You, darkness, of whom I am born–
I love you more that the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illuminates
and excludes all the rest.
But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations–just as they are.
It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Du Dunkelheit, aus der ich stamme" in RILKE'S BOOK OF HOURS: LOVE POEMS TO GOD
To study angels is to shed light on ourselves, especially those aspects of ourselves that have been put down in our secularized civilizations, our secularized educational systems, and even our secularized worship system. By secularization, I mean anything that sucks the awe out of things.
The angels tongues are pure praise. Fire is also praise, the flickering flames are praise. Voice is praise, hearing is praise. All these images of praise are images of movement: fire moves, wind moves, tongues move, breath moves, hearing moves. In this praise there is a reverse movement toward God, perhaps mirroring. Energy moves out from God through the angels, and this movement back toward God in the form of praise is vibratory, dynamic, and meaningful.
~ from THE PHYSICS OF ANGELS by M. Fox and R. Sheldrake
