(Poetry) We Were So Nearly There

                                                                        

We were so nearly there

For further fly all our cherished aspirations 

Than we could ever imagine

Our bright hopes

Though they be only thought and so briefly seen

Have breath and life

What we once conceived of virtue and true living

Of beauty beyond all our fondest dreams

That which came so close and was so real awhile  

Went softly streaming by

Veiled in silken clouds and airy wine

Oh, but we were so nearly there 

We felt the flicker of life’s wings

Living things brushed past

But reaching out to touch

We lost

Oh, had we only known then

How to enter in  

But before we knew it

The vision had slipped on by and fled us

What had seemed so possible was now only a dream

And, oh, the emptier we felt for having seen

But no bright purpose was ever lost that once has been

Truth’s star’s still there

As deep inside as it is above 

Where night’s endless light is                                            

Our mansion’s kept, our heart’s voice mapped

Upon Love’s palm our place

And the everlasting vision etched

Out held, kind, ever offering

Love’s hand is always there

‘We always may be what we might have been.’

              *

                                      

(Story) AT THE SOURCE OF A STREAM . . .

          

WINDLESS AND WARM the sky so clear and blue I could see for miles. There was something about today it was as though it were holding something delightful which would enrapture any stray story-girl. This was a day, surely, in which to find the essence of some longed for but hidden thing. A treasure was in it. I just knew it. Something that had seemed impossible and distant was today so probable that I actually set out on a walk to find it. Of course, I knew I was foolish to do so; or to even think such a crazy thing, but I could not get the idea out of my head, it had come to stay, at least for today and I went walking.

   Our family at this time was living on a beautiful farm of hundreds of acres of rolling pasture; and just below the rise upon which our homestead was built was a stream. There was something about this particular stream which interested me, even fascinated me, and I had told myself that one day, when I had the time I would explore it; but of course I was always far too busy.

   Most of us are too busy to do the crazy things our heart longs to do; and unfortunately we are mostly too sensible to do them. Oh, but it seems to me that we are largely driven by our need of being sensible people. In prideful caution we are bred. Endowed from the beginning with a strict internal code unto sensibility. But, it is true, that in nothing ventured nothing is gained. And in our dreams forever remaining dreams the dream gets lost.

   Well, today it wouldn’t! That was already decided! Today I was going to explore that stream at the bottom of the hill; although I didn’t have the time to do it, I was going to do it anyway. (Being crazy and leaving everything behind you made it all the more fun and heightened your delight, and fed your burgeoning feeling for adventure!) I fairly flew out of the house and across the lawn. Then through that old rickety gate – which really ought to be fixed before it falls apart – and down the little winding path to farm road below; and then, just beyond it, the stream, and your own adventure in Everland.

   Without hardly knowing why I found myself walking upstream. There was this crazy notion in me, that if I did, I might find its source, if only I had enough time; and finding the source of a stream was drawing me strong as a pin to a magnet. I had always wanted to find the source of a river, but today I would make do with a stream. Perhaps, it wouldn’t be quite so far?  Prudence and sensibility are shirked off only gradually; as I discover their opposite weight, of imprudent reckless abandon; which sometimes, happily indulged in, brought about a better balance in my life.

   What was it about the source of something? What was it that attracted me? Why was I intrigued by the idea of finding the source of a river? …Its source, the beginning of the life of it? And finding that, somehow made for its greater meaning? And then transposing that to personal life, leading me to seek the source of my own life? Could the adventure of being drawn to find the source of a river lend more sense to my insatiable desire to find the source of all meaning, and of life, itself? Was there not behind it a buried unconscious thought that if I could just find the beginnings of the stream I should find something of my own beginnings, also?

   There is something about a river’s source that has fascinated humankind since time immemorial, and that if we could understand why we were drawn to do so, we would perceive and understand something more about ourselves, and be closer to finding home?

