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Post by tannis on Oct 5, 2009 2:27:20 GMT
REFLECTIONS IN A SEA OF HONEY
"In Paradise there is a sea of honey, a sea of wine, a sea of milk and a sea of water, and the rivers flow out of these seas." [Jami' al-Usul, 10/508]
"THE love of God is a sea of honey, and it matters not if, in wading into it, we be swallowed up of it, and drowned therein ; indeed, it is such a subject as cannot be set out by discourse, or in a mere rational manner, for so it passeth knowledge in any human way, and it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us."
~ The Pot of Manna
39. All having departed, and gone home, The king of the Kurdwa, alone and sad, Went to the apartment of his wife, Who was said to be exquisitely beautiful, even exceeding the females of heaven, and containing more sweetness than a sea of honey.
40. When he reached the place where his wife was, he spoke not, but continued silent,
Oppress'd with grief, and lost to every thing; In this mood he remained, till the coolness of evening came, and The sun shone bright in the west.
41. The sun about to disappear, looked as if descending into the bosom of the deep, And cast a beautiful and pleasing appearance on the palace; But it assumed all at once a pale and sombre aspect, While the women within were happy and joyful.
~ from THE BRATA YUDHA, AN EPIC POEM IN THE KAWI OR CLASSIC LANGUAGE OF JAVA (The History of Java, Volume 1, Thomas Stamford Raffles, 1830)
Take, as an instance, the popular Hindu belief regarding the Universe, viz: "There are fourteen worlds. Below the nethermost is the hell of the damned, and over the uppermost is the place of the blessed. Their inhabitants are various; but in one world there are 330,000,000 millions of Gods. All fourteen worlds are alike in length and breadth, namely, each 50,000,000,000,000 miles long, and 25,000,000,000,000 miles wide. The mountain Maha Meru penetrates through all fourteen worlds, and in height and breadth is 1,600,000,000,000 miles each. There are seven seas surrounding the world, namely, the Salt Sea, the Sea of Treacle, the Sea of Sweet Curds, the Sea of Butter, the Sea of Honey, the Sea of Milk, and the Sea of Pure Water. Eight elephants and eight snakes support these fourteen worlds. One snake, however, having 1,000 heads, supports the whole on one of its heads."
~ Mission Life: Home and Foreign Churchwork, Volume 5, 1868
16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him...
God is love: the Syriac reads, for God is love, giving the reason why he had said, and we have believed the love, and why God hath love towards us. The reason is because God Himself by His Essence is love. Therefore He cannot deceive him who believes, hopes in, and loves Him.
Now the reason why God is essentially love is because He Himself in His Essence is pure, perfect, and highest goodness, whose nature it is to be plainly and fully communicative and diffusive of Himself. This, says S. Dionysius, is an attribute of love. For God is a sea of honey, an ocean of goodness and charity. God is as it were a fire always burning, kindling all things and transforming them into Itself.
~ The Great Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide, 1908.
Bees droned monotonously in the big hydrangeas. She was marooned in a sea of
honey. The sun on her face was thick and sweet and smelled of August in the country. It stretched out like a lazy beast, a beast furred in gold, claws sheathed, its tawny throat vulnerable.
~ The Young American Writers: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Criticism, Richard Kostelanetz, 1967
You toss your hair on the pillow, bewildered:
a sea of honey laps your ankles, there is
salt on your lips, your hair
the color of sleep is in my eyes...
~ H.D., Woman and Poet, Michael John King, 1986.
The Buddhist way of approaching art is nonaggressive. Aggressiveness brings competitiveness, money concerns, comparison, frustration, excitement, all kinds of things. If there's no aggression, that brings joy, openness, dance. I don't mean joy in a sense of love-and-light, swimming in a sea of honey—but joy in the sense that things could be touched and appreciated. You could look at things that are beautiful, but there's no point in picking the flower. You can look at things, you can experience things, you can feel things, you can touch things, and that's fantastic. There is a real sense of real richness taking place from that perspective of nonaggression, nonpossessiveness. Some people go window-shopping in big cities, and all the time they are miserable because they can't afford to buy anything. Other people go window-shopping because they like to look at beautiful things. That seems to be the basic distinction.
~ Dharma art, Chögyam Trungpa, Judith L. Lief, 1996, p.21.
(Even so, that Lady-in-Waiting Tambuhan is the daughter of a king. / Her appearance is beautiful and her countenance is radiant. / Pleasant and sweet is her modest demeanour, / as if she cultivates such a behaviour. // The eye never tires of gazing at her. / All who behold her gape with astonishment. / She is sweet like a sea of honey; / indeed a proper wife for my royal son.')
~ Roaming through Seductive Gardens: Readings in Malay Narrative, G. L. Koster et al, 1997
Lovers, lovers, I am mad; where is the chain? Chain-rattler of the soul, your clamor fills the world.
You have forged another chain and flung it upon my neck; you have galloped from heaven to waylay the caravan.
Rise, soul, from the world, fly from earth and earth's plot; for our sake this torch is revolving in heaven.
He who is pained at heart, how shall his way be barred by rain and mud? That man is quit of love for whom mountain has not become a mustard grain.
One day a hermaphrodite cried, saying, "Wicked shepherd, why, that goat is biting me, he looked at me from the flock."
The shepherd said, "He bites the hermaphrodite and perhaps slays him underfoot, but should that trouble a real man" "You have spoken well," said the other.
Where is your reason, if you speak? Where your foot to go running, to go from dry land to sea and become secure from the earthquake?
Then you will become king of kings, enter the ternal kingdom, rise higher than the heaven, depart from this dunghill;
Active like the Universal Reason, surging like a sea of honey, like the sun in Aries, like the moon in Virgo.
