TERMS STARTING WITH
Tree of Life are both found in the 3rd Heaven (see
Tree of Life in the world of Yetzirah (Formation).
Tree of life: See: Etz Hayim.
Tree of Life ::: See Kabbalah.
TERMS ANYWHERE
Ababel (Arabic) [cf Hebrew ’āb father] The Father Tree or mystic Tree of Life in the Koran, that sends forth new branches and leaves at every rebirth of the kerkes or phoenix, up to seven times seven or 49 times — “an allusion to the forth-nine ‘Manus,’ the Seven Rounds, and the seven times seven human cycles in each Round on each globe” (SD 2:617).
’Adam Qadmon (Hebrew) ’Ādām Qadmōn [’ādām mankind + qadmōn to be before, precede] Primordial man, Adam Primus; in the Qabbalah macrocosmic man in contrast to the earthly Adam, the microcosm. Often called the Heavenly Man because symbolically he is the Sephirothal Tree of Life, each of the Sephiroth having its correspondence with a part of the body, the head being Kether (Crown), and the feet standing for Malchuth (Kingdom). ’Adam Qadmon corresponds mystically to the Hindu Purusha: both are generalizing terms used to represent the cosmic Logos or hierarch of their respective hierarchies.
Also a sacred wooden pole or image standing close to the massebah and altar in early Shemitic sanctuaries, part of the equipment of the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem till the Deuteronomic reformation of Josiah (2 Kings 23:6). The plural, ’asherim, denotes statues, images, columns, or pillars; translated in the Bible by “groves.” Maachah, the grandmother of Asa, King of Jerusalem, is accused of having made for herself such an idol, which was a lingham — for centuries a religious rite in Judaea. Sometimes called the Assyrian Tree of Life, “the original Asherah was a pillar with seven branches on each side surmounted by a globular flower with three projecting rays, and no phallic stone, as the Jews made of it, but a metaphysical symbol. ‘Merciful One, who dead to life raises!’ was the prayer uttered before the Asherah, on the banks of the Euphrates. The ‘Merciful One,’ was . . . the higher triad in man symbolized by the globular flower with its three rays” (TG 37). See also ASTARTE.
Arasa-mara (Sanskrit) Arasa-mara [from arasa sapless, tasteless + mara dying, death] The banyan tree, considered in one of its aspects as the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life. According to popular Hindu belief, under one of these trees Vishnu taught during one of his incarnations on earth, hence it is held sacred. “Under the protecting foliage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons on immortality and initiate them into the mysteries of life and death” (SD 2:215).
Assyrian Tree of Life. See ASHERAH
Asvattha (Sanskrit) Aśvattha The Hindu tree of life or bodhi tree, which grows with its roots upwards into the invisible worlds and its branches downward to form the visible world. (SD 1:549, 523, 536, etc; IU 1:153)
At the top of the rod in the Greek version is a knob, in the earlier Egyptian form a serpent’s head, from which spring a pair of wings. From the central head between the wings grew the heads of the entwined serpents (spirit and matter), which descended along the tree of life, crossing the neutral laya-centers between the different planes of being, to manifest where the two tails joined on earth (SD 1:549-50). The analogy is found in every known cosmogony, all of which begin with a circle, head, or egg surrounded by darkness. From this circle of infinity — the unknown All — comes forth the manifestations of spirit and matter. The emblem of the evolution of gods and atoms is shown by the two forces, positive and negative, ascending and descending and meeting. Its symbology is directly connected with the globes of the planetary chain and the circulations of the beings or life-waves on these globes, as well as with the human constitution and the afterdeath states. Significantly, in ancient Greek mythology, Hermes is the psychopomp, psychagog, or conductor of souls after death to the various inner spheres of the universe, such as the Elysian Plains or the Meads of Asphodel. The Caduceus also signifies the dual aspect of wisdom by its twin serpents, Agathodaimon and Kakodaimon, good and evil in a relative sense.
...Baruch, guardian angel of the Tree of Life [71]
being the guardian angel of the Tree of Life.]
Binah (Heb.): The third Sephira of the Tree of Life. Binah means "Understanding"; it is the first sephira above the Abyss. If Understanding does not illumine the mind, no matter how brilliant a man may be,he remains an idiot, academically speaking, compared with one who has crossed the Abyss. (See under Abyss for a fuller explanation of this term.)
cherub ::: Cherub In Christian tradition, the four Cherubim are associated with the four evangelists of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but the Cherubim were originally the ancient protectors of the Mesopotamian Tree of Life, usually depicted supporting the thrones of deities and kings. They are the four winged creatures described in the visions of Ezekiel, each winged creature bearing four faces, those of a lion, a bull, an eagle, and a human head. In Ritual or Ceremonial Magick, the four kerubim are the living energy of the Tetragrammaton.
cherub under the Tree of Life, her splendor being
Chokmah (Heb.): The second Sephira of the Tree of Life. Chok mah means "Wisdom" and represents the Sphere of the Stars. It is the first concentration of the influence of Nuit
Embla (Icelandic) The alder tree; in the Norse Edda, one of the two trees from which the first humanity is said to be created, woman being created from the alder and man from the ash tree. Emblu-askr is apparently a form of the askr (ash tree), the Tree of Life, a replica in the small of the cosmic ash tree, which represents a universe with all its lives, each of which is at once a branch of the “noble ash tree” and a tree of life in its own right.
Etz Chaim (&
Etz Chayim ::: (Heb. Tree of life) Wooden roller to which the handwritten Sefer Torah is attached.
Etz Hayim: Hebrew for Tree of Life. The title of a book by Hayim Vital Calabrese, disciple of Isaak Luria, explaining the Kabalistic system of the latter.
evening winds, guardian of the Tree of Life in the
Every individual’s Tree of Life is watered by these three springs and, after each death, the past life is evaluated at the well of Urd by its divine judge, its Odin, whose decrees are determined by the advice of Urd. Before each birth Urd also is instrumental in selecting the future life and destiny.
Gokard (Pahlavi) Gōkard. Also Geokar, Gaekarena. In the Bundahish the white haoma or Tree of Life which guards the tree of all seeds (Harawispa tohma). This tree of all germs was given forth and grew up in the Farakhkard (unbounded) ocean from which the germs of species of plants ever increased. And near it, the Gokard tree was produced for keeping away deformed decrepitude, and the full perfection of the world arose from this (Bundahis 9:5-6). It is described as a luxuriant tree in whose branches a serpent dwells. “But while the Macrocosmic tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic tree are the Serpents of the manifested Wisdom. One is the One and All; the others are its reflected parts. The ‘tree’ is man himself, of course, and the Serpents dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, heaven and earth” (SD 2:98). See also HAOMA
guarded the Tree of Life. John Dryden in his
Haoma (Avestan) Hūm (Pahlavi) Homa (Persian) The Tree of Life; there are two haomas: the yellow or golden earthly haoma, which when prepared and used as an offering for sacrifice is the king of healing plants, the most sacred and powerful of all the offerings prescribed in the Mazdean scriptures. This haoma is equivalent to the Hindu soma — the sacred drink used in the temples, and is said to endow he who drinks it with the property of mind.
Heaven) where Azrael, suffragan angel of death, lodges, next to the Tree of Life. But some
IHVH: The male-female potencies united in a single Name, Jehovah (Jah-Hovah) which is unpronounceable because it is unspoken. It is the Silent Word, and its effects are manifested through vibration. The number ofJehovah (IHVH) is 26, which is the sum of the numbers of the trunk (central column) of the Tree of Life. IHVH also synthesizes the Elements, Fire, Water, Air and Earth, in that order. These are energized by Fire (the Father), and Water (the Mother), and transmitted through the atmosphere (Air, represented by the Son), and manifested in flesh (Earth, represented by the Daughter).
In Yetsirah (world of formation), the tree of life, showing the nine celestial orders and the chief angels
In Yetsirah (world of formation), the tree of life, showing the nine celestial orders and the chief
Kether (Heb.): The first concentration of the Am (Void), repre sented by the first Sephira of The Tree of Life. Kether forms the apex of the Supernal Triad, above the Abyss, of which the two bases are Chokmah and Binah (q.v.).
Magus: The technical designation of a Grade in the A.'.A.'. which is so exalted as to be achieved by a few individuals only during the course of an Aeon. Crowley attained the Grade in 191S, and took the motto TheMaster Therion (The Beast 666). The qabalistic notation of this Grade of Magus is 9º=2
Malkuth: The tenth and final Sephira of the Tree of Life. It is the Sphere of the Earth and represents the densest manifestation of the cosmic current. It is the equivalent of the "daughter" in the formula of IHVH (q.v.). It is on the plane of Malkuth that the process of "redemption" begins. The formula of this redemption varies with successive aeons. It is the purpose of the present book to indicate its mechanism in the New Aeon.
Manu ::: Manu in the esoteric system is the entities collectively which appear first at the beginning ofmanifestation, and from which, like a cosmic tree, everything is derived or born. Manu actually is thespiritual tree of life of any planetary chain of manifested being. Manu is thus in one sense the thirdLogos; as the second is the father-mother, the Brahma and prakriti; and the first is what we call theunmanifest Logos, or Brahman (neuter) and its cosmic veil pradhana.In other words, the second Logos, father-mother, is the producing cause of manifestation through theirson, which in a planetary chain is Manu, the first of the manus being called in the archaic Hindu systemSvayambhuva.During a Day of Brahma or period of seven rounds, fourteen subordinate or inferior manus appear aspatrons and guardians of the race cycles or life-waves (See also H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine,passim; also Manvantara).Manu is likewise the name of a great ancient Indian legislator, the alleged author of the Laws of Manu(Manava-dharma-sastra).
Manvantara(Sanskrit) ::: This word is a compound, and means nothing more than "between two manus"; more literally,"manu-within or -between." A manu, as said, is the entities collectively which appear first at thebeginning of manifestation; the spiritual tree of life of any planetary chain of manifested being. Thesecond verbal element of "manvantara," or antara, is a prepositional suffix signifying "within" or"between"; hence the compound paraphrased means "within a manu," or "between manus." Amanvantara is the period of activity between any two manus, on any plane, since in any such period thereis a root-manu at the beginning of evolution, and a seed-manu at its close, preceding a pralaya.There are many kinds of manvantaras: prakritika manvantara -- universal manvantara; sauryamanvantara -- the manvantara of the solar system; bhaumika manvantara -- the terrestrial manvantara, ormanvantara of earth; paurusha manvantara -- the manvantara, or period of activity, of man.A round-manvantara is the time required for one round: that is, the cycle from globe A to the last globeof the seven, and starting from the root-manu or collective "humanity" of globe A and ending with theseed-manu or collective "humanity" of Globe G.A planetary manvantara -- also called a maha-manvantara or a kalpa -- is the period of the lifetime of aplanet during its seven rounds. It is also called a Day of Brahma, and its length is 4,320,000,000 years.
Mimir’s well is one of the three springs which water the Tree of Life, Yggdrasil, the other two being those of Hvergelmir and Urd. His tree, Mimameid, is the Tree of Knowledge, which spreads its branches over the heavenly abode of Menglad (Freya), the higher mind.
Mjotudr (Icelandic) [from mjot measure + udr out of, exhausting] In Norse mythology, the dying phase of a Tree of Life, the second half of its existence when the energies are retreating from the material back toward the spiritual realm. Applies to any world tree, large or small. See also MJOTVIDR
Mjotvidr (Icelandic) [from mjot measure + vidr growing, expanding] In Norse myths, the first half of a life cycle of any Tree of Life, during which the energies are flowing into the material worlds and organizing forms for its component consciousnesses. See also MJOTUDR
Nidhogg (Swedish) Nidhoggr (Icelandic) [from nid down, libel, contumely + hogg to hew, chop] In Norse myths, the “gnawer from beneath,” the serpent which gnaws at the roots of the Tree of Life and which in due course will overthrow the mighty ash tree Yggdrasil and bring the life cycle to a close. There are nine such serpents, just as there are nine trees of life and nine matter giants, Mimer, indicating the Edda’s multiple system of worlds.
Odin (Icelandic, Scandinavian) [from Wodan from odr cosmic mind; cf Greek nous, Sanskrit mahat] As a god, foremost of the aesir in Norse mythology; as a human being, the founder of the ancient Norse religion. Odin is the Great Sacrifice of our world system, hung or mounted on the Tree of Life throughout its duration, seeking runes of wisdom in the material worlds, “raising them with song” and at the end of time falling once more from the tree. He is said to have given one eye as forfeit to the matter-giant Mimer for the privilege of partaking of Mimer’s well of wisdom: experience in material life. Thus matter receives a part of divine vision during the god’s imbodiment.
of Job, 28:7, as: “the path of the Tree of Life which
of the Tree of Life in Paradise, at which he is
One meaning of the ankh is “esoterically, that mankind and all animal life had stepped out of the divine spiritual circle and fallen into physical male and female generation. This sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the ‘tree of life’ in Eden” (SD 2:30-1).
On the Tree of Life the Supernal Triad of Kether, Chokmah, and Binah, represents the
pathworking ::: Pathworking Pathworking is a magical technique closely associated with the Kabbalah. It is traditionally a type of visionary experience associated with one of the paths of the Tree of Life, although its meaning has been extended to cover any type of semi-guided visualisation on a specific magical idea. Pathworking usually follows a structure and may vary from a guided visualisation (where a scene is set and the events described by one person while they are visualised by the remainder of the group) to the visualisation of a specific symbol, or the intonation of a mantra with further visions being allowed to enter the mind of their own accord. Pathworking is one of the methods used to further the understanding of particular magical ideas.
Pathworking ::: The process of walking a specific path or paradigm. This is also the Kabbalistic practice of working through and attuning to the various Sephiroth and their connecting paths on the Tree of Life.
sephirah ::: Sephirah In the doctrine of the Kabbalah, a Sephirah, or sphere, is a divine emanation of God. According to Kabbalah, there are ten Sephiroth (plural of Sephirah), each with its own unique properties. Divine Energy travels through these ten Sephiroth, from Kether, the crown, to Malkuth, the kingdom, resulting in the manifestation of the material plane. These emanations form the Tree of Life, and symbolise the image of the body of God in Adam Kadmon.
Sephira: Number, emanation, sphere, wheel or chakia. There are ten Sephiroth; each one represents both an emanation and a concent= ration of cosmic power, and together they constitute the Tree of Life. They are, in order from one to ten, increas ingly dense manifestations of Nuit (the Ain) in conjunction with Hadit (the Hidden God). The whole schema constitutes the Holy Qabalah which forms-as Dion Fortune observes- the ground plan of Western Illuminism.
Sephiroth (Hebrew) Sĕfīrōth [plural of sĕfīrāh] Emanations; applicable to the ten powers or potencies which compose the Qabbalistic Tree of Life, named Kether (the Crown); Hochmah (wisdom); Binah (understanding); Hesed (compassion); Geburah (strength); Tiph’ereth (beauty); Netsah (triumph); Hod (majesty); Yesod (foundation); and Malchuth (kingdom). The higher ones of this series of cosmic emanations imbody functions in cosmogony which exactly parallel the functions and attributes of the lipika in theosophical thought.
Shechinah (Hebrew) Shĕkhīnāh [from the verbal root shākhan to settle down or around, dwell] An emanation, a dwelling; referring both to the primordial emanation and to the dwelling or kingdom containing the Sephiroth, collectively considered the cosmic Tree of Life. In Jewish religious and mystical thought, the cloud of glory, or veil, surrounding a spiritual or divine manifestation. In the Qabbalah, used in a cosmic sense — termed the superior Shechinah — as the first splendor, or divine or spiritual substance, emanating from ’eyn soph and enveloping it as a veil, from which proceeded the hierarchy of the Sephiroth. This thought corresponds to the Hindu parabrahman and its splendorous veil mulaprakriti, from which proceed the hierarchies of the manifested universe. The inferior Shechinah is associated with the tenth or lowest Sephirah, Malchuth (kingdom or dwelling), which is equivalent to the material or physical universe, as the vehicle or carrier of all the preceding hierarchies of Sephiroth.
she is “the way of the Tree of Life” and the “angel
Symbolically, Odin (the divine consciousness) enters the mountain (material world) with the aid of the squirrel that runs in the Tree of Life (human intelligence) to seek the mead (experience in life). Suttung, the matter giant, represents a cycle or lifetime, and his daughter a subordinate cycle of somewhat less materialistic bent.
Tahuti: Thoth, God of Wisdom and Magic. The Egyptian form of Hermes and Mercury, the latter being the planetary representative of Set.Tarot: Lit. a Wheel or Revolution. The Book of Thoth, which contains the Keys to the 22 Paths of the Tree of Life as well as many other secret cells of the Hermetic Tradition. The pack of cards used for telling fortunes and calculating mundane chances of whatever order, is a debasement of the original sublime Arcana that occurred when the true keys were lost. They have recently been recovered and interpreted according to the Mysteries of the New Aeon, by Aleister Crowley.
The Eden in Genesis is a marvelous fusion of many meanings into one narrative, where the Adams of the various root-races are made into one. Eden was an ancient name for Mesopotamia and adjacent regions; and under that one name are comprised the meanings of an abode of initiates, a sacred land from which races emerged, and a goal of bliss in the future. The Eden of the Hebrew books, which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike have located in Mesopotamia and in the now sandy lands of Persia and Afghanistan, refers also to what was in prehistoric times a great and highly developed center of culture and the civilization which there had its seat, including a number of Mystery schools. When the changing cycles brought about a degeneration and final breakup of this seat of archaic wisdom, it was represented as the loss by the then human Adam — the then race — of the Paradise in which he had dwelt. Edens and Paradises always contain trees; and these, by one interpretation, signify the initiates in the sacred land, and by another they are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Wisdom for man himself. In the Qabbalah, Eden is a place of initiation.
The monads are also living mirrors of the universe, every monad reflecting every other one (SD 1:623), as Leibniz taught. “The Luminous Mirror, Aspaqularia nera, a Kabbalistic term, means the power of foresight and farsight, prophecy such as Moses had. Ordinary mortals have only the Aspaqularia della nera or Non Luminous Mirror, they see only in a glass darkly: a parallel symbolism is that of the conception of the Tree of Life, and that only of the Tree of Knowledge” (TG 215).
The Norns dwell under one of the three roots of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, which is watered by the spring of Urd (past causes). So also is every individual tree of life, large or little, watered by the causes created in the past, modified by the choices of the present, and helping to create the future.
The Norse tree of life is said to be rooted in the divine “ground” and to spread through the shelves of space, bearing living worlds upon its branches. Where the ash tree refers to humanity on earth it is the subject of the tale called “Askungen” (ash child or Cinderella), using an intricate play on words. See also YGGDRASIL
The Qabbalah here uses “He” to describe one of the mostl profound and mystical — because purely impersonal — conceptions in cosmogony; because the first Sephirah is Kether the Crown and hence the first of the cosmic rays emanating from the abysmal cosmic deep. From this Crown, called Ancient of the Ancient, flowed forth in emanational procession all the other developments of the cosmic Tree of Life or cosmic hierarchy.
There is a mystic science attached to the caduceus, the classical emblem of medicine. To the priest-physicians in the temples, this symbol was sacred not only to the god of wisdom and healing, but stood for profound cosmic truths, knowledge of which was held in common by all initiates. It symbolized the tree of life and being. Cosmically this symbol stood for the concealed root or origin of universal duality which manifests as positive and negative, good and evil, subjective and objective, light and darkness, male and female, health and sickness, life and death.
The three norns are pictured by the fountain of Urd who from that source (the past) waters one of the three roots of the Tree of Life. Of the other two roots one is watered by the spring of mother matter, the other by that from which flow the many rivers of lives: the forms taken by all the kingdoms of nature.
the Tree of Life, according to the Apocalypse of
The universe is depicted as an ash tree, Yggdrasil, within which every lesser being is an ash tree in its own right. A Tree of Life is part of the traditions in every part of the world. “The Norse Ask, the Hesiodic Ash-tree, whence issued the men of the generation of bronze, the Third Root-Race, and the Tzite tree of the Popol-Vuh, out of which the Mexican third race of men was created, are all one” (SD 2:97).
The Younger Edda, in which the verses are rendered in prose form by Snorri Sturlusson, a pupil of Saemund’s grandson in the school at Oddi, contains some material which has been omitted or lost from the poetic version. A large part of Snorri’s Edda is devoted to Skaldskaparmal, a treatise on the rules of alliteration and meter that apply in the creation of poetry, and the uses of kenningar — a type of word play giving suggestive descriptions instead of the words commonly used to designate people, gods, and things. As examples of kennings the Tree of Life is called variously the soil mulcher, the shade giver, and Odin is named allfather, the thinker, the disguised, etc. The other two sections of Snorri’s Edda are named Hattatal (rules or conventions), and Gylfaginning (the mocking of Gylfe). This can also mean the “apotheosis of Gylfe” which, in the context of a Mystery teaching presents interesting possibilities.
Tiphareth (Heb.): The Sixth and central Sephira of the Tree of Life. The Sphere of the Sun, i.e. the Holy Guardian Angel. Tiphareth means "Beauty".
Tree A variant of the cross or tau, to be considered in connection with the serpent which is wound round it. The two together symbolize the world tree with the spiritual, intellectual, psychic, and psychological aggregate of forces encircling the world tree and working in and through it — these forces often grouped in the Orient under the name of kundalini. In minor significance, the two together symbolize the life-waves, or any life-wave, passing through the planes, spirit circling through matter, fohat working in the kosmos. Thus the tree symbol stands for the universe, and correspondentially for man, in whom the monadic ray kindles activity on the several planes; while the physiological key of interpretation applies to the analogies in the human body with its various structures through which play the pranic currents. The tree, by its form, represents evolution, for it begins with a root and spreads out into branches and twigs; only as applied to the kosmos the root is conceived to be on high and the branches to extend downwards. Thus there is the Asvattha tree of India or bodhi tree, the Norse Yggdrasil, the tree Ababel in the Koran, the Sephirothal Tree which is ’Adam Qadmon. In the Garden of Eden it is stated that there were two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which signifies the two knowledges. It is said in Gnosticism that Ennoia (divine thought) and Ophis (serpent), as a unity, are the Logos; as separated they are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, the former spiritual, the latter manasic. Adam eats the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge which means in one important allegory of human evolution that mankind after the separation of the sexes became endowed with manas, or that when humanity began to be endowed with dual manas, the rays then separated into the opposite sexes; and lest he should partake of the Tree of Life and become immortal, in the then imperfect state of evolution, he is turned out of Eden. It is stated that buddhi becomes transformed into the tree whose fruit is emancipation and which finally destroys the roots of the Asvattha, which here is the symbol of the mayavi life. This latter tree is also the emblem of secret and sacred knowledge, guarded by serpents or dragons; it may also refer to a sacred scripture. Dragons guarded the tree with the golden apples of the Hesperides; the trees of Meru were guarded by a serpent; Juno, on her wedding with Jupiter, gave him a tree with golden fruit, as Eve gave the fruit to Adam. Blavatsky says of Eve: “She it was who first led man to the Tree of Knowledge and made known to him Good and Evil; and if she had been left in peace to do quietly that which she wished to do, she would have conducted him to the Tree of Life and would thus have rendered him immortal” (La Revue Theosophique 2:10). See also ASVATTHA, YGGDRASIL
Tree of Life are both found in the 3rd Heaven (see
Tree of Life in the world of Yetzirah (Formation).
Tree of life: See: Etz Hayim.
Tree of Life ::: See Kabbalah.
treeoflife ::: Tree of Life In the Book of Genesis, this is a tree whose fruit gives everlasting life, i.e. immortality. After eating of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden, after which God set angels to guard the entrance to the Garden fearing they would also eat of the Tree of Life and so become immortal. The Tree of Life is also the symbolic representation of the Kabbalah, comprising the ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two paths of spiritual wisdom. It is a powerful means of gaining personal and spiritual realisation.
Tree ::: Standing image of the universe — the Tree of Life.
Water A primary cosmic element with almost innumerable manifestations, corresponding to the Hindu apas tattva and to the akasic waters of space. Its most fundamental meaning is that of space or akasa, the great mother of all, the feminine receptive principle over and in which broods the fire of spirit. “The first principle of things, according to Thales and other ancient philosophers. Of course this is not water on the material plane, but in a figurative sense for the potential fluid contained in boundless space. This was symbolized in ancient Egypt by Kneph, the ‘unrevealed’ god, who was represented as the serpent — the emblem of eternity — encircling a water-urn, with his head hovering over the waters, which he incubates with his breath. ‘And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ (Gen. i). The honey-dew, the food of the gods and of the creative bees on the Yggdrasil, falls during the night upon the tree of life from the ‘divine waters, the birth-place of the gods.’ Alchemists claim that when pre-Adamic earth is reduced by the Alkahest to its first substance, it is like clear water. The Alkahest is ‘the one and the invisible, the water, the first principle, in the second transformation’ ” (TG 368).
When a ray from mahat expresses itself as the human manas (or even as the manasic attribute of the finite gods), it then because of surrounding maya involves the quality of egoity or aham-ship. Thus it is said that the great Tree of Life has parabrahman as its seed, mahat as its trunk, and ahamkara as its spreading branches.
, which means (from Aramaic) &
with flaming sword the Tree of Life and Eden,
Yesod (Heb.): The ninth Sephira of the Tree of Life. The Sphere of the Moon which is the astronomical symbol of Change and therefore of Magick. The mysteries of Sex are particularly attributed to this Sephira, which is the sphere of activity of the Yezidi, or worshippers of Shaitan (Set).
Yggdrasil (Scandinavian, Icelandic) [from ygr fierce, awesome, brooding + drasill steed, gallows] The Norse Tree of Life, on which Odin, Allfather of the universe, is mounted or hanged during a period of manifestation. From the tree drops the honeydew which feeds all creatures. The squirrel Ratatosk (intelligence) runs up and down its trunk, while on its topmost bough perches an eagle with a hawk seated between its eyes.
KEYS (10k)
5 Israel Regardie
1 Proverbs
1 Lord Byron
1 Ken Wilber?
1 Genesis
1 Elizabeth Clare Prophet
1 Crazy Horse
1 Anonymous
1 Aleister Crowley
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
20 Anonymous
8 Brian Godawa
6 John Milton
6 Israel Regardie
4 Suzy Kassem
4 Orson Scott Card
4 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
4 Christina Georgina Rossetti
3 Ray Bradbury
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
3 Miguel Serrano
3 Lord Byron
3 Jean Rhys
3 Franz Kafka
3 Edgar Lee Masters
3 D H Lawrence
3 Charles Darwin
3 Anne Bradstreet
2 William Blake
2 Tan Twan Eng
1:Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
~ Lord Byron, [T5],#KEYS
2: It is this consideration which has led to the adoption of the Qabalistic " tree of life" as the basis of the universal philosophical alphabet. ~ Israel Regardie, A Garden of Pomegranates, #KEYS
3:And the Lord Jehovah said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us...and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ~ Genesis, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
4:Mysticism-Magic and Yoga-is the means, therefore, to a new universal life, richer, greater and more full of resource than ever before, as free as sunlight, as gracious as the unfolding of a rose. It is for man to take.
~ Israel Regardie, The Tree Of Life,#KEYS
5:I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole earth will become One Circle again." ~ Crazy Horse, (c. 1840-1877), a Native American war leader of the Sioux in the 19th century, Wikipedia., #KEYS
6:The chief mystical text of Kabbalah, the Zohar, says that Malkhut is "the way to that great and powerful tree... 'If one does not enter through this gate, one cannot gain entry to the worlds,' the worlds of the sefirot. As we climb the Tree of Life-from the bottom to the top-we begin with Malkhut, the Mother.
~ Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Kabbalah: Key To Your Inner Power,#KEYS
7:Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is everyone that retaineth her. ~ Proverbs, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
8:The 'Intelligence of Will' denotes that this is the path where each individual 'created being' is 'prepared' for the spiritual quest by being made aware of the higher and divine 'will' of the creatoR By spiritual preparation (prayer, meditation, visualization, and aspiration), the student becomes aware of the higher will and ultimately attains oneness with the Divine Self-fully immersed in the knowledge of 'the existence of the Primordial Wisdom.'
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On The Tree Of Life,#KEYS
9:The object of the theoretical (as separate from the practical) Qabalah, insofar as this thesis is concerned, is to enable the student to do three main things: First, to analyze every idea in terms of the Tree of Life. Second, to trace a necessary connection and relation between every and any class of ideas by referring them to this standard of comparison. Third, to translate any unknown system of symbolism into terms of any known one by its means.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On The Tree Of Life,#KEYS
10:{3:13} Happy [is] the man [that] findeth wisdom, and the man [that] getteth understanding.
{3:14} For the merchandise of it [is] better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
{3:15} She [is] more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire arenot to be compared unto her.
{3:16} Length of days [is] in her right hand; [and] in her left hand riches and honour.
{3:17} Her ways [are] ways of pleasantness, and all her paths [are] peace.
{3:18} She [is] a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy [is every one] that retaineth her. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 3:13-18,#KEYS
11:one gradually equilibrizes the whole of one's mental structure and obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the universe. For it is written: "Equilibrium is the basis of the work." Serious students will need to make a careful study of the attributions detailed in this work and commit them to memory. When, by persistent application to his own mental apparatus, the numerical system with its correspondences is partly understood-as opposed to being merely memorized-the student will be amazed to find fresh light breaking in on him at every turn as he continues to refer every item in experience and consciousness to this standard.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On the Tree Of Life,#KEYS
12:Supermind, on the other hand, as a basic structure-rung (conjoined with nondual Suchness) can only be experienced once all the previous junior levels have emerged and developed, and as in all structure development, stages cannot be skipped. Therefore, unlike Big Mind, supermind can only be experienced after all 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-tier junior stages have been passed through. While, as Genpo Roshi has abundantly demonstrated, Big Mind state experience is available to virtually anybody at almost any age (and will be interpreted according to the View of their current stage), supermind is an extremely rare recognition. Supermind, as the highest structure-rung to date, has access to all previous structures, all the way back to Archaic-and the Archaic itself, of course, has transcended and included, and now embraces, every major structural evolution going all the way back to the Big Bang. (A human being literally enfolds and embraces all the major transformative unfoldings of the entire Kosmic history-strings to quarks to subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to cells, all the way through the Tree of Life up to its latest evolutionary emergent, the triune brain, the most complex structure in the known natural world.) Supermind, in any given individual, is experienced as a type of omniscience-the supermind, since it transcends and includes all of the previous structure-rungs, and inherently is conjoined with the highest nondual Suchness state, has a full and complete knowledge of all of the potentials in that person. It literally knows all, at least for the individual.
~ Ken Wilber?,#KEYS
13:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 2:Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 3:All theory is gray, my friend. But forever green is the tree of life. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 4:We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 5:Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 6:The tree of life is growing where the spirit never dies, and the bright light of salvation shines in dark and empty skies. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 7:Why do we complain about the Fall? It is not on its account that we were expelled from Paradise, but on account of the Tree of Life, lest we might eat of it. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 8:Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 9:We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 10:The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 11:Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 12:As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 13:Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 14:I want relations which are not purely personal, based on purely personal qualities; but relations based upon some unanimous accord in truth or belief, and a harmony of purpose, rather than of personality. I am weary of personality. Let us be easy and impersonal, not forever fingering over our own souls, and the souls of our acquaintances, but trying to create a new life, a new common life, a new complete tree of life from the roots that are within us. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 15:What we want is another sample of life, which is not on our tree of life at all. All life that we've studied so far on Earth belongs to the same tree. We share genes with mushrooms and oak trees and fish and bacteria that live in volcanic vents and so on that it's all the same life descended from a common origin. What we want is a second tree of life. We want alien life, alien not necessarily in the sense of having come from space, but alien in the sense of belonging to a different tree altogether. That is what we're looking for, "life 2.0." ~ paul-davies, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Love is the sap of the tree of Life. ~ Banani Ray, #NFDB
2:The spine is the tree of life. Respect it. ~ Martha Graham, #NFDB
3:30 The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life; ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
4:A longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
5:Eat from the Tree of Life and throw away the verbal ham. ~ Sadat X, #NFDB
6:The world citizen is a small leaf on the tree of life. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
7:Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. ~ William Blake, #NFDB
8:The world citizen is a small leaf on the giant tree of life. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
9:The universal tree of life on Earth might actually be a forest. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
10:The tree of life is already doomed from the moment it is planted. ~ Tan Twan Eng, #NFDB
11:Jesus took the tree of death so you could have the tree of life. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
12:The tree of life for me is a symbol of abundance and eternal life. ~ Akiane Kramarik, #NFDB
13:Gray are all the theories, But green is the tree of life. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
14:All theory is gray, but the tree of life, my friend, is green. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
15:30The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, And †he who jwins souls is wise. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
16:Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
17:Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
18:All theory is gray, my friend. But forever green is the tree of life. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
19:But Palm Sunday tells us that ... it is the cross that is the true tree of life. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
20:12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
21:Hope deferred makes the heart sick, h but a desire fulfilled is i a tree of life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
22:And on the Tree of Life, The middle tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a cormorant. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
23:In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy and theology. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
24:Proverbs 15:4 4 Gentle words are a tree of life; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
25:It makes sense that the placenta almost looks like a tree with many branches - a tree of life. ~ Ricki Lake, #NFDB
26:All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
27:Don’t ever worry about losing those you love. Just remember that we are all on the same Tree of Life. ~ Iva Kenaz, #NFDB
28:To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of r the tree of life, which is in s the paradise of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
29:Like leaves in an autumn from hell, I saw the people I loved fall off the tree of life one by one. ~ Zohreh Ghahremani, #NFDB
30:To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
31:We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
32:Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
33:Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
34:A soft answer turns away wrath and a gentle tongue is the tree of life, but a snarky Twitter Bible only leads to trouble. ~ Jana Riess, #NFDB
35:The tree of life is growing where the spirit never dies, and the bright light of salvation shines in dark and empty skies. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
36:Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” ~ Sorita d Este Proverbs 13:12, C3rd BCE ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
37:Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
~ Lord Byron, [T5],#NFDB
38:Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
39:I do not like Christians. They shake the tree of life, forbidding it to bear fruit, and they scatter to the wind it's fragrant blossoms. ~ Leonid Andreyev, #NFDB
40:Male genitals are still called "the tree of life" by the Arabs, and a cross was one of the oldest diagrammatic images of male genitals. ~ Barbara G Walker, #NFDB
41:I imagine pushing you into the red abyss and jumping in after you, with you, so we can burn together, forever, a tree of life, light, sex. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
42:Yellow leaves hang on your tree of life. The messengers of death are waiting. You are going to travel far away. Have you any provisions for the journey? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
43:I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole earth will become One Circle again. ~ Crazy Horse, #NFDB
44:Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it. ~ A E Waite, #NFDB
45:Why do we complain about the Fall? It is not on its account that we were expelled from Paradise, but on account of the Tree of Life, lest we might eat of it. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
46:Probability but no truth, facility but no freedom--it is owing to these two fruits that the tree of knowledge cannot be confused with the tree of life. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
47:My Lord, I leave the infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far from me such a love for the tree of knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
48:Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
49:Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
50:And the Lord Jehovah said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us...and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ~ Genesis, #NFDB
51:I surrendered my beliefs and found myself at the tree of life injecting my story into the veins of leaves only to find that stories like forests are subject to seasons ~ Saul Williams, #NFDB
52: It is this consideration which has led to the adoption of the Qabalistic " tree of life" as the basis of the universal philosophical alphabet. ~ Israel Regardie, A Garden of Pomegranates, #NFDB
53:Let us pray God that He would root out of our hearts every thing of our own planting, and set out there, with His own hands, the tree of life, bearing all manner of fruits. ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
54:Two trees—knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of knowledge, and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life, and you remain a child in the garden forever, undying. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
55:The childhood scenes [ in The Tree of Life] are tremendous. My favorite moment is when the mother levitate - for three seconds. Of course, this is how a child thinks of his mother. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
56:I surrendered my beliefs
and found myself at the tree of life
injecting my story into the veins of leaves
only to find that stories like forests
are subject to seasons ~ Saul Williams,#NFDB
57:Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever— ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
58:He gave the tree of life its name, not because it could confer on man that life with which he had been previously endued, but in order that it might be a symbol and memorial of the ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
59:We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
60:The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
61:Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
62:Many kinds of fruit grow upon the tree of life, but none so sweet as friendship; as with the orange tree its blossoms and fruit appear at the same time, full of refreshment for sense and for soul. ~ Lucy Larcom, #NFDB
63:Added together, the hundreds of thousands of names in our catalogues do not amount to one millionth of the leaves that have sprouted so far on the tree of life. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
64:And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Yes, ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
65:Molecular genetics, our latest wonder, has taught us to spell out the connectivity of the tree of life in such palpable detail that we may say in plain words, "This riddle of life has been solved." ~ Max Delbruck, #NFDB
66:as the acorn is nourished by the dead leaves of the oak, the hope strengthens that the rise and fall of men and their movements are only the changing foliage of the ever-growing tree of life, ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
67:We are, whatever our glories and accomplishments, a momentary cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted from seed and regrown under similar conditions. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
68:The French occultists Eliphas Lévi and Gerard Encausse (Papus) saw the Tree of Life as a living Tarot landscape, a detailed map of which may be found in Gareth Knight’s A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism. ~ Mary K Greer, #NFDB
69: In Paradise that beare delicious fruit So various, not to taste that onely Tree Of knowledge, planted by the Tree of Life, So neer grows Death to Life, what ere Death is, Som dreadful thing no doubt; for ~ John Milton, #NFDB
70:evolution is not progress, that there is no ‘goal’ or direction to evolution. Evolution is change. Evolution ‘succeeds’ if that change best adapts some leaf or branch of its tree of life to conditions of the universe. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
71:It’s there in your own Bible, Carlotta. Two trees—knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of knowledge, and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life, and you remain a child in the garden forever, undying. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
72:13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the afirst and the last. 14 Blessed are they that ado his bcommandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
73: And all amid them stood the Tree of Life, High eminent, blooming Ambrosial Fruit Of vegetable Gold; and next to Life Our Death the Tree of Knowledge grew fast by, Knowledge of Good bought dear by knowing ill. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
74:When my brain begs me to doubt God, as it most certainly does, I find relief for my unbelief by laying down my human assessments and assumptions; I turn from the Tree of Knowledge and fix my gaze on the Tree of Life. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
75:Virtue is the fragrance of the flowers which the tree of life puts forth. Educated people must be identified in society by their strict adherence to virtue, not by more skilled methods of escaping the consequences of vice. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
76:The tarot is a perfect representation of the Tree of Life. The ace of each suit represents the top sephira (1) and the two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten of each suit represents its respective sephira on the Tree. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette, #NFDB
77:Mysticism-Magic and Yoga-is the means, therefore, to a new universal life, richer, greater and more full of resource than ever before, as free as sunlight, as gracious as the unfolding of a rose. It is for man to take.
~ Israel Regardie, The Tree Of Life,#NFDB
78:The meaning of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, mysterious realm; on the contrary, it can be found by eating the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the here and now as fully and creatively as we can. ~ Paul Kurtz, #NFDB
79:I love films that make me react emotionally and physically when you walk out of the cinema. Two of my favorite films however have got to be 'The Tree Of Life' and 'The Piano Teacher,' which also stars one of my favourite actresses Isabelle Huppert. ~ Alicia Vikander, #NFDB
80:The ancient Egyptians also had the legend of the "Tree of Life." It is mentioned in their sacred books that Osiris ordered the names of some souls to be written on this "Tree of Life," the fruit of which made those who ate it to become as gods. ~ Thomas William Doane, #NFDB
81:The fact that the prohibited tree was placed in the center of the garden, right next to the Tree of Life (Gen. 2:9), symbolizes that the life that God intends for us revolves around our honoring God’s prohibition as much as trusting God for his provision.The ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
82:The tree of life knows that, whatever happens, the warm music spinning around it will never stop. However much death may come, however much blood may flow, the music will dance men and women as long as the air breaths them and the land plows and loves them. ~ Eduardo Galeano, #NFDB
83:We are all but recent leaves on the same old tree of life and if this life has adapted itself to new functions and conditions, it uses the same old basic principles over and over again. There is no real difference between the grass and the man who mows it. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi, #NFDB
84:A seven-armed golden lampstand is perpetually aflame with holy oil to light the tent. It is shaped like a blossoming almond tree, a symbol of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden so long ago. But it is also considered the ‘light of the world’ that gives light to all men. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
85:Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible – the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
86:On top of the Tree of Life - in the Hall of the Palace - someone had found somebody for whom he had been searching for a long, long time. And the tears of joy which were shed became the fruit of the Tree of Life, the grapes whose juice if distilled by the flute of the blue god. ~ Miguel Serrano, #NFDB
87:On top of the Tree of Life - in the Hall of the Palace - someone had found somebody for whom he had been searching for a long, long time. And the tears of joy which were shed became the fruit of the Tree of Life, the grapes whose juice is distilled by the flute of the blue god. ~ Miguel Serrano, #NFDB
88:You miss me. And I miss you. It hurts, seeing you at that fire, giving your hands to the heat, the way I gave my hand to fire, only different. I imagine pushing you into the red abyss and jumping in after you, with you, so we can burn together, forever, a tree of life, light, sex. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
89:And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Yes, thought Montag, that’s the one I’ll save for noon. For noon. . . . When we reach the city. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
90:Add to this the imagery that Christian Kabbalists have heaped on the Tree of Life, which stands like an overburdened Christmas tree in some textbooks on kabbalistic practice, and finish with Aleister Crowley's book of correspondences, 777, and you have an ill-assorted relish tray from which to choose. ~ Caitl n Matthews, #NFDB
91:Surely you're not saying that God had to choose between long life and intelligence for human beings! It's there in your own Bible, Carlotta. Two trees - knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of knowledge and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life and you remain a child in the garden forever, undying. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
92:Seen in the light of the Easter dawn, the cross is revealed to be the lost Tree of Life. In the middle of a world dominated by death, the Tree of Life is rediscovered in the form of a Roman cross. The cross is the act of radical forgiveness that gives sin, violence, and retribution a place to die in the body of Jesus. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
93:Nor is it every apple I desire, Nor that which pleases every palate best; 'T is not the lasting Deuxan I require, Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request, Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife, Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife: No, no! bring me an apple from the tree of life. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
94:There are two important trees in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. We chose the wrong one. The fruit of the Tree of Life would have given us immortality. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge informed us that we were nude, which, as knowledge goes, is pretty low down the list of amazing facts. ~ Mark Forsyth, #NFDB
95:18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: p if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in q the tree of life and in r the holy city, which are described in this book. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
96:It's the old idea that the process of evolution is some push in the direction of greater complexity--in particular greater intellectual complexity. In one twig of the tree of life, namely ours, having a big brain happened to have advantages. But that's just what worked for a particular species of primate 5 to 7 million years ago. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
97: Amid the Garden by the Tree of Life, Remember what I warne thee, shun to taste, And shun the bitter consequence: for know, The day thou eat'st thereof, my sole command Transgrest, inevitably thou shalt dye; From that day mortal, and this happie State Shalt loose, expell'd from hence into a World Of woe and sorrow. Sternly ~ John Milton, #NFDB
98:As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
99:I think that intelligence is such a narrow branch of the tree of life - this branch of primates we call humans. No other animal, by our definition, can be considered intelligent. So intelligence can't be all that important for survival, because there are so many animals that don't have what we call intelligence, and they're surviving just fine. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
100:Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ~ John the Apostle, #NFDB
101:George ended by looking at the larger picture. He said that computation at present is still parasitic on us, but it probably is in the process of becoming part of life itself---it's just another system of genetics. Evolution, after all, is massively parallel computation, and now the world of code is evolving, perhaps to reshape the tree of life itself. ~ Stewart Brand, #NFDB
102:The chief mystical text of Kabbalah, the Zohar, says that Malkhut is "the way to that great and powerful tree... 'If one does not enter through this gate, one cannot gain entry to the worlds,' the worlds of the sefirot. As we climb the Tree of Life-from the bottom to the top-we begin with Malkhut, the Mother.
~ Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Kabbalah: Key To Your Inner Power,#NFDB
103:There are two great systems in the body of man: the tree of life, which is the arterial with its roots in the heart; and, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. the nervous system, which has its roots in the brain. These two "trees" are physical manifestations of a complicated network of branching energy currents in the aura or superphysical bodies. ~ Manly Hall, #NFDB
104:CHILDHOOD IS THE FOUNDATION STONE UPON which stands the whole life structure. The seed sown in childhood blossoms into the tree of life. The education which is imparted in childhood is more important than the education which is received in colleges and universities. In the process of human growth, proper guidance along with environmental learning is important. ~ Swami Rama, #NFDB
105:The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite, and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt. ~ William Blake,#NFDB
106:Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. ~ Crazy Horse, #NFDB
107:God gave Adam and Eve that free will and choice. He gave them one warning: eat of any tree that is here, including the wonderful tree of life, but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…I wish Adam and Eve had thought more about what knowledge meant. Eve saw it as a good thing, to know more. But how do you really know something? You experience it ~ Dee Henderson, #NFDB
108:I've noticed that there is danger in spending all this time writing about those "publicans and sinners" over there in the great and spacious building. If our spot near the tree of life becomes a Rameumptom where we congratulate each other on our chosen-ness and look down on everyone else, then we're occupying nothing more than a branch office of the great and spacious. ~ John Bytheway, #NFDB
109:She would tell him—how the towering, teetering pyramid of large living things is toppling down already, in slow motion, under the huge, swift kick that has dislodged the planetary system. The great cycles of air and water are breaking. The Tree of Life will fall again, collapse into a stump of invertebrates, tough ground cover, and bacteria, unless man . . . Unless man. ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
110:Islam calls that 'the roots of heaven' and to the Mexican Indians it is the 'tree of life'--the thing that makes both of them fall on their knees and raise their eyes and beat their tormented breasts. [...] Our needs--for justice, for freedom and dignity--are roots of heaven that are deeply embedded in our hearts, but of heaven itself men know nothing but the gripping roots... ~ Romain Gary, #NFDB
111:I promise you. I promise you the stars. I promise you the lake and falls, coywolves and robins. I promise earth and heaven: I will love you long after the last human has taken his last breath. When the stars burn out and the oceans freeze over and the whole world is ash and dust and ice, our names will still be carved into this tree of life, side by side, and I'll still be loving you. ~ Emily Henry, #NFDB
112:Yggdrasil is the Tree of Life,’ he says. ‘Its branches cover the world and stretch up to the sky. But it has only three roots. One is submerged in the waters of the Pool of Knowledge. Another in fire. The last root is being devoured by a terrible creature. When two of its roots have been consumed by fire and beast, the tree will fall, and eternal darkness will spread across the world. ~ Tan Twan Eng, #NFDB
113:Immortal amarant, a flower which once In paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life, And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven Rolls o'er elysian flowers her amber stream: With these that never fade the spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
114:There are two great systems in the body of man: the tree of life, which is the arterial with its roots in the heart; and, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. the nervous system, which has its roots in the brain. These two "trees" are physical manifestations of a complicated network of branching energy currents in the aura or superphysical bodies. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
115:Hope
The Tree of Knowledge we in Eden prov'd;
The Tree of Life was thence to Heav'n remov'd:
Hope is the growth of Earth, the only Plant,
Which either Heav'n, or Paradise cou'd want.
Hell knows it not, to Us alone confin'd,
And Cordial only to the Human Mind.
Receive it then, t'expel these mortal Cares,
Nor wave a Med'cine, which thy God prepares.
~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,#NFDB
116:Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
117:What exactly is a cherubim?” Salah began. “Cherub,” corrected Uriel. “Cherubim is the plural. They are the carriers of the throne chariot of Elohim. They were also guardians of the tree of life and the gates of Eden,” said Uriel. “What do they look like? Do they look like you?” Salah’s childlike innocence amused Uriel. “They are far more terrifying than me.” “That isn’t saying much,” Noah jested. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
118:To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. Yes, all that. But what else. What else? Something, something . . .
And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. ~ Ray Bradbury,#NFDB
119:Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal,
merely personal feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table. ~ D H Lawrence,#NFDB
120:But deep under the earth, where the corpse serpent gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of life, there are three spinners. Three women who make our fate. We might believe we make choices, but in truth our lives are in the spinners' fingers. They make our lives, and destiny is everything. The Danes know that, and even the Christians know it, Wyrd biõ ful araed, we Saxons say, fate is inexorable. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
121:We could live forever, if we were willing to be stupid the whole time."
"Surely you're not saying that God had to choose between long life and intelligence for human beings!"
"It's there in your own Bible, Carlotta. Two trees — knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of knowledge, and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life, and you remain a child in the garden forever, undying. ~ Orson Scott Card,#NFDB
122:Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o'er elysian flowers her amber stream:
With these that never fade the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks. ~ John Milton,#NFDB
123:She is more precious than rubies; Nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life ( Immortals ) is in her right hand; In her left hand are riches ( Ghanaian ) and honor ( El: Azmah ) her ways are pleasant ways and all her paths are peace ( Sablul Salem of Qur‘an). She is a Tree of Life ( Shajrah Khuld of holy Qur‘an), to those who embrace her, those who lay hold of her will be blessed.
Proverbs : 3 : 15 – 19. ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
124:Throughout Siberia, indeed Asia, wherever grow the trees that serve as hosts to A. muscaria, - the birch, the pine, the cedar, the larch, others - that tree is revered as giving birth to the Marvelous Herb. The entheogen at the foot of the tree is the explanation of the reverence paid to the tree by the natives round about. How has the world overlooked for so long a time this key to the mystery of the Tree of Life? ~ R Gordon Wasson, #NFDB
125:Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.” There’s a nice word: ramifications. It’s especially good in this context because, while the literal definition is “a structure formed of branches,” from the Latin ramus, of course the looser definition is “implications.” Darwin’s tree certainly had implications. ~ David Quammen, #NFDB
126:I've studied Kabbalah, as you know, for many years, so there are a lot of things I do that one would associate with practising Judaism. I hear the Torah every Saturday. I observe Shabbat. I say certain prayers. My son was bar mitzvahed. So this appears like I'm Jewish, but these rituals are connected to what I describe as the Tree of Life consciousness and have more to do with the idea of being an Israelite, not Jewish. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
127:Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is everyone that retaineth her. ~ Proverbs, #NFDB
128:This tree is indeed a Tree of Life, for without the higher and finer sentiments man does not life; he merely exists. If any branch of that tree does not bear fruit, the Master tells us that it shall be cut off and cast into the fire. It is the duty of all living things to produce some truly constructive labor as recognition of the divine life which is within them. God is most glorified when His children glorify His spirit within themselves. ~ Manly Hall, #NFDB
129:The object of the theoretical (as separate from the practical) Qabalah, insofar as this thesis is concerned, is to enable the student to do three main things: First, to analyze every idea in terms of the Tree of Life. Second, to trace a necessary connection and relation between every and any class of ideas by referring them to this standard of comparison. Third, to translate any unknown system of symbolism into terms of any known one by its means. ~ Israel Regardie, #NFDB
130:I want relations which are not purely personal, based on purely personal qualities; but relations based upon some unanimous accord in truth or belief, and a harmony of purpose, rather than of personality. I am weary of personality. Let us be easy and impersonal, not forever fingering over our own souls, and the souls of our acquaintances, but trying to create a new life, a new common life, a new complete tree of life from the roots that are within us. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
131:I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart. I am never without it. Anywhere I go, you go, my dear. And whatever is done by only me...is your doing. I fear no fate...for you are my fate, I want no world cause you are my world. Here is the deepest secret no one knows. Here is the root of root and bud of bud & the sky of the sky of the tree of life. Which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide. It's the wonder that keeps the stars apart. ~ E E Cummings, #NFDB
132:George Herbert puts it so vividly in “The Sacrifice” when he depicts Jesus speaking from the cross. He says, “All ye who pass by, behold and see; Man stole the fruit, now I must climb the tree; A tree of life for all, but only me. Was ever grief like mine?” What is Jesus saying? Because Jesus got the tree of death, we can have the tree of life. Herbert is even more poignantly saying that Jesus turned the cross into a tree of life for us, at infinite cost to himself. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
133:In terms of size, mammals are an anomaly, as the vast majority of the world's existing species are snail-sized or smaller. It's almost as if, regardless of your kingdom, the smaller your size & the earlier your place on the tree of life, the more critical is your niche on Earth: snails & worms create soil, & blue-green algae create oxygen; mammals seem comparatively dispensable, the result of the random path of evolution over a luxurious amount of time. ~ Elisabeth Tova Bailey, #NFDB
134:If... Adam had trusted in God and been nourished from the tree of life (Gn. 2:9)? he would not have set aside the immortality that had been granted. For such immortality is eternally preserved by participation in life, since all life is genuine and preserved by appropriate food. The food of that blessed life is 'the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world' (Jn. 6:33), just as the inerrant Word Himself declares about Himself in the Gospels. ~ Saint Maximus the Confessor, #NFDB
135:This tree is indeed a Tree of Life, for without the higher and finer sentiments man does not life; he merely exists. If any branch of that tree does not bear fruit, the Master tells us that it shall be cut off and cast into the fire. It is the duty of all living things to produce some truly constructive labor as recognition of the divine life which is within them. God is most glorified when His children glorify His spirit within themselves. ~ Manly P Hall, What the Ancient Wisdom Expects of Its Disciples, #NFDB
136:There is a land, where the roses are without thorns, where the flowers are not mixed with brambles. In that land, there is eternal spring, and light without any cloud. The tree of life groweth in the midst thereof; rivers of pleasures are there, and flowers that never fade. Myriads of happy spirits are there, and surround the throne of God with a perpetual hymn. The angels with their golden harps sing praises continually, and the cherubim fly on wings of fire! This country is Heaven. ~ Anna Letitia Barbauld, #NFDB
137:All living organisms are but leaves on the same tree of life. The various functions of plants and animals and their specialized organs are manifestations of the same living matter. This adapts itself to different jobs and circumstances, but operates on the same basic principles. Muscle contraction is only one of these adaptations. In principle it would not matter whether we studied nerve, kidney or muscle to understand the basic principles of life. In practice, however, it matters a great deal. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi, #NFDB
138:A longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12 Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. Philippians ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
139:The 'Intelligence of Will' denotes that this is the path where each individual 'created being' is 'prepared' for the spiritual quest by being made aware of the higher and divine 'will' of the creatoR By spiritual preparation (prayer, meditation, visualization, and aspiration), the student becomes aware of the higher will and ultimately attains oneness with the Divine Self-fully immersed in the knowledge of 'the existence of the Primordial Wisdom.'
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On The Tree Of Life,#NFDB
140:The object of the theoretical (as separate from the practical) Qabalah, insofar as this thesis is concerned, is to enable the student to do three main things: First, to analyze every idea in terms of the Tree of Life. Second, to trace a necessary connection and relation between every and any class of ideas by referring them to this standard of comparison. Third, to translate any unknown system of symbolism into terms of any known one by its means.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On The Tree Of Life,#NFDB
141:The word of God is a tree of life that offers us blessed fruit from each of its branches. It is like that rock which was struck open in the wilderness, from which all were offered spiritual drink. Be glad then that you are overwhelmed, and do not be saddened because he has overcome you. A thirsty person is happy when drinking, and not depressed, because the spring is inexhaustible. You can satisfy your thirst without exhausting the spring; then when you thirst again, you can drink from it once more. ~ Saint Ephrem the Syrian, #NFDB
142:It's been fifty years since that day... Inuyasha is still sealed to the Tree of Life. Inuyasha is as he was then. At that time, Sister knew her life was over. Then why did she choose to use a sealing arrow and not a purifying arrow? Why did she seal Inuyasha to the tree which transcends time, the Tree of Life? And why... although he hated my sister for sealing him onto the tree, Inuyasha's face still looks so peaceful? I still don't get it... I wonder if a day will come when I will fully understand...?"
―Kaede ~ Rumiko Takahashi,#NFDB
143:The greatest attribute of God is Love. The Tree of Life is located in the very depth of our soul. The most perfect and abundant fruit that grows and ripens is Life giving Love; it is the great healing force in the world. Love never fails to meet every demand of the human heart. The Divine principal of Love may be used to eliminate every sorrow, infirmity, in-harmony, ignorance and all mistakes of mankind. Love is God; eternal, limitless, changeless, infinite. It is the pulse of the world, the heartbeat of the Universe. ~ Baird T Spalding, #NFDB
144:The Tree Of Life Has Fallen
The tree of life
has fallen on my small house.
I thought it was so much bigger!
But it is not.
There in the distance I see the mountains
still.
The view of vast water stretching before me
is superb.
My boat is grand and I still command the captain
of it; not having learned myself to sail.
But I am adrift
without my tree of life
that has fallen heavy
without grace or pity
on this small place.
For the departing dictator, in perpetuity.
~ Alice Walker,#NFDB
145:But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
146:A war on Eden.” The words hit Methuselah and Edna hard. And sank deep. They knew the reason without Yahipan needing to finish. “We are going to storm the Garden, destroy the Cherubim, and capture the Tree of Life,” said Yahipan. The consequences of this plan horrified Methuselah. A malevolent race of giants with the power to live forever would reach heights of evil he could not even imagine. They would be invincible in their might and omnipotent in their rule. “How?” asked Methuselah. “The guardians…” he sought to finish his question. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
147:Why?” “Because all humanity has turned its back on the Creator. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. And they worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. When our forebear Adam disobeyed the Creator, he and his beloved were exiled from the Garden and from the Tree of Life, that would have been the source of continued renewal to live forever. As Adam’s descendants, we are exiled from our Creator. The immortality you seek, lies in him and in his Chosen Seed. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
148:What we want is another sample of life, which is not on our tree of life at all. All life that we've studied so far on Earth belongs to the same tree. We share genes with mushrooms and oak trees and fish and bacteria that live in volcanic vents and so on that it's all the same life descended from a common origin. What we want is a second tree of life. We want alien life, alien not necessarily in the sense of having come from space, but alien in the sense of belonging to a different tree altogether. That is what we're looking for, "life 2.0." ~ Paul Davies, #NFDB
149:The Genesis story of the reason why Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden was not that they had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, as is popularly conceived, but the fear lest they should disobey a second time and eat of the Tree of Life and live forever: And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one. of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. ~ Lin Yutang, #NFDB
150:When I speak of God, I mean that god who prevented man from putting forth his hand and taking also of the fruit of the tree of life that he might live forever; of that god who multiplied the agonies of woman, increased the weary toil of man, and in his anger drowned a world—of that god whose altars reeked with human blood, who butchered babes, violated maidens, enslaved men and filled the earth with cruelty and crime; of that god who made heaven for the few, hell for the many, and who will gloat forever and ever upon the writhings of the lost and damned. ~ Robert G Ingersoll, #NFDB
151:No weekends for the gods now. Wars
flicker, earth licks its open sores,
fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chance
assassinations, no advance.
Only man thinning out his own kind
sounds through the Sabbath noon, the blind
swipe of the pruner and his knife
busy about the tree of life...
Pity the planet, all joy gone
from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war - until the end of time
to police th eearth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime. ~ Robert Lowell,#NFDB
152:The world citizen is a small leaf on the giant tree of life. They do not see a difference between the branch they were born on and the remaining branches on the tree, because they understand well that we are are all connected to the same roots. The world citizen sees each section of the world as part of their arm, leg, eyes, and heart. They do not class, contain or separate themselves or their identity by ethnicity or religion -- because they see their existence as a small part of a greater whole. When asked about their religion, the world citizen simply replies: 'My heart. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
153:Plato and Aristotle (both disciples of Socrates) are the fathers of contemporary Christian education.1030 To use a biblical metaphor, present-day Christian education, whether it be seminarian or Bible college, is serving food from the wrong tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than the tree of life.1031 Contemporary theological learning is essentially cerebral. It can be called “liquid pedagogy.”1032 We pry open people’s heads, pour in a cup or two of information, and close them up again. They have the information, so we mistakenly conclude the job is complete. ~ Frank Viola, #NFDB
154:Today the human race is a single twig on the tree of life, a single species on a single planet. Our condition can thus only be described as extremely fragile, endangered by forces of nature currently beyond our control, our own mistakes, and other branches of the wildly blossoming tree itself. Looked at this way, we can then pose the question of the future of humanity on Earth, in the solar system, and in the galaxy from the standpoint of both evolutionary biology and human nature. The conclusion is straightforward: Our choice is to grow, branch, spread and develop, or stagnate and die. ~ Robert Zubrin, #NFDB
155:Is this Tree of Life a God one could worship? Pray to? Fear? Probably not. But it did make the ivy twine and the sky so blue, so perhaps the song I love tells a truth after all. The Tree of Life is neither perfect nor infinite in space or time, but it is actual, and if it is not Anselm's "Being greater than which nothing can be conceived," it is surely a being that is greater than anything any of us will ever conceive of in detail worthy of its detail. Is something sacred? Yes, say I with Nietzsche. I could not pray to it, but I can stand in affirmation of its magnificence. This world is sacred. ~ Daniel C Dennett, #NFDB
156:Now we can see the tree of life standing before us. A strange tree, no doubt. We could call it the negative of a tree, for contrary to what happens with our great forest trees, its branches and trunk are revealed to our eyes only by ever-widening gaps; an almost petrified tree, as it appears to us, so long do the buds take to open. Many that are half-opened now we shall never know in any other state. A clearly drawn tree, none the less, with its superimposed foliage of living species. In its main lines and vast dimensions, it stands there before us covering all the earth. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
157:But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
158:The Lord God is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is the "river of the water of life" that runs, and "the tree of life that grows, in the midst of the paradise of God." The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another; but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in any thing else whatsoever that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what shall be seen of God in them. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
159:The Lord God, he is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is the “river of the water of life,” that runs, and “the tree of life that grows, in the midst of the paradise of God.” The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another; but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in any thing else whatsoever that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them. 2. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
160:{3:13} Happy [is] the man [that] findeth wisdom, and the man [that] getteth understanding.
{3:14} For the merchandise of it [is] better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
{3:15} She [is] more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire arenot to be compared unto her.
{3:16} Length of days [is] in her right hand; [and] in her left hand riches and honour.
{3:17} Her ways [are] ways of pleasantness, and all her paths [are] peace.
{3:18} She [is] a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy [is every one] that retaineth her. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs 3:13-18,#NFDB
161:Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak, And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier, Our words are sobs, our cry or praise a tear: We are the smitten mortal, we the weak. We see a spirit on earth's loftiest peak Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear: See a great Tree of Life that never sere Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak; Such ending is not death: such living shows What wide illumination brightness sheds From one big heart,—to conquer man's old foes: The coward, and the tyrant, and the force Of all those weedy monsters raising heads When Song is muck from springs of turbid source. —G EORGE M EREDITH. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
162:The Unknown Country
WHERE is the unknown country?'
I whispered sad and slow,-'The strange and awful country
To which I soon must go, must go,
To which I soon must go?'
Out of the unknown country
A voice sang soft and low:-'O pleasant is that country
And sweet it is to go, to go,
And sweet it is to go.
'Along the shining country
The peaceful rivers flow:
And in that wondrous country
The tree of life does grow, does grow,
The tree of life does grow.'
Ah, then into that country
Of which I nothing know,
The everlasting country,
With willing heart I go, I go,
With willing heart I go.
~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,#NFDB
163:Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible - the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root. Twice a year the octopus orchid flowered - then not an inch of tentacle showed. it was a bell-shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see. The scent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
164:Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible - the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thing brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root. Twice a year the octopus orchid flowered - then not an inch of tentacle showed. It was a bell-shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see. The sent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
165:The Greek word for kernel is karys, so the word used to describe creatures without a nucleus is prokaryotic—the name, originally procariotique, was coined in the 1930s by Edouard Chatton, a French marine biologist—while creatures with nuclei are eukaryotic. Bacteria are prokaryotes. Pretty much everything else, from yeast to elephants, are eukaryotes. This realization resulted in the creation of a fifth Kingdom, dividing one-celled eukaryotes, who retained the Protist name, from prokaryotes. Thus, by the time the dust had settled, in the 1970s, the hierarchical tree of life had two domains—Prokarya and Eucarya—and five kingdoms: Plantae, Animalae, Fungi, Protista, and Bacteria.* ~ William Rosen, #NFDB
166:PROVERBS 15 d A soft answer turns away wrath, but e a harsh word stirs up anger. 2 The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but f the mouths of fools pour out folly. 3 g The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. 4 h A gentle [1] tongue is i a tree of life, but j perverseness in it breaks the spirit. 5 k A fool l despises his father’s instruction, but m whoever heeds reproof is prudent. 6 In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but trouble befalls the income of the wicked. 7 n The lips of the wise spread knowledge; n not so the hearts of fools. [2] ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
167:one gradually equilibrizes the whole of one's mental structure and obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the universe. For it is written: "Equilibrium is the basis of the work." Serious students will need to make a careful study of the attributions detailed in this work and commit them to memory. When, by persistent application to his own mental apparatus, the numerical system with its correspondences is partly understood-as opposed to being merely memorized-the student will be amazed to find fresh light breaking in on him at every turn as he continues to refer every item in experience and consciousness to this standard.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On the Tree Of Life,#NFDB
168:THE TREE OF LIFE
The sun is rising,
And the ether dance at the first sight of his light,
As he ascends like a phoenix from the ashes of morality,
His luminous rays form the magnificent tree of life.
He springs up from the east,
Spreading his long arms like branches,
Over the horizons of milky meadows and open seas,
Extending his wings to embrace all living things.
He walks on water and grazes through fields,
Pouring his butter like honey to feed the Earth.
Towering over all of creation,
He who is the lamp of the universe,
The power source of all life.
And in his truth and light,
Everything becomes aroused
Like a flower,
And everything is given
Sight. ~ Suzy Kassem,#NFDB
169:For The Holy Family By Michelangelo
TURN not the prophet's page, O Son! He knew
All that Thou hast to suffer, and hath writ.
Not yet Thine hour of knowledge. Infinite
The sorrows that Thy manhood's lot must rue
And dire acquaintance of Thy grief. That clue
The spirits of Thy mournful ministerings
Seek through yon scroll in silence. For these things
The angels have desired to look into.
Still before Eden waves the fiery sword,—
Her Tree of Life unransomed: whose sad Tree
Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary
Must yield its Tempter,—Hell the earliest dead
Of Earth resign,—and yet, O Son and Lord,
The seed o' the woman bruise the serpent's head.
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,#NFDB
170:As Fall The Leaves
As fall the leaves, so drop the days
In silence from the tree of life;
Born for a little while to blaze
In action in the heat of strife,
And then to shrivel with Time's blast
And fade forever in the past.
In beauty once the leaf was seen;
To all it offered gentle shade;
Men knew the splendor of its green
That cheered them so, would quickly fade:
And quickly, too, must pass away
All that is splendid of to-day.
To try to keep the leaves were vain:
Men understand that they must fall;
Why should they bitterly complain
When sorrows come to one and all?
Why should they mourn the passing day
That must depart along the way?
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
171:O Tree of God—Tree of Life, In the gift of your shade, I stand, my heart raised to your Creator. Your branches call me to reach out in all directions to many people. Your branches remind me of the sheltering arms of God. Your roots call me to be rooted in all that is good and nourishing. Your roots ask me to spend time in the ground of my being. Teach me, like you, to praise God in the silence of my being. Help me to surrender unnecessary words. Draw me, like a magnet, into the abiding love of God. And when it is time for me to die, teach me to die gracefully and joyfully. Teach me to let go as you let go of your leaves each autumn. In living and in dying, teach me to praise God by living well and dying well. May it come to pass! ~ Macrina Wiederkehr, #NFDB
172:Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness, and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one. —CRAZY HORSE ~ Tatjana Soli, #NFDB
173:A deep sorrow came over Mary for all the child sacrifices she presided over at the base of this monstrosity. The deaths of the innocent gave Gaia life and sustenance, and enslaved women to the illusion of empowerment. The goddess feasted on the flesh and blood of the offering of their wombs. They believed that somehow they were helping their community and saving Mother Earth in giving up their offspring. And every human offered up was absorbed into the tree. When she was up close to it, Mary could see in the grain of the wood the twisted agonized forms of the sacrificial victims melded into the bark so as to become one with it. She had formerly believed that this tree of death was the Tree of Life. But this was not the only false narrative that had held her in its grip of deceit for so many years. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
174:Love is the law of God. You live that you may learn to love. You love
that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of Man.You are
the tree of Life. Beware of fractionating yourselves. Set not a fruit against a fruit, a leaf against a leaf, a bough against a bough; nor
set the stem against the roots; nor set the tree against the mother-
soil. That is precisely what you do when you love one part more than
the rest, or to the exclusion of the rest. No love is possible except
by the love of self. No self is real save the All-embracing Self.
Therefore is God all Love, because he loves himself. So long as you
are pained by Love, you have not found your real self, nor have you
found the golden key of Love. Because you love an ephemeral self, your
love is ephemeral. ~ Mikhail Naimy,#NFDB
175:In the conclusion of his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon, Johnathan Edwards says, "The axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree that brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down, and cast into the fire." And I say "Amen." I thank God that the theological tree that produced the bitter fruit of belief in an angry, violent, and retributive God has at last been hewn down and cast into the fire. In my life the poisonous tree of angry God theology is now gone. In its place grows the tree of Life, a tree whose leaves bring healing. It's a tree that looks like it once may have been an ugly cross, but it is now beautiful and verdant, producing the fruit of eternal life. Planted by the Father himself, this tree is an everlasting reminder that I am a forgiven sinner in the hands of a loving God. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
176:There, said they, is the Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. [Heb. 12:22-24] You are going now, said they, to the paradise of God, wherein you shall see the tree of life, and eat of the never-fading fruits thereof; and when you come there, you shall have white robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of eternity. [Rev. 2:7, 3:4, 21:4,5] There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower region upon the earth, to wit, sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death, for the former things are passed away. You are now going to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, and to the prophets--men that God hath taken away from the evil to come, and that are now resting upon their beds, each one walking in his righteousness. [Isa. 57:1,2, 65:17] ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
177:The Beatitudes of Revelation 1. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it. (Revelation 1:3) 2. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. (Revelation 14:13) 3. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. (Revelation 16:15) 4. Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb! (Revelation 19:9) 5. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. (Revelation 20:6) 6. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. (Revelation 22:7) 7. Blessed are those who do His commandments that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. (Revelation 22:14) ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
178:The Tree of Life was an ancient symbol of interconnection, fertility, and eternal life—precisely because of this legendary tree’s fruit. Fruit is part of our essence, a basic element of who we are. We cannot survive without fruit on this planet. It outweighs the nutrition of any other food. Yet the current “health” movement toward low-carb diets has put fruit on the endangered species list, with the goal of making it extinct. Is this denial? Ignorance? Foolishness? We’re not talking about uneducated people who are driving the trend. We’re talking about smart, highly intelligent professionals with advanced degrees in medicine and nutrition. If they’re advising patients to shun fruit, it must be because of their training, the misinformation out there, or their own selective interests. Have you heard of book burning? If the anti-sugar war keeps up its momentum, fruit trees will be next to go up in flames. ~ Anthony William, #NFDB
179:The Fields Of Flanders
Last year the fields were all glad and gay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river's edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.
This year the fields are trampled and brown,
The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.
And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,
The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.
The changing seasons will bring again
The magic of Spring to our wood and plain;
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen
The crosses will still be black in the green.
The God of battles shall judge the foe
Who trampled our country and laid her low. . . .
God! hold our hands on the reckoning day,
Lest all we owe them we should repay
~ Edith Nesbit,#NFDB
180:Like the garden and land of Eden, the tabernacle is mostly off-limits. From the time of Adam to the time of Jesus, no one is allowed to go back into the Garden, past the cherubim, to enjoy God’s presence. As Paul put it, the Old Covenant is a ministry of death (2 Cor. 3:7; see Heb. 9:8–10). The tabernacle is a way of keeping the people of God at a distance. Since Jesus has come, there is no longer a tabernacle or temple on earth. This means that God is no longer keeping us away from Him. Because Jesus has offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, we may boldly enter the Most Holy Place (Heb. 10:19–25). We may go back into the garden and eat from Jesus, the Tree of Life. All this is true now because Jesus has died and torn the veil that separated Israel from God. And when we have passed through the “firmament” of the Holy Place, God brings us to the highest heavens to sit on thrones in Christ and rule with Him (Eph. 2:6). ~ Peter J Leithart, #NFDB
181:Darwin himself coined the phrase “tree of life,” after he had drawn a sketch depicting the branching points in the natural history of living things. As we study the relationships between species today, we see a great many more species in the present day than in the distant past. This is true even after taking into account the five (or six) major mass extinction events. What all this diversity and creation of new species implies is that you and I, as animals on the Tree of Life, are related to all kinds of other organisms that we might not expect to be related to. For a century and a half, scientists of all stripes (biologists, paleontologists, archeologists, pathologists, immunologists, astrobiologists) have been classifying all of life, living and extinct, to fill in all the branches on that Tree of Life. You might think, then, that by this time we’d have it all sketched out. Certainly you’d expect that we’d all agree about the main branches. Well, we don’t. But we’re workin’ on it. ~ Bill Nye, #NFDB
182:REVELATION 2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of e him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, f who walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 g “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but h have tested those i who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up j for my name’s sake, and you k have not grown weary. 4But I have this against you, that you have abandoned l the love you had at first. 5Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do m the works you did at first. If not, n I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6Yet this you have: you hate the works of o the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 p He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. q To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of r the tree of life, which is in s the paradise of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
183:Unclean
I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am
like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am
as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.
Psalm 102
The pelican in scripture is unclean. It pukes dead fish
onto the hatchlings, and it roosts alone, like Satan
on the Tree of Life. Nobody told me. I liked pelicans.
I liked owls, too. I used to lie awake and listen,
wanting to become an owl, to fly, to see through darkness,
turn my head, and look straight back behind me. I was
happy, as kids go, but I did not belong in human form.
Sparrows peck grain from fresh dung. In this world rich
means filthy. Leopardi, in his high Romantic musings
on the sparrow, does not say the poet is a shitbird, just
that, singing by himself, he acts like one, and wishes
he could feel more like one, unashamed to do so. Here,
the preacher (burning in his bones with fever, puking
half-digested fish, and hooting, sleepless in the ruins
like the baleful dead) cries: O Lord, take me not away.
~ Brooks Haxton,#NFDB
184:Tyson emails back: “I’m going to tell you the same thing that I told Henry Louis Gates” (Gates had asked Tyson to appear on his show Finding Your Roots): My philosophy of root-finding may be unorthodox. I just don’t care. And that’s not a passive, but active absence of caring. In the tree of life, any two people in the world share a common ancestor—depending only on how far back you look. So the line we draw to establish family and heritage is entirely arbitrary. When I wonder what I am capable of achieving, I don’t look to family lineage, I look to all human beings. That’s the genetic relationship that matters to me. The genius of Isaac Newton, the courage of Gandhi and MLK, the bravery of Joan of Arc, the athletic feats of Michael Jordan, the oratorical skills of Sir Winston Churchill, the compassion of Mother Teresa. I look to the entire human race for inspiration for what I can be—because I am human. Couldn’t care less if I were a descendant of kings or paupers, saints or sinners, the valorous or cowardly. My life is what I make of it. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
185:Darwin’s transcendantly democratic insight that all humans are descended from the same non-human ancestors, that we are all members of one family, is inevitably distorted when viewed with the impaired vision of a civilization permeated by racism. White supremacists seized on the notion that people with high abundances of melanin in their skin must be closer to our primate relatives than bleached people. Opponents of bigotry, perhaps fearing that there might be a grain of truth in this nonsense, were just as happy not to dwell on our relatedness to the apes. But both points of view are located on the same continuum: the selective application of the primate connection to the veldt and the ghetto, but never, ever, perish the thought, to the boardroom or the military academy or, God forbid, to the Senate chamber or the House of Lords, to Buckingham Palace or Pennsylvania Avenue. This is where the racism comes in, not in the inescapable recognition that, for better or worse, we humans are just a small twig on the vast and many-branched tree of life. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
186:Holy are you, O Lord, holy, blessed and One. Holy are you, and generous for you have flooded my heart with the light of your way, and you have raised up in me the Tree of Life. You have shown me a new heaven upon the earth. You have shown me a secret Garden, unseen within the seen. Now am I joined soul and spirit present in your Presence -- your Presence that has waited long in me, your Presence, the true Tree of Life, planted in whatever this earth is, planted in whatever it is that men are, planted, and rooted in the heart, your Presence all at once revealing your Paradise alive with every good green thing: grasses and trees and the fruiting bounty, a world of flowers! sweet-scented lilies! Each little flower speaks a truth: humility and joy, peace, oh peace! kindness, compassion, the turning of the soul, and the flood of tears and the strange ecstasy of those bathed in your light. [2652.jpg] -- from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger
~ Symeon the New Theologian, The Light of Your Way
,#NFDB
187:WENDELL P. BLOYD
They first charged me with disorderly conduct,
There being no statute on blasphemy.
Later they locked me up as insane
Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard.
My offense was this:
I said God lied to Adam, and destined him
To lead the life of a fool,
Ignorant that there is evil in the world as well as good.
And when Adam outwitted God by eating the apple
And saw through the lie,
God drove him out of Eden to keep him from taking
The fruit of immortal life.
For Christ's sake, you sensible people,
Here's what God Himself says about it in the book of Genesis:
"And the Lord God said, behold the man
Is become as one of us" (a little envy, you see),
"To know good and evil" (The all-is-good lie exposed):
"And now lest he put forth his hand and take
Also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever:
Therefore the Lord God sent Him forth from the garden of Eden."
(The reason I believe God crucified His Own Son
To get out of the wretched tangle is, because it sounds just like Him.) ~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
188:Wendell P. Bloyd
They first charged me with disorderly conduct,
There being no statute on blasphemy.
Later they locked me up as insane
Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard.
My offense was this:
I said God lied to Adam, and destined him
to lead the life of a fool,
Ignorant that there is evil in the world as well as good.
And when Adam outwitted God by eating the apple
And saw through the lie,
God drove him out of Eden to keep him from taking
The fruit of immortal life.
For Christ's sake, you sensible people,
Here's what God Himself says about it in the book of Genesis:
"And the Lord God said, behold the man
Is become as one of us" (a little envy, you see),
"To know good and evil" (The all-is-good lie exposed):
"And now lest he put forth his hand and take
Also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever:
Therefore the Lord God sent Him forth from the Garden of Eden."
(The reason I believe God crucified His Own Son
To get out of the wretched tangle is, because it
sounds just like Him).
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
189:Viruses, for instance, perform a really irritating function of intermingling the DNA from every species on Earth with every other. As Richard Lewontin puts it . . . It used to be thought that new functions had to arise by mutations of the genes already possessed by a species and that the only way such mutations could spread was by the normal processes of reproduction. It is now clear that genetic material has moved during evolution from species to species by means of retroviruses and other transposable particles. . . . What is so extraordinary in its implications for evolution is that transposition can occur between forms of life that are quite different, between distantly related vertebrates, for example, or even between plants and bacteria. . . . Thus, the assumption that species are on independent evolutionary pathways, once they have diverged from each other and can no longer interbreed, is incorrect. All life-forms are in potential genetic contact and genetic exchanges between them are going on. . . . The evolutionary “tree of life” seems the wrong metaphor. Perhaps we should think of it as an elaborate bit of macramé.16 ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
190:life. Such a relationship requires that you seek God like never before. So start this year right by becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with the One who has all power in heaven and earth. JANUARY 3 Trust in the Power of Hope Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life. PROVERBS 13:12 I define hope as “the happy anticipation of good things.” You can hope for something good to happen to you by learning how to celebrate and enjoy life. Everything in life is a process in motion. Without movement and progression there is no life. As long as you live you are always heading somewhere, and you should enjoy yourself on the way. God created you to be a goal-oriented visionary. Without a vision you become bored and hopeless. But there’s something about hope that makes people lighthearted and happy. Hope is a powerful spiritual force that is activated through your positive attitude. God is positive and He wants positive things to happen to you, but that probably won’t happen unless you have hope and faith. Expect God to bring good out of every circumstance in your life. Whatever happens, trust in the Lord . . . and trust in the power of hope! ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
191:Psychodynamic theorists and psychologists of various traditions theorise that the sense of having fallen originates in our experience of birth. We are created in the body of woman and grow in the womb where all our needs are automatically met. Then we fall, in birth, into the human world, separated from our maternal Eden, but always remembering a heavenly place where all our needs were met. It should not be a surprise, but we now know that the baby in the womb can see and hear and remember. Any parent who has seen a placenta will know that it is made in the image of a tree, a wondrous tree of life that fed us until we were ready for birth. Is it any surprise that in so many traditions the symbolism of trees is so important? The tree of life is the first thing we see in the womb, we never forget this and psychodynamic theorists argue we yearn for this, all our lives, hoping to escape life’s frustrations by returning to a blissful womb like state. If this is true, is it any wonder that legends of fallen angels so fascinate and entice us? In these legends perhaps we see echoes of our own fall. Psychologically we identify with those with whom we share similar experiences; and the fallen angels can easily become mirrors in which to see ourselves. ~ Stephen Skinner, #NFDB
192:What have I done? What have I become? I am a monster.” “Mary,” whispered Jesus, “you are forgiven.” A wave of peace came over her like nothing she had ever felt before. In the cave, she had experienced release. But now she felt the tendrils of healing gently digging deeper into her, like a new tree planting its roots into her heart, the true Tree of Life. But there was so much darkness in her. It was as if her soul was stuck in deep sludge. She looked up at him and thought, “How could this be? How could I be cleansed from so vile a heart and life?” As if he heard her thoughts, he said, “Let us go. It is time you were baptized, so you can finally believe what is already true of you.” “But what about Gaia? What about the angels?” Jesus looked over at the colossal tree, a good hundred feet away from them. He said to her, “I have two baptisms I perform. Water and fire.” He looked up into the heavens. Mary saw a column of fire pour out from the sky onto the mighty tree and engulf it in flames. She heard the crackling sounds of burning timber, felt the wave of hot air blow over her. As it burned, she thought she heard the spiritual piercing shrieks with wailing and gnashing of teeth. It felt more inside her head than from the tree, which she knew was the source of the pain. She understood at that moment that the baptism of water was salvation and the baptism of fire was judgment. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
193:The Living Word has various dimensions in relation to power and will to power. The spoken word stands at the very bottom of the involuted scale, being the faint echo of the inaudible Word. All beings, from the Gods to mankind, possess a sound, an essential name, a key note. By discovering what it is, one acquires the power to decompose and recreate it. It is also a mantra of voluntary death and resurrection. In the current parlance: the individual, chromosomic, genetic code has been deciphered. The secret has been penetrated. The name to which we refer corresponds to the supratemporal being and has nothing to do with the intimate, family name, although sometimes a delicate synchronicity is produced within a turn of the wheel, a mysterious lucky occurrence filled with meaning, and this name may also be symbolic.
'You must discover your Beloved's real name if you are to bring her back to life. And yours, too. They are the names of the God and Goddess to whom they will give a face. 'Of the God within you', as the Hindu greeting says: Namaste. 'I greet the God within you'.
'The essential name cannot be chosen, it isn't arbitrary. It is filled with meaning of the root note. It is mantra, an eternal designation. It is inscribed in the Book of the Stars, on the Tree of Life, awaiting its actualisation. The initiate of our order is given his real name when he has successfully undergone the most difficult tests. Then it is inscribed in the genealogical tree of the family, in the immortal circle of the Hyperborean initiation. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
194:Sir James Frazer speculated that the original oral myth about the Garden of Eden was not about a Tree of Knowledge and a Tree of Life, as found in Genesis, because they are not a polar pair.164 Myths repeatedly seek out polarities whenever possible—day and night, sun and moon, heaven and earth. It would be unlikely that the original myth had two trees that were not polar, as is the case with the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Rather, Frazer suggests, the two trees were likely the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death.165 According to his theory, God gave Adam and Eve a divine test to determine if mankind would be mortal or immortal. God wanted them to be immortal,166 so He gave them a big hint: “Don’t eat from the Tree of Death!” Of course, human nature being what it is, that is exactly what they did, thus becoming mortal. If the fruit that Adam and Eve had first tasted had been from the Tree of Life, they would have lived forever, but having eaten from the Tree of Death, they could no longer be permitted access to the Tree of Life. That is why God stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:24). If Frazer is correct—and his theory has the ring of truth—it suggests that the original purpose of the myth, to provide the origin of death, was replaced by a shift to ethical issues, seeing the events of the Fall primarily as a sin against God. This would indicate that this biblical myth was considerably changed from its oral version when the text of Genesis was edited. ~ Howard Schwartz, #NFDB
195:Supermind, on the other hand, as a basic structure-rung (conjoined with nondual Suchness) can only be experienced once all the previous junior levels have emerged and developed, and as in all structure development, stages cannot be skipped. Therefore, unlike Big Mind, supermind can only be experienced after all 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-tier junior stages have been passed through. While, as Genpo Roshi has abundantly demonstrated, Big Mind state experience is available to virtually anybody at almost any age (and will be interpreted according to the View of their current stage), supermind is an extremely rare recognition. Supermind, as the highest structure-rung to date, has access to all previous structures, all the way back to Archaic-and the Archaic itself, of course, has transcended and included, and now embraces, every major structural evolution going all the way back to the Big Bang. (A human being literally enfolds and embraces all the major transformative unfoldings of the entire Kosmic history-strings to quarks to subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to cells, all the way through the Tree of Life up to its latest evolutionary emergent, the triune brain, the most complex structure in the known natural world.) Supermind, in any given individual, is experienced as a type of omniscience-the supermind, since it transcends and includes all of the previous structure-rungs, and inherently is conjoined with the highest nondual Suchness state, has a full and complete knowledge of all of the potentials in that person. It literally knows all, at least for the individual.
~ Ken Wilber?,#NFDB
196:I Know You Not
O Christ, the Vine with living Fruit,
The twelvefold-fruited Tree of Life,
The Balm in Gilead after strife,
The valley Lily and the Rose;
Stronger than Lebanon, Thou Root;
Sweeter than clustered grapes, Thou Vine;
O Best, Thou Vineyard of red wine,
Keeping thy best wine till the close.
Pearl of great price Thyself alone,
And ruddier than the ruby Thou;
Most precious lightning Jasper stone,
Head of the corner spurned before:
Fair Gate of pearl, Thyself the Door;
Clear golden Street, Thyself the Way;
By Thee we journey toward Thee now,
Through Thee shall enter Heaven one day.
I thirst for Thee, full fount and flood;
My heart calls Thine, as deep to deep:
Dost Thou forget Thy sweat and pain,
They provocation on the Cross?
Heart-pierced for me, vouchsafe to keep
The purchase of Thy lavished Blood:
The gain is Thine, Lord, if I gain;
Or if I lose, Thine own the loss.
At midnight (saith the Parable)
A cry was made, the Bridegroom came;
Those who were ready entered in:
The rest, shut out in death and shame,
Strove all too late that Feast to win,
Their die was cast, and fixed their lot;
A gulf divided Heaven from Hell;
The Bridegroom said—I know you not.
But Who is this that shuts the door,
And saith—I know you not—to them?
I see the wounded hands and side,
207
The brow thorn-tortured long ago:
Yea; This Who grieved and bled and died,
This same is He Who must condemn;
He called, but they refused to know;
So now He hears their cry no more.
