The blue zenith is the point in which romance and reality meet. I think, if we should be rapt away into all that we dream of heaven, and should converse with Gabriel and Uriel, the upper sky would be all that would remain of our furniture.
From Nature, Essays, Second Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I love the phrase "blue zenith" which in many respects explains the entirety of these posts in advance of my having posted them. It seems a perfect balance of experiencing feeling and fact simultaneously.
The archangels, Gabriel and Uriel, represent water and earth, respectively. Spiritual and solid.
I began research about how this phrase came to be and how it was analyzed by experts Emersonian. I found that it confused my understanding of the words upon my repeated reading. As a result, I will try to record my own thoughts as they relate to the works instead of trying to work in the others' critiques.
Even Emerson has my back on this:
You have observed a skilful man reading Virgil. Well, that author is a thousand books to a thousand persons. Take the book into your own two hands and read your eyes out; you will never find what I find.
From Spiritual Laws
Critics can bring context, but they can't summon why I think at all about what I read in the way that I do. I hope reading these words will encourage others to think quite differently.
These passages remind me that it is possible to glimpse what I think of as heaven on earth. That heaven includes earth. So each day is an opportunity to find more and more of it. Maybe crowding out any horrors that attempt to occupy my thoughts. In these moments, it is just earth and sky.
And I was there to witness.
I am alive to witness.
