Solitary Individual

Let heaven and heaven's creator mourn,
The fertile earth, the wandering wave
Upon the restless sea. And thou,
Who over lands and ocean's plains
​Dost shed thy light, whose beauteous face
Drives night away, O glowing Sun,
Grieve more than all. For equally
Thy risings had Alcides seen,
And eke thy settings; both thy homes
Were known to him. His spirit loose
From monstrous madness; loose him, ye
Who rule above. His mind restore
To sanity again. And thou,
O Sleep, subduer of our ills,
The spirit's rest, thou better part
Of human life, swift-winged one,
Astraea's child, of cruel Death
The sluggish brother, mixing false
With true, prescient of future things,
But oftenest of misery;
O sire of all things, gate of life,
Day's respite and the comrade true
Of night, who com'st impartially
To king and slaves, with gentle hand
The wearied spirit comforting;
Thou who dost force the race of men
Who quail at mortal doom, to gain
A foretaste of the sleep of death:
Subdue and overwhelm him quite
With heavy stupor; let his limbs,
Unconquered hitherto, be held
Fast bound in chains of deepest sleep;
Take not the spell from his fierce heart,
Until his former mind return
To its accustomed course.

[Hercules Furens, 1054-1081]

Then in my gown of sober grey
    Along the mountain path I'll wander,
And wind my solitary way
    To the sad shrine that courts me yonder.

Wynter Wakeneth Al My Care
Before 1340

And mention in the Book [the story of] Maryam (Mary), when she withdrew from her family to a place toward the east. And she took, in seclusion from them, a screen.
Then We sent to her Our Ruh [angel Jibrael (Gabriel)], and he appeared before her in the form of a man in all respects.
She said, “Indeed, I seek refuge in the Most Merciful from you, [so leave me], if you do fear Allah.”
He said, “I am only the messenger of your Lord, (to announce) to you the gift of a pure boy.”
She said, “How can I have a boy, when no man has touched me, nor am I unchaste?”
He said, “Thus [it will be]; your Lord says, ‘It is easy for Me, and We will make him a sign to the people and a mercy from Us. And it is a matter [already] decreed.’ “
So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a remote place. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree.
She cried (in her anguish), “Ah! would that I had died before this! would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!”
Thereupon he called her from below her, “Do not grieve; your Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates. So eat and drink and be contented. Then if you see any human, say, ‘Indeed, I have vowed to the Most Merciful abstention, so I will not speak today to any human.’ “
Then carrying him she brought him to her people. They said, “O Mary, you have certainly done a thing unprecedented. O sister of Aaron, your father was not a man of evil, nor was your mother unchaste.”
So she pointed to him. They said, “How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?”
[Jesus] said, “Indeed, I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet. And He has made me blessed wherever I may be, and He has enjoined on me prayer and poor-rate so long as I live, and [made me] dutiful to my mother, and made me not arrogant, unblest. Peace be upon me the day I was born and the day I will die and the day I am raised alive.”
Such is 'Isa, son of Maryam – the word of truth about which they are in dispute.

Maryam [19:16-34]

Mit gelben Birnen hänget 
Und voll mit wilden Rosen 
Das Land in den See, 
Ihr holden Schwäne, 
Und trunken von Küssen 
Tunkt ihr das Haupt 
Ins heilignüchterne Wasser. 
Weh mir, wo nehm ich, wenn 
Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo 
Den Sonnenschein, 
Und Schatten der Erde? 
Die Mauern stehn 
Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde 
Klirren die Fahnen.

[With yellow pears full-laden 
And covered with wild roses 
Land slips into lake, 
You swans alluring, 
And drunken with kisses 
Dipping your heads 
In sacred-sobering water. 
Ah me, where will I, when 
The winter’s come, find flowers, and where 
The sunshine and 
The shadows of the earth? 
The walls all stand 
Speechless and cold, the wind-caught 
Weathervanes clatter.]

❄️ Hölderlin, Hälfte des Lebens/ Half of Life

I try to reckon it up, but I cannot discover how it is possible that we who so greatly honour boundless wealth, who, to speak more truly, make it a god, can fail to receive into our souls the kindred evils which enter with it. There follows on unmeasured and unchecked wealth, bound to it and keeping step for step, as they say, costliness of living; which, when wealth opens the way into cities and houses, enters and settles therein. When these evils have passed much time in our lives, they build nests, the wise tell us, and soon proceed to breed and engender boasting, and vapouring, and luxury; no spurious brood, but all too truly their own. For this must perforce be so; men will no longer look up, nor otherwise take any account of good reputation; little by little the ruin of their whole life is effected; all greatness of soul dwindles and withers, and ceases to be emulated, while men admire their own mortal parts, and neglect to improve the immortal.

