First Heaven

Our understanding stops at the first heaven

In what remains of a space of confinement, an ancient heretical text becomes accessible once again through AI, while an augmented-reality headset reveals traces of a generative alchemical imaginary. The spoken word is a profoundly human act. The ambiguity of language is a component of our consciousness.

Of the Order of the Heavens

Our light extends no farther than
Beyond the surface of that first
In which nature, by its power, guides
The intelligible form that separates
Us from the animals in outward aspect,
As no creature has ever seen the whole.

Above every heaven stand pure essences,
They stand benevolent for the sweet note
Of a melody composed
Of many things, and by their guiding course
They shape the harmony
Where pity does not close its eyes;

And by the force of such virtue
They serve the motion of every sphere
From which we receive life and health;
And the arc where diverse lights abide
Turns beneath with subordinate stars,
And leaves a space well marked by measured passages.

The four qualities form this
So that the subject becomes active through them,
For it binds them with its gentle law.

Below shines that mournful star,
Slow in its course and hostile to virtue,
Which never wrought anything fair with its rays.
It casts frost upon the earth with a cold breath,
And he who has no mercy perceives it,
As the shrieking air cries “war, war.”

The kindly light is circumscribed
Within the sixth heaven, from which is gained
That which is well experienced where it appears.
If the soul does not close its fair eyes,
Remaining in the shadow of human sight,
It wishes it to sleep within its naked arms.

The fiery star that has no regard for pity,
But always shows itself cold in mercy
To whoever troubles it, revolves beneath it,
And spreads such a tempest through the air,
Such is its power, that everywhere it preys;
In our own time we see it grown great.

Then turns the body of our life,
Universal agent upon all subjects;
And virtue thus depicts its wound
Through the fervent rays by which it warms
The heavy quality that bends within it,
So that whatever lives confirms its power.

The star of love in the third sphere
Gives anguish to the soul with its light
For some fair thing that does not stay far
From him, unless death extinguishes its form.
Where its gentle ray does not shine,
There is no soul of such a nature.

The planet turns with double desire
Toward that sphere from which such light proceeds,
Which strips all darkness from the soul.

The cold star turns within the little circle,
Last of all, and it is not true that it consumes
The shadow with its excessive splendour.

Every light the heavens possess
Comes also from that body which nature
First formed with loving zeal,
So that every star shines through it.
Yet the last appears more sublime;
Without it, it receives no light.

But when it turns among its rays,
It saddens the virtue of whatever lives
And the air dissolves into tempest,
The rivers diminish and every virtue falters;
And he who draws the standards in the field
Is stripped of honour by the opposing sword.

If its star shines in the east
And is found in the eighth part,
Such power cannot rebel;
If the other turns at the highest point,
This trial will colour the air
And make him who is anointed with lead take flight.

It moves the bodies of lesser reason
And drives away whatever cannot
Assimilate itself to its perfection;
Their fair face disturbs our sight,
Within the mirror it paints a figure of mist
And takes the light from the son with great delight.

The other animals, deprived of virtue,
Always possess the outermost edge of this.

O great virtue that moves all things!
O how fair your worth appears,
You who desire every nature to be tempered
So as to make our life more benign,
O you who show the third within one form
And kindle the rigid law with pity!