FATE VERSUS DESTINY

RAIN, LOS ANGELES

  

Turning left on Wilshire

in the splintering crystal

of the jazz piano

and a million dreams –

mother city where my

adult self was born –

my domino failures

amid the pink stucco,

my stuttering, foolish,
heroic first steps –

turning left on Wilshire

past saber-toothed tigers

burping methane bubbles

in the oily tar pits; 

past the jutting iceberg

of the art museum,

the wet sheen of John Wayne’s 
bronze horse –

Turning left on Wilshire,

past weeping shop windows,

fountains like glass wings

spouting under wheels –

Bubbling on the radio,  

more emerging artists:

a former nurse recalls

an insurance salesman

asked her dying, 
“What do you really

want to do in life?” 
She confessed, “I’d like to 
go to California

and work night clubs,

but I’m afraid I’d fail.”

From eternity’s portal,

he gave her a blessing: 

I hope you go to California

and fail many times.

Turning left on Wilshire
years from now, by rainlight,
I pray to remember

that whatever happened
had glimmers of glamor,

red and green skids of light
streaming over the asphalt
and a sluggish pelvis

rearing from La Brea tar –

Will I be as bitter

as cold ocean water,

or will I become
tender like the rain –
turning left on Wilshire
past art-deco theaters,
past the stars on the sidewalk
like coins from the dead –

past myth, past mirage,

a deluge of smiles,

the palm trees applauding

because I have come
to California
and failed many times.

~ Oriana © 2012

**

From where I am now, it’s easy for me to conclude that it was my fate (a combination of the having the right mother and the right ignorance) that brought me to Los Angeles, and my difficult but inevitable destiny to become first a poet, then, more broadly, a writer. I was thinking again about the great lecture by James Hollis on fate versus destiny, so I started searching for my write up of it – my long-forgotten poem “Poe’s Raven” turned out to be a part of it. Below is the email to Lucrezia (a woman in Florida – we used to work for the same org) in which I summarize the lecture. This post goes back to February 2002.

**

Friday night I went to an interesting Jungian lecture that asked the question: can we create our lives?  Friday night, when the young, "those dying generations," fluoresce in the hope of a hot date. Can you take fate – or is it destiny? – in your own hands and create your life? The answer is both yes and no, an interplay between fate and destiny. Fate means the circumstances given to us: the parents we had, the genes we inherited (who paid the ticket of the genetic lottery?), the parental family’s income and lifestyle, the education and religious indoctrination we received early in life. Destiny is not our circumstances, but “what we are summoned to become.” We don’t necessarily welcome the summons of destiny. Jung said, “You find your destiny on the path you take to avoid it.”

The speaker, James Hollis, a noted Jungian writer and lecturer (“Valleys of Despair, Mountains of Bliss: Measuring the Forces of Destiny”), translated the interplay of fate and destiny as a “flowing within” (whatever that means; Jungian lingo is always in flux, and you don't step into the same definition twice). Fate is what has been given to us, both advantages and limitations. Destiny is our potential, what is calling to us, trying to live through us. “Something wants to come into the world through us.”

Jung was interested in destiny rather than fate. He perceived the curative factor in therapy to be not the insight into the past, as Freud claimed, but rather an insight into the future. An important task of therapy was to guide the patient toward a larger, richer, more interesting vision of himself or herself, to hear the summoning call of destiny and respond to it.

It was a brilliant lecture by an extremely articulate author. One of my favorite quotations:  “Authority keeps a person infantile. We need to ask what the soul wants of us, since external agenda is regressive, while the inner agenda is developmental.” 

Hollis also spoke of the difference between the first and second half of life. Jung, unlike Freud, was more interested in the second half of life. Hollis spoke of the midlife crisis: “The heroic ego project of youth has failed. How do we get out of the bog of depression?” His answer was that we must consciously start serving the needs of our soul, and listen to the call of our unique destiny.

But what percentage of the population gets to be in the sort of profession where you can be your own boss? This is where writers may lose sight of how the average reader/lecture goer is struggling just to cope with the brutalities of that external agenda, i.e. job, car payments. I’ve seen talented poets fall by the wayside under the pressure. 

I’m tempted to say that mere talent has little to do with it – a kind of “destiny drive” too powerful to be resisted needs to be there, and what I’d call an abnormal ability to make sacrifices. The role of fate, i.e. of circumstances, is hard to estimate. How many acorns get to develop into an oak? 

Hollis also said, “Most of us do not have the permission to be who we are. We all walk in shoes too small for us.” So he does recognize the problem, but I don’t think it interests and engages him enough, the dilemma of those for whom serving the soul would mean the loss of livelihood. 

