Narcissus, by Caravaggio c.1597-99

It seems the concepts of cosmopsychism and axiarchism should be given an interpretation through the arts as well as the sciences...

Through This Shining Light

A paradigm perched upon my shoulders, inquires the eternal question:
“How does one find God?”.
Or perhaps more so, “How does one live with God?”.
For myself, I am of His Spirit;
no matter my desires, nor reflections, I suspend midst His being,
and for myself, there is no seeking for, nor refuge from;
no need to breathe.

My paradigm asks of the others.

Borne from the practical world and carried forth
as naturally as the weed that eternally rises midst the flower,
this paradigm slithers from a place sodden with fertile anticipation.
Hubris or humus? Where is the power?

Weighed are we that expectation is unconscious assumption,
while love could never be so secure.
“For whom has loved without condition except God himself?” we might demure.
So we hold our own judgement, in abeyance to the hope
that what we see in the mirror is something
more than what we see in the light.

For though we see in the light,
we choose not to look through the light,
but choose rather to see the mirror.
We mistake light as mirror – living as life –
and thus find but a reflection of ourselves,
and not what life truly is: being in God.
Think, for the moment, of the rose.
In the rapture of God’s perfection,
the turned words of Rilke speak of the rose:

Wildness surrounding wildness,
Tenderness touching tenderness,
It is your own core that you ceaselessly caress,
As they say.
It is your own center that you caress,
Your own reflection gives you light,
And in this way, you show us how
Narcissus is redeemed.

Might I ask the questions, “How does Man see Narcissus?”
What space shall there be between wildness and tenderness?
Does love burn light only to reveal light ever more?

Known now, ten years on of wandering
with even step and faithful direction;
God’s will and not my own,
to a knowledge, perhaps a wisdom
that what God can bless one with
is a thing that few consider;
no matter their diligence or endeavor.

Industry like that of the cardinal
whose eyes and beak so charged with black,
alights upon a tree;
chirps and flits about from branch to branch,
sudden one way and then another.
One moment its breast of red resplendent,
another it wings of faded, carnelian gray.
Who is this bird; gay or subdued,
fierce or fallow, worthy or unworthy?

Surely not that one should find sorrow here,
for what is, simply is.
For Man is a metronome, a tin cardinal shedding feather;
clock-work by our own reflection.

Shun we Narcissus as that most rotted of our nature,
and yet, like all God’s creatures, we adore the light.
Narcissus is the light, and yet fearfully we see
Narcissus as Medusa hissing.
We shall not look, not a glance, taste not the fruit
lest we lose flesh for stone.

Think upon the plant that leans to the light.
Muscles green, it has not, to move,
nor reason to know light of better ration
than the dark.
It has no eyes by which to mimic
that what the whole forest knows
and pains to do each moment of each day.
The forest leans to the light.

There is a truth that Man cares little to see through the light,
and when he does hope for something more
than what light brings to him,
he is more bound by his image
in the dark, dour water of a mirror,
than in what he can bring to the light.

Much ado does Man find flight from such speeches,
for determined is he that free will excels above all,
and independence: the highest of virtues.
With these two heroes in hand, what needs has Man?

Of course, Man possesses the former by right
and so why would he look through the light?
“Do we not have God secured to our bosom?” we proclaim.
“Free Will is God’s mark of love for us.” we cry out
in our own self-domain.

And what of honorable independence?
Does Man not struggle his full life to secure
that which he can never take to the next;
just so solitude might be with his own reflection,
as Narcissus at the pool?

Folly lies deep within these mirages
that beguiles the many mind;
as if heaven should care an addled bit
for the spittle of sovereignty maligned.

Man does mistake humus for hubris; this is most certain.

There lies an odd peace in this truth.
Instinct for me, as God swept away the dark for the light,
and taking my hand, pressed it past mirror and through His light.

I am now set about by guardian Seraphim – safe in His being,
and wrapped gently within the unfolding, rising petals
of God’s own Spirit –
so that I might, in celestial wonder,
see life revealed once again from the beginning;
to know the unfallen condition of Man,
and to know once again that all things made by God
are good truly, beautiful truly, pure truly
as the day God created them.

This love, made for all, is there for all;
still within us all, still awaiting a salvation
that only God can offer.

Can you not touch it?
So relinquished it is; bringing tears to love,
wild abandon and tender adoration.

Through this shining light, waxen flesh,
translucent with color and light,
glowing effervescent and bright,
radiating its inner outward flight;
gives and receives an eternity ever fresh.

Yes, thus love is, and Narcissus gazing
sees not but God’s love in return.
For when you see through the light,
does Living Water imbue you;
And your luminary spirit renews within you.

Flesh glows.
Breath now knows that there are no secret paths,
no hidden doors for which you have no key.
One being. One humus.
One lucid field with wild abandon true
to see that celestial view that no eye can ever see.

His Word becomes of you and you of His Word
Purist beauty within ourselves is the being in God.
Spirit, Oh purist beauty.