TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

January 17, 2008

Chrysalis
Muriel Spark: introduced by Mick Imlah

Chrysalis

We found it on a bunch of grapes and put it
In cotton wool, in a matchbox partly open,
In a room in London in wintertime, and in
A safe place, and then forgot it.

Early in the cold spring we said "See this!
Where on earth did the butterfly come from?"
It looked so unnatural whisking about the curtain:
Then we remembered the chrysalis.

There was the broken shell with what was once
The head askew; and what was once the worm
Was away out of the window, out of the warm,
Out of the scene of the small violence.

Not strange, that the pretty creature formalized
The virtue of its dark unconscious wait
For pincers of light to come and pick it out.
But it was a bad business, our being surprised.

Muriel Spark (1951)

DAILY MAIL

Thursday, April 6, 2006

Jonathan Cainer

GEMINI

May 22 -June 22

CATERPILLARS, when they form cocoons, do not succumb to any sudden doubts.They do not wonder why it is necessary to lock themselves away for a while. They do not consider that it might be unhealthy to retreat so far: Nor, when they finally emerge as blazing, beautiful butterflies, do they stop to-wonder whether life might have been better back in the-old days without wings. You are going through a profound transformation. Absolutely nothing is wrong with this."

MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY

Father Andrew 1934

MONDAY IN EASTER WEEK

RISEN INDEED

'The Lord is risen indeed.'-S. LUKE xxiv. 34­

Page 136

SAINT JOHN tells us in his Gospel that, when he and Peter went speeding down to the sepulchre of our Lord and entered in, he ' saw and believed.' What was it that brought conviction to John? He saw something in the way the grave-clothes were disposed which brought absolute conviction to him of our Lord's Resurrection. If he had just seen the grave­clothes put on one side, surely he would have thought, as the women thought, that the body of our Lord had been taken from the tomb, but there was something about them which he says brought conviction to him.
The Jewish method of burial was to wind linen round and round the body, sprinkling myrrh and spices upon the linen as they did so. The myrrh was sticky and made the bands of linen adhere closely together, so that the body was like a mummy or the chrysalis of a caterpillar. What S. John saw, when he entered the tomb, was that the linen which had been wound round the body still kept its shape, but it was clear that the body was not inside it. The linen lay there like an empty shell or a chrysalis from which the moth has risen. The napkin which had been laid over the face of Jesus had fallen back and lay in its own place by itself. He saw that, and it brought conviction to him, and he went away with a wholly different frame of mind from that with which he came. As Bishop Westcott says so well in his commentary, the feeling of the apostles is better expressed by their words, , The Master lives,' than by the words, , He is risen.' They realized that our Lord had never been defeated by death.

MAN'S UNKNOWN JOURNEY

Staveley Bulford 1941

An introduction and contribution to the study of subjects essential to a new revelation - The Evolution of the Mind and Consciousness - in the journey of Mankind towards Perfection on and beyond the Earth

Page 190/191

"Words are inadequate to express the multitude of patterns of both Harmony and Discord portrayed by Thought, and the reader who may be unfamiliar with such a possibility as Thought power, must feel somewhat like a cocoon being told that some day he will be a butterfly himself and fly around from / flower to to flower that even at the present moment he, the cocoon, possesses all the essentials for that almost inconceivable manifestation."

THE DEATH OF FOREVER

A NEW FUTURE FOR HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

1991

Page 266

"We should create new rites of passage to celebrate the phases of the human life cycle, rituals for birth, for the transit into adolescence, and above all, for dying.
Of these, the need for a ritual of dying is the most urgent. I know of no greater testament to the failure of our civilisation than the fact that so many people die alone, abandoned like discards on society's junk heap. Dying must again be united with a sense of the sacred, for it is here, if anywhere, that the psyche outgrows its human limitation. The most important message of this book is that consciousness cannot be extinguished by death, for consciousness transcends time. We should learn to approach death with gratitude, seeing it for what it is, the final elimination of ego, the end of the fallacies of time and self.
In the end it can all be said so simply.
Time and self are outgrown husks which consciousness will one day discard, just as a butterfly abandons its chrysalis to fly towards the sun.

IN THE END IT CAN ALL BE SAID SO SIMPLY TIME AND SELF

ARE OUTGROWN HUSKS WHICH CONSCIOUSNESS WILL ONE DAY DISCARD

JUST AS A BUTTERFLY ABANDONS ITS CHRYSALIS TO FLY TOWARDS THE SUN

THE

DIVINE FEMININE DIVINE

DIVINE MASCULINE DIVINE

YOU BE WITH GOD BE WITH YOU

AND THEY ALL SAID AMEN TO THAT

YOU ARE GOING ON A JOURNEY A VERY SPECIAL JOURNEY DO HAVE A PLEASANT JOURNEY DO

O

BUTTERFLY THAT FLUTTERS BY FLUTTERS BY THAT BUTTERFLY

THE

HUMAN

CHRYSALIS HUMAN CHRYSALIS

GODS CHOSEN GODS CHOSEN GODS

THE LIGHT IS RISING RISING IS THE LIGHT

HURRAH FOR RAH FOR RAH HURRAH

THE VEIL OF LIFE IS RENT I ME I RENT IS THE VEIL OF LIFE

AND

THEY ALL SAID AMEN TO THAT

THE LIGHT IS RISING RISING IS THE LIGHT

HURRAH FOR RAH FOR RAH HURRAH

THE VEIL OF LIFE IS RENT I ME I RENT IS THE VEIL OF LIFE

AND

THEY ALL SAID AMEN TO THAT