Poems and Prayers

Published in New View magazine, UK- Summer Issue 2010

Poetry is a ‘term’ often used to describe rhyming verse that expresses feelings. And, of course, anyone is free to write and call it whatever they wish; however, if a creation is to be "art," it must embody more than personal expressions. The art of poetry is in its ability to embody "living thought," in which the reader can sense the shaping, as truly as possible, of the "vision" or experience the poet is conveying. “Poetry… should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance” (Keats).

Great poetry can often strike us just that way, as both personal and universal, whether it be a simple haiku or an epic. Gilgamesh; The Mahabharata; The Odyssey; The Divine Comedy; Shakespeare’s plays (which are all poetry); Parsifal and other literary works and represent an age or culture, and also transcend it. Together, the greatest works of the ages can be understood as a kind of history of humanity’s evolution in imaginative form, and as moral guides for those who can see and hear. To be true to a vision or experience, and to re-create them in words (which are not just words) takes some effort and some understanding.

The art of poetry must involve interest in many elements and resources, both inner and outer. One might look to the classics (or other works of art) and compare them with mere verse. Yes, it is true that we are not slaves to the past, to conventions, or to any rules per se. In fact, in our time, we feel ourselves to be individuals free from the past and standards, which we perceive as limitations. But to disregard, or, worse yet, to be ignorant of how poetry evolved (or any other art for that matter) is to be isolated from true “originality.” Self-reference only, in an effort to express one’s feelings, can result in nothing more than sentimental verse, which has neither wide appeal nor longevity.

Students of poetry can begin to build a picture of and a sense for just what makes classics and other true poetry living, lasting and essentially different from mere verse or prose. What resounds in poetry that moves us so deeply and transports us so fully? The connections of poetry to nature's rhythms and to its inherent analogies to the human being and human experiences also must be considered. The poet’s vision embodied might dawn on us as though it is our own, as Keats suggests, because we recognize the truth and wisdom in it, as its ‘revelations’ transcend the personal and touch on the universally human. One can imagine that the first human utterances, chants, stories and prayers were all music and meaning.

In James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the young Stephen Dedalus is aware of “an unsubstantial image which his soul constantly beheld.” Ishmael in Moby Dick senses “the ungraspable phantom of life.” The Romantic poet, Shelley, spoke of “The everlasting universe of things which flows through the mind.” In “A Defence of Poetry” he writes, “A poem is the image of life expressed in its eternal truth.” Implied in all of these examples is the recognition of something that stands behind ordinary experience in the sense world, whose brilliance is felt and understood, yet is paradoxical and beyond definition. “A poem is the burning bow that once could shoot an arrow out of the up and down” (Yeats). The capacity of Imagination “sees” into and beyond that world into the "deep, deep well of the past," not only to our cultural/geographic roots, but, it can be argued, to our biological, psychological and even pre-historic origins (Campbell).

Imagination “subdues to union all irreconcilable things” (Shelley) and lifts the veil on a world often hidden to ordinary vision, which can become clouded by the intellect. The intellect categorizes, analyzes and separates. The imagination grasps the unseen and reveals the underlying patterns and forms which appear and reappear throughout the universe, nature and in the human being. It perceives those inherent relationships and similarities among things and unifies. It goes to the origins of things, which are the sources of inspiration, and the “sources of our strength” (Carson).

Behold the plant;
It is the butterfly
Held prisoner by the earth.

Behold the butterfly;
It is the plant
By the whole cosmos freed. (Rudolf Steiner)

For the true poet (and for us), insights like these are not simply ‘metaphors’ or mere ‘poetic devices’; they are revelations. They are realities to be recognized by the poetic "mind soul." Coleridge describes imagination as, “the living power and prime agent of all human perception in man’s infinite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite ‘I am’.”

Inspiration may seem fleeting, but can be trained. When poets are inspired, they are breathing in what they behold, whether it be a leaf, an insect or an idea radiating from within. They see, not with their eyes, but through their eyes, which Plato describes as the "windows of the soul." Therefore, they see with an extraordinary clarity. That which may appear distorted, common or uninteresting is transformed in the breathing out of the poet’s pen. The poet takes the “forms of things unknown” and “turns them into shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name” (Shakespeare).