A hundred crows and owls and doves are making melody in your ears; if only this clamor were less, you would hear the sounds of the heart.
~ Mystical Poems of Rumi 2, By Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Maulana), Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Ehsan Yar-Shater, 1991.
THE SEA OF HONEY sent word to me this morning:
See this wave on wave of honey?
To people's eyes they are ghazals
While fasting, one drinks in only the sound of water
And yet, eventually, that sound does its work
Sama' is the gurgle of water as the thirsty dance
You'll come to life with this call of babbling water
Water says: you've grown from me, you'll come to me
You'll return at last to where you first were
I swear by your precious head!
If any of this water spills on the head
even one that's bald
a musk-black tangle of tufts will sprout
The imbiber did not mix the wine with this water
He'll be hungover on and on. Just wait, you'll see.
~ Rumi: Swallowing The Sun : Poems Translated from the Persian, Franklin D. Lewis, 2008
Ragoe (an old-fashioned Ardja story)
Sri Darmapoedja, King of Jodyanegara, had a beautiful daughter named Radjapoetri. One day she was looking out of the watch-tower when she saw an incredibly beautiful youth standing among the crowd. She was so enchanted by his beauty that she sent her maid Warsiki to find out who he was. It appeared that he was the headman’s son, and his name was Ragoe. The princess fell madly in love with him and would neither eat nor drink. At last she could bear it no longer, and sent Warsiki to tell him he must come to her that every night. Ragu obeyed, and they passed a rapturous night together. Every night he came to her, till one day he was seen by another maid-servant, who told the king what was going on
The king was furious. He called the headman and priest together, and debated with them how Ragu should be punished. Most of them were opinion that he should be thrown into the sea, according to ancient custom. But one priest said that would be too quick and easy death, and advised sending him away in search of 'the horned elephant fish with pig’s feet'.
So Ragoe was banished on this hopeless quest, and wandered about for months in vain. Worn out at last, he sat down one day in the forest and wept. A bird named Pakshi Raja, flying about in search of food, heard a human voice, and flew down and settled beside the beautiful Ragoe. Ragoe begged to him eat up quickly, but Pakshi Raja took pity on him and asked why he was weeping. When Ragoe had told his story the bird said it knew where such a monster could be found; beyond the seven seas, in the possession of Detya Banda. It gave him a bird-dress and a spell and said 'Beyond the seven seas you will find a stone house in which lives the nymph Nilotama, who is kept prisoner by Detya Banda. She will able to help you.' Ragoe flew over the seven seas: the watery sea, the salt sea, the sea of honey, the sea of mud, the sea of sand, the sea of blood, and the sea of fire. When he came to the stone house and turned on his spell, Nilotama could not stand the heat and came out the house. She asked who he was and what he wanted, and he told her his story. She was overjoyed at his coming and promised him the 'horned elephant-fish' if he would take her with him as his wife. He promised; she went inside, brought out all the weapons and amulets and magic crystal which belonged to Detya Banda. Then she coiled herself up in a crystal and bade Ragu hide it in his belt. He took with him all the other treasures as well, and they flew away. Detya Banda, feeling something was amiss, came hurrying home and found he had been robbed of all his treasures. He immediately set off in pursuit. When Ragoe saw him coming he shot off the sea-charm which produced a great sea. But Detya swam over the sea. Then Ragoe shot off the stone-charm, and Detya turned into stone and died. When he reached home in the middle of the night Ragoe knocked at the door, and called his father and mother by name. They heard, but could not believe it was really he. At last, however, they opened the door and saw their son whom they had long believed to be dead. He brought out his crystal, and his wife Nilotama opened it and came forth. A meal was made ready, and there was universal rejoicing. Next morning Nilotama changed one of the charms into the improbable monster, and Ragoe went off with it to the king. The creature was placed on the ground, and grew before their very eyes to supernatural stature. The priest, after reference to his book, confirmed its authenticity.
Ragoe returned home and disported himself with his wife. But the king was not satisfied, and sent his patih to spy upon Ragoe and discover how he had contrived to beget the 'elephant-fish.' The patih climbed a tree and looked over the wall and saw Ragoe making love with Nilotama. He brought back news of a ravishingly beautiful woman, surpassing all the king's wives in beauty. Thereupon the king sent his pedanda to Ragoe to ask him to give up his wife. Ragoe dutifully agreed, but Nilotama protested that it was of ill omen for a king to take a woman who had already slept with a sudra. The king was very angry, and tried to get rid of Ragoe by giving him a new commission. He was to find the charm named Surya [The Sun]. This was easily done with Nilotama’s help, but when the king took hold of it he burned his fingers so badly that he resolved to get rid of Ragoe for good and all. He ordered the drums to be beaten, and when a whole army had been drummed together, he sent it to surround Ragoe’s house, to take it by storm and kill him.
When Ragu heard the drums he wept for fear. But Nilotama comforted him and said she would dispose the army. She charmed a deep sea round the house, and two savage snakes to right and left of the doorway, one red, one white. The army came storming forward and fell upon the red snake, and were all killed or drowned. Last came the king. The white snake leapt upon him and flung him high up into a coconut palm, where he hung head downwards from a bough. As the king hung there, helpless he begged Nilotama to have pity on him and to spare his life, promising in return to give up his throne and his kingdom to Ragoe. 'You shall be queen,' he said 'and I will serve you as your humble slave.' So she commanded the snake to set him free. And Ragoe became king over the whole land of Jodyanegara, and the king became his patih and gave him his daughter as concubine.
And Rogoe was the great-grandfather of Rama.
~ Dance and Drama in Bali, Beryl De Zoete, Walter Spies, 1952.
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