May 24 2024
AE – The Place of Rest
The Place of Rest
by AE (George William Russell)
The soul is its own witness and its own refuge.
Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
It lays its sadness nigh the breast:
Only the Mighty Mother knows
The wounds that quiver unconfessed.
It seeks a deeper silence still;
It folds itself around with peace,
Where thoughts alike of good or ill
In quietness unfostered cease.
It feels in the unwounding vast
For comfort for its hopes and fears:
The Mighty Mother bows at last;
She listens to her children’s tears.
Where the last anguish deepens — there
The fire of beauty smites through pain:
A glory moves amid despair,
The Mother takes her child again.
— from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger
/ Image by Karsten Winegeart /
Several of those phrases resonate in my mind:
Unto the deep the deep heart goes…
…the unwounding vast…
And what a beautiful evocation of the mystic’s inner quiet:
It seeks a deeper silence still;
It folds itself around with peace,
Where thoughts alike of good or ill
In quietness unfostered cease.
But I think the final verse it what especially draws my interest:
Where the last anguish deepens — there
The fire of beauty smites through pain:
A glory moves amid despair,
The Mother takes her child again.
At a certain point, the courage to face pain becomes central to spiritual awakening. This is not where we grit our teeth and endure, but we must relax into it. We must allow ourselves to truly feel that pain, to yield to it… to accept it. Here’s why: The inner pain we all experience is ultimately recognized as the illusory perception of one’s separation from the Eternal. But that pain itself is the doorway to reunion. It is only by looking straight at the illusion that we begin to see through it. By allowing oneself to become completely vulnerable to our pain, to surrender to it, the mystic finds the pain transformed into the blissful touch of the Beloved.
For this reason, mystics and saints describe the pain as being “sweet” or joyful or beautiful… and the path to escape from pain — “there / The fire of beauty smites through the pain.”
Unto the deep the deep heart goes…
Recommended Books: AE (George William Russell)
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AE (George William Russell)
Ireland (1867 – 1935) Timeline |
George William Russell was an Irish nationalist and organizer, an essayist, a poet, a painter, and a mystic.
Russell worked for many years with the Irish Agricultural Organization Society (IAOS), a farm and land co-op. He became an important organizer and spokesman for the group, helping to establish local credit unions that would work for the people they served and build local communities. The farm co-op stood in opposition to the established banks that answered only to their stockholders in London.
Russell was a close friend of his contemporary, W. B. Yeats.
As with many spiritually-minded people of his era, he was a theosophist, interested in clairvoyance and Eastern mysticism.
He adopted his pen name “AE” for Aeon, to suggest the transcendent quest of the human spirit.
Ah Ivan….
Yet another truly Heart uplifting ‘re-Minder’…
and SO timely for me, as an energy sensitive, during these ‘intense’ times.
THANK YOU dear one…for continuing to so generously share your gifts here…
Most….gratefully yours,
~~~Teria~~~
Ivan –
Just a simple, but deeply felt thank you to both you and Teria.
Judith