From "A Long Day's Journey Into Night," by Eugene O'Neill
[After talking with a friend (by email) about the 'busy-ness' of our lives, I found this excerpt from the great writer O'Neill, who lived for seven years just down the road (a sleepy two-laner in those days, not the eight-lane freeway it has become) in Danville, CA. I think it sums up my personal moment of inspiration/aspiration today. -- Rick]
From Eugene O'Neill:
I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail in the white moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself -- actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way...
For a second you see -- and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!
It was a great mistake, my being born a man. I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!
"...stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!" No good reason indeed! It's always available to Seers. It may not always be ecstatic, but it's always Here. We are strangers to each other as human beings. We are never at home as human beings. We don't belong. But as This, it all belongs to (each of) us. We are the Host, and at Home! Anytime! Anywhere!
[I was inspired to search this out from a picture and story in the Contra Costa Times -- of a new memorial just unveiled in the Town of Danville, honoring a most famous former resident.]
From Eugene O'Neill:
I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail in the white moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself -- actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way...
For a second you see -- and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!
It was a great mistake, my being born a man. I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!
"...stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!" No good reason indeed! It's always available to Seers. It may not always be ecstatic, but it's always Here. We are strangers to each other as human beings. We are never at home as human beings. We don't belong. But as This, it all belongs to (each of) us. We are the Host, and at Home! Anytime! Anywhere!
[I was inspired to search this out from a picture and story in the Contra Costa Times -- of a new memorial just unveiled in the Town of Danville, honoring a most famous former resident.]
posted by Rev. Rick Mitchell, PhD @ 2:36 PM
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