The Chained Phoenix

by Feel Good

A smile on the crying face.
My laugh echoes through my empty heart.
All I feel is pain.
All I know is to be alone.

My flesh crawls with imagined touch.
A dream of arms to hold me safe.
Darkness closes all around.
Lost, I cry for help.

No one listens.

Cold and unwanted,
like winters kiss.
I dream of another world
Warmth and love so far away.

Baptised in scarlet rain
Bound by barb-wire rope
This is the fate of pain
A destiny I cannot escape.

This broken shell
Already weak
Held together with hopes and dreams
The cracks expand

A soul in chains
Rotting in a dungeon
A wingless angel
Bereft of hope

The crucified saint
The bleeding child
The living martyr
The forgotten tomb

The bell tolls mournfully
The earthly ravens fly
Shadows and storm clouds,
Darken the sky.

Free the crimson lightning
With the faithful sword
Your screams known to heaven alone
See the angels cry.

The tears burn
Against a heart of stone
This is how it is
When you live a life alone.

(http://www.recoveryourlife.com)

The Legend of the Phoenix

by D. J. Conway

The Phoenix is known in various forms and by various names throughout the Middle and Far East, the Mediterranean, and Europe, as a symbol of resurrection. The name Phoenix may have come from the Greek phoinix and may be related to phoinos (blood-red). Although it was an enormous bird, it had certain characteristics of the eagle, pheasant, and the peacock.

The earliest known Greek reference to the Phoenix was by Hesoid in the eighth century B.C.E. Such Greek and Roman writers as Tacitus, Ovid, Pliny, Herodotus, and Hesoid referred to the Phoenix either as the Arabian Bird or the Egyptian Bird. An extremely gentle creature, it was said to weep tears of incense, while its blood was balsam.

There are two ancient records of first-hand sightings of a Phoenix: one by Pliny, who saw one exhibited in the Roman Forum during the reign of the Emperor Claudius; another by Clemont in the first century C.E.

The Phoenix was a graceful bird, with brilliant plumage and a distinctive tuft of feathers at the back of its head. There are at least three different descriptions of the plumage colors of the Phoenix. One says that the head, breast, and back are scarlet or reddish-gold, and the iridescent wings are many colors. Its feet are a Tyrian purple hue, while its eyes are sea-blue. Another says the body is plum-colored with a scarlet back and wing feathers, a golden head, and a long tail of rose and azure. The third description states that the Phoenix is a royal purple with a golden neck and head. It is possible that these descriptions are of the Phoenix in various stages of its life.

Tradition says that the Phoenix fed only on air, harming no other creature. It lived a solitary life in a far-away land, coming to human-inhabited land only when it was ready to die. The length of a Phoenix's life differs from ancient writer to writer; most believed that it lived for a thousand years.

When the Phoenix knew its time had come, it flew to Arabia where it gathered myrrh, laudanum, nard, and cassia. Carrying a great load of these fragrances in its wings, the Phoenix flew on to Phoenicia. There, it chose the tallest palm tree and built a nest in it from the essences it had brought. At the next dawn, the great bird faced the rising Sun and sang in a beautiful voice. The heat of the Sun ignited the fragrant spices, and the Phoenix died in its own funeral pyre.

After nine days, a fledgling Phoenix rose out of the ashes. A few days later, when its wings were strong enough, the young Phoenix gathered the ashes of its parent and flew them to Heliopolis in Egypt. Thousands of ordinary birds accompanied it on its journey. There, the Phoenix put the ashes of its parent on the altar in the Sun temple. Then it flew toward the east and its distant home.



Other writers of the Phoenix story disagree on several points. Some said that instead of flying to Phoenicia with its spices, the Phoenix flew directly to the temple at Heliopolis and built its funeral pyre on the altar there. Others believed that the priest of the Sun temple gathered the spices and prepared the next for the Phoenix. A few writers recorded that the Phoenix did not rise straight from the ashes, but rather spent three days in a worm-like form before turning into the glorious Phoenix.

