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| Navigational Art and Directions by Colleen Yorke, © 2015. |
Among my favorite poems is T.S Eliot's Four Quartets. Every once in awhile, when I find myself in a confused state, and running alone does not help, I take out his words and enter the endless spiral of his paradoxes:
You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
-T.S. Eliot
I can relate. I shall say it again. Shall I say it again? We inhabit a dense, tangled, increasingly complex world, and differing perceptions form a rich tapestry of interpretations. Sometimes we hesitate to listen for differences, and we do not want to change. We are comfortable with our lives, and if we listened to anyone who raised questions, we might have to get engaged in changing things. We usually think of edges, boundaries, as the means to define separateness.
But, boundaries are something quite different. Rather than being a
self-protective wall, boundaries become the place of meeting and
exchange.
I cannot possibly know what to do from my own narrow perspective. I know I need a better understanding. I want to sit down with you, and talk about the all the frightening and hopeful things I observe. I expect to be disturbed, even jarred. I expect to feel confused and displaced - my world will not feel as stable or familiar to me, once we talk. But, my path becomes more visible to me than ever. Uncomfortable, unflattering and dark perhaps, but very real and revealing. How much nicer to know you are here and running beside me!
I cannot possibly know what to do from my own narrow perspective. I know I need a better understanding. I want to sit down with you, and talk about the all the frightening and hopeful things I observe. I expect to be disturbed, even jarred. I expect to feel confused and displaced - my world will not feel as stable or familiar to me, once we talk. But, my path becomes more visible to me than ever. Uncomfortable, unflattering and dark perhaps, but very real and revealing. How much nicer to know you are here and running beside me!
Uncontrollable, unpredictable, messy, surprising, erratic: Life never stops teaching us about change. We must go through the way in which we are not. Better yet, let us run it together.
