Awake! Arise!
The tenebrous night

of dragon blood spilled and swords clashing

Fades,

finally.

We want to see you again, Merlin
Proud stag standing in morning's rising mists
Of the sacred groves
On the blessed isles.

Let your heart quicken its beat
To receive your Beloved,

her skin ablush with approaching dawn

The Lady of Still Waters
Is flowing again.

Join with her and fly
- not to Heaven, for the Divine is not just above us -
but to the timeless Land Beyond Opposites.

From your wizard's basket
Pluck the Sorcerer's Stone

and the gems of truth,

O Soothsayer

In their luster

our hearts will remember
and our eyes will again have the Sight.

We can transmute

our leaden minds into golden halos
and our anxious bodies into fountains of light

With one pass of your crystal wand
Fear's spell will be broken
And we will find it so easy

to love one another again.

James: The old Arthurian legends mention that Merlin and Arthur will return to the human realm when we really need them again. Here, we show how Merlin wakes out of his long sleep to announce the arrival of the next Golden Age. It is his “second coming”. The double entendre is, of course, intended. In a temple on the lake, he is surprised by Nimue/Vivianne accompanied by Venus. The mists of Avalon are on the horizon, rising, soon to reveal the magical land that was obscured for centuries of our ignorance and strife. In the sky shine Venus (near the moon) and Mars, ever-present to lend their qualities of Love and Strength.
Nimue/Vivianne, as the Lady of the Lake, inspired me to paint her blue, the color of her waters. She wears a bracelet engraved with a Celtic knot, the continual looping of the design suggests interrelationship, connection, and eternity. Her earrings are mini-crystal balls, which befit a sorceress. Venus wears a necklace with a Celtic cross, an ancient emblem of sexual union: the cross (lingham) in the circle (yoni). The cross also denotes the four elements so important in Celtic religion. The amethyst of her brooch indicates healing. The dove was Venus’ bird, and her dove pendant helps announce the new Golden Age of Peace. Merlin has been in a deathless sleep, and red poppies grow nearby, symbolic of the sleep of death. As the Magician awakes, he has his crystal wand within easy reach, ready to invoke gentleness and purity in the new world.


Becca: The meaning of James’ painting seemed quite straightforward to me, and I addressed the characters in it in free verse. Merlin is waking up; a new age is dawning.

In the first stanza I use imagery from Arthurian legend, making reference to the ending era of violence (“blood spilled”, “swords clashing”). Dragons, like snakes, originally associated with the feminine, and then as the embodiment of evil, were creatures to be battled and slain. In the next stanza, Merlin is welcomed, using Celtic imagery of the triumphant male, the “stag”. As a Druid he was said to be able to shapeshift into the form of a stag. The “sacred groves”, the ancient Celtic places of worship, were felled by zealous Christian warriors. The “blessed isles” refer to both Avalon and to the British Isles, where the Arthurian mythic cycle takes place.

Vivianne was the Lady of the Lake (the”Lady of Still Waters”), and Nimue was Merlin’s lover, here considered two aspects of the same female figure. She is “flowing again”, an allusion to their juicy lovemaking, as well as her restored feminine power.

The Magician, through his shamanic journeys, knows reality “Beyond Opposites” and can bring back essential truths (the “Sorcerer’s Stone”, an alchemical stone or substance that could transform metals/us from one thing to another), which would certainly be valuable “gems” for an emerging paradigm of peace. With such transformative power, we could regain “the Sight” (a pagan way of expressing psychic power). The alchemist’s quest, to transform lead into gold, becomes essentially a practice of personal evolution – of the mind (“leaden” and dumbed-down) and of the body (sexually repressed and “anxious”). We can become “fountains of light”, a metaphor of tantric sexuality if ever there was one!

In the Golden Age, we will no longer be bound up in “Fear’s spell”, as our current Age of Terrorism clearly illustrates, but we will be able to relax and “love one another again”.

Merlin the Magician is concerned about the fate of his people. First their land had been invaded by Romans, who brought with them the Roman Christian Church, and then by Germanic tribes, such as the Saxons, who sought to seize the land. The Celts need someone to unify them, so the Magician first helps Uther Pendragon, who fought under the banner of the red dragon, to attain the beautiful Igraine, Duchess of Cornwall. When Uther’s head is turned by power, Merlin comes for their son, Arthur. He takes Arthur to train him in the old ways, so that he learns to love the land, respect the spirits of the forests and lakes, and honor the people. He develops his perception and wisdom, his Sight.

The Magician still communes with the spirits, and asks the Lady of the Lake, Vivianne, to give up Excalibur, a sword which confers authority. She does so. Taking the sword to London, he magically inserts it into a huge stone, and places a sign, which reads, “Whosoever pulleth out this sword shall be the rightful King of the Britons”.

Naturally many knights and lords try with all their might to extract the sword, to no avail, and so they begin to bicker among themselves as to who should be king. “Why don’t you have a tournament?” Merlin suggests, knowing that it would bring contenders from all over Britain, including Arthur who is then staying with Sir Ector and his family.

The tournament is held on Christmas Day, putting everyone in a festive mood. Jousting and sword fighting, as well as feasting and drinking, fill the day. Arthur, who has come to London with his adopted family, while walking across the square, sees a peculiar sight: a sword stuck into a boulder. Approaching it from the back, not seeing the sign, he reaches over and pulls it out, as easily as a knife in butter, and the replaces it. A passing page witnesses this and runs off to tell others. Soon the square is filled with lords and knights, scoffing at the idea that the young lad known as Arthur could have done such a thing. Merlin intervenes, saying, “Come Arthur, show everyone what you did.” Again, just as easily, he pulls out the sword. The crowd gasps, and then one by one, the lords and knights bow down to the blond young man.

