The cumulative path of healing in music

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 28, 2014
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And . . . the time came . . . .

I first wrote about self-forgiveness in June 2013, a little less than one year ago.  However, I recently realized that it has only been within the last month or so that I fully experienced the liberation of total self-forgiveness.  

I do not believe I was attempting to delude myself.  Rather, it was not until I recognized a more subtle shift in my perceptions that I began to recognize the mantle of shame I'd become so used to bearing no longer weighed me down.  I also began to feel more compassionate -- mostly toward myself but for others who continue to act from a hostile heart instead of a loving sensibility.  

From this heightened  awareness, I also began to experience a more profound sense of loss -- of time, energy, life as I've come to experience it.  This sense of sorrow is as much for myself as anyone else.  But, the saving grace is the recognition that my grieving self is not the leading character in my life.  My sadness is but one aspect of my totality.

For far too long, I struggled with the concept of self-forgiveness, believing I’d never achieve such a cleansing state of mind.  And, yet, what I discovered with the passing of time is that I no longer felt much of anything for the one who once appeared the root of so much of my sorrow, so much sadness and pain.  I had begun the powerful transformation from feeling victimized by my emotions to becoming empowered, but . . . .

I had slowly become aware that I was no longer feeling bereft or angry.  All that remained was my feeling an incredible sense of relief that the abysmal chapter in the sad saga of my romantic life had, at long last, reached its denouement.  It seemed to me that I could finally close the book on that painful subject.  For quite some time, I concluded that I would probably never again be willing to share any part of my life with another now that I have become a senior citizen and have only twenty-five or thirty years left to live

But, bit by bit, I discovered that the essence of the love I feel within my heart is so pure that it is not possible for this kind of love (that I believe is the essence of each and every sentient being) to become sullied by anyone or anything – for any reason whatsoever.  I realized that, perhaps, in time, I could meet someone before I die.  I also began to slowly accept the possibility that if our feelings for one another were mutual, in all likelihood, we would agree to share our lives and travel the remainder of our life journeys together.

Once I began to realize – and accept -- the truth of my feelings, I could not help but smile, knowing that there is seldom, if ever, a time when anything is written in stone – except perhaps the dates of when we are born and die that are etched on our tombstones. 

I had once adamantly declared “NEVER AGAIN” – most especially my sentiment the last time I became bitterly disappointed when the reality of an individual was a dramatic departure from the illusion that I, albeit unknowingly, had blindly accepted.  It was not until I had the opportunity of meeting this individual in person and began observing him on a daily basis, that reality surfaced immediately.  My problem, by that time, was that I intentionally did not want to accept reality – in favor of the illusion.

Unfortunately, my refusal did nothing to neutralize and/or mitigate the circumstances I faced.  Instead, I became exceedingly vulnerable and horrified by the disparity between truth and illusion.  As emotionally upset as I became by what ultimately occurred, I nonetheless gained an invaluable lesson that led me to learn who I am, but, most importantly, who I am not.

Perhaps, the only positive spin for such a devastating, emotional debacle is the level of self-awareness that I finally achieved.  This heightened state of consciousness led me to fully accept and love the woman I am – and, no doubt, always have been.  Within this consciousness, I, in turn, realized that it had become critical for me to make life changes that would dramatically alter my life.  Learning and accepting the reality of who I am has enabled me to forgive myself for the seemingly ill-conceived decisions I made in my past.

I did not think it would ever be possible for me to realize self-forgiveness.  However, in the middle of the night when I had awakened and could not get back to sleep, I realized the culmination of experiencing the full gamut of my feelings had led to something that was life-changing for me. 

Learning to forgive myself has been liberating.  Self-forgiveness was not lurking just below the surface.  Rather, I had to dive deeply within before I could understand that any action I had taken over the years was nothing I had ever done out of revenge for anything I intentionally or maliciously hoped to achieve.  Instead, I have never done anything without considerable forethought and/or consideration. 

What eventually happened did not manifest as a brilliant light of recognition or celebration of perseverance.  Rather, I felt cleansed of any remaining doubt about the kind of person I now am.  In those early morning moments of strengthened awareness, I finally realized I had returned home to myself and that I could, at long last, face the end of my days with the full awareness that I had always done the best I was capable of doing. 

But, alas, it was not until someone intentionally and callously hurt me by spewing falsities (as though predicated on realty) that I began to fully understand that toxic people create  dysfunctional relationships and will behave as they always do – with careless disregard and/or a total lack of respect for others. 

