Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (56 page)

And then there are times when such a stillness invades me that I am amazed to
think I ever wanted to pen a letter to any one, even to God. “Wherever you are, you must be
getting the message!” So powerful are the radiations emanating from within that I feel certain
they reach to the most hidden recesses of the globe. Sometimes, as if in corroboration of this
feeling, I receive a letter from a distant friend with whom I had silently communicated in
these bright, quiet moments. We should have more such moments, all of us. Many more than we
ordinarily do. We should get to know
it for a fact, accept it as the
norm,
live by it
, that it
is
possible to communicate instantly with whomever
one wishes, at any time, no matter how remote (in any sense of the word) the person may be.
When we are one with ourselves all is one. When we are completely alive we need no mail
carriers, no telegraph or telephone lines. We do not even need wings. We are there,
everywhere, without making a move.

I am certain that if I ever permanently attain such a state of being there
will be no correspondence to plague me. A radiant being is like a sun which shines whether
commanded to or not.

It is for me, then, to lift myself by the bootstraps, to remain in the heavens
of my own being.

Curious, is it not, to see what a point I have reached in trying to solve my
problem! How could I have foreseen, when beginning this lament, that I would arrive at such an
admission? Was it not I who said:
“Tackle your problems creatively!”
What’s good for
the goose is good for the gander. Anyway, what began as a complaint, or appeal, ends as a
prayer. Only get desperate enough, I said, and the light will dawn. Yes, the light is dawning
for
me
now. More and more clearly I see that the solution lies wholly with
me
. It is I who have to change, I who must exhibit more faith and trust, more
confidence in life itself.

It is good that I obeyed the impulse to voice my thoughts. Maybe it will do
you
good as well as me. For whatever itches me must itch you too. None of us is
exempt. We are all one substance, one problem, one solution.

When first I beheld this wondrous region I thought to myself—“Here I will
find peace. Here I shall find the strength to do the work I was made to do.”

Back of the ridge which overshadows us is a wilderness in which scarcely
anyone ever sets foot. It is a great forest and game reserve intended to be set apart forever.
At night one feels the silence all
about, a silence which begins far back
of the ridge and which creeps in with the fog and the stars, with the warm valley winds, and
which carries in its folds a mystery as deep as the earth’s own. A magnetic, healing ambiance.
The advent of city folk, with their cares and worries, is pure dissonance. Like the lepers of
old, they come with their sores. Whoever settles here hopes that he will be the last invader.
The very look of the land makes one long to keep it intact—the spiritual reserve of a few
bright spirits.

Of late I have come to take a different view of it. Walking the hills at dawn,
or at dusk, looking over the deep canyons or seaward toward the far horizon, absorbed in
reveries, drowned in the awesome beauty of it all, I sometimes think how wonderful will be the
day when all these mountain sides are filled with habitations, when the slopes are terraced
with fields, when flowers burst forth everywhere, not only wild flowers but flowers planted by
human hands for human delectation. I try to imagine what it may be like a hundred, five
hundred, years hence. I picture villas dotting the slopes, and colossal stairways curving down
to the sea where boats lie at anchor, their colorful sails unfurled and flapping listlessly in
the breeze. I see ledges cut into the sharp flanks of the cliffs, to give purchase to chapels
and monasteries suspended between heaven and earth, as in Greece. I see tables spread under
brilliant awnings (as in the time of the Doges), and wine flowing into golden goblets, and
over the glitter of gold and purple I hear laughter, laughter like pearling rapids, rising
from thousands of jubilant throats. …

Yes, I can visualize multitudes living where now there are only a few
scattered families. There is room here for thousands upon thousands to come. There would be no
need for a Jake to deliver food and mail three times a week. There would be ways and means
undreamed of today. It could happen, in fact, in a very few years from now. What we dream
is
the reality of tomorrow.

This place can be a paradise. It is now, for those who live it.
But
then
it will be another paradise, one in which all share, all
participate. The
only
paradise, after all.

Peace and solitude! I have had a taste of it, even here in America. Ah, those
first days on Partington Ridge! On rising I would go to the cabin door and, casting my eyes
over the velvety, rolling hills, such a feeling of contentment, such a feeling of gratitude
was mine that instinctively my hand went up in benediction. Blessings! Blessings on you, one
and all! I blessed the trees, the birds, the dogs, the cats, I blessed the flowers, the
pomegranates, the thorny cactus, I blessed men and women everywhere, no matter on which side
of the fence they happened to be.