Another crystalization: “Ideologies tend to annihilate the soul.” As do theologies, I want to add (note that mystics are hardly orthodox; they are heretics, creating their own god). That fits so well with my observations, and that’s why true poetry, the language of the soul, is so subversive. 

Someone in the audience asked about where the speaker stands in terms of his own life, at seventy. Hollis said, “Right now it’s so rich, I can hardly bear it.” And he choked up a bit, and teared up with obvious gratitude for the miracle of a life richer than he dared imagine during the hardship of his younger years.

**

AFTERTHOUGHTS, TEN YEARS LATER

First, I am struck by a certain flatness in my writing ten years ago. I wrote in a more vivid fashion while I was actively a poet, and then again after 2002, when I returned to poetry; after a year or so, more fluent and “cinematic” personal writing came automatically. Did pale Nordic Hollis seem caged in his un-Jungian business suit, or, on the contrary, perfectly framed in this trophy of triumph? I didn’t encode it back then, and now I don’t know. Now, when I write about an interesting lecture, the account creates a little drama. So I’ve done some “growing into destiny,” to use the phrase that Hollis favored.

FREUD'S ERROR

~ I think Freud made a huge mistake when he rejected conscious purpose as a motivational construct and opted for a mechanical model of human behavior. If we want to understand people, I think we need to find out what they are trying to accomplish with their behavior. Freudians don't ask people, “What are your goals? What are your values?” Instead, they ask, “What happened to you in childhood? How do you feel about your parents?” ~ Steven Reiss, Ph.D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/who-we-are/201203/what-is-motivation

(However, one needs to remember that Freud's rich neurotics had no goals. He completely despised his patients as people who had nothing to do except cultivate their symptoms.)

(And as a shameless, inexcusable Moby Dick-like digression from the topic, it’s just occurred to me that Dostoyevski, a secret fan of his own Grand Inquisitor, would have loved the modern finding that choice is stressful, and thus strict churches that tell you what to eat, what to wear, how to speak, what to read (no Internet surfing!), whom to date etc, are thriving and keep growing. Want to be happy and successful? Limit choice. Even better, eliminate choice. Stick to one thing; call it your destiny if that makes it more appealing.)

DAIMON: THE “GUARDIAN ANGEL” OF DESTINY

I am surprised that Hollis didn’t speak about the two destinies of Achilles (or if he did, I failed to record it). Let me run through it quickly. Unlike other human beings, Achilles was born not with one destiny, but with two; later he had to choose between a long life without glory, or a short one with glory. What motivated him to choose the latter was his all-consuming rage and need for revenge after the death of Patroclos. Achilles is not exactly a role model for us – no Greek heroes are, though the idea of arête (excellence) has remained a perennial inspiration.

But this is a chance to introduce the fascinating concept of a daimon. Scholars differ as to the precise definition, so we are free to choose the one that still has some meaning for us. Apparently, every human was assigned a spirit to guide him, somewhat like the Guardian Angel. But the daimon was the spirit of destiny, a voice that helped us find a way to fulfill that destiny. Today we’d speak of inner guidance or intuition or maybe even the “higher self.” But I rather enjoy imagining a little guiding spirit. You have to be alone and very quiet to hear your daimon. Maybe you’ll get to hear the daimon only once in your life – but it will be unforgettable.

TRANSCENDING FATE

What does your daimon say you should be doing? What does your soul want of you? If you are religious, then what is the will of God for you? Should you sit down and brood on this critical question of the second half of life? Should you to a therapist or a psychic (where I live, psychics are more popular, not to mention relatively inexpensive)? In an odd way, therapists almost stand for Freud, who analyzed the past, while psychics, like Jung, are concerned with the future: with destiny.

But the guidance will come neither from brooding nor from Tarot readings – though the latter may toss in a helpful image or two, a hint of something larger. In my experience the answer comes without conscious effort and when you least expect it. It’s yet another hint that our cognitive processes are unconscious – though an important answer will be communicated to consciousness. That answer may be different than anything we imagined. It may be terrifying, and we may try to do anything except obey that command. But to choose against growth means misery.

