Poetry Chaikhana Blog

(84) It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world (from Gitanjali)
by Rabindranath Tagore

English version by Rabindranath Tagore

It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.
      It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all night from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July.
      It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joys in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet’s heart.

— from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore

/ Image by Abhijith P /

It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.

Tagore’s poetry is the language of the soul, from its majestic heights to the most heartbreaking sense of separation.

We really get a sense of the void, the terrible gulf between everything that every soul quietly wrestles with…

It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all night from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July.

So how then does he come to a sort of wholeness and universal empathy with his final line?

It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joys in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet’s heart.

That sense of separation — separation from God, separation from Source, and separation from one another — is the fundamental pain of the soul. Every life pain, when we really trace its tendrils, reaches down to that root pain, the basic belief of separation. Every hunger, every craving, is an attempt to spread a thin layer of pleasure over that pain. Every self-inflicted hurt is an attempt to overpower that great ache with the sharp intensity of the moment. Most actions, when carefully dissected, are an attempt to distract ourselves from that terrible emptiness.

You can see that so much of our life force is spent in avoidance of confrontation with that gulf between self and other, the individual and the Eternal.

Most people look away, spend all their life running from that canyon of separation. But the mystic sits on the cliff edge and, though frightened, stares endlessly into the great space… until suddenly an amazing thing happens — in a flash the emptiness is seen to be not a distance but a connection, a joining. The gulf is itself the bridge spanning the distance, and we discover that we can walk upon it, that there was, in fact, never any separation or distance.

It is the very intensity of our yearning that is finally recognized as the point of connection with the Eternal. And then the pain flips, turning to such sweetness.

The next time you feel that pang of separation, just sit with it. Let your heart break. Let it break open. Feel the connection and life secretly spanning the gulf.

Recommended Books: Rabindranath Tagore

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Gitanjali	The Lover of God	The Fugitive	Lover’s Gift and Crossing
More Books >>

Rabindranath Tagore India (1861 – 1941) Timeline Yoga / Hindu

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The present is a moving thread of light
where all things barely step into the visibility of being…
as the moment keeps moving.

Metempsychosis
by Jane Hirshfield

Some stories last many centuries,
others only a moment.
All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,
grow distant and more beautiful with salt.

I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.
To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,
and then keep walking, unimaginably further.

— from Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield

/ Image by Denys Argyriou /

The title first: Metempsychosis is the transmigration of the psyche or the soul. It can be a synonym for reincarnation, though metempsychosis often implies the notion of re-embodiment in any form, not just another human body. It is the transference of self.

And this poem seems to consider this idea from several different angles.

Stories and trees.

To look at a tree, to really encounter it as a living being, as a living expression of awareness, something profound happens in us: we encounter something of ourselves in that tree. We see ourselves by truly seeing something else.

There is a stage in us where each being, each thing, is a mirror.

The boundary between human and tree falls away, and the sense of self flows between the two. And there is a supreme sweetness in this recognition of shared being with the world around us.

Then the bees of self pour from the hive-door,
ravenous to enter the sweetness of flowering nettles and thistle.

Isn’t this a wonderful image? The bees of self. We tend to think of the self as a single, solid thing, a body of sorts. But here we have the image of the self as cluster that escapes and scatters and spreads out into the world, hungry to experience the offered life all around it, so confident in itself that even barbs and stings hold their own sweetness. In Hirshfield’s metempsychosis, we don’t step from body A to body B; we pour out and taste all the world around us.

Next comes the ringing a stone or violin or empty bucket
gives off —
the immeasurable’s continuous singing,
before it goes back into story and feeling.

When we step out of our own story, when learn to connect, when we learn to become, we find everything has its song. Everything is speaking always. The world rings with being.

In Borneo, there are palm trees that walk on their high roots.
Slowly, with effort, they lift one leg then another.

Walking trees… Some types of jungle trees grow from stilted, raised roots. It is said that, over time, they actually “walk” by growing new roots in one direction, while allowing the old roots to wither.

I would like to join that stilted transmigration…

What is most fascinating to me is the poet’s assertion that she would like her skin to be a highway for ants and beetles.

I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.

There may still be a self-protective, self-defining sense of self that reflexively hesitates, but yet she yearns to feel the many marching trails of life merging, the great slow pathways of walking trees, and the minute busy paths of ants upon the tree.

And every one of those roads is part of the journeying self.

To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,
and then keep walking, unimaginably further.

Recommended Books: Jane Hirshfield

Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems	The Lives of the Heart: Poems	The October Palace: Poems	Of Gravity & Angels
More Books >>

Jane Hirshfield US (Contemporary) Secular or Eclectic Buddhist

More poetry by Jane Hirshfield

Knowledge is not the accumulation of data
or the formulation of thought.
True knowledge is to merge
with the living field of knowing itself.

Keep on knocking
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Coleman Barks

Keep on knocking
’til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who’s there

— from The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks

/ Image by Daniel Gregoire /

We have made it to the other side of our journey and arrived safely in Eugene, Oregon. It is a homecoming for us, although we have been away for decades. Much is familiar, yet everything is new.

The drive out itself, while beautiful, was a bit of an ordeal. We passed through a heat wave affecting Utah and Idaho before entering the cooler weather of Oregon.

Eugene itself is lovely. The Willamette River running through town, trees and deep greens, blackberry bushes at the edges of alleyways just beginning to bear fruit. Walks along the river in the morning chill is a special treat. The downtown area is vibrant, more active than we remember in the early 90s. Trying to reorient to the idiosyncratic city layout, one way streets, unexpected loops and turns.

When we explore a town, the places we check out first to connect with the community: the natural food stores, the bookstores, coffee shops (though I rarely drink coffee), neighborhood parks. We’re making the rounds.

The ocean, just an hour-and-a-half’s drive away, calls to my wife. An afternoon trip coming up soon.

Boxes are everywhere. All the books arrived, though we did not bring all our old bookshelves, so just where will everything go? Which books make the cut for display on bookshelves and which get tucked away into closets?

Keep on knocking
’til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who’s there

I want to say thank you to all of you, the entire Poetry Chaikhana community, for all of your thoughts and supportive messages through this move. My heart has been full through the miles traveled. Love to you all in return.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom
More Books >>

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 – 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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Presence is full recollection
but with no memory.