THE
DANCE OF THE DAY
I
have called this a masque
for though
it was
conceived
as a performance piece it is more poetic and contemplative than
dramatic. It is also stylised rather than naturalistic yet it draws
images from a particular environment even though it reflects some
universal experiences. I think of it as a spectacle of movement and
speech, reflecting aspects of inner experience. Although originally
thought of as being suitable for a particular movement discipline,
namely speech eurythmy, it could be suitable for any creative
interpretive form of movement such as dance or
mime.
THE DANCE
OF THE DAY
A Masque
Setting-
subtropical countryside, coastal Australia.
Acoustic music (flutes,
guitar e.g.) could be added as appropriate
Many parts can be doubled
CHORUS OF SLEEP
DAWN
DANCERS
OF THE DAY
SOPHIA
THE VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
GAIA
CHORUS OF THOUGHT
THE
SHAPES OF EARTH
THE SHINING ONE
CHORUS OF LIGHT
VOICE OF THE STREAM
DANCERS OF THE WATERFALL
VOICE OF THE FOREST
FIGURES OF THE FOREST
SPIRIT OF LIFE
EVENING STAR
DANCERS OF THE DUSK
CHORUS OF SLEEP
SCENE
Dark stage. Faint blue
light. Enter violet, veiled figures. To offstage recitation they
weave around the sleeping form of Sophia
CHORUS
OF SLEEP (offstage recitation)
Far in the vastness
is mystery.
Far in the far of night,
far in the boundless vast,
in an ocean of
the darkness of the unseen
light-
sparkle the stars.
Far in the vastness
is mystery.
Far in the darkness sing
the children of the sun-
the planets ring
night's journeying.
Far in the darkness
blue-white Saturn moves,
moves smoothly through
time and remembering;
moves smoothly through
timeless and star-illumined
vastness of view.
Far in the darkness
glowing, far-roaming
Jupiter throws
yellow-gold light,
focal in beholding,
over the violet
dome of the night.
Far in the darkness
rays Mars from high-
blazing red point,
spreading its radiance:
brave gem in the sky.
Far in the darkness
wander the other worlds.
Far in the vastness
is mystery.
We are the bringers of
darkness,
we are the driftings of
dreams,
world where the wandering soul
merges with immensity,
with the ocean of unseen
light.
Far in the vastness
is mystery.
Silent are creatures of day,
silent are thoughts of the
light.
Silent are all in the
soundless
deeps of the harbouring night.
Renewing with rest,
infusing with life,
depths of the darkness
hold the slumber of earth.
In the depths of the stillness
are the springs of rebirth;
in the deep will of deep
being,
in the deep soundless sound-
tranquil, profound.
Far in the vastness
is mystery.
Listen.
Listen.
Over mute mountains,
over the silent trees,
over the dew-cool grass,
hear the first whisperings
of day being born,
hear the first rustle
of Aurora, the Dawn.
Chorus of Sleep parts and
exits. Pale white. Dawn enters.
DAWN
Dreamer upon the horizon of
time,
awaiting the new light's
awakening,
awaiting the new day's
beginning,
feel in day's birth the birth
of a sign-
a sign of the birth of the
World.
See in light's waking- a sign,
dreamer upon the horizon of
time.
Enter the Dancers of the
Dawn in white and light rose-red. They move to the words of dawn.
DAWN
Dawn calls forth creating's
warmth.
First there is darkness,
darkness within darkness,
darkness over the face of the
vastness.
Cold is the darkness
upon the night's deep.
Cold is the darkness
within the world's sleep.
Darkness is coldest
before the new dawn.
Darkness is coldest
before day is born.
From the First Will comes the
warming,
warming from start of the
dawning-
invisible but enveloping
the coldness of darkness and
night.
From far comes the warming,
from far comes the dawning,
from far comes first warming
like love.
A slight rose hue is added
to the pale white light
DAWN
Dawn brings sight the growing
of light.
From the far,
from beyond the dark's
horizon,
comes the first glowing,
comes the first knowing ,
illuminating vastness.
