Some poetry by T.S.Eliot I'm grateful I found

I'm sitting at home, sick as a dog,  feeling sorry for myself and Dorothy who has to put up with my sniffling and sniveling. I tried to go into work yesterday so I wouldn't get too far behind but I felt like an aching zombie inconsiderately exposing the still living to bad juju.  Besides that, my daughter Katie and her husband, Brian,  have left on their travels abroad.  They'll be gone at least six months and possibly a lot longer.  I'm thrilled for them but letting go is tough.  (Katie's keeping a blog, Leap and the Net Will Appear  where you can keep track of their exploits.)

So in this sick, disassociated, depressed frame of mind I came upon some poetry which helped me move closer to the positive side of the scale..  I'm grateful I found it and feel compelled to share it with my faithful readers.

The following are excerpts are from East Coker, one of Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.  He captures much of what I've been trying to say in this blog over the past month or so.  I find it exciting to find poetry that speaks so directly to me.  


I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

............And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate - but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.


Thank you Mr. Eliot.  The Wikipedia entry says that he considered the Four Quartets his greatest work and that it is what led to him being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

"The secret voices of the innermost truth"

The title of this post, which comes from the quote from Siddhartha in my last posting, is an intentional pushing on the boundary of what I think I should try to write about. In other words, "who am I to write about the "secret voices of the innermost truth?"  and. who am I not to write about it?.  How far should I go in a public forum trying to sort out the mysteries of life and my role in the drama?  I suppose it comes back to goals.  I am not doing this to teach or influence.  I am writing as a process of seeking clarity.  To find out, as Hesse says, what is necessary. For some inexplicable reason I'm finding it easier to examine these things by writing this blog.

But the question of how much I should expose myself to other souls is a significant one.  I have to admit, I love getting comments.  They make me feel less isolated and alone.  But there is always a feeling that I'm dropping my pants in public. That embarrassing feeling probably helps me to not get too personal but I don't like it and wonder how much it is limiting what I could be discovering.

In the last section of Siddhartha, Govinda asks Siddhartha, "Haven't you found certain thoughts, certain insights, which are your own and which help you live?  If you would like to tell me some of these, you would delight my heart."   Siddhartha's replies, "...There have been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to convey them to you....I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on.  Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness....knowledge can be conveyed but not wisdom.  It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it,  but it cannot be expressed in words and thought."   Despite this statement Siddhartha presses on, perhaps trying to explain why words of wisdom become foolishness.

"The opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.  Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided, all just one half , all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness....But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided....a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.  It does really seem like this because we are subject to deception, as if time were something real.  Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often again.  And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception."

So when does foolishness end and truth begin.  The answer becomes,  at the same time.   The fool and the sage are the same.

Vision of faith

I was on  a retreat in a lodge nestled in Ponderosa pine trees outside of  Prescott Arizona in about 1988.  The priest leading the retreat asked us all to lay down on the floor, on our back, and get into a comfortable position using pillows and blankets. He then started a guided meditation asking us to imagine a restful place, etc.  I eventually stopped hearing his words and found myself lost in a corn field.  It must have been late summer because the stalks seemed twice as tall as me.  Initially I felt fairly calm. Isn't this interesting.  Nothing but cornstalks everywhere I looked.  Then I realized I had no idea where I was and no idea what direction to move.  This grew into sheer panic.  Pure fear.  Then it happened. An event which is in many ways beyond words but still fills my heart.  I looked up and exactly the same moment I was looking down at myself. Zap! I was floating above the cornfield and my eyes locked with the eyes of the small lost boy I saw below. A boy who was me at about the age of eight. At the same time I was the boy below looking up at the floating boy in the air.  We were the same but separated.  There was instant peace, tranquility, calmness, joy.  From above I could see the way I needed to walk.  I also could see a path beyond the cornfield that led up a mountain with a setting sun behind it.  The boy took a deep breath and walked confidently forward.

This vision remains important to me. It strengthens me. It reminds me that the answer to "what is necessary?" is always waiting inside as long as I don't let fear block out the signal.  It is the inner light of the Quakers, the secret voice of Hesse.  It is real and it is good.

Siddhartha, Hesse and What's Necessary

Herman Hesse was my guru when I was twenty years old.  Maybe he'll be my guru again.

I was standing behind the library at Union College in late 1968 when I met up with Neil Gordan.  We were both seniors but had not really talked since we were freshmen.  He asked me how I was doing and I said not very well.  The Vietnam War  was was raging and leaders were being killed and I was afraid of being drafted and I was depressed and I hadn't been going to classes and hadn't washed or shaved and generally felt lost. He smiled and said read Demian and walked away with a smile on his face.  I'm not sure what the smile meant but perhaps he had an inkling of what I was in for.

