Timothy B. Layden
Lying back with questions, unknown questions, beckoning to be answered. A part of me torn in the direction of feeling that the best thing to do is ignore this beckoning as I feel there is no way for me to answered questions so far from my conscious understanding. Another part of me must answer the questions. Lying in a bath of water so hot I am nearly cooked in a broth of myself I reach out for the answers grasping one book after another from the shelf next to the tub and read one sentence from each. The answers fall out like random numbers from a lottery wheel, rolling together into a whole a piece of wisdom that fits together like the evenly laid bricks that make up the walls around me. The questions no longer of any relevance the answers clear and pure:
All Time and Being focussed to a single phosphorescent point, all things aflame with symbol, with significance. The marvellous is not the same in every period of history: it partakes in some obscure way of a sort of general revelation only the fragments of which come down to us: they are the romantic ruins, the modern mannequin, or any other symbol capable of affecting the human sensibility for a period of time. Although tradition maintains it, the fact of this destruction has always been in doubt. Moving on with the times but not always in step. There you go, (If you’ll pardon the Americanism) never pulling your punches. It is hard to assimilate such a mix of intensities; it is too close to the experience of being alive. Instead, we order it with names that are cozy, trendy, or ancient. It is like the conscious mind, smitten with thought, whose crevices spread open silently before us.

