So what journey will I be on this year? To what star am I oriented? What draws me?
This is how T.S. Eliot saw it, this journey:
"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death."
In quotations, looking back. I am always struck by the idea that the writer is coming to terms with the similarity of Birth and Death. Not simply accepting that they are opposites, but rather possibly intertwined experiences.
And that after a birth, or a death, the world is just not the same any more. There is no longer any "ease here, in the old dispensation" and I find that very apt.
This is what Yeats has to say on the same subject:
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
Somehow I think Yeats is onto something visceral for us Moderns. Unsatisfied as we are by Calvary's turbulence, we return always to the uncontrollable mystery of the stable and the birth. Is it that we seek a do-over? Could we do it better?
I love this time of year. Contemplation of The Magi, Epiphany and the idea that I too get to travel forward toward a star. Visible if I have eyes to see. Guided by some hand, some light. Purpose.
But still, at this point, potential.
