Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Day and Night

Through my heart's palace Thoughts unnumbered throng;
And there, most quiet and, as a child, most wise,
High-throned you sit, and gracious. All day long
Great Hopes gold-armoured, jester Fantasies,
And pilgrim Dreams, and little beggar Sighs,
Bow to your benediction, go their way.
And the grave jewelled courtier Memories
Worship and love and tend you, all the day.

But when I sleep, and all my thoughts go straying,
When the high session of the day is ended,
And darkness comes; then, with the waning light,
By lilied maidens on your way attended,
Proud from the wonted throne, superbly swaying,
You, like a queen, pass out into the night.

Rupert Brooke, English poet, born on this date,
1887 (died 1915)


Gnostics say that we must “awaken” to the fact of our “essential being”. Which means – and God knows it’s a real challenge to know what anything means in Life! – to become aware that we are One with everything, that our Reality is One with the Mystery we call “God”.

One thing this “means” is that Life will happen. Humans have two things to do at the same time: participate in Life in our “apparent being”, i.e., our material form, and “watch” ourselves doing so.

There is a certain calmness, a certain majesty, a certain dignity about the procession of our days. I am beginning to experience it more and more – though why I am not quite certain. Is it because in part this is what happens as one ages, both chronologically and emotionally, etc? I think so – but I guess that this does not happen unless we really take the time to be open and to learn this Path.

I am besotted with Rupert Brooke! Before I die, I want Dennis and I to make a “pilgrimage” to the Greek island of Skyros where, at the age of 27, Brooke died and was buried there in a lemon grove. I’ve told Dennis that I want my ashes to be scattered in Firenze and Montfort – but I think I will revise that and have a bit taken to Skyros!

Rupert has, for me, caught in this poem the calm “procession” of Day and Night, of Life. With whatever enthusiasm we live Life “here” – and the Gnostics would say that it should be lived enthusiastically in the present moment! – it is deeply enhanced against the backdrop of Day “most wise” on her throne and “like a queen” passing “out into the night”.

This, I think, is what is meant by “resting in God”.

Brian+