Using poetry as a spiritual resource
I would like to open these reflections on using poetry as a spiritual resource by referencing Mary Oliver’s
Everything1.; a poem which I think is the perfect introduction, as it offers to us a succinct description of the aim of the author when she writes. And I shall do my best to explain why this poem has resonated so very strongly for me over many years.
The opening lines make her intention clear: ‘I want to make poems that say right out, plainly, / What I mean’ i.e. using straightforward but meaningful words such as ‘
heavy, heart, joy, soon’ and ‘introducing bold punctuation such as dashes and question marks’; she talks about wanting to make – as she crosses fields of fresh daisies and grass – poems that take ordinary things such as food and drink to different levels, transforming them into ‘the bread of heaven and the cup of astonishment’.
She wants her poems to transform the ordinary into the extra-ordinary – ‘to let them become songs in which nothing is neglected’. She wants them to encourage her readers to be constantly aware of the present moment and its gifts – to look ‘into’ the wonders of creation and ‘see the unseeable’. Both ‘the heart of faith and the light of the world’ are to be honoured and, as is stated in the final line of the poem, ‘the gladness that says without any words, Everything’.
This touches deep places in me from where, if I pay sufficient attention, everything, even the most common wild flowers or grass, can become a spiritual resource. For me, Oliver’s poetry has a unique ability to transform the ordinary into the extra-ordinary or ‘the unseeable’, to use her words; I am deeply grateful to her for this enlightenment.
Perhaps before I go further into these reflections, I need to clarify the distinction I am making between spiritual and religious. Although I am greatly blessed by being a member of a wonderfully inclusive, supportive, questioning and loving church community, I am choosing poetic examples which do not use specifically christian or other religious language or imagery. I am taking examples which speak to me from the deep spiritual centre which I believe is within each human being, and indeed, is within and through all created life.
Poetry has taken such a leading role in my spiritual life that I long to be able to share it with others, especially the younger generations, many of whom find traditional church and religious language irrelevant to their lives. Feelings however – and I think young and old would agree on this – are relevant to all. Poetry’s main aim is not to record facts but to explore feelings. It connects us to the fears, pains, griefs and joys experienced by all of humanity, particularly in our dark and uncertain world at the moment.
The short poem by Gill Goater
2., quoted from below, opens me up to the positive side of ‘unknowing’ within the mystery of life, as against the negative fearful clinging to the perceived safety of mistaken or even dangerous certainty.
Embrace unknowing Embrace unknowing
for it is the unraveler for it is the sea
of the thread that binds the raindrop
that holds together in great tides of mystery.
our mistaken certainty.
Embrace unknowing
for it is the weaver
whose silken web
enfolds us in eternity.
Often, alongside these unsettling feelings of unknowing and uncertainty, feelings arise associated with fear of death, death itself, and the vulnerability of grief. Time and again I find poetry gives me the courage to experience deep within my heart these often distressing feelings, and to own my fears and vulnerabilities, and perhaps even in time to see them as strengths.
In a very short poem entitled
The Uses of Sorrow3., Mary Oliver describes how, in a dream, she was given a box filled with darkness by a person she loved. It was only years later that she understood that ‘this too was a gift’.
A short poem by Wendell Berry entitled
To Know the Dark4. tells us that to go into the dark with a light is light. We must ‘go dark – go without sight’; only then will we experience the riches of true darkness, that it too ‘blooms and sings / and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings’. The desire to feel safe in the darkness with some sort of light is a natural human desire. This poem helps me to reflect on how I encounter dark times in my life.
The last of Wendell Berry’s
Three Elegiac Poems5., written after the death of his aged and much beloved father, goes to the very heart of the unfathomable mystery of death; a mystery in which freedom, light, darkness and earthiness are all present. The rich earthiness of the language speaks of a deep grounding in the soil (dust to dust – ashes to ashes), from where all life comes into being and in which all life finds its freedom in death. The final two lines sum this up beautifully:
‘He is hidden among all that is,
and cannot be lost’
There are only a few poems that I can wholeheartedly recommend as possible sources of comfort for those journeying through the grief of loss, and this is most certainly one of them.
Mary Oliver says in the opening poem that she wants to ‘let her poems be songs in which nothing is neglected – not a hope, not a promise.’ Poetry and music often go together hand in hand, the one complimenting the other in perfect harmony.
