Raissa on Separation-The Anathemata Perfection Series VIII Part XXXVl

Raissa notes again and again that she is separated from others, events, the world.

This separation happens and is not the same as withdrawal.

Withdrawal from the world is an act of the will. Many who go into monasteries willingly withdraw from the world.

However, to become separated indicates that God is taking the initiative in removing a person from those around her. One can be in the world and still separated and one could be withdrawn and still worldly.

The state of separation by definition shows us that there are two worlds. These two worlds can be understood by those who are in this state of separation. As Raissa points out, if a person does not understand what God is doing, one can become confused.

This was never my problem. One suffers in the "separated" state, as Raissa makes clear. One is not allowed to be attached to people, time, place, circumstances.

Why God demands this separation is unclear but I have a theory.

In the days of the Old Testament, a sheep or goat was chosen once a year and the high priest took this animal into the Temple, In a ritual, the priest would say all the sins of the community over this animal, the "scapegoat. Then, this animal was taken out into the desert and let go. Of course, it would die, eventually, either from thirst and the elements or from a natural predator.

The scapegoat was called "the anathemata", a word which means both one thing and the opposite. The anathemata was both considered highly sacred and highly sinful.

Christ is the ultimate anathemata, taking the sins of the world onto Himself, like the scapegoat, innocent, but carrying the burden of sins on His own Body.

Thus, Christ is both Sacred and Profane on the Cross. He is given back to God, like the scapegoat was given to God, and even like the Greeks, who invented this word, made something sacred and gave it back to the gods.

Of course, I think the most elegant and profound long poem ever written in the English language is David Jones' The Anathemata, which is about Christ and the Eucharist.

Raissa reveals her personal knowledge of being separated, being set apart by God to be sacred and to do reparation for the sins of others.

We do not choose this state, but God does. and only those who are separated know the great pain of this call.

Some Catholics are anathemata.

I have some original David Jones' in a box in Silvis. How I wish I could access my stuff.....

  

Not The Same, But The Same

We are not all the same. Each one of us is a unique individual.

Yesterday morning, I saw the end of one of the largest rainbows I have ever seen. Now, every rainbow I have seen has been different. The last one I saw before Tuesday was a double one in Iowa in late July. The sky around it was a Chinese blue, marked with pink clouds. The double rainbow was "in the east" part of the sky. I think in 2014, I have seen more rainbows in one year than I have in any other year. I may have seen eight or nine this year.

On this day, the rainbow, or rather the end of it, grew like a plant out of the Mediterranean and ended in small white clouds. This rainbow formed over the sea, and the rain in that part of Middle-Sea, plus the sun, created this huge end of the rainbow. It, too, was in the east.

Same colors, same direction in the sky, but completely different in context, size, reference...

And, so as humans, we share some of the same colors, perhaps even the same brilliance, but our contexts, our placings, our sizes vary.

All the rainbows I have ever seen in my life have brought me joy, either a quiet, calm joy, or a rapturous joy.

On Tuesday, I was just happy to see one, coming out of the sea like some great stalk of hope for me, for Malta.

God gave us the rainbow as a promise. He gives each one of us a promise. If we follow His ways and obey Him in truth and love, we shall spend eternity with Him.

The goal of all humans is the same, even though our individual paths are quite distinct.

As I watched this giant fragment of color fade away, I realized that of all the people walking or running on the Promenade, that I was the only one looking at the rainbow.

Everyone else, about thirty people perhaps, were busy talking, walking dogs, jogging, running for a bus, and bustling along to work or shopping.

No one was stopping to look at something which will never be seen again, as this rainbow was created on this day, out of a combination of rain over a certain part of the sea and the sun shining in a certain direction.

I wanted to share this quiet joy, but no one was looking around, or even staring out to sea.

What is missed cannot be repeated. I was reminded that every day I must pay attention to God, or I may miss something. I have seen an English robin here, and I shall never see that one again, in that place by the sea. I was paying attention to its song and, therefore, I knew it was there, somewhere, and saw it.

