I was going to release the blog on "Willful Blindness" (3rd stanza of Silence is Broken, pg., 12 of The Visitor) but instead have been moved to release the first interpretive "senior level deep dive".  This blog is a little harder than previous blogs, and I believe it takes some effort and openness to understand.  At least it did for me.

To me, and for me, The Visitor is a challenging read, which might still unsettle some people when you consider I wrote it.  As my wife would attest, The Visitor (and The Corvus Chronicles) has been a struggle for me to write. Although The Visitor is only about 90 pages; it may has well have been one page or a thousand pages as the story itself is too large for words.  (As the Visitor would have said - language and words are inadequate).

As I shared many times with my wife (my Beloved) the story itself is bigger than I am.  I would go into my office, light my three foot high candelabra, clear my mind and start writing.  Sometimes the words would flow.  Sometimes they would stop.  Some nights I would get up from my sleep and simply delete everything I had put down.  Constantly I worried, and still do.  The Visitor is literally a work of Love. I do not believe it will ever be or is meant to be a commercial success.  I don't believe that I will in my lifetime ever meet anyone who truly can interpret it entirely successfully.  I do believe however, that it is meant to be, and that sometime someone will look upon this and achieve what I was never able to...  Understanding.

So today's blog is the first "senior level" deep dive - an attempt to interpret an important theme that runs long past the limits of 90 pages.  It is what I would call "the first golden key to understanding".  To those who can suffer through this blog, it will make sense why it needed to come now before the blog on "Willful Blindness".  In fact, anyone who can even slightly understand this current blog will no doubt see through the surface love story, and will start to get a larger understanding of The Visitor as a story of Love.

Duality and The Singularity are important concepts throughout The Visitor.  The reader will no doubt pick up some of the concepts on "duality"; but the unspoken larger part is in "the singularity".  The singularity is obvious once pointed out, but until the reader becomes intrinsically aware of it, the concept of "the singularity" probably remains unnoticed.

Duality

There are many instances where the dualistic nature of The Visitor (as a book) and the Visitor (as a character) occur.  An obvious example is found in the first paragraph of Chapter II The Needs of Many pg 17.

The conversation, like the Visitor himself, was almost dualistic, moving from one extreme to the other, yet meeting in the
middle like a circle where the end and the beginning can be anywhere and everywhere at once.

This concept may be symbolized in many ways, but one of the more recognized ways is the "yin and yang" symbol.  This symbol is typically represented by contrasting elements (black and white) arranged in a circle yet intersecting in the middle through their curve.  It is a contrast and balance of "black and white", "negative and positive", "good and bad", "wrong and right", "spiritual and carnal (mundane)", "earth and heaven", "night and day", "on and off", "in and out", "positive and negative", etc.,

Such extremes and dualistic opposing forces are encountered throughout The Visitor.  From Joy and Sorrow, to Pleasure and Pain, to Life and Death.  But there is even more beyond the subject matter and the defined dualistic personality of the Visitor.  

There is "...the beck of the crow and the call of the stars..."  In that case the crow is black, the stars white, the crow is earth (fleshy) the stars heavenly, the crow symbolizes death, the stars heaven and life.  It is also not a coincidence that the black "earthly" crow transforms to a white "heavenly" crow from the reflection of the lightening at the moment of the Visitor's death/birth.  The symbolic crow is confined to earthly dimensions no matter it's ability of flight, the stars heavenly, although they may "fall" from time to time.  It is no coincidence that in writing The Visitor and The Corvus Chronicles I became obsessed with crows and stars, and this obsession is still persistent as I try to interpret.  The scene of the crow and the magpie, the ever present crow, and failing health are all from true events.  The moving out of the city to the country and the gift of a telescope to see the stars,...all real life.  This is another example of where the story crosses at times from fiction to non-fiction without notice or apology.  However, it must be noted that the character The Visitor, is not me.  But there are real life elements used in helping to portray who he is.  The fact that I found a meteorite on our home out of the city below where the crows constantly soar over-head only makes the writing a bit more esoteric. 

On page 87 in the About the Author section this personal view is shared openly with the reader in describing the dualistic nature of the story.  

Singularity

At the same time we find examples of dualism throughout the novel we find the concept of "singularity".  

Perhaps one of the most instructive examples are stanzas 3 and 4 in the poetic parable on Joy and Sorrow (Pg 56).  Although the topic, Joy and Sorrow may appear dualistic, the parable shows the balance where they come together...(the singularity).   In this parable the Visitor describes how laughter (joy) and tears (sorrow) are born of the same place (Spirit).  The parable then goes on to talk about "universally shared state" of these "spiritual expressions - prayers".  Here we find both the dualistic and singularity together.

Within yourself where your laughter is born,
Is the place that gives birth to your tears.
Whether you smile or whether you mourn
‘Tis your spirit simply talking in prayer.

Your joy and sorrow are not yours alone
They are both universally shared states
Unless your heart is carved out of stone
Such feelings are our shared human fate

There are more examples of this throughout the book, but one more obvious example is in the poetic parable on Good and Evil (page 48).  Again, the subject Good and Evil are two extremes or dualities, yet we witness the Visitor describe that they are not only two different sides of the same coin, but "they are one though can never be joined"!

Good and evil are like joy and sorrow,
They are two different sides of one coin.
While one sleeps today, one wakes tomorrow.
And though they be one, they can never be joined.

This is the concept of "dialetical monism".  

