This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Back out of all this now too much for us, Back in a time made simple by the loss Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a house Upon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town. The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you Who only has at heart your getting lost, May seem as if it should have been a quarry— Great monolithic knees the former town Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered. And there’s a story in a book about it: Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest, The chisel work of an enormous Glacier That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole. You must not mind a certain coolness from him Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain. Nor need you mind the serial ordeal Of being watched from forty cellar holes As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins. As for the woods’ excitement over you That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves, Charge that to upstart inexperience. Where were they all not twenty years ago? They think too much of having shaded out A few old pecker-fretted apple trees. Make yourself up a cheering song of how Someone’s road home from work this once was, Who may be just ahead of you on foot Or creaking with a buggy load of grain. The height of the adventure is the height Of country where two village cultures faded Into each other. Both of them are lost. And if you’re lost enough to find yourself By now, pull in your ladder road behind you And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me. Then make yourself at home. The only field Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall. First there’s the children’s house of make-believe, Some shattered dishes underneath a pine, The playthings in the playhouse of the children. Weep for what little things could make them glad. Then for the house that is no more a house, But only a belilaced cellar hole, Now slowly closing like a dent in dough. This was no playhouse but a house in earnest. Your destination and your destiny’s A brook that was the water of the house, Cold as a spring as yet so near its source, Too lofty and original to rage. (We know the valley streams that when aroused Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.) I have kept hidden in the instep arch Of an old cedar at the waterside A broken drinking goblet like the Grail Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it, So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t. (I stole the goblet from the children’s playhouse.) Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.
Adventure | Enough | Excitement | Heart | Light | Little | Mind | Need | Story | Time | Work | Wrong | Old | Think |
There is always another country and always another place. There is always another name and another face. And the name and the face are you, and you The name and the face, and the stream you gaze into Will show the adoring face, show the lips that lift to you As you lean with the implacable thirst of self, As you lean to the image which is yourself, To set the lip to lip, fix eye on bulging eye, To drink not of the stream but of your deep identity, But water is water and it flows, Under the image on the water the water coils and goes And its own beginning and its end only the water knows. There are many countries and the rivers in them -Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, Colorado, Pecos, Little Big Horn, And Roll, Missouri, roll. But there is only water in them. And in the new country and in the new, place The eyes of the new friend will reflect the new face And his mouth will speak to frame The syllables of the new name And the name is you and is the agitation of the air And is the wind and the wind runs and the wind is everywhere. The name and the face are you. And they are you. Are new. For they have been dipped in the healing flood. For they have been dipped in the redeeming blood. For they have been dipped in Time And Time is only beginnings Time is only and always beginnings And is the redemption of our crime And is our Saviour's priceless blood. For Time is always the new place, And no-place. For Time is always the new name and the new face, And no-name and no-face. For Time is motion For Time is innocence For Time is West.
Agitation | Beginning | Friend | Little | Redemption | Time | Will |
While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
Look home - Retirëd thoughts enjoy their own delights, As beauty doth in self-beholding eye ; Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights, A brief wherein all marvels summëd lie, Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store, Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more. The mind a creature is, yet can create, To nature's patterns adding higher skill ; Of finest works with better could the state If force of wit had equal power of will. Device of man in working hath no end, What thought can think, another thought can mend. Man's soul of endless beauty image is, Drawn by the work of endless skill and might ; This skillful might gave many sparks of bliss And, to discern this bliss, a native light ; To frame God's image as his worths required His might, his skill, his word and will conspired. All that he had his image should present, All that it should present it could afford, To that he could afford his will was bent, His will was followed with performing word. Let this suffice, by this conceive the rest,— He should, he could, he would, he did, the best.
Beauty | Better | Force | Grace | Light | Man | Mind | Power | Present | Skill | Soul | Thought | Will | Wit | Work | Beauty | Thought |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
MAN'S CIVIL WAR - MY hovering thoughts would fly to heaven And quiet nestle in the sky, Fain would my ship in Virtue's shore Without remove at anchor lie. But mounting thoughts are halèd down With heavy poise of mortal load, And blustring storms deny my ship In Virtue's haven secure abode. When inward eye to heavenly sights Doth draw my longing heart's desire, The world with jesses of delights Would to her perch my thoughts retire, Fon Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure, Though Reason stiffly do repine ; Though Wisdom woo me to the saint, Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. Where Reason loathes, there Fancy loves, And overrules the captive will ; Foes senses are to Virtue's lore, They draw the wit their wish to fill. Need craves consent of soul to sense, Yet divers bents breed civil fray ; Hard hap where halves must disagree, Or truce halves the whole betray ! O cruel fight ! where fighting friend With love doth kill a favoring foe, Where peace with sense is war with God, And self-delight the seed of woe ! Dame Pleasure's drugs are steeped in sin, Their sugared taste doth breed annoy ; O fickle sense ! beware her gin, Sell not thy soul to brittle joy !
Fighting | Joy | Kill | Longing | Love | Mortal | Peace | Quiet | Reason | Sense | Soul | Taste | War | Will | Wisdom | Wit | Woe | World |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Open the gate my beloved— arise, and open the gate: my spirit is shaken and I’m afraid. My mother’s maid has been mocking me and her heart is raised against me, so the Lord would hear her child’s cry. From the middle of midnight’s blackness, a wild ass pursues me, as the forest boar has crushed me; and the end which has long been sealed only deepens my wound, and no one guides me—and I am blind.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Thou art the God of Gods, and the Lord of Lords, Ruler of beings celestial and terrestrial, For all creatures are Thy witnesses And by the glory of this Thy name, every creature is bound to Thy service. Thou art God, and all things formed are Thy servants and worshippers. Yet is not Thy glory diminished by reason of those that worship aught beside Thee, For the yearning of them all is to draw nigh Thee, But they are like the blind, Setting their faces forward on the King’s highway, Yet still wandering from the path. One sinketh into the well of a pit And another falleth into a snare, But all imagine they have reached their desire, Albeit they have suffered in vain. But Thy servants are as those walking clear-eyed in the straight path, Turning neither to the right nor the left Till they come to the court of the King’s palace. Thou art God, by Thy Godhead sustaining all that hath been formed, And upholding in Thy Unity all creatures. Thou art God, and there is no distinction ’twixt Thy Godhead and Thy Unity, Thy pre-existence and Thy existence, For ’tis all one mystery. And although the name of each be different, "Yet they are all proceeding to one place."
Art | Eternal | Light | Lord | Sin | World | Art | Intellect |
Mater dulcissima, now the mists descend, the canal strikes confused on Dams, the trees swell with water, burning with snow, I'm not sad in the North are not at peace with myself, but do not expect forgiveness from anyone, many I have tears from man to man. I know you're not well, you live like all mothers of poets, poor and in the right measure of love for their children away. Today I am who I write. "- At last, say, two words from the boy who fled at night with a short coat and a few lines in his pocket. Poor, now ready for the heart will kill him one day somewhere. - "Sure, I remember, was that gray port of slow trains carrying almonds and oranges, dell'Imera the mouth, the river full of magpies, salt, eucalyptus. But now I thank you, I want this, the irony that you've put on my lip, as mild as your own. That smile has saved me from tears and pain. And now I do not care if a few tears for you, for everyone like you expect, and do not know what. Ah, gentle death, do not touch the kitchen clock that ticks on the wall throughout my childhood was spent on the enamel of its face, of those painted flowers: do not touch the hands, the heart of the old. But maybe someone responds? O death of piety, death of shame. Farewell, my dear, goodbye, my dulcissima mater.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Six years were decreed for a slave to wait When his freedom he sought at his master’s hand, But the years of my bondage lack term or date, It is hard, O my Master, to understand. Why, Sire, should a hand-maid’s son bear sway, And me with affliction and anguish task? There cometh no answer, howe’er I pray, In despite that each day for reply I ask. What word at the last wilt Thou say, my King? An Thou findest no ransom, O Lord, take me! Take me for Thy people as offering, I will serve Thee for ever and ne’er go free.
