At the deep hinge of midnight, when one day has died and the next is not yet born, the old names carry their greatest weight. Spoken aloud in the dark, they are keys, and sleep is only the first of many doors.
This incantation reaches toward the far dreaming, the deliberate crossing, the sending-forth of the dreamer’s spirit beyond the walls of the body and the night. It is not a lulling but a summoning, and it asks that the one who speaks it be ready to go where the words open the way.
The Working
- At midnight, light a single candle and a coil of incense, and sit where their smoke and glow may mingle over you.
- Ring a bell three times to mark the threshold and to still the room to listening.
- Breathe slowly until the flame is the only thing you see and the smoke the only thing you feel.
- Speak the names beneath sleep, the incantation below, low and unhurried, letting each line settle before the next.
- At the final word, ring the bell once more and lie back without breaking the dark.
- Let the candle burn low and the incense thread its way toward the ceiling as sleep takes you, and follow the smoke down.
The Incantation
By the hour that belongs to neither day,
By the smoke that rises and the flame that stays,
I call the old names that unbolt the deep:
Come, opener; come, warden; come, keeper of sleep.
Take up my spirit and carry it far,
Past the last threshold, past moon and star.
What I go seeking, let it be shown,
And bring me back safe when the morning is grown.
The bell seals the crossing and the guttering candle marks the way home. When you wake, snuff any remaining flame and speak no name aloud until the sun has fully risen.