I do realize some people allow their inner demons to guide their behavior.  How they choose to respond to life has nothing to do with any externality.  Rather, their toxic, dysfunctional behavior is the result of whether s/he has sufficiently, emotionally developed in response to life experiences.  The question of whether toxic, dysfunctional behavior is intentional becomes sadly irrelevant since such behavior is what it is -- nothing more. 

Alas, if anyone chooses to assume responsibility for the actions of another, I imagine all the unsuspecting individual will ultimately discover is the futility of accepting ill-conceived responsibility.  Inappropriately assuming responsibility for another’s behavior is as useless and without meaning as standing in the middle of heavy traffic and not taking necessary precautions to prevent a passing vehicle from striking us and causing damage. 

Consequently, and quite simply, it becomes critical to change our own behavior when establishing relationships of any kind.  Unfortunately, not all changes are necessarily as simple as we might imagine.  But, our need to change becomes critical.  One of my favorite quotes of Anais Nin is particularly poignant, i.e. “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  Anais Nin

And so it is that I continue to experience life-altering changes.  Nothing may have prepared me for the difficulty of such transformation – life does not become magically, mystically uncomplicated and/or easy.  Rather, change is precisely that – change. 

Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better.  To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.  King Whitney Jr.

 --

As Anais Nin has so eloquently stated, it is fundamentally impossible to return to the former state of the tight bud, even though we may have learned a particular pattern of behavior far more readily than that of any potential change.  However, the bud cannot go back into itself once it has blossomed.  Accordingly, the possibilities of change seem altogether inviting.

Life, as I have begun to live more fully in each moment, is simply amazing -- due to both its many textured layers AND because of  its ultimate simplicity.  

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 27, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

We are awakened -- We have come

We have come to Be Danced

Not the pretty dance

Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance

But the claw our way back into the Belly

Of the Sacred, Sensual Animal dance

The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box Dance

The holding the precious moment in the palms

Of our hands and feet Dance

We have come to Be Danced

Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance

But the wring the sadness from our skin dance

The Blow the chip off our shoulder Dance.

The slap the apology from our posture Dance

We have come to Be Danced

Not the monkey see, monkey do dance

One two Dance like you

One two three, Dance like me Dance

but the grave robber, tomb stalker

Tearing scabs and scars open Dance

The rub the Rhythm Raw against our Soul Dance

We have come to Be Danced

Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle

But the matted hair flying, Voodoo Mama

Shaman Shakin’ Ancient Bones Dance

The strip us from our casings, Return our Wings

Sharpen our Claws and Tongues Dance

The Shed Dead Cells and slip into

The Luminous Skin of Love Dance.

We have Come to Be Danced

Not the hold our breath wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance

But the Meeting of the Trinity, the Body Breath and Beat Dance

The Shout Hallelujah from the top of our Thighs Dance

The Mother may I?

Yes you may take 10 giant Leaps Dance

The olly olly oxen free free free Dance

The everyone can come to our Heaven Dance

We have come to Be Danced

Where the Kingdom’s Collide

In the Cathedral of Flesh

To Burn Back into the Light

To unravel, to Play, to Fly, to Pray

To root in skin sanctuary

We have come to Be Danced

We Have Come.

Jewel Mathieson 

Art by Julia C. Gray

www.awakeningwomen.com

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 27, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Precious moments that make me smile

I read two graphics today that were posted by some of the remarkable people that pass through cyberspace vis-a-vis Google Plus.  Each graphic gave me pause to marvel at people's demonic idiocy. 

It's an accurate assessment of my character to say that I have an exceedingly low threshold when it comes to people who loudly proclaim self-righteous indignation [think of the fundamental right ] as they bluster and pontificate about this, that and nothing at all -- implying they [and they alone] have any authentic worth -- harrumph.

As I sat, stewing in the cauldron of toxicity and mayhem that moronic stupidity engenders in my sensibilities, I realized that I was feeling overly burdened and weighed down by the unholy righteous contempt of people unworthy of any investment of my energies.  I mean -- really -- that ANYONE would dare to spout the Bible chapter and verse when they so clearly lack any depth of understanding of Christ consciousness and its complementary compassion was giving me serious indigestion.

As each graphic so poignantly reminded me -- well, anyway.  I finally stopped stewing and began to feel the warmth of love flow through me as I also began to simply feel grateful that I am who I am.

That brief respite reminded me of another graphic that represented quiet, gentle beauty I'd seen some time ago.  That, in turn, led me to remember how I felt watching Glenn Close and Janet McTeer share their talent in the film Albert Nobbs.  Talk about powerful, dramatic performances -- WOW.

