Eating the Apple

[Guest guest]

The last dialogues on K, psychosis, antidepressant, etc..., made me feel

like sharing this story of a part of my life. May it be useful to those

to whom it will, and be enjoyable to the others.

 

I must say thank you to Greg in helping me with my english, and also to

Angelique and Harsha for helping me in putting into words things that I

would off otherwise forgot to put into words. For like says Rainbow, we

can only say about XXX words a minute, and read so much more, but lets

not forget that in "silence" an infinity of words pass each moment...

 

 

The text, easier to read in format, may be found at:

 

http://pages.infinit.net/carrea/autres/dm_antoine.htm

 

__________

 

Eating the Apple

 

By Antoine Carré,

 

My father gave me for my 16th birthday, a small book called The Treasure

of the Humbles by Maurice Maeterlinck. Before that day the sky was a

sky, a tree a tree, a mountain a mountain. This little book, talking

about silence and other things like that, opened my mind into a new

world. Rather it gave me new words to describe the same world I was

already in. It was the first bite, the Adam I was took into the apple.

The trees were becoming more than just trees. A projection of a me

looking at trees was changing the way I perceived them. The lightning

sword was hiding the garden from itself. This process of transformation

and the integration of the two worlds, the one of my mind and who/what

is actually there, was going smoothly.

 

That, until I decided to really take a good bite, all at once, into the

apple...

 

It happened one year later, when I accompanied, for special care, a 21

year old client of my mother, who like my father is also a psychiatrist.

Chronicle neurotic was the tag that their professions dressed him with,

in order to allow society to understand his state of mind.. His parents,

who needed a break from him, where paying me to accompany him to Florida

for 4 weeks, the time of my winter vacations from school.

 

Coming back, I was not the same then when leaving. Something of his

personality was now mine. And having no real previous experience of

being so much exposed to the neurotic behavior that we all have as

social humans beings, I could not see clearly and simply let go of this

personality pattern on the footstep of the door of his household in

Montreal, where I left him.

 

I though, then, that the job was of no real consequence. It was also

well paid and seemed relatively easy. So I went back the next summer for

6 weeks this time. Meanwhile things were changing slowly around me.

 

To take examples, the girlfriend I had before the first trip with him,

left me as I came back. She told me that she did not recognize me. What

a beautiful soul she is, to already be able to notice those change I was

not even aware of. A new pattern was emerging in my relation with women,

starting to look for something within then, that I felt I had lost.

Instead of being simply this big brother to women, in all openness of my

heart, I became this lover, seeking for love in others. A lot of hearts

were broken in that following year. Usually finding out after 2 weeks,

or so, that the other did not really have the secret I was looking for.

To then step away from the relation and jump in the arms of another a

few days or weeks latter. I was looking for something, in women, in my

studies, more and more everywhere...

 

I was now seeking for something outside of me in others, in books, in

experiences... Trees were not trees anymore, mountains were not

mountains anymore, etc... A secret that I had to find was hiding

someplace. Being blind to the cloud that just had covered my eyes, I had

forgot about the apple, not noticing I was in the process of digesting

it.

 

The more the seeking was taking place on the outside, the more this veil

was crystallizing itself and becoming solid, ready to break and explode,

like glass. Instead of simply flowing away like water.

 

At 18, this pattern brought me to a state that we may call psychosis. In

the beginning, from my experience, it is a wonderful state of mind as

such. The need to sleep came to vanish at the end of my school year. At

night I was reading this little book The Treasure of the Humbles,

feeling the voice of God talk to me directly behind the words. But he

was still behind something: the words on the paper. The crystallization

was very thin, yet very sharp between the World and Him. In this state

of mind, while not reading, I would simply observe something, and each

movement then became as such a synchronicity. I spent two marvelous

weeks going to school, not sleeping, and observing the world turn inside

this huge hologram of synchronicity.. Everything became language, the

language of God, in such an hypnotic fire for my mind that was burning

away those last two years of integration. The Seraphim were all over my

veil burning it away.

 

In a conversation around the Easter table, my mother found out I had not

been sleeping for weeks. She offered me pills to go to sleep, which I

took. I woke up three days latter, not knowing who I was or where I was.