Emerson said that intellect annuls fate. I would narrow that to insight. Once I have an insight – and that’s a neurological event, that burst of high-frequency gamma waves from the right temporal cortex (the area that “gets” jokes and metaphors, art and myth) and the formation of a new neural network – my behavior changes, and I can’t go back to the old mode of perceiving and behaving. This happened when I clearly saw that I must not allow myself to be depressed – and in an instant I was done with chronic depression (not to be confused with temporary event-based sadness) for the rest of my life. This was terribly demanding, that imperative to live from my greatness rather than from my wounds. I was reminded of Kafka’s “There is a point of no return. That point must be reached.” To get back to Emerson, I’d say that, to a degree, insight annuls fate – fate understood in terms of limitations and disadvantages, such as genes that create a greater susceptibility to depression, or having grown up in poverty or wealth, or in a particular culture and religion.

But fate means also the advantages you’ve been given. When I think of my literary paternal aunts and a cousin who also became a poet, I can see that “writing runs in the family.” Talent is largely genetic, or at least genetic to start with. Looking at my parents, I can see that intelligence is mainly genetic. There is no personal merit here, just sheer genetic luck. On the other hand, talent and intelligence need to be developed. Part of it is the right environment, including education. Here again I can claim no personal merit. The only bit of pride I can take in this matter is when it comes to hard work and not giving up. But I know that persistence is a genetic trait, so the best attitude is to drop any pride.

“Poets are not born in a country. Poets are born in childhood,” according to a Russian literary critic, Vladimir Khodasevich. Is this fate or destiny? It begins as fate, but development either follows or doesn’t follow. Or it follows, then ceases. There may be a change in direction. In my case, I found prose, especially personal essay, more in line with my workhorse temperament.

I rejoice in my luck. In 2009 I had the great double luck of having the insight that it’s too late in life for depression, and of discovering that “working works.” This blog exists because working works – at least for the lucky me. It also worked for Milosz, who experienced his share of depression and despair – and then discovered “escaping forward” into work.

“BOWING TO FATE, GROWING INTO DESTINY”

Recently, reading a review of a book by Hollis, I’ve learned that he rejects the afterlife (this seems rare among Jungians, who typically believe that the mind has nothing to do with the brain; the word “brain” is simply not used, unless to degrade the brain to “only a kind of a radio” that receives the thoughts broadcast from the astral world – if I hadn’t heard that statement made separately by two lecturers, I would have never believed that non-schizophrenic, educated people could go for that). Hollis says he gave up the “shaky promises” and decided to live “more fully in this fallen, precious, richly divine world.”

“Bowing to fate, growing into destiny” is another summary of the message Hollis tries to communicate. Bowing to fate means total self-acceptance, including negative things you can’t change. For instance, I can’t change my crazy/scary medical history. It’s best for me not to dwell on it, I say, “It’s in the past,” and shift to counting my blessings.

“Growing into destiny” can be more difficult. The years when I had little idea of what would be meaningful work for me were the hardest years of my life. Then the great luck of finding that work, with all kinds of zigzags, spirals, and ups-and-downs. But still, having met people who never seem to “find themselves” and go through life drifting and dabbling, I’m thankful for my luck.

Re: “destiny drive.” I’m thinking of a certain wanna-be painter I knew when I lived in Los Angeles. Unlike people who say, “I’ll start painting after I retire,” she said, “Once I have the right relationship, then I can put my energy into painting.” I sympathized with her need for a lover, but I knew that she’d never become a painter.

As I watched her drifting and dabbling, I was on my way to becoming a serious poet, and knew that for me neither romance nor making money could come ahead of writing. But I learned that only in my mid-thirties. In my twenties, I was a slave of love. Thank God there was at least enough intellectual drive to serve as a “destiny drive” of sorts – my mind kept developing. (As the saying goes, an intellectual is someone who’s found something more interesting than sex.)

The time I drove to Los Angeles in the rain, Cecilia was reading The Gypsy (the entire book) at a café in Orange County – and that was our first meeting when we reconnected after many years. Fortunately it wasn’t to be our last face-to-face meeting, but back then I wasn’t sure. Life taught me to take nothing for granted, and to expect many losses.

POE’S RAVEN

I listened to Poe’s raven as I drove

to Los Angeles in the lashing rain

for a hundred miles to see an old friend.

The main route was flooded.

Looking for blurred street signs,

rain-blind and half-lost

in the wet and cold,

I knew it could be the last chance:

a raven from the black

Forest of Nevermore

was perched on my dashboard.

How visionary the doomed

poet was, to choose not an owl,

the bird of wisdom,

but a raven, bird of fate.

Not the ghost-like flight

of wished-for destiny,

but a more emphatic raptor.

I know he’ll be flying by

more and more often now.

Then he’ll move in,

a part of the family.

In the end, the only family.