What became evident to me as I began to shift my focus away from the folly of those who seem unwilling to think and/or feel, was what extraordinary beauty does exist all around us -- both within our own hearts or when we are touched by something external to us.

I am bathed in the wonder of how simply amazing these most precious moments can appear . . . whether a sardonic graphic, a moving portrayal of human interaction [including the disappointment of betrayal and true love] or the gentle depiction of a silent moment with a cup of tea, while gazing upon the splendor of a rose . . . SIMPLY AMAZING.

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 25, 2014
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Oftentimes it is simplicity that is SIMPLY AMAZING

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 25, 2014
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" . . . shines through you forevermore . . . "

“Grace is within you. Grace is your self. Grace is not something to be acquired from others. If it is external, it is useless. All that is necessary is to know its existence is in you. You are never out of its operation.”  Ramana Maharshi  [shared from a posting by Ram Dass on Facebook] 

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 24, 2014
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On the path of wholeness . . .

I speak of my past in impersonal, ways. I hereby disown anything painful from my personal history. I only keep the lessons and the love, and I let everything else go. All my memories are now healed and filled with supportive thoughts and feelings.

~ Release Your Past ~

Each fearful situation or relationship that you encounter creates attachments on the etheric plane, which we angels call "cords". While some people can see these ties, everyone feels them, and they can lead to fatigue and physical pain. We'll work with you to release the cords of fear.

You, like most people, have experienced circumstances that aroused alarm or pain within you. The way that you deal with your past determines what you'll attract in the future, so it's important to release anything that you'd like to avoid in times to come.

The first step in this process is to alter your vocabulary. It's important to refrain from using words that sound as though you are the owner of a painful occurrence, such as "my accident" or "our loss". Describe the event in a depersonalized way to help your aura detach from it.

If you think, speak, or write about a hurtful situation, be sure to talk about it in the third person - for example, "the accident" or "the loss". This decreases the power that the incident has over you and helps ensure that you won't continue to attract similar situations.

Doreen Virtue, Daily Guidance from Your Angels

I believe we become free of any struggle when we embrace the consciousness of 'letting go' with loving compassion. 

As for me?  It is my capacity for understanding and acceptance that led me to finally live within the consciousness of loving forgiveness.  I then experienced -- through the painful process of forgiving others AND myself -- true liberation is the result of being able to acknowledge AND accept all elements of my past as important aspects of my life journey.  

This critical step in my healing transformation provided me with what I 'needed' to become a wholly balanced, emotionally healthy woman.  

At NO point in my authentic healing journey did I experience 'disowning' my darker experiences, including anger, bitter disappointment, regret and/or any other aspect of emotional pain, as being healthy and/or transformative.

Learning to navigate the stormy sea of my emotional interior -- that once seemed so threatening -- was what led to my salvation and redemption.

By no longer allowing my past and darker emotions to control, overwhelm and/or define me, I ceased feeling controlled and, only then, did I know the simply amazing sense of my ultimate freedom.

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 23, 2014
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Living within the consciousness of Ubuntu . . .

A message for our global community that I read on Twitter.

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 23, 2014
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This Man Begs For Money Everyday. But What He Does With The Money He Collects Is Beyond Amazing. ‹ truthseekerdaily.com

This Man Begs For Money Everyday. But What He Does With The Money He Collects Is Beyond Amazing. ‹ truthseekerdaily.com

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 23, 2014
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It truly IS this simple -- not necessarily easy -- NECESSARILY SIMPLE

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 23, 2014
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Gandhi's Prayer for Peace

I offer you peace.
I offer you love.
I offer you friendship.
I see your beauty.
I hear your need.
I feel your feelings.
My wisdom flows from the Highest Source.
I salute that Source in you.
Let us work together for unity and love.
Gandhi; prayer for peace

Lesa for Heart Centered Rebalancing

Kaylene Willoughby,
Energy Medicine Practitioner/Healer www.HeartCenteredRebalancing.com

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 22, 2014
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Authentic abundance -- a SIMPLY AMAZING life experience

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 21, 2014
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Threshold emotions and the shadow side of solitude

Loneliness, like fear, is a threshold emotion--you have to pass through it if you want to enter the inner world. In fact, loneliness is the shadow side of solitude, that magical state that poets, mystics, and yogis celebrate as the great laboratory for spiritual growth.  Sally Kempton

image: A. Andrew Gonzalez

www.awakeningwomen.com

Sally Kempton

Getting to know you

Sally Kempton is one of today’s most authentic spiritual teachers. She teaches devotional contemplative tantra—an approach to practice that creates a fusion of knowing and loving. Known for her ability to transmit inner experience through transformative practices and contemplation, Sally has been practicing and teaching for forty years.

