The end of the beginning

Last week of school... so little motivation.

I guess it is time to wrap up my CAPSTONE experience. This class taught me a lot. More than probably most of my other classes combined. It taught me a new way to look at both literature and life. I almost scare myself when I begin to subconsciously relate my regular day to day to the works, thoughts, papers, blogs, etc we did. I think the most important thing I will take away from this class is the Negative Epiphany. The world is full of them. I feel like nearly daily or at least every other day I get slapped in the face with one of these annoying bastards yet this class and my own thoughts have helped me find new and creative ways to deal with these tricky suckers and they are starting to sting a lot less. Girl troubles, check. Future troubles, check. Motivation troubles, check. Just plain troubles, check. All of these troubles cause so much pain in the day to day but I can now take them, ball them up, examine them, prod them, change them, and ultimately give them the bird, put them in their place, and embrace the hell out of them.

Troubles will always hurt but they become much less troubling once one knows how to play around with them. I think it could be the most important thing I learned in college. To play. Cause life is just one big one. Speaking of which, whether we knew it or not at the time, my group may have inadvertently stumbled onto something incredibly important about this class thanks to the help of Dr. S.

-The Ideal world is one big play. It was written by some higher power a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away and the great artists try to best mimic the lines to this cosmically perfect play. However, our lives are a farce of this play, the one created by the entity and closely mirrored by artists. Our lives are the comical attempt at acting in the play. We are the crappy movie adaptation of the brilliant piece of literature. We are the hopelessly pathetic action stars trying to act in a dramatic role. In our heads we feel our characters are like Hamlet or Arjuna but end up portraying ourselves as Carrot Top or Sinbad. Lovable, laughable, and perfect for the cheesy romantic comedy.

Also wanted to say great work to the first group who went today. Well played. Lovely music. Delicious treats. And an unbelievable attention to the references.

My paper

This is the version of my paper I will present in class. I'm sure it still needs revision, but whatever, later. If you find any part disagreeable, lacking, whatever let me know. I'd love get the opinion of others, my roommates are the unwashed masses that couldn't understand it if they tried.

--He sat in his tiny room, a mere nook with a door, not much larger than the full size mattress lying on the floor. Books, magazines, dirty clothes, and trash cover the remaining few square feet of floor space. His friends joke. They call the place D-Block, as most prison cells are larger than the room he has occupied since August. Admittedly, it isn’t the ideal environment for his charge, “The best paper you’ve ever written.” His creative writing teacher always said something, the best advice, something about the A.C.Ts of writing. Ass Chair Type, sit and write.--

--Daunting. Probably the only adjective worthy of describing this project, his capstone paper, “the SENIOR THESIS” as the outside world likes to call it. To the layperson the senior thesis or capstone project brings closure to several years study. In theory, it combines the collective knowledge derived in all things college. After hundreds of hours of class, lectures, group projects, and library study sessions, the senior thesis provides justification, for both the student and the facilitative higher powers, that money was traded for learning, fair and square. The senior thesis, the capstone, the end.--

--A smirk draws across his face as he touch types on the keyboard and the letters appear as if by magic in the word processing program on the screen. He learned something very early in the course of the class requiring this paper. “In my end is my beginning” (Eliot, East Coker, ln. 209). He decides that words like “senior thesis” and “capstone” do not belong in this paper.--

I do not consider it a crisis of faith, but as the “real word” rapidly approaches, I find myself wondering about my path to here, my room, writing “the best paper you’ve ever written.” I wonder what skills I acquired during the four years I spent in the MSU English Department. Please do not mistake this wonder for worry. I have never once been worried by my choice in studies. I happily devoted my life to the words, interpretation, symbols, Norton Anthologies, papers, and a Mac PowerBook G4, keys nearly letter-less from ware. I guess as this semester prepares to spit me out into the big, wide, economically recessed world, I want something concrete in all of the abstract thinking I’ve done. I’m selfish; I want something practical. I spent four years interpreting the work of others, now I need to interpret myself.

But something stands in my way. “The best paper you’ve ever written.” Those words create a discomfort quite similar to a muscle cramp or a rolled ankle, nothing debilitating, just pesky and lingering. How do I know? What is the best paper I’ve ever written? How does it look? I decided to take a look at some old papers saved on the hard drive of the same PowerBook with the worn key I have used since my first year. Honestly most stunk, mindless jabbering about bugs (BIO 106 Insects and Human Society), Whirling disease (College Writing II), or walking on the wild side (Architecture 121). But some stunk less. Some smelled of provolone rather than Limburger. I wrote the following in a paper on Paulo Coelho’s novel The Alchemist:

the heart acts as a powerful instrument of man and we must, “Listen to [our] heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there.” The heart can lead us to love or away from danger…The power of the heart is almost infinite and therefore so is the power of man which is a very humanist view; yet Coelho also writes “And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” Although humans maintain almost infinite power in their hearts, the heart maintains a connection with God.

--He remembers the paper when he reads it. He wrote it as a Freshman in the fall of 2005. It was about religious humanism. He laughs about his wonderful allegorical interpretation of the text; his US 101 teacher must have been impressed. He also remembers how he felt writing the paper, technically a Mechanical Engineering student, his own heart wasn’t interested in engineering. He needed to listen --

This semester introduced words like inscape, action, sacred duty and epiphany, all terms for enlightenment and the discovery of Self in the a cosmic puzzle. The trick became digging the Self out. While hashing out my theory on the practicality in the epiphany over the last few weeks, I retained a nagging feeling that my attempt to find the practical in this excavation fell slightly short. I felt I missed a key step, perhaps the first step. Epiphany begins with a decision or a choice. We choose our own inscape, our sacred duty. It is something inherent but hidden. Something based on a choice lounging in the subconscious. I switched to English shortly after I wrote the paper on The Alchemist. Exactly why remains a mystery to me. I made a choice. In the Bhagavad-Gita, we tend to pity Arjuna because we think he had no choice in his predicament. He was thrown into battle with his teachers against his will. However, Arjuna chose to become a warrior. He created his situation. Similarly, Hamlet chose to seek revenge, “Haste me to know’t that I, with wings as swift/ As meditation or the thoughts of love,/ May sweep to my revenge” (1.5.35-7). He promised immediate action yet he failed to deliver because of his conscience. His inner struggle caused by his inaction result from his choice of swift revenge. Even Lily Briscoe chooses to return to the beach house and complete her masterpiece though with much trepidation feeling “nothing, nothing—nothing that she could express at all” upon her return (Woolf 145). A distinction must be made. A gaping hole exists between choosing sacred duty or inscape and actually finding sacred duty, a hole that can only be filled by action.

“No one exists for even an instant/ without performing action; however unwilling, every being is forced/ to act by the qualities of nature” (Gita, 3^rd Teaching, stz. 5). After choice, comes action, inevitability brought on by our choices. Before I read Hamlet or the Gita, I found a quote in To The Lighthouse. After Lily chooses her sacred duty and returns to the beach house she struggles to act. She wonders, “Where to begin?—that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but the swimmer among them are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming crests. Still the risk must be run; the mark made” (Woolf 157). It seems one of the most simple of tasks, acting yet as Lily discovers, action requires risk, it exposes one to the world. Her consciousness interferes as it does with Hamlet. He fears he will become the villain, cause unrest in Denmark, and his conscience dissuades him. Lily too, falters in action even after “she made her first quick decisive stroke” (Woolf 158). Lily acts but then worries that her painting “would be hung in the servants’ bedrooms. It would be rolled up and stuffed under a sofa. What was the good of doing it then” (Woolf 158-9). The Gita calls these frustrations “the fruits of action.” In order to discover personal inscape and to realize the reason for choice, one must “Be intent on action,/ not on the fruits of action;/ avoid attraction to the fruits/ and attachment to inaction” (Gita 2^nd Teaching Stz. 47). “Nothing is better for a warrior/ than a battle of sacred duty” like nothing better exists for a painter except painting (Gita, 2^nd teaching, stz. 31). Every person is a unique combination of warrior, like Arjuna, and a painter, like Lily. Thus people must pursue their unique combination of battling and painting. This unique combination of doing leads to the realization of the Self, the sacred duty, and the personal inscape. We must pursue right action. However, our lives, “distracted from distraction by distraction/ filled with fancies empty of meaning” (Eliot, Burnt Norton III. 101-2) rarely unfold as a linear pattern of unique action, rarely do we act without attachment to the fruits of our action because humans are “born of craving and attachment” which “binds the embodied self with attachment to action” (Gita, 14^th teaching, stz. 7). In short, we find great difficulty in realizing our sacred duty; life is hard.

