Living in the Layers

"By means of all created things,

without exception, the Divine assails us,

penetrates us, and molds us.

We imagined it as distant

and inaccessible,

when in fact, we live

steeped in its burning layers."

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Chardin was a Jesuit scientist - a brilliant paleontologist, geologist, and philosopher, whose works were at times banned. His insights and reflections were well before its time and helped pave the way for more recent philosophical, theological, and scientific discourse. He was silenced by the Church, and yet he did not lose his faith. He was born in 1881, and died in April of 1955, just a few months before I was born.

These words came to me precisely at a time when I have been reflecting on how the very essence of our beings seems to be comprised of layers. All the significant issues in our lives are similarly constructed of layers, and somehow we must revisit them again and again and again...

This poem came to me yesterday, and it captured my heart, resonating with my internal musings, and evoking so much for me than I could adequately share. Yet, somewhere, juxtaposed between Chardin's quote and this poem, my reality is nestled...

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

"Live in the layers,

not on the litter."

Though I lack the art 

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

~ Stanley Kunitz