The idea here is one I have encountered in 20thcentury Japanese philosophy; that in artistic creation, or indeed any, a different kind of knowing is being engaged with. The creator and creation disappear as distinct entities in the very act of creating. They appear to the analytical intelligence as distinct in terms of dependence and temporal priority , but this is outside the immediate reality of creation. The kind of activity which involves everything in the act of creating, including all those things subsequently identified by the intellect that looks for a tidy pattern and order, is an active, creating knowing. I begin with a few of my clunky verses which express (I hope!) a certain hopelessness which can appear when we try to fit reality into a neat narrative. The subsequent prose is (again, I hope) rather a positive attitude of embracing the mystery and receiving it as..…well, you decide!
1
‘Deep in the ocean of darkness,
the spirit of the world, sleeping sighs,
unending in cycle, rest then to rise,
Soft stirring in the silence
So rests this world, and cries
2
And the Archangel guards
from out the navel’s watch,
this mystery pondering , he whispers in dream:
“ Rise not, sleep on, o world!
no more again to pain.
your heavy days, though seeing,
I arrange, yet cannot know.
Blame me not, no more, o world.
wake never, not to rise”’
3
‘But the world heeds him not,
Wheeling on the whirling breath,
to dawn, again to sleep
self-bound in the boundless deep.’
*****************
The Archangel speaks to the creatures;
“I arranged you, but I do not know what it is to be you, not what it is to be arranged. You know what it is to be you, but do not know how it is that you have been arranged, nor what it is to be the arranger. Enveloping our limited knowing is knowing itself – unbroken by distinctions. For me to be the arranger, I depend on you, the arranged, just as you, the arranged, depend on me the arranger. To be the arranger, I must be without essential self. To be the arranged, you must be thus empty too. Aware of each other, aware of our mutual dependence, aware of our unawareness, is this not a great mystery?”