That is how I like to begin each day. A day well begun, I say. And that is why
I choose to remain here, on the slopes of the Santa Lucia, where to give thanks to the Creator
comes natural and easy. Out yonder they may curse, revile and torture one another, defile all
the human instincts, make a shambles of creation (if it were in their power), but here, no,
here it is unthinkable, here there is abiding peace, the peace of God, and the serene security
created by a handful of good neighbors living at one with the creature world, with noble,
ancient trees, scrub and sagebrush, wild lilac and lovely lupin, with poppies and buzzards,
eagles and humming birds, gophers and rattlesnakes, and sea and sky unending.

Finis
.                  
Big Sur, California      
May, 1955-June, 1956.

*
My Friend, Henry Miller
, by Alfred Perlès; published by Neville Spearman, Ltd.,
London, 1955, and also by the John Day Co., New York, 1956.

*
The title is taken from the book
of the same name by Étienne Cabet wherein the latter describes his (imaginary) Utopia. A
remarkable work in this, that though Communistic in the romantic sense, it is an
accurate blueprint of the totalitarian governments we now have.

*
From
Manas
, Los Angeles,
March 23, 1955.

*
The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch
, by Wilhelm Fränger (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1951), page 104.

*
”The human mind has drawn a net of
logical relationships and practical ingenuity over the phenomenal world with which it is
confronted; and so, by this intellectual and material domination of the world, it has
removed itself to an infinite distance from the created world in which it once had a
purely natural share. It was this natural world in which the Brethren of the Free Spirit
saw the meaning of life.”
(The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch
, page 152.)

*
See the passage from Cingria’s diary
quoted by Pierre Guéguen in the March 1, 1955 issue of the
N.R.F
. His text is
called
“Le Dandy.”

*
If a Man Be Mad
, by Harold Maine (pseudonym) (New York: Double-day & Co.,
1947).

*
Since I wrote the above he’s been fired.
H. M.

*
Published by Harcourt, Brace & Co.,
New York, 1947.

*
Which is what he did a few months after
the above was written.

*
Forever China
, by Robert Payne (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1945).

*
The Travel Diary of a Philosopher
, by Count Hermann Keyserling (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1925), Vol. II.

*
Originally published in two sections in
the New Directions Annuals 9 and 11, it has now been reprinted in one volume under the
title:
The Time of the Assassins
(New York: New Directions, 1956).

*
The House of Certain Death
, by Albert Cossery (New York: New Directions,
1949).

*
By J. P. Wharton; distributed by Wharton
Publishers, Box 303, Los Gatos, California.

*
The Gospel of Ramakrishna
, published by the Vedanta Society, N. Y.

*
See his account of this enterprise in
the illustrated brochure dealing with the production of the book.

*
De J.-J. Rousseau à Mistral
by Joseph Delteil (Paris: Editions du Capitole,
1928).

†
Charles Dickens
(New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1906).

‡
Jesus II
, by Joseph Delteil (Paris: Flammarion, 1947).

*
The Menninger Story
(New York: Doubleday, 1956).

*
Recounted in
The Air-conditioned
Nightmare
(New York: New Directions, 1945).

†
In the second volume of
The Books in
My Life
.

*
I give just a few snatches of those
aspects of Milosz which fired me: (1.)
"Pendant toute sa vie, Milosz tiendra Don
Quichotte pour le synonyme de l'homme."
(2.)
"Ill commenca ses études
(1896) à l'Ecole du Louvre et à l'Ecole des Langue Orientales. Il y
étudia l'art phénicien et assyrien, ainsi que l'épigraphie orientale
sous la direction du célèbre traducteur de la Bible, Eugène
Ledrain... Avec une passion innée, il apprit la cryptographie des langue
palestino-mesopotamienne. Etudiant la préhistoire, il songe à l'origine
même de l'humanité, à celle du cosmos et à sa cause
primordiale."
(3.)
"Milsoz qui avait une vocation spirituelle
indéniable, vivait dépaysé dans ce monde auquel il ne s'adaptait pas;
il sentit toujours qu'il n'était créé pour le bonheur humain, que sa
naissance avait déjà été une chute, et que son enfance
était comme le souvenir d l'était comme le souvenir de l'époque
où il prit conscience de la gravité de cette chute."
(4.)
"La
Nature (si belle aux yeux de la plupart des hommes), cette nature, au sein de
laquelle nous vivons depuis des millénaires, est une sorte d'absolu de la
laideur et de l'infamie. Nous ne la supportons que parce que, tout au fond de
nous-mêmes, survit le souvenir d'une
premieère nature
qui
est
divine et vraie.
Dans cette nature
seconde,
qui nouse
environne, tout est mauvais indiciblement."
(Milosz' own words.) These
citations are taken from a book called
O. V. de L. Milosz: sa vie, son oeuvre, son
rayonnement
, by Geneviève-Irène Zidonis: Olivier Perrin, Editeur, 198
Boulevard Saint-Germain. Paris. 1951. (A gift from the French Consulate at Los Angeles,
California.)

