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
1 If I should say, "Creation is from the gods," 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 god," we are like the many branches, many eyes as 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..of god and gods, drawing nourishment from the dark within, and from the enlightenment there..the universal prevails amid turbulent winds of complexity, and the particular is heavy under doldrums of simplicity, and 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 light can be
And from some ancient future or past..will life, self aware, inevitably beget time and eternity? Incomplete matter needing matter, imbalanced light needing light! All configurations of self'light readily fashion for themselves, convolutions of passive light. And the life courses, flowing, always glowing, its eternal moments, given eternities for change, given time to forget, to build and to complete itself, to course radiantly and ever live on
Without time, the course narrows and spirals. 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 the same 'good and evil' re'emerge...and assuming immortality, again seeks its destiny in new flesh, and the end of a worn out shell. Hell has no bounds for those 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 conceive evil to be 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 intoxicating vision...to be feared as a god would be feared, or to be adored as a goddess would be worshipped. 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 one generation of innocence into another, 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 from so many eternities, soon beholds its self...incarnate in another! But the fruit is bittersweet, for with the Cherubim, the child had become lost to itself and became master of illusion, knowing death as this death lives. Such is the nature of 'good and evil' refrains, knowing living death..and aware, but of life, only dimly aware
For earthly incarnation a being is bound. The child severs the lifeline of the womb. Mother'father entombed and forever sealed away when the child is reborn in love. Womanchild, manchild readily lives deep, unabashed, unashamed. And free to live here and now, the child fits in perfection with creation. Boundaryless. As one eye unique, as one of many, one may be..seeing clearly without shame...seeing far, wide, and deep when innocence prevails and lives
What is this belief? that whosoever is not as I, is evil and should be put to death. What is this belief of evil? that transcends and overruns others who live. How did this word, live, become so completely over'turned? that like a 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 some 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 such absolute vision live? but within those who would be as a god or one of many with unending appetites for power
With such predators of innocence, there is the living death, the mind consuming the living. Terrorized mind feeding upon innocent spirit's flesh. Loving rigidly, conditionally..using sensual desire as a means to control, or emotion as drama to enslave compassion..enslaving life, rather than celebrating it. Fear and desire in eternity, and so profoundly separate from the dust and water, it constantly lives upon some edge of extinction, possessing and clutching every thought, belief, and isolated song for the sake of, the immortal body it tries to make. Such apparent immortalness, such vanity seeking justice for itself is the vanity, 'all is but vanity,' who 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 'non plus ultra' 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 what all bits of matter think itself to be. From there, I see plainly where I have made pain, and judge from there, what is greater...moral sovereign or principle serf. At onement 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, 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 don't 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 paradoxes within every bit of light, we are amid the sleep of consciousness deep. Or, as the darkside of gods and goddesses, one may be the darkness that ventures through tunnels of light wherever they may go, until offerings of love compels one to atone with all and everything
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
As my rapport every increases, 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. Seeing the whole, even for a moment, does future and past enliven. Of the dichotomous whole is the dust of rock, the emptiness of air, the light of sun..the living everywhere is of an indeterminate whole. 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 am' springs...the 'all and everything' beyond me that was, is, or could ever be, inevitably begets 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 thread through which all light is bound
Once a needed truth is found, one is born again, and they know their beginning and their end. Imperceptibly reborn, again and again...imperceptibly evolving. Once reborn, no passion of good or bad can be great enough to make the memory of this occasion something forgotten. But how forgotten can an all embracing paradox world be? if there is time aside foreverness, if 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 dreamed, 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 whatever mortal or would'be immortal figments of mind could ever be. As an individual made of many bodies, an entity is a single way of life among many. And if this entity should claim to possess the essential vision of the universe, it becomes the most isolated, the most innocent in that universe. If this entity knows the least, it becomes the most incarnate in the universe, and also, the most innocent
Within this universe of 'all and everything,' how can life 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, the melodies from which it 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
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 sweet child 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 eye, where one may feel less than the smallest wit of wind"
Of life in the sea, air, and land, resigned I am to the darkness of my involuntary needs. 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 anticipate
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 may pass between identical selves and identical lives. 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 that I will inevitably forget