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,#NFDB
197:We have noticed that, since man’s advent, there has been a certain slowing down of the passive and somatic transformations of the organism in favour of the conscious and active metamorphoses of the individual absorbed in society. We find the artificial carrying on the work of the natural; and the transmission of an oral or written culture being superimposed on genetic forms of heredity (chromosomes). Without denying the possibility or even probability of a certain prolongation in our limbs, and still more in our nervous system, of the orthogenetic processes of the past, I am inclined to think that their influence, hardly appreciable since the emergence of Homo sapiens, is destined to dwindle still further. As thought regulated by a sort of quantum law, the energies of life seem unable to spread in one region or take on a new form except at the expense of a lowering elsewhere. Since man’s arrival, the evolutionary pressure seems to have dropped in all the non-human branches of the tree of life. And now that man has become an adult and has opened up for himself the field of mental and social transformations, bodies no longer change appreciably; they no longer need to in the human branch; or if they still change, it will only be under our industrious control. It may well be that in its individual capacities and penetration our brain has reached its organic limits. But the movement does not stop there. From west to east, evolution is henceforth occupied elsewhere, in a richer and more complex domain, constructing, with all minds joined together, mind. Beyond all nations and races, the inevitable taking-as-a-whole of mankind has already begun. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
198:But today marks an achievement unheard of in the annals of history. And you, my horde, are the titans who have risen to prove your worth of becoming gods!” The horde rumbled again in affirmation. “We are on the verge of a war the likes of which will change the world forever. And we are the agents of change. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” She paused again for dramatic effect. And she received it. The ground vibrated from the noise of the Nephilim. “We are about to occupy the Garden of the mountain of God. This god, who was born with a golden spoon in his mouth, this deity who claims to own everything and leaves nothing for the ninety-nine percent of the rest of us, we are about to show him who is god!” She paused for another moment of rumbling before finishing. “You are about to storm a fortress guarded by mighty Cherubim. I know you are exhausted. I know you have been worked to the bone. I know you barely have anything left to give to this campaign because you have given all you have and more. But I ask you this one thing. When you are crossing the lake, when you are climbing the rocks, when you hear the horns of war bid you attack, when you find yourself battling the evil Cherubim, when you have reached the end of your strength and have nothing left to fight with, just remember one thing: tomorrow you will taste of the Tree of Life and you will be gods, and you will tire no longer -- for you shall live forever!” The horde rumbled yet again. They caught the spirit of the moment. She knew no amount of exhaustion could quench their strength in the light of that hope. And she was proud of her ability to lie through her fangs with every single word she spoke. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
199:2 g “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but h have tested those i who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up j for my name’s sake, and you k have not grown weary. 4But I have this against you, that you have abandoned l the love you had at first. 5Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do m the works you did at first. If not, n I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6Yet this you have: you hate the works of o the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 p He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. q To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of r the tree of life, which is in s the paradise of God.’ To the Church in Smyrna 8“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of t the first and the last, u who died and came to life. 9“‘I know your tribulation and v your poverty ( v but you are rich) and the slander [1] of w those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, w that you may be tested, and for x ten days y you will have tribulation. z Be faithful a unto death, and I will give you b the crown of life. 11 c He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. c The one who conquers will not be hurt by d the second death.’ To the Church in Pergamum 12“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has e the sharp two-edged sword. 13“‘I know where you dwell, f where Satan’s throne ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
200:Mater Amabilis
Down the goldenest of streams,
Tide of dreams,
The fair cradled man-child drifts;
Sways with cadenced motion slow,
To and fro,
As the mother-foot poised lightly, falls and lifts.
He, the firstling,-he, the light
Of her sight,He, the breathing pledge of love,
'Neath the holy passion lies,
Of her eyes,Smiles to feel the warm, life-giving ray above.
She believes that in his vision,
Skies elysian
O'er an angel-people shine.
Back to gardens of delight,
Taking flight,
His auroral spirit basks in dreams divine.
But she smiles through anxious tears;
Unborn years
Pressing forward, she perceives.
Shadowy muffled shapes, they come
Deaf and dumb,
Bringing what? dry chaff and tares, or full-eared sheaves?
What for him shall she invoke?
Shall the oak
Bind the man's triumphant brow?
Shall his daring foot alight
On the height?
Shall he dwell amidst the humble and the low?
Through what tears and sweat and pain,
Must he gain
Fruitage from the tree of life?
Shall it yield him bitter flavor?
125
Shall its savor
Be as manna midst the turmoil and the strife?
In his cradle slept and smiled
Thus the child
Who as Prince of Peace was hailed.
Thus anigh the mother breast,
Lulled to rest,
Child-Napoleon down the lilied river sailed.
Crowned or crucified-the same
Glows the flame
Of her deathless love divine.
Still the blessed mother stands,
In all lands,
As she watched beside thy cradle and by mine.
Whatso gifts the years bestow,
Still men know,
While she breathes, lives one who sees
(Stand they pure or sin-defiled)
But the child
Whom she crooned to sleep and rocked upon her knee.
~ Emma Lazarus,#NFDB
201:Paradise: In A Dream
Once in a dream I saw the flowers
That bud and bloom in Paradise;
More fair they are than waking eyes
Have seen in all this world of ours.
And faint the perfume-bearing rose,
And faint the lily on its stem,
And faint the perfect violet
Compared with them.
I heard the songs of Paradise:
Each bird sat singing in his place;
A tender song so full of grace
It soared like incense to the skies.
Each bird sat singing to his mate
Soft cooing notes among the trees:
The nightingale herself were cold
To such as these.
I saw the fourfold River flow,
And deep it was, with golden sand;
It flowed between a mossy land
With murmured music grave and low.
It hath refreshment for all thirst,
For fainting spirits strength and rest:
Earth holds not such a draught as this
From east to west.
The Tree of Life stood budding there,
Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;
Eternal sap sustains its roots,
Its shadowing branches fill the air.
Its leaves are healing for the world,
Its fruit the hungry world can feed,
Sweeter than honey to the taste
And balm indeed.
I saw the gate called Beautiful;
And looked, but scarce could look, within;
I saw the golden streets begin,
314
And outskirts of the glassy pool.
Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,
Oh green palm-branches many-leaved—
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived.
I hope to see these things again,
But not as once in dreams by night;
To see them with my very sight,
And touch, and handle, and attain:
To have all Heaven beneath my feet
For narrow way that once they trod;
To have my part with all the saints,
And with my God.
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,#NFDB
202:Say the planet is born at midnight and it runs for one day. First there is nothing. Two hours are lost to lava and meteors. Life doesn’t show up until three or four a.m. Even then, it’s just the barest self-copying bits and pieces. From dawn to late morning—a million million years of branching—nothing more exists than lean and simple cells. Then there is everything. Something wild happens, not long after noon. One kind of simple cell enslaves a couple of others. Nuclei get membranes. Cells evolve organelles. What was once a solo campsite grows into a town. The day is two-thirds done when animals and plants part ways. And still life is only single cells. Dusk falls before compound life takes hold. Every large living thing is a latecomer, showing up after dark. Nine p.m. brings jellyfish and worms. Later that hour comes the breakout—backbones, cartilage, an explosion of body forms. From one instant to the next, countless new stems and twigs in the spreading crown burst open and run. Plants make it up on land just before ten. Then insects, who instantly take to the air. Moments later, tetrapods crawl up from the tidal muck, carrying around on their skin and in their guts whole worlds of earlier creatures. By eleven, dinosaurs have shot their bolt, leaving the mammals and birds in charge for an hour. Somewhere in that last sixty minutes, high up in the phylogenetic canopy, life grows aware. Creatures start to speculate. Animals start teaching their children about the past and the future. Animals learn to hold rituals. Anatomically modern man shows up four seconds before midnight. The first cave paintings appear three seconds later. And in a thousandth of a click of the second hand, life solves the mystery of DNA and starts to map the tree of life itself. By midnight, most of the globe is converted to row crops for the care and feeding of one species. And that’s when the tree of life becomes something else again. That’s when the giant trunk starts to teeter. ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
203:Eve
'While I sit at the door
Sick to gaze within
Mine eye weepeth sore
For sorrow and sin:
As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.
'How have Eden bowers grown
Without Adam to bend them!
How have Eden flowers blown
Squandering their sweet breath
Without me to tend them!
The Tree of Life was ours,
Tree twelvefold-fruited,
Most lofty tree that flowers,
Most deeply rooted:
I chose the tree of death.
'Hadst thou but said me nay,
Adam, my brother,
I might have pined away;
I, but none other:
God might have let thee stay
Safe in our garden,
By putting me away
Beyond all pardon.
'I, Eve, sad mother
Of all who must live,
I, not another
Plucked bitterest fruit to give
My friend, husband, lover—
O wanton eyes, run over;
Who but I should grieve?—
Cain hath slain his brother:
Of all who must die mother,
Miserable Eve!'
151
Thus she sat weeping,
Thus Eve our mother,
Where one lay sleeping
Slain by his brother.
Greatest and least
Each piteous beast
To hear her voice
Forgot his joys
And set aside his feast.
The mouse paused in his walk
And dropped his wheaten stalk;
Grave cattle wagged their heads
In rumination;
The eagle gave a cry
From his cloud station;
Larks on thyme beds
Forbore to mount or sing;
Bees drooped upon the wing;
The raven perched on high
Forgot his ration;
The conies in their rock,
A feeble nation,
Quaked sympathetical;
The mocking-bird left off to mock;
Huge camels knelt as if
In deprecation;
The kind hart's tears were falling;
Chattered the wistful stork;
Dove-voices with a dying fall
Cooed desolation
Answering grief by grief.
Only the serpent in the dust
Wriggling and crawling,
Grinned an evil grin and thrust
His tongue out with its fork.
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,#NFDB
204:In Upper San Francisco
I heard that Heaven was bright and fair,
And politicians dwelt not there.
'Twas said by knowing ones that they
Were in the Elsewhere-so to say.
So, waking from my last long sleep,
I took my place among the sheep.
I passed the gate-Saint Peter eyed
Me sharply as I stepped inside.
He thought, as afterward I learned,
That I was Chris, the Unreturned.
The new Jerusalem-ah me,
It was a sorry sight to see!
The mansions of the blest were there,
And mostly they were fine and fair;
But O, such streets!-so deep and wide,
And all unpaved, from side to side!
And in a public square there grew
A blighted tree, most sad to view.
From off its trunk the bark was ripped
Its very branches all were stripped!
An angel perched upon the fence
With all the grace of indolence.
'Celestial bird,' I cried, in pain,
'What vandal wrought this wreck? Explain.'
He raised his eyelids as if tired:
'What is a Vandal?' he inquired.
311
'This is the Tree of Life. 'Twas stripped
By Durst and Siebe, who have shipped
'The bark across the Jordan-see?
And sold it to a tannery.'
'Alas,' I sighed, 'their old-time tricks!
That pavement, too, of golden bricks
'They've gobbled that?' But with a scowl,
'You greatly wrong them,' said the fowl:
''Twas Gilleran did that, I fearHead of the Street Department here.'
'What! what!' cried I-'you let such chaps
Come here? You've Satan, too, perhaps.'
'We had him, yes, but off he went,
Yet showed some purpose to repent;
'But since your priests and parsons filled
The place with those their preaching killed'
(Here Siebe passed along with Durst,
Psalming as if their lungs would burst)
'He swears his foot no more shall press
('Tis cloven, anyhow, I guess)
'Our soil. In short, he's out on strike
But devils are not all alike.'
Lo! Gilleran came down the street,
Pressing the soil with broad, flat feet!
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
205:All about her she saw that two thousand out of the horde had made it across the water. They were on the frontier of Eden. A mere two thousand combatants for the invasion of an impregnable fortress. Five out of six Nephilim had perished at the mercy of Rahab and her brood of Leviathan and the tentacled one. The devastation was inestimable. It could lose her the war. Still, she had two thousand warriors with her. They were on the shores of the entrance to the Garden that hid the Tree of Life deep in its midst. Thanks to the Cursed One, she knew exactly where that tree was. She looked for her Rephaim generals but could not find them. They had all been lost to the denizens of the deep. An earthquake rocked the land. It was deep, the precursor of something much bigger. “Now what?” Inanna complained. She looked onto the horizon of her destination. Black smoke billowing out of the mountaintops of not only Mount Sahand, but the more distant northern Mount Savalan. The earth rumbled again. She realized she did not have much time. She signaled for her Anzu bird, and called out to Utu, flying above them at a safe height. “SOUND THE CRY OF WAR!” she bellowed. Utu put the trumpet to his lips and blew with all his might. The war cry of Inanna echoed throughout the land. Her Nephilim gathered their arms and dashed toward the heart of Eden. Inanna mounted her thunderbird. She glanced out at the Lake. Rahab glided on the surface, its eyes watching her. It would not forget this day, nor the Watcher, who for one moment bested the sea dragon of the Abyss. • • • • • At the top of the Mount Sahand ridge, six thousand Nephilim prepared their sail-chutes. They waited for the call of war. When it came, they jumped off the cliff edge by the dozens. They opened up their sails to float down into the Garden. Handfuls of them failed and Nephilim plummeted to their deaths a thousand feet below. But most of them worked. The Nephilim drifted from the heavens into the pristine paradise. Right into the flaming whirling swords of the Cherubim. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
206:Preparatory Meditations - First Series: 29
(John. 20:17. My Father, and your Father, to my God, and your God)
My shattered fancy stole away from me
(Wits run a-wooling over Eden's park)
And in God's garden saw a golden tree,
Whose heart was all divine, and gold its bark.
Whose glorious limbs and fruitful branches strong
With saints and angels bright are richly hung.
Thou! Thou! my dear dear Lord, art this rich tree,
The tree of life within God's Paradise.
I am a withered twig, dried fit to be
A chat cast in Thy fire, writh off by vice.
Yet if Thy milk-white gracious hand will take me
And graft me in this golden stock, Thou'lt make me.
Thou'lt make me then its fruit, and branch to spring,
And though a nipping east wind blow, and all
Hell's nymphs with spite their dog's sticks therat ding
To dash the graft off, and its fruits to fall,
Yet I shall stand Thy graft, and fruits that are
Fruits of the tree of life Thy graft shall bear.
I being graft in Thee, there up do stand
In us relations all that mutual are.
I am Thy patient, pupil, servant, and
Thy sister, mother, dove, spouse, son, and heir.
Thou art my priest, physician, prophet, king,
Lord, brother, bridegroom, father, everything.
I being graft in Thee I am grafted here
Into Thy family, and kindred claim
To all in heaven, God, saints, and angels there.
I Thy relations my relations name.
Thy father's mine, Thy God my God, and I
With saints and angels draw affinity.
My Lord, what is it that Thou dost bestow?
The praise on this account fills up, and throngs
16
Eternity brimful, doth overflow
The heavens vast with rich angelic songs.
How should I blush? How tremble at this thing,
Not having yet my gam-ut learned to sing.
But, Lord, as burnished sunbeams forth out fly,
Let angel-shine forth in my life outflame,
That I may grace Thy graceful family
And not to Thy relations be a shame.
Make me Thy graft, be Thou my golden stock.
Thy glory then I'll make my fruits and crop.
~ Edward Taylor,#NFDB
207:Sacred To The Memory Of Algernon R. G. Stanhope
“THE silver cord is loosed,” he said,
“The golden bowl is broken;
A few more prayers having been prayed,
A few more love-words spoken,
I shall turn my face unto the wall,
And sleeping, not be woken.”
“Is it a better place, my child,
That thou art gone unto?
Upon this earth that thou hast left
Hadst thou not much to do?
Would not thy joys have been a crowd
And thy troubles small and few?
“Beauty and rank and friends and wealth,
Genius and excellence,—
Could not all these, thy heritage,
Win thee from hastening hence?
Was the soul so much more unto thee
Than joys of mind and sense?
“And, bending with an English grace,
The ladies of our isle,
With their soft curls and their virgin eyes
Which look so sweet the while,
Had given thee for thy nobleness
A precious golden smile.
“These will not now be thine: thy life's
Appointed period
Being past o'er, thou liest on
The folded pinions broad
Of the Seraph who is bearing thee
Up through the sun to God.
“It has a solemn sound—‘to God’;
And strange high thoughts it weaves
Of a garden where the Tree of Life
Its mystic shadow gives,
And the music of the rapid worlds
Is the wind that stirs the leaves.
“Surely, it is a better place:
Wealth shuts not there his ken
From woes his heart yearns to assuage;
244
Nor noble origin
Wounds him by lessening trust betwixt
Him and his fellow-men.
“Nor friends die from him, but instead
Come to him where he is;
Nor Passion, rank with evil joys
And worse satieties,
Pouting her crimson lips at him
Layeth her cheek to his.
“Nor priests be there, like a bad dream
That at your bed's foot stands
All night (and yet it goes at last);
Nor moans of king-curst lands
Make his breast heave and his pale brow
To drop into his hands.
“But Love walks always with him now;
And Faith, not chained but free;
And Hope, bent forward, and with hair
Held back continually
To hear the distant chariot-wheels;
And wise calm Charity.”
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,#NFDB
208:The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree.I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have at all times overmastered other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was young, budding twigs; and this connection of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few have left living and modified descendants. From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these fallen branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favoured and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus or Lepidosiren, which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
209:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#NFDB
210:The difference between supermind and Big Mind (if we take Big Mind to mean the state experience of nondual Suchness, or turiyatita) is that Big Mind can be experienced or recognized at virtually any lower level or rung. Magic to Integral. In fact, one can be at, say, the Pluralistic stage, and experience several core characteristics of the entire sequence of state-stages (gross to subtle to causal to Witnessing to Nondual), although, of course, the entire sequence, including nondual Suchness, will be interpreted in Pluralistic terms. This is unfortunate in many ways—interpreting Dharma in merely Pluralistic terms (or Mythic terms, or Rational, and so on)—because it is so ultimately reductionistic; but it happens all the time, given the relative independence of states and structures at 1st and 2nd tier.
Supermind, on the other hand, as a basic structure-rung (conjoined with nondual Suchness) can only be experienced once all the previous junior levels have emerged and developed, and as in all structure development, stages cannot be skipped. Therefore, unlike Big Mind, supermind can only be experienced after all 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-tier junior stages have been passed through. While, as Genpo Roshi has abundantly demonstrated, Big Mind state experience is available to virtually anybody at almost any age (and will be interpreted according to the View of their current stage), supermind is an extremely rare recognition. Supermind, as the highest structure-rung to date, has access to all previous structures, all the way back to Archaic—and the Archaic itself, of course, has transcended and included, and now embraces, every major structural evolution going all the way back to the Big Bang. (A human being literally enfolds and embraces all the major transformative unfoldings of the entire Kosmic history—strings to quarks to subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to cells, all the way through the Tree of Life up to its latest evolutionary emergent, the triune brain, the most complex structure in the known natural world.) Supermind, in any given individual, is experienced as a type of “omniscience”—the supermind, since it transcends and includes all of the previous structure-rungs, and inherently is conjoined with the highest nondual Suchness state, has a full and complete knowledge of all of the potentials in that person. It literally “knows all,” at least for the individual. ~ Ken Wilber,#NFDB
211:In the days to come, when it will seem as if I were entombed, when the very firmament threatens to come crashing down upon my head, I shall be forced to abandon everything except what these spirits implanted in me. I shall be crushed, debased, humiliated. I shall be frustrated in every fiber of my being. I shall even take to howling like a dog. But I shall not be utterly lost! Eventually a day is to dawn when, glancing over my own life as though it were a story or history, I can detect in it a form, a pattern, a meaning. From then on the word defeat becomes meaningless. It will be impossible ever to relapse.
For on that day I become and I remain one with my creation.
On another day, in a foreign land, there will appear before me a young man who, unaware of the change which has come over me, will dub me "The Happy Rock." That is the moniker I shall tender when the great Cosmocrator demands-" Who art thou?"
Yes, beyond a doubt, I shall answer "The Happy Rock!"
And, if it be asked-"Didst thou enjoy thy stay on earth?"-I shall reply: "My life was one long rosy crucifixion."
As to the meaning of this, if it is not already clear, it shall be elucidated. If I fail then I am but a dog in the manger.
Once I thought I had been wounded as no man ever had. Because I felt thus I vowed to write this book. But long before I began the book the wound had healed. Since I had sworn to fulfill my task I reopened the horrible wound.
Let me put it another way. Perhaps in opening my own wound, I closed other wounds.. Something dies, something blossoms. To suffer in ignorance is horrible. To suffer deliberately, in order to understand the nature of suffering and abolish it forever, is quite another matter. The Buddha had one fixed thought in mind all his life, as we know it. It was to eliminate human suffering.
Suffering is unnecessary. But, one has to suffer before he is able to realize that this is so. It is only then, moreover, that the true significance of human suffering becomes clear. At the last desperate moment-when one can suffer no more!-something happens which is the nature of a miracle. The great wound which was draining the blood of life closes up, the organism blossoms like a rose. One is free at last, and not "with a yearning for Russia," but with a yearning for ever more freedom, ever more bliss. The tree of life is kept alive not by tears but the knowledge that freedom is real and everlasting. ~ Henry Miller,#NFDB
212:There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And I try licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. The white mouse and the black mouse – day and night – are gnawing at the branch from which I am hanging. I can see the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tastes sweet. I can see only one thing; the inescapable dragon and the mice, and I cannot tear my eyes away from them. And this is no fable but the truth, the truth that is irrefutable and intelligible to everyone.
The delusion of the joys of life that had formerly stifled my fear of the dragon no longer deceived me. No matter how many times I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life, do not thinking about it but live, I cannot do so because I have already done it for too long. Now I cannot help seeing day and night chasing me and leading me to my death. This is all I can see because it is the only truth. All the rest is a lie.
Those two drops of honey, which more than all else had diverted my eyes from the cruel truth, my love for my family and for my writing, which I called art – I no longer found sweet. ~ Leo Tolstoy,#NFDB
213:#The Vanity of all Worldly Things.
As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound"?
What isn't in honor to be set on high?
No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die,
And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was king of late.
What isn't in wealth great treasures to obtain?
No, that's but labor, anxious care, and pain.
He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow,
It's his today, but who's his heir tomorrow?
What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find?
More vain than all, that's but to grasp the wind.
The sensual senses for a time they pleasure,
Meanwhile the conscience rage, who shall appease?
What isn't in beauty? No that's but a snare,
They're foul enough today, that once were fair.
What is't in flow'ring youth, or manly age?
The first is prone to vice, the last to rage.
Where is it then, in wisdom, learning, arts?
Sure if on earth, it must be in those parts;
Yet these the wisest man of men did find
But vanity, vexation of the mind.
And he that know the most doth still bemoan
He knows not all that here is to be known.
What is it then? To do as stoics tell,
Nor laugh, nor weep, let things go ill or well?
Such stoics are but stocks, such teaching vain,
While man is man, he shall have ease or pain.
If not in honor, beauty, age, nor treasure,
Nor yet in learning, wisdom, youth, nor pleasure,
Where shall I climb, sound, seek, search, or find
That summum bonum which may stay my mind?
There is a path no vulture's eye hath seen,
Where lion fierce, nor lion's whelps have been,
Which leads unto that living crystal fount,
Who drinks thereof, the world doth naught account.
The depth and sea have said " 'tis not in me,"
With pearl and gold it shall not valued be.
For sapphire, onyx, topaz who would change;
It's hid from eyes of men, they count it strange.
Death and destruction the fame hath heard,
But where and what it is, from heaven's declared;
It brings to honor which shall ne'er decay,
It stores with wealth which time can't wear away.
It yieldeth pleasures far beyond conceit,
And truly beautifies without deceit.
Nor strength, nor wisdom, nor fresh youth shall fade,
Nor death shall see, but are immortal made.
This pearl of price, this tree of life, this spring,
Who is possessed of shall reign a king.
Nor change of state nor cares shall ever see,
But wear his crown unto eternity.
This satiates the soul, this stays the mind,
And all the rest, but vanity we find. ~ Anne Bradstreet,#NFDB
214:The Vanity Of All Worldly Things
As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound"?
What isn't in honor to be set on high?
No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die,
And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was king of late.
What isn't in wealth great treasures to obtain?
No, that's but labor, anxious care, and pain.
He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow,
It's his today, but who's his heir tomorrow?
What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find?
More vain than all, that's but to grasp the wind.
The sensual senses for a time they pleasure,
Meanwhile the conscience rage, who shall appease?
What isn't in beauty? No that's but a snare,
They're foul enough today, that once were fair.
What is't in flow'ring youth, or manly age?
The first is prone to vice, the last to rage.
Where is it then, in wisdom, learning, arts?
Sure if on earth, it must be in those parts;
Yet these the wisest man of men did find
But vanity, vexation of the mind.
And he that know the most doth still bemoan
He knows not all that here is to be known.
What is it then? To do as stoics tell,
Nor laugh, nor weep, let things go ill or well?
Such stoics are but stocks, such teaching vain,
While man is man, he shall have ease or pain.
If not in honor, beauty, age, nor treasure,
Nor yet in learning, wisdom, youth, nor pleasure,
Where shall I climb, sound, seek, search, or find
That summum bonum which may stay my mind?
There is a path no vulture's eye hath seen,
Where lion fierce, nor lion's whelps have been,
Which leads unto that living crystal fount,
Who drinks thereof, the world doth naught account.
The depth and sea have said " 'tis not in me,"
173
With pearl and gold it shall not valued be.
For sapphire, onyx, topaz who would change;
It's hid from eyes of men, they count it strange.
Death and destruction the fame hath heard,
But where and what it is, from heaven's declared;
It brings to honor which shall ne'er decay,
It stores with wealth which time can't wear away.
It yieldeth pleasures far beyond conceit,
And truly beautifies without deceit.
Nor strength, nor wisdom, nor fresh youth shall fade,
Nor death shall see, but are immortal made.
This pearl of price, this tree of life, this spring,
Who is possessed of shall reign a king.
Nor change of state nor cares shall ever see,
But wear his crown unto eternity.
This satiates the soul, this stays the mind,
And all the rest, but vanity we find.
~ Anne Bradstreet,#NFDB
215:Vanity Of All Worldly Things, The
As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! Vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is the man can say, "Lo, I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound"?
What isn't in honor to be set on high?
No, they like beasts and sons of men shall die,
And whilst they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was king of late.
What isn't in wealth great treasures to obtain?
No, that's but labor, anxious care, and pain.
He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow,
It's his today, but who's his heir tomorrow?
What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find?
More vain than all, that's but to grasp the wind.
The sensual senses for a time they pleasure,
Meanwhile the conscience rage, who shall appease?
What isn't in beauty? No that's but a snare,
They're foul enough today, that once were fair.
What is't in flow'ring youth, or manly age?
The first is prone to vice, the last to rage.
Where is it then, in wisdom, learning, arts?
Sure if on earth, it must be in those parts;
Yet these the wisest man of men did find
But vanity, vexation of the mind.
And he that know the most doth still bemoan
He knows not all that here is to be known.
What is it then? To do as stoics tell,
Nor laugh, nor weep, let things go ill or well?
Such stoics are but stocks, such teaching vain,
While man is man, he shall have ease or pain.
If not in honor, beauty, age, nor treasure,
Nor yet in learning, wisdom, youth, nor pleasure,
Where shall I climb, sound, seek, search, or find
That summum bonum which may stay my mind?
There is a path no vulture's eye hath seen,
Where lion fierce, nor lion's whelps have been,
Which leads unto that living crystal fount,
Who drinks thereof, the world doth naught account.
The depth and sea have said " 'tis not in me,"
190
With pearl and gold it shall not valued be.
For sapphire, onyx, topaz who would change;
It's hid from eyes of men, they count it strange.
Death and destruction the fame hath heard,
But where and what it is, from heaven's declared;
It brings to honor which shall ne'er decay,
It stores with wealth which time can't wear away.
It yieldeth pleasures far beyond conceit,
And truly beautifies without deceit.
Nor strength, nor wisdom, nor fresh youth shall fade,
Nor death shall see, but are immortal made.
This pearl of price, this tree of life, this spring,
Who is possessed of shall reign a king.
Nor change of state nor cares shall ever see,
But wear his crown unto eternity.
This satiates the soul, this stays the mind,
And all the rest, but vanity we find.
~ Anne Bradstreet,#NFDB
216:Well, everyone is going to confront that gorilla on the threshold. Every one has him, unseen by mortal eye, and he whispers into your ear to entertain the unlovely thoughts of the world. And your every reaction that is unlovely, it feeds upon it; and your every thought that is kind and wonderful and loving, she feeds upon it. And the day will come, you will be strong enough to confront this. And may I tell you? it will take you the twinkling of a second to dissolve it. You don’t labor upon it. All it needs is the core of integrity within you. When you pledge yourself, and no one else, – you don’t swear upon your mother, you don’t swear upon a friend, you don’t swear upon the Bible; you pledge yourself to redeem it. At the moment you pledge yourself, – and within you, you know you mean it, – the whole thing dissolves. It’s no time at all in dissolving. And then all the energy returns to you, and you are stronger than ever before to go forward now and eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And if you go forward and misuse it again, you start another form building; and one day you will dissolve it again. Eventually you will become completely awakened, and you will use your wonderful power only – not for the good, – that tree will come to an end, – for Life itself. For, eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is this world. The day will come that you will eat of the Tree of Life that bears the fruit of truth and error. Error will embody itself here, and one day you will confront error, and the error will dissolve before your mind’s eye as truth begins to glow before you, because you are eating, then, of the Tree of Life as you formerly ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And the combat of good and evil produces this monster, and the combat of truth and error produces an entirely different form of being, more glorious than that one of good and more horrible than this. The error will dissolve just as quickly when you confront error. So, if today your teaching is not true and you live by it, you are building something just as monstrous; but one day you will confront error, and you will discover that you lived by a false concept of God – something on the outside of Self; that you formerly worshipped, a little golden figure, made of gold and silver. It had eyes, but could not see. It had ears, but could not hear. It had a mouth, but could not speak. It had feet, and it could not walk. It made no sound within its throat. And those who made it are just like it. And those who trusted it are just like it, too. So, all the little icons in the world that people worship – these are the little things called “error”; and one day you will discover the true God. And when you discover the true God, you will find that He is all within your own wonderful being as your own wonderful human imagination. You’ll walk in the consciousness of being God. You don’t brag about it. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
217:Only a fool says in his heart
There is no Creator, no King of kings,
Only mules would dare to bray
These lethal mutterings.
Over darkened minds as these
The Darkness bears full sway,
Fruitless, yet, bearing fruit,
In their fell, destructive way.
Sterile, though proliferate,
A filthy progeny sees the day,
When Evil, Thought and Action mate:
Breeding sin, rebels and decay.
The blackest deeds and foul ideals,
Multiply throughout the earth,
Through deadened, lifeless, braying souls,
The Darkness labours and gives birth.
Taking the Lord’s abundant gifts
And rotting them to the core,
They dress their dish and serve it out
Foul seeds to infect thousands more.
‘The Tree of Life is dead!’ they cry,
‘And that of Knowledge not enough,
Let us glut on the ashen apples
Of Sodom and Gomorrah.’
Have pity on Thy children, Lord,
Left sorrowing on this earth,
While fools and all their kindred
Cast shadows with their murk,
And to the dwindling wise,
They toss their heads and wryly smirk.
The world daily grinds to dust
Virtue’s fair unicorns,
Rather, it would now beget
Vice’s mutant manticores.
Wisdom crushed, our joy is gone,
Buried under anxious fears
For lost rights and freedoms,
We shed many bitter tears.
Death is life, Life is no more,
Humanity buried in a tomb,
In a fatal prenatal world
Where tiny flowers
Are ripped from the womb,
Discarded, thrown away,
Inconvenient lives
That barely bloomed.
Our elders fare no better,
Their wisdom unwanted by and by,
Boarded out to end their days,
And forsaken are left to die.
Only the youthful and the useful,
In this capital age prosper and fly.
Yet, they too are quickly strangled,
Before their future plans are met,
Professions legally pre-enslaved
Held bound by mounting student debt.
Our leaders all harangue for peace
Yet perpetrate the horror,
Of economic greed shored up
Through manufactured war.
Our armies now welter
In foreign civilian gore.
How many of our kin are slain
For hollow martial honour?
As if we could forget, ignore,
The scourge of nuclear power,
Alas, victors are rarely tried
For their woeful crimes of war.
Hope and pray we never see
A repeat of Hiroshima.
No more!
Crimes are legion,
The deeds of devil-spawn!
What has happened to the souls
Your Divine Image was minted on?
They are now recast:
Crooked coins of Caesar and
The Whore of Babylon.
How often mankind shuts its ears
To Your music celestial,
Mankind would rather march
To the anthems of Hell.
If humanity cannot be reclaimed
By Your Mercy and great Love
Deservedly we should be struck
By Vengeance from above.
Many dread the Final Day,
And the Crack of Doom
For others the Apocalypse
Will never come too soon.
‘Lift up your heads, be glad’,
Fools shall bray no more
For at last the Master comes
To thresh His threshing floor. ~ E A Bucchianeri,#NFDB
218:The Saints will reign in celestial splendor—Christ will come, and men will be judged—Blessed are they who keep His commandments. 1 And he shewed me a pure river of awater of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the atree of blife, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the cleaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more acurse: but the bthrone of God and of the cLamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: 4 And they shall asee his bface; and his cname shall be in their foreheads. 5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the asun; for the Lord God giveth them blight: and they shall creign dfor ever and ever. 6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and atrue: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must bshortly be done. 7 Behold, I acome quickly: bblessed is he that keepeth the csayings of the prophecy of this book. 8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I afell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. 9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. 10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. 11 He that is aunjust, let him be bunjust still: and he which is cfilthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. 12 And, behold, I acome quickly; and my breward is with me, to give every man according as his cwork shall be. 13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the afirst and the last. 14 Blessed are they that ado his bcommandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and asorcerers, and bwhoremongers, and cmurderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a dlie. 16 I Jesus have sent mine aangel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the broot and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning cstar. 17 And the Spirit and the bride say, aCome. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the bwater of life freely. 18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall aadd unto these things, God shall add unto him the bplagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the abook of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. 20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I acome quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 21 The agrace of our bLord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
219:Leave all the ‘wise men to mock it or tolerate.’ Let them reach the moon or the stars, they are all dead. Nothing lives outside of man. Man is the living soul, turning slowly into a life-giving Spirit. But you cannot tell it except in a parable or metaphor to excite the mind of man to get him to go out and prove it. Leave the good and evil and eat of the Tree of Life. Nothing in the world is untrue if you want it to be true. You are the truth of everything that you perceive. ‘I am the truth, and the way, the life revealed.’ If I have physically nothing in my pocket, then in Imagination I have MUCH. But that is a lie based on fact, but truth is based on the intensity of my imagination and then I will create it in my world. Should I accept facts and use them as to what I should imagine? No. It is told us in the story of the fig tree. It did not bear for three years. One said, ‘Cut it down, and throw it away.’ But the keeper of the vineyard pleaded NO’! Who is the tree? I am the tree; you are the tree. We bear or we do not. But the Keeper said he would dig around the tree and feed it ‘or manure it, as we would say today’ and see if it will not bear. Well I do that here every week and try to get the tree ‘you’ me to bear. You should bear whatever you desire. If you want to be happily married, you should be. The world is only response. If you want money, get it. Everything is a dream anyway. When you awake and know what you are creating and that you are creating it that is a different thing. The greatest book is the Bible, but it has been taken from a moral basis and it is all weeping and tears. It seems almost ruthless as given to us in the Gospel, if taken literally. The New Testament interprets the Old Testament, and it has nothing to do with morals. You change your mind and stay in that changed state until it unfolds. Man thinks he has to work himself out of something, but it is God asleep in you as a living soul, and then we are reborn as a life-giving spirit. We do it here in this little classroom called Earth or beyond the grave, for you cannot die. You can be just as asleep beyond the grave. I meet them constantly, and they are just like this. Same loves and same hates. No change. They will go through it until they finally awake, until they cease to re-act and begin to act. Do not take this story lightly which I have told you tonight. Take it to heart. Tonight when you are driving home enact a scene. No matter what it is. Forget good and evil. Enact a scene that implies you have what you desire, and to the degree that you are faithful to that state, it will unfold in your world and no power can stop it, for there is no other power. Nothing is independent of your perception of it, and this goes for that great philosopher among us who is still claiming that everything is independent of the perceiver, but that the perceiver has certain powers. It is not so. Nothing is independent of the perceiver. Everything is ‘burned up’ when I cease to behold it. It may exist for another, but not for me. Let us make our dream a noble one, for the world is infinite response to you, the being you want to be. Now let us go into the silence. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
220:Negro Spirituals
IN DAT GREAT GITTIN’-UP MORNIN’
I ’M a gwine to tell you bout de comin’ ob de Saviour,—
Fare you well, Fare you well,
Dere ’s a better day a-comin’,
When my Lord speaks to his Fader,
Says, Fader, I ’m tired o’ bearin’,
Tired o’ bearin’ for poor sinners:
O preachers, fold your Bibles;
Prayer-makers, pray no more,
For de last soul’s converted.
In dat great gittin’-up Mornin’,
Fare you well, Fare you well.
De Lord spoke to Gabriel:
Say, go look behind de altar,
Take down de silver trumpet,
Go down to de sea-side,
Place one foot on de dry land,
Place de oder on de sea,
Raise your hand to heaven,
Declare by your Maker,
Dat time shall be no longer,
In dat great gittin’-up Mornin’, etc.
Blow your trumpet, Gabriel.
Lord, how loud shall I blow it?
Blow it right calm and easy,
Do not alarm my people,
Tell dem to come to judgment,
In dat great gittin’-up Mornin’, etc.
Gabriel, blow your trumpet.
Lord, how loud shall I blow it?
Loud as seven peals of thunder,
Wake de sleepin’ nations.
Den you see poor sinner risin’,
See de dry bones a creepin’,
In dat great gittin’-up Mornin’, etc.
202
Den you see de world on fire,
You see de moon a bleedin’,
See de stars a fallin’,
See de elements meltin’,
See de forked lightnin’,
Hear de rumblin’ thunder.
Earth shall reel and totter,
Hell shall be uncapped,
De dragon shall be loosened.
Fare you well, poor sinner.
In dat great gittin’-up Mornin’,
Fare you well, Fare you well.
STARS BEGIN TO FALL
I TINK I hear my brudder say,
Call de nation great and small;
I lookee on de God’s right hand
When de stars begin to fall.
Oh, what a mournin’, sister,—
Oh, what a mournin’, brudder,—
Oh, what a mournin’,
When de stars begin to fall!
ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
MY brudder sittin’ on de tree of life
An’ he yearde when Jordan roll.
Roll, Jordan,
Roll, Jordan,
Roll, Jordan, roll!
O march de angel march;
O my soul arise in Heaven, Lord,
For to yearde when Jordan roll.
Little chil’en, learn to fear de Lord,
And let your days be long.
Roll, Jordan, etc.
O let no false nor spiteful word
Be found upon your tongue.
203
Roll, Jordan, etc.
SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT
OH de good ole chariot swing so low,—
I don’t want to leave me behind.
O swing low, sweet chariot,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
I don’t want to leave me behind.
Oh, de good ole chariot will take us all home,—
I don’t want to leave me behind.
Swing low, sweet chariot, etc.
BRIGHT SPARKLES IN DE CHURCHYARD
MAY de Lord—He will be glad of me—
In de heaven He ’ll rejoice.
In de heaven, once,
In de heaven, twice,
In de heaven He ’ll rejoice.
Bright sparkles in de churchyard
Give light unto de tomb;
Bright summer, spring’s over,
Sweet flowers in der bloom.
My mother, once,
My mother, twice,
My mother she ’ll rejoice.
In de heaven once, etc.
Mother, rock me in de cradle all de day;—
All de day, etc.
Oh, mother, don’t yer love yer darlin’ child?
Oh, rock me in de cradle all de day.
Rock me, etc.
You may lay me down to sleep, my mother dear,
Oh, rock me in de cradle all de day.
~ Anonymous Americas,#NFDB
221:Remarks On The Bright And Dark Side
But may a Rural Pen try to set forth
Such a Great Fathers Ancient Grace and worth
I undertake a no less Arduous Theme
Then the Old Sages found the Chaldae Dream
'Tis more then Tythes of a profound respect
That must be paid such a Melchizedeck
Oxford this light with tongues and Arts doth trim
And then his Northern Town doth Challeng him
His Time and Strength he Center'd there in this
To do good works, and be what now he is.
His fulgent Virtues there and learned Strains
Tall comely Presence, Life unsoil'd with Stains
Things most on WORTHIES in their Stories writ
Did him to move in Orbs of Service fitt
Things more peculiar yet, my muse intend
Say stranger things then these, so weep and End
When he forsook first his Oxonian Cell
Some Scores at once from Popish darkness fell
So this Reformer studied! rare first fruits!
Shakeing a Crab-tree thus by hot disputes
The acid juice by miracle turn'd wine
And rais'd the Spirits of our young Divine
Hearers like Doves flock'd with contentios wing
Who should be first, feed most: most homeward bring
Laden with honey like Hyblaean Bees
They knead it into combs upon their knees.
Why he from Europes pleasant Garden fled
In the Next Age will be with horrour said
Braintree was of this Jewel then possest
Untill himself he labour'd into Rest
His Inventory then with Johns was took
His rough Coat, Girdle with the Sacred Book
When Reverend Knowles and he sail'd hand in hand
To Christ, Espousing the Virginian Land
Upon a ledge of Craggy Rocks near stav'd
His Bible in his bosome thrusting sav'd
The Bible, the best cordial of his Heart
Come floods, come flames (cry'd he) we'l never part
A constellation of great converts there
15
Shone round him and his Heav'nly Glory where
With a Rare Skill in hearts, this Doctor cou'd
Steal into them words that should do them good
His Balsom's from the Tree of Life distill'd
Hearts cleans'd and heal'd, and with rich comforts fill'd
But here's the wo! Balsoms which others cur'd
Would in his Own Turn hardly be endur'd
Apollyon Owing him a cursed Spleen
Who an Apollos in the Church had been
Dreading his Traffick here would be undone
By Numerous proselites he daily won
Accus'd him of Imaginary faults
And push'd him down so into dismal Vaults
Vaults where he kept long Ember weeks of grief
'Till Heav'n alarm'd sent him in relief
Then was a Daniel in the lyons Den
A man, oh how belov'd of God and men
By his beds-side an Hebrew sword there lay
With which at last he drove the Devil away.
Quaker's too durst not bear his keen replies
But fearing it half drawn the trembler flyes
Like Lazarus new rais'd from Death appears
The Saint that had been dead for many years
Our Nehemiah said, shall such as I
Desert my flock, and like a Coward fly
Long had the Churches begg'd the Saints release
Releas'd at last, he dies in Glorious peace
The Night is not so long, but phosphors ray
Approaching Glories doth on high display
Faith's Eye in him discern'd the Morning Star
His heart leap'd; Sure the Sun cannot be far
In Extasies of Joy, he Ravish'd Cryes
Love, Love the Lamb, the Lamb, in whome he dies.