It’s an impressive bird

in his elegant undertaker’s plumage,

but his vocabulary’s limited.

That’s where our part

rises up: to speak

that which is not silence.

**

I was beginning all over as a poet after years of informational, journalistic prose. In my original write-up of the lecture on fate and destiny, I found this forgotten (and justly so) poem, possibly the first one I wrote after my long absence from poetry. The poem can be seen as being about fate. The ending, however, shifts to destiny. 

Whether "destiny" is the right term is another matter. I will delve into it in future blogs. But looking at people who get anywhere in the arts, what I see is a terrific drive, a great (some would say: abnormal) intensity. They write, paint, sculpt, etc., because they have to, and they are willing to make great sacrifices. Romantic love isn't as important (someone even said, "Your creative peers are more important than your lovers"). Family love is not primary in their lives either. Thus the question really is, as Bill Mohr said, "Are you abnormal enough?" Any notion of a "balanced life" is ludicrous. 

**

John:

Thank you.  I loved the poem, especially that about the gift of failing many times.  I also liked the bit about the Jungian lecture.  Can we invent ourselves?  And the answer is yes and no.  

That's a profound answer and the answer to so many questions about the self and life.  Can we know ourselves?  Yes and no.  Can we know another's self?  Yes and no.  Can we be content, happy, accomplished, winning, successful, or anything else?  Yes and no.  Can we be whole?  Yes and no.  Can we know the secret of the universe?  Yes and no.  Will what I'm saying here be sensible to you?  

Well, yes and no?

Oriana:

Hollis would probably reply that it’s always an interaction between fate and destiny. There is certainly a limit to which we can “invent ourselves.” We can’t change our genes – which, interacting with the environment, determine whether or not we’d even want to invent ourselves.

By the way, the very idea of “inventing ourselves,” as opposed to “discovering ourselves,” has been described as an American idea, and more specifically one that prevails in California (though I suspect New York rivals California). The idea that we can somehow decide what we want to be, what we want to do in life, stems from the concept of having considerable freedom, rather than being hugely hemmed in by circumstances. Yet more choice also means more stress, so in a way it’s embracing what is without trying to change is that would be best from the point of view of being contented. Obviously, some people are motivated by something other than peace of mind (by the way, I wonder what Jefferson really meant by the pursuit of happiness. I suspect that he meant a rich life filled mostly with doing what you love doing, but not really peace of mind).

I was thinking of the two words in Polish, los (fate) and przeznaczenie (destiny – the root is znak – sign, mark – you are marked for something). Los is more negative than fate. My mother often used the expression, a victim of fate, in a voice full of utter contempt. Not being a victim of fate but rather working toward fulfilling one’s destiny (perhaps we could substitute here the pedestrian phrase “one’s goals in life”) was the noble thing. Stephen Hawking would be an example of such triumph of the human spirit. My mother had had some pretty horrific encounters with fate, so coming from her mouth, the mouth of a survivor, it had special weight – this contempt for fate and admiration for people who overcame circumstances rather than being defeated by them.

So you are right, yes and no. It’s all a matter of degree and of the interaction of fate and destiny. What Hollis wanted to emphasize was that Jung was more interested in destiny, in how the vision of the future can shape us as opposed to Freud’s fixation on the past. Was Jung right? Yes and no. Was Freud right? Yes and no. So it goes.

John:

I wrote my PhD dissertation on a Laingian approach to psychological analysis of literary character. Based on the theories of R. D. Laing, this approach was interesting because he combined Jung and existentialism. What Laing believed was that in part we invent ourselves but that we have to realize that part of the self is not invented by our self. It's what's in place – plus it's what others see in us (fate? destiny?) For me, Laing came closer to what I feel is the truth of the self because his view wasn't as mechanical as Freud's and it took Jung's notions of complementary aspects of the self (yes and not) and multiplied them.  

The self is finally always more than what we say it is.

Oriana:

With the Buddhists saying that the self is an illusion and there is no such thing, and others saying that the deepest self is the Christ, or Shiva, or take your choice, I think there is really no way out except to say that the self is a verb. It’s in constant flux, with only some continuity.

Rilke says that life always says both yes and no, but death says only yes. I experienced that when mortality finally hit home and changed me. That was my satori: be happy now while there is still time. I apologize for the lack of originality. Never mind that I’d heard that a million times; it had to hit at the personal level.

The rest of it, many selves or one, inventing a different self or several selves (I think that happens spontaneously depending on who we interact with: I become somewhat different person with different people; likewise, English gives me a somewhat different personality than the one I have in Polish) – that’s minor details.

