I've recently been reading this amazingly
brilliant work by Nietzsche ~ Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
It has seized my mind on Fire
with so many thoughts. Or more, perhaps
touched a deep aching part of my Soul
whose Passion has been gradually awakening to
hear (and further awakened, inspired, fired)
such a Relevence of Song.

I thought maybe some excerpts might inspire
discussion....
or that witness of these deep plungening sojourns of the Soul
might touch a recollection within all of us
in some common way we might share and aspire together.

I'm moved to begin with the climax,
for its poignancy touches in this very moment
so much of what I've been wanting to reach out to all
of you for some time and say,
though being immersed in process muted me.

Please share any thoughts that might arise.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Fourth Part--


(The Portable Nietzsche,
edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann)


The Drunken Song ~


6


Sweet lyre! Sweet lyre! I love your sound,
your drunken ranunculus' croaking. From how
long ago, from how far away your sound comes
to me, from the distant ponds of love!
You old bell, you sweet lyre! Every pain
has torn into your heart, father-pain,
father's pain, fore-fathers' pain;
your speech grew ripe-- ripe as
golden autumn and afternoon,
as my hermit's heart;
now you say; the world itself has grown
ripe, the grape is turning brown,
now it would die, die of happiness.
You higher men, do you not smell it?
A smell is
secretly welling up,
a fragrance and smell of eternity,
a rose-blessed, brown gold-wine fragrance
of old happiness, of the drunken happiness
of dying at midnight,
that sings:
the world is deep,
deeper than day had been aware.

7


Leave me! Leave me! I am too pure for you.
Do not touch me!
Did not my world become perfect just now?
My skin is too pure for your hands. Leave
me, you stupid, boorish, dumb day!
Is not the midnight brighter?
The purest shall be the lords of the earth--
the most unknown,
the strongest, the midnight souls
who are brighter and deeper than any day.

O day, you grope for me? You seek my
happiness? I seem rich to you, lonely,
a treasure pit, a gold-chamber?
O world, you want me?
Am I worldly to you?
Am I spiritual to you?
Am I godlike to you?
But day and world, you are too ponderous;
have cleverer hands,
reach for deeper happiness, for
deeper unhappiness, reach for
any god, do not reach for me:
my unhappiness, my happiness
is deep, you strange day, but
I am yet no god,
no god's hell; deep is its woe.



8



God's woe is deeper, you strange world!
Reach for God's woe, not for me!
What am I? a drunken sweet lyre--
a midnight lyre, an ominous bell-frog
that nobody understands but that must speak,
before the deaf, you higher men.
For you do not understand me!

Gone! Gone! O youth! O noon! O afternoon!
Now evening has come and night
and midnight--the dog howls, the wind:
is not the wind a dog? It whines, it yelps,
it howls.
Alas! Alas! How the midnight sighs!
How it laughs, how it rattles and wheezes!

How she speaks soberly now, this drunken poetess!
Perhaps she overdrank her
drunkenness? She became overawake?
She ruminates? Her woe she ruminates in
a dream, the old deep midnight, and even more her joy.
For joy, even if woe is deep,
joy is deeper yet than agony.

9


You vine! Why do you praise me?
Did I not cut you? I am cruel,
you bleed; what does your praise of
my drunken cruelty mean?

"What has become perfect, all that is
ripe--wnats to die"--thus you speak.
Blessed, blessed be the vintager's knife!
But all that is unripe want to live: woe!

Woe entreats: Go! Away, woe! But
all that suffers wants to live, that
it may become ripe and joyous and longing--
longing for what is farther, higher, brighter.
"I want heirs"--thus speaks all that suffers;
"I want children, I do not want myself."

Joy, however, does not want heirs, or
children--joy wants itself, wants eternity,
wants recurrence, wants everything
eternally the same.

Woe says, "Break, bleed, heart! Wander
leg! Wing, fly! Get on! Up! Pain!"
Well then, old heart:
Woe implores, "Go!"



10



You higher men, what do you think?
Am I a soothsayer? A dreamer? A drunkard?
An interpreter of dreams? A midnight
bell? A drop of dew?
A haze and fragrance of eternity?
Do you not hear it? Do you not smell it?
Just now my world became perfect;
midnight too is noon;
pain too is a joy; curses too are a
blessing; night too is a sun--
go away or you will learn:
a sage too is a fool.