Luminous, lucent,
first blush on the darkness,
whitening lightening,
fills air with radiance...
thus from the night
the light is reborn;
thus from the east
forever comes dawn.
Light like awareness
reveals all the Real.
Light like awareness
illumines the World.
Light like awareness
endows all surrounding
with colour and form.
Light like awareness
dispelling dark blindness,
shines from World Being...
Light like awareness
awakens clear seeing.
From far comes the dawning,
the first gleam of morning,
unbound by time's turning,
refound by discerning
round of the radiance-
circle of shining
sound of the light,
flower of the sight.
The light increases.
The warming grows stronger
and shining spreads high
till dark has vanished from
wide sky.
The light increases
further.
With thunder of light
the vision-rousing power,
day's fire flower unfolds,
dispelling dreaming hours of
night.
The resounding blaze of sight,
arousing the outer view,
arises above
the horizon of time,
is swung into vision
past the edge of the planet-
abounding flowering of the day
now unfurled.
The light increases
further.
Dawn brings fine,
bright colour'-shine
of radiance
like miracle.
Still-hidden sun
now rouses day,
beams out above
each lucent ray.
Heart of the heavens
speaks light into darkness
and colours sky vastness.
Fine, radiant red,
gold-orange glowing,
white-yellow sheen
expanding to far
ethereal green,
all merging into
the smooth, boundless blue.
Sun colours the view,
bright-shining on wisps
of mist-like, high cloud,
endowing sight's detail
on all that's surrounding.
The light increases to day.
Swung free from the far,
far edge of the earth,
sight-dazzling sun
bright-rounds the morning,
revealing world's forming.
Paling the shine of the misty
moon sickle,
light rouses life from the
sleep of the night.
Earth's creatures awaken to
day's changing sight,
arising, renewed, to the heart
of the light.
From far
the blazing rays pour down
and earth is stirred to life-
with shimmering leaves
trees drink the dawning.
With ripples of song
birds greet the morning
and the human heart
awakens to the world.
The dawn awakens
the world to living;
awakens humankind to willing,
to time's evolving.
In the light
earth's beings
experience life.
The Dancers of the Dawn
part and exit.
DAWN
Dreamer upon the horizon of
time,
dream in day's rising
a sign:
sign of the birth of the
world,
sign of the gifts of
All-Being,
sign of the gifts
to quicken true seeing,
the heart awakening sight-
Love, Light and Life.
Dawn exits. Sophia rises.
SOPHIA
(as
if drawing a curtain and looking out)
The day's begun. The spread of
rising light
dissolves into wide,
sun-bright blue. The soul
wakes to the body sense and
present time,
drawn from a tenebrous,
vast-dreaming distance,
to wander on the changeful
paths of earth.
The new-seen sun brings
shining day to birth,
inscribes the circle of
enchanted sight.
Sophia mimes opening a
door, going outside and gazing forth.
As dark is turned to outward
show, the vague
becomes the detailed myriad.
Grass blades,
distinct and pearled with
dew-born drops of white,
slow-distanced, merge into a
general green
where rising shapes of hills,
the spread of fields,
the graceful forms of valley
fall, are seen.
Soft-rustling breeze
light-ruffles gum leaf sparkle.
Faint, feather clouds drift
through the fine, high blue.
Sophia turns away from
gazing out.
How different from scenes of
grey streets, buildings
that blot and block free
vision, car whine and growl
and all the abstract, angled
making
where vision of creative form
has failed
and earth's quiet harmony is
drowned in discord.
In such a straight-lined place
the stark and cold,
ice-rigid logic seems to be
embodied
in lifeless hues, sharp shapes
and stony substance.
For such a scene inanimate,
set reason,
white corpse of thought, is
deemed as adequate.
Sophia turns back to view.
Yet gazing at the world around
me here
I sense a certain
insufficiency
in such a method for true
understanding
of all the multiplicity of
life.
I feel a searching ignorance:
a longing
to free perception from a
yes/no code;
to lift the veil of nature's
mere appearance,
to find the hidden harmony of
being-
the living spirit weaving
through the world.
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
(from
behind)
Watch and listen. Feel and
form.