~ Benjamin Tompson,#NFDB
222:The Sumerian pantheon was headed by an "Olympian Circle" of twelve, for each of these supreme gods had to have a celestial counterpart, one of the twelve members of the Solar System. Indeed, the names of the gods and their planets were one and the same (except when a variety of epithets were used to describe the planet or the god's attributes). Heading the pantheon was the ruler of Nibiru, ANU whose name was synonymous with "Heaven," for he resided on Nibiru. His spouse, also a member of the Twelve, was called ANTU. Included in this group were the two principal sons of ANU: E.A ("Whose House Is Water"), Anu's Firstborn but not by Antu; and EN.LIL ("Lord of the Command") who was the Heir Apparent because his mother was Antu, a half sister of Anu. Ea was also called in Sumerian texts EN.KI ("Lord Earth"), for he had led the first mission of the Anunnaki from Nibiru to Earth and established on Earth their first colonies in the E.DIN ("Home of the Righteous Ones")—the biblical Eden. His mission was to obtain gold, for which Earth was a unique source. Not for ornamentation or because of vanity, but as away to save the atmosphere of Nibiru by suspending gold dust in that planet's stratosphere. As recorded in the Sumerian texts (and related by us in The 12th Planet and subsequent books of The Earth Chronicles), Enlil was sent to Earth to take over the command when the initial extraction methods used by Enki proved unsatisfactory. This laid the groundwork for an ongoing feud between the two half brothers and their descendants, a feud that led to Wars of the Gods; it ended with a peace treaty worked out by their sister Ninti (thereafter renamed Ninharsag). The inhabited Earth was divided between the warring clans. The three sons of Enlil—Ninurta, Sin, Adad—together with Sin's twin children, Shamash (the Sun) and Ishtar (Venus), were given the lands of Shem and Japhet, the lands of the Semites and Indo-Europeans: Sin (the Moon) lowland Mesopotamia; Ninurta, ("Enlil's Warrior," Mars) the highlands of Elam and Assyria; Adad ("The Thunderer," Mercury) Asia Minor (the land of the Hittites) and Lebanon. Ishtar was granted dominion as the goddess of the Indus Valley civilization; Shamash was given command of the spaceport in the Sinai peninsula. This division, which did not go uncontested, gave Enki and his sons the lands of Ham—the brown/black people—of Africa: the civilization of the Nile Valley and the gold mines of southern and western Africa—a vital and cherished prize. A great scientist and metallurgist, Enki's Egyptian name was Ptah ("The Developer"; a title that translated into Hephaestus by the Greeks and Vulcan by the Romans). He shared the continent with his sons; among them was the firstborn MAR.DUK ("Son of the Bright Mound") whom the Egyptians called Ra, and NIN.GISH.ZI.DA ("Lord of the Tree of Life") whom the Egyptians called Thoth (Hermes to the Greeks)—a god of secret knowledge including astronomy, mathematics, and the building of pyramids. It was the knowledge imparted by this pantheon, the needs of the gods who had come to Earth, and the leadership of Thoth, that directed the African Olmecs and the bearded Near Easterners to the other side of the world. And having arrived in Mesoamerica on the Gulf coast—just as the Spaniards, aided by the same sea currents, did millennia later—they cut across the Mesoamerican isthmus at its narrowest neck and—just like the Spaniards due to the same geography—sailed down from the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica southward, to the lands of Central America and beyond. For that is where the gold was, in Spanish times and before. ~ Zecharia Sitchin, #NFDB
223:A Suplication For The Joys Of Heaven
To the Superior World to Solemn Peace
To Regions where Delights shall never cease
To Living Springs and to Celestial shade
For change of pleasure not Protection made
To Blissfull Harmonys o'erflowing source
Which Strings or stops can neither bind or Force
But wafting Air for ever bears along
Perpetual Motion with perpetual Song
On which the Blest in Symphonies ascend
And towards the Throne with Vocal ardours bend
To Radial light o'erspreading Boundless space
To the safe Goal of our well ended race
To shelter where the weary shall have rest
And where the wicked never shall molest
To that Jerusalem which ours below
Did but in type and faint resemblance shew
To the first born and ransom'd Church above
To Seraphims whose whole composures love
To active Cherubins whom wings surround
Not made to rest tho' on imortal ground
But still suspended wait with flaming joy
In swift commands their vigour to employ
Ambrosial dews distilling from their plumes
Scattering where e'er they pass innate perfumes
To Angells of innumerable sorts
Subordinate in the etherial Courts
To Men refin'd from every gross allay
Who taught the Flesh the Spirit to obey
And keeping late futurity in view
Do now possess what long they did persue
To Jesus founder of the Christian race
And kind dispenser of the Gospell grace
Bring me my God in my accomplish't time
From weakness freed and from degrading crime
Fast by the Tree of life be my retreat
Whose leaves are Med'cin and whose fruit is meat
Heal'd by the first and by the last renew'd
With all perfections be my Soul endued
My form that has the earthly figure borne
28
Take the Celestial in its Glorious turn
My temper frail and subject to dismay
Be stedfast there spiritualiz'd and gay
My low Poetick tendency be rais'd
Till the bestower worthily is prais'd
Till Dryden's numbers for Cecilia's feast
Which sooth depress inflame and shake the breast
Vary the passions with each varying line
Allow'd below all others to outshine
Shall yeild to those above shall yeild to mine
In sound in sense in emphasis Divine
Stupendious are the heights to which they rise
Whose anthems match the musick of the skies
Whilst that which art we call when studied here
Is nature there in its sublimest sphere
And the pathetick now so hard to find
Flows from the gratefull transports of the mind
With Poets who supernal voices raise
And here begin their never ending layes
With those who to the brethren of their Lord
In all distress a warm relief afford
With the Heroick Spirits of the brave
Who durst be true when threatn'd with the Grave
And when from evil in triumphant sway
Who e'er departed made himself a prey
To sanguine perils to penurious care
To scanty cloathing and precarious fare
To lingring solitude exhausting thoughts
Unsuccour'd losses and imputed faults
With these let me be join'd when Heaven reveals
The judgment which admits of no appeals
And having heard from the deciding throne
Well have ye suffer'd wisely have ye Done
Henceforth the Kingdom of the blest is yours
For you unfolds its everlasting doors
With joyfull Allelujahs let me hail
The strength that o'er my weakness cou'd prevail
Upheld me here and raised my feeble clay
To this felicity for which I pray
Thro' him whose intercession I implore
And Heaven once enter'd prayer shall be no more
Loud acclamations shall its place supply
29
And praise the breath of Angells in the sky.
~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,#NFDB
224:To enter a wood is to pass into a different world in which we ourselves are transformed. It is no accident that in the comedies of Shakespeare, people go into the greenwood to grow, learn and change. It is where you travel to find yourself, often, paradoxically, by getting lost. Merlin sends the future King Arthur as a boy into the greenwood to fend for himself in The Sword and the Stone. There, he falls asleep and dreams himself, like a chameleon, into the lives of the animals and trees.
"In As You Like It, the banished Duke Senior goes to live in the Forest of Arden like Robin Hood, and in A Midsummer Night's Dream the magical metamorphosis of the lovers takes place in a wood 'outside Athens' that is quite obviously an English wood, full of the faeries and Robin Goodfellows of our folklore.
"Pinned on my study wall is a still from Truffaut's L'Enfant Sauvage. It shows Victor, the feral boy, clambering through the tangle of branches of the dense deciduous woods of the Aveyron. The film remains one of my touchstones for thinking about our relations with the natural world: a reminder that we are not so far away as we would like to think from our cousins the gibbons, who swing like angels through the forest canopy, at such headlong speed that they almost fly like the tropical birds they envy and emulate in the music of their marriage-songs at dawn in the tree-tops....
"The Chinese count wood as the fifth element, and Jung considers trees an archetype. Nothing can compete with these larger-than-life organisms for signalling the changes in the natural world. They are our barometers of the weather and of the changing seasons. We tell the time of year by them. Trees have the capacity to rise to the heavens and connect us to the sky, to endure, to renew, to bear fruit, and to burn and warm us through the winter. I know of nothing quite as elemental as the log fire glowing in my hearth, nothing that excites the imagination and the passions quite as much as its flames. To Keats, the gentle cracklings of the fire were whisperings of the household gods 'that keep / A gentle reminder o'er fraternal souls.'
"Most of the world still cooks on wood fires, and the vast majority of the world's wood is used as firewood. In so far as 'Western' people have forgotten how to lay a wood fire, or its fossil equivalent in coal, they have lost touch with nature. Aldous Huxley wrote of D.H. Lawrence that 'He could cook, he could sew, he could darn a stocking and milk a cow, he was an efficient woodcutter and a good hand at embroidery, fires always burned when he had laid them and a floor after he had scrubbed it was thoroughly clean.' As it burns, wood releases the energies of the earth, water and sunshine that grew it. Each species expresses its character in its distinctive habits of combustion. Willow burns as it grows, very fast, spitting like a firecracker. Oak glows reliably, hard and long. A wood fire in the hearth is a little household sun.
"When Auden wrote, 'A culture is no better than its woods,' he knew that, having carelessly lost more of their woods than any other country in Europe, the British take a correspondingly greater interest in what trees and woods they still have left. Woods, like water, have been suppressed by motorways and the modern world, and have come to look like the subconscious of the landscape. They have become the guardians of our dreams of greenwood liberty, of our wildwood, feral, childhood selves, of Richmal Crompton's Just William and his outlaws. They hold the merriness of Merry England, of yew longbows, of Robin Hood and his outlaw band. But they are also repositories of the ancient stories, of Icelandic myths of Ygdrasil the Tree of Life, Robert Graves's 'The Battle of the Trees' and the myths of Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough. The enemies of the woods are always enemies of culture and humanity. ~ Roger Deakin,#NFDB
225:Genesis Bk Xi
ll. 442-460) Then God's enemy began to make him ready, equipped
in war-gear, with a wily heart. He set his helm of darkness on
his head, bound it full hard, and fastened it with clasps. Many
a crafty speech he knew, many a crooked word. Upward he beat his
way and darted through the doors of hell. He had a ruthless
heart. Evil of purpose he circled in the air, cleaving the flame
with fiendish craft. He would fain ensnare God's servants unto
sin, seduce them and deceive them that they might be displeasing
to the Lord. With fiendish craft he took his way until he came
on Adam upon earth, the finished handiwork of God, full wisely
wrought, and his wife beside him, loveliest of women, performing
many a goodly service since the Lord of men appointed them His
ministers.
(ll. 460-477) And by them stood two trees laden with fruit and
clothed with increase. Almighty God, High King of heaven, had
set them there that the mortal sons of men might choose of good
and evil, weal and woe. Unlike was their fruit! Of the one tree
the fruit was pleasant, fair and winsome, excellent and sweet.
That was the tree of life. He might live for ever in the world
who ate of that fruit, so that old age pressed not heavily upon
him, nor grievous sickness, but he might live his life in
happiness for ever, and have the favour of the King of heaven
here on earth. And glory was ordained for him in heaven, when he
went hence.
(ll. 478-495) The other tree was dark, sunless, and full of
shadows: that was the tree of death. Bitter the fruit it bore!
And every man must know both good and evil; in this world abased
he needs must suffer, in sweat and sorrow, who tasted of the
fruit that grew upon that tree. Old age would rob him of his
strength and joy and honour, and death take hold upon him. A
little time might he enjoy this life, and then seek out the murky
realm of flame, and be subject unto fiends. There of all perils
are the worst for men for ever. And that the evil one knew well,
the wily herald of the fiend who fought with God. He took the
form of a serpent, coiled round the tree of death by devil's
craft, and plucked the fruit, and turned aside again where he
beheld the handiwork of the King of heaven. And the evil one in
23
lying words began to question him:
(ll. 496-506) "Hast thou any longing, Adam, unto God? His
service brings me hither from afar. Not long since I was sitting
at His side. He sent me forth upon this journey to bid thee eat
this fruit. He said thy strength and power would increase, thy
mind be mightier, more beautiful thy body, and thy form more
fair. He said thou wouldest lack no good thing on the earth when
thou hast won the favour of the King of heaven, served thy Lord
with gladness, and deserved His love.
(ll. 507-521) "In the heavenly light I heard Him speaking of thy
life, praising thy words and works. Needs must thou do His
bidding which His messengers proclaim on earth. Broad-stretching
are the green plains of the world, and from the highest realms of
heaven God ruleth all things here below. The Lord of men will
not Himself endure the hardship to go upon this journey, but
sendeth His ministers to speak with thee. He sendeth tidings
unto thee to teach thee wisdom. Do His will with gladness! Take
this fruit in thy hand; taste and eat. Thy heart shall grow more
roomy and thy form more fair. Almighty God, thy Lord, sendeth
this help from heaven."
(ll. 522-546) And Adam, first of men, answered where he stood on
earth: "When I heard the Lord, my God, speaking with a mighty
voice, He bade me dwell here keeping His commandments, gave me
this woman, this lovely maid, bade me take heed and be not
tempted to the tree of death and utterly beguiled, and said that
he who taketh to his heart one whit of evil shall dwell in
blackest hell. Though thou art come with lies and secret wiles,
I know not that thou art an angel of the Lord from heaven. Lo!
I cannot understand thy precepts, thy words or ways, thy errand
or thy sayings. I know what things our Lord commanded when I
beheld Him nigh at hand. He bade me heed His word, observe it
well, and keep His precepts. Thou art not like to any of His
angels that ever I have seen, nor hast thou showed me any token
that my Lord hath sent of grace and favour. Therefore I cannot
hearken to thy teachings. Get thee hence! I have my faith set
firm upon Almighty God, who with His own hands wrought me. From
His high throne He giveth all good things, and needeth not to
send His ministers."
24
~ Caedmon,#NFDB
226:The Angel In The House. Book I. Canto V.
Preludes.
I The Comparison
Where she succeeds with cloudless brow,
In common and in holy course,
He fails, in spite of prayer and vow
And agonies of faith and force;
Or, if his suit with Heaven prevails
To righteous life, his virtuous deeds
Lack beauty, virtue's badge; she fails
More graciously than he succeeds.
Her spirit, compact of gentleness,
If Heaven postpones or grants her pray'r,
Conceives no pride in its success,
And in its failure no despair;
But his, enamour'd of its hurt,
Baffled, blasphemes, or, not denied,
Crows from the dunghill of desert,
And wags its ugly wings for pride.
He's never young nor ripe; she grows
More infantine, auroral, mild,
And still the more she lives and knows
The lovelier she's express'd a child.
Say that she wants the will of man
To conquer fame, not check'd by cross,
Nor moved when others bless or ban;
She wants but what to have were loss.
Or say she wants the patient brain
To track shy truth; her facile wit
At that which he hunts down with pain
Flies straight, and does exactly hit.
Were she but half of what she is,
He twice himself, mere love alone,
Her special crown, as truth is his,
Gives title to the worthier throne;
For love is substance, truth the form;
Truth without love were less than nought;
But blindest love is sweet and warm,
And full of truth not shaped by thought;
87
And therefore in herself she stands
Adorn'd with undeficient grace,
Her happy virtues taking hands,
Each smiling in another's face.
So, dancing round the Tree of Life,
They make an Eden in her breast,
While his, disjointed and at strife,
Proud-thoughted, do not bring him rest.
II Love in Tears
If fate Love's dear ambition mar,
And load his breast with hopeless pain,
And seem to blot out sun and star,
Love, won or lost, is countless gain;
His sorrow boasts a secret bliss
Which sorrow of itself beguiles,
And Love in tears too noble is
For pity, save of Love in smiles.
But, looking backward through his tears,
With vision of maturer scope,
How often one dead joy appears
The platform of some better hope!
And, let us own, the sharpest smart
Which human patience may endure
Pays light for that which leaves the heart
More generous, dignified, and pure.
III Prospective Faith
They safely walk in darkest ways
Whose youth is lighted from above,
Where, through the senses' silvery haze,
Dawns the veil'd moon of nuptial love.
Who is the happy husband? He
Who, scanning his unwedded life,
Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,
'Twas faithful to his future wife.
IV Venus Victrix
Fatal in force, yet gentle in will,
Defeats, from her, are tender pacts,
For, like the kindly lodestone, still
She's drawn herself by what she attracts.
88
The Violets.
I went not to the Dean's unbid:
I would not have my mystery,
From her so delicately hid,
The guess of gossips at their tea.
A long, long week, and not once there,
Had made my spirit sick and faint,
And lack-love, foul as love is fair,
Perverted all things to complaint.
How vain the world had grown to be!
How mean all people and their ways,
How ignorant their sympathy,
And how impertinent their praise;
What they for virtuousness esteem'd,
How far removed from heavenly right;
What pettiness their trouble seem'd,
How undelightful their delight;
To my necessity how strange
The sunshine and the song of birds;
How dull the clouds' continual change,
How foolishly content the herds;
How unaccountable the law
Which bade me sit in blindness here,
While she, the sun by which I saw,
Shed splendour in an idle sphere!
And then I kiss'd her stolen glove,
And sigh'd to reckon and define
The modes of martyrdom in love,
And how far each one might be mine.
I thought how love, whose vast estate
Is earth and air and sun and sea,
Encounters oft the beggar's fate,
Despised on score of poverty;
How Heaven, inscrutable in this,
Lets the gross general make or mar
The destiny of love, which is
So tender and particular;
How nature, as unnatural
89
And contradicting nature's source,
Which is but love, seems most of all
Well-pleased to harry true love's course;
How, many times, it comes to pass
That trifling shades of temperament,
Affecting only one, alas,
Not love, but love's success prevent;
How manners often falsely paint
The man; how passionate respect,
Hid by itself, may bear the taint
Of coldness and a dull neglect;
And how a little outward dust
Can a clear merit quite o'ercloud,
And make her fatally unjust,
And him desire a darker shroud;
How senseless opportunity
Gives baser men the better chance;
How powers, adverse else, agree
To cheat her in her ignorance;
How Heaven its very self conspires
With man and nature against love,
As pleased to couple cross desires,
And cross where they themselves approve.
Wretched were life, if the end were now!
But this gives tears to dry despair,
Faith shall be blest, we know not how,
And love fulfilled, we know not where.
II
While thus I grieved, and kiss'd her glove,
My man brought in her note to say,
Papa had bid her send his love,
And would I dine with them next day?
They had learn'd and practised Purcell's glee,
To sing it by to-morrow night.
The Postscript was: Her sisters and she
Inclosed some violets, blue and white;
She and her sisters found them where
I wager'd once no violets grew;
So they had won the gloves. And there
The violets lay, two white, one blue.
90
~ Coventry Patmore,#NFDB
227:Look! What wonders the spring has wrought! The river bank is a paradise! Rose-embowered glades, Blossoming jasmine and hyacinth, And violets, the envy of the skies!. Rainbow colours transformed Into a chorus of rapturous sounds, And the harmony of flowers The hillside is carnation-red; In the languid haze, the air Seems drunk with the beauty of life! The brook, on the heights of the hill, Dances to its own music. The world is dizzy in a pageant of colour! My rosy-cheeked Cup-bearer! The voice of spring is the voice of life! But the spring lasts not for ever; So bring me the cup that tears all veils -- The wine that brightens life -- The wine that intoxicates the world -- The wine in which flows The music of everlasting life, The wine that reveals eternity's secret. Unveil the secrets, O Saqi. Look! The world has changed apace! New are the songs, and new is the music; The West's magic has dissolved; The West's magicians are bewildered; Old politics has lost its game; The world is tired of kings; Gone are the days of the rich; Gone is the jugglery of old; Awake is China's sleeping giant; The Himalayas' torrents are unleashed; Sinai is riven; Moses awaits the light divine. The Muslim says that God is One But his heart is Still a heathen: Culture, sufism, rites and rthetoric, All adore non- Arab idols; The truth was lost in trifles, And the nation was lost in conventions. The speaker's rhetoric is enchanting, But is devoid of passion; It is clothed in logic neat, But lost in a maze of words; The sufi, unique in the love of truth, Unique in the love of God, Was lost in un-Islamic thought; Was lost in the hierarchic quest; The fire of love is extinguished, And a Muslim is a heap of ashes, O Saqi! Give me the old wine again! Let the potent cup go round! Let me soar on the wings of love; Make my dust bright-pinioned; Make wisdom free; And make the young guide the old; Thou it is that nourishest. this nation; Thou it is that canst sustain it; Urge them to move, to stir; Give them Ali's heart; give them Siddiq's passion; Let the same old love pierce their hearts; Awaken in them a burning zeal; Let the stars throw down their spears, And let the earth's dwellers tremble Give the young a passion that consumes; Give them my vision, my love of God; Free my boat from the whirlpool's grip, And make it move forward-, Reveal to me the secrets of life, For thou knowest them all; The treasures of a fakir like me Are suffused, unsleeping eyes, And secret yearnings of the heart-, My anguished sighs at night, My solitude in the world of men, My hopes and my fears, My quest untiring, My nature an arena of thought A mirror of the world. My heart a battlefield of life, With armies of suspicion, And bastions of certitude; With these treasures I am More rich than the richest of all. Let the young join my throng, And let them find an anchor of hope. The sea of life has its ebb and flow-, In every atom's heart is the pulse of life; It manifests itself in the body, As a flame conceals a wave of smoke; Contact with the earth was harsh for it, But it liked the labour; It is in motion, and not in motion; Tired of the elements' shackles; A unity, imprisoned by plurality; But always unique, unequalled. It has made this dome of myriad glass; It has carved this pantheon. It does not repeat its craft For thou art not me, and I am not thou; It has created the world of men, And remains in solitude, Its brightness is seen in the stars, And in the lustre of pearls-, To it belong the wildernesses, The flowers and the thorns; Mountains sometimes are shaken by its might; It captures angels and nymphs; It makes the eagle pounce on a prey, And leave a blood-stained body. Every atom throbs with life; Rest is an illusion; Life's journey pauses not, For every moment is a new glory; Life, thou thinkest, is a mystery; Life is a delight in eternal flight; Life has seen many ups and downs; It loves a journey, not a goal. Movement is life's being; Movement is truth, pause is a mirage. Life's enjoyment is in perils, In facing ups and downs; In the world beyond Life stalked for death, But the impulse to procreate Peopled the world of man and beast. Flowers blossomed and dropped From this tree of life. Fools think life is ephemeral; Life renews itself for ever -- Moving fast as a flash, Moving to eternity in a breath; Time, a chain of days and nights, Is the ebb and flow of breath. This flow of breath is like a sword, Selfhood is its sharpness; Selfhood is the secret of life; It is the world's awakening, Selfhood is solitary, absorbed, An ocean enclosed in a drop; It shines in light and in darkness, Existent in, but away from, thee and me. The dawn of life behind it, eternity before, It has no frontiers before, no frontiers behind. Afloat on the river of time, Bearing the buffets of the waves, Changing the course of its quest, Shifting its glance from time to time; For it a hill is a grain of sand, Mountains are shattered by its blows; A journey is its beginning and end, And this is the secret of its being. It is the moon's beam, the spark in the flint, Colourless itself, though infused with colours, No concern has it with the calculus of space, With linear time's limits, with the finitude of life. It manifested itself in man's essence of dust, After an eternity of a strife to be born. It is in thy heart that Selfhood has an abode, As heaven has its abode in the cornea of thy eye. To one who guards his Selfhood, The living that demeans it, is poison; He accepts only a living, That keeps his self- esteem; Keep away from royal pomp, Keep thy Selfhood free; Thou shouldst bow in prayer, Not bow to a human being. This myriad-coloured world, Under the sentence of death, This world of sight and sound, I Where life means eating and drinking, Is Selfhood's initial stage; It is not thy abode, O traveller! This dust-bowl is not the source of thy fire; The world is for thee, not thou for the world. Demolish this illusion of' time and space; Selfhood is the Tiger of God, the world is its prey; The earth is its prey, the heavens are its prey; Other worlds there are, still awaiting birth, The earth-born are not the centre of all life; They all await thy assault, Thy cataclysmic thought and deed; Days and nights revolve, To reveal thy Selfhood to thee; Thou art the architect of the world. Words fail to convey the truth; Truth is the mirror, words its shade; Though the breath is a burning flame, The flame has limited bounds. 'If now I soar any farther, The vision will sear my wings.'
~ Allama Muhammad Iqbal, To the Saqi (from Baal-i-Jibreel)
,#NFDB
228:Alma Venus! [excerpt]
Trembling Creation's omnipresent sun,
Immanent Harmonist, Whose rhythms run.
Alike where midge pursues his swift romance,
Or grave stars cluster for their midnight dance 1
Bringer of fire, from what far fane despoiled?
Potter of grace, by what fell finger soiled?
In temple throned of old, or here in shame
Lurking, to Deathless YOU, of many a namePaphia, Freya, Aphrodite, Fand,
Cabiri vague, or in the fairy band
Titania, Niamh, or that Morgan fay
Our simpler eyes in. Sicily to-day
Catch at her sorcery-to YOU, whose breath
To a rippling rapture stirs the pool of Death,
I bring this coronal of rose and rue,
With golden wattle twined-and she-oak too.
The living wheels we call Creation roll
Whither and while You lead. Who are their soul!
Wheels within wheels, and whose the whirl of eyes
But Love's, Who was. Who is. Who never dies?
Wheels within wheels, but ever at the nave
Venus Pandemos, She for Whom we crave!
Wheels within wheels, but glowing from the tires
Venus Immaculate's Uranian fires!
If lovelight played not round the misty bourn
Could Life her marshy perils thread unworn?
Were Heaven's many mansions built to hold
Women and men seraphically cold?
Or does annihilation mean but this'Tristram no more desires Isolda's kiss'?
Fountains of Art that keep this old Earth fresh
Ascend to God from cisterns of the flesh:
Angel and phoenix flowered from the fires
Of virgin Ishtar's ravenous desires:
In good Nile mud incestuous Isis set
Many a tree of knowledge bearing yet:
Austere Mohammed meets at Heaven's door
Fond phantoms of his desert dreams of yore:
The shrine, the song, the picture and the bust
Are diamonds doubles of the charcoal, lust. . .
Your ruby billows floated to our ken
Many a rite that soothes the souls of men;
Swastik of Ind as once Egyptian Tau
In shining symbol utters yet Your law:
And coldest fanes for eunuch gods designed
Reveal Your girdle with their chaplets twined.
Around the Maypole, aeon-old, they dance,
Maiden and youth of Britain and of France,
Obedient to the law, forgot to-day,
That fertile gods, unshackled by their play,
From winter death will duly be reborn
And with their foison fill the ears of corn:
Or where, horizonward, Australian sand
Billows monotonous, behold Your band
Of leaf-clad lubras, swaying to the hum
Of droning wizard and barbaric drum,
In strange Unthippa dance to conjure there,
With warm wild posturing and coy despair,
Some dream-time god of golden ages dim,
That with the drama of their love for him
The waste in sympathy will fertile grow,
Emu be plentiful, the dry creeks flow,
And all the wild be rich with nut and plant,
Witchetty grub and root and honey-ant:
Virgins and boys, who with the bridal pair
And hymeneal chant through Athens bear
That casket strange, unknowing that inside
The mysteries of Aphrodite hide,
Ye will acknowledge too, in turn, ere long,
Omnipotent the goddess of my song:
And, childless ones of Ind, with prayer ye pour
Oil on that shrine to-day, as wives of yore
On wayside Jahv or god of boundary,
For benison of grudged fertility. . . .
Let pale usurpers of Your old domain
In crumbling book and vapid hymn maintain
That You, great Queen, are dead, that nevermore
Shall devotee Your majesty adore,
Or sad Meander wail as long ago
For torn Adonis and Your helpless woe:
We hear in beating hearts another rune,
In hymn of man and maid another tune:
On every road Your living creatures draw,
Whither You list, the Tables of Your Law:
Wherever tree hath sap or being breath,
Ubiquitous, You bruise the head of Death:
Here, pallid cuckoo's great crescendos call
His coy companion to Your festival:
There, magpie warbles to the morning star
The advent of the rapture that You are:
And desolate the spirit unaware
Of quivering enchantment in the air
When August struggles from his gaoler's power,
And gleaming envoys from each wooing flower
Cajole the bees to waft his tender dues
To some dear tabernacle's secret cruse;
When listening almonds weary of the night
Hearing You coming blossom into white;
When wattle waking from her torpor cold
Knowing You near her trembles into gold;
When, ancient symbols realizing here,
Gabriel Spring announces every year
To expectant Nature's myriad maidenhood,
In rolling plain or solitary wood,
The miracle that maketh Life complete,
The brooding Presence of the Paraclete.
*
Magi profounder than the Eastern Three
Followed the Star of Your Epiphany:
Isis had hidden with a sullen pall
The secret of the Universe from all,
Until Lucretius wondering found a fold,
It swayed to Goethe's eyes, and, growing bold,
Darwin stooped down and groping patiently
Out of the dust lifted the hem, till we
Staggering saw against the eternal blue
The secret Builder of Creation-You I ...
'When Love was driven from the world by stark
And sexless mattoids of the Ages Dark,
Disgusted lore to Moorish havens fled,
The Muses nine with eunuch monks were wed:
Primordial terror to the day returned,
The witch in hordes and great Servetus burned:
Celibate piety with thumb uncouth
Plastered a fig-leaf over Plato's truth:
Aquinas thinned, to make a draught divine,
With holy water, Aristotle's wine;
Round every comer eft or devil stares,
And very Dante mumbles craven prayers;
The childish painter daubs his maudlin fears,
And song forgets to sing a thousand years.
Yet You had lingered cunningly concealed
Now in an altar-piece, now in a field
With shards of pillared grandeur buried deep,
Until the nightmare passed. Yea, did You peep
A moment now and then, ere rose the sun,
Under the hood of a rose-hearted nun
At Abelard, or told the tale so well
Of Launcelot that even glowering hell
Drove not Francesca from her lover's wraith;
Yea, visored chivalry unhorsed his faith,
And far Jerusalem and Paynim tryst
Forgot, for victory in a gender list
Where with the provocation of a smile
Your ambushed omnipresence would beguile
Crusader sullen to a softer creed,
Knight errant to an errant knight indeed....
As what strange god did You entice the King
Through brave Uriah's comely wife to fling
Harp and the psaltery aside to plan
As mean a deed as had polluted man
Till Sextus lusted, or her father's knife
Rescued Virginia from the hell of life?
Yea, there is that in You man dare not face:
A dark star dogs Your limpid planet's grace:
Jetsam from old pollution stales Your shore:
Lewd gargoyles grin above Your temple door. ...
Wormwood is waiter at Your choicest feast,
Your Beauty shadowed ever by the Beast.
Yon feudal lord of mediaeval France,
Your devotee of many a Rose Romance,
Hath on his peasants' daughters' bridal nights
Exacted to the full his shameful rights:
Your cuckoo calling Spring into the wood
Was stark nest-brother to a robin's brood:
And, tragi-comedy of humble life,
That doting husband of the buxom wife
Is fondling (while You laugh) the child she gave
At Your still altar to some passing knave. . ..
Was it a glimpse of phases fell that mar
The radiant round of Your auspicious star,
That drove the hermit to the wilderness
From demons lurking in Your least caress,
And bade the nun, as once the vestal too,
Renounce Your works and all Your pomps-and You?
Yea, those whose eyes can pierce the dazzling veil
Of Light that is Your mask have told a tale
Of how we in the world were once expelled
From Paradise, and now, in prison held,
On moaning treadmills of repeated lives
Work out our crimes, until the hour arrives
For life to cease on earth and You to fade
With all the woe Your temptress wiles have made.
You are the gaoler of that prison, Who
(For so they say) inveigle all to woo,
Be won, that so by our own ardours we
Keep lit Your hell, yea, for eternity,
Unless, until, ignoring all You say,
As monk, as nun, we dare to disobey.
If so it be, then were the barren one
Blest of all women underneath the sun,
An angel of the Lord sent here to ray
The midnight of the soul with coming day;
The tower impregnable that masters Fate
Is not the Caesar but the celibate;
And he at whom no woman ever smiled
Is everlasting Heaven's favoured child
Ordained (who knows?) in what benignant star
As Baptist of some glorious Avatar,
Whose Word shall cause all flesh to cease to be
And man be one again with Deity!. . .
Or when the veil we call Reality
Rifts, and the meaning of it all we see,
Will Good and Evil kiss and understand?
God walk with brother Satan hand in hand?
The cool-haired Night repose beside the Sun?
Pandemos prove with Love Uranian one?
The Tree of Life mature its golden fruits
From bark so sinister and those wan roots?
Slowly our interrogating eyes
Sobered with long deception recognize,
'Mid older clues dissolved to flecks, at last
One signal flashing from the Outer Vast,
Fell or benign (as falls or rises faith),
Comet or guiding star-Your rosy wraith!
Your rosy wraith that both in man and weed
'Writes deep and undeniable Your creed'Beget or hear, though ye to-morrow die,
Beget or bear, nor ask the reason why 1
Though sun and earth shall duly pass away,
Though all the gods shall ripen and decay,
It is Their Will Who bade the world exist:
And woe to him or her who doth not list
The sole clear mandate from the Otherwhere
Flushed through the Universe-Beget or bear 1'
Love we or dread we may not all ignore
The single beacon on the circling shore
Where Being laps upon the caverned steep
Wherefrom we drifted and whereto we creep.
Beacon 1 although You lead us but to gloom!
A guiding star, it may be, to the tomb!
Comet flung from the Void through trackless Light!
Yet is Your rosy flame in ion mite
And great pathetic man the only trace
Of something more than chance in Time and Space,
That purpose dimly threads the crazy web,
That tides of anguish ultimately ebb,
That green hope signals underground a Nile,
That faith is wiser than an ostrich wile,
That there is something in us will elude
The withering fingers of vicissitude,
And man's ripe earth by a guttering sun betrayed
Will not in cold and useless ruin fade.
Question the sibyl grottoes near or far
Whither or whence we sail or why we are!
Listen at Nature's beating heart for clue,
And every oracle we know or knew!
From Zodiac round of older destiny,
From tiny orbit of an atomy,
From Pythoness or oak or Magian fire,
Augur antique or wizard new inquire,
Austral churinga or the crystal ball,
'Wherefore does anything exist at all?'
Of star or fungus seek, of life or death,
Whence Being came and whither wandereth!
10
Ask of the gloom that locks the secret in,
Ask of the light that saw the world begin!
The day, the night, and death and life are dumb:
From fungus, star or ball no answers come:
Silent, churinga, table, passing bird:
From fire or Druid oak no guiding word:
The Pythoness ambiguously sighs:
Orbit minute nor Zodiac house replies:
But dim the beating heart amid its sobs
With 'Alma Venus!' 'Alma Venus!' throbs;
While on two sibyl leaves, by a world-wind strange
Blown to our shore across the gulf of Change,
'Increase and multiply' on one is scrolled
In ochre crude, on one, in glowing gold
Around the pearly nimbus of a dove,
The script imperishable-'God is Love.'
~ Bernard O'Dowd,#NFDB
229:Epilogue
(THE GRAVEYARD OF SPOON RIVER. TWO VOICES ARE HEARD BEHIND A
SCREEN DECORATED WITH DIABOLICAL AND ANGELIC FIGURES IN VARIOUS
ALLEGORICAL RELATIONS. A FAINT LIGHT SHOWS DIMLY THROUGH THE
SCREEN AS IF IT WERE WOVEN OF LEAVES, BRANCHES AND SHADOWS.)
FIRST VOICE
A game of checkers?
SECOND VOICE
Well, I don't mind.
FIRST VOICE
I move the Will.
SECOND VOICE
You're playing it blind.
FIRST VOICE
Then here's the Soul.
SECOND VOICE
Checked by the Will.
FIRST VOICE
Eternal Good!
SECOND VOICE
And Eternal Ill.
FIRST VOICE
100
I haste for the King row.
SECOND VOICE
Save your breath.
FIRST VOICE
I was moving Life.
SECOND VOICE
You're checked by Death.
FIRST VOICE
Very good, here's Moses.
SECOND VOICE
And here's the Jew.
FIRST VOICE
My next move is Jesus.
SECOND VOICE
St. Paul for you!
FIRST VOICE
Yes, but St. Peter –
SECOND VOICE
You might have foreseen –
FIRST VOICE
You're in the King row --
101
SECOND VOICE
With Constantine!
FIRST VOICE
I'll go back to Athens.
SECOND VOICE
Well, here's the Persian.
FIRST VOICE
All right, the Bible.
SECOND VOICE
Pray now, what version?
FIRST VOICE
I take up Buddha.
SECOND VOICE
It never will work.
FIRST VOICE
From the corner Mahomet.
SECOND VOICE
I move the Turk.
FIRST VOICE
The game is tangled; where are we now?
SECOND VOICE
102
You're dreaming worlds. I'm in the King row.
Move as you will, if I can't wreck you
I'll thwart you, harry you, rout you, check you.
FIRST VOICE
I'm tired. I'll send for my Son to play.
I think he can beat you finally -SECOND VOICE
Eh?
FIRST VOICE
I must preside at the stars' convention.
SECOND VOICE
Very well, my lord, but I beg to mention
I'll give this game my direct attention.
FIRST VOICE
A game indeed! But Truth is my quest.
SECOND VOICE
Beaten, you walk away with a jest.
I strike the table, I scatter the checkers.
(A rattle of a falling table and checkers
flying over a floor.)
Aha! You armies and iron deckers,
Races and states in a cataclysm -Now for a day of atheism!
(The screen vanishes and BEELZEBUB steps forward carrying a trumpet, which
he blows faintly. Immediately LOKI and YOGARINDRA start up from the shadows
of night.)
103
BEELZEBUB
Good evening, Loki!
LOKI
The same to you!
BEELZEBUB
And Yogarindra!
YOGARINDRA
My greetings, too.
LOKI
Whence came you, comrade?
BEELZEBUB
From yonder screen.
YOGARINDRA
And what were you doing?
BEELZEBUB
Stirring His spleen.
LOKI
How did you do it?
BEELZEBUB
I made it rough
In a game of checkers.
LOKI
104
Good enough!
YOGARINDRA
I thought I heard the sounds of a battle.
BEELZEBUB
No doubt! I made the checkers rattle,
Turning the table over and strewing
The bits of wood like an army pursuing.
YOGARINDRA
I have a game! Let us make a man.
LOKI
My net is waiting him, if you can.
YOGARINDRA
And here's my mirror to fool him with -BEELZEBUB
Mystery, falsehood, creed and myth.
LOKI
But no one can mold him, friend, but you.
BEELZEBUB
Then to the sport without more ado.
YOGARINDRA
Hurry the work ere it grow to day.
BEELZEBUB
105
I set me to it. Where is the clay?
(He scrapes the earth with his hands and begins to model.)
BEELZEBUB
Out of the dust,
Out of the slime,
A little rust,
And a little lime.
Muscle and gristle,
Mucin, stone
Brayed with a pestle,
Fat and bone.
Out of the marshes,
Out of the vaults,
Matter crushes
Gas and salts.
What is this you call a mind,
Flitting, drifting, pale and blind,
Soul of the swamp that rides the wind?
Jack-o'-lantern, here you are!
Dream of heaven, pine for a star,
Chase your brothers to and fro,
Back to the swamp at last you'll go.
Hilloo! Hilloo!
THE VALLEY
Hilloo! Hilloo!
(Beelzebub in scraping up the earth turns out a skull.)
BEELZEBUB
Old one, old one.
Now ere I break you
Crush you and make you
Clay for my use,
Let me observe you:
You were a bold one
106
Flat at the dome of you,
Heavy the base of you,
False to the home of you,
Strong was the face of you,
Strange to all fears.
Yet did the hair of you
Hide what you were.
Now to re-nerve you -(He crushes the skull between his hands and mixes it with the clay.)
Now you are dust,
Limestone and rust.
I mold and I stir
And make you again.
THE VALLEY
Again? Again?
(In the same manner BEELZEBUB has fashioned several figures, standing them
against the trees.)
LOKI
Now for the breath of life. As I remember
You have done right to mold your creatures first,
And stand them up.
BEELZEBUB
From gravitation
I make the will.
YOGARINDRA
Out of sensation
Comes his ill. Out of my mirror
Springs his error.
Who was so cruel
To make him the slave
Of me the sorceress, you the knave,
And you the plotter to catch his thought,
Whatever he did, whatever he sought?
107
With a nature dual
Of will and mind,
A thing that sees, and a thing that's blind.
Come! to our dance! Something hated him
Made us over him, therefore fated him.
(They join hands and dance.)
LOKI
Passion, reason, custom, ruels,
Creeds of the churches, lore of the schools,
Taint in the blood and strength of soul.
Flesh too weak for the will's control;
Poverty, riches, pride of birth,
Wailing, laughter, over the earth,
Here I have you caught again,
Enter my web, ye sons of men.
YOGARINDRA
Look in my mirror! Isn't it real?
What do you think now, what do you feel?
Here is treasure of gold heaped up;
Here is wine in the festal cup.
Tendrils blossoming, turned to whips,
Love with her breasts and scarlet lips.
Breathe in their nostrils.
BEELZEBUB
Falsehood's breath,
Out of nothingness into death.
Out of the mold, out of the rocks,
Wonder, mockery, paradox!
Soaring spirit, groveling flesh,
Bait the trap, and spread the mesh.
Give him hunger, lure him with truth,
Give him the iris hopes of Youth.
Starve him, shame him, fling him down,
Whirled in the vortex of the town.
Break him, age him, till he curse
The idiot face of the universe.
108
Over and over we mix the clay, –
What was dust is alive to-day.
THE THREE
Thus is the hell-born tangle wound
Swiftly, swiftly round and round.
BEELEZEBUB
(Waving his trumpet.)
You live! Away!
ONE OF THE FIGURES
How strange and new!
I am I, and another, too.
ANOTHER FIGURE
I was a sun-dew's leaf, but now
What is this longing? -ANOTHER FIGURE
Earth below
I was a seedling magnet-tipped
Drawn down earth -ANOTHER FIGURE
And I was gripped
Electrons in a granite stone,
Now I think.
ANOTHER FIGURE
Oh, how alone!
ANOTHER FIGURE
109
My lips to thine. Through thee I find
Something alone by love divined!
BEELZEBUB
Begone! No, wait. I have bethought me, friends;
Let's give a play.
(He waves his trumpet.)
To yonder green rooms go.
(The figures disappear.)
YOGARINDRA
Oh, yes, a play! That's very well, I think,
But who will be the audience? I must throw
Illusion over all.
LOKI
And I must shift
The scenery, and tangle up the plot.
BEELZEBUB
Well, so you shall! Our audience shall some
From yonder graves.
(He blows his trumpet slightly louder than before. The scene changes. A stage
arises among the graves. The curtain is down, concealing the creatures just
created, illuminated halfway up by spectral lights. BEELZEBUB stands before the
curtain.)
BEELZEBUB
(A terrific blast of the trumpet.)
Who-o-o-o-o-o!
(Immediately there is a rustling as of the shells of grasshoppers stirred by a
wind; and hundreds of the dead, including those who have appeared in the
Anthology, hurry to the sound of the trumpet.)
110
A VOICE
Gabriel! Gabriel!
MANY VOICES
The Judgment day!
BEELZEBUB
Be quiet, if you please
At least until the stars fall and the moon.
MANY VOICES
Save us! Save us!
(Beelzebub extends his hands over the audience with a benedictory motion and
restores order.)
BEELZEBUB
Ladies and gentlemen, your kind attention
To my interpretation of the scene.
I rise to give your fancy comprehension,
And analyze the parts of the machine.
My mood is such that I would not deceive you,
Though still a liar and the father of it,
From judgment's frailty I would retrieve you,
Though falsehood is my art and though I love it.
Down in the habitations whence I rise,
The roots of human sorrow boundless spread.
Long have I watched them draw the strength that lies
In clay made richer by the rotting dead.
Here is a blossom, here a twisted stalk,
Here fruit that sourly withers ere its prime;
And here a growth that sprawls across the walk,
Food for the green worm, which it turns to slime.
The ruddy apple with a core of cork
Springs from a root which in a hollow dangles,
Not skillful husbandry nor laborious work
111
Can save the tree which lightning breaks and tangles.
Why does the bright nasturtium scarcely flower
But that those insects multiply and grow,
Which make it food, and in the very hour
In which the veined leaves and blossoms blow?
Why does a goodly tree, while fast maturing,
Turn crooked branches covered o'er with scale?
Why does the tree whose youth was not assuring
Prosper and bear while all its fellows fail?
I under earth see much. I know the soil.
I know where mold is heavy and where thin.