To miss such a small thing would be important to me, like missing a grace in a moment of time.

I shall never see this exact rainbow again. I am grateful to have been in the right place at the right time.

Here, again, is one of my favorite poems on this point.

One of my few regrets in life is that I did not come to Britain until after David Jones had died. But, I did visit his grave in 1985, one of the first things I did when coming to live in Britain.

A, a, a, Domine Deus (1974)

David Jones

I said, Ah! what shall I write?
I enquired up and down.
(He’s tricked me before
with his manifold lurking-places.)
I looked for His symbol at the door.
I have looked for a long while
at the textures and contours.
I have run a hand over the trivial intersections.
I have journeyed among the dead forms
causation projects from pillar to pylon.
I have tired the eyes of the mind
regarding the colours and lights.
I have felt for His wounds
in nozzles and containers.
I have wondered for the automatic devices.
I have tested the inane patterns
without prejudice.
I have been on my guard
not to condemn the unfamiliar.
For it is easy to miss Him
at the turn of a civilisation.

I have watched the wheels go round in case I
might see the living creatures like the appearance
of lamps, in case I might see the Living God projected
from the Machine. I have said to the perfected steel,
be my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I felt
some beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a Domine Deus,
my hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible
crystal a stage-paste …Eia, Domine Deus.

The Trenches Two

So, tomorrow is today. The man is unique. He has eyes which see into the soul. He should have been a priest.

He will see me next week, whether I want to see him or not.

In the meantime, he agrees that I should be a rememberer. So, we agree on that point. But how does and why does one remember?

Years ago, a good priest told me that my imagination needed to be purified. I listened. I agreed.

Then, another priest told me that St. Ignatius tells us of purifying the memory. What does that mean, I wonder?

My writings look like the pen was leaking. I splodge ink everywhere. I cross out. I renew. Is this purgation, purgation with a pen? But, I have not written anything for a very long time. Someone has my papers. Maybe H. or D.


To purify the memory means many things, I think, as I sit in this room with the vase of one pink rose, which is drooping a little.

It is raining, and I think of the mud, the Killer Mud. Jameson disappeared.

Never mind, today I want to think of the green hills of the Brecon Beacons and of a woman with a long, lovely neck. But, St. Ignatius wants me to purify the imagination. He wants me to forget Ypres and the girl who could see I was too "celibate". Yes, I am a natural celibate.

Why? I am married already. My mistress is beyond all words. She is mysterious, but demanding.

Like Boethius, I see her in the day and in the night, but only when she wants to come to me.

Like Boethius, I listen to her, and does she like to talk.

How can a bard forget anyone, anything, anytime? I remember my first sketch in France, in March of 1916. I remember the paintings, each one, under my bed, kept because I do not want to forget.

I do not want to forget because He is there in the memory. He is there, bleeding, waiting for release, the release of death.

I found Him and I do not want to lose Him, but the Lady talks to me again and again. Not the Old Lady.

Marry it man! Marry it!
Cherish her, she’s your very own.
Coax it man coax it–it’s delicately and ingeniously made
–it’s an instrument of precision–it costs us tax-payers,
money-I want you men to remember that.
Fondle it like a granny–talk to it–consider it as you would
a friend–and when you ground these arms she’s not a rooky’s
gas-pipe for greenhorns to tarnish.
You’ve known her hot and cold.
You would choose her from among many.
You know her by her bias, and by her exact error at 300, and
by the deep scar at the small, by the fair flaw in the grain,
above the lower sling-swivel–
but leave it under the oak.
Slung so, it swings its full weight. With you going blindly on
all paws, it slews its whole length, to hang at your bowed neck
like the Mariner’s white oblation.
You drag past the four bright stones at the turn of Wood
Support.

This old lady was a strumpet, my false lover. 

She was forced upon me, but I accepted her. and yes, she saved me.

