Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Dear Siblings,
Crowley subtitled Liber VII — “these are the Birth-Words of a Master of the Temple.” Not death-words. Not farewell-words. Birth-Words. The text traditionally read on the eve of the Equinox to close the old Thelemic year isn’t an elegy. It’s the first cry of something that didn’t exist before.
The Equinox in Thelema isn’t about what ends. It marks the moment a new self breaks through — inarticulate at first, raw, the tongue breaking forth into what the Prologue of Liber VII calls “a weird and monstrous speech.” Birth is like that. It doesn’t arrive polished. It arrives screaming.
And then comes the learning to speak. The twenty-two days of the Thelemic Holy Season that follow the Equinox are each attributed to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet — the elemental building blocks of language, of creation itself. Day by day, reading by reading, the new self acquires its voice.
But fluency isn’t given freely. As in the great initiatory dramas, one must pass through fire to enter the temple of wisdom — and only then become its master, not because the temple is handed to you, but because you are transformed by the passage.
That’s the work we’re all engaged in. Whether through the cycle of the Equinox, the ordeals of initiation, or the steady discipline of daily practice, we are each becoming master of our own temple. The Equinox returns each year not as repetition but as another opportunity to be born again into deeper alignment with our will — the unborn becoming, perpetually.
By April 10, the Holy Season culminates in the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law — the utterance that founded an Aeon. From the inarticulate cry of the Prologue to the revealed Word of Liber Legis: that’s the arc of the season. And it’s the arc of every initiate’s journey.
—
I’m delighted to share that Scarlet Woman recently performed its first Minerval initiations in quite some time. May their admission to our temple and camp set them firmly on the path. We welcome them as siblings.
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Thelemic Holy Season: Daily Readings
The College of Thelema recommends the following meditations and readings for the twenty-two days between the Equinox and the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law. This year, the new moon falls on the evening of March 18. The Prologue of the Unborn is therefore read under a sky just past total darkness — the first sliver of the waxing crescent already returning. The unborn moon, like the unborn self of the Prologue, is already becoming.
Display the corresponding Tarot Trump each day and conduct whatever meditation, ritual, or recognition of the principle you see fit.
March 19 — Prologue of the Unborn: Liber VII, Prologue. Meditate on the release of the concluding cycle.
March 20 — Tav, The Universe: Liber VII, Cap. 2 (morning); Liber LXV, Cap. 1 (evening)
March 21 — Shin, The Aeon: Liber LXV, Cap. 4
March 22 — Resh, The Sun: Liber VII, Cap. 4
March 23 — Qoph, The Moon: Liber VII, Cap. 6
March 24 — Tzaddi, The Emperor: Liber Tzaddi
March 25 — Peh, The Tower: Liber VII, Cap. 1
March 26 — A’ayin, The Devil: Liber A’ash
March 27 — Samekh, Art: Liber ARARITA, Cap. 7
March 28 — Nun, Death: Liber Arcanorum
March 29 — Mem, The Hanged Man: Liber LXV, Cap. 3
March 30 — Lamed, Adjustment: Liber Librae
March 31 — Kaph, Fortune: Liber VII, Cap. 3
April 1 — Yod, The Hermit: Liber VII, Cap. 5
April 2 — Teth, Lust: Liber Stellae Rubeae
April 3 — Cheth, The Chariot: Liber Cheth
April 4 — Zayin, The Lovers: Liber LXV, Cap. 2
April 5 — Vav, The Hierophant: Liber LXV, Cap. 5
April 6 — Heh, The Star: Liber ARARITA, Cap. 6
April 7 — Daleth, The Empress: Liber VII, Cap. 7
April 8 — Gimel, The Priestess: Liber Legis, Cap. I (Nuit)
April 9 — Beth, The Magus: Liber Legis, Cap. II (Hadit)
April 10 — Aleph, The Fool: Liber Legis, Cap. III (Heru-Ra-Ha)
Love is the law, love under will.
— Fr. Ishmael