OPEN THE DOOR

Wikipedia Commons
Book of Urizen
Copy G, Plate 26

When I asked Larry which of Blake's pictures he liked best he selected this one without an explanation. His response to the picture was not rational but emotional and intuitive. I can now give a rational explanation to his reaction to the image.

Larry saw through the image to those who stand outside of the closed door. The pleading child and the howling dog are on the outside without a way to get in. To Larry and to Blake this was the plight of humanity; the door is not closed because we are locked out of Eden but because we fail to open it. Built into the mind of man is his Divine Humanity but it is up to the conscious man to open the door or gate and invite the expression of his spirit into his expanded mind.

The poignancy of this image to me is that in adolescence when individuals are re-accessing the assumptions of their childhood, they may close the door to a perception of the internal vision of the Divine. Once the door is closed there has to be a decisive action to reopen it. If the mind of the individual has been turned over to the reasoning faculty exclusively, and the intuition and imagination have been stifled, there is little probability that the door to spiritual experience will be reopened. 

But all is not lost. Some become disillusioned with a one-sided dependence on reason through seeing its failure to provide a balanced way of living. Some are given an opening into a fuller life through a spontaneous awakening of the spirit. Some quietly find the lost piece from their childhood by continuing to seek for it in beauty, truth and love. As Pilgrim learned in Pilgrim's Progress we already possess the key, we needn't wait for someone to give it to us.

Milton Plate 2, (E 96)
"Come into my hand
By your mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry

The Eternal Great Humanity Divine. planted his Paradise,
And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms
In likeness of himself. Tell also of the False Tongue! vegetated
Beneath your land of shadows: of its sacrifices. and
Its offerings; even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God
Became its prey; a curec, an offering, and an atonement,
For Death Eternal in the heavens of Albion, & before the Gates
Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah" 

Milton, Plate 10 [11], (E 104)
"The nature of a Female Space is this: it shrinks the Organs
Of Life till they become Finite & Itself seems Infinite.   

And Satan vibrated in the immensity of the Space! Limited
To those without but Infinite to those within: it fell down and
Became Canaan: closing Los from Eternity in Albions Cliffs     
A mighty Fiend against the Divine Humanity mustring to War"

Milton, Plate 13 [14], (E 107)
"The Bard replied. I am Inspired! I know it is Truth! for I Sing
Plate 14 [15]
According to the inspiration of the Poetic Genius
Who is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity
To whom be Glory & Power & Dominion Evermore Amen"

Milton 30 [33], (E 129)
"But to
The Sons of Eden the moony habitations of Beulah,
Are from Great Eternity a mild & pleasant Rest.

And it is thus Created. Lo the Eternal Great Humanity            
To whom be Glory & Dominion Evermore Amen
Walks among all his awful Family seen in every face
As the breath of the Almighty. such are the words of man to man
In the great Wars of Eternity, in fury of Poetic Inspiration,
To build the Universe stupendous: Mental forms Creating"         

Jerusalem, Plate 19, (E 164)
"And Los was roofd in from Eternity in Albions Cliffs
Which stand upon the ends of Beulah, and withoutside, all
Appear'd a rocky form against the Divine Humanity.               

Albions Circumference was clos'd: his Center began darkning
Into the Night of Beulah, and the Moon of Beulah rose
Clouded with storms: Los his strong Guard walkd round beneath the Moon
And Albion fled inward among the currents of his rivers."  

Four Zoas, Night II, PAGE 36, (E 325) 
"To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filld with wine & with the marrow of lambs

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter
     house moan
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast           
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness 
     that cuts off his children
While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers

Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity
Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!"

Urizen, Plate 24, (E 81)
"4. He in darkness clos'd, view'd all his race,
And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd
Both sons & daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep                        
His iron laws one moment.

5. For he saw that life liv'd upon death
Plate 25
The Ox in the slaughter house moans
The Dog at the wintry door
And he wept, & he called it Pity
And his tears flowed down on the winds"