Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet
I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help and a certain difficult repentance,
and patience, long, difficult repentance, realisation of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.
D. H. LAWRENCE
my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height
this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm
newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots
and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.
Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice
keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly (over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream
his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.
Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain
septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is
proudly and (by octobering flame
beckoned) as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark
his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.
My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)
then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold
giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am
though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath
and nothing quite so least as truth
-i say though hate were why men breathe-
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all
Remember, you’ve come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself, only with yourself. Therefore, thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.
-Gurdjieff, Meetings with Remarkable Men.
I know the voice of depression
Still calls to you.
I know those habits that can ruin your life
Still send their invitations.
But you are with the Friend now
And look so much stronger.
You can stay that way
And even bloom!
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter.
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved
And, my dear,
From the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
But then drag you for days
Like a broken man
Behind a farting camel.
You are with the Friend now.
Learn what actions of yours delight Him,
What actions of yours bring freedom
And Love.
Whenever you say God’s name, dear pilgrim,
My ears wish my head was missing
So they could finally kiss each other
And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!
O keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter
And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Now, sweet one,
Be wise.
Cast all your votes for Dancing!
What we do not know, or fear acknowledging, does in fact hurt us, and often others as well…so often the one who receives the Shadow projection of others-be it Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter, the witches of Salem, the devils of Loudon, the Jews of Poland, gays, or a host of other martyrs to unconsciousness – will be vilified, crucified, marginalized, gassed, burned, or ignored. They are the carrier of our secret life, and for this we shall bate them, revile them, and destroy them, for they have committed the most heinous of offenses. They remind us of some aspect of ourselves we cannot bear to see. Sadly, the weaker the ego state, the more intolerable this summons, and the greater the potential for “categorical judgment” of others, which is to say bigotry and prejudice. – James Hollis
All paths lead nowhere, so choose a path with heart. – Don Juan
In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away. – T.S. Eliot
They chose me, not that I might learn,
But only because I was born,
And gave me amulets of clay,
Some armor and a brief goodbye.
And at the threshold of the pool,
The looking-glass, the spoiled well,
The hole beneath the whirling tree,
I waited meekly. They called me.
I turned a corner, and was there,
Where all the other places are:
The other side of the cupped moon, Oz.
Heaven-Hell, and the Unknown.
I had too many purposes:
Although they hadn’t said, “Find keys,
Find maidens, answers, and lost loves,”
I knew they wanted these themselves,
And I was bound to seek them all
Or be transformed, or die, or fall.
All the horned gods soared by and looked,
Hoping to stain my smallest act.
And there were beasts: three-headed dogs,
Gorgons, ghouls with whirligigs,
And dragons both alive and dead
For me to master, and I did.
I did, and O they brought Her in:
My Mother, the Queen upon a throne,
The Circe with a mouth to fill,
The witch already beautiful.
How could I know Her without pain?
I turned: there sat the evil King,
Betrayer, jealous brother, God.
I loved him much more than I should.
Then Glory rattled from a cloud,
The deaf-and-dumb rose up and cried,
Cripples came striding, golden fleece
Fell from the holy air like lace,
And broken curses rained, and time
Gave birth, gave birth, and returned home
Where all of the unmade desires
Are made at last. And I felt worse,
And I was elected to a boon,
A final wish for every man.
I chose what I was told to choose:
They told me gently who I was.
It scarcely mattered. I lay down
And ate the lotos, kissed my crown,
And gazed at Ozma, Beatrice,
And sighed, and was content with this.
But no—two-legged horses came,
Ogres, winds, and mothers-in-loam,
Provoked husbands with their wives.
Little people with long knives,
The shadows of the underworld;
And all my journey was recoiled,
Drawn back to the uneasy place
Where each benign beginning is.
Now, like Ulysses, master of
The world under, world above,
The world between and one beyond
Which was not near enough to find—
I wait, and wonder what to learn:
O here, twice blind at being born.
Edge of Atlantic 