The Phoenix never died permanently. Legend says it existed when the universe was created and that it knows secrets of life and reincarnation even the deities do not know.

Humans are fascinated by the sweet song of the Phoenix, and the bird is friendly to humans, although it seldom concerns itself with human affairs.

A similar mythological Egyptian bird was the Bennu, a heron-like bird. The Bennu was born in a spice-lined nest in a sycamore tree. It too made its own funeral pyre in which it died. Its first flight, after being reborn, was accompanied by thousands of ordinary birds. In fact, "Bennu" in Egyptian and "Phoenix" in Greek both mean "date palm." The Bennu was sacred to Osiris and Ra, and a symbol of the Sun and resurrection. It also represented the morning star.

The Egyptian Phoenix was called the "Lord of jubilees," and was considered to be the ba (spirit) of the Sun God Ra. At one point in the Book of the Dead, the deceased says, "I have gone forth as a Phoenix." In Heliopolis, the Bennu was said to live in the benbenstone (obelisk) or in the sacred willow.

Queen Elizabeth I had a Phoenix engraved on her medals; Mary Queen of Scots also used the same emblem. Jane Seymour, who died giving birth to Edward VI, had a Phoenix crest, which her son later used.

In Mesopotamian art, the Phoenix may have been symbolized by the horned and winged solar disk. Ancient bas-reliefs show this winged disk also having tail-feathers, legs, and claws of a bird. Often this winged disk also had horns. The winged disk of Abura Mazdah on a relief at Persepolis distinctly shows this disk with tail-feathers and bird's legs and feet.

Alchemists used the Phoenix to symbolize the color red and the successful end of a process, while medieval Hermeticists used the Phoenix as a symbol of alchemical transmutation. The word Phoenix was also used to identify one of the secret alchemical formulae.

The ancient Mysteries used the sign of the Phoenix to symbolize the immortality of the human soul and the great truths of esoteric philosophies revealed only through special initiations. In some ancient Mystery Schools, accepted initiates were referred to as Phoenixes, or those who had been "born again."





In ancient Egyptian mythology and in myths derived from it, the phoenix or phœnix is a mythical sacred firebird.

Said to live for 500 or 1461 years (depending on the source), the phoenix is a bird with beautiful gold and red plumage. At the end of its life-cycle the phoenix builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises. The new phoenix embalms the ashes of the old phoenix in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis ("the city of the sun" in Greek). The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible — a symbol of fire and divinity.

Although descriptions (and life-span) vary, the phoenix (Bennu bird) became popular in early Christian art, literature and Christian symbolism, as a symbol of Christ, and further, represented the resurrection, immortality, and the life-after-death of Jesus Christ.

Originally, the phoenix was identified by the Egyptians as a stork or heron-like bird called a benu, known from the Book of the Dead and other Egyptian texts as one of the sacred symbols of worship at Heliopolis, closely associated with the rising sun and the Egyptian sun-god Ra.

It's spring again, and in spring the Earth is re-born. Immortality is a central concept of all mythology, to the most ancient times. The Phoenix is the most enigmatic legend of all. It is a great bird that incinerates itself, then is born again from it's own ashes.

The legend is believed by many scholars to have originated in the Middle East, but it is so old and obscure that it is impossible to tell where it really began. The only thing scholars seem to agree on is, as Socrates once said, we know only that we know nothing when it comes right down to it. In every version of the legend, the bird is immortal.

It seems to come from pre-historic spirituality. It represents our mortality, the very foundation of our being. A Phoenix represents the never-ending cycle of life; our own and of the universe itself.

In Greek and Egyptian mythology, the Phoenix is tied to the God of the Sun. it In Greek legend, he lives in the Middle East, by a well. It bathed in the well every day, and sang, as many of us do, in the bath. But the song of the Phoenix was so beautiful that the sun itself stopped first at it's well before making his daily journey across the sky.

Legend says that there is only one phoenix. Every 500-1,461 years, when it knows death is near, it builds a nest of sweet scented wood and then bursts into flame. It then re-emerges from the fire and embalms the ashes of its former self in an egg all of myrrh. The Phoenix flies the egg to the Sun God.




