Gilded Mask Dropping
Art by Tim Walker
Though you may not know it, see it or feel it yet, this week is golden. Hidden within the waning folds of the moon, lurking in dark corners we have not noticed before, tucked beneath the masks and mayhem of life as we knew it. Once upon a terrible time, nevermore.
As we twist and turn through Aries' cardinal fire, its stellium builds the power to effect lasting change. We are rendered pioneers, outliers from the worlds we once mindlessly occupied. Now plunged into fresh consciousness and heightened awareness and all we cannot unsee. Nothing is as it once was. Neither will we will ever be as we once were, not again.
We are better for it. Gilded masks only served their armoured purpose, keeping us far from the union we crave. This life, our love, was not created for battlefields and false gods to exploit. It was only manufactured that way, as we were fed tales of wolves and warriors that had no heart. Of mice and men that ate away at our sweet edges. Of a dark world on the far edge of reason and madness. It wasn't the truth so it never made common sense.
This week the masks come all the way off, gently by your own hand or wrenched by stars that know a vaster path. The alchemist smiles at what lies beneath as the sun finally kisses fresh skin. Cells rearrange themselves to better suit the new horizon and our delicate architecture forges itself into a new shape.
As the moon wanes she offers us her cauldron and looks away. What you dispense with now is not her concern; it is yours. You alone hold the power to relinquish. To banish from your golden future what has not earned a bit part. To recognise what truly lay under its mask, and crawled in to make a home under yours. To reset the frame, its home and contents.
Unclutter your view. Unload the weight and excess baggage. Bathe your eyes and tend their fresh vision. Search for the clues and reach for the shimmering keys. Tread lightly. Follow yourself all the way home.
Wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.
~ Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Words c. Kerrie Basha 2021