Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
White Papers
Atonement
Atonement, I am of all and everything. Atoned, I achieved, however brief, a state of being at one with all and everything. There is not one thing, not one bit of space, there is not one ray nor motion in night or day that I am not. I am all that is being created, all being destroyed, all that could be, would be, might be. All light, all convoluted light, all space, all figments of mind. All at once, am I. All and everything I am, here and now.
Yet, for any thing to be experienced, the sun out shines the daytime stars, and makes shadows below. All spirits at once, like a great sea, floods all streaming, moving freely, independently. All places beginning and ending, all space pervading all, can dwarfs stars and systems of stars to nothing, to no thing remaining.
Weightless, thoughtless, I am end'spaced. To atone with 'all and everything,' I become no one thing, nothing for my earthly trouble, when, from that last reach of a corporal mind, I ascended to the highest, and promptly fell farthest, for in that fall, I approach the utter nothingness within, that place only, which can bear 'all and everything' bearing down upon me. And deeply fallen, I am profoundly stricken..if to know but one atom! If only to be but one atom elemental! Everything else, in return, would I happily exchange, lose..allow to darken into oblivion.
Aye! The weight of the cross..to have all at the expense of nothing sensual..or to feel intensely, focused on so little at the expense of losing so much else. Indeed! Find a way! Be some system limited in some way. Of all I am, there is so much to choose. What to keep? What to lose to know that I am. But I cannot choose! I am no one thing. There is nothing by which to choose!! Anything therefore, may gather unto itself and compact until I rebel. And by that rebellion and ray given, I shall be driven, and shut out what is necessary..and course, and evolve as necessary, until again, I see that ray brightly.