The Invisible

Wir sind mit dem Unsichtbaren näher als mit dem Sichtbaren verbunden.

We are more closely connected to the invisible than to the visible.

     Novalis, Das Allgemeine Brouillon, §251.

Novalis was the pseudonym of the short-lived eighteenth century poet, thinker, mystic, and civil engineer George Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hadenberg. He died of tuberculosis at 28 (May 1772 to March1801) but left behind a monumental work that greatly influenced his times. At that age I was just beginning to grow up. Novalis means something to us because he died in Weissenfels, the first German town Brigitte inhabited on her long migration from Lodz, in Poland, to the United States.

I’ve noted this “closeness to the invisible” in the Muslim culture a while back (link, “Closer To You Than Your Jugular Vein.”) What struck me today, reflecting on the life of Novalis again, was that some individuals are far more aware of this, far earlier in life. The invisible is literally flooding them, their intuition is on fire, and in some notable instances, Mozart comes to mind as well, they produce magnificent works and then, in a flash, they are gone again—almost as if their stay here is shortened when, evidently, their work is done.

Novalis’ most extensive work is Das Allgemeine Brouillon, notes on all kinds of subjects produced in 1798-1799. A direct translation of that title is The General Muddle, muddle being the translation of brouillon that Novalis borrowed from the French. It has taken a long time to get it translated into English: 2007. The translator was David W. Wood. He gave it the more grandiose title Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia. George Hadenberg, of course, burning very brightly, had it right to begin with: this is the realm of muddle; the order emerges when we leave.