From silence awareness is
born.
In the back Gaia appears
dimly lit behind a scrim veil.
GAIA
One is in all. All is in one.
For all that lives beneath the
sun-
great trees that lift leaf
clusters high
towards light and
life-bestowing sky;
small violets that hide in
grass
that bends in waves when wild
winds pass;
all live within the living one
beneath light-giving, warming
sun.
Far swifts that flee and soar
on blue
until they vanish from your
view
or busy, blue-faced wrens that
hop
from green-leaved bushes to
grass top.
From hump-backed whales with
mighty motion
deep-rolling through the
widths of ocean
to orange sugar ants
inspecting
dead insect bodies for
collecting,
all things that live beneath
the sun
live in one sphere, weave in
the one,
are clothed in Gaia, the
living earth,
the mother, the matrix,
bringer of birth.
All plants and creatures,
life-created,
all things that grow, run, fly
or crawl,
live in one sphere as
all-related.
All in in one, one is in All.
SOPHIA
(thoughtfully)
The power of abstract thought
divides and parts
and, starting understanding,
needs to see
each aspect cut off from
reality.
But while this helps to
analyse the whole
and brings the force of logic
to the soul
it still disintegrates the
living flowing
to single out each thing for
careful knowing.
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
Such thought is like a single
crystal stone
set on a shelf, unliving and
alone,
but still reflecting universal
light
in sharpened clarity of
concept sight.
Enter The Chorus of Thought
in varied pastel colours. They weave to the words of the voice of
contemplation.
Yet thought arising from true
synthesis
to grasp the whole in living
image-flow
is like a plant that rises
from the seed,
unfolding leaf by leaf to
blossom's glow.
Each part contains potential
for the whole,
like leaves unfolding
metamorphosis
until they fold to bud then
burst to flower,
the growing image lives within
the soul,
awakened by the will's own
forming power.
The Chorus of Thought parts
and exits.
SOPHIA
(musing)
To see the wholeness is to
know each part,
each stage, as living in the
one, reflective
of wholeness in its growing as
the plant
lives in the sunlight, air and
rain and earth.
GAIA
Now gaze upon
the depths of stone
where earth's foundations
have come to form.
Feel earth's foundations,
so massive and old,
vast in formation,
supporting life's creation.
Feel how they rise
in mountains towards the sky,
arising high
to take light clouds
as their white gown-
for weight presses upward
while light streams on down.
SOPHIA
Heights draw life's wanderer.
The vision's drawn
to peaks above the flatness of
the plain.
The grassy, stone-spiked
mountain track, in rising,
slow-twists its way to further
heights, such heights
as beckon patient will to
challenge, but
to balance this ascending make
each step
a lifting countering down-drag
of mass.
We thus press upward with our
earthly weight-
and so to climb is greater
effort than
to wander on a slowly downward
course.
Enter the Shapes of Earth
dressed in purple colours. They move with Gaia's words. Sophia mimes
climb.
GAIA
Bones of vast earth-being,
formed in ages, ages passed,
when wild-boiling, fiery
magma,
force of fire from the depths,
cooled into the bluish-grey
aggregate of tiny crystals,
fixing in their forming to
frozen immobility.
Bones of vast earth-being,
basalt mountain bears
craggy columns of dark rock,
presses mighty masses toward
measureless and light-filled
sky.
Dark and deep, dense and steep
bones of vast earth-being
taper towards the sunlit top,
raise themselves into the sky.
Keeping stillness, keeping
stillness,
mountains measure time by
ages,
given basis and supporting,
guarding stillness and deep
silence.
Bones of vast earth being,
based upon gigantic weight,
pressing patient earth towards
sky,
stand here like vast, stony
temples,
giving those who stand on
heights
gaze that takes the distances,
gaze where detail mingles,
merges
into vaster overview.
Gently the Shapes of Earth
vanish.
Sophia stands on the
"summit".
SOPHIA
I've reached the top from
where I see free sky
yet feel the mountain weight
sustaining me,
supporting, firm beneath my
feet. To rise
we climb while bearing weight
and yet this very
earth-born solidity sustains
our steps,
supports the steady,
firm-achieving way
of patience-strengthened will.
