The Layers of Symbolism

The best way for me to assimilate symbolism
with text and literature is to go back to high school.
Right before the movie came out for Narina:
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, our entire
school read the accompanying book. I went to a
small private Christian school, which taught K5
to high school graduates. They kept about one
hundred students at a time. So K5 to high school
were either read to or required to read the book.
We were required to be exposed to a chapter or two
a week until finally all the classes were done and
it was game day. Yes. We had Narnia day. The
entire day was filled with games and activities all
focused around the book and the upcoming movie.
Then shortly after Narnia day we, as a whole school
together, went and saw Narnia in theatres.
This all seems fine except for one part. Narnia
is a story about an evil witch. We had an entire year
celebrating a witch book and movie, from the same school
that banned any Harry Potter paraphernalia at all. Harry
Potter were books and movies with story lines including
witches. Why was Narnia any different?
Our headmaster when on to explain a little lesson
called symbolism. We explained that Narnia was the classic
story of “good vs. evil”, with good prevailing. And that it
was not a story about “teaching witchcraft”, but defeating it
This, to me, is a form of symbolism. If you were
simply reading the text you would not read about God verses
the devil, but yet a young band of siblings and mythical creatures
fighting an evil ice witch. When you read about Aslan giving his
life so that Peter can live, you are not reading about Jesus
giving his life for mankind, these are symbols.
We come about to symbols by becoming abstract from
the text itself. For instance in the poem we read in class about
the onion, one of my partners said to me, “This poem has to
have more to it. Why would it get so serious? It has to be about
more than a simple onion.” That was a very good statement. It
was true. You arrive at symbols when you go past the natural,
and step in to the figurative, or the unconcrete.

Faithfulness

It is amazing how powerful literature has shown itself to be to
me this semester. It reminds me of when I was buying a car.
When you are in the “car buying mood” you notice cars more
than on a regular occasion. It is this same way with Literature.
I was touched this morning in chapel when they sang a song I
have never heard before. Yes, there is literature even in music and song,
and/ or music can spark your memory about a piece of literature.
I was meditating this morning when I was touched by the words in this song called
You Are Faithful by Jesus Culture. I posted the song on the blog so you could
experience this song for yourself. The song said this:

My hearts aches for you my God
My soul waits for you my God
I’ve come far to find you here
In this place will I draw near

And your spirit soars with me
To the highest heights
From where I’ll not look back
I’ll keep trusting you
For I know You are faithful My God

I was instantly reminded of the play that we have been reading in class
called Waiting For Godot and the silly inconsistencies that
the story consists of. When I read the play I was thinking how easy it is
for our lives to become filled with repetition and apathy.
We over-schedule, over work, under-sleep, and develop less
than healthy habits. Although when you get into a suitable schedule
how could not become a part of it? We work our entire lives in schools to
get to a place to work for the rest of our lives. This blog may seem like
negative but there is hope. He is hope. Writing this blog I can feel my spirit
getting excited; even my eyes are wanting to water at how great he is.
The song just reassured that no matter how I feel or what I do that my
God will always be faithful to me, especially in a completely
unstable and unfaithful world. He does not use useless repetitions
or toil about with inconsistencies or even fill your heart with false hope.
He is faithful. He is true. He is everything I could need.

I will leave you with this:
(This is also a sing they played this morning)

“Jesus you are all I need, you are more than enough for me”.

Repetition For Emphasis

Waiting For Godot, written by Samuel Bekett, has been a tougher read for me personally. Although, I should not say it has been a tougher read, per say, but tougher to grasp. Maybe I am just not quite trained enough on interpreting scripts. This is my analysis of Waiting For Godot. The book itself seems as if to be filled with many repeated phrases. For instance. the continual taking on and off of Estragon’s boots. Also the same phrases are repeated like, “like the leaves” and “circus”.
This story reminds me of a phrase my friends made up in middle school called “repetition for emphasis”. In the beginning of the story Vladimir is talking about the different accounts of the story of Jesus’ death and the two thieves beside him. He goes to explain his own question. Why are the stories different? There is an obvious allusion between the repetitiveness of the gospels and this play, as if by repeating the ideas will somehow make them more concrete. Lucky also mentions this when he says his consecutive pipes taste less “sweet” than the first.
There is also the underlying theme of stagnicity. The entire play Vladimir and Estragon talk about “leaving”, but they never do. Each following scene or curtain they remain in the same spot, talking about the same things, asking the same questions, and wanting to leave the same way. There is almost a sense of never leaving that spot, especially with such heavy emphasis on repetition. Maybe even a slight fear of change. These themes seem very weighty, if I may, when considering such a short play. It makes me want to examine my own life and contemplate my own inconsistencies and repetitions. Also it makes me want to root out the causes. Are my fears stemming from a resentment to change? Have I become apathetic to potentials that my life brings? But mainly I am faced with this question. Are my own repetitions for emphasis causing my traits to dull in the balance?

