The Flight of the Firebird

Here's another clue about
what's happening on this
sometimes mysterious blog:


(This image is worth clicking on
to examine close up, for it chiefly
consists of a photograph of the rather
gorgeous gilded phoenix that appears
in low relief on the facade of the
main Brooklyn [NY] Public Library.)

From our friends at Wikipedia:

“A phoenix is a mythical bird with a tail of beautiful gold and red plumage (or purple and blue, by some sources. It has a 500 to 1,000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again. The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self. The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible — it is also said that it can heal a person with a tear from its eyes and make them temporarily immune to death. The phoenix is a symbol of fire and divinity . . . [It eventually became] a symbol of Christ representing His resurrection, immortality, and life-after-death.”

"Sunrise" by Giangiorgio Cresponi

Open Skies and Wonder

One reader writes:



The eloquent little cartoon
in the corner of this message
brought to my mind something
that William Blake wrote in a poem
called "The Marriage of Heaven & Hell":

". . . man has closed himself up,
till he sees all things through
narrow chinks of his cavern."

Sadly, being closed up is pretty
much the human condition
in a commercial era like the one
that we inhabit, so it should come
as no surprise when we yield
to the force of gravity and find
ourselves missing a sense
of closeness to God.

How, then, can we open back up?
How can we restore ourselves
to our birthright, which is to
experience the joy of living in
an endlessly fascinating universe?

In order to do that, we have to notice
that life is going on everywhere
around us, and that most of it
is sweet and even astonishing
in its richness and spontaneity.

When we widen our vision,
we see open skies and wonder,
and we understand that the dread
and loneliness that we sometimes
feel is only a mood that
overtakes us when we lose
the power of spiritual vision.

Fortunately, the psyche tends
to be a self-correcting system,
and sooner or later we begin
to remember that our blessings
far outweigh our troubles.

If I had to reduce this bit
of encouragement to several sentences
that would fit on a note card,
I'd guess I'd come up
with something like this:

And maybe if we rallied our forces
and shook ourselves awake,
we'd quit staring at our knees
and start to focus on something
that's far more interesting
than our smaller selves
and their earthly cares.

Such things abound--you know?

Of course you know!

Gravity's Crueler Cuts

 

Here are some lines from
Robert Frost's poem, "Provide, Provide!"

The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.

Think gravity's not your enemy,
that your fate's different from Frost's Abishag?

Then consider another example of fallen pride,
Brigitte Bardot before and after
an extra fifty years of gravity:

And then there's an old guy
named Arnold Schwarzenegger,
who was once as tall and muscled
as Conan the Barbarian:


Sad to say, even his carefully colored
hair can't completely hide the ravages of time.

Which is not to neglect the fact that
some younger people are also feeling
gravity's less smiling aspects:


As for finding a throne or
making the whole stock exchange
your own--forget about it!
In the long haul, the only answer
to the assaults of gravity is to cultivate
a soul, preferably an eternal one.
In short, embrace the Antigravitational
solution for all its worth.
Because, like it or not, that's what
life is really all about.

 

What's Wrong with Gravity?

Do you think it's strange to diss gravity,
to make it the villain of a universal melodrama?
Do you wonder what could be wrong with the
gravitational glue that holds the universe together?
If so, you haven't considered black holes.

Blacks holes are the perfect symbols of everything that denies us life and freedom because their gravity is so intense that not even light can escape from their overwhelmingly massive interiors. All things that approach them, even entire galaxies, are sucked into oblivion, into an extinction beyond the darkness of death. They provide the best example of why we are and ought to be Antigravitarians.

Black holes are far and away the most formidable and frightening things in the universe. They are the ultimate in death imagery, and they represent the unfathomable disaster that occurs when gravity goes unchecked by Antigravity, which is the force that holds the universe in balance and allows us to live and not die.

Closer to home (which is to say, our home planet), gravity erodes and eventually destroys entire civilizations. While the 19th-century painting of the destruction of Sodom (below) by the English artist John Martin makes the end of an ancient city look like the work of a nuclear holocaust, the actual historic process that reduces entire civilizations to stark stones and dust and ashes is gradual yet still phantasmagorical, and the ultimate result of decadence and defeat is dramatized around the world by the presence of splendid but desolate ruins where there were once thriving metropolises.

Jerash, Jordan (Photo by Robert Teague)

These are the ruins of a Roman city
that once flaunted its high roofs at the sky.
Thus the power of gravity,
of which we need to be aware,
of which we need to beware.
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