The Castle of Air and Stone

 

Easter Day quickly shows us the location and the nature of the next castle to which, on Beltane, we orient ourselves. And we orient in the fullest sense, for it is a turning completely to the East. . This is one of the Hidden Castles, the demesnes spoken of directly. Here is placed the Anvil of Tubal Cain, and the object of the East is an anvil, or the Stone, which was the original anvil, or even three stones. The story of King Arthur implies this with the rough stone, the iron anvil on the stone and then the sword in the stone being the three forms of making. In Taoism one seeks to return to the rough stone, in freemasonry, one wishes to transcend it. In the Craft there is flow between both states.

In the story of conventional story of King Arthur, this sword in stone rests in a church yard, but the original smithies were caves. In Mary Stewart’s evocative retelling of the King Arthur story, The Hollow Hills, Arthur does not pull this sword up in a church yard, but rather in the Green Chapel, a cave turned into a temple that was devoted to ancient gods and, once forgotten, reconsecrated by Merin. It is in this cave temple that Arthur pulls the sword from a stone altar, and it is this place, in all its transformations that is the Castle to the East, the Castle of Air and Stone. It is the Chapel of the Sword, It is the smithy of the great Smith called Cain, Tubal Cain and Wayland. This is the chamber of the Maker.

            This is the door through which Inanna and Jesus entered, and then left the underworld. This is the cave temple of Persephone, the Goddess of the Above and the Below.  This is the chapel of Mary Magdalene. The Castle of Air and Light is also the dreaming, gazing place of creation and vision. Here the Goddess Maia gives birth to the brilliant Hermes. Here Osiris is born, Christ born as well as reborn and resurrected. It is the place of sleep, death and resurrection, alchemy. It is the empty tomb of Christ, but it is the tomb of all those who have been perfected in life and yet whose souls touch the earth and live again. This is Ayers Rock, Uluru, the passage between the common easily seen world and the constant Dreamtime. This the crystal cave of Merlin, where the sorcerer lies dreaming, passing in and out of the otherworld.