Blessings and peace to you and this world!

Good day to you, brothers and sisters and welcome to the blog this weekend. Its still a bit nippy outside, but then having said this it was not long after 6.30am that I was out on the balcony. Thought I would take some pictures. First there are two ladies (sisters of ours!)  going to the Taoist temple which is comprised of two houses opposite my residence.

                                                   Now a photo of flowers on my balcony.

                                                    This below is a light I painted and a bumblebee
                                                    home. No bumble bee has yet taken up residence.
                                                    Perhaps it is to high above the ground. You think!

                                          This was just an experiment that went wrong but I
                                           just thought I would put it in anyway. I was trying to
                                           get a stream of sound surrounding the still flower!
                                           O why am I sharing it? Just to show how ideas develop
                                            1st, `peace` by piece, until refined and reworked to
                                            a state of satisfaction/acceptance, or are abandoned!  

    This my brothers and sisters is my latest painting which I have to share with you. To me the shapes and colours and markings are well matched to the photos above. What do you think!

To those of you who are at my site/here now and are wholly here for the art, then I thank you for coming and do hope that you have enjoyed the photos I posted for you. Please do come again and perhaps bring a friend. I am giving you a blessing now which is free for you keep.  Also its a bit like yeast that if kept warm and looked after will just keep growing and so you can keep dividing it and passing it on. It will grow and grow...    Please those who are interested in more than this material existence stay on after these following two lines.

     Have a good weekend and know you are loved.     

                   Your brother, Peter.

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  I have been reading a passage out of the cloud on unknowing and other works, which is a Penguin Classics book either my sister brought for me, or I bought my self. I was going to say that I consider it essential reading, for any Christian mystic or those whose inclination is towards this area. That though would not always be the case, as some may - as undoubtedly did many in the past - not have read a written word in their whole life and have infinitely more understanding of the mystical than me.

Perhaps its because of my past wretchedness that I have to strive to catch up to the Christ consciousness level that I am surpassed by, even by many a new born babe. They though will often lose that closeness and link to God as the days, months and years pass and they become embroiled with this material world.  

 I took time on awaking to thank God for this day were are in and ask forgiveness for being a bit too selfish and ignoring slightly the son that is here`d wishes. Still, thats life. I some time do things wrong, then do most things right and one day will die...

 I am here though for now.This morning on awaking I got engrossed, after praying on the mala beads, with the work of Dionysius. So this following which I have read already, is like the first milk a babe takes to a mystic taking in by Gods grace, enlightenment! 

Mystical Theology

When Dionysius praises “dissimilar similarities” over seemingly more appropriate symbolic names for God, he explains that negations are true to God, and such dissimilar names serve as such negations. The Mystical Theology has this last, most arcane form of theology as its subject. Negations are properly applied not only to the names of the symbolic theology. Any and all of the divine names must be negated, beginning with those of the symbolic theology, continuing with the intelligible names and concluding with the theological representations. The godhead is no more “spirit,” “sonship,” and “fatherhood” than it is “intellect” or “asleep.” These negations must be distinguished from privations. A privation is simply the absence of a given predicate, which could just as easily be present. The absence of the predicate is opposed to its presence: “lifeless” is opposed to “living.” But when we say that the godhead is not “living” we do not mean that it is “lifeless.” The godhead is beyond the lifeless as well as beyond the living. For this reason, Dionysius says that our affirmations of the godhead are not opposed to our negations, but that both must be transcended: even the negations must be negated.

The most controversial and arcane passages of the Mystical Theology revolve around the mystical as taken in itself and not as the act of negating the other forms of theology. Dionysius says that after all speaking, reading, and comprehending of the names ceases, there follows a divine silence, darkness, and unknowing. All three of these characteristics seem privative, as though they were simply being the absence of speech, sight, and knowledge respectively. But Dionysius does not treat them as privative. Instead, he uses temporal and spatial language to mark off a special place and time for them. Using as his example the account of Moses' ascent up Mount Sinai in the Hebrew scriptures, Dionysius says that after Moses ascends through the sensible and intelligible contemplation of God, he then enters the darkness above the mountain's peak. The darkness is located above the mountain, and Moses enters it after his contemplation of God in the various forms of theology. Dionysius leaves the relation between Moses and the darkness highly obscure. Some commentators reduce it to a form of knowing, albeit an extraordinary form of knowing. Others reduce it to a form of affective experience, in which Moses feels something that he can never know or explain in words. Dionysius himself does not give decisive evidence in favor of either interpretive move. He speaks only of Moses' “union” with the ineffable, invisible, unknowable godhead.

