"It is something like this," said Linden. "We are One Being with its
mighty potencies. All that comes in comes to us, all that goes forth
goes from us. The points that take, ponder, sort, combine, alter to
better liking; the mighty poles, the mighty afferent and efferent that
flow from pole to pole, all that is movement, that is gravitation, that
is cohesion, that is justice, that is harmony, that is love, are Ours.
We go as we have gone through time, from and toward--the from that is
also toward, the toward that is also from. But something beyond Time as
we have known it, beyond Space and Causation as we have known them,
increases upon us. Consciousness in some sort of the whole orb,
awareness through and through, is momentously upon us to-day. In the end
all desire is desire for that."
"We shall move then in four-space?"
"If you choose to put it so. It is an allowable figure. All that present
language can devise is but a word, a figure, a symbol. What we mean is
the next advance in consciousness. When you have it you know it."
They were treading a slender path through October fields. Now they were
in a great, climbing cornfield, all stacked corn like brown wigwams, and
here and there upon the brown and stubbly earth the orange of pumpkins.
The air folded them in violet and gold dust and faint frankincense. The
hills had changed in color, so many leaves being shaken down. On days
like this the mountains were evidently entranced. It was Indian summer
before the Indian summer time. "A new consciousness?" said Frances Dane,
walking with Curtin. "A farther-on consciousness? It is in the air
to-day!"
"Yes."
"Wise men saying, 'We have seen His star in the east--' Oh, that's a
figure!"
"There is some Reality, or thousands of us would not be hearkening, as
we are hearkening.... A new man, a new creature.... It's a consummation
devoutly to be desired!"
The heaped corn stood around, the orange globes made constellations on
the earth. They were now well up the slope, at their feet Sweet Rocket
and the little sliding river. All was reflected, all was veiled, but now
and again eyes looked through the veil. Reaching the top of the hill
they found there a tall, solitary tree--a black gum--and built around it
a bench. It linked in Curtin's mind with the sycamore before the
overseer's house.
They sat upon the bench and upon the ring of brown grass that ran
around the tree. The view was fair and they rested in silence. It was
Anna Darcy who noticed how much silence there was at Sweet
Rocket--silence that sang, that caressed. Moments went by, silence held
them, fair solitude, sense of one person here alone. Tam moved, coming
nearer to Linden. The latter's hand dropped to Tam's head. Anna Darcy
heard a low sigh of relief and burden lifted. It came, she thought, from
Frances Dane, who sat near her upon the grass. But it might have come
from more than Frances, from all.
Stillness and silence deepened. There grew a cathedral sense, a desert,
an ocean sense. Into that entered a wealth of light and strength. A vast
wave of freedom, an access of life, lifted them. They had life and they
had it more abundantly. They seemed to themselves to flash together, and
of them all was made a god. For an instant there held an intense vision
of this valley and of Sweet Rocket transfigured. Color and sound lived,
every movement was of joy. That broke away, vanished like the image of a
rose into the image of a garden of ten thousand. Then that was gone into
an image of all the earth, and then that into intense, sheer, mighty
Living, with small regard to old space and time, abounding, keen, a
Reality leaving old reality behind.
"When it is all done, when it is all known, all felt, when we are fully,
completely ourself, when we remember our Godhood and live it, when we
do not look through storm for the lighthouse ray because we are Light,
when we do not cry Father and Son because we are both and know it, when
there is glory of home, glory of health, glory of love--"
Who had spoken they did not know; it seemed their common voice. Perhaps
it was Linden, but if so he spoke as their common voice. Into it came
not only the voice of the seven there, but the voice of old Mr.
Morrowcombe and the Carters, and of Mrs. Cliff and Mimy and Zinia and
Mancy and the others; not just the voice of Sweet Rocket, but the voice
of Alder, and of many an Alder, big and little, the voice of the city
and the country, the land and the sea. "To be well! Oh, rise within me,
truest Self, with healing in thy wings!"
The great, golden feeling passed, leaving echoes, leaving memory. These
folk were separate again where they had been one, but not so separate.
In and out hovered that breath of transfiguration, a day of spring in
late winter, dying, but with a tongue to tell of a time when it would
not die. Where all had been vivid, singing, laughing, now was the wonted
gentleness of this valley, a dreaminess shot with gold, taking and
giving, but doing it subtly, silently, only now and then bestowing
evidence of a vast interpenetrative life, showing like the eyes through
the veil of this Indian summer day.
They went down through the corn and out by a gate, set in the gray and
lichened rail fence, where grew sumac and farewell-summer and the
feathery traveler's-joy. They walked in meadows by the river, and at
last through the orchard, and so to the house. Mimy, in the kitchen, was
singing:
"Oh, Jesus tell you once befo',
Babylon's fallin' to rise no mo'.
Oh, go in peace and sin no mo',
Babylon's fallin' to rise no mo'!"
In the evening Frances played again to them, and the rich and sweet
music filled the old room. The violin put by, they talked by the fire;
then Linden said, "Read for a little while, Marget." She took up a
volume of Blake, and read. "Read that letter to Butts." She read:
"... Over sea, over land
My eyes did expand
Into regions of fire,
Remote from desire;
The light of the morning
Heaven's mountains adorning;
In particles bright,
The jewels of light
Distinct shone and clear.
Amazed and in fear
I each particle gazed,
Astonished, amazed;
For each was a Man
Human formed. Swift I ran,
For they beckoned to me,
Remote by the sea,
Saying: 'Each grain of sand,
Every stone on the land,
Each rock and each hill,
Each fountain and rill,
Each herb and each tree,
Mountain, hill, earth and sea,
Cloud, meteor and star,
Are men seen afar.'...
My eyes, more and more,
Like a sea without shore,
Continue expanding,
The heavens commanding;
Till the jewels of light,
Heavenly men beaming bright,
Appeared as One Man,
Who complacent began
My limbs to enfold
In his beams of bright gold;
Like dross purged away
All my mire and clay.
Soft consumed in delight,
In his bosom sun bright
I remained. Soft He smiled.
And I heard his voice mild,
Saying: 'This is my fold,
O thou ram horned with gold,
Who awakest from sleep
On the sides of the deep.'..."