My Heart Is In the East

The mystic Orient, the Orient-origin, is the heavenly pole, the point of orientation of the spiritual ascent acting as a magnet to draw beings established in their eternal haecceity toward the palaces ablaze with immaterial matter. This is a region without any coordinates on our maps: the paradise of Yima, the Earth of Light, terra lucida, the heavenly Earth of Hurqalya.
- Henry Corbin

My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west--
How can I find savour in food? How shall it be sweet to me?

How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet
Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains?

A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain --
Seeing how precious in mine eyes to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

- Yehuda Halevi

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