"Seasons and times; Life and Fate--all are remarkably rhythmic, metric,
regular throughout. In all crafts and arts, in all machines, in organic
bodies, in our daily occupations everywhere there is rhythm, meter,
accent, melody. All that we do with a certain skill unnoticed, we do
rhythmically. There is rhythm everywhere; it insinuates itself
everywhere. All mechanism is metric, rhythmic. There must be more in it
than this. Is it merely the influence of inertia?"
--NOVALIS, Translated by U.C.B.
Notwithstanding the extent and loneliness of this wild country,
coincidence seemed in no way stretched by the abrupt appearance; for
in a sense it was not wholly unexpected. There had been certain
indications that the meeting again of these two was imminent. The
Irishman had never doubted they would meet. But something more than mere
hints or warnings, it seemed, had prepared him.
The nature of these warnings, however, O'Malley never fully disclosed.
Two of them he told to me by word of mouth, but there were others he
could not bring himself to speak about at all. Even the two he mentioned
do not appear in his written account. His hesitation is not easy to
explain, unless it be that language collapsed in the attempt to describe
occurrences so remote from common experience. This may be so, although he
grappled not unsuccessfully with the rest of the amazing adventure. At
any rate I could never coax from him more than the confession that there
_were_ other things that had brought him hints. Then came a laugh, a
shrug of the shoulders, an expression of confused bewilderment in eyes
and manner and--silence.
The two he spoke of I report as best I can. On the roof of that London
apartment-house where so many of our talks took place beneath the
stars and to the tune of bustling modern traffic, he told them to me.
Both were consistent with his theory that he was becoming daily more
active in some outlying portion of his personality--knowing experiences
in a region of extended consciousness stimulated so powerfully
by his strange new friend.
Both, moreover, brought him one and the same conviction that he
was no longer--alone. For some days past he had realized this. More
than his peasant guide accompanied him. He was both companioned
and--observed.
"A dozen times," he said, "I thought I saw him, and a dozen times I
was mistaken. But my mind looked for him. I knew that he was
somewhere close." He compared the feeling to that common experience
of the streets when a friend, not known to be near, or even expected,
comes abruptly into the thoughts, so that numberless individuals may
trick the sight with his appearance before he himself comes suddenly
down the pavement. His approach has reached the mind before his mere
body turns the corner. "Something in me was aware of his approach,"
he added, "as though his being were sending out feelers in advance to
find me. They reached me first, I think"--he hesitated briefly, hunting
for a more accurate term he could not find--"in dream."
"You dreamed that he was coming, then?"
"It came first in dream," he answered; "only when I woke the dream
did not fade; it passed over into waking consciousness, so that I could
hardly tell where the threshold lay between the two. And, meanwhile, I
was always expecting to see him at every turn of the trail almost; a
little higher up the mountain, behind a rock, or standing beside a tree,
just as in the end I actually did see him. Long before he emerged in this
way, he had been close about me, guiding, waiting, watching."
He told it as a true thing he did not quite expect me to believe. Yet,
in a sense, _his_ sense, I could and did believe it. It was so wholly
consistent with the tenor of his adventure and the condition of abnormal
receptivity of mind. For his stretched consciousness was in a state of
white sensitiveness whereon the tenderest mental force of another's
thought might well record its signature. Acutely impressionable he was
all over. Physical distance was of as little, or even of less, account to
such forces as it is to electricity.
"But it was more than the Russian who was close," he added quietly
with one of those sentences that startled me into keen attention. "He
was there--with others--of his kind."
And then, hardly pausing to take breath, he plunged, as his manner
was, full tilt into the details of this first experience that thrilled my
hedging soul with an astonishing power of conviction. As always when
his heart was in the words, the scenery about us faded and I lived the
adventure with him. The cowled and hooded chimneys turned to trees,
the stretch of dim star-lit London Park became a deep Caucasian vale,
the thunder of the traffic was the roaring of the snow-fed torrents. The
very perfume of strange flowers floated in the air.
