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| British Museum Jerusalem Copy A, Plate 46 |
" In the state of love the divine imagination is passive, contemplating and adoring, and in such passivity there is deadly danger if it is persisted in too long. If it reposes so long in sleep as to forget on waking up that its mistress is its own creature, an independent external world begins to separate from that imagination and it is done for. This, Blake says, is what happened to Albion: he adored the nature he had created too long, began to regard it as independent of him, and then was unable to recover his imaginative power when his creature became a separate 'female will.'
Blake saw Nature as as the outer veneer which covered the inner world which is nonmaterial. He reversed the common understanding of the Real which meant to him the transcendent world of mental entities; and the Illusory by which he meant outer objects perceived by the senses. Nature was a word which encapsulated all the flaws and failures of a world which rejected the values taught by a loving heart, a humble mind, a caring body and an active imagination. Blake wrote of Vala as the Goddess Nature who ruled with cruelty and deceit.
Vala is the Shadow of Jerusalem, just as Nature is the shadow of the Garden of Eden. Death, Decay, Disease and Suffering have no place in Eden until Eve and Adam turn away from the Divine Family and follow the shadow into an unknown land which they must shape according to their own desires. Seeing not the Divine Vision, it is Vala who follows her desires and provides Nature in which man constructs a milieu of harsh competitiveness to inhabit.
In the world of Time everything has consequences. Because of the characteristics of the Physical World man experiences life as transitory, destructive, dying, deceptive, and confusing. But to a man capable of seeing through the obscuring veil, Nature is a vision of Eternity.
Milton, Plate 36 [40], (E 137)
"He set me down in Felphams Vale & prepard a beautiful
Cottage for me that in three years I might write all these Visions
To display Natures cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion"
Jerusalem, Plate 18, (E 163)
"To build
Babylon the City of Vala, the Goddess Virgin-Mother.
She is our Mother! Nature!"
Jerusalem, Plate 30 [34], (E 176)
"Art thou Vala? replied Albion, image of my repose
O how I tremble! how my members pour down milky fear!
A dewy garment covers me all over, all manhood is gone!
At thy word & at thy look death enrobes me about
From head to feet, a garment of death & eternal fear
Is not that Sun thy husband & that Moon thy glimmering Veil?
Are not the Stars of heaven thy Children! art thou not Babylon?
Art thou Nature Mother of all! is Jerusalem thy Daughter
Why have thou elevate inward: O dweller of outward chambers"
Jerusalem, Plate 43 [29], (E 192)
"They heard the voice and fled swift as the winters setting sun.
And now the human blood foamd high, the Spirits Luvah & Vala,
Went down the Human Heart where Paradise & its joys abounded,
In jealous fears & fury & rage, & flames roll round their fervid feet:
And the vast form of Nature like a serpent playd before them
And as they fled in folding fires & thunders of the deep:
Vala shrunk in like the dark sea that leaves its slimy banks.
And from her bosom Luvah fell far as the east and west.
And the vast form of Nature like a serpent rolld between,
Whether of Jerusalems or Valas ruins congenerated, we know not:
All is confusion: all is tumult, & we alone are escaped.
So spoke the fugitives; they joind the Divine Family, trembling"
Jerusalem, Plate 90, (E 250)
"Plotting to devour Albion & Los the friend of Albion
Denying in private: mocking God & Eternal Life: & in Public
Collusion, calling themselves Deists, Worshipping the Maternal
Humanity; calling it Nature, and Natural Religion,"
Jerusalem, Plate 93, (E 254)
"Worshiping the Deus
Of the Heathen, The God of This World, & the Goddess Nature
Mystery Babylon the Great, The Druid Dragon & hidden Harlot
Is it not that Signal of the Morning which was told us in the Beginning"
Vision of Last Judgment, (E 555)
This world of Imagination is the World of
Eternity it is the Divine bosom into which we shall all go after
the death of the Vegetated body This World of Imagination is
Infinite & Eternal whereas the world of Generation or Vegetation
is Finite & Temporal There Exist
in that Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing
which we see are reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature
All Things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the
Divine body of the Saviour the True Vine of Eternity
The Human Imagination who appeard to Me as Coming to Judgment.
among his Saints & throwing off the Temporal that the Eternal
might be Establishd."
Milton, Plate 25 [27], (E 123)
"While Los calld his Sons around him to the Harvest & the Vintage.
Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wondrous Night
They rise in order and continue their immortal courses
Upon the mountains & in vales with harp & heavenly song
With flute & clarion; with cups & measures filld with foaming wine.
Glittring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude,
And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful waves!
Plate 26 [28]
These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage
Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in summer
Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance
Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave:
Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dance,
To touch each other & recede; to cross & change & return
These are the Children of Los; thou seest the Trees on mountains
The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro' the darksom sky
Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons
Of men: These are the Sons of Los! These the Visions of Eternity
But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wond'rous Visions"
Letters, To Trusler, (E 702)
"Some See
Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate
my proportions, & Some Scarce see Nature at all But to the Eyes
of the Man of Imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As a man
is So he Sees. As the Eye is formed such are its Powers You
certainly Mistake when you say that the Visions of Fancy are not
be found in This World. To Me This World is all One continued
Vision of Fancy or Imagination & I feel Flatterd when I am told so.
Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 231)
"Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more."
Romans 7
[22] For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
[23] but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.
[24] Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
[25] Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
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