Story.) A String of Red Beads...from A Circle of Swift Songs

A String of Red Beads                           

I SAW A ROW OF ANCIENT BOOKS upon a shelf. Of course, I had seen them there many times before, but this time I saw them: drawn to them. I took out a few and stood them up on the bedside table where the lamp was and turned off the main light. The lamp’s golden glow lit up the books and seemed to give them life shining on their gold-leaf writing pressed hard into their poor spines; broken, or about to break. I loved them. Not because I was interested in their stories. I did not know what they were. They were too hard for me to understand.  I had never read them. I just wanted to absorb what they were missing; write what they could not express and yet be just as beautiful.

   I think I had stepped outside the boundaries that imprison the child and make of it an adult and had escaped: I could do as I imagined I could do. So, very small, I slipped inside the books themselves; and, with their pages all around me, their pretty ways of stringing words together became an oil which poured itself into one of my many corners and quickened me. Suddenly that which was impossible, I could do; for I was a child and ‘a nothing person.’ From then on I wrote whatever popped into my head; and I was pleased. But it was not always easy.

   One day with inkpot and loosed feather I found myself writing what seemed to me a string of ripe-plucked cherries. The hard things I knew were their red, stone hearts; and the oil, fleshing out their inward parts in dreams and visions, the succulent part beneath their skins. Once eaten, there, strung on a black ink thread of words was a string of red beads. A living story-bracelet left me of life preserved by death. A gift of inner-life stories strung on a string of light! The light that shines in darkness!                                                 

                                               

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Story 1.) The Secret of Trees . . .

THERE WAS A RIVER running through Everland which was so clear and sparkling and beautiful, it would gladden the heart of anyone who saw it. In the lovely level open place, through which it flowed, after it left the hills were deciduous trees growing all along its banks, on either side. This lovely place was like a parkland, emerald green and luscious, where roe deer wandered; and the trees were all wild fruit trees. They were fine and delicate and mysteriously fragrant; and in full flower, they were resplendent in their pink and white dreaming.

   It was a beautiful bright sunlit day with a stiff breeze blowing and my heart was soaring within me. As I walked beside the river, set free of every encumbrance, I saw the wind in the trees. I saw how it moved them and I was fascinated. I walked more slowly and gazed upward. Some of the trees, the more supple ones, were moving so urgently that it seemed to me as if they spoke; or that they had within them, even a vital story to tell. Filled also with a longing to communicate my arms just lifted of themselves; and raised were waving as a tree. I was a tree. My swaying branches signing to a deaf world hell bent upon its own destruction ‘Copy me! See the trees! Life has turned us inside out and sent us in another way!’    

   Oh, the trees knew! They were bidding me copy them. They knew the way would open---waving in another dimension---in ‘a more excellent way.’ Constantly, they were changing with the times. Only human nature thinks it knows better, and inside stays the same.

   The season changed. I was in another place. And as so often happens in the course of our sojourn on the earth, a month of somberness came; when my awareness of the continual Presence within was waning; seemingly, being taken away? But for good, I learned later, that it may grow even stronger. And that is hard.

   Of course it is hard, I realized. But that is only because I am ignorant: having not previously taken much notice of the way of living things, nor learned from them how life is continually changing its form; and sometimes so slowly I do not see it at all. Like how mothers cannot tell the day when their babies became toddlers; and, as schoolchildren walked each day from home until finally they left it for their own. Though we stared at them every day, they every day looked the same; but they were not, they were each day changing. Yet so normal was it that we didn’t notice the change. Nor could we pin it down when it was. Nor did we cry for the loss. It was so gradual we didn’t see it. 

   Oh---like the seasons of fruit trees! 
  And I remembered that happy day, when, borne by the wind, I had walked among the living trees along the River of Life in faraway Everland. Suddenly I understood more of what it was that they had been trying to tell me that day. Of course, however sweet the blossom of their springtime they do not cling to it, or grieve at its loss. They know their beauty must fall away for the fruit to form. This was the way of real life. And, as it was true, in the natural world, so is it in the spiritual. And then I saw to my rue that I am not so wise as a tree. Having not learned of them, that in my own life, the lovely blossom of my first light and life, will drop away. As it is meant to. And for something greater than showy blossom---some further life in me. The budding fruit of inner truth and wisdom in which is the continuing Seed of endless life; growing, maturing---falling---and dying---down in the dark underground---and then, living, shooting up---in and into the light. 
   It is the awakening. 
  An inner life such as the living world of nature knows---and all around me changing with the times---taking me with it. That is how I will be as a fruitful tree; and bring forth a harvest of glory.

