Reflections on the death of a porcupine and other essaysLawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Philosophy
Reflections on the death of a porcupine and other essays
Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
English essays -- 20th century
The residue of imperfect fusion and unfulfilled desire remains, the
child, the well-head where the tides will flow in again, the seed. The
absolute relation is never fully revealed. It leaps to its maximum of
revelation in the flower, the mature life. But some of it rolls aside,
lies potent in the enfolded seed. My desire is fulfilled, I, as
individual am become timeless and absolute, perfect. But the whole
desire of which I am part remains yet to be consummated. In me the two
waves clash to perfect consummation. But immediately upon the clash come
the next waves of the tide rippling in, the ripples, forerunners, which
tinily meet and enfold each other, the seed, the unborn child. For we
are all waves of the tide. But the tide contains all the waves.
It may happen that waves which meet and mingle come to no consummation,
only a confusion and a swirl and a falling away again. These are the
myriad lives of human beings which pass in confusion of nothingness, the
uncreated lives. There are myriads of human lives that are not absolute
nor timeless, myriads that just waver and toss temporarily, never become
more than relative, never come into being. They have no being, no
immortality. There are myriads of plants that never come to flower, but
which perish away for ever, always separated in the fringe of time,
never united, never consummated, never brought forth.
I know I am compound of two waves, I, who am temporal and mortal. When I
am timeless and absolute, all duality has vanished. But whilst I am
temporal and mortal, I am framed in the struggle and embrace of the two
opposite waves of darkness and of light.
There is the wave of light in me which seeks the darkness, which has for
its goal the Source and the Beginning, for its God the Almighty Creator
to Whom is all power and glory. Thither the light of the seed of man
struggles and aspires, into the infinite darkness, the womb of all
creation.
What way is it that leads me on to the Source, to the Beginning? It is
the way of the blood, the way of power. Down the road of the blood,
further and further into the darkness, I come to the Almighty God Who
was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. I come to the Source
of Power. I am received back into the utter darkness of the Creator, I
am once again with Him.
This is a consummation, a becoming eternal. This is an arrival into
eternity. But eternity is only relative.
I can become one with God, consummated into eternity, by taking the road
down the senses into the utter darkness of power, till I am one with the
darkness of initial power, beyond knowledge of any opposite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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