I. The Way of the West
“… each organism only lives through contact with other matter, assimilation, and contact with other life, which means assimilation of new vibrations, non-material. Each individual organism is vivified by intimate contact with fellow organisms: up to a certain point.
So man. He breathes the air into him, he swallows food and water. But more than this. He takes into him the life of his fellow men, with whom he comes into contact, and he gives back life to them. This contact draws nearer and nearer, as the intimacy increases. When it is a whole contact, we call it love. Men live by food, but die if they eat too much. Men live by love, but die, or cause death, if they love too much.
There are two loves: sacred and profane, spiritual and sensual.
In sensual love, it is the two blood-systems, the man’s and the woman’s, which sweep up into pure contact, and almost fuse. Almost mingle. Never quite. There is always the finest imaginable wall between the two blood-waves, through which pass unknown vibrations, forces, but through which the blood itself must never break, or it means bleeding.
In spiritual love, the contact is purely nervous. The nerves in the lovers are set vibrating in unison like two instruments. The pitch can rise higher and higher. But carry this too far, and the nerves begin to break, to bleed, as it were, and a form of death sets in.
…
But as a matter of fact this glowing unison is only a temporary thing, because the first law of life is that each organism is isolate in itself, it must return to its own isolation.
Yet man has tried the glow of unison, called love, and he likes it. It gives him his highest gratification. He wants it. He wants it all the time. He wants it and he will have it. He doesn’t want to return to his own isolation. Or if he must, it is only as a prowling beast returns to its lair to rest and set out again.”
D.H. Lawrence, “Edgar Allan Poe”
Edward Munch, “Vampire”
II. The Way of the East
“Black Coat holds the skull-cup
containing the life-blood of the ego and
the chopping-knife which destroys all
hindrances. The cut-off heads worn as a
garland around his neck signify the conquest
of all enlightened mental functions.
When he appears in union sitting with
his consort Radiant Goddess , it denotes the
highest level of insight. They then ride an
indestructible mule through oceans of
blood. In her four hands, Radiant Goddess
holds a mirror showing the world, a
diamond dagger … cutting
the disturbing feelings, a trident showing
her awakened inner energies and a snake-
lasso with which she catches all disturbing
infuences.”
Invocation of the Protector Black Coat: Diamond Way Buddhism
III. The Way of Poetry
SACRIFICE, by Reiner Maria Rilke
Translated by Edward Snow
“How my body blooms from every vein
more fragrantly, since I first saw you;
look, I walk slimmer now and so much straighter,
and you only wait -: who are you then?
See: I feel how I’m moving away,
how I’m shedding my old life, leaf by leaf.
Only your smile stands like pure stars
over you and, soon now, over me.
Everything that from my childhood years
still floats namelessly and gleams like water:
I will christen it yours on the altar,
which your hair has set on fire
and your breasts have gently wreathed.”
Raffaele Monti, “Vestal Virgin”
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