Have you ever said Yes to a single joy?
O my friends, then you said Yes to all woe.
All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored;
if ever you wanted one thing twice,
if ever you said, "You please me, happiness!
Abide, moment!" then you wanted all back.
All anew,
all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored--
oh, then you loved the world.
Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore;
and to woe too, you say: go, but return!
For all joy wants---eternity.

11


All joy wants the eternity of all things,
wants honey, wants lees,
wants drunken midnight, wants tombs,
wants tomb-tears'
comfort, wants gilded evening glow.

What does joy not want? It is thirstier,
more cordial, hungrier, more terrible,
more secret than all woe;
it wants itself, it bites into itself,
the ring's will strives in it;
it wants love, it wants hatred,
it is overrich, gives throws away,
begs that one might take it, thanks the taker,
it would like to be hated;
so rich is joy that it thirsts for woe,
for hell, for hatred, for disgrace,
for the cripple, for world--
this world, oh, you know it!

You higher men, for you it longs, joy,
the intractable blessed one--
for your woe, you failures.
All eternal joy longs for failures.
For all joy wants itself,
hence it also wants agony.
O happiness, O pain!
Oh, break, heart!
You higher men, do learn this, joy wants
eternity.
Joy wants the eternity of all things,
wants deep, wants deep eternity.



12


Have you now learned my song?
Have you guessed its intent?
Well then, you higher men, sing me
now my round. Now you yourselves
sing me the song whose name is
"Once More" and whose meaning is
"into all eternity"---sing, you
higher men, Zarathustra's round!


O man, take care!
What does the deep midnight declare?
"I was asleep---
From a deep dream I woke and swear:
The world is deep,
Deeper than day had been aware.
Deep is its woe;
Joy---deeper yet than agony:
Woe implores: Go!
But all joy wants eternity---
Wants deep, wants deep eternity."

(spiral)


Woe wants eternity as well
wants deep, wants deep eternity

Wants Joy
Wants Joy Eternal
Woe's thirst is as great as Joy's--greater!
Deeper!
Feverish! Unquenchable!
Dying to the world
and its own self
for joy!
Woe remains for joy;
woe eternal.

Such is the deepest, deepest
Woe:
heart-sick longing
for Joy, Eternal.

Entangled, they are heart-sick brethren.
Longing each other eternally.


Dispersed now are thee, you higher men?
Atop this hill,
Lone Pilgrim of a Dying/Dawning Day
Horizon to Horizon
Vast
Moon to Sun,
so Vast
to Align this
Knowing Pace,
my fathers--
woe and joy's distance
is their
deepest merging.


Eternity is a pale shadow
of Eclipsing Dreams

A Crescendo Song
singing on.

Please, someone break this silence.

Please, someone understand.

I cannot reach out of this place.


I'm trying.

{{{*}}}

Voi La. All You had to say was Please.

Owe Woe is me to in Joy such Words.

Having spent most of my Time
pondering such Love between the two...
I pendulum between each
reflecting the same mirror.
And suffer each as hole heartedly as I can stand.

The Sweet and the Bitter
Complimenting insults.
Friendly foes of a Living war
Each placing stakes in the Human Heart.

The hill of Foresight
forever full of Blaze and Glory
burning a raging Fire of knowing...
Grand Vastness before Oneself
humbling a Sole
to the Greatness of withoutness.
The precipice of Bliss


The valley lying low
comforting complacency
of cradling mediocrity
The lure of security
Being surrounded by
Majestic insulation
burning a protective Fire
from the dark Stillness
Lulled into the sleep of
Withinness
The Abyss of bliss.

Which One to choose?
Without One, there is No Other.
Deep sorrow roots in Complete Joy.
Utter Joy stems from deep sorrow.

The Flower is You and I.
No matter what soil we're planted in...

We must...

All Ways stretch toward the Sun

Come Rain or Come Shine.


2U

Chahles

Bless You.

Sorry Lisa...

I would have jumped in to share/spiral with you, but I'm not really sure what the poem is all about. I have a hard time following poetry unless it is pretty straight forward with what it is trying to say.

I've picked up on the woe wanting for joy to feel it again, but that's about it. I sure hope you find the joy again love.

Dear Lisa,

THANK YOU for all this beauty on a dark and rainy winter afternoon.

I have no words right now, but just feeling, which I am sure we share.

