A Year of Inspirers 2021 (1) – love and illumination, and the desert – T.S.Eliot

For me, T.S.Eliot is the writer of time, of love, of spirituality, and of “the desert”.

He writes about the spiritual desert -“The Waste Land” – as he calls it in one of his most influential early works.

Lines from “Choruses from The Rock”

These lines were inspired by his poetry:

Movements of Time

I.

In a world of time

we must find a way

to bear reality

.

At a still point

descending deeper

than the twittering world

the silence rinses the soul

.

And the word is here

in the quietness of the desert

though assailed by shrieking voices

of temptation

.

Love remains the mover

primal

beyond time.

Eliot also writes about what he calls “moments of illumination”, as in this wonderful phrase (from “The Waste Land”):

“The heart of light” – the idea of a “timeless moment” inspired this:

II.

Sometimes

there is a timelessness

in a moment

.

That cuts deeper

into the mind

than the soul understands

.

And the spirit arises anew

forever now facing

a different direction

however unnoticeable.

Eliot sees both how life feels meaningless and empty for some, but he went on more and more to see how transcendence is possible:

My final poem for this post was inspired, like the other two, by “Burnt Norton” in Eliot’s wonderful work “Four Quartets”.  There is a beautiful passage there about how the human body’s “dance” is like the movement of the stars, and I wanted to express this wonder about the order of the universe, notwithstanding how confusing life often is…

There is a pattern in the universe

the flow of the blood

the drift of stars

the seasons of the moon

.

We take our place in the dance

moving hesitantly

stumbling

.

But the dance goes on

lifts with its music

.

Moves our feet

with the rhythm of the heart.

~

T.S.Eliot died 4th January 1965.

~

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