[from Magickal, Mystical Creatures by D. J Conway]

His Phoenix

By William Butler Yeats

There is a queen in China, or maybe it's in Spain,
And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard
Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no
stain,
That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a
bird;
And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing woma-
kind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance
of his mind:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.

The young men every night applaud their Gaby's
laughing eye,
And Ruth St. Denis had more charm although she had
poor luck;
From nineteen hundred nine or ten, Pavlova's had the
cry
And there's a player in the States who gathers up her
cloak
And flings herself out of the room when Juliet would
be bride
With all a woman's passion, a child's imperious way,
And there are -- but no matter if there are scores beside:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.

There's Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,
A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;
One's had her fill of lovers, another's had but one,
Another boasts, 'I pick and choose and have but two
or three.'
If head and limb have beauty and the instep's high and
light
They can spread out what sail they please for all I have
to say,
Be but the breakers of men's hearts or engines of
delight:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.

There'll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, through
all the centuries,
And who can say but some young belle may walk and
talk men wild
Who is my beauty's equal, though that my heart denies,
But not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child,
And that proud look as though she had gazed into the
burning sun,
And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray.
I mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God's will
be done:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their
day.

The Canonization

by John Donne


For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five grey hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace,
Or the King's real, or his stamped face
Contemplate, what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who's injur'd by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly,
We'are tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the'eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit,
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns all shall approve
Us canoniz'd for love;

And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize)
Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
A pattern of your love!"

Phoenix

by D. H. Lawrence


Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, canceled, made nothing?

Are you willing to be made nothing? dipped into oblivion?

If not, you will never really change.

The phoenix renews her youth only when she is burnt,

Burnt alive, burnt down to hot and flocculent ash.

Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest

With strands of down like floating ash

Shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle,

Immortal bird.


[ Shared by Erosthenes ]

If Hands Could Free You, Heart

By Philip Larkin

If hands could free you, heart,
Where would you fly?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate? Would you cross
City and hill and sea,
If hands could set you free?

I would not lift the latch;
For I could run
Through fields, pit-valleys, catch
All beauty under the sun--
Still end in loss:
I should find no bent arm, no bed
To rest my head.

Phoenix Rising

By Debbie Whittle



.....Aligning with natural rhythms… realize
Like the phoenix… we will always rise

Over and over, it will always be
The flame of truth sets us free
Just as we accept our terrible demise
Unquenchable human spirit cannot help but rise

The cycle of life cannot be denied
Despite the false notions, coded inside
In the midst of the ashes, hear these cries
“I am the phoenix of old, and I continue to rise”
“I am the phoenix… and still, I Rise!

Venus Tracing the Phoenix

Venus, the goddess of beauty, originally Astarte in Phoenician mythology, is tracing the Phoenix constellation. The stars and galaxies shown are from the actual celestial sky. The star dust used by Venus is the nebula clouds that shows the phases of star birth. The galaxies shown around are NGC300 and NGC55. Also you can trace the Double Cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud around the Phoenix constellation.

The painting was completed fall of 2007.

[ See other paintings by the artist at http://www.tonysky.net/tony/]

Venus Tracing the Phoenix


as narrated by Antoine Faddoul


The inhabitants of the land far south could not see the splendor of the Phoenix nor hear its beautiful sound. In one Fall, and in order to share its tale of the will of rebirth, the Phoenix used November winds to help it flying so high over Mount Lebanon, and it lapsed between the stars.


The firebird kept traveling to the starry heavens every night until in the seventh night, Venus (Astarte), the Goddess of beauty, decided to trace its figure with the stars to spread the Phoenix story for all people.


Until now, people who live far south (in the Southern Hemisphere) can still view the Phoenix constellation in the sky for most of the year, and those who live in Lebanon can see it in the Fall, the actual time it made its trip to the stars..

Embracing the Change Within

Hurry! We burn
For Rome’s so near us, for the phoenix moment
When we have thrown off this traveller’s trance
And mother-naked and ageless-ancient
Wake in her warm nest of renaissance.