-HIS LEADING IDEAS: THE NATURE OF THE GODHEAD IN ITSELF

   The basis of their teaching is the doctrine of the Super-Essential
   Godhead (huperousios thearchia). We must, therefore, at the very outset
   fix the meaning of this term. Now the word "Essence" or "Being" (ousia)
   means almost invariably an individual existence; more especially a
   person, since such is the highest type that individual existence can in
   this world assume. And, in fact, like the English word "Being," it may
   without qualification be used to mean an angel. Since, then, the
   highest connotation of the term "Essence" or "Being" is a person, it
   follows that by "Super-Essence" is intended "Supra-Personality." And
   hence the doctrine of the Super-Essential Godhead simply means that God
   is, in His ultimate Nature, Supra-Personal.

   Now an individual person is one who distinguishes himself from the rest
   of the world. I am a person because I can say: "I am I and I am not
   you." Personality thus consists in the faculty of knowing oneself to be
   one individual among others. And thus, by its very nature, Personality
   is (on one side of its being, at least) a finite thing. The very
   essence of my personal state lies in the fact that I am not the whole
   universe but a member thereof.

   God, on the other hand, is Supra-Personal because He is infinite. He is
   not one Being among others, but in His ultimate nature dwells on a
   plane where there is nothing whatever beside Himself. The only kind of
   consciousness we may attribute to Him is what can but be described as
   an Universal Consciousness. He does not distinguish Himself from us;
   for were we caught up on to that level we should be wholly transformed
   into Him. And yet we distinguish between ourselves and Him because from
   our lower plane of finite Being we look up and see that ultimate level
   beyond us.

   The Super-Essential Godhead is, in fact, precisely that which modern
   philosophy describes as the Absolute. Behind the diversities of this
   world there must be an Ultimate Unity. And this Ultimate Unity must
   contain in an undifferentiated condition all the riches of
   consciousness, life, and existence which are dispersed in broken
   fragments throughout the world. Yet It is not a particular
   Consciousness or a particular Existence. It is certainly not
   Unconscious, Dead or, in the ordinary sense, non-Existent, for all
   these terms imply something below instead of above the states to which
   they are opposed.

   Nevertheless It is not, in Its Ultimate Nature, conscious (as we
   understand the term) for consciousness implies a state in which the
   thinking Subject is aware of himself and so becomes an Object of his
   own perception. And this is impossible in the ultimate Nature of the
   Undifferentiated Godhead where there is no distinction between thinking
   Subject and Object of thought, simply because there is at that level no
   distinction of any kind whatever. Similarly the Godhead does not, in
   the ordinary sense, live (for life is a process and hence implies
   distinctions) nor does It even (in our sense) exist, for Existence is
   contrasted with non-Existence and thus implies relationship and
   distinctions. Consciousness, Life, and Existence, as we know them, are
   finite states, and the Infinite Godhead is beyond them. We cannot even,
   strictly speaking, attribute to It Unity, for Unity is distinguished
   from Plurality. We must instead describe It as a Super-Unity which is
   neither One nor Many and yet contains in an undifferentiated state that
   Numerical Principle which we can only grasp in its partial forms as
   Unity and Plurality.

Now back to this place in time. My mother just rang up for me to put all the things she wants me for this coming week and to let me know of the Dr appointment she made for me.

Good job I have been praying this morning and got Christ centered, or instead of the smile that is now on my face, I would be annoyed that she hasnt put her phone down properly and so we are not disconnected. This happened a couple of weeks ago. I  didnt realize until I went to make a phone call and could hear distant voices from a television on my phone! I am almost laughing now thinking of my dear mother. God bless her and us all. Bye for now my wonderful brothers and sisters and know that you are loved. bro Peter.