   So I mused, drawing from my heart, as I began my walk along the farm stream on this day of days. And it seemed to be getting warmer. Passing by the old pump house I stopped in its shade to listen to its well-oiled clatter. I liked it. The pump was terribly old and needed replacing but it was beautiful to me. Because it brought me nearer to what I knew it represented – the ancient drawing of water, the very water of life. For this stream fed the house, and its water pure and fresh we drank of it every day it was necessary to life. Just as this pump brought water to come inside our house so was it a picture of that which brought living-water to enter my own ‘house:’ my innermost being and spirit. The pump, the well-oiled faith in my heart, drawing me ever onward, toward an increasing abundance of light and life. …But where, was the source of this stream; and what was it like? Was there any answering story there?

   I carried on walking. The little stream led me through the heart of the farm as it went meandering through rising fields where sheep and cattle grazed. Bounded by willows the stream was in many places choked with them; and with other water plants; delicious watercress grew higher up near the forest. Then at last I reached the little lake, nestled in the folds of the hill. It was hidden from the house; and it was too big to be called a pond. The stream fed this lake, or dam as the farmers called it; and that interested me. That such a small stream could fill this lake was amazing; it captivated my thoughts. That something so infinitesimal could furnish something so vast spoke volumes to me, and of wider and more wondrous things – how that the insides of life could be greater and larger than the outsides of it. I knew this was true.

   The day wore on and it was hot. But not much further up the hill and I eventually approached what might be the beginnings of the source. The stream had narrowed to a trickle through the short grass, coming down from a steeply folded crease in the hill. After a moment it seemed to disappear; and then, suddenly, a bit further on there it was a little pool in the grass, no more than half a meter wide. And from a tiny hole in the centre of this crystal well water bubbling up. I saw the effervescent path as I knelt down on the grass to look. A rising fairytale trail of tiny bubble. It was a natural spring. It was the source. It really was, the source; at last.

   Oh, did it ‘speak?’ Did it have an inner tale to tell? Well, since I looked for one, it could tell me only of the plain fact. That in a plain land, in a simple place, nothing fancy – in fact in something terribly ordinary, just as Everland was on the outside – you could find the source of life’s delight and light hiding there all hidden away in the ‘usual.’ I had walked past this place many times, and never seen it.

   Here it was; my own answering ‘picture-story.’ Telling me that just as it was in outer real life, so was it in the inner real one, within me. As the stream was here, so was the one inside, also. Every day I could drink from that source, bubbling up inside of me, if I only believed.   

   Oh, and I saw I need not to go looking for my story; that way I might miss the one that was happening right in front of me all the time. That half empty bottle of homemade ginger beer, for instance. I could have stopped for a moment to watch its life, when I accidentally tipped it over; but, I rushed on out; I didn’t see the rest. I didn’t notice…  

   I think many people would love to find the source of a river, if only they had the opportunity and the wherewithal to do so; but we need not wait until we can. If we did but surrender to the moment we were in, we would find what it represented, right here with us; but it is all so close at hand and wrapped in the usual we rarely recognize it.

   The magical source of a natural stream, is as the source of the one more real inside even more glorious ever bubbling up into everlasting life within us; the fountain of life from the source of all life. And all the while we are brave, and throw prudence to the wind to stumble upon its opposite value, indulgent creativity and reckless abandon; and then give ourselves – to living.

                                                         *

  

(Story) A CANDLE UNDER A JAR . . .

                           

BEFORE ME WAS A CANVAS.  New. White. Blank. It was large. The largest they had. And there being, perhaps, a painting trapped inside me, longing to emerge, the moment I saw that canvas I knew I needed it.  So I bought it and took it home.

   It was too big for my easel, so I stood it on the floor and leaned it up against the wall in my room. It sat there for a long time. Until I forgot it. Then I didn’t know anymore why I had bought it.

   For too long I had lived in a closed circuit and I could not change without incurring ridicule: my changes were of heaven; and so, they were misunderstood of earth. And having no certainty upon which to stand in order to break out, and change, heaven’s new life waiting within me was sleeping.

    Not enough confidence to overcome the fear of seeming absurd or abnormal in the sight of others, life within was being stifled and needed something to wake it up. All the light and life in being brave and different was slowly disappearing. My candle had been too long under a jar.