[From Flight to Italy, by Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972)]

The Flight of the Phoenix

Flight of the Phoenix (original version) is one of the whole time great movies.

James Stewart plays a pilot who feels responsible for the deaths of several passengers after a forced landing in the desert. He and the rest of the survivors are eventually persuaded by Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger) to attempt to build an aircraft from the remains of the old one.


The movie says something special about the nature of machines, particularly aircraft. Although they may look refined, immaculate, often beautiful, in fact they are constructed of an extraordinary quantity of precisely worked components. Each part has been made to its particular shape to serve its particular purpose. None of it occurred accidentally, somebody sat down and designed every last tiny part.





Dorfmann, the aircraft designer, has to figure out how to make a plane from what’s left intact of the old. He must come up with a design that’s viable. He has to work everything out, how the old plane must be torn apart, how the parts of it will be moved around, and how they will be reassembled, how the controls must be rigged. In reality this would be an almost superhuman feat. Could a real life aircraft designer do such a thing? Would a real aircraft designer have covered ever step of the production life cycle. But Dorfmann’s company makes model planes, and Dorfmann has always had to design everything on his projects.





Moreover, and most important of all, Dorfmann must present the case for building the Phoenix, and see it through. Dorfmann demonstrates real steel, for a time he and he alone believes in the job and recognises the importance of seeing it through. Dorfmann is commited to the point of obsession, as true genius requires.


With Dorfmann's character, the movie teters on the edge of credibility, the introspective Dorfmann is something special, not only did he design the airframe of his world class models, but also the radio control. Improbable stuff? Perhaps, but the movie is saved by great story telling. The survivors decide to go for it, rather than sit on their arses and die, they take a chance on the 'toy plane' builder.


In fact, many full size aircraft designers have been model plane builders. Charles Fairey had a job as a power station engineer before selling, for a considerable fee, a model design of his to Gamleys Toy Store. Then he moved into full-size aviation and eventually ran a 'little' company called Fairey Aviation. Sydney Camm, responsible for the Hurricane fighter, was also a modeller, and most recently Burt Rutan, who even borrowed some his construction techniques from aeromodelling (hot wiring foam etc). As Dorfmann puts it, flying models are not toys, they obey the same physical laws as the full sized ones. Moreover, they don't have a pilot to keep them straight and level. In fact, Dorfmann would have prefered it if he could have managed without the pilot, James Stewart's character, Frank Towns


Towns must surrender his authority to Dorfmann, so that the new plane can be built. Towns doesn’t believe the plan is feasible but he is persuaded that engaging in the project is better than letting them sit around waiting to die. Throughout Towns rails against Dorfmann but always Dorfmann is right and Towns wrong, yet Dorfmann knows he needs Towns’ skills to fly the plane.





After many problems the plane is ready and Towns must start it up and fly. The point where Towns climbs aboard and pulls the ladder up behind him is very sweet. This is where Towns takes the plane away from Dorfmann. Now he must use all his knowledge to get the engine started.


The engine can only be started with a Coffman cartridge starter. Dorfmann feels that Towns would intentionally not get the engine started, so he can't kill more of them in another crash. But if the engine doesn't start Towns will have failed as a pilot AND they'll all die of thirst.


Towns starts the engine and is seen to have knowledge that Dorfmann doesn't have. In one sense getting the engine going is the end of the story, Towns has made his choice, finally committed wholeheartedly to the project, and in doing so got his self respect back.





And now, with the motor going, the Phoenix has ceased to be a collection of useless parts, it’s become the difference between life and death and every one of them has made a contribution.






Paul Mantz, a veteran stunt pilot who had worked with Howard Hughes on Hell's Angels was killed flying for this movie. As a result the actual flying shots look a bit truncated. It's a great pity, but Mantz died doing the work he loved, and when you gotta go, that's not a bad way to do it. Moreover, this is a wonderful movie, Mantz could hardly have wished for a better final credit than Phoenix.