Intuition is a way of knowing what is true. It is “the intellect’s being where and what it sees.” We might think of it as what Emerson called "self-reliance," that is, an inherent trust in experience and the inner voice that says, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string….The Eternal is stirring at our hearts, working through our hands, predominating in all our being." Poets are inspired, in touch with imagination and trust their intuition.

Though I mention Wonder last, it is the prerequisite capacity, without which the other capacities would not be as available. Wonder is an openness to beauty, goodness and truth, which we naturally have as children. When children are allowed and encouraged to experience beauty, they develop a sense of awe and reverence, which can not be taught. Look at a mountain peak; a blanket of stars in a dark sky; the "leaves of grass"; a child's shining face, "holding wonder like a cup" (Teasdale).

Conversely, an emerging sense of wonder can easily be crushed or thwarted if it is met with cynicism or negativity or other circumstances in a home or community. One can see its opposite in disrespect, a lack of sensibilities or in destructive tendencies and apathy, or just plain detachment from the immediacy, intimacy and impact of those sources of strength. Increasingly, all of these capacities are at risk of lying dormant with the use of and dependence on technology, which at the most basic, but essential level, separates or isolates children from the very experiences that can develop and build these capacities.

“Ah!” (an open vowel sound) emerges from us – in all languages – when we stand in awe and simply behold that which "is."  Something in us opens, fills a void, and may emerge in ways we could never have imagined--perhaps, as Wordworth suggests in his poem “Tintern Abby,” as "little unremembered acts of kindness of love," and for the poet (and us also as creators), as creations of beauty in all forms. The Greeks knew that wonder is the beginning of wisdom-- a foundation for creation of the beautiful. Dostoevsky went so far as to say that beauty would save the world, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (Keats)

Poems that convey a sense of the “living Word,” must emerge from poets as prayer calling upon the capacities of Wonder, Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. Whether or not we think of ourselves as artists, we can all be creators with an understanding, an appreciation and a practice toward development of these capacities.

Tribute and acknowledgement go to Christy MacKaye Barnes, a master Waldorf teacher of students and teachers, for some of the thoughts conveyed in “Poems and Prayers.” She was an inspirational mentor who freely shared and passed on her insights, knowledge and love of language to many.

MYTHOLOGY AND CONSCIOSNESS

Upon the completion of The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell considers his 12 years of research in comparative mythology as confirmation, “of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony,” with “worldwide distribution” of such themes as, “fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero…appearing everywhere in new combinations..." Commenting further on this phenomenon of common themes across cultures, which are expressed locally in endless variations, he suggests that, “No human society has yet been found in which such mythological motifs have not been rehearsed in liturgies; interpreted by seers, poets, theologians, or philosophers; presented in art; magnified in song; and ecstatically experienced in life empowering visions….Every people has received its own seal and sign of supernatural designation, communicated to its heroes [and prophets], and daily proved in the lives and experience of its folk." 

We, in the 21st century can still turn to myths and stories for edification and enlightenment, yet, they can also have negative ramifications when they are understood as exclusive and literal. While myths and stories form the basis for rituals and traditions of hope and comfort to communities, they also can (and have) become ideologies to be imposed on others who are seen as unworthy, lost and/or "less than." Don't we have many historic examples, as well as current ones, of marginalization, discrimination, and even violence against those who do not conform to the laws and doctrines of particular faiths, books or traditions deemed the ultimate and absolute truth?

Campbell reminds us that these stories and “revelations” have inspired many “who bow with closed eyes in the sanctuaries of their own tradition...[yet] rationally scrutinize and disqualify the sacraments of others...." If we were to look objectively, as he has, at the various traditions and mythologies of the world, we would see that these common themes and images are ubiquitous, and have developed “according to local need…” all over the world, as the ground of belief and values. Campbell finds that humanity has "chosen, not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination—preferring even to make a hell for themselves and their neighbors, in the name of some violent god."

What, then, could be an approach apropos to our ever-expanding, global consciousness? At this stage in humanity’s development, Campbell calls for an imagination of a “broader, deeper kind than anything envisioned anywhere in the past…” It would seem that it is now possible to embrace and embody the ambiguity, inclusiveness and paradox which is everywhere reflected in the universe, nature and human experience. James Joyce, an inspiration and subject of sudy for Campbell, articulates this possibility in Finnegan's Wake: "Utterly impossible as are all these events, they are probably as like those which may have taken place as any others which never took person at all are ever likely to be". 