--He remembers his own struggles with choice in action. He remembers his own questions, “I am an English major, now what? What does one do with an English major?” The practical world told him to pursue a well-respected profession with great benefits, a high school English teacher perhaps. “Sure!” he thought as he signed up for classes in his new life like “In-School Experience,” “Drug Issues in Education,” and “Lifespan of Human Development,” they all sound so practical and so very distant from the engineering department. So he sat for an entire unhappy year through lectures about the practical concepts of teaching, below average interest, below average grades. Yes, a few classes sparked his interest; most had the ENG prefix before the course number (in the old course numbering system). But overall, he suffers from disinterest and apathy. Fifteen straight years in the educational system, he considered himself burnt out. He doesn’t bother signing up for his junior year classes instead picks up the classifieds and begins circling, bartender, landscaper, and anything that doesn’t remind him of school.--

During class discussion we talked about how separately the Gita and Hamlet fail to create the effect of the two works together. The Gita lays down clear guidelines, “Each one achieves success/ by focusing on his own action…By his own action a man finds success,/ worshiping the source/ of all creatures’ activity,/ the presence pervading all that is/ Better to do one’s own duty imperfectly/ than another man’s well” (Gita 18^th Teaching Stz. 45-47). In the ideal world, a teacher like Krishna holds our hand while walking us through the proper actions that follow his guidelines. In the real world, and often times in the literary one, this is not the case.

All good literature deals with this issue of guidance and action. Hamlet questions, “ I do not know/ Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do’” just as every person questions. Gerard Manley Hopkins’ answer says we must instress our inscape. To find our answer, we must decipher our personal uniqueness instilled in us by God. We must strip ourselves down to our very selfness. I am not Kevin the English Major or Kevin the skier or Kevin the son of Robert, I am simply Kevin the Kevin. Coming from a slightly more secular opinion, we must remember our choice of sacred duty; I must remember what it means to be Kevin the Kevin.

--He remembers how he thought he knew the answer. Europe, travel, skiing, beer, Scandinavian women. He would find it, he thought, his purpose. So he worked, first as a bartender, then as a landscaper. And he remembers the weight of the world lifting when he bought that ticket.--

This proves difficult because the choice may be subtle, hidden in subconscious “moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,/ Fruition, fulfillment, security or affection,/ Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination” (Eliot, Dry Salvages II 90-2). These moments “when a man finds delight/ within himself and feels inner joy/ and pure contentment in himself,” skip by us in the day to day (Gita 3^rd teaching stz. 17). Often times, “we had the experience but missed the meaning” (Eliot, Dry Salvages 93). While made in the maker’s image, humans fall far short of perfection. A person forgets the important moments, the defining moments, and the epiphanies in life.

When asked to define epiphany most people describe it as a moment of clarity, a shiver down the spine, or the light bulb going off. Rarely does a person describe an epiphany as, “the feeling I had when I realized I wanted to be a _______(insert profession)” because between some past epiphany and the present, the person probably wanted to be a million and one other things besides a ________ because ________ makes the person unhappy. This especially holds true when on an even rarer occasion than epiphany itself, the person remembers the epiphany so vividly, the memory “restores the experience/ In a different form, beyond any meaning/ We can assign to happiness” (Eliot, Dry Salvages 94-6). Memories of epiphanies bypassed prod the soul not because they themselves make one unhappy, but because they offer an intimate look into a life out of joint.

This reaction provides the basis for the dark epiphany of possibility unrealized or perhaps sacred duty unrealized. Suffering finds root in this dark epiphany “of all that you have done, and been; the shame/ of motives late revealed, and the awareness/ of things ill done and done to others harm/ Which once you took for exercise of virtue” (Eliot, Little Gidding, 139-42). As an imperfect species, humans must endure dark epiphanies and pain. Pain and suffering exist in man’s nature, a blemish passed down from man’s mythological fall. Perhaps this explains why Eliot cautions us against “the wisdom of old men” and praises “their folly,/ their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,/ Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God./ The only wisdom we can hope to acquire/ Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless” (Eliot, East Coker 94-98). Though humans are not perfect and prone to folly, we are the most intuitive of the earth’s creatures. Our only viable coping mechanism, accepting dark epiphanies with humility. With humility we can find purpose (or inscape) in dark epiphanies and pain. By finding purpose in dark epiphanies, we return to the path of sacred duty.

--He remembers his own dark epiphany. He loved landscaping, a real salt of the earth feeling. Tilling the land is one of the earth’s oldest professions he thought, one of the most noble. He remembers the money and his swelling bank account. He saw his trip to Europe in every scoop from his shovel, future stories and the shenanigans. He fell in love with the idea of the wayward ski bum lost forever in the European Alps, dig dirt, traverse the earth. The other laborer in his landscaping crew jarred him from of his daydream with words that stick to him to this day, a much more graphic version of the following, “You’d get your ass kicked in prison.” He remembers the rotted meth teeth looked especially gnarled and corrupt as his co-worker laughed, mouth agape, at his own joke. He remembers it to be one of the last times he felt the salt of the earth. The comment had cracked his daydream and his action like salt cracked the earth. It was mid October, the first snow couldn’t come fast enough.--

The question shifts to the cause of dark epiphanies. According to the spiritual guidance of the Gita, “brooding about sensuous objects/ makes attachment to them grow; from attachment desire arises,/ from desire anger is born./ From anger comes confusion;/ from confusion memory lapses;/ from broken memory understanding is lost;/ from loss of understanding, he is ruined” (Gita 2^nd teaching, stz. 62-63). One can read these maxims and accept them as true. The logic is sound, A leads to B, B leads to C, etc. But a practical person needs proof. A practical man needs experience. The practical man needs to read To the Lighthouse.

Lily struggles with this exact problem as she paints her portrait of Mrs. Ramsey. After a rush of painting in which the figure of Mrs. Ramsey begins to emerge, Lily’s paintbrush begins to slacken because “against her will she had come to the surface, and found herself half out of the picture, looking, a little dazedly, as if at unreal things” (Woolf 178). Lily experiences a common feeling, a daze and uncertainty, the discomfort of a bad day. She hurriedly attempts to reignite her brush and force action but “the urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up: the idea sunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension” (178). Lily feels lost and empty. She becomes fixated on her goal and her actions fill with desire, “to want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have—to want and want—how that wrung the heart” (Woolf 178). By nature desire is near unattainable and on the rare occasion one realizes desire, a worse conditions results, feelings unfulfilled, emptiness.

Her dark epiphany manifests from her desire. In her desire Lily tries to force her thoughts of Mrs. Ramsey because “it had seemed so safe, thinking of her. Ghost, air, nothingness, a thing you could play with easily and safely at any time of day or night…then suddenly she put her hand out and wrung the heart thus…the whole wave and whisper of the garden became like curves and arabesques flourishing round a center of complete emptiness” (178-9). Lily wraps herself in the fruits of action only to find nothingness, a hollow center, the empty hole of a donut. Lily realizes the futility in her desire. She realizes a Danish, a holeless pastry, tastes much better than a donut. However, a lesser man with a sweet tooth may settle for the donut, succumb to desire. A lesser man wakes up in twenty years with a mouth full of cavities, a stomach ulcer, and diabetes. The body decays with sacred duty and “whenever sacred duty decays…chaos prevails” (Gita 4^th teaching stz. 7). Desire for praise, desire to please, desire to avoid criticism all rot the Self, leaving a painful leprous shell of duty unrealized.

In every (I hesitate to say “every” but I will stick with it) major religion and worldview, a common thread unravels itself. Humans will suffer as a part of our nature. Most people however mistake the gift of suffering as a curse. Suffering and pain remind us we have veered from our choice, our sacred duty or inscape. Perhaps this accounts for the screams Annie Dillard heard while watching the solar eclipse, suffering in its most lucid form, agony. These screams reminded her that “the sun was going, and the world was wrong” (Dillard 16). Nothing causes more personal introspection than agony. Suffering and pain do not need to be so pronounced. Sometimes the greatest pain is miniscule, almost unnoticeable. As Dillard writes, “we live half our waking lives and all of our sleeping lives in some private, useless, and insensible waters we never mention or recall. Useless…until someone hauls their wealth up to the surface and into the wide-awake city, in the form that people can use” (Dillard 22-3) Suffering provides the most intimate knowledge as to when we settled for the donut rather than the entire Danish. In fact, the little things and little sufferings, and conversely, little joys, do more work to remind us of our sacred duties, our inscape, our selfness than the most intense feeling of pain or euphoria. Little things or little “hints and guesses,/ Hints followed by guesses; and the rest/ Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action./ The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation” (Eliot, Dry Salvages, 212-5), duty’s incarnation.