   A year later. One morning, early. I stood before that thing I had stopped seeing. I was watching how the light from my window threw patterns upon its dusty surface. I did not try to work out what they were; my mind was strangely still. But as the dancing shapes began to move faster, I began to understand what was there---a lacework of slender branches, filigrees of leaves, moving by the touch of an invisible hand upon my long forgotten canvas.

   As I looked, I saw. I knew the tree outside was coming in. And it was coming into me moving inside me. The canvas was my mind. And the light---the light of life. And the invisible hand that held the brush---the wind of the spirit. Slowly I sank to the floor. There I sat and watched what the wind would paint upon my canvas. That there was something for me there I knew it.  I knew too, that it would shake me. I felt the faint scary pressure which was its mark. But maybe, that was just what was needed to set me free. Change, was ever an uncomfortable fit, at first.

   After awhile, a range of mountains appeared on the canvas. Then beyond the mountains---sea. And beyond the sea---a land of great abundance, where the voice of every fiery stone is sealed and not understood by any earthly ear. But in that land---I saw a valley. And in the valley were many trees. There, the travelling stopped and I gazed upon the crowded trees.

   They grew and flourished. They spread their branches wide and high. And where they touched each other there they met the sky. Of their own selves they met and formed their own alliance; and there of themselves got, tangled. For the more they touched they hid the sky and the darker the ground in which they grew and the less they saw, only confusing themselves all the more.

   The trees of the wood were somber. But for fragments of dappled light their joy was, still. Dampened. They could not move their arms. At their feet their children stunted or stillborn. For there was not enough light for them to flourish. Shut in, the gloom had dimmed their eyes. So close together, the trees could not see beyond themselves. They had made themselves a roof. But I could feel them yearning for more sky. For, sight. For, space. For freedom where the sun was whole and where the skylarks rise and the wind runs free. Oh, there was a loveliness in the wood but it was as though it could not breathe. Or could not sing. Or, only in a minor key. Too long there and one could forget.  

   But not one spoke out, to undo their ravelled tale; and the valley was all in darkness. None of them could see their own or each other’s light---the light of trees; for the wood had engulfed them; and snuffed them out.

   By tight alliance, freedom is curbed and individuality lost. Truth becomes clouded and distorted, wherever by our own crowded opinions, we hide the sky.

   Each ‘tree,’---each child of light, I saw as a candle. Each one had its own flame of life and light but all needed space and air above. A candle does not burn long in an upside down jar.

   Joyful now, my minding burning with the inward vision, I set up four piles of books on the floor, near the wall, threw a sheet over them, and carefully placed my patient canvas on top---and began to paint.  And my brushes flew like shooting stars dipped in the silken oils of the Milky Way. Fleetingly, too, into light's most fiery paints---chance's eclectic rainbow reflections on the inner sea of dreams---and the picture formed as though by itself---a light beyond light and a joy unto its own self.  

                                       *

(Story) THE SEVEN COLOURS OF LIGHT...

ONE OF THE MOST CERTAIN THINGS in life is that we are always free to either shut our eyes and ears against the truth, fearful and afraid, or to embrace it, uplifted and secure in ourselves and brave. In my own crazy way I saw this plainly one day in the underneath writing in the seven colours of light.

   A fine blue sky day it was with a humming of bees in perfumed air; and in a further episode of insights I found myself slowly wandering through the summer garden of the Mission House at Waitangi. Sketchbook in hand I was making very poor drawings of the things I noticed. The garden captivated me, because it was laid out like an English cottage garden filled with old fashioned flowers and of many colours. It made me homesick, in an idealistic sort of way. It was so very far from England …and Wales.

   The heady warmth of late afternoon was making me sleepy and I went and sat down on a vacant garden seat amongst the loveliness, to drink it all in. After awhile, and being in no hurry I slumbered a little, I think; or did I just daydream it. I actually do not know if I was awake or asleep. So, whether I imagined it of myself, or not, I cannot say.

   Looking at the garden, steadily I was becoming aware that there was an awakening going on all around me; which was a bit strange because I was so sleepy. But I was quite sure that everything about me was waking up. For I could see the life within every living thing being turned around to face the inner light, and having no fear was becoming all see-through-ish.