[On the Sublime, Sect. XLIV]

Those who are unversed in wisdom and virtue and spend all their days in feastings and the like, are borne downwards, and wander so through life. They never yet raised their eyes to the true world above them, nor were lifted up, nor tasted of solid or pure pleasure; but, like cattle, looking down, and bowed to earth and to the table, they feed and fill themselves and gender; and in the greediness of these desires they kick and butt one another with horns and hoofs of iron, and kill because they cannot be satisfied.

[Plato, Republic, ix. 586 A.]

Socrates and his students, an early thirteenth-century miniature from Seljuk manuscripts.

There is no aid for me on earth, and I know not how to ask it from Heaven!

https://youtu.be/XfP-bkDa_lw?si=VFgKrT275wbcmUVX

It is sometimes said, doubtless without any understanding of the real reason, that today men live faster than in the past, and this is literally true; the haste with which the moderns characteristically approach everything they do being ultimately only a consequence of the confused impressions they experience.

If carried to its extreme limit the contraction of time would in the end reduce it to a single instant, and then duration would really have ceased to exist, for it is evident that there can no longer be any succession within the instant. Thus it is that ‘time the devourer ends by devouring itself’, in such a way that, at ‘the end of the world’, that is to say at the extreme limit of cyclical manifestation, ‘there will be no more time’; this is also why it is said that ‘death is the last being to die’, for wherever there is no succession of any kind death is no longer possible. As soon as succession has come to an end, or, in symbolical terms, ‘the wheel has ceased to turn’, all that exists can not but be in perfect simultaneity; succession is thus as it were transformed into simultaneity, and this can also be expressed by saying that ‘time has been changed into space’.
{. . .}
The conclusion may be drawn that it is quite useless to look for anything that might be a ‘fourth dimension’ of space under the conditions of the present world, and this has at least the advantage that it cuts short all the ‘neo-spiritualist’ divagations briefly referred to earlier, but is it necessary also to conclude that the absorption of time by space must necessarily take the form of the addition of a supplementary dimension to space, or is that too only a ‘figure of speech’? All that it is possible to say about this is that when the expansive tendency of space is no longer opposed and restrained by the compressive tendency of time, then space must naturally, in one way or another, undergo a dilatation such as will raise its indefinity to a higher power; but it should scarcely be necessary to add that this occurrence cannot be represented by any image borrowed from the corporeal domain.
Indeed, since time is one of the determining conditions of corporeal existence, it is evident that its suppression is by itself sufficient to cause everything to be taken right out of the world; the being is then in what has been called elsewhere an extra- corporeal ‘prolongation’ of the same individual state of existence as that of which the corporeal world represents but a mere modality: this also serves to indicate that the end of the corporeal world is by no means the end of the said state of existence considered in its integrality.
Furthermore, the end of a cycle such as that of the present humanity is really only the end of the corporeal world itself in quite a relative sense, and only in relation to the possibilities that have been included in the cycle and so have completed their development in corporeal mode; but in reality the corporeal world is not annihilated, but ‘transmuted’, and it immediately receives a new existence, because, beyond the ‘stopping-point’ corresponding to the unique instant at which time is no more, ‘the wheel begins to turn again for the accomplishment of another cycle’.

[René Guénon, 'Time Changed Into Space', in The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times]

Only God Can Make a Tree
[From the book Behind the Dim Unknown]

“Who is it that has created the heavens and the earth, and sends down for you [life-giving] water from the skies? For it is by this means that We cause gardens of shining beauty to grow - [whereas] it is not in your power to cause [even one single of] its trees to grow! Could there be any divine power besides God? Nay, they [who think so] are people who swerve [from the path of reason].”

The Yucca Flower and the Pronuba Moth
[From the book Behind the Dim Unknown]

“The seven heavens and the earth, and all beings therein, declare His glory: there is not a thing but celebrates His praise; And yet ye understand not how they declare His glory. Verily He is Oft-Forbear, Most Forgiving.” . . .