--He remembers one of his little hints: A journal entry he wrote in Europe, bathed in unseasonable February sun, the only journal entry he ever titled. He remembers how clever he thought his title was. Rereading his entry his jaw drops. As he thought about including this part no more than two minutes prior to these words, he had intended on mocking his silly scribbled entry. But the words, the words mean so much as he rereads them, maybe not to you or to the professor or anyone else for that matter, the words mean so much to his self, his inscape.--

-- From Journal entry Feb 11^th 2008, St. Anton, Austria, 3:30PM, entitled “Achieving Mental Clarity While Sunning in St. Anton:”--

--“Listening to Marley, sipping beer and tanning in the middle of February. I’ve never been more relaxed. I tend to worry about my future and course in life however I must admit, at this stage and in this moment I have ZERO worries. I’ve found my calling. I am a mountain person and I will dedicate the rest of my life to the mountains in one capacity or another. I will forever remember this moment as the epiphany. My realization of the purpose in life. And I am sure I will be all right. That speaks especially true because I’m listening to Marley and I generally think Marley is overrated and cliché. In this moment he is perfect.”--

--His body tenses and that familiar chill runs down his spine, the very chill he tried to describe the very first week in class. The chill he got standing on the mountain overlooking “God’s Grandeur” in the cheesy picture on his blog site is only equaled by the chill he gets rereading his equally cheesy journal entry. He realizes it was a moment of “Midwinter spring…Sempiternal through sodden towards sundown,/ Suspended in time, between pole and tropic./ When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire… between melting and freezing/ The soul’s sap quivers” (Eliot, Little Gidding 1-15). In this moment revisited, his perceptions feel completely warped as the mountains he lived and skied two years prior, mountains he gave little thought besides their inherent beauty, become Literal, Allegorical, Moral, and Anagogical in his memory. He feels embarrassed to admit this, he is crying.--

What happens next after the choice, the dark epiphanies, the suffering, the hints? How does the practical person know which right action leads to sacred duty? Lily Briscoe asks and answers these same questions, “what was the problem then? She must try to get hold of something that evaded her. It evaded her when she thought of Mrs. Ramsay; it evaded her now when she thought of her picture. Phrases came. Visions came. Beautiful pictures. Beautiful phrases. But what she wished to get hold of was that very jar on the nerves, the thing itself before it has been made anything. Get that and start afresh; get that and start afresh; she said” (193). Lily realizes, just as we all must realize, that right action is elusive. Our choice in sacred duty does not fall in the lap. Finding our inscape requires that we contemplate things that evoke “beautiful pictures,” “beautiful phrases,” and beautiful thoughts. Things we simply enjoy are not enough to catch our elusive selves, our choice in sacred duty. In a more modern, practical, Hollywood terms, the clues to this mystery are not pastimes but things for which we would die, things we gladly do even “if it be/ now, tis not to come, if it be not to come, it will be/ now; if it be not now, yet it will come.” (Hamlet V.2.234-6). We must be Hamlet; we must willingly enter the rigged fencing match. For these things, these actions, while not our sacred duty, allow us to “start afresh” with a new mind. A new mind is clear of what the Krishna calls desires, the fruits of action, and dark inertia. A man with a new mind is “Faithful, intent, his senses/ subdued, he gains knowledge; gaining knowledge,/ he soon finds perfect peace” (Gita, 4^th teaching stz. 39). A man with a new and clear mind becomes infinitely perceptive seeing “a World in a Grain of Sand,/ and a Heaven in a wild flower” (Blake, Auguries of Innocence). A man with a new mind grasps what matters, everthing.

--He remembers returning to Montana State, after all of the battling with the Registrar and Financial Aid, he felt calmer, more prepared, refreshed, like he knew something that he failed to previously understand. He reads Don Quixote, something clicks. He finds countless “beautiful pictures” and “beautiful phrases,” some of which begin to appear in his own writing. In a paper for Literary Criticism in the Fall of 2008, he writes, “Like Don Quixote, English students “know” the benefits of studying poetry while outsiders remain ignorant to the knowledge an English student may impart. We English students need no explanation of the inherent worth of the study of poetry because we already “know.” We see value in every passage written in Don Quixote just as Don Quixote sees a daring adventure around every corner. An English student pursues knowledge just as Don Quixote pursues knight errantry.” He realizes, when he returns to classes that fall, that while he may not fully understand his choice, his sacred duty, or his destination, he had found his path. For the first time he knew, his windmill became the giant.--

Perhaps the most practical of knowledge one can take from this class, this college, this English department, and even this paper, is the existence of the grand epiphany, the realization of the sacred duty. No matter whether one is “a scholarly and dignified priest,/ a cow, and elephant, a dog/ and even an outcaste scavenger,” sacred duty exists (Gita 5^th teaching, stz. 18). As Hamlet says as he willfully goes to his death knowing he will fulfill his duty, “The readiness is all” (Hamlet V.2.237). We must be ready. Someday the stars will align, you will get the exact right amount of sleep, roll out of bed a the exact right time, and eat the exact right amount of Cheerios. You will stare down into your bowl and the answer will smack you in the face. After a lifetime of right action, devotion, and sacrifice, you will become completely detached from action and you will read the words of the floating breakfast cereal, “ooooooo,” and it will be followed by a triumphant “Awe!” along with the realization, “What I do is me: for that I came” (Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, 8). Striped of all the masks, stereotypes, and perceptions, you will play the only part ever written for you in the cosmic theater production of the world…yourself, your inscape. On that day when right action, detachment, the self, the inscape and the choice meet, “all shall be well and/ all manner of thing shall be well/ When the tongues of flame are in-folded/ Into the crowned knot of fire/ and the fire and the rose are one” (Eliot, Little Gidding, 255-259).

----------------------------------Hmmmm!--------------------------------he rereads his work-----------

--He remembers beginning this paper with expectations, grand ones at that. Practical Practical Practical. He intended this paper to answer questions. “What is an epiphany?” “How does one get epiphanies?” and most importantly…”What the hell is the point?” He isn’t quite convinced he answered any of these questions but in the process he did something important. He had it correct from the beginning. He was selfish. This paper has little to do with The Bhagavad-Gita, Hamlet, Lily Briscoe, Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Alchemist, self, inscape, choice, or any number of other words he’s used throughout. He rereads his words and finds nothing practical but everything beyond practical. He remembers how class discovered that great characters of literature, Arjuna, Hamlet, and Lily Briscoe are merely actors. The true hero is the poet that creates them. He realizes perhaps the most practical knowledge of all; as both the actor and the poet, he controls the only story that ever mattered, his own story. All it took was a class, a college, an experience, and a choice. His paper made him remember—“the use of memory: For Liberation” (Eliot, Little Gidding 156-7). In his memory, all of the actions that had little consequence to him in the past, resurrect themselves in a form more potent, poetic, and most importantly, practical than ever imagined. He reflects, one more time, the convoluted, heart wrenching path that presently places him here, where he began, in a cramped room surrounded by books, magazines, dirty clothes, and trash and he makes a pact:

I will not cease from exploration

And the end of all my exploring

Will be to arrive where I started

And know the place for the first time.

This is the end that started with a beginning, perhaps a paper, written in the fall of 2005, that told him, “the heart can lead us to love or away from danger…The power of the heart is almost infinite and therefore so is the power of man.” He knew his choice all along. It just took a few years to remember.

In my end is my beginning. Here’s to beginnings.

From grind to Progress

So the grind I fell into a few short days ago seems to be letting up. My paper is coming together but ultimately, I have no Idea what it is about. I can think of so many things I want it to be about, Practical, epiphany, my story....blah blah blah. But I've come to realize it has completely transformed into something else. Something much more important to both this class and to myself.

I can thank Tai, once again, for a little help in this department. I mused over this thought but he so cleverly wrote it.

I think this is a big part of this class. The recognition of our own narratives. Seeing what our own imperatives are and pursuing them with no mind to the end so much as to the narrative itself.

I grossly misinterpreted Sexson's charge "The best paper you've ever written." I missed the key modifier "you've." The best paper I can ever write must deal with a topic I am intimately familiar with, Myself. My paper has transcended the practical, transcended the works we've read, and ended up with the only story that ever mattered to me personally, my own story. I can tell you honestly this realization made my paper a heck of a lot more easy to write. I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.

Epiphany in Action

Amazing. While working through my paper I have been revisiting To the Lighthouse and have found something that I think may be so interesting I just might have to reread the novel sooner rather then later.

When Lily struggles with her painting she turns to a remembered or imagined conversation between herself and Mr. Charmichael. When I realized this a quote leapt off the page at me.

"What does it mean? How do you explain it all?" she wanted to say, turning to Mr. Carmichael again. For the whole world seemed to have dissolved in this early morning hour into a pool of thought, a deep basin of reality, and one could almost fancy that had mr. Carmichael spoken, for instance, a little tear would have rent the surface pool. And then? Something would emerge. A hand would be shoved up, a blade would be flashed. (179)

Not only does this quote remind me of Arjuna's vision of Krishna's totality as "the whole world seemed to have dissolved" but Mr. Carmichael also is portrayed as the creator of epiphany as his words cause something to emerge from the pool (Just as in Burnt Norton). All of this made me realize the following equation.

Mr. Carmichael=Krishna=Ghost=Virgil=Poet=Sanjaya=Horatio

All of these people are one and the same. They are the guides. Guides are an archtype. The guide is a poet. While the journey down the path of Sacred Duty is ultimately personal, it always helps to have a guide, a seer, or a poet. The journey of Self discovery is a group endeavor, which pretty much slaps humanism across the face. Man is only as powerful as his support group.