   The breath of the flowers I saw, meet and mingle with the breeze that was wafting through them in the golden light of day. Once again – like I did once when I was high up on a far distant mountain in a foreign land, I saw faint ribbons of light flying, and in many colours. And from waves of another understanding which was flowing through me, and in new writing this time, I was slowly copying them down in the sketchbook on my lap. Time itself was being healed, for I saw there was no hurry in the awakening. It was all rest. If it had taken a few thousand years to come what was another few hours?

   The new song quietly sounding in the inner garden in which I was immersed, I was again being filled with new things that I could not at first understand. It was only now, as I was given to see a second time that I saw there was writing written in the colours of the light – in the flying ribbons of it – and there were many more colours in this light than the seven of the rainbow. But they were so different in nature that my natural mind was incapable of comprehending them, and I was unfit to describe or name them; but, oh, they were of great beauty, and very costly.

   If I should wait now and watch, and trust to my not knowing anything, which was the way of spirit, then I can recall a hue which was like red; yet it was more transparent than any hollowed, hallowed emptied glass it was utterly untouchable! And there was a blue like no other as clear as the sweetest breath that could escape from your mouth on a warm day. And I saw a yellow so piercing it was like the centre of a great fire. But in the writing in the ribbons only the seven colours of the rainbow as we know it were named: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet; and it was from the first letter of each name, that a word was written there which was describing their character: Revelation, Opening, Yielding, Growing, Believing, Inside, Veil. When I looked closer I saw a sentence written in the ribbons in a strange writing, but it seemed I was immediately able to translate it or understand. It read: ‘Revelation Opening through Yielding your heart Given you through Believing Inside the Veil.’ Instantly, I knew. I could only enter into the full glory of the most holy place within myself, through the veil of my pride being torn in two.

   Suddenly I sat up widely alert remembering something and I was taken back in memory to an incident which happened years ago. It was when I was living on an island 54 nautical miles off the east coast of the North Island. I was with a boy in a bedroom; in a house filled with many of us young people. In a tangible awareness of overwhelming holiness and purity I turned my heard towards the window in the room, but the wall and the window were no longer there, and I saw a hill, and two figures standing upon it, a man and a woman, and out of the mouth of the woman came a sharp two-edged sword. So huge it was terrifying and I could not comprehend it. I turned my head away and looked towards the wall at the foot of the bed upon which we lay, and before me there was the appearing of the writing of light, and I saw truth written in the air in large capital letters of light pulsating with life. In the light was the answer. And now I had seen written again, the second time, the truth in the faint ribbons of light flowing from the garden, and the garden inside: light being divided, and made so plain, no longer invisible or to be told in mysteries; even as was promised long ago.

   But nearly every one of us we were running from it, fleeing the light going in the opposite direction; the wrong one because it led only to darkness! Oh, for how much longer would we not hear, I wondered? But there will always be those of us who do not wish to hear; those of us who prefer to shut our ears to the new song, and our eyes to the writing hid in the seven colours of light.

   I lifted my head. In the red light of day I heard a sound. It was very late, and all the visitors were gone now, but before any custodian could chase me away I opened the sketchbook on my lap and quickly drew the things that I had seen, and wrote down the words of it. But what was the point, I sighed, as I got up to leave the garden, who would believe me? Who would ever read these story-letters which I wrote so endlessly? Was there only, my Fynn?

   Was there no one else who was, same? ….Oh, not same in any outward way! Not by beautiful words, or even by lovely actions, but only by the spirit in us did we know and recognize one another. We cannot hide the spirit that is in us: there is no creature which is not manifest to the light. All things are naked and opened unto the life that is the light of men; which life is in us only by love; the love which seeks not its own profit.