   No falling: no springing up. No endings: no new beginnings.

   I had been unobservant I had not applied this free and living wisdom to my own life: to perceive and comprehend the way of all life, and the manner in which it will change---and there was joy.

  

                                        … TWO …                            

SEASON BY SEASON I watched the deciduous trees. Behind our house was a huge and beautiful, liquid amber, maple tree. And as I gazed at it, in spirit, it was here I learned the fact, that if at every season, old leaves fell for the next leaves to grow, then all my past thought-patterns-of-life were passed, and I didn’t need them anymore, by reason of the glory that excels in the growing leaf! For if I would have all I needed, by life, then all my old leaves of knowledge must fall, for the new leaves to come.

   All things became new, each time the old gave way, and fell. Though the new leaves which came looked much like those that went before, they were not the same ones, of course. And just as it was for the tree, so it was with me.

   Nothing grows that is not living. So I saw that anything life had given me had to remain in life to live. So all my current understanding had to be put under in the living place. Like a seed, I had to put it underground for it to live. 

   Oh, and anyway, it was only by putting it back, under, that it really was, under-standing; for it was only by putting it under that I could stand on it. Staying at the back of my mind, where I buried it, it was under good ground. Because now it was where life begins, the life was the light of men, put in that realm where the light worked---in the dark---from where it shines. That untouchable place, where I could not contaminate it by my own opinions, for the darkness comprehended it not. Put in that invisible place of The Unknown, there in the dark, it would live, and grow; and then come shining out. The light shines in darkness.

   Out of darkness the light shines. Only there I can see it.  There it would sprout out all by itself. The seed of life and light sending out its tender shoot in the fullness of time.

   Whatever the light had shown me, some new seed of truth, some newness of its beauty perceived, it would live---if, kept in the growing place, the dark. Growing there by being alive there in ongoing, overcoming and surrender, it would eventually come out, all by itself in new leaves of new light in some new form. New words would come out, to give shape to what was heard within. And, that way, living leaves of renewed thought would come out at every season. If, that is, they were surpassed, at every season, by my forgetting them, and letting them go; even as the trees did.

   GOING they went. DYING they lived. RELEASED they travelled. Just as a living tree releases its leaves as soon as their work is fulfilled, and had therefore come to an end. In that season of falling those leaves went travelling on the wind, the wind of the spirit, far and wide. And as the season of the fall is for the good of the trees, so is it for me.

   And in this I took comfort, that if my leaves should seem to go nowhere, at least they were fallen at my own feet; and, going under them, and breaking down, they became the fertilizer for my further under-standing; just as the un-flown away dead leaves of the living tree, are enriching the ground in which it stands. Trees are the only created things that never stop growing throughout their entire lives.

   And so, I saw, that if I was nothing but a living person, as a tree is as a ‘living person,’ then my understanding would be ever, current; for it would be forever going, under, in ever falling, once it was full. And ever beginning, again, ever new; even so was the glorious liberty of life in Everland.

                                        … THREE …

AND THE PROCESS OF IT was, rest, and simplicity, itself; and the hidden wisdom that baffled the princes of this world. Why if I lived as a living person I didn’t have to remember anything. Anything living just was and just did. It was happening life---happening. It was all in me right there where I was. Having need of nothing outside of me everything needed was always available, and I didn’t have to do a thing. Just like a tree did nothing but hold out its leaves to the sun, and drink in the rain. There the light entered and nourished the tree. So could I live that way, too. Fed by the light, just the same. Through my own leaves. I learned the most about life and me through my own leaves of writing---writing me out. Writing down those things I was taught within, by life within, where wisdom is. 

   Of course, I learned the most about life and me through my own leaves. Being as I was as one particular tree of one peculiar species. Because, if each particular species, grows in its own peculiar way, predetermined right from its seed, then my leaves would carry on telling me, of my own continuing story, if I would only listen. Telling what was known that I didn’t know yet, being as all my future leaves were all written in embryo inside the seed of the 'tree' I grew from right from the beginning. My daily bread was only a matter of daily being. Only believe. ‘See, the trees!’

