La Divina Comedia is the station for the second week of my pèlerinage into the thirteen hundreds of our time.
Last week I was in the territory of the ars nova, the New Art of those who notated musical settings for the Latin liturgy of their faith. I enjoyed transcribing from facsimiles of their manuscripts when I was an undergraduate in the Faculty of Music at Oxford.
Now I am utterly transported into the dolce stil nuovo of the land and language of Tuscany. For me, this is where the Great Renaissance begins, though my schoolmasters spoke only of 1453 and a battle on the Golden Horn.
And so I come to La Divina. It is immense. A staggering achievement of one man. Dante Alighieri. Its ramifications, its intricate twists and turnings, its multitude of multicoloured characters, are far more than I can possible encompass outside of years of study. And so I move back until I can see the outline of the structures.
Dante writes of Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso. This resonates. I turn my mind to his imagery.
Pergatorio is, as I was taught, where the souls of the Catholic departed go to be judged when they die. I understand what they are saying. Up to a point. With a different slant. And a different address. For my soul, my psyche, has its true home in this realm I know as Yesod and which is called by many other names. The Summerlands. On the Other Side. Heaven. I came into this world from Yesod. And to Yesod I shall return.
There are those of us who tell of the journey from Yesod to incarnation as a descent to the material world of Malkuth. The Kingdom. Dante’s Inferno. Hell. I’ve had something like that in mind since I was eight or nine years old. I rarely speak of it in those terms. When I do I am met with blank stares of incomprehension.
Even now, as I sit here making these words, my psyche is free to connect with Yesod and from there to connect with the higher planes of Netzach and Hod. The Power and the Glory. Dante’s Paradiso.
Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso
Malkuth Yesod Netzach & Hod
For thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, for ever and ever ..
So mote it be.
francis cameron, oxford, 29 august 2014
1 comment:
This idea - that hell isn't a punishment after death, but where we are right now - may be more widely believed than might appear, although I think few non-Christians would put it in those terms. I've never seen it linked to the Qabala though; that's something to research.
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