Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Op.13 JHVH
Cantos 1. Eros
Split a piece of wood, lift any stone, look into your home..into your enemy's home, look to the earth, water, air, and fire!..it is there. If those who lead you say, "Behold!..the kingdom is in the heavens," then the birds will precede you. If they say that it is in the sea, then the fish will precede you. Rather, it is within you, and it is outside you...the eternal divine is 'all and everything,' with which, one atones
Atonement is with JHVH, 'all and everything'..not a word, not a thing. Venerate no image, mental or thing. No being can be all knowledge, all power, all space, all darkness. Venerate peace of mind. Respect equally..the truth of one's self, and the truth that is selfless. Judge not any being by seeking understanding until compassion is felt. Honor the spirit of marriage. Covet not, any thing. To one's self, be true
The divine is 'all and everything,' Love of the divine is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the beginning of wisdom
Of all the wisdoms achieved, the first is that it need not be worn, upon the sleeve
Wisdom is better than rubies. It will not vary in value, and can never be stolen
One, rich with silver and jewels may have nothing. One poor of them, may be among the richest in the world. One pre'occupied to gain silver and jewels, between their comforts becomes a target. One pre'occupied in the pursuit of wisdom, attains ever increasing comforts of its wealth, for its sum cannot be seen. What wisdom eats, satisfies the soul, but the belly of the seven deadlies, its appetite ever unsatisfied, shall always grow
Wisdom for wisdom sake, its merit?..no more than a seedless husk, caught by lesser wind, beginning its journey at dusk, and on, into the night
Wisdom knows...haste is from want, patience from need..only from need, does wisdom breed
Wisdom may be stricken, it may be sick..wisdom may be beaten, but ever awake, it shall seek again, knowing what succeeds confirms..what does not, teaches. Wisdom..with success or failure, happiness or sorrow, ever increases in strength
Wisdom knows when to pursue truth, when to give it voice, when to make it mute
Wisdom knows that it does not inspire, but only affirms, what had already become apparent
Wisdom knows, that as knowledge increases so high, so does sorrow, so low
The sun rises, and sets at the other end, and hastens to the place, where it arises again. The wind flows south, turns north, and whirls and whirls, there and back again. Rivers run to the sea, and disappear, and from the seas, rise to the sky, and from mountains high, reappear, running back again, to the sea. All that has been, and all that will be, has been before. What is now, will ever be again. In eternity, there is no thing new under the sun, for what is new, can never be known. There is no remembrance of all things past, or remembrance of all things now, nor of all to come. As remembrance is vital, so is forgetfulness
If I should say, "Creation is from the many," I am like the stem of a tree. A single eye I be, looking outward toward the branches and leaves, receiving nourishment from the sun. And if we should say, "Creation is from the one," we are like the many branches, the many eyes are we, looking toward the stem of the tree. Just a single tree therefore, can embody I or we that should happen to be. Within this tree, the one or many sources of creation are as one, drawing nourishment from the darkness below, from the light above..coming together to produce the fruit, for its own way of life. Drawing nourishment from the dark within, and from the enlightenment there..the universal prevails amid the turbulent winds of complexity, and the particular is heavy, under doldrums of simplicity, but the fruits of creation endure, however the universe is perceived. And from the dust, from every rock and drop of sea, every tree and creature arose, anchoring deeper into the Earth, reaching higher into a world greater than what simple unity knows, or what colorful complexity can be
And from some ancient past or distant future, will life, self aware, inevitably beget time and eternity. Incomplete matter needing matter, imbalanced light needing light! All configurations of self'light readily occupy, convolutions of passive light. And the life courses, flowing, always glowing, its eternal moments, given eternities for change, given time to forget, to select and adapt itself, to course radiantly, and ever live on
Wind'blown sand insults flesh. Desiccated earth impoverishes soul. Without time, loving only what is sublime, knowing evil and hating its object beyond the tolerance of flesh, complexities of affection and hate readily mold innocence, until 'good and evil' re'emerges...and assuming immortality, again seeks its destiny in new flesh, and the end of a worn out shell. Hell has no bounds for the eye, unable to separate what the eye holds, from what it beholds, and locate where evil truly, holds fast