I see the stones that thwart the plowman's toil,
The crooked roots of what the priests call sin.
I know all secrets, even to the core,
What seedlings will be upas, pine or laurel;
It cannot change howe'er the field's worked o'er.
Man's what he is and that's the devil's moral.
So with the souls of the ensuing drama
They sprang from certain seed in certain earth.
Behold them in the devil's cyclorama,
Shown in their proper light for all they're worth.
Now to my task: I'll give an exhibition
Of mixing the ingredients of spirit.
(He waves his hand.)
Come, crucible, perform your magic mission,
Come, recreative fire, and hover near it!
I'll make a soul, or show how one is made.
(He waves his wand again. Parti-colored flames appear.)
This is the woman you shall see anon!
(A red flame appears.)
This hectic flame makes all the world afraid:
It was a soldier's scourge which ate the bone.
His daughter bore the lady of the action,
And died at thirty-nine of scrofula.
She-was a creature of a sweet attraction,
Whose sex-obsession no one ever saw.
(A purple flame appears.)
Lo! this denotes aristocratic strains
112
Back in the centuries of France's glory.
(A blue flame appears.)
And this the will that pulls against the chains
Her father strove until his hair was hoary.
Sorrow and failure made his nature cold,
He never loved the child whose woe is shown,
And hence her passion for the things which gold
Brings in this world of pride, and brings alone.
The human heart that's famished from its birth
Turns to the grosser treasures, that is plain.
Thus aspiration fallen fills the earth
With jungle growths of bitterness and pain.
Of Celtic, Gallic fire our heroine!
Courageous, cruel, passionate and proud.
False, vengeful, cunning, without fear o' sin.
A head that oft is bloody, but not bowed.
Now if she meet a man -- suppose our hero,
With whom her chemistry shall war yet mix,
As if she were her Borgia to his Nero,
'Twill look like one of Satan's little tricks!
However, it must be. The world's great garden
Is not all mine. I only sow the tares.
Wheat should be made immune, or else the Warden
Should stop their coming in the world's affairs.
But to our hero! Long ere he was born
I knew what would repel him and attract.
Such spirit mathematics, fig or thorn,
I can prognosticate before the fact.
(A yellow flame appears.)
This is a grandsire's treason in an orchard
Against a maid whose nature with his mated.
(Lurid flames appear.)
And this his memory distrait and tortured,
Which marked the child with hate because she hated.
Our heroine's grand dame was that maid's own cousin -But never this our man and woman knew.
The child, in time, of lovers had a dozen,
Then wed a gentleman upright and true.
And thus our hero had a double nature:
113
One half of him was bad, the other good.
The devil must exhaust his nomenclature
To make this puzzle rightly understood.
But when our hero and our heroine met
They were at once attracted, the repulsion
Was hidden under Passion, with her net
Which must enmesh you ere you feel revulsion.
The virus coursing in the soldier's blood,
The orchard's ghost, the unknown kinship 'twixt them,
Our hero's mother's lovers round them stood,
Shadows that smiled to see how Fate had fixed them.
This twain pledge vows and marry, that's the play.
And then the tragic features rise and deepen.
He is a tender husband. When away
The serpents from the orchard slyly creep in.
Our heroine, born of spirit none too loyal,
Picks fruit of knowledge -- leaves the tree of life.
Her fancy turns to France corrupt and royal,
Soon she forgets her duty as a wife.
You know the rest, so far as that's concerned,
She met exposure and her husband slew her.
He lost his reason, for the love she spurned.
He prized her as his own -- how slight he knew her.
(He waves a wand, showing a man in a prison cell.)
Now here he sits condemned to mount the gallows -He could not tell his story -- he is dumb.
Love, says your poets, is a grace that hallows,
I call it suffering and martyrdom.
The judge with pointed finger says, "You killed her."
Well, so he did -- but here's the explanation;
He could not give it. I, the drama-builder,
Show you the various truths and their relation.
(He waves his wand.)
Now, to begin. The curtain is ascending,
They meet at tea upon a flowery lawn.
Fair, is it not? How sweet their souls are blending -The author calls the play "Laocoon."
A VOICE
114
Only an earth dream.
ANOTHER VOICE
With which we are done.
A flash of a comet
Upon the earth stream.
ANOTHER VOICE
A dream twice removed,
A spectral confusion
Of earth's dread illusion.
A FAR VOICE
These are the ghosts
From the desolate coasts.
Would you go to them?
Only pursue them.
Whatever enshrined is
Within you is you.
In a place where no wind is,
Out of the damps,
Be ye as lamps.
Flame-like aspire,
To me alone true,
The Life and the Fire.
(BEELZEBUB, LOKI and YOGARINDRA vanish. The phantasmagoria fades out.
Where the dead seemed to have assembled, only heaps of leaves appear. There
is the light as of dawn. Voices of Spring.)
FIRST VOICE
The springtime is come, the winter departed,
She wakens from slumber and dances light-hearted.
The sun is returning,
We are done with alarms,
Earth lifts her face burning,
Held close in his arms.
The sun is an eagle
115
Who broods o'er his young,
The earth is his nursling
In whom he has flung
The life-flame in seed,
In blossom desire,
Till fire become life,
And life become fire.
SECOND VOICE
I slip and I vanish,
I baffle your eye;
I dive and I climb,
I change and I fly.
You have me, you lose me,
Who have me too well,
Now find me and use me -I am here in a cell.
THIRD VOICE
You are there in a cell?
Oh, now for a rod
With which to divine you -SECOND VOICE
Nay, child, I am God.
FOURTH VOICE
When the waking waters rise from their beds of snow, under the hill,
In little rooms of stone where they sleep when icicles reign,
The April breezes scurry through woodlands, saying
Awaken roots under cover of soil -- it is Spring again."
Then the sun exults, the moon is at peace, and voices
Call to the silver shadows to lift the flowers from their dreams.
And a longing, longing enters my heart of sorrow, my heart that rejoices
In the fleeting glimpse of a shining face, and her hair that gleams.
I arise and follow alone for hours the winding way by the river,
116
Hunting a vanishing light, and a solace for joy too deep.
Where do you lead me, wild one, on and on forever?
Over the hill, over the hill, and down to the meadows of sleep.
THE SUN
Over the soundless depths of space for a hundred million miles
Speeds the soul of me, silent thunder, struck from a harp of fire.
Before my eyes the planets wheel and a universe defiles,
I but a ruminant speck of dust upborne in a vast desire.
What is my universe that obeys me -- myself compelled to obey
A power that holds me and whirls me over a path that has no end?
And there are my children who call me great, the giver of life and day,
Myself a child who cry for life and know not whither I tend.
A million million suns above me, as if the curtain of night
Were hung before creation's flame, that shone through the weave of the cloth,
Each with its worlds and worlds and worlds crying upward for light,
For each is drawn in its course to what? -- as the candle draws the moth.
THE MILKY WAY
Orbits unending,
Life never ending,
Power without end.
A VOICE
Wouldst thou be lord,
Not peace but a sword.
Not heart's desire -Ever aspire.
Worship thy power,
Conquer thy hour,
Sleep not but strive,
So shalt thou live.
INFINITE DEPTHS
Infinite Law,
Infinite Life.
117
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
230:Goblin Market
MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherriesMelons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries-All ripe together
In summer weather-Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy;
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy."
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
168
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
"Come buy," call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
"O! cried Lizzie, Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men."
Lizzie covered up her eyes
Covered close lest they should look;
Laura reared her glossy head,
And whispered like the restless brook:
"Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds' weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes."
"No," said Lizzie, "no, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us."
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat's face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry.
Lizzie heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.
169
Laura stretched her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
"Come buy, come buy."
When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One reared his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heaved the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
"Come buy, come buy," was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Longed but had no money:
The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr'd,
The rat-paced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried "Pretty Goblin" still for "Pretty Polly";
One whistled like a bird.
But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
"Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
170
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather."
"You have much gold upon your head,"
They answered altogether:
"Buy from us with a golden curl."
She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She sucked and sucked and sucked the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore,
She sucked until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away,
But gathered up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turned home alone.
Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
"Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Plucked from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the moonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew gray;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
171
That never blow.
You should not loiter so."
"Nay hush," said Laura.
"Nay hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
To-morrow night I will
Buy more," and kissed her.
"Have done with sorrow;
I'll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons, icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink,
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap."
Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down, in their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fallen snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars beamed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.
Early in the morning
When the first cock crowed his warning,
172
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churned butter, whipped up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;
Talked as modest maidens should
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night.
At length slow evening came-They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep
Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: "The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep."
But Laura loitered still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.
And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fallen, the wind not chill:
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
"Come buy, come buy,"
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
173
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.
Till Lizzie urged, "O Laura, come,
I hear the fruit-call, but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glow-worm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark;
For clouds may gather even
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?"
Laura turned cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
"Come buy our fruits, come buy."
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life drooped from the root:
She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;
But peering thro' the dimness, naught discerning,
Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent 'til Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnashed her teeth for balked desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.
Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain,
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
"Come buy, come buy,"
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon waxed bright
Her hair grew thin and gray;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay, and burn
174
Her fire away.
One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watched for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crowned trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.
She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.
Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister's cankerous care,
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins' cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy."
Beside the brook, along the glen
She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The voice and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Longed to buy fruit to comfort her,
But feared to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter-time,
175
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter-time.
Till Laura, dwindling,
Seemed knocking at Death's door:
Then Lizzie weighed no more
Better and worse,
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with clumps of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook,
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.
Laughed every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter-skelter, hurry-skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes, -Hugged her and kissed her;
Squeezed and caressed her;
Stretched up their dishes,
Panniers and plates:
"Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
176
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs."
"Good folk," said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie,
"Give me much and many"; -Held out her apron,
Tossed them her penny.
"Nay, take a seat with us,
Honor and eat with us,"
They answered grinning;
"Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry;
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavor would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us."
"Thank you," said Lizzie; "but one waits
At home alone for me:
So, without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I tossed you for a fee."
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
177
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.
White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,
Like a rock of blue-veined stone
Lashed by tides obstreperously, -Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire, -Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee, -Like a royal virgin town
Topped with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguered by a fleet
Mad to tear her standard down.
One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,
Kicked and knocked her,
Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in;
But laughed in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syruped all her face,
And lodged in dimples of her chin,
And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
178
Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot.
Some writhed into the ground,
Some dived into the brook
With ring and ripple.
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanished in the distance.
In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore through the furze,
Threaded copse and dingle,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse, -Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she feared some goblin man
Dogged her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin skurried after,
Nor was she pricked by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.
She cried "Laura," up the garden,
"Did you miss me ?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men."
Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutched her hair:
179
"Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruined in my ruin;
Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?"
She clung about her sister,
Kissed and kissed and kissed her:
Tears once again
Refreshed her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.
Her lips began to scorch,
That juice was wormwood to her tongue,
She loathed the feast:
Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks streamed like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.
Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart,
Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame,
She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!
Sense failed in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town
Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree
180
Spun about,
Like a foam-topped water-spout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;
Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life ?
Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watched by her,
Counted her pulse's flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cooled her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laughed in the innocent old way,
Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of gray,
Her breath was sweet as May,
And light danced in her eyes.
Days, weeks, months,years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat,
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town;)
Would tell them how her sister stood
181
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
"For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather,
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,#NFDB
231:From 'Omeros'
BOOK SIX
Chapter XLIV
In hill-towns, from San Fernando to Mayagüez,
the same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of cane
down the archipelago's highways. The first breeze
rattled the spears and their noise was like distant rain
marching down from the hills, like a shell at your ears.
In the cool asphalt Sundays of the Antilles
the light brought the bitter history of sugar
across the squared fields, heightening towards harvest,
to the bleached flags of the Indian diaspora.
The drizzling light blew across the savannah
darkening the racehorses' hides; mist slowly erased
the royal palms on the crests of the hills and the
hills themselves. The brown patches the horses had grazed
shone as wet as their hides. A skittish stallion
jerked at his bridle, marble-eyed at the thunder
muffling the hills, but the groom was drawing him in
like a fisherman, wrapping the slack line under
one fist, then with the other tightening the rein
and narrowing the circle. The sky cracked asunder
and a forked tree flashed, and suddenly that black rain
which can lose an entire archipelago
in broad daylight was pouring tin nails on the roof,
hammering the balcony. I closed the French window,
and thought of the horses in their stalls with one hoof
22
tilted, watching the ropes of rain. I lay in bed
with current gone from the bed-lamp and heard the roar
of wind shaking the windows, and I remembered
Achille on his own mattress and desperate Hector
trying to save his canoe, I thought of Helen
as my island lost in the haze, and I was sure
I'd never see her again. All of a sudden
the rain stopped and I heard the sluicing of water
down the guttering. I opened the window when
the sun came out. It replaced the tiny brooms
of palms on the ridges. On the red galvanized
roof of the paddock, the wet sparkled, then the grooms
led the horses over the new grass and exercised
them again, and there was a different brightness
in everything, in the leaves, in the horses' eyes.
II
I smelt the leaves threshing at the top of the year
in green January over the orange villas
and military barracks where the Plunketts were,
the harbour flecked by the wind that comes with Christmas,
edged with the Arctic, that was christened Vent Noël;
it stayed until March and, with luck, until Easter.
It freshened the cedars, waxed the laurier-cannelle,
and hid the African swift. I smelt the drizzle
on the asphalt leaving the Morne, it was the smell
of an iron on damp cloth; I heard the sizzle
of fried jackfish in oil with their coppery skin;
I smelt ham studded with cloves, the crusted accra,
the wax in the varnished parlour: Come in. Come in,
the arm of the Morris chair sticky with lacquer;
I saw a sail going out and a sail coming in,
23
and a breeze so fresh it lifted the lace curtains
like a petticoat, like a sail towards Ithaca;
I smelt a dead rivulet in the clogged drains.
III
Ah, twin-headed January, seeing either tense:
a past, they assured us, born in degradation,
and a present that lifted us up with the wind's
noise in the breadfruit leaves with such an elation
that it contradicts what is past! The cannonballs
of rotting breadfruit from the Battle of the Saints,
the asterisks of bulletholes in the brick walls
of the redoubt. I lived there with every sense.
I smelt with my eyes, I could see with my nostrils.
Chapter XLV
One side of the coast plunges its precipices
into the Atlantic. Turns require wide locks,
since the shoulder is sharp and the curve just misses
a long drop over the wind-bent trees and the rocks
between the trees. There is a wide view of Dennery,
with its stone church and raw ochre cliffs at whose base
the African breakers end. Across the flecked sea
whose combers veil and unveil the rocks with their lace
the next port is Dakar. The uninterrupted wind
thuds under the wings of frigates, you see them bent
from a force that has crossed the world, tilting to find
purchase in the sudden downdrafts of its current.
24
The breeze threshed the palms on the cool December road
where the Comet hurtled with empty leopard seats,
so fast a man on a donkey trying to read
its oncoming fiery sign heard only two thudding beats
from the up-tempo zouk that its stereo played
when it screeched round a bridge and began to ascend
away from the palm-fronds and their wickerwork shade
that left the windscreen clear as it locked round the bend,
where Hector suddenly saw the trotting piglet
and thought of Plunkett's warning as he heard it screel
with the same sound that the tires of the Comet
made rounding the curve from the sweat-greased steering wheel.
The rear wheels spin to a dead stop, like a helm.
The piglet trots down the safer side of the road.
Lodged in their broken branches the curled letters flame.
Hector had both hands on the wheel. His head was bowed
under the swaying statue of the Madonna
of the Rocks, her smile swayed under the blue hood,
and when her fluted robe stilled, the smile stayed on her
dimpled porcelain. She saw, in the bowed man, the calm
common oval of prayer, the head's usual angle
over the pew of the dashboard. Her lifted palm,
small as a doll's from its cerulean mantle,
indicated that he had prayed enough to the lace
of foam round the cliff's altar, that now, if he wished,
he could lift his head, but he stayed in the same place,
the way a man will remain when Mass is finished,
not unclenching his hands or freeing one to cross
forehead, heart, and shoulders swiftly and then kneel
facing the altar. He bowed in endless remorse,
for her mercy at what he had done to Achille,
his brother. But his arc was over, for the course
25
of every comet is such. The fated crescent
was printed on the road by the scorching tires.
A salt tear ran down the porcelain cheek and it went
in one slow drop to the clenched knuckle that still gripped
the wheel. On the flecked sea, the uninterrupted
wind herded the long African combers, and whipped
the small flag of the island on its silver spearhead.
II
Drivers leant over the rail. One seized my luggage
off the porter's cart. The rest burst into patois,
with gestures of despair at the lost privilege
of driving me, then turned to other customers.
In the evening pastures horses grazed, their hides wet
with light that shot its lances over the combers.
I had the transport all to myself.
"You all set?
Good. A good pal of mine died in that chariot
of his called the Comet."
He turned in the front seat,
spinning the air with his free hand. I sat, sprawled out
in the back, discouraging talk, with my crossed feet.
"You never know when, eh? I was at the airport
that day. I see him take off like a rocket.
I always said that thing have too much horsepower.
And so said, so done. The same hotel, chief, correct?"
I saw the coastal villages receding as
the highway's tongue translated bush into forest,
the wild savannah into moderate pastures,
that other life going in its "change for the best,"
its peace paralyzed in a postcard, a concrete
future ahead of it all, in the cinder-blocks
26
of hotel development with the obsolete
craft of the carpenter, as I sensed, in the neat
marinas, the fisherman's phantom. Old oarlocks
and rusting fretsaw. My craft required the same
crouching care, the same crabbed, natural devotion
of the hand that stencilled a flowered window-frame
or planed an elegant canoe; its time was gone
with the spirit in the wood, as wood grew obsolete
and plasterers smoothed the blank page of white concrete.
I watched the afternoon sea. Didn't I want the poor
to stay in the same light so that I could transfix
them in amber, the afterglow of an empire,
preferring a shed of palm-thatch with tilted sticks
to that blue bus-stop? Didn't I prefer a road
from which tracks climbed into the thickening syntax
of colonial travellers, the measured prose I read
as a schoolboy? That cove, with its brown shallows
there, Praslin? That heron? Had they waited for me
to develop my craft? Why hallow that pretence
of preserving what they left, the hypocrisy
of loving them from hotels, a biscuit-tin fence
smothered in love-vines, scenes to which I was attached
as blindly as Plunkett with his remorseful research?
Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched
roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church
above a bleached village. The gap between the driver
and me increased when he said:
"The place changing, eh?"
where an old rumshop had gone, but not that river
with its clogged shadows. That would make me a stranger.
"All to the good," he said. I said, "All to the good,"
27
then, "whoever they are," to myself. I caught his eyes
in the mirror. We were climbing out of Micoud.
Hadn't I made their poverty my paradise?
His back could have been Hector's, ferrying tourists
in the other direction home, the leopard seat
scratching their damp backs like the fur-covered armrests.
He had driven his burnt-out cargo, tired of sweat,
who longed for snow on the moon and didn't have to face
the heat of that sinking sun, who knew a climate
as monotonous as this one could only produce
from its unvarying vegetation flashes
of a primal insight like those red-pronged lilies
that shot from the verge, that their dried calabashes
of fake African masks for a fake Achilles
rattled with the seeds that came from other men's minds.
So let them think that. Who needed art in this place
where even the old women strode with stiff-backed spines,
and the fishermen had such adept thumbs, such grace
these people had, but what they envied most in them
was the calypso part, the Caribbean lilt
still in the shells of their ears, like the surf's rhythm,
until too much happiness was shadowed with guilt
like any Eden, and they sighed at the sign:
HEWANNORRA (Iounalao), the gold sea
flat as a credit-card, extending its line
to a beach that now looked just like everywhere else,
Greece or Hawaii. Now the goddamn souvenir
felt absurd, excessive. The painted gourds, the shells.
Their own faces as brown as gourds. Mine felt as strange
as those at the counter feeling their bodies change.
III
28
Change lay in our silence. We had come to that bend
where the trees are warped by wind, and the cliffs, raw,
shelve surely to foam.
"Is right here everything end,"
the driver said, and rammed open the transport door
on his side, then mine.
"Anyway, chief, the view nice."
I joined him at the gusting edge.
"His name was Hector."
The name was bent like the trees on the precipice
to point inland. In its echo a man-o'-war
screamed on the wind. The driver moved off for a piss,
then shouted over his shoulder:
"A road-warrior.
He would drive like a madman when the power took.
He had a nice woman. Maybe he died for her."
For her and tourism, I thought. The driver shook
himself, zipping then hoisting his crotch.
"Crazy, but
a gentle fellow anyway, with a very good brain."
Cut to a leopard galloping on a dry plain
across Serengeti. Cut to the spraying fans
drummed by a riderless stallion, its wild mane
scaring the Scamander. Cut to a woman's hands
clenched towards her mouth with no sound. Cut to the wheel
of a chariot's spiked hubcap. Cut to the face
of his muscling jaw, then flashback to Achille
hurling a red tin and a cutlass. Next, a vase
with a girl's hoarse whisper echoing "Omeros,"
as in a conch-shell. Cut to a shield of silver
rolling like a hubcap. Rewind, in slow motion,
myrmidons gathering by a village river
29
with lances for oars. Cut to the surpliced ocean
droning its missal. Cut. A crane hoisting a wreck.
A horse nosing the surf, then shuddering its neck.
He'd paid the penalty of giving up the sea
as graceless and as treacherous as it had seemed,
for the taxi-business; he was making money,
but all of that money was making him ashamed
of the long afternoons of shouting by the wharf
hustling passengers. He missed the uncertain sand
under his feet, he sighed for the trough of a wave,
and the jerk of the oar when it turned in his hand,
and the rose conch sunset with its low pelicans.
Castries was corrupting him with its roaring life,
its littered market, with too many transport vans
competing. Castries had been his common-law wife
who, like Helen, he had longed for from a distance,
and now he had both, but a frightening discontent
hollowed his face; to find that the sea was a love
he could never lose made every gesture violent:
ramming the side-door shut, raking the clutch. He drove
as if driven by furies, but furies paid the rent.
A man who cursed the sea had cursed his own mother.
Mer was both mother and sea. In his lost canoe
he had said his prayers. But now he was in another
kind of life that was changing him with his brand-new
stereo, its endless garages, where he could not
whip off his shirt, hearing the conch's summoning note.
Chapter XLVI
30
Hector was buried near the sea he had loved once.
Not too far from the shallows where he fought Achille
for a tin and Helen. He did not hear the sea-almond's
moan over the bay when Philoctete blew the shell,
nor the one drumbeat of a wave-thud, nor a sail
rattling to rest as its day's work was over,
and its mate, gauging depth, bent over the gunwale,
then wearily sounding the fathoms with an oar,
the same rite his shipmates would repeat soon enough
when it was their turn to lie quiet as Hector,
lowering a pitch-pine canoe in the earth's trough,
to sleep under the piled conchs, through every weather
on the violet-wreathed mound. Crouching for his friend to hear,
Achille whispered about their ancestral river,
and those things he would recognize when he got there,
his true home, forever and ever and ever,
forever, compère. Then Philoctete limped over
and rested his hand firmly on a shaking shoulder
to anchor his sorrow. Seven Seas and Helen
did not come nearer. Achille had carried an oar
to the church and propped it outside with the red tin.
Now his voice strengthened. He said: "Mate, this is your spear,"
and laid the oar slowly, the same way he had placed
the parallel oars in the hull of the gommier
the day the African swift and its shadow raced.
And this was the prayer that Achille could not utter:
"The spear that I give you, my friend, is only wood.
Vexation is past. I know how well you treat her.
You never know my admiration, when you stood
crossing the sun at the bow of the long canoe
with the plates of your chest like a shield; I would say
any enemy so was a compliment. 'Cause no
31
African ever hurled his wide seine at the bay
by which he was born with such beauty. You hear me? Men
did not know you like me. All right. Sleep good. Good night."
Achille moved Philoctete's hand, then he saw Helen
standing alone and veiled in the widowing light.
Then he reached down to the grave and lifted the tin
to her. Helen nodded. A wind blew out the sun.
II
Pride set in Helen's face after this, like a stone
bracketed with Hector's name; her lips were incised
by its dates in parenthesis. She seemed more stern,
more ennobled by distance as she slowly crossed
the hot street of the village like a distant sail
on the horizon. Grief heightened her. When she smiled
it was with such distance that it was hard to tell
if she had heard your condolence. It was the child,
Ma Kilman told them, that made her more beautiful.
III
The rites of the island were simplified by its elements,
which changed places. The grooved sea was Achille's garden,
the ridged plot of rattling plantains carried their sense
of the sea, and Philoctete, on his height, often heard, in
a wind that suddenly churned the rage of deep gorges,
the leafy sound of far breakers plunging with smoke,
and for smoke there were the bonfires which the sun catches
on the blue heights at sunrise, doing the same work
as Philoctete clearing his plot, just as, at sunset,
smoke came from the glowing rim of the horizon as if
from his enamel pot. The woodsmoke smelt of a regret
32
that men cannot name. On the charred field, the massive
sawn trunks burnt slowly like towers, and the great
indigo dusk slowly plumed down, devouring the still leaves,
igniting the firefly huts, lifting the panicky egret
to beat its lagoon and shelve in the cage of the mangroves,
take in the spars of its sails, then with quick-pricking head
anchor itself shiftingly, and lift its question again.
At night, the island reversed its elements, the heron
of a quarter-moon floated from Hector's grave, rain
rose upwards from the sea, and the corrugated iron
of the sea glittered with nailheads. Ragged
plantains bent and stepped with their rustling powers
over the furrows of Philoctete's garden, a chorus of aged
ancestors and straw, and, rustling, surrounded every house
in the village with its back garden, with its rank midden
of rusted chamber pots, rotting nets, and the moon's cold basin.
They sounded, when they shook, after the moonlit meridian
of their crossing, like the night-surf; they gazed in
silence at the shadows of their lamplit children.
At Philoctete, groaning and soaking the flower on his shin
with hot sulphur, cleaning its edges with yellow Vaseline,
and, gripping his knee, squeezing rags from the basin.
At night, when yards are asleep, and the broken line
of the surf hisses like Philo, "Bon Dieu, aie, waie, my sin
is this sore?" the old plantains suffer and shine.
Chapter XLVII
Islands of bay leaves in the medicinal bath
of a cauldron, a sibylline cure. The citron
33
sprig of a lime-tree dividing the sky in half
dipped its divining rod. The white spray of the thorn,
which the swift bends lightly, waited for a black hand
to break it in bits and boil its leaves for the wound
from the pronged anchor rusting in clean bottom-sand.
Ma Kilman, in a black hat with its berried fringe,
eased herself sideways down the broken concrete step
of the rumshop's back door, closed it, and rammed the hinge
tight. The bolt caught a finger and with that her instep
arch twisted and she let out a soft Catholic
curse, then crossed herself. She closed the gate. The asphalt
sweated with the heat, the limp breadfruit leaves were thick
over the fence. Her spectacles swam in their sweat.
She plucked an armpit. The damn wig was badly made.
She was going to five o'clock Mass, to la Messe,
and sometimes she had to straighten it as she prayed
until the wafer dissolved her with tenderness,
the way a raindrop melts on the tongue of a breeze.
In the church's cool cave the sweat dried from her eyes.
She rolled down the elastic bands below the knees
of her swollen stockings. It was then that their vise
round her calves reminded her of Philoctete. Then,
numbering her beads, she began her own litany
of berries, Hail Mary marigolds that stiffen
their aureoles in the heights, mild anemone
and clear watercress, the sacred heart of Jesus
pierced like the anthurium, the thorns of logwood,
called the tree of life, the aloe good for seizures,
the hole in the daisy's palm, with its drying blood
that was the hole in the fisherman's shin since he was
pierced by a hook; there was the pale, roadside tisane
34
of her malarial childhood. There was this one
for easing a birth-breach, that one for a love-bath,
before the buds of green sugar-apples in the sun
ripened like her nipples in girlhood. But what path
led through nettles to the cure, the furious sibyl
couldn't remember. Mimosa winced from her fingers,
shutting like jalousies at some passing evil
when she reached for them. The smell of incense lingers
in her clothes. Inside, the candle-flames are erect
round the bier of the altar while she and her friends
old-talk on the steps, but the plant keeps its secret
when her memory reaches, shuttering in its fronds.
II
The dew had not yet dried on the white-ribbed awnings
and the nodding palanquins of umbrella yams
where the dark grove had not heat but early mornings
of perpetual freshness, in which the bearded arms
of a cedar held council. Between its gnarled toes
grew the reek of an unknown weed; its pronged flower
sprang like a buried anchor; its windborne odours
diverted the bee from its pollen, but its power,
rooted in bitterness, drew her bowed head by the nose
as a spike does a circling bull. To approach it
Ma Kilman lowered her head to one side and screened
the stench with a cologned handkerchief. The mulch it
was rooted in carried the smell, when it gangrened,
of Philoctete's cut. In her black dress, her berried
black hat, she climbed a goat-path up from the village,
past the stones with dried palms and conchs, where the buried
suffer the sun all day Sunday, while goats forage
the new wreaths. Once more she pulled at the itch in her
35
armpits, nearly dropping her purse. Then she climbed hard
up the rain-cracked path, the bay closing behind her
like a wound, and rested. Everything that echoed
repeated its outline: a goat's doddering bleat,
a hammer multiplying a roof, and, through the back yards,
a mother cursing a boy too nimble to beat.
Ma Kilman picked up her purse and sighed on upwards
to the thread of the smell, one arm behind her back,
passing the cactus, the thorn trees, and then the wood
appeared over her, thick green, the green almost black
as her dress in its shade, its border of flowers
flecking the pasture with spray. Then she staggered back
from the line of ants at her feet. She saw the course
they had kept behind her, following her from church,
signalling a language she could not recognize.
III
A swift had carried the strong seed in its stomach
centuries ago from its antipodal shore,
skimming the sea-troughs, outdarting ospreys, her luck
held to its shadow. She aimed to carry the cure
that precedes every wound; the reversible Bight
of Benin was her bow, her target the ringed haze
of a circling horizon. The star-grains at night
made her hungrier; the leafless sea with no house
for her weariness. Sometimes she dozed in her flight
for a swift's second, closing the seeds of her stare,
then ruddering straight. The dry sea-flakes whitened her
breast, her feathers thinned. Then, one dawn the day-star
rose slowly from the wrong place and it frightened her
because all the breakers were blowing from the wrong
36
east. She saw the horned island and uncurled her claws
with one frail cry, since swifts are not given to song,
and fluttered down to a beach, ejecting the seed
in grass near the sand. She nestled in dry seaweed.
In a year she was bleached bone. All of that motion
a pile of fragile ash from the fire of her will,
but the vine grew its own wings, out of the ocean
it climbed like the ants, the ancestors of Achille,
the women carrying coals after the dark door
slid over the hold. As the weed grew in odour
so did its strength at the damp root of the cedar,
where the flower was anchored at the mottled root
as a lizard crawled upwards, foot by sallow foot.
~ Derek Walcott,#NFDB
232:ON OLD AND NEW TABLETS
I
Here I sit and wait, surrounded by broken old
tablets and new tablets half covered with writing. When
will my hour come? The hour of my going down and
going under; for I want to go among men once more.
For that I am waiting now, for first the signs must
come to me that my hour has come: the laughing lion
with the flock of doves. Meanwhile I talk to myself as
one who has time. Nobody tells me anything new: so
I tell myself-myself.
2
When I came to men I found them sitting on an old
conceit: the conceit that they have long known what
is good and evil for man. All talk of virtue seemed an
old and weary matter to man; and whoever wanted to
sleep well still talked of good and evil before going to
sleep.
I disturbed this sleepiness when I taught: what is
good and evil no one knows yet, unless it be he who
creates. He, however, creates man's goal and gives the
earth its meaning and its future. That anything at all
is good and evil-that is his creation.
And I bade them overthrow their old academic
chairs and wherever that old conceit had sat; I bade
them laugh at their great masters of virtue and saints
and poets and world-redeemers. I bade them laugh at
their gloomy sages and at whoever had at any time sat
on the tree of life like a black scarecrow. I sat down by
their great tomb road among cadavers and vultures,
and I laughed at all their past and its rotting, decaying
glory.
197
Verily, like preachers of repentance and fools, I
raised a hue and cry of wrath over what among them
is great and small, and that their best is still so small.
And that their greatest evil too is still so small-at
that I laughed.
My wise longing cried and laughed thus out of me
-born in the mountains, verily, a wild wisdom-my
great broad-winged longing! And often it swept me
away and up and far, in the middle of my laughter; and
I flew, quivering, an arrow, through sun-drunken delight, away into distant futures which no dream had yet
seen, into hotter souths than artists ever dreamed of,
where gods in their dances are ashamed of all clothesto speak in parables and to limp and stammer like
poets; and verily, I am ashamed that I must still be a
poet.
Where all becoming seemed to me the dance of gods
and the prankishness of gods, and the world seemed
free and frolicsome and as if fleeing back to itself-as
an eternal fleeing and seeking each other again of many
gods, as the happy controverting of each other, conversing again with each other, and converging again
of many gods.
Where all time seemed to me a happy mockery of
moments, where necessity was freedom itself playing
happily with the sting of freedom.
Where I also found again my old devil and archenemy, the spirit of gravity, and all that he created:
constraint, statute, necessity and consequence and purpose and will and good and evil.
For must there not be that over which one dances
and dances away? For the sake of the light and the
lightest, must there not be moles and grave dwarfs?
198
3
There it was too that I picked up the word "overman" by the way, and that man is something that must
be overcome-that man is a bridge and no end: proclaiming himself blessed in view of his noon and
evening, as the way to new dawns-Zarathustra's word
of the great noon, and whatever else I hung up over
man like the last crimson light of evening.
Verily, I also let them see new stars along with new
nights; and over clouds and day and night I still spread
out laughter as a colorful tent.
I taught them all my creating and striving, to create
and carry together into One what in man is fragment
and riddle and dreadful accident; as creator, guesser of
riddles, and redeemer of accidents, I taught them to
work on the future and to redeem with their creation
all that has been. To redeem what is past in man and
to re-create all "it was" until the will says, "Thus I
willed itl Thus I shall will it"-this I called redemption
and this alone I taught them to call redemption.
Now I wait for my own redemption-that I may go
to them for the last time. For I want to go to men
once more; under their eyes I want to go under; dying,
I want to give them my richest gift. From the sun I
learned this: when he goes down, overrich; he pours
gold into the sea out of inexhaustible riches, so that
even the poorest fisherman still rows with golden oars.
For this I once saw and I did not tire of my tears as I
watched it.
Like the sun, Zarathustra too wants to go under; now
he sits here and waits, surrounded by broken old tablets
and new tablets half covered with writing.
199
4
Behold, here is a new tablet; but where are my
brothers to carry it down with me to the valley and
into hearts of flesh?
Thus my great love of the farthest demands it: do
not spare your neighbor! Man is something that must
be overcome.
There are many ways of overcoming: see to that
yourself! But only a jester thinks: "Man can also be
skipped over.'
Overcome yourself even in your neighbor: and a
right that you can rob you should not accept as a gift.
What you do, nobody can do to you in turn. Behold,
there is no retri bution.
He who cannot comm and himself should obey. And
many can comm and themselves, but much is still lacking before they also obey themselves.
5
This is the manner of noble souls: they do not want
to have anything for nothing; least of all, life. Whoever
is of the mob wants to live for nothing; we others,
however, to whom life gave itself, we always think
about what we might best give in return. And verily,
that is a noble speech which says, "What life promises
us, we ourselves want to keep to life."
One shall not wish to enjoy where one does not give
joy. And one shall not wish to enjoy For enjoyment and
innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want
to be sought. One shall possess them-but rather seek
even guilt and suffering.
200
6
My brothers, the firstling is always sacrificed. We,
however, are firstlings. All of us bleed at secret sacrificial altars; all of us burn and roast in honor of old
idols. What is best in us is still young: that attracts old
palates. Our flesh is tender, our hide is a mere lambskin: how could we fail to attract old idol-priests? Even
in ourselves the old idol-priest still lives who roasts
what is best in us for his feast. Alas, my brothers, how
could firstlings fail to be sacrifices?
But thus our kind wants it; and I love those who do
not want to preserve themselves. Those who are going
under I love with my whole love: for they cross over.
7
To be true-only a few are able! And those who are
still lack the will. But the good have this ability least
of all. Oh, these good men! Good men never speak the
truth; for the spirit, to be good in this way is a disease.
They give in, these good men; they give themselves up;
their heart repeats and their ground obeys: but whoever
heeds commands does not heed himself.
Everything that the good call evil must come together
so that one truth may be born. 0 my brothers, are you
evil enough for this truth? The audacious daring, the
long mistrust, the cruel No, the disgust, the cutting into
the living-how rarely does all this come together. But
from such seed is truth begotten.
Alongside the bad conscience, all science has grown
so far. Break, break, you lovers of knowledge, the old
tablets
201
8
When the water is spanned by planks, when bridges
and railings leap over the river, verily, those are not
believed who say, "Everything is in flux." Even the
blockheads contradict them. "How now?" say the blockheads. "Everything should be in flux? After all, planks
and railings are over the river. Whatever is over the
river is firm; all the values of things, the bridges, the
concepts, all 'good' and 'evil'-all that is firm."
But when the hard winter comes, the river-animal
tamer, then even the most quick-witted learn mistrust;
and verily, not only the blockheads then say, "Does not
everything stand still?"
"At bottom everything stands still"-that is truly a
winter doctrine, a good thing for sterile times, a fine
comfort for hibernators and hearth-squatters.
"At bottom everything stands still"-against this the
thawing wind preaches. The thawing wind, a bull
that is no plowing bull, a raging bull, a destroyer who
breaks the ice with wrathful horns. Ice, however, breaks
bridges
O my brothers, is not everything in flux now? Have
not all railings and bridges fallen into the water? Who
could still cling to "good" and "evil"?
"Woe to us! Hail to usl The thawing wind blows!"thus preach in every street, my brothers.
9
There is an old illusion, which is called good and evil.
So far the wheel of this illusion has revolved around
soothsayers and stargazers. Once man believed in soothsayers and stargazers, and therefore believed: "All is
destiny: you ought to, for you must."
Then man again mistrusted all soothsayers and star-
202
gazers, and therefore believed: "All is freedom: you
can, for you will."
0 my brothers, so far there have been only illusions
about stars and the future, not knowledge; and therefore there have been only illusions so far, not knowledge, about good and evil.
10
"Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not kill" Such words
were once called holy; one bent the knee and head and
took off one's shoes before them. But I ask you: where
have there ever been better robbers and killers in this
world than such holy words?
Is there not in all life itself robbing and killing? And
that such words were called holy-was not truth itself
killed thereby? Or was it the preaching of death that
was called holy, which contradicted and contravened all
life? 0 my brothers, break, break the old tablets!
11
This is my pity for all that is past: I see how all of
it is abandoned-abandoned to the pleasure, the spirit,
the madness: of every generation, which comes along
and reinterprets all that has been as a bridge to itself.
A great despot might come along, a shrewd monster
who, according to his pleasure and displeasure, might
constrain and strain all that is past till it becomes a
bridge to him, a harbinger and herald and cockcrow.
This, however, is the other danger and what prompts
my further pity: whoever is of the rabble, thinks back
as far as the grandfa ther; with the grandfa ther, however, time ends.
Thus all that is past is abandoned: for one day the
rabble might become master and drown all time in
shallow waters.
203
Therefore, my brothers, a new nobility is needed to
be the adversary of all rabble and of all that is despotic
and to write anew upon new tablets the word "noble."
For many who are noble are needed, and noble men
of many kinds, that there may be a nobility. Or as I
once said in a parable: "Precisely this is godlike that
there are gods, but no God."
12
0 my brothers, I dedicate and direct you to a new
nobility: you shall become procreators and cultivators
and sowers of the future-verily, not to a nobility that
you might buy like shopkeepers and with shopkeepers'
gold: for whatever has its price has little value.
Not whence you come shall henceforth constitute
your honor, but whither you are going Your will and
your foot which has a will to go over and beyond yourselves-that shall constitute your new honor.
Verily, not that you have served a prince-what do
princes matter now?-or that you became a bulwark
for what stands that it might stand more firmly.
Not that your tribe has become courtly at court and
that you have learned, like a flamingo, to stand for long
hours in a colorful costume in shallow ponds-for the
ability to stand is meritorious among courtiers; and all
courtiers believe that blessedness after death must comprise permission to sit.
Nor that a spirit which they call holy led your ancestors into promised lands, which I do not praise-for
where the worst of all trees grew, the cross, that land
deserves no praise. And verily, wherever this "Holy
Spirit" led his knights, on all such crusades goose aids
goat in leading the way, and the contrary and crude
sailed foremost.
0 my brothers, your nobility should not look back-
204
ward but ahead! Exiles shall you be from all father- and
forefa ther-landsl Your children's land shall you love:
this love shall be your new nobility-the undiscovered
land in the most distant sea. For that I bid your sails
search and search.
In your children you shall make up for being the
children of your fathers: thus shall you redeem all that
is past. This new tablet I place over you.
13
"Why live? All is vanity Living-that is threshing
straw; living-that is consuming oneself in flames without becoming warm." Such antiquarian babbling is still
considered "wisdom"; it is honored all the more for
being old and musty. Mustiness too ennobles.
Children might speak thus: they fear the fire because it burned them. There is much childishness in
the old books of wisdom. And why should those who
always "thresh straw" be allowed to blaspheme threshing? Such oxen should be muzzled after all.
Such men sit down to the table and bring nothing
along, not even a good appetite; and then they blaspheme: "All is vanity." But eating and drinking well, 0
my brothers, is verily no vain art. Break, break the old
tablets of the never gay!
14
"To the clean all is clean," the people say. But I say
unto you, "To the mean all becomes mean."
Therefore the swooners and head-hangers, whose
hearts also hang limply, preach, "The world itself is a
filthy monster." For all these have an unclean spirit but especially those who have neither rest nor repose
except when they see the world from abaft, the afterworldly. To these I say to their faces, even though it
205
may not sound nice: the world is like man in having
a backside abaft; that much is true. There is much
filth in the world; that much is true. But that does not
make the world itself a filthy monster.
There is wisdom in this, that there is much in the
world that smells foul: nausea itself creates wings and
water-divining powers. Even in the best there is still
something that nauseates; and even the best is something that must be overcome. 0 my brothers, there is
much wisdom in this, that there is much filth in the
world.
15
Such maxims I heard pious afterworldly people
speak to their conscience-verily, without treachery or
falseness, although there is nothing falser in the whole
world, nothing more treacherous:
'Let the world go its wayl Do not raise one finger
against it't
"Let him who wants to, strangle and stab and fleece
and flay the people. Do not raise one finger against itl
Thus will they learn to renounce the world."
"And your own reason-you yourself should stifle
and strangle it; for it is a reason of this world; thus
will you yourself learn to renounce the world."
Break, break, 0 my brothers, these old tablets of the
pious. Break the maxims of those who slander the
world.
i6
"Whoever learns much will unlearn all violent desire"
-that is whispered today in all the dark lanes.
"Wisdom makes weary; worth while is-nothing;
thou shalt not desire!"-this new tablet I found hanging even in the open market places.
206
Break, 0 my brothers, break this new tablet too.
The world-weary hung it up, and the preachers of
death, and also the jailers; for behold, it is also an
exhortation to bondage. Because they learned badly,
and the best things not at all, and everything too early
and everything too hastily; because they ate badly,
therefore they got upset stomachs; for their spirit is an
upset stomach which counsels death. For verily, my
brothers, the spirit is a stomach. Life is a well of joy;
but for those out of whom an upset stomach speaks,
which is the father of melancholy, all wells are poisoned.
To gain knowledge is a joy for the lion-willedl But
those who have become weary are themselves merely
being "willed," and all the billows play with them. And
this is always the manner of the weak: they get lost on
the way. And in the end their weariness still asks, "Why
did we ever pursue any way at all? It is all the same."
