I am careful not to make the form too explicit, more explicit than it appeared to me. The perpetual lightning, seemingly frozen in time but active as a lightning strike in every moment, is what comes closest to an image. And these beams spanned the world from horizon to horizon.
Indeed this must somehow be the case. There is a forging of a reality between the self and what Lacan called the Real, the unformed, unexperienced, uninterpreted – it is as if this God is a vessel to hold a dominating type of interpretation in place. Yes in fact I think this is what Gods normally are, not just this one. But where from this emerges – I imagine it has much to do with the state of the world – not only what the subject wants from the world, but also what the world can expect of the subject.
I would agree. And I am still struck by the specific nature of what emerged. It strikes me that one of the things this form conveys is that there is not only work to be done, but that it can be done, must be done.
All Gods represent overarching thought-structures. Most Gods wear masks to appear as “truth” instead of simply the power of a concept. It seems the face of this God was relatively naked. And it is interesting that in the aftermath of the experience the concept “Chokmah” came into my head. I’ve known this story for a long time:
“The Spiritual Experience of Chokmah is the Vision of God
Face-to-Face. The tradition I received has it that one cannot
have this vision while incarnate i.e. one dies in the process.
One Hasidic Rabbi liked to bid farewell to his family each
morning as if it was his last - he feared he might die of ecstacy
during the day. In the “Greater Holy Assembly”, three Rabbis
pass away in ecstacy, and in the “Lesser Holy Assembly” the
famous Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai passes away at the conclusion.
There is a fairly widespread belief that to look on the naked
face of God, or a God, means death, but fortunately there is no
historical evidence to suggest that the majority of Kabbalists
died of anything other than natural causes. Having said that, I
would not like to underplay the naked rawness of Chokmah;
unconstrained, unconfined, free of form, it is the creative power
which sustains the universe, and talk of death is not
melodramatic.” ( digital-brilliance.com/kab/nok/q10.txt )
This danger exists because there is no context in the devout mind (such as of the rabbi) to interpret the raw presence of cosmic force. Perhaps what I saw could only be seen by someone who has been destroyed and reborn so many times as I.
And I think that the main thing preventing such a principle from becoming operative is a grave lack of spiritual and philosophical boldness. Which is what the great majority of the seven billion humans alive now seem to suffer from. That we do not is strange… we should savor this exclusion, this standing outside what is possible… as long as where we stand is still “outside”!
“Alas, what are you then, my written and painted thoughts! It’s not so long ago that you were still so colourful, young, and malicious, full of stings and secret seasonings, so that you made me sneeze and laugh.—And now? You have already stripped off your novelty and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths: you already look so immortal, so heartbreakingly honest, so boring! And was it ever different? What things we transcribe in our writing and painting, we mandarins with a Chinese paintbrush, we immortalizers of things which let themselves be written—what are the only things we are capable of painting? Alas, always only what is just about to fade and is beginning to lose its fragrance! Alas, always only storms which are worn out and withdrawing and old yellow feelings! Alas, always only birds which have exhausted themselves flying and lost their way and now let themselves be caught by hand—by our hand! We immortalize what can no longer live and fly, only tired and crumbling things! And it is only your afternoon, my written and painted thoughts, for which I alone have colours, many colours perhaps, many colourful caresses and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds:—but no one will sense from me how you looked in your dawn, you sudden sparks and miracles of my loneliness, you, my old loved ones—my wicked thoughts!” (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, last section)