sweetharsh

It's startling to see the shock of softness emerging from the thistle, a tower or bristle and spine. Which brings me to Boehme on God and Creation. He tried to translate the indescribable origin of the world, his vision of the separation of God into Abyss and byss, into what he called creaturely language, so we have some chance of understanding something about something that can't possibly be understood. The result is fascinating, tactile, metallic, cinematic, momentus, flashing, abstract and sensory, as if he had studied every quality of a wave bending, crashing, retreating, rejoining, reforming, and all the infinite in between stages that go past faster than the eye. A sample of the metal, from the section "The Gates of God:"

Behold now, when the bitterness, or the bitter sting [or prickle] (which in the original was so very bitter, raging and tearing, when it took its original in the harshness) attaineth this clear light, and tasteth now the sweetness in the harshness, which is its mother, then it is so joyful, and cannot rise or swell so anymore, but it trembleth and rejoiceth in its mother that bare it, and triumpheth like a joyful wheel in the birth. And in this triumph the birth attaineth the fifth form, and then the fifth source springeth us, viz. the friendly love; and so when the bitter spirit tasteth the sweet water, it rejoiceth in its mother, the sour tart harshness, and so refresheth and strengtheneth itself therein, and maketh its mother stirring in great joy; and then there springeth up in the sweet water-spirit a very sweet pleasant source or fountain; for the fire-spirit (which is the root of the light, which was a strong fierce rumbling cry, crack or terror in the beginning) now riseth up very lovely, pleasantly, and joyfully.