on the animal nature of man
166
If I carefully consider the life men lead, I find nothing to distinguish it from the life of animals. Both man and animal are hurled unconsciously through things and the world; both have their leisure moments; both complete the same organic cycle day after day; both think nothing beyond what they think, nor live beyond what they live. A cat wallows in the sun and goes to sleep. Man wallows in life, with all of its complexities, and goes to sleep. Neither one escapes the fatal law of being what he is. Neither one tries to shake off the wieght of being. The greatest among men love glory, but not the glory of a personal immortality, just an abstract immortality, in which they don’t necessarily participate.
These considerations, which occur to me frequently, prompt an admiration in me for a kind of person that by nautre I abhor. I mean the mystics and ascetics - the recluses of all Tibets, the Simeon Stylites of all columns. These men, albeit by absurd means, do indeed try to escape the animal law. These men, although they act madly, do indeed reject the law of life by which others wallow in the sun and wait for death without thinking about it. They really seek, even if on top of a column; they yearn, even if in an unlit cell; they long for what they don’t know, even if in the suffering and martyrdom they’re condemned to.
The rest of us, living animal lives of varying complexity, cross the stage as walk-ons who don’t speak, satisfied by the pompous solemnity of the crossing. Dogs and men, cats and heroes, fleas and geniuses - we all play at existing without thinking about it (the most advanced of us thinking only about thinking) under the vast stillness of the stars. The others - the mystics of pain and sacrifice - at least feel, in their body and their daily lives, the magic presence of mystery. They have escaped, for they reject the visible sun; they know plenitude, for they’ve emptied themselves of the world’s nothingness.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:16 am
http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=BtiI_03dNkE
The Angels of Ashes
will give back your passions
Again and again
Their light shafts
will reach through the darkness
and touch you my friend
They’ll fly in a mind dance
and blind you with wings
wrapped in flame
If you’re down to an echo
they just might remember
your name
In the unbroken darkness
where emptiness empties
alone
There’s no starting or stopping
where there is no right or
no wrong
Well that’s all right for some
who can hang the absurd
on their wall
If your blind hands can’t grope
through these measureless waters
you’ll fall
You’ve been following patterns
and fleeting sensations
too long
And the fullness that fills up
the pulse of durations
is gone
Let the great constellation
of flickering ashes
be heard
Let them burn with a fire
all it takes to confess
is a word, just a word
I can recommend angels
I’ve watched as they’ve made a man strong
Oh so strong
If your humbleness shows
then I’m sure that they’ll take you
along
You can tell them who sent you
it might help to get you
above
You can say that he laughed
and he walked like St. Francis
With love