The Language of Primal Reality

Giant Deer (Megaloceros). One of over two thousand cave paintings at Lascaux. Paleolithic era (17,300 years ago).

The Language of Primal Reality

English is an extraordinary, but mysterious language.

It doesn't illuminate the psyche, like Sanskrit. It doesn't increase your bandwidth or expand your disk space, like German. It doesn't have the defiant beauty of French, or the aphrodisiac power of Spanish. It isn't, like Farsi, the very womb in which Poetry itself gestated. It doesn't possess the miraculous medicine of the countless languages lost in the great forests of this world.

And yet, if you are borne with the gift of how to whisper to this wild horse language, it will let you mount it, and then it will gallop away, bearing you off to high, wild places that a nameless legion have perished searching for in vain.

The English language is a paradox; at once, so rich and yet so bankrupt.

Consider three words, in particular: "Love," "God" and "Prayer." Three words, at once, so holy, and yet so hackneyed.

"Love"? Is there any word that has been so degraded, and yet still has such momentum?

At its worst, it is nothing more than a cheap, gaudy disguise for a spectrum of foolishness ranging from infatuation to projection to addiction; at its best its utterance encapsulates the tidal pull of all the planet's oceans in one syllable.

"God"? At its worst, its utterance is a deadly blow with a blunt instrument; at its best, its utterance is a sip of the speed beyond light and the space beyond infinity.

"Prayer"? At its worst, it is a spoiled brat cajoling an imaginary daddy; at its best, it is someone brave enough to stand in perfect alignment, at the edge of everything, asking for nothing.

-- Richard Power

http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

http://twitter.com/primalreality

http://words-of-power.blogspot.com

http://twitter.com/wordsofpower

Origins

Arthur Rackham: How at the Castle of Corbin a Maiden Bare in the Sangreal

and Foretold the Achievements of Galahad (1917)

Satyagraha.

We don't find the truth; the truth finds us.

Bodhicitta, bodhicitta.

We don't cultivate loving kindness and clarity of mind; loving kindness and clarity of mind cultivate us.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti.

We don't abide in the great peace; the great peace abides in us.

-- Richard Power

The Most Powerful Word in Our Vocabulary, and Yet the Most Debased

Edvard Munch - Night at St. Cloud (1890)

"Love" is at once both the most powerful word in our vocabulary, and yet the most debased.

Those who utter it from a place of ruthless self-discovery can reach into the deepest recesses of human need, assuming they are allowed in.

Those who utter it from a place of fear-based self-deception are simply repeating a debilitating pattern, no matter much shining gossamer they wrap it in.

Is there anyone more lost than "teachers" who have not learned the truth they are teaching, or "healers" who carry a hidden, untended wound within themselves?

-- Richard Power

Every Twist in the Plot of Life

Cave bear (Ursus spelaeus Rosenmüller, 1794) Skull. Stage: 370 000 - 10 000 Years Pleistocene. Locality: Yamalo-Nenetsky region, Siberia, Russia. Size of skull: 57 cm

When someone cannot live the truth they have come into contact with, they turn away from it, and then come into contact with it somewhere else, imagining they have heard something new, or met someone greater, until the pattern repeats itself again, and again.

And so it goes ... The truth of a thousand years ago is the truth of tomorrow, the love of a millennia ago is the love of today ...

Every breath is the divine embrace, every moment is revelation, every twist in the plot of life is an invitation to brilliance and courage ...

-- Richard Power

What Is Really Here

Leonora Carrington - Fisher King

If you are in a hurry, you might miss this place; which would be unfortunate, because you can't get to where you want to go without passing through it.

If you have some mental image of what you are searching for, you might overlook this moment; which would be unfortunate, because what you are looking for is already here.

If you are bound up in your projection of what you imagine to be over THERE, you might not be able to feel what is really HERE, which would be unfortunate, because it is the reality of all there is and all you are.

Whether you flee intimacy with a human lover, or with THE divine lover, it is the same; there are a hundred thousand reasons to carry with you, but not a drop of water or a bite of nourishment in any of them.

-- Richard Power

No Holy Books

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Beata Beatrix (1863)

No holy book has ever redeemed or enlightened anyone; occasionally, someone will however redeem one of the holy books, with the power of an awakened mind, with the power of an illuminated heart, with the power of a liberated body, but only by their own magnetism and for the span of that person's influence.

In and of themselves, the holy books are dead letters. They can be wielded as blunt instruments, with which to do harm, they can be used as drugs, with which to manipulate others and gain power for oneself, they can be used as camouflage, with which to hide from oneself and others who might offer real intimacy.

Love's revelation dwells within the temple of one's own being, and within the greater temple of Nature Herself, not in the dead letters of any holy book, or within any system spun from it.

Revelation can be pooled collectively, and poured out, but only in the now, and only from one's own experience, and no one can partake of it unless they pour it forth.

-- Richard Power

Night

Edvard Munch - Night in St. Cloud (1890)

Grateful for the vast, deep night that stretches beyond space, and then folds back in on itself, like the jet black wings of a raven.

Exquisitely silent. Echoing the future, erasing the past. A whispered secret to the awakened one, a lullaby to the dreamer.

Oceanic night. Undulating within the shadows of the psyche, like some nameless Salome, barefoot in the ruins of a lost world. Blessed. Night.

-- Richard Power