This concept I was first attracted to in 1983 when I came across the concept at University.  It was around the same time I discovered some of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and "the golden mean".   While the eastern influence of yin and yang and the western influence of St Aquinas may appear totally different, I was almost in awe of the similarity.  It is no surprise looking backwards why I connected with the writings of Thomas Merton, a trappist monk who felt there was a lot to be gained in inter-faith understanding.  As such, it should be no surprise to readers of The Visitor the influence of connectedness, universal language, and "we are one" comments throughout the novel.

But back to the idea of "dialectical monism".  The term itself can be roughly translated into the unity between "duality" (dialectical) and "singularity" (monism).  It describes the indescribable; the connection between the paradox of simultaneous unity and duality.  How the extremes can exist together.  This is the basic nature of the Visitor.  As the narrator shares in page 3 of The Visitor " He [the Visitor] felt there was something beautiful in the concept of unpredictable chaos within an intentional master design: a duality, like body and spirit.

From here we can start to understand both the nature of the Visitor, and why he felt he was destined to find his Beloved to become complete.  The Visitor is "dualistic" to the point of only being able tor recognize the extremes - for example from Pg 3  of The Visitor:

He was not the easiest person to suffer at times. He was black or white, hot or cold, in or out. As such, it was not surprising that he viewed most things (if not all things) as being either sacred or mundane. By all accounts, he lived within dualities and extremes.  The Visitor was aware of his shortcomings in not being able to see the middle between extremes; however, he would not have changed his understandings for anything. He believed it was this shortcoming of being black or white that had brought his Beloved into his life. She was his rainbow, his connection to the parts of life he could not grasp…

What is important to understand, that without the influence of the Beloved, he was incomplete.  The Beloved is never described as "grey"...the intermediate between "black and white", but rather as his "rainbow".  

Welcome to the senior level deep dive.

Two extremes (black and white) which together are made up of all the colours of the rainbow without any shades of grey.  These attributes exist at the exact same time.  All the various colours are contained within white light.  Whether we can see them or not, matters not, they are there, and for those who doubt this simply shine a white light through a prism.  The same when we look at the earthly black pigment when all colours are combined and light is not reflected, we see black.  Not grey.  The duality and the monism.  White and black are both created through the use of "all colour" and the difference is only seen if we are looking at "light" or if the light is absorbed by pigment and reflecting no colour, at which time we see black.

The Beloved is "the connection".  She is what unites the dualistic extremes of the Visitor. Page 6 of The Visitor:

Through her, and with her, he learned who he was. No easy task. Without her, he was not an easy person to get to know or want to know. He was aware of this, but still, he had little desire to change. He liked who he was and he loved the fact that she was in many ways his opposite. She was his missing “peaces”.

The Visitor is "incomplete" without the Beloved.  His dualistic view of the world robs him of peace.  He see's things as "black and white", "sacred or mundane", "earthly or spiritual".  It is a struggle he constantly balances.  This struggle is revealed on page 21 of The Visitor in the poetic parable "Hiding our Nakedness".  Here we see the narrator recalling an event prior to the eve of death where the story takes place.

For months I had heard the Visitor say, “We are one.” At first I thought he was speaking “spiritually”, but it was a little out of place for him to be overly evangelistic. In fact, he deliberately shied away from piousness to the point of being almost inappropriate. I confronted him once about the way he talked as it seemed to compromise his sincerity.  

To which the Visitor replies: 
There are many different ways to go;
Your journey is not mine.
Trust me, you don’t want to know
The path etched in my mind.

To the Visitor, the struggle is real.  The desires of the flesh and the pull of the spirit.  Both are in existence at the same time.  And it is not the "greyness" of right and wrong which are merely moral constructs.  The Visitor talks about the gift of everything from eating meat to having sex. There is no judgment on the needs of the fleshy shell which house a growing spirit.  This is the struggle between the needs of the flesh and the needs of the Spirit.  A duality and a paradox which are connected.

In the poetic parable on Self-Knowing, page 70 these concepts get deeper.  He in speaking about death (for whom the bell tolls) the Visitor is talking about life (join life's procession).  A deeper duality is again seen in the "no one knows" and "nothing is left to chance".  This is where the concepts of "UNKNOWN" and "PREDETERMINED" are united, even though they are extreme opposites.  This fact probably again slides by the reader.

No one knows for whom the bell tolls
And nothing is left to chance
In time your body will shed your soul
To join life’s procession and dance.

On page 76 in the poetic parable on Death this concept is further developed.  Here the Visitor talks about earthly death in the first line being akin to birth, and in the last line how in death their is no death.  This is the procession of life.  Again, two dualities brought together.

Your soul, released from earthly ties
Like a babe from its mother’s womb,
Leaves comfort of darkness yet never dies
As in death there is no earthly tomb.

This concept is nothing new.  See the duality, the monism, and the procession altogether in Corinthians 1 : 15 :

40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body....

Another example to me is the concept of the Trinity.  There is "the Father" (monism, one God) from which derive and exist at the same time "The Son" (God made flesh through Jesus) and "The Holy Spirit" (Spirit derived from one God).  An earthly form, a heavenly form and a form above and beyond which made both the heavens and the earth from which both are derived.

So that my friends ends the first "senior level deep dive" into interpreting The Visitor.  It is as I described "the first golden key" to understanding.  The dive could be deeper, as there is much more within the them of Duality and the Singularity.  I barely touched on St Aquinas' "Golden Mean", but for those really curious you can refer to that on your own and then read the poetic parable on Courage where the Visitor talks about the soldier and the coward.

Anyway, congrats if you made it this far.  If you did, and grasped any of this I am sure the next time you read "The Visitor" you will read a far different story than you did the first time around.

Until next time

Journey in Love

Michael Paul