A night alone in the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains, lying outside under so many bright stars on a dark night, maybe this is the stuff that dreams are made on.
'We are such stuff as dreams are made on ... and our little life is rounded with sleep".
Prospero. - Shakespeare
True enough, we are all such stuff, but we are not all Prospero commanding the elemental powers. Instead we gaze into the intangible celestial characters of changing sky scapes moved not by us, but by the collective winds.
Prospero not only grasps the elemental drama itself, but understands the power such drama wields to keep us energizing the storms, the tempests of our own making.
We all have our parts to play and the work of the player is to remain distinct from the character.
We come to the theater sometimes as the actor on stage, sometimes as an audience.
From our observer seats we are able to watch the show and learn from the rise and fall of so many characters.
As we become aware of the performances of others we may work with and cultivate our own strength of character. And thus improve our individual performance on the life stage or the various stages throughout our life.
As theater seasons pass we weary of the feigned passions of actors, the reruns of drama. Eventually we grasp that the theater is a business, a racket, a puppet show. Scripts get revised, characters rewritten for a younger audience.
Players come and go and behind the scenes and sets the theater owners are already planning the next 5 seasons.
Slowly it dawns that the staged events and big productions are age old patterns of generations of performaners, void of reformers.
Producers and directers work the magic and draw the attention of the audience into the live performance. Bankers fund the entertainment. For a while, while we are young, we get sucked in to the shows. We are amused by the jokers and act out our rage towards the current bad guy.
Wholly engaging with the players while we, all the while are being played. All the world's a stage, but maybe this is -As We Like It.
But characters who study the ancient works as did Prospero, spend time in practice and learn how to dispel the unholy spell of the cast.
The unveiing of the usurpers behind the curtains, those ostensible wizards streaming the constant flow of scripted programs through corrupted channels, this scene plays out off stage among the audience, one by one, as the awareness of nonsensical noise grows.
The stage hands sense the audience boiling over and burning with rage at the unbelievable scene on this weeks stage.
And the tempest is formed.
Collective tensions rise to the back drop of smoke and mirrors, which then multiply and darken the mood with gathering clouds of confusion.
An unseen sprite flashes bright as particles collide overhead and the mirrored menagerie is foiled by Ariel's own might. The reign of the usurper brother has been spoiled. The mood lightens as clouds dissipate and expose the crafters of collusion.
This ageless work of Shakespeare, -The Tempest, plays out the scenes outside the theater walls. The bard weaves the magic of a story for audience entertainment or study.
Evidence shows this play was written in 1610, and was one of the last of the Shakespearian tales performed in those days of turbulence and terrors.
Prospero or Caliban, master or subject?
The analytical description by Coleridge, shown in the photo above, describes Caliban as -
'all earth, all condensed, and gross in feelings and images; the dawnings of understanding without reason or moral sense, and in him.... this advance to the intellectual faculties, without the moral sense, is marked by the appearance of vice'
Gervinus' description [shown below] analyzes Ariel, the airy spirit, as -
'grace, tenderness, speed and especially freedom and lightness... the other spirits [elementals] hate the magician, yet are compelled to serve him... Ariel obeys him thankfully and truly, without lies, without mistakes... for this, perfect freedom is promised within a certain time,.. Prospero will miss Ariel... but the airy creature will feel no longing after his dear master, whom he only seems to love for the sake of his promised freedom.
Two centuries after Shakespeare Gervinus, 1805 -1871, was a distilling mind who devoted himself to the study of Shakespeare for a time, and produced his great literary work in four volumes - 1849, 1850.
The material realm is the descent into the dense requiring a vehicle for travel into the dimension of sensory experience. And when we have done our work, or wasted our days we distill our experience after the last breath of air releases from the material body.
Ariel, the air spirit, eliminates more and more of the dense daily.,
" grace, tenderness, speed and especially freedom and lightness"...
Gervinus' words applied to the elemental Ariel. As the air spirit evolves the master releases.
The earth elemental is taking it all in, holding on, adding on. The hot air balloon is anchored to earth by the ballast.
The Caliban, "he is all earth".
So we see several things.
To distill the essence from matter is to disintegrate it, the matter. To release from the earthy binding form is to rise above the dense.
Gervinus said the other spirits [elementals] hate the magician, -whyis that? Because the alchemists' process will disintegrate, evaporate them.
Ariel, the airy spirit, has already been transformed thus, and no longer fears what has already been experienced .
The denser elementals, -are compelled to serve the magician - why is that? Because they fear him. It is their own ignorance, it is what they do not know that controls them. This ignorance is the gravity, ignorance is the force that binds the elementals into slavery. The magician, Prospero, merely plays on their fear in a resonate tune.
