CURRENT 93 – The Cloud of Unknowing / Dormition and Dominion

Both songs are taken from Current 93’s album Of Ruine Or Some Blazing Starre – The Broken Heart of Man (1993).

The Cloud of Unknowing (Middle English: The Cloude of Unknowyng) is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer in the late Middle Ages. The underlying message of this work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon consideration of God’s particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender one’s mind and ego to the realm of “unknowing”, at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God. (Wikipedia)

And then when then I die I feel I shall say I have not understood I have not understood any of this My eyes are still coaldark I have not understood Around and in my eyes the tiny flecks Of swirling crippled confused lights And to my heart I will whisper Softly quietly “There is no death there is no death” (And goodbye to you all) Under the gorgon grinnd arches Of London’s great vaults I have not understood Under the sunpuckered roofs of Kathmandu I have not understood Along the soulstoned streets Of Lower And of Higher Germanie I have not understood Leipzig: blackeyed pain and loss: she I have not understood In Clare near I The empty lakes are open in the distance And too close is the faminereatchingroad All these are ghosts There I have not understood (In the Heart of the Wood Oh there have I understood) I rested at the temple of Great Black Time – Her And did not understand Though animalbled fleshmarbled rivers ran in Her honour His buckled body in blood Returns to the prebirth poise Spreadeagled like starfish – There in His eyes: Incomprehension mute pain disbelief what Blood there meant sorrow trickles there This I could not understand I bend the pages of yet another book And in its lines Great Black Lines I have not understood Please gramerey pray for me And oh goodbye sweetestheart The wind roars in the nearness And there in my heart And all the clouds are spiralling towards us Descent indeed to the centre of it all Skipping lightly and lying truly This we shall understand I hope…

Wet bent humped trees The great ones – there On the lapped shore Dai Ichi There also I do not know This is all unknowable And as the dust covers My empty eyes You shall read in these foolish gapes Oh that I have not understood (But if you look for the stag and the cross conjoined There on my arm look there There I have understood very well)

Now you are all fading All fading As my age creeps on As This Age stumbles on Fires in the earth Fires in the sky Fires in our hearts Fires everywhere The black eyes Already blacken And this I have not understood

Not peace But a sword This and He Unfortunately I have understood Under the bowered greenwood tree When first I lay Bright starre with Thee Under the velvet branches dear When sun and moon both came so near Under the starlit open dome Under the starsharp pointed lights Under the starloved greeny earth When first I wanted to hold You And all the world halfdead and halflive Spat into my mouth Bluesea bitterwater And I am almost dead And I have not understood

Under the rain and teeth of gods Under the pain and sleeping liddy eyes Under the brokkd wetful heaven If you are there If you are there If you are there Then I am singing with my eyes If you are there

In the mind of god The dead sleeping lie And the little cogs though unmoving Hover over the turning wheel All life’s a farce The broken bird is draped over the paths And paths and paths and paths And those who say this world is not The bloody gleaming paradise of blood and jewel Lie Opal and pearl bloodsocket castings Ruby jasmine jasper and onyx Chalcedonthrone and ambergriscrown Golden green leafwork Scrolled with the farstars Pitted with the moonworlds Mother alldewey Arrayed with the twinkling lights The wovengold spungilded blinking godeyes The spearshafts of heaven The souldwelling rockhomes Are… Dormition and Dominion Dormition and Dominion The Mother is dead The Mother awakens Dormition She sleeps Dominion He rules She sleeps and rules In her starry bodied glory The Mother sleeps The Mother loves Dormition and Dominion I wait …Are the holders of the world and its dreams I say there is no death No death We have lived before and shall live again And again

We have slept before and shall sleep again We have danced through the shallow pools And shall rejoice once again To those who say there is no hope I say liars Liars Liars you are Over the starry dancing stars There is a land Under the sweatribbed brow There is a land And this is the globed world of the Pantocrator Finally I have understood I have understood I have understood Though when I slip sleeping and silently From this ribbed room of sighs You shall not find the history of His personal visit Sewn into my linings perhaps Nevertheless I have understood Where the logician watches god hinge all on a die Nevertheless I have understood!

That all this is the breathbetween moment Our eyeslids open and close Between is the land Between the time I first was accepted In between Your brightboned body Between then and there and the time You wept: “Goodbye my love goodbye to you” There there was the land In the pearls of our heart There is the immaculate heavenly loveland In the middle of the forest Acton is slain by his own hounds In the middle of the forestEustace meets the crisscross Stag There is the land he has reached paradise There is no death There is no death There as the stag turns and smiled loved There he was takencaught by the prey All the flowers are blossoming And all the world calls to you: “Dormition” – so you sleep “Dominion” – so you rule Dormition – oh You sleep, Mother Dominion – Father, You rule