with awe, with love, as we well may, to that being in whom we
move. I abate no jot of those vaster hopes, yet I would pursue that
ardent aspiration, content as to here and today. I do not believe in a
nature red with tooth and claw. If indeed she appears so terrible to any
it is because they themselves have armed her. Again, behind the anger
of the Gods there is a love. Are the rocks barren? Lay your brow against
them and learn what memories they keep. Is the brown earth unbeautiful?
Yet lie on the breast of the Mother and you shall be aureoled with the
dews of faery. The earth is the entrance to the Halls of Twilight. What
emanations are those that make radiant the dark woods of pine! Round
every leaf and tree and over all the mountains wave the fiery tresses of
that hidden sun which is the soul of the earth and parent of your
soul. But we think of these things no longer. Like the prodigal we have
wandered far from our home, but no more return. We idly pass or wait as
strangers in the halls our spirit built.

Sad or fain no more to live?
I have pressed the lips of pain
With the kisses lovers give
Ransomed ancient powers again.

I would raise this shrinking soul to a universal acceptance. What! does
it aspire to the All, and yet deny by its