Realms of Gold

“Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen…” — John Keats

[Read slowly, three times through...]

I have spoken words of power.

To speak these lines aloud, in New York City, is to speak a foreign language. Not just a foreign language, but a forgotten language. Not just a forgotten language, but a scorned language. Not just a scorned language, but scorned values - a scorned way of seeing the world, a scorned way of being, a scorned past... A scorned part of ourselves. A part of ourselves we are embarrassed of.

To hear these lines spoken aloud, is to hear the most intimate whisper of a lover, the most vulnerable nudity, exposed to a whole room full of people. Now we are all embarrassed, but will we, like fear-striken Peter, deny our love? For the higher things, the realms of gold, exist - all around us - even if we can't see or hear them; or, seeing and hearing them, do not dare to speak of them.

In The Common Tongue, which we are all used to speaking, at parties, where pleasantries and gossip are traded, what makes a person "cool," that is, high status, is to speak fluently the language of popular culture. And what is that, but petty humor and amusement, or mere utility? Or, in the company of more polite society, of worldly things - of possessions and experiences, of people and places, of pleasure, but not of pain, of wealth and power... But never the language of the soul.

When polite society gathers to see art, to speak of art, it adopts an academic tone. From a recent museum exhibition, I quote: "Through an experimental and transcriplinary methodology... including... critical pedagogy..." Do you hear it... the above-it-all attitude, the know-it-all tone, the smugness? The person who goes to that exhibit leaves feeling not Wonder, but haughty Pride. But the smugness is just a mask for terrible boredom and numbness. Our art also devolves into the absurd - again, from a recent museum exhibition, "In the film, two animated anthropomorphized lizards serve as protagonists, moving through a city gripped by a pandemic, extended isolation, and cries for social justice reform." Is that a Geico ad or art?

Ironically, when people believed the world was flat, at least they still perceived it as mysterious; whereas now, although we have seen the world-sphere, although we live in The New World, its mystery has left our eyes, as has that of the Old World. When people believed the world was two-dimensional, they still perceived its three-dimensionality; whereas now, although we know it is three-dimensional, we only understand it two-dimensionally. Modern society has made everything small, petty, bourgeois. We take a cynical attitude towards the sublime and sublimity - and anyone who would speak of the mysterious and the beautiful, in earnestness, in awe...

The earth has become small,
and upon it hops The Last Man,
who makes everything small...

‘We have discovered happiness,’
say The Last Men...
and they blink.

This is the language of the soul.

Like Keats (John Keats), Nietzsche (Friedrich Nietzsche) is also fluent - they are speaking the same language. Isn't it sort of cringey, loud, embarrassing? Our first reaction is to dismiss or disown it. Doesn't it sound foreign to our ears? Even though this has been rendered from German into English, and its grammar is not complicated - it still sounds... strange, not from around here. Not from around... anywhere. Certainly this is not what you would hear in the streets of New York. But you also wouldn't hear this in Berlin. Or in the 21st century, or even in the 19th century. Its voice comes to us, as if from far away... But it isn't from a place or a time - this would have sounded strange in any time, or in any place. It is from another culture... another civilization... another state of being, entirely. This is romantic mysticism.

Romance, like this,

La vie est une fleur,
l'amour en est le miel.
Life is a flower,
of which Love is the honey.

C'est la colombe
unie à l'aigle dans le ciel,
It is the dove and the eagle
United in the sky.

C'est la grâce tremblante
à la force appuyée,
It is Grace trembling
at Insistent Force.

C'est ta main
dans ma main
doucement oubliée.
It is your hand,
in my hand, sweetly forgotten.

The language of love - although something is lost from the French, for every old language suggests the mystery in its own way, the English translation conveys enough. But the language of love is also the language of enlightenment:

Yet, though it is like this, simply,
Flowers fall amid our Longing
and Weeds spring up amid our Antipathy.