  

                                          … FOUR …

AS A TREE LIVES IN THE LIGHT of the sun, and the light enters its leaves, and gives life and sustenance to the whole tree, I kept on sending out new leaves of new thought---new pages of writing---at every season. No longer worrying about losing them, or what happened to them; or wondering where they went; or, if they went anywhere at all. No more than do trees worry where their leaves go.

   But, by keeping on, and falling when I am full, the flame lives; and the sap rises again. Everything grows and changes if it is alive. I had always known it. It was by this I grew, and stayed alive. In always putting under every living idea which came to me. Putting it where, ‘I,’ ‘me,’ could not touch it; for then it would grow, and expand, being as it was in the place out of which all seeds grow---out of the dark---their rich nurturing place---out of faith their endless living place.  Out of its ashes a phoenix rises. In its fourth dimension.

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A CIRCLE OF SWIFT SONGS: a spiritual allegory

                 

     In writing THE BUTTERFLY STORY I had glimpsed that one way to enter Life! was by a sort of ‘not-doing:’ in simple surrender and rest; but that there could be another way, which was by virtually doing the opposite, and that it could be good, too, I had not been able to bear; for I had crossed over, so completely and any method of acquiring wisdom and knowledge which was by human effort I had long ago learned to abandon within me. But, after a long while of more dying to self and waiting, I was given in a waking dream the hint of a greater truth which I had not previously glimpsed. I was about to discover a deeper level to seeing and perceiving truth; and a greater, or more true dimension of love and peace in which all the sensibilities and giftings of others were fully provided for and there could be no cause for offence. 

                                                           

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A Circle of Swift Songs

  TEARS HAD FORMED A POOL. And through them it was as though I was looking from above and seeing down through the clouds. Mountains and beautiful valleys with cascading rivers and areas of dense forest were below. Then appearing in the far distance, amidst a great wooded wilderness, I saw a most beautiful lake. Around its edge were natural grassy places; flower-filled meadows, the haunt of fallow deer and forest creatures which came there to drink. But in one place the lake was bordered by the sheer rock wall of a great high cliff.

    It was very still. Not a breath of wind. The surface of the lake was smooth and clear and shining as glass. It was all was so quiet there breathed a sense of eternity.  Or as if time itself stood still, while angels watched.  

    Suddenly, a Stone is dropped, and from a great height. It plunges into the still water. From its fall, a vortex is caused in the centre of the lake, a hole greater than the size of the Stone and a huge fountain of water shoots skyward in the upheaval. The waves caused around it swell huge at first, then grow successively smaller and smaller as the ripples extend on and on; until, imperceptibly, they reach the very shores of the lake.

 So clearly did I see this all happening that it seemed to take a very long time to happen? I don’t know. It is hard to explain in words. But it seemed as though I was seeing everything in slow motion, for every detail is precise in my memory.

    It was only a dream. A fleeting waking vision. But I remembered it vividly, and I wondered what it meant. As I pondered, I saw again the fall of the Stone. It was the Central Thing: the Stone of Stumbling and the Rock of Offence. Then I recalled the circles of the waves, slowly decreasing to become ripples, until they were so small I could hardly notice them. As I weighed these things in my heart I drew closer, and after a moment I heard the following words rise from within me; they were not audible words just a silent knowing of something I did not know.

         A circle of swift songs: 

         The melody of degrees;  

         Fairly apportioned the glory

         Of the kingdom of heaven

    Then as I listened there was an opening in a once shut place, and I could see something of the meaning of the dream. I suddenly realized it spoke as an answering picture-story to the pain I was dealing with in my innermost being: the pain of being rejected for speaking the truth that no one wanted to hear. Then the picture unravelled . . .

   The ripples, they had had no meeting place! In that pattern of concentric circles, not one touched; not one wave or ripple, met!  There was no link between them. No bridge. Though they followed one after the other in perfect pattern, they never touched. They had no direct interaction with one another though they came from the same source and the same power moved them. ...For a moment I was devastated. All my longings dashed to pieces! No one would hear me who wasn't in the same ripple as me! I was separated from others! Alone! I really was…all alone! A sense of grief manifested in the centre of my being, and a sob rose up and came out of me; and for a moment I cried.

   And then Love stooped, and spoke. Love bent down, and looked upon me; and said, ‘I have made it so.’ My response a baby’s tears; and I just cried some more. But then the glint of a dawning:  ‘It was meant to be that way...?’ and I marvelled. As usual my natural, first-sight arose next, to steal away my dawn, and cloud my insight over, as my own thinking always does. ‘Oh, but why did you make it so? Surely, that can’t be! It is, too, cruel!’