I got up that morning, I will always remember, coming to think nothing

had changed. It was only when I sat at a table to write something, that

I realized that something drastic had happened. The fun part of the

psychosis was over. Giving the order from my mind to my arm to write a

few words on a piece of paper, I saw only lines that looked like a

cardiogram printout. The links from my social mind to the manifestation

of it were totally non existent.

 

This sharp veil, that was turning like glass under the fire of the

Seraphim, left behind a thick layer of charcoal, a dark and heavy subtle

body. Wanting to create a diamond from charcoal, I had forgot about the

darker part of the charcoal that would come out of the process.

 

So I spent all summer, working to learn to write again, work with my

hands, etc... one step at the time, while being sensitive, as a leaf in

fall to the wind, to every emotion of my surrounding. I call this period

building myself a "temporary moral," in order to be effective when

returning to school at the end of the summer.

 

A new personality was rebuilt completely from scratch in those few

months of retreat in very strict self imposed discipline, in order to

act in society and understand in silence. But this time, contrary to the

experience with the neurotic state, I was completely aware from scratch

that it was only a mask. When I think about that summer, only one word

comes to my mind to describe where my strength was directed: courage.

 

Yet today, give me an apple of knowledge to eat and I will it with

pleasure. I don't seek them, but eat them as they pass. They vaccinate

me deeper and deeper, in a way, from not seeing a tree as a tree or a

mountain as a mountain. Like Voltaire said in Candid: "Perfection is the

enemy of Good." I am not perfect and my goodness is not absolute.

Between those two poles still vibrate waves that create my personality

that burns like incense.

 

 

The Dance

>From this experience of the two preceding years, a new pattern seem to

have emerged in my search of wholeness. Maybe from the fear of

generating a "charcoal body" from an overly intensive search? I don't

really know. My path took the form of a step dance. Seeking like an

arrow the deepness of silence, to then jump back in the arms of a woman.

 

Studying the movement of my breath a lot, as well as those of my

heartbeats, and so on.... Taking retreats from two days to a month, with

a unique focus on breath or the heartbeats. Listening to the slow flow

of the waves of the breath or the heart pulsing an awareness deep in

sleep, but in a harmonious environment this time and a focus on a unique

object of concentration.

 

Each time I would come back from such a retreat I would met a woman, and

just fall in love with her. Something in me was afraid of crossing the

wall of silence too deeply, to fast, and the presence of a woman seems

to have been associated with staying alive for me.

 

Yet softly a deeper integration was being made. My trip at the age of 26

to Greece is a nice symbol of this process. I feel like sharing it here

again, since the symbolism of this experience still remains a blueprint

on how different side of me seem to interact with each other from time

to time.

 

 

Mount Olympus

 

It was early in the morning, there was no sign of the sun yet. On that

day, we were about 10 people from almost all five continents, planning

to hike Mount Olympus in Greece all the way up. Someone drove us until

the road ended. Starting from there to climb this huge mountain by foot.

How fascinating it is to see it standing alone on an almost flat land,

with a single cloud always on top, when there is no other cloud around

as far away as the eye can see.

 

The group divided as we went up, some wanted to break speed records,

chasing after time. The sun was raising over the horizon. Nature also

was changing season, from desertic and so hot under the sun, going into

temperate, nice trees, and water flowing down the mountain; to turning

into tundra, small trees, as it was getting colder.

 

Near the top, only a lunar surface of rocks was left, so clear, as the

day was coming at an end. The two Canadians, of the group of 10, arrived

last on the plateau on top, as huge as so many golf courses. A couple of

small wooden houses were waiting for us to spend the night. We felt we

could touch the stars, not a cloud in the sky. That solitary cloud had

vanished with the sun. I went to sleep with the local Greeks, drinking

Ouzo and trying to understand their emotions. Their language being no

more than sound to my ear.

 

Early in the morning, we got up before the sun again, having slept like

rocks in this magical land. They were two huge stones like gates still

left to climb, about 500 feet high, vertical, making the form of a huge

"U" when looking at them from over. So we went up this final cliff, the

sun barely raising.

