Heaven #1646 A Meeting of the Stars
Gloria and I have received a question from Leon, our new and sole Chinese translator of Heavenletters. Since he does not have a computer yet (in fact, he will have one within a week), he does all his translations on his cell phone. And of course, the prohibitive price of browsing with a cell phone on Internet with a lot of data, prevents him from using Internet. And it is very hard to browse Heavenletters' web site from a cell phone because the screens are large and the buttons extremely small). Anyway, Leon receives Heavenletters by email subscription and if he wants to explore and select other HL, he goes to a friend who has a computer and a printer...
So here is Leon's question concerning the translation of #1646
In http://www.heavenletters.org/a-meeting-of-the-stars.html
parag. 5
"You forgot who you were too. You saw everyone as less too. You lowered your eyes. You couldn't look at the sun unless you wore goggles. You stole glances at the moon, but mostly hung lesser lights and remembered them. You forgot the light of love, and love became shady. Rain was convenient or inconvenient."
________
Dear Normand/Gloria
What does this sentence mean?You stole
glances at the moon, but mostly hung
lesser lights and remembered them.(from #1646 A Meeting of The Stars)
God bless you
Leon
____
Dear Leon
After God said that we could no longer directly look at the sun (we lowered our vision with ego), we stole (from the verb to steal: to take the property of another without right or permission) glances at the moon [that is we only had short looks at the moon like if we were not allowed to anymore, that is why we seemed to steal those looks or glances), but mostly you hung lesser lights (you suspended lesser lights, like "artificial" lights, cheaper lights of our own creations like all the objects we fabricate) and remembered them (instead of remembering the greater lights).
This is not easy to translate. If you want clearer explanation, I can ask Gloria to paraphrase for you.
Hope it helps.
With blessings
Normand
__________
Hi Normand and Leon~ There
Hi Normand and Leon~ There is an echo here of the Biblical account of creation in which God speaks of creating the greater light of the sun and the lesser light of the moon and stars.
At least in the Western world there is the tradition of hanging up Christmas lights. Maybe more in the Eastern world a tradition of lights for a night time garden party. There are night time lights in places like Las Vegas so bright no one could see the moon or stars if they looked for them.
Normand's expansion of the words is good. This may be another instance where logic and plain expression are not the point. I would think a literal translation would be best with the thought of the next sentence in mind, "You forgot the light of love . . . ."
Dear Charles, your answer
Dear Charles, your answer makes sense. There might be a reference to the Biblical account of creation about this nuance of the greater light of the sun and the lesser light of the moon and stars. But Heavenreaders and translators might come from all religious denominations where the Bible is totally unkown. What about the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Deads, the Veda, the Tao To King, the Popol Vuh, and all those sacred works unknown to the Western Christian world?
Yet we can notice that in Heavenletters, when God makes references to religious texts, He refers only, to my knowledge, to Biblical examples.
Leon, your question and
Leon, your question and Normand and Charles your responses -- your words are like flower petals opening up. Poetry is like that, and this Heavenletter is poetry!
It is figurative language here. Metaphorical. This Heavenletter would be difficult to interpret literally. To my mind, the delight of this Heavenletter cannot be translated in a down to earth fashion. The words are leaps of imagination. Much is "said" in the gaps between words.
Normand, I wonder if this Heavenletter been translated into French? Can you do it? Is it translatable? I imagine it would be a coup to translate this.
Leon, I think of Chinese as being a language of metaphor, naturally poetic. Is that true?
This is one of my all-time favorite Heavenletters. I have always loved poetry. A poem gives us more that what the words themselves say. I have little intellectual understanding of quantum mechanics and such, yet my feeling is that much of it is like metaphor. When I read Normand's blog that opens with a Heavenletter quote, I do not literally understand it, yet on a heart level it's possible I do.
Dearest Leon, please let us know how the rest of the translation is going for you!
Thank you for everything. And thanks, Normand and Charles. And, Charles, it's interesting what you bring up about God's creating Light. . I know that in India there is a Festival of Lights called Divali. In Judiasm, there is also a Festival of Lights. I would guess that every country and every religion feels close to God's Light.
I believe that God says He is light and love, and that light is love, and love is light.
I wish all the comments
I wish all the comments could appear all at once so I could see Normand's and everyone's comment and Leon's question in front of me.
I just wanted to extend one thing you said, Normand, and will try to do it from memory.