So it is worth
the willing climb to see the
view of earth
before the spread of sight.
The outlook's wide,
from forest slopes to peaceful
valley green,
to ridges with long, craggy
sides and distant,
blue ranges fading to the far
horizon,
where earth meets sky upon
the rim of world.
GAIA
In the intuition
of the overview
sense and know,
above, below.
the living flow
becoming to become-
one is in all;
all is in one.
In the stillness
of the stone
find and feel
image of the power of
presence,
stillness of enduring depths.
Exit Gaia
SOPHIA
Now standing in the silence of
plain being
but raising vision from the
depths to heights
I view the distances of blue
above-
the brilliant blue that from
the zenith height
down-spreads in all directions
for my sight,
The circle of my sight that
rounds my view,
where earth's solidity and
certain shape
bounds boundlessness with far
horizon's ring.
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
Now let impression of the
living
fill inner quietness and
all that the heart is feeling
now.
SOPHIA
Forgetting earth, suppressing
memory,
the flickering shadows of
ever-changing thoughts,
for silent moments holding
these away,
I gaze into the boundless,
boundless blue-
the mood of blue infinitude
moves through
the stillness of my soul,
through my awareness;
the filling wonder of the
boundless far,
until the smooth hue of the
far and vast
grows to transparency of pure
light-
like boundless living light,
unseen to sight.
Sophia pauses, silently
gazing on outward
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
The human's born
from vast world being
and deep within
preserves true seeing
to waken with wonder
revering the vision
of the endless
and the timeless.
SOPHIA
(quietly)
From calm awareness of the
widths of world,
returning strengthened to the
centre, now
I feel within another subtle
knowing-
the image of noumenal light, a
sight
that lies beyond the sphere of
earthly living.
In the back, brightly-lit
behind a scrim veil, The Shining One appears clothed in white.
THE
SHINING ONE
All is in one. One is in all.
For all is in the
all-embracing sky.
For all that lives, lives in
the sun-
breeze-billowed clusterings
of eucalyptus leaves that grow
on forest trees all gleam and
glow
within the ever-spreading
light
in which they weave their
life.
From far the eagle gazes from
the height.
She rises, proud to live
within the shining,
wide reaches of day's
radiance.
Below the round, gold daises
mirror sun
and bright-winged butterflies
flit by,
like flashing colours from the
sky.
Lake waters shimmer with the
rays of sun
where ripples shatter bright
reflection
to spin a dance of glancing
sparks.
And all that lives lives in
the light,
and all that lives lives in
the sky,
and all that lives lives in
the air
warmed and illumined by the
sun,
the shining realm, the world
of day
that chases primal night away,
illuminator of the sight
that lives within the living
light.
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
The light reveals the
distances of world.
Thus joining contemplative
thought to vision
feel livingly your being in
World Being.
If you would know your own
real being
then gaze about on all sides
in the World.
If you would see and truly
grasp the World
then gaze into the depths of
your own soul.
THE SHINING ONE
So gaze upon the heights of
heaven's light,
the light that brings to birth
clear sight.
Feel far the spreading of the
light,
the shining and bright, the
radiant might,
flame flower of the day
unfurled
that rays its radiance
throughout the world.
Feel how it pours its power
from vast, encircling sky;
feel how it covers earth,
the dark of matter's realm,
with colour's bright,
all-spreading gown-
weight presses upward,
light streams on down.
The Shining One assumes a
radiating gesture in the St Andrew's Cross position. Enter the Chorus
of Light, dressed in white and golden-yellow. They move to the words
of The Shining One.
THE
SHINING ONE
Light wells from afar,
illumines the view
and spreads through the air
and brings the sky's blue.
Light wells from afar,
enlivens the eye,
lights all clothed in matter
that's under the sky.
Light wells from afar,
creating earth's hue.
It whitens air's haze,
makes far mountains blue.
In the fields of the light
pass the drifting, bright
clouds
as they shine, gleaming white,
as they float, ever-changing,
ever changing float by
over blue depths of sky.
