Tag Archives: Emily Dickinson

W. H. Auden on Love and Marriage

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W. H. Auden is one of my heroes.  He led a complicated, often tortured life, and out of his pain came some beautiful, inspiring poetry.  As Emily Dickinson  noted, “Essential oils are wrung.  They are the gift of screws.”  Here are several stanzas of one of my favorite Auden poems, “In Sickness and in Health”:

 

Beloved, we are always in the wrong,
Handling so clumsily our stupid lives,
Suffering too little or too long,
Too careful even in our selfish loves:
The decorative manias we obey
Die in grimaces round us every day,
Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice
Which utters an absurd command—Rejoice.

Rejoice. What talent for the makeshift thought
A living corpus out of odds and ends?
What pedagogic patience taught
Pre-occupied and savage elements
To dance into a segregated charm?
Who showed the whirlwind how to be an arm,
And gardened from the wilderness of space
The sensual properties of one dear face?

Rejoice, dear love, in Love’s peremptory word;
All chance, all love, all logic, you and I,
Exist by grace of the Absurd,
And without conscious artifice we die:
O, lest we manufacture in our flesh
The lie of our divinity afresh,
Describe round our chaotic malice now,
The arbitrary circle of a vow.

That this round O of faithfulness we swear
May never wither to an empty nought
Nor petrify into a square,
Mere habits of affection freeze our thought
In their inert society, lest we
Mock virtue with its pious parody
And take our love for granted, Love, permit
Temptations always to endanger it.ty

 

Otherness, Hell, and Grace

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“Otherness” is the paramount issue for our day. ‘Otherness” (and it is usually enclosed in quotes) refers to the awareness and experience that “beyond the small bright circle of our consciousness lies the dark” (Conrad Aiken) and that beyond that darkness lies the object world. The task is to venture into that darkness, struggle through it, and find the “light” that lies beyond. This “light” represents our escape from the Platonic shadow world and allows us to see things, including people, as they are and not merely as a means to fulfill our needs. They are “other” than we are. Their wishes, their desires, their fancies, their intents will be different from ours in very critical ways. And we don’t have to like them, we don’t have to even put up with them, we can always just leave them alone and try to avoid them. And, yes, there are times when their “otherness” is of such a nature that our “respect” for them will not over rule a responsibility to call the cops! But we will still respect them, realizing that “there go I, but for the Grace of God.”

But venturing into this darkness of “otherness” is often scary as hell and somehow hell is very related to this spiritual adventure. But that is another story. This experience of “otherness” has been written of from ancient times though it was described in different words. For example, I think Jonathan Edwards famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is an example of the terror that is often encountered in this adventure. And too often the terror is so intense that a quick antidote is sought and one will do as Kierkegaard suggested and grab the nearest bit of flotsam and jetsam that the vortex provides. And these antidotes can play a role if they are merely used as a respite and are not glommed onto as a means of preventing any further spiritual growth; further spiritual growth will always entail imbibing more of this terror.

St. Augustine’s conversion also reflects this same subjective anguish. In his “Confessions” he declared, “At the very moment wherein I was to become other than I was, the nearer it approached me, the greater horror did it strike into me; yet it did not strike me back, nor turned me away, but held me in suspense.” He even used the term “other” and I liked his phraseology, becoming “other than I was” which reflected he knew this was a moment of transformation, rebirth, or salvation. And though this terror was great, yes this “God” appeared very angry, “it did not strike me back” but actually…if I might exercise my literary license here…”held me in its loving arms.”

And I love Aeschylus’ reference to the “awful grace of God.”. This Grace is perceived to be “awful” because our pretenses, our illusions, our vanities, our false gods are melting in the “judgment of God” which precedes are awareness of God’s infinite mercy and grace. It is not that God is awful, or even judgmental. It is merely that our ego clings so desperately to our fig leaves that having them dissolve so suddenly….and even if it is over the course of a lifetime it can still be conceived as “suddenly”…feels like we are “sinners in the hands of an angry (judgmental) God.”

Rilke in the Duino Elegies described this experience with otherness as a terrifying moment, declaring, “Beauty is only the first touch of terror we can still bear and it awes us so much because it so coolly disdains to destroy us.”

And then there is Emily! Ms. Dickinson certainly understood and embodied otherness and her brilliant poetry illustrates this so beautifully. I’m going to share one of her poems which is so terrifying, not merely because of the imagery, but because in this poem she does not conclude with the Grace that she acknowledges elsewhere in her work:

He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,

Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow.

Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool—
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul.

“Heavenly hurt it sends us”

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Richard Rohr argues that there is “an incurable wound at the heart everything” and that in the second half of one’s life maturity comes when we recognize and accept this. He states in a recent blog that “your holding and ‘suffering’ of this tragic wound, your persistent but failed attempts to heal it, your final surrender to it, will ironically make you into a wise and holy person.”

