GENESIS REJUVENATED by Carlo Suarès : Part 4

Part 4 : GENESIS REJUVENATED by Carlo Suarès, translated by Edourad Roditi - this episode (#42) opens with a haiku composed by Michelle Tennison - then continues on with our sequential and final audible offering of this seminal work, Genesis Rejuvenated.

We begin where we left off with Chapter 3 / Within the Heart :: The Crystal Well, The Life of the Heart, The Heart of All, And a Man Who Was Seeking, Then a Man Sought, Loneliness, The Pool of Genius, And Which Knows, The End of the Great Horror, Beatitude, The Conquerer, Those Who Died. 

La Nouvelle Création : Au Sans Pareil, Paris 1929.

Genesis Rejuvenated : The Menard Press, London 1973.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Before we come to the page, before the first word is ever written down, or read, or listened to, there is a longing to connect. My name is Charlie Merhoff, your host here at Before the Page, a podcast featuring poetry, parable, fiction, and non words to echo our longing. Welcome to episode forty-two of Before the Page. Today we finish our reading of Genesis Rejuvenated by Carlos Suarez, originally composed in French and published in Paris in 1929, brought into English by Edouard Roditi and eventually published in London in 1973. Years ago, this reader received a package from Haiku master HF Noyes, Humphrey Noyes. Noyes had been close with Carlos Suarez. The package coming from Greece contained two books, both written by Suarez, both he had signed for Noyes. One was the Cipher of Genesis, the original code of Kabbalah as applied to the scriptures, of which Noyes had written the forew to the first English edition, and the other Genesis Rejuvenated. Noyes, knowing he was soon to pass, knowing the reader's love for Carlos Suarez, sent on his books. Genesis Rejuvenated was such a rare and limited publication that the reader was completely unaware of its existence. And then there's the fact that it came his way from a haiku master. And so our next episode of Before the Page will feature words from several haiku masters. Here is a taste of what is coming. A haiku composed by Michelle Tennyson that for this reader invigorates Genesis Rejuvenated. A sparrow inhaling, exhaling inside a song. Again, a creation story, a sparrow inhaling, exhaling inside a song. And so let us go on with Genesis Rejuvenated. Chapter three within the heart. Suffered and knew not why, cursed and knew not what to curse, gazed upon the new life and knew not what it was, contemplated life and called upon some gods, felt its heart and sought love everywhere, cast forth its life and said, His kingdom is not of this world. This world is dead and I am dead. Cast forth its joy because joy is life, cast forth its love because love is life and wanted to be dead. But the Son of Man and of Woman saw descending from his brain a column of light, descending into the very depths of his heart, and this column was the conscience of the heart, and the blue light of the heart which is blue, and the eye of conscience penetrated the heart, and the heart waxed and brought light to the eyes and was heavy and pregnant with love. But the earth cried aloud and still wanted to be dead, and cast forth the heart heavy with love and said, His kingdom is not of this world, and believed or did not believe in the other world, and was brain in surface, and this brain travelled across the globe seeking its own reality. And this brain saw things which move and counted them, railway stations and counted them, platform encounter them, but never entered into itself into the column of crystal joined to the heart, to the heart of the universe. This brain denied the column and desired to be dead. But the Son of Man and of Woman felt blossoming within him his divinity. For miracle of miracles, his column was the column of the world, like a well of crystal in his heart, and his heart was the heart of the world, the heart of the sky and of the ocean, but his brain remained proportionate to his size. And then felt the heart so great and everywhere around, above, beneath, and was the center thereof, the heart of the heart, in his most secret depths was the conscience of the heart in one infinite and eternal point, without foundations or summits, without beginning or end. And the column was a thousand and a thousand columns of sunbeams, of beams of light radiating from the point of conscience deep within the heart of the universe, deep within its central depths, the truth of each thing which is its life, the life of the universe. And the earth wanted to die, but could not, wanted to, but could not cast the life aside, for it had given birth in the depths of itself. It had given birth and we were gone, gone so fast on the seventh day of the new Genesis, at a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, a thousand miles per minute, and then even more, always multiplying by a thousand, by a million, by the infinite, the infinite of infinities, again, again, again, infinite, without arrival or departure, or surface or surroundings, central infinite, center of everything, which never arrives, center of the world, which is its conscious heart, which is its life, which is the heart of its heart, and we were in such perfect infinity of speed that it was great peace and quiet and the joy of life, which is its heart. And this was the great benediction that had come from within, blossoming into a tree of