 

On top, oh boy!!!!! What magic!! All the humidity that the mountain

drank during the night was slowly starting to form a cloud just over our

heads. Some of the humidity went underground to become the river that

gives drinking water for all Athena, even today.

 

But the most fascinating phenomena was seeing the sun come up in front

of me in this vast horizon. and this thick mist of cloud coming up the

middle of the U-cliff formation. I could touch it with my hand and see

it flowing up in front of me over the abyss. And just over my head, the

cloud where the gods of Olympus were said to live was forming itself to

stay over the mountain all day again.

 

I felt my head just under the Gods, my foot on the gates of Hades, and

the sun in front of me. This place simply felt magical.

 

Slowly, after a while, I had to come down the mountain, to arrive before

night to civilization. I was not the same in some way, the world I was

coming back to was not the same either. There was someplace now on this

planet, a real cloud over which Gods lived. A door to the Greek Gods was

open to me while still on this world. Even my name is signed in the book

that is kept on top of the cliff, just under the cloud.

 

 

* * *

 

As I look at this memory today and the effect this hike had on me, I can

only see the cloud formation over the Mount Olympus as a symbol of the

personality that was overlaid between my body and this world. Focusing

on the Gods within and without, - within and without separated by this

cloud (the veil) - , the direct contact between the mountain and the sky

was not felt by any attachment to my mind. Coming down from the clouds

of my human personality, the mountain could start to breath directly in

the sky again. Adam was reborn.

 

The I-Ching and many other systems of thought offered me a nice

symbolism, to try to help to think where I am. In this Taoist system,

wind or clouds over the mountain would be the hexagram 61-Ching Fu

(Inmost Sincerity). While Sky or Heaven over the Mountain is 33-Tun

(Retreat). Retreat there has been, until I came to fall at peace where I

am.

 

I am not saying that the transformation of Peace in the book of

transformation is the one to be aimed for. It is one among so many

others. Like spring is to fall. Nothing can contain the secret, if it is

not the All. And even that last statement is far than from absolute. If

absolute means something. Get my point? ... Simply stated, for me, being

able to stay in Peace shows that there is no attachment left and that I

am free to mold into any form of transformation and enjoy the uniqueness

of its essence as it comes to manifest. The Peace of Earth and Sky

uniting (11-T'ai) is a wonderful equilibrium or hexagram. And what in

our mind makes it different than Standstill (12. P'i) Heaven and earth

not uniting, is also another fascinating dimension to explore and let

go.

 

This work of Transformation is one of my remaining Joys, finding as much

in each equilibrium or hexagram as I do in Peace. It's the left-over

charcoal of my being turning into incense gradually; the Art of this

life that I allow myself to explore ever deeper; my work of compassion;

transforming work into play.

 

Enjoy,

 

Antoine

[Guest guest]

Antoine,

 

Thank you for sharing your story, it was enjoyable for me

to be fortunate enough to read a second time.

 

I am currently in enjoyment of the Silence, Silence is Golden,

said someone once.

 

Just having run into a truly neurotic person at work who is

on a great deal of drugs and careens through the day on

an emotional rollercoaster, my quiet respite here in my

home has become a castle of immeasurable beauty.

 

Love*Light,

Rainbow

[Guest guest]

Antoine..

 

Your exquisite gift with prose moves through several languages.

 

I have had a similar vision of a cloud being the symbol of the interface

of personality. In my case it contained the templates for personality

whose magnetic fields of manifestation, I saw I had choice whether or

not to activate. The cloud of unknowing, the cloud of knowing.

> I can

> only see the cloud formation over the Mount Olympus as a symbol of the

> personality that was overlaid between my body and this world. Focusing

> on the Gods within and without, - within and without separated by this

> cloud (the veil) - , the direct contact between the mountain and the sky

> was not felt by any attachment to my mind. Coming down from the clouds

> of my human personality, the mountain could start to breath directly in

> the sky again. Adam was reborn.

 

Your image of the "charcoal body" struck a chord. Can you say more

about how you have seen this and, knowing your interest in Alchemy, how

this image has transformed?

 

Respectfully,

Christiana