I like a combination of the Jungian approach with existentialism, but with the emphasis on the existentialist insight (I’m following Milosz here) that you can’t really know the past; the way our memory works, the present changes the past. We are our own unreliable narrator. What “really happened” is both unknowable and not that important; it’s what we remember and how we choose to tell it (Octavio Paz, later vindicated by neuroscience) that influences the unfolding of our life.

John:

And then sometimes the self feels like an old pair of shoes we've been wearing for too long. 

I think it's time to read Yeats's Sailing to Byzantium again.

Oriana:

We are creatures of the moment and of changeable moods, to be sure . . . Sometimes I can't stand poetry and the thought I gave my life to it is sheer hell; at other times, a poem can feel ecstatic. Immodest as that may sound, that goes for some poems of my own! -- but only when I am in a certain mood.

Re-reading Byzantium is fine (note how much better the first three stanzas are than the final stanza; no one ever mentions how Yeats flubbed the last stanza!), but I love Jack Gilbert’s poem about aging, “Scheming in the Snow”:

SCHEMING IN THE SNOW

There is a time after what comes after
being young, and a time after that, he thinks
happily as he walks through the winter woods,
hearing in silence a woodpecker far off.
Remembering his Chinese friend
whose brother gave her a jade ring from
the Han Dynasty when she turned eighteen.
Two weeks later, when she was hurrying up
the steps of a Hong Kong bridge, she fell,
and the thousand-year-old ring shattered
on the concrete. When she told him, stunned
and tears running down her face, he said,
Don’t cry. I'll get you something better.

~ Jack Gilbert

You said something very important: we do get tired of the same old self saying the same old things etc. And it's not as if we could buy a new self like a new pair of shoes. And then the next day we wake up all happy and in love with ourselves. So it goes. Life, just life, and the self selving. Is this selving governed by an actually destiny pulling us toward it? Only if we say so. Aside from what might be called biological destiny, to some degree we are free to work toward a goal. That’s all, but it’s magnificent.

Charles:

The affirmation “I hope you go to California and fail many times” really hit home with me and then it was the last line of the poem. WOW!!!

Love all your Freud/Jung contrasts. Absolutely brilliant blog.

Oriana:

Thank you. Actually, the more one tries to untangle the fate/destiny interplay, the less possible it seems. Does anyone really choose to be a poet, a sculptor – or a UPS truck driver, for that matter? We are back to determinism and free will – and I’m not going there. But as long as the blog provides both pleasure and food for thought, that’s good enough for me. 

Scott:

Really insightful post. I really must re-read some Jungian musings. The old Quaker whalemen sailed the Pacific in the first half of the 19th century, discovering new islands; one they named 'New Nantucket.' I like the notion of having a place of my own, of creating my own 'New Nantucket', an island of peace, stability and sanity in a world where it seems those things are rare indeed. As Melville famously wrote, 'you won't find it on any map, true places never are.' I realize that sounds kinda airy or dreamy but like poetry, it may not be 'practical' or even seem nonsensical but the dream is still vivid.  

Oriana:

I love the Melville quotation:  “you won't find it on any map, true places never are.” True places are states of mind, and what we remember trumps what is objectively there. So that’s your destiny (another word for a compelling dream), the creation of your New Nantucket. Good luck to you!

Brenda:

Especially enjoyed the Poe poem.

Oriana:

This is wonderful to hear. So far only the rain poem has been commented on. Well, Hyacinth liked the line about the raven’s “limited vocabulary.” Personally I’m thrilled to have rediscovered the poem. And as for Poe's "Raven," it is an uncanny masterpiece. Practically every American knows the poem, which should give us a pause. That music is powerful, and the poem does deliver an insight that would otherwise (if not presented in this ballad style) be quite uncomfortable to most.

WHAT FICTION SHALL BE MY TRUTH

 

LAST WORDS

Don't kneel to the enemy!

my mother called after me, loud,

slipping away to join the generations

of that motto in our family,

going back to the days of the Tzar.

My mother looked like Anne Frank,

except that she survived –

named me for the heroine

of a Polish author who wrote,

“Not that soon he’ll be free,

but that he goes with an angel.”

But who was my enemy, my angel?

Those who had tried to destroy

all that was different in me, wild –

they seemed pathetic now,

stunted souls who wanted to keep

everyone the color of shadow.

Was there an enemy inside,

one whom I knew and loved,

“the spirit that denies”?

Or was that an angel who goes

with me because I am blind

and need a guide who says No

to the glitter and dross of the world –

an angel of silence in Mary’s blue,

veiled with dark hair and a tranquil smile.

