Stalking the Metaphysical
Truth Conquers Perfidy
Stalking The Metaphysical
Stalking The Metaphysical
Stalking The Metaphysical





My wife and I, reading the poems of Billy Collins together
In our own Platonic dialectic modality,
I suddenly recommence my favorite pursuit of Stalking
(Hunting by moving silently and stealthily or by waiting in ambush)
the Metaphysical.

The Metaphysical is a rare, endangered species of Being, the stalking of which requires rare, endangered powers of discernment. We do not go to an unfamiliar continent, like Africa, to stalk this enigma. We do not discover the Metaphysical like we discover a continent or a new friend.

The powers of discernment most required to discover the Metaphysical are the ability to be truly amazed when we come upon it, being able to feel the hair on the back of our neck tingling, the intuitive power of feeling the strangeness of the Metaphysical when we suddenly, unexpectedly come into its awe-inspiring presence, the rare capability of appreciating and valuing the Metaphysical.

The Metaphysical springs on us unawares, when we are least expecting it,
It lurks in the Miracle of our everyday life,
In the spontaneous kindness of a beloved friend,
And in jungles of wild literary, artistic, poetic, cinematic, or musical anomaly.

The Metaphysical walks in beauty, like the night, trailing clouds of glory.
It hides in the shadow of the equipage of our glass coach, which we mistake for blackbirds.
It dwells in a person's waiting for a rebirth of wonder,
In the feeling of a funeral in one's brain, a Plank in Reason breaking,
In caverns measureless to man and in the silent halls of death.

You must be prepared to come upon the Metaphysical when you least expect it,
Hidden in a seemingly quotidian phrase written by a person in the afterlife:
"I knew I would not live forever, jumping all day through the hoop of myself."


  Once you have stumbled upon the Metaphysical, you face the enigma of what to do. Becoming aware of it does not mean that you somehow "own" it; the Metaphysical can never be a mere possession. You can share the good fortune of your discovery with only those singular persons capable of discerning the Metaphysical--a one-in-a-quadrillion mastery.

  The Metaphysical possesses the characteristic of being totally invisible and undiscoverable to ordinary or ignorant persons. To the deliberately stupid person the Metaphysical might as well not exist at all.

  Beyond sharing the miracle of stumbling on, or deliberately discerning the Metaphysical with those precious few savants capable of Wisdom, your best course is to assimilate the Miraculous into your own being. The Metaphysical originates in the Supersensible realm through the agency of Superior Beings who transmit such miraculous, fabulous entities for specific purposes into the life-stream of humans. The reason we are blessed with the discovery of a Metaphysical entity is for the purpose of gaining awareness and wisdom.

  If you assimilate a sufficient amount of The Metaphysical into your being you might become capable of comprehending some of the meaning of such an eruption of The Metaphysical as this:

"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the Hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears;
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger, Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"