Black Sun Vibration - Gwyllm Llwydd (2025)
A new piece, some 3.5 weeks in the making. My phone camera doesn’t do it justice, will try again with another. 11”x14” (I really must move back to larger substrates! Acryclic & Pencil. Dots. Lots of dots. I have been working with pointillism for over 50 years off and on, having returned to this to move away a bit from collage work.
Work is based on the Alchemical Black Sun, the Nigredo. I have long been fascinated with the idea of the Black Sun, it reappears every few years in my art.
On the last couple of weeks…
I won’t go into a great deal of detail but the last 2 weeks we have lost 5 members of our family and extended family of friends. We are reeling from that as you can imagine. From Scotland to the state of Washington, beloveds now gone. I may write a bit on it all in the next Substack, or not.
Submissions for the 13th Invisible College: “The Sacred Clown”
Due to my past illness of several months, preparations on this edition came to a halt. Please consider submitting works so we can get this on the road. Hoping to publish in the fall.
Thanks again for your support.
On The Menu:
The Links
One of These
Valdosta
Dead Can Dance - Black Sun
Poetry: Hafiz
DPT: A Rough Time
Dead Can Dance - Opium
The Links:
Archaeologists Believe They’ve Found a Lost Cult Site of Odysseus
Are There Stone Age Megastructures on the Baltic Sea Floor?
One of These:
Bad Boys probably nailed one of our local moggies Friday night last.
I had to get up and shut the windows throughout the house. It was very overpowering, having woke me up from a delightful sleep, choking on the vapers. It took quite a while for it to dissipate.
Hadn't encountered the power of the skunk blast since the late 60's when Albert (the puppster) kept getting blasted by the local ones.
His other main activity was harassing porcupines. After his little adventures with said porcupines, we would have to hold him down and remove the quills time and again. He of course would try to bite us for our efforts. He had no appreciation of our ministrations I have to say.
He was not the brightest, when it came to skunks and porcupines, but he was a sweet, sweet boy. A Hungarian Poolie. Hairy little guy!
Valdosta:
From early 2024. Somehow, I forgot to post this, it fits in a way…
The other day we went to the market and when we were queued up for the checkout there was a gentleman in front of us pushing an electric bicycle. He seemed a charming fellow and answered my questions readily about his bike.
As we got closer to the cashier he turned around and asked me if I were from the south because of my accent. How strange is that? Here I am in my early '70s and having lived in various places around the world and now one of my family's accents is re-asserting itself? It comes and goes, having lived all over the world I was never really aware of a regional accent in the family, but here we are.
I told him where my family was from, where my father and my mother grew up as we had a very pleasant conversation.
I didn't ask him where he grew up…. But then he volunteered it. “I am from Georgia” he said, smiling. Out of courtesy I asked him “where in Georgia?” “Valdosta” he stated.
Valdosta. Now that is a place, that I was once very familiar with. When we moved to the US from Newfoundland when I was 5 or so… This was where my father was stationed at Moody AFB. Going from the wilds of Newfoundland, with northern lights, deep boreal forest, the Atlantic just a 1/2 mile away with Icebergs in the spring… To what I perceived as hell on earth, hot, muggy, multiple layers of snakes, insects and chiggers falling off of trees. My introduction to separate toilet facilities, water fountains, and schools, pre-integration days...
Yet, here we are. Talking. Sharing. A common thread between strangers. How wonderful is that? The universe is full of these serendipitous moments.
Almost 70 years ago, this was wonderful.
—
Dead Can Dance - Black Sun:
Poetry: Hafiz
The Roof of Hafiz’s Tomb…
Let Thought Become Your Beautiful Lover
Let thought become the beautiful Woman.
Cultivate your mind and heart to that depth
That it can give you everything
A warm body can.
Why just keep making love with God’s child– Form
When the Friend Himself is standing
Before us
So open-armed?
My dear,
Let prayer become your beautiful Lover
And become free,
Become free of this whole world
Like Hafiz.
—-
From the Large Jug, Drink
From the large jug, drink the wine of Unity,
So that from your heart you can wash away the futility of life’s grief.
But like this large jug, still keep the heart expansive.
Why would you want to keep the heart captive, like an unopened bottle
of wine?
With your mouth full of wine, you are selfless
And will never boast of your own abilities again.
Be like the humble stone at your feet rather than striving to be like a
Sublime cloud: the more you mix colors of deceit, the more colorless
your ragged wet coat will get.
Connect the heart to the wine, so that it has body,
Then cut off the neck of hypocrisy and piety of this new man.