They had been in their blankets, he and his peasant guide, for hours,
and a moon approaching the full still concealed all signs of dawn, when
he woke out of deep sleep with the odd sensation that it was only a part
of him that woke. One portion of him was in the body, while another
portion was elsewhere, manifesting with ease and freedom in some state
or region whither he had traveled in his sleep--where, moreover, he
had not been alone.
And close about him in the trees was--movement. Yes! Through and
between the scattered trunks he saw it still.
With eyes a little dazed, the active portion of his brain perceived this
processing movement passing to and fro across the glades of moonlight
beneath the steady trees. For there was no wind. The shadows of the
branches did not stir. He saw swift running shapes, vigorous yet silent,
hurrying across the network of splashed silver and pools of black in
some kind of organized movement that was circular and seemed not due to
chance. Arranged it seemed and ordered; like the regulated revolutions
of a set and whirling measure.
Perhaps twenty feet from where he lay was the outer fringe of what
he discerned to be this fragment of some grand gamboling dance or
frolic; yet discerned but dimly, for the darkness combined with his
uncertain vision to obscure it.
And the shapes, as they sped across the silvery patchwork of the moon,
seemed curiously familiar. Beyond question he recognized and knew them.
For they were akin to those shadowy emanations seen weeks ago upon the
steamer's after-deck, to that "messenger" who climbed from out the sea
and sky, and to that form the spirit of the boy assumed, set free in
death. They were the flying outlines of Wind and Cloud he had so often
glimpsed in vision, racing over the long, bare, open hills--at last come
near.
In the moment of first waking, when he saw them clearest, he declares
with emphasis that he _knew_ the father and the boy were among them.
Not so much that he saw them actually for recognition, but rather that
he felt their rushing presences; for the first sensation on opening his
eyes was the conviction that both had passed him close, had almost
touched and called him. Afterwards he searched in vain among the
flying forms that swept in the swift succession of their leaping dance
across the silvery pathways. While varying in size all were so similar.
His description of them is confused a little, for he admits that he
could never properly focus them in steady sight. They slipped with a
melting swiftness under the eye; the moment one seemed caught in vision
it passed on further and the next was in its place. It was like
following a running wave-form on the sea. He says, moreover, that while
erect and splendid, their backs and shoulders seemed prolonged in
hugeness as though they often crouched to spring; they seemed to paw
the air; and that a faint delicious sound to which they kept obedient
time and rhythm, held that same sweetness which had issued from the
hills of Greece, blown down now among the trees from very far away.
And when he says "blown down among the trees," he qualifies this
phrase as well, because at the same time it came to him that the sound
also rose up from underneath the earth, as if the very surface of the
ground ran shaking with a soft vibration of its own. Some marvelous
dream it might have been in which the forms, the movement, and the
sound were all thrown up and outwards from the quivering surface of
the Earth itself.
Yet, almost simultaneously with the first instant of waking, the body
issued its call of warning. For, while he gazed, and before time for the
least reflection came, the Irishman experienced this dislocating
conviction that he himself was taking part in the whirling gambol even
while he lay and watched it, and that in this way the sense of division
in his personality was explained. The fragment of himself within the
brain watched some other more vital fragment--some projection of his
consciousness detached and separate--playing yonder with its kind
beneath the moon.
This sense of a divided self was not new to him, but never before had
he known it so distinct and overwhelming. The definiteness of the
division, as well as the importance and vitality of the separated
portion, were arrestingly novel. It felt as though he were completely
out, or to such a degree, at least, that the fraction left behind with
the brain was at first only just sufficient for him to recognize his body
at all.