   As I was leaving, walking through the garden towards the gate, my sad thoughts as to who would ever believe me seemed to be leaving, too. I was looking at my shadow on the white shell path in front of me. Although with the dying light of day the shadows were lengthening, my inside shadow seemed to be doing the opposite! Barriers to the light: my solid pride, and my thick self pity was evaporating; the blinding covering veil of my unbelief being taken away! The more I knew I knew nothing, and had nothing, and was nothing, the more the flying ribbons were becoming clear and the writing in the light explained. And I knew that life-giving revelation could be as near as my next breath; opening to me wherever I was, by my yielding up my heart. Its continually being given me through my believing I was so utterly forgiven all and everything that I could face the bright light inside with joy and not fear. The only barrier was my pride! For just a moment I thought what it would be like if it wasn’t there; why, I would be so clear of clouding clutter the light would shine right through me!

                                               *

(Story) THE WELL OF ETERNAL YOUTH . . . The Map Beneath the Map . . .

 from:  A Circle of Swift Songs

         

BEFORE ME WAS LAID OUT a map of the World. An ancient and beautiful map. As I gazed at it, a deep wondering was in me: ‘Where in the World was the Well of Eternal Youth?’ Upon the instant, a faint gold line appeared from the land where I was and moved across the map. As it did so it changed colours . . . antique gold entwined with ruby red and emerald and sapphire blue . . . all the deep, rich colours of old illuminated manuscripts. A hidden line it was; but now revealed and full of light; and drawn out into a thin and serpentine line that led across the World.

   In me, in the same instant, I knew this thing: That because I followed the tracing line with the eyes of my heart more than through the eyes of my intellect, it grew stronger and deeper and penetrated through the surface map.

   It sank through to the map beneath. To the living map which is always underneath all things; which had we the eyes to see would give us the answers to all the questions asked of our own heart. For there was no hidden thing which was not known; and where in me I was known: there I could see: and there I could know the things beneath.

   I saw the tracing line go all around the World. Its colours imperceptibly changing all the time . . . as though it was seeking. As though it were questioning for me searching out all the deep things of God and the answer to my question: ‘Where in the World was the Well of Eternal Youth?’

   As I watched, I saw the beautiful line follow the full circle of the World and return to me: for it never stopped until it found me, and where it found me, it answered me: ‘In your own heart the well of eternal youth: for in you in your own ending a well of water springing up unto everlasting life through my Son; and whoever drinks of this water he shall never thirst.’

  And, all at once, I drank my fill from the Well at the World’s End! Here was the Well of Eternal Youth! Where there was an ending of the old surface World in me, it was found! For here was a beginning of the new inner World in me! So, here, life was revived in a continual renewing of it; and all the while I ‘died’ which was really living! And so here was, youth, forever! The Well was beneath! And I rejoiced, and ‘circled the World in one second.’ The answer, it was so small it had been lost and forgotten.

                                                      *

  

____________________________________

  The Well’s foreshadowing ‘picture,’ its mystical symbol in the earthly realm, it was drawn upon the ancient map before me. It was where I stood in spirit on the land at the end of a world: upon the holy Isle of Iona, in the faraway isles off the West Coast of Scotland. There in my heart, I stood upon the brink of its windswept hill of Dun I: in being given the underneath meaning of its name: Done I: and now, I’m Done with I. And, yes, Dumb I: for now I know that the Well of Eternal Youth, it begins where I know I am nothing and I can let myself go and be free! Upon the Isle of Iona, ‘I own her’ within my own heart!

 ______________________________________________

                   A SILK PURSE AND A SOW’S EAR

                                        That men may not be grieved by it

                                        They leave the truth aside

                                        And move to other things

                                        More obtuse . . .

 

I HAD BEEN STANDING looking at it. Just looking at it. The beautiful antique map on my wall. And it had struck me, that out of my surface ‘anything’ I could make a lively ‘something’ beneath it, which could show me what it is I really wanted to know: the things that would change me to bring me more and more into the light; which things though are naturally uncomfortable. Change challenges my own status quo to alter my orbit. But I am not afraid.

   I had remembered this:

It is not those things we want to know

That help us the most

And reveal what we’re after

But those we don’t want to know

And turn from;

The real treasure it was where

We hadn’t looked for it before.

