Light on the Page

Talking to the dead is always of great value – mainly because they’re not. They are members of another life, they’ve been born into it, and they live there as truly as we live here. So what is the question at stake? It’s whether or not life is worthy and what is the relationship of that worth to the eternal. Our life on earth is one of borrowed light. It has many faces made up of hours and days. The faces of those who belong to the other life are climbing away from that. For them the earth has passed its hour of worth. It has no more value for them, in terms of what they themselves can do – for the time being at least. So what can I give them – I who have been left behind? I can give them the now, but more especially the eternal in it – because that, in reality, is where they reside. Did they know, during their life on earth, that all those hours and minutes we have at our disposal are really faces of the eternal? Perhaps they did, perhaps not. But we can tell them. We can tell them that we know they live in everything we have that has been borrowed from the eternal. They need to hear this and we need to tell them what we know. Otherwise our life has no worth. And what will I hear back from them? I will hear, faintly, their praise of what is worthy in the hour of light at dawn, when I may allow the eternal to pour into my day.

What makes us grieve for those who’ve gone is really the loss of the eternal, which they are part of now. If we still retained our true sense of the eternal, which was once our birthright, we would feel no separation. If we could only lose the power that minutes hold over us we’d plunge into duration anyhow. Then who would be left to grieve but time itself? And we who have stayed behind on earth would find our natural rhyme in those voices rising through the light again.

We wrestle so much with weariness and loss of faith while in fact the non-earthly – the realm of the ‘dead’ – glows its way through night. The shapes and thoughts within it may seem like wraiths to us when in truth they shine radiantly. And how do they regard my faintness? Do I seem like a ghost to them in my doubting and my absence of belief? Or will my best thoughts appear like a shining coast to them which will guide them through all the earthly dark and strife?

Dawn

The borrowed light we live on for a time

has many faces, hours and days of earth.

The faces in the other life will climb

away from what has passed its hour of worth.

To honour the eternal all my days

is all I have to give to those who’ve gone.

But I will always listen for their praise

of what is worth the hour of light at dawn.

Voices

The loss of the eternal makes us grieve

for those who’ve gone, who are eternal now.

But if we’d only let the minutes leave,

we’d plunge into duration anyhow.

Then who is left to grieve but empty time

who has no fingers fretting at his chain?

For those who’ve stayed behind have found their rhyme

in voices rising through the light again.

Strife

We fight with weariness and loss of faith

while the unearthly glows its way through night

and every shape and thought becomes a wraith

where radiantly shine the forms of light.

And do they view my faintness like a ghost,

my friends who’ve gone before me out of life?

Or will the best thoughts in me be a coast

that shines for them through earthly dark and strife?

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2010. All rights reserved

The perennial question about life after death is why the dead don’t try to communicate with us. A great deal of sadness attaches itself to this question. It is about closed doors, a loss of opportunity. But are we really listening? Do we hear the single voice rising above the crowd? Do we allow the silence to speak its mind? If we did we might notice it’s telling us about our own lives. Essentially it’s telling us that to live is still a choice. This might seem strange coming from the dead who, apparently, had no choice, but then who is in a better position to see that the chances and opportunities life offers are absolutely unique? No two people have the same chances. It is simply the opposite of being part of the crowd. And who is better placed to see that to miss those opportunities implies a lack of listening or seeing? The dead no longer have the choice, but they might well ask the question, why don’t we communicate with them, who have so much to say? Perhaps it’s because their words fall on deaf ears. Perhaps it’s because to raise yourself to listening means to accept the choices of life. It’s so easy to be misunderstood.

And really the dead need so little to express their love. The light of a flower is enough. And I in turn only need the power to speak with the silence poured from above. Our inner being defies such adjectives as dead or alive – it lives as one with both the seen and the unseen. Joined in the light and the silence we are able to speak with a voice that has always been there.

The Voice

Above the crowd I hear a single voice

and listen as the silence speaks its mind.

It tells me that to live is still a choice,

to take the chances no one else can find.

And no one but the dead can understand

the choice I make in talking to you now,

who may not see the world can be spanned

by silence and the voice which taught it how.

Joined

No more light than there is in a flower,

is all the dead need to express their love.

And I in turn only need the power

to speak with the silence poured from above.

Our being is neither dead nor alive

but lives as one with the seen and unseen.