God would be the Bright Light of the Sun. The True Reality would be the Bright Lights. The lesser lights would be light, of course, yet also mean getting caught up in the world realities. Monetary profit would be a lesser light. Fame would be a lesser light. Of course, lying and stealing and feeling superior to others would be lesser lights.
Probably we could write a whole book based on the interpretation of this one Heavenletter, yet the Heavenletter itself would have more impact because it is poetry.
Thanks again for your question, Leon. And Normand and Charles for your responses.
Thank you Charles! Beautiful
Thank you Charles! Beautiful explanation. This is a different angle. From different angles, we got different views. So, literal translation is a good consideration.
More about The Meeting of the Stars for Leon
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Until beloved Leon, Chinese translator, gets his computer, he is limited on what he can relay to us with his cell phone. You can imagine the time, patience, and determination it takes to translate via test. I mean, I can't even imagine! So, Leon understandably communicated his question to me, as follows:
From: 靳帅
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 10:13 PM
To: g
Subject: Help
Beloved Gloria, what is this sentence talking about?
You called a meeting of the stars, but instead you gave a lecture. You didn't let the stars speak. It was against the by-laws.
It is from this paragraph:
And your heart cried out for the song you had forgotten and yet still, you hoped, was being played in some far-off distant land. You went from theatre to theatre, looking for the music you longed for and that, you pleaded, existed somewhere. Even if you couldn't hear it, you wanted someone to hear it. You wanted it to be true somewhere. You called a meeting of the stars, but instead you gave a lecture. You didn't let the stars speak. It was against the by-laws. You didn't let your heart vote. You pretended you could count, and all the while you mourned for a faintly, very faintly,remembered song that wanted to issue from your throat.
God bless you, Leon
From me to Leon:
Beloved Leon,
This Heavenletter is all metaphor. Probably the best thing to do, as I believe Charles suggested, is to translate the words literally.
I will put the words with some explanation just for YOU, not to be translated into Chinese but for your understanding behind the scenes. We want to stay with God's Words as closely as we can. Also, when it comes to metaphors, each reader has to discover the meaning for himself. Even if he can't discover the meaning, I believe something of it it still speaks to his heart. We don't fully understand it, and yet we love it!
Here's my explanation, with apologies:
We (the human beings) called a meeting of the stars (we had good desires, we knew there was something more than day-in and day-out material life) but instead, we gave a lecture (like we knew it all) We didn't let the stars speak. (If we let the stars speak, we couldn't continue thinking our ordinary ways.) It was against the by-laws for the stars to speak (against our human rules, the rules we call the ways of the world.)
(Probably the song we wanted, Leon, was God.) We didn't let our hearts speak. We had to have logic. (ignored our hearts) Yet we wanted God's song without quite knowing the words or the tune. We pretended we could count (like we really knew it all) and yet we were sad for this faintly remembered song (we wanted to sing and come out in our voices, yet we couldn't quite dare to sing.)
Does this help any?
I will post your question and my answer, and let's see what other Heavenreaders have to say.
Loving you and thanking for your taking a big leap with translating this Heavenletter, The Meeting of the Stars.
Gloria
And here is beloved Leon's quick reply:
Thank you, Gloria! it helps a lot. i know how to translate now according to your and Normand's explanation.
i will sent it out as soon as possible.
a thousand blessings
Leon
在2014/06/28，
Une Rencontre d'Étoiles
Dear Gloria
you wrote: "Normand, I wonder if this Heavenletter been translated into French? Can you do it? Is it translatable? I imagine it would be a coup to translate this."
No dear G, it has not been translated into French...until tonight. I just finished it, it is already sent to the subscribers. In fact, it was a charm to translate it, as easy as to turn the potter's wheel. Here it is:
Une Rencontre d'Étoiles
Heavenletter #1646 Published on: mai 23, 2005
C'est comme si J'avais de l'amour à exprimer et que Je riais de joie. Et puis Je, directeur des effets visuels comme Je suis, créai des images de quoi Mon amour pourrait avoir l'air. Il y avait des roses de Mon amour, des canards, des éléphants, des rochers et des mers, et puis il y eut toi, les millions de visages de toi. Ce fut un tel crescendo d'amour. Et puis une autre volée de rires, un autre tour de roue et, comme dans un kaléidoscope, les images changeaient, apparaissaient et disparaissaient, tournoyaient ensemble en une extase de rose après rose et de visage après visage à partir de tous les angles. Les roses se répandaient en profusion. Le contenu de Mon cœur se répandait sur le sol et les roses furent cueillies en premier de la Terre.