Be like Hafiz: Get up and make an effort. Don’t lie around like a bum.
He who throws himself at the Beloved’s feet is like a workhorse and will
be rewarded with boundless pastures and eternal rest.--
_____
DPT: A Rough Time
I corresponded off and on with Sasha Shulgin over the years (DPT was a molecule he discovered), I will look around to see if I can find the notes from this experience… This goes back to the early 2000’s if not earlier.
“The Chemist” - Gwyllm Llwydd A homage I put together for Sasha after his passing
11:32 pm: Insufflated 35 mg DPT hydrochloride. Strong burning sensation in nose, very powerful chemical taste runs throughout head into mouth.
11:42 pm: Strong alerts; visual perception is changing rap- idly. Patterns appearing in strong waves. Strong chemical feelings and an overwhelming nasty taste.
11:50 pm to 12:00 am: Very strong rushes, rapid breathing, increased pulse, hands and feet are clammy, slight tremors throughout body. Everything is starting to feel very chemical, reminiscent of LSD — and unexpected discovery. There is some general confusion. The onset is STRONG. I've be- come extremely light-sensitive. Immense washes of color and fractaling patterns of running liquid spread over all surfaces. I turn off the lamp and light a candle on the dresser. An auditory hum is cranking up, accompanied by slithering sounds that just barely hover on the edge of audibility.
12:00-12:30 am: A raging torrent of sensation. Legs are starting to tremble very rapidly, in conjunction with the apparent auditory waves. (This, over the next hour, keeps me worried and preoccupied.) My partner massages the backs of my legs a bit and she notes that they are very tight. I am becoming afraid — afraid of convulsions. I curse that I ingested this stuff. I start going over in my mind what neurological damage I might have caused myself. I swear I will never do it again and then extrapolate that this goes for any other substance. We discuss it, but in a dispassionate way. My partner is very calming with her attitude, and this starts to relax me. I slowly let go and slide into the experience even more. The legs to some degree distract me from what is occurring inwardly, and from what I have tapped into in the parallel universe that I am becoming a part of.
I appear to be observing a vast, interlocking hive with in- sect/reptilian creatures in a very strange and dark dance. As I watch, I feel my flesh is both chitinous and scaly, flexible yet hard and burnished, reflective of light and darkness. I feel antennae emerging from my forehead, mandibles as my arms. This is so bizarre — like the old Hammer horror film 5 Million Years to Earth. I am part of it, but I am also observing it. Somewhere I still retain my humanity. Visuals are strongly moire-like, with pools of the hybrid creatures co- mingling and slithering about. The air is dank, rich with alien smells and sounds. An astounding beauty — black, yet voluptuous, with odd couplings and mental energies. Some of the creatures are arachnid hybrid-types, nesting in moire- patterned webs, eyes soft and compelling — calling me in to join with them. This is a totally alien world. Surfaces take on a look like leather and velvet, scaled with reptilian, chitinous extrusions. A thrumming vibration goes on unceasingly, pulsing and animating everything with shared awareness.
12:30-1:00 am: A strong odor is streaming from my body. My partner compares it to "a walk through the ape house at the zoo when it is 86° outside, overlaid with a marked chemical smell." Umm... now that is pleasant to find out. The smell
permeates the room. The vibration lessens in the legs and buttocks, 'though they are still quite tight and feel like sausages! Some of the anxiety is lifting. I go to the bathroom to take a shower out of mercy for my sweetie. The experience is refreshing, and I come back to the bedroom in a good state.
Slipping more into reverie, a deep, abiding trance settles in. I can hear sounds of the jungle — insect twittering, birds calling, wind in the trees. Everything feels very high-end
tryptamine-like, and patterns take on a more dynamic flow. Reptiles run through the shadows cast by the candle around the room.
1:00-1:30 am: Trembling generally ceases, with a few sporadic jumps here and there. My partner drifts toward sleep, 'though we still talk quietly and hold each other. Tactile sensations are very heightened. My nose feels abused!
1:30-3:30 am: The downward slope. Patterns are still strong but slowly letting go. I drift toward sleep around 2:30 am. I am submerged in a warm, comfortable flow. The tryptamine edginess is decreasing exponentially. I mull over in my mind my role in life, and where I want my focus to be. I rescind the "no substance order" from earlier but feel my attention has been more fixed on them than is needed. I awaken often, and feel I am still very-much taken by the DPT.
Dead Can Dance - Opium
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Thanks for reading/visiting!
G