Chapter Seven: Rescuing Psyche: Keats's Containment of the Beloved but Fading Woman in the "Ode of Psyche"Harris writes deeply and beautifully about Keats’s poetry and about how the estrangement and loss of his mother, his own abbreviated life experiences, inform his poetry. She comes to her exploration through his use of the Psyche mythology, something that is common in literati circles. Find a theme, a common image, then weave a meaning around the single thing until you can argue a more profound truth than even the interpreted author could have imagined.
Once again I feel compelled to break away from an in depth exploration of what Harris has written and go into my own written world. So, Judith Harris, I beg your forgiveness but I thank you for your inspiration.
Aphrodite, being capricious as were all of the Greek Gods, tells her son Eros to cause Psyche to fall in love with a monster because of Psyche’s mortal beauty. Eros, however, falls in love with Psyche and hides her away in his palace where he comes to her at night, making love to her, asking only that she not light a lamp when he is there.
Here we are, unenlightened, willfully ignorant, and beautiful. We are loved by a god, but unaware. Our lives are what they are, confined to a palace, seemingly well attended and secure. At night the truth comes to us, in those subconscious moments of unguarded honesty. What we know is there, drifting into our dreams.
Psyche’s sisters question the arrangement, suggesting that Psyche is married to a monster. A seed of doubt is planted; Psyche wonders if she has what has is her best. One night she lights a lamp, prepared to kill the beast with whom she is sleeping, only to see that he is beautiful, more beautiful than she could have imagined or hoped. She bends to kiss him but a drop of oil spills, awakening Eros, who flies off leaving his beloved wife behind.
We know something is not right. We could settle for what we have, live on in our palace. Or we can listen to those voices that say something is wrong, warning us to open our eyes, to look fully into the face of the beast. There is something fearful about looking into a painful experience. It was dangerous the first time. How can we know it won’t be traumatic again, to look at it again? Nevertheless, we turn on the light and prepare ourselves to see the worst but catch a glimpse of the best. We fall in love with what we see but it flies away. And now the work begins.
Psyche first gets angry and avenges herself on her sisters. Wandering, she goes to one temple and the next until she is eventually forced to go to Aphrodite’s temple after first being told to do so by Hera, the mother goddess. Aphrodite, still jealous and spiteful, sets tasks for Psyche to complete, typically impossible tasks one of which actually leads to a moment for Psyche in which she is prepared to die in order to succeed.
Waking up to what we have lost, somewhere, and not knowing how to face our loss, we first feel rage. How could this have happened? Why me? And we demand some restitution. We must first sort through the memories, not avoiding any one for another, accepting the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. Then we must patiently return and find the gold within each—find the awareness that we are what we are because of, not in spite of, these things. And finally, we must be prepared to die to who we think we are to become what we have always been, what we already are, to dare to look into our own beauty and fall asleep in order to be awakened. This is where the frustration and the pain begins, an arduous birthing process, and at the end our eyes are opened to the truth of our always having been . . .
And Psyche is given immortality by the gods, allowing her to live eternally with her beloved Eros. Had Psyche never lit the lamp and looked upon her beloved, she would never have had to suffer the tasks that Aphrodite set for her. Had she never lit the lamp she would have aged, become less beautiful, and perhaps suffered the loss of Eros’ adoration. At best, she would have died, a mortal. Instead, because she dared to light the lamp, to look upon the possibility of love, she became immortal, living eternally beautiful.
The gift of self-enlightenment is not immortality so much as an eternal awareness. The work is painful, sometimes terrifying, often seemingly impossible. In the end, what we give ourselves is a knowledge that we can come through anything, that we are willing to face anything, even the beastly in ourselves. In the end, what we earn is our own immortal beauty that lies far deeper than the body and its life of experiences.
Once again I feel compelled to break away from an in depth exploration of what Harris has written and go into my own written world. So, Judith Harris, I beg your forgiveness but I thank you for your inspiration.
Aphrodite, being capricious as were all of the Greek Gods, tells her son Eros to cause Psyche to fall in love with a monster because of Psyche’s mortal beauty. Eros, however, falls in love with Psyche and hides her away in his palace where he comes to her at night, making love to her, asking only that she not light a lamp when he is there.
Here we are, unenlightened, willfully ignorant, and beautiful. We are loved by a god, but unaware. Our lives are what they are, confined to a palace, seemingly well attended and secure. At night the truth comes to us, in those subconscious moments of unguarded honesty. What we know is there, drifting into our dreams.
Psyche’s sisters question the arrangement, suggesting that Psyche is married to a monster. A seed of doubt is planted; Psyche wonders if she has what has is her best. One night she lights a lamp, prepared to kill the beast with whom she is sleeping, only to see that he is beautiful, more beautiful than she could have imagined or hoped. She bends to kiss him but a drop of oil spills, awakening Eros, who flies off leaving his beloved wife behind.
We know something is not right. We could settle for what we have, live on in our palace. Or we can listen to those voices that say something is wrong, warning us to open our eyes, to look fully into the face of the beast. There is something fearful about looking into a painful experience. It was dangerous the first time. How can we know it won’t be traumatic again, to look at it again? Nevertheless, we turn on the light and prepare ourselves to see the worst but catch a glimpse of the best. We fall in love with what we see but it flies away. And now the work begins.
Psyche first gets angry and avenges herself on her sisters. Wandering, she goes to one temple and the next until she is eventually forced to go to Aphrodite’s temple after first being told to do so by Hera, the mother goddess. Aphrodite, still jealous and spiteful, sets tasks for Psyche to complete, typically impossible tasks one of which actually leads to a moment for Psyche in which she is prepared to die in order to succeed.
Waking up to what we have lost, somewhere, and not knowing how to face our loss, we first feel rage. How could this have happened? Why me? And we demand some restitution. We must first sort through the memories, not avoiding any one for another, accepting the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. Then we must patiently return and find the gold within each—find the awareness that we are what we are because of, not in spite of, these things. And finally, we must be prepared to die to who we think we are to become what we have always been, what we already are, to dare to look into our own beauty and fall asleep in order to be awakened. This is where the frustration and the pain begins, an arduous birthing process, and at the end our eyes are opened to the truth of our always having been . . .
And Psyche is given immortality by the gods, allowing her to live eternally with her beloved Eros. Had Psyche never lit the lamp and looked upon her beloved, she would never have had to suffer the tasks that Aphrodite set for her. Had she never lit the lamp she would have aged, become less beautiful, and perhaps suffered the loss of Eros’ adoration. At best, she would have died, a mortal. Instead, because she dared to light the lamp, to look upon the possibility of love, she became immortal, living eternally beautiful.
The gift of self-enlightenment is not immortality so much as an eternal awareness. The work is painful, sometimes terrifying, often seemingly impossible. In the end, what we give ourselves is a knowledge that we can come through anything, that we are willing to face anything, even the beastly in ourselves. In the end, what we earn is our own immortal beauty that lies far deeper than the body and its life of experiences.
Read about Psyche for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_and_Psyche
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