Lake Bonny Park

This is proof I went to Bonny Park Mr. Corrigan
I call it a photography literature blog ;)



























































Inspiration*

What inspiration nature brings.
And yet what silence and meditation
it demands. Being in nature today helped
me catch a tiny glimpse of God’s mighty
power and His amazingly creative hand.
Being in nature just makes me want to
write and create literature, in all the ways.
It makes me want to observe a plant and write
down the feel of the petals, and the origin or genus,
and the inner workings of the stem and photosynthesis.
Nature can be such a good starting point for literature.
It could be something as simple as the setting of nature
you are sitting around. For example, if you are sitting
inside on a rainy day you may be more inclined to write
about the mood of the rain. Or you may be lead to write
about the sound or smell of rain. If you are outside on a
beautiful sunny day you may write something more
optimistic or “happy”.
Also, everything originates in nature
so what better place to start for inspiration? For instance,
if you saw a tomato growing outside you may be
reminded of tomato soup and the warmth of your mother
making it for you when you were little at thanksgiving time.
Although nature could also be an intimidating place
to start with literature. You could be overwhelmed by
all the possibilities that come to mind when pondering on,
and considering nature.
Being in nature helps me realize the importance
of natural literature, in a sense. Nature is so beautifully made
but it manages to be simple and yet complicated and complex
at the same time. That is the kind of literature I enjoy. Easy
and simple, but not in an immature or simple-minded way, the
beautiful literature that comes naturally to you. The kind
of literature you can meditate on and sit still with. The literature
that you can become so overwhelmed with yet still feel comfortable
around. I love Literature that makes you feel complete in your
own vulnerability.

Nature

"Cowbird"

Crisp white you stand
Perfectly still
Marbled
Watching and waiting
Listening
You prowl
I watch
I wait
I listen
A calf cries nearby
The dancing of the trees
The whispering of the wind in my ear
Vulnerablility
The key to enjoying
Anything
Suddenly you move
A flash
Immediately back to position
Except for one swallow
I admire the discipline


Being in nature, to me, is such a
wonderful experience. I have enjoyed this
assignment better than any other. I was raised
in the country setting. A small south central
town in Florida. The last I heard our town human
to cow ratio was three cows to every one person.
I spent two hours outside in my nanny and poppy’s
pasture. They have about forty or fifty cows on
ninety acres of a heavily treed grass land.
My poppy (my grandpa) just harvested another
piece of property and he has a good sized
collection of hay bails now. I sat for
two hours in nature between two hay bails and
read poetry. It was one of the greatest experiences
I have ever had. I never realized how much I missed
being outside in the nature of my hometown
until I moved away to college. But the best part of
the experience was because I paired my love of nature
with reading poetry, something else I also leave.

“Of course I have always known you
are present in the clouds, and the
black oak I especially adore and the
wings of birds. But you are present
too in the body, listening to the body,
teaching it to live, instead of all
that touching, with disembodied joy.”
(Six Recognitions of the Lord, Mary Oliver, Line 4)

This line was most evident in my experience
or natural literature. I think Mary has a very valid point.
I think that what she could have been talking about
here was the fact that God is everywhere in everything,
working on our behalf. He could be ministering to your
emotional health by therapeutically causing a bird to
sing a beautiful song next to you. I think he especially
works in nature. Although the earth and all its beauty is
but a mere finger painting to what beauty God can create.
Look at the beauty of the universe. God ministers through
His whole body. His church body ministers and so does His
actual body, the Holy Spirit. Mary Encountered this and so did I.
God can minister in more ways than just feeling also. He
can move with sights, sounds, and any other avenue He chooses.

Faith

State of the Planet

by Robert Hass

Line 1

October on the planet at the century’s end.
Rain lashing the windshield. Through blurred glass
Gusts of a Pacific storm rocking a huge, shank-needled
Himalayan cedar. Under it a Japanese plum
Throws off a vertical cascade of leaves the color
Of skinned copper, if copper could be skinned.
And under it, her gait as elegant and supple
As the young of any of earth’s species, a schoolgirl
Negotiates a crosswalk in the wind, her hair flying.
The red satchel on her quite straight back darkening
Splotch by smoky crimson splotch as the rain pelts it.
One of the six billion of her hungry and curious kind.
Inside the backpack, dog-eared, full of illustrations,
A book with a title like Getting to Know Your Planet.

