Dante's Good Friday Inferno, My Easter Sunday Paradiso

*This is an unconscious writing, beginning at 3:30 am Easter Sunday morning, so it probably won't make much sense to too many. I woke up with a start and began putting pen to paper immediately, allowing the thoughts that caused me to sit upright out of a deep sleep to mix with my notes on Dante's "The Divine Comedy" from 1308 a.d.

I then combined these with what I heard during the Catholic mass service I attended with my family. The last time I had been to any church was almost a year ago, where after cursing God for over an hour, I heard myself say "I just want the pain to stop" and went to the front to be saved.

Although I never returned to that or any church until this Easter, my spirituality grew stronger than most religious fanatics could ever hope to achieve. Through a dream I had of Jesus complaining to God about me driving my motorcycle past the angels housing at 3:30 in the morning, and telling his father that I "...didn't deserve to be there" (in Heaven), I achieved a clarity of how similar my story was to that of Dante's written over 700 years ago.


"Thoughts from lives past bring new teachings that sit down with old learning to create enlightened understanding. I become a vessel for these people to travel in, so they can continue their journey in a new soul." (from my post, "Best Quote Ever"). The Renaissance in you is always occuring if you see each day as one of learning and growing versus getting older (see "Renaissance Man")


I've only shared the details of this dream with one other person, so I'm hesistant to share it here. I think what I've already shared is enough, and done so in hopes of inspiring others that, no matter how great the pain of everyday life can be, we can always rise above it, by choosing to see the power of God within us, and EXPLODING it from us onto the world around us (see "Hell's Angels" and "EXPLODE")

Almost 24 hours from when the vision began, the vision has been written. And it started with something I saw while travelling on what would become a life-changing journey.....


Dante's Good Friday Inferno, My Easter Sunday Paradiso

I saw a tree blossom
In the midst of none


This three day journey
Was at the end of the Easter Triduum

Lasting 707 years
on Good Friday of 1300 A.D. that it had begun

"Nel mezzo del cammin di mia vita"
In the middle of my life's journey

I travelled through three realms of the dead
Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso

Guided first by my friend and fellow poet Virgil
Author of "The Aeneid"

And later by Lady Philosophy
The embodiment of wisdom, grace and beauty

Call her Matilda, call her Beatrice
She prepared my soul for its ascent into heaven


I had not yet seen my last evening
But through my madness was close to it

Assailed by beasts I could not evade
I was unable to find the "dirita via" to salvation,

There was no straight way
No sun behind the mountainscape

No "Go to church and be faithful to your kids and wife.
And everything will go well"

Only a "basso loco" did I ever find
A very deep place in my heart, in my soul, in this earth

Here the sun is silent forever
"il sol tace"

"il sol tace"
nothing here is ever reborn


With nothing to lose I passed through the Gates of Hell
"Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate", inscribed on the door

"Abandon all hope, you who enter here. "
With all hope abandoned, i entered without fear


The first of Hell's nine circles I entered was Limbo
Reserved for virtuous pagans such as myself

How ironic that this was what I had become
Such a pious and God-fearing man

Life teaching me to raise an angry fist to God and curse him
Reaching for the Bible


Only to throw it across the room
and God just laughing back at my irreverance

Just as in Elysian Fields
I found myself among the guiltless damned

Living in our deficient form of heaven
Unallowed to get in

Like Virgil, Homer, Horace, Lucan and Ovid
All fellow forsaken pagan poets

My favorite being Ovid, for his
"the gods favor the bold"

Searching for gods of old to save me
This One seemingly having forgotten me


Having lost all faith in God and man
I fearlessly crossed the River Styx

Entering all nine circles of Hell
The boiling blood of Phlegethon truly testing me

The only way to relieve my suffering
Was to break off the twigs of pain causing pain

And in the last zone of the 9th circle
I met satan trapped in ice

His three mouths already filled
With Brutus, Cassius and Judas Iscariot

I escaped past his six beating wings and six sharp claws
past the biting icy wind that he emanates

Virgil and I escaped by climbing the ragged fur of Lucifer
Passing through the center of the earth

Emerging into the other hemisphere
Just before dawn on Easter Sunday

Beneath a star studded sky
Ascending out of the undergloom

Surviving the depths of Hell
Climbing the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world

The ascension was my own Purgatorio
A "Hell's Angel" rising, if you will

At the top I drank from the River Lethe
Causing my soul to forget past sins

While the River Eunoe
Renewed memories of past good deeds

My ability to love myself reawakened
My human ability to love God a high point in Heaven alloted

Through the sphere of the Moon, of Mercury, of Venus, and of the Sun
Through Mars, Jupiter, Saturn , and of Fixed Stars I became awakened


The Ninthe Sphere, or Primum Mobile
The abode of the angels, this Hells' Angel has reached fruition

Coming face-to-face with God Himself
Singing with all the Saints in glory

In God's likeness I was awakened
Knowing everlasting peace

My soul experienced God's absolute love
And I realized a unification of it with ALL things

"My desire and my will
Being turned like a wheel

All at one speed by the love
that turns the sun, the stars" and all living and non-living things

I saw my greatest GOOD
In spite of contrary circumstance

And I saw a tree blossom
In the midst of none

I saw only GOOD in a world that used to be glum
And my world began to blossom with beauty, beginning inside of me







Copyright © 2007 by Adam Stuart
All Rights Reserved