So much remorse, grief, and sorrow, within me for the unwise suffering-causing deeds of my past. Yet all I have in recompense for decades of strife, violence, selfishness, hate, are tears, the cries, alone - and words, lifeless words, such as this; words, to - perhaps, hopefully - forewarn forswear so that others, some few, hearing, reading, may possibly avoid, learn from, the errors that marked, made, and were, my hubris.
Such an elixir of extremism [1] which I, with paens born of deluded destiny, refined, distilled, made and - like some medieval fake apothecary - saught to peddle as cure for ailments that never did exist.
Then her - Francine's - death that day late May such that for so long a time such feelings of remorse, grief, and sorrow, overwhelmed so that Sleep when he deigned to arrive arrived to take me only fitfully, slowly, back to Night and usually only after I, in darkness, lay to listen to such music as so recalled another aetheral, beautiful, older, world untainted by the likes of me; a world recalled, made manifest, to me in the sacred music of Josquin Desprez, Dunstable, Tallis, William Byrd, Tomás Luis de Victoria...
Such a longing then in those lengthy days longer nights to believe, to reclaim the faith - Christe Redemptor Omnium - of decades past to then presence, within, a sanctified expiation that might could remove that oppressive if needed burden. Of remorse, grief, sorrow, guilt. But was it only pride - stubborn pride - that bade me resist? Or some feeling of failures, before? Some memory primordial, pagan perhaps, of how why Night - She, subduer of gods, men [2] - alone by Herself brought forth day from dark and caused us all to sleep to dream to somewhere and of Necessity to die? I do not know, I do not know that why.
For there was then only interior strife until such time as such longing for such faith slowly ceased; no words in explanation, expiation. Ceased, to leave only the pain of a life mis-spent, left in memories of tears that lasted years. No prayer, no invocations; not even any propitiation to redeem, protect, to save. Only, and now, the minutes passing to hours to days as Sun - greeting, rising, descending, departed - passes from to return to the dark only to be born again anew; each newness unique, when seen.
I have no excuses; the failure of decades was mine. A failure of compassion, empathy, honour. A failure as a human being. There are no excuses for my past, for deeds such as mine. No excuses for selfishness, for a hubris of personal emotion. No excuse for deceit, deception, lies. No excuse for extremism, for racism, for the politics, the religion, of hate. For the simple truth - if so lately-discovered by me - is that the giver the bringer the genesis of Life is Love.
Awed by her brightness
Stars near the beautiful Moon
Cover their own shining faces
When She lights earth
With her silver brilliance
Of love... [3]
David Myatt
February 2012 ce
Some Notes (Post Scriptum)
[1] It might be useful to explain how I, in the light of
my forty years practical experience of and involvement with
extremism, understand terms such as extremism. By extreme
I mean to be harsh, so that an extremist is
a person who tends toward harshness, or who is harsh, or who
supports/incites harshness, in pursuit of some objective,
usually of a political or a religious nature. Here, harsh is:
rough, severe, a tendency to be unfeeling, unempathic. Thus extremism
is considered to be: (i) the result of such harshness, and (ii)
the principles, the causes, the characteristics, that promote,
incite, or describe the harsh action of extremists. In simple
terms, an extremist is someone who lacks empathy, compassion,
reason, and honour.
Racism is one example of extremism, with racism being a prejudice and antagonism toward people regarded as belonging to another 'race', as well as the immoral belief that some 'races' are better than or superior to others, and that what is termed 'race' defines and explains, or can define and explain, the behaviour and the character of the people considered to belong to some postulated 'race'.
[2] Homer, Iliad xiv, 259 - εἰ μὴ Νὺξ δμήτειρα θεῶν ἐσάωσε καὶ ἀνδρῶν
[3] Sappho, Fragment 34 [Lobel and Page] -
Ἄστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάνναν
ἂψ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδος,
ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπῃ
γᾶν [ἐπὶ πᾶσαν]
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