“This is Arthur, son of the Pendragon!” Merlin declares. “He is the rightful King of Briton!”

Merlin commands the respect of the people, as well as that of Arthur. As counselor to the king, Merlin has the highest hopes for the unification of his people. Indeed, for a time, Camelot becomes a shining kingdom of justice, honor, and prosperity.

Though the Arthurian legends are usually placed in a medieval setting, it is most likely that the king that unified the Britons lived in the fifth or sixth century. The Romans had abandoned the British Isles, leaving them open to invasion by Germanic tribes. There probably was a Rex Artorius (King Arthur) who responded to the crisis of his people. While our images of Camelot involve silks and shiny armor, most likely rough-woven woolens and Roman legion uniforms are more appropriate, much in the way that we today understand the story of star-crossed lovers by watching West Side Story taking place in modern Manhattan instead of Romeo and Juliet in medieval Italy.

While King Arthur was probably a real person, was Merlin? Miraculous stories of him span millennia, saying that he used a magical horn to transport huge stones from Ireland to erect Stonehenge (theoretically built in 2500 BCE), that he aided the Welsh king, Uther Pendragon (mid-400’s CE?), and was advisor to King Arthur, the latter characters based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, written in the 12th century.

Merlin could well have been a Druid, a priest trained in the shamanic arts, holder of the Celtic oral tradition (a training that took 20 years to memorize the verses), a shapeshifter, and a prophet. He could communicate with the Celtic gods and goddesses, who were embodied in the elemental forces of Nature. One story says that he was the last druidic high priest, advisor to the last pagan king of Scotland, who organized the resistance first to the Romans, and then to the new Christian kings of Britain. As pagan warriors, they painted themselves for battle (the Romans thus called them “Picts”), and practiced guerilla tactics, always taking cover in the forests they knew so well. According to the story, when the last pagan king was killed in battle, along with Merlin’s brothers, the Druid went mad with grief and retreated into the woods, where he could live close to Nature. People sought him out as a wise poet and soothsayer.

Accordingly, Merlin never died. He simply drew back from the world. Some say he fell into a deathless sleep and slumbers still, either in a crystal castle or a hawthorn tree, and that he will return as the spiritual leader of the British people when they are ready to recognize him again.

Nimue is an attractive enchantress, who knows all too well how to use her feminine wiles. When Merlin the Magician first meets her in an enchanted forest, she is only 16, with her beauty in full bloom. Finding her irresistible, he falls in love with her.

“Travel with me, my love,” Merlin pleads with her. “I will take you to Cornwall, and across the channel to Brittany.”

“Traveling our isles is fine, but I want to know the fairy realms, the spirit world . . . I will sleep with you, Merlin, only if you teach me your spells and how to conjure. Teach me the arts of magic,” she bargains.

Merlin consents, and the lovely Nimue becomes his constant companion. Years pass. Nimue’s powers increase, until she feels confidant of herself as a sorceress.

Merlin has grown old, and in order to be rid of him, his lover entices him into her fairy-wood, Broceliande. There she has conjured a crystal cave, under a hawthorn tree. Round and round she encircles him with her veil, all the while weaving her spell, until he falls into a deep sleep. Some say that he sleeps there still, and sometimes you can hear him whispering in the rustling of the hawthorn leaves.

Another story calls her Vivianne, or the Lady of the Lake. As a water spirit, she lives in the lake, guarding the sword Excalibur. When King Uther Pendragon is about to die, Merlin knows that the lords of the kingdoms of Britain will clash over who should rule, and his protégé, Arthur is just coming of age.

At water’s edge, he calls the water nymph. “Lady of the Lake! Now is the time to come to Britain’s aid! Please relinquish Excalibur!”

Suddenly there is a stirring in the water, and with shimmering light and much splashing, she emerges, holding high Excalibur. “Remember, Merlin,” she tells him, “that this sword can only be used in a just cause.”

“Arthur is the king to unify all the tribes of Britain, and the warrior to fend off the Saxons,” he explains. “I have trained him myself. He will honor both Celt and Christian alike. He will rule wisely.”

Floating across the water, the Lady of the Lake hands the magical weapon to Merlin, and then disappears into the watery depths.

In legend there is much confusion in references to the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, and Vivianne. Stories use them interchangeably, resulting in a rather confusing picture of the women. It is likely that it is from the Morrigan, the Celtic triple goddess, that the conflicting myths spring. Their names, therefore, give clues as to their identities. Vivianne is the creative aspect, whose name means “She Who Lives”. Nimue, possibly related to the Greek Nemesis and Diana of the Groves (nimidae), means “Fate”. Morgaine, or Morgan le Fay, represents the Crone figure, “Mother Death”; her name affirming that all of our fates is death.

The final scene of the myth has a dying King Arthur in a boat heading across a misty lake to the Fortunate Isles of Avalon. He is being ferried there by three women, three fairy queens, or three pagan priestesses.

Morgaine, Vivianne, and Nimue are all portrayed as witches or evil sorceresses in the Arthurian legends. In the patriarchal refashioning of Divine Feminine archetypal characters, the Triple Goddess is dismembered, her death-dealing or fate-enforcing qualities personified as evil. Since they originated in pagan religion, the strong women/goddesses of the story are subjugated according to Christian dogma, which asserts that all women, by virtue of being “daughters of Eve” will bring about man’s downfall. By the Middle Ages, the stories of King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table, entrench most of the feminine characters as villains.

§§ To further contemplate the Triple Goddess, see: "The Trinity"

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