Then a little further down the page in Lighthouse was the following.

He was an inscrutable old man, with the yellow stain on his beard, and his poetry, and his puzzles, sailing serenely through a world which satisfied all his wants, so that she though he had only to put down his hand where he lay on the lawn to fish up anything he wanted. (179)

Carmichael the poet becomes Carmichael the God and if I were to guess, Mr. Carmichael's first name is Jim, James, John, or perhaps Jesus giving him the ever popular set of initials, J. C. the fisher of men. Which of course adds a bit to my equality equation above.

Mr. Carmichael=Krishna=Ghost=Virgil=Poet=Sanjaya=Horatio=God=Jesus Christ

All poets, all guides, all critical to Self realization and the fulfillment of Sacred Duty.

The grind begins, continues...

My goal for the evening was to post at least a partial draft of my paper tonight. Grand aspirations. I don't know if its the intimidation created by our assignment "the greatest paper we've ever written," or my own muddied thoughts but I find myself lost in the grind. I want to write a sort of continuation and closure to my theory on practicality.

I started well with my first four steps:

1. Start Looking

2. Finding personal inscape is hard

3. Little Things are big things

4. Personal Inscape exists.

I also really liked my discovery in the Memoir I read for US Latino Literature that nobility doesn't lie in the profession but rather in discovery of the Sacred Duty no matter what the profession whether a "dignified priest, a cow, an elephant, a dog or the man who eats the dog."

I would also like to squeeze the "Still Point" in my last post in as well.

However my sticking point is choice. Throughout all of my blogs, I fail to account for free will and choice. I am beginning to think that our personal inscape starts with a decision. Somewhere in life, we choose (knowingly or unknowingly) our Sacred Duty. Obviously the repercussions of this decision cannot be predicted or avoided. How we pursue that Sacred Duty or how we act upon that decision dictates our realization of the Sacred Duty.

Then trying to relate all of this back to my experience in college. Mind hurts.

Probably just over thinking things. I hope the rest of you aren't struggling as bad as I am. (though writing my thoughts in this blog without worrying about the proper grammar and mechanics of a term paper seems to be helping, even if only a little.)

Kevin's practical paper

Well I seem to have carried a common theme throughout the last few of my blogs, the practical nature of the epiphany. As i read through my past blogs, i notice that as much as I try to impart practical wisdom, my logic and reasoning tends to drift back into the realm of the hypothetical. I want answers, concrete answers, but I don't know if i will get them. But anyway here's to hoping.

Start Small...

So I perused the Intraweb and found that many people have made connections between Hamlet and The Bhagavad Gita. I tried reading one but it was long and unwieldily. I also didn't want it to spoil my thinking.

Where to begin...something small perhaps. Though I hesitate because only a few short weeks ago I wrote "little things are very very big things." Either way I'm the proper number of Big Sky brewery beers to begin my musings on the two works we have been assigned.

I want to back track to Eliot and the "Still Point." I struggled mightily with the concept of the Still Point as it is a place that moves "neither from nor towards" and "at the still point, there the dance is." A seeming paradox, movement in non-movement, warps my tiny brain. That is until i tweaked the nouns ever so slightly to fit a more Gita/Hamlet model. The Still Point is the point of Action within Inaction. Eureka! I've found it.

In both the Gita and Hamlet, time stops while Arjuna and Hamlet speak to their spiritual guides, Krishna and the Ghost. In Arjuna's case, a lone chariot stands in limbo between two blood thirsty armies for an hour or longer yet no emissary comes to ask why he delays the slaughter. In Hamlet, Hamlet follows the Ghost; Horatio and Marcellus chase after him a mere 6 lines later, yet the Ghost and Hamlet have a conversation that lasts over 10 minutes before they catch up to him. In both cases, the timing doesn't make sense, it isn't linear. Both characters leave point A in route to point B yet somehow get lost and end up at point Q before they materialize back at point B. They both pass through a place where "the light is still/ at the still point of a turning world" (Burnt Norton 135). The spiritual revelations of both the Ghost and Krishna are extremely profound but also extremely instantaneous, a point that nearly doesn't exist yet are more moving than any point that does.

This provokes an even more profound question. When the Still point occurs, when the instantaneous revelation sweeps over us, do we even realize it? Or do we simply "have the experience and miss the meaning?" Perhaps this why we struggle with the Epiphanic feeling. As the ghost says "Remember Me." Maybe we must remember the Still Point. The inaction and hesitation that plagues both Arjuna and Hamlet are really just memory glitches. Moments when we forget our Sacred Duty, our Inscape. Eliot says "At the moment which is not of action or inaction/ You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being/ The mind of a man may be intent/ At the time of death"--that is the one action/ (And the time of death is ever moment)" (Dry Salvages 155-159). To me he is saying we are always focused on our sacred duty. Arjuna is always focused on being a warrior. Hamlet is always focused on his revenge. Kevin is always focused on Kevining. But humans aren't perfect and we forget, especially as we get older. Being forgetful is succumbing to inaction. The Still Point is the instantaneous point of forgetfulness and inaction in which the Self must dance with itSelf to return to the rhythm of Sacred Duty. The Celestial Self Vinyl has skipped a beat, or as Hamlet says "The time is out of joint" (1.5.210). My guess, we need these periods of forgetfulness as reminders to the reality of important things, I think I would call it a reminder of the Ultimate Practical. I read the Gita and I listen in class and I cant help but think that the Ultimate Practical is always within us. Krishna calls it the Sacred Duty of the Self. Hopkins calls it inscape. I might also call it the Cosmic Watermark, always there but only visible in certain light.

Now for some closer to my thoughts. In the introduction to the Gita, Miller says that much confusion surrounds the final lines.

O King, when I keep remembering

this wondrous and holy dialogue

between Krishna and Arjuna

I rejoice again and again.

In my memory I recal again

and again Krishna's wonderous from--

great is my amazement, King;

I rejoice again and again.

Where Krishna is lord of dicipline

and Arjuna is the archer,

there do fortune, victory, abundance,

and morality exist, so I think.

Rememberence causes Sanjaya to rejoice. He remembers his Sacred Duty, to be a poet, the mouthpiece of Krishna. He erases his previous moments of forgetfulness. However, the important place in the entire dialogue isn't during the revelation or any one of the teachings, but when "Krishna is lord of dicipline/ and Arjuna is the archer." The important place is the Still Point between two armies bent on destruction. The important place is before any of the teachings are even unfolded or the majesty of Krishna is unveiled. The important place is instantaneous, action within inaction. The important place is where Arjuna forgets and therefore must remember. Because "there do fortune, victory, abundance,/ and morality exist, so I think."

Quick Thoughts about Gita, practical knowledge and Spanish

I'm going to try and keep this short as my last entries were a bit long winded.

I see many reflections in the Bhagavad-Gita in my post on "To the Lighthouse" and the practical knowledge from this class. I think the Sacred Duty in the Bhagavad-Gita is very similar to the concept of personal inscape that I came to in "To the Lighthouse." The Sacred Duty isn't fate but rather the Cosmic purpose for each unique individual on the planet. This cosmic purpose is the "thing" the self was built to do while in existence within the present body. I think finding this "thing" or this "drive" or "reason" or "purpose" (I do not have a perfect english word for it) is the ultimate epiphany. The higher power placed our "self" within a body to achieve dharma. Achieving Dharma is grand epiphany while constrained to the present body. However, these grand epiphanies are not singular. The "self" is unrestrained. As the immortal self jumps from existence to existence, it can find other grand epiphanies within other bodies or containers (whatever they may be). To better explain this I turn to my buddy Hopkins in his poem "The Caged Skylark" where he compares a caged skylark to man's spirit

Both sing sometimes the sweetest, sweetest spells,

Yet both droop deadly sometimes in their cells

Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest--

Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest

But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,

But uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed

For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bones risen.

I think Hopkins is saying that our "self" can be found and controlled "best" when "flesh-bound" and when the caged "self" discovers its Sacred Duty within its prison or body (perhaps through "sweetest spells" or "bursts of fear or rage") the "self" becomes limitless. It can use "rainbow footing" and see krishna in true form so to speak.

I digress, why is this practical? These texts reassures us and points us to the greatest destination in life, the sacred duty or personal inscape or the grand epiphany or whatever you want to call it. More importantly these texts reassure us that through all of the bullshit, this ideal destination exists and is attainable and is the only thing truly worth living for.