Rilke wrote: Life always says

both Yes and No. My beloved

Adversary or the angel that goes with me

says Yes only to my mother’s words:

Do not kneel to anyone –

that harsh blessing, or is it a warning,

is it duty, or is it love – in the name of

the Mother, the Daughter,

and the Holy Ghost of not giving up.

~ Oriana

**

In Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” there is this interesting passage:

"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?"

~ Critics explain that this is the mirage of a “benign companion” witnessed by Arctic explorers when they are near death. My angel is in “Mary’s blue,” and though she has something to do with the deadline of death, the immediate concern is how to make the best use of what time remains.

The point of a useful fiction is to help us live to the fullest. Most of us know better than to insist that this fiction is a literal fact. If I invoke the figure of an angel who goes with me, it’s not an angel from so many paintings, with huge magnificent wings and a beautiful boy-girl face – though I am sure that having seen scores of such painted angels did have its effect. No, the angel is a metaphor, but imagining an actual figure or maybe voice or a distant light helps to constellate the idea that my work has some impact, some meaning. If we always insist on rational proof, we may end up like Don Quixote, who died because he regained his reason, and, alas, lost his reason for living.

One of my favorite Polish poets is the magician and metaphysician and weeping clown, Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski, who liked to call himself an “angelologist.” For him the life of the imagination was sacred. On his tombstone, he said, he wants these words:

Liryka, liryka, tkliwa dynamika,

angelologia i dal.

With the warning that all music is lost in the literal translation, here is my attempt:

Lyricism, lyricism,

tender dynamicism,

angelology and distance.

(Or, rather than "lyricisim" -- lyrical poetry. Let me try a less literal translation:

Lyrical poetry, ah, the tenderness,
angelology and the distant fields.

A little better, but the rhyme is still lost, the music is still lost. As Milosz remarked, "One must be translatable.")

Galczynski's wishes were disregarded. But “angelology and distance” stayed with me. “Distance” is a pathetic choice, I admit, for rending the short but soulful syllable of dal, the emotionally rich Polish word for the mystery and allure of all that is faraway. That little word with the dissolving final “l” contains in it riding off into the sunset, and also the horizon, and fog too, with roadside willows marching off into the grayish whiteness and disappearing.

It’s been said that we live in an age when we know too little to insist on strict atheism, and too much to believe in any particular religion. In practice, we are eclectic, choosing bits and pieces from all sources. Greek mythology has long been one of my sources of sustaining metaphors, or useful “fictions that are my truth.” There are no angels in Greek mythology, but each soul comes into the world with its daimon, or “destiny” – a semi-divine being, or sometimes simply a voice, that guides the soul toward its larger mission or fulfillment. “Eudaimonia,” which came to mean “happiness,” was having a “good daimon.” Thus, I asked myself if my notion of the angel who goes with me is close to that of a daimon Hmm . . .  it would be marvelous to think of my angel as a daimon, a guide toward destiny. But I didn’t grow up knowing that word. I grew up with the beauty of the traditional angels.

Yet I see that angel as walking on my left side. It’s impossible for me to see it otherwise. Why the left side, usually considered less noble, sinister even? I think it’s because I know that the left side of the body is controlled by the right hemisphere. That’s my mystical self, the seat of metaphorical thinking, intuition. My left hemisphere sneers at all this, of course, but has to admit that my life has been shaped largely by what appears to come from the right hemisphere. Or, to go with my fictive truth, by my angel in blue.

The angel’s voice is somewhat higher-pitched than my own, a pleasant mezzo, while I tend to the dusky alto. But typically my angel does not speak. She is more likely to lead me to a passage in a book. One morning I found “Take care not to waste yourself.” On the following morning: “It is important to give up on irrelevant questioning.” So my angel is an arranger of synchronicities.

I have also wondered if this angel is perhaps the figure of Sophia, sometimes identified as intuitive wisdom, the Holy Spirit, the divine feminine or Shekhina. I felt extremely moved when I read somewhere (alas, I forgot the source) words to the effect that when humanity was exiled from Eden, “the Mother went with them” – that loving mother being identified as Shekhina.

Yet when it comes to the image of Sophia, an older woman comes to mind. And I do not see an older woman in blue; I see a figure that is eternally youthful and beautiful, androgynous rather than womanly. In short, an angel, always with a beautiful smile, though not necessarily with wings.

Another unfortunate image of Sophia is Michelangelo’s – at best a slip of a girl shockingly paired with an aging Creator.  

