Henry Corbin (April 1903 - October 1978), a French philosopher, orientalist, mystic and a major interpreter and scholar of Persian mystical and philosophical writings, wrote this poem in 1932. (English translation by Tom Cheetham).
Theologie au bord du lac
Everything is only revelation; there can only be re-velation. But revelation comes from the Spirit, and there is no knowledge of the Spirit.
It will soon be dusk, but for now the clouds are still clear, the pines are not yet darkened, for the lake brightens them into transparency. And everything is green with a green that would be richer than if pulling all the organ stops in recital. It must be heard seated, very close to the Earth, arms crossed, eyes closed, pretending to sleep.
For it is not necessary to strut about like a conqueror and want to give a name to things, to everything; it is they who will tell you who they are, if you listen, yielding like a lover; for suddenly for you, in the untroubled peace of this forest of the North, the Earth has come to Thou, visible as an Angel that would perhaps be a woman, and in this apparition, this greatly green and thronging solitude, yes, the Angel too is robed in green, the green of dusk, of silence and of truth. Then there is within you all the sweetness present in surrender to an embrace that triumphs over you.
Earth, Angel, Woman, all of this is one thing that I adore and that is present in this forest. Dusk on the lake: my Annunciation. The mountain: a line. Listen! Something is happening! The anticipation is immense, the air is quivering under a fine and barely visible rain; the houses that stretch out along the ground, their wood red and rustic, their roofs of thatch, are there, there on the other side of the lake.
Something will begin this evening, something promised, in that I believe. Ah! This evening? When, then, this evening? If it were truly in a few hours, it would never be, because it would have to end, and then, begin again, and so would always end and never begin. Do you know what it means to wait, and do you know what it means to have faith?
The Mystery of Holy Communion where you will be ushered in, where all the beings will be present - yes, you can only say it in the future. Because at each moment where you read in truth as now what is there before you, where you hear the Angel, and the Earth and Woman, then you receive Everything, Everything, in your absolute poverty. But as soon as you have read and have received, as soon as you consider, as you want to understand, as you want to possess, to give a name and restrain, to explain and recover, ah! then there is only a cipher, and your judgment is pronounced.
For at every instant you are judged, and you must die. So you die, when your existence is decided and realized, for then it is over: what was is not - you want without renouncing, renounce without wanting.
No, you are the poor one, you are man; and he is God, and you cannot know God, or the Angel, or the Earth, or Woman. You must be encountered, taken, known, that they may speak, otherwise you are alone, and perhaps it is better thus, and will be always thus, always, that is, there would be no eternity for you. Because you were born in a sin that was sinned before you, and as Thou you have had fear, great fear, and you have cried, cried because the Earth is immense, cried because the Woman was too beautiful, cried because the Angel was invisible, and because as Thou you were Adam, and Adam would want to live.
Adam established Love, poetry, religion, for he wanted life, that is, he wanted-to be-God, and then to speak as he would want the three beings. To Question; Alas! and he alone responded. To listen; Alas! to give a concert to himself alone.
But then suddenly surging from this lake comes a cortege of beautiful beings. They sing the funeral chant of Adam; and because Adam is dead, it will be a chorale of blended voices with anguish in every instant: “Christ is born! Christ is Risen!”
Henry Corbin
Reading this was like a dream that I simply could not ignore.
Shortly before reading this poem in the middle of the first Covid scare, I dreamed that I was in a dark lake in the middle of a forest with other women, none of whom I knew, and we became aware of dark sinuous shapes under the surface. At first I thought they were big eels, so my immediate reaction was to swim for shore but I was told - in my head - to stay and be calm. As other women swam towards the shore, some of those sinuous shapes came closer to the surface and I saw that they were water sprites or mermaids, and I told the others, which calmed them. The water creatures warned that we must remain in the water … we must not step onto land for there was danger there, death. So we remained all through that night, many heads floating in the black lake.
At first I took this as a warning to keep away from the social discourse and fear of Covid by staying connected to deeper consciousness. But I was studying Jung at the time, and quickly saw connections to other texts I was studying.
For instance, I recognised in the dream the dark tangle of chaos described in the ancient Chinese alchemical text, Secret of the Golden flower: the innocent caught deep underwater, helpless, understanding nothing.... until ...
"In the midst of this darkness, the heavenly heart suddenly begins a movement. This is the return of the one light, the time when the child comes to life (Willhelm trans. GF 55)” ....
and rises to the quiet still place, still underwater but closer to the surface, rising towards sunlight in a state of surrender, a child peacefully sleeping in her unawareness, who eventually awakens, some new aspect of her arising like a lotus bud from the roots towards the sun to open there like a flower into a new personality. I have felt that.
My spiritual path has been one of small attainments and many reversals, needing to go back again and again in search of what I had lost or never really gained in the first place. And I have rarely felt on solid ground. I have felt more like one who, swimming in deep water, catches the tail of the ox that is swimming strong and with purpose, and she is pulled after it into some semblance of awareness. But in the moving water, she loses her grip, again and again.
But reading Corbin’s poem, I am struck hard by the beauty of the water beside the forest, how comfortable, how reassuring it feels. I am no longer sitting by the water, I am in it, floating, like a child, at ease. I float on the music of the mountain … it speaks to me. The Angel in green floats before me like the Star of the Sea, Stella Maris, Maria, like the Mother of the World, like Aphrodite goddess of Love.
(photo: unsplash.com)
My chest aches as my heart swells. I am not me. I am the water. I am the lake and I gladly surrender my Adamic self to its depths, surrender again and again, not to fire or to earth but to the lake, the water, and my soul sings, for the Christ consciousness within me is born again.
Maybe like in that dream, I am not yet ready to step onto dry land, to step into the forest, but need to float a while longer in the water..... Some part of me is not prepared to leave the unconscious, part of me that perhaps prefers the fluidity, the uncertainty of water, that is still wondering what is hiding in the depths that seeks to be brought into the light, onto solid ground.
For recently, I had a profound experience of total identification with water, and it was not just words or imagination. As I sat absent-mindedly wondering what it would feel like to be water, a particular stream that I like to sit by, suddenly, I Was the stream. I felt it, smelled it, tasted it in me, and it was totally different to how my body normally feels: slippery, muddy, dense, scary, dark, full of life, full of memories.
No words for it, but something deep within me was aroused.