January 2012 ~ PageLight

Tuesday, 31 January 2012

The Golden Chain

I'm afraid that at this point, in the year 2012, I see the terrible monster of our age lying, all humps and coils, across or around our beautiful earth. And yet, in the spiritual sense, I see the brightest angels spread across the sky above us. What exactly is the monster identified with? Technology? Well, from one point of view consciousness has been technologized to an untold degree. But from another we all use it and live in it and express our humanity through it, if we will. It's not decisive. The attitude that implants mechanization in our hearts instead of humanity? We can fight it - we can breathe with love and fire and remain ourselves. The striking cold of the mind? This is the one that frightens - it depends on the warmth of the ego to prevent the mind going cold.

But there is a way. We have friends in the future: future selves, future humanity. These people are looking back at us even now. Through our effort of will, through our hope and faith, through our joining with the angels in the sky above us, we create, link by link, a golden chain which reaches into the very hands of the people of the future. And then they will say of us, 'They stayed, they remained, they believed - and that is why we are here now.' In a sense there is nothing else to do but endure until the end - until the monster of our age has done his worst. And to hope that God will shorten those days.

This may seem apocalyptic. We tend to forget that the beast is alive and worming his way through human consciousness - through the heart, through the hands, through the mind - and attempting to lay hold of the human ego. If those hands instead hold the golden chain then a future is assured.

Jay

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Author: Jay Landar
Source: www.pagelight.blogspot.com
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Picture: Jacob's Ladder by William Blake

Friday, 27 January 2012

The House of Love

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The road is long unless the way is lightened. I turned a corner from a busy road and heard a shower of birdsong. Immediately my way was brightened. A mile or two and I might reach the house of love.

Love has its own home and is there all the time. It exists at the highest point above. I look down into a deep well and see the reflected light of stars. The stars have moved on but they have left their light where it fell.

I am a traveler. Love is encased within me. On earth I am alone: a part of love which heaven once let fall.

All my roads are hard without the song. I recreate it in my heart constantly. My journey's end is not too far. The house of love - I'll reach it soon and touch the climbing buds around its gate.

Traveler (for H.)

And love, encased within me, seeks its own -

a universe where love is shared by all;

but life on earth decrees I am alone,

a part of love which heaven once let fall.

The rocks and woods, the cloudless, dreaming skies

conceal my heart, an absent passer-by;

and everywhere it travels it still tries

to paint a part of heaven for the eye.

Jay

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Having an Epiphany

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At a certain season we grow tired of legs walking, eyes seeing, mouth eating and , yes, of 'I being I'. We want to sleep, to dissolve, to dream of some sweet stream singing its peaceful song. As this is the season now, and the month is January, I connect this feeling strongly with the period which Christians refer to as Epiphany. We talk loosely about 'having an epiphany' or going through an epiphany experience. What does this mean? In essence, we're talking about an experience of enlargement; a kind of mathematical translation whereby our normal inner form is temporarily expanded into its cosmic counterpart: an all-seeing, all-understanding eye on the world. Conversely, one could say that the cosmic 'I' contracts into its physical self and confers infinite release. This was the situation with regard to the baptism in the Jordan. In fact this was the exact intention of baptism by total submersion: to effect this 'release' of self into cosmos and cosmos into self. Therefore we can relate the experience back to the mundane desire to dream of some sweet stream singing its peaceful song.

Ah, to give up the body and this dull, repetitive life on earth! A feeling so typical of the first month of the year. Unfortunately, what the body represents is far, far deeper than we normally realize. You could say that we are 'submerged' in our bodily nature just as in the baptism we are submerged in water. It is far more difficult to climb out of it than dreams and wishes suppose. Through meditation and, for example, mindfulness on the passage of the seasons, you can gain a foothold, build a shelter in the world beyond the body, to which you can return through effort when you need to. But another possibility opens up. The mouth, as well as taking in food, is there for speaking; the eyes, apart from dully seeing, are there to revere - for revering; the legs, routinely walking, can also ascend; and the 'I', so much accustomed to simply being, can radiate outwards through its own nature. In short, the cosmic self can live, awakened, in the small being we consider to be ourself.

This is the greater meaning of the epiphany experience and one which translates our mundane normality into something of far greater significance.

