The Greater Feast of Grady Louis McMurtry
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Today is the GREATER FEAST (aka death) of our beloved Frater Hymenaeus Alpha 777 aka Grady Louis McMurtry who shed his earthly vehicle and died twenty-three years ago in California on July 12, 1985.
He was lying in his hospital bed at Brookside Hospital in San Pablo, discussing forms of meditation with a friend when he softly said, “I think my path is more the Sufi Path.” When questioned what he meant, he simply looked up and said, “I don’t know.” He then closed his eyes and quietly passed away. Grady once wrote that; “The moment of ultimate self-embarrassment is when you die.
That is when you wake up.” In other words, you get to review your whole incarnation for all its good and bad, shake your head and then prepare for the next.
On July 15th, his body was prepared at the Apollo Crematory in Emeryville, California. He was dressed as Saladin, in a turban with his favorite red robe. A bouquet of roses was placed in his arms shortly before he was cremated.
Grady’s ashes remained in the possession of the O.T.O. for almost a year. Then, on July 12th 1986, a large group of individuals boarded a boat rented at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. About three miles past the Golden Gate Bridge, with help of the Neptune Society, his ashes were spread out across the Pacific Ocean. It was written, “From the fire of cremation to the waters of the great sea, by formula and verse did we rejoice him on his way.”
A single rose was then tossed into the water, cut from the same bush as the bouquet that had been placed in his hands when he was cremated. As his ashes slowly vanished beneath the waters, one of Grady’s poem was read to send him off on his last voyage -The Redeemer That is in the Waters.
THE REDEEMER
THAT IS IN THE WATERS
O who will go with the mermen bold
With the mermen, wild and free
O who will rule from the castle old
In the Chasm of the sea
And who will brave the abyssal cold
For all eternity?
O I will go with the mermen bold
With the mermen, wild and free
And I will rule from the castle old
In the Chasm of the sea
And I will brave the abyssal cold
For one eternity!
Love is the law, love under will.