A sifting wind. Feelings

adrift in the night.

Great storms shift

in their sleep.

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

The uncompromising need for humanity – that is the theme that the final week before Christmas sets before us. We want to be loved and understood; we want someone to take our hand and lead us through the dark, unpredictable world history has bequeathed us. Why me? Why now? Why should I go through this? I’m just a traveller in time who has landed here – I have no special gift to bring; I can’t heal the world.

What a strange thing to be a time traveller. That’s what we are. We set the dial, spun the wheels and arrived here. In the whole history of time we are just people who chanced – or chose – to be here. And the world is cruel, untidy, pitiless. Alas! Who is going to sort it out for us? Jesus Christ?

I’m parodying the mindset of the world today. Yes, truly people are suffering and caught in the cogs of time. But the cogs are human created and can be human solved. Why should we call out for a supernatural being to come to our aid and take all our sufferings on his shoulders? Be careful what you wish for – the supernatural being may not be the one you think he is.

Whose humanity is called for? Someone else’s? A divine being’s? Every tear that falls becomes a torrent in front of you; every unkindness a cutting forest; cold thoughts are a moonless night; a lack of charity is a winter without cheer. Not one more step can I take on my own path unless I dry the tear, awaken kindness, warm the thoughts. The torrent will turn back in itself, the forest open, the bright moon shine its light ahead. What chance do I have then of continuing? The chance that saves the world, that lets me out here at this point in history. The path is not for me alone – it is for any holy family which chances to be coming this way.

Face

But all I have left in me is a heart,

as mind and limbs are chafed away by time;

yet stars flow in and lift it, till apart

from world it rises to its higher clime.

Not there alone but sheltered in the grace

which lived before the world was made a thought;

so coming down again I see the face

who smiles on the heart I saved and brought.

Torrent

A tear becomes a torrent in front of me;

an unkindness a cutting forest;

cold thoughts a moonless night;

no charity, a winter without cheer.

What use is faith except to scatter clouds?

What worth have words unless they clear the thorns?

Not one more step can I take for myself

unless my path is fit for the holy

family who might chance to come this way.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

You are welcome to quote from Light on the Page on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar

Source: www.lightonthepage.com

For other permissions please contact the author.

As the year grows darker – and, by analogy, life grows darker – it’s natural to look in unexpected places for meaning and hope. As I mentioned before, the low angle of the sun’s rays highlights corners and edges of things which normally remain hidden – for example, crystals in tiny caves and openings. By analogy, in life itself there are lines of force visible at this time to those who look. Passing on from the mineral to the plant world, you can’t help but feel that nature withdraws into itself to its deepest point in order to let the inner meaning of its existence shine out: the flower which is the essence of its being. What is most concealed is most radiant. And again, by analogy, you look for the truest, deepest image of life in yourself. Then – perhaps with a little trepidation – you move on from the mineral and plant worlds to that of the animals. What does the darkest time of year mean for them?  At this point we’re talking about sentient creation – awareness, consciousness which tingles with life but which is not notably self-conscious or self-aware. The senses therefore lead the way. Animals in the dark and cold will look for shelter, for warmth, for nourishment and – more importantly – they will instinctively look for the guiding wisdom of the world to provide them with what they need. Our human senses and instincts then, by analogy, form a line like the animals and move towards the source of replenishment. Our consciousness does not even play a part in this – the instincts have a wisdom of their own.

The human being will finally arrive – the fourth of the kingdoms. There is no human analogy for this kingdom – it is its own analogy. The structure of life, the flower of life, the instinct of life and – finally – the Self of life. These are the four stages which are traditionally represented in the four weeks of Advent or – in pagan terms – the month leading up to the rebirth of Light at the midwinter festival, and which play themselves out as if in a great dream.

Sanctum

All my senses rush up to the spring

where light arrives in silence of the night;

and there they quench their thirst like waiting beasts

which spent their lives in acting out their role.

Thus sight and hearing, touch and taste and smell,

with all the other senses tucked inside,

have leaped ahead, and now my sloping form

is last to reach the sanctum, tired and slow.

Animals

Perceptions wait outside, while hungry senses

race ahead to fill themselves with pure

sensation needing neither thought nor comprehension

to bask in light’s first source and know its name.

Then when the senses are done, the body -

their master and their slave – can sleep, and dream

of times when all the animals were one

in a heavenly garden where blood was never spilt.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

Light is our first-born child and longs to make its home with us while still remaining free. Thus it makes its hearth in each and every living thing but stills its restless urgings through the night. It leaves us our freedom too and walks silently in the darkness so as not to disturb us. So when the embers die down to a glow, it flowers on every bough and honest mind.