But, now, the new lady, My Lady, speaks a less brutal language. Yet, she is just as demanding, like my good angel, who reminds me to pray, but I pray like a child, saying the same things over and over and over. I look for Him through her eyes. I try, so hard, to see with the pure imagination of Ignatius.

I try not to miss the quiet voice. Celibacy is good for the quietness, the simplicity of mind

I am rather simple, but no one understands me, no one but the Lady.

I have been on my guard
not to condemn the unfamiliar.
For it is easy to miss Him
at the turn of a civilisation.

This is what I said to C-M today. I do not want to miss anything, but everything is too painful, to new, too real.

Everything. Why?

Part of me, the artist within me, has never left the trenches.

Sometimes, her voice becomes the bellowing of the bombing officer.

Sometimes, her voice is that of the long necked girl.

She is never Gwenhwyfar, the White Lady. Never. Never Guenever. 

And not one of The Four Queens. No. but today the unpurified memory grappled my senses, like the old bucinator at the Wall-loud and clear. This new lady tells me to be simple. Back and fro, I am simple.

No one believes me when I say that and I wonder if C-M will believe me.

Be simple. Be obedient. But be open, and remember.

 It’s not for the likes of you and me to cogitate high policy or to
guess the inscrutable economy of the pontifex
from the circuit of the agger
from the traverse of the wall.
But you see a thing or two
in our walk of life
walking the compass of the vallum
walking for twenty years of nights
round and round and back & fro
on the walls that contain the world

 Part of me, the artist within me, has never left the trenches.

Those who are not Roman do not get it. We all are always in the trenches.

They do not understand. They do not hear My Lady, nor see the Bloody Hands, the Side, the Feet.

I do, always here and there, in France, in London, in Wales in Rome...

My trade is in abeyance. 

Cloud shielded her bright disc-rising yet her veiled influ-
ence illumined the texture of that place, her glistening on
the saturated fields; bat-night-gloom intersilvered where she
shone on the mist drift,
when they paraded
       at the ending of the day, unrested
             bodies, wearied from the morning,
       troubled in their minds,
             frail bodies loaded over much,
..'prentices bearing this night the full panoply, the complex
..paraphernalia of their trade.

 I shall write of this time later on, after my memory is purified. When I am "better".

When I am not interrupted for tea and biscuits...(How I would love a small glass of scotch-someone brought me some Black and White a bit ago, but the nurses took it away-good thing, too.)

Ezechiel's dream comes back to me at night...et aspectus rotarum et opus earum quasi visio maris et una similitudo ipsarum quattuor et aspectus earum et opera quasi sit rota in medio rotae 

He remembered. He wrote. 

Some say the poet is the prophet. Poor s..s...poor Shelley-no I do not think prophecy is an attribute of poetry. Not that I assert poets to be prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can foretell the form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of events: such is the pretence of superstition, which would make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than prophecy an attribute of poetry. A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and number are not.

Rubbish. We take part in something much greater. I wrote this from my impure memory. History, memory, my time, My Lady's time...

It is often remarked with a certain amount of perplexity that the modern artist, though he be a Catholic and of sensitivity and ability at his work, seems none the less to be not at his happiest when required to do a job closely connected with the liturgical life of the Church. His preoccupations and enthusiasms seem commonly to be of another sort. The artist himself may find this none too easy to explain. I was once asked: 'Why does Mr. X. paint only chimneypots and pots of flowers when he has the whole Christian mythology, which he talks enough about, to inspire him? This question, so put, is indeed many questions in one, but still it has bearing on our problem, and it asks for elucidation.

It is necessary to have in mind the position of our epoch on what may be called, for convenience, the graph of history. For the relationship between what the Church wants for her use, and the characteristic art of any given epoch, will determine what sort of art is available for the Church's requirements.

It is said that 'the best' of what Mr. Wilfred Childe calls 'Man's own creative power' should be, in any epoch, at the direct service of the sanctuary -- yes -- but in the arts 'the best' can only easily and naturally be available to the hierarchic, corporate, symbolic demands of the Church if the epoch itself is characterized by those qualities. This cannot, by any means, be said of our epoch. The characteristic bents and virtues of modern painting, for instance, are not in fact easily amenable to these demands. This has little or nothing to do with the will or wishes of this or that artist. He cannot by taking thought change himself into an artist of some other culture-sequence.  