Yonder with these others he felt the wind of movement pass along
his back, he saw the trees slip by, and knew the very contact of the
ground between the leaps. His movements were natural and easy, light
as air and fast as wind; they seemed automatic, impelled by something
mighty that directed and contained them. He knew, too, the sensation
that others pressed behind him and passed before, slipped in and out,
and that through the whole wild urgency of it he yet could never make
an error. More--he knew that these shifting forms had been close and
dancing about him for a time not measurable merely by the hours of a
single night, that in a sense they were always there though he had but
just discovered them. His earlier glimpses had been a very partial
divination of a truth, immense and beautiful, that now dawned quite
gorgeously upon him all complete.
The whole world danced. The Universe was rhythmical as well as metrical.
For this amazing splendor showed itself in a flash-like revelation to
the freed portion of his consciousness, and he knew it irresistibly
because he himself shared it. Here was an infinite joy, naked and
unashamed, born of the mighty Mother's heart and life, a joy which, in
its feebler, lesser manifestations, trickles down into human conditions,
though still spontaneously even then, so pure its primal urgency,
as--dancing.
The entire experience, the entire revelation, he thinks, can have
occupied but a fraction of a second, but it seemed to smite the whole
of his being at once with the conviction of a supreme authority. And
close behind it came, too, that other sister expression of a spontaneous
and natural expression, equally rhythmical--the impulse to sing. He
could have sung aloud. For this puissant and mysterious rhythm to which
all moved was greater than any little measure of their own. Surging
through them, it came from outside and beyond, infinitely greater than
themselves, springing from something of which they were, nevertheless, a
living portion. From the body of the Earth it came direct--it was in
fact a manifestation of her own vibrating life. The currents of the
Earth pulsed through them.
"And then," he says, "I caught this flaming thought of wonder, though so
much of it faded instantly upon my full awakening that I can only give
you the merest suggestion of what it was."
He stood up beside me as he said it, spreading his arms, as so often
when he was excited, to the sky. I caught the glow of his eyes, and in
his voice was passion. He spoke unquestionably of something he had
intimately known, not as men speak of even the vividest dreams, but of
realities that have burned the heart and left their trails of glory.
"Science has guessed some inkling of the truth," he cried, "when it
declares that the ultimate molecules of matter are in constant vibratory
movement one about another, even upon the point of a needle. But I
saw--_knew_, rather, as if I had always known it, sweet as summer rain,
and close in me as love--that the whole Earth with all her myriad
expressions of life moved to this primal rhythm as of some divine
dancing."
"Dancing?" I asked, puzzled.
"Rhythmical movement call it then," he replied. "To share the life of
the Earth is to dance and sing in a huge abundant joy! And the nearer
to her great heart, the more natural and spontaneous the impulse--the
instinctive dancing of primitive races, of savages and children, still
artless and untamed; the gamboling of animals, of rabbits in the meadows
and of deer unwatched in forest clearings--you know naturalists have
sometimes seen it; of birds in the air--rooks, gulls, and swallows; of
the life within the sea; even of gnats in the haze of summer afternoons.
All life simple enough to touch and share the enormous happiness of
her deep, streaming, personal Being, dances instinctively for very
joy--obedient to a greater measure than they know.... The natural
movement of the great Earth-Soul is rhythmical. The very winds, the
swaying of trees and flowers and grasses, the movement of the sea, of
water running through the fields with silver feet, of the clouds and
edges of the mist, even the trembling of the earthquakes,--all, all
respond in sympathetic motions to this huge vibratory movement of her
great central pulse. Ay, and the mountains too, though so vastly
scaled their measure that perhaps we only know the pauses in between,
and think them motionless.... The mountains rise and fall and change;
our very breathing, first sign of stirring life, even the circulation of
our blood, bring testimony; our speech as well--inspired words are ever
rhythmical, language that pours into the poet's mind from something
greater than himself. And not unwisely, but in obedience to a deep
instinctive knowledge was dancing once--in earlier, simpler days--a
form of worship. You know, at least, how rhythm in music and ceremonial
uplifts and cleans and simplifies the heart toward the greater life....