This is an image of the path of light which is the being-hood of every living thing. This is light before it has become sentient or self-conscious. It relates to plants and to human beings and animals while they sleep. Light is like the hearth burning low which nevertheless spreads its pattern across everything that lives. We can experience it in dreams and in the deeply withdrawn boughs of the trees in winter. It is like the image of a child coming closer. Only the evergreens stay awake, pure nocturnal creatures. They bend their minds towards the first flowering of life.

Everything in the world is an image of the progression of light. It longs to lay its head on those evergreen boughs and experience with us the stages of growing, flowering and dying. It wants to heal what has fallen from its first pure conception. Do we welcome it – let it in – or present only the bare, frozen surface of our branches? Is nature going to close its doors or remain open to its earthly origins? Nature is ourselves.

Bough

The very dearest sunlight loves to shine

on trunks that have no life or inner zest,

painting them with moss and mould and slow growth

which creep towards the ending of their year.

My world is a thing of patient surfaces

while trees like sleeping giants rest their bones,

and sun alone knows how to count the days

until its head will lay upon the bough.

Thought

The very trees are burning with the cold

as if their life is thinking other thoughts:

disguising warmth in limbs that only freeze,

caring in the midnight for their sun.

And, paupers, we collect their sticks for fire

to warm ourselves before discarded thoughts,

until the greatest thought arrives at dawn

and lets our burning flower upon the tree.

Conception

There is no time when light was not first-born,

craving its home and comforts but still free;

it keeps its hearth in every living thing

but stills its restless urgings through the night.

Then when the embers settle to a glow

and dreams are stirring, roaming in the dark,

it flowers on every bough and honest mind,

the first conception coming down at last.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

The virtue of the sun going lower – being driven lower – is that its level rays strike deeper into narrow openings hidden in the earth. And in these openings lie caves which, at other times of the year, conceal their unspoken ornaments in perfect darkness. Even the names of rock-crystals tumble from the lips like precious imaginations: chrysoprase, heliotrope, rose-quartz, amethyst. But now, under the spell of the lowering sun, their angles and eminences, their curious colors and striking transparencies, flash into life and extend far beyond their normal, lowly domain.

My best counterpart for their metaphor is the human brain, or perhaps – better – the human skull. Ah! the number of thoughts which have been passed over or concealed because their true value was never allowed to shine! The number of thoughts which only need the glancing, angled light of the sun for a short space of time to reveal their radiance, their glorious-sounding names! And these are the thoughts which have been growing in us, in the manner of crystals, over long periods of time. How odd that they only need the corner of the year to flash up into brilliance!

Why? Because these are the thoughts which line the wall of the cave, which grow in us without our probing or stimulation. At their deepest level these are the thoughts which answer the call of the sun with their eternal light, stored for this moment – their precious names speaking only when our senses are lowest to the ground. Precious or semi-precious, these thoughts belong to the universe and grow in us.

The constellations of the zodiac, too, are like twelve sleeping figures around the inside of a cave – and are often described as such in fairy-tales. If you, as hero, bring the magic crystal – the sun-illumined light of thought – into the cave, the sleeping figures will rise and guide you – and rescue the kingdom in its time of need.

The time is now, the kingdom is in need, and the crystals must shine again at the lowest elevation of Helios, the sun.

Crystals

Now cold wind chases down the sun

into its narrowest refuge -

dark cave between the rocks: my skull.

But moss grows there and crystals scattered

beneath a coat of softest green.

Their edges catch the downward sun

and make my cave a place of shining thoughts -

never old in their colors, nor tired, nor faded.

Helios

Chrysoprase, heliotrope, rose-quartz, amethyst -

their names alone conceal

the bright inventions of the sun, which

descending into lowest elevation

aims its rays at every angled stone.

Such is the narrow entrance into mind

where thoughts have spent their cave-life domiciled -

now light comes down to praise their edges,

quarter their pain, lyricise

their meek and gentle hues. Thine

is the work of time, speaks Helios, the sun.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

To reach the Age of Light we have to successfully traverse the Age of Contemplation. This is the transition from Pisces to Aquarius. Some people expect this new age to dawn on us like a flash of brilliance in the sky. But the strange fact is that this movement is a backwards one compared to the normal progression of winter to spring. In the course of the year the sun moves from Aquarius to Pisces to Aries, announcing spring (in the northern hemisphere). The equinox moves backwards. That means that at the point in the year when day and night are equal the sun currently rises in the constellation of Pisces. This point creeps back slowly so that in a few hundred years the sun will rise in Aquarius at the equinox. In a few hundred years. So why are so many people urgently requiring that change now? Why are so many people agitating for a new, more enlightened, world order?