Jay

Friday, 20 January 2012

The Rainbow Pavement

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Too often this world can seem like a prison with no way out. Then it feels as if the days are filled with labor and night is like a lid or cover pressing down. The activities of the day pass like colors before our eyes but in night everything that is black and white in us starts to walk, preventing proper rest or release. This has a lot to do with the stress and materialistic values of our times. But there is another factor which is often over looked. The effects of stress and the struggle for worldly survival commonly include: loss of self-esteem, lack of confidence, insecurity and inferiority complex. The world contrives to inflict these things on us mainly because it does not respect basic human needs and values - its systems honor those who go out and get, those who climb on others' shoulders and push their way higher. We often think that the answer to low self-esteem and under-achievement is to gain a footing on this worldly ladder - to match or equal the go-getters in some small way. And small achievements in this way can be valuable. But what lives with the world dies with the world; what belongs to the world's systems perishes when those systems crash. Can self-esteem really be based on this?

The problem is not just one of self-belief but belief in total. The world offers very little to stimulate true belief. Do we really believe that the answer to feeling small and crushed is to enlarge yourself? This amounts to nothing more than a kind of body-building. No - if you feel belittled or disparaged in some way the answer - ultimately - is to have something to believe in. Something which is larger than yourself, which understands you intimately and which is truly worth believing in. In the end it's the moral-divine universe which fits the bill - the one which is related to every single part of our existence, which understands our feelings of smallness, of disaffectedness, of disempowerment. There is something in the colossal, divine universe which is so tender and intimate it can take you by the hand and lead you on to worthiness and value. The hand of an angel, if you like. Or, rather, something which shows you how to take yourself by the hand and lead you from the prison. But the essential feature is belief because only belief can draw us out into the grandeur of existence and make our own being sufficient or adequate. 'Body-building' is not really an alternative.

Unless you have the kindness of an environment which offers you belief - and there are many different kinds and forms of belief - then it can be hard to come by. Example is important - the example of people who deeply believe in the value of human life and its connectedness to the divine-moral world. And, in my opinion, we urgently need to rearrange the structures of our social life so that they do not crush people and rob them of their self-esteem.

Then I see a world where the gentle colors of the day continue right on into dusk; where the rainbow pavement does not disappear; where sleep and truth reveal another land to which this world is just an empty husk.

Jay

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

The Golden Stairway

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The golden stairway is a clear and vivid image in my mind. It's there for me. Through the practise of innumerable meditations, rather fewer good intentions carried out; hopes allowed to grow, faith un-deferred, acts of love appearing above ground like the proverbial groundhogs testing the air for spring; through all these things the golden stairway appears. Does it happen in a moment? No - a lifetime.

But at the foot of every stairway lies.. a well. A stairwell. What depths are in the well! Its inky darkness conceals so much! But first you see the image of the stairway descending in reflection; descending to places your inner being knows just as well as those at the top of the stair. We've been there before, in a time of innocence, before we ever gathered up the hopes, the opportunities of faith and acts of love. What lives in the inky darkness? A thousand hurts, a life of things unfair. And every one of them as real as meditations, as good intentions.

The apparent quandary in spiritual growth is how to transcend realities, how to make the higher appear out of the lower. In fact it doesn't happen this way. I gaze into the well; I muse and fret. Then slowly I see a golden shape appear. I realize that only a being formed of gold can ascend a golden stairway. The stairway is continuous, as it reaches downwards and upwards. The golden shape is myself - the being I create out of everything I try, and dare, and do. This being can live among the hurts as well as the heights. The well is filled with tears but the golden stairway leads both ways.

Jay

Friday, 13 January 2012

Fall and Ascent

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The Fall is present in us and likewise the Ascent. If I look at birds I see - rather unscientifically - that they are kept aloft by faith and love. I see nothing else - they've gained and earned their wings by pure and simple acceptance of the higher power. They rest in the hand of God continually. And in their song I feel a stair that rises up to the divine again - it transports me in invisible, elemental fifths and thirds. This is at least poetically correct.

The human 'Fall' is a rather more complicated matter. Is it scientific? Ah! I would rather it were not true. We no longer rest in the hand of God in the same way. But the sound of the birds creeps into the heart, love paints pictures in our minds which will not be denied. Sadness and infinite longing. Infinite, infinite longing which returns to the mind and to the will and moves us to climb back again. How? With freedom and with choice, with the perspicacity to know that science and religion combine in the song of a bird. There is no truth worth having that is not lifted by love back into the realm we fell from.

