Archangel

We set out on a med­it­at­ive walk through the forest in the east­ern bor­der­lands of France, at the back of bey­ond. The peace­ful road and the quiet pray­er refresh us, a few dear com­pan­ions step­ping along togeth­er as if we were walk­ing the path of etern­ity.

Com­pany is very import­ant, and this is what I med­it­ate on. It is said that the soul of man is like a clear crys­tal, tak­ing on the col­our of whatever set­ting it is placed in. In sun­light a thou­sand col­ours sparkle on it, in the dark it is dark itself. In dull sur­round­ings its tones are pale, in a vivid medi­um it too is vivid. If one keeps com­pany with the wicked, he too eas­ily becomes wicked – if with those more advanced spir­itu­ally, he too becomes advanced.

Man is a com­pos­ite being, some­thing of an angel, some­thing of an anim­al. The former part is heav­enly and longs to be there, the lat­ter is earthly, all too earthly, and would like to stay here. These two extremes struggle with each other and the bal­ance of power between them is always shift­ing, now the anim­al pre­vail­ing over the winged angel, now the angel gain­ing the upper hand over the anim­al inclin­a­tions. Eat­ing, sleep­ing, defend­ing, mat­ing – uni­ver­sal tasks of earthly exist­ence. A dove ful­fils these too – but what is a man to do? And above all, what is an angel to do? Has he no needs? Does he not need to sleep? Does he not long for com­pan­ions? Has he no struggles? In Ortho­dox Chris­tian­ity one of the mon­ast­ic degrees is the order of the little angel. He is not yet a great angel, one who is already more angel than ordin­ary mor­tal. The little angel may still have struggles, and he still has needs. I have needs too. The great angel no longer has any. But like seeks like, and per­haps the angel­ic part of me longs for angel­ic com­pany. They, the angels, speak one lan­guage, they under­stand one anoth­er…

Once we are out of the forest, the road soon draws near a little vil­lage. ‘Do you speak French?’ – someone asks in front of the vil­lage sign, and I con­fess my ignor­ance. Archelange is the name of the vil­lage, but how­ever I spell it out, the mean­ing of the word escapes me just then. ‘Why, archangel!’ – someone helps me out, and I keep utterly silent. The young man walk­ing beside me is called Michael. His good friend, who has also come with us: Raphael. And they have a third friend, with whom they received their ini­ti­ation into the yoga of love: Gab­ri­el. And truly – Michael is strong, a fight­er, the pro­tect­or of their holy friend­ship, Raphael tends any wounds there may be, and Gab­ri­el car­ries the good news. In the com­pany of the three archangels – two present in per­son, the third in spir­it – we walk along the main street of Archangel Vil­lage. I spell out the street sign myself: Rue du Soleil, the Way of the Sun…

Along the Way of the Sun, in the com­pany of Michael and Raphael and Gab­ri­el, we walk into Archangel Vil­lage… For a moment the provid­ence that per­vades the uni­verse flashes forth, the shell of the present cracks open and etern­ity reveals itself. I see only the young men, but their names betray an alto­geth­er dif­fer­ent plane of real­ity. What if that is the more real real­ity… Or a chance coin­cid­ence? No, rather an ever-recur­ring neces­sity…