I am a Roman.

  
No, we are the ones who remember the past and hold it in our hands like the altar boys hold the cruets. Softly, carefully, quietly....we are the carriers, mimesis not poesis.....I gag on this one...
A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. My Lady laughs and laughs and laughs.

But, I am back to the wheels in my head, in my impure imagination. I need the burning coals on my lips. I think of this world around me. I hear a car horn. I hear voices in the hallway, echoing against the glass, against the steel hidden in the walls, in the souls. My memory is creating something new, something sad....but I have not lost Him. He has not lost me.

I have watched the wheels go round in case I might see the
living creatures like the appearance of lamps, in case I might see
the Living God projected from the Machine. I have said to the
perfected steel, be my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I
felt some beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a Domine Deus,
My hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible
crystal a stage-paste …Eia, Domine Deus.

to be continued...

poetry by David Jones

The Trenches

I have been "invalided for three months".  They did not invalid me for long twenty years ago, but now, thirty years after, yes-- now again. No, it is different now. Now, one can take one's time being ill. Today, I am sitting on a porch near Harrow-on-the Hill, staring at a man in a white rocking chair across from me. I do not like rocking chairs, so I am sitting in an iron chair designed by William Kent. Few people know that Kent designed outside furniture. I know because I, too, am an artist.

The man in the white rocking chair is named Timothy. He has a good mind and we can talk about things, anything but the war, of course. No one here talks about the war. I have forgotten some things already. But, then, I have shell-shock, only thirty years late.

Timothy has no face. Where his jaw is there is nothing but white bandages. One of his eyes is gone and half of his nose is gone. But, Timothy is not sad. He is amazingly positive. Why, I do not know yet. Timothy is from another war. He is not from my war. His war was on a ship, which was blown up. He survived the Hood. Ventis Secundis. He has been here for five years. I cannot imagine sitting in a rocker for five years. Timothy is a forgetter, but I am a rememberer. Artists must remember. We are the keepers of the stories.

his mess-mates sleeping like long-barrow sleepers, their
dark arms at reach.
Spell-sleepers, thrown about anyhow under the night.
And this one’s bright brow turned against your boot leather,
tranquil as a fer sidhe sleeper, under fairy tumuli, fair as
Mac Og sleeping.

Timothy remembers nothing, not even the name of the Mighty Hood. He does not remember the cold waters of his baptismal sufferings or the sound of the torpedoes.

I remember sounds, mostly those of the nights in the trenches, the screeching sounds of the shells. The screams of my mates.

Some were never buried. We do not know where some disappeared in the smoke and chaos.

Is the tump by Honddu
                              his lifted bolster?
                              does a gritstone outcrop
incommode him?
                              does a deep syncline
                              sag beneath him?
or does his dinted thorax rest
                              where the contorted heights
                              themselves rest
on a lateral pressured anticline?
Does his russet-hued mattress
                              does his rug of shaly grey
ease at all for his royal dorsals
                              for faulted under-bedding

Maybe I shall know someday where my friend Tom was buried. Somewhere in Wales... Right now, I wish I lived in the times of King Arthur and his lady. I would be dead, not living in this half-life of death and terror. Tom claimed he came from royal blood. He claimed his ancestors scoured the valleys where I lived for awhile. Those green hills above St. Llanthony, the fog coming in so quickly I got lost once or twice, hearing the soft neighing of the horses in order to get back "home".

Home, where is that now? The mess is still growing damp over my painting of the dying Christ.


