Posts Tagged ‘uplift’
By Edward Carpenter
Is there one in all the world who does not desire to be divinely beautiful?
To have the most perfect body-unerring skill, strength-limpid clearness of mind, as of the sunlight over the hills-
To radiate love wherever he goes-to move in and out, accepted?
The secret lies close to you, so close.
You are that person-it lies close to you, so close- deep down within-
But in Time it shall come forth and be revealed.
Not by accumulating riches, but by giving away what you have,
Shall you become beautiful;
You must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in fresh ones;
Not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy, but rather by discarding them;
Not by multiplying knowledge shall you beautify your mind;
It is not the food that you eat that has to vivify you, but you that have to vivify the food.
Always emergence, and the parting of veils for the hidden to appear;
The child emerges from its mother’s body, and out of that body again in time another child.
When the body which thou now hast falls away, another body shall be already prepared beneath,
And beneath that again another.
Always that which appears last in time is first, and the cause of all-and not that which appears first.
2
Freedom has to be won afresh every morning.
Every morning thou must put forth thy strength afresh upon the world, to create out of chaos the garden in which thou walkest.
(Behold! I love thee-I wait for thee in thine own garden, lingering till eventide among the bushes;
I tune the lute for thee; I prepare my body for thee, bathing unseen in the limpid waters.)
3
Wondrous is Man-the human body: to understand and possess this, to create it every day afresh, is to possess all things.
The tongue and all that proceeds from it; spoken and written words, languages, commands, controls, the electric telegraph girdling the earth;
The eyes ordaining, directing; the feet and all that they indicate-the path they travel for years and years;
The passions of the body, the belly and the cry for food, the heaving breasts of love, the phallus, the fleshy thighs,
The erect proud head and neck, the sturdy back, and knees well-knit or wavering;
All the interminable attitudes and what they indicate;
Every relation of one man to another, every cringing, bullying, lustful, obscene, pure, honorable, chaste, just and merciful;
The fingers differently shaped according as they handle money for gain or for gift;
All the different ramifications and institutions of society which proceed from such one difference in the crook of a finger;
All that proceed from an arrogant or a slavish contour of the neck;
All the evil that goes forth from any part of a man’s body which is not possessed by himself; all the devils let loose-from a twist of the tongue or a leer of the eye, or the unmanly act of any member-and swirling into society; all the good which gathers round a man who is clean and strong-the threads drawing from afar to the tips of his fingers, the interpretations in his eyes, all the love which passes through his limbs into heaven:
What it is to command and be Master of this wondrous body with all its passions and powers, to truly possess it-
that it is to command and possess all things, that it is to create.
4
The art of creation, like every other art, has to be learnt:
Slowly slowly, through many years, thou buildest up thy body,
And the power that thou now hast (such as it is) to build up this present body, thou hast acquired in the past in other bodies;
So in the future shalt thou use again the power that thou now acquirest.
But the power to build up the body includes all powers.
Do not be dismayed because thou art yet a child of chance, and at the mercy greatly both of Nature and fate;
Because if thou wert not subject to chance, then wouldst thou be Master of thyself; but since thou art not yet Master of thine own passions and powers, in that degree must thou needs be at the mercy of some other power.
And if thou choosest to call that power ”Chance,’ well and good.
It is the angel with whom thou hast to wrestle.
5
Beware how thou seekest this for thyself and that for thyself.
I do not say Seek not; but Beware how thou seekest.
For a soldier who is going a campaign does not seek what fresh furniture he can carry on his back, but rather what he can leave behind;
Knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use and handle is an impediment to him.
So if thou seekest fame or ease or pleasure or aught for thyself, the image of that thing which thou seekest will come and cling to thee-and thou wilt have to carry it about;
And the images and powers which thou hast thus evoked will gather round and form for thee a new body – clamoring for sustenance and satisfaction;
And if thou art not able to discard this image now, thou wilt not be able to discard that body then: but wilt have to carry it about.
Beware then lest it become thy grave and thy prison -instead of thy winged abode, and palace of joy.
For (over and over again) there is nothing that is evil except because a man has not mastery over it; and there is no good thing that is not evil if it have mastery over a man;
And there is no passion or power, or pleasure or pain, or created thing whatsoever, which is not ultimately for man and for his use-or which he need be afraid of, or ashamed at.
The ascetics and the self-indulgent divide things into good and evil-as it were to throw away the evil;
But things cannot be divided into good and evil; but all are good so soon as they are brought into subjection.
And seest thou not that except for Death thou couldst never overcome Death-
For since by being a slave to things of sense thou hast clothed thyself with a body which thou art not master of, thou wert condemned to a living tomb were that body not to be destroyed.
But now through pain and suffering out of this tomb shalt thou come; and through the experience thou hast acquired shalt build thyself a new and better body;
And so on many times, till thou spreadest wings and hast all powers diabolic and angelic concentred in thy flesh.
