Amethyst Poetry / Writing Saga # 15 / THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND: A Collection of Poetry

Following on from Writing Saga # 14 ...below there is a continuation of the Foreword to THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND: A Collection of Poetry 

  An Explanation: When I first tried to write an explanation to help people cope with the strange language that came out of me, it sounded rather antiquated, and strange in itself! But much of what has come out in this book is not exactly what I had intended; a hand other than my own writes deep inside my life. (I have written more on this in THE LIGHT TREE JOURNAL: Portrait of a Lost Star.) Anyway, the following is what was first written after I assumed I was rejected and began calling them ‘ragged writings’ instead of poems:
    ‘A piece of ragged writing which upon first reading appears incomprehensible, will to the diligent searcher slowly render its secret treasure upon each subsequent reading; enlarging the faculties of the inmost being to taste and eat of a whole new kind of fare. If we will but let go the incessant demand of our intellect to understand something before we can enjoy it, we might develop the spiritual capacities that are within us instead – the ones which make us who we truly are – the exercise of which will bring a more satisfying reward than we could imagine.
   It is hard. But narrow a river and it will flow for you more swiftly. Over feeding the intellect has hindered the heart. Help a butterfly escape from its cocoon, and it dies. Its wings never develop.  It needed its struggle to fly.
   Read without wanting. Read as though being read, yourself. The writings are as looking-glass stones, reflecting back at you whatever you see in them. You could work them out with some mental effort, or, you could soak them in with no effort at all; in both are joys. Most of all you will discover to your joy that you are given out of not demanding to understand.
 How easily and unconsciously creative expression becomes enmeshed in conventional practice, and current trends put up walls. But all around us are living pictures of ourselves which can give us insight into that crippling universal reality. As it is in the world of Nature, so is it in all things. The living ‘flowers,’ of a single ‘plant,’ come to ‘bloom’ for awhile then die for new ones to flourish. In their continuously necessary, temporal cycle of life and death continuous renewal: and the way of LIFE for all things. But we are not so wise as the flowers; we hang on to ‘the stem,’ refuse to fall, and miss out on what’s next.     

   In no way aspiring to be instrumental, perhaps it might be true that without pushing the limits, without crazy-seeming innovation and experiment, people and literature, and all forms of art would stagnate . . . and without knowing it . . . because you can’t know something, without something to know it by. So maybe we ought not to resent or resist those things which we cannot understand – even though fearing the unknown is a natural human instinct – but rather brave that intangible place, plunge into its dark and delight in it; and increase within, the wherewithal to know it by. Else, what will we gain from sticking to our pride’s right to comprehend everything before we approve of it? We will gain only dimming pools of reluctant water; and perpetually paralyze our powers of perception. But anyone who has once learned to surrender their impressions finds a new world forming there, wherever they let go, and an eager surge of lively water, rising in a new awakening.  

   The ‘ragged writings’ of Everland can be compared with paintings. Just as the forms and colours of a picture produce a certain emotional effect in us, in its communicating without words, so a piece of writing communicating in seemingly unintelligible words, in words within words, can have a similar pleasurable effect on us, also. Beauty can be as much in the sound of a run of words, as in the sight of a play of colours in an abstract painting. But like everything else which affects our consciousness, we need to learn to become conscious of such a thing, lest it pass us by.
   Light comes in nuances. As in a style of impressionistic painting, the artist finds it not important to reproduce what he sees according to its outer context – he instinctively knows the inner context is the thing to grasp – he sacrifices the outer natural form for the abstraction; for a diffusing of the beauty he sees within it. It all flows together. But it is revealed only little by little. He instinctively dissolves the forms in his painting so that they cannot be too easily perceived by the outer self, which all too quickly judges and discards; he would be known only in that most holy place within where was no judgment, only wonder.
   Like the painter, the inner writer finds another language. Inadvertently he stumbles on another way of communicating truth. Another place where the emotions, which were renewed by surrender, could ‘read’ words they could not understand, but which would stir the spirit, deep within. And if spiritual ideas were the consonants of this language, then the kernels of truth hidden within those ideas were the vowels. They gave the pronunciation – the life of it – and the sound of life. The sounds in one word flowing in with those of another word, in the Spirit, made another language, another sense altogether other than the outer-look of the first sense, which seemed as nonsense – but which wasn't nonsense, at all. It came of itself, so it spoke. It came of the Spirit. The crazy writer, a babbling baby understood and marvelled: seeing evidence that language as a whole was a living entity, and a divine gift; it was not of us. So that if in the flow it was surrendered back to the source from which it came, it could say more, going beyond the natural mind, being greater than the pen that wrote or the fingers that touched the keys.
    Being greater than the pen which wrote or the fingers that touched the keys: going beyond the natural mind: it could say more: surrendered back to the source from which it came, in the flow. And there was inspiration and there was, life. Wherever the kernel was, language could go backwards or forwards.
    But it was all and only through the artist and writer being ‘as nothing:’ only through weakness growing in strength; only through brokenness finding love, deep and unfathomable.  There the ever increasing passion to communicate what was seen in the mirror lake of tears; through the tunnel then the reflecting back of the Light, all upside down and inside out. No wonder the Light was as darkness to us or incomprehensible, it was opposite. To every force is a counter force; both are inevitable, both are opposite. But in all this back-to-front living – the losing to find – we are helped. Behind the scenes deep in our innermost being things are happening there opening us up, which if we are courageous enough will eventually emerge, bringing the reward of an extraordinary and entirely individual unimagined joy.

   ‘All really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first proposed.’                                                                                                                                                                                                             – Alfred North Whitehead 

              ‘People are open to new ideas . . . as long as they are identical to the old ones.’      - Ancient Chinese Proverb 

This unpublished, illustrated collection of ‘ragged writings’ is available to anyone wishing to read it. The work is entitled THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND:  A Collection of Poetry. Please feel free to contact the author and request:  email:  arielaevans@gmail.com  The manuscript can be emailed in pdf format in Microsoft Word Document 2007.

 

These are the titles of the next four ‘ragged writings’ of Amethyst Poetry:

Castle Light

Unfolding Wings

Inner Explorers 

Endearing Enigma