Wonders and Problems at Time of Birth
[From the book Behind the Dim Unknown]

“Certainly We created man of an extract of clay. Then We made him a drop of [seminal] fluid [lodged] in a secure abode. We then turned the drop of fluid into a clot of blood, then the clot into a small lump of flesh, then the lump into bones, then We clothed the bones with flesh; Then We produced him as [yet] another creature. So blessed be God the best of creators.” . . .

The completion of flowering usually is attended by the production of seed, which provides for succeeding generations of plants. Although seeds have always roused man's curiosity, the complexity of the biological activity of seeds has not been widely appreciated. To the casual observer seeds appear to be dead entities, whereas in reality they are uniquely integrated living systems. But the fact that a seed is a living entity does not imply that it will germinate when placed in favorable environmental conditions. The process of germination requires a distinct quality in the seeds. A viable (living) seed may be incapable of germination because of some inherent deficiency, or it may be in a dormant condition—i.e, a condition in which germination is temporarily delayed because of some action or inaction of the internal control mechanism. Germination of the seed follows the ability of the embryo to resume active growth after a period of inactivity.
Most seeds do not germinate immediately after ripening but have special mechanisms to delay germination until favorable conditions have arrived. This dormancy, or delayed germination, is particularly prevalent in the temperate regions where germination in the fall of the year would expose the seedlings to severe weather conditions.
But again we face unsolved problems. We do not know the exact causes and mechanisms of seed dormancy. The patterns of dormancy, however, suggest a very positive relationship between termination of dormancy and favorable environmental conditions. As such, dormancy is a time-measuring device. In this connection, Xanthium offers an interesting example. Its capsule contains two seeds which are differentially timed for germination by a year. In some oaks germination consists of two steps which occur a year apart. In the first year the root appears and grows, during the second year the epicotyl (upper portion) elongates with its leaves.
As stated, we do not know the control mechanisms that bring about this suspension of development and growth. The exact biochemical nature of the germination process remains obscure. More important, the biochemical patterns of the dormant seed during its inactivity are completely obscure. How is this prearrangement of a period of inactivity incorporated into the living system of the seed?
The complexities and problems dealt with above are, of course, only a few of very many. We may find some of the answers in the future. Experience, however, has taught scientists that as answers are found, new problems have a way of increasing and multiplying, making us ask, When is there an end? The answer to that is undoubtedly, Never, here and now. But for believers in God, I am sure, there comes a time when all mental fuzziness for us finite men will be cleared away. Bright sunshine will follow haze and mist.
In the meantime all men of faith will humbly and heartily assent to the words of the psalmist: “O Lord, how great are thy works! Thy thoughts are very deep.” (Ps. 92:5, AV) Botanists, too, have discovered the truth of this ardent exclamation abundantly.

[From the book Behind the Dim Unknown]

“Verily, God is the One who cleaves the grain and the fruit-kernel asunder, bringing forth the living out of that which is dead, and He is the One who brings forth the dead out of that which is alive. Such is God: whither away then are ye deviating?” . . .

Mulch Sorw I walke With
Earlier 13 c.

The sacred pledge of Heav'n
   All things revere,
   Each in his sphere,
Save man for whom 'twas giv'n.

Die Bilder der Vergangenheit sind nicht verlassen
Von der Natur, als wie die Tag’ verblassen
Im hohen Sommer, kehrt der Herbst zur Erde nieder,
Der Geist der Schauer findet sich am Himmel wieder.

[What images once were, they were not banished
by Mother Nature, like her days that paled and vanished
amid high summer: When descends the autumn's power
the sky will show it as the spirit's shower.]

🍂 Hölderlin, excerpt from Der Herbst.

“Engage (Your) Vying in Exuberance until You Come to the Graves” . . .

Noch unverrückt, o schöne Lampe, schmückest du,
An leichten Ketten zierlich aufgehangen hier,
Die Decke des nun fast vergeßnen Lustgemachs.
Auf deiner weißen Marmorschale, deren Rand
Der Efeukranz von goldengrünem Erz umflicht,
Schlingt fröhlich eine Kinderschar den Ringelreihn.
Wie reizend alles! lachend, und ein sanfter Geist
Des Ernstes doch ergossen um die ganze Form —
Ein Kunstgebild der echten Art. Wer achtet sein?
Was aber schön ist, selig scheint es in ihm selbst.