Mon rire était si énorme que des étoiles surgirent et le ciel nocturne se glissa derrière pour leur servir de coussin. Le Soleil fit irruption et la modeste lune se voûta autour du soleil; les planètes s'attribuèrent des noms et se mirent à raconter des histoires qui étaient vraies et inventées en même temps.
Quel chorégraphe Je suis. Quel compositeur de musique. Quel marin. Quel acrobate. Quel saltimbanque. Quel artiste. Quel écrivain. L'image que Je fis de toi était l'amour. Je t'ai sculpté et t'ai fait tourner sur le tour du potier et puis tu t'es envolé, atterrisant sur un recoin éloigné de la Terre. Tu t'es frotté les yeux, puis tu a fait un drapeau que tu as planté dans le sol en proclamant que cette portion de terrain t'appartenait. Tu aurais pu réclamer toute la Création, de fond en comble, d'une étoile à l'autre, d'une poussée de fantaisie à l'autre. Tu as réclamé seulement là où tu t'étais posé plutôt qu'ouvrir les bras à tout le monde.
Puis tu t'es mis à protester que tu avais été renié. Tu as désappris la joie. Tu t'en es toi-même privé. Tu as plutôt préféré des choses plus denses que tu t'es enroulées autour du cou et que tu as traînées avec toi en guise de sécurité. Tu as désappris la joie et appris la possession.Tu as désappris la joie et appris le travail. Tu as désappris la joie et établi des lois pour prévenir ton souvenir de la joie. Tu t'es assigné la domination sur les autres êtres et tu en as fait également ta propriété. Tu as oublié que J'avais béni les animaux pour que tu en prennes soin et tu as pensé qu'ils étaient du bétail.
Tu as également oublié qui tu étais. Tu as vu également tous les autres comme étant moindres. Tu as baissé les yeux. Tu ne pouvais plus regarder le soleil sans mettre des lunettes de protection. Tu as dérobé de furtifs regards vers la lune, mais surtout, tu t'es attaché à des lumières moindres dont tu as conservé le souvenir. Tu as oublié la lumière de l'amour et l'amour est devenu suspect. La pluie devint convenante ou inconvenante.
Tu as oublié que c'est sur la création de Dieu que tu marchais. Tu lui as donné un coup de pied. Tu as oublié de l'aimer. Tu l'as fouillée et tu l'as pillée. Tu as préféré les friandises. Tu as oublié la douceur de l'amour d'où tu avais pris ton envol. Tu avais des rêves de vérité et tu les appelais fantaisies.
Tu as oublié de te tenir en équilibre sur les mains sur la Terre. Tu t'es plutôt mis à marcher lourdement et à tomber. Tu n'as plus écouté le chant de la Terre. Tu avais trop de bruits à entendre. Tu as choisi le bruit plutôt que le silence. Le silence devint une étrangeté. Le bruit devint familier. Et ton cœur s'est mis à désirer la chanson que tu avais oubliée et qui encore, l'espérais-tu, était chantée dans un pays lointain. Tu es allé de théâtre en théâtre, cherchant la musique dont tu mourrais d'envie et que, plaidais-tu, existait encore quelque part. Même si tu ne pouvais l'entendre, tu voulais que quelqu'un l'entende. Tu voulais qu'elle soit vraie quelque part.
Tu avais convoqué une rencontre d'étoiles, mais tu l'as retournée en conférence. Tu n'as pas laissé les étoiles parler. Ça ne se faisait pas, d'après les règlements civiques. Tu n'as pas laissé ton cœur voter. Tu as prétendu que tu savais compter et, pendant tout ce temps, tu as pleuré pour une chanson faiblement, très faiblement, ramenée à ta mémoire et qui voulait sortir de ta gorge. Tu l'as retenue, attendant que quelqu'un à côté de toi la chante le premier. Tu as oublié que c'était à toi de chanter en premier. Tu pensais que tu ne savais pas comment chanter. Tu as oublié combien il était peu important de savoir chanter juste. Tu as oublié que tout ce qui importait, c'était que tu chantes. Bien-aimé, chante une note maintenant. Laisse-la sortir de ta gorge. Fais sortir la musique de ta gorge, la chanson qui est Mienne.
I love it! It would also
I love it!
It would also seem, mon ami, that I have only to think of something, and it is done! And so beautifully!!!
Monseiur, if I should ask that my closets and cupboards magically become neat and orderly, will that happen? Or, are there other conditions, like...uh...um... I do it myself?!!!!
It would seem that you had a
It would seem that you had a Godly desire and so it was already done before I have done it. Remember my blog #69 Should We Heal Our Sense of the Future?