That is the Genjōkōan by Dōgen - it was written in 13th century Japan. Do you hear it? The same language... as the language of nature…

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

Science, for all its explanatory power, cannot explain the majesty of a falcon so well as Hopkins. To describe nature’s beauty without poetry is nigh impossible, the exercise will always verge on, like a rising tide, and then break forth, like a dam, into poetry. Speaking of falcons…

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand… 🎑

How myths all start to sound like one another after a while is a mystery, like the mystery of how all heroes start to sound like one another after a while, a hero with a thousand faces, me, you, us, a mystery, as are these words,  etched in stone in the Tiger's Nest -- ancient refuge, mountain monastery fortress -- which have crossed the millennia to come to us now:

The Tao that can be toldis not the eternal Tao,
The Name that can be Named,is not the eternal name.

The Unnamableis the eternally Real.
Naming is the originof all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestationsarise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.

The Gateway to all understanding.

This is from the Daodejing, from the 4th century BC China... And it speaks the language of mystery. What mystery? The mystery that is all around us. Take that beautiful sunset, for example. Well, why do we call it beautiful? Maybe you attempt to explain it biologically, or formally, say, by the composition of the landscape with The Rule of Thirds or The Golden Ratio. Fine - but what if I call it "gorgeous": who is more right, which word better captures it? How many adjectives, how many metaphors, are there for beauty?

Are those clouds, as magnificent as prancing stallions, as pregnant as scoops of ice cream, as glowing as treasure or do they wander about, lonely? What makes the word "Magnificent" different than the word "Beauty," exactly? Or the name "Cumulonimbus Cloud" different from merely "cloud?" "Naming is the origin of particular things." But if we can name the same thing cloud, fluffy, white, beautiful, powerful, life-giving and Cumulonimbus - what is it? None of those things! It is not "cloud" because that other cloud over there is also "cloud." It is not just "a cloud," it is "that cloud." But it is also not "that cloud" because "that cloud" is also "two words," not that specific dynamic, real thing right there that is about to break forth into thunder and lightning. Words are just fingers pointing at reality, manipulating it, if you will... The full reality of the thing cannot be captured by words, no matter how skilled we are with them.

That is why poets know that poetry is doomed to fall short. Doomed! To never fully capture beauty... Doomed, like two lovers, emblazoned on a Grecian urn, reaching out to each other, about to embrace, frozen by the painting, doomed to never consummate their love...

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme ...

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? ...

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? ...

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on! ...

The Common Tongue uses words, and The High Speech of poets uses words - but not for the same reason. Gelassenheit was the German word that Heidegger used to describe "letting things be" in their mystery. In everyday language, words "fix" things, attempt to take the clothes off the world, attempt to de-nude the mystery.

Why bother with poetry then, why elevate our speech, why learn how to speak this language? Poetic language sets things free, releases them back into the wild of their inherent dynamism, and insodoing, restores our awareness of the endless mystery.

What we are doing with poetry is putting clothes on a mystery ... Words are a mystery, what they describe is a mystery ... We that are speaking the words are a mystery.The poet is a mystery ... Describing a mystery ...With a mystery ...

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st:

‘Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

'Beauty may be truth', retorts the witty New Yorker, 'but it is also power, and money, as every LVMH 👜 shareholder knows, with a $336 billion dollar market cap!' 'Well then', the poet replies, 'all the more reason for poetry! Who says that poetry can't be practical?'

What did the poet mean, and why did it mean so much to him, that he felt compelled to write this? These words arose from within him, and resound with the authenticity of an understanding felt with his entire being. These words arose within him, from a lifetime arising within the world, a world with a society that had already become like ours - popular, cynically bemused, smugly two-dimensional, flat sphere-worlders, either blinded to or embarrassed by beauty. That is why we have a hard time hearing it. Because these words are written about us, about the reason why we can't hear the words. Because we are The Last Men, and we are estranged, not just from nature, and the beauty of nature, but nature's soul... its essence, its implication of music, the artistic vision it inspires... which is sublime, and points to the sublime... which we are also estranged from... Because we are estranged from ourselves... alienated from our own soul and soul's language... from the depths of our own feeling... the depths from which we make meaning... the meanings from which we create, and live out our lives and destinies.

We are a sign that is not read
We have lost our pain, and have almost
Forgotten speech in foreign lands ...” 🔮

This is the language of memory.

