Welcome to day 21 of 28 Days of Have Heaven, a short month of posts about heaven, paradise, perfection and desire, perfect places, art, theology, gardens, and more, using the Enya song “China Roses” as a jumping off point. Each post will look at these elements in itself, which may not obviously connect with the others, and which may only peripherally be related. I won’t attempt to tie the posts together. They’ll all be listed here, as they are posted
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“What is nature? If common usage of the word is taken as fact, nature would be that which occurs without the impetus of the human hand or exists free from control of the same. After all, we ask “Is it natural or man-made?” as if the two defined each other by being opposites. Yet, the moment we breathe those words we separate ourselves from nature, placing ourselves outside looking in, which we are not. However much we may wish to set ourselves apart in some hierarchy among living things, there is no separation. There are some rare moments in our lives when this unity appears to us so clearly that it stuns as it pleases, like the first gulp of air after a long dive. I felt that unity in Canada one night after a thunderstorm cleared the air and an ocean of stars flowed out into the ink-black night sky. I have felt it while floating on the surface of the warm sea off Hawaii, bobbing gently, each breath synchronized with the rhythms of the surf; the waves breathing for me. I feel like it might happen here and now, and just the thought sends shivers along the skin of my back.” — Boundaries: Insights from Asia, Marc P. Keane, Kyoto Journal, 17 July 2016 /
Reminds me of Spalding Gray’s perfect moment in the Indian Ocean, and of my own experiences of this unity, this dissolving, this spaciousness:
Void
‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’and at first there was no shadow,
no way to see
what was
and what was not,
and what was held between the two,
quivering in wakeful silence.at first, there was no shadow,
no star-wished, moon-washed silhouette,no girl,
cartwheeling her way along the
fixed black street,
outstretched palms displacing grit, gravel,
long bare feet hitting earth hard,
body without weight, and slant,
carried by spinning limbs through midnight air,
mind empty, empty of all but shadow,
and the inward glance of shadow,
the vibrating, barely held glimpse
of dark, of light,
of neither.at first, there was no shadow,
no relief
from the absolute emptiness that is not air,
not sky, not earth,
not grit, gravel, or mind.The space between her hands arcs,
her feet lift, she’s formless earth itself
shimmering in silent being
no glimpse or glance, no demarcation at all.‘It’s too late / she’s lost the sun / she’s come undone’
— M. Wms, 2003/2013
Featured image: my street at night, 2010
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