Poetry and the Inner World

“The literature of a nation is spun out of its heart. If you would know Ireland - body and soul - you must read its poems and stories.”

— WB Yeats

Our ancient Gaelic ancestors gathered at night around the hearth to share songs, music, poetry and stories. This provided escape from a harsh existence. An escape that brought them into the unseen world of imagination, psyche and spirit. These ancient stories and songs were passed down through the generations. Ireland's storytellers and poets have been revered since the earliest times. They were the holders and guardians that brought us across the threshold to that inner world. They held that door to the realm of symbolism, metaphor, magic, fairies and pisrogues (superstition and the supernatural) - the otherworld of wonder and imagination. 

The unconscious speaks to us in the universal language of symbols and images. When we explore the inner world, we explore a deeper memory world of archetypal symbols and motifs. Dreams, fairy tales, myth, poetry, art, and ritual all speak to that more profound mystery, the soul self. When we stay curious about our inner images and what our inner world is communicating, it teaches us and enriches our lives. It can help us steer our boat on our uniquely individual life journey and path. 

Deepening the Senses- Poetry and the Inner Landscape

My Deepening the Senses work utilizes poetry, mythology, art, symbolism, and metaphor to bridge a connection to the inner world, the unconscious, and our embodied and soul self. I wanted to share with you the poems that I have loved over the years, as well as my own work, to inspire and nourish you on your own personal development path. 

Through the symbolic and metaphoric, poetry has the power to take us beyond our literal analytical minds and drop us down into an embodied soul experience. It brings us inward into the inner landscape. It enlivens us, moves us and touches our hearts. Poetry can support us in life’s transitions because we feel less alone when we hear and “sense” into the dream world of the poem and, in turn, the soul of the poet.

We connect to the sacred and mystery through the power of metaphor and imagination. We yearn to transcend and to come to know the sacred in our daily lives. So often, this is what we feel we are missing.  When I speak of the “sacred”, I am speaking of a call to meaning in our lives, to mystery, the numinous, a call to wholeness. The sacred that connects us to something larger than ourselves, Poetry is a powerful and wonderful portal into the unseen world within us all. 

“Between haystack and sunset sky,
Between oak tree and slated roof,
I had my existence. I was there. 
Me in place and the place in me”

SEAMUS HEANEY

Excerpt from A Herbal, Human Chain 2010. 

A Childhood Memory

When I was a child of seven or eight, I started to collect poems. I carefully wrote each word into a copybook. I lovingly decorated those pages with stickers and coloured around the poems with coloured pencils. This copybook felt like a precious object I was creating. I carried it around with me, delighted by this treasure I had.

I remember being assigned homework one day at school when I was ten years old. The task was to learn the 1916 revolutionary poet Pádraig Mac Piarais’ poem “The Wayfarer” by heart. Pádraig Mac Piarais was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. He was executed for his part in that rebellion. He often came to stay in Connemara and owned a cottage in Rosmuc, 3 miles from the village where I grew up.

This poem was written shortly before the poet’s execution in Kilmainham jail in Dublin. It reflects the fleeting beauty of life's journey. The poem was written at a decisive moment in the poet’s life, a time of decisive personal and political change, and the poet himself sought to come to terms with his impending death.

When I got this homework assignment, I felt a tremendous thrill and sense of mastery that afternoon as I recited the words over and over again in my mind. I walked around the house that evening, turning the golden words in my mind until, by evening, I knew them all. 

I remember crossing the fields to speak to my father. He was working on restoring a stone wall. I remember the excitement and anticipation that I would recite the words to him. I proudly did so, there and then, in the field. I felt joy and accomplishment when he remarked how beautiful those words were. I felt proud, but I also remember feeling a more profound sense of something magical, wondrous, and beautiful in saying those words out loud.

The following day in class, I was asked to stand up and recite the poem from my desk. I was nervous and excited to revisit those words once again. I began to speak the poem aloud, and something interesting happened.  

 I came to this line in the poem:

“Sometimes my heart hath told me…these will pass, will pass and change, will die and be no more…” 

I found I couldn't say the words anymore. At that moment, I felt it deep in my body. I felt the truth of those words in an embodied way. I felt the sheer sadness and loss, and I began to cry. I couldn't speak anymore or finish the poem. 

My teacher at the time, also a wonderful poet, understood entirely what had happened. That day, in class, he explained the power of poetry and the soul.

The words and the meaning of the poem landed in my body. I felt a truth that was beyond articulation. That, to me, is the power of poetry.

I'm reminded, as I write this, of Seamus Heaney describing poetry so beautifully in his Nobel Prize Speech in 1995: 

“I credit it (poetry) because credit is due to it, in our time and in all time, for its truth to life…”

“For its truth to life…”

That is the beauty. I, too, am so grateful to poetry for that gift. I am excited to share some of the poems that have held the most meaning for me with you in the coming months.

The Wayfarer 

by Pádraig Mac Piarais (10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916)

The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.

---