†
The Books in My Life
(New York: New Directions, 1952).

*
Restif de la Bretonne: Témoignages et Jugements: Bibliographie;
Au dépens de
l’auteur. En vente à la Librairie Briffaut, 4, rue de Furstemburg, Paris (6), 1949.

*
Kahlil Gibran: A Biography
, by Mikhail Naimy (New York: Philosophical Library,
1950). (Translated from the Arabic.)

*
Out of Confusion
, by M. N. Chatterjee (Yellow Springs, Ohio: Antioch Press,
1954).

*
The Pool of Wisdom
, by J. Krishnamurti (Holland: Star Publishing Trust,
1928).

*
Italics mine.

*
Taken from the editorial, “Socrates for
Europe,”
Manas
, Los Angeles, California, Dec. 7, 1955.

*
Taken from “Reasons Why Longer Life Is
Possible,” by Dr. Leo L. Spears, of the Spears Chiropractic Sanitarium and Hospital,
Denver, Colorado. Dr. Spears has since died of a heart attack.

*
Paris: Au Sans Pareil, 1928.

*
My original intention in composing
this text.

*
The edition published by Horace
Liveright, New York, 1929.

COPYRIGHT © 1957 by New Directions Publishing
Corporation

The chapter called “Paradise Lost” was published as a separate book and
called
A Devil in Paradise
, Copyright © 1956 by Henry Miller

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper,
magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
Publisher.

For permission to reprint quotations from other works the author and
publisher are grateful to the following: The Antioch Press for M. J. Chatterjee’s O
UT
OF
C
ONFUSION
; Dodd, Mead and Co. and William Heinemann Ltd. (London)
for Robert Payne’s F
OREVER
C
HINA
(Eng. title:
C
HUNGKING
D
IARY
); University of Chicago and Faber & Faber
Ltd. (London) for Wilhelm Fränger’s T
HE
M
ILLENNIUM OF
H
IERONYMUS
B
OSCH
; Joseph Delteil for his Jesus II and
D
E
J
EAN
J
ACQUES
R
OUSSEAU A
M
ISTRAL
; Dodd, Mead and Co., Methuen and Co. Ltd. (London) and Miss D. E.
Collins for G. K. Chesterton’s C
HARLES
D
ICKENS
; Harcourt, Brace
and Co. Inc. and Jonathan Cape Ltd. (London) for Count Keyserling’s T
HE
T
RAVEL
D
IARY OF A
P
HILOSOPHER
(vol. II);
Olivier Perrin Editeur (Paris) for Genevieve-Irene Zidonis’ O. V.
DE
L.
M
ILOSZ
: S
A
V
IE
, S
ON
O
EUVRE
, S
ON
R
AYONNEMENT
; Philosophical Library
Inc. for Mikhail Naimy’s K
AHLIL
G
IBRAN
: A
B
IOGRAPHY
; Poetry-London for Elizabeth Smart’s B
Y
G
RAND
C
ENTRAL
S
TATION
I S
AT
D
OWN AND
W
EPT
; D. Rajagopal for J. Krishnamurti’s
T
HE
P
OOL OF
W
ISDOM
; The Vedanta Society for
T
HE
G
OSPEL OF
R
AMAKRISHNA
; Librairie Briffaut
(Paris) for R
ESTIF DE LA
B
RETONNE
: T
EMOIGNAGES ET
J
UGEMENTS
: B
IBLIOGRAPHIE
; Dr. Leo L. Spears for his “Reasons
Why Longer Life Is Possible” and
Manas
, (Los Angeles) for “Socrates for Europe” and a
review of L
IVING THE
G
OOD
L
IFE
.