You know, perhaps, the Dance of Jesus...."
The words poured from him with passion, yet always uttered gently
with a smile of joy upon the face. I saw his figure standing over me,
outlined against the starry sky; and, deeply stirred, I listened with
delight and wonder. Rhythm surely lies behind all expression of life.
He was on the heels of some simple, dazzling verity though he phrased it
wildly. But not a tenth part of all he said could I recapture afterwards
for writing down. The steady, gentle swaying of his body I remember
clearly, and that somewhere or other in the stream of language, he made
apt reference to the rhythmical swaying of those who speak in trance, or
know some strange, possessing gust of inspiration.
The first and natural expression of the Earth's vitality lies in a
dancing movement of purest joy and happiness--that for me is the gist of
what remains. Those near enough to Nature feel it. I myself remembered
days in spring ... my thoughts, borne upon some sweet emotion, traveled
far....
"And not of the Earth alone," he interrupted my dreaming in a voice
like singing, "but of the entire Universe. The spheres and
constellations weave across the fields of ether the immense old rhythm of
their divine, eternal dance...!"
Then, with a disconcerting abruptness, and a strange little wayward
laugh as of apology for having let himself so freely go, he sat down
beside me with his back against the chimney-stack. He resumed more
quietly the account of this particular adventure that lay 'twixt dream
and waking:
All that he described had happened in a few seconds. It flashed,
complete, authoritative and vivid, then passed away. He knew again the
call and warning of his body--to return. For this consciousness of being
in two places at once, divided as it were against himself, brought with
it the necessity for decision. With which portion should he identify
himself? By an act of will, it seemed, a choice was possible.
And with it, then, came the knowledge that to remain "out" was easier
than to return. This time, to come back into himself would be difficult.
The very possibility seemed to provide the shock of energy necessary
for overcoming it; the experience alarmed him; it was like holding an
option upon living--like a foretaste of death. Automatically, as it were,
these loosened forces in him answered to the body's summons. The
result was immediate and singular; one of these Dancing outlines
separated itself from the main herd, approached with a sudden silent
rush, enveloped him for a second of darkness and confusion, losing its
shape completely on the way, and then merged into his being as smoke
slips in and merges with the structure of a tree.
The projected portion of his personality had returned. The sense of
division was gone. There remained behind only the little terror of the
weak flesh whose summons had thus brought it back.
The same instant he was fully awake--the night about him empty
of all but the silver dreaming of the moon among the shadows. Beside
him lay the sleeping figure of his companion, the bashlik of lamb's wool
drawn closely down about the ears and neck, and the voluminous black
burka shrouding him from feet to shoulders. A little distance away the
horse stood, munching grass. Again he noted that there was no wind,
and the shadows of the trees lay motionless upon the ground. The air
smelt sweet of forest, soil, and dew.
The experience--it seemed now--belonged to dreaming rather than
to waking consciousness, for there was nothing about him to confirm
it outwardly. Only the memory remained--that, and a vast, deep-coursing,
subtle happiness. The smaller terror that he felt was of the flesh
alone, for the flesh ever instinctively fought against such separation.
The happiness, though, contained and overwhelmed the fear.
Yes, only the memory remained, and even that fast fading. But the
substance of what had been, passed into his inmost being: the splendor
of that would remain forever, incorporated with his life. He had shared
in this brief moment of extended consciousness some measure of the
Mother's cosmic being, simple as sunshine, unrestrained as wind, complete
and satisfying. Its natural expression was rhythmical, a deep, pure
joy that drove outwards even into little human conditions as dancing
and singing. He had known it, too, with companions of his kind...
Moreover, though no longer visible or audible, it still continued
somewhere close. He was blessedly companioned all the time--and
watched. _They_ knew him one of themselves--these brother expressions
of her cosmic life--these _Urwelt_ beings that Today had no external,
bodily forms. They waited, knowing well that he would come. Fulfillment
beckoned surely just beyond...