    Clasped of such earthly thoughts the pain increased, and to breaking point. Yet, Love’s grip was stronger. I yielded. Trusting completely to Love’s own goodness I looked upon this given ‘picture-story,’ the second time; and wondered at the incomprehensible wisdom so black and dark as night to me. Immediately there came a greater dawning: ‘And it was made, for the extension of the glory of the kingdom of heaven; to which is no end, either way.’ Then I saw it all clear and bright as day!

   Every ripple received what he gave it. And all that he gave it was what it had. The power in the falling Stone was in each circling ripple the exact amount of power that he intended it to have. There everyone in that particular ‘ripple’ had all things in common! They had a kind of kindred fellowship one with another: ‘they talked the same language!’ Rarely did they grossly irritate or offend one another. They couldn’t. Their light, their knowledge, was equal.  So there were no micro-explosions of revelatory light by paradox by the interaction of opposites, to rattle them and embarrass them, and unnerve them, with too much light . . . too much glory, which was beyond them, and which could only make them burst, and spoil, and make them blind! ...New wine in old wine bottles; it doesn’t work! It harms. 

     It seemed this design of un-linked concentric ripples was a picture of how God chose to distribute his glory once it had entered the world; that it might be seen, and examined, and delighted in – in each degree that he gave it. ...I saw that in each was a potential for fullness, for all kinds of personal discovery, and peace: each having its own swift song: its own allotted glory to delight in, which could abundantly satisfy! 

      ‘And who are you to say which ripple is best?’

    

     My own heart smote me! To think that I had thought that I should be able to reach across the ripples, to swamp others with what I had, and put upon them my passionate desire that they should have what I had, regardless! Oh, I ran to Love’s ever present arms. There came my blessing: the loving rebuke and chastening which I ever embraced, and cherished;  for without it I could only be left behind; blind, clouded, lost in a wilderness of my own imperfect judgment, and my own stubbornly held onto opinions! Opened to the core, and out from the depths of me, my broken heart spoke and in Love’s own voice...

   ‘How do you know which ripple is best for each person? Do you know my thoughts, or my purpose in each ripple? Who are you? Don’t you know that I can give my glory, which I wish for all my children to delight in, within the faintest ripple as much as in the greatest wave of the upheaval? If I will that those who delight in the merest hint of my glory are to do so because it pleases me, does it not please you? Who are you? My glory is so great that the least touch of it upon man’s spirit is without end. And unto the smallest degree of it shall I cause it to fulfill their joy and my purpose within them unto whom I give it. If I wish to give to the least as much as I give unto the greatest, what is that to you? Follow me.’ 

    The first ripple reached the shore first; but though this first swift circle of a falling Stone is the most tumultuous and suffers the most upheaval, he gives as much to this least as to the greatest for it becomes the least, first; and so on. It was a profound paradox! And I did not think that I understood it. Then to my mind there came this: ‘There was the one which was the beloved; there was the three; there was the twelve; there was the seventy; and there was the five hundred; and there was the multitude; and the whole world.’ But I saw that all were beloved, whatever I thought; for all were given all they could hold; and all they could hold was all they desired! Enter peace; and love! And smitten, knowing I knew nothing, I fell softly. And, mercy, kissed with truth, I landed in Love’s own embrace.

   A circle of swift songs: the melody of degrees; fairly apportioned the glory of the kingdom of heaven.

                                                     

  

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THE BUTTERFLY STORY: The Shadow and the Substance: a spiritual allegory

    As I moved across the boundaries light grew and grew....and I found out more clearly that there were two distinct ways of acquiring wisdom and knowledge; and the following short story is an allegory of these two different ways that we receive it. This allegory was written at the height of a period in my life when I discovered the absolute joy of learning and receiving everything by trusting in the spirit alone.

    Later, I found out, also, that this story had a strange effect on some people; and I saw that to reduce the offence, further wisdom was needed in order to understand the legitimate place that the other way of learning had. And so after a period of dying to all I knew, another story was given to me. This second allegory – A CIRCLE OF SWIFT SONGS – follows on in the next post on this site.