life, flowering in the flower of life, perfuming with the sweet scent of life. And we were each living thing, in each thing its life, and we were in each thing its reality The life of the heart. Then the adolescent heart of the world, son of man and son of woman, spoke to men and said I am the life of your hearts, seek me out. And a man who sought pushed a heavy door open, and the door was black, and the door was heavy, and the door was padded, and beyond the door it was dark and cold like a tomb, with a scent of incense and warm wax clutching at the throat. And the powerful vaults were monsters with cavernous voices re echoing to the marble of the pavement, lengthily with deep tones never inflected, and repeating themselves in regular monotones, ever pouring forth in dead speech like the terrified breath of a final agony. And the powerful vaults were monsters with vast shins, each one so near to the other that they pressed against each other, and they never let through the blue of the sky or the singing breeze. And the heavy pillars were the hooves of monsters rooted in the solid pavement, and the stones around walled off this tomb. The man crushed beneath the stone exalted his sorrow. He exalted his sorrow and did nothing. He sat down and did nothing, only exalting his sorrow. Then he made a great image in his own likeness and hung it on a cross, and said, Lord, soothe my sorrow, save me, help me. Ah misery. Lord, I weep, I pray, I toil, I die without joy. My life is death, prison, this dirge, this cold, this tomb, pity. O sun, pity, O life, O Lord, O hope, of sky, of songs, of life, of joy, I starve. My bread, bitter, I thirst, clear springs now dry, my limbs are tired, my soul is dead, I have naught left. And the image in his own likeness was the mirror of this man, and wept and groaned and prayed like the man, and the man saw his suffering in the image and took pity, and saw his pity reflected in the image, and the man with a broken heart saw his heart in the image, in his mirror his own bleeding heart, his red heart so red and so throbbing, his heart plucked out. And the man saw his own heart facing him, his heart in the image, and the image was red with the bleeding heart. And the man, facing his own heart, looked on and saw the surface of the heart, and saw that it was red, and he cut the heart and looked inside, and the heart was red, and he hacked heart of man flooding with red in floods of blood. And the red flood rose the flood of blood, and flushed the pavement, and covered it, and began to lick the hooves of the monsters. And the heart still bled, and the blood still flowed, and rose and rose all red. And the red blood was a river of blood and rose and became a lake and rose, and the man still hacked and hacked, and minced the heart, and the heart still bled, and in scarlet waterfalls roared, and fell again in red froth, and the heart still bled, and the man was swept away, and the image engulfed, and the shins of the columns of the powerful vaults were flooded with blood. And the never inflicted detones repeated their monotones at regular intervals, pouring forth endlessly in dead speech like frightened breath in last agony, and the sound of funeral bells, and the heart bled red, ever bled, and the vast knaves were flooded with blood, and the walled up tomb was a red tomb, and the man who was seeking the life of his own heart still hacked away at it, still struggling in the uppermost spaces of the vaults, and nothing was left, no monsters, no shins, no image, no terrified voice of funeral bells, and the man crushed against the vaulted roof in his last agony dived and dived right into the red blood of the heart, there to seek his life. And miracle of miracles, when he was within the blood, when within the heart, there were the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea, which are the blue of the heart of the world. For the heart and the blood and their love, which is the love of the world, are red from without and blue from within. And miracle of miracles, no more were their tombs and last agonies, for the heart of the world is blue space and melodious breeze, and the man who had sought was the adolescent heart of the world, son of man, son of woman, the life of his heart. Such were the martyrdom and the great liberation of the man who so sought after his heart that he was engulfed in his heart. The heart of all When the man was healed of his bleeding heart, he was the heart of the cities, and the heart of the countryside, the heart of men of beasts, of plants, and the heart of flowers which is their perfume. He was the heart of the stars, of the sun, of the moon, and the heart of the sky and of the sea, which are blue. And he was the heart in the houses, the heart of each floor, and on each floor, the heart of each room, and the heart of the kitchens and of the living rooms, and the heart of the bathrooms, and of the sanitary conveniences, and of the entrance halls, and of the clothes closets, and of the bay windows, and of the club armchairs, of the tables, of the chairs, of the smooth naked walls, and of the paper, and of the pencils, and of the telephones on the writing desks, and was the heart of the quick and the heart of the dead of the pebbles, of the factories, of the crossword puzzles, and the heart of artichokes, too, was the heart of the ready-to-wear lounge suits and moccasin shoes, and the heart of all gadgets and