Would love to discuss this with you, Chahles and anyone. Would you like to start it? I can tell you are quite deeply moved... and I know you are aching for someone to "get it" with you.

Nice Cat song for the thread, nice pulling that together. I also love his song "Oh Very Young."

Wonderful reply, Chahldean!

Hey PD ,

So happy that you have jumped in here to spiral with Lisa. I figured you'd "get it" with that lyrical soul you have.

Well thanks for that, Kelly.

As far as lyrical souls, it is rather daunting to post among such as Lisa and Chahles!

I believe that woe
is not eternal,
nor that joy and bliss forever depend on it;
rather that woe is of separation,
"the fall,"
which is temporary.

Love,

Halo Fellow Sojourners...

If anyOne can Spiral with the best of them it's Neitzche

As far as interpretations go, it is only what your Heart tells You that matters most....the Words merely become Your post.

I believe we are all on the Mark hear; each having the sense of loss and frustration, forever trying to attain the balance of contentment amongst the tettering level of Life.
...reMinding me of a favorite mantra of Mine...sung by Francis Albert...hummed by Yours truly when Life seems to get in the Way of my plans....

"That's Life!" (You sing "that's Life" again...)
That's what all The People say...
Your riding High in April
Shot down in May
But don't let It get You down
Cause this fine ole' Whirled
keeps spinnin' Round...(Kinda like this forum)
I been a Puppet, a Pirate,a Poet,a Pauper;
a Pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
and I know One Thing.
THat each Time I find my Self lyin'
flat on my face
I'm gonna pick my Self up and get back in the Race!
That's Life! ( a little louder now)
and I can't deny It
Many Times I thought of quittin Baby,
but my Heart wouldn't buy It
and If I didn't think It was worth One single try.....
I'de roll my Self Up
in a Big
and get High!....."


(Big Finish hear)
My.......My.

Whew.


I Believe You got It right Kelly...like an Arrow to the Mark.
Dead on as they say....

and Dear Dreamer....I agree with You in Your Words that woe is NOT eternal and is only a seperation of our God given Rite to Joy.
"The Fall" is a very interesting analogy to the daily task a attaining a Divine status while climbing to the Top.
It is a temporary set back to the ground we have covered...
searching for sure footings, a stable hand to hold onto...
a friendly Face to assure Us
safe passage to the promised Land.

Stand or Fall.

Another good song...by the "Fixx"

Hmm. MayBe sum Druids are in the Band?

Let's all keep em comin"....we All need each Other to dance.




Chahles

Neitzche ... I'll confess to having read some ... I'll confess to having liked some ... I'll confessed to having later felt appalled that I like some ... I'll confess to having next wanted to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra ... I'll confess to having not done so ... and I'll cop to being totally conflicted over Neitzche as a being. Not sure whether he's angel or demon, you know? So far out on the edge of the acute angle made where the two intersect.

And now that I believe there was at least an anscestral and heritage-based linkage between the Magi who visited Jesus and the Zoroastrian high priest magi of earlier centuries, I feel like I need to dig into and get to know the stories of Zarathustra in ancient Zoroastrianism before I read a totally high philosopher turning all of religion on its head.

So I don't feel ready to dip back into Neitzche. But I could spiral from Neitzche to Bowie. I think he was reading Neitzche back in the days when he wrote Cynet Committee. It's a great song, one of his first ones in which he was struggling with God. Not so much with the idea of God but directly with God. He has a bunch of those loving-and-fighting with God songs on his much more recent CD, Heathen, too. Of course, you know I think he's wonderful. I dig listening to his whole dream of life.

Anyway, Cynet Committee is a fabulous song ... a long jam. Do you guys know it? The lyrics are here:
http://teenagewildlife.com/Albums/SO/CC.html

Maria

well
thank you all for joining me here.
Your Presence here
is Understanding.
More Understanding than I could
ask for or need.

At times,
the Reverence of Pause
moves me to take
it All in,
lest Nothing of Possibility
be passed by.
Chahlie's words
often have a way of rendering
me momentarily speechless that way.
So much Knowing
only a Soul of Experience
could say...as You All.

Masters are Masters
for their Suffering.

For their Suffering~
Greatest Joy.



woe and joy's distance
is their deepest merging...

There are layers
of feeling within that,
I was hoping to convey.

