Mary Butts Diary Entry

Sunday, 17 July 1921

Astral journey to find out the magical rite symbolized by

I found difficulty in rising. First a road rising in loops up a mountain side. Then a plunge into a wood—a ditch of bright glossy water reflecting brilliant sky and light green branches. This formed part of a series of similar fords on the edge of a flat glassy sea. There was always one like that appeared old, gnarled, overhanging the water—with the suggestion of a hollow scooped in the trunk like a coffin or mummy cake.

I thought of Portuguese laurel, but it was not. Finally I reached a wood, a tangly thicket of a place. There was the same huge tree, and in the side a hole full of ‘nothing’, shadows blue and yellow. Then I saw that this tree or the lower part of it was an old grey woman with the nest of birds in her lap. Or rather that the tree was her throne, with a sphinx for each arm. I think they flew in and out of her breast.

I came back and went again—[illegible] easily, till I saw the sky as a kind of [illegible]. like the W. coast of Scotland, on a globe. I tried to land on it. I found huge black [illegible] and out of it beasts came [illegible]. A lion, and stag like St. Huberts, and horses, and a giraffe, all stately, and wild and lovely, and a luminous, dark horse that reminded me of Dappelgrim. They came out of a black cave.

All this had taken a long time, I came back.

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