On the flow of the river
light sparkles and gleams,
reflecting its beams
on ripples that shiver
with wind's soft caress,
on the flow's endlessness,
reflecting bright glowing
as dancing on flowing.
On the leaves of the forest
light shimmers and shines
on the tops of hoop pines,
on the tall eucalypts,
on the waxy, fig leaves,
on the flame of the silky
oaks'
orange, spring flowers
that dance to soft breeze,
on the wings of king parrots-
through all living powers
light shimmers and weaves.
Light flows from afar
and fills all the boundless
vastness of blue,
enticing the sight
to far distant world views...
far distance from where
light fills all the air,
far distance unfurled
as light wells over worlds.
The Shining One and The
Chorus of Light exit.
SOPHIA
From bright, far realms of
light, from searching height
abundance of bold splendour
dazzles sight,
until at last I feel a need to
seek
the valley's shade, descending
from the peak.
Sophia mimes walking down
the mountain path.
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
Do not fly merely to the
heights,
aspiring to light
groundlessness,
for then is lost firm truth of
human life.
Do not sink merely to the
depths,
engulfing thus a rigid
firmness,
for then is lost fine life of
human truth.
The Chorus of Thought
enters and weaves to the words of The Voice of Contemplation
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
Know your Self- avoid excess.
The middle way is best.
The human centres in
dynamic balance of world
forces:
bringing being's firmness
to the widths of awareness,
bringing being's light
to the depths of existence;
and thus calm-centres in
the vast and far,
and thus illuminates
the dark and deep.
In living balance life is
found.
Weight presses upward,
light streams on down.
The Chorus parts and exits.
The Light dims. There is the sound of water.
SOPHIA
The valley stream starts on
the mountain side,
with raindrops, clear-bright,
falling from far sky,
to mingle and to pool then
flow and run
and laugh and chatter down in
little rills
that join together, one by
one, like twigs
that fuse in stronger branches
that in turn
will merge into the central
flow of trunk,
just so, these flow together
till they form
the gurgling passage of a
stone-bed creek
that wanders, ever-growing,
through the greenness
of sturdy forest gathering by
its banks
until it finds the steep cliff
face and plunges
down to the depths as falling
drops that spray
and screen rock faces with a
shimmering veil.
There is the sound of a
waterfall. Moving dots of white light (from an illumined rotating
sphere) pass over the stage.
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
The practised mind of day
perceives,
with needful clarity, the
outer detail.
Yet if, in silence-woven
contemplation,
what's seen and heard is let
resound within
phenomena can speak to inward
sense.
SOPHIA
(musing)
The river waters run and yet
the shape
of flow remains-and all the
gurgles, trills,
and tinklings of the sounding
stream are merged
into the soothing voice of
water running.
VOICE OF
THE STREAM
(accompanied
by tinkling flowing arpeggios)
Life's form is born from
flowing.
Abiding comes from freely
going.
The flowing flows in time
and time itself is like a
flow.
For all that's seen is like a
stream.
Day follows night, night
follows day-
all flows in form upon its
way.
The seed becomes the shoot.
The shoot sends roots to
earth,
and spreads small leaves to
light.
The leaves arise in growing
spirals
till they contract to form the
buds.
The buds awaken blossoming.
The flowers transform to fruit
and in the fruit there shapes
the seed.
The rain falls from
grey-gathered clouds
and runs upon the drinking
earth.
The trickles grow into a
stream,
and streams all gather into
river flow.
The swollen river finds the
final sea.
Yet from the ocean’s
vastness
the sun-called clouds arise
and drift in wind across the
land
and gather into storm and rain
and rain runs off in trickles
once again-
for all that’s seen is like
a stream.
For even mountains rise and
fall.
Abiding comes from freely
going.
Knowing comes from growing
knowing.
Life’s form is born from
endless flowing.
SOPHIA
I see that intellect reveals
appearance
clear-classified in
seeming-lasting form
and brings clear uses wit this
understanding
like stone that seems to sight
a lasting shape
as long as it can hold its
substance firm.
Yet that is not the whole that
thought can grasp.