How do we learn to remember this language not just of Hölderlin, but of all poets, of all times and places and peoples, which is our shared birthright and noble inheritance and native tongue? Having forgotten that heavenly world, that Paradise Lost, those Realms Of Gold - that this language arose within and was made to delicately speak of... How, how?! How do we remember to See Again!?...

If The Doors Of Perception were Cleansed
every Thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite ...
‍
For man has closed himself up,
till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

‍This is the language of sight. Once Blake saw the sublime, he remembered the language of the soul, and spoke these words of power. Or was it the other way: did he remember the language of the soul, then scales fell from his eyes, and finally, he could see the sublime, right there, in front of him... hidden in plain sight?

To see a World in a Grain of Sand .…
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower ...
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand ..
And Eternity in an hour.”

A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State …

Everything, all around us, is luminous. This floor... these chairs and couch... these clothes... this room... this building... this city... this electric light, this star light, this candle light... the far flung space we are hurtling through beyond that sphere we call the sky... these colors... this air and this space... this food and drink... this precious moment... the sound and the silence... It is almost overwhelming. How do we bear it, The Beyondness Of Things? It is tantalizing and tantric - how even an ordinary moment, at another event on the calendar, with entertainment you've come to expect, and amongst the usual suspects... Suddenly becomes... So Exquisite. So precious it is almost sacred... like a diamond, given on a wedding day.

The unimpressed New Yorker says,

‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder...’

Not knowing what that means,

But The Beholder, says...

'Welcome! Welcome home!

Welcome fair Lords and Ladies!Behold! These are The Realms Of Gold. And they are yours by right.

Like me, brothers and sisters,princes and princesses born divine,you are their rightful inhabitants,take, and enjoy!

Perceiving their beauty, you make them beautiful,and mirroring that beauty, you become beautiful yourselves.’

And in ecstatic reverie, continues:

‘Wait, is this our wedding day?Is this the celebration that has been so long in coming,announced long ago, years in the making, to which we have been summoned,and at which, we are only now, finally arriving, together, at last?Oh, isn't it better than we ever even imagined!’

The unimpressed New Yorker is now alarmed, and makes for the exit.But then he hears...

I heard a voice that cried,
Baldur the BeautifulIs Dead!
Is Dead! —

This is the language of sorrow. Let it descend upon you. Feel The Northernness... The Coldest Winter Of Grief... Bitterness and cruelty. Death dealing finality. Paradise lost. The birth of Tragedy.

Man was made for Joy & Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go ...

Joy & Woe are woven fine,
A Clothing for the Soul divine ...

Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine ... 🧵

Here we are, thrown back into the language of myth and the land of heroes. But is it a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, or is it right here, amongst heroes, that you stand? This is the city of kings, the queen's empire, the sacred cathedral. This is The Rebel Alliance and this is our space station. This is the royal throne, the treasury on full display. This is the land of magic and great deeds, of severe exertions, daunting challenges, unknown extremes. You are already on the most epic of epic adventures, you are already in the story, and it is happening all around you. Your tale is a tale of duty and temptation, of quests, of dragons and demons, of destiny and mysteries.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea:

I am become A Name;
For always roaming, with a hungry heart,
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy...

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.

Uh, this Tennyson is too dramatic. Even for me. I must sit down. Ah, thank goodness for this chair. This chair understands my ass better than a lover... I wonder how chair designers still motivate themselves to keep making better and better chairs? But oh, I'm so glad they do. A strange thought... but, will there still be new chairs being invented in fifteen years, or will we finally arrive at the end of the history of chairs? I wonder what the history of this chair really is. Not just the design language, but the literal materials: what forest did the wood come from, what mine sourced the metal? What ports and factories did they move through, and whose hands touched it? Those hands, I wonder, who do they belong to and what is their story? Back to the chair... Do even physicists know what it is made of? After all, Einstein understood this chair better than Newton did - but someday won't there come a New Einstein to out-Einstein Einstein? Then won't that keep happening, for as long as physics is studied - or will there come an end to the study of physics, a final understanding? Maybe a hundred years from now, people still won't understand this chair. Not to mention me, the person who sits upon it... Or shall I say, The King who sits upon The Throne.