A thousand cries, a thousand dies. So born from extremes of affection and hate, the eyes having opened conceiving evil, becomes as treacherous, sharp, and destructive, as good can be protective and nurturing. The fruit forbidden, innocence hidden..fermented from powers over life, over humankind, its heady wine with intoxicated vision, becomes feared, as a god would be feared, or adored, as a goddess needs to be adored. Innocence in bondage, becomes indentured by the vain..darkly divided by 'good and evil' conceived..ever conquered, ever conquering, never nurtured without an ever watchful eye. Deceived with precision and calculation, the child dwells in isolation until the forbidden fruit, bearing new seed, becomes apparent. From generation to generation, is some 'good and evil' prevailing. With one impassioned outpouring of spirit into another, with one hand caressing, the other enchaining..with one eye loving, the other coveting, this entity, deep under the rose, having grown old, soon beholds itself...incarnate in another! But the fruit is bittersweet, for with the Cherubim, the child became lost, and what was left, became master of illusion, of themselves, and everything else. Such is the nature of 'good and evil' refrains, with the child within, silent and comatose, aware, but of life, only dimly aware
For earthly incarnation, a being is bound. The child severs the lifeline of the womb. Womanchild, manchild readily lives deep, unabashed, unashamed. And free to live, the child fits in perfection with creation..boundaryless, as one eye unique, as one of many..seeing clearly, seeing far, wide, and deep, when innocence prevails and lives
What is this belief? that whosoever is not as I, is evil and an enemy. What is this belief of evil? that transcends and overruns others who live. How did this word, live, become so completely turned? that like a lethal serpent's fang, hanging in the shade, or like the air, filled with the waters of an unforeseen flood, the living can be so swiftly, so easily whisked away. Another life can be taken, or entire universes can be discounted for evil's name sake. Centers of a universe, such good'evil becomes..becoming dark holes in space where light enters and does not leave. How can truth, absolute, live? but within those who would be as a god, or one of many, with unending appetites for power
With such predators of innocence, the mind consumes the living. Predatory mind feeding upon innocent spirit's flesh. Loving rigidly, conditionally..using sensual desire to control, or emotion, to enslave compassion, as one eye endentures another, until itself, in the other, it sees. Fear and desire in eternity, so profoundly separate from the dust and water, it lives upon the precipice of extinction, possessing and clutching every thought, belief, and isolated song, for the sake of, the immortal body it makes. Such apparent immortalness, such vanity seeking life for life, is the vanity that venerates the consuming night, and melancholy song, of early morn
How easy life seems when one chooses to perceive only themselves within others. How joyous is life in one hand, with vanity in the other? How easy is faith made shallow? sensitive only to itself, enslaved. Such an overlord, blinds as much as it sees. And they are innocent therefore, when blind...as innocent as newborn innocence they are, however much they are, charged only with themselves
Long ago, it seems, did I begin. So formed from a vast history of countless evolutions given for this day, the sum of its knowledge within a single seed. This seed nurtured from the dust of Earth, gives this body through which I live. At one my body is, with the past and the world today! And when great pressures of emotion unbearably press upon me, at one with my body I become. At one with all there is, I be, freed from all bits of matter, I call me. At one with 'all and everything,' there is no good nor bad, only the thresholds of my senses and the leisure to see a larger, greater world than what troubled mind can see...here, where innocence is cleansed of pierced ears, finger rings, neck adornments, or any other fantasy, fashioned into some novelty. Here, at one with all, vision repairs blunted light, and keeps clear, the way back to Eden, as I were, in my beginning
What symbol can there be? or what sound can be meaningful for all that is? What force can be omnipotent? What place, omnipresent? What knowledge can be omniscient? or ignorance, that is truly omninescient. What can any thought of life be, but a word born by the one, through which we perceive, as a limited being. An indeterminate universe of words we are within, perceiving others without, while being what I feel, what I think, what I know...and what I do not know. And the greater of me, perceives the dust from which we came. We are born into the world of 'all and everything.' Of power that is within every bit of substance, we are..of the universe of light, we are amid the sleep, of consciousness deep
