Themista's Blog

From Zen and Zen Classics, Volume 1, by Reginald Horace Blyth (1970):

Asceticism, found in every religion, is seen too often in people who were pretty bare and empty from the beginning. The desire to be nothing is particularly common among those who are already practically nothing. The other extreme, a Wagnerian wallowing in sensation is of course worse, but there is a third alternative, not the Middle Way, of course, but another extreme, mentioned before, the way of poetry. This has practically nothing to do with iambic pentameter, but consists in giving the highest possible value to every moment. We are to be painting or looking at pictures, or composing or reading verse, or thinking deeply or making things grow, or having sexual intercourse with someone we cannot bear to be parted from even for a moment — and when we die we shall sleep the sleep of the just.

From The Green Round, by Arthur Machen (1933):

“Has it ever been your fortune, courteous reader,” the author enquired, “to rise in the earliest dawning of a summer day, ere yet the radiant beams of the sun have done more than touch with light the domes and spires of the great city? Have you risen from your couch, weary, perchance, of sleepless hours of tossing to and fro, or, it may be, impelled by the call of business, and gone forth through the familiar street where your abode is situated, the street which had known your steps by day and by night, but never before at the hour of dawn? If this has been your lot, have you not observed that magic powers have apparently been at work? The accustomed scene has lost its familiar appearance. The houses which you have passed daily, it may be for many years, as you have issued forth on your avocations or your amusements, now seem as if you beheld them for the first time. They have suffered a mysterious change, into something rich and strange. Though they may have been designed by no extraordinary exertion of the art of architecture, though their materials may be of common brick and stone and piaster, though neither Pentelicus nor Ferrara has assisted in the adornment of these edifices; yet you have been ready to affirm that they now ‘stand in glory, shine like stars, apparelled in a light serene’. They have become magical habitations, supernal dwellings; more desirable to the eye than the fabled pleasure dome of the Eastern potentate, or the bejewelled hall built by the Genie for Aladdin in the Arabian Tale.” And so forth, and so forth: “And if the boughs of a tree chance to extend over a garden wall, you are ready to vow that its roots must flourish in the soil of Paradise. . . . Your perspective may be closed by the heights of Hampstead or of Highgate; but in the light of the Aurora these hills rise in the land that is very far off.” A good deal in this vein; and then a curious passage: “But all these are transitory effects that soon disappear. As the sun mounts in the sky, the vision fades into the light of common day; buildings, trees, objects close at hand and distant vistas resume their ordinary aspect; the whole enchanting scene is now a sullen street of common clay. You may, perhaps, reproach yourself with having allowed your senses to be beguiled and your imagination to be overcome by the mere fad: that you have gazed on a familiar scene in unusual circumstances. Yet, some have declared that it lies within our own choice to gaze continually upon a world of like beauty, or even greater.”

From Studies in Prose and Verse (1908) by Arthur Symons.

A man who goes through a day without some fine emotion has wasted his day, whatever he has gained by it. And it is so easy to go through day after day, busily and agreeably, without ever really living for a single instant. Art begins when a man wishes to immortalise the most vivid moment he has ever lived. Life has already, to one not an artist, become art in that moment. And the making of one’s life into art is after all the first duty and privilege of every man. It is to escape from material reality into whatever form of ecstasy is our own form of spiritual existence.

From The Vision of Asia (1933) by L. Cranmer-Byng:

The gift of the Chinese nation at its zenith to the future was the gift of vitality through art. Its interpreters were interpreters of life and not of theory about life. They were citizens of this world, and as administrators, magistrates and even soldiers they played the part of men in public affairs. But the life from which they drew their power of evoking life, of calling the dreaming forces of Nature from their enchanted sleep, remains hidden from the eyes of the world. It is not for Art to reveal its Whence; the secret of its magic belongs to religion. Yet those who care to go deeper into the sources of human inspiration may find something to guide them in the following passage taken from an ancient Taoist text: ‘The essence of the perfect Tao is solitude and silence; the highest point of the perfect Tao, its further pole, is secrecy and silence; there, where is neither sight nor sound, where the spirit is centered in absolute peace; where, sans effort from within or movement from without, calm complete and perfect purity are Kings; where the spiritual essence dies not and dims not; where thought irradiates to its fullest splendour and the hidden life puts forth its flowers; where I—the strength within, close-shrined from all externals, all apprehensive, compact of wisdom and intimate power—know how to guard the self of self and secure the harmony of all my being.’

My dog has long insisted that we go for our walk as early as possible every morning, and there are no better mornings than the ones you can experience during the month of May.  We leave the house shortly after the sun comes up, when the sky is clear, the air is gentle, and the dew is starting to form on the grass.  At this time of year, it is the dew which makes our walks truly special.

The Chinese called dew “celestial water”, which is a perfect description for the liquid which mysteriously comes into being in the early morning hours.  Dew has always seemed to be a very powerful and exceptionally pure kind of water.  If there is such a thing as a quintessence of water, you can surely find it in dew.

Many people over the centuries have felt that dew has health giving qualities.  In My Water Cure (1893), naturopath Sebastian Kneipp recommends that you walk barefoot in the dew-soaked grass as often as you can.  Indeed, he was so enthusiastic about dew he almost considered it an elixir of life.  Well, I don’t go barefoot when the dog takes me for his walk, but my socks and tennis shoes always get drenched with the stuff.  If there is anything truly celestial in this water, it is getting absorbed right through my feet.  Can I feel any difference when this happens?  Not much I guess, except that I feel like I’ve been walking on clouds.

But you don’t always have to get your feet wet—the simple act of contemplating the dew can also be a wondrous experience.  In her Pillow Book (10th century) Sei Shogonon approvingly quotes a friend who fully understood the charm of dew:

Noticing that the grass in the garden outside the palace had been allowed to grow very high and thick, I told them they should have it cut. “We’ve left it like this on purpose so that we might admire the dew when it settles on the blades.” The voice was Lady Saisho’s and I found her reply delightful.

As do I—here is a lady who knew how to find beauty everywhere she looked.

French novelist Guy de Maupassant states in Une Vie (1889) that there are only three things in creation which are beautiful: light, space, and water. This idea has always stuck in my mind, since one way or another we can experience these miraculous elements every single day.  While we cannot always head off to the beach whenever we wish, we can find countless other ways to enjoy the spectacle of light and water.  There is no better time to do it than the early morning hours, when the sunlight slowly turns the earth into a diamond-studded carpet.  And if you contemplate it long enough, you will find the world around you expanding into infinite space.