Looking at that almost teenage, unconvincing image, I say no to Sophia, and return to “angel.” This angel who goes on my left side is no softie, in spite of her silkiness. She (if I must choose a pronoun) has prevented me from taking several lucrative job offers, repeating and repeating that time is the greatest wealth – the time to think and write. I suspect it was this angel who didn’t stir to pull me out of depression as long as depression served writing. When depression ceased to be functional and I saw it as an obstacle and not a friend, it was shockingly easy to let go of it.

A possible autobiographical origin of my angel could be the long walks in Warsaw with my first boyfriend. It was then I noticed how the city, which could be overwhelming, a roaring metropolis, became wonderfully “easy,” enchanting even. He diffused the stress. In his company I could take in a lot more stimulation without getting overwhelmed.

His eyes? They are deep marine blue, like my father’s. 

What is her name? She claims all names, equally at ease with Sophia as with its Polish endearment form that was current in my family, the name of a dedicated woman physician, the great-hearted Zula or Zuleńka.  But could my angel’s name not be – Raphael? He (since I must choose a pronoun) nods his beautiful head. Not that he’ll tell me where we are going. But at least I go with an angel.

*

“On Angels” is one of the most popular of Milosz’s poems – simple and affirmative. Milosz seems a poet who contained both extremes: he gave us poems presenting the tragic vision of the human condition (“This”), and poems of great serenity (e.g. “Late Ripeness”)

These days even devout believers find it hard to imagine God as a man with a white beard floating in the sky, or seated on a throne amid clouds. New definitions have been attempted. There has also been a tremendous resurgence in the popularity of angels, but again people are beginning to see them differently – not necessarily with wings. “Angel” means “messenger” – and a messenger can take many forms. A bird beginning to sing while you are in despair might be understood as a messenger (and not only because a bird is a symbol of the Spirit).

Our brain is wired to seek meaning, so anything perceived as meaningful, as conveying a relevant message, can serve as an angel/messenger. In Milosz’s poem, note “in the smell of apples.” It could be argued that anything that makes life seem worth living falls into the angelic category. Milosz ultimately settles on a voice – without arguing that it’s simply an “inner voice.” On the contrary, he invokes a voice speaking  “in an unearthly tongue” that can, nevertheless, be intuitively understood. 

ON ANGELS

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe in you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and animals,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.

Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magical.

They say someone has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.

The voice — no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (and why not?),
girdled with lightning.

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draws near
another day
do what you can.

Note that ultimately the voice/the angel says “do what you can” – do your work, do your duty, be a bearer of light. We must remember that Milosz struggled against depression, and no wonder, considering all he lost, the enormous evil he’d witnessed. He won against depression by “escaping forward” (i.e. away from the past) into his work.

I think the underlying argument here is that there is grace in life, and that some people and things are “angels” – the bearers of light, of hope. A lover’s tender words, birdsong, a dog’s affection – we need those angels to keep on going. The language spoken by the “angels” may be human or non-human (birdsong). The man pulling radishes points the way with a radish. The point is that somehow we “get the message.” And that message only seems modest. “Do what you can” is the challenge to use all your capacities.

**

  
(I am indebted to James Hollis for the title of this post.)

Una:

I loved "the world turned inside out." His comments about the "smell of apples at close of day and "when light makes the orchard magical" brought back a year on a farm in Greene, RI that had an apple orchard, abandoned and nearly dead, apples not worth picking if there were any. But a few blossoms is all it takes to be make spring happen. . . And I liked to climb the apple trees. At the time I was reading The Devil and Daniel Webster and pictured him up in one of these trees.

I like the simplicity and complexity of this poem, the best I've read of Milosz’s so far. He called angels "messengers" and I see them more as witnesses.

Oriana:

This is one of his most endearing poems, simple on the surface, and complex underneath. It’s affirmatory, though in terms of our longing for guidance and protection, some readers may be disappointed that the message comes down to “do what you can.”

I especially like the way he sees angels not as the traditional figures, but as messages in the smell of apples or birdsong. There are so many things around us that say Live. And yes, the simplicity. We are not to worry about how enormous the task is, or any external reward. We are to do what we can.

Both the voices within us and the messages we perceive as coming to us from the outside may be contradictory. Recently I’ve been fascinated by Rilke’s statement that life always says both Yes and No. We are to “listen to our better angels," as Dickens supposedly said. I love the plural. All my life I’ve been dealing with many messages, so I understand this need to choose even between angels.

