Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 2 Number 2, August 2007
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Living the poems of Angelus Silesius on Aran –or was it Crete?
by
Turn –wherever I turn
I find no evidence
Of beginning or circumference
Aran. Morning light and the sunshine glitter on water. Gulls in the air and the music of wing-beats in the air when I walked. This seemed to be the beginning but I knew that it was more than that. That is was a continuation of all this island bespoke to the mind and made tangible to the eyes and the heart. Aran. First place of the world and the first language rising into the first poem of the day. Something that would not be postponed. No, not even by the amazement of the day.
The works of the god-mind -
A richness the full extent
Of an undiscovered continent
As in was in Crete. Dancing light and the glitter on the water we walked towards. There at the harbour. Watching the boats. Speaking their names when we could pronounce them before they sailed to the islands beyond and back into mythology. Crete. We had arrived. We were assumed. And nothing that it showed to us was the full extent of what it was and what it said it would be. As if the islands came alive. As if it was a beginning without end.
The many grains of the bread
The many drops of the sea –
So the oneness multiplies,
We are that manyness
Who were we in those places? What were the identities we grew into? Nothing could be said that would say the truth, the full truth of it and no matter what we said so much was left unsaid. We ate bread by the seashore –but was it Crete or Aran? I could not say. You could not say. Whatever we said was never enough and so we left so much unsaid but grew because of that closer to the kernel of both islands.
All from the One proceeding
And this unless
We remain in manyness
But was it Aran or Crete –and what was one that the other was not? Language glittered on the water. Language glittered on our tongues. We were tasting the salt of the day in which every difference was a sameness and what showed itself to you showed itself to me in a slightly different fashion. Island. Outposts of the mind. We had come for that and all that they spoke in time and history. Learning as we went that there was much we could understand and much that we could not.
There, beyond time, beyond place
The true Nothingness –
What you struggle to grasp flies from you
From the place to the placeless
Perhaps it was the gull that flew over both harbours. Perhaps it was the words I could not speak. Perhaps it was what the glitter of language could not name. Whatever. I was held to the unspoken core of islands and harbours and longed to burrow into the core they said was waiting within. Perhaps it was the gull. Perhaps it was the words. But when I rose to speak the words would not come. As if there was no need. As if there was a place they could not inhabit.
What you say is not enough
More! Give me more I cry!
Let all attest the super-nova of Your will!
Gulls and morning. First morning of the world. And if not the first then the first to which I woke in this glitter of sunlight and water. More! Give me more! I cried to the day. Let me see the super nova of delight as it flashes through the first of the seven heavens! And what could I say that did not say this? What could I say that would not echo this cry? O I said nothing more than this and I never will.
No, not even the knowledge of angles
Will hold me to this zone-
I want to take flight
There to where all and nothing is known
Whatever I know is never enough. Nothing I know will bind me to one place in a particular time. No, the morning was more than morning. The glitter was more than a simple glitter on water. The gulls were more than gulls. O speak to me from the fiery plume of place and placelessness! Speak to me as only a gull can speak and as only the glitter of water can respond to. Yet all was silence in the morning and in that was a mystery. Something I will travel by and search out no matter where I go.
What can be known of the godhead?
Nothing. Nothing unless your will is fused
To the burning core of flame
Yet what did I know? I could not say if this was Crete or Aran. I could not say if the glitter on water and the glitter on the tongue held the same substance and intention. Yet there I was. Almost strange in that place and certainly a stranger to the flame within the burning core of Aran and of Crete.
I love that which I do not know
This is my choice, my bliss
The word unspoken by the word. The island within the island’s core. Yes. This was the need. Was the lure. Was the bright gull of morning as I walked the endless sands. Time and history were no more in that place and for an instant –o there are eternities in such instances- I was more than what I was. All things hinted an otherness that I had long sought for but had no name to name it by. Something that did not matter. Something that does not matter now that I write this in my room.
Love increases and knowledge diminishes –
A mystery of which you know less and less
Yet everything I knew encumbered me. To speak of the gull was not to speak of the gull in the air above me. To speak of water was not to speak of the water surrounding the island. This did not matter. The morning was bright and if I did not know where I was well, what did that matter? It didn’t and wouldn’t in the mind that explored the beginning of all things on that island.
Blinded, blinded by light
And so you do not see -
The fault rests in the seeing eye
Sunrise in the first place of the world. As if it was Easter. As if it was always this way from the beginning that began in times and places more than the eye could see. Yet this was the beauty, the delight; to walk in the world as if no one walked there; as if the sand held, and would not hold, other footprints to the end.
The movement of the Nuclear Will
A motion always still
Motion begot motion. Glitter begot glitter. Language moved between both names and nothing was named to its own conclusion. At the pure point of stillness –I thought- all things have perfect movement and delight and that is where I would move. O yes, desire rose in that place and there was no word to name it. As if in silence all things moved. As if in silence all words found their true name.
Where motion is rest and rest motion
He achieves both to perfection
Crete or Aran. Who could say and what did it matter? All things shone in the morning and the gull above one harbour was the gull above the other. I watched his flight above the flowing waves and counted wing-beats according to the beats of the song I was singing. And when he hover in the air I could not say if that was motion of perfect stillness. Motion, stillness -is this not also the heart as it reaches to know the flight and hover of gulls?
Motions or stillness
Your to yours, mine to mine
But which, which is the greater concern?