Concerning your house cleaning, yes, let your self do it under the supervision of your Self.
Beloved Normand, you begin
Beloved Normand, you begin the blog you refer with this quote from Heavenletters:
"Life is a story you write about yourself. Life is a story also that you witness. It is as if the story of your life writes itself, and it happens before your very eyes. You are the actor and the audience all in one. Others’ stories are also yours. You feel them. They go into your heart. So many stories are written on water and witnessed in your heart. In life on Earth, everything seems to appear and disappear. Like waves in the Ocean, you meld with the Ocean. Wherever you may think you are, you are the Wholeness of the Ocean. Waves go in and waves go out, and the Ocean is forever. The Ocean I speak of is Infinite." http://www.heavenletters.org/are-the-rays-of-the-sun-the-sun.html
Then here's some of the beginning of that blog of yours:
Is Time what gives "hardness" to Matter?
Why are we engaged in a race with and against time? Nobody really wants to fight against time because the cause is lost in advance. Time is elusive. Time is like a mosquito that is buzzing around our head when we are ready to fall asleep. Yet it seems that we react to time the way a young cat chases its tail to catch it thinking or pretending that the tail belongs to some other cat.
Like the cat's tail, time is running circularly and simultaneously in front of our eyes and behind our back! So time needs our belief in it, our constant connection with it to have some seeming consistence. More precisely, time needs us to believe that it is separate from us in order to play its game with us. We mentioned in previous blogs that the mind had to conceal from itself its connection with the body in order to make the experience of being caused instead of being the cause.
It's your blog #68, not 69! Your blogs are serious stuff as you blend the scientific and the spiritual so magnificently. http://www.wordsbeyond.us/ And than you for your great translating English into French, along with Philippe, and for all your administrative work as well. Thanks, Pal.
Dear G,the idea of the act
Dear G,
the idea of the act already been done even before it has been done — which I am referring to — is in blog #68 indeed! Where is my head this morning (your evening "before")?
There is a section with the subtitle in bold:
Time is the main thought used by the mind to constantly connect with the spatial body in a biodynamic exchange process.
An action is considered done after it has been done
It is a truism or an old paradigm to say, in the relative world, that an action is said to be done only after we have done it. There is a linear time sequence in the form of delay or interval between the idea of an action (concept), its inception (thought, that is, the moment of concentration and suspension before the starting signal of the maestro is given, the black pulsation), its unfolding (the proper phrasing or technology "Let Light be") and its completion (actualization: "And Light was")...
[followed further by another section also with the subtitle in bold:
How to heal the future?
If the old paradigm "An action is considered done after it has been done" is just a measuring unit of our degree of separation from our Wholeness, what would be the new Real paradigm of an Act?
Would it not simply be the inversion, the right-side up, of our old, worn out paradigm of an act:
An action can be considered done BEFORE we have done it
If ego sees time as a device for extending/perduring itself indefinitely in space by increments — our infinite-sided polygon asymptotically tending to the unity of the perfect circle —by using the past as its anchor point, what would be an act conceived and anchored in the present? It has to be done in the Instant. And if it is done in the Instant, it has to be done before we effectively do it.
" [End of quotes]
Is it not how God in many Heavenletters tells us how He created the world? Just thinking or dreaming about it, it appeared. And even in this HL "A Meeting of Stars"... What makes easy for me to write God's "scientific" Truth is that I let Oneness speak by itself just like letting the stars speak instead of interfering with lesser lighted concepts ("You stole glances at the moon, but mostly hung lesser lights and remembered them". We are here to extend Creation, not to start it all over again, as conventional science generally tries to do ("You forgot it was God's creation that you walked on. You kicked it. You forgot to love it. You dug in it and stole from it. You preferred candy". THe easy way is God's way not the scientific way even if science has brought a lot of good things. But we are now in a healing process. And scientific thought needs also healing.
Being without having to do (well, a little bit of doing on the side...just like cleaning the house). "It is like I had love to express and I was laughing in joy."
Love ya
Thank you so much, dear
Thank you so much, dear Normand. Thank you for letting the stars speak.
A thousand blessings!
Love, Gloria
You must have been one of
You must have been one of the stars!
And about "Where is my head this morning (your evening "before")?", it reminds me of that hilarious comment from one on my old friend's father (when this friend was a teenager) who said to his son and his bunch of friends: "Where were you when God distributed brains? At MacDonald's?
Impossible! I am sure that
Impossible! I am sure that God is a vegetarian!