Reconciliation Among the Stars
According to T. S. Eliot, at some point it will all make sense .
My thinking can fall into a rut.
It’s not because I have daily repetitive routines requiring repetitive thinking.
My problem has to do with the repeat-thinking of my own opinions. This is different from rethinking which implies analysis using fresh thoughts and ideas.
This isn’t to say that what I think is or isn’t true but is to say that if I just repeat-think the thoughts that have already crossed my mind, I’m not growing mentally. And if I’m not growing mentally, then the rest of me, my emotional, spiritual, and physical health are also being nutritionally deprived.
What I think I need are the stimulating thoughts of others to push me to look at life from different perspectives in order to see if my opinions hold weight or need a diaper change.
This is why I enjoy poetry.
It stimulates my mind.
It forces me to think about things in different ways.
Also, usually, poems don’t tell me what to do.
They suggest ideas that I might wish to consider.
In this way, at least for me, they are therapeutic.
Of course, my permission to you still stands.
You don’t have to like poetry in the way I do, but I hope my enjoyment is rubbing off – at least as far as it goes to stimulate you to find your own interests and distracting hobbies.
This will be my final entry about the Garlics and Sapphires poem within Burnt Norton.
In the last two entries we have looked at the first sentence and second lines.
Now we will plunge into the Big Daddy Sentence.
Because it doubles the number of lines compared with the other two combined, it is reasonable to assume that the other two are building to this one. We should expect a payoff — but to get there, Eliot wants to put us to mental work.
The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars Ascend to summer in the tree We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars.
The first two lines are about the same process – the circulatory system, which represents life itself.
And as we might imagine the movement of bloods cells moving through vessels in the body, we can also imagine how stars move in the sky as the earth rotates on its axis and around the sun. This brings us to the image of the drifting stars ascending in the trees.
The thought about ascending to summer is open-ended.
It could mean that in summertime particular stars are higher up when seen in one spot looking through particular trees. Or it could describe summer as one would describe the middle of a calendar. It’s a reference to time on this planet.
So far in each line there is a description of movement – dance – circulation – drift – ascend.
Now we become involved.
We move above the moving tree.
How can we do this?
Thanks to our imagination.
We place ourselves at night (when there are stars in the clear sky) above the tree.
In light upon the figured leaf
Where does the light come from?
The stars.
What is a figured leaf?
Perhaps it is figured, calculated, assumed to be there through all that has been described before.
Here is the picture that comes to my mind as I read this poem.
It is a summer night. The sky is clear enough to see the stars. Because we are there a number of hours, the stars, relative to the trees are moving. Now we move from our place on earth looking up to being above a tree looking down at a leaf we are imagining to be there (after all, they are only being illuminated by starlight). It all makes sense.
From our perspective, we hear below us on the sodden or muddy ground the noise of a dog and wild pig fight.
It’s what they do. Similar to what man does when it comes to fighting wars.
Thus all that has been described is predictable behavior and so it aligns with other things in life that are also predictable — like seasons, stars moving in the sky, and trees growing and shedding leaves.
And finally, we come to the final line, which is the punch line.
But reconciled among the stars.
Life is complicated everywhere we look, from the circulation of blood to the movement of stars.
Even our behavior, though predictable, like other animals we observe, is still a mystery even to us.
We can’t put it all together (reconcile) and have it make any sense.
However, according to Eliot (and I happen to agree),
it is reconcilable — somewhere out there among the stars
— in the heavens.