Think of it... We still don't understand the chair. What about, to look into the eyes of another? Just, for one moment, do it - flirt with your eyes, catch someone's gaze, and hold it. Until you can hear a pin drop. Breathe... Hold it for as long as you can bear it... And then, turn away your gaze, cast down your glance. Be embarrassed. How terrible it is to stare into the eyes of a god. A goddess... To behold a wicked grin of pleasure, a glimmer in the eyes, a twinkle of a smile. That was the way your great-grandfathers' great-grandmothers' husband looked at her, when he wasn't her husband yet. And that, my friends, is why you are here. Sex, Darwin. Or was Darwin just the genius who simplified the three-dimensional world of Love into the two-dimensional world of sex so that he could better understand that single aspect of reality? While we're at it, simplifying, why not make it even simpler: aren't we all just... made of atoms? Isn't all of this just... merely... energetic material... matter and energy? I believe that was Democritus.

But then it was Parmenides who thought: Well, if we're all just atoms... Aren't we all the same thing, then? And if we're all the same thing, aren't we all the same person? Maybe...

No more than one thing exists.

Maybe no divisions stand the test of irreducibility. Maybe we can keep dividing by two forever... But that was Parmenides' lover, Zeno. Anyways my kind friends, I have good news for you... Even though I've gone on talking for a long time, and you have generously humored my flights of fancy, thankfully, a miracle has occurred: we are more than halfway there.

The iPad in a child's handsA miracle taken for granted

Isn't it a miracle, the wizard's wand that we have in our pockets, that summons wings and chicken wings? How have we ceased to remain amazed, at what is taking place all around us - at what we ourselves are doing? After all, how did humanity achieve Babel after all - and build towers reaching past the clouds, scraping the very sky?

Tourists walk by The Sagrada FamíliaFirst time in Barcelona, take photos, post to InstagramNow, they look at Bored Apes in the metaverse, on their way to lunch...

And yet that is us, unimpressed, life is... No longer sufficiently grand to induce awe...We are bored apes...

‘Wait! Stop! Come back!’ I can hear the voice Gaudi's ghost, seething, writhing in fury... ‘How DARE they?! KNEEL! BE AMAZED!’ ‘Alas,’ he sobs, ‘what have I done? I have thrown my pearls before bored apes!’ But when even one person gasps, or sheds a tear, or kneels in respect, gazing up admiring such genius enshrined in material majesty, does not all of heaven rejoice? Hurray, hurray, sight is restored...

Overheard behind closed doors,at a strategy meeting for the tourism board of Barcelona..

‘Hey guys... I have our next $2B a year idea...what we need is for Gaudi to come back...’

With a bigger budget. With more technology. And an iPad pencil.

Maybe that, whatever he would create now, Maybe that skyscraper would be ten times taller than the Burj Khalifa... Or maybe he'd team up with Elon and design The Mars Colony. Maybe that.Maybe that would amaze us.

Okay so the price has gone upWhat would be sufficiently grand for us to induce awe? Would the ability to talk to animals?What about the ability to fly with eagles? What if Brain Machine Interfaces could do that for us?

Well, we can already use Diving Propulsion Vehicles to swim with dolphins...What did that do for us? Ah yeah, that was a cool thing to do on vacation in Ibiza...Back to real life, it's a busy Monday in New York! ...

Real life? Ahhh! More like mundane life:We are so busy, so self-absorbed, with our quotidian concerns...What's it going to take to shock us into awe?...A single disappointing email,Is enough to outshine the sultan's palace in Istanbul!

This is the task of the poet...

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great.

If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm, ⛈
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.

As they say in the 'hood, "Be humble!"Or, as The Burning Bush said to Moses,

Take off your shoes,
For you are standing on holy ground!

This de-mystified physical object, this flattened world-sphere,this two-dimensional on-demand marketplace of producers and consumers...this land of cynics where miracles no longer impress...is actually:

A land long now steeped in poetry.