| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: inhabiting the body and perceiving through its senses, but
quite capable of surviving the tenement in which it dwells and
I think of that as the Self. But no sooner have I taken
this step than I perceive that I am committing the same mistake
as before. I am only contemplating a new image or picture,
and "I" still remain beyond and behind that which I contemplate.
No sooner do I turn my attention on the subjective
being than it becomes OBJECTIVE, and the real subject retires
into the background. And so on indefinitely. I am baffled;
and unable to say positively what the Self is.
Meanwhile there are people who look upon the foregoing
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Art thou a Worm? image of weakness. art thou but a Worm?
I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lillys leaf;
Ah weep not little voice, thou can'st not speak, but thou can'st weep:
Is this a Worm? I see they lay helpless & naked: weeping
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mothers smiles.
The Clod of Clay heard the Worms voice & rais'd her pitying head:
She bowd over the weeping infant, and her life exhald
In milky fondness, then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes
O beauty of the vales of Har, we live not for ourselves,
Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed:
My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark,
Poems of William Blake |
