Levertov on Contemplation, Meditation, and Poetry

I am often asked questions by clients about "centering practices" by which I mean that which brings one to a sense of being centered, focused or "solid" in where one stands in the midst of whatever life circumstances one is facing.  These are practices which allow one to go through difficulties with grace, dignity and self composure. While that doesn't mean you bypass emotions, centering practices help you ride the wave of them and help ensure that your actions in the world come from a more grounded place than the passions of the moment.

Centering practices may include such activities as journalling, meditation, reading inspirational works or engaging in certain physical practices like yoga, walking or running. They can include any activity that you do with mindfulness, even those activities as (seemingly) mundane as sweeping your kitchen floor or weeding your garden.  In fact, for those who are interested, I was recently asked a series of questions by a client pertaining to my own centering practices and my views on mindfulness which I will elaborate on here in the near future.

I know many of you are actively engaged in "creative pursuits" and many more would like to be so today I would like to share with you an absolutely delicious passage from one of my favorite poets, Denise Levertov, from the poet in the world . 

This particular quote is from her chapter on organic form.  She is talking first about how someone may be sitting thinking and a million different thoughts converge in their heads. You know how it is...a fragment of a song lyric, passing thoughts about what to have for dinner tonight, watching a bluebird outside your window, some newly forming theory of life, a dream image, a half listened to news item...it's all swimming around in your brain.  This is what happens sometimes for poets in that situation...

"But the condition of being a poet is that periodically such a cross section, or constellation, of experiences (in which one or the other element may predominate) demands, or wakes in him this demand: the poem.  The beginning of fulfillment of this demand is to contemplate, to meditate; words which connote a state in which the heat of feeling warms the intellect.  To contemplate comes from "templum, temple, a place, a space for observation, marked out by the augur."  It means not simply to observe, to regard, but to do these things in the presence of a god.  And to meditate is "to keep the mind in a state of contemplation"; its synonym it "to muse," and to muse comes from a word meaning "to stand with open mouth"--not so comincal if we think of "inspiration"--to breathe in."

Comments

[Thea]

Wow! This really resonates with me....I love that you shared it. This is how poetry is for me