utensils which is their usefulness, the heart of bobbed hair, of cloche hats, the heart of mini skirts and of women's purses was the bus, the tarred road, the sidewalk, the shining lights at night, and of all this the heart was also the heart of cream tarts and heartaches of deep booming organ music, the heartless teasing tone of whistling notes, the heart of nauseating farts, and of parts sung in choirs with great art, and of choirs which sing glory hallelujah. In the cities and in the countryside, and in the mountains and in the precipice, and in the waters and in the dryness of the desert, and in each inch and pinch of earth and of sky was the heart of it, and the heart which is life. And all in all and each thing, and in each element contained in each thing, and in each vortex of atoms within each element and even in each smaller unit everywhere was the life of everything, was the life which is truth, and were such great and conjoined lives and inseparable and deeply rooted that were only one life and one truth. Then was the great joy of all truths conjoined in one truth, which is life and a man who was seeking and a man who was seeking went on his way to the city along by the foot of the tall buildings, and walked beneath their walls and breathed the gasoline fumes and the scent of thirsty trees muttering their curses. The houses crushed against each other and supporting each other were swelling and clinging everywhere, and soiled each other in dark pollution and confusion. Yards and yards of dark backyards and then sunlight and broad avenues and then gas lamps and arcades and moonlight and blind alleys and smoke and side trees and clouds which penetrated everywhere and polluted each other in dark confusion. Frenchmen, Americans, English, black men, subways, dogs, women, delivery vans, cars scurried everywhere and polluted each other in dark confusion. And the man who was seeking knelt down and prayed and said, O Lord, you see I am sick of all of gasoline and posters, of magicians and of saints and of holy images, of stones and stones, bones and bores so quaint I faint no saints at all, or saints are all Saint John and Saint Paul and Airy, Saint Mary, and Breezy, Saint Teresa, Saint Trees, saints alive, I have five, five fingers and five continents, which was his great revelation. And said I want here trees and woods and nature and nature, and the birds of God and the gardens of God and processions and psalms, and the glory glory world without end of the next world, of the world which one cannot see, because the world of machines, the world of factories, the world of houses, the world of men stand in the way this anti nature, all this asphalt jungle. And said and was naked as in Assissy, the juggler of God, and broke a cobblestone, and sowed grass there, and then broke another and then another, and said men must be made happy and heaved into the river, a lamp post, a gasoline station, a public convenience, and planted shrubs, then toiled so hard, and tore down a house and planted a bush, broke up a few riverside embankments and docks and warehouses, and there the lilies of the field began to grow. Then again he destroyed a few houses and planted, and said, Men go too fast, it is against nature, and he heaved the cars into the river and continued steadfastly in his work of giving to men the good things of God. And when he had accomplished his task Task and destroyed anti nature. He set nature in its stead. This took a long time. He turned round and said, There's not a soul around where have they all gone, and I have worked so hard for them. But there was no more a city, no more men. Alone and sad. He thought I ought to have expected it. Men do not belong to nature. To be human is contrary to nature. And he died. Such were the deeds and a lonely death of this man who was seeking at the foot of the walls of houses. After his death he could not bury himself, and said to himself, When one is alone, the service is really very bad. And he was forced to rise again in order to bury himself, and when he had risen again he saw again the blue sky and had nothing to bury, then lived beneath the blue sky until he died and began all over again, never able to die and never able to live, in a terrible splitting of his very self, ever saying to himself, I must live for the joy of the sky, I must bury myself for the peace of the earth. And he begat many sons who were all human beings who, because of their cruel heredity, were so numerous but always alone, and lived alone and died alone in great loneliness of the soul, and never knew to what world they belonged, to the world beneath the sky or the world beneath the earth, and saw the sky and wanted to die, then were buried in earth and wanted to be reborn. And the lovely blue adolescent with eyes of love of the world, and beams of sunlight said Life is the heart of the world, the heart which is blue. Seek life and you will no longer die, no longer be alone. Then a man sought. Then a man sought in the dark forest, saw the trees, saw shrubs, saw all plant life, cut paths and places to sit, then made of trees, houses, furniture, paper, saw a spring and said H to O, saw sheep and clothed himself in their wool, saw lightning and created television, saw mushrooms and made umbrellas, saw stones and invented cement, saw gold and made money, saw flowers and made perfumes, saw paws and jaws and living things, made saws and laws and