The Space Between and T.S.Elliot

I have been thinking a lot about space(s) and stillness lately, and it seems that, so have many others. Strange how when we are most alone especially in a situation like lock down, it is not from others that we get sustenance but from the deep spaces within ourselves. Many of us been lucky enough to receive gifts from lock down; the ease up of pressure to do and be, time with family, time to learn a new craft. Time to get to know oneself.  I spoke of my joy in nature in my last blog…but I also got much sustenance from meditation. Post lock down, many are suffering from having lost loved ones, lost jobs and or income, or just the plain simple fact of too many changes all at once.  Space has acquired new meaning as we search inside ourselves for a quiet understanding of it all.

No wonder, so many love TS Eliot’s poem Burnt Norton. There are many discussions abroad as to what this poem is about. But I cannot tear myself away from its most famous lines…

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement.”

Burnt Norton is the first poem of Eliot’s Four Quartets. You can read it here in full.

You can also hear TS Eliot himself reading it online, but I have chosen

this extract read by Jeremy Ions, because it is shorter and quite lovely.

And a few lines from me

 

spaces

between breaths

between people

between hearts

between logic and reality

between the change of tides

 

places

to rest in

a place in the sun

a room with a view

a quiet room

a quiet corner of oneself

refuge from confusion, noise

and the insistence of miscommunication

May you find your own peaceful spaces to give you strength and resilience.