Alfred Lord Tennyson; In Memoriam LXXXIII
A lot is said in this sad and pensive poem by Tennyson, a memoriam to his almost brother-in-law and dear friend Arthur who died too young. Throughout this very, very long poem the poet is talking to Christ asking him to keep him rooted in faith in fear that grief will take him away. What has that got to do with ego talk, and finding the True Self? Everything!
Many Worlds
What I hear from this section (LXXXIII) is the division of self throughout the worlds (death -life, dimensions, countries, daily experiences) ...the getting caught up in doing and eventually leaving things undone when there is so much to "be". He resents the fact that his friend didn't get to be, all that he can be.
Like a Dove
For some reason...not that it will ever make sense to anyone, including myself lol...I find myself caught like he as he watches the dove in an earlier section of the poem. I long to be "without a mind". I too, (though not quite resembling the drama the poem speaks too lol) am jumping off a cliff and hasting away from this world that I knew.
Like her, I go;I cannot stay.
I leave this mortal ark behind,
A weight of nerves without a mind,
And leave the cliffs, and haste away.
- Section XII
Like Tennyson, I am not seeking death, in the physical sense, I am seeking death in the mental. Tennyson imagines becoming like the dove and escaping all he thought the world was. He imagines flying up and above, circling, looking out at the world in a whole new way, being careless, without worry or concern...thinking possibly it is the end, before eventually slipping back into the body and time. "...an hour away." He goes from life, to death ( immortality) to life.
(So technically ...this is not a "dove" in this image. It was the closet I could find. Either that or a pigeon on a roof which is technically a dove...but you know it wouldn't have the same effect :) )
On the Cliff Caught Between Two Worlds
On the Cliff Caught Between Two Worlds
In this poem he obviously feels caught between two worlds...the physical and the spiritual. The physical world is full of pain and grief, the spiritual ...freeing. This freedom, this joyful vision of the world doesn't require death of the physical body, it requires a death of our "resistance" to it. ...an escape from the mind to just be " a weight of nerves". How eloquently that describes this beingness...feather light, nothing but the full experience of living, guided by each nerve impulse and the wind beneath the wings...without thought, without resistance, without mind. Is that not living? Hmmm!
What drives him to this heart to heart with the Divine? Grief, pain, suffering...what the second noble truth of Buddhism refers to as Dukkha. Dukkha brings a recognition that yes there is suffering in this world as human beings but there is a way from it. By "leaving the cliffs" ...that edge of physicality... our "attachment" to it...our connection to idea, identity, ownership, separation, ego...we can become free, like the dove...and we connect, as he felt he would, with all other beings in a timeless state. Is that what we are not here to do?
I have been feeling like such a misfit in this world lately. I don't know how to do the "normal" things people do anymore. They do not have meaning for me. Yet ego keeps pulling me back into it because as awkward and sometimes painful as it is...it is still familiar. It tells me I am supposed to be normal lol. Shame and redemption seem to be the normal pattern of existence for me. For so long, I have been standing on this cliff knowing that I cannot stay.
Don't get me wrong...I am not planning to off my Self (or leave this physical body)...I am just wanting to off my 'self", my ego. I want to leave my connection to it behind. I leap.
Ironically...what lesson do I happen upon in ACIM as I pray for faith and guidance, just as Tennyson did? No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth &; I loose the world from all I thought it was. Lesson 146
Now what? lol
It is all good.
References:
ACIM
Tennyson, Lord Alfred. (1893) In Memoriam. Full text: In Memoriam by lord Alfred Tennyson; edited with notes. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/stream/inmemoriambyalfr00tennuoft/inmemoriambyalfr00tennuoft_djvu.txt
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