“In the Deeps of Time and in the midst of innumerable stars”
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Silmilrillion
Difficult to know and difficult to describe - The Silmarillion is an acquired taste - like dark chocolate, I heard someone say. Yet it is Tolkien’s great work - a book, though unfinished and published posthumously by his son Christopher in 1977 - that he regarded as the true source and font from which everything he subsequently wrote issued forth.
I do not remember a time when I was not building it...
Tolkien:Letter 131 to Milton Waldman (~1951)
Before ever he conceived of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings – when he was just a young Oxford student – alone in the trenches of World War 1 – the war to end all wars it was said – & by whose end he would lose all but one of his friends – he had set his pen to paper and dreamed up the most extra- ordinary creation story & companion of tales, complete with their own languages, that he had started as a child.
The intensity of his creative experiences during in those first years have elsewhere been likened to those described by Carl Jung in his Red Book. Both men it seems lived life close to an edge for a few years - closer we might say and deeper than most of us ever come to the extremes of human experience without toppling over - and both confess to spending the rest of their lives attempting to integrate the flood of material encountered at that time.
Tolkien reveals to us throughout the vast legendarium that subsequently came about, a profound understanding of beauty, goodness, evil & human pride & of how such weakness can ultimately lead to tyranny & destruction.
In studying his own creation myth we can see clearly the introduction of the opposing tendencies of light of darkness. We see how they are woven into the very fabric of creation from the start - setting the scene for the aeons of struggles ahead that eventually culminate in the victory at the end of Lord of the Rings.
“ In the beginning there was Eru, the One,
who in Arda is called Ilúvatar;
and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones,
that were the offspring of his thought,
and they were with him before aught else was made.
And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad.”
J.R.R.Tolkien: The Silmirillion
Then he said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.'
Then Ilúvatar rose up his right hand - and a third theme commenced amidst the confusion.
It began quietly we are told and it was,
... soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Iluvatar, and they were utterly at variance.
The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came....whilst the other... was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes.
Tolkien gives luminous insight into this whole dynamic – that we all see playing out in groups from playground to board room. The Ainur when they begin seem only aware of their own part, their expression of the theme propounded by Ilúvatar. They only gradually become aware of other strains - and through deep listening and profound contemplation come to understand and to sing in unison, and in beautiful harmony too.
He is an extreme manifestation of this tendency to subvert & out-shine. He is the most powerful of the Ainur Tolkien tells, but he is flawed from the get go and has often we hear, roamed the void – impatient with Ilúvatar, seeking the Flame Imperishable for himself – the very flame Ilúvatar wields in order to create life.
Ultimately however Malkor is no match for Ilúvatar and as this third theme progresses Malkor's most powerful, violent & triumphant notes are overtaken by Ilúvatar’s and woven into his own beautiful music so that it is abundantly clear that no music may progress to it's conclusion that does not have its source in the light. And finally then Ilúvatar ...
raised up both his hands, and in one chord, deeper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of Ilúvatar, the Music ceased.
has gone out into the void and that a world has been created from it.
I was then taken back to the ward where I saw that a small frequency box had been placed in the centre emitting sound waves. Peoples energetic fields were being re -calibrated. They were being brought back into harmony – into health.
Ancient civilisations are said to have practiced sound healing and today many alternative health practitioners offer therapy along these lines. Not as powerful most probably as the curative interventions being realised in the dream – but who knows.
Though not at all recognised by conventional medicine, the power of vibration is undeniable. A few years later I went to see Masuri Emoto, the Japanese scientist who famously conducted experiments on the effects of thought on matter – and on water in particular. His photographs of frozen water crystals subjected to a range of postive & negative programming are incredible & highly significant too given the body is mainly composed of water.
Beyond the realm of the mainstream of course - like those who say we are entering a new phase of awakening – a raising of our planetary vibration. Babies being born are said to have slightly more activated DNA (making use of more of what conventional science calls our junk DNA.) Seems odd though doesn’t it – almost re-enactments of Tolkien’s tale – with this new elevation of consciousness, of vibrational frequency – on the one side, whilst on the other – the darker forces of 5G and its possible negative electro -magnetic frequencies being bombarded through our bodies.
Alternative US health professionals with huge followings have come out straight and pointed out the worrying correlation between the first big roll out of 5G in areas like Lombardy in Italy, New York City and Wuhan of course – which have been the worst hit. There is said to be a clear historical correlation too between points of increased global electrification over the last hundred years and the outbreak of health pandemics. Interesting to ponder!
Nikola Tesla famously said,
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
It is said that in order to know himself God moved beyond oneness - and brought the universe into being. In sacred geometry this first movement beyond the incorporeal realm of infinite potentiality is represented as the progression from the single point or dot at the core of the circle outwards to the creation of its radius and onward through a sequence of increasingly complex tessellations and magnifications.
This first geometric progression however is the most significant - for in drawing a circle around itself - spirit it seems - reaches out into the third dimensional world in its first move toward becoming matter.
As Lao Tzu explained:
The Tao begot one. One begot two. Two begot three. And three begot
Ten Thousand Things.
Passage: Anne Maria Clarke: Heavenly Creations
And of course, the great creation myth of the bible begins thus,
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
Whatever the case may be, it seems that whilst residing on this plain of duality, as Tolkien hints at the end of his Lord of the Rings – there will always be a battle between opposing forces – opposing themes in our collective song.
Only when such polarity is transcended will our ultimate Happy Ending finally be achieved and only then will the music of creation be sung as first intended.
Water carries the deepest memory of the uncorrupted song, he writes - the elves always knew this & longed for it & wove fragments of its memory into their singing - but only at the end of days, Tolkien tells us will ...
...the themes of Ilúvatar .. be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.
Tolkien: Silmarillion
Anne Maria
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