Their ears appreciate the preaching, "Nothing is worth
while! You shall not will!" Yet this is an exhortation to
bondage.
o my brothers, like a fresh roaring wind Zarathustra
comes to all who are weary of the way; many noses he
will yet make sneeze. Through walls too, my free breath
blows, and into prisons and imprisoned spirits. To will
liberates, for to will is to create: thus I teach. And you
shall learn solely in order to create.
And you shall first learn from me how to lear-how
to learn well. He that has ears to hear, let him hear
17
There stands the bark; over there perhaps the great
nothing lies. But who would embark on this "perhaps"?
No one of you wants to embark on the bark of death.
Why then do you want to be world-weary? Worldwearyl And you are not even removed from the earth.
207
Lusting after the earth I have always found you, in
love even with your own earth-weariness. Not for
nothing is your lip hanging; a little earthly wish still
sits on it. And in your eyes-does not a little cloud of
unforgotten earthly joy float there?
There are many good inventions on earth, some useful, some pleasing: for their sake, the earth is to be
loved. And there is such a variety of well-invented
things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman:
useful as well as pleasing.
But you who are world-weary, you who are earthlazy, you should be lashed with switches: with lashes
one should make your legs sprightly again. For when
you are not invalids and decrepit wretches of whom the
earth is weary, you are shrewd sloths or sweet-toothed,
sneaky pleasure-cats. And if you do not want to run
again with pleasure, then you should pass away. To
the incurable, one should not try to be a physicianthus Zarathustra teaches-so you shall pass awayl
But it takes more courage to make an end than to
make a new verse: all physicians and poets know that.
18
o my brothers, there are tablets created by weariness
and tablets created by rotten, rotting sloth; but though
they speak alike, they must be understood differently.
Behold this man languishing here He is but one span
from his goal, but out of weariness he has defiantly
lain down in the dust-this courageous man! Out of
weariness he yawns at the way and the earth and the
goal and himself: not one step farther will he go-this
courageous man! Now the sun glows on him and the
dogs lick his sweat; but he lies there in his defiance
and would sooner die of thirst-die of thirst one span
away from his goal Verily, you will yet have to drag
208
him by the hair into his heaven-this herol Better yet,
let him lie where he lay down, and let sleep, the comforter, come to him with cooling, rushing rain. Let him
lie till he awakes by himself, till he renounces by himself all weariness and whatever weariness taught through
him. Only, my brothers, drive the dogs away from him,
the lazy creepers, and all the ravenous vermin-all the
raving vermin of the "educated," who feast on every
hero's sweat.
19
I draw circles around me and sacred boundaries;
fewer and fewer men climb with me on ever higher
mountains: I am building a mountain range out of ever
more sacred mountains. But wherever you may climb
with me, 0 my brothers, see to it that no parasite
climbs with you. Parasites: creeping, cringing worms
which would batten on your secret sores. And this is
their art, that they find where climbing souls are weary;
in your grief and discouragement, in your tender parts,
they build their nauseating nests. Where the strong are
weak and the noble all-too-soft-there they build their
nauseating nests: the parasites live where the great have
little secret sores.
What is the highest species of all being and what is
the lowest? The parasite is the lowest species; but whoever is of the highest species will nourish the most
parasites. For the soul that has the longest ladder and
reaches down deepest-how should the most parasites
not sit on that? The most comprehensive soul, which
can run and stray and roam farthest within itself; the
most necessary soul, which out of sheer joy plunges itself into chance; the soul which, having being, dives
into becoming; the soul which has, but wants to want
and will; the soul which flees itself and catches up with
209
itself in the widest circle; the wisest soul, which folly
exhorts most sweetly; the soul which loves itself most,
in which all things have their sweep and countersweep
and ebb and flood-oh, how should the highest soul
not have the worst parasites?
20
0 my brothers, am I cruel? But I say: what is falling,
we should still push. Everything today falls and decays:
who would check it? But I-I even want to push it.
Do you know the voluptuous delight which rolls
stones into steep depths? These human beings of today-look at them, how they roll into my depth!
I am a prelude of better players, 0 my brothers! A
precedent! Follow my precedent
And he whom you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall
faster!
21
I love the valiant; but it is not enough to wield a
broadsword, one must also know against whom. And
often there is more valor when one refrains and passes
by, in order to save oneself for the worthier enemy.
You shall have only enemies who are to be hated,
but not enemies to be despised: you must be proud of
your enemy; thus I taught once before. For the worthier
enemy, 0 my friends, you shall save yourselves; therefore you must pass by much-especially much rabble
who raise a din in your ears about the people and about
peoples. Keep your eyes undefiled by their pro and
conl There is much justice, much injustice; and whoever
looks on becomes angry. Sighting and smiting here
become one; therefore go away into the woods and lay
your sword to sleep.
Go your own ways And let the people and peoples
210
go theirs-dark ways, verily, on which not a single hope
flashes any more. Let the shopkeeper rule where all that
still glitters is-shopkeepers' gold. The time of kings is
past: what calls itself a people today deserves no kings.
Look how these peoples are now like shopkeepers: they
pick up the smallest advantages from any rubbish. They
lie around lurking and spy around smirking-and call
that "being good neighbors." 0 blessed remote time
when a people would say to itself, "I want to be master
-over peoples." For, my brothers, the best should rule,
the best also want to rule. And where the doctrine is
different, there the best is lacking.
22
If those got free bread, alas! For what would they
clamor? Their sustenance-that is what sustains their
attention; and it should be hard for them. They are
beasts of prey: in their "work" there is still an element
of preying, in their "earning" still an element of overreaching. Therefore it should be hard for them. Thus
they should become better beasts of prey, subtler, more
prudent, more human; for man is the best beast of prey.
Man has already robbed all the beasts of their virtues,
for of all beasts man has had the hardest time. Only the
birds are still over and above him. And if man were to
learn to fly-woe, to what heights would his rapaciousness fly?
23
Thus I want man and woman: the one fit for war, the
other fit to give birth, but both fit to dance with head
and limbs. And we should consider every day lost on
which we have not danced at least once. And we should
call every truth false which was not accompanied by at
least one laugh.
211
24
Your wedlock: see to it that it not be a bad lock. If
you lock it too quickly, there follows wedlock-breaking:
adultery. And better even such wedlock-breaking than
wedlock-picking, wedlock-tricking. Thus said a woman
to me: "Indeed I committed adultery and broke my
wedlock, but first my wedlock broke me!"
The worst among the vengeful I always found to be
the ill-matched: they would make all the world pay fox
it that they no longer live singly.
Therefore I would have those who are honest say to
each other, "We love each other; let us see to it that we
remain in love. Or shall our promise be a mistake?"
"Give us a probation and a little marriage, so that we
may see whether we are fit for a big marriage. It is a
big thing always to be two."
Thus I counsel all who are honest; and what would
my love for the overman and for all who shall yet come
amount to if I counseled and spoke differently? Not
merely to reproduce, but to produce something higher
-toward that, my brothers, the garden of marriage
should help you.
25
Whoever has gained wisdom concerning ancient
origins will eventually look for wells of the future and
for new origins. 0 my brothers, it will not be overlong
before new peoples originate and new wells roar down
into new depths. For earthquakes bury many wells and
leave many languishing, but they also bring to light
inner powers and secrets. Earthquakes reveal new
wells. In earthquakes that strike ancient peoples, new
wells break open.
And whoever shouts, "Behold, a well for many who
212
are thirsty, a heart for many who are longing, a will for
many instruments"-around that man there will gather
a people; that is: many triers.
Who can command, who must obey-that is tried out
there. Alas, with what long trials and surmises and unpleasant surprises and learning and retrials!
Human society is a trial: thus I teach it-a long trial;
and what it tries to find is the commander. A trial, 0 my
brothers, and not a "contract." Break, break this word
of the softhearted and half-and-halfl
26
o
my brothers, who represents the greatest danger
for all of man's future? Is it not the good and the just?
Inasmuch as they say and feel in their hearts, "We already know what is good and just, and we have it too;
woe unto those who still seek here" And whatever harm
the evil may do, the harm done by the good is the most
harmful harm. And whatever harm those do who slander the world, the harm done by the good is the most
harmful harm.
o my brothers, one man once saw into the hearts of
the good and the just and said, "They are the pharisees." But he was not understood. The good and the
just themselves were not permitted to understand him:
their spirit is imprisoned in their good conscience. The
stupidity of the good is unfathomably shrewd. This,
however, is the truth: the good must be pharisees they have no choice. The good must crucify him who
invents his own virtue. That is the truth
The second one, however, who discovered their land
-the land, heart, and soil of the good and the justwas he who asked, "Whom do they hate most?" The
creator they hate most: he breaks tablets and old values.
He is a breaker, they call him lawbreaker. For the good
are unable to create; they are always the beginning of
the end: they crucify him who writes new values on
new tablets; they sacrifice the future to themselves they crucify all man's future.
The good have always been the beginning of the end.
27
O my brothers, have you really understood this word?
And what I once said concerning the 'last man"? Who
represents the greatest danger for all of man's future?
Is it not the good and the just? Break, break the good
and the just! 0 my brothers, have you really understood
this word?
28
You flee from me? You are frightened? You tremble
at this word?
o my brothers, when I bade you break the good and
the tablets of the good, only then did I embark man on
his high sea. And only now does there come to him the
great fright, the great looking-around, the great sickness, the great nausea, the great seasickness.
False coasts and false assurances the good have
taught you; in the lies of the good you were hatched
and huddled. Everything has been made fraudulent and
has been twisted through and through by the good.
But he who discovered the land "man," also discovered the land "man's future." Now you shall be seafarers, valiant and patient. Walk upright betimes, 0 my
brothers; learn to walk upright. The sea is raging; many
want to right themselves again with your help. The sea
is raging; everything is in the sea. Well then, old sea
dogs What of fatherland? Our helm steers us toward
our children's land Out there, stormier than the sea,
storms our great longingly
214
29
"Why so hard?" the kitchen coal once said to the
diamond. "After all, are we not close kin?"
Why so soft? 0 my brothers, thus I ask you: are you
not after all my brothers?
Why so soft, so pliant and yielding? Why is there so
much denial, self-denial, in your hearts? So little destiny
in your eyes?
And if you do not want to be destinies and inexorable
ones, how can you triumph with me?
And if your hardness does not wish to flash and cut
and cut through, how can you one day create with me?
For creators are hard. And it must seem blessedness
to you to impress your hand on millennia as on wax,
Blessedness to write on the will of millennia as on
bronze-harder than bronze, nobler than bronze. Only
the noblest is altoge ther hard.
This new tablet, 0 my brothers, I place over you:
become hard!
30
0 thou my will Thou cessation of all need, my own
necessity Keep me from all small victories! Thou destination of my soul, which I call destiny! Thou in-mel
Over-mel Keep me and save me for a great destiny
And thy last greatness, my will, save up for thy last
feat that thou mayest be inexorable in thy victory. Alas,
who was not vanquished in his victory? Alas, whose
eye would not darken in this drunken twilight? Alas,
whose foot would not reel in victory and forget how to
stand?
That I may one day be ready and ripe in the great
noon: as ready and ripe as glowing bronze, clouds
pregnant with lightning, and swelling milk udders-
215
ready for myself and my most hidden will: a bow lusting for its arrow, an arrow lusting for its star-a star
ready and ripe in its noon, glowing, pierced, enraptured
by annihilating sun arrows-a sun itself and an inexorable solar will, ready to annihilate in victory
O will, cessation of all need, my own necessity Save
me for a great victory!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, ON OLD AND NEW TABLETS
,#NFDB
233:The Witch Of Hebron
A Rabbinical Legend
Part I.
From morn until the setting of the sun
The rabbi Joseph on his knees had prayed,
And, as he rose with spirit meek and strong,
An Indian page his presence sought, and bowed
Before him, saying that a lady lay
Sick unto death, tormented grievously,
Who begged the comfort of his holy prayers.
The rabbi, ever to the call of grief
Open as day, arose; and girding straight
His robe about him, with the page went forth;
Who swiftly led him deep into the woods
That hung, heap over heap, like broken clouds
On Hebron’s southern terraces; when lo!
Across a glade a stately pile he saw,
With gleaming front, and many-pillared porch
Fretted with sculptured vinage, flowers and fruit,
And carven figures wrought with wondrous art
As by some Phidian hand.
But interposed
For a wide space in front, and belting all
The splendid structure with a finer grace,
A glowing garden smiled; its breezes bore
Airs as from paradise, so rich the scent
That breathed from shrubs and flowers; and fair the growths
Of higher verdure, gemm’d with silver blooms,
Which glassed themselves in fountains gleaming light
Each like a shield of pearl.
Within the halls
Strange splendour met the rabbi’s careless eyes,
Halls wonderful in their magnificance,
With pictured walls, and columns gleaming white
Like Carmel’s snow, or blue-veined as with life;
222
Through corridors he passed with tissues hung
Inwrought with threaded gold by Sidon’s art,
Or rich as sunset clouds with Tyrian dye;
Past lofty chambers, where the gorgeous gleam
Of jewels, and the stainèd radiance
Of golden lamps, showed many a treasure rare
Of Indian and Armenian workmanship
Which might have seemed a wonder of the world:
And trains of servitors of every clime,
Greeks, Persians, Indians, Ethiopians,
In richest raiment thronged the spacious halls.
The page led on, the rabbi following close,
And reached a still and distant chamber, where
In more than orient pomp, and dazzling all
The else-unrivalled splendour of the rest,
A queenly woman lay; so beautiful,
That though upon her moon-bright visage, pain
And langour like eclipsing shadows gloomed,
The rabbi’s aged heart with tremor thrilled;
Then o’er her face a hectic colour passed,
Only to leave that pallor which portends
The nearness of the tomb.
From youth to age
The rabbi Joseph still had sought in herbs
And minerals the virtues they possess,
And now of his medicaments he chose
What seemed most needful in her sore estate;
“Alas, not these,” the dying woman said,
“A malady like mine thou canst not cure,
’Tis fatal as the funeral march of Time!
But that I might at length discharge my mind
Of a dread secret, that hath been to me
An ever-haunting and most ghostly fear,
Darkening my whole life like an ominous cloud
And which must end it ere the morning come,
Therefore did I entreat thy presence here.”
The rabbi answered, “If indeed it stand
Within my power to serve thee, speak at once
223
All that thy heart would say. But if ’tis vain,
If this thy sin hath any mortal taint,
Forbear, O woman, to acquaint my soul
With aught that could thenceforth with horror chase
The memory of a man of Israel.”
“I am,” she said “the daughter of thy friend
Rabbi Ben Bachai—be his memory blest!
Once at thy side a laughing child I played;
I married with an Arab Prince, a man
Of lofty lineage, one of Ishmael’s race;
Not great in gear. Behold’st thou this abode?
Did ever yet the tent-born Arab build
Thus for his pride or pleasure? See’st thou
These riches? An no! Such were ne’er amassed
By the grey desert’s wild and wandering son;
Deadly the game by which I won them all!
And with a burning bitterness at best
Have I enjoyed them! And how gladly now
Would I, too late, forego them all, to mend
My broken peace with a repentant heed
In abject poverty!”
She ceased, and lay
Calm in her loveliness, with dreamy looks
Roaming, perhaps, in thought the fateful past;
Then suddenly her beauteous countenance grew
Bedimm’d and drear, then dark with mortal pangs,
While fierce convulsions shook her tortured frame,
And from her foaming lips such words o’erran,
That rabbi Joseph sank upon his knees,
And bowed his head a space in horror down
While ardent, pitying prayers for her great woe
Rose from his soul; when, lo! The woman’s face
Was cloudless as a summer heaven! The late
Dark brow was bright, the late pale cheek suffused
With roseate bloom; and, wondrous more than all,
Here weary eyes were changed to splendours now
That shot electric influence, and her lips
Were full and crimson, curled with stormy pride.
The doubting rabbi stood in wild amaze
To see the dying woman bold and fierce
224
In bright audacity of passion’s power.
“These are the common changes,” then she said,
“Of the fell ailment, that with torments strange,
Which search my deepest life, is tearing up
The dark foundations of my mortal state,
And sinking all its structures, hour by hour,
Into the dust of death. For nothing now
Is left me but to meet my nearing doom
As best I may in silent suffering.”
Then as he heard her words and saw her face,
The rabbi in his wisdom knew some strong
Indwelling evil spirit troubled her,
And straighway for an unction sent, wherewith
The famous ancestor whose name he bore,
Herod the Great’s chief hakim, had expelled
The daemon haunter of the dying king.
With this he touched her forehead and her eyes
And all her finger-tips. Forthwith he made
Within a consecrated crucible
A fire of citron-wood and cinnamon;
Then splashed the flames with incense, mingling all
With the strong influence of fervent prayer;
And, as the smoke arose, he bowed her head
Into its coils, that so she might inhale
Its salutary odour—till the fiend
That dwelt within her should be exorcised.
Her face once more grew pale with pain; she writhed
In burning torment, uttering many words
Of most unhallowed meaning! Yet her eyes
Were fixed the while, and motionless her lips!
Whereby the rabbi certainly perceived
’Twas not the woman of herself that spake,
But the dread spirit that possessed her soul,
And thus it cried aloud.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
225
Part II.
“WHY am I here, in this my last resort,
Perturbed with incense and anointings? Why
Compelled to listen to the sound of prayers
That smite me through as with the fire of God?
O pain, pain, pain! Is not this chamber full
Of the implacable stern punishers?
Full of avenging angels, holding each
A scourge of thunder in his potent hand,
Ready to lighten forth! And then, thus armed,
For ever chase and wound us as we fly!
Nor end with this—but, in each wound they make,
Pour venom sweltered from that tree As-gard,
Whose deadly shadow in its blackness falls
Over the lake of everlasting doom!
“Five hundred years ago, I, who thus speak,
Was an Egyptian of the splendid court
Of Ptolemy Philadelphus. To the top
Of mountainous power, though roughened with unrest,
And girt with dangers as with thunder-clouds,
Had I resolved by all resorts to climb;
By truth and falsehood, right and wrong alike;
And I did climb! Then firmly built in power
Second alone to my imperial lord’s,
I crowned with its impunity my lust
Of beauty, sowing broadcast everywhere
Such sensual baits wide round me, as should lure
Through pleasure, or through interest entrap,
The fairest daughters of the land, and lo!
Their lustrous eyes surcharged with passionate light
The chambers of my harem! But at length
Wearied of these, though sweet, I set my heart
On riches, heaped to such a fabulous sum
As never one man’s hoard in all the world
Might match; and to acquire them, steeped my life
In every public, every private wrong,
In lies, frauds, secret murders; till at last
A favoured minion I had trusted most,
And highest raised, unveiled before the king
The dark abysmal badness of my life;
But dearly did he rue it; nor till then
Guessed I how deadly grateful was revenge!
226
I stole into his chamber as he slept,
And with a sword, whose double edge for hours
I had whetted for the purpose of the deed,
There staked him through the midriff to his bed.
I fled; but first I sent, as oft before,
A present to the household of the man
Who had in secret my betrayer bribed.
Twas scented wine, and rich Damascus cakes;
On these he feasted, and fell sudden down,
Rolling and panting in his dying pangs,
A poisoned desert dog!
“But I had fled.
A swift ship bore me, which my forecast long
Had kept prepared against such need as this.
Over the waves three days she proudly rode;
Then came a mighty storm, and trampled all
Her masted bravery flat, and still drove on
The wave-swept ruin towards a reefy shore!
Meanwhile amongst the terror-stricken crew
An ominous murmur went from mouth to mouth;
They grouped themselves in councils, and, ere long,
Grew loud and furious with surmises wild,
And maniac menaces, all aimed at me!
My fugitive head it was at which so loud
The thunder bellowed! The wild-shrieking winds
And roaring waters held in vengeful chase
Me only! Me! Whose signal crimes alone
Had brought on us this anger of the gods!
And thus reproaching me with glaring eyes,
They would have seized and slain me, but I sprang
Back from amongst them, and, outstriking, stabbed
With sudden blow their leader to the heart;
Then, with my poniard scaring off the rest,
Leaped from the deck, and swimming reached the shore,
From which, in savage triumph, I beheld
The battered ship, with all her howling crew,
Heel, and go down, amid the whelming waves.
“Inland my course now lay for many days,
O’er barren hills and glens, whose herbless scopes
Never grew luminous with a water gleam,
227
Or heard the pleasant bubble of a brook,
For vast around the Afric desert stretched.
Starving and sun-scorched and afire with thirst,
I wandered ever on, until I came
To where, amid the dun and level waste,
In frightful loneliness, a mouldered group
Of ancient tombs stood ghostly. Here at last,
Utterly spent, in my despair I lay
Down on the burning sand, to gasp and die!
When from among the stones a withered man,
Old-seeming as the desert where he lived,
Came and stood by me, saying ‘get thee up!
Not much have I to give, but these at least
I offer to thy need, water and bread.’
“Then I arose and followed to his cell,—
A dismal cell, that seemed itself a tomb,
So lightless was it, and so foul with damp,
And at its entrance there were skulls and bones.
Long and deep drank I of the hermit’s draught,
And munched full greedily the hermit’s bread;
But with the strength which thence my frame derived,
Fierce rage devoured me, and I cursed my fate!
Whereat the withered creature laughed in scorn,
And mocked me with the malice of his eyes,
That sometimes, like a snake’s, shrank small, and then
Enlarging blazed as with infernal fire!
Then, on a sudden, with an oath that seemed
To wake a stir in the grey musty tombs,
As if their silence shuddered, he averred
That he could life me once more to the height
Of all my wishes—nay, even higher, but
On one condition only. Dared I swear,
By the dread angel of the second death,
I would be wholly his, both body and soul,
After a hundred years?
“Why should I not?
I answered, quivering with a stormy haste,
A rampart unreluctance! For so great
Was still my fury against all mankind,
And my desire of pomp and riches yet
228
So monstrous, that I felt I could have drunk
Blood, fire, or worse, to wear again the power
That fortune, working through my enemies’ hands,
Had stript away from me. So, word by word,
I swore the oath as he repeated it;
Nor much it moved me, in my eagerness,
To feel a damp and earthy odour break
Out of each tomb, from which there darkling rose
At every word a hissing as of snakes;
And yet the fell of hair upon my scalp
Rose bristling under a cold creeping thrill:
But I failed not, I swore the dread oath through,
And then the tombs grew silent as their dead.
But through my veins a feeling of strong youth
Coursed bold along, and summered in my heart,
Till there before him in my pride I stood
In stately strength, and swift as is the wind,
Magnificant as a desert-nurtured steed
Of princeliest pedigree, with nostrils wide
Dilated, and with eyes effusing flame.
‘Begone,’ he said, ’and live thy hundred years
Of splendour, power, pleasure, ease.’ His voice
Sighed off into the distance. He was gone:
Only a single raven, far aloft,
Was beating outwards with its sable wings;
The tombs had vanished, and the desert grey
Merged its whole circle with the bending sky.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part III.
“OUT of these wilds to Egypt I returned:
Men thought that I had perished with the ship,
And no one knew me now, because my face
And form were greatly changed,—from passing fair
To fairer yet; from manly, to a pile
So nobly built, that in all eyes I seemed
Beauteous as Thammuz! And my heart was changed;
Ambition wilder than a leopard’s thirst
229
For blood of roe, or flying hart, possessed
My spirit, like the madness of a god!
But this I yet even in its fiercest strain
Could curb and guide with sovereign strength of will.
From small beginnings onward still I worked,
Stepping as up a stair from rival head
To rival head,—from high to higher still,
Unto the loftiest post that might be held
Under the Ptolemies; and meantime paid
Each old unsettled score, defeating those
Who erst had worked against me, sweeping them
Out of all posts, all places; for though time
And change had wide dispersed them through the land,
The sleuth-hounds of my vengeance found them out!
Which things not being in a corner done,
What wonder was it that all Egypt now,
From end to end, even like a shaken hive,
Buzzed as disturbed with my portentous fame?
“And what to me were secret enemies?
Had I not also spies, who could pin down
A whisper in the dark and keep it there?
Could dash a covert frown by the same means
An open charge had challenged? Hence my name
Became a sound that struck through every heart
Ineffable dismay! And yet behold
There more I trampled on mankind, the more
Did fawning flatterers praise me as I swept
Like a magnificant meteor through the land!
The more I hurled the mighty from their seats,
And triumphed o’er them prostrate in the dust,
The human hounds that licked my master hand
But multiplied the more! And still I strode
From bad to worse, corrupting as I went,
Making the lowly ones more abject yet;
Awing as with a thunder-bearing hand
The high and affluent; while I bound the strong
To basest service, even with chains of gold.
All hated, cursed and feared me, for in vain
Daggers were levelled at my brazen heart—
They glanced, and slew some minion at my side
Poison was harmless as a heifer’s milk
When I had sipped it with my lips of scorn;
230
All that paraded pomp and smiling power
Could draw against me from the envious hearts
Of men in will as wicked as myself
I challenged, I encountered, and o’erthrew!
“But, after many years, exhaustion sere
Spread through the branches of my tree of life;
My forces flagged, my senses more and more
Were blunted, and incapable of joy;
The splendours of my rank availed me not;
A poverty as naked as a slave’s
Peered from them mockingly. The pride of power
That glowed so strong within me in my youth
Was now like something dying at my heart.
To cheat or stimulate my jaded taste,
Feasts, choice or sumptuous, were devised in vain;
there was disfavour, there was fraud within,
Like that which filled the fair-appearing rind
Of those delusive apples that of old
Grew on the Dead Sea shore.
“And yet, though thus
All that gave pleasure to my younger life
Was withering from my path like summer grass,
I still had one intense sensation, which
Grew ever keener as my years increased—
A hatred of mankind; to pamper which
I gloated, with a burning in my soul,
Over their degradation; and like one
Merry with wine, I revelled day by day
In scattering baits that should corrupt them more:
The covetous I sharpened into thieves,
Urged the vindictive, hardened the malign,
Whetted the ruffian with self-interest,
And flung him then, a burning brand, abroad.
And the decadence of the state in which
My fortunes had recast me, served me well.
Excess reeled shameless in the court itself,
Or, staggering thence, was rivalled by the wild
Mad looseness of the crowd. Down to its death
The old Greek dynasty was sinking fast;
Waste and pale want, extortion, meanness, fraud—
231
These, welling outwards from the throne itself,
Spread through the land.
“But now there seized my soul
A new ambition—from his feeble throne
To hurl the king, and mount thereon myself!
To this end still I lured him into ill,
And daily wove around him cunning snares,
That reached and trammelled too his fawning court;
And all went well, the end at last was near,
But in my triumph one thing I forgot—
My name was measured. At a banquet held
In the king’s chamber, lo! A guest appeared,
Chief of a Bactrian tribe, who tendered gold
To pay for some great wrong his desert horde
Had done our caravans; his age, men said,
Was wonderful; his craft more wondrous still;
For this his fame had spread through many lands,
And the dark seekers of forbidden lore
Knew his decrepit wretch to be their lord.
“The first glance that I met of his weird eye
Had sent into my soul a fearful doubt
That I had seen that cramp-shrunk withered form
And strange bright eye in some forgotten past.
But at the dry croak of his raven voice
Remembrance wok; I knew that I beheld
The old man of the tombs: I saw, and fell
Into the outer darkness of despair.
The day that was to close my dread account
Was come at last. The long triumphant feast
Of life had ended in a funeral treat.
I was to die—to suffer with the damned
The hideous torments of the second death!
The days, weeks, months of a whole hundred years
Seemed crushed into a thought, and burning out
In that brief period which was left me now.
“Stung with fierce horror, shame, and hate I fled;
I seized my sword, to plunge its ready point
Into my maddened heart, but on my arm
I felt a strong forbidding grasp! I turned;
232
The withered visage of the Bactrian met
My loathing eyes; I struggled to be free
From the shrunk wretch in vain; his spidery hands
Were strong as fetters of Ephesian brass,
And all my strength, though now with madness strung,
Was as a child’s to his. He calmly smiled:
‘Forbear, thou fool! Am I not Sammael?
Whom to resist is vain, and from whom yet
Has never mercy flowed; for what to me
Are feelings which thou knowest even in men
Are found the most in fools. But wide around
A prince of lies I reign. ’Tis I that fill
the Persian palaces with lust and wrong,
Till like the darkling heads of sewers they flow
With a corruption that in fretting thence
Taints all the region round with rankest ill;
’Tis I that clot the Bactrian sand with blood;
And now I come to fling the brands of war
Through all this people, this most ill-mixed mob,
Where Afric’s savage hordes meet treacherous Greeks,
And swarming Asia’s luxury-wasted sons.
This land throughout shall be a deluge soon
Of blood and fire, till ruin stalk alone,
A grisly spectre, in its grass-grown marts.’
The fiery eyes within his withered face
Glowed like live coals, as he triumphant spake,
And his strange voice, erewhile so thin and dry,
Came as if bellowed from the vaults of doom.
Prone fell I, powerless to move or speak;
And now he was about to plunge me down
Ten thousand times ten thousand fathoms deep
Through the earth’s crust, and through the slimy beds
Of nether ocean—down! Still down, below
The darkling roots of all this upper world
Into the regions of the courts of hell!
“To stamp me downward to the convict dead
His heel was raised, when suddenly I heard
Him heave a groan of superhuman pain,
So deep twas drawn! And as he groaned, I saw
A mighty downburst of celestial light
233
Enwrap his shrivelled form from head to foot,
As with a robe within whose venomous folds
He writhed in torment. Then above him stood
A shining shape, unspeakably sublime,
And gazed upon him! One of the high sons
Of Paradise, who still keep watch and ward
O’er Israel’s progeny, where’er dispersed;
And now they fought for me with arms that filled
The air wide round with flashes and swift gleams
Of dazzling light; full soon the Evil One
Fell conquered. Then forth sprang he from the ground
And with dark curses wrapped him in a cloud
That moved aloft, low thundering as it went.
“And then the shining son of paradise
Came where I lay and spoke, his glorious face
Severe with wrath, and yet divinely fair—
‘O Child of Guilt! Should vengeance not be wrought
On thee as well? On Sammael’s willing slave?’
I clasped his radiant knees—I wept—I groaned—
I beat my bosom in my wild distress.
At last the sacred Presence, who had held
The blow suspended still, spoke thus: ‘Thou’rt spared;
From no weak pity, but because thou art
Descended from the line of Israel:
For that cause spared;—yet must thou at my hand
Find some meet punishment.’ And as he spake,
He laid his hand with a life-crushing weight
Upon my forehead—and I fell, as dead!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part IV.
“AWAKING as from sleep, I bounded up,
Stung with a feeling of enormous strength,
Though yet half wild with horror. Onward then
Ramping I went, out through the palace gates,
Down the long streets, and into the highways,
Forth to the wilds, amazed at my own speed!
234
And now afar, in long-drawn line appeared
A caravan upon its outward way
Over the desert of Pentapolis.
And strange the instinct seemed that urged me then
to rush amongst them—and devour: for I
Was fierce with hunger, and inflamed with thirst.
“Amidst a laggard company I leaped
That rested yet beside a cooling spring;
One of those clear springs that, like giant pearls,
Inlay the burning borders of the grey
Enormous desert. All at once they rose!
Some fled, some threw themselves amongst the brakes,
Some seized their swords and lances; this to see
Filled me at once with a mysterious rage
And savage joy! The sternness of their looks,
Their fearful cries, the gleaming of their spears
Seemed to insult me, and I rushed on them.
Then sudden spasms of pain searched deep my side,
Wherein a fell lance quivered. On I rushed;
I roared a roar that startled e’en myself,
So loud and hoarse and terrible its tone,
Then bounding, irresistible it seemed
As some huge fragment from a crag dislodged,
Against the puny wretch that sent the lance,
Instantly tore him, as he were a kid,
All into gory shreds! The others fled
At sight of this, nor would I chase them then,
All wearied by my flight. Besides, the well
Was gleaming in its coolness by me there.
“And as I stooped to quench my parching thirst,
Behold, reversed within the water clear,
The semblance of a monstrous lion stood!
I saw his shaggy mane, I saw his red
And glaring eyeballs rolling in amaze,
His rough and grinning lips, his long sharp fangs
All foul with gore and hung with strings of flesh!
I shrank away in horrible dismay.
But as the sun each moment fiercer grew,
I soon returned to stoop and slake my thirst.
Again was that tremendous presence there
Standing reversed, as erewhile, in the clear
235
And gleaming mirror of the smiling well!
The horrid truth smote like a rush of fire
Upon my brain! The dreadful thing I saw
Was my own shadow! I was a wild beast.”
“They did not fable, then, who held that oft
The guilty dead are punished in the shapes
Of beasts, if brutal were their lives as men.”
“Long lapped I the cool lymph, while still my tongue
Made drip for drip against the monstrous one,
Which, as in ugly mockery, from below
Seemed to lap up against it. But though thirst
Was quenched at length, what was there might appease
The baffled misery of my fated soul?
The thought that I no more was human, ran
Like scorpion venom through my mighty frame;
Fiercely I bounded, tearing up the sands,
That, like a drab mist, coursed me as I went
Out on my homeless track. I made my fangs
Meet in my flesh, trusting to find in pain
Some respite from the anguish of regret.
From morn to night, from night to morn, I fled,
Chased by the memory of my lost estate;
Then, worn and bleeding, in the burning sands
I lay down, as to die. In vain!—in vain!
The savage vigour of my lion-life
Might yield alone to the long tract of time.
“From hill to valley rushing after prey,
With whirlwind speed, was now my daily wont,
For all things fled before me—all things shrank
In mortal terror at my shaggy front.
Sometimes I sought those close-fenced villages,
Wherein the desert-dwellers hide their swart
And naked bodies from the scorching heats,
Hoping that I might perish by their shafts.
And often was I wounded—often bore
Their poisoned arrows in my burning flesh—
But still I lived.
“The tenor of my life
236
Was always this—the solitary state
Of a wild beast of prey, that hunted down
The antelope, the boar, the goat, the gorged
Their quivering flesh, and lapped their steaming blood;
Then slept till hunger, or the hunter’s cry,
Roused him again to battle or to slay,
To flight, pursuit, blood, stratagem, and wounds.
And to make this rude life more hideous yet,
I still retained a consciousness of all
The nobler habits of my eariler time,
And had a keen sense of what most had moved
My nature as a man, and knew besides
That this my punishment was fixed by One
Too mighty to be questioned, and too just
One tittle of its measure to remit.
“How long this haggard course of life went on
I might not even guess, for I had lost
The human faculty that measures time.
But still from night to night I found myself
Roaming the desert, howling at the moon,
Whose cold light always, as she poured it down,
Awoke a drear distemper in my brain:
But much I shunned the sunblaze, which at once
Inflamed me, and revealed my dread approach.
“Homelessly roaming thus for evermore,
The tempests beat on my unsheltered bulk,
In those bleak seasons when the drenching rains
Drove into covert all those gentler beasts
That were my natural prey. I swinkt beneath
The furnace heats of the midsummer sun,
When even the palm of the oasis stood
All withered, like a weed: and for how long,
Yet knew not.
“Thus the sun and moon arose
Through an interminable tract of time,
And yet though sense was dim, the view of all
My human life was ever at my beck,
Nay, opened out before me of itself
Plain as the pictures in a wizard’s glass!
237
I saw again the trains that round my car
Streamed countless, saw its pageants and its pomps,
Its faces fair and passionate, and felt
Lie’s eager pleasures, even its noble pangs!
Then in the anguish of my goaded heart
Would I roll howling in the burning sand.
“At length this life of horror seemed to near
Its fated bourn. The slow but sure approach
Of old decay was felt in every limb
And every function of my lion frame.
My massive strength seemed spent, my speed was gone,
The antelope escaped me! Wearily
I sought a mountain cavern, shut from day
By savage draperies of tangled briers,
And only dragged my tardy bulk abroad
When hunger urged. It chanced on such a day
I sprange amid a herd of buffaloes
And tore their leader down, who bellowing fell.
When, lo! The chief of those that drove them came
Against me, and I turned my rage on him:
But though the long lapse of so many years
Of ever-grinding wretchedness had dulled
My memory, I felt that I had seen
His withered visage twice before; and straight
A shuddering awe subdued me, and I crouched
Beneath him in the dust. My lust of blood,
My ruthless joy at sight of mortal pain,
Within me died, and if in human speech
I might have told the wild desire that filled
My being, I had prayed him once for all
To crush me out of life, and to consign
My misery to the pit of final death!
But when, all hopeless, I again looked up,
The tawney presence of the desert chief
Was gone, and I beheld the shining son
Of paradise, from whose majestic brow
There flashed the lightings of a wrath divine.
Yea, twas the angel that with Sammael
Had fought for me in Egypt; and once more
He laid his crushing had upon my front;
And earth and sky, and all that in them is,
238
Became to me a darkness, swimming blank
In the Eternal, round that point where now
My body lay, stretched dead upon the sand.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part V.
“AGAIN I lived—again I felt. But now
The winds of heaven seemed under me, and I
Was sweeping, like the spirit of a storm
That bellowed round me, in its murky glooms,
All heaving with a motion wide and swift
That seemed yet mightier than the darkling swells
Of ocean, wrestling with a midnight gale!
The wild winds tossed me; I was drenched throughout
With heavy moisture, and at intervals
Amid the ragged gaps of moving cloud,
Methought I caught dim glimpses of the sun
Hanging aloft, as if in drear eclipse;
But as my senses cleared, I saw my limbs
Were clothed with plumage; and long-taloned claws
Were closing eagerly with fierce desire
And sudden hunger after blood and prey!
An impulse to pursue and to destroy
Both on the earth and in the air, ran quick
Out from my heart and shivered in my wings;
And as a thing more central yet, I felt
Pregnant within me, throned o’er all, a lone
And sullen, yet majestic, glow of pride.
“’Twas plain that I, who had aforetime been
Crushed out of human being into that
Of a wild beast, had thence again passed on
Into the nature of some mighty thing
That now swept sailing on wide van-like wings,
Amid the whirls of an aërial gloom,
That out extending in one mighty cope
Hung heaving, like a black tent-roof, o’er all
The floor of Africa.
239
“Still on I swept,
And still as far as my keen vision went,
That now was gifted with a power that seemed
To pierce all space, I saw the vapours roll
In dreadful continuous of black
And shapeless masses, by the winds convulsed;
But soon in the remotest distance came
A change: the clouds were touched with sunny light,
And, as I nearer drew, I saw them dash,
Like the wild surges of an uproused sea
Of molten gold, against the marble sides
Of lofty mountains, which, though far below
My flight, yet pierced up through them all, and stood
With splintered cones and monster-snouted crags,
Immovable as fate. Beneath me, lo!
The grandeur of the kingdom of the air
Was circling in its magnitude! It was
A dread magnificence of which before
I might not even dream. I saw its quick
And subtle interchange of forms and hues,
Saw its black reservoirs of densest rain,
Its awful forges of the thunderstorm.
“At last, as onward still I swept, above
A milky mass of vapour far outspread,
Behold, reflected in its quiet gleam,
I saw an image that swept on with me,
Reversed as was the lion’s in the well,
With van-like wings, with eyeballs seething fire,
With taloned claws, and cruel down-bent beak,—
The mightiest eagle that had ever sailed
The seas of space since Adam named the first!
“My fated soul had passed into the form
Of that huge eagle which swept shadowed there.
Cold horror thrilled me! I was once again
Imprisoned in the being of a brute,
In the base being of a nature yet
Inferior by what infinite descent
To that poor remnant of intelligence
Which still kept with me,—like a put-back soul
Burningly conscious of its powers foregone,
240
Its inborn sovreignty of kind, and yet
So latent, self-less; once again to live
A life of carnage, and to sail abroad
A terror to all birds and gentle beasts
That heard the stormy rushings of my wings!
A royal bird indeed, who lived alone
In the great stillness of the mighty hills,
Or in the highest heavens.
“But in truth
Not much for many seasons had I need
To search for prey, for countless hosts of men,
Forth mustering over all the face of earth,
Cast the quick gleam of arms o’er trampled leagues
Of golden corn, and as they onward marched
They left behind them seas of raging fire,
In whose red surges cities thronged with men
And happy hamlets, homes of health and peace,
That rang erewhile with rural thankfulness,
Were whelmed in one wide doom; or in their strength
Confronted upon some set field of fight,
Their sullen masses charged with dreadful roar
That far out-yelled the fiercest yells of beasts,
And with brute madness rushed on wounds and death;
Or else about fenced cities they would pitch
Their crowded camps, and leaguer them for years,
Sowing the fields about them with a slime
Of carnage, till their growths were plagues alone.
What is the ravage made by brutes on brutes
To that man makes on man?
“With mingled pain
And joy I saw the wondrous ways of men,
(For ever when I hungered, close at hand,
Some fresh slain man lay smoking in his gore)
And though the instincts of the eagle’s life
Were fierce within me, yet I felt myself
Cast in a lot more capable of joy;
Safe from pursuit, from famine, and from wounds.
Some solaces, though few and far between,
Were added to me; and I argued thence,
In the dark musings of my eagle heart,
241
That not for ever was my soul condemned
To suffer in the body of a brute;
For though remembrance of the towering crimes
And matchless lusts, that filled my whole career
Of human life, worked in me evermore,
No longer did they shed about my life
So venomous a blight. Nay, I could think
How often I had looked with longing eyes
Up at the clear Egyptian heavens, and watched
The wings that cleft them, envying every bird
That, soaring in the sunshine, seemed to be
Exempt from all the grovelling cares of men.
I thought how once, when with my hunting train
I pierced that region round the cataracts,
I watched an eagle as it rose aloft
Into the lovely blue, and wished to change
My being with it as it floated on,
So inaccessible to hate or hurt,
So peaceful, at a height in heaven so safe;
And then it passed away through gorgeous clouds
Against the sunset, through the feathered flags
Of royal purple edged with burning gold.
“These fields of space were my dominion now;
Motion alone within a world so rich
Was something noble: but to move at will,
Upward or forward, or in circles vast,
Through boundless spaces with a rushing speed
No living thing might rival, and to see
The glory of the everlasting hills
Beneath me, and the myriad-peopled plains,
Broad rivers, and the towery towns that sate
Beside their spacious mouths, with out beyond
The lonely strength of the resounding seas—
This liberty began to move my sense
As something godlike; and in moving made
A sure impression that kept graining still
Into the texture of my brute estate—
Yea, graining in through all its fleshy lusts
And savage wonts.
“Hence ever more and more
242
The temper of a better spirit grew
Within me, as from inkling roots, and moved
E’en like an embryon in its moist recess:
A sensibility to beauteous things
As now I saw them in the heavens displayed,
And in the bright luxuriance of the earth;
Some power of just comparison, some sense
Of how a man would rank them, could he see
Those earthly grandeurs from the sovreign height
Whence I beheld them. And with this a wish
To commune even with the human race,
And pour the loftier wonders of my life
Into their ears, through a rich-worded song
Whose golden periods in mellow flow
Should witch all ears that heard them—ev’n old men s,
Ev’n jaded monarchs; not to speak of theirs,
Those spirit-lovely ones—yea, moons of love,
That rise at first in the Circassian hills—
And they should tingle all like tiny shells
Of roseate whiteness to its perfect chords.
“One day amid the mountains of the moon,
Behold a sudden storm had gatherd up
Out of my view, hid by a neighbouring height,
But which, thence wheeling with terrific force,
Wide tossed me with its gusts—aloft, and then
Downward as far; then whirlingly about,
Ev’n like a withered leaf. My strength of wing
Availed me nought, so mightily it raged;
Then suddenly, in the dim distance, lo!