Are we not there all the time? All the time we are tutored by such things as unaided flight or by the power of song which also ascends like flights of golden-carpeted stair. These things are in us, alive, as poetic truths. And love, always love, is in the hand which holds the bird aloft and in the thread of music, now light, now dark, which moves through the human heart.

Jay

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Passing Into The Night

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The savor of life is very much connected with doing the right - the hidden right, not the ostentatious one which acts in order to be seen. But in reality the hidden is spread out around us all the time, like a clear and shining light - like an alternative world. Time itself runs in two dimensions: the one of nature, where events happen and pass as naturally as day passes into night; and the moral continuum where only spiritual beings may walk. This, in the end, is proof that the human being is a spiritual being: life loses its savor - the salt goes out of the salt - if as a person you fail to pay heed to the pull exerted by the hidden world. For the poet this world is the source of all true verbs and nouns. For other professions it will have its equivalent significance.

Yes, there is any amount of possibility for the ambitious to accumulate possessions and signs of success. But these all fall into the category of what passes into night. And on their own they do not constitute the savor of the salt - they simply form the body of the salt, its crystalline structure. How many a person do you see whose life may be rich, even famous, but who appears completely dried out? Of course it's not for the idle onlooker to judge another person's life, but in many cases you can't help feeling that someone has abandoned the living current in favor of accumulation. Needless to say the material world trades on this.

The point at stake is doing the right - seeing the opportunities within everything you do to serve the hidden world. You may be able to see where other people stand within that world at a particular time - it is the world of confluences, of movement and true opportunity. You might be able to play a part, to free an obstacle - in whatever way is best-suited to your abilities. Perhaps it's just a question of being a human being at the right moment. But for the duration of that activity you are a spiritual being in a spiritual world, the salt has its savor, and you have done something which will not pass into the night.

All this might seem obvious: doing the right is not a new concept. But the world is hurtling down a passageway which leads only to darkness. It wants to obscure the inner heart and mind. To be aware of where you stand in relation to the world of light and life is to create a future and to prevent the world itself from passing into the night.

Jay

Friday, 6 January 2012

Christmas Haikus

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Nothing mesmerizes the heart so deeply as nature during the twelve holy days and nights of Christmas. If you listen well and look you see your own innermost feelings walking abroad each day. They are carried in the flight of a bird and its song, in the mystery of the slumbering trees, in the gigantic wind which may choose at any moment to sift your soul for truth.

Each day takes its own strides and each night carries you into eternally hidden places. It's not for nothing that the dreams of the twelve nights are considered to be prophetic. For, just as your own feelings are walking abroad in nature during this time, the cosmos with its stars and secrets is spiralling through you.

The haiku, with its seventeen syllables, may seem like a very slight poetic form for capturing the mood of each of the twelve days and night of Christmas. But it is precisely this form which best understands the transposing of outer and inner taking place at this time. At its best the haiku can be a perfect balance of nature and insight.

I'm not saying my haikus are the best. They may be more or less successful. But they are conscientious and I tried very hard to make that effort of sifting each day. The blackbird is the greater artist. Unfortunately I missed two days so what we have here is the ten haikus of Christmas instead of the twelve.. (Note: the plural of haiku is properly haiku. I’ve also diverged from the stricter Japanese forms.)

Christmas Haikus

A soft coat of wind, tree-lined

sun; blackbird sings my heart

across the air.

A vast wind, tiny

solace; there are angels

in the threads of my coat.

As many raindrops as notes of birdsong;

my ears are tumbling with sky.

Grey-lit sun, miles of sky;

alone a small bird

touches lips with the wind.

Under a thickness of clouds, alone;

the night-bell rings out three -

who comes?

Naked trees

smile

in their sleep;

the birds

bring meat and drink

to their table.

In dead of night I search for soul;

frozen wind clasps only flesh and bone.

Night opens. Stars pour in.

Wind and rain shine

as dreams in clear sky will do.

A sifting wind. Feelings

adrift in the night.

Great storms shift

in their sleep.

Wind-carved trees,

solemn as gods.

What poet gave such gold

to your swift limbs?

Jay

Welcome to PageLight! Take a walk with author and poet Jay Landar through worlds of fantasy, inspiration and insight. On the way you will see the people and problems of today - the trials of the globe we all inhabit as it grows towards a new era. Find the truth of the inner self and the gentle light it sheds on these struggles - a light which can only grow stronger. Romance, Truth and Beauty are the keywords of PageLight. Please join me on our walk through these worlds!

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