Dashka Slater: Orpheus and Company

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again."-- -- Old English nursery tale

The Fall of Icarus

I looked up when Icarus came down –
but who would notice?
People are always crashing.
My neighbor's foot caught on the edge
of a furrow as he plowed
even as Icarus tumbled
headfirst down. He twisted his ankle
and tore up the ground with his hands.
While Icarus plunged down streaming,
my neighbor cursed the ants that confuse
the dirt, the feet that are blind
in their shoes and are always blundering.
The white wax ran down Icarus' arms in rivers;
he was a drenched man, a ruined,
a steaming man – I watched him fall
and my neighbor turn his ankle in the field.
That day Icarus was the toast of all the taverns.
I told everyone about the red runnels
on his shoulder where the wax plowed away
his skin. My old neighbor was there,
a cloth around his leg. We drank
a mug or two for Icarus who imagined
he could look God in the eye, another mug
for Icarus and then one for God Himself–
Here's to God's Eye which burned away
the wings of Icarus!
God's Eye! I felt wild thinking of it.
I went out to look at the sea, gilded
with the last of the light that took down
Icarus, bright as the annoyance in God's Eye
when he blazed away those wings.
I lost my head for a minute, dazzled
by light and drinks to daring and scraped
my knees when I took that tumble,
standing on tiptoe on the edge of the hill,
imagining the cut valleys, the lean spoon
of the isthmus and the shredded breezes
in the sky – how it must have looked to Icarus
as he spun down and God flicked me
off my hillock just for imagining.
Everyone crashes down around here.
by Dashka Slater, poet

There is the distinct possibility of a spiritual excess, one who is high on the religion of it all, as it were. Sometimes people are in love with ideals and ideas; they will not be detained when in this state of mind. In their enthusiasm they forge wildly ahead.
Whether the focus be on the spirit One, animal rights, the planet, disadvantaged persons or any other cause one might think of, sometimes, often they take a fall. For the old adage holds true, 'what goes up must come down.'
'The higher it flies, the further it falls.' And fall they do. Hard. Crashing to the ground in anger, depression, disillusionment, betrayal, foolishness.

Because as the poet Slater writes,

"Here's to God's Eye which burned away
the wings of Icarus!
God's Eye! I felt wild thinking of it.
I went out to look at the sea, gilded
with the last of the light that took down..."
Icarus, bright as the annoyance in God's Eye

So like Icarus, who wanted to fly, sometimes it's the thing we want so badly, so blinded by our want and desire, we are brought down by it. Yet in mythic terms, it is not an ultimate failure. Rather a resolution, the poet writes: "Everyone crashes down around here."

So finally, the question in the practice life, the life of a spirit, is not will I crash, but when, and how will my illusions be removed so that I may see more clearly the things that matter, the things that I need to see?
The resolution-- it's both a promise and the reality.