Sen T’Sen, aka Seng T'San, Jianzhi Sengcan, Kanchi Sosan, Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen
Trusting In Mind - The Great Way is not difficult, Just don’t pick and choose. If you cut off all likes or dislikes Everything is clear like space. Make the slightest distinction And heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see the truth, Don’t think for or against. Likes and dislikes Are the mind’s disease. Without understanding the deep meaning You cannot still your thoughts. It is clear like space, Nothing missing, nothing extra. If you want something You cannot see things as they are. Outside, don’t get tangled in things. Inside, don’t get lost in emptiness. Be still and become One And all opposites disappear. If you stop moving to become still, This stillness always moves. If you hold on to opposites, How can you know One? If you don’t understand One, This and that cannot function. Denied, the world asserts itself. Pursued, emptiness is lost. The more you think and talk, The more you lose the Way. Cut off all thinking And pass freely anywhere. Return to the root and understand. Chase appearances and lose the source. One moment of enlightenment Illuminates the emptiness before you. Emptiness changing into things Is only our deluded view. Do not seek the truth. Only put down your opinions. Do not live in the world of opposites. Be careful! Never go that way. If you make right and wrong, Your mind is lost in confusion. Two comes from One, But do not cling even to this One. When your mind is undisturbed The ten thousand things are without fault. No fault, no ten thousand things, No disturbance, no mind. No world, no one to see it. No one to see it, no world. This becomes this because of that. That becomes that because of this. If you wish to understand both, See them as originally one emptiness. In emptiness the two are the same, And each holds the ten thousand things. If you no longer see them as different, How can you prefer one to another? The Way is calm and wide, Not easy, not difficult. But small minds get lost. Hurrying, they fall behind. Clinging, they go too far, Sure to take a wrong turn, Just let it be! In the end, Nothing goes, nothing stays. Follow nature and become one with the Way, Free and easy and undisturbed. Tied by your thoughts, you lose the truth, Become heavy, dull, and unwell. Not well, the mind is troubled. Then why hold or reject anything? If you want to get the One Vehicle Do not despise the world of the senses. When you do not despise the six senses, That is already enlightenment. The wise do not act. The ignorant bind themselves. In true Dharma there is no this or that, So why blindly chase your desires? Using mind to stir up the mind Is the original mistake. Peaceful and troubled are only thinking. Enlightenment has no likes or dislikes. All opposites arise From faulty views. Illusions, flowers in the air – Why try to grasp them? Win, lose, right, wrong – Put it all down! If the eye never sleeps, Dreams disappear by themselves. If the mind makes no distinctions, The ten thousand things are one essence. Understand this dark essence And be free from entanglements. See the ten thousand things as equal And you return to your original nature Enlightened beings everywhere All enter this source. This source is beyond time and space. One moment is ten thousand years. Even if you cannot see it, The whole universe is before your eyes. Infinitely small is infinitely large: No boundaries, no differences. Infinitely large is infinitely small: Measurements do not matter here. What is is the same as what is not. What is not is the same as what is. Where it is not like this, Don’t bother staying. One is all, All is one. When you see things like this, You do not worry about being incomplete. Trust and Mind are not two. Not-two is trusting the Mind. Words and speech don’t cut it, Can’t now, never could, won’t ever.
Assertion | Disease | Dreams | Earth | Hate | Heaven | Meaning | Mind | Mystery | Oneness | Present | Reality | Will | Words | World | Worry |
Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day. Each rules a half of earth with different sway, Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway. Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine, The sun half sinks i' the brimming, rosy brine: The wild Night drinks all up: how her eyes shine! Now the swift sail of straining life is furled, And through the stillness of my soul is whirled The throbbing of the hearts of half the world. I hear the cries that follow Birth and Death. I hear huge Pestilence draw his vaporous breath: "Beware, prepare, or else ye die," he saith. I hear a haggard student turn and sigh: I hear men begging Heaven to let them die: And, drowning all, a wild-eyed woman's cry. So Night takes toll of Wisdom as of Sin. The student's and the drunkard's cheek is thin: But flesh is not the prize we strive to win. Now airy swarms of fluttering dreams descend On souls, like birds on trees, and have no end. O God, from vulture-dreams my soul defend! Let fall on Her a rose-leaf rain of dreams, All passionate-sweet, as are the loving beams Of starlight on the glimmering woods and streams.
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
Knowledge of life in the astral world leads us to a conclusion of fundamental importance, namely that the physical world is the product of the astral world.
Man | Perception | Soul | World |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
O soul, you worry too much. You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty. You have seen your golden wings. Of anything less, why do you worry? You are in truth the soul, of the soul, of the soul.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.
Soul |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why.
Eternal |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
The eye is meant to see things. The soul is here for its own joy.
Wants |