T. S. Eliot’s Statement of Faith

At the still point of the turning world.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

As those who read me regularly have come to know, The Still Point Project gets its name from a line out of Burnt Norton by Thomas Stearns Eliot.

For this reason, periodically, I write about Eliot and this poem. I also write about other poems, songs, and issues involving life in general.

Under the topic of life in general periodically you will find me delving into topics around the concept of recovery. More specifically, I write about problems associated with toxic relationships and addictions of all types. Any behavior or attitude that keeps us from living the best, happiest lives possible is fair game.

If this is your first time reading my posts and you have happened upon this particular day to start, then welcome.

It works.

Jump right in.

But it is helpful that you understand this post follows others on this same poem and poet.

Jump back and read those if you have never encountered T. S. Eliot before or you have and he has confused you.

This is not to say I completely understand all that he writes.

Like every person, including myself, I don’t completely understand any of us, so it should not be any different when looking at poetic works.

Another way to put this is a poem isn’t very good if you can completely understand it from the beginning. It’s just a jingle. Ad copy.

The best poems, in my mind, are those that pop up periodically while I am thinking about other things.

They niggle me — get under my skin.

Today in Burnt Norton we come to the following famous lines.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

If you compare this to the poem within this poem we have just covered, you will easily see the two are styled differently.

Here is the preceding section I call The Garlic and Sapphires Poem.

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
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.

All I want you to see is that they appear on the page (or screen) differently.

[If you want to understand this poem better, go back and read Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud, Long Forgotten Wars, and Reconciliation Among the Stars.]

This earlier section has a different rhyme scheme. I believe Eliot wants it to appear as if written in some earlier time.

In this new section we are back to Eliot’s voice again. Don’t get me wrong. It is still poetry, but it is phrased differently.

The earlier poem is describing the turning world from our perspective.

We see the stars drift and feel our blood pulse through our arteries.

Because we are thinking beings we can move our perspective and look at things from different angles.

We can look down at a leaf by the light of starts (in our imagination) and we can look down on the muddy ground and see animals fighting.

This sets up the contrast of where Eliot now wants to take us.

He states (and I believe this is his statement of faith) that there is a still point.

He then attempts to describe this point in a way that separates it from everything in our worlds that moves.

He tells us it has nothing to do with us. It is neither flesh (human derived) or fleshless (nature derived). It can’t be found by following a compass. You can’t get to it that way.

And yet, according to Eliot, there the dance is.

But it isn’t a dance in the way we dance. It is not about stopping and starting (arrest or movement).

And do not call it fixity – you cannot nail it down. You can’t capture it in a bottle.

And it isn’t where past and future are gathered.

Remember, this poem is about time – past, present, and future. What are they? How do they work?

Eliot is comparing this still point to time and it does not connect directly. It doesn’t move.

And yet, Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Life.

Everything we enjoy.

Everything we fear.

All of it is set up outside of time. Everything that moves like a dance, comes from where the dance really is. This is Eliot’s statement of faith.

God is outside time directing it all.

And it is a dance, not a dirge.

There is meaning and purpose to life.

Eliot did not begin with this belief.

He began as a man representing his time in the first part of the twentieth century during the time of two world wars.

His earlier poems, like The Waste Land, reflected the modern thought of the time, following Niche, that God is dead. And because God is dead, life becomes a waste land – a meaningless place. And because there is nothing outside of us and all that we see and experience, then there really can be nothing to dance about ever.

But Eliot found God.

His despair lifted.

Sure, life is still hard, but it is meaningful. Behind it all, where God is, there is the dance.