6
And so at last I saw Satan appear before me- magnificent, fully formed.
Feet first, with shining limbs, he glanced down from above among the bushes,
And stood there erect, dark-skinned, with nostrils dilated with passion;
(In the burning intolerable sunlight he stood, and I in the shade of the bushes);
Fierce and scathing the effluence of his eyes, and scornful of dreams and dreamers (he touched a rock hard by and it split with a sound like thunder);
Fierce the magnetic influence of his dusky flesh; his great foot, well-formed, was planted firm in the sand-with spreading toes;
‘Come out’ he said with a taunt, ‘Art thou afraid to meet me?’
And I answered not, but sprang upon him and smote him;
And he smote me a thousand times, and brashed and scorched and slew me as with hands of flame;
And I was glad, for my body lay there dead; and I sprang upon him again with another body;
And he turned upon me, and smote me a thousand times and slew that body;
And I was glad and sprang upon him again with another body-
And with another and another and again another;
And the bodies which I took on yielded before him and were like cinctures of flame upon me, but I flung them aside;
And the pains which I endured in one body were powers which I wielded in the next; and I grew in strength, till at last I stood before him complete, with a body like his own and equal in might-exultant in pride and joy.
Then he ceased, and said, “I love thee.”
And lo! his form changed, and he leaned backwards and drew me upon him,
And bore me up into the air, and floated me over the topmost trees and the ocean, and round the curve of the earth under the moon-
Till we stood again in Paradise.
A great deal has been made by some authors of the enormity of the difference between the man and the woman. Therefore the goddess aspect of our nature has been talked about as if it were something completely outside the nature of man, and the male god aspect as something foreign to a woman. Dreams do not portray human nature in that way. Of course cultures such as that in the west have passed through a largely male dominated phase, but in past ages the balance was the other way. The important fact is that we each hold the full potential of male and female within us, though physiologically in most cases we are polarised one way or another. However, the deeper one digs the more fully whole one is. That is why the feature on god/goddess above does not stress gender in any way.
As the oldest form of worship, of feelings of awe, were in regard to the woman and her ability to give birth, goddess worship was probably the first human religion. It recognised the miraculous power resident in a woman’s being, the bloodiness and wonder of an emerging new life, and the close link this had with death. Such powerful responses are still very much part of our inner life. The goddess still walks among us. For each woman who is a mother is a goddess, having given birth to Life. See: archetype of the god/goddess; Goddess–holy oriental woman under woman.
Somewhere, deep below the surface of your waking mind, this stream of life starts its flow. In underground caverns it moves through channels formed in ancient times, bringing life to all those tiny lives that, separate or in unity, form the shell you call your body. Remember, for it is one of the greatest truths, that the waters flowing through that gate are the very spirit of the Great Life, the spirit that some have called Creator of the Worlds. Out of it the stars and the multitude of life forms have arisen. Within the universe of yourself you are a young god or goddess playing at creation with the stuff of life. Whatever thought or feeling, longing or emotion you harbour takes form, and is given life, beautiful or awful as it might be. And when you do not own that power, when you push back any part of that flow into the dark caverns of your mind, where fears and wounds, black angers or unspent vengeance lurk in shadows, they are given life. They grow strong until they wrestle with you, invade the living tissues of your body with their sickness, or burst out into the world as action.
There comes into the world now, children whose very nature bears witness to the needs humanity faces. It will be among them the great leaders will be found. Among them are the catalysts of action. Their seeds, in the wombs of mothers open to the Great Life, have already sprung to life, swell into growth and emerge to share life with us. The young will teach the old, for among them are great ones arriving to take part in these momentous times.
She was and is the revelation –
There for any to see the splendour
Of this most ancient goddess –
Revealed and revealing –
While I knew all the ancient fires
That burn in worship,
And heard the voices
Singing to her flowering.
But women are all goddesses within, but many cannot find it in themselves, for it is ancient – for women have a much older and more wonderful inner woman. Yes, you grew from a seed, but no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very huge and ancient self.
Example: I could then see a fairly easy way to climb the great tree. So, I climbed up and the top of the tree was like a massive bell of a flower, like a crocus shape. And it was light and colourful. Suddenly I saw a spirit, a beautiful female. It was the spirit of the tree. At this point I was semi awake, and I wanted to hold the beautiful spirit, but realised that the tree was a representation of my life, and so was the spirit of the tree. The spirit sat on me in a sexual position, so I was lying on my back and she was upright. She slowly took me into her, I mean the whole me, as if she was sucking my whole body into her. I realised that I had to die because she wanted to take all my experience of life and endeavour into her and fertilise herself to form a baby. So, I was ready to die and watched her form a new baby, a mixture of her and me.
Useful Questions and Hints:
As a man can I recognise the goddess aspect of the woman who is my mate?
As a woman can I recognise the goddess aspect of myself?
How do I relate to the goddess?
Can I explore her divinity in myself by using Talking As?