   This old map on my wall was made of inert paper; thick paper. ‘Thick,’ like me! But out of that, I could make a living-thing of sheer inner joy which could teach me and change me. Out of all the ordinary things I saw around me, I could make something extraordinary; because I was silly enough to see inside me, and crazy enough, not to be too fearful to go there. I realized with delight that I had discovered the opposite of that old saying: ‘…You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’

   (I had looked this ‘proverb’ up in a concordance of the Bible; but I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there. Apparently, it was a phrase coined by Stephen Gosson in the sixteenth century. In 1579, to be exact. And it is in the book, Ephemerides of Phialo: Deuided Into Three Bookes; p62v.)

   I had a feeling that I had so crossed a divide that now everything I looked at from inside of me had its mirror image of my inner life. It had in it, a helpful picture of the truth that went seemingly ‘against’ me, which unlovely insight could aid me in the journey of my life, and become my true and lasting treasure. Though, this reflection, of course, I could only receive, if I was happy enough with my being ‘crossed out.’

   But I could take a tough thing and make of it a delicate currency with which to ‘buy’ life . . . ‘gold tried in the fire.’ And then, an earful of un-connecting chatter from the muddied world could become a purse full of connecting gentility closeted securely beneath the usual conversation of the world.

    You see, I had become so terribly free . . . that I was glad, glad, glad that I was thick, and dumb, and stupid; and that all my treasures were only those the world discarded; those of a prodigal swineherd and a foolish son; for so was there ever accorded me an entrance into the kingdom of heaven and a fatted calf.

      

                                                                *

__________________________________________

The two quotes on page 75 are from my book IN THE PATHS OF MYRDDIN WYLLT; A Welsh Legend of Merlin; (spiritual revelation in lyrical literary fiction.)

(Poetry) A Wisp of Air My Tears Shines Through

[ - from: THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND: Volume One: # 7;  8 ]

7. A Wisp of Air My Tears Shine Through

                                                                             

ENCASED WITHIN the travelled chest a treasure rare

Of un-pillaged plunder wrapped in coats of skins

The key the map the compass for the find were there

In Everland hid the fragrant heart at one with love

Script in sand engraved through fire in glass

Carried timeless in its purse, its secret fold of words

Engrafted life encoded there, in living jars of clay

As see-through as a wisp of air in nothingness clad

A stone was thrown and broken light spilled out

Of a perfect fashioner the hurt of every jar

How else escaped the light, that left buried deep would die

If scattered only by a tear it could forge of life its seal

Of each season borne the life produced twelve fruits

Green leaf in drought, up-springing joy in dearth

Living letters inscribed inside in every hue of gold

And shades of shadows left, went no more right through

Belts that tie the windless horn to its strength

Held in dust the captured message from the dawn of time

Bound in glory wrapped in living skins of hope

Cords of love the tie that kept the unfathomed dust afloat  

Within the sea of life the hidden script was laid

A sword to grind the jars their light in dust to leave

Pride lost, then on every hill a thing of freeing praise 

And the more did broken open letters fly in scrolls of flesh

                             *

                        8. Unclouded Truth

FROM UNCLOUDED truth let my tears shine through 

Where the angel roses flower celestial bright

Where the rosebuds of a broken realm can rest

Rare blossoms where their hearts had dared

Pierced the inner rose by love in crystal drops  

From out of darkness where the light shines

Sight they find from blindness tinged with red

The truth from which every selfish heart is hid

Crushed the lilies by love’s most tender hand

Wide the fragrant places where their flower died

From pearled valleys steeped in grief they ran

This joy from which the untouched flower hides

End of night, let light from unknowing shine

From dawn love opens stooped to rightly hear

To comfort hearts that cry from all hurting places

Kind her hid surprise in truth’s slant circuit laid

Cached of love in safety from the prudent and the wise  

Turned upside down the truth she hid in secret places

That none might read to steal she buried light in darkness

Foolish faith not cleverness finds decrease delight

Of love’s own prism split the fragments of the light

Weighed in measures none could fathom truth’s surprise 

That in their going under babes could comprehend

And in their knowing nothing, find in loss the light

    
                                             *