Musings

On my bookshelf there is a well read anthology of poems, ‘The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart’. In section #2 of this book, “Fathers’ Prayers for Sons and Daughters”, there is an excerpt from a poem by William Butler Yeats.

This poem seems apt for today’s blog, because recently I have had several conversations with friends about the precariousness of watching their children, in today’s crazy world, grow from tiny bundles of joy into an adult mixture of seemingly contradictory dualisms.

Every parent wants their child to enter into the fullness of life with wisdom, courage, skill, compassion and grace. Most would want their child to have many friends and to choose a decent partner based on heart love. Most will fret for many years; possibly, many more years than at first seemed necessary.

How does the rainbow magic of a child’s presence stay whole through the storm?

For a bit of clarification, near the end of his poem, Yeats writes about “Helen” and the “Great Queen”. These would be Helen of Troy, who chose to abandon her husband and child for an affair with Paris (resulting in the Trojan War), and, Aphrodite, who, although married to the great blacksmith/craftsman Hephaestus, had many, many lovers.

Interesting to note that the “bandy-legs” of Hephaestus were the result of his parents (Zeus and Hera) tossing him outside the family home because he was an ugly baby.

A Prayer for my Daughter

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack— and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that Great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man.
It’s certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

William Butler Yeats

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Parts of a Rilke poem, translated by Coleman Barks, read:

“…whoever you are: some evening take a step out of your house which you know so well…..

… with your eyes slowly, slowly, lift one black tree up, so it stands against the sky: slender, alone…

…tenderly your eyes let it go…”

What Rilke is asking is for each of us to find the courage to leave the safety and comfort of our daily lives and begin the journey to connect to the whole of life.

In a different translation by Joanna Macy/Anita Barrows there is the added line:

“Now the immense loneliness begins”

The people for whom I have the greatest admiration are those very people Rilke is imploring. It is never easy to move towards the light. Instead of unconditional support, parents, partners and society in general make this journey even more difficult. Instead of being the bow and releasing the pilgrim like an arrow into the world (Kahil Gibran’s analogy), they tend to impede and cling. What advice they offer is couched in fear.

Therefore, to those brave souls willing to seek answers beyond the known, I offer a gracious love to your well being in the coming New Year.

To those left behind tending the home fires, I offer a gracious support and will pray with you that those travelling on the great journey will be kept out of harm’s way.

To all pilgrims everywhere, if temporary refuge is needed, Windgrove is available.

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

Rilke (translation, Robert Bly)

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I have a TV in my house. A Sony Trinitron, in fact. I even have a DVD player.

But they sit on the floor of a closet. Not so much hidden away out of disgust or abhorrence of their addictive qualities, but simply that I have no real desire to use them. In the last ten years the total hours watched would most likely equal what the average child in Australia and America views in ten days. Maybe an exaggeration, but closer to my reality than reality TV.

Might I suggest that people, just as an experiment, put their TV in a closet for a month, or perhaps a week, at least? Not that the news and one’s favourite program aren’t informative or entertaining, but it could prove interesting. So, telephone your partner or a friend and say invitingly: “Guess who’s coming home to dinner tonight” and have a different type of TV dinner. What type of TV dinner you ask?

For me, this means sitting down with a glass of organic wine, munching on a stir fry and…. gazing into the intricate face of a sun flower so stunning in its format that my plate of food gets cold. The pixels of this screen — around 50 seeds per square inch — shine with a clarity and depth not found in any plasma screen that I know of.

When I am in town visiting with my city friends, what I find most disturbing is the phrase: “I’m going home tonight and veg out in front of the TV”. This statement, “veg out”, does a great injustice to the integrity and stature of vegetables. They do not sit around remaining idle and sloth like. They are constantly growing inside and out, never resting; developing into their fullest potential. Besides this, they are in constant search of a “grand coupling”.

Their sole mission is to sink roots deep into the fertile soil, spread out luscious, searching tendrils of communication, burst forth in gorgeous displays of flower, fornicate copiously and then bear the most mouth watering succulent fruit.

Therefore, the next time a friend says they are spending the night vegging out, give them a wink, a knowing smile and remind them to practice safe sex.

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I stood at the top of the path to the beach this morning and reflected on how damn difficult it is to stay on one’s “path”, let alone find it.

It seems that no matter how, when or where one starts, or is, along their life journey, someone, whether friend, family or foe, will be offended.

The details of my latest offense need not be made public, but as I stood looking down the path and out over the ocean, a Mary Olive poem came to mind:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.

But you did not stop.

You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations –
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

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