SELLING YOUR SOUL TO THE ANGEL

One of the traditional themes in literature is selling one’s soul to the devil. I wonder, though, if we could as well speak of “selling your soul to an angel.” One way or another, there is an imagined contract, and the price you pay. A writer is always told, “Believe in yourself.” But if you do, your angel will dictate how you spend your time, and it won’t be playing with your children. And even away from your desk, you may still be in your mental writing space, so that you resent the intrusion of the so-called loved ones. Is it any wonder that artists in all fields were more often thought to have sold their soul to the devil?

And what about the saints? If you spend a lot of time in prayer and meditation, you also distance yourself from those near you. I want to know how the saints got away with it, while artists can’t.

Before Joseph Campbell formulated his famous motto “Follow your bliss,” he used to say, “Follow your passion.” One meaning of “passion” is suffering. No matter what path in life a person chooses, there will be sacrifice and suffering – even if you are listening to an angel! Who says angels don’t demand sacrifice . . .  But the worst sacrifice is to disregard our messages, our inner voices, and blindly obey someone else’s will – the way a traditional wife often sacrificed her own development for the sake of her husband’s career. I agree with Campbell that the point is to have your own adventure, your own unique path, rather than be merely a “service person,” a woman with no life of her own. Once we “have a life,” the messages – call them angels – start coming in profusion. 

A post-script on “selling your soul to the angel.” Believers might say, “Why not make a covenant with God?” Once I rejected the deity of my childhood as a monster unworthy of worship, there was no going back on that perception. Christ seemed more like Prometheus, leading men to a different god than the one who told Moses that the man caught gathering firewood on the Sabbath had to be stoned to death (while Christ said that Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath). I understand how women saints fall in love with Christ. But Christ is an exalted savior-hero figure. An angel is more homey, an imaginary friend who can impishly pop up among trivia, saying, “See that?” It’s possible to laugh together.  

I read that Islamic mysticism calls God a Friend, a Guest, the Beloved; Christian mysticism has that aspect too, but the blood stain of the Old Testament can’t be laundered out. 

Mary:

wow again. your poem, and milosz's. and the "liryka, liryka" poem- beautiful. i am not at all concerned with heresy. heresy versus orthodoxy just constrains the Infinite. who's to say your angel is not real? i too have had many experiences of mysterious presences accompanying me, bearing me along. how much stuff must be going on in/around us that we have little to no clue about?

Oriana:

I love your “heresy versus orthodoxy just constrains the Infinite.” This is so magnificent, I will for once restrain myself from further comment!

(later)

On further thought, I would like to quote a bit more from Milosz’s heresy. This is from Bells in Winter:

For me, therefore, everything has a double existence.

Both in time and when time shall be no more.

And so, one morning. In biting frost,

All is cold and gray. And in that sleepy haze

A span of air suffused with carmine light.

Banks of snow, roadways made slippery by sleighs

Grow rosy. As do wisps of smoke, puffs of vapor.

Bells jingle nearby, then farther away, shaggy horses

Covered with hoarfrost, every hair distinct.

And then the pealing of bells. At Saint John’s

And the Bernardines’, at Saint Casimir’s

And the Cathedral, at the Missionaries’

and Saint George’s, at the Dominicans’

And Saint Nicholas’s, at Saint Jacob’s.

Many many bells. As if the hands pulling the ropes

were building a huge edifice over the city.

. . .

And if the city, there below, was consumed by fire

Together with the cities of all the continents,

I would not say with my mouth of ashes that it was unjust.

For we lived under the Judgment, unaware.

Which Judgment began in the year one thousand seven hundred

     fifty seven.

Though not for certain, perhaps in some other year.

It shall come to completion in the sixth millennium, or next Tuesday.

The demiurge’s workshop will suddenly be stilled. Unimaginable silence.

And the form of every single grain will be restored in glory.

I was judged for my despair because I was unable to understand this.

~ Berkeley, 1973-1974

translated by the author and Lillian Vallee

True, my ellipsis took away the transition from Vilnius to San Francisco (“and the towers of San Francisco seen through rusty fog”), but the bigger point is that in this poem, Milosz appears to be a gnostic: the true God is not the jealous  “demiurge” described in Genesis. Not that I am a fan of Gnosticism; the Gnostic rejection of the body and the world is not to my sensual taste. On the other hand, I too could say that everything has a double existence – the second one being in our psyche. Memory, that inner reality, is always shaped by the present according to what meaning we currently see in what happened. In that sense, the inner existence of things is profoundly ours.

           Vilnius: Interior of St. Peter's and Paul's --note what I call the "soul-fishing boat."