Today is August 28, the anniversary of the death of Augustine of Hippo, who touched the soul with such clarity that his words continue to echo. He affirmed that body and soul belong to two categories distinct in essence. The body is tri-dimensional, woven of the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. The soul…
Augustine of Hippo stands at a crossing between philosophy, scripture, and mysticism. He fought against the gnostic sects of his age, but his own writings pulse with movements close to the hermetic ascent and to the kabbalistic work of restoration. He did not design magical systems, but his confessions are themselves initiatory. They reveal a…
The verb insignare/to teach comes from the Latin root tied to signum/the sign. To teach is not merely to transmit knowledge or to place information into the mind. It is to mark with a sign, to seal. To teach is to imprint a form that carries permanence. The act of teaching belongs to the realm…
The track Dangerous Drug, released in June 2024 on the homonymous EP, is sung by Megan Louise with the intensity of a bacchante who invokes ecstasy and wound. The song unfolds as a chant, a litany where the voice repeats its hunger and accusation: “Why do I crave it? Why do you break it?”. In…
Latin carried in its verbs the whole mystery of the word Sacred. Sacrificare is formed from sacer/Holy and facere/to make. To sacrifice means to make Holy; to lift the ordinary thing into the Light of heaven. The loaf of bread, the fruit, or the cup of drink, once touched by blessing, ceased to be mere…
The ancient vision of the Kabbalah sees creation as the descent of Light through four worlds: Atziluth, the realm of pure emanation; Briah, the realm of creation; Yetzirah, the realm of formation; and Assiah, the world of action. When the lips of a human being shape Sacred words, that descent is enacted. The voice carries…
Among the forgotten legends of Christendom stands Wilgefortis, the crucified woman with a beard. Her image unsettled the faithful because it broke the logic of gender and form. But behind the strangeness shines a profound sigil. Wilgefortisembodies the paradox where the Christian Cross and the Hermetic caduceus meet. She is woman and man, victim and…
The lives of certain women burn with an intensity that escapes moral judgement. They were called pure, but their purity was not absence of stain, nor the careful avoidance of desire. It was the fire of a total offering. In Rose of Lima, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, and Catherine of Siena, the…
The feast of the Coronation of Mary shines like a seal of light upon the cycle of the heavens. It is celebrated on August 22, when the Queen is seen crowned in eternity, clothed with the splendour of the Sun and raised into the celestial court. This is also a mirror of the cosmos. The…
There is a passage in Megillah 29a that speaks with a simple and inexhaustible voice. It says that, when Israel went into exile, the Shekhinah went with them. The Presence did not remain aloof in heaven, untouched by grief. She descended, clothed herself in the dust of Babylon, and remained beside her children. Few lines…
