{"id":5861,"date":"2017-08-09T07:53:23","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T14:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=5861"},"modified":"2017-08-09T07:53:23","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T14:53:23","slug":"emily-dickinson-always-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/09\/emily-dickinson-always-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily Dickinson – Always Mine!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Always Mine!
\nby Emily Dickinson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Always Mine!
\nNo more Vacation!
\nTerm of Light this Day begun!
\nFailless as the fair rotation
\nOf the Seasons and the Sun.<\/p>\n

Old the Grace, but new the Subjects \u2014
\nOld, indeed, the East,
\nYet upon His Purple Programme
\nEvery Dawn, is first.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson<\/a>, Edited by Thomas H. Johnson<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by capt_tain Tom<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

When I was first introduced to Emily Dickinson\u2019s poetry as a teenager, I immediately responded to the power of her writing. Her short, staccato lines, words and phrases connected by dashes and strange punctuation. Statements filled with intensity, as if she can barely get the words out. But it wasn\u2019t always clear to me what she was really saying.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until much later, re-reading her writing as an adult, that a light went off in my mind, and I realized that much of the commentary I had read of her poetry had missed the essential element of her poetry \u2014 that Emily Dickinson was, in fact, a mystic describing ecstatic states of awareness.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t take my word for it, just consider the possibility. And then reread her poetry with that idea in mind.<\/p>\n

This poem, for example. Why does she rapturously proclaim, \u201cAlways Mine!\u201d Something or someone she had been passionately seeking is discovered to already belong to her, to have always been hers. There is \u201cno more vacation,\u201d no longer a sense of separation or distance. For her, it is as if a new day has begun, filled with light, as dependable as the seasons.<\/p>\n

I especially respond to the line:<\/p>\n

Old the Grace, but new the Subjects \u2014<\/i><\/p>\n

The sense of grace that fills her is \u201cold,\u201d ancient, familiar, as if it has always been there, yet she notices for the first time how it shines anew on everything. Everything is new when seen in this new light.<\/p>\n

She expands on this with:<\/p>\n

Old, indeed, the East,
\nYet upon His Purple Programme
\nEvery Dawn, is first.<\/i><\/p>\n

The East, the direction of the sunrise, the direction of enlightenment, has always been there, yet amidst its royal purple majesty, every dawn is new and wondrous.<\/p>\n

Re-reading this poem, does it seem like a lonely recluse\u2019s breathless praise of the morning or perhaps a secret love, or is it genuinely ecstatic, describing an awareness that is profound and alive?<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Emily Dickinson<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nWomen in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nSaved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Emily<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nEmily Dickinson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

US (1830 \u2013 1886) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\nChristian<\/a> : Protestant<\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 to a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts. Few of her poems were published during her lifetime, the bulk of her poetry having been discovered after her death in the 1880s. Despite this anonymity during her lifetime, Dickinson has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of American poets. Her unusual use of rhyme, meter, and grammar anticipates modernist trends in 20th century poetry.<\/p>\n

She attended Amherst Academy and a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.<\/p>\n

While at the seminary, Dickinson famously refused to participate in the show of evangelical conversion sweeping through her community at the time. Much of her poetry, however, meditates on heaven and the inner life, often contrasting the private moment against public religious convention. She was clearly a critic of the common practice of religion, leading many to casually label her as an atheist, yet there is no denying that she experienced a rich inner life that she understood in religious terms. While unconventional by the religious standards of her day, the argument can be made that she was a deep mystic. If one reads her poetry side-by-side with the poet-saints of India, for example, the parallels in metaphoric language and insight become obvious.<\/p>\n

Following her return from Mount Holyoke, Emily Dickinson almost never left Amherst again, rarely even leaving the grounds of her family home. Later in life she took to dressing entirely in white.<\/p>\n

Much is made of Dickinson\u2019s reclusive life, the fact that she never married, and the focus on death in much of her poetry, leading to descriptions of her as a morbid, sexually repressed recluse. One can see her in this way; or, recognizing the depth of her mysticism, we can suggest that she cultivated a self-defined monastic life of contemplation and poetry.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Emily Dickinson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Always Mine! by Emily Dickinson Always Mine! No more Vacation! Term of Light this Day begun! Failless as the fair rotation Of the Seasons and the Sun. Old the Grace, but new the Subjects \u2014 Old, indeed, the East, Yet upon His Purple Programme Every Dawn, is first. \u2014 from The Complete Poems of Emily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[440,2102,196,1339,60,762,734],"class_list":["post-5861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-dawn","tag-day","tag-emily-dickinson","tag-grace","tag-light","tag-sun","tag-womens-spiritual-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5862,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5861\/revisions\/5862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}