"The way up is the way down."
- Heraclitus

Strange and unexpected as I climbed higher the ladder of the gyre
It wasn't brighter but darker.
Strange and unexpected that as I strove towards
the cool clear detached immortal ether
I burned alive on fire,
Burned alive on fire…

He said that such bloodless ecstasy was too easy,
Anyone can climb high and far away,
You're climbing not because you love me,
But because you don't like to bleed,
You don't like to bleed…

The coiled ladder collapsed, unwound,
and I plummeted headlong to the ground,
and from the broken bones and shards he taught me a truth,
that beauty only rises from your cracks and wounds,
beauty only rises from your cracks and wounds…
beauty only rises from your cracks and wounds…

The ladder.
We all know it.
The climb.
Up and up and up and up up and away.
From the corporate climb, to ballerinas training their poor toes to carry their whole weight, to Superman, to a hundred thousand references in every religious tradition to heaven, and truth, and justice, being up there somewhere.
Jacob's ladder.

'descendatis ut ascendatis'.
'descend to ascend'.
Heraclitus, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis, AA, along with various of my neighbours, acquiantances, and wizened compadres, all agree:
soul work is seriously grungy and messy, and the desire to make it all clean by flying into the abstract ether is a big crap out.

enlightenment is a messy, fallen, business...
hallelujah!