We were now fairly upon the mountain, and were astonished to find that places which from the Riffel, or even from the Furggen Glacier, looked entirely impracticable, were so easy that we could run about.
Edward Whymper, the first climber to achieve the summit of The Matterhorn in 1865
❂
In the mountains, the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that, you need long legs.
Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche
The poetry of unconscious timing is always fascinating to me. Out of the blue you suddenly find yourself in a peculiar state of mind that prompts you to pull down a particular book from the shelf or listen to a piece of music or open up a journal to set down a new entry. In the process, you realize that there is a beauty to it, a symmetry, a rhyme, a connection. Some element within the experience resonates with a larger whole, places it into a composition of being where it increases in density, acquires weight, enriches with meaning, becomes part of the music.
I am watching the documentary, Between the Folds, about a group of talented origami artists. Throughout, each artist has been explaining his work. Across the board, each one has used music as a means of expressing the technique and meaning of what it is to fold a single a single piece of paper into a work of art.
I pause the documentary and access this blog account to begin a new post. It is then that I note that my last post was on the 19th of February.
Yesterday was an auspicious day for me, being the day that I was born. Today is the first day of my 48th year. My last post marked a sudden breakthrough in the development and training of my consciousness. For all of these reasons and more, that I was prompted to re-enter this particular space for expression is beautiful. It has symmetry, completeness, internal resonance and rhyme.
I have spent the seemingly inexhaustible currency of the last month running up mountains and swimming across oceans. The sudden illuminations have revealed inner landscapes that I knew were out there in the shadows and darkness. I could hear tremendous creatures moving through the undergrowth. I could feel the ground tremble under their passing. I knew the Leviathan was swimming in the waters. Then this dawning awareness and the revelations of the world within. (Platonic progressions from a circle of stones containing a fire, to a torch that can be moved, to a flashlight that can be directed to a small area, to spotlight that can illuminate a large area, to the sun rising, enlightening, illuminating everything.)
I wanted to re-experience everything again with my bright and shining new mind. To listen to Beethoven and Bach, Miles Davis and Oscar Peterson as if for the first time again. To read Plato, Dante and Shakespeare, Rilke, Holderlin and Celan with vastly deepened comprehension. To sit with the paintings of Leonardo, Botticelli and Van Gogh, Hokusai, Hiroshige and Yoshitoshi. To explore the poetry of mathematics, sacred geometry, religious architecture, the roots of grammar, rhetoric, rhyme, and rhythm. And to write again with fire. God, it has been so long since I have felt the blood in my words, the Pulse of Being glowing from within the letters.
For the last month, I have been learning how to put the saddle on my self, adjusting to the bridle and the bit, readying for the spur and kick, letting go the reins and pulling them hard back down. In short, learning discipline and getting to know my limitations. It has been beautiful.
Being so intoxicated with this new consciousness, I have neglected the body, the flesh. I haven't been to the gym in over two weeks. Always reminded of Yeat's remark about the eternal soul being tied to the body of a dying animal. Imagine a spiritual balloon soaring high, yet tethered down to the physical form. It is time to let out some of the inspiration and return to earth, make the body strong enough to hold on to the rope so as to ascend even higher.