Do the small black horses
                                        grass on the hunch of his shoulders?
are the hills his couch
                                        or is he the couchant hills?
Are the slumbering valleys
                                        him in slumber
                                        are the still undulations
the still limbs of him sleeping?
Is the configuration of the land
                                        the furrowed body of the lord
are the scarred ridges
                                        his dented greaves
do the trickling gullies
                                        yet drain his hog-wounds?
Does the land wait the sleeping lord
                                        or is the wasted land
that very lord who sleeps?

My doctor is the best there is. And, I am to meet a new type of doctor tomorrow. His name is Crichton-Miller, Hugh Crichton-Miller. I do not want to speak with this man. I do not want to speak to anyone.

Nor, do I want to paint. I am sick of painting as no one cares, why should I care? But, deep down, I want to preserve, transfigure, guide. I am not just a painter, but a teacher, a bard, reminding the younger ones of what is to come, what has been and what will be. But pens bore me and brushed freeze to my hand. I could not finish the poem I was writing.

I was in hell again. But, now, it is different.

It is just the present I cannot face.
 

to be continued....

poetry by David Jones

The Death of Creativity-Part Two

Slaves do not create. Free people create. Creativity grows out of three things in a civilization: the first is leisure time to create; the second is a spiritual view of the world, not merely a materialistic one; the third is a group of patrons who will support those in the community who are artists.

As a poet and a painter, as a writer of fairy tales and stories, novellas and plays, I write more and more in a vacuum of those who cannot understand symbols or images.

David Jones wrote a long time ago that WWI was the "Break" of Western Civilization. Before that war, most people, even "peasants" knew the common symbols and images of the West, such as chalices, the fleur-de-lis, the unicorn, and such symbols of authority as crowns, scepters, and orbs.

Now, without a common Christian basis, without a common world view which includes the spiritual and not merely the material, civilization turns into a utilitarian machine geared at the god Mammon.

A stressful life full of activity either seen as necessary or necessary, destroys the ability to create.

Without prayer, creativity becomes an image of the wicked witch in the mirror desiring only power and control over the lives of others. Ugliness comes from sin and the evil one. Period. Are you allowing ugliness to take over the culture of your house? Have you lost the ability to judge what is beautiful and what is not?

On Pink Witches, David Jones and The Death of Symbolic Language

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8786641/Dress-witches-in-pink-and-avoid-white-paper-to-prevent-racism-in-nuseries-expert-says.html

Ok you have to read the article above to understand my comment. But, basically, one can no longer identify evil with black or good with white.

What does that tell you about relativism? We have to be politically correct about evil. Death of the West.

When Shrek came out, I hated it, and no one could understand my point that Love created Beauty, not ugliness and that we all are beautiful in God's Eyes. It is wrong to want to become ugly for another person. That is not the basis for true love. The inversion of fairy tales destroys ancient meanings, destroys cultural references.

Only one Person had to become ugly, had to be scourged and crucified so that all of us could be made beautiful in Him. The Resurrection is the promise of Beauty.


There a deep cultural reasons why a prince turned into a toad is a nasty punishment, or why a selfish prince with anger issues becomes a beast.

Now, we see that the neo-pagans cannot bear the long Christian symbolism in the West that black means bad and white means good. White horses, white cowboy hats, white wedding dresses for the past 100 years or so, white flowers, all signigy for most Westerners purity and goodness.

The witches have been seen in black for a reason.

Of course, as I wrote a million years ago on my old blog, there are no such things as good witches, as they all adore the Nature Goddess rather than the Trinity. But, to change colours of long standing meaning is the death of poetry, literature, cinema, etc.

And, have you noticed how many rock bands and even actors have taken Christian or Biblical names and twisted the symbols of names? Just try googling some common Christian saints and see what happens.

I would NEVER  have my child in a day care, child care or even a public school at this juncture. But, of course, I home schooled

My son knows the signification of symbol. All priests do. All Catholics should. We are people of symbol and poetry. We are the people who know that some signs are efficacious-the sacraments.

David Jones wrote an essay on this "Art and Sacrament" (Epoch and Artist). Find it and read it.

Hard times are a comin'. Do not let your children be confused. Do not lose the important of symbols