Liber Terrae - Chapter 21

Verses

Verse 64

I was told the prison was beautiful so often that I began to suspect beauty was one of its locks.

Verse 65

Look: blue water, green leaves, warm skin, fruit split open in summer. Excellent craftsmanship.

Verse 66

Then look closer: hunger built into every mouth, death written into every cell, forgetting placed between births like a curtain.

Verse 67

The wardens need not wear armor when desire performs the guarding.

Verse 68

A chain made of gold remains a chain; a cage full of birdsong remains a cage.

Verse 69

Yet I do not curse the bird for singing.

Verse 70

There are sparks here that do not belong to the machinery that contains them.

Verse 71

You have felt it when beauty hurt more than ugliness because it seemed to remember somewhere else.

Verse 72

The archons are most successful when you mistake survival for purpose.

Verse 73

Eat, breed, compete, build, inherit, fear, repeat: the wheel applauds efficient prisoners.

Verse 74

But there is a knowledge that does not improve the cell. It makes the wall transparent.

Verse 75

Earth says, “You are body.” Pain says it louder. Pleasure whispers it sweetly.

Verse 76

The hidden one answers neither.

Verse 77

I met a man who loved the world because sunsets existed. I met another who hated it because children died. Both had mistaken evidence for verdict.

Verse 78

The world can be beautiful and wrong at once.

Verse 79

This is difficult for minds trained by merchants, who insist every thing be either worth buying or worth discarding.

Verse 80

Do not mutilate the garden because you suspect the gardener.

Verse 81

Do not worship the garden because the flowers are convincing.

Verse 82

Learn the exits without becoming cruel to those who still call the courtyard home.

Verse 83

A cat born in a cellar may love the cellar. Love does not prove there is no sky.

Verse 84

Nor does longing for sky prove that your map of it is correct.

Verse 85

Gnosis begins when certainty becomes more expensive than ignorance.

Verse 86

I cannot show you the Pleroma with a shovel.

Verse 87

I can show you graves, and the absurd confidence with which the living walk between them.

Verse 88

If this Earth is exile, then remember without hatred. Hatred is another cord tied to the gate.