12. VULTURE — Lyrics

(Scroll below the lyrics to read more about this song.)

Lyrics

[intro ]
Hold!
Raise the circling of Vulture.
Wing in Sun’s service
where endings gather.
I circle the ground.
Open the wide spiral.
Completion confesses.

[verse]
Vulture knows—
What ends is free.
Return what served.
Trust the clearing.
Separate bone from burden.
Arrive at death.
Digest decay.
What finishes feeds tomorrow.
Leave the bones shining.
Finish what fell.
Eat what is yours to eat.

[chorus]
Vulture
circles what gave its lesson.
Take-and-finish—
rise without excess.
Vulture—
circle the closure.

[bridge]
All things pass their usefulness.
Everything returns to function.
Oversee ordeals thyself.
Bald crown cleanses
the costumes of death.

[chorus]
Vulture
circles what gave its lesson.
Take-and-finish—
rise without excess.
Vulture—
circle the closure.

[outro]
Circle.
Descend.
Law of Spiral completes.
Thus my worship
lives in my hidden bone-housing.

I serve the sun
by clearing aftermath.

About the Song

“Vulture” is a completion song.

This song grew out of noticing what remains after everything dramatic finishes. After collapse. After grief. After hunger. After voice. After hope.

Vulture arrives when the story stops asking questions.

She does not come for what lives. She comes for what already finished. Her work keeps the field clean so life can continue without distortion.

Vulture taught me to trust the part of myself that already stands upright.

The Bonehouse

I think of Vulture as the keeper of the Bonehouse.

The Bonehouse lives inside the body as structure — the place that stays true when emotion shakes, memory blurs, or identity rearranges. It holds the frame. It keeps reflection accurate.

Bone remembers function.

The Bonehouse holds the star.

I like this word to name the body as a sacred container — the place where light stays housed, upright, and usable. Sun lives here. Christ-consciousness lives here. Source. Whatever you’d call it.

When soft parts panic, bone stays honest.
When feeling floods, bone holds shape.
When something ends, bone marks the end without commentary.

It keeps orientation even while everything else reorganizes.

Vulture tends this place.

She strips what finished down to essence and leaves the structure intact. What served returns to use. What remains stands clean.

The Bonehouse stays.

Purification as Care

Vulture often gets framed as grim or ominous, yet her work stays precise and kind. She does not kill. She clears decay so it stops poisoning the field. She prevents rot from spreading. She returns matter to usefulness.

This song reminds me I’m learning to let things finish fully — beliefs, identities, habits, relationships — without dragging their remains into the future.

Vulture teaches that purification happens through digestion, not judgment.

Nothing here gets punished.
Everything gets processed.
What served gets honored.
What finished returns to function.

Law, Translated

There’s a clear undercurrent here from The Book of the Law, especially the idea that ordeals belong to the one who lives them, and that clarity arrives through self-witness rather than rescue.

Lines like “Everything returns to function” and “Oversee ordeals thyself” speak to that current — translated through body, heat, and altitude instead of ceremony.

Vulture lives above the scene. She circles. She waits. She acts when timing opens.

This echoes a core principle carried through Aleister Crowley: will moves cleanest when aligned with function, stripped of excess motive.

Here, will becomes maintenance.

Protection Through Clearing

Vulture protects life by clearing death.

She keeps predators healthy. She prevents sickness. She guards thresholds by making sure endings end.

This song honors the part of me that learned how to clear what finished so the future could arrive unburdened. The part that learned how to stop rehearsing pain once its lesson completed.

Vulture keeps the Sheath clean — the living field around the body — so the Core stays reachable.

Placement in BYRDS

Placed late in the album, Vulture arrives when cycles close.

Crow witnessed.
Molt softened.
Voice spoke.
Appetite moved.
Hope stayed.

Vulture clears the ground.

She prepares the field for what comes after the album ends.

Closing

Vulture whispers this law quietly:

What finished fed you.
What remains holds you.
Stand straight inside your bones.

A vulture circles high, keeping the ground clean for what comes next. 🦅