First Step Toward Forgetfulness

"And they armed me with adamant (which breaks iron) and they took off from me the garment set with gems, spangled with gold, which they had made for me because they loved me, and the robe that was yellow in hue, made for my stature."

The garment of love is removed. The robe that fit me perfectly is no longer mine to wear. Instead I am given hardness. I am being fitted for exile, for leaving (ex) the soil (ile) of my native birth. Armed with an adamantine will, I am now capable of breaking through the iron will of those I encounter, those who want to capture me and make me into an image of their own.

personal note (death is birth, birth is death)

I did not want to leave but they said I must go. I had everything I wanted, floating in this amniotic fluid. Weightless, every need answered immediately. Hooked to greater life with an umbilical cord. Paradise. Then they said I must go. They said I would see light, experience heaviness. I said no. They said yes. I went.

Now I have become accustomed to this light and heaviness. They say you must go. Once again a death. They say it is birth. I do not want to go. Yet I know what they say is true. Once again I must go alone.

Provisioned and Sent

“When I was an infant child in the palace of my Father and resting in the wealth and luxury of my nurturers, out of the East, our native country, my parents provisioned me and sent me.

And of the wealth of those their treasures they put together a load both great and light, that I might carry it alone."

The beginning of exile. I am just a child but I must leave, as have all before me. I must go and become someone. This womb is too small. Though I have everything I cannot stay here. My Source, the one who births me, knows this, provisions me for my journey, gives me that which will sustain me in my journey.

My burden is light, light which will allow me to see. It is also great, heavy, for what I will see can bring me down. Light which bears me up; great which brings me down. This is the only way I can become someone. Spiritual isometrics.

No one else can bear my load. I must carry it alone. I am in charge of my own light. I am in charge of my own heaviness. 

Footnote

The Hymn of the Soul is a much loved story of exile and return. Its author is Bardaisan (bar: son of; daisan: leaping river), Son of the Leaping River, (154 - 222 CE). He was named for the turbulent river in his town of birth, Edessa, in what is now Turkey. Skilled in the martial arts (one person observed him outlining with his shot arrows the face of a friend holding up a shield), an unorthodox Christian (he taught that one member of the Trinity is Feminine), a poet, a philosopher, and author of a multitude of books, he was a true Warrior of Spirit. We have only excerpts from his books, preserved in the writings of others. The Hymn of the Soul, existing in its entirety, has been faithfully handed down to us for over 18 centuries.

Moving Out of Is

Arthur Young says that we don't know what the present moment is until it is over. In other words, we live in the unknown, in Is. Is contains all possibility. One form of exile is to move out of Is. We step aside from the flowing stream of Is and make ourselves into something. Only through this exile can we become. This exile is a place of fashion, of fashioning ourselves into some thing, into some one.

In the story of The Hymn of the Soul, we can see this exile process in action.

SECTION I

THE HYMN OF THE SOUL

The Exile of Presence

Exile, at its root, means to wander (ile) away (ex). The “ile” was derived from the Latin word for soil (Online Etymology Dictionary). Thus it means to be away from one’s own soil, one’s own earth, one’s own place. To be in exile is to be in a place not one’s own, a foreign place, a strange place, a place of discomfort and unfamiliarity. One can do one’s best to be at home there but it is not one’s home.

Exile can be enforced or self-imposed. One can be cast out or one can cast oneself out. In the type of exile we will consider, the two are simultaneous. We are cast out as we cast ourselves out. The two lose their distinctiveness. How is this so?

When stripped to our core, letting go of all the mental, emotional, interpersonal, spiritual, and physical attachments, we find that what is left is Presence. We are the Immediacy of the ever changing Now. 

When we remove our Presence from a consciousness realm, we are automatically cast out. We have done it to ourselves. No one has done it to us.

To hopefully make this more clear, let us turn to a story, a story that is the template for all exile stories, the story of The Hymn of the Soul.

Preface

In 1950, when I was 12, something happened to me. I found that the me I thought I was was not the me I am. The world circumscribed by my conventional physical senses was augmented, enhanced by a wider vision and experience of boundless harmonious openness. I described the experience this way in a previous book.

“No one else was at home that day. Sitting quietly on the living room sofa, I was suddenly transported to a vantage point where I could see the globe of Earth. I remember a moment of fear that I would not be able to breathe in ‘outer space.’ Something reassured me and I breathed calmly and quietly. I looked ‘down’ to see my body. I had no body other than the cosmos itself.

The earth was beautiful. A soft golden light bathed it through and through and surrounded it with a golden glow.  I sensed, felt, and heard the harmony of its music. I saw and knew with deep certainty that all on earth is interrelated and harmoniously connecting. All is one flow. Separation is an illusion.

I do not know how long the experience lasted. At some point, I was sitting on the sofa once again. I told no one. I knew from listening to adult conversations that no one spoke of such things.”

Two worlds. The conventional world (often called “normal” by its inhabitants) of humans going about their separate ways with tenuous connections with others and even less connection with the non-human (such as plants, animals, mountains, ocean, birds, the sun, the earth); the visionary world of clear open spaciousness where one is always already at home, where life-and-death are interflowing partners, where all paradox both simultaneously exists and is dissolved.

During my life, I have lived in both worlds, sometimes one more than the other, but generally with a felt sense of simultaneity. Both as a psychologist and as a member of this Navel Tribe called human, I have observed that many, if not most, folk appear to live strongly in the conventional world and either not at all or infrequently in the visionary reality. When we live only in the conventional world where the decision has been made that only matter matters, we live in exile.

I am not the only one who thinks so. The stories we tell each other and ourselves create the world in which we live. I wish to tell some stories, stories of exile and return. Through the stories, perhaps we can more clearly see the ways in which we exile ourselves and open to being at home again.

the vision presented itself

Last night, a few minutes before midnight, the vision of a new book presented itself. I saw its message, its tone, its interweaving of unwoven strands. My heart smiled. I began the necessary and welcome external and internal research this morning, feeding the alchemical furnace of production.

As I have done before, I will write the book on a blog, this blog. All who wish will see the book unfold. An energizing process. A walk of faith and fun and energetic exuberance. I am thankful.