I ended up reading the book and not going to class for a week in its aftermath. It had a profound effect on me. It's difficult to understand it's power this far down the road.  I recently tried to reread it and it didn't click at all.  Back in '68 it was a different story. I think it's because gave me a new frame of reference to hang my confused craziness on. His novel depicting Abraxas, a divinity of both good and evil, gave me a rudimentary foundation for looking, again, at spirituality.

 I entered Union as a serious Catholic who vowed not to "lose my faith" among the liberal secularists.  It took about three months. Reading The Martyred by Richard Kim put the biggest nail in the coffin.   It asked a simple question.  How can an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God allow the slaughter of millions of innocents in war? Hmmm. So I ended up in this dead end alley and Herman Hesse helped me begin to find my way out.

As I was saying, maybe he will again.

I'm rereading Siddhartha which appears to be based on Hindu's first three stages of life. (the Wikipedia link is very interesting)  At one point shortly after Siddhartha had met the Buddha and decided not to become a follower he had the following thoughts.

"Both, the thoughts as well as the senses were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be listened to, both had to be played with, neither had to be scorned nor overestimated, from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.  He wanted to strive for nothing , except for what the voice commanded him to strive for, dwell on nothing, except where the voice would advise him to do so. ...to obey like this, not to an external command, only to the voice, to be ready like this, this was good, this was necessary, nothing else was necessary."


Next post - "Locus of Salvation" or "what I hope works for me when the shit hits the fan."

James McMurtry

A friend just told me about James McMurtry.  This friend is very political.  I used to be very political (see prior post Faith Revisited).  He especially recommended the song, We Can't Make It Here Anymore.  I reluctantly listened to it.  I've been trying to stay away from political stuff.  I honestly feel I have some mild form of PTSD associated with it.  My stomach knots up and I want to get away.  I tried taking part in a march prior to the Bush invasion of Iraq and I had to leave half way through.  
Listening to this song I had the same stomach tightening sensations but I keep playing it.  McMurtry played last week at the new Helsinki club in Hudson.  I wish I was there.  

Coming Home

After we moved to Arizona in 1980,  the idea of "home" became a powerful force in my life.   I missed everything about upstate New York.  Birds, trees, flowers, views, the Hudson, rain, family, customs, hills, fishing,  seasons....everything.  I had no idea how connected I was to this part of our planet. I remember watching ET in a Phoenix theater and bawling like a baby when he was trying to call home.

When we would make periodic trips back there was always excitement and satisfaction.  We would arrive at the airport and drive east on Route 7 from Latham towards Troy.   When we crested the hill where the Hudson valley comes into view and you're able to see most of Troy, Watervliet, Cohoes and Green Island I would feel transformed.  The longing for home finally resolved. Very powerful.  This view still moves me when I drive that road.

After ten years of in the desert Dorothy and I decided that we would do whatever was needed so that we could return to the Northeast.  We were finally able to make the move after spending ten more years in Arizona.  Our daughters were fairly well launched,  I was able to find a work as an addiction counselor in Troy, and Dorothy's boss had made arrangements for her to keep her job in Arizona by telecommuting.

Coming back felt completely right.  It did not feel like a retreat but a victory.  We were able to have this great twenty year adventure where our separation from the familiar and predictable gave us the opportunity,  to change, grow and experience well beyond what would have been possible in New York.  We separated ourselves from all the normal pinnings of support and had to survive.  We did survive and in many ways lived a very fulfilling life but the pull of home was always there.

 We've been back nearly twelve years and the thrill of being home isn't gone.  When I tell people we moved back from Arizona they inevitably ask me why the hell I would do that.  This is especially true mid-winter.   I feel it is a great gift to be so grateful to be living here.

I think I'm writing about this because as I approach retirement I feel my life is about to change at a level comparable to the way it was changed when I moved to Arizona.  This move is more about the geography of the heart.

Last night's dream....

