The Castalia Foundation - Transcendental Experience

Homage to the Awe-full See-er

A Poem By Timothy Leary, 1967

At each beat
in the earth's rotating dance
there is born... "________"
a momentary cluster of molecules
possessing the transient ability to know-see-experience
its own place in the evolutionary spiral.
Such an organism, such an event, senses exactly where he is
in the billion-year old ballet.
He is able to trace back
the history of the deoxyribonucleic wire
(of which he is both conductive element and current)
He can experience the next moment in all its meaning.
Million to the millioneth meaning.
Exactly that.
Some divine see-ers are recognized
for this unique capacity. Those that are recognized
are called and killed by various names.
Most of them are not recognized;
they float through life
like a snow-flake retina kissing the earth
where they land in soft explosion.
No one ever hears them murmur
"Ah there,"
at the moment of impact.
These men,
are aware of each other's existence
the way each particle in the hurtling nuclear trapeze
is aware of other particles.
They move too fast to give names to themselves or each other.
Such men can be described in no more precise and less foolish
terms than the descriptive equations of nuclear physics.
They have no more or less meaning in the
cultural games of life than electrons have in the game of chess.
They are present but cannot be perceived nor categorized.
They exist at a level
beyond that of the black and white squares
of the game board.
The "________"
process has no function,
but can serve a function in our learning games.
It can be used to teach.
Like this.
Take on apple and slice it down the middle.
A thin red circle surrounds gleaming white meat
and there, towards the center, is a dark seed.
Look at the seed.
Its function is beyond any of your games,
but you can use its properties.
You can use the seed.
The seed can teach you.
If you knew how to listen
the seed would hum you a seed-song.
The divine incarnates, "________" teach this way.
They teach like a snowflake caught in the hand teaches.
Once you speak the message you have lost it.
Once you know the message, you no longer know it.
The seed becomes a dried pit.
The snowflake a film of water on your hand.
Wise incarnates are continually
exploding in beautiful dance form.
Like the eye of a speckled fish looks at you unblinking,
dying in your hand.
Like cancer virus softly fragmenting
divine beauty in the grasp of your tissue.
Now and then "________" flower-bursts in song,
in words,
"xywprhd,"
"P-8g@cap,"
"evol."
The message is always the same
though the noise,
the scratched rhumba of inkmarks is always different.
The message is like Einstein's equation felt as orgasm.
The serpent unwinds up the spine
and mushrooms lotus sunflare in the skull.
If I tell you that the apple seed message hums
the drone of a Hindu flute, will I stop the drone?
The secret of "________" is that it must always be secret.
Divine sage recognized,
message is lost.
Snowflake caught, pattern changed.
The trick of the divine incarnate can now be dimly understood.
He dances out the pattern without ever being recognized.
As soon as he is caught in the act, he melts in your hand.
(The message is then contained in the drop of water,
but this involves another chaos for the infinite.)
The sign of "________" is change and anonymity.
As soon as you try to glorify,
sanctify, worship, admire, deify,
an incarnate,
you have killed him.
Thus the pharisees
were performing a merry-holy ballet. All praise to them!
It is the Christians who kill Christ.
As soon as you invent a symbol,
give "________" a name,
you assassinate the process
to serve your own ends.
To speak the name of Buddha,
Christ,
Lao Tse,
(except, maybe as an ejaculation,
a sudden ecstatic breath like,
"Oohl" "Wowl"
"Whew!"
"Ha ha ha")
is to speak a dirty word,
to murder the living God,
fix him with your preservative,
razor him into microscope slides,
Sell him for profit in your biological supply house.
The incarnate has no function.
But his effect is to produce the ecstatic gasp.
Wowl
Whewl God!
Jesus!
The uncontrolleable visionary laugh.
Too much!
So what!
The stark stare of wonder.
Awful!
Awe-full!