Listen to Olivia Robertson in this archived recording of her meditation on the Moon and the myth of Selene and Endymion:
Selene and Endymion
(mp3 /3:18 min / 776 kb)
(mp3 /3:18 min / 776 kb)
Audio transcript:
"See with your mind's eye the myth of Selene and Endymion. A poet, wearied with life's dull round, seeks solitude in a grove of cypresses. As night comes, he lies down and falls asleep. Slowly the dark sky begins to glow with a pale light. From on high a Goddess of magical beauty appears above the trees, and sees the sleeping youth. Her black hair spreads about Her, glittering with stars, and it has copper-coloured lights. And Her face and naked body are made of crystalised White Light, with a glow of copper. She falls in love with the beauty of the poet's soul. She looks through to all his past lives and struggles, the neglect and poverty, the loneliness, the feeling separate from others. She touches him with her long white fingers. He opens his eyes and sees Her and he marvels at her transcendental loveliness. She puts down her hands and arms like two long beams of light. She draws Endymion upwards into the night sky. Behold, the two are made One, surrounded by a radiating white and copper aura. Upon the earth lies the body of the youth, face upwards, his unseeing eyes open.
The moon in her beauty inspires the romantic dreams of poets and lovers, so that the humblest woman becomes a Goddess of eternal loveliness: a hump-backed man is transformed through love's eyes into a God. And this is no illusion, for the ugliness is but a false transient image and it is banished to reveal the truth. Ugliness, stupidity and cruelty are but distortions in our shadow world of the perfection that is our true being. Those who despise others are deluded by the passing play: wise are those who adore the ideal in their lovers.
'Lady of Night, two-horned, Lover of nightlong dances,
Look through the latticed windows, O Moon with thy quivering ray,On my golden lass, Callistion! Immortal glances
May linger unforbidden on mortal lovers' play.
Sure on us both, O Moon, there rests thy benison -
Once was thine own heart kindled to love Endymion'."
(Illustration of Selene and Endymion by Olivia Robertson.)
Archival Link: Audio Gallery