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 To the Garden Returned

    WAY BACK IN TIME, BEFORE THE DAWN OF FIRST MEMORY there existed a most beautiful garden with a river of light flowing through it which watered it. The garden was planted in an unknown pleasant land, filled with all kinds of trees and herbs, shrubs and flowers. Trees whose fruit was good for food, plants whose structure and beauty was good for the illumining of the mind, and flowers so infused with visionary fragrance they would uplift the soul and fill it with joy. It was a glorious paradise of bliss and innocence, comfort and warmth, and all pervading delight. Its inhabitants lived and moved freely in the garden, drinking from its pools, and caring for its flora and fauna, and learning much from its many wonders. But upon the rise of an exceptionally beautiful morning a seemingly small choice was made by these inhabitants beside one of the pools of water. They drank from the only one which had been forbidden them which drinking from brought an end to innocence and the decline of the garden and its fall into ruins. These inhabitants were soon driven from the garden and out into the wilderness. From then on the garden could no longer exist upon the Earth; but only within the spiritual heavenly hearts of those who lived a life of love and who grieved over their just banishment.

   But, once again, in this inner garden where young ones played there were pools of water. One of which, if they should drink from would bring them blindness, aging, and banishment from the centre of the garden, and an existence of lifeless delusion in its outskirts. And, as before, this dreadful pool was exceedingly beautiful, and truly desirable to give one, wisdom and knowledge and the delight of knowing for oneself. Those children of Love which drank from this pool existed in the outer edges of the garden, blind to their exclusion from its centre, for they had no idea of their true condition, or where they were. The interaction between the youngest children in the centre of the garden and the older ones in its edges was fraught with difficulty, for they could not recognize one another: the thick curtain encircling the centre of the garden a barrier through which they could not understand each other.  

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The Butterfly Story:  the Shadow and the Substance       

   A new butterfly had appeared in the midst of the garden. It had never been seen before; although there was rumour of it having been known long ago. The sight of its silvery wings shimmering in the early morning sunlight brought gasps of delight to the children; and they danced in the middle of the garden like butterflies themselves newly escaped of their cocoon! Tender hearts overflowed with boundless joy!

   The butterfly alighted upon the shoulder of one of the smallest children then flew onto his hand. The child remained perfectly still, lying in the grass his feet dipped in the flowing stream. Rewarded for his stillness, time melted away as he gazed and gazed upon the glorious butterfly, pulsating with life and light on his hand. It swept him up and renewed his whole being and he followed the living butterfly whithersoever it flew.

   Oh, how all the children longed to share with others this wonderful new life and liberty which the butterfly had brought them!

   Then some of the older children reasoned amongst themselves as to how they should do this. They came to the conclusion, that if they could just catch the butterfly then they could pass it around to their friends, so that they might all share in this glorious new joy together. Their idea seemed good to them, so they did it.

   They caught the elusive airborne butterfly dancing and shimmering in the warm morning sunlight. They pierced it with a pin.  Then they stuck it on a piece of paper. How eagerly they anticipated the delight their friends would have when they saw the beautiful new butterfly!

   So the children laid out the pierced butterfly, decently and in order, just as the entomology textbook had taught them. Then they carefully placed it, in a box. They were thrilled with it! Here was proof! Now at last all their friends (perhaps even their enemies!) would be able to study it for themselves and learn of the glorious life of the wonderful new butterfly, and come and join them in the garden. They passed the box around expectantly!  

                            So shadows come and the glory fades.

   While some saw nothing but a decaying, common garden ‘Cabbage White,’ and thought they had quite lost their senses ~ these lived on the outskirts of the garden, others did see a beautiful butterfly and became fascinated with its exquisite markings. They spent much time, and many a happy hour, examining it with magnifying glasses, making careful notes of the detailed patterns on its wings and then comparing them with the textbook. They uncovered many amazing things about this new butterfly! They found exciting messages encoded in its lovely markings, which they were most earnest and diligent to teach to one another. Those whose interests and passions seemed similar gathered themselves together in separate groups in the garden.

   Oh, the myriads of messages as fascinating things to learn! They took great delight in these things! With them, they were fulfilled and content; although there never seemed to be quite enough, and their search for more was endless!

                          So shadows came and the glory faded.

   Then one of the smallest children, who lived in the centre of the garden, came and looked at the dead butterfly in the box. ‘What have you done?’ he cried, as he held the lifeless thing in his hand; and he threw it down to the ground and wept in brokenness of heart.

                                        

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