Friday, January 29, 2010

"Floating Island"

Good Morning, its a beautiful day to be alive. If you don't think so, remember, you can start your day over at anytime. Life is much like an island, consumed one grain at a time by the gently lapping waters that brush its shore, no doubt, Dorothy Wordsworth thinks so. Yet, didn't someone say no man is an island? Irrelevant I suppose.

Wordsworth's poem "Floating Island" begins with big R ideas in the first stanza, when she describes the elememts earth, wind and water in a harmonious cycle. How beautiful.

Then:

"Once did I see a slip of Earth"

Suddenly, Dorothy sees for the first time, how she does not know, she witnesses the water of life gently erode lands shores, understands the love affair between birds and trees.

Further her mind reaches, and then it happens. How glorious to see the futility of what she once believed.
"There insects live their lives--and die:
A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room."

Free at last, how is uncertain, yet there it is, a new perception, her visions so profound, new levels of self-awareness transpire. The walls of her tiny room suddenly crumble, can others see it, she wonders?

"But all might see it float, obedient to the wind"

Perhaps she writes inspired by gratitude, wanting to share her new serenity with her fellow man. The weave of deception pulled like a veil from her mind and torn from her chest. Whats different, a spirtitual awakening, a moments clarity, an epiphany. How does it happen, chance? Blink and your opportunity may slip away.

"Perchance when you are wondering forth
Upon some vacant sunny day
Without an obect, hope, or fear
Thither or eyes may turn--The isle is passed away."

Mortality, the poem throughout reflects this theme, while at the same time suggesting there is more to life than death. Unforeseeable forces working together neither without beginnings or endings. Enveloped by water, a tiny island once stood, gone, but not lost, a new journey its fate.

"Yet the lost fragments still remain
To fetilize some other ground"


Personnal note: Spirituality is a garden that constantly needs watering. Thank-you Dorothy Wordsworth for watering mine this morning.