gold crowned kings, said, O joy now, at last I can be happy. Between earth and his head he built ceilings, between earth and his feet he built floors, so that no longer was there heaven nor earth, and built also walls all around himself and uprooted and manufactured, and then imprisoned himself and said At last I can be happy. With his wheels, his reels, his cogs, his togs, his weary hysteria, his clocks, his locks surrounded and bounded by turbines and diesels and magnetophones and telephones and teleprinters and ever better carburetors and computers and transformers and transmitters, electrocutioners, electrochemical electrochromographs, electrolytic electrogenerators, electrodynamic electrobioscopy, electromagnetic electro telegraphs, electro negative electro motors, electropositive electroscopes, electropsychological electrotators, electro therapeutical electropectroscopes. He said, At last I can be happy. When it was dark he invented the light machine, when it was light the darkness machine, when he was hungry the feeding machine, when he was fed the hunger machine, he felt sentimental and invented the love machine, grew weary and invented the jilting machine, ate machines, drank machines, loved machines, was the best friend of machines, spoke and invented the answering machine, answered, then invented the arguing machine, owned all machines, the want machine, the think machine, the create machine, the god machine, and always alone among his machines, and in his machines, under his machines, on his machines, never understood his solitude, as machines and gadgets became substitutes for everything. He knew neither man nor God, machines being everything, saw neither sky nor earth, machines being everywhere, and died. Such were the deeds and the lonely death of the man who sought in the dark woods. After this man had died, he was taken and buried in earth by four steel cables. But earth was no true earth, was coal and reinforced concrete and pig iron and all such things, and the man could not rest there in peace and said, I must invent the earth machine. Then he arose from the dead and built the earth machine, and on its earth trees grew, and birds throve, and streams babbled, and again man said, H2O, and cut down the trees, and began again and filled everything again, and when all was accomplished, he died anew in the reinforced concrete and all the rest, but rose again and began again, ever in a ghastly tearing asunder. And beget many children, who were all mankind, and out of cruel heredity, were so numerous, but ever alone, and lived alone and died alone, but because of their factory world, of their machine world, of their world of men, knew not the desolate loneliness of their soul. Between floor and ceiling they knew neither sky nor earth, but only their shadows cast on walls. Loneliness and a great pity hovered on the golden smile of the heart of the world, of the heart which is blue, and the heart said unto men, First learn your loneliness, let it weigh on your souls, let its weight be great as that of a world, the weight of the distress of the great loneliness of mankind, and let this weight make you die of weeping, let it be a torment to you and a nightmare where one howls with horror and madness. And then you will all be hunted and driven into your red heart deep inside your red heart, into its very heart which is blue, and the life of the heart of the world. But the heart of the world, which is the truth of its love, was so great and so clear that men could not see it. The pool of genius. Then, with the light of his blue eyes, which are the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea, he pierced himself, and the beams of his eyes gleamed forth from his heart, and the heart became transparent. And from this great transparency the light of the eyes fell in infinite drops each thing, so as to be in each thing its own truth, and the infinite was in everything there, there before the eyes of men, and each thing was the infinite, the mirror of truth, the infinite, that pool of light was there in each atom of the world. And men learned to have genius, which is to listen to the pool of infinite within them, to this pool within them as well as within each thing, pool of infinite white light, center of the world in each thing, pool of infinite mirror of light, eye of the world in each thing, pool of infinite mirror of the wide opened eye, which is the center of the heart, infinite mirror of the eye that contemplates itself, and which knows genius, sweet odor of the heart that is blue, the end of the great horror and the great terror of loneliness ceased, the anguish of the captive creature, captive in creation, in the net, the cage, the agony, the anxiety of the imprisoned being bound and tied down, and not wanting to accept the creation, not wanting a world to exist, but begging that there be nothing and howling from fear of never, never being able to escape from creation, and curses having been created, wanting and wanting void, but unable to die. This great terror cease to summon madness in order to escape all this, gentle, beneficent madness, in order to escape and nevermore hear the howling, the impotent rage, the call from beyond creation, this call which eats away the blood, the red heart and the red blood of all creatures. Ah, this fear of all those created, ghastly strife and hopeless struggle beneath the inexorable weight of creation