Now this is all pretty esoteric so I want to use a real world example. This comes from the Autobiography/Memoir of Gustavo Perez Firmat called "Next year in Cuba" that I read in US Latino Literature Class. It is a work of non-fiction and thus seems a bit more connected to our real "practical" world (at least to the layman). Firmat is a professor of latino literature at Duke University and now Cornell. He is also a Cuban Exile. His wealthy family emigrated to the US shortly after Castro took over. One of the major dynamics of the memoir is an exiles quest to find belonging and place in a country he didn't choose to live in. Much of this struggle is portrayed through Firmat's father Gustavo Sr. In Cuba Gustavo Sr. was a poorly educated but extremely wealthy businessman. He spent his life working in his family's almacen (spanish word for grocery distributor). By the Cuban revolution Gustavo Sr. was middle aged and his almacen was a multimillion dollar business. All of this was taken from him by the communist government and Gustavo Sr. went into Exile in Miami. Firmat writes this about his father

I have no idea what happens when you put your life into something like the almecen and it is taken away. It's not the money, mind you. The issue is not net worth but self-worth. In Spanish the word for soul is alma; Gustavo put his alma into his almacen. Take that away, and you unsoul him. Lose that, and you lose yourself. I write books and I teach young people to speak Spanish and appreciate literature. I view myself as a writer and teacher, meaningful occupations both. It's embarrasssing to admit this, but I didn't always understand the obvious: that selling sacks of rice and boxes of turron are meaningful occupations too. I though that being a professor was the higher calling. But in fact my Ivory tower rises no higher than his hill of beans.

This quote about a simple man, Gustavo, who at one point in his life found and achieved his Sacred Duty selling rice and beans is one of the most hopeful statements I've read, especially considering all that we have read. The hypothetical, esoteric, mystical, and mind numbing epiphany speak exists. As Krishna says:

Better to do one's own duty imperfectly

than to do another man's well;

doing action intrinsic to his being

a man avoids guilt.

Taking all of this in the context of this class I find this the most practical knowledge of all. Sacred Duty doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be a warrior, or a king, or a priest, scholar, philosopher, or judge. Realizing one's "self" and one's Sacred Duty in Rice and Beans offers a feeling of fulfillment no less amazing than any number of "Noble" professions in the world.

However, this practical knowledge is both relieving and terrifying. I think of all of the people who slave away every day at stuff they hate, shitty jobs and shitty lives. I think, hey this is cool I'm doing something I like...I just hope it's my Sacred Duty. Nothing more terrifying than that.

(darn it, my post got long again)

Practical knowledge from To the Lighthouse

Since it’s extra credit I’m going to try to take a stab at the practical knowledge in To the Lighthouse. This is my attempt to answer Lily’s great question at the beginning of the last section “What is the meaning?”

I want to preface this with the following: I received a copy of Oxford 4^th edition of The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins in the mail yesterday. I haven’t gotten a chance to dive into it yet but it sits right next to my desk staring me in the face. I think its influence has gotten to me without me even opening the book.

A seemingly insignificant line from the book stuck out to me as I finished reading tonight and it largely provides the basis for my interpretation of “the stuff that matters.” Twice near the end of the novel, as Lily sits at her easel switching her gaze between the canvas and the bay, she remarks as follows:

“The Lighthouse looked this morning to be at an immense distance” (156 & 182)

Northrop Frye said that the Lighthouse is a common metaphor for an epiphany. I think the lighthouse is more than just the epiphany, it represents some combination of purpose, destiny, goal, desire, and any number of other nouns that reassure humans that life is worth living. The lighthouse however, isn’t just some petty reassurance of life like a good round of golf, or a complimentary dinner. The lighthouse represents the thing in life that fills the gaping hole of uncertainty that occurs in everyone’s soul as they go from point A to point B. Reaching the lighthouse is when you become in tune with your ultimate purpose on this earth. (sorry this all sounds so cheesy but I am a bit too lazy to find more eloquent words to describe my thoughts). And like the quote suggests some times that thing seems at an immense distance.

This purpose is unique to each and every individual; it is why there can be 6 billion unique people on the planet. I hesitate to call it fate because while everyone meets their fate, some people never find this unique thing in life; they die first (like Andrew who was supposed to be a great mathematician) or they look in the wrong place (Mr. Ramsay pretends to be a philosopher but is really just an asshole) or they just don’t care (Minta loves to act stupid and party).

As for Lily, she constantly struggles to find this purpose. Throughout the book she is lost at different points of the journey. She wonders “Where to begin?—that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but the swimmer among them are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming crests. Still the risk must be run; the mark made” (157). Lily comprehends what she must do, she must start, she must begin her search for her purpose, she must find her inscape.

It’s funny, I never thought to connect Hopkins’ theory of inscape with the self. I thought inscape was left for those things outside of us, that inscape was used to understand the world around us not within us. I don’t know why I didn’t connect this idea but To the Lighthouse worked it out of me.

First Practical lesson: To find our inscape, our uniqueness, our god given cosmic purpose, we must take a risk and begin looking.

For nearly 50 pages after Lily begins, she struggles. She has crises of faith. She screams out God’s name…or rather Mrs. Ramsay’s name. Finding personal inscape is no easy task. Much of the time “the urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up: the idea sunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension” (178). Early failure creates emptiness. For Lily “to want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain” (176).

Second Practical Lesson: Finding personal inscape is difficult. Sometimes the struggles will fill the soul with such emptiness and despair that quitting feels like the only option. But quitting is not an option. As an old football coach once told me, “if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.”

But Lily keeps trying. Little things keep her going like reflecting on the boat Cam, James, and Mr. Ramsey took to the lighthouse. It is the little things that keep her motivated. It’s the little things that make her ask “Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?—startling, unexpected, unknown?

Third Practical Lesson: Little things are Very Very Big Things

Ultimately Lily finds her “vision.” She paints her masterpiece. Ultimately James receives affection from his father. Ultimately Carmichael the Sea Monster writes his book of poems. Ultimately Mrs. Ramsay is stared upon as she ascends the stairs and all the people recognize her for her true self, the life giver, mother earth, God.

Fourth Practical Lesson: Our personal Inscape exists and though difficult, it is attainable.

How can we be sure about this fourth practical lesson? Cam says it best while crossing the ocean… “Small as it was, and shaped something like a leaf stood on its end with the gold-sprinkled waters flowing in and about it, it had…a place in the universe—even that little island” (189). I’d like to think I’m just as much or more significant than that little island; I must have a place in the universe too.

Funny, Frye also says an island is often the representation of an epiphany. However I think Cam is referring to herself and James and Lily and Mrs. Ramsay and Mr. Ramsay and Carmichael and the rest of humanity when she refers to the “Island.” Perhaps we are our own epiphany?

Finally, where does Mrs. Ramsay fit in? I have alluded to it earlier in this blog. Mrs. Ramsay is the mother goddess or perhaps God herself. When the characters reflect on the divine (especially Lily) they are reflecting on Mrs. Ramsay. She is a giver, a charity worker, a creator of order, a mother, a wife, a writer, a reader, and a lover. She is the embodiment of a Deity. She has completely instressed her inscape. As Mr. Ramsay put it, she has reached Z.

Post Script: I may not love this book, but I respect the hell out of it. I probably respect it enough to read it again sometime. Dr. S says if a book disgusts you, there is either something wrong with you or something wrong with the book. Needless to say I was not disgusted and by the end, nor was I bored.

A quick addition to the Tide Epiphany Theory

I thought of this right before I fell asleep tonight. I'm not going to go into much detail but I think the High Tide Epiphany that fits my previous post is involves both Poem spoken by Carmichael and the sonnet Mrs. Ramsey reads before bed. Like a wave at high tide (perhaps like a wave coming into a Bore Tide) the poem and the sonnet keep coming and coming into the beach (i.e. Mrs. Ramsey). They are equally profound but less violent and of much longer duration because they act similar to a wave breaking at high tide, long and slow. Too tired to go much deeper into it than that

The Tide and the Cyclical Epiphany in To The Lighthouse

Thwack!! The three-foot wooden metric/standard ruler slammed down on the pink knuckles of the little boy’s left hand. “This is Geometry not Art Class,” scolded the wiry bespectacled teacher. “You must see the patterns inherent in figures on a plane, not doodle frivolous curly cues.” The boy scowled and rubbed his tender knuckles one at a time. He rather liked his scribblings. It was almost Spring Break and they reminded him of palm fronds whipping to the rhythm of the cool onshore breeze.

I don’t know what to make of To the Lighthouse. I want to hate it…and I do…ish. It seems quite the agonizing punishment to read tediously slow inner monologues of mostly unhappy people on what seems to be an unhappy vacation. Especially since my vacation, my spring sabbatical draws so near. But none-the-less, I suffer and I read, slowly, painfully, and with much indignation. My inner academic battles with my inner party animal who seems oh so close to winning the fight. As I read, however boring the text seems to rest on the page, I see glimpses of something faint, a ripple, so to speak, through the pages. Then… the echo resonates, the ripple grows. I hear voices more clearly and see (sea) waves break. Patterns emerge and repetitions, well repeat, both hiding in the story. Though patterns not in the Geometric sense but more like the palm fronds. They are not linear or quadratic, they are probably not quantifiable with the most advanced algorithm, rather, they exist as Waves (oceanic and rhythmic).

