June ‘24 1-to-1 Wiseletter (E.E. Cummings)
In June's 1-to-1 Wiseletter, I'll be looking at a poem from E.E. Cummings, an American poet who lived from 1894 to 1962.
Quote
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
Cummings expresses the underlying subject-object reality of the world. The nature of the world--its root of root, the bud of the bud--is the primal dyad: the Father and the Mother. Their union is both inseparable and irreconcilable.
Cummings’ poem is a dialogue between two unified yet distinct entities inherent to the cosmos and our own lives.
When he says "anywhere I go you go" and "whatever is done by only me is your doing", Cummings reminds us that we are, at our deepest level, the ground of Being itself, fundamental to the world and therefore totally responsible for it. The world's happening is my doing; my doing is the world's happening.
This is not to say that the world is a freakish monism or some perverted solipsism. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It's to say that the world is a result of a relationship between you and the inescapable Other who you've danced with since the beginning of time. Your dance with the Other creates the world. As Cummings tell us, "it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you." You can feel the seamlessness he's expressing even in his syntax.
Sophia whispers the secret to us in one of her Old Testament proverbs: "...I was there when he drew a circle on the surface of the deep...I was beside the master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth."
In dance, the relationship of the dancers' bodies is mediated by space. When we watch people dance, we often focus on their bodies. But if you instead pay attention to just the distance between their bodies, you can now see their dance as ever shifting negative space.
The space between between the Father and Mother makes their love real. Without separation, they could not possibly love one another in a true sense. As just one Being, their love would be forced, a slavish thing. That which makes them distinct authenticates their love.
This is, as Cummings says, "the wonder that keeps the stars apart."
With one body, dance is impossible because there's no second body with which to reference your position. But with two bodies, you now understand your position because the other body gets bigger as it moves toward you and smaller as it moves away (you just don't know if you're the moving or stationary one, but you are nonetheless conscious of being because there's a distinct someone else).
The only way to know which one moves and which one remains in place is to have a third body present. That third body is the Son. He's the third point on the compass, present so that the other two may know their position and movement. He's the requirement for three-dimensional space and time.
This is the metaphysical essence of the Trinity.
The Big Bang, the fact that there's something rather than nothing, the persistent perpetuation of biological life over the last 3 billion years, are indeed expressions of the endless dance of the primal dyad--miracles, to be sure. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the highest expression of this dance, its most sophisticated, elegant, and riskiest, what its sought from the beginning of time, is the one between you and your wife/husband/life-partner.
This, I think, as Cummings says, is the deepest secret nobody knows.
Coming to terms with your Other is to fully reckon with life and death.
QUESTION
What's one thing you've been putting off that you should do for a significant other in your life?
Cheers,
John