The deepest, pain of hopeless heart-sick longing, yes.
But also an Exaltingly Beautiful Merging
that would not otherwise be, but for such
Admirable Focus Seperation Inspires.

their distance is their deepest merging

A deepest imagineable tender intimacy for the Quiet
Space between them.
This reflective, reverent Space, gifting a togetherness.

As with most things,
vistas of understanding are much broader
than their surface strokes and colours.

Like Neitzsche, who often wrote in such
contradictive layers--that being the clue
that possibilities of boundless Inner Exploration
exists always in his Prose.
And what may appear contradictive is for
broad Understanding of the awaiting
either and both Potential
in All things.

His Vision was encompassing, reaching,
So Wide.
If we look only for his Knowledge,
we miss the deep Heart, Blood
and Soul that moved his pen.

I have more to say,
I wish I had more time.

I didn't know that song, Maria.
Wow.


thank you, everyone, for being here,
sharing/listening.

"Masters are Masters
for their Suffering.

For their Suffering~
Greatest Joy. "

having mastered the knowing that all suffering is unnecessary



"woe and joy's distance
is their deepest merging...

There are layers
of feeling within that,
I was hoping to convey.

The deepest, pain of hopeless heart-sick longing, yes.
But also an Exaltingly Beautiful Merging
that would not otherwise be, but for such
Admirable Focus Seperation Inspires.

their distance is their deepest merging

A deepest imagineable tender intimacy for the Quiet
Space between them.
This reflective, reverent Space, gifting a togetherness.

As with most things,
vistas of understanding are much broader
than their surface strokes and colours.

Like Neitzsche, who often wrote in such
contradictive layers--that being the clue
that possibilities of boundless Inner Exploration
exists always in his Prose.
And what may appear contradictive is for
broad Understanding of the awaiting
either and both Potential
in All things."

... the awaiting realization of the potential, in contrast with the merely (unfulfilled) potential, in All...
Union of mind is divine, is everything; in union of All is the boundless...
There is no true real separation; "space" does not separate what is merged. There is only unity. The illusion of separation makes woe... The illusion of separation is the teaching tool, lessons, of this, and this illusion ends at full circle, where At~Onement allows the realization of potential...

Are we thinking/saying alike?

PD, thank you for sharing here
and sorry for my delay.

Are we thinking alike?
I believe in some respects we are very
much intune with each other.
That's the feeling that arises
within me while reading your words.
Although perhaps in other ways
we're at
a different place of understanding
within ourselves.
Which seems to me
revealing of a great opportunity
to explore and learn from one another.

Hope to gather my thoughts
to better express myself soon.

Thank you.

And yes....
I was very moved.
By you all.

"their distance is their deepest merging"

Each plays a part in this union
When solitude calls them both
To some hidden meeting place
Where neither sees the other
Nor can they help but

Slowly the whirl
Of their common melancholy becomes
Loneliness' smoky hands linked between them
Swirling into a common color
Longing's lighter shade of missing something
Reflects flecks of closeness
Unmistakably lost, yet still so beautiful.

(Chaldean is a spiralling GAWD! Wow.)

You folks are beautiful.

daf

"His Vision was encompassing, reaching,
So Wide.
If we look only for his Knowledge,
we miss the deep Heart, Blood
and Soul that moved his pen."


Well said.

so poetically beautiful, daf.

and you as well, piscesdreamer:




There is real and beautiful Truth in that.
How well more alive and close to our potential do we feel,
then when we feel in connection? Whether connection with Nature, with our Selves, each other...with Divinity.

I'd like to share something here. It's often a difficult
conception to relate.

I see seperation in Oneness, for Oneness being ALL,
is always Both.
Therefore, the All would contain seperation as well
as connection.
The All does not wipe existance of anything away.
It embraces; it enfolds All (existance) into It.

Is pain necessary?

Pain is.

Necessary or not, it is,
and for whatever reason
Potential's inspiring breath
is most often accelerated and enhanced for the
experience (process).

I see this infinate myriad flow of movement
and simultaneously a source; a stillness.
Such is All.
So, therefore as All, would be Both.
Still and moving;
contracting and expanding;
reaching/retreating;
attracting/repulsing.

You know the feeling when you come to a realization?
Doesn't it feel intuitively as if it were something
you already knew...
Somethere there...the layers/ the veil pulled away?

