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ferineMore mind- and soul-expanding excerpts from Algernon Blackwood's A Prisoner In Fairyland to follow.
Reread this chapter four times before sleep last night. It's striking how similar the outlooks expressed in the book are akin to my own, yet worded more beautifully and to the point. Then again, that's a recurring message in the novel: all thoughts have come before, and sympathetic minds tap into that universal flow of harmony. Like Jung’s universal consciousness.
(from page 257):
"Imaginative folk have built the certainty of a previous existence upon evidence as slight; for actual scenery came with it, and she saw dim forest trees, and figures hovering in the background, and bright atmosphere, and fields of brilliant stars. She felt happy and shining, light as a feather, too."
"Harmony exactly described this huge new thing that had come into the family, into the village, into the world. The feeling that they all were separate items, struggling for existence one against the other, had gone forever. Life seemed now a single whole, an enormous pattern. Everyone fitted in. There was effort -- wholesome jolly effort, but no longer the struggle or fighting that were ugly. To 'live carelessly' was possible and right because the pattern was seen entire. It was to live in the whole."
(from pages 265-266):
"Now sinks to sleep the clamor of the day,
And, million-footed, from the Milky Way,
Falls shyly on my heart the world's lost Thought --
Shower of primrose dust the stars have taught
To haunt each sleeping mind,
Till it may find
A garden in some eager, passionate brain
That, rich in loving-kindness as in pain,
Shall harvest it, then scatter forth again
It's garnered loveliness from heaven caught.
Oh, every yearning thought that holds a tear,
Yet finds no mission,
And lies untold,
Waits, guarded in that labyrinth of gold, --
To reappear
Upon some perfect night,
Deathless -- not old --
But sweet with time and distance,
And clothed as in a vision
Of starry brilliance
For the world’s delight."
"The words seemed written down in dew, but the dew crystallized into fairy patterns that instantly flew about the world upon their mission of deliverance. In this ancient Network of the Stars the universe lay fluttering; prisoners in Fairyland.
For the key of it all was sympathy, and the delicate soul of it was tender human love. Bourcelles, the village in this magic tale, was the starting-point whence the Starlight Expresses flashed into all the world, even unto unvisited, forgotten corners that had known no service hitherto. It was so adaptable and searching, and knew such tiny, secret ways of entrance. The thought was so penetrating, true, and simple. For all fairytales issue first from the primeval forest, thence undergoing their protean transformation; and in similar fashion this story, so slight but so tremendous, issued from the forest of one man’s underthinking -- one deep, pure mind, wumbled badly as far as external things were concerned, yet realizing that Bourcelles contained the Universe, and that he, in turn contained Bourcelles."
*Eyes grow large and shiny at this next bit:*
(from page 267):
"Surely it was that this tale of Starlight, Starlight Expresses and Star Caves, told as simply as running water, revealed the entire Universe -- as One, and that in this mighty, splendid thing each of them nested safe and comfortable. The world was really thinking, and all lay fluttering in the grand, magnificent old Net of Stars.What people think, they are. All can think Beauty. And Sympathy -- to feel with everything -- was the clue; for sympathy is love, and to love a star was to love a neighbor. To be without sympathy was to feel apart, and to think apart was to cut oneself off from life, from the Whole, from God and joy -- it was Death. To work at commonplace duties because they were duties to the Universe at large, this was the way to find courage, peace, and happiness, because this was genuine and successful work, no effort lost, and the most distant star aware of it. Thinking was living, whether material results were visible or not; yearning was action, even though no accomplishment was apparent; thought and sympathy, though felt but for a passing moment, sweetened the Pleiades and flashed along the Milky Way, and so-called tangible results that could prove it to the senses provided no adequate test of accomplishment or success. In the knowledge of belonging to the vast underlying unity was the liberation that brings courage, carelessness, and joy, and to admit failure in anything, by thinking it, was to weaken the entire structure which binds together the planets and the heart of a boy. Thoughts were the fairies that the world believed in when it was younger, simpler, less involved in separation; and the golden Fairyland recovered in this story was the Fairyland of lovely thinking... "
As M-dahling wisely states in the song "Vervain", "We are divinity."
Reread this chapter four times before sleep last night. It's striking how similar the outlooks expressed in the book are akin to my own, yet worded more beautifully and to the point. Then again, that's a recurring message in the novel: all thoughts have come before, and sympathetic minds tap into that universal flow of harmony. Like Jung’s universal consciousness.
(from page 257):
"Imaginative folk have built the certainty of a previous existence upon evidence as slight; for actual scenery came with it, and she saw dim forest trees, and figures hovering in the background, and bright atmosphere, and fields of brilliant stars. She felt happy and shining, light as a feather, too."
"Harmony exactly described this huge new thing that had come into the family, into the village, into the world. The feeling that they all were separate items, struggling for existence one against the other, had gone forever. Life seemed now a single whole, an enormous pattern. Everyone fitted in. There was effort -- wholesome jolly effort, but no longer the struggle or fighting that were ugly. To 'live carelessly' was possible and right because the pattern was seen entire. It was to live in the whole."
(from pages 265-266):
"Now sinks to sleep the clamor of the day,
And, million-footed, from the Milky Way,
Falls shyly on my heart the world's lost Thought --
Shower of primrose dust the stars have taught
To haunt each sleeping mind,
Till it may find
A garden in some eager, passionate brain
That, rich in loving-kindness as in pain,
Shall harvest it, then scatter forth again
It's garnered loveliness from heaven caught.
Oh, every yearning thought that holds a tear,
Yet finds no mission,
And lies untold,
Waits, guarded in that labyrinth of gold, --
To reappear
Upon some perfect night,
Deathless -- not old --
But sweet with time and distance,
And clothed as in a vision
Of starry brilliance
For the world’s delight."
"The words seemed written down in dew, but the dew crystallized into fairy patterns that instantly flew about the world upon their mission of deliverance. In this ancient Network of the Stars the universe lay fluttering; prisoners in Fairyland.
For the key of it all was sympathy, and the delicate soul of it was tender human love. Bourcelles, the village in this magic tale, was the starting-point whence the Starlight Expresses flashed into all the world, even unto unvisited, forgotten corners that had known no service hitherto. It was so adaptable and searching, and knew such tiny, secret ways of entrance. The thought was so penetrating, true, and simple. For all fairytales issue first from the primeval forest, thence undergoing their protean transformation; and in similar fashion this story, so slight but so tremendous, issued from the forest of one man’s underthinking -- one deep, pure mind, wumbled badly as far as external things were concerned, yet realizing that Bourcelles contained the Universe, and that he, in turn contained Bourcelles."
*Eyes grow large and shiny at this next bit:*
(from page 267):
"Surely it was that this tale of Starlight, Starlight Expresses and Star Caves, told as simply as running water, revealed the entire Universe -- as One, and that in this mighty, splendid thing each of them nested safe and comfortable. The world was really thinking, and all lay fluttering in the grand, magnificent old Net of Stars.
As M-dahling wisely states in the song "Vervain", "We are divinity."
