DIE DAILY
“The Universe is Change: every Change is the effect of an Act of Love; all Acts of Love contain Pure Joy. Die daily! Death is the apex of one curve of the snake Life: behold all opposites as necessary complements, and rejoice!”
— Instruction XIII from The Heart of the Master
“Death implies change and individuality if thou be THAT which hath no person, which is beyond the changing, even beyond changelessness, what hast thou to do with death?
The bird of individuality is ecstasy; so also is its death.
In love the individuality is slain; who loves not love?
Love death therefore, and long eagerly for it.
Die Daily.”
— ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΙΣ The Stag-Beetle in Liber CCCXXXIII, Book of Lies
Deep wet eyes that are violet-blue!
Haggard cheeks that may blush no more!
Body bruised daintily, touched of gore
Where the sharp fierce teeth have bitten through
The olive skin that thy sons adore,
That they die for daily, are slain anew
By manifold hate; for their tale is few.
— Verse from Ode to Venus Callipyge in White Stains
“There be moreover many other modes of attaining the apprehension of true Life, and these two following are of much value in breaking up the ice of your mortal error in the vision of your being. And of these the first is the constant contemplation of the Identity of Love and Death, and the understanding of the dissolution of the body as an Act of Love done upon the Body of the Universe, as also it is written at length in our Holy Books. And with this goeth, as it were sister with twin brother, the practice of mortal love as a sacrament symbolical of that great Death: as it is written ‘Kill thyself’: and again ‘Die daily.’”