which stands there, surrounding the accursed creation which is, which one cannot break and cannot escape. Ah, this fear of the creatures, nightmare, remorse of God. Say, tell me, have you ever felt its hallucinating breath? Monstrous fear, has it ever? And he who loved his children died, and he who loved his lands died, and the poor in spirit in the kingdom of heaven died, and those who were in affliction and were comforted died, and the meek who inherited the earth died, and those who did hunger and thirst after righteousness and were filled died, and the merciful who obtained mercy died, and the pure in heart who saw God died, and the peacemakers who were called the children of God died, and those who were persecuted for the sake of righteousness and obtained the kingdom of heaven died. For life is neither virtue nor vice, nor good deeds, nor bad deeds, nor crime, nor punishment, nor damnation, nor salvation, nor God, nor Satan, nor love nor hate of the red hearts of men. For life is neither poor in spirit in the kingdom of heaven, nor afflicted and comforted, nor meek in inheritance, nor hungry after righteousness, and then satisfied, nor merciful obtaining mercy, nor pure in heart in God, nor child of God in peace, nor kingdom of heaven obtained after much persecution. Life is the love of the blue heart of the world, which is its knowledge. Beatitude and the supreme adolescent of the world reborn, son of man and son of woman, I of the world and one infinite point of its heart said Blessed is he who is the center of his heart, and only one point of sky so blue and infinite, for out of the sky so blue streams the light so white of the world, more vast than the world, which is the love of his heart, which is his genius, touched you with the tip of its destructive wing with its tempest of knife thrusts. Tell me, tell, do you know this great curse of the great terror? For the terror lasted only as long as a lightning flash, fleeting memory of him who cannot die. A creature believes in death, but he who is the eye in the center of the heart never dies, can nevermore die. To him this escape, this rest are evermore forbidden. He is life, must be life until the end, can only escape within. In the depths of his own heart, he must kill death. And the great terror was death that would not die, that would not abdicate, nor come to life, and the great terror is the bridge to immortality, and he who experiences this terror is already no longer a creature. The great terror is the threshold, the last look cast back, the last hesitation and the last leap forward. The Conqueror And man is conqueror. As soon as he feels so heavy the weight of walls, imprisoned in the vice grip of walls, which advance, impress, and suffocate, he has but one salvation, but one, and the heart of the world, one which does not break the prison, nor escape from prison, but contains it all like a lotus blossom floating on its pool of light. And mankind had reached the end of its quest, no longer seeking at the foot of walls of houses, nor in dark forests, nor in churches, nor in schools, nor from priests, nor from families, nor from nations, no longer seeking in God, nor in Satan, nor in virtue, nor in vice, nor in sanctity, nor in sin, nor in the love of mothers, nor of wives, nor of children, nor in great intelligence of institutions, nor in merchants, nor in artists, nor in wealth, nor in poverty, nor in laughter, nor in weeping. But in the very center of their heart, in the pool of light, which is its knowledge, the eye which knew contemplated its own genius. And the recovered genius of mankind was the deep truth of things, their infinite heart, and the only salvation of mankind was that it had genius, the knowledge of the heart. And the men and women shining with the beams from their heart were the perfume of their genius, and man was fully life, and life was fully the new man, in powerful revolt and in great desire for life those who died. And he who, though possessing pride and avarice or lechery, or anger or envy, or greed or sloth, did not dare to possess them in great power of fulfillment, he killed his genius and died. And he who stifled his desires, instigators of life, killed his genius and died, and he who wished to do well killed his genius and died, and he who was obedient and he who gave orders, they both died, and he who besought and he who was besought, they both died, for they killed their genius, and he who was forgiven and he who forgave, they both died, and he who was absolved and he who gave absolution, they both died, and he who was saved and he who saved, they both died, for they killed their genius, and he who went before his judges and he who judged, they both died, and he who went before his teachers, and he who taught, they both died, and he who cast himself down in homage, and he who accepted this homage, they both died, for they killed their genius, and he who worshiped God died, and he who believed in the word died, and he who worships Satan died, and he who loved his parents died. Listeners, that concludes our reading of Genesis Rejuvenated by Carlos Suarez brought into the English by Edouard Roditi. Before we sign out reminding that our next episode, episode 43, will feature readings of haiku poets. We'll leave you with a haiku that we opened with, composed by Michelle Tennyson. Creation story a sparrow inhaling and exhaling inside a song. Until the next be well.