The stream runs otherwise. It
sculpts its path,
its ever curving, winding
forming’s way
by endless flowing-through of
substance,
as do indeed all life-created
things.
Likewise imagination when it
grasps
a true creative metamorphosis
partakes of living flowing,
finds life’s power,
envisaging the real within the
wholeness,
the wholeness hidden in each
single part.
The sound of the waterfall
increases. The Dancers of the Waterfall enter in white and blue. They
move to the words of the Voice of the Stream.
VOICE
OF THE STREAM
Gently the stream, softly
trilling and burbling,
flows from the slopes higher
up in the hills.
Gently the stream softly
mumbles and gurgles
over smooth pebbles and past
the hard boulders
finally reaching the
clifftop’s sheer falling.
Suddenly leaping
into the light,
into the airy
spaces before it,
tumbling and twinkling,
free to fall downwards,
streams the clear water.
Flow is now flying,
flow is now fleeing,
drops now free-falling,
falling and sparkling,
ever on downwards.
Veiling the rockface,
blown by the breezes,
misting the atmosphere,
crashing cascades
splash into round
pool deeps below,
sounding soft thunder.
Yet the wild altering
does not deny
way of the waters that,
yielding and flowing,
form to their nature,
so resuming their going.
Gently the stream, softly
trilling and burbling,
flows from the pool at the
base of the cliff.
Gently the stream softly
mumbles and gurgles
over smooth pebbles and past
the hard boulders
finally reaching slow valley’s
cool shadows,
peacefully passing beneath the
great trees.
The Dancers of the
Waterfall part and exit.
THE
VOICE OF THE STREAM
In
the world of the living
form’s born of life’s
flowing.
What is alive
still is becoming.
What has become
already is going:
the brown leaf drifting to the
forest floor.
Yet in the living world
what has become
gives birth to becoming.
The fallen fruit envelops
seed;
the fallen seed returns to
earth;
but from the seed new life’s
born.
The day becomes the night.
The night becomes the dawn.
From wisdom comes movement.
From movement comes form.
Sophia walks onward. Light
fades to green.
The sound of the waterfall
dies away.
SOPHIA
The bright and common light of
lucid day
is filtered to a twilight
forest greenness
by giant and skyward-reaching
trees. The breeze
is muffled by a million
leaves: huge ferns
unfold their fronds in
delicate division,
and mottled mosses mantle
trunk and stone.
And all around the forest
silence sounds
a ground of quiet peacefulness
pervading
the spaces of this living,
breathing world,
a place where little sounds of
life seem louder
in living silence settling on
the soul.
THE
VOICE OF CONTEMPLATION
In
silence awareness is born-
awareness of the livingness
that weaves through all the
world.
Awareness is born within
silence-
awareness of calm sharing
with all the life that weaves
around.
Born in silence is awareness-
awareness of communing with
the vast and all-pervading
Spirit of all life.
THE
VOICE OF THE FOREST
The
faint, far rustle of high leaves,
the whispering voice of the
forest,
speaks of the quietness,
whispers of secrets
of the growing and weaving of
life.
The quietness of
the growing and weaving of
life
speaks to the voice
of silence in the heart.
The Figures of the Forest
appear in green and brown. They hold poses like trees. As the Voice
of the Forest continues, they start to weave softly, finally breaking
free to move gently to the words.
THE
VOICE OF THE FOREST
Beneath the leaves of mighty
trees
That weave shade’s
canopy
Cool is the air. Day’s
dazzling glare
Dims to tranquillity.
The breeze is slow. The sun’s
white glow
Is mellowed-filtered
green
To brown leaf-spread on forest
bed
Where great roots creep
unseen.
Beneath the weave of a million
leaves
The small birds pipe and
trill;
And moss has grown upon each
stone
Where secret earth lies
still.
Once stone was flame. Upon the
plain
Flowed liquid fire
death.
Volcanic show spilt lava flow,
Filled air with burning
breath.
This cooled to blocks of
blue-gray rocks-
The covering basalt
seam…
But time had hands no stone
withstands-
The wind, the rain, the
stream,
The flame of light, the cool
of night,
The roots’ slow
burrowings.
