Volume 2. / 1.) The Counting-Fall

THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND:  Volume Two:  THE COUNTING-FALL

The counting-fall,

And through the crested loop

There your footsteps . . .

And your steady progress

To where I lodge:

The stuff of inner tremours

Making all the difference

Telling of this blind new magic

In a bold waiting delight

Forging deep within me

A new crystal fountain

Of liquid life welling up:

All words well clear of Sensennae’s

Deceiving waters, of course,

But in, newer, fluid words:

A ‘fall-which-matters;’

And a farther entering-in

With which to grasp

The pearl-shaped thing;

And find again, the silver thread

Which once, in another time,

Captivated the whole rest of me

And sincerely took for good...my entire life.

Yes, the counting-fall!

It is you who come stepping near

Clothed in dark garments

Ready to frighten me

But it is too late! I know!

You cannot fool me now!

Drawing near

You fill me full with ecstasy,

Round, golden, and terribly rare

Rare . . . rare . . . 

And no one hears your step but me . . .
I am deaf . . .
Dead to all but you

Where Next...?

A Rain of Booklight

Where next? What then follows on?

Through an inner mist I wander onward

Through a maze of speckled cloud

Not knowing if I’m right or wrong

Or where I’m going –

Trusting blind to the inner gifted vision:

Alive to the lonely dream alone

What next? Where then shall I write?

That any hear what I was given to say

A rain of booklight is in me - 

A pouring of oil but against the grain

In my centre, my way I find: not-knowing

A torrent through any subject flows:

Alive in light and life, I fit through all

                

                      *

Story: 13. ) Biographies

from A BOOK IS  LIKE A SACRED ISLE

     

          Can they see my centre---

          Feel my edges---feel my bumps?

          How will they know…

          If I do not---show and tell---them?

          My book is real---needs no writer

          Harder---than, the marker of Life

          There---before the face of every heart

          That sees---upside down...

         Biographies

         If I ever read, which I didn’t much, until a few months ago when I became conscious of reading, I had always read novels and those that had come my way mostly secondhand, due to being poor; and of those, the majority were children’s classics: I homeschooled my children. But a new world has opened up to me recently, reading-wise; and I've found that old adage to be true: ‘truth is stranger than fiction.’ The dramas of real people, who had really lived, or were still living made extraordinary stories with twists too insightful to be found in fiction. Characters explained by biography necessarily issued a deeper form of thinking, which, legitimately, carry us along new pathways of fascinating introspection. Our identifying with a real person, feels right and more valuable somehow, more comfortable, or noble than identifying with a fictitious character. Not that fiction isn't awesome, too; it is! It, also, is a teacher. But through the labyrinth of biography, inside paths of a real life reveal and draw out vital elements from the insides our own life; and encourage us in our own struggles motivating us toward greater bravery.

   The deeper the inward gaze of a live person the more succor there is for us in a book, and the more meat there is to chew on. We have to look in, before we are strong enough to look out and see. Exploring of the pathways of the brain and psyche is the quest of the twenty-first century, and its territory. We know this instinctively. We know there is something ahead just out of reach. But still, the way to the fore is clouded: we reject it; we do not wish to fully understand that it is only through suffering.

   I read my first serious, human biography only a couple months ago. Previously, I had read only Natural History biographies; (animals and plants were easier to understand than people!) The book was Gavin Maxwell. A Life; Douglas Botting; and I was, fascinated. I lived in this book for weeks. I learned a great deal more about an extraordinary person and about people in general, and to always deeply appreciate their idiosyncrasies, gifted or otherwise. Strangely, the more there were, the more I found the person precious; and this, I believe, is the work and purpose of biography. I also learned more about otters and wild animals, and about myself. As I have mentioned earlier, this book worked needed compassion in me.

   I am now beginning to read a new biography of the reclusive nineteenth century American poet Emily Dickinson; Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds (Lyndall Gordon) and I am thrilled. Once again, things dwelling below the surface are being confirmed. Now I know why I always wanted to put far more pauses between words and phrases in poetry. I would put them in then take them out: I had not fully understood why I had wanted them there and so lacked the courage to do so. But now I do. And I am free! But what if I had not read this book and found the answer to…the riddle of spaces…it was meant to be! This book is fast becoming a treasure to me; and Dickinson a much admired ‘alive’ person; and needed helper and mentor. I have never had one before, in any shape or form; I have always walked in ‘the dark’…the unknown; and, literary-wise, entirely alone.    

