Blogging Dante: Part 4

"As one who falls

And knows not how--if a demon pulled him down,

Or another blockage human life entails--

And when he rises stares about confused

By the great anguish that he knows he feels..."

 

 

Sometimes, our suffering has no clear cause. It is important to investigate it anyway. How does it feel? Where do you feel it? What triggers it?

"While I was staring at the sinners below

A serpent darted forward that had six feet,

And facing one of the three it fastened on him

All over--with the middle feet it got

A grip upon the belly, with each fore-limb

It clasped an arm; its fangs gripped both his cheeks;

It spread its hind feet out to do the same

To both his thighs, extending its tail to flex

Between them upward through to the loins behind.

No ivy growing in a tree's bark sticks

As firmly as the horrid beast entwined

Its limbs around the other. Then, as if made

Out of hot wax, they clung and made a bond

And mixed their colors; and neither could be construed

As what it was at first..."

Our thoughts get tangled and blurred together quite often. When that happens, sit still for a while and let them settle.

 

"You were not born to live as a mere brute does,

But for the pursuit of knowledge and the good."

 

 

 

You were born to be happy, to embrace your fullest joy and potential. The depression you feel is NOT you.

"From fire, the melancholy words were transmuted

Into fire's language."

Take your depression and put it into words. Express it somehow. When you do, it loses much of its power--because, by being expressed, it is driven out into the open, where there's nowhere for it to hide.

"I saw--and writing it now, my brain still envisions--

A headless trunk that walked, in sad promenade

Shuffling the dolorous track with its companions,

And the trunk was carrying the severed head,

Gripping its hair like a lantern, letting it swing,

And the head looked up at us: 'Oh me!' it cried.

He was himself and his lamp as he strode along,

Two in one, and one in two--and how it can be,

Only He knows, who so ordains the thing."

 

 

 

Carrying a severed head = taking the mind out of the equation. When this happens, your feelings overwhelm you. Feel them, by all means, but do not surrender your powers of discernment.

"'What are you staring at? Why let your vision

Linger down there among the disconsolate

And mutilated shades?'"

 

 

Do not dwell among your own "disconsolate shades" for too long at any one time. Give yourself a respite to gather strength for the next leg of the journey.

 

 

 

"[Satan] wept with all six eyes, and the tears fell

Over his three chins mingled with bloody foam."

 

At the end of your journey through your pain, you encounter its cause--and it is weeping. It, too, suffers. Suddenly, your pain is transmuted into profound compassion.

"But night is rising again, and it is time

That we depart, for we have seen the whole."