The Uncaptured Castle

 

In Andrew Rissik’s play, Dionysus, Cadmus is the old King of Thebes, reawakened to the wonder of the gods, and to the union of heaven and earth, and Pentheus is the king who, confronted with the wonder of Dionysus and the new order of hope and joy, wishes to quash this and reassert the status quo. When the women who are worshipping Dionysus call the Princess Agave out to join them she says that she cannot, and she prays: “Let the one who pities our tears receive us at the last with beauty and gentleness and purge us of all fear.”

            The city of Thebes build itself on hardship and a repression of hope, and joy, and ignorance of human suffering, that it might develop quickly, but now the wonderful God Dionysus has come to spread love and wonder, to turn water into wine, to have rocks sweat milk, to relieve women from abuse and shame and toil and free old men from their constraints. A young maid sings, flowers in her hair:

            “Godlike we came and joyous, out of the womb, not grief bound and jealous, but open, and full of song. Not to pale men do we belong, but to a realm of angelic bliss! To the blinding brightness, will we return at last!”

This is the realm of the Golden Castle. The changing seasons echo it, but it is beyond the seasons outside our window. The lessons of the Golden Castle, pitched between the end of winter and the growth of spring, are lessons on how to look at the world. No sooner is there sun and blossoms, bright blue rivers under blue skies, then we are hit with grey sky and thirty degree days, and the spring we hoped would come so quickly is once again struck by winter. We are in the realm of hope. We have seen things turn warmer, the beginning of color. We have been touched by beauty and, indeed, if we have any sense we know that the natural way of things goes toward that heat and color. What is more, we do not have to despair that winter will  eventually come again. That is part of the circle of things as well.

What we see so often around us, in people who do not keep their promises, in friends and lovers who refuse to do their best or honor their word, is a distinct boredom, a preventative despair, a sort of teenage coolness in unbelief that characterizes a stunned and hopeless world,  and the lessons of Lent are to continually shock us because we have become used to this, because it is easier to expect endless cold, constant disappointment and a snowbound life, to resist the good fight. It is easier to lie down than to create heat and light. Here, in the disciplines of the Golden Castle, fasting, restraint, meditation, self examination, we strip away weakness, laziness, despair, jadedness, unrelenting anger over the past, and open our eyes to the simple beauty of the God of Growing Things and the Mother of the Budding Earth.

The truth is, the world is in bad shape, and on the surface of things that can be all we see. We are surrounded by disenchanted, unenchanted  and chant resistant people who refuse to believe in goodness,  and act cheaply, challenging our convictions every day. Against what we have seen, is what we remember, the reminder of the realms of angelic bliss which are our home, the inheritance of glory which in our initiations, we remember again and again. This is why the Golden Lantern is the treasure of the Golden Castle. This precious lantern is the light within, the divine light of hope, the spark of God burning steadily in the safe keeping of our persisting and persevering hearts, and when others refuse to embrace the mysteries, when the perfect love and perfect trust required for all true working is scorned, we turn to that fire within, again and again.