We Ought to Dance with Rapture
By: D.H. Lawrence
From earliest times, man has been aware of a "power" or potency within him—and also outside him—which he has no ultimate control over…What ails men today is that thousands of little serpents sting and envenom them all the time, and the great divine dragon is inert. We cannot wake him to life, in modern days.
— D.H. Lawrence
Let us give up our false position as Christians, as individuals, and as democrats. Let us find some conception of ourselves that will allow us to be peaceful and happy, instead of tormented and unhappy…
We are unnaturally resisting our connection with the cosmos, with the world, with mankind, with the nation, with the family…
What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his "soul". Man wants his physical fulfillment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent.
For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive…
We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.
I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea.
My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation.
In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters…
My individualism is really an illusion.
I am a part of the great whole, and I can never escape. But I can deny my connections, break them, and become a fragment. Then I am wretched.
What we want is to destroy our false, inorganic connections, especially those related to money, and re-establish the living organic connections, with the cosmos, the sun and earth, with mankind and nation and family.
Start with the sun, and the rest will slowly, slowly happen.
You can find this passage in Lawrence’s profound work—Apocalypse: And the Writings on Revelation
This passage always reminds me of his poem Nothing to Save:
"There is nothing to save, now all is lost,
but a tiny core of stillness in the heart
like the eye of a violet."
I dunno, I wasn't in Lawrence's skin. I had string of very deep relationships with very different (from each other) women. The first 3 relationships were mainstream. The last 5, the women, as well as I, were in direct contact with realms beyond the human realm. I seriously doubt religious people experienced anything close to what we experienced, nor could they have comprehended or coped with it. I imagine religious people would have looked funny at us, if we had told them what we were experiencing. One of the 5 was very religious. The other 4 were on their own unique journeys. We were chewed up pretty good by our journeys. Maybe we met different dragons than the one Lawrence met? Those 5 women, and the 3women before them, each seemed to open something new in me, which I didn't know was there. I could view each of those relationships as a different life that I lived. And there was the life before them, and the life now, when I probably am too old to tango, waltz, jitterbug, tango, mamba, rumba, disco dance, country dance, etc. with women.