Red soil was made. Stray seed
was laid-
The forest life
begins.
Rainforests hold and so enfold
Their own cool
atmosphere.
Each tree-fern frond, so fine
and long,
Unfolds green
fountains here.
The clear stream flows,
soft-mumbling goes
On over rounded
stones;
And in green deep, bright
pigeons peep
Or coo their liquid
tones.
Roots buttressing, hold figs
that fling
Far branches towards
the sky;
And in a flash rosellas dash,
So swiftly flying by.
A vast black bean wide-weaves
a screen
Of leaves against
day’s glow;
With other trees, spreads
canopies
That shadow all
below.
Straight palm stem legions in
these regions
Unfold each leafy
crown.
With golden eyes, a treefrog
cries
Where drying sun’s
dimmed down.
Brush turkeys raid the
forest’s shade
For insects in leaf
litter;
While highest leaves where
light wind weaves
Far-sparkle with
sun-glitter.
The staghorns there that live
in air
Adorn wide trunks
of brown.
Tough vines embrace the
branching space
And Spanish moss
drapes down.
The forest’s wealth is life
itself-
A deeper sense of
seeing.
And past what’s seen, the
outer green,
A feeling for
life’s being.
Beneath the weave of a million
leaves
That shape shade’s
canopy,
Here you can find the seeing
mind
Becomes
tranquillity.
In the last few lines the
Figures of the Forest gracefully exit, one by one.
Sophia walks on. The light
changes to a delicate cherry-blossom colour.
The figure of the Spirit of
Life, robed in white appears dimly behind the scrim veil.
THE
SPIRIT OF LIFE
All life is one.
For all that's around
Is reflected in you.
For all that's in you
Lives in all that's around.
All life is one-
Deep truth to tell.
The hand with which you strike
your foe
Some day turns on your face as
well.
The speech of earth and sky,
The song of light and dark,
The weaving of all living
beings,
Are one within the word of
life.
SOPHIA (contemplatively)
So now I feel within myself as
being
within the Being of the World-
alive
within the differentiated,
flowing
but single life of all. Once
more I feel
faint image of some presence
in my soul.
SPIRIT
OF LIFE
From the glide of the moon,
From the power of the sun,
From the starlight afar,
Coming to the living world
Flow hidden harmonies.
For all is interwoven;
All that lives
Lives in the spirit of one
life.
So seeing this,
So feeling this,
So knowing this,
Allow a pure love
To flow out to all being,
To outstream from
The secret depths of heart.
The cherry-blossom light
fades and the Spirit of Life disappears. A white and yellow light
comes up. Sophia walks upward.
SOPHIA
Once more I gaze upon the
spread of plains,
the swell of hills, the long
green valley’s fall.
But now the day is dying.
Shadows show
time-sculptured earth forms
clearly to my sight,
in these: the last and
slanting rays of light.
The flowing fields and
clusterings of trees
and nearby blady grass and
westward clouds
all mellow in the gold light
of the sun
as it sinks low, a globe of
pure fire,
upon the vast horizon of the
west,
while in the east its fading
light is mirrored
in shining of ethereal rose
hue.
And soon the night will come.
The day is done.
The whole world’s hushed in
dusk’s departing glow.
Far crows flap home, through
lingering, last light,
to roost in darkening
treetops. And soon
first stars will peer from
darkened vastness. Soon
I too shall rest. Day’s
vivid detail merges
into night’s immensity and
fades away.
But what has gone lives on
within- the light’s
own revelation of the script
of life.
Just as the light of day must
fade, so must
all that is manifest in
matter’s cloak
partake of passing time and
some time vanish.
Is there some essence from
experience
remaining when the outer form
has vanished,
eternal and reborn like light
at dawn?
Can deep and silent
contemplation find
in inner image nature’s
manifesting,
a deeper essence subtly
weaving through
sense-tapestry as living
spirit power?
In such a silent mood I gaze
upon
the disappearing of the day,
seeing
through darkening, wide sky,
fine violet
and vast, west star of
evening, white-shining;
a drop of light upon the
growing darkness
a beacon guiding in beginning
night?
