Markirya

Who shall see a white ship
leave the last shore,
the pale phantoms
in her cold bosom
like gulls wailing?

Who shall heed a white ship,
vague as a butterfly,
in the flowing sea
on wings like stars,
the sea surging,
the foam blowing,
the wings shining,
the light fading?

Who shall hear the wind roaring
like leaves of forests,
the white rocks snarling
in the moon gleaming,
in the moon waning,
in the moon falling
a corpse-candle;
the storm mumbling,
the abyss moving?

Who shall see the clouds gather,
the heavens bending
upon crumbling hills,
the sea heaving,
the abyss yawning,
the old darkness
beyond the stars
falling
upon fallen towers?

Who shall heed a broken ship
on the black rocks
under broken skies,
a bleared sun blinking
on bones gleaming
in the last morning?
Who shall see the last evening?

I have been thinking a good deal lately. I am not sure that it is a good thing, considering... well, considering life, the universe, and everything in general. It seems to me that if I would relax everything would be much easier... And then there are questions and wonderings that I dare not share, because, let's face it, any organisation, including Christianity, is prone to being judgmental - and I just don't want to deal with it right now. Not to mention that I keep wanting to go visit the Nephi and Scipio areas in Utah and get a feel for the communities there to see if my childhood memories are still valid; I think, however, that that may have to wait, as my family has no desire to take a road trip to "the middle of nowhere." Perhaps I should get my license and go with some friends instead...

Ai, but there are so many questions that I dare not ask, too much research left undone, too much of the Bible that has not been pored over, too much of wondering, too much...

C'est la vie. It does not matter.

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force …. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

¶ Independence Day Address, Washington, DC (4 Jul 1821), John Quincy Adams

Wow.

Sáiwë just went flying around the room and left a present when passing above Emily's face... Definitely one of the more amusing events of the evening.

A point is a place that has no continuation; a ray has a beginning and then continues on into infinity. But a line has no beginning and no end: it is effectively everlasting, eternal.

If the soul is eternal, then must it not also exist before birth as well as after death?

And if the soul was before birth, then why should it have been born at all? What reason might there be for taking a soul, thrusting it into a body, and subjecting it to all the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain that this world has to offer?

As well might ask why we must be born at all and not simply spring full-grown from our parents' heads as did Athena....

But born we are, and this separates us from some forms of life that slowly bud instead, as coral, and do not separate from the adult until fully-grown. I think that this is due to our complexity: we cannot know until we experience, and so we must take a time to grow after birth. But for a time, when we are growing, we are too fragile to live in the outside world, and so we are kept safe in our mother's womb - and yet even there we may be harmed, by drugs or improper diets or physical maltreatment or any host of other things, so that as we continue our growth we are stunted and unable to reach our full adult potential. And then, once we are born, the choices we make and the guidance we receive may either heal or harm us, free us or kill us, when we reach for our adult life.

Perhaps our time before birth is our time in the womb, and our physical birth our spiritual one as well. Then perhaps our life here is our childhood, and death only the last rite of passage into the adult life where potential may be fully realised: then the pathos of this world would be seen, also, for the wrong choices, the wrong behaviors, might cripple us as adults even as they cripple children in the physical world's realm...