Dr. Sexson keeps saying that epiphanies litter this book. I have found a few, though nowhere near the 500 he claims exist. But I think I have found something somewhat interesting relating to these epiphanies. (I hope this isn't too much of a stretch, this discovery is the only reason I continue reading the book, to see if it holds true throughout). The most apparent epiphanies come in a rush, out of the seemingly bland; they are a tumultuous mix of myth and reverence. They crash over the characters wiping them clean in their frothy wake. What I’m trying to say is the Epiphanies feel like Waves crashing upon the shore. They come at rhythmic intervals, just as you are almost lulled to sleep a new crest appears. They are brief, sometimes no more than a few sentences. And almost all of them end with the sea.

During Mrs. Ramsey’s Lighthouse epiphany she tries to grab “hold of some little odd or end, some sound, some sight.” But “there was only the sound of the sea.” (64) At the height of her epiphany the light from the lighthouse shines on her, then the beam makes its long sweep out to sea, circles, and “rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!” (65) As exposed rock feels the frothy foam of a wave break on its rigid body, Mrs. Ramsey felt the delight of the epiphany on the floor of her mind. But the moment recedes like a wave, the ecstasy is over and Mr. Ramsey once again sees her “sadness” (65)

In another instance, ten pages later, Nancy finds a small tidal pool, and brings “darkness and desolation, like God himself, to the millions of ignorant and innocent creatures” (75) by blocking the sunlight from the pool. She feels this incredible power but then lets “her eyes slide imperceptibly above the pool and rest on the wavering line of sea and sky” (75). This experience fills her with dread, she becomes “bound hand and foot and unable to move by the intensity of feelings which reduced her own body, here own life, and the lives of all the people in the world, for ever, to nothingness” (76). Like Mrs. Ramsey, the feeling rushes over Nancy in a violent paralyzing wave. Her only release is to sit “listening to the waves,” brooding. Her reaction is different; her epiphany is a different kind of wave. She broods as the epiphany lingers within her much like a wave of a rising tide lingers on a beach. Low and behold, “the sea was coming in, so she leapt splashing through the shallow waves on to the shore and ran up the beach” (76). Unlike Mrs. Ramsey, whose epiphany is like a wave at low tide crashing into exposed rock, Nancy’s is an epiphany of a rising tide.

I don’t know what this all means but I am trying to establish a metaphoric method for comparing these epiphanies. Like I said they seem to be rhythmic and they seem to be patterned in the way tides and the ocean are patterned. Why, I don’t really know.

Then we arrive at the “Time Passes” section. Where as the rest of the book moves incredibly slowly, this section speeds through the future of the Ramsey family. To me this entire section is an Epiphany, not for any one particular character but for the reader. It is a repetitive cycle of dark bone-chilling winds, clouds, the creaking house, and turbulent waters, contrasted with mirrors, silence and Mrs. McNabb. It’s an epiphany of the storm cycle, crashing waves and dawn calms. Or maybe an epiphany of the seasonal cycle, violent winters mixed with still summers. Either way Mrs. McNabb arrives as turbulence recedes to calm or vise versa. Meanwhile the Ramsey family withers and the house falls into such disrepair that “one feather and the house, sinking, falling, would have turned and pitched downwards to the depths of darkness” (138). Throughout this section everything is moved, destroyed, rotted, moldy, repainted, repaired, rebuilt, or cleaned. But one constant always remains…the sea and the patterned and rhythmic crashing of waves.

Once again I struggle for the anagogic in this epiphany. I see glimpses of Eliot and the brevity of man. I see the futility of experience as Mrs. McNabbs memories, her experiences, do nothing to resurrect the house, rather the somewhat blurry image of the “lady in the grey cloak” only increase the homes aloneness. But I also see hope, that “all shall be well” perhaps. As Mrs. Bast, “stayed the corruption and the rot; rescued from the pool of Time that was fast closing over them” (139). (Interestingly, Bast is the lioness goddess in Ancient Egypt. She was goddess of the Sun, protector of lower Egypt, and her temple was surrounded by man-made channels from the Nile River. They were probably calm bodies of water compared to the Nile. Food for thought)

As of right now, I haven’t finished the book. I am only done with “time passes.” But I would be willing to bet that many of the other epiphanies to come follow a similar pattern. I also would imagine that if we went through others found in class other similarities might emerge.

I find this discovery fascinating because one of the only things constant in this world (let alone the book) is the sea. Every 24 hours the tide rises and it falls. Storm cycles come in and calm cycles follow. The sea is like a natural metronome tuned to different beats for each different time in the cycle.

When I think of the sea in relation to To the Lighthouse. I can’t help but remember a sound so familiar from my childhood. I used to sleep on the beach at my families lake cabin. The sun would wake me each morning as it peaked over the Selkirk Mountains to the east. Before I opened my eyes fully awake, I would hear a sound quite similar and no louder than the sound water makes when it’s slowly swished through the teeth of a closed mouth. The sound repeated itself over and over and seemed to coincide with first rays of the morning light. They weren’t waves, they weren’t even ripples. The sound, I think, was the lake, while glassy calm from the dawn, expanding and contracting almost like a breath. The water sounded alive.

Kmluby's response to the letter

From Tai’s Blog:

“In his melancholy and half thoughts and sadness, the narrator finds a sense of rejuvenation in this sublime act. This is divinely hopeful to me. In the existential quandaries found in aging: the fear of death, the fear of age, the fear of Michael Bay films, there is mind reviving. There is not hope, this is bigger than that, there is the act of experience in all moments that go by. We just gotta notice and learn to read them. At least I think this is what the Wordsworth and Kevin L are getting at.

This is separate from the idea that one can derive pleasure from pain and more so that pain is, in itself, a path to pleasure. That fear and death are components to a certain type of beauty. It's just a matter of recognition. And recognition is a part of epiphany.”

Well I’m not sure if that’s what I meant (do I ever know what I mean?) but I’m rather fond of your interpretation and your ideas Tai, I think I will steal a bit and roll with it.

If I am following your logic, a true Aesthete can exist beyond the constant threat of aging, death, and Michael Bay films by experiencing, recognizing, or reflecting on

“These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration” (Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey)

Alright! I will buy that Tai. By living among “beauteous forms” we forget “lonely rooms” and “the din of towns and cities” and death and growing old. These “beauteous forms” if recognized by an Aesthetic Hero (or just any old “right thinking” hero) will course thorough our veins, will resurrect us. But why death? Why Pain? Why do we have to live with these terrible emotions, terrible thoughts in order to be rejuvenated, to find, as you put it Tai, the “mind reviving?” We continuously read things like Eliot where we must trust in hope amongst the hopeless; or St. John of the Cross, who said we must experience “a dark night of the soul” before salvation; or Hopkins, who believes we must suffer as the poor rabbit did in the talons of The Windhover. Why must we always have a spear prodding our ribs or nails through our hands in order to be happy? I don’t think I have read one thing in my life, besides the Nike slogan, that tells me how to be unconditionally happy… sans peripherals.

Well I think I may have started to understand a bit why while reading “Deutschland,” (the dark epiphany is Man’s creation). I also think it may have something to do with the arguable “Hero” of Paradise Lost, Satan (Though I know far to little about Milton to explore this avenue and it might be a bit of a stretch). But I think have found a bit of help for the both of us. It comes out of the section of Edmund Burke’s “Philosophical Enquiry” entitled “Of the Sublime.”

“But as pain is stronger in its operation than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain; because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death: nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful, is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors.”

Sadly what I’m about to say comes from the Worlds Largest Emporium of the Cliché, Country Music: “Live like you were dying” –Tim McGraw *see authors note

In seriousness, Burke says that the emissary of Death is pain, thus we need pain to remind us of death. The pain, whether associated with physical, mental, spiritual, pain of loss, pain of brevity, etc., written into the connotation of Sublime or Epiphany gives us reason to notice these phenomena. And because the pain also reminds us of death, it reminds us to enjoy the shit out of it because, Epiphany might strictly belong to this earthly, and mortal, existence.

According to many religious ideologies, we live, we die, and we go either someplace really bloody horrible to suffer for eternity, really indescribably nice to live perfectly and happily, or someplace right in the middle where we spend the rest of eternity trying to hit the red ball off the wooden paddle. I’m not trying to contradict that these places won’t be horrible or wonderful or boring as hell, in fact I think we can expect that, but they certainly wont be as invigorating, interesting, injuring, intimidating, or emancipating as right here on earth. I think of that Hindu line we talked about on Monday. “Atman is Brahman” means: “Self is God” or “Self is Divine” or better yet, “I am Divine.” It’s cosmic assurance that the present matters and may be the only thing that matters, the ultimate boost to insecurity or self-consciousness. I might even be inclined to desire my consciousness, soul, or what-have-you to completely end at my time death, but that conflicts a bit with my mild religious inclinations. I just hope whatever comes next isn’t boring.