   I wonder. If biography is enlightening, perhaps autobiography could be more so, for there is no intermediary between the protagonist and the reader. Who better to tell their story than the one to whom it belongs? I think I’ll find a few autobiographies to read, after I've read the two interesting looking biographies that await me on the coffee table; C.S. Lewis, and Robert Louis Stevenson; a few of who’s works I've read, definitely not enough, but I would like to know more about their authors.

  This might sound strange for an adult, but I feel as if I am growing up at last; or graduating; or coming of age---or at the end of some long process of being released from a prison. Perhaps this is why I have become conscious of reading; and this in turn, why I am finding so much to see in it.

   I missed out on the world’s normal quantity of book reading in my life: I did read only one, and for many years, and that overall, for a sad reason. But everything in our lives works together for good; and even if we can’t see it yet a rewarding destiny awaits every brave explorer of love and truth.                                             BIOGRAPHIES---the true story of other lives---makes our own lives more meaningful---opening doors into our own---through which we can find---a richer life---and new friends in other realms.          BIOGRAPHIES---can rock our boat---just a little---making our ‘see’ faring voyage---just that little bit more exciting---for sailing through the stories of ‘lives like loaded guns’---can make us shorten sail, and ease our ride---or put up flying spinnakers to speed us up! 

               

                                                                         *

Story: 12. ) Prophetic Books

from . . .  A BOOK IS LIKE A SACRED ISLE . . .

   

          Beginning---from a cache of---oyster light

          Dark hid---amongst the annoying seed

          Buried deep---but acquiring praise---inside

          Foremost---the unknown layers---covering love

          The outer shell is full of…ridges…hollows

          Bends…all from…swaying…to the harsh world

          Which it meets…with tangent candour

          Yet...shallow knowing…there…not faced with self

          Oyster holding---offending wisdom---inside out

          For of two---is---its portion; only one---finalizing

          This, the pages could whisper---only from their origin

          The pearl book tells its light---from whence it came 



           Prophetic Books

    There are books which speak to the outsides of us, and they are delightful; but some nebulous unknown part within us remains unsatisfied. Then there are other books, which speak to our insides, and they are a little disturbing for they seem to be reaching more hidden extremities; but ultimately they satisfy more for we sense we are met at our touchstone, the very place where we assay any incoming gold or silver from a prophetic voice.

   Books have breath. Although it is not always the best thing, one can rely on perceiving something of a book by its movie. While it is usually advisable to read the book, the movie can meet us at the touchstone and ignite any spark of life it engenders in us there . . . There must have been breath in its fabric; in its intrinsic message something dynamic, sensory and sensuous, for it to have been made into a movie; and that will come through, regardless of any cosmetic interpretations and work its especial aim in us for it has been written, twice. 

   I found gold and silver: glory and redemption: reward and grace, in one such film. For it confirmed, and set a seal upon all I already knew and had written; and it established within me a firmer conviction upon which to work. The experience of watching this film was, for me, like a child opening a gift and finding it was what she had always wanted.  

   Even so, I feel bad to be writing a sketch here about a book I haven’t read yet!  But there was that in it, which was, true; and therefore I needed only its essential essence, and its entheasm; which like a pin to a magnet was captured, in instant impact, via the film.

   Through avidly watching the movie of this book I gleaned all that I was needing, at the time, to give me the confidence and strength to continue writing my next ‘book;’ which, being even deeper than the former was perhaps more controversial and so its writer was needing, some sort of comfort! 

   The book I watched is titled The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield; (Grand Central Publishing; Hachette Book Group; New York, 1993.) I have bought it, now. It should arrive next week from America. And although I don’t quite agree with certain fundamental assumptions within its foundation it doesn't matter I am sure I will delight in it and find its lighted truths shining on little plants within me waiting to flower; releasing, too, partly hidden pearls ‘turned-around-sufferings’ into their predestined form in new writings.

   Not presuming to be anything, I am nothing, in no way am I aspiring to be instrumental; I write because I can do nothing else. If I didn’t, I think I’d die! I love books, and I believe in their power. Like I love owls, and believe they fly in the night. Coming through the dark winged things see and carry light in them: they are not afraid; they are rebels broken through love.                                         ‘Old’ books and ‘new’ books need each other; just as writers and readers need one another; one cannot exist without the other. We are not isolated islands, even if we think we are. Through the prophetic influence of our lives expressed in our words, books, and actions we are always helping one another, onward and forward, in one way or another, on mankind’s ceaseless journey through time and eternity. Wisdom and knowledge is built ‘line upon line, precept upon precept.’ And from one generation to the next light is growing, and expanding:  truth…ever living.

