By Jeanne Denney
God I love Yeats. And I love poetry.
You know what I love most about writing poetry? Putting one word next to another and having them both explode into something even more wildly true. Some of the words in this poem by Yeats did that for me about the time that I was finding a name for the school. I could not get them out of my head.
Pilgrim:
1: one who journeys in foreign lands : WAYFARER
2: one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee
Soul:
the spiritual part of a person that is believed to give life to the body and in many religions is believed to live forever
Pilgrim. Soul. Wow. The idea that our soul itself, our most essential enduring self, is on a pilgrimage to a holy place, moving lifetime to lifetime through different bodies, different foreign lands and strange situations, on its way somewhere holy. Can’t you just see and feel this as true? My bones do. To be a true pilgrim requires that we leave a known identity (job, family, language, culture, comfort, safety, the land of “the known”) to find something transcendent. Of course. Why else would you do it, but that you longed to meet parts of the self, otherwise unknowable? What else would be worth giving so much up for?
So we go, over hill and dale, on our way somewhere with only a compass, some strange intuition, a map if we are lucky. Relying on the kindness of strangers for a place to sleep and for meals. Relying on the great stream of life that carries us. We are barely aware of what truly carries us when we are in our overly secure (insecure) existence. But on the road, without our usual baggage, as pilgrims, we become very aware of it. We learn to swim in it. The soul knows itself as movement. As beauty.
I loved the words “Pilgrim” and “Soul” so much together we eventually named the first year of the school for this. It requires moving away from comfortable but misleading delusions of our culture, out on the open road with others. Changing up our view of life and seeing larger patterns, finding self, just like a pilgrim.
But there is more to this line than those two words. Yeats says “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you”. He distinguishes between ordinary garden variety vain love of self-interest, (you know, love of the beautiful people that you get enamored by), and the deeper movement of love that sees more.
But wait! He isn’t done. In the next line where this one loving man does something more than love the pilgrim soul. He loves “the sorrows of your changing face”; Woah!! Stunning!
As a woman in her 60’s I know well the difference between love false and true. But to be loved for our changing faces (not just accepted) is a real wake up to love. It is easy to be attached to youthful excitement, but to love the movement of change itself as sorrows overtake us and flesh falls. Wow. That is a true promise of love. I feel that in my bones too.
I hope that you are aware of at least one or two people in your life who have seen and loved you like this. Maybe it is a childhood friend who has watched you move from town to town or from partner to partner, or has seen you through illnesses and bankruptcies. Maybe it is an old love you have known before this life and will know again in another one. Maybe it is a war buddy who went to near death with you and knows a part of you few others do. Maybe it is a parent. Now and then, we find loves that transcend our identity and the form that our body has taken. THAT seeing. They follow you, however imperfectly, through all kinds of different landscapes, roles, fortunes. These folks are not connected to us through our personae, our “moments of glad grace”. They are dancing with our soul. Our task is to recognize them. Thank them. And to see and love their moving souls too.
The fact is, we all long for this kind of seeing and this kind of connecting and this kind of love. We need it. It should not be rare. The more we connect to this part of ourselves, the more people we see deeply and love deeply. On the other hand, when we identify with only our outer personae, aging makes us despair. We have difficulty finding love that truly satisfies. We have a pervasive feeling of disconnection. But connected to this deep, moving current of life within us, somehow we source vitality, no matter what condition we are in or what problem we have, even on our deathbed. Our heart finds a way to carry us. Our love goes deeper.
The truth is, you can learn to see like this and love like this. It is your birthright. It may be easier than you think to find the pilgrim soul in you and in others, and to allow others to love it. There are ways to move from despair. Even though the face may be changing.
Trust me, you are so much more.
Header photo by Finding Dan | Dan Grinwis
