Morris Graves, “Bird, Snake and Moon”
“Smaller than the small
I am that still centre
within you
that needle’s eye
through which all the threads
of the universe are drawn.
Perhaps you think you know me
but you do not know me.
Of everything that is,
of every word that is spoken
on the lips
or in the heart,
of every thought and hope and wish,
I am the silent witness.
Nearer to you than ecstasy
in the blood
yet more mysterious far
I am the guardian of every colour
that catches the eye,
of every taste
that pleases the tongue,
of every word
that speaks to the heart.
Perhaps you think you know me
but you do not know me.
Mine is the voice
that sings out of the voiceless
night, that rises
like music out of the root
of the dark thorn, out of the lucid
throat of the fountain.
Smaller than the small
I am the seed
of all that is known
and unknown.
I am the root
and stem of meaning,
the ground
of wonder. Through me,
each leading
tendril of desire
is drawn,
and breathes in
consciousness of Being.
And yet when you open
your ears to my voice
and listen with all your hearing
and listen again,
no subtle joining of notes and words,
no vertical song is heard
but silence is singing.
And when you open your eyes
to my appearance
but cannot see me,
or when you close your eyes
and close your ears in concentration
and look with your hands
and turn back again the pages
of sleep’s dark scripture,
no great or terrible sign awakes,
no vision burns
but absence is shining.
Mine is the secret
that lies hidden
like the lustrous pearl
gleaming
within its oyster
the deepest secret
the secret
hidden within the secret.”
By Paul Murray
symbolreader 
Such a profound choice Monika. It is provocative and universal, with a slight hint of humor.
Happy and Prosperous Eclipse to you!
love, Linda
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Dear Linda,
I was working on a longer post but ran out of time. But I wanted to get a Sunday post published. I thought this is so perfect for the eclipse. Hope yours is fruitful and illuminating, too.
Monika
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It is perfect. Thinking of you across the ocean gazing at the moon in all her glory.
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“Reality” by Peter Kingsley about Parmenides, who was an Ouliades or “son of Apollo the healer, of the god who destroys but also makes whole” has a lot on the subject of stillness, silence, incubation. From fragments in an ancient Greek book regarding the teacher of Parmenides, the main detail learned is that his teacher “introduced him to stillness: hesychia.”
“To be told that the father of western rationalism, the founder of logic, was introduced to extraordinary methods of reasoning by his teacher: this would be easy enough to understand. To be told that he was taught great metaphysical truths would be quite believable, too. But to be asked to accept that the one thing his real teacher taught him was stillness- this should come as something of a shock . . .
. . . For over two thousand years now, people have thought and thought about what Parmenides says about thinking; have written the most persuasive and learned books, all of them disagreeing with the others. But trying to think about thinking is utterly futile. There is only one way to understand and discover the nature of thinking- by arriving at the standpoint of stillness that lies beyond thought.”
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Dear Gray,
I love that quote so much. Makes me think of Zen koans.
Thank you and have a blessed eclipse.
Monika
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WAKE UP
A Poem by Sunil K. Vidyarthi
From time immemorial, I am trying to wake you up but you don’t.
Not complaining, for such is not my nature; mine is to wake you up.
Not frustrated for I can’t be, just know that I have to wake you up.
I put melody in bird’s chirping, coolness in the summer breeze,
Burning heat in midday sun and deafening noise in monsoon thunder
To just do one thing, wake you up.
Spark in your first kiss, comfort in mother’s embrace,
Rush in your home run and the musky flavor in lobster bisque,
I did it all to do just one thing, wake you up.
Desire to own, taste, destroy, love and hate,
I placed so you’d WANT to wake up.
Also put the fear in you
So you’d keep on desiring all and to wake up.
I made life beautiful,
So you can love the beauty and wake up.
I made it miserable
So you will hate the misery and wake up.
Now I think it is time you woke up.
Don’t argue about genetics, Darwin, evolution and creation.
I made them so, don’t ask me how and when,
All I know is why, and that is to wake you up.
You say, you can’t or you don’t know how?
For millions of years, in thousands of ways
As guru’s, gods, priests, friends and lovers,
I have been telling you how.
As Krishna, I told you to see me, see you
Not yours who you kill, to rid the world of evil.
As Buddha, I told you to pay attention
Be mindful of sufferings (good, great and bad).
As Shiva, the Tantric, I asked you to find me
In all ecstasies, from sex to breath of fresh air.
As Nisargdatta Maharaj, I told you,
You are That whom you look for.
Do ask me why I want to wake you up?
That is simple; you are asleep.
Do ask me, who am I?
That too is simple; I am you, asleep
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Thank-you! Happy lunar eclipse..”a white triangle with golden wings”!
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Thank you and very best wishes to you too!
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Wonderful reading, Monika.
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I was enchanted, too.
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Hymn of Apollo
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries,
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,–
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.
II.
Then I arise, and climbing Heaven’s blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
III.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of Night.
IV.
I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers,
With their ethereal colors; the Moon’s globe,
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers,
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine,
Are portions of one power, which is mine.
V.
I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven;
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;
For grief that I depart they weep and frown:
What look is more delightful than the smile
With which I soothe them from the western isle?
VI.
I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself, and knows it is divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,
All prophecy, all medicine, is mine,
All light of art or nature; – to my song
Victory and praise in its own right belong.
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The Other
by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
(From “Poems for People who Don’t Read Poems”, 1971)
one laughs
is worried
under the sky exposes my face and my hair
makes words roll out of my mouth
one who has money and fears and a passport
one who quarrels and loves
one moves
one struggles
but not i
i am the other
who does not laugh
who has no face to expose to the sky
and no words in his mouth
who is unacquainted with me with himself
not i: the other: always the other
who neither wins nor loses
who is not worried
who does not move
the other
indifferent to himself
of whom I know nothing
of whom nobody knows who he is
who does not move me
that’s who I am
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I AM NOT I (YO NO SOY YO)
by Juan Ramon Jiménez, from the book ‘Eternidades’, 1916)
I am not I.
I am he
who walks at my side without my seeing him;
whom, at times, I go to see
and whom, at times, I forget.
He, who, composed, is silent when I speak,
he who, gentle, forgives when I hate,
he who walks where about where I am not,
he who will stand up straight when I die
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“Algebra of Feelings” (excerpt)
by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (from the book ‘Kiosk’)
I often have the feeling (intense,
obscure, indefinable etc)
that the I is not a fact
but a feeling
I can’t get rid of.
“The Entombment”
by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (‘Kiosk’)
Our mortal frame,
they call it.
But what did it hold?
The psychologist will say:
Your psyche.
Your soul,
the priest.
Your personality,
the personnel manager.
Furthermore,
there’s the anima,
the imago, the daemon,
the identity and the Ego,
not to mention the Id
and the Super-Ego.
The butterfly which is to rise
from this very mixed lot
belongs to a species
about which nothing is known.
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‘Alter Ego’ by Gwen Harwood
(excerpt)
Who stands beside me still,
nameless, indifferent
to any lost or ill
motion of mind or will,
whose pulse is mine, who goes
sleepless and is not spent?
(…)
yet cannot name, or see
save as light’s sidelong shift,
who will not answer me,
knows what I was, will be,
and all I am: beyond
time’s desolating drift.
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I know I am late to comment, but just wanted to let you know I love this. Thanks! x
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It is always nice to hear from you – no matter how late. 🙂
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