Because the movement is also an inner one. And the question arises for me: how can I maintain my ordinary path forward through the year while at the same time turning and racing backwards, into the future as it were, to advance the speed of progress? In order to do this I have to radically change myself, to turn myself inside out, because the Age of Contemplation demands its fulfilment too. The last thing I can hope for is that it will just happen to me, that I will be lifted up to the light in a Rapture or a flash of consciousness. The key to this is the sun. Who or what, in me – in evolution – does the sun stand for? The answer is that it stands for the Being of Love. In other words if I am going to change, on the earth – to turn inside out – the Being of Love must move through me. If we are looking for potent symbols like the Age of Aquarius, of Universal Brotherhood, of Light, to transform our being, then we must allow that the symbol of the sun represents the most potent force of all, a real Being active in our earthly life, who stimulates change both forwards and back.

So how can I be fast enough? Well, I invoke another image of spring: that of the hare. Why is the hare so associated with the spring festivals? Because in him, underneath his skin, is the human being. And likewise, under my skin, I have all the speed and daring of the hare. It’s just an image. Or is it? He carries my being, this creature who can race forwards and back through the fields with such agility. He is everything I need to go towards the spring point in the ordinary way. But underneath his skin he bears the magical ability to turn back and overtake time, to race into the future, to Aquarius. I myself am the Waterman. The hare has to change his skin for mine, and mine for his. I can be the Waterman now if I make this transformation. But not otherwise. I can’t expect it just to happen to me. Therefore, ‘we’ll reach the age of brotherhood in turns by racing fast and contemplating how far Love can shine’.

Hare

I am always for turning, as Pisces

must turn to Aquarius, as February

to March, life into the source of life.

I’d catch the hare at the dawn of spring

to hear his message of time’s running,

time’s turning back, time’s transformation

into Love, as the hare might change his skin

to become a man like me, rejoicing

in the age of universal light

before the contemplating year is done.

Drink

Wait, like the cautious optimist, for spring’s

approach, and yet the subtle equinox

proceeds from fishes to the waterman

as if its backwards step will not be seen.

How can I be there before I arrive?

How can I find his truth and light in time

to equal my own yearning in its prime?

The whisper of the hare meets me again,

who runs from course to course and sleeps for none -

he says to change my skin for his and fly,

then I will catch that water in its fall

which man must pour, and drink before it’s down.

Age of Brotherhood

Then, waterman, I’ll be your future now,

pinning speed on the hind legs of a hare -

how else to think your thoughts and shine your light

except to go where the fastest will dare?

And like the peeling back of well-used skin

there is no other way to let him be,

the new man in me who will want to change

the world’s established order for a turn

of speed . So let the hare exchange his skin

for mine and mine for his – we’ll reach the age

of brotherhood in turns by racing fast

and contemplating how far Love can shine.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

©landar 2011. All rights reserved

Sleeping, dreaming and waking are the three conditions we know best in all the world. And they in turn are governed by light, dark and twilight. They make us what we are – all our senses defer to them, life itself honors their power. In a sense they are what we are, in so far as our very nature is consciousness, and sleep, dreaming and waking constitute its family. So can we awake to consciousness itself, as the sleeping creature awakes within its coat of darkness, cloud and rain, and emerges into the winter light? Can we become alive to what we are, a thing which is no ordinary part of creation, but is composed of light itself?

On the one hand we have to wait for this to happen, to be touched by Light’s gentle hand, just as the new moon holds itself in darkness waiting for the sun to gild its edge again. And, in truth, were we not rimmed with light before in this way, but without the opportunity of consciousness we have now? Is there not something in us that remembers? And on the other hand we have to climb up to that originating spark, link by link, as if on a golden chain. Is there any creature with consciousness of self which does not wish, at least in a tiny hidden corner of its being, to know itself fully in its own nature? And its own nature is that of consciousness, of Light, with its varying degrees of light, dark and twilight, and its conditions of sleeping, dreaming and waking. The creature sheltering in its coat of winter knows itself instinctively to be held in the hand of its own kind. We, as creatures of Light, must know that our time will come to wake up too.

Light on the Page is titled the way it is because its sole purpose is to help find the links in that golden chain.

Whispering

And January’s whispering rain

lets me hide in my coat of dreams

till the invisible stars tilt me

over into Light unslept.

Then all the waking world crowds in,

craves admission to the dream,

which knows itself unsleeping,

within the rain’s softest words.

Conception

So where is sleep but in the fondness

life conceives for rain and shadow:

mooncloud, still-standing sun

below the stars enthralling light?

And where is waking but in the conception

Light has of itself, gleaming

like a crescent moon through cloud, until

its very shape has dipped into our hearts?

Brightness

If Light will baptize me I’ll bear its name

and neither sleep nor dream will call me dark,

but all its links I’ll follow without shame

to climb up to the nominating spark.

Though sleep may land nearby and dreams alight,

I’ll be the one to haul their boat ashore,

and their invasion happens without fright

when greeted by the brightness they forswore.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved