The Irrepressible Life
J M Deverell
Pushed down, put under, ignoble, unseen; live out the wait; the life that lives undone to remerge, the force, the love that through you runs will rise again, irrepressible.
A CLEARING in a wilderness of solitude. Through to the quintessence and the
thinness of the veil between worlds. The narrowing place. The work the broadening
of life. Desired. Deep calling unto deep. The longed-for lifting.
Comes
rising in wildness the dark whispers of earth. Out of the silence a nearerland talking;
a speaking, unspoken; but finding voice in solitude the air bearing skyward the
lit hushlings of love.
Out of wings in the air the unwording of speech;
falls on trees the lighted translation. The earth cannot understand her own sound;
not till lifted shall she hear what she once knew. Finding without seeking the
answer not sought.
In my time alone: a fire and a solace. I wait.
The coals beneath the means of light and another sustenance being prepared. The
first destroyed for life that life never die. Solitude, my companion, and I am
well sustained.
An opening in a forest, breathing beneath a mountain.
I am a felled tree: a stump, become a table for a book and pen. Shaken from my
world, born of the crucible, I am cut down. My springs compressed, flow under find
new rock to shatter. Ignited, stones of fire weigh down my flighted pages; for,
even here, the wind finds joy, rifling his own inspirited leaves.
An opening in a gifted world. Where I am
nothing I fit through the green door. The smallest particle of what I have and
keep of me, a hindrance to what can be had and kept of one, who alone fits
through, whose proportions, are infinite, who is all, all love, and in me, my
only safe haven. A secluded place the needle’s eye. The land the mist enshrouds
the most desired. Were it not concealed the door that no man finds the stone was
seen that above the shadow cannot be grasped. I see and don’t see. I had too
much. I’d bitten the apple. I die and blind in one life cyclic rending-death, a
new realm wrought; love’s gift, only in the land of leaving to enter, and mine
only in my loss, if it were written in the midst of me. And I knew it, because
I listened. And I listened, because I had heard.
There
is no art, so
deep as hearing; nor
so high as only
believing.
Time alone for a year in an open place; a new
world where more can be gained by what cannot be grasped. You have taken the
bravest step. Entered where few dare to go. You stand now in a land so
transparent both sides of infinity meet. The veil between heaven and earth but a
fading vapour. A mountainous land, above an emerald winding river bordered by
dark beech forest, where the passage of time and possibility has taken you into
such acceptance and extraordinary levels of living that the world becomes
better off for your having entered it. You are immersed in a vast expansion of
life: illumined, long desired in waiting, closed-eye-taken on an extension of
your inner--innermost journey, re-enthused, re-inspired alight in the land
walled with mirrors. Now you know, the way of wisdom.
You never
actually know what will happen next, being as you are brought by a way in which
you know not: led in paths you have not known that the unknown might be made
visible before you. Life lived in the spirit is thrilling
transforming, and whatever does happen next is, for you, having passed through
the air between worlds and sifted of all harm.
Back
in March, 2019, while driving in the South Island of New Zealand I encountered
the living truth of all that I had been writing about and had one of those
experiences that forever after are always present. The beauty of the natural
world all around, touched and broke me, and for a moment there was no barrier
between: the thinness, complete. And I saw and heard; and it completely
transformed me. The Lindis Pass, which forms the divide, the boundary between
the Waitaki District and Central Otago lifted me through and beyond: the whole
region of the approach to the Pass majestic, ascendant . . . glorious. The Pass
is above the tree-line. Not even a single bush there; or, any plant taller than
another. In every direction you look, the mountains are spread with a rich cloak;
its colour, an infusion of saffron, copper and gold; its texture like the fur
of a lion; its sound a hush: a suede mantle composed entirely of native tussock
and brown grass and its effect is magical because there is no other colour.
I could do nothing but stare at this wonder as I drove slowly along. As the beauty encompassed me, and then entered; I suddenly saw through. My son came to me. I briefly saw him; and glimpsed too the life he lived above; he had never breathed the air of this world. I had not remembered him in years, or so I thought, yet here he was with, warmth, reaching out with flowing forgiveness and love, total and utter. I seemed to know that I must write his story. More, that I had needed to write it; or, that I already had but hadn’t understood it. Now it was given me in a moment; and in tears. As the illumined truth sank in and hit base: a deep sobbing . . . an agony from out of the unknown that was known: Love, bending me, gripping, clutching... and meeting... same... crying and imploding... a destroying consuming ecstasy in being known... known... and loved? Deep inside.... Yes... and a tumbling cartwheel of joy tipped me upside down, and over and over, laughing! Laughing and crying, together: being together: the All desire of every wounded heart. The sun met the earth and its rays warmed and melted it.
At
the summit of the Lindis Pass, I reached back for my beautiful wardrobe
notebook and began writing my son’s astonishing tale and his message to the
world of a love, so great, it had not yet, even entered our consciousness.