I saw, as from the storm’s Plutonian heart,
A mass of white-hot light come writing forth,
And then the figure of a withered man
Seemed dropping headlong through the lurid clouds;
While full within the radiant light, again
The conquering son of paradise appeared,
Upon whose brow divine I yet might trace
Some sing of wrath. Onward the vision rushed,
Orbed in white light. I felt a stifling heat,
One cruel blasting pang, and headlong then
Fell earthward—dead; a plumb descending mass.
243
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part VI.
“WITHIN a rustic chamber, dark and low,
Thronged with wild-looking men and women strange,
I seemed to waken. Inwardly I felt
No briskness of existence, but a sense
Of languor rather, or revival slow:
And evermore the men and women came
And gazed upon me, shouting in amaze,
Then would they whirl about the room in dance,
Abandoned to their barbarous delight.
“I turned mine eyes about the low-roofed room,
Half fearing and half hoping I might see
The mighty angel that now ruled my life;
They thought I needed air, and I was borne
to a low casement. Like a picture lay
The world without. On all sides wide around
Nothing but mountains, feathered to their tops
With a dense growth of pines, and valleys filled
With a cold darkness that was lit alone
By the broad flashes of the furious streams
That leaped in thunder our of marble gaps!
Dull vapours, like a canopy of smoke,
Did so obscure the sun, that I had thought
The scene that now I saw was not of earth,
But for a golden flush that now and then
Would touch the highest ranges. What I was
I knew not, but I felt my former wants,
And oft I made vain efforts to expand
The wings I had no longer, and sail off,
And through those sullen vapours—up, and up—
Into the mighty silence of the blue.
“The day was fading, and a blare of horns,
With many voices and much trampling noise,
Heard from without, aroused me; and, ere long,
Women rushed in, each bearing some rich robe
Or some gay bauble, wherewithal they next
244
Arrayed me to their taste; and then they held
A mirror up before me, and I saw
My soul had this time passed into the form
Of a fair damsel. She, whose form I now
Re-animated, was—so learned I soon—
The only child of a Circassian chief,
Who had been long regarded by her house
As its chief treasure, for her beauty rare;
Reserved for him, no matter whence he came,
Whose hand could dip into the longest purse.
But envy lurks in the Circassian hills
As elsewhere, and a dose of opium,
Administered by one who had been long
The rival beauty of a neighbouring tribe,
Had served to quash a bargain quite complete
Save in the final payment of the gold,
Which had been even offered and told down,
And only not accepted, through some old
Delaying ceremony of the tribe;
And in this luckless circumstances, twas plain
That both my admirable parents saw
The unkindest turn of all.
“On all hands forth
Had scouts been sent to summon the whole tribe
To attend my obsequies, and then forthwith
Exterminate our ancient enemies
Through all their tents—such was the fierce resolve.
But while these things were pending, lo! The light
Had broken like a new morn from the eyes
Of the dead beauty; on her cheeks had dawned
A roseate colour; from her moistening lips
Low murmurs, too, had broken; whereupon
My parents in exulting hope transformed
The funeral to a general tribal feast,
And loaded me with all the ancient gauds
And ornaments they held. The Persian, too,
Had been invited to renew his suit,
And carry me at once beyond the reach
Of future opium doses.
“Soon he came
245
Galloping back to bear me to the arms
Of his long-bearded lord. He paid the price;
My worthy parents took a fond farewell
Of me, with tears declaring me to be
The life-light of their eyes, their rose of joy,—
Then stretched their palms out for the stranger’s gold,
And hurried off to count it o’er again—
The dear recovered treasure they so late
Had mourned as lost for ever. On that night
I was packed neatly on a camel’s back
Beside a precious case of porcelain pipes,
And carried Persia-ward, by stages safe,
From the Circassian mountains.
“At the court
I soon became the favourite of the king;
Lived sumptuously, but in perpetual fear:
For all my luxury and gold and gems,
I envied the poor slaves who swept the floors.
I was the favourite of my Persian lord
For one whole month, perhaps a little more,
And then I learned my place was to be filled;
And though I loathed him, as we loathe some cold
And reptile creature, yet I could not bear
To see a newer rival take my place,
For I was beautiful, and therefore vain:
So, that I might regain his favour past,
I now arrayed myself in airy robes,
While scarfs of purple like an orient queen’s
Barred them with brilliant tints, and gold and pearls
Confined the wavelets of my sunny hair.
“The harem all applauded, and there seemed
Even in his own dull eyes almost a flash
As of extorted joy, but this became
At the next moment a malignant scowl,
Which had its dark cause in such thoughts as these:
‘What! Did so soft and ignorant a thing
Hope to enchant again a man so wise
As he was—he! The paragon of kings!
By floating in before him like a swan,
A little better feathered than before?’
246
And then he waved the harem ladies forth,
And with him kept only a Nubian girl,
Whom he thought dull, and altogether his:
A conclave of those strange demoniac dwarfs
Who from their secret dens and crypts would come
On given signals forth, was summoned in:
Wizard-like beings, with enormous heads,
Splay-feet, and monstrous spider-fingered hands.
Nor was the council long; I on that night
Was to be poisoned with a pomegranate.
Then stole the Nubian girl away, and brought
Me word of all; yet her news moved me not,
So sure I felt that this was not my doom;
Or moved me only to prepare for flight
With the poor Nubian girl. Unseen I came
To my own chamber, where I packed my goods;
And whence, unseen by all, we swiftly fled.
’Twas plain and patent to my inmost self
That in this last change I had always been
Regenerating more and more; for though
I had a love of mischief in my head,
At heart I was not bad, and they who knew
Me closely, or at least the woman sort,
Loved me,—nay, served me, as the Nubian did.
And now, as no one else might sell me,—lo!
I sold myself, and found myself installed
Queen of a rude baboon-like Afric king.
“Then I was captive to a Bedouin sheik,
Was sold in the slave-mart of Astrachan,
And carried thence to India, to be crowned
A rajahpoot’s sultana; from which state
Flying at length, I fell into a worse,
Being pounced on by a Turkoman horse-stealer.
At Alexandra I became the slave
Of a harsh Roman matron, who was wont
To flog and famish me to make me good,
And when I owned myself converted, then
She flogged and famished me the more, to make
My goodness lasting; and I finally
Fell stabbed in Cairo—slaughtered by a slave.
247
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part VII.
“AFTER some short and intermediate terms
Of transmigration, all in female forms,
In which, through kindly offices performed,
It seemed the temper of my spirit much
Had humanized, and in the last of which
Twas mine to die for once a natural death,
Again I had some deep-down hold on being,
Dim as an oyster’s in its ocean-bed;
Then came a sense of light and air, of space,
Of hunger, comfort, warmth, of sight and sound
I caught at length the drift of speech, and knew
That all who came to see me and admire
Called me Ben Bachai’s daughter.
“Dark indeed,
But lovely as a starry night I grew,
A maid, the glory of her father’s house,
Her mother’s dovelet, filling all her wonts
With tenderness and joy. Still as I grew,
By strange degrees the memory of all
That I had been came back upon my mind
To fill it with wild sorrow and dismay;
To know I was a cheat, nor wholly what
I seemed to my fond parents—that I was
But half their daughter, and the rest a fiend,
With a fiend’s destiny,—ah! This, I say,
Would smite me even in dreams with icy pangs
Or wordless woe, yea, even while I slept
So innocently as it seemed, and so
Securely happy in the arms of love!”
As this was said, the Rabbi looked, and saw
That now again the woman seemed to speak
As of herself, and not as heretofore
With moveless lips, and prisoned voice, that came
As from some dark duality within.
248
Her looks had changed, too, with the voice, and now
Again she lay, a queen-like creature, racked
With mortal sufferings, who, when these grew less,
Or for a time remitted, even thus
Took up her tale again.
“At length upgrown
To womanhood, by some mysterious pact
Existing twixt my father’s house and that
Of an Arabian prince time out of mind,
I was now wedded ere I wished, and he,
My husband, finally had come to claim
And bear me from my home, that happiest home
Which I should know no more: a man most fair
To look upon, but void of force, in truth
The weakling of a worn-out line, who yet
(What merit in a prince!) Was not depraved,
Not wicked, not the mendicant of lust,
But mild, and even affectionate and just.
My dowry was immense, and flushed with this
The prince had summoned from his vassal tribe
Five hundred horse, all spearmen, to escort
And guard us desert-ward. And as we went
These ever and anon, at signal given,
Would whirl around us like a thunder-cloud
Wind-torn, and shooting instant shafts of fire!
And thus we roamed about the Arabian wastes,
Pitching our camp amid the fairest spots.
Beneath an awning oft I lay, and gazed
Out at the cloudless ether, where it wrapt
The silent hills, like to a conscious power
Big with the soul of an eternal past.
“But long this life might last not, for the prince
Sickened and died;—died poor, his wealth and mine
Having been squandered on the hungry horde
That wont to prance about us; who ere long,
Divining my extremity, grew loud
And urgent for rewards, till on a day,
By concert as it seemed, the tribe entire
Came fiercely round me, all demanding gifts,
Gifts that I had not; as they nearer pressed,
249
Wearing his way among them, lo! I saw
The old man of the tombs! The Bactrian sage!
With signs of awe they made him room to pass;
He fixed me with his shrunk and serpent eyes,
Waved off the abject Arabs, and then asked
‘Why art thou poor? With needs so great upon thee?
I offer thee long life and wealth and power.’
“I turned to him and said: ‘Should I not know,
By all the past, the nature of thy gifts?
Shows and delusions, evil, sin-stained all,
And terminating in eternal loss.’
‘Well, take it as thou wilt,’ he said; ‘my gifts
Are not so weighed by all.’ And saying this
He went his way, while I retired within
My lonely tent to weep.
“Next day the tribes
Again assembled, and with threats and cries,
And insults loud, they raised a passion in me.
My blood arose: I chid them angrily,
Called them all things but men, till they, alarmed,
Fell back in sullen silence for a while,
Crouching like tigers ready for a spring.
Humbled, perplexed, and frightened, I returned
Into my tent, and there within its folds
Stood the weird Bactrian with his snaky eyes,
And wiry voice that questioned as before:
‘Why art thou poor? Why dost thou suffer wrong,
With all this petty baseness brattling round?
Am I not here to help thee? I, thy one
Sole friend—not empty, but with ample means.
Behold the secrets of the inner earth!
There, down among the rock-roots of the hills,
What seest thou there? Look, as I point, even those
Strange miscreations, as they seem to thee,
Are demoniac moilers that obey
Such arts as I possess; the gnomish brood
Of Demogorgon. See them how they moil
Amid those diamonds shafts and reefs of gold
Embedded in the oldest drifts of time,
And in the mire that was the first crude floor
250
And blind extension of the infant earth:
Why art thou poor, then, when such slaves as they
Might work for thee, and glut thy need with all
The matchless values which are there enwombed,
Serving thee always as they now serve me?
Nor these alone: turn thou thy looks aloft,
And watch the stars as they go swimming past.
Behold their vastness, each a world,’ he said;
‘The secrets of all these, too, thou shalt know,
The spirits of all these shall be thy slaves,
If thou wilt swear as erst amid the tombs.’
“The woe of desolation wrapped me round,
The joy to know all mysteries tempted me,
And with a shudder that shook me to the soul
I swore, as erst I swore amid the tombs.
“As on my hand he placed a signet-ring,
Suddenly loud the desert winds arose,
And blew with mighty stress among the tents;
And instantly aloft the thunder ran,
A mighty issue of miraculous light
Burst shaft-like forward, smiting him in twain,
Or so it seemed, down through the solid earth.
In vain I shrunk into a dim recess;
Before me stood the son of paradise.
Then leapt the soul to life within my heart—
Leapt into life with fear, and pain, and woe—
Anger and sadness both were on his brow.
“‘Could’st thou no trial bear—all but redeemed;
Could’st thou not rest content? A rabbi’s child!
Enjoy as best thou may this ill-won power
Over the darker agencies of time,
And bide the end, which end is punishment
But the more terrible, the more delayed;
Yet know this also, thou shalt thus no more
Be punished in a body built of clay.’
He vanished, leaving me to sharp remorse,
And harrowed with the thought of his grieved look.
‘And yet no power in heaven or hell,’ I said,
‘May now annul my deed.’
251
“And not one day
Of joy has brought to me my ‘ill-won power.’
I built vast palaces in quiet view
Of ancient cities, or by famous streams;
I filled my halls with men and women fair,
And with these pages of a beauty rare
Like striplings kidnapped from some skirt of heaven;
Yet sorrowful of countenance withal,
As knowing that their mortal doom is joined
With mine irrevocably, that with me
’Tis theirs to own these shows of time, with me
To live—with me to die. And as, ’tis said,
A hunted roe will evermore beat round
Towards whence he started first, I felt at length
An ardent longing for my native place;
That spot in all the earth where only I,
In tasting of it, had divined the worth
And Sabbath quality of household peace.
Then coming hither, thus constrained, I pitched
My dwelling here, even this thou seest; built fair,
And filled with splendours such as never yet
Under one roof-tree on this earth were stored.
See yon surpassing lustres! Could this orb
Show such? From Mars came that; from Venus this;
And yonder mass of sun-bright glory, that
From Mercury came, whence came these viols, too,
Instinct with fervent music such as ne’er
From earthly instruments might thrill abroad.”
Then seizing one of them, even as she spake,
Over its chords she moved her ivory hand,
And instantly the palace domes throughout
Rang resonant, as every hall and crypt
Were pulsing music from a thousand shells
That still ran confluent with a mellow slide
And intercourse of cadence: sweet, and yet
Most mournful and most weird, and oft intoned
With a wild wilfulness of power that worked
For madness more than joy. “Even such, ” she said
“Are the delights with which I most converse
In the dark loneness of my fated soul,
252
For all is show, not substance. All I hold
But darkens more the certainty I have
Of wrath to come, from which no change of place,
No earthly power, no power of heaven nor hell,
May shield me now. I see it shadowing forth
Even like a coming night, in whose dark folds
My soul would ask to hide itself in vain.
And now I go to meet the angel’s face;
I will not claim my hundred years of pride,
I trample underneath my feet the gift
For which I sold my soul; I will not touch
The ring of Sammael, nor use his power
To stay the torments that devour my life;
Misery, shame, remorse, and dread are mine;
Yet shall the angel see repentent eyes,
And know at last I could one trial bear;
Too late, too late.”
As thus the woman spake,
Her brow grew dark, and suddenly she shrieked
In her great agony. “Oh pray for me!
Pray, rabbi! For the daughter of thy friend!
The hour is coming, nay, the hour is come!”
There was a rustle as of wings aloft,
A sudden flicker in the lights below,
And she, who until now seemed speaking, sank
Back on her pillow and in silence lay
Beautiful in the marble calm of death.
The rabbi gazed on her, and thought the while
Of those far times, when, as a child, her grace
Had filled with pleasantness her father’s house.
Then to her servants gave in charge the corpse,
And forth he paced, much musing as he went.
At length he turned to gaze once more upon
The silent house of death. Can such things be?
All had evanished like a morning mist!
Only the woods that hung like clouds about
The steeps of Hebron, in the whitening dawn
Lay dark against the sky! Only a pool
Gleamed flat before him, where it seemed erewhile
The splendid palace had adorned the view!
253
Perplexed in mind, the rabbi turned again
And hurried homeward, muttering as he went:
Was it a vision? Can such marvels be?
But what in truth are all things, even those
That seem most solid—dust and air at last
~ Charles Harpur,#NFDB
22 Christianity
16 Occultism
10 Integral Theory
5 Science
4 Psychology
4 Poetry
2 Integral Yoga
1 Thelema
1 Philosophy
1 Baha i Faith
1 Alchemy
16 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
16 Aleister Crowley
4 Sri Aurobindo
3 Saint Augustine of Hippo
3 Carl Jung
10 The Phenomenon of Man
8 Liber ABA
8 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
7 Magick Without Tears
4 The Secret Doctrine
4 The Future of Man
3 The Bible
3 City of God
2 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
2 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The Qabalah is a trustworthy guide, leading to a comprehension both of the Universe and one's own Self. Sages have long taught that Man is a miniature of the Universe, containing within himself the diverse elements of that macrocosm of which he is the microcosm. Within the Qabalah is a glyph called the tree of life which is at once a symbolic map of the Universe in its major aspects, and also of its smaller counterpart, Man.
Manly P. Hall, in The Secret Teachings of All Ages, deplores the failure of modern science to "sense the profundity of these philosophical deductions of the ancients." Were they to do so, he says, they "would realize those who fabricated the structure of the Qabalah possessed a knowledge of the celestial plan comparable in every respect with that of the modern savant."
--
At this juncture let me call attention to one set of attri butions by Rittangelius usually found as an appendix attached to the Sepher Yetzirah. It lists a series of "Intelligences" for each one of the ten Sephiros and the twenty-two Paths of the tree of life. It seems to me, after prolonged meditation, that the common attri butions of these Intelligences is altogether arbitrary and lacking in serious meaning.
For example, Keser is called "The Admirable or the Hidden Intelligence; it is the Primal Glory, for no created being can attain to its essence." This seems perfectly all right; the meaning at first sight seems to fit the significance of Keser as the first emanation from Ain Soph. But there are half a dozen other similar attri butions that would have served equally well. For instance, it could have been called the "Occult Intelligence" usually attri buted to the seventh Path or Sephirah, for surely Keser is secret in a way to be said of no other Sephirah. And what about the "Absolute or Perfect Intelligence." That would have been even more explicit and appropriate, being applicable to Keser far more than to any other of the Paths. Similarly, there is one attri buted to the 16th Path and called "The Eternal or Triumphant Intelligence," so-called because it is the pleasure of the Glory, beyond which is no Glory like to it, and it is called also the Paradise prepared for the Righteous." Any of these several would have done equally well. Much is true of so many of the other attri butions in this particular area-that is the so-called Intelligences of the Sepher Yetzirah. I do not think that their use or current arbitrary usage stands up to serious examination or criticism.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
the consequent ruin of the tree of life.
Part 2 show the impossibility of stopping on the
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
V. You can, if you like, try to work out a progress of Osiris through Amennti on the tree of life, but I doubt whether you will get any satisfactory result.
It seems to me that you should confine yourself very closely to the actual work in front of you. At the present moment, of course, this includes a good deal of general study; but my point is that the terms employed in that study should always be capable of precise definition. I am not sure whether you have my Little Essays Toward Truth. The first essay in the book entitled "Man" gives a full account of the five principles which go to make up Man according to the Qabalistic system. I have tried to define these terms as accurately as possible, and I think you will find them, in any case, clearer than those to which you have become accustomed with the Eastern systems. In India, by the way, no attempt is ever made to use these vague terms. They always have a very clear idea of what is meant by words like "Buddhi," "Manas" and the like. Attempts at translation are very unsatisfactory. I find that even with such a simple matter as the "Eight limbs of Yoga," as you will see when you come to read my Eight Lectures.
--
There is thus no connection with the AA system and the tree of life. Of course, there are certain analogies.
Your suggested method of study: you have got my idea quite well. But nobody can "take you through" the Grades of AA. The Grades confirm your attainments as you make them; then, the new tasks appear. See One Star in Sight.
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
other branches of the tree of life. This would explain the fact
that "evolving Life," from the end of the Tertiary era, has been
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
two-faced tree of life and knowledge and its four streams. In the
Christian version it is also the heavenly city of the Apocalypse,
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Pardis Rimonim, and Sepher haZohar - is either mostly unintelligible or, at first sight, apparent nonsense to the ordinary " logical " person. But it contains as its ground plan that most precious jewel of human thought, that geometrical arrangement of Names, Numbers, Sym- bols, and Ideas called "The tree of life". It is called
20
--
He thereupon retired to the banks of the Nile, where he gave himself over exclusively to meditation and ascetic practices, receiving visions of an amazing character. He wrote a book outlining his conceptions of the theory of Reincar- nation ( haGilgolim ). A pupil of his. Rabbi Chayim Vital, produced a large work. The tree of life, based on the oral teachings of the Master, thereby giving a tremendous impetus to Qabalistic study and practice.
There are several Qabalists of varying degrees of impor- tance in the intervening period of post-Zoharic history.
1.02.3.3 - Birth and Non-Birth, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
the tree of life or inactive and simply regarding, there are two
possible states of conscious existence directly opposed to each
1.02 - The Human Soul, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
1.: BEFORE going farther, I wish you to consider the state to which mortal sin16' brings this magnificent and beautiful castle, this pearl of the East, this tree of life, planted beside the living waters of life17 which symbolize God Himself. No night can be so dark, no gloom nor blackness can compare to its obscurity. Suffice it to say that the sun in the centre of the soul, which gave it such splendour and beauty, is totally eclipsed, though the spirit is as fitted to enjoy God's presence as is the crystal to reflect the sun.18
2.: While the soul is in mortal sin nothing can profit it; none of its good works merit an eternal reward, since they do not proceed from God as their first principle, and by Him alone is our virtue real virtue. The soul separated from Him is no longer pleasing in His eyes, because by committing a mortal sin, instead of seeking to please God, it prefers to gratify the devil, the prince of darkness, and so comes to share his blackness. I knew a person to whom our Lord revealed the result of a mortal sin19' and who said she thought no one who realized its effects could ever commit it, but would suffer unimaginable torments to avoid it. This vision made her very desirous for all to grasp this truth, therefore I beg you, my daughters, to pray fervently to God for sinners, who live in blindness and do deeds of darkness.
1.02 - The Pit, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
It is this consideration which has led to the adoption of the Qabalistic " tree of life" as the basis of the universal philosophical alphabet.
The apologia for this system (if such be needed) is, as has already been stated, that our purest conceptions are symbolized in mathematics. Bertr and Russell, Cantor, Poincare, Einstein, and others have been hard at work to replace the Victorian empiricism by an intelligible coherent interpretation of the universe by means of mathematical ideas and symbols.
1.03 - THE GRAND OPTION, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the other branches surrounding us on the tree of life?
This overwhelmingly important question is one to which I
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
First, to analyse every idea in terms of the tree of life.
Second, to trace a necessary connection and relation between every and any class of ideas by referring them to this standard of comparison. Third, to translate any unknown system of symbolism into terms of any known one by its means.
--
Moreover, and this is extremely important, by the acquisi- tion of an understanding of any one system of mystical philosophy or religion, one automatically acquires, when relating that comprehension to the tree of life, an under- standing of every system. So that ultimately, by a species of association of impersonal and abstract ideas, one gradually equilibrizes the whole of one's mental structure and obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast com- plexity of the universe. For it is written : " Equilibrium is the basis of the work ".
Serious students will need to make a careful study of the attri butions detailed in this work and commit them to memory. When, by persistent application to his own mental apparatus, the numerical system with its corres- pondences is partly understood - as opposed to being merely memorized - the student will be amazed to find fresh light breaking in on him at every turn as he continues to refer every item in experience and consciousness to this standard.
--
Many Qabalists have referred to the tree of life the seventy-eight Tarot cards, which are a series of pictorial representations of the universe. Eliphaz Levi writes in
La Histoire de la Magie as follows : " The absolute hiero- glyphical science had for its basis an alphabet of which all the gods were letters, all the letters ideas, all the ideas numbers, and all the numbers perfect signs. This hiero- glyphical alphabet, of which Moses made the great secret of his Cabalah, is the famous book of Thoth ".
--
Some critics have ventured the opinion that the inter- pretation of the tree of life suggested herein, its utilization as a mode of classification, does not " ring true " and that it has no authority in the standard works of the Qabalah.
This criticism is utterly without foundation in fact. An attempt in this direction is most evident in the Sepher
--
Opposite to Netsach on the tree of life is Hod,
Splendour, the Sphere of 9 Mercury. Consequently we find all its symbols definitely mercurial in quality. In
--
Before proceeding to consider in the next chapter the numerous correspondences which appertain to the twenty- two Paths on the tree of life, I feel it imperative to utter a word of warning with regard to a possible misconstruction that might be placed on some of the attri butions which have been given to these Sephiros and Paths.
For example, Tobacco, Mars, the Basilisk, and the Sword are among those qualities which belong to the filing jacket of Geburah, or the fifth Sephirah. Yet the reader must here beware of making the almost unpardonable error of con- fusing the logical premisses. Since all of these are corres- pondences of the number 5, then Tobacco is a Sword, and the God Mars is an equivalent of the Basilisk. This is a real danger, and a tremendous mistake of serious consequence.
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The shaman travels up and down the axis mundi, the central pole of the world, the tree of life connecting
the lower, chthonic reptilian and the upper, celestial avian worlds with the central domain of man. This is
--
husbandman, and planted therein the tree of life, perceptible to the eyes and sense, which gave life to the
eater thereof; and another tree which gave to the eater thereof a knowledge of good and evil? I believe that
--
he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was
--
sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22-24).
242
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Each Hebrew letter has a multiple value. First, it has its individual position in the alphabet ; second, it has a numerical value ; third, it is attributed to some one of the thirty -two Paths on the tree of life ; fourth, it has a Tarot card attri bution ; and fifth, it has a definite symbol or allegorical meaning when spelled in full.
Blavatsky writes : " Every Cosmogony from the earliest to the latest is based upon, interlinked with, and most closely related to, numerals and geometrical figures. . . .
--
The tree of life consists of the thirty-two Paths of
Wisdom, of which the ten Sephiros are considered to be the main Paths or branches whose correspondences are by far the most important, and the twenty-two letters the lesser
--
Path No. Eleven on tree of life, joining Keser to Chokmah.
Numerical value, 1.
--
II. - The High Priestess of the Silver Star, picturing a throned woman, crowned with a tiara, the Sun above her head, a stole on her breast, and the sign of the Moon at her feet. She is seated between two pillars, one white (male) and the other black (female), comparable to the right and left-hand pillars of the tree of life, and the Masonic
Yachin and Boaz. In her hand is the scroll of the
1.04 - The Qabalah The Best Training for Memory, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
All these are arranged in a geometrical design composed of ten "Sephiroth" (numbers) and twenty-two "paths" joining them; this is called the tree of life.
Every idea soever can be, and should be, attributed to one or more of these primary symbols; thus green, in different shades, is a quality or function of Venus, the Earth, the Sea, Libra, and others. So also abstract ideas; dishonesty means "an afflicted Mercury," generosity a good, though not always strong, Jupiter; and so on.
The tree of life has got to be learnt by heart; you must know it backwards, forwards, sideways, and upside down; it must become the automatic background of all your thinking. You must keep on hanging everything that comes your way upon its proper bough.
At first, of course, all this is dreadfully confusing; but persist, and a time will come when all the odd bits fit into the jig-saw, and you behold with what adoring wonder! the marvellous beauty and symmetry of the Qabalistic system.
1.05 - Adam Kadmon, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Blavatsky, wrote that reason and the cold logical faculty is but the lowest aspect of Manas. And this is obvious through reference to the tree of life. Reason is the eighth
Sephirah only. The higher parts of the Ruach are an
1.07 - The Ego and the Dualities, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:IF ALL is in truth Sachchidananda, death, suffering, evil, limitation can only be the creations, positive in practical effect, negative in essence, of a distorting consciousness which has fallen from the total and unifying knowledge of itself into some error of division and partial experience. This is the fall of man typified in the poetic parable of the Hebrew Genesis. That fall is his deviation from the full and pure acceptance of God and himself, or rather of God in himself, into a dividing consciousness which brings with it all the train of the dualities, life and death, good and evil, joy and pain, completeness and want, the fruit of a divided being. This is the fruit which Adam and Eve, Purusha and Prakriti, the soul tempted by Nature, have eaten. The redemption comes by the recovery of the universal in the individual and of the spiritual term in the physical consciousness. Then alone the soul in Nature can be allowed to partake of the fruit of the tree of life and be as the Divine and live for ever. For then only can the purpose of its descent into material consciousness be accomplished, when the knowledge of good and evil, joy and suffering, life and death has been accomplished through the recovery by the human soul of a higher knowledge which reconciles and identifies these opposites in the universal and transforms their divisions into the image of the divine Unity.
2:To Sachchidananda extended in all things in widest commonalty and impartial universality, death, suffering, evil and limitation can only be at the most reverse terms, shadow-forms of their luminous opposites. As these things are felt by us, they are notes of a discord. They formulate separation where there should be a unity, miscomprehension where there should be an understanding, an attempt to arrive at independent harmonies where there should be a self-adaptation to the orchestral whole. All totality, even if it be only in one scheme of the universal vibrations, even if it be only a totality of the physical consciousness without possession of all that is in movement beyond and behind, must be to that extent a reversion to harmony and a reconciliation of jarring opposites. On the other hand, to Sachchidananda transcendent of the forms of the universe the dual terms themselves, even so understood, can no longer be justly applicable. Transcendence transfigures; it does not reconcile, but rather transmutes opposites into something surpassing them that effaces their oppositions.
1.07 - The Literal Qabalah (continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
First the original seed of the few important correspondences, upon which the whole superstructure depends, should be committed to memory and made an integral part of one's everyday consciousness. In order to facilitate study, the reader who is really interested in proving to himself the inestimable value of the tree of life as a method of
classification, should procure a tray which contains what is known as a card index. This, in reality, is but a small box holding a number of blank cards. These should be divided into several compartments, numbered from 1 to 32. Every correspondence mentioned in the previous chapters should then be entered on a card by itself and placed in its proper position, under its appropriate number. Then the student should briefly enter on to each card the various facts of which he is cognisant concerning each of those attri butions and take steps to acquire a deeper knowledge concerning some of the items which are new. In this very practical way, he will be classifying the whole of his knowledge into thirty-two compartments, and any new facts which he thereafter obtains will be automatically grouped under some one of these divisions. When this task has been thoroughly accomplished, he should endeavour to reduce in his own mind the information contained in these thirty- two divisions with their multitudinous facts to Ten, the number of the Sephiros - and finally to One.
--
The correspondences of each unit may be indefinitely extended, since each Sephirah and each subsidiary Path may be visualized as containing a tree of life within its own sphere, and may thus be divided for the purpose of more precise and close analysis into ten subdivisions. The
Tree itself may also be placed in each of, what are called,
--
Philosophy to the tree of life - we obtain by this means a system of twelve triads, with a pendant of a thirteenth
Sephirah in Assiah.
--
Path No. 26 on the tree of life is the letter Ayin, whose attri butions are emblematical of the various creative forces of Nature represented, particularly, by Priapus the fecund
God ; implying too the idea of cosmic desire and instinct which manifests, for example, as the cohesive attraction or magnetism of one molecule for another.
1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
W E have considered at length the tree of life as a philosophical alphabet. It is now necessary to consider this Tree in an altogether new light.
In the different limbs of this structure we previously found a quality corresponding to a similar innate quality in man which must be unfolded, developed, and perfected.
--
The degree numbers, such as 3 =8, imply an operation in which the equilibration of Saturn and Mercury is con- cerned. It is also to remind one that if despondent, for example, three main limbs of the great tree of life have been climbed ; if egotistical and proud, that eight more rungs of tantamount importance have yet to be ascended, and that most of the difficulties lie unconquered. All in all, the number harmonizes the conception of work already done with advantages yet to be gained.
Let us now look at this system and see wherein our description of the Paths of Magick and Meditation connects with the tree of life, keeping in the back of our minds all the time the attri butions and the meaning given to each
Sephirah.
1.10 - THE FORMATION OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
man the pattern of the tree of life was always that of a fan, a
spread of morphological radiations diverging more and more,
1.11 - The Second Genesis, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
That which leads most philosophies to recoil from the recognition of the egoism of desire as the one sufficient reason for the existence of the worlds, is the progress which the being has made from the point of its origin. The evolution of consciousness has long ago brought into sight the goal of the first impulsion. The being by the progressive elevation of his desire has, so to speak, put far from him his own origin. As it grows and bears fairer flowers and better fruits, the tree of life has plunged its roots also more deeply towards the Unknown Divine. And because Love has to-day become a possible conscious reason for mans actions and seems as if it were the final cause of the worlds, it is in Love that the religions think to find its first efficient cause. Thus they have provided themselves with reasons which otherwise they would not have had for their adoration of the creative act.
But it is not in the beginning of things, it is before the beginning and outside of it, in the secret being of the Eternal that we can place what appears here only in the end. The birth to Love was for the being and is even to-day not its first but its second birth; its principle was foreign to the first act of creation, foreign at least for our distinctive categories; for in the Absolute all is one and it is by reason of that unity that in the relative the manifestation of any principle conditions that of all the rest and makes them enter into the becoming. Desire by affirming itself egoistically obliges Love to participate in its creations. And in this obligation upon Love to manifest we find the pre-creative justification of the beings coming into existence.
1.11 - Woolly Pomposities of the Pious Teacher, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Oh, all right, all right! Keep your blouse on! I didn't go for to do it. You're quite right: the tree of life is like that, in appearance. But that is the wrong way to look at it. We get our number two, for example, as "that which is common to a bird's legs, a man's ears, twins, the cube root of eight, the greater luminaries, the spikes of a pitchfork," etc. but, having got it, we must not go on to argue that the number two being possessed of this and that property, therefore there must be two of something or other which for one reason or another we cannot count on our fingers.
The trouble is that sometimes we can do so; we are very often obliged to do so, and it comes out correct. But we must not trust any such theorem; it is little more than a hint to help us in our guesses. Example: an angel appears and tells us that his name is MALIEL (MLIAL) which adds to 111, the third of the numbers of the Sun. Do we conclude that his nature is solar? In this case, yes, perhaps, because, (on the theory) he took that name for the very reason that it chimed with his nature. But a man may reside at 81 Silver Street without being a lunatic, or be born at five o'clock on the 5th of May, 1905, and make a very poor soldier.
1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The grading of the spheres according to their grade of density and their qualities is called, in Quabbalah, the quabbalistic tree of life. The analogies and their practical application from the quabbalistic point of view will be dealt with by me in detail in my forthcoming book: "The Key to the True Quabbalah". This book is to rouse the readers interests in the spheres of the quabbalistic tree of life as far as they may serve magic purposes, that is as far as their beings are concerned. The spheres in their correct order are:
1. The physical world as the starting point for the work of the magician, in which every human being, no matter whether initiated into hermetics or not, lives and moves with his senses, his spirit, his soul and his body.
--
"Malkuth", which does not mean earth ball, but Kingdom, by which expression creation from its highest to its lowest manifestation is meant. According to the tree of life of the
Quabbalah it contains the quabbalistic number ten, which stands for the beginning of evolution. To the person acquainted with
1.15 - Sex Morality, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Still, for the purpose of these letters, I should like to put the whole matter in a nutshell. The tree of life, as usual, affords a convenient means of classification.
To the physical side of it psychological laws apply. "Don't monkey with the buzz-saw!" as John Wesley might have put it, though I doubt whether he did.
--
For Binah, even while she winks a Chokmah, has the other eye wide-open, swivelled on Tiphareth. Her True Will is thus divided by Nature from the start, and her tragedy is if she fails to unite these two objects. Oh, dear me, yes, I know all about "spret injuria form" and "furens quid femina possit"; but that is only because when she misses her bite she feels doubly baffled, robbed not only of the ecstatic Present, but of the glamorous Future. If she eat independently of the Fruit of the tree of life when unripe, she has not only the bad taste in the mouth, but indigestion to follow. Then, living as she does so much in the world of imagination, constantly living shadow-pictures of her Desire, she is not nearly so liable to the violent insanities of sheer blind lust, as is the male. The essential difference is indicated by that of their respective orgasms, the female undulatory, the male catastrophic.
The above, taken all in all, may not be fully comprehensive, not wholly satisfying to the soul, but one thing with another, enough for a cow to chew the cud on.
1.17 - DOES MANKIND MOVE BIOLOGICALLY UPON ITSELF?, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
our ancestors in the tree of life, which, afflicted by an evil of
which we seem to perceive the symptoms in ourselves, have lapsed
1.23 - Improvising a Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I was often reduced to such expedients when wandering in strange lands, camping on glaciers, and so on. I fixed it workably well. In Mexico, D.F. for instance, I took my bedroom itself for the Circle, my night-table for the Altar, my candle for the Lamp; and I made the Weapons compact. I had a Wand eight inches long, all precious stones and enamel, to represent the tree of life; within, an iron tube containing quicksilver very correct, lordly, and damsilly. What a club! Also, bought, a silver-gilt Cup; for Air and Earth I made one sachet of rose-petals in yellow silk, and another in green silk packed with salt. In the wilds it was easy, agreeable and most efficacious to make a Circle, and build an altar, of stones; my Alpine Lantern served admirably for the Lamp. It did double duty when required: e.g. in partaking of the Sacrament of the Four Elements, it served for Fire. But your conditions are not so restricted as this.
Let us consider what one can do with an ordinary house, such as you are happy enough to possess.
1.50 - A.C. and the Masters; Why they Chose him, etc., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It is most necessary that you should understand what happens when on goes from Adeptus Exemptus 7 = 4 to Magister Templi 8 = 3. As you see from a glance at the tree of life, this advance entails the Crossing of the Abyss; and there is no Path. That means that one must jump. You must get rid of "all that you have, and all that you are" that is one way to put it.
The Vision and the Voice, Aethyrs XVI end, gives an immense amount of detail; it must be studied intensely, with diligence, with Will, and with imagination. Not only the attainment of the grade, but the events which go with, or come after, it; all these are described as actual Experience. Even so, it is all extraordinarily difficult until you have been through it yourself.
1.65 - Man, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I have also furnished you with charts of this alphabet. It would of course have been too clumsy and cumbersome to put all the different systems of symbol on to the tree of life. That Tree is indeed the basis of all our classification, and I hope by now you have got fairly familiar with the process of sticking everything that turns up on its correct branch of the Tree.
In your last letter you thank me for having made clear to you the initiated teaching with regard to the Universe; and you now very rightly enquire "this being so, where do we come in?" You hold up to me one of the oldest axioms of the Qabalah. "That which is above is like that which is below," and you ask me for details. What, you enquire, is the constitution of Man? With what parts of the Great System is the Little System to coincide?
--
In some respects indeed this description is not as clear as I could have wished. The fact is that this Essay was written chiefly for the benefit of those people who were already more or less familiar with the tree of life and its correspondences. But I do not know even to-day, twenty years later, and writing as I am to you who admittedly had no previous knowledge of any of these subjects, how to set forth the facts in more elementary terms. I warned you in the beginning that there was an essential difficulty in these studies which is not to be by-passed or dodged in any way whatever.
But, after all, it is the same difficulty which every child finds when he begins any study of any kind. In Latin, for instance, he is told that mensa means a table, that it belongs to the first declension and is feminine. There is no why about any of this; no explanation is possible; the child has to pick up the elements of the language one by one, taking what he is taught on trust. And it is only after accumulating a vast collection of unintelligible details that the jig-saw pieces fall into place, and he finds himself able to construe the classical texts.
--
Note: In the original this letter was accompanied by four tree of life diagrams, three of which were copies of those which appeared in The Book of Thoth. They have been redrawn and in some cases re-arranged in an attempt to make the information readable on a computer screen.
THE KEY SCALE.
--
The figure on which this is based was probably a copy of the diagram accompanying the first edition of Little Essays Toward Truth and shows the AA grades on the tree of life along with the Four Worlds and the Qabalistic Soul.[4 Worlds]
{Larger version (1150 x 1600, 159K)}
1.ami - To the Saqi (from Baal-i-Jibreel), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Naeem Siddiqui Original Language Urdu Look! What wonders the spring has wrought! The river bank is a paradise! Rose-embowered glades, Blossoming jasmine and hyacinth, And violets, the envy of the skies!. Rainbow colours transformed Into a chorus of rapturous sounds, And the harmony of flowers The hillside is carnation-red; In the languid haze, the air Seems drunk with the beauty of life! The brook, on the heights of the hill, Dances to its own music. The world is dizzy in a pageant of colour! My rosy-cheeked Cup-bearer! The voice of spring is the voice of life! But the spring lasts not for ever; So bring me the cup that tears all veils -- The wine that brightens life -- The wine that intoxicates the world -- The wine in which flows The music of everlasting life, The wine that reveals eternity's secret. Unveil the secrets, O Saqi. Look! The world has changed apace! New are the songs, and new is the music; The West's magic has dissolved; The West's magicians are bewildered; Old politics has lost its game; The world is tired of kings; Gone are the days of the rich; Gone is the jugglery of old; Awake is China's sleeping giant; The Himalayas' torrents are unleashed; Sinai is riven; Moses awaits the light divine. The Muslim says that God is One But his heart is Still a heathen: Culture, sufism, rites and rthetoric, All adore non- Arab idols; The truth was lost in trifles, And the nation was lost in conventions. The speaker's rhetoric is enchanting, But is devoid of passion; It is clothed in logic neat, But lost in a maze of words; The sufi, unique in the love of truth, Unique in the love of God, Was lost in un-Islamic thought; Was lost in the hierarchic quest; The fire of love is extinguished, And a Muslim is a heap of ashes, O Saqi! Give me the old wine again! Let the potent cup go round! Let me soar on the wings of love; Make my dust bright-pinioned; Make wisdom free; And make the young guide the old; Thou it is that nourishest. this nation; Thou it is that canst sustain it; Urge them to move, to stir; Give them Ali's heart; give them Siddiq's passion; Let the same old love pierce their hearts; Awaken in them a burning zeal; Let the stars throw down their spears, And let the earth's dwellers tremble Give the young a passion that consumes; Give them my vision, my love of God; Free my boat from the whirlpool's grip, And make it move forward-, Reveal to me the secrets of life, For thou knowest them all; The treasures of a fakir like me Are suffused, unsleeping eyes, And secret yearnings of the heart-, My anguished sighs at night, My solitude in the world of men, My hopes and my fears, My quest untiring, My nature an arena of thought A mirror of the world. My heart a battlefield of life, With armies of suspicion, And bastions of certitude; With these treasures I am More rich than the richest of all. Let the young join my throng, And let them find an anchor of hope. The sea of life has its ebb and flow-, In every atom's heart is the pulse of life; It manifests itself in the body, As a flame conceals a wave of smoke; Contact with the earth was harsh for it, But it liked the labour; It is in motion, and not in motion; Tired of the elements' shackles; A unity, imprisoned by plurality; But always unique, unequalled. It has made this dome of myriad glass; It has carved this pantheon. It does not repeat its craft For thou art not me, and I am not thou; It has created the world of men, And remains in solitude, Its brightness is seen in the stars, And in the lustre of pearls-, To it belong the wildernesses, The flowers and the thorns; Mountains sometimes are shaken by its might; It captures angels and nymphs; It makes the eagle pounce on a prey, And leave a blood-stained body. Every atom throbs with life; Rest is an illusion; Life's journey pauses not, For every moment is a new glory; Life, thou thinkest, is a mystery; Life is a delight in eternal flight; Life has seen many ups and downs; It loves a journey, not a goal. Movement is life's being; Movement is truth, pause is a mirage. Life's enjoyment is in perils, In facing ups and downs; In the world beyond Life stalked for death, But the impulse to procreate Peopled the world of man and beast. Flowers blossomed and dropped From this tree of life. Fools think life is ephemeral; Life renews itself for ever -- Moving fast as a flash, Moving to eternity in a breath; Time, a chain of days and nights, Is the ebb and flow of breath. This flow of breath is like a sword, Selfhood is its sharpness; Selfhood is the secret of life; It is the world's awakening, Selfhood is solitary, absorbed, An ocean enclosed in a drop; It shines in light and in darkness, Existent in, but away from, thee and me. The dawn of life behind it, eternity before, It has no frontiers before, no frontiers behind. Afloat on the river of time, Bearing the buffets of the waves, Changing the course of its quest, Shifting its glance from time to time; For it a hill is a grain of sand, Mountains are shattered by its blows; A journey is its beginning and end, And this is the secret of its being. It is the moon's beam, the spark in the flint, Colourless itself, though infused with colours, No concern has it with the calculus of space, With linear time's limits, with the finitude of life. It manifested itself in man's essence of dust, After an eternity of a strife to be born. It is in thy heart that Selfhood has an abode, As heaven has its abode in the cornea of thy eye. To one who guards his Selfhood, The living that demeans it, is poison; He accepts only a living, That keeps his self- esteem; Keep away from royal pomp, Keep thy Selfhood free; Thou shouldst bow in prayer, Not bow to a human being. This myriad-coloured world, Under the sentence of death, This world of sight and sound, I Where life means eating and drinking, Is Selfhood's initial stage; It is not thy abode, O traveller! This dust-bowl is not the source of thy fire; The world is for thee, not thou for the world. Demolish this illusion of' time and space; Selfhood is the Tiger of God, the world is its prey; The earth is its prey, the heavens are its prey; Other worlds there are, still awaiting birth, The earth-born are not the centre of all life; They all await thy assault, Thy cataclysmic thought and deed; Days and nights revolve, To reveal thy Selfhood to thee; Thou art the architect of the world. Words fail to convey the truth; Truth is the mirror, words its shade; Though the breath is a burning flame, The flame has limited bounds. 'If now I soar any farther, The vision will sear my wings.' <
1.snt - The Light of Your Way, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Ivan M. Granger Original Language Greek Holy are you, O Lord, holy, blessed and One. Holy are you, and generous for you have flooded my heart with the light of your way, and you have raised up in me the tree of life. You have shown me a new heaven upon the earth. You have shown me a secret Garden, unseen within the seen. Now am I joined soul and spirit present in your Presence -- your Presence that has waited long in me, your Presence, the true tree of life, planted in whatever this earth is, planted in whatever it is that men are, planted, and rooted in the heart, your Presence all at once revealing your Paradise alive with every good green thing: grasses and trees and the fruiting bounty, a world of flowers! sweet-scented lilies! Each little flower speaks a truth: humility and joy, peace, oh peace! kindness, compassion, the turning of the soul, and the flood of tears and the strange ecstasy of those bathed in your light. [2652.jpg] -- from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger <
1.ww - The Excursion- V- Book Fouth- Despondency Corrected, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
On fruitage gathered from the tree of life;
To hopes on knowledge and experience built;
2.01 - THE ADVENT OF LIFE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
indefinitely, even below the tree of life.