My experience of poetry as a spiritual resource began early in my life through singing. I was touched by the close relationship between the words and the music. I remember in my teens being blown away by the almost unbearable beauty of Dido’s Lament in Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, as she is about to die of grief after being deserted by her lover Aeneas. Her words ‘When I am laid in earth, remember me, but ah forget my fate’ are immediately transformed by Purcell’s music. The grave repetitive bass accompaniment in a minor key undergirds the ever more desperate rising repetition of Dido’s dying wish ‘remember me’, which peaks, then finally sinks into her submission to death low down in her vocal register ‘but ah forget my fate’.
Even now 70 years or so later, this combination of words and music has never lost its power to move me profoundly. Such musical beauty combined with poetic tragedy can transport one to something beyond the grasp of human understanding; it is only through bypassing the mind, that it becomes an unforgettable spiritual gift.
Hymns and some songs are of course another resource in which poetry, melody and harmony become deeply embedded within our memories as treasured gifts which we can carry with us throughout our lives.
Over the years I have enjoyed writing words to some familiar hymn tunes, and I am quoting one here. Wishing it to be accessible for anyone to sing, I have attempted in Mary Oliver’s words ‘to honour both the heart of faith and the light of the world’. This will allow, I hope, the singers to feel both a spiritual and an experiential connection through words and melodies that can speak to everyone. Spirit Guided is a reflective exploration of how, journeying through our lives, we can be guided, strengthened and enlightened along our way by the universal spirit of life, which lies deep within and will never leave us.
Spirit guided, journey inwards,
Seek the undiscovered self,
Join the flow to deepest being
Source of unexpected wealth.
Spirit strengthened, journey outwards,
Daring, living who we are,
Opening our true selves to others,
Risking, trusting, travelling far.
Spirit gifted, journey backwards
Past experience be our guide,
Garner from ancestral wisdom
Precious secrets time can hide.
Spirit lightened, journey forwards,
Enter landscapes fresh and strange
Test new ways to live in wholeness
Plant integrity with change.
Spirit visioned, journey all ways,
Live each moment, let it go,
Dance the steps, become the music,
Rhythmed by life’s ebb and flow.
6.
The wonder of creation has arguably inspired more poetry than anything else throughout the ages, extolling the infinite variety, delicacy, power, beauty and exquisite detail of nature. Wendell Berry’s poem
The Sycamore7. is a paean of praise to an ancient sycamore tree ‘that is a wondrous healer of itself’, surviving human onslaught from saws and nails over generations, also from lightning strikes and storms. It has ‘gathered all the accidents to its purpose’ says Wendell, as he recognises in this aged tree ‘an indwelling / the same as itself, and greater that I would be ruled by’.
R.S.Thomas, Elizabeth Jennings and Gillian Clarke all write poems about the ubiquitous blackbird. Gillian’s poem Bach at St David’s
8. has been a treasured resource for me in the use of the humble blackbird as a link between the past and the present. The poem describes how fifteen centuries ago a blackbird ‘sang its oratorio / in the fan-vaulted canopy of the trees’ before cathedrals had ever been thought of. It continues in the twenty first century, when an audience listens entranced, as the solo soprano ‘like a bird in the forest long ago / sings this great cathedral into being’. Her voice echoes back and forth, and is joined in harmony by the choir and orchestra, and the sea breaking on the shore outside. Then the final two magical lines, so simple yet so powerful:
‘and listen, out there at the edge of spring,
among the trees, a blackbird answering’
In some ways this is a common occurrence, music performed in a cathedral with a blackbird singing outside; yet in the words of the poet it becomes an extra-ordinarily transformative spiritual experience, one which causes me to catch my breath every time I read it.
A time of sharing readings and poems with a small group of close friends has proved to be hugely fruitful for all of us. The insights of others can often bring riches to light that become unexpected spiritual blessings, encouraging and strengthening each of us on our unknown and particular paths through life.
Humanity and the natural world are deeply connected and interdependent, and love is the invisible thread by which all life is held together in harmony and peace. The power of spiritual blessing through poetry is a very precious resource, and John O’Donohue’s
Benedictus is a truly life affirming collection. I conclude by quoting the final two sections of his new year blessing Beannacht, the sentiments of which in some respects echo those of Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Gillian Clarke and countless other poets across the ages.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.
1. From Mary Oliver
New and Selected Poems: Volume Two (2007)
2. From Richard Moss and Gill Goater:
Words That Shine Both Way: reflections that reconnect us to our true nature
3. From Mary Oliver Thirst (2006)
4. From Wendell Berry
Collected Poems 1957-82 (1985)
5. From Wendell Berry
Collected Poems 1957-82 (1985)
6. One possible tune for this hymn is All for Jesus (Stainer) but it would fit a number of others.
7. From Wendell
Berry Openings (1968)
8. From Gillian Clarke
A Recipe for Water (2009)
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