Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse (1892)
“I think I could turn and live with animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one of them kneels to another or to his own kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one of them is respectable or unhappy, all over the earth.”
The Laird Summerisle
Mudra by Shin Taga 12th-century Japanese scroll showing different mudra gestures
"It has always been the endurance of suffering which makes the Man."
~Mise-n-abyme
|Artwork: 'Allegory of Impermanence' (Vanitas) — Hieronymus Wierix, ~1619
"To intertwine within the experiences of this fabric of reality without judgement, without any clues of an identity or separation from it, projects a deeper focus on what it truly means to receive the gift to participate within this human experience. What may be realized now is that no amount of ideological structure or conclusions can come close to this essence; that the very words and sentences of our understanding of literal and metaphorical language cannot fathom its ever-expanding pervasiveness which shrouds around us in each subtle moment of being.
We spend great deals in conferring solutions to what this existence might mean to us; we patent this meaning with a stamp of objectivity in hopes that it may align with our narrow scope of understanding, yet this small understanding is met with a wider perception of what we truly do not know. We are then met with the realization that what little we know is of nothing at all, as not even the smallest drop of wisdom penetrates onto the surface of this world; it is the reality of the unknown which drives man into desolation, the realization that we have no control over life but with the control of Will and reactions which may come to face. A life bounded by the restraints of the human condition; the mental faculties of what we do not know is possible and what could indeed be possible."
~Mise-n-abyme
|Artwork: 'The Chakras of the Subtle Body' —Unknown | Nepal, 18th century
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him [light] was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. – John 1: 3-5
"There are many planes of Being--many sub-planes of Life--many degrees of existence in the Universe. And all depend upon the advancement of beings in the scale, of which scale the lowest point is the grossest matter, the highest being separated only by the thinnest division from the SPIRIT of THE ALL."
-- The Kybalion
"When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that', it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all directions." -- Chuang-Tzu
“With the terrible Fire of Love we can transform ourselves into Gods to enter majestically into the Amphitheatre of Cosmic Science." Samael Aun Weor.
Metamorphoses Of Lucretia (1960) Zodiac by Ernst Fuchs
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.- Vincent Van Gogh