Seeing Holy in Melancholy
As I was writing this morning, I used the word melancholy. I've always loved this word. Not only does it get at a deeper sense of sadness, but the sound of the word lends itself to the sensuous nature, the depth of which this kind of sadness can be felt. All the sudden, I realized the word holy is part of melancholy. Not in the etymological sense. Just in letters spelling the word inside another word sense. And now I'm all excited, finding myself working up a piece that hopefully will hint at the connection between being holy and feeling a profound sadness.
Along with being really excited about seeing a word inside another word, I'm also totally in love with the idea of duende, a concept Federico Garcia Lorca explored in depth. I've been reading whatever I can find that addresses duende and Lorca's thoughts about it. His lecture "Theory and Play of the Duende" offers many examples to help shed light on what duende is and how it plays a role in writing, especially poetry. This part reached out and captured me, I think because I've been feeling the wound that never heals:
"When the angel sees death appear he flies in slow circles, and with tears of ice and narcissi weaves the elegy we see trembling in the hands of Keats, Villasandino, Herrera, Bécquer, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. But how it horrifies the angel if he feels a spider, however tiny, on his tender rosy foot!
The duende, by contrast, won’t appear if he can’t see the possibility of death, if he doesn’t know he can haunt death’s house, if he’s not certain to shake those branches we all carry, that do not bring, can never bring, consolation.
With idea, sound, gesture, the duende delights in struggling freely with the creator on the edge of the pit. Angel and Muse flee, with violin and compasses, and the duende wounds, and in trying to heal that wound that never heals, lies the strangeness, the inventiveness of a man’s work."
All my life I've felt these wounds. I've tried to move beyond them, and at times I've thought they've scabbed over then gave way to new flesh covering the spot where the wound occurred, but more often than not, the scab just got torn off over and over again. The wounds are still there. Maybe that's why Lorca's ideas have my head spinning. I feel like Tracy K. Smith, who wrote:
"[T]his concept of duende . . . supposes that our poems are not things we create in order that a reader might be pleased or impressed (or, if you will, delighted or instructed); we write poems in order to engage in the perilous yet necessary struggle to inhabit ourselves—our real selves, the ones we barely recognize—more completely."
This is what I'm finding out about myself. It started with the yoga practice and became more pronounced in my meditation practice, and I now see it happening with my writing practice. All of my writing, be it journaling, sketching out a poem, or posting here on the blog. I'm engaging, finally, purposefully and openly in the struggle to inhabit my real self, the one I barely recognize. Somewhere along the way I stopped expressing the amazement I feel about life. I'm not sure where or when this happened. I do harbor, though, a very faint, very foggy memory or memories that my thoughts, ideas, zest weren't received well, were poked fun at, and that's why I stopped inhabiting my real self.
This sabbatical has allowed me time and space to immerse myself in the struggle, and what I have found myself thinking at odd times throughout my days is I feel so free.
Along with being really excited about seeing a word inside another word, I'm also totally in love with the idea of duende, a concept Federico Garcia Lorca explored in depth. I've been reading whatever I can find that addresses duende and Lorca's thoughts about it. His lecture "Theory and Play of the Duende" offers many examples to help shed light on what duende is and how it plays a role in writing, especially poetry. This part reached out and captured me, I think because I've been feeling the wound that never heals:
"When the angel sees death appear he flies in slow circles, and with tears of ice and narcissi weaves the elegy we see trembling in the hands of Keats, Villasandino, Herrera, Bécquer, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. But how it horrifies the angel if he feels a spider, however tiny, on his tender rosy foot!
The duende, by contrast, won’t appear if he can’t see the possibility of death, if he doesn’t know he can haunt death’s house, if he’s not certain to shake those branches we all carry, that do not bring, can never bring, consolation.
With idea, sound, gesture, the duende delights in struggling freely with the creator on the edge of the pit. Angel and Muse flee, with violin and compasses, and the duende wounds, and in trying to heal that wound that never heals, lies the strangeness, the inventiveness of a man’s work."
All my life I've felt these wounds. I've tried to move beyond them, and at times I've thought they've scabbed over then gave way to new flesh covering the spot where the wound occurred, but more often than not, the scab just got torn off over and over again. The wounds are still there. Maybe that's why Lorca's ideas have my head spinning. I feel like Tracy K. Smith, who wrote:
"[T]his concept of duende . . . supposes that our poems are not things we create in order that a reader might be pleased or impressed (or, if you will, delighted or instructed); we write poems in order to engage in the perilous yet necessary struggle to inhabit ourselves—our real selves, the ones we barely recognize—more completely."
This is what I'm finding out about myself. It started with the yoga practice and became more pronounced in my meditation practice, and I now see it happening with my writing practice. All of my writing, be it journaling, sketching out a poem, or posting here on the blog. I'm engaging, finally, purposefully and openly in the struggle to inhabit my real self, the one I barely recognize. Somewhere along the way I stopped expressing the amazement I feel about life. I'm not sure where or when this happened. I do harbor, though, a very faint, very foggy memory or memories that my thoughts, ideas, zest weren't received well, were poked fun at, and that's why I stopped inhabiting my real self.
This sabbatical has allowed me time and space to immerse myself in the struggle, and what I have found myself thinking at odd times throughout my days is I feel so free.
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