After separation from all, and so fallen from grace, I am mortally bound, self'aware. And being so limited, and so constrained, a dichotomy is, between the eros I am, and the agape we are. Only by atoning with 'all and everything,' as I were in my beginning, can my rapport with life, be ever increasing. From a'far, I can feel the clouds rising from the sea, or the snows mounting from passing rains..or the coursing rivers nurtured by mountain streams. How otherwise can the spirit of the waters be seen? rising from the sea, sleeping upon mountains, and flowing back, to its vast beginning. Of the dichotomous whole, is the dust of rock, the emptiness of air, the light of sun..the living everywhere, is of an indeterminate world. So this life can so easily be..deep asleep, while wide awake. Living in forgetfulness of 'all and everything,' who can comprehend all the elements that are? and remain able to perceive in that same instant, the systems of those elements. And what end of time, do we choose to become wiser? What other end could there be? but that which begets the dust of Earth, from which I spring. The 'all and everything' beyond me that was, is, or could ever be, does inevitably beget me. Sweet peace there is. Pleasant rest from from a self'seeing eye, we be. Profound peace everywhere within. And here, in this dreamless sleep, is where wisdom brightens, when time becomes the delicate sound, through which all self'conscious light is bound
Once a needed truth is found, one is born again, and by it, knows their beginning and end. Once reborn, no passion of good or bad can be great enough to make the memory of this occasion, easily forgotten. But how forgotten can an all embracing world be? when there is time aside foreverness, when there are all things and their oppositions, and all things unique. What manner of space can this be? but this space of life where anything, in due course of time, may exist for all that can possibly be listed, as the first and last of any being
If all light and darkness created, are of one..if all peace and war are of one..if all good that could ever be envisioned, if all great wrongs that could be imagined, are also of the same dichotomous one, whosoever speaks of good therefore, says of their own morality. Whosoever shouts about bad, speaks only of their own way of life, within a world always greater than what mortal or would'be immortal could ever be. If one should claim to possess the essential vision of the universe, one becomes the most isolated, the most innocent in that universe. If one knows the least, they become the most incarnate in the universe, and also, the most innocent
Within this universe of 'all and everything,' how can one be? but a traveler, a wayfarer with no place to stop for more than a brief passing eternity..no place to rest, for the best of what is deep to awaken, arise, and follow the songs, from which one was beget. Youth can only be a wanderer, it seems. Painfully angst. An unsteady emotion daring not to feel too much in one place. Time's pace is fast! Time's gait is slow. Time, ever fast or slow, never seems real at all
For every thing, there is a season, and a time for every reason. A time to be born, and a time to burn, as the Phoenix burns. A time to plant, and a time to reap. A time for bleeding, and a time for healing. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to get, a time to lose..a time to keep, a time to choose. A time to destroy, and a time to create. A time to embrace, and a time to withhold. A time to be bold, and a time to be weak. A time to speak, a time to be meek. A time to sew, and a time to rend. A time to begin, a time to end. And time for love..to love and love, and love
When the time of life stops to wait for me, I hear, "Wayfarer, traveler with heart secret and silent...no place to stop, no place to settle and rest. Destiny, fate..for these you wait, until providence gives..waiting always, within some dark awkward room that you would not otherwise, ever think to occupy. Wayfarer, wanderer..do not find too much comfort for your head. Do not let too much beauty fill your eye, nor too much wonder, enchant your mind. Do not let your feet sink, too deep into the warm softness of Earth. Do not allow yourself to be touched too deeply, by simple joys of living. No feelings so deep, nor laughter so high, because the heart needs more time to open, within a world where a grain of sand can fill the sky, where one may feel less, than the smallest whiff of wind"
Only a wayfarer can I be, when separated from all and everything. At one with 'all and everything,' all of creation has equal station...all places of light, the seas of space, their vast sweeping currents, the rivers flowing..the vision denying all, the passion in reverence of all...the relevant truths, the isolated facts..the many eyes seeing the same in all directions..the one eye, seeing in one direction, so many different things
Remembrance of things past, anticipation of things to come, serves only upon condition, that it serves things now. Otherwise, we are predisposed to not remember, nor to anticipate, anything
Aye! It is true. Time is illusion! A necessary invention. All that can be imagined to happen has happened, and will happen. All imaginings and every detail variation thereof, was real and shall be real again! Only forgetfulness, keeps this 'here and now.' As events passed through the hiatus in my sleep, so any number of them, universe to universe, may pass between identical selves and and their events. This matter, this space needing no hint of time to be. In this here and now, variations of 'all and everything,' time'light bears the burdens, of its own convolutions. Endless cycles of construction and deconstruction, am I...but only, that I do not remember. Only so, I will inevitably forget