We can only ponder what shape that imagination would take.  

Would it be a kind of “spiritual science,” an approach which both affirms the subjective, intuitive, human soul experience of life, and, at the same time, integrates objectivity and current realities? This approach would require standing outside one’s own soul self, and simply beholding. James Joyce clearly defined this experience in his theory of aesthetics, which does not require an intellectual analysis of art or beauty, but, rather a holding two or more things as possibly true and relevant to our own individuality, as well as in a wider sense applicable in other contexts.

Campbell laments that there is currently no mythology which fits the times. Things are changing too rapidly for a relevant mythology to develop. He also believes that any future mythology would have to be about the earth. This may seem obvious, but wouldn't it also involve humanity on the earth? It is, after all, humanity that is the "voice of the earth" and, at the same time only species that continues to endanger the earth, squander its resources, and marginalize, enslave and endanger other humand for its resources. Still, it is only humanity that can create a world worth living in, speaking for, and ultimately dying for. Clearly we are not at a stage of consciousness en masse. Only an earth-threatening crises could force us to move in another direction. Many believe that climate change will be the impetus to get us there, but hopefully before it is too late (some believe it is already too late). 

     Campbell makes reference to Black Elk, a Lakota holy man, one of the last of North American indigenous peoples who had lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. In the mid 1930's John Neibhardt interviewed Black Elk in his effort to record a way of life that was that once existed before European contact. In Black Elk Speaks, we hear Black Elk say:  “I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it….It is the story of all life that is holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit."

As a young boy, Black Elk had a vision:  “I saw more than I can tell and I understand more than I saw, for I was seeing in a sacred manner” (50). He spoke of seeing the “sacred hoop” of his people,...one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father, and I saw that it was holy." He refers in part to the rapidly and tragically transformation of the West, forcing Indian peoples on to reservations, with all the grief, loss and confusion that ending a way of life must entail. Black Elk laments that in his old age he felt the loss and the betrayal of his early vision with the slaughter at Wounded Knee: "I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, you see me now an old man who has done nothing, for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead."

     In the introduction to the 1989 edition of Black Elk Speaks, Vine DeLoria, also an Oglala Lakota (Sioux), notes, “If the old camp circle, the sacred hoop of the Lakota, and the old days have been rudely shattered by the machines of the scientific era, and if they can be no more in the traditional sense, the universality of the images and dreams must testify to the  emergence of a new sacred hoop, a new circle of intense community….”

Although DeLoria seems to be referring to the community of Lakota peoples, we could, as Campbell does, think of the "community" as the future global community, whose members understand and experience life as something, “far more fluid, more sophisticated than the separate visions of the local traditions, wherein those mythologies themselves will be known to be but the masks of a larger….timeless schema' that is not a schema." The consciousness that could create such a community must be both subjective and objective, taking Black Elk’s imagination of the hoop of the nation and DeLoria’s "new circle" as a potential reality and not just a metaphor. In this way, a new mythology will hold the treasure from the past, respecting the local and specific traditions equally with the global, universal ones.  May it come to pass!

It is clear that Campbell’s research and insights went to the foundation of myths, way down into the "deep, deep well of the past," not only to their cultural/geographic roots, but to their biological, psychological and even prehistoric origins. He found that wired into our psyche and physiognomy is our ability to both create and respond to images, symbols and stories which are metaphors for our experience of being alive. Could it ever be that humanity will arrive at a point in its evolution of consciousness to live “decently, without rancor or revenge” on this green earth—the only place we have to share in the here and now? Will we ever take time in our lives fraught with distractions—of pop culture, of politicians shaping their own version of reality; of manic technology/ social media, to acknowledge the legacy of mythology as a “timeless schema”?  Perhaps not yet universally, but certainly we, as individuals can commit to live, not by some narrow interpretation of one or another book or ideology, but rather in support, affirmation and validation of all that is truly human, good, beautiful and true in story and myth.

Then, might we be able to live, not by the stories/myths, but with them and allow them to live in us.

REFERENCES

Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. 1959. New York: Viking Press, Inc.1959.

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. DVD. Mystic Fire Video, 2001.

Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux as told through John G. Neihardt.1932. New York: Williams Morrow Company, 1989.