The book will tell her that the earth this month
Has yawed a little distance from the sun,
And that the air, cooling, has begun to move,
As sensitive to temperature as skin is
To a lover’s touch. It will also tell her that the air –
It’s likely to say “the troposphere” has trapped
Emissions from millions of cars, idling like mine
As she crosses, and is making a greenhouse
Of the atmosphere. The book will say that climate
Is complicated, that we may be doing this,
And if we are, it may explain that this
Was something we’ve done quite accidentally,
Which she can understand, not having meant
That morning to have spilled the milk. She’s
One of those who’s only hungry metaphorically

Line 7

The people who live in Tena, on the Napo River,
Say that the black, viscid stuff the pools in the selva
Is the blood of the rainbow boa curled in the earth’s core.
The great trees in that forest house ten thousands of kinds
Of beetle, reptiles no human eyes has ever seen changing
Color on the hot, green, hardly changing leaves
Whenever a faint breeze stirs them. In the understory
Bromeliads and orchids whose flecked petals and womb-
Or mouth-like flowers are the shapes of desire
In human dreams. And butterflies, larger than her palm
Held up to catch a ball or ward off fear. Along the river
Wide-leaved banyans where flocks of raucous parrots,
Fruit-eaters and seed-eaters, rise in startled flares
Of red and yellow and bright green. It will seem to be poetry
Forgetting its promise of sobriety to say the rosy shinings
In the thick brown current are small dolphins rising
To the surface where gouts of the oil that burns inside
The engine of the car I’m driving oozes from the banks.


I suggest anyone who loves poetry, whether they prefer
the nature genre or not, should read this poem. The depictions
and the places that Robert takes you are phenomenal.

My favorite line of the poem that actually sparked
the topic of my blog tonight goes as follows:

Line 10

What is go be done with our species? Because
We know we're going to die, to be submitted
To that tingling dance of atoms once again,
It's easy for us to feel that our lives are a dream-
As this is, in away, a dream: the flailing rain,
The birds the soaked red backpack of the child,
Her tendrils of wet hair, the windshield wipers,
This voice trying to to speak across centuries
Between us, even the long story of earth,
Boreal forests, mangrove swamps, Tiberian wheatfields
In the summer heat on hillsides south of Rome - all of it A dream, and we alive somewhere, somehow outside it, Watching.....

In thinking about this poem and the imagery he portrays I
thought about a lot of things. I considered how blessed I was to be
raised in the country. I grew up understanding and enjoying nature.
This poem meant so much to me being as I would love to go all the
places discussed int he poem and see them for my own eyes. Then I
was brought to my next thought. Robert is talking about all of these
places as if they were a dream, and in a small way he is right.
How do we really know these places exist? (Other than the fact we now
have sofisticated technology) If we lay technology aside, many of us
never actually seen these places with or own eyes, therefore how do
we know they really exist? To us they are like a dream because we
have essentially never actually captured their image in real life.
This makes the poem seem more like experiencing a dream.
Sure technology says thee places are there, but have you seen them?
Have I? This idea makes the poem seem more enjoyable for me.
The fact that it takes me to a place I have never been, but also I do not
know COMPLETELY concrete that is exists. This also
sparked a new thought. I have faith. Being a christian, I have faith
in God. He is something I have not concretely seen, but that makes
him all more real. "Blessed are those who believe and have not seen,"
is what Jesus said to Thomas.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. "

I think this is completely relevant to poetry
analyzing and experiencing. I think that poetry requires a certain
amount of faith, in this sense. We can never really know concretely
what a poet/poem is trying to say. In that way we dream an idea and
then we formulate a belief. We set our faith towards the belief that
our assumption about the poem is correct. Although, fortunately
for us poetry is open. We can take anything from it we choose.

Reflection

http://www.diomass.org/multimedia/audio/Mary_Oliver_reads_Six_Recognitions

This is a link to a reading of the poem that I discuss in this blog:

Six Recognitions of the Lord by Mary Oliver

“Lord God, mercy in your hands, pour ma a little. And tenderness too. My need is great. Beauty walks so freely and with such gentleness. Impatience puts a halter on my face and I run away over the green fields wanting your voice, your tenderness, but having to do with only the sweet grasses of the fields against my body. When I first found you I was filled with light, now darkness grows and it is filled with crooked things, bitter and weak, each one bearing my name.”

(Line 2 of Six Recognitions of the Lord)

One thing I have recently decided about Literature is that is has many functions. In accordance with scripture it can heal or direct your spirit. Secular literature can teach and guide. It can humor you or excite you. It can culture you. It can take you places you have never been around the world. You can revisit history and meet people long before your own time. In my own life it has been revealed to me that literature can serve as a mirror. A mirror in the sense that by reading a poem, this poem and line in fact, you can experience yourself. When I was reading this poem I saw a glimpse of myself in the words; a part of myself that I have deliberately dealt with very briefly. Now that I have come to college, the light is being shown on it brighter than ever. I struggle with depression. I always have. I have become an expert at covering it up. My life has consisted of busying myself in order to distract myself and others from this fact. It makes me feel weak to admit it, and that thought is wrong I realize. I have never told anyone this until recently. I have never really fully believed it myself until lately. The poem says, “Impatience puts a halter on my face…” My dad has always got on to me for not “practicing patience". It was a very hard lesson for me to learn. “When I first found you I was filled with light, now darkness grows and it is filled with crooked things, bitter and weak, each one bearing my name.” I have never realized how powerful the experience of Literature can be until it helped unveil something in my own life. Had I never read this poem, maybe I would not have ever been confronted with depression in such a personal manner. It is easy for someone to tell you how you are, but it is another for you to say it to yourself. I suppose the first step to dealing with any sort of problem is confronting it.