                           *

          Today’s fly…speaking

          Flies by tomorrow’s…saying

          ‘Who do you think you are?’

          Tomorrow’s…invisible

          Whispers not of acceptability

          It has none…yet

          But its voice…silent...had been

          Heard…

          Going under...

          Lifting spots…left…by today’s 

A Book is like a Whispering of Wings

A book is like a whispering of wings; 

Strange the sighs that rise up in me

Lifting from the stealth of life upon the page

Unhurried meeting of minds in what I read;

Discoveries of insights, echoing within,

Where they have lain asleep, waiting to be met

If only from the dawn of time, lapping round

The standing stones, beneath the unknown seraph

That in me guards my heart, in whispering, life

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 32

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Golden Circlet

A book is like a golden circlet . . . 

   round my head it lays its story firm

A protective halo, for awhile:

   it takes me deep away

Takes this mind it captivates 

   to an inner world, 

A sanctuary hid from pressing ills, 

   in outside forms of life; 

A surrogate life, till I rise up again, 

Take responsibilities reins,

   live life better for having left it awhile 

         

   

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 28

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Tranquil Stream

A book is like a tranquil stream 

   it has a kind of liquid life

Beside the inner watered willow trees

   that calms my soul

That bends around my growing stems

Though it take me savage in several places               

Falling through the loop                                   

As book streams do, in sudden turns

When taken from their natural course

   in limestone lands

They run in sunken caverns, broad

   in tunnels wide

Seeking there to challenge, keen

Though they be but pallid streams 

   that greet me:

Another’s sighted undercurrent, yet 

   alive with hidden lines 

      they touch my mind . . .

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 27

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Sword being pulled from a Stone

A book is like a sword being

   pulled from a stone . . . 

A sharp thought drawn from a book:

A sword drawn from a stone

A double cutting edge 

A message received with no offence

But it is the young who believe 
The childlike heart which finds 
Excalibur . . . 

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 25

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Painted Landscape

  

A book is like a painted landscape

Always there unless I turn away

Its story working while I read

So that at its end, when I have 

Stared enough, its picture leaves 

In me, an imbibed impression

Poem from a Sequence: 

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 18
(c) Judith Evans Deverell, 2014 
The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Magic Carpet

A book is like a magic carpet . . .

An arise of thought on layered cloud

A story rug, to sit and read on

An inner place to fit my dreams on

Though it cannot take me physically away

In distance real to far flung places . . .

Inwardly, its given lift, 

Can take me even further, onward 

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 17

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Scattered Seed

A book is like a scattered seed . . .

That falls upon a well ploughed ground

It sounds its living message, as I read

As it draws through me the inner life it calls

Its gifted words it buries in me deep . . .

Unknown their entry into the dark within;

In my heart, it has no knowledge of its abode 

Only of its will to sow itself a living seed in me            

           

Poem from a Sequence: 

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 14

(c) Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like an Ever Winding Road

A book is like an ever winding road . . .

A path to take me deeper to an inner country

Turning corners uncovering thought, new and old;

Offering new ways of seeing to the searching soul

But could I read between its lines, find in its streets

A message, where it in me meets, its matching joy

I would find it light my way: a road to take me through; 

Though it never took a step, it led my heart it could un-code 

Poem from a Sequence: 

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 12
(c) Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Sunlit Window

A book is like a sunlit window

An inner gilded seeing-place

But shall I truly come to see 

Beyond its open shapely casement

A world I had not glimpsed before

Set within the gifted page 

Shared with me by one who dared? 

Poem from a Sequence: 

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 11

(c) Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like an Open Door

A book is like an open door

To take me through to unknown places

To go beyond my former walls

And backward glances

Onward through life’s unlatched portals 

Deeply hid beneath in the core of me  

Poem from a Sequence: 

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 10
(c) Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Soaring Bird

A book is like a soaring bird  

If it lifts me up as if on eagles’ wings

It unravels my heart as the twirl of larks

Unlocks that door within that hears it sing

A book is like a silent thermal

If its inner story warms my heart

It pours its life into my inner core 

Renews my strength as it lifts me up

Poem from a Sequence: 

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 9

(c) Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Sacred Isle

A book is like a sacred isle:

It briefly isolates my life

With an inner freeing peace

Unique to me

It keeps me in its keep:

It well insulates my heart

With a moat around my joy

An invisible sea

Its pages form a speaking rock

That impacts the mind it anchors

With a message from its plot

Its leaves unlock

A book is like a charted isle:

Interpreting my soul

With the intercepting knowledge     

Its enchanting lines decode                             

                             

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 7

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project