{"id":8319,"date":"2023-11-10T09:31:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8319"},"modified":"2023-11-10T09:31:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:31:52","slug":"jay-ramsay-i-saw-a-great-light-come-down-over-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/10\/jay-ramsay-i-saw-a-great-light-come-down-over-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Ramsay – I saw a great light come down over London"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw a great light come down over London
\nby Jay Ramsay<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I saw a great light come down over London,
\nAnd buildings and cars and people were still
\nThey were held wherever they were under the sky\u2019s
\nClear humming radiance as it descended \u2014
\nEverywhere, in shops, behind desks and on trains
\nEverything stopped as the stillness came down
\nAnd touched the crown of our heads
\nAs our eyes closed, and the sky filled us
\nAnd our minds became the sky \u2014
\nAnd everyone, regardless of crime class or creed
\nWas touched; as slowly we began to stir
\nOut of this penetrated light-filled sleep
\nDizzily as the hand completed its dialing,
\nAnd the train lurched forward
\nAnd I saw faces looking at one another questioning,
\nI saw people meeting eye to eye and standing
\nHalf amazed by each other\u2019s presence
\nI saw their mouths silently shaping the word why
\nWhy didn\u2019t we know this? and yet knowing
\nThey already knew, and without words
\nWe all stood searching for the gesture
\nThat would say it \u2014<\/p>\n

As the lights went green, and we drove on.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a>, Edited by Ivan M. Granger<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Chad Walton<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

I only recently discovered that Jay Ramsay died a few years ago. Though I never met him in person, there was a period when we conversed via email. He was warm-hearted and brought an infectious enthusiasm to his poetic endeavors. In hindsight, I suspect that he knew his time on this earth was limited and he wanted to do what good he could in the time he had. A good reminder to us all. We may not all know our departure date, but we are visitors, not permanent residents. Best to stop distracting ourselves and do what we came here to do. Offer a helping hand. Share a smile. Do what the soul always wanted to do. And discover the secret heart of things.<\/p>\n

=<\/p>\n

I was a poor child, but raised in an affluent area of Southern California. Several of my friends lived in large houses, with manicured lawns, some with swimming pools in their back yards. My friends had two parents, while I was raised by a single mother. They had family dinner times, Sunday church or Saturday temple, went on family vacations together.<\/p>\n

They were living the \u201cnormal\u201d life, the American upper middle-class ideal. And I had a strange relationship with their world \u2014 I craved its stability, the things and experiences my friends had that I didn\u2019t, but their normalcy was also foreign to me, even a bit eerie. It just didn\u2019t seem real to me somehow. In some ways I wanted it, but I didn\u2019t want to be snared by it.<\/p>\n

By the time I was a teenager, I became obsessed with seeing through the facades of that \u201cnormal\u201d reality. I wanted to know what secrets were hidden away in the overlooked shadows. I became interested in everything from meditation to history to science to linguistics \u2014 all ways of trying to understand the hidden meaning behind the world that everyone takes for granted.<\/p>\n

\u2026And I was also fascinated by the phenomenon of UFOs.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s one of the things I really like about this poem \u2014 it can be read as a collective moment of awe, or of spiritual awakening, but it can just as easily suggest a city-wide encounter with a UFO. That\u2019s the first thing I think of reading this poem. It\u2019s not really clear what is happening, just that there is a shared moment of stillness and wonderment. Everyone stops and is confronted with a dazzling, otherworldly reality. What\u2019s actually happening seems less important than the shared experience. Not only is this a witnessing of something that transcends the day-to-day existence, but there is also a recognition of fundamental connection with everyone else. To me it is almost the opposite of a terrorist event; instead of tragedy, everyone comes together in a unifying moment of bliss and amazement.<\/p>\n

Then, of course, the lights turn green, and the business of living continues. But perhaps those people carry with them just a bit more sacred wonder into their daily activities\u2026 and who knows the many subtle, far-reaching ways it will continue to radiate out through their lives? This is how private experiences of transformation \u2014 otherworldy or of the inner world \u2014 quietly transform the world.<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Jay Ramsay<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nDiamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nPlaces of Truth: Journeys into Sacred Wilderness<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nOut of Time<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nKingdom of the Edge: Poems for the Spirit<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Jay<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nJay Ramsay<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

England (1959 \u2013 2019) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Jay Ramsay is a British poet and psychotherapist.<\/p>\n

He has been on the poetry scene over the last 25 years as a voice for transformative spiritual, political and psychological awareness. He has been described as \u201cEngland\u2019s foremost transformation poet\u201d (Caduceus magazine, 2007). He believes that poetry has a unique, catalytic role in our culture.<\/p>\n

Jay has edited poetry for Kindred Spirit (1997-2004), Caduceus (2002-), and More to Life (2006). More recently he has been poet-in-residence at St James\u2019 Church, Piccadilly in London (2005-6).<\/p>\n

Anamnesis is now available on CD (recorded with Tibetan bowls) from www.lotusfoundation.org.uk, the website also has the texts of the 16 poems, written monthly over the period.<\/p>\n

More recently he has completed a residency in the Sinai desert for the Makhad Trust (March 2010) with a sequence of poems and photographs (see www.makhad.org) which will be published and exhibited, and also for the church at North Stoke near Bath (July-August 2010) for Martin Palmer at ICOREC\/ARC. www.arcworld.org<\/p>\n

Jay Ramsay has written many individual collections including Kingdom of the Edge (New & Selected Poems 1980-1998; Element Books, 1999), some classic Chinese translations Tao Te Ching, I Ching, Kuan Yin; Element, 1993\/HarperCollins, 1995), and two acclaimed prose books about alchemy (1997 and 2005), he has also edited four anthologies of New British Poetry: Angels of Fire \u2013 an anthology of radical poetry, commissioned by Andrew Motion (Chatto & Windus, 1986), Transformation \u2013 the poetry of spiritual consciousness (RGP, 1988), Earth Ascending \u2013 an anthology of living poetry, 55 Contemporary British Poets (Stride, 1997), and Into the Further Reaches \u2013 an anthology of Contemporary British Poetry celebrating the spiritual journey (64 poets: PS Avalon, 2007).<\/p>\n

His latest collections are Out of Time, Poems 1998-2008 (PSAvalon), The Poet in You (O Books) and Places of Truth (Awen).<\/p>\n

More poetry by Jay Ramsay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw a great light come down over London by Jay Ramsay I saw a great light come down over London, And buildings and cars and people were still They were held wherever they were under the sky\u2019s Clear humming radiance as it descended \u2014 Everywhere, in shops, behind desks and on trains Everything stopped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,3],"tags":[371,835,1069,60,2545,628,1071],"class_list":["post-8319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ivans-story","category-poetry","tag-bliss","tag-enlightenment","tag-jay-ramsay","tag-light","tag-london","tag-peace","tag-ufo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8320,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions\/8320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}