Vae Victis-Woe to the Vanquished Sun

Vae Victis-Woe to the Vanquished Sun

Osiris, the beaten and dismembered sun god of Egypt,husband and sister to Isis, father of Horus, floats nightly in dark tabernacles on the Nile and Egyptian Lakes until morning comes to renew and restore his place in the sky.

Aten, the eye of heaven, the solar disc of the heavens, both the masculine and feminine aspect of creation, whose rays descend and connect us with the divine.

Helios, the handsome chariot driver, circling the earth in daily passage crowned with your shining aureole, and pulled by your fiery steeds.

Sol Invictus, whose Roman feast day was celebrated on December 25th as the contriver of light, the august conquering sun.

“In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”—Psalm 19:4-6.

Saint Johns the Baptist Day, the summer solstice, 2010.

Take a moment today to look up at the vanquished son. This day in the year marks the longest day of our solar cycle, and consequently, the day in which our ever shining sun prevails over the tide of darkness, steadily losing ground to the night.

This is a feast day, a day for brothers who have been long absent form lodge to return and partake in a festival of remembrance for those brothers still absent and those who have traveled on to the great architect.

The celebration is also a time to reflect on the Holy Saint John’s as they pertain to the balance of zeal and wisdom. Passion untempered is like an inferno untended to regulate its heat which burns and destroys rather than to shape the elements, which is the lesson. Saint john the Baptist, the sign of alchemical water is the spiritual and emotional love, the fuel of our passion, which we celebrate on this summer solstice day.

Fittingly, the alchemical symbol of water is a traditional symbol of emotion and intuition, again, sources of our passion, and interestingly, its Archangel equilivent is the angel Gabriel, the messanger of God.

So, I raise a cannon to you brothers, both near and far, and salute you on this Summer Solstice and say woe, vae victis – woe to the vanquished sun, let not our passion for our fraternity leave us in the months ahead until once again, the light vanquishes the darkness.

Invictus
William Ernest Henley – 1875

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.