Joined in the light and the silence we thrive

and speak with a voice that always has been.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2010. All rights reserved

Clearly life isn’t equal to death as it’s overturned by it. Love is the basic substance of our being – originally divine but eventually our own element to handle, therefore our origin and our goal. As the power which calls life into being in both a human and divine sense, it’s also the place we return to when life is complete – therefore it holds the balance over the beginning and the end. I believe in this sense death can’t surpass love and love is the equal of death. However, we’re just beginners!

Our life is dissolving in us all the time – the breakdown of cells, the ageing process. So where do we have to look for continued life, during life? Do we look for it in the non-physical part of our being? No, because during life every part of us is oriented towards furthering our existence on earth. That includes what we ordinarily call the ego or the soul. We have to look further, to what I call the Well of Youth, or the Spring of Eternal Life. This occurs in stories or sometimes as landmarks in sacred places. The Well of Youth is the ever-renewing inner part of our being. We have to look for it in times spent away from the realities of physical life – moments of silence and inspiration. The eternal part of our being then works into the temporal. This is the Self beyond the self. It rests in the hands of the Being who is Love in the highest sense. This Being lives and moves within the inner self. Therefore the Fountain of Inspiration, the Well of Youth, the Spring of Eternal Life, all give hope of life before death and certainty of continued being afterwards.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2010. All rights reserved.

Does the fact of death make a nonsense of the whole of life? In a few seconds everything’s gone. Nothing’s left. No part of my life on earth remains. Even my thinking about this will be gone. Does this render life null and void? Does this turn my naive belief that life is sufficient into a laughing-stock?

Of course life has meaning and value and no one goes about thinking that the answer to this question is yes. But there it is – it won’t go away. This question makes itself into the most important in the world and has to be faced.

Death retains its immediacy. Every weekend for a long time I suffered what I called a ‘Saturday-doom’. A feeling of doom or a sense of dread which almost incapacitated me. I realized it had to do with my father’s death when I was a boy. He died quite suddenly on a Sunday. The Saturday was the last full day I knew him. This translated into a deep sense of foreboding. It attacked my own adulthood. The only way I could deal with it was to say a prayer for help on a Thursday night and to be attentive all weekend.

The question of death making a nonsense of life first struck me when I was seven years old. I remember running from the dinner table in tears when my sister mentioned that a friend’s grandmother had been cremated. My father came to comfort me – the same father whose own death affected me so much a few years later. He talked about Heaven and how everything we love will be there. But the force of death remained with me.

Now I feel I have to face it, to look at it full-on. To go right down into it, as it were. The results are interesting. Quite the opposite of making a nonsense of life the fact of death now deepens my hold on existence. It brings the whole inner being into view. Ultimately this is because the inner self is rooted in the Being of Love. And there is no greater fact than this – that Love is equal to Death.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2010. All rights reserved.

Every molecule and particle in me was first membered in the name of its creator. They shine, they dive, they line up in the form I’ve been given. But whether or not they can be lifted from the grave remains the question which God also gave me on their behalf. It’s as if they rise up to my hands or mouth and ask, for themselves: if they are to be left to die is there anyone who can render like for like, same for same, so that the universe will not be one molecule less? I believe that matter asks this question.

Everything in the universe is embodied and ensouled. Therefore it can’t be lost. At the same time, just as the plant wants to climb up to the sun, the life within me cries out, “Light!” and flows towards its source. Life shines and burns within the body for a time and then streams away. The body is happy to play its part. It gives itself in joy, created as it was by life for life. And what it leaves behind has been learned and loved in the strife of existence.

So where does that leave me? I stand beside the fountain of my inner being. The current of life flows through me in its many colors. Death debates above me, as it were, and eternal life holds itself aloof like a dream. I can only wait, while the world turns just a shade, to where my body lies within life’s tree. And there, as sure as worlds have been made, I’ll live at one with the one who first made me.

Molecule

And every shining molecule is mine

which can or can’t be lifted from the grave,

and every diving particle or line

of being within me God first made or gave.

They rise up to my hands or mouth and ask

is all that’s mine still membered in His name,

and if it’s left to die whose is the task

to render like for like, and same for same?

Strife

And yet the life within me cries out, “Light!”

and will not cease its flow towards the source,

as if it’s pulled away from its own fight

and turns back to its maker as of course.

Therefore the body gives itself in joy,

created as it was by life for life,

and what it leaves can happily destroy,

which learned and loved to burn in its own strife.

A Shade

So there beside the fountain stands my self,

and colored life flows through me like a stream,

and death debates above me on its shelf,

while life eternal holds itself in dream.

I wait the turning of the world a shade,

to where my body lies within the tree,

and there as sure as worlds have been made,

I’ll live as one with You who first made me.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2010. All rights reserved.