This is what I love so much about the Aesthetic hero. An Aesthetic hero gets to enjoy the heck out of the only thing worth enjoying…everything. The Aesthetic Hero doesn’t fret over not making it from A to Z. If the Aesthetic hero makes it to Q, he pats himself on the back for a job well done and tries like hell to stumble upon R, regardless of the pain and terror that may be involved. Pain and Terror and Death don’t scare an Aesthetic Hero nearly as much as a life of monotony, whether it be in horror, bliss, or boredom.

Now I will divulge a bit from Wordsworth. I think a true Aesthetic hero, while in tune with all of the little “lofty cliffs,” “unripe fruit” and “hermit Hollows,” notices these as little blips of “oh! How lovely.” But true Aesthetic Hero saves him/herself for the bigger revelations in the world about him/her. The ones, as I have said before, that shake the inner guts of a person. The Epiphanies that occur “When the tongues of flame are infolded/ Into the crowned knot of fire/ And the fire and the rose are one.”

Thanks Tai for getting me rolling. I rather like our discussion.

Authors Note: I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Inscape and Instress but the answer is a Mystery.

So in trying to describe Inscape and Instress on Friday as well as writing about it in my past blogs, I don't think I really clearly understood or explained the two words. Like I said, these words are made up...you can't find them in Webster's or even Oxford for that matter, the only true definition of Inscape and Instress comes from Hopkins' own poetry.

First I want to thank Lisa for finding "As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame" for class. Wicked excellent poem. It goes great with "The Wreck of the Deutschland" and is a hell of a lot easier to begin to understand than "Deutschland."

First the title and the first line "As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame" has to be one of my favorite lines of poetry and according to me, one of the best lines of poetry ever written...so there. The best part, I couldn't even begin to tell you why, it just is, end of discussion.

Anyway, for those (myself included) a bit confused on the two terms Instress and Inscape. Read the poem on Lisa's blog or here.

Dr. S made the meaning of Inscape pretty clear is but I will reiterate from the poem:

"Each mortal thing does one thing and the same ...

Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came...

Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is"

These three lines completely define Inscape. The "purpose" or the "uniqueness" or the "thingness" of something is the Inscape of that thing. Important to realize with a devoutly religious Hopkins however, is that that "purpose," "uniqueness," and "thingness" come directly from God, it "acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is." The "purpose," "uniqueness" and "thingness," as created, spoken and instilled by the Great Maker of Things, is the Inscape, meaning there is an answer to the question, a one and only Inscape exists. The tricky part of Inscape is understanding Inscape. And understanding Inscape, is Instress.

Luckily since we are the supremely made being on earth, made in his likeness, with more than a few of his tricks, (a super slick brain with the power to remember all that we have forgotten...which is everything) we can hear what

each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Every object exists with it's Inscape emblazoned on itself (like the fiery Kingfishers or the Flaming Dragonflies) or ringing from itself (like the ringing stone, telling string, or name flinging Bow). All we have to do is hear it, see it, experience it, whatever. To Instress (because I think it both a noun and verb) is to hear the inscape, the one answer. Seeing and understanding this Great Cosmic Watermark on something is "finding the instress of the inscape."

How you ask? How do All Sentient Beings reach Instress through all of the "distracting distractions?" I'm not entirely sure but I would imagine may have something to do with the following (though sadly not Optimus Prime):

The figure of capable imagination-Stevens

Negative Capability- Keats

One on whom nothing is lost- Henry James

Seeing into the life of things- Wordsworth

Aesthetic Hero- Pater

And why? Why you ask, Why discover Instress? Why become empty so that you can be filled? Why be so perceptive nothing is lost? Why strain imagination to it's capability? Why peer into the life of things? Why not act like Gabriel Conroy? Why be an Aesthetic Hero? It all seems like such work. Work that as Tai said "requires energy, energy requires food, and food requires money." Why fall into debt (or maybe depth?) with ourselves? Once again I don't rightly know but this line from "Wreck of the Deutschland" may help.

Since, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand

We pursue this knowledge, this instress, because as it all stands right now, it is a mystery. Mysteries are meant to be fun. Mysteries are meant to be exciting. Mysteries are meant to be painful. But most importantly, mysteries are meant to be solved.

Ask the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, they never met a mystery they didn't like and neither should we (they may also have a few mystery solving tricks to share). Besides wouldn't you love to hear God say in the most benevolent way possible, "And I would've gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids."

Tintern Abbey and the Sublime

Upon reading Wordsworth's poem about Tintern Abbey a couple of lines immediately stuck out.

Nor less, I trust,      

To them I may have owed another gift,      

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,       

In which the burthen of the mystery,       

In which the heavy and the weary weight      

 Of all this unintelligible world,                               40      

 Is lightened:

AND

And I have felt      

A presence that disturbs me with the joy       

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime      

Of something far more deeply interfused,       

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,       

And the round ocean and the living air,       

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

I picked these two lines because they both have a word that I remember appearing in more than a few English classes over the years--Sublime. I usually question why a surfer band out of Long Beach, California seems to invade my literature classes with some degree of frequency so this time I did a bit of snooping around on the Sublime. I actually found the Wiki article pretty darn informative on the Sublime and many of the short sections about the development of the modern conception of the divine echo most of the things we have talked about in class. Most notably, like an Epiphany, the sublime carries a two sided connotation with many of the primary philosophers obsessed with the sublime. The sublime isn't always rosy grasping the sublime evokes both awe and terror.

Joseph Addison wrote in his book "Remarks on Several Parts of Italy Etc" where he attempted to describe the sublime through his journey in the Swiss and Italian Alps. "The Alps fill the mind with an agreeable kind of horror." Addison's experience was scarily beautiful or maybe scared him into appreciation or amazement. Either way, his view of the sublime is a feeling of the most unpleasant pleasure. His paradoxical approach to the Sublime, painful pleasure, reminds me a hell of a lot of Eliot and all of the paradoxes he uses in the 4 Quartets. Sublime is indescribable with with anything but a paradox much like an epiphany is only describable with paradox. I found this to be a very interesting observation of the Sublime and having been to the Alps myself, I cant say I disagree.

Then I stumbled onto a passage by Edmund Burke out of his book "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful."

"WHATEVER is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling"

This quote made me think back to all that I discovered while reading Hopkins. Humans are doomed to suffer much more than experience happiness. Or maybe the only feeling worth having is pain? Ether way they all sound like a bunch of pessimists. Or maybe I just didn't quite understand the type of pain Burke was trying to get at, but I kept on reading and the answer just sort of popped up.

"Thambos is in Greek, either fear or wonder; deinos is either terrible or respectable"

I don't really think all of these writer/philosophers believe that the Sublime (or Epiphany) is primarily a painful (as in physical pain though I would be willing to bet a certain amount of physical pain is involved) experience. Rather, just like thambos or deinos in Greek, pain is implied or written into the Sublime (or epiphany) it is part of the connotation. I think the pain of loss that comes along with a fleeting feeling of sublime or an epiphany makes pain a necessary and unavoidable part of the feeling.

All of this brings me back to one of the first days in class. Dr. Sexson was commenting on how the english word "Awesome" is over used and has lost most of its true meaning because of phrases like "duuuudddeeee, that was AWESOME." I think he was implying that "Awesome" has lost the pain associated with it. At some point, something "awesome" wasn't just cool, it hurt like hell, physically, mentally, spiritually, etc.

As for Wordsworth, I think for the most part he had a much more positive less painful view of the sublime and especially the sublime in nature. Though maybe not as he looks on nature, reflects on the sublime to hear "the still, sad music of humanity."

Holy Hopkins Batman!

So I did some revisions on my Hopkins blog because I was thinking about it walking home late last night from playing pond hockey. What started as a few revisions turned into another completely separate blog post. You can read all of my ramblings in my revised previous post but I wanted to separate this part from the whole because I think it stands alone and might be more interesting by itself.

Note: before this text I was talking about a dark epiphany in "The Wreck of the Deutschland." A nun cries out for god but dies anyway.

Of course in true Hopkins' fashion the Nun dies anyway in the wreck causing one to question God because he has forsaken her and her devotion like Simon Peter or a traitor on Tarpeian Rock. But its all part of the Epiphany though sometimes dark and confusing. BUT...

Loathed for a love men knew in them,
Banned by the land of their birth,
Rhine refused them. Thames would ruin them;
Surf, snow, river and earth
Gnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;	165
Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,
Thou martyr-master: in thy sight
Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers—sweet heaven was astrew in them.
22 Five! the finding and sake
And cipher of suffering Christ.	170
Mark, the mark is of man’s make
And the word of it Sacrificed.
But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,
Before-time-taken, dearest prizèd and priced—
Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token	175
For lettering of the lamb’s fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.

Hello St. John of the Cross! The nuns must suffer to reach salvation they must experience "the dark night of the soul". They must endure the tumultuous waters and ultimately, drown, as a gift to the "martyr-master" (God I think). But God grants them peace and a happy ending (at least thats how I interpret it) as "sweet heaven was astrew in them (the nuns that is)." This is where I think the poem gets real interesting, what they must endure is likened to the suffering of Christ and what they must endure, a "Mark, the mark is of man's make." It seems to me that the suffering endured by the Nuns during the shipwreck or better yet, "the dark night of the soul," is mans creation (probably the only one in Hopkins' view), it is a self inflicted wound most likely originating from Bible World History Episode 1...The Apple. More interestingly, though man created his own suffering, man doesn't have the power to instill the "thingness" of the suffering. That is up to God he must manifest the "inscape" of the suffering, he must breath "the word of it Sacrificed." Which means we have the power to discover the "instress" of the "inscape" of our own creation... suffering. Wow... my head hurts.

From what we have read in Eliot, I think it is safe to say he would agree with Hopkins' view of epiphany. God made the epiphany, it was his gift to man but the dark epiphany (i.e. suffering and sacrifice) was man's own creation and man doomed himself to a hell of a lot more dark epiphanies than light ones. I think he would also agree that a real good epiphany (the ultimate AWE!!!!) comes from the "instress" of suffering (or dark epiphany). Though I would imagine Eliot would use a bit of different wording "The only hope, or else dispair, Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-- To be redeemed from fire by fire"

An Epiphany in Stereo Hopkins and Eliot **Revised**

I know I said I would stop however I was rereading my blog post and decided to add a few things. For ease of reference, anything new is in blue.

I did some googling on Gerard Manley Hopkins and his terms "inscape" and "instress." Hopkins coined "inscape" as a word to describe the "thingness" of a thing. "Inscape" is what makes every object unique. "Inscape" is the design, it is what makes every object fit in the gigantic cosmic puzzle just right. Hopkins was a religious man and he saw this design as an extremely purposeful act of God. The "inscape" of something is the divine approval of existence, it is the mark of creation. The theory is related to the logocentric theory of creation. That is the world created through the "Word" of God. Creation from speech. All things came into existence from sounds coming out of the Gods mouth and thus "inscape" or self or identity was created from intonations as varied and unique as the things themselves.

Because humans have the best understanding of self, we can decipher "inscape." This process of discovering "inscape" in a thing is called "instress." "Instress" is the power to hear the Word of God within something's "inscape." Enlightenment comes from understanding the "instress" of the "Inscape." It is Hopkins' version of epiphany.

In his poem The Wreck of the Deutschland Hopkins addresses "instress" The poem is about the shipwreck of the SS Deutschland. Five of the passengers killed were Franciscan Nuns exiled due to the Falk Laws. Short WIKI here

Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:
Since, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.

Hopkins' "inscape" reminds me of the "echoes" from Burnt Norton because they both use sound in trying to convey an epiphany. For both "inscape" and "echoes" the epiphany comes when the sound is interpreted properly. The sound must be intensified or attuned to stimulate deaf ears (perhaps distracted from distraction by distraction ears?). I think back to our discussion about an epiphany through music. I also think of the connotation of the title "Four Quartets," also based in sound and music. I think both of these writers, Eliot and Hopkins, are trying to tell us that epiphany ultimately comes from some kind of sound or wavelength rather than a vision, or a taste, or a smell. An epiphany is a chord that resonates through our minds, our hearts, our souls, and our guts. I think that's why I felt the goose bumps running down my back on the Mountain in Europe, my epiphany was using my spine as a keyboard. I also think that is why the dark epiphanies are so painful, as in Little Gidding "And last, the rendering pain of re-enactment, Of all you have done, and been; the shame." Also like the little dark epiphany (well maybe just little realization or little feeling) Taylor had with Pater that caused her to get "sick feeling in her stomach." The dissonant chords played by a dark epiphany nearly tear you apart.

The idea of music/sound and the epiphany may also lend a clue to Eliot's "dance". Professor Sexson said "Eliot doesn't seem like much of a dancer." I disagree. I think Eliot loves to dance but only to the right kind of music, the kind "restored by the refining fire, where you must move in measure." The kind of music that exists only in the "still point." I would imagine Eliot would dance to these lines from Hopkins' "Deutscheland"

Till a lioness arose breasting the babble, (sounds a lot like the Lotus in BN)	135
A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.
18 Ah, touched in your bower of bone
Are you! turned for an exquisite smart,
Have you! make words break from me here all alone,
Do you!—mother of being in me, heart.	140
O unteachably after evil, but uttering truth,
Why, tears! is it? tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!
Never-eldering revel and river of youth,
What can it be, this glee? the good you have there of your own?
19 Sister, a sister calling	145
A master, her master and mine!—
And the inboard seas run swirling and hawling;
The rash smart sloggering brine
Blinds her; but she that weather sees one thing, one;
Has one fetch in her: she rears herself to divine	150
Ears, and the call of the tall nun
To the men in the tops and the tackle rode over the storm’s brawling.

The epiphany in "Deutscheland:" the cries (of mercy? or prayers asking God forgiveness asking kindly for salvation?) of a Franciscan Nun, a virgin, near drowned in the storm, piercing through the crashing of the waves and the foam of the sea, intent on hearing with "divine ears" (I think this phrase "divine ears" has two meanings. First she is calling upon God's "divine ears." Second she is she is opening her own "divine ears" as opposed to "distracted ears" [Eliot]) the voice of God. It is her devotion to God and his Word that shine like a beacon of light

Ah! there was a heart right!	225
There was single eye!
Read the unshapeable shock night
And knew the who and the why;
Wording it how but by him that present and past,
Heaven and earth are word of, worded by?—	230
The Simon Peter of a soul! to the blast
Tarpeian-fast, but a blown beacon of light.

Of course in true Hopkins' fashion the Nun dies anyway in the wreck causing one to question God because he has forsaken her and her devotion like Simon Peter or a traitor on Tarpeian Rock. But its all part of the Epiphany though sometimes dark and confusing. BUT...

Loathed for a love men knew in them,
Banned by the land of their birth,
Rhine refused them. Thames would ruin them;
Surf, snow, river and earth
Gnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;	165
Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,
Thou martyr-master: in thy sight
Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers—sweet heaven was astrew in them.
22 Five! the finding and sake
And cipher of suffering Christ.	170
Mark, the mark is of man’s make
And the word of it Sacrificed.
But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,
Before-time-taken, dearest prizèd and priced—
Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token	175
For lettering of the lamb’s fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.

Hello St. John of the Cross! The nuns must suffer to reach salvation they must experience "the dark night of the soul". They must endure the tumultuous waters and ultimately, drown, as a gift to the "martyr-master" (God I think). But God grants them peace and a happy ending (at least thats how I interpret it) as "sweet heaven was astrew in them (the nuns that is)." This is where I think the poem gets real interesting, what they must endure is likened to the suffering of Christ and what they must endure, a "Mark, the mark is of man's make." It seems to me that the suffering endured by the Nuns during the shipwreck or better yet, "the dark night of the soul," is mans creation (probably the only one in Hopkins' view), it is a self inflicted wound most likely originating from Bible World History Episode 1...The Apple. More interestingly, though man created his own suffering, man doesn't have the power to create the "thingness" of the suffering. That is up to God he must instill the "inscape" of the suffering, he must breath "the word of it Sacrificed." Which means we have the power to discover the "instress" of the "inscape" of our own creation... suffering. Wow... my head hurts.

From what we have read in Eliot, I think it is safe to say he would agree with Hopkins' view of epiphany. God made the epiphany, it was his gift to man but the dark epiphany (i.e. suffering and sacrifice) was man's own creation and man doomed himself to a hell of a lot more dark epiphanies than light ones. I think he would also agree that a real good epiphany (the ultimate AWE!!!) comes from the "instress" of suffering (or dark epiphany). Though I would imagine Eliot would use a bit of different wording "The only hope, or else dispair, Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-- To be redeemed from fire by fire"

Anyway back to the original intention of this blog post, it is sound and word that creates the Epiphany in "Deutscheland." (it is also the sound of the word that brings man's ultimate creation the dark epiphany into existance) Though not music specifically, the intonations that reach the "men in the tops and the tackle" cause the Awe! moment (a little side note...I find it very interesting that the most commonly associated term with epiphany isn't a term at all. Rather it is a sound "Awe" or "Ah-hah"). The more I think about sound and Epiphany the deeper I think the possibility may go. A bugle gives the Cavalry the courage to charge. A battle cry gives soldiers the courage to fight. The national anthem brings some people to tears. Or maybe even, to steal a bit from Proust, a couple notes on a pipe organ followed by "take me out to the ball game" brings you back to the summer when you were nine, eating hot dogs and crunching peanuts in the bleacher seats at the local minor league ballpark. Try it for yourself.

But anyway I'll stop there.

This time for real.