Tag Archives: Perception

Emily Dickinson and John Donne Speak to Us

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Emily Dickinson knew the human heart, as do any poet who is worth their poetic salt.  Therefore, she knew about meaning and understood that it was obtained only in the inner most depths of the heart which she captured with the following poem:

There’s a certain Slant of light,
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 – Any –
‘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, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Dickinson knew that meaning comes from “heavenly hurt” and that it leaves, “no scar” to the casual observer, those who look only on the surface of things; but those who can withstand the pain will find, “internal difference—where the meanings are.”  This “internal difference” allows an ephemeral “certain slant of light” to daunt the citadel of the heart and bring into question certainties which had, to that point, been biases and premises unsullied by the “certain slant of light” of conscious awareness.  It is in the resulting disarray, confusion, doubt, and fear that “meaning” can surface in our heart and allow “words fitly spoken” to flow from our inner most being.

To borrow from another line of Dickinson poetry,  she called this intrusion into our consciousness of this, “slant of light,” a “splinter in the brain.”  This “splintering” is a violation, a penetration, not unrelated to what the famous poet John Donne had in mind when he noted that God would not be able to penetrate the stubborn rational fortress of his egoic self, “except thou ravish me,” which would come only after the answering of his prayer, “Batter my heart, three personed God.”

“The Closed Cab of Occupation”

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THE CLOSED CAB OF OCCUPATION

W. H. Auden declared that “We drive through life in the closed cab of occupation.” Auden was, like myself, an alienated soul sentenced to life as an “observer” of life rather than a “participant.” But being an “observer” with the capacity to even “observe” himself, i.e. self-reflect, he realized that even his occupation of poet was a “closed cab” and he was fated to view life through the prison of metaphor. And I’m glad he accepted that imprisonment as his work has been a god-send to myself and to many others, though he suffered greatly under its torments.

My “occupation” from very early in my development has been to “observe” life rather than to experience it, a stance that eventually evolved into the “closed cab” of a diagnostician, a mental health counselor. In the comfortable confines of that self-imposed prison I could…and still can…categorize and label this beautiful mystery that we call life and keep myself insulated from its hoary depths which are often frightening. But, mercifully I have the gift that Auden had and can self-reflect somewhat even about my “self-reflection” and thus my clinical detachment is breaking down. Yes, the prison-bars are bending and with a “little bit of luck and a strong tail-wind” I’m gonna be able to slip between those bars at some point and come out to play for moment before that damn Grim Reaper has his way with me!

A recent phrase I stumbled across on a Paul Tillich Facebook page is someone’s observation that Tillich’s teachings had taught him “just how much I am embedded in my own thought.” This “embeddedness” is a critical dimension of life that is difficult to grasp; for, to grasp this nuance of life is to see and experience a schism in the depths of one’s heart and he/she begins to realize there is more to one’s “experience” that what can be “thought.” This insight can be the beginning of recognition of one’s “closed cab.”

I want to share with you the insight of John O’Donohue about this discovery:

Thought is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. The way you see things makes them the way they are. We never meet life innocently. We always take in life through the grid of thought we use. Our thoughts filter experience all the time…Even your meetings with yourself happen in and by means of thinking.

 More often than not we have picked up the habits of thinking from those around us. These thought-habits are not yours; they can damage the way you see the world and make you doubt your own instinct and sense of life. When you become aware that your thinking has a life of its own, you will never make a prison of your own perception…In order to deconstruct the inner prison, the first step is to see that it is a prison. You can move in the direction of this discovery by reflecting on the places where your life feels limited and tight…”Heidegger said, ‘To recognize a frontier is already to have gone beyond it.’” (“Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong.”)

“Post Hypnotic Trance of Early Infancy”

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R. D. Laing once said that most of us life our lives in a “post hypnotic trance of early infancy.” Laing recognized that most of us live life unconsciously, driven by fears and anxieties that we acquired in our very early life before we had acquired reason. Most people do not realize that this earliest period of time was one of intense “conscious” awareness as we were soaking up the world in a way that would not be possible once the dawn of reason came at about age one and a half. (Aldous Huxley once posited the notion that our brain is basically a filter that selects what part of experience we will be open to.)

This core experience stays with us and will shape everything we do the rest of our lives. This core is inherently emotional, a “feeling state” that provides the basic orientation we have to the world and even to our own view of our self and that world. It will reflect our perception of our very place in the world and the perception of how much power we have to shape that world.

Asking someone to recognize this part of his/her existence is challenging and often impossible. I often use the following notion—it is like asking a fish to see water. A blog-o-sphere friend recently shared another image which I love—it is like asking someone who has fallen into a jar of marmalade and lived there all his/her life to see anything but marmalade. And this perceptual field is mutli-faceted, if not infinitely-faceted. But one facet will be the answer to this question, “Is this world an hospitable place?” Those raised in abject poverty are more inclined to answer “no” and adopt a stance of disappointment and hopelessness, a life confined to one poor choice after another. One that is born into a world that is stable is more likely to adopt a world view that sees potential, that sees the beauty…and the ugliness…in the world and says to himself/herself, “Hey, I can do this!”

A key task in life is the gain a perspective on our perspective and as one philosopher has said that to do so is to “somehow escape it.” I would qualify his observation with the notion that this meta-cognition is at least a step in the direction of escaping it. The next step will require courage, the courage to take the step beyond from time to time, to step into the beyond. And someone has noted, “When taking a far journey, you can’t see the destination until you have lost sight of the shore from which you departed.”  It makes me think of the Call of Abraham who was asked to forsake everything and “go unto a land that I will show thee.”