T.S. Eliot



--From "East Coker"

 You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again,
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
  You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
  You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
  You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
  You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

This Daily Create asked me to, “Record a video of a process, and use your editing chops to reverse the clip. Add a narration that explains what is happening like it happened in that order.”

That isn’t exactly what I felt like doing, and when I asked myself why, T.S. Eliot’s poem The Four Quartets came to mind and the way time in that poem goes forward, moves back, repeats, and, in a way, constantly “unmakes” itself.

East Coker is a village near Somerset, England, where Eliot’s ancestors in 1669 left in search of religious freedom in America. He and his wife Valerie are both buried there.

Overall, the poem says that when humans follow only science and not the divine, both time and nature become unraveled or disordered.

3 thoughts on “T.S. Eliot

  1. Kinga Biro says:

    Thank you for this poignant reminder of the unfolding internal journey. The moment of ‘knowing’, of having reached the next step in our progress toward understanding our own truth, is the beginning point of not knowing what lies ahead or beyond… the journey continues in the unknown, a thrilling place to be if we’re open to the possibilities surrounding us.

    Reply
  2. Bonnie says:

    The whole effect felt very zen to me, and left me very relaxed yet excited!

    Reply
  3. Megan says:

    I felt at peace during this story, it’s a great reminder that we don’t always have to know where we are to get to where we want to be

    Reply

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