Motions of the mind. Motions of the heart. And what –what is the difference and the sameness? Motions of the mind walking the sands that crunched underfoot. Motion of the heart beating in tempo with the waves. Yet not to choose. Not to take the one above the other but unite both in motions that say: here in this place, here in this time, I write my name in the sand and speak the words of this my affirmation.
If only the divine could rest in me
In the manner in which I rest in it!
Gull on a weave of the wind. Gull that hovers above all the harbours of the world. Gull that takes my mind and heart into your flight and intention. Gull, to fly with you is my desire. Gull, to hover above the islands of Crete and Aran is my delight. I sing these songs of celebration for us both. I make these pronouncements over the earth
Love? Love what is abiding
Only the rose abides
All else fades and is fading
And more. More than the totality of what was. More than what they were was the sense of expectation they brought with them. As if messengers out of the brightness would arrive with good news for the day. Yes. Enduring brightness from which all things come and to which they seek return. And I thought of the rose of time interweaving with the rose of eternity at its core and how beauty was vivid there. It was this which moved the heart. It was this to which they responded. It was this which gave the day its special verve.
Choose –destruction or peace
Your choice will not cause him to suffer
Nor increase
Messengers. Portents in the morning light that said you could live the life you sought for if that was the life you would choose. So choose well in the light off the Atlantic or the light off the Aegean. Yet whatever your choice the day would remain the day it always was. Nothing would change that. Beauty that could not be added to nor taken from so as to increase or diminish. Its own verve was its own tempo. And the waves came according to that. And the gulls flew because of it. As if the ancient and splendid light was so particular to Greece that it was particular to everywhere. Messengers. Brightness in the morning that bespoke itself. Yes. Yes. Yes. This was what the heart and mind said. This is what was ringing in the air.
Self and god-self
This should be the one love
The one form, the one substance
Was the self enduring? Enduring as the tide or subject to it? It was both and neither as I stood on the strand and watched ships in the distance carry their cargos to other harbours or cast out their nets. Was the self as bright as morning or subject to the darkness of the night? Standing there how easy to believe in the brightness. How easy to believe in the permanence of all things in their given identities. Self and self. As poets have written of it. As the gull exemplified. As the morning seem to call upon to a bracing duty.
What you call foreknowledge
Is a limitation of the godhead
Motions of the mind. Motions of the red streaked sky moving towards the clarity of blue. Yet if this was foreknown it was not all that was known. And if this was foreknown then so much more lay in immanent brightness. Yet to expect was not enough. Expectation could not contain the totality that came as promised. Came and was more than what expectation could measure or give a name to. Came and was the totality of itself
The nuclear Will
Does not think as you think –
Now moving this way
Now moving that
And the mind moving within the mind. Circle within a circle; motion within motion. And music playing an overture to the beauty of the morning. And the morning itself moving with purpose towards the first culmination of the day. Yes, this was what the heart always longed for and the mind sought to emulate even if its failings littered the strand like shells.
Is! And in its own wise is –
This is the way of the godhead
Which is not the creaturely way
Origins. A starting point. The stone field and the ancient earth. All things residing in their names like the diamond residing within the stone. Or the shell housing the swish of the ocean for my delight. Origins. A starting point to start from. Which is what I was doing. Calling on all the forces of the day to assist the field of vision. Vision. There in that place. Vision moving like the sea was moving toward –if not a conclusion, then at least to an understanding that might yet be epiphany. So, to start out from that. Make a first step into the claims of the day. Say that all things were ringing with light and that all language glittered on the tongue.
The measure of truth from error?
Yet how to measure the purpose of an island? How give it back its proper name in the shambles of naming that passed for naming on all the main lands of the world? To bow down, to assume the position, to be the pilgrim which we had come as –yes, this was imperative in the morning and so the naming came and came and the words came and came and their seemed no end to it all. As if in island a name resided that could work a cleansing force. As if in the islands resided a benediction to purify the mind and so measure all things
Always, all ways to become
That which it always is
Without form or human intention
Pilgrim. Adept at prayer and supplication. That’s what I was walking the strand. ‘Name me’ said the gull but I could not. ‘Speak me’ said the sea but I could not. I could only bow down. I could only offer up the prayers of one who came with his unknowing.
To the cloudless sea of eternity
And moving there, moving over the sand of morning, I was alone in the world yet that seemed right. As if I was chosen for this moment. As if I filled some vital necessity.
No one fathoms the depth of the godhead
Even Christ is lost and amazed there
Islands. Harbours and gulls. Boats at their moorings. Nets ready. The first sun striking the water and the water responding. Language rising to answer and make whole the day. The heart in wild delight. The mind in a bright confusion. And only the glitter of words and water would ever attempt to name but could not be named but which lay before that morning. Islands. Harbours and boats. And the words came and went. The words came and went.
Fire, being, flame-
This is what the godhead is and is not
Becoming in time
What he in eternity was not
Aspect of beauty in the flecked and grained stone. Aspect of beauty in the turn of a shell. Aspect of beauty in the day opening more and more upon the world. And yes, to speak this, to attempt to give it a befitting name was the true necessity of that glitter on water which language moved towards. O I will be telling this again and again no mater what comes and goes. No matter what success or failure I may know.
God the begetter
-This is genesis of all things-
Masculine, feminine changeless, nameless, One
Islands. Aran or Crete. Harbours the mind rests in before it moves back to the stone lands of the world. Face that was faceless. Name that resided outside of and beyond all names yet were held in their names. I blessed myself and all things that morning. I said –this is what I will live by. And this is what I live by yet in places far from that given grace still operative in the air.