I could only scribble short notes, at the
time. The light, the joy, mostly hid inside, not conceptualized in my head but somewhere
greater. But such was the depth of the inspiration given that I was kept
continually focused: flooded with new and developing understanding as his story
unfolded before me, day after day. It infused my travels along uplifting
strands of ozone, undulating light, raising and lowering; still, taking in, in
waves, the entering enigmatic beauty of a nearerland. Beside me, even now as I
write, the wardrobe notebook, signs, looks up at me, open; its endpapers the
same golden bright irrepressible colour as the lion of the Lindis Pass.
The day after we arrived home in the Far
North, I opened my laptop and watched my fingers fly over the keys, as I saw
Raef’s life play out in front of me. Every writing day I had only to sit at my
desk, the screen before me, and believe the inspiration would continue to weave
the story I could perceive in my spirit to touch and bring forth the reality it
portrayed there. The intricacies of the warp and weft of the fabric of Raef’s life
became for me a continuing effortless joy. Linking me with that ethereal
handloom of the something more beforehand, where the threads of the warp are
strong with truth, and the weft, gentle with a fathomless love. The afterlife
was always before, and in the meeting place, the true one.
The weaving being formed had a sound; a voice,
not like the clattering loom of earth, but soft and mystical, as uplifting as
an Aeolian harp played upon by the wind of the spirit. To say that this
manuscript, wove, or wrote itself is an understatement; for when I read back to
see what I had written, I realized that many of its paragraphs were deeper than
anything I could invent.
Raef’s book, took nearly a year to write and
spirit edit. When it was finished, I sent it (early January, 2020) to a literary
consultant: a well-known New Zealand author and former literary agent. ‘. . . an impressive piece of work.’ Comments
were encouraging. I made the adjustments recommended and towards the end of
March submitted the manuscript to the Ashton Wylie Charitable Trust Awards;
Auckland, 2020: the Mind Body Spirit Unpublished Manuscript Award that the
consultant had suggested might be the next step. I am shortly to attend their Awards
winner announcements and prize giving: knowing I didn’t make it. My novel,
themed on fathoming solitude and the afterlife with living exponential evidence
of the something more beforehand was probably
not what they were wanting! Having too small a field of interest, perhaps; or, too
avant-garde. More light more life: spiritually literary content written in
spirit; there being no other way to communicate, that which worked. More could
be gained from what couldn’t be grasped. Literary fiction, buoyed
active synchronistically exploring the fourth dimension inworked in innocence
in the fifth element: so, not commercial fiction, per se; and such a book would
probably be too hard to find a publisher for; which was the conclusion my literary
consultant had reached in his summary in his written report on my manuscript. Quintessence,
agile scary blew mind away.
So, I have not even looked for a publisher. Though, principally, this is because the whole commercial world: marketing, sales, and promotion, etc, with all it entails is too daunting for me; and in all of me, I want nothing to do with it. I am a reclusive writer, and a broken hearted poet. So, my twenty unpublished books and I remain in our hermitage. But, like any other writer, I cannot ever lose the dream of being read.
I
won’t say much about the emergent multilayered plot of my novel; or, give you a
synopsis. (BELOW,
is my imaginary publishers’ back cover blurb; which is all you get, anyway,
when you pick up a book.) I have chosen all along to make this article,
personal; and, now, more so: sharing with you what cannot be fully discerned
from my manuscript, testifying to this: that Raef’s story, which came so
irrepressibly out of a literal golden world is tied to my own life by one wrong
act. But, my long-ago, grievous action, followed by years of buried guilt and remorse
was washed away and completely turned around when I saw him. My tiny baby,
whose life had been taken, his life never died, I saw him as an alive, adult! He
was happy! Fulfilled, complete, filled, and so lovingly intimately, aware, educated,
lacking nothing! Life never dies, it only changes. So, tears had shone, lifted
to smiles and cartwheels of joy. Loss had become love’s gain. Tragedy, purposed
from the beginning by infinite love was for infinite reasons, infinitely good!
Truly we do not know the half of what has been prepared for those who love and
accept the truth against themselves.
‘Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed
them unto us by his Spirit: for the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.’ 1 Corinthians 2: 9, 10
As I became more and more willing to accept
the truth against myself: loving authentic
living enough, for it to search me out, find me in those lightless places
within to meet and know me there, the light shined,
and love and delight increased and I began to discover that the natural world
all around was communicating with me, lovingly, personally, intimately. If,
that is, I was listening, and two improbable things happened at the same time: If,
the eyes of my soul were focused and in alignment with the eyes of my spirit in
The
Marriage
of truth and love willing to be broken, again . . . and again . . . and again .
. . to be found in it, the light. The pain: the joy. The dividing work: the
ecstatic joining. The penetration: to meet. The irresistible Lapidary honing
perfection, the ceaseless attrition to find his face. His tool: a feather. The seed
in the jar, it cannot grow until it has split apart.
Wholeness through brokenness union through division: perfection: a gift: complete from the beginning. Diamond.
Face
to face the inlight blinds. Here I am. Within the in between. The space
between. Lays aside his instruments. The wind ceases its tearing, the fire its
scorching; the sea rests from its crashing grinding waves the day of the dawning.
