VISIO SECUNDA, cap. VIII
The Breath of the Heavens
The visionary describes how a thin, life-giving air rises from the higher elements, carries clouds upward and downward like a bellows, and spreads across the whole cosmic wheel to quicken and sustain all things.
And beneath this circle — that is, the strong, white, and bright air — another air, thin and light, is marked off, as it were; it rises from the higher circles or elements like air that is blown, yet it isn't separated from those elements, just as a person's breath goes out from them but isn't separated from them. This same air, like clouds, sometimes appears to carry them — now bright and lifted up, now darkened and tilted with shadow — upward; the watery air mentioned earlier pours them out and gathers them back, just as a worker's bellows blows air out and draws it in, so that while certain stars placed in the element of fire ascend on their circuits, they draw those clouds upward, and so the clouds become bright. But when they descend in their circuits, they send them downward, and so they become shadowy and produce rain. And the thin air mentioned earlier seems to spread itself out, as it were, across the whole wheel described above, since everything in the world is quickened and sustained by it.
Desire Lifted and Humbled
Under the shelter of discernment, the faithful cling to higher virtues with devotion, their minds now shining with confidence and now trembling with humility, as the Holy Spirit draws them toward heavenly things and then bends them back to earthly cares with a rain of tears.
Yet under the shelter of discernment, the right desires of faithful people dwelling in the subtle refinement of justice show that they've come forth from the higher virtues and consolations through the Holy Spirit: they don't turn away from them, but with all devotion they cling to them without interruption, holding a firm mind in those same faithful ones — now shining with confidence, now trembling before God with humility — bearing what arises from holy works and the examples of the just, and gathered back to them, just as a worker is rewarded for their work. For when good knowledge, kindled by the Holy Spirit in their justifying gifts, lifts their minds toward heavenly things, it draws their minds up with it and makes them pure there; and when, within those same gifts, it bends down to bodily necessities, it sends their minds back to those needs, so that in these cares they may seem troubled, yet still carrying a rain of tears — because they groan at being bound to earthly things, even as they entrust themselves wholly to divine power and so bring themselves under it.
The Question of Connection
The visionary pauses to ask why the six circles are joined without gaps and what their seamless connection signifies.
So why are those six circles joined to one another without any gaps between them, and what is being signified by this connection?
Read the original Latin
Et sub hoc circulo, videlicet fortis et albi lucidique aeris quasi alius aer tenuis signatus est, qui de superioribus circulis seu elementis, velut sufflatum aerem se procedentem demonstrat, qui et ab ipsis elementis non separatur, quemadmodum halitus hominis ab ipso egreditur, nec tamen ab eo separatur. Idem etiam aer ut nubes interdum elatas et lucidas interdum inclinatas et umbrosas videtur superius portare, quas supradictus aquosus aer exspuit, et recolligit, sicut follis fabri flatum emittit, et retrahit, ita ut dum quaedam stellae in praefato elemento ignis positae, in circuitionibus suis sursum ascendunt, nubes istas sursum trahant, unde et lucidae fiunt. Sed cum in circuitionibus suis descendunt, illas deorsum remittunt, et sic umbrosae sunt et pluvias serunt. Et praefatus tenuis aer videtur se quasi per totam praedictam rotam diffundere, quoniam omnia quae in mundo sunt ab eo vegetantur et sustentantur. Sed et sub defensione discretionis recta desideria fidelium hominum in subtilitate justitiae degentia de superioribus virtutibus et confortationibus per Spiritum sanctum se processisse demonstrant, cum se ab illis non avertunt, sed cum omni devotione ipsis sine intermissione adhaerent, firmam mentem in ipsis fidelibus nunc in fiducia clarescentem, nunc in humilitate trementem, ad Deum habentia quae de sanctis operibus et exemplis justorum oritur, et ad ipsa recolligitur, quemadmodum operarius de opere suo remuneratur. Nam dum in hominibus bona scientia Spiritu sancto ignita in justificationibus suis ad coelestia se tollit, mentes illorum secum trahit, easque puras ibi facit, et dum in eisdem justificationibus ad corporales necessitates se declinat, mentes eorum ad ipsas remittit, ita ut in curis istis quasi turbidae sint appareant, imbrem lacrymarum tamen ferentes, quia terrenis se inhaerere prorsus gemunt, quamvis se totos divinae potentiae committendo inferant.
Quare isti sex circuli sine intervallis sibi invicem jungantur, et quid per hanc connexionem innuatur.
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