A Portrait of a Lost Door . . . A New Ragged Writing . . . New Section Written . . . A New Poem in Three Parts . . .

Portrait of a Lost Door                                 

It was from a far country I had come---

Where endless illumination came out of darkness:

Out of what wasn’t understood---till one did---from it

There, one was of no age, neither, young nor old

One just was and always had been

And of no size, large or small, but the right size

Perfectly fitting that place where one desired to be

Here was, no language or wisdom

That we could understand

Some say we lived here before ever we were

For we have ever been

And say, too, that we knew this country

When we were very, very young

But should one not have retained

The slightest memory of it

It would not diminish, even so,

It was within one not as memory but as life

My ability to cherish it now and tomorrow

A fact---a gift---

In all my yesterdays it was in me already and ever is

There, the smallest child

Was wiser than the wise and prudent
Another kind of language was there
Thought strange and foolish here
As incomprehensible as snow is to fire
And as a jewel is to the blind

The more I have of the wisdom of this world

The less I have of the other

For it was of a quality
That cannot be measured by gain

But by loss---because it was without end

A bird can fly by

And I can see it as a dart of dark or light

And it is gone

But there I am not separated from the beauty I see

I am with it---

And no matter its speed---alongside---

One with its---life

Leaps, that are, here impossible

There are, a matter of course---perfunctory

I was with all I saw and had always known it

  

In the touch of beauty

The sense of sight took on a look of---

Having---possessing---because one had nothing---

A sense of knowing what couldn’t be known

In dwelling in the source from whence it came

And as for sound---

The site of it was ever in the midst of love---

And sight in the centre of peace---

And all that was of their marrying there            

Was as back-to-front as dark and light

And no man knew it that had not life

It was from a 'far country' I had come

Where endless light came out of fearful darkness

Darkness---because total light could not be understood

And so would not fit him who had not life---

Yet beauty had once been his to give as he saw fit

He only returns to life and light who only knows 
He is dead and dark

               *                           

In the breath of loveliness

There were no shut places in my country---

No places where the taken-air could not escape once

Its beauty had entered in the living open heart---

It flowed out in measured lines of airy darkest Light:

Truth---that having worked its life---within

Went everywhere---and on and on, so,

Gathering---in its gifted freedom---

All of solace that it could ever meet

And so sure---the laden breath---of no shut place

The loveliness never faltered as it went on

To enter every rested heart it met

Show the taker’s face---reveal the giver’s heart---

The influence of beauty reached more inner-homes          

Touched more inner-souls of men

Worked more wonders in each and every one                                  Than we could ever imagine
                                     

                                    * 

And of the door

No man yet had entered through it

That of his, own volition

Had tried to enter in

It was the mystery and paradox

Of the distant country---

Its door was not made of any      

Substance comprehensible to the world

And visible only to them that took the trouble

To let down their wings---

Their tightly held selves---and let go all pride

It was the nearest door and the one most distant

That was the threshold of the inner glory

And the beginning of the way of life---     

Once opened---

But the door before us the hardest to enter in

Love alone would reveal it and open it inside

Of silver---refined in a thousand fires it was made

Inlaid with gold---sealed and purified

Of the substance of down----light as snowflakes

It would seem to be wrought

Such as could be plucked from the breast

Of a goose---

One of ‘foolish’ trust---and with a broken wing

Led home---held in a child’s arms

Of its hinges---

It pivoted upon one’s cross---

The door swung on joyful expectation

Balanced in a cup of faith

Imbued with patience

Its handle---

True courage in adversity---

That turned tragedy to glory

And made of every difficulty

An opener of gold---

The possession of the weak

Made strong in surrender . . .

               * 

All my simple portrait of---a lost door---

The door in the tree of life

That took me through---

That opened in my loss of me

It was the way of entrance waiting to be found

Drawn in pastel upon every sunset cloud

Painted in sunrise---the oils touched within---

In every drop of silver mist

Its reflection shone---

Its picture in every blade of dewy grass

            And upon every lip of truth it kissed 

                                    *

                                                    From: ARKIAHH DREAMING; The Ragged Writings of Everland; Volume Three

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.

           *                                         

                                                                                   

Vol. 2 / 211.) Ends In Is-Ing . . .

             Ends in ‘is-ing’ the effective thing

The ‘thing-being’ the ‘being-thing’

Brighter and brighter to the full day

The path before them in whom

The sun is rising

Out of their treasures both new and old

Grow the growing things

That have their life in being live

But ‘about-ing’ doesn’t leave ever 

Them... they always find their

Unconscious need of it... moving

Onwards through the ruby labyrinth

First were their dazzling openings

And then their understandings

So Happenings... and Explainings

And Heaven... on Earth

Because life was a teacher

And a teacher loves to teach

And life repeats itself over and over  

So, life progresses... on... and on

The continual seasons... of the eternal

Tree of Life continually within them

Until Explainings had their Endings

In Happenings...

And Happenings never ceased!

And happy, the little bird flies on and on

Seeing from the differing seeing-levels

Of cliff and sea

      *