as we climb higher

As we climb higher, we say this.

It is not soul or mind, nor does it possess

imagination, conviction, speech or understanding.

It does not live nor is it life.  It is not a 

substance, nor is it eternity or time.

It is not wisdom.

It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness.

It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor being.

It is beyond assertion and denial.  We make assertions and

denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond

every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things,

and by virtue of its pre-eminently simple and absolute nature,

free of every limitation,

beyond every limitation;

it is also beyond every denial.

~ Pseudo-Dionysius

art from Sistine Chapel images

the longing for beauty

For beauty is the cause of harmony, of sympathy, of community.

Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. 

It is the great creating cause which bestirs the world 

and holds all things in existence by the longing inside them to have beauty.  

And there it is ahead of all as...the Beloved ...toward which all things move, 

since it is the longing for beauty which actually brings them into being.

~ Pseudo-Dionysius

from The Divine Names

beautiful beyond being

.

That, beautiful beyond being, is said to be Beauty - for

It gives beauty from itself in a manner appropriate to each,

It causes the consonance and splendour of all,

It flashes forth upon all, after the manner of light , the

Beauty producing gifts of its flowing ray,

It calls to itself,

When it is called beauty.

.

~ Pseudo-Dionysius

from The Divine Names

.

Unto this Darkness

.

.

Unto this Darkness which is

beyond Light

we pray that we may come, and 

may attain unto vision through

the loss of sight and knowledge,

and that in ceasing thus to see or

to know

we may learn to know that which 

is beyond all perception and 

understanding

(for this emptying of

our faculties

is true sight and knowledge).

.

~ Pseudo-Dionysius

Dionysius the Areopagite called Pseudo - to differentiate him from the Dionysius mentioned by Paul in Acts.  He lived in the 6th Century and has had a profound impact on Christian mystics.

.

.