Now, I would qualify this and note that this “incurable wound” comes to us in varying degrees. For many, those who are merely the “walking wounded” it presents itself as plain vanilla depression and anxiety. But even that “plain vanilla” version of pain must be confronted, just as others must confront their “incurable wound.” It makes me wonder if this is what Paul meant by his “thorn in the flesh.”

And note here what a “difference” Emily Dickinson’s “heavenly hurt” brought her:

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the heft
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.

Internal differences where the meanings are

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“The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering.”  Henri Nouwen recognized that the Spirit of God is a Presence that makes one aware of his/her inner life which, of course, parallels an awakening awareness to the outer world.  Some see this “Presence” as “coming down from on high” and intruding or violating.  They see it in terms of time and space.  I see it as interior process beginning to unfold and making one aware of his/her heart’s machinations and subtleties.  There is a verse from the New Testament (Hebrews 4:12) which recognizes this discriminating work of the Spirit, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

 To be “mindful” of “the thoughts and intents of the heart” is simple awareness.  It is to pay attention.  It is to turn off the “automatic pilot” that we’re accustomed to operating by.

Emily Dickinson put it this way:

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the heft
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

more re “awful grace”

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Now, Emily Dickinson got it “awfully” and apparently several times.  But, from this trauma a lot of beautiful, thoughtful poetry ensued.  Let me illustrate:

 He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on —
He stuns you by degrees —
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers — further heard —
Then nearer — Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten —
Your Brain — to bubble Cool —
Deals — One — imperial — Thunderbolt —
That scalps your naked Soul —

When Winds take Forests in the Paws —
The Universe — is still –

Now most of us do not get it so “awfully.” Neurologically we’re are wired so that at worst we deal with garden variety anxiety and depression. But there are those who get their “naked soul” scalped. In modern times, there is Eckhart Tolle. And, even Byron Katie. And then there is the Apostle Paul in biblical times.

A tale of grace spoken of in an earlier blog about the contemporary poetry and memoirs of Mary Karr. Particularly in Lit, she eloquently and passionately describes her difficult childhood, her abuse, her abuse of alcohol and drugs, and a difficult marriage.  Substance abuse was the arena in which she wrestled with God most intensely, fighting tooth-and-toenail to resist God’s grace.  And prayer was the most difficult phase of this “wrestling” with God.

Now I can’t describe this as an example of someone having “their naked soul scalped”.  But it was not the aforementioned garden-variety neurosis and depression.

Isolated soul

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The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

by Emily Dickinson

 

My take on this is the soul’s tendency to isolate itself, to select from the world what is most comforting to it, and to shut out the rest.  We tend to believe what we want to believe and quickly relegate everything else to a trash heap, to attribute it to “them”.

 

More “loss”

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Renunciation -- is a piercing Virtue --
The letting go
A Presence -- for an Expectation --

Emily Dickinson was a very complicated and very troubled woman.  But as she wrestled with her demons, she found words available as a solace and skillfully articulated her anguish.

In the above poem, she was wrestling with loss and risking a descent into madness.  “Renunciation” was the term she chose for rejecting the “common sense” world she lived and breathed in—a “presence”.  This “presence” can be thought of as her egoic consciousness (see Eckhart Tolle), a bit of fiction she had subscribed to which plugged her into that “common sense” world.  Norman O. Brown once noted, “The ego is a veil we spin to hide the void.”  Emily’s “veil” was precarious at best.

In another one of her poems she described this loss of egoic consciousness as “a funeral in my brain.”  And then she concluded the poem with the lines:

And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down–
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing–then—

Note that she “hit a world at every plunge.”  So, even though the demons of madness were besetting her, she found a world at every step and then “finished knowing—then.  Her ego survived the descent.

essential oils

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In the aforementioned John Masefield sonnet, he noted “the straitened spirit’s possibility.”  He posited the notion that when the human spirit is “straitened”, or undergoes adversity, it is possible to discover hidden dimensions of life, dimensions of life which empower the individual to soar, “to stream our fiery hour like a comet.”  Emily Dickinson also knew the value adversity:

 

Essential Oils—are wrung—
The Attar from the Rose
Be not expressed by Suns—alone—
It is the gift of Screws—

The General Rose—decay—
But this—in Lady’s Drawer
Make Summer—When the Lady lie
In Ceaseless Rosemary

By the “gift of screws” she was using the image of an old screw press, in which rose leaves were pressed between plates of steel which were tightened together by turning screws.  Thus the essence of the rose was extruded.  She was speaking from experience, that when life’s difficulties weigh down on us it is often possible that “essential oils are wrung.”  She was saying that when “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir too” (Shakespeare/Hamlet) become overwhelming, we should maintain hope that from this moment something could might follow.