Dorothy and I are driving a rural road I take a side dirt road that is wet from an ongoing rain. After awhile we go down a fairly steep hill and when I get to the bottom I become worried that the car might not be able to get back up the muddy hill.  I turned the car around and hit the gas trying to get momentum to help the climb.  I almost made it to the top but the wheels started spinning in the mud and I had to back down.  At the bottom there was a  river that was rising above its banks and coming close to the road.   We found a seedy looking bed and breakfast/boarding house that stood by itself along the road.  We got a room and I went out for a walk in the rain.  I noticed that the river was higher and worried about Dorothy being in a house that might get washed away.  I walked into a village where all the buildings were very ramshackle and built so that there was no space between them.  Most were one story high and looked deserted, almost like the set of an old western movie.  I heard the crack of pool balls and noticed a building with it's front open to the air and people inside playing pool.  I went in and people ignored me. I went up to one person and tried to ask him if there was any other way out of town than the hill.  He raised his hand as if to signal me that that topic was off limits. Most of the people looked dim witted and had bad teeth.  I was more than an outsider, I felt mostly like a transparent observer.  There was a young man who sat at a table playing the card game Hearts with a few of the locals.  He was well dressed, had good teeth and looked completely comfortable and at peace. I envied him.  I somehow was able to get some information about an old woman who helped people find a way out that didn't involve going up the hill but it was all very vague.  I looked out from the pool hall and noticed a beat up old car, obviously full of locals, speeding up the hill.  It lurched and looked like it was going to get stuck but finally made it to the top and I could hear people in the car cheering.   Someone then told me there was a very narrow part of the road where you could get traction to make it to the top but it was hard to find.   Then I woke up.

Hobbit or Hermit?

All of this soul searching is about pending retirement.  My life is about to change big time.  I'm trying to find a bridge across the chasm.  An avenue to the next stage.  The feelings I have are conflictive.  Hope and fear mainly.  I feel like I'm on a hobbit like quest with goblins ready to jump out at me. I'm energized by the beauty and magic of Rivendell (my spiritual life) and the memory of the Shire (gratitude for the blessings of my life, especially family) but Mt. Doom  is always visible in the distance. The role of family, friends, and fellow travelers is yet to be revealed.


Hindu tradition speaks of the four stages of life. 


 I appear to be entering the third stage which is described as

Vanaprastha - The Hermit in Retreat

This stage of a man begins when his duty as a householder comes to an end; He has become a grandfather, his children are grown up, and have established lives of their own. At this age, he should renounce all physical, material and sexual pleasures, retire from his social and professional life, leave his home, and  go to live in a forest hut, spending his time in prayers.  He is allowed to take his wife along, but is supposed to maintain little contact with the family.

Hermit or Hobbit? Not sure.

Acting "as if" and getting physical

I'm reading Going the Distance - one man's journey to the end of his life by George Sheehan M.D.  George Sheehan was the "philosopher king" of runner's and I read many of his columns and books when I was deeply involved in running during the 1980's.  In this book he documents his struggle to find peace after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.  He died in 1993.   I'm about two thirds through the book and can't resist sharing some of his writing with you.  The following is an extended passage from pages 96 and 97 of the book.  


 "William James pointed out in the Varieties of Religious Experience that these spiritual experiences have little to do with dogma or theology.  The individual in the private reaches of the soul discovers a means to contact an all-good and all-powerful force and is thereby "saved."


This salvation (which comes from the Latin root salvus, meaning "safe,healthy") is accompanied by an "assurance state" --the feeling that you are now whole and healed.


At first such epiphanies would appear to be gifts.  They seem spontaneous and not willed. James would have none of that. Man is incurably religious, he said, and religion is our most important function.  We can improve our spiritual health in much the way we improve our physical health -- we must develop the dedication and discipline to do our spiritual exercises and enhance our spiritual strength.


In seeking relatively simple ways to enhance spiritual health we can turn again to James for an answer. For him, action and feeling went together; and by regulating action, which is under the direct control of the will, we can indirectly control feeling, which is not. Therefore to be cheerful, we must act and speak cheerfully. To feel brave, act as if we were brave."


Besides "acting as if" Sheehan cites another James suggestion.


"William James in the Gospel of Relaxation writes of 'that blessed internal peace and confidence that wells up from every part of the body of the muscularly well-trained beings and soaks the indwelling soul of him with satisfaction.'  James said that this was an element of spiritual hygiene that should not be underestimated." ( The link for Gospel of Relaxation provides the full text of the essay and is interesting reading)


I've clearly been doing some backsliding on my commitment to keep this the Gospel according to Ferd. There is no link for this....yet.  :)


By the way, while I'm off the reservation, I'd like to recommend 

Is Religion 'Built Upon Lies'? Best-selling atheist Sam Harris and pro-religion blogger Andrew Sullivan debate God, faith, and fundamentalism.

Interesting reading from BeliefNet  with themes that intersect some of the ideas the have been surfacing in this blog.   I just read that it's not kosher to delete sections from previously posted blog entries.  That it's better to use the strike through tool.  I guess I understand the reasoning here but I'm still working on it.  In any case after revisiting the Harris/Sullivan debate I'm disinclined to recommend it.   I now find their very long, sometimes brilliant, give-and-take too intellectual, defensive and, perhaps, self-serving.  And it's just not where I'm at.