There is another example of this Divine Intuition.
This Both, this All at play.

I think often people misunderstand Oneness as encompassing,
as a conclusion-- a perrenial State of Being.
Of course it is....but that would be exclusive thought...
wouldn't it?
Exclusive in the sense that it denys the other (the non-Oneness),
so therefore is not truly All.

I cannot grasp a sentient, always happy,
always pain-free, "enlightened" Being.
Such a Being has never existed and never will.
Everything is in movement.
Infinately in Cycle to the next.

We can become a witness...
in this pre-acceptance of "tao"
we can still ourselves better in awareness
of what may come and what will pass.
In this sense, we may prepare ourselves,
therefore feel less pain,
look to the dawn's blush of Hope that will
yet come over the horizon...
look to the sorrow that will also
rise on our way over the next hill...

but as feeling, empathatic Beings,
our capability of Pain is one of our
greatest Gifts, revealing our sensitivities
and compassion to all that is yet so far off
from our greater visions of rightness of be-ing.
Especially towards One another.

The greatest irony is
that an Enlightened World
could not become
"enlightened"
for not the heart-panged
awareness that aroused its becoming.

And if it is to keep evolving,
the most divine ingrediant needed
will be to place one's heart in
other's hearts and feel the pain
that beats within there as well.

We think on our own pain and seperation...
it aids us to understand others more compassionately...

what begins with seperation
becomes divine connection.
A natural metamorphosis~
the catapillar becomes.


It saddens me how people do so to each other.
"a master is never sad, never experiences pain".
I will never believe in that,
nor place that isolation on anyone.
That's what it is-- alienating. Isolating.

We take someone already suffering,
and degrade them for it,
as if it is less wise...lacking.

It's difficult, as I said...overwhelming
trying to encompass all of these things into
one post.
And especially, I don't mean to say that you, PD,
or anyone has done so here.
I'm speaking in general...especially in new age
circles.

who hide behind an impenetrable "positive-happy-enlightened-bubble".
What does it serve, other than to contain oneself
in selfish disillusion and keep realer, more soul-felt,
profound connection, learning and growing
at bay?

BlueDove

is that Frederick Nietzsche you've been quoting/writing? the heading looked familiar must have read it before.
cant see the spelling now yes I can

Wow Blue Dove. What an awesome, third eye opening post you shared with us. Thank you so much for saying the words I have been waiting so long to hear. I especially loved these passages:

"I cannot grasp a sentient, always happy,
always pain-free, "enlightened" Being.
Such a Being has never existed and never will.
Everything is in movement.
Infinately in Cycle to the next."

"It saddens me how people do so to each other.
"a master is never sad, never experiences pain".
I will never believe in that,
nor place that isolation on anyone."

"who hide behind an impenetrable "positive-happy-enlightened-bubble".
What does it serve, other than to contain oneself
in selfish disillusion and keep realer, more soul-felt,
profound connection, learning and growing
at bay?"

I'm one that tends to put alot of pressure on myself to be positive and happy all the time. Thank you so much for your loving reminder that it's OK to hurt and feel sad sometimes. I do believe that what you said about pain, "Potential's inspiring breath is most often accelerated and enhanced for the experience" has alot of truth to it. Thanks again for sharing your wisdom with us.


Tracey

Nice to hear that it touched something within you,
Tracey.

thank you

Thus speak the Children of Eden.

Who is to be known but by that which they take into their hearts from the common human experience? Is there a pain that is not yours as well? Is there a suffering in your surroundings that you will not, do not feel..if not now..then certainly "when the bell tolls for thee..?"

Such reverent "value" we place on these "nirvanic miracles." Walking with our eyes to the sky, oblivious of the teeming masses still grounded; yet to reach the heavens.

Is this then, the logical calling of all people? To feel others' pain; share it among us? To dilute its hold upon our daily wonderings with compassion that our overall outlook on these living gyrations might tend to higher things than the mundane minutia of our simple suffering?

We are liberated beings playing out the part of convicts for no good reason other than unwillingness to accept the reality that similar walls imprison us all.

Perhaps the blissful have abandoned us to our fate?

daf

You are such poetic souls.
I love your beautiful thoughts.

I am deeply intrigued by Nietzsche's Zarathustra, this is definitely a book I am going to look out for.

Perhaps when I have managed to read it, I will be back here again some day to share my thoughts.

Love to you all.