[Ne'er dismantled, o beautiful lamp, you adorn,
By light chains gracefully suspended here,
The ceiling of this nigh forgotten festive room.
Upon your white marble bowl whose rim
The ivy wreath of gold green bronze entwines,
A band of children gaily links up for the roundelay.
How charming it all! Laughing, yet a gentle spirit
Of seriousness flows 'round the entire form.
An art-work of the genuine kind. Who gives it heed?
But what is beautiful shines blessedly in itself.]

• Eduard Mörike, Auf eine Lampe/To a Lamp (1846)

Wen the Turuf Is Thi Tuur
Mid 13 c. or after

Herr! gieb uns blöde Augen
für Dinge, die nichts taugen
und Augen voller Klarheit
in alle deine Wahrheit!

[Lord, give us weak eyes
for things that do not matter
and eyes full of clarity
in all your truth!]

The word 'satanic' can indeed be properly applied to all negation and reversal of order, such as is so incontestably in evidence in everything we now see around us: is the modern world really anything whatever but a direct denial of all traditional truth? At the same time, and more or less of necessity, the spirit of negation is the spirit of lying; it wears every disguise, often the most unexpected, in order to avoid being recognized for what it is, and even in order to pass itself off as the very opposite of what it is; this is where counterfeit comes in; and this is the moment to recall that it is said that 'Satan is the ape of God', and also that he 'transfigures himself into an angel of light'.

In the end, this amounts to saying that he imitates in his own way, by altering and falsifying it so as always to make it serve his own ends, the very thing he sets out to oppose: thus, he will so manage matters that disorder takes on the appearance of a false order, he will hide the negation of all principle under the affirmation of false principles, and so on.

Naturally, nothing of that kind can ever really be more than dissimulation and even caricature, but it is presented cleverly enough to induce an immense majority of men to allow themselves to be deceived by it; and why should we be astonished at this, when it is so easy to observe both the extent to which trickery, even of the crudest sort, succeeds in imposing itself on the crowd, and also the difficulty of subsequently undeceiving them?

Vulgus vult decipi was already a saying of the ancients of the 'classical period', and no doubt there have always been people, though never as many as in our days, ready to add: ergo decipiatur!

[René Guénon, 'Deviation and Subversion', in The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times]

In order to become aware of the importance assigned to the negation of the supra-human by the conscious and unconscious agents of the modern deviation, it is enough to observe how all who lay claim to be 'historians' of religion and of other forms of the tradition (and in any case they usually mix all these forms together under the general title of 'religion') are eager above all to explain everything in terms of exclusively human factors; it matters little whether, according to school of thought, these factors are psychological, social, or anything else, the very multiplicity of the different explanations facilitating the seduction of a greater number; common to all is the well-defined desire to reduce everything to the human level and to retain nothing that surpasses it; and those who believe in the value of this destructive 'criticism' are thenceforth very ready to confuse tradition with anything whatever, since there is nothing in the ideas inculcated into them such as might enable tradition to be distinguished from that which is wholly lacking in traditional character.

Granted that nothing that is of a purely human order can for that very reason legitimately be called 'traditional', there cannot possibly be, for instance, a 'philosophical tradition' or a 'scientific tradition' in the modern and profane sense of the words, any more, of course, than there can be a 'political tradition', at least where all traditional social organization is lacking, as is the case in the modern Western world. Such expressions are nevertheless in common use today, each in its way denaturing the idea of tradition; and it is obvious that if the 'traditionalists' referred to above can be persuaded to allow their activity to be turned aside toward one or another of these domains and to confine their activity to it, their aspirations will be 'neutralized' and rendered perfectly harmless, and may even sometimes be used without their knowledge for a purpose exactly contrary to what they intend.

Indeed it sometimes happens that people go so far as to apply the word 'tradition' to things that by their very nature are as directly anti-traditional as possible: thus they talk about a 'humanist tradition', and a 'national tradition', despite the fact that humanism is nothing if not an explicit denial of the supra-human, and the formation of 'nationalities' was the means employed for the destruction of the traditional civilization of the Middle Ages.

[René Guénon, 'Tradition and Traditionalism', in The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times]

August 6, 1945

The end of the enjoyment of poetry is a pure contemplation from which all the accidents of personal emotion are removed.
[T. S. Eliot]

Er, quan renovella e gensa
[Now that summer's come again]

Sordello di Mantova, 13th c.

Mirie it is while sumer ilast...🌾

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
[Letter 75, to Christopher Tolkien, 7 July 1944]