THE SIRENS STILL SING TO US

We must steer clear of the Sirens, their enchanting

song, their meadow starred with flowers –

Odysseus warns his crewmen, repeating the advice given to him by Circe.  Homer’s Sirens are not beautiful; in their early depictions on Greek vases, they are monstrous hybrids of birds and women. Homer says they

loll in their flowered meadow, round them heaps of corpses

rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones.

They do not devour the sailors who jump from their ship and swim to the Sirens’ island, lured by the irresistible song. The men presumably starve, unable to tear themselves away from listening to the Sirens.

When it comes to beautiful singing, Greek mythology supplies us with two main examples: Orpheus, and the Sirens. Both sang with ravishing voices. Animals, enchanted, followed Orpheus; even trees uprooted themselves to follow his song. The song of female Sirens was even more compelling, making men forget all else, listening to the singing until they became piles of bones and rotting skin. Ever since, “Siren song” has stood for “fatal attraction.”

We know the Sirens had beautiful voices and their song, we imagine, had a lovely melody. The Sirens are the daughters of a river god and the muse of tragedy, Melpomene. In an alternate version, their mother is the muse of epic poetry, Calliope.

But what were the lyrics of their song? Let us turn to Homer.

The wind dies down, and the crew starts rowing. Odysseus plugs their ears with wax, has himself lashed to the mast, and hears this:

Come here, honored Odysseus, Achaia’s glory,

and stay your ship to listen to our voices.

No one has sailed past here in his black ship

until he has heard our honey-sweet song;

Then he sails on, well-pleased and richer in knowledge.

We know the grief the Greeks and Trojans suffered 
on the wide plain of Troy because the gods willed it.

We know all that passes on the generous earth.

**

The song is not about sex, and not about homecoming.  Some scholars argue that it is about fame. On face value, however, the song seems to be about knowledge. Perhaps the song is customized, depending on what the listener most desires. To Odysseus, a man with a brilliant mind, the Sirens offer knowledge: the knowledge of all that happens, but possibly also the knowledge of the past and the future. Odysseus wants to stop and listen; he wants to be untied, which he desperately tries to signal to his crew by jerking his eyebrows; he is clearly tempted by the song.

The Sirens know how seductive, even irresistible, the search for knowledge can be; these ancient psychologists may even understand the compulsive nature of unfocused curiosity. Only in our age of “information overload” do we begin to understand the actual horror of it: Odysseus wants to know everything that happens in the world.

But the song of Homer’s Sirens does not seem to satisfy the modern reader. We expected something much more erotic and wonderfully strange. Here is how Margaret Atwood imagines what the Sirens sing:

SIREN SONG

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer.  This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last.  Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

~ Margaret Atwood, from You Are Happy

**

This is an appeal both to altruism (Help me!) and to vanity (only you are powerful and unique enough to help me).

Linda Pastan remains closer to Homer, beginning with a lament:

Is there no music now  . . .

for which a man would go breathlessly

off course, would even drown?

THE SIRENS

Is there no music now

except the chime

of coins in the pocket

for which a man would go breathlessly

off course, would even drown?

Odysseus tied to his mast

regretted his own foresight.

In ordinary days to come in Ithaca

the song of some distant bird,

the chords of water against

the shore, even Penelope

humming to herself at the loom

would make his head turn, his eyes

stray toward the sea.

~ Linda Pastan, The Imperfect Paradise

**

Pastan is not concerned with the words of the Sirens’ song. What’s ravishing is the music, the pure sound. We could even argue that it’s a beautiful death, listening to the divine melody. “Now more than ever it seems rich to die,” Keats said about listening to a nightingale.

Edward Hirsch, however, picks up on the image of the Sirens “lolling,” and the result is a marvelous poem not about music and singing, but another kind of bliss.

2. THE RAVISHMENT

  (The Odyssey, Book Twelve)

I listened so the goddess could charm my mind

against the ravishing sunlight, the lord of noon,

and I could stroll through country unharmed

toward the prowling straits of Scylla and Charybdis,

but I was unprepared for the Siren lolling

on a bed in a dirty room above a tavern

where workers guzzled sour red wine

and played their cards late into the night.

It takes only a moment to cruise eternity

who dressed quickly and left, after twenty minutes,

taking my money. I went back to the ship

and the ordinary men pressing for home,

but, love, some part of me has never left

that dark green shore sweetened with clover.

   ~ Edward Hirsch, The Desire Manuscripts,

               from Lay Back the Darkness

When I read Hirsch’s poems, only my delight keeps me from crying with envy. “It takes only a moment to cruise eternity” is my favorite line, but the entire poem ravishes the reader with its natural flow of a little narrative where everything seems natural and inevitable, and yet is a marvelous surprise at the same time.

When I was growing up in Warsaw, I was fascinated by what glimpses I could get of the city’s nightlife. It was presided over by beautiful, elegant women. Their every gesture was erotic, with a stylized, film-noir quality to it. It didn’t seem to matter what these Sirens whispered or crooned to the men kissing their hands and lighting their cigarettes; their power was a self-confident eroticism.

But I hated the thought of how much time those women had to spend on their looks; besides, I didn’t feel I’d ever have the expertise about the arcana of hairdos, make-up, and clothes. Not that I was attracted to the ideal of the modest service-type woman, the opposite of the temptress. Basically I didn’t want to grow up to be a woman; I desperately wanted to stay myself, a young girl watching the great city, exhilarated by its energy and mystery. 

My own “Siren” poem grew out of the earlier “women” version -- http://oriana-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/05/nightcity-warsaw-at-night.html

NIGHTCITY

Sirens shimmer fluorescent 

in shop windows, signs

tremble like thin ice

over cafés and bars –

narrow skirts, tight blouses

serving up their breasts,

Sirens lean toward men

lighting their cigarettes;

dusky voices uncoil

from lipstick and smoke.

I still cross myself

when passing a church,

but I want the bell of darkness

over the unfinished

arc of streetlights,

the electric hues

hiving in wet asphalt.

Chilled in winter sleet, 

I can't wait to ride

on the express C bus

through downtown Warsaw

at night: thin moons

of my breath on the pane,

a slippery algebra of lights.

The accordion doors

swoosh open and shut with a sigh;

on the radio, a song of those years:

The Dancing Eurydices.

Eurydices dance in hell,

the lights flow like destinies:

soon I will be a woman,

a Siren or a Eurydice –

multiplied, spiraled with neon,

arriving in metal and mirrors –

steep glare of entrances,

though the shivering signs

shuffle the avenues 

like a pack of cards;

the lights change but keep silent 

about the price of song. 

   ~ Oriana

**

On a more elevated level, I could also say that the choice presented to me was between Mary and Martha: Mary who “chose the better part,” listening to divine teaching, and poor Martha laboring in the kitchen. My father would sometimes remark, with some sarcasm, “I know those who chose the better part.” 

**

(I wish to thank Una, Lenny Lianne, and Jackleen Holton for their contributions to this part of the post, especially for their patience with my serial revisionism. The passages from Homer have been arranged by me using both the Richard Lattimore and the Robert Fables translations).

SIRENS AS CONSOLERS OF THE DEAD

I must add one more thing. Only yesterday, while visiting the “Hero” exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art, I was astonished to learn that the concept of the Siren evolved away from the Homeric femme fatale toward something more akin to our notion of an angel.  The wings stayed, as well as the attribute of music. The most striking piece of art in the whole show was a funerary Siren: sculpted in marble, a lovely woman with large wings, playing a kithara, a string instrument resembling a lyre. It turns out that Sirens were believed to accompany the dead to the Underworld, consoling them with music. Ultimately, the Sirens, who could impart mystical wisdom, also became a symbol of the soul yearning for paradise.

And since I mentioned Orpheus as another ravishing singer, let us not forget that Orpheus too had a connection with the Underworld, and the Orphic mysteries were similar to the Eleusinian mysteries that honored Demeter and Persephone. While Orpheus sang in Hades, all suffering ceased. Need we say more about the power of music? Lovers of classical music often say that this is the closest we can come to the divine. Orpheus and the Sirens have more in common than enchanting music – not the Homeric Sirens, but the consolers of the dead. We lose the world, but we gain the song.

[Alas, this image of a funerary Siren, dating to the first century BC, is nowhere as lovely as the one I saw.]

ARGOS RECOGNIZES ODYSSEUS

[image: Odysseus as a beggar in Ithaca]   

           . . .  and so the swineherd

Led his master, looking like

An old, broken-down beggar, leaning

On a staff and dressed in miserable rags.

. . .

           While [Odysseus] spoke

an old hound, lying near, pricked up his ears

and lifted up his muzzle. This was Argos,

trained as a puppy by Odysseus,

but never taken on a hunt before

his master sailed for Troy. The young men, afterward,

hunted wild goats with him, and hare, and deer,

but he had grown old in his master’s absence.

Treated as rubbish now, he lay at last

upon a mass of dung before the gates –

manure of mules and cows, piled there until

fieldhands could spread it on the king’s estate.

Abandoned there, and half destroyed with flies,

old Argos lay.

But when he knew he heard

Odysseus’ voice nearby, he did his best

to wag his tail, nose down, with flattened ears,

having no strength to move nearer his master.

And man looked away,

wiping a salt tear from his cheek: but he

hid this from Eumaios, and said to him,

“Eumaios, this is amazing, this dog that lies on the dunghill.

The shape of him is splendid, yet I cannot be certain

whether he had the running speed to go with this beauty.”

[Eumaios speaks, describing Argos]

“If this old hound could show

the form he had when Lord Odysseus left him,

going to Troy, you’d see him swift and strong.

He never shrank from any savage thing

he’d brought to bay in the deep woods; on the scent

no other dog kept up with him. Now misery

has him in leash. His owner died abroad,

and here the women slaves will take no care of him.

You know how servants are: without a master

they have no will to labor, or excel.

For Zeus who views the wide world takes away

half the manhood of a man, that day

he goes into captivity and slavery.”

Eumaios crossed the court and went straight forward

into the [Great Hall] among the suitors;

but death and darkness in that instant closed

the eyes of Argos, who had seen his master,

Odysseus, after twenty years.

~ Homer, The Odyssey, Book 17, translated by Robert Fitzgerald; except for the first four lines here, translated by Stanley Lombardo, and the three lines spoken by Odysseus to Eumaios, translated by Richmond Lattimore.

**

In her sequence, “Re-reading the Odyssey in Middle Age,” (The Imperfect Paradise), Linda Pastan has a poem in the persona of Argos.

ARGOS

Shaggy and incontinent,

I have become the very legend

of fidelity. I am

more famous than the dog star

or those hounds of Charon’s

who nip at a man’s ankles

on is way to the underworld.

Even Penelope wanted

proof, and Eurykleia

had to see a scar.

But I knew what I knew –

what else are noses for?

Men are such needy creatures,

Zeus himself comes to them

as an animal. I’ll take

my place gladly

among the bones and fleas

of this fragrant dung heap

and doze my doggy way

through history.

            ~ Linda Pastan

**

This is perhaps the least successful poem in the whole sequence, and no, it’s not fair to present this weak poem after quoting a moving passage in The Odyssey – but I am glad Pastan reminds the readers of this touching scene of recognition, the first one in the Odyssey.

For the Western reader, the dung heap calls to mind Job, in his poverty and sickness, sitting on a dunghill, scratching his boils with a broken potsherd. It is also interesting to ponder the parallel between Odysseus, returning to his palace in a beggar’s rags, and the wretched circumstances of his old dog, once the best hunter. Argos on the dung heap is almost a symbol of Odysseus, who gets rough treatment as a beggar, except from the swineherd Eumaios, who believes strangers and beggars come from the gods.

We know that Odysseus is not a beggar; the rags are only a temporary disguise. Later, the “divine Odysseus,” the “godlike survivor,” will be restored to his glory. And Argos too is momentarily restored to his former glory, in the account of Eumaios.

Note that the recognition is mutual; Odysseus tears up at the sight of the dying Argos, who wags his tails and flattens his ears, trying to greet him, but has no strength to approach him.

John Guzlowski commented about Pastan’s “Argos”: “It feels like a betrayal of the original poem, something that is good and true.”

Since the sequence is titled "Re-reading the Odyssey in Middle Age," we must assume that Pastan had Homer's version still vivid in her memory. The dog's thinking, Oh, I'm so famous, I'm the most famous dog in history, feels utterly false. Anyone who has ever experienced the warmth of a dog's affection when the animal greets you knows a simple, all-forgiving love that's beyond human capacity, except for saints and little children.

And this is in fact a heart-rending scene, both Odysseus and the dog "in rags." It reminds me of another touching scene, when the blinded Cyclops speaks to his favorite ram. Is it the affection and empathy that can exist between humans and animals? Is it the richness of detail? Both scenes have a soulfulness that resists intellectual theorizing; in a mysterious way, they let me know that the poet has known the depths of suffering. 

I hasten to say that Linda Pastan has written many excellent poems, including "Circe" in the Odyssey sequence. And, to reiterate, I am grateful even for "Argos," because it made me re-read Homer.

As for the death of Argos, I can’t help thinking of yet another biblical parallel: the “nunc dimittis” scene of old Simeon being able to die now that he has seen the promised savior (Luke 2: 29-32).

The name Argos means “bright” or “shining.” How simple great poetry can be! The wagging of that tail, the flattening of those ears – immortal now, shining. 


**

As an aside, I want to draw the reader’s attention to this passage in Homer:

You know how servants are: without a master

they have no will to labor, or excel.

For Zeus who views the wide world takes away

half the manhood of a man, that day

he goes into captivity and slavery.

**

The ancient Greeks highly admired areté, or excellence (sometimes translated as “virtue” or “manhood”). The word is related to aristos, “best” – the root of “aristocrat.” It seems obvious that a slave would not be motivated to excel, since he labors under duress, for the benefit of someone else. I found the passage very striking because it always puzzled me why some people had the will to excel, while others, generally the majority, did not. I observed this not only as a teacher, but also at any job I ever held, or, in the realm of leisure, in any exercise class I ever took. There were those who worked hard and aspired to excellence, and those who tried to get away with doing the least.

What Homer illuminated for me is how freedom enters into this “will to excel” or its absence. Slaves have no will to excel; they will not work a minute more than required; they try to minimize effort, and no one can blame them. But why do so many people behave as though they were slaves? They do not see themselves as free agents. Striving for excellence presupposes freedom. I feel the most free when I work the hardest – given that no one is forcing me to work with dedication, to “walk the extra mile.” There is a pleasure in doing something at the level of excellence. But perhaps the underlying and more basic pleasure is in knowing yourself to be free. 

                                [ Arete in Ephesus: Arete personified as a goddess ] 

THE ODYSSEY AND THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE, PART I

Max Beckmann: Odysseus and Calypso

Western literature has given us two great epic poems that deal with the midlife crisis or the transition to the second half of life: Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Divine Comedy, which includes the amazing Ulysses Canto, canto 26 of the Inferno, where Dante takes great liberties with Homer’s plot, since he has a different, non-Homeric vision of Ulysses, one shared by most readers, it turns out: the hero as a heroic explorer, a man infinitely curious about the unknown.

Odysseus has also been called the first modern man, or a Faustian Man, in the sense of insatiable quest for knowledge, even at the expense of other values – not at all the Homeric vision. However, Goethe’s FAUST starts with a midlife crisis, and ends with the Eternal Feminine.  In Western literature we also have a wonderful story of WOMAN’S journey to maturity and a reunion with her husband, Psyche and Eros, by the Roman writer Apuleius, but it’s not an epic poem; it’s a prose account, a part of a romantic novel. The ordeals that the female hero must undergo are very interesting; Psyche is in some ways very similar to Odysseus.

The word ODYSSEY has passed into the language to mean a very long journey, full of detours and trials one must pass; at the end, you return to your palace not in glory, but humbly, in a beggar’s rags. You are older and wiser; you have a different vision of what is most important in life.

Why this continued popularity of the Odyssey, while the appeal of the Iliad seems to have wanted?  Part of the answer is UNIVERSALITY. Homer has revealed some universal truths – in this case, the midlife crisis and the journey of transformation that leads to a happy later life – NOTE THAT THE HERO IS MIDDLE-AGED.  The Odyssey could be subtitled: WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO MIDDLE-AGED HEROES. This is unique because the typical literary hero dies long before the second half of life, or we don’t learn anything more about him after the heroic deed is accomplished.

1. The Collapse of Great Expectations


IN THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE, A CRISIS FORCES US TO INITIATE A PERSONAL ODYSSEY. In the typical case, the heroic ego project has failed, and we are reconciled at last to the idea that we won’t be rich and famous after all.  We won’t write the Great American Novel, we won’t win the Nobel Prize, we won’t become president, we won’t marry Prince or Princess Charming. Our child the genius, instead of winning a scholarship to Harvard, may be on the mental ward, diagnosed as bipolar. We do not live up to our own expectations, and our children do not live up to our expectations either. Reality is simply more modest. It’s not that we didn’t try hard enough; we did the best we could. But it also takes the right circumstances; the whole universe has to be just right if a grand achievement is to be realized. As one of my students brilliantly mis-wrote, “The limits are boundless.”

Now, American culture in particular promotes the “think big” mentality, feeding the young lies such as “You can be anything you want.” Even without this kind of cultural pressure, we know it’s normal for the young to start out with “great expectations.” What happens at midlife?  Typically, the great expectations of the first half of life collapse. This can lead to severe midlife or later-life depression. The image of Odysseus arriving home not as a hero with 12 ships loaded with treasure, but alone, in beggar’s clothes, is a haunting one.

First we have the magical thinking of childhood, then the heroic thinking of adolescence and young adulthood – which may extend until forty or beyond; finally, if we are lucky to sail through the midlife crisis without getting stranded in Lotus Land, or devoured by the Sirens, we start asking, “If I’m never going to be rich and famous, then what is the meaning of my life? What is the most important thing in life?  What should I do during the limited amount of time that remains?” 

2. A new definition of heroism

The answers that the Odyssey tries to give are nothing like “bravery in battle.” Rather, the Odyssey emphasizes the importance of a harmonious, supportive marriage; the importance of friendship; the importance of belonging to a community and one’s duty to that community. Note that these are the so-called FEMININE VALUES OF CONNECTEDNESS. The meaning of life lies in the way we touch the lives of others. In a shocking contrast to the Iliad, in the Odyssey, life is not about striving for personal glory. It’s not about who is the best warrior. It’s about trying to come home – to lead the right kind of life, the life where you really belong. 

The epic also shows the importance of maintaining focus on one’s highest goal – not losing sight of that ultimate goal. This requires persistence, patience, self-control, and trust.  Odysseus is not a superman on the battle field.  He shows courage as well as resourcefulness, but the Odyssey is not really an epic about physical courage; it’s more about not giving up hope.  As long as you have the WHY of life, you can survive almost any HOW – Nietzsche.

Revolutionary difference in Odysseus as a middle-aged hero: heroism isn’t dying in battle, but PERSISTENCE toward a goal, and survival. Heroism isn’t “look what I can do all by myself” but rather being able to ask for help, and accomplishing some important task WITH HELP. 

Achilles: two destinies. The point of the Odyssey is not that the short life with glory is to be preferred to long life without glory, but rather PERSISTENCE AND SURVIVAL – the value of life – and the value of marriage.  Both Odysseus and Penelope give us lessons in persistence.  A new concept of hero is emerging: he or she who persists.

Odyssey could be subtitled, “When Bad Things Happen to Middle-Aged Heroes.”  There is even some similarity to the Book of Job.  Odysseus starts with twelve ships, then is reduced to having one ship, then none, and finally enters his palace in beggar’s clothes.

Opening words are critically important in ancient Greek epics. Menin/andra (“rage” versus “man”)

rage – emotion of a victim, versus the intelligent self-control of the “resourceful man”


3. The theme of two destinies 

The Iliad could be said to be about two destinies:  Achilles could choose a short life with glory, or a long peaceful life without glory. Initially he praises the long and peaceful life; rage at the death of Patroclos thrusts him into battle, though he knows it will be not just his glory, but his doom.

In the Odyssey, we meet Odysseus also at a point of choice between two destinies. He’s being offered immortality – without human suffering, defeats, and whatever glory may or may not come. Perhaps the most astonishing and crucial part of the Odyssey is the fact that Odysseus chooses human life over immortality at the price of living on a lovely but boring island with Calypso (the name means the Concealer [cf “apocalypse,” or unveiling]; Calypso was the daughter of Atlas, implying a connection with the earth; she lives in a cave, suggesting the womb of mother earth.)

Even as she agrees to let him go, she once more repeats her offer. They are having a meal, Odysseus eating human food, Calypso her diet of nectar and ambrosia, when Calypso addresses Odysseus. She speaks to him with AN IMMORTAL RADIANCE UPON HER.

Wily Odysseus, if only you knew all the pain

you are destined to suffer before getting home,

you’d stay here with me and be immortal –

though you wanted her forever,

that bride for whom you pine each day.

Can I be less desirable than she is?

Less fascinating?  Less beautiful? Can mortals

compare with goddesses in grace and form?

To this Odysseus, a supreme strategist a flatterer, replies:

My Lady Goddess, here’s no cause for anger.

My quiet Penelope – how well I know –

would seem a shade before your majesty,

death and old age being unknown to you,

while she must die. Yet, it is true, each day

I long for home, long for the sight of home.

If some god has marked me out again

for shipwreck, my tough heart can endure it.

What hardship have I not suffered

at sea, and in battle!  Let the trial come.”

4. Acceptance of mortality and suffering; how best to use the rest of life

He chooses to accept mortality, persists in his goal, and accepts suffering – “let the trial come.” This is SURRENDER to reality rather than youthful denial of it.  He scorns the easy, peaceful, boring paradise and chooses the storm of human life.

HIS WILLINGNESS TO SUFFER; people not willing to suffer don’t accomplish anything (example – own business, trying to publish)

There is a shift from youthful fantasy of attaining a personal paradise (“rich and famous”) to the idea of having a task to perform, a duty, a service; from the heroic ego-project to the ideal of service.

WHAT DOES ODYSSEUS’S CHOICE TEACH US ABOUT THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE? 


We know that a goddess is not going to fall in love with us and offer us immortality.  It’s a question of ACCEPTING ONE’S MORTALITY AND DECIDING HOW BEST TO USE WHAT LIFE REMAINS.

SHIFT FROM AMBITION TO MEANINGFUL WORK; FROM THE EGO PROJECT TO SERVICE

from “look how great I am” to “what is my task in life?”

from “what can life do for me?” to “what does life demand of me?”

In the first half of life, we tend to live for the ego; the second half of life should belong to the soul.

But if I am not going to be someone spectacular, what am I here for?  To spread the light, to be part of the chorus – it is a humbling answer, it’s not what the ego wants, but it is ultimately satisfying to feel that you are a part of something greater.

The ultimate prize is A MEANINGFUL LIFE. 

Endless easy life with Calypso would be meaningless.  They were not real partners; they had nothing in common.  (Still, the elemental pleasure of existing?)

Homecoming is more important; leaving the isolation of an island paradise to become part of family and community again.

What is really important to us? Is it making as much money as possible, or having the leisure to do what we love doing?  Maybe the greatest wealth is time to do what you love – and/or human affection.  Dropping the ego, the profit motive, and “following your bliss” is often possible only later in life.

The Odyssey tells us that glory is less important than having a home; a beautiful goddess less important than a spouse who is a true partner.

5. Living for the soul

Considering the collapse of the "great expectations," the second half of life may seem uninspired and diminished. But it can be the more spiritually oriented half of life, coming home to where you really belong.  

David Whyte sees no diminishment in connecting with what might be called "soul projects" as opposed to ego projects.  I hate his stuttering short lines, but enjoy the content of this poem:

WHAT TO REMEMBER WHEN WAKING

In that first

hardly noticed

moment

to which you wake,

coming back

to this life

from the other

more secret,

moveable

and frighteningly

honest

world

where everything

began,

there is a small

opening

into the new day

which closes

the moment

you begin

your plans.

What you can plan

is too small

for you to live.

What you can live

wholeheartedly

will make plans

enough

for the vitality

hidden in your sleep.

To be human

is to become visible

while carrying

what is hidden

as a gift to others.

To remember

the other world

in this world

is to live in your

true inheritance.

You are not

a troubled guest

on this earth,

you are not

an accident

amidst other accidents

you were invited

from another and greater

night

than the one

from which

you have just emerged.

Now, looking through

the slanting light

of the morning

window toward

the mountain

presence

of everything

that can be,

what urgency

calls you to your

one love?  What shape

waits in the seed

of you to grow

and spread

its branches

against a future sky?

Is it waiting

in the fertile sea?

In the trees

beyond the house?

In the life

you can imagine

for yourself?

In the open

and lovely

white page

on the waiting desk?

~ David Whyte

(The House of Belonging)

Oh how I'd love to believe this stanza -- let me commit the blasphemy of making the lines just a bit longer: 

You are not a troubled guest on this earth, 

you are not an accident 

amidst other accidents --

you were invited 

from another and greater night

than the one from which

you have just emerged.

It would be emotionally comforting to think so. But even without such a belief in having been invited, we simply have to take the responsibility for making the most of our life. Odysseus chose a rich mortality rather than an empty, boring immortality. It's been said that people who are most afraid of death are those who haven't really lived.