. . the appearing. Silence. The silent confirming. The
indwelling
grail, the yearning and the desire of all nations. I had discovered The Beauty of living in deep
personal integrity. In the simple everyday things around me, either, in the
green world of nature, or in anything in the inanimate world that humanity has
made, that I just ‘happened’ to notice: a mirroring picture of me, a reflection
of my insides, speaking, showing me the specific things of me in my middle: simply,
to comfort instantly when affective confirmation of some inner truth in me was deemed
necessary: I, ...seen, ...known, ...not alone: ...loved, ...found? JOY!
In continual coincidence by synchronicity (--a continual glorious ‘happening’ by streamlined
sight, when the inner-inner-person is in direct connection with the
outer-inner-world that we can actually see, and, see! when our natural and spiritual eyes are made one, having been
separated in two, to let in the light, for naturally we are blind in the dark, sightless
there as a dry seed lacking water) I had
discovered a new and living way of ever-increasing revelation and wisdom, and
the truest freedom, in a tremendous sense of being utterly known, which can
only, be, when we are utterly unafraid of it; else, we hide.
Without a miracle it is impossible to love
and welcome the consequences of being truly and utterly known in the land of mirrors: the place of the
healing of our sight. But when this happens for you, personally, this profound instantly
healing transformation in being found ‘in the twinkling of an eye,’ then All-Love,
enters, and suddenly becomes, most truly, yours. And you L I V E from that
point on in Joy, all unspeakable, and full of glory. L I F E in you, all
through, and through. Through to the
beyond the home of the light and to the
immaculate desire.
Yet, without anything needing to be deeply
forgiven you, you cannot experience anything of the depths, the breaking depths
that heal and transform; where the light shines the brightest; and the water of
life flows the fastest. ‘And let him that
is athirst come ...take the water of life freely.’ Revelation 22: 17
A light kept flickering in the background.
This novel is about, my son, my unborn son, who returned as an adult, and
completely his own self, not any other, to learn of life here and to share of all
that he had known of The-Accepting-Everything-&-Reflecting-Absolutely-Nothing-Back
:
LOVE: creative freedom: the ineffable Infinite Purpose and his exquisite wiping away of all tears, far exceeding our highest
ability to imagine, in that glorious environment above in which he had been
nurtured and had grown up, knowing that this knowledge would help, and bring
hope and comfort to all; all who seek truth above self-interest: all who have
lost everything.
Can a man return and live as he would have
lived had he no need of returning because he had never left? Death is overcome.
No more shall there be any fear of death. Death is the last enemy, and Death
shall be overcome.
‘As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.’ Algernon Charles Swinburne; ‘A Forsaken Garden’
FALLING I was lifted to this land.
The light behind my life, shining through, has brought me here. The fleeing shadow
of my darkness making room in me for life. Poured out infilled. Infilled in
empty. Head beneath, under feet, and the All in All. The unwording work of Being.
In the mapped labyrinth within, the unravelling mystery: ‘Then shall I know:
even as also I am known.’ Unlocked. The measured image: the un-measuring
life. The releasing work of light and the setting free. No more a stone. The stone
which changes changed. The offence that heals healed. The flaming sword that turns,
and turns again, stands back. The pivot upon which all turns at the very centre
of the universe turned. Changes. The Base. Element for element. Realm for
realm. Through severed edges. The gap between, the thread which joins. The
entrance gate, the needle’s eye. Drawn through, brought in. Pulled out, sewn
in. Married. I belonged to this land. The land in the air. Taken out enter in, to
say without speaking.
*
The river flows faster the
nearer its fall;
the lower it falls the
greater the power.
THE BELOW
My imaginary publishers’
back cover blurb, for my fourth dimensional
story in the fifth element of an ordinary man with an out-of-the-ordinary
innocence; in the world, yet not of it,
not of what wasn’t in it.
S K E T C
H B O O K O F S O L I T U D E
L i s t e n i n g A r t; A Novel
Raef Andersen
Springfield, a free
and independent young journalist, embarks upon a journey into new dimensions of
living and learning. He takes time out from his work commitments to experience
solitude ‘to find himself’ and to
provide the material for his writing in his passionate endeavour to leave the
world better off for his having entered it. His one year odyssey, alone, in a
remote shepherd’s hut in the high country of Central Otago, New Zealand, yields
unforeseen inner wealth; leaves others, helped; and unsolvable problems,
solved. Yet, who Raef is, is a mystery; his actual identity, a light kept
flickering in the background is ultimately revealed; but, indirectly.
Throughout the novel we are lifted to new levels of light and life; mystically
watered in discovering a deeper ability in insight and clarity within ourselves,
as we follow this one man’s journey into the wealth that can be found in
solitude: listening in time alone.
*
____________________________________________________________________
If you would like to read ‘SKETCHBOOK OF SOLITUDE; LISTENING ART; A Novel;’ and for further copies of this article (3,254 words) emailed in Word Document PDF, please contact the author who would love to hear from you:
J M E Deverell + judithdeverell@hotmail.com + N e w Z e a l a n d