Seen from afar, elementary life looks like a variegated multi-
--
unity of the tree of life (see below).
97
--
when I come to outline the ' tree of life ', I shall be calling atten-
tion to the coexistence in the living world of certain large
2.02 - THE EXPANSION OF LIFE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
3. The tree of life.
All this will first be studied at the surface and from without. We
--
successively on the tree of life exist for us to inspect today. And,
despite all the efforts of palaeontology, many extinct forms will
--
3. THE tree of life
A. The Main Lines
--
view of the tree of life, we must ' make our eyes see ' that part of
it only moderately affected by the corrosive action of time. Not
--
prolong our vision of the tree of life downwards, we must
calculate in layers.
--
form. And so the roots of the tree of life are lost to view in
the unknowable world of soft tissue and the metamorphosis of
--
the tree of life. Around it, on the other hand, and beneath
134
diagram 2. The ' tree of life' after Cuenot. On litis
diagram each principal lobe (or bunch) represents a grade ill
--
what can be the total age of the tree of life ?
c. The Evidence
Now we can see the tree of life standing before us. A strange
tree, no doubt. We could call it the negative of a tree, for
--
biogenesis, it would be necessary to uproot the tree of life and
undermine the entire structure of the world. 1
2.03 - DEMETER, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
To begin with, let us turn to that part of the tree of life wc
know best, partly because it is still full of vitality and partly
--
systematic biology, but it also confers on the tree of life a sharp-
ness of feature, an impetus, which is incontcstably the hall-mark
--
near neighbours of ours on the tree of life. The omission was
deliberavC. At the point I had then reached, their importance
--
dominant branch, the dominant branch of the tree of life, the
primates (i.e. the cerebro-manuals) are its leading shoot, and the
2.05 - The Holy Oil, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
5:These oils taken together represent therefore the whole tree of life. The ten Sephiroth are blended into the perfect gold.
6:This Oil cannot be prepared from crude myrrh, cinnamon, and galangal. The attempt to do so only gives a brown mud with which the oil will not mix. These substances must be themselves refined into pure oils before the final combination.
2.07 - The Cup, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
48:There are also the Lotuses in the human body, according to the Hindu system of Physiology referred to in the chapter on Dharana. footnote: These Lotuses are all situated in the spinal column, which has three channels, Sushumna in the middle, Ida and Pingala on either side ("cf." the tree of life). The central channel is compressed at the base by Kundalini, the magical power, a sleeping serpent. Awake her: she darts up the spine, and the Prana flows through the Sushumna. See "Raja-Yoga" for more details.
49:There is the lotus of three petals in the Sacrum, in which the Kundalini lies asleep. This lotus is the receptacle of reproductive force.
2.09 - The Pantacle, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
32:The duality of consciousness is also sometimes represented; and the tree of life itself may be figured therein, or the categories. An emblem of the Great Work should be added. But the Pantacle will be imperfect unless each idea is contrasted in a balanced manner with its opposite, and unless there is a necessary connection between every pair of ideas and every other pair.
33:The Neophyte will perhaps do well to make the first sketches for his Pantacle very large and complex, subsequently simplifying, not so much by exclusion as by combination, just as a Zoologist, beginning with the four great Apes and Man, combines all in the single word "primate."
3.00 - The Magical Theory of the Universe, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
contain a tree of life of its own. Thus we obtain four hundred
Sephiroth instead of the original ten, and the Paths being capable of
--
amazed the Master Therion by stating that the tree of life was the
framework of the Universe. It was as if some one had seriously
--
One who ought to have known better tried to improve the tree of life by turning
the Serpent of Wisdom upside down! Yet he could not even make his scheme
--
the tree of life the caterpillar he is after may happen to be crawling,
is immensely helped by a grasp of general principles. Every
3.01 - THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
on the tree of life.
By the fact itself, in this variety, we begin to see legitimately
--
flourished earlier on the tree of life.
a. The composition of the human branches. Whatever idea we have
--
Earlier, when we were discussing the tree of life, we noticed as
a fundamental character that brains grew bigger and became
--
that marked each new offshoot on the tree of life before the
185
3.02 - THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
on the tree of life. At the very least we should have counted on
finding, in those depths, a cluster of relatively primitive and
--
at the same time as cerebral genes. Formerly, on the tree of life
we had a mere tangle of stems ; now over the whole domain
3.03 - THE MODERN EARTH, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
On every scale, this is the pattern we see on the tree of life.
We found it again at the origins of mankind and of the principal
3.08 - Purification, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
a tree of life to them that lay hold on her, and an unfailing light. Blessed
shall they be who retain her, for the science of God shall never perish, as
3.09 - Of Silence and Secrecy, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
An example of the latter kind is the great word StiBeTTChePhMeFShiSS, which is a line drawn on the tree of life (Coptic
attri butions) in a certain manner.1
3.12 - Of the Bloody Sacrifice, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
differences and harmonies of the planes upon the tree of life.
For this reason FRATER PERDURABO has never dared to use this
3.12 - ON OLD AND NEW TABLETS, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
on the tree of life like a black scarecrow. I sat down by
their great tomb road among cadavers and vultures,
3.18 - Of Clairvoyance and the Body of Light, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The theoretical basis of both is identical: The tree of life.2 The 78
symbols of the Tarot are admirably balanced and combined. They
--
colleague, and veil him by insisting on his being interpreted in reference to themselves. No entity whose structure does not include the entire tree of life is capable
of the Formul of Initiation. Graphiel, consulted by the Aspirant to Adeptship,
3.20 - Of the Eucharist, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
way;1 for this sacrament is the tree of life itself,2 and whoso
partaketh of the fruit thereof shall never die.3
3.7.1.03 - Rebirth, Evolution, Heredity, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In any case we have this now patent order in the profuse complexities of the natural harmony of living things,one plasmic seed, one developing ground-plan, an opulent number of varieties whose logical process would be by an ascending order which passes up through fine but still very distinct gradations from the crude to the complex, from the less organised to the more organised, from the inferior to the superior type. The first question that should strike the mind at once, when this tree of life has been seen, is whether this logical order was indeed the actual order in the history of the universe, and then, a second, naturally arising from that problem, whether, if so, each new form developed by variation from its natural predecessor or came in by some unknown process, a fresh, independent and in a way sudden creation. In the first case, we have the scientific order of physical evolution,in the other one knows not well what, perhaps an unseen Demiurge who developed the whole thing in the earlier period of the earth evolution and has now wholly or almost entirely stopped the business so that we have no new physical development of that kind, but only, it may be, an evolution of capacity in types already created. Science stands out for a quite natural and mechanical, a quite unbroken physical evolution with many divergent lines indeed of developing variation, but in the line no gap or interstice. It is true that there are not one but a host of missing links, which even the richest remains of the past cannot fill in, and we are not in a position to deny with an absolute dogmatism the possibility of an advance per saltum, by a rapid overleaping, perhaps even by a crowded psychical or bio-psychic preparation whose result sprang out in the appearance of a new type with a certain gulf between itself and the preceding forms of life. With regard to man especially there is still an enormous uncertainty as to how he, so like yet so different from the other sons of Nature, came into existence. Still the gaps can be explained away, there is a great mass of telling facts in favour of the less physically anarchic view, and it seems to have on its side the right of greatest probability in a material universe where the most perfectly physical principle of proceeding would seem to be the just basic law.
But even if we admit the most scrupulous and rigorous continuity of successive determination, the question arises whether the process of evolution has been indeed so exclusively physical and biological as at first sight it looks. If it is, we must admit not only a rigorous principle of class heredity, but a law of hereditary progressive variation and a purely physical cause of all mental and spiritual phenomena. Heredity by itself means simply the constant transmission of physical form and biological characteristics from a previous life to its posterity. There is very evidently such a general force of hereditary transmission within the genus or species itself, as the tree so the seed, as the seed so the tree, so that a lion generates a lion and not a cat or a rhinoceros, a man a human being and not an ourang-outang,though one reads now of a curious and startling speculation, turning the old theory topsy-turvy, that certain ape kinds may be, not ancestors, but degenerate descendants of man! But farther, if a physical evolution is the whole fact, there must be a capacity for the hereditary transmission of variations by which new species are or have been created,not merely in the process of a mixture or crossing, but by an internal development which is stored up and handed down in the seed. That too may very well be admitted, even though its real process and rationale are not yet understood, since the transmission of family and individual characteristics is a well-observed phenomenon. But then the things transmitted are not only physical and biological, but psychological or at least bio-psychic characters, repetitions of customary nervous experience and mental tendency, powers. We have to suppose that the physical seed transmits these things. We are called upon to admit that the human seed for instance, which does not contain a developed human consciousness, yet carries with it the powers of such a consciousness so that they reproduce themselves automatically in the thinking and organised mentality of the offspring. This, even if we have to accept it, is an inexplicable paradox unless we suppose either that there is something more behind, a psychical power behind the veil of material process, or else that mind is only a process of life and life only a process of matter. Therefore finally we have to suppose the physical theory capable of explaining by purely material causes and a material constitution the mystery of the emergence of life in matter and the equal mystery of the emergence of mind in life. It is here that difficulties begin to crowd in which convict it, so far at least, of a hopeless inadequacy, and the nature of that inadequacy, its crux, its stumbling-point leave room for just that something behind, something psychical, a hidden soul process and for a more complex and less materialistic account of the truth of evolution.
3.7.1.05 - The Significance of Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What we see in the material universe is a stupendous system of mechanical recurrences. A huge mechanical recurrence rules that which is long-enduring and vast; a similar but frailer mechanical recurrence sways all that is ephemeral and small. The suns leap up into being, flame wheeling in space, squander force by motion and fade and are extinct, again perhaps to blaze into being and repeat their course, or else other suns take their place and fulfil their round. The seasons of Time repeat their unending and unchanging cycle. Always the tree of life puts forth its various flowers and sheds them and breaks into the same flowers in their recurring season. The body of man is born and grows and decays and perishes, but it gives birth to other bodies which maintain the one same futile cycle. What baffles the intelligence in all this intent and persistent process is that it seems to have in it no soul of meaning, no significance except the simple fact of causeless and purposeless existence dogged or relieved by the annulling or the compensating fact of individual cessation. And this is because we perceive the mechanism, but do not see the Power that uses the mechanism and the intention in its use. But the moment we know that there is a conscious Spirit self-wise and infinite brooding upon the universe and a secret slowly self-finding soul in things, we get to the necessity of an idea in its consciousness, a thing conceived, willed, set in motion and securely to be done, progressively to be fulfilled by these great deliberate workings.
But the Buddhistic statement admits no self, spirit or eternal Being in its rigorously mechanical economy of existence. It takes only the phenomenon of a constant becoming and elevates that from the physical to the psychical level. As there is evident to our physical mind an Energy, action, motion, capable of creating by its material forces the forms and powers of the material universe, so there is for the Buddhistic vision of things an Energy, action, Karma, creating by its psychic powers of idea and association this embodied soul life with its continuity of recurrences. As the body is a dissoluble construction, a composite and combination, so the soul too is a dissoluble construction and combination; the soul life like the physical life sustains itself by a continuous flux and repetition of the same workings and movements. As this constant hereditary succession of lives is a prolongation of the one universal principle of life by a continued creation of similar bodies, a mechanical recurrence, so the system of soul rebirth too is a constant prolongation of the principle of the soul life by a continued creation through Karma of similar embodied associations and experiences, a mechanical recurrence. As the cause of all this physical birth and long hereditary continuation is an obscure will to life in Matter, so the cause of continued soul birth is an ignorant desire or will to be in the universal energy of Karma. As the constant wheelings of the universe and the motions of its forces generate individual existences who escape from or end in being by an individual dissolution, so there is this constant wheel of becoming and motion of Karma which forms into individualised soul-lives that must escape from their continuity by a dissolving cessation. An extinction of the embodied consciousness is our apparent material end; for soul too the end is extinction, the blank satisfaction of Nothingness or some ineffable bliss of a superconscientNon-Being. The affirmation of the mechanical occurrence or recurrence of birth is the essence of this view; but while the bodily life suffers an enforced end and dissolution, the soul life ceases by a willed self-extinction.
4.01 - THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
lines of the tree of life. What indeed does the history of the
animate world show us but a succession of ramifications, spring-
4.02 - BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE - THE HYPER-PERSONAL, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the tree of life, analogies are more obscure until they become so
faint as to be imperceptible. But this is the place to repeat what
4.02 - Humanity in Progress, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
If, on the tree of life, the mammals form a domi-
nant branch, indeed the dominant branch, then the
4.03 - Prayer to the Ever-greater Christ, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
2. The tree of life: its General Shape
3. The tree of life: Search for the Leading-shoot:
Complexification and Cerebralization
4.03 - THE ULTIMATE EARTH, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
been the leading shoot of the tree of life. That being so, the hopes
for the future of the noosphere (that is to say, of biogenesis,
--
dropped in all the non-human branches of the tree of life. And
now that man has become an adult and has opened up for
5.01 - EPILOGUE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
forming what I have called the tree of life though I could
equally well have chosen another image, that of the spectrum,
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
were also trees: Baruch the tree of life, Naas the tree of knowl-
edge. Their division and polarity are in keeping with the spirit
--
and child stand before a stylized tree of life or of Knowledge.
Here the fish has a dragonlike nature; it is a monster, a sort of
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
the fifth being represented by the five branches cut off from the tree of life on which the old man
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-2-02.htm (6 von 7) [06.05.2003 03:36:27]
--
crucifixion on the tree of life. This "tree" has now become exoterically, through its use by the
Romans as an instrument of torture, and the ignorance of the early Christian schemers, the tree of
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
The tree of life and Being ... 549
Prof. Crookes on the Elements ... 552
--
these objects. Life can be known only by the tree of life. . . ." (Precepts for Yoga). The idea of
Absolute Unity
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
This is the tree of life, the Asvattha tree, only after the cutting of which the slave of life and death,
MAN, can be emancipated.
--
differentiation of which the roots of the tree of life are periodically struck, needs no scientific proofs.
It says: -- Ancient Wisdom has solved the problem ages ago. Aye; earnest, as well as mocking reader,
--
allegorical language of the Archaic Sages. Says a commentary in the esoteric doctrine: -. . . . The trunk of the ASVATTHA (the tree of life and Being, the ROD of the caduceus) grows from
and descends at every Beginning (every new manvantara) from the two dark wings of the Swan
--
and on the left hand of En-Soph (see the Kabalistic tree of life). Hence, the Monad is degraded into a
Vehicle -- a "throne"!
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
downward till they touched the terrestrial plane. Thus, the Asvattha, tree of life and Being, whose
destruction alone leads to immortality, is said in the Bhagavatgita to grow with its roots above and its
Book of Genesis, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
The Creation of Eve
--
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
CHAPTER 4
Book of Proverbs, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
18 She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her;
those who hold her fast will be blessed.
BOOK XIII. - That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Thus the souls of departed saints are not affected by the death which dismisses them from their bodies, because their flesh rests in hope, no matter what indignities it receives after sensation is gone. For they do not desire that their bodies be forgotten, as Plato thinks fit, but rather, because they remember what has been promised by Him who deceives no man, and who gave them security for the safe keeping even of the hairs of their head, they with a longing patience wait in hope of the resurrection of their bodies, in which they have suffered many hardships, and are now to suffer never again. For if they did not "hate their own flesh," when it, with its native infirmity, opposed their will, and had to be constrained by the spiritual law, how much more shall they love it, when it shall even itself have become spiritual! For as, when the spirit serves the flesh, it is fitly called carnal, so, when the flesh serves the spirit, it will justly be called spiritual. Not that it is converted into spirit, as some fancy from the words, "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption,"[600] but because it is subject to the spirit with a perfect and marvellous readiness of obedience, and responds in all things to the will that has entered on immortality,all reluctance, all corruption, and all slowness being removed. For the body will not only be better than it was here in its best estate of health, but it will surpass the[Pg 545] bodies of our first parents ere they sinned. For, though they were not to die unless they should sin, yet they used food as men do now, their bodies not being as yet spiritual, but animal only. And though they decayed not with years, nor drew nearer to death,a condition secured to them in God's marvellous grace by the tree of life, which grew along with the forbidden tree in the midst of Paradise,yet they took other nourishment, though not of that one tree, which was interdicted not because it was itself bad, but for the sake of commending a pure and simple obedience, which is the great virtue of the rational creature set under the Creator as his Lord. For, though no evil thing was touched, yet if a thing forbidden was touched, the very disobedience was sin. They were, then, nourished by other fruit, which they took that their animal bodies might not suffer the discomfort of hunger or thirst; but they tasted the tree of life, that death might not steal upon them from any quarter, and that they might not, spent with age, decay. Other fruits were, so to speak, their nourishment, but this their sacrament. So that the tree of life would seem to have been in the terrestrial Paradise what the wisdom of God is in the spiritual, of which it is written, "She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her."[601]
21. Of Paradise, that it can be understood in a spiritual sense without sacrificing the historic truth of the narrative regarding the real place.
On this account some allegorize all that concerns Paradise itself, where the first men, the parents of the human race, are, according to the truth of holy Scripture, recorded to have been; and they understand all its trees and fruit-bearing plants as virtues and habits of life, as if they had no existence in the external world, but were only so spoken of or related for the sake of spiritual meanings. As if there could not be a real terrestrial Paradise! As if there never existed these two women, Sarah and Hagar, nor the two sons who were born to Abraham, the one of the bond woman, the other of the free, because the apostle says that in them the two covenants were prefigured; or as if water never flowed from the rock when Moses struck it, because therein Christ can be seen in a figure, as the same apostle says, "Now that rock was Christ!"[602] No[Pg 546] one, then, denies that Paradise may signify the life of the blessed; its four rivers, the four virtues, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice; its trees, all useful knowledge; its fruits, the customs of the godly; its tree of life, wisdom herself, the mother of all good; and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the experience of a broken commandment. The punishment which God appointed was in itself a just, and therefore a good thing; but man's experience of it is not good.
These things can also and more profitably be understood of the Church, so that they become prophetic foreshadowings of things to come. Thus Paradise is the Church, as it is called in the Canticles;[603] the four rivers of Paradise are the four gospels; the fruit-trees the saints, and the fruit their works; the tree of life is the holy of holies, Christ; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the will's free choice. For if man despise the will of God, he can only destroy himself; and so he learns the difference between consecrating himself to the common good and revelling in his own. For he who loves himself is abandoned to himself, in order that, being overwhelmed with fears and sorrows, he may cry, if there be yet soul in him to feel his ills, in the words of the psalm, "My soul is cast down within me,"[604] and when chastened, may say, "Because of his strength I will wait upon Thee."[605] These and similar allegorical interpretations may be suitably put upon Paradise without giving offence to any one, while yet we believe the strict truth of the history, confirmed by its circumstantial narrative of facts.[606]
22. That the bodies of the saints shall after the resurrection be spiritual, and yet flesh shall not be changed into spirit.
--
For as those bodies of ours, that have a living soul, though not as yet a quickening spirit, are called soul-informed bodies, and yet are not souls but bodies, so also those bodies are called spiritual,yet God forbid we should therefore suppose them to be spirits and not bodies,which, being quickened by the Spirit, have the substance, but not the unwieldiness and corruption of flesh. Man will then be not earthly but heavenly,not because the body will not be that very body which was made of earth, but because by its heavenly endowment it will be a fit inhabitant of heaven, and this not by losing its nature, but by changing its quality. The first man, of the earth earthy, was made a living soul, not a quickening spirit,which rank was reserved for him as the reward of obedience. And therefore his body, which required meat and drink to satisfy hunger and thirst, and which had no absolute and indestructible[Pg 548] immortality, but by means of the tree of life warded off the necessity of dying, and was thus maintained in the flower of youth,this body, I say, was doubtless not spiritual, but animal; and yet it would not have died but that it provoked God's threatened vengeance by offending. And though sustenance was not denied him even outside Paradise, yet, being forbidden the tree of life, he was delivered over to the wasting of time, at least in respect of that life which, had he not sinned, he might have retained perpetually in Paradise, though only in an animal body, till such time as it became spiritual in acknowledgment of his obedience.
Wherefore, although we understand that this manifest death, which consists in the separation of soul and body, was also signified by God when He said, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,"[608] it ought not on that account to seem absurd that they were not dismissed from the body on that very day on which they took the forbidden and death-bringing fruit. For certainly on that very day their nature was altered for the worse and vitiated, and by their most just banishment from the tree of life they were involved in the necessity even of bodily death, in which necessity we are born. And therefore the apostle does not say, "The body indeed is doomed to die on account of sin," but he says, "The body indeed is dead because of sin." Then he adds, "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."[609] Then accordingly shall the body become a quickening spirit which is now a living soul; and yet the apostle calls it "dead," because already it lies under the necessity of dying. But in Paradise it was so made a living soul, though not a quickening spirit, that it could not properly be called dead, for, save through the commission of sin, it could not come under the power of death. Now, since God by the words, "Adam, where art thou?" pointed to the death of the soul, which results when He abandons it, and since in the words, "Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return,"[610] He signified the death of the body, which results when the soul departs from[Pg 549] it, we are led, therefore, to believe that He said nothing of the second death, wishing it to be kept hidden, and reserving it for the New Testament dispensation, in which it is most plainly revealed. And this He did in order that, first of all, it might be evident that this first death, which is common to all, was the result of that sin which in one man became common to all.[611] But the second death is not common to all, those being excepted who were "called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren."[612] Those the grace of God has, by a Mediator, delivered from the second death.
Thus the apostle states that the first man was made in an animal body. For, wishing to distinguish the animal body which now is from the spiritual, which is to be in the resurrection, he says, "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." Then, to prove this, he goes on, "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." And to show what the animated body is, he says, "Thus it was written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."[613] He wished thus to show what the animated body is, though Scripture did not say of the first man Adam, when his soul was created by the breath of God, "Man was made in an animated body," but "Man was made a living soul."[614] By these words, therefore, "The first man was made a living soul," the apostle wishes man's animated body to be understood. But how he wishes the spiritual body to be understood he shows when he adds, "But the last Adam was made a quickening spirit," plainly referring to Christ, who has so risen from the dead that He cannot die any more. He then goes on to say, "But that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual." And here he much more clearly asserts that he referred to the animal body when he said that the first man[Pg 550] was made a living soul, and to the spiritual when he said that the last man was made a quickening spirit. The animal body is the first, being such as the first Adam had, and which would not have died had he not sinned, being such also as we now have, its nature being changed and vitiated by sin to the extent of bringing us under the necessity of death, and being such as even Christ condescended first of all to assume, not indeed of necessity, but of choice; but afterwards comes the spiritual body, which already is worn by anticipation by Christ as our head, and will be worn by His members in the resurrection of the dead.
BOOK XIV. - Of the punishment and results of mans first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
In Paradise, then, man lived as he desired so long as he desired what God had commanded. He lived in the enjoyment of God, and was good by God's goodness; he lived without any want, and had it in his power so to live eternally. He had food that he might not hunger, drink that he might not thirst, the tree of life that old age might not waste him. There was in his body no corruption, nor seed of corruption, which could produce in him any unpleasant sensation. He feared no inward disease, no outward accident. Soundest health blessed his body, absolute tranquillity his soul. As in Paradise there was no excessive heat or cold, so its inhabitants were exempt from the vicissitudes of fear and desire. No sadness of any kind was there, nor any foolish joy; true gladness ceaselessly flowed from the presence of God, who was loved "out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned."[123] The honest love of husb and and wife made a sure harmony between them. Body and spirit worked harmoniously together, and the commandment was kept without labour. No[Pg 45] languor made their leisure wearisome; no sleepiness interrupted their desire to labour.[124] In tanta facilitate rerum et felicitate hominum, absit ut suspicemur, non potuisse prolem seri sine libidinis morbo: sed eo voluntatis nutu moverentur illa membra quo ctera, et sine ardoris illecebroso stimulo cum tranquillitate animi et corporis nulla corruptione integritatis infunderetur gremio maritus uxoris. Neque enim quia experientia probari non potest, ideo credendum non est; quando illas corporis partes non ageret turbidus calor, sed spontanea potestas, sicut opus esset, adhiberet; ita tunc potuisse utero conjugis salva integritate feminei genitalis virile semen immitti, sicut nunc potest eadem integritate salva ex utero virginis fluxus menstrui cruoris emitti. Eadem quippe via posset illud injici, qua hoc potest ejici. Ut enim ad pariendum non doloris gemitus, sed maturitatis impulsus feminea viscera relaxaret: sic ad ftandum et concipiendum non libidinis appetitus, sed voluntarius usus naturam utramque conjungeret. We speak of things which are now shameful, and although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as they were before they became shameful, yet necessity compels us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by modesty than to extend it as our moderate faculty of discourse might suggest. For since that which I have been speaking of was not experienced even by those who might have experienced it,I mean our first parents (for sin and its merited banishment from Paradise anticipated this passionless generation on their part),when sexual intercourse is spoken of now, it suggests to men's thoughts not such a placid obedience to the will as is conceivable in our first parents, but such violent acting of lust as they themselves have experienced. And therefore modesty shuts my mouth, although my mind conceives the matter clearly. But Almighty God, the supreme and supremely good Creator of all natures, who aids and rewards good wills, while He abandons and condemns the bad, and rules both, was not destitute of a plan by which He might people His city with the fixed number of citizens which His wisdom had foreordained even out of the condemned[Pg 46] human race, discriminating them not now by merits, since the whole mass was condemned as if in a vitiated root, but by grace, and showing, not only in the case of the redeemed, but also in those who were not delivered, how much grace He has bestowed upon them. For every one acknowledges that he has been rescued from evil, not by deserved, but by gratuitous goodness, when he is singled out from the company of those with whom he might justly have borne a common punishment, and is allowed to go scathless. Why, then, should God not have created those whom He foresaw would sin, since He was able to show in and by them both what their guilt merited, and what His grace bestowed, and since, under His creating and disposing hand, even the perverse disorder of the wicked could not pervert the right order of things?
27. Of the angels and men who sinned, and that their wickedness did not disturb the order of God's providence.
BOOK XX. - Of the last judgment, and the declarations regarding it in the Old and New Testaments, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
That, therefore, which the whole Church of the true God holds and professes as its creed, that Christ shall come from heaven to judge quick and dead, this we call the last day, or last time, of the divine judgment. For we do not know how many days this judgment may occupy; but no one who reads the Scriptures, however negligently, need be told that in them "day" is customarily used for "time." And when we speak of the day of God's judgment, we add the word last or final for this reason, because even now God judges, and has judged from the beginning of human history, banishing from paradise, and excluding from the tree of life, those first men who perpetrated so great a sin. Yea, He was certainly exercising[Pg 346] judgment also when He did not spare the angels who sinned, whose prince, overcome by envy, seduced men after being himself seduced. Neither is it without God's profound and just judgment that the life of demons and men, the one in the air, the other on earth, is filled with misery, calamities, and mistakes. And even though no one had sinned, it could only have been by the good and right judgment of God that the whole rational creation could have been maintained in eternal blessedness by a persevering adherence to its Lord. He judges, too, not only in the mass, condemning the race of devils and the race of men to be miserable on account of the original sin of these races, but He also judges the voluntary and personal acts of individuals. For even the devils pray that they may not be tormented,[673] which proves that without injustice they might either be spared or tormented according to their deserts. And men are punished by God for their sins often visibly, always secretly, either in this life or after death, although no man acts rightly save by the assistance of divine aid; and no man or devil acts unrighteously save by the permission of the divine and most just judgment. For, as the apostle says, "There is no unrighteousness with God;"[674] and as he elsewhere says, "His judgments are inscrutable, and His ways past finding out."[675] In this book, then, I shall speak, as God permits, not of those first judgments, nor of these intervening judgments of God, but of the last judgment, when Christ is to come from heaven to judge the quick and the dead. For that day is properly called the day of judgment, because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man unhappy. In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only.
2. That in the mingled web of human affairs God's judgment is present, though it cannot be discerned.
--
And it was with the design of showing that His city shall[Pg 401] not then follow this custom, that God said that the sons of Levi should offer sacrifices in righteousness,not therefore in sin, and consequently not for sin. And hence we see how vainly the Jews promise themselves a return of the old times of sacrificing according to the law of the old testament, grounding on the words which follow, "And the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the Lord, as in the primitive days, and as in former years." For in the times of the law they offered sacrifices not in righteousness but in sins, offering especially and primarily for sins, so much so that even the priest himself, whom we must suppose to have been their most righteous man, was accustomed to offer, according to God's commandments, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. And therefore we must explain how we are to understand the words, "as in the primitive days, and as in former years;" for perhaps he alludes to the time in which our first parents were in paradise. Then, indeed, intact and pure from all stain and blemish of sin, they offered themselves to God as the purest sacrifices. But since they were banished thence on account of their transgression, and human nature was condemned in them, with the exception of the one Mediator and those who have been baptized, and are as yet infants, "there is none clean from stain, not even the babe whose life has been but for a day upon the earth."[820] But if it be replied that those who offer in faith may be said to offer in righteousness, because the righteous lives by faith,[821]he deceives himself, however, if he says that he has no sin, and therefore he does not say so, because he lives by faith,will any man say this time of faith can be placed on an equal footing with that consummation when they who offer sacrifices in righteousness shall be purified by the fire of the last judgment? And consequently, since it must be believed that after such a cleansing the righteous shall retain no sin, assuredly that time, so far as regards its freedom from sin, can be compared to no other period, unless to that during which our first parents lived in paradise in the most innocent happiness before their transgression. It is this period, then, which is properly understood when it is said, "as in the primitive days, and as in former[Pg 402] years." For in Isaiah, too, after the new heavens and the new earth have been promised, among other elements in the blessedness of the saints which are there depicted by allegories and figures, from giving an adequate explanation of which I am prevented by a desire to avoid prolixity, it is said, "According to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people."[822] And who that has looked at Scripture does not know where God planted the tree of life, from whose fruit He excluded our first parents when their own iniquity ejected them from paradise, and round which a terrible and fiery fence was set?
But if any one contends that those days of the tree of life mentioned by the prophet Isaiah are the present times of the Church of Christ, and that Christ Himself is prophetically called the tree of life, because He is Wisdom, and of wisdom Solomon says, "It is a tree of life to all who embrace it;"[823] and if they maintain that our first parents did not pass years in paradise, but were driven from it so soon that none of their children were begotten there, and that therefore that time cannot be alluded to in words which run, "as in the primitive days, and as in former years," I forbear entering on this question, lest by discussing everything I become prolix, and leave the whole subject in uncertainty. For I see another meaning, which should keep us from believing that a restoration of the primitive days and former years of the legal sacrifices could have been promised to us by the prophet as a great boon. For the animals selected as victims under the old law were required to be immaculate, and free from all blemish whatever, and symbolized holy men free from all sin, the only instance of which character was found in Christ. As, therefore, after the judgment those who are worthy of such purification shall be purified even by fire, and shall be rendered thoroughly sinless, and shall offer themselves to God in righteousness, and be indeed victims immaculate and free from all blemish whatever, they shall then certainly be "as in the primitive days, and as in former years," when the purest victims were offered, the shadow of this future reality. For there shall then be in the body and soul of the saints the purity which was symbolized in the bodies of these victims.
[Pg 403]
Liber 111 - The Book of Wisdom - LIBER ALEPH VEL CXI, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
the Midst of the tree of life. For the Centre is the Point of Balance
of all Vectors. So then if thy wilt live wisely, learn that thou must
--
the Design Minutum Mundum, the tree of life. For though Wisdom be the
Second Emanation of his Essence, there is a Path to separate and to
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
tree of life. Here we have mysterious dogma, with all its allegories
and its terrors, replacing the simplicity of truth. The idol has
Liber 71 - The Voice of the Silence - The Two Paths - The Seven Portals, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Abyss; but fixes him in Daath, at the crown of a false tree of life in
which the Supernal Triad is missing. Now this man is also called a
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
equitable that he should collect the fruit the fruit o the tree of life and profit fro the
marvelous apples of the garden of the Hesperides.
--
Paradise. The ground of this beautiful composition is treated in the same fashion and the tree of life develops its roots around
a pile in all ways similar to the one on top of which the Man of the Woods is standing.
--
It is a double fruit for it is picked from the tree of life when specially reserved for
therapeutic uses, and from the Tree of Knowledge if the preferred use is metallic
--
are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold
upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the
the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
11) Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is everyone that retaineth her. ~ Proverbs
12) The possession of wisdom leadeth to true happiness. ~ Porphyry
--
2) And the Lord Jehovah said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us...and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ~ Genesis
3) The belief in supernatural beings may to a certain extent increase the action in man, but it produces also a moral deterioration. Dependence, fear, superstition accompany it; it degenerates into a miserable belief in the weakness of man. ~ Vivekananda
The Hidden Words text, #The Hidden Words, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awe-struck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you.
Persian #19
The Pilgrims Progress, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
{154} Then there came to him a hand, with some of the leaves of the tree of life, the which Christian took, and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle, and was healed immediately. He also sat down in that place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given him a little before; so, being refreshed, he addressed himself to his journey, with his sword drawn in his hand; for he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other affront from Apollyon quite through this valley.
{155} Now, at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it. Now, this valley is a very solitary place. The prophet Jeremiah thus describes it: "A wilderness, a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, a land that no man" (but a Christian) "passed through, and where no man dwelt." [Jer. 2:6]
--
{395} The talk they had with the Shining Ones was about the glory of the place; who told them that the beauty and glory of it was inexpressible. There, said they, is the Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. [Heb. 12:22-24] You are going now, said they, to the paradise of God, wherein you shall see the tree of life, and eat of the never-fading fruits thereof; and when you come there, you shall have white robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of eternity. [Rev. 2:7, 3:4, 21:4,5] There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower region upon the earth, to wit, sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death, for the former things are passed away. You are now going to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, and to the prophets--men that God hath taken away from the evil to come, and that are now resting upon their beds, each one walking in his righteousness. [Isa. 57:1,2, 65:17] The men then asked, What must we do in the holy place? To whom it was answered, You must there receive the comforts of all your toil, and have joy for all your sorrow; you must reap what you have sown, even the fruit of all your prayers, and tears, and sufferings for the King by the way. [Gal. 6:7] In that place you must wear crowns of gold, and enjoy the perpetual sight and vision of the Holy One, for there you shall see him as he is. [1 John 3:2] There also you shall serve him continually with praise, with shouting, and thanksgiving, whom you desired to serve in the world, though with much difficulty, because of the infirmity of your flesh. There your eyes shall be delighted with seeing, and your ears with hearing the pleasant voice of the Mighty One. There you shall enjoy your friends again that are gone thither before you; and there you shall with joy receive, even every one that follows into the holy place after you. There also shall you be clothed with glory and majesty, and put into an equipage fit to ride out with the King of Glory. When he shall come with sound of trumpet in the clouds, as upon the wings of the wind, you shall come with him; and when he shall sit upon the throne of judgment; you shall sit by him; yea, and when he shall pass sentence upon all the workers of iniquity, let them be angels or men, you also shall have a voice in that judgment, because they were his and your enemies. [1 Thes. 4:13-16, Jude 1:14, Dan. 7:9,10, 1 Cor. 6:2,3] Also, when he shall again return to the city, you shall go too, with sound of trumpet, and be ever with him.
{396} Now while they were thus drawing towards the gate, behold a company of the heavenly host came out to meet them; to whom it was said, by the other two Shining Ones, These are the men that have loved our Lord when they were in the world, and that have left all for his holy name; and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy. Then the heavenly host gave a great shout, saying, "Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." [Rev. 19:9] There came out also at this time to meet them, several of the King's trumpeters, clothed in white and shining raiment, who, with melodious noises, and loud, made even the heavens to echo with their sound. These trumpeters saluted Christian and his fellow with ten thousand welcomes from the world; and this they did with shouting, and sound of trumpet.
--
{398} Now, when they were come up to the gate, there was written over it in letters of gold, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." [Rev. 22:14]
{399} Then I saw in my dream that the Shining Men bid them call at the gate; the which, when they did, some looked from above over the gate, to wit, Enoch, Moses, and Elijah, &c., to whom it was said, These pilgrims are come from the City of Destruction, for the love that they bear to the King of this place; and then the Pilgrims gave in unto them each man his certificate, which they had received in the beginning; those, therefore, were carried in to the King, who, when he had read them, said, Where are the men? To whom it was answered, They are standing without the gate. The King then commanded to open the gate, "That the righteous nation," said he, "which keepeth the truth, may enter in." [Isa. 26:2]
The Revelation of Jesus Christ or the Apocalypse, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
To Smyrna
--
1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: 4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. 5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Epilogue
--
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
Wikipedia - Beri'ah -- Second of the four celestial worlds in the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah
Wikipedia - Binah (Kabbalah) -- Third sephira on the kabbalistic Tree of Life
Wikipedia - Da'at -- The location where all ten sefirot in the Tree of Life are united as one
Wikipedia - Etz Chaim -- Tree of Life in Hebrew
Wikipedia - Keter -- Topmost of the Sephirot of the Tree of Life in Kabbalah
Wikipedia - List of accolades received by The Tree of Life (film) -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Malkuth -- Tenth of the sephirot in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life
Wikipedia - Open Tree of Life -- Online phylogenetic tree of life
Wikipedia - The Tree of Life (film) -- 2011 American experimental drama film directed by Terrence Malick
Wikipedia - The Tree of Life, Stoclet Frieze
Wikipedia - Tiferet -- Sixth sefira in the kabbalistic Tree of Life
Wikipedia - Tree of Life (Bahrain)
Wikipedia - Tree of life (biblical) -- Tree first described in chapter 2, verse 9 of Genesis
Wikipedia - Tree of life (biology) -- Metaphor of relationships between species of organisms
Wikipedia - Tree of Life (craft)
Wikipedia - Tree of life (disambiguation)
Wikipedia - Tree of Life (Disney)
Wikipedia - Tree of life (Kabbalah) -- Diagram used in various mystical traditions
Wikipedia - Tree of life (Quran) -- Tree of life motif in the Quran
Wikipedia - Tree of life vision
Wikipedia - Tree of Life Web Project -- Internet project providing information about the diversity and phylogeny of life
Wikipedia - Tree of Life
Wikipedia - Tree of life
Wikipedia - tree of Life
Wikipedia - Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox task force -- Wikimedia subject-area collaboration
Wikipedia - Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life -- Wikimedia subject-area collaboration
Wikipedia - Woeseian revolution -- Progression of the phylogenetic tree of life from two main divisions, known as the Prokarya and Eukarya, into three domains now classified as Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryotes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17374198-the-tree-of-life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18207472-the-elven-tree-of-life-eternal
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19020085-the-tree-of-life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23267661-the-tree-of-life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34303968-tree-of-life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39866979-the-tree-of-life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/406212.The_Tree_of_Life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/406215.The_Tree_of_Life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44904380-the-tree-of-life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/544141.Climbing_the_Tree_of_Life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/941141.The_Tree_of_Life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/985612.Angels_and_Other_Mysteries_of_the_Tree_of_Life
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3863064.Tree_of_Life_Cafe
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_Life,_Medieval.jpg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Talk:Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Life
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#Analysis
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#Eastern_Christianity
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#External_links
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#Jewish_and_Non-Jewish_views
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#Mormons_.28Latter_Day_Saints.29
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#See_also
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Judeo-Christian)#Western_Christianity
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Life_(mythology)
dedroidify.blogspot - daily-dedroidify-kabbalah-tree-of-life
dedroidify.blogspot - today-is-tree-of-life-tarot-paths
https://esotericotherworlds.blogspot.com/2012/11/cabala-forbidden-fruit-of-tree-of-life.html
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Persian_Kermanshah_%27Tree_of_Life%27_(4-6_x_7-8,_ca_3rd_quarter_19th_century).jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_Life_2009_large.png
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Tree-of-Life_Flower-of-Life_Stage.jpg
The Tree of Life (2011) ::: 6.8/10 -- PG-13 | 2h 19min | Drama, Fantasy | 17 May 2011 (France) -- The story of a family in Waco, Texas in 1956. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence and struggles with his parents' conflicting teachings. Director: Terrence Malick Writer:
https://biomutant.fandom.com/wiki/Tree-of-Life
https://darksiders.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_Life_and_Death
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_life
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_Life
https://lionking.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_Life
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tree_of_Life,_the_Branches_of_Heaven
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_Life/Legends
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tree_of_Life_(novel)
https://virtualvillagerswiki.fandom.com/wiki/Virtual_Villagers_4:_The_Tree_of_Life
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qabalistic_Tree_of_Life_Unlabelled.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_tree_of_life._the_Christian_LCCN2002697363.jpg
Bradford Tree of Life Synagogue
Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
The Tree of Life (Cecil Taylor album)
The Tree of Life (film)
The Tree of Life (module)
The Tree of Life (soundtrack)
The Tree of Life (TV series)
Tree of life
Tree of Life (album)
Tree of Life (Bahrain)
Tree of life (biblical)
Tree of life (biology)
Tree of Life (Disney)
Tree of life (Kabbalah)
Tree of Life Or L'Simcha Congregation
Tree of life vision
Tree of Life Web Project
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 41
convenience portal:
recent: Section Maps - index table - favoritesSavitri --Savitri extended toc Savitri Section Map --1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
authors -- Crowley - Peterson - Borges - Wilber - Teresa -Aurobindo -Ramakrishna - Maharshi -Mother
places -- Garden - Inf. Art Gallery - Inf. Building - Inf. Library - Labyrinth - Library - School -Temple - Tower - Tower of MEM
powers -- Aspiration - Beauty - Concentration - Effort - Faith - Force - Grace - inspiration -Presence - Purity - Sincerity - surrender
difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - studysubjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null -Savitri - SA O TAOC -SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel -TLD -TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs