JUNG AND BUDDHA: SELF AND NO-SELF

ARCHAIC PENELOPE

It’s my waiting that creates you.
The tapestry I weave,
unraveling you in dreams,
is your secret map.

How you try
to read over my shoulder!
You are too close,
thinking you are too far.

Here’s a seaweed-dripping cave
and a sea-nymph’s bribe:
immortality, but nothing else
will ever happen in your life –

and you pick mortality,
that beautiful blood flower –
while above the ledge of bones,
the Sirens unriddle all.

At the cold mouth of the earth,
the dead greet you, arms of mist –
like an echo of the future
in their shroud of finished past.

Days slide off the loom of hours.
The moon sets, mottled with regrets
like a lamp with islands of dead moths.
Again you think of home.

Wreathed with horizons,
you want me
to stroke your neck,
stiff from looking ahead;

weary of women
opening like shores,
you want my body to lead
into the body of silence.

You beg to know
how the story ends –
and it is I
who tie you to the mast.

Oriana © 2014

**

THE INNER PENELOPE


What Penelope weaves in Homer is a shroud for the father of Odysseus. To me, that part always seemed unsatisfying. A shroud, yes, but it should be a shroud for Odysseus himself, and the weaving the story of his life? Weaving was often a metaphor for fate (and what is fate if not god stripped of personality? an “overmind” that designs your life, but couldn’t care less if you suffer or rejoice?)

Scholars suggest that Penelope was originally a fate-weaving goddess (as was Circe).  Assuming that there is such a thing as a personal CEO in charge of the sense of self and continuity of one’s life story, could the archaic Penelope be the Jungian “Self”? Spelled with the capital letter, the Self, like Being (not to be confused with being), has been defined in so many ways that Penelope the fate-weaving goddess, before she was demoted to Ideal Wife, could very well be the Self, the central organizer of memories and creator of a person’s sense of “this is what I am, this is what I stand for.”

Some Jungians have suggested that Jung wanted to say not Self, but God, an infinite consciousness (hence one of the definitions of Self as “the image of god within man), but was too cowardly to do so. After all, he wanted to be recognized as a scientist. And besides, Jung was always changing the definitions of his concepts. He may not have consciously recognized the Buddhist principle that there is no permanent self but rather a constant flow: each moment we are “born again” and vanish again into the emerging new now, but he behaved in a fluid, fluent way that points to a self (or selves — a person can have several) as a process.

I once mentioned Jung on Facebook. The response was “Jung? LOL!” Nevertheless, I find some Jungian cognitive gropings to be of value, at least in terms of leading to more discussion. “Life’s nonsense pierces us with strange relation,” Wallace Stevens observed — a statement that reminds me of Jung’s faith (some would say dogma) that nothing that happens is just an accident. “There are no accidents.” If so, then everything is connected with everything else — a perfectly acceptable idea that doesn’t violate our modern worldview. Jung’s theology of the Self tried to be the theory of everything. Perhaps we can find something of interest while exploring that black hole that seems to devour all definitions except that of flow: you can’t step into the same self twice. The self is a river that keeps on flowing.

Some think of the self (it seems rather silly to capitalize it; besides, in German all nouns are capitalized) in terms of memory. It’s that unreliable witness, memory, that gives us a sense of continuity. Odysseus constantly reinvented himself according to the listener, but a certain core of experience remained: adventures at sea. Lots of travel. A longing for home.

IF MEMORY IS WHERE WE LIVE . . .

But if memory is where we live, we must remember that memory evolves, a reconstruction involving things that never happened. People are known to steal from their other people’s stories, without realizing it. As we change over time, our memory changes; one can’t step into the same self twice. Furthermore, memory is contaminated by language, the explainer and confabulator.

Still, Jung’s definitions are so vague that we can stretch “self” to be an ongoing process that marries unconscious processing to consciousness. It’s a neural process, of course. Jung himself stated that the psychology of the future will be neither Jungian nor Freudian, but will stem primarily from brain research. At this point neuroscience recognizes the subjective sense of a continuous self that results from the activation of certain brain regions (“I sing the body electric”), but the whole question of consciousness remains murky. Some say we will never understand consciousness by using consciousness — the brain is just too complex to understand itself.

All we can say is that no convincing answers will come from either philosophy or theology (by the way, Freud used the word “Soul” — die Seele — all the time; Jung, embraced by New Age followers, reminded us of the Cosmic Soul, Anima Mundi). Ah, the soul! A lovely concept, formless, naked, totally elusive — still, a noun rather than a verb. Still, who doesn’t love Emperor Hadrian’s Animula, vagula, blandula? So we turn either poetry or religion for a “momentary stay against confusion” — illusory as it may be. 

bronze head of Emperor Hadrian, found in the Thames, now at the British Museum

We must patiently (Penelope again!) wait for the researchers to do their weaving and unweaving. Hallucinogenic drugs are being studied again, albeit on a small scale. But a lot of what we know about brain function comes from study of the impact of brain injuries — sadly, warfare and accidents can be counted on to produce much material. Brain diseases are another unfortunate source of clues. An Alzheimer’s victim living in an eternal now, knowing nothing of his or her former self; a schizophrenic who thinks he’s Jesus; a veteran whose brain injury makes him a stranger to his family — these damaged individuals make the need for brain research all the more urgent.

The brain! All this bewildering buzzing activity, only to be buried in the mud. ~ Virginia Woolf

MULTIPLE SELVES?

Neuroscience also suggests that there is no single self, much less Self, but rather several selves (seen as patterns of activity), each with different needs and priorities. The Jungians like to think of “subpersonalities” as musicians, and the Self as an orchestra conductor. This immediately brings to my mind a number of distinguished silver-haired conductors.

But outside of the Jungian circles, the multiple selves, or competing neural networks, are seen more as squabbling committee members — or even as unruly children. As a Facebook friend wrote, those are not mature adult selves, but screaming two-year-olds; let’s try to construct a meta-self to bring them to order.

Kelly McGonigal explains multiple selves as follows:

We are a collection of selves that have different agendas, different personalities, different preferences, different priorities, and we shift back and forth among these different selves. You invoke a certain version of yourself through the quality of your attention.

There are these collections of neural networks that represent different aspects of the self. I think it's so fascinating to think that the self is a process—all these different processes we are good at make up the self we think we are. The mind is always generating, composing, or constructing music, let's say, like an ongoing symphony with themes that come into play; sometimes it's the same old themes that repeat, but the music keeps evolving in a new way. This generative ongoing process that in a way is always the same, yet also always new.

“No self” does not mean that there is nothing, rather everything is always changing. It isn't so much a denial, but to believe that some part of you is unchangeable or fixed would be particularly discouraged from a Buddhist point of view. I like that idea, and it's something you can work with scientifically. It's consistent with neuroplasticity and epigenetics: the idea that everything that happens to you influences what gets expressed.

THE SELF AS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER IN NARRATIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Narrative psychology is a school of thought of obvious interest to any writer. Writers realize how a narrative keeps changing as the creative process unfolds. It turns out that we are all “authors” when it comes to our life story. We construct that story to try to get at pattern and meaning, at who we are and what our life has been about. A narrative psychologist helps the client overcome the rigid vision that only one story could be written about the person’s life. The therapist reveals other perspectives, and richer, more complex stories. Even having the client write in the third rather than first person tends to change the tone of the story toward more compassion.

Nietzsche’s “There is no truth, only perspectives” could be changed here to “There is no self, only different plots.” It’s not what happened, but what we remember and how we choose to tell the story. The telling evolves anyway; the therapist tries to nudge this evolution toward a story that benefits the client.

NO-SELF, OR GOING WITH THE FLOW

I remember my bitter disappointment when I began to read books on Jungian psychology. I liked the valuing of the introvert dimension and attention to the second half of life. What disappointed me was the idea of “individuation” and the “Self,” as I first understood it (before I knew that late in life Jung was deeply influenced by the Eastern tradition). I felt I was “individuated” enough — perhaps even excessively individuated. What I craved was less self and a greater sense of connection with others. I wanted community, belonging.

At the same time, my most common recurrent dream was of being in a house or a large apartment where I was about to move in, along with a congenial family. I liked those people and their well-behaved children. I liked the beautiful dining room that promised pleasant meals together and family warmth. But as I kept on exploring the new house or apartment, to my joy I’d find a room somewhere to the side, isolated, apart, a room I’d instantly claim as my own private space. Usually, just before waking, I’d encounter a threat to my exclusive possession of this special room, and felt I'd do anything to keep it.

So I wanted — and still want — both a great deal of quiet solitude and just the amount of emotional and social connection that didn’t intrude on my privacy. I wanted the best conditions for creative work without becoming a recluse.

Since I felt so keenly the isolation of the self, I became fascinated with the Buddhist idea that there was no such thing. The separate, permanent self was a delusion. As I've already remarked, you can’t step into the same self twice. I loved it.

I’ve also always wondered about god’s reply to Moses: “I am who I am” (Sum qui sum — so compact in Latin). Neuroscience suggests that perhaps the answer anyone could give is “I'm becoming who I'm becoming.” I think that constant becoming fits with the Buddhist teachings. It’s the flow. 



BUDDHA: NO SELF, OR ANATMAN

By the way, for the sake of precision, let me quote something on no-self by the Buddhist author, psychologist and evolutionary biologist David Borash:

“Anatman (“not-self”), for example, means that no one has an internal self that is distinct and separate from the rest of the world. Similarly in ecology, organisms and environments are inextricably inter-connected. Also, Anitya (“impermanence”) refers to the fact that all things are temporary and eventually return to the non-living world. Anitya has parallels with evolution, in that not only is every individual organism’s time on earth temporary but also organisms ebb and flow across time.”

As for any predestined “meaning of life,” let me quote Borash again:

“Both Buddhism and biology (and also existentialism) teach that there is no inherent meaning to life. We simply are, and that “we” or “I” or “you” or “he” or “she” is merely a temporary aggregation of matter and energy, destined (or doomed) to collapse back into the stuff of the world. Therefore, if we want to make our lives meaningful, we should not look to some outside deity, but rather to our own actions. In the final chapter, I develop what I call “existential biobuddhism,” which adds existentialism to the convergence of biology and Buddhism, emphasizing that there is no such thing as “the meaning of life” outside of how we mindfully decide to live.”

TRUSTING THE UNCONSCIOUS COGNITIVE PROCESSING

The essence of heroism is self-trust. ~ Emerson
 
I was also becoming more and more familiar with the experience of the creative process. There was no denying that the best, most “inspired” writing came from the unconscious. You only needed to “seed” the process — maybe write just one sentence or one line of a poem. Then what worked best for me was to walk away from the project and engage in some mechanical activity like sewing or housework. Unbidden, the words would come.

I also came to see that a lot of what emerged this way wasn’t really anything I could call “original.” Much of it was collective knowledge: something I’d read or heard or witnessed. I wasn’t a strictly separate self: my mentality drew heavily on the collective psyche.

I don’t mean to set up an unbridgeable gulf between Jung’s “Self” and Buddha’s “No-Self.” Impatient reader, I hear you complain that I misunderstand what Jung meant by the Self. The definition that makes most sense to me is that the Self is the integrated psyche, including both the personal and the collective unconscious. That’s fine with me as long as we understand that we are talking not about a “thing,” but about an ever-evolving activity — multiple neural activities taking place simultaneously, changing over time.

The experience of the creative process taught me to trust the unconscious, to “go with the flow.” In poetry, that flow has often meant verbal music. The sound of the words led me.

ORPHEUS TAUGHT ME

the first rule of survival:
When lost, follow the music.
I walked in a great city
as in a rain of April light,

the streets and squares
dissolving into glass and gleam.
I walked along the riverbank,
my compass the idea

that if I follow the music,
I will remember the sea.
Springtime, the city in torn veils,
train whistles thin

harmonicas of mist,
I nudged the larval chestnut leaves,
carved eyelids of a chrysalis.
From sticky lips of lilacs

I sipped a fugue of rainbows.
I squandered splendors.
How could I have known
where I was going?

Only the music knew.
Across cloud-heavy continents,
under the fog
-unraveled bridges,

the river waits,
and I begin to flow.


~ Oriana © 2014

CAN WE AT LEAST PARTLY DIRECT THE FLOW?

I think I’m really not interested in the quest for the self anymore. Oh, I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you’re older, I think, is that you really must make the self. It’s absolutely useless to look for it, you won’t find it, but it’s possible in some sense to make it. I don’t mean in the sense of making a mask, a Yeatsian mask. But you finally begin in some sense to make and to choose the self you want. ~ Mary McCarthy, The Art of Fiction No. 27

In youth we simply don't have enough control over our life -- we are too tossed by the hunger to be loved and valued. We are told to conceal that hunger because no one likes a needy person. As soon as we drop wanting anything from someone else we stop suffering — but we don’t yet know that principle. We don’t have enough money — youth is generally the time of lowest earnings. We are too insecure, not yet having any accomplishments to point to. What a privilege, to be able to grow older and wiser.

Still, let’s try to evaluate if Mary McCarthy is right. We can certainly increase valuable skills, and the increased self-confidence will create an “upward spiral” of benefits. Craftsmen are generally emotionally strong: they know they are good at something, and thus valued (not least by themselves) for something. And personality traits can be broken down to skills — or lack of them. Some people have learned to how to control anger, and some haven’t. Some are good at soothing themselves and staying cool in times of distress; others panic.

After I made the decision not to be depressed, I was so astonished by the results that I started casting around for what else I could decide that would significantly improve my life. After all, I had witnessed my own power to change — but not being depressed only brought me up to normalcy.  

(A shameless digression: I just remembered one of the steps that led me to drop depression. In a book, I came across the statement: “You can practice being strong, or you can practice falling apart.” I instantly chose to practice being strong. It was a life-changing choice — after decades of chronic depression alternating with more acute episodes.)

(shameless digression continued: Note that the statement in the book spoke about PRACTICING being strong. It didn’t treat being strong as a fixed trait: you either are and are not strong. Instead, it was a behavior. I always understood that a behavior could be learned.)

*
 
I was very impressed by the decision not to be angry made by both Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela. Obama noticed that young Afro-American men tended to be angry, sometimes to the point of making a kind of career out of anger. Since people don’t like to be around angry persons, that anger was an obstacle to success. Obama’s strategy was refuse to sound or act angry. He decided to speak in a controlled, rational tone. It reminded me of another man I knew, who said that all of his success in life followed his decision never to raise his voice.

And Mandela famously said that when he left the prison, he left behind all anger and resentment at having been imprisoned. Otherwise, he said, he’d always be in prison, always carrying the prison within.

But anger and raising my voice were not my problems. Resentment about having been cheated of the life I wanted disappeared when I made the decision not to be depressed. I had good impulse control, and could keep promises to myself. I wanted to become a calm person, but typical meditation like counting breaths didn’t work for me (I suspect that people who succeed are already calm — maybe genetically or maybe because they’ve had a secure childhood, or both).

And then I read something in my notebook which I must have read several times before, always delighted by it, but not otherwise affected:

“How did you cross the flood?
— Without delaying, friend, and without struggling did I cross the flood.
But how could you do so?
— When delaying, friend, I sank, and when struggling, I was swept away. So it is by not delaying and not struggling that I have crossed the flood.”

This time I wasn’t merely delighted. In my mind I exclaimed, “That’s it!” Not delaying and not struggling. Above all: not delaying. After all, the greater the delay, the greater the agony, since the undone is a thorn in the mind.

This time the meaning of the “flood” was personal: the whole practical side of life. “I resent anything that takes me away from my desk,” a friend said, and I instantly identified. Intellectual work is easy for me. It gives me pleasure. It’s what makes life worth living. But shopping, ordering online, driving to new places, making appointments, renewing prescriptions, filling out forms, paying the bills, doing the taxes — talk about resentment!

I even found myself developing a phobia about picking up mail: the unending  bills and demands. “I’ll open it in the morning,” I thought. But another day would come, with its own burden of mail, and the old envelopes still lay unopened. I realized that unless I acted I’d become one of those people who are too scared to open their mail, and let heaps of it accumulate, unopened, for months. So I decided to get rid of mail right away: either by recognizing it as advertising and instantly tossing it, or by opening it and paying the bill, or otherwise acting on it without delay.

And it turned out to be easy. By not delaying I wasn’t turning mere unopened envelopes into dragons. By taking action right away I didn’t have the thing hanging over me, intruding on my thoughts and draining my energy. If the task was large, not delaying also made it possible for me to divide it into smaller, more doable units. And if I learned to wipe away coffee spills with no difficulty, I could learn to wipe any spills in my wash-and-dry life.

As Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Once we’ve started, the flow takes over.

And yes, immediately there is resistance from within. After a lifetime of maintaining a self-image constructed around the contrast between the Intellectual Princess and the Nervous Immigrant, some backward region in the brain absolutely balks and asserts that this is the holy core of my “unique self” . . . It says the angst  dealing with a brutal medical receptionist is the “real me.” But that neural network will be transcended. Without delay. And by not struggling. By knowing that there is no “real me” — just a succession of me’s that have the power to change.


*

Leonard:

It’s my understanding that "I am that I am" can also be translated as "I will be what I will be.”

Oriana:

Yes, I've read that too -- I think the more liberal rabbis hold that view. Still, I could never quite get the gist of it, regardless of the tense. I know if I answered that way, in either the present or future tense, I'd be called a smartass. In any case, the Old Testament writers and editors were very clever here, refusing to have god label himself, keeping all options open. Too bad that the rest of the OT narrative doesn't live up to that level of sophistication (though I rather like the idea of angels coming down to mate with women and producing giants -- that kind of totally archaic level along with something more evolved, starting with the Tree of Knowledge, rather than simply the Tree of Life.)

Sandy:

In 12-step meetings, the chaos is often referred to as 'My Committee', and an attempt is made to develop a meta-personality to chair a meeting of screaming two-year-olds.
 
Oriana:

I like this a lot. A meta-self, yes, as a kind of ideal. The meta-self will be also be evolving with time, but once we drop the idea of IS in favor of EVOLUTION, of PRACTICING, life becomes easier. I experienced that when I dropped the idea of depression as a feeling, and saw it as a behavior -- and a behavior can be changed. Best of all, the desire to engage in this behavior was suddenly gone to the point of the behavior becoming impossible. I read a discussion of ending alcoholism in very similar terms -- the craving is no more.
 

 Tenthousandthings, Michael Divine

*

Michael:

The last year has been the first in memory when I haven't been obsessing over the Self, that pursuit toward knowing myself. And it occurred to me while reading your post why that is.

I have a slightly different take on what Jung meant by individuation--in my opinion having little or nothing to do with individualism but a settling into our place in humanity, where our connections, or tethers, are firmly attached. Thus, when individuated, we are more firmly part of, or participatory in, community, in family, in the processes of life. It's a coming home.

I'm home. Finally. And concerns about the Self have gone away I think, because I have arrived at Self. It's a beautiful place to be.

I'm glad you posted again. I hope you don't give up. I understand about low readership and that must be frustrating. If you do continue, please know that I appreciate your work and commitment to understanding and broadening our world.
 
Oriana:

I’ve given up on trying to pin down what Jung meant by either individuation or Self — he rarely defined anything clearly, and his views were constantly evolving. In his old age he even admitted that we are different psychological type at different stages of our lives. So we never step into the same river twice not only because it’s never the same river, but also because we’re never the same self. And by self I don’t mean just the ego, but the totality.

I suppose that you don’t mean: I have arrived at the Self, so now my personality is fixed, and ten-twenty years from now my habits, interests, values, my whole outlook, will remain exactly what they are now. But possibly you mean the kind of shift that I experienced regarding my poetry and poetic ambitions — how I came to see myself as posthumous, and that feels so much more peaceful. Obsessing about anything is awful, and while I used to call poetry “my glorious obsession,” the cost in terms of suffering and damage to health was too high. I don’t entirely preclude a return to poetry, but I know it’s unlikely. I'm quite happy with the essay.

I suppose that as with religion, people interpret Jung as they wish, some seeing community, others individualism, etc. I prefer not to conceptualize the self (capitalizing it seems at least slightly ridiculous) as a noun. If it exists at all, then only as a verb, a process. But that’s OK. I no longer have a need to claim that I am extremely introverted. I’ve come to realize that it depends on the context, and factors such as my energy level at the moment.

Will this blog continue? I’d rather not make predictions. I have another venue now, so my own need to continue the blog is not very strong. Now and then, a new blog post may happen, probably not as often as in the past.



PENELOPE AND ODYSSEUS AS ONE PERSON

Vladimir Kush, Metamorphosis

Watching, across the street, a grandchild being unpacked (extricated? downloaded?), I mused how my fantasies used to turn around a small, portable child, not a jumbo babe requiring a vanful of gear. Ah, the beauty of less . . . 

When you lose simplicity, you lose art. ~ Joseph Campbell

You also lose flow. In a poem, you lose the mysteriously perfect velocity that a particular poem requires.

But I don’t want to appear so infatuated with the elegant, luxurious less that I can’t see the need for more -- under some circumstances. There is a season for less, and there is a season for more. I hope the poem below, like the tai-chi sign, presents this balance.

PENELOPE AND ODYSSEUS AS ONE PERSON

One wants the world. The wing of dawn
beats in him: More! More!
The other never stirs from the loom.
An ancient rhythm repeats:
“Less – less – the real
traveling is inward.”

One loves storms and clouds,
says death is a skyless country.
The other prefers trees,
says death is a cloud of leaves
where at last we understand
the proverbs of the wind.

One asks why rest –
the horrible gallop of minutes
will trample us if we stay.
The other stops to caress
a single plume of grass,
leans to petals glistening with rain.

One craves ravishing words,
says to a lover, “Enchant me.”
the other unravels the yarn
to make beauty more naked;
weighs a shiver of sunlight,
water closing around the hand.

One lets the first smudge of dawn
erase all dreams,
now useless as daytime stars.
The other gathers the lost
feathers of dreams as they fly,
the sky a nest of horizons.

A shroud grows between them,
a weave of tales and waves.
They breathe one breath:
the tide and the shore,
a sea, a story of return –
the moon in a fisherman’s net.

~ Oriana © 2013

Vladimir Kush, The Sacred Bird of Yucatan. 
The lost feathers of dreams?

*

Penelope and Odysseus are a couple unlike any other in the Western canon. They are not doomed romantic lovers. In some ways they are the opposite of Romeo and Juliet or Catherine and Heathcliff. Nor are they like that psychopathic power couple, the Macbeths.

Yet they are a power couple not only because they are royalty, but because they cooperate. Unlike the unfortunate couples who conduct marriage as warfare (especially heart-rending to see when the warring couple is past eighty), Penelope and Odysseus clearly understand that cooperation is beautiful. This is BALANCE, a non-oppressive division of labor: tasks that are both self-affirming and building something larger, held in common. Coming home must be possible if we are to voyage. The voyage must be made, but with the hope of going back to the inmost self, back to Penelope’s arms:

For though the heart grow desolate, thought it roam
        forever in vain the ways of earth, in quest
of high and lovely things, yet it comes home
        in the end to the waiting arms, and finds its rest.

            ~ A.R.D. Fairburn, “Odysseus”

This is BEYOND ROMANCE: it’s love as loyalty (a deep marital loyalty can exist even without sexual fidelity) and mutual support. The symbol of the loyalty is the marriage bed of Penelope and Odysseus. The bed cannot be moved to another place because it is built from the trunk of an olive tree, with roots deep in the earth. The symbolism of the strong, “deep-rooted” commitment can’t be missed.

In fact Odysseus states that a good marriage is the best thing in life. In Book VI of the Odyssey, Odysseus says to the “white-armed Nausicaa”:

May the gods grant you
Your heart’s desire, a husband and a home,
And the blessings of a harmonious life.
For nothing is greater or finer than this,
When a man and woman live together
With one heart and mind

(~ tr. Stanley Lombardo)

The best thing in the world, Odysseus declares, is harmony between a husband and wife: one heart and mind. The driving theme of the Odyssey is the hero’s desire to return to his wife. But this is not Tristan sighing for Isolde. This is Odysseus, the supreme pragmatist, praising cooperative marriage. United, the power couple can accomplish much more than each alone.

*
My poem, however, is not about two different people who complement each other. It’s about the marriage of two selves within a person. Only two? Let’s not quibble along the lines of “one brain, many minds.” Art is allowed to simplify in order to make a point (“When you lose simplicity, you lose art.”)

Two selves, then: one who wants more (we sense that this is Odysseus, the spirit of exploring and engaging with the world) and the one who wants less: the solitary quiet of musing on experience, of choosing the best, the most vivid threads for the tapestry.

The season for “more” is youth. That’s the Odyssean voyage to many islands, many new kinds of joy and much suffering as well. Maturity is the season of “less” -- a paradoxical less, since it leads to more wealth. In my calculus, depth = wealth. Now I am mostly Penelope. I weave out of the wealth gathered when I was fascinated by being Odysseus. (But even Odysseus had his quiet, introverted side. And he wept. He wept a lot.) 

Vladimir Kush: Bound for Distant Shores

THE REAL TRAVELING IS INWARD

One of the outrageous ironies of my life is that my “American dream” was “seeing the world.” I would be free to travel. Now I don’t know if to laugh or cry, but when I was in my teens, I really didn’t know that travel was expensive -- a minor kind of ignorance, considering I also thought that most Americans lived in skyscrapers.)

Now that I finally can afford to travel, once a year, say (that’s about the most traveling I feel like -- I’m a typical home-loving introvert that way), other implacable limitations have arisen. Are we the sport of the gods? Sometimes it certainly feels that way.

But then Emily Dickinson didn’t travel, and her genius wasn’t hampered by it. It’s possible that her isolation made her creativity flourish.

Most of my life is inner life. In my Penelope season, life wouldn’t be worth living if I did not have my quiet solitude for reading and writing, and simply for digesting daily experience (no woman is an island, and I certainly have some “outer” life as well).

In honor of “less” and the inner experience, let me end with this poem, which gives primacy to Penelope. 

ARCHAIC PENELOPE

It’s my waiting that creates you.
The tapestry I weave,
unraveling you in dreams,
is your secret map.

How you try
to read over my shoulder!
You are too close,
thinking you are too far.

Here’s a seaweed-dripping cave
and a sea-nymph’s bribe:
immortality, but nothing else
will ever happen in your life –

and you pick mortality,
that beautiful blood flower –
scorn the sunny-smiled
forever, choose the storm.

Days slide off the loom of hours.
The moon sets, mottled with regrets
like a lamp with islands of dead moths.
Again you think of home.

Wreathed with horizons,
you want me
to stroke your neck,
stiff from looking ahead;

weary of women
opening like shores,
you want my body to lead
into the body of silence.

You beg to know
how the story ends –
and it is I
who tie you to the mast.

~ Oriana © 2013
 
Vladimir Cush, Candle

Hyacinth:

Outstanding. So many memorable lines.

Oriana:

Thank you. I hope these poems will find a wider audience, especially the first one. I’m trying to point out that it’s quite easy to have two selves, one fairly extraverted and one introverted. Every writer knows that, but I don’t think it’s been said in a poem.

Scott:

You know my friend, I have been reading your blog for a few years now and I enjoy them so much...this one is the best I can recall. While this posting is shorter than most, you pack in a lot of insight....and those poems! Incredible verse and imagery, especially like the second. The great Greek poet and writer Nikos Kazantsakis very much identified with Odysseus, he traveled all over the world. One of my favorite images is of him working on his epic sequel to the Odyssey on a train traveling across Russia. That work and his 'Report to Greco' is well worth the read, very moving. Thanks again for a great post and verse, this will be one to re-read later tonight with a cup of Starbucks.
 
Oriana:

For quite a few years, I identified with Odysseus a lot -- down to concealing his identity. Then Penelope came to prevail. I see the need for both, but without Penelope (i.e. the inward voyaging), the adventures would be chaotic, without a thread to pull them together.

I’ve read some of Nikos Kazantsakis’s Odyssey -- very beautiful language, rich nature imagery. I had no idea that he wrote this long epic sequel on a train across Russia. What an amazing interweave, the vastness of Russia and the vastness of his poem. 

Scott:

His 'Odyssey' was an odyssey itself; he wrote and rewrote it 7 times over 12 years, finally completing it on the Greek isle of Aegina. An amazing work, I need to reread it soon.

Charles:

The irony of this is that with all your travels and great poetry content you fully understand that real traveling is inward.

Peacock is my favorite image.

May the gods grant you
Your heart’s desire, a husband and a home,
And the blessings of a harmonious life.
For nothing is greater or finer than this,
When a man and woman live together
With one heart and mind

Homer is right: the best thing in the world is total cooperation and united power of accomplishment.
Oriana:

Now with so many images online, one can see the world on screen. Not quite the same, without the smells . . . But also without the madding crowd.

And, as with re-reading books, I’ve grown strangely attached to the local streets. I recognize the yards, the trees.

And the same with people that one sees again and again, even if it’s a pharmacy clerk at Costco. I feel bereft if it’s not Stephanie, who has a way of giving signals that say, “You are a real person.” Just the fact that she recognizes my face out of thousands of customers means a lot to me. Maybe I should stop saying that I’m not a people person, since I like Stephanie -- I want to say, “She is so human.”

But when I was in my teens, I dreamed of seeing the Amazon jungle and the Himalayas. In fact I wanted to be an astronaut!

This is a very, very early poem, a piece of juvenilia that’s dear to me -- an early premonition that I was to be more Penelope than Odysseus (am I happy this way? Of course I’m happy! Especially since I have no choice!)

Ambition

When I was a young girl
I wanted to be an astronaut
out there in a space ship  
in the giant blackness
dazzled with stars

but when I grew up I noticed
I was strangely attached
to my room
to my lamp
to the blue coffee mug
where I keep my pencils and pens

the universe is spectacular
but simply too large
just the earth
is too much
I’m still looking for something
small enough to hold on to

 





 




 

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.]

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.