The Evening Star appears on
yellow-white. He stands with hands outspread level with the heart,
feet apart in the form of a pentagram or “Star of David.”
EVENING STAR
Watcher upon the horizon of
time,
silently viewing the day’s
swift decline,
awaken in watching a sign,
a sign of the future of time-
oh, watcher upon the horizon
of time.
Enter the Dancers of Dusk,
in gold and red. They move to the words of the Evening Star. The
light reddens.
EVENING
STAR
The blazing sun that lights
earth’s way,
the focus of proud, outer
sight,
is reddened with the ageing
day,
departing in the passing
light.
And so the gazing soul, the
seeing self,
enveloping within
the vastness of this view,
the burning blaze, gold-red,
of world-encompassing, deep
radiance,
looks back to deeds of day,
experience in time,
and knows itself as soul and
self,
as living being given
the gift of light and life.
The redness pales to golden
light.
EVENING
STAR
Though
now the sun has set
a last glow lingers yet-
and though day’s brilliant
eye has gone
time spirals onward, ever on.
For all that’s done and all
that’s seen
does not just vanish like a
dream-
for what has been is like a
seed
that blossoms in a future
time.
Though light is flying, what
your eyes
have seen works ever on
in thought and memory,
as self begins to realize
a developing of inward seeing
into the depths of being.
The light dims further.
All
that’s gone is not a dream-
for wisdom lives like light
unseen,
for what has been is like a
seed.
The light dims to pale
yellow light.
Now
dusk is dwindling into dark-
but wisdom sees beyond the
outer sight
and finds at last life’s
hidden light;
and knows all passes to be
born once more,
just as new day arises,
phoenix-like,
arises from the ashes of the
night.
So from true knowing rises
love:
from love arise the deeds of
love,
as from the once and
ever-risen,
awakened within
the secret depths of heart.
The Dancers of the Dusk
part and exit. The light diminishes to a faint blue light. It comes
up on the Evening Star.
EVENING
STAR
Watcher upon the horizon of
time
gaze into the darkness,
into the endless,
star-patterned vastness.
Ponder on the depths of being,
the unseen essence and
the ever-becoming.
So see in day’s passing a
sign,
a sign of the meaning of time-
life, light, and love.
The Evening Star exits.
Sophia mimes entering her house. She sinks into sleep. Enter the
Chorus of Sleep. They weave around Sophia as offstage recitation is
given.
CHORUS
OF SLEEP
Last-passing, fading sheen of
blue
has dwindled from the
dusk-deep west.
And all the beings of the day
sail toward the harbour of
night’s rest.
The eagles of the sun-bright
air
have sought high ridges’
darkened trees.
And on one hill a blue gum’s
branches
hide drowsing crows in their
dark leaves.
The keys of life are in
night’s keep
and humans head for rest and
sleep.
Sleep is the other side of
life-
the darkness that sustains the
light,
the secret blessing of sheer
being,
refreshing outer thought and
seeing.
Return, return on slumber’s
breath,
to silent world-eternal
depths.
Disappearing of day’s light
wakens creatures of the night,
by the rising moon’s wide
beams
softly passing like quiet
dreams.
A large-eyed owl wings through
the silence.
Brown possums climb, dark
leafy branches.
The shadow forms of flying
foxes
flit by past moon-bright
cloud.
A watchful tawny frogmouth
perches
upon the top of a dead, black
tree
and soft, pale-patterned moths
are massing
upon a lighted windowpane.
Far in the far of night
shimmers the light,
sparkle the stars.
And the sleepers are silent
while the spirit had flown
far on the wings of dream.
We are the dancers of darkness
enfolding the slumbering one,
one resting within
the Being of the Universe,
one merging with immensity.
Far in the far of night
shimmers the unseen light
where the future is weaving
from the deeds of the present-
within the silence,
within the stillness.
And far the stars sparkle
and shimmer with light,
far in the far of night,
in the measureless immensity,
in the depths of tranquillity.
Far in the vastness
is mystery.
The Chorus of Sleep parts
and exits.
Lights fade.
