The Divine Vision

My relationship with Kathleen Raine

This biggest influence upon my life was a woman, who shaped my thinking and the path my life has subsequently taken. That women was the Poetess, William Blake scholar and mystic Kathleen Raine. In my office at school I have a picture of her.

‘Meanings, moods, the whole scale of our inner experience finds in nature the ‘correspondence’ through which we may know our boundless selves.’

Kathleen was born in 1908 and grew up in London and Northumberland. She studied natural sciences at Cambridge. As well as sixteen books of poetry, she also published many books of criticism and gained an international reputation as a scholar of the poet William Blake and other aspects of the impact of Neoplatonism on English romantic poetry. In later life Kathleen established the Temenos Journal for the arts of the imagination and eventually the Temenos Academy.

Kathleen made an extraordinary contribution to the life of literature and holistic thinking. She certainly did not follow one discipline; like Carl Jung, whom she greatly admired, she followed the life of her inner Damion and the invitations of the creative spirit. This was not always an easy life and she spoke to me how she lived as if, ‘she had a private income’ but did not! She made money to live translating and I suppose a little from her published works, but one does not become a poet to be rich in financial terms. She certainly had faith and perhaps knew that to deny the inner desires of her Damion would be a soul death and a worst fate than a little poverty. Kathleen moved from one form of creative expression to another, but they were always linked to her sense of a metaphysical connection to divine unity. In her poem, ‘The Poet Answers the Accusers’ she writes:

A night struck to the stars I am,

A memory trace of sun and mood and

moving waters,

A voice of the unnumbered dead,

fleeting as they are -

what matter who Iam?

I wrote to her when at University to ask her a question on Blake as I was writing my dissertation on his work. She answered with an invitation to visit her at her house in Paulton’s Square in Chelsea. I remember arriving nervously and reading the brass plaque on her door, under her name it said ‘Poet’. Her house was full of paintings by famous painters like David Jones or Cecil Collins and there were framed poems on the walls. In later years some of these were sold to keep Temenos afloat. There were all manner of books that my eyes searched eagerly and statues of Indian Gods. Kathleen had known so many of the great poets and thinkers that I loved and admired and I greatly enjoyed her stories about Edwin and Willa Muir, T.S. Eliot and WB Yeats’ wife. She also spoke of Prince Charles and his support for her vision.

Kathleen, as befits a Gemini, was fascinating and also perilous, one could not sleep (by this I mean dray dream or be unconscious) in her company. These visits became regular events, usually in the company of my good friend Dr Milne. This was the first time I had met someone who had a quality of ‘otherness’, whose soul seemed so much larger than her physical body. Nothing was hidden in her company. Once I witnessed her animate the whole room with her presence so that a light seemed to vibrate and pour out of every object. One was certainly vibrating on a different frequency when in her presence. She used to size me up upon entry and comment how, ‘fit I looked’ and ‘Was I still playing cricket’ before asking me to go down to the cellar and carry up the coal for the fire.

Kathleen was also a prolific letter writer and we would exchange letters regularly. I treasure the file of correspondence I have from her and the spiritual wisdom they contain. I published one last week on Substack for my paid subscribers - I am afraid they get some little extras. So do please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Her attention was a blessing and a benediction. She introduced me to thinkers and ideas that allowed me to form my vision of education that I am still exploring to this day. In this sense she was my spiritual grandmother.

Kathleen was a wonderful poet and if you would like to explore her work a fine Collected Edition is in print. I particularly recommend her Long poem, ‘On a Deserted Shore’ which she wrote after the death of Gavin Maxwell (The naturalist who wrote ‘Ring of Bright Water’, the title of which comes from one of Kathleen’s poems). A future project is to record with my lovely wife a recording of this poem for you to listen to. Her three volumes of biography are also available.

When asked how she wished people to remember her, Kathleen said she would rather they didn't. Or that Blake's words be said of her: "That in time of trouble, I kept the divine vision". Better to be a sprat in that "true ocean", she believed, than a big fish in a literary rock pool.

One of my most prized possessions is a copy of her book, ‘Defending Ancient Springs’ in which she has written, ‘To David Brazier who will find the Springs.’ See below:

Which is what I have tried to do...

Kathleen Jessie Raine, poet, born June 14 1908; died July 6 2003

Change
Said the sun to the moon,
You cannot stay.

Change
Says the moon to the waters,
All is flowing.

Change
Says the fields to the grass,
Seed-time and harvest,
Chaff and grain.

You must change,
Said the worm to the bud,
Though not to a rose,

Petals fade
That wings may rise
Borne on the wind.

You are changing
said death to the maiden, your wan face
To memory, to beauty.

Are you ready to change?
Says the thought to the heart, to let her pass
All your life long

For the unknown, the unborn
In the alchemy
Of the world's dream?

You will change,
says the stars to the sun,
Says the night to the stars.

David Brazier