{"id":8423,"date":"2024-05-24T08:08:25","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T15:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8423"},"modified":"2024-05-24T08:08:25","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T15:08:25","slug":"ae-the-place-of-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/24\/ae-the-place-of-rest\/","title":{"rendered":"AE – The Place of Rest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Place of Rest
\nby AE (George William Russell)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The soul is its own witness and its own refuge.<\/i><\/p>\n

Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
\nIt lays its sadness nigh the breast:
\nOnly the Mighty Mother knows
\nThe wounds that quiver unconfessed.<\/p>\n

It seeks a deeper silence still;
\nIt folds itself around with peace,
\nWhere thoughts alike of good or ill
\nIn quietness unfostered cease.<\/p>\n

It feels in the unwounding vast
\nFor comfort for its hopes and fears:
\nThe Mighty Mother bows at last;
\nShe listens to her children\u2019s tears.<\/p>\n

Where the last anguish deepens \u2014 there
\nThe fire of beauty smites through pain:
\nA glory moves amid despair,
\nThe Mother takes her child again.<\/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 Karsten Winegeart<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Several of those phrases resonate in my mind:<\/p>\n

Unto the deep the deep heart goes\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026the unwounding vast\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

And what a beautiful evocation of the mystic\u2019s inner quiet:<\/p>\n

It seeks a deeper silence still;
\nIt folds itself around with peace,
\nWhere thoughts alike of good or ill
\nIn quietness unfostered cease.<\/i><\/p>\n

But I think the final verse it what especially draws my interest:<\/p>\n

Where the last anguish deepens \u2014 there
\nThe fire of beauty smites through pain:
\nA glory moves amid despair,
\nThe Mother takes her child again.<\/i><\/p>\n

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\u2026 to accept it. Here\u2019s why: The inner pain we all experience is ultimately recognized as the illusory perception of one\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

For this reason, mystics and saints describe the pain as being \u201csweet\u201d or joyful or beautiful\u2026 and the path to escape from pain \u2014 \u201cthere \/ The fire of beauty smites through the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unto the deep the deep heart goes\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: AE (George William Russell)<\/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>\nWild Poets of Ecstasy: An Anthology of Ecstatic Verse<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nCollected Poems of George William Russell<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nBy Still Waters: Lyrical Poems Old and New<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Nuts of Knowledge: Lyrical Poems Old and New<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"AE<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nAE (George William Russell)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Ireland (1867 \u2013 1935) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

George William Russell was an Irish nationalist and organizer, an essayist, a poet, a painter, and a mystic.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Russell was a close friend of his contemporary, W. B. Yeats.<\/p>\n

As with many spiritually-minded people of his era, he was a theosophist, interested in clairvoyance and Eastern mysticism.<\/p>\n

He adopted his pen name \u201cAE\u201d for Aeon, to suggest the transcendent quest of the human spirit.<\/p>\n

More poetry by AE (George William Russell)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1181,1491,893,869,939],"class_list":["post-8423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-ae","tag-george-william-russell","tag-heart","tag-rest","tag-stillness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423","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=8423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8424,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions\/8424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}