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 21, 2014
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Love has no boundaries

30 Children from different religions are casted together, featuring TINA TURNER, REGULA CURTI and DECHEN SHAK-DAGSAY, to lay the foundation for a new generation planting the seeds and nurturing unconditional love.

Directed by Xaver Walser, Music by Roland Frei.

More on www.beyondsinging.com 

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 20, 2014
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Tina Turner - Sarvesham Svastir Bhavatu

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 20, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

We can . . . LISTEN

We can grow by simply listening,
the way the tree on that ridge listens
its branches to the sky,
the way blood listens
its flow to the site of a wound,
the way you listen
like a basin when my head so full of grief
can’t look you in the eye.

We can listen our way
out of anger,
if we let the heart soften
the wolf we keep inside.
We can last by listening deeply,
the way roots reach for the next inch of earth,
the way an old turtle listens all he hears
into the pattern of his shell.

~ Mark Nepo

Just who IS Mark Nepo?

For years, I’ve been trying to explore and understand: How can we, being forgetfully human, remember we are of one human family? How can we stay awake and authentic when our wounds make us numb and hidden? How can we minimize what stands between us and our experience of life? How can we make a practice of wearing down what thickens around our mind and heart? How can this practice of staying authentic serve and draw strength from the Universal Whole while we are ever immersed and entangled in the moment of our lives?

As a cancer survivor, I have found myself like Lazarus, awake again, in the same earthly place but different. Everything has changed and nothing has changed. This wakefulness has led me to be a student of that vibrant edge where our inner life meets the world. Being a poet and philosopher, I find myself there with a particular set of tools to search with.

But we all live on this shore between the depths of being and the dangers of experience. My work has become a journal of the challenges and gifts of being a spirit in the world. And now, after dying and coming back, it’s really not about my books, but about the voice beneath my name keeping the song going. These books and the voices that inhabit them remain teachers and intimates. They’ve helped to uncover sketchy maps into the quandaries of being alive. When struggling through my illness, I was bereft at how many of the books I owned were useless. Ever since, I have been committed to finding and creating books that can help us live. It is my devout hope that the work you find here can be of use, can help.

 Source:  http://www.marknepo.com/index.php

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 20, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

I am the left brain.
I am a scientist. A mathmatician.
I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear.
Analytical. Strategic. I am practical.
Always in control. A master of words and language.
Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers.
I am order. I am logic.
I know exactly who I am.

I am the right brain.
I am creativity. A free spirit, I am passion.
Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of rearing laughter.
I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet.
I am movement. Vivid colors.
I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas.
I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel.
I am everything I wanted to be.

With heart-felt gratitude and awe-inspiring wonder to SolPurpose for this most remarkable post that streamed through my Facebook news feed on Thursday morning, February 20th.  Namaste`

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 20, 2014
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I will face my fears . . . To find my way --

"I Will Be" lyrics

Been caught in a downpour of a rain of stones
Felt like an exile in the world I had known
So I sought the shelter of my own soul
And stayed inside
-
I found no comfort in placing blame
I saw the hope that lay just beyond the pain
The past is a prison and I won't wear those chains
And I won't hide, oh no
-
[Chorus]

I will be here
I will be strong
I'll face my fears
When the night is long
And still go on
I will be brave
I will be bold
Follow my faith
To a higher road
And I'm not there yet
But I will be
-
I could choose to keep my feet upon the beaten path
Never cross the open field for the one snake in the grass
But I'd rather risk my heart then never get the chance
To find my way, to find my way

[Repeat Chorus]

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 19. 2014
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There is a force in the universe that is SIMPLY AMAZING

There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results. Mahatma Gandhi

Lesa for Heart Centered Rebalancing

Kaylene Willoughby, Owner - Energy Medicine Practitioner/Healer www.HeartCenteredRebalancing.com

With a heart filled with gratitude and grace, I share this message with everyone as a poignant reminder that the abundance in our lives [and that is always within our hearts] is nothing short of SIMPLY AMAZING . . . and so it is.

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 19, 2014
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When you hear that it doesn't matter

Women's Issues Matter: When you hear that it doesn't matter

FROM THE MAGGIE DENT WEBSITE | Maggie Dent is an author, educator, and parenting and resilience specialist with a particular interest in the early years and adolescence. Maggie is a passionate advocate for the healthy, commonsense raising of children in order to strengthen families and communities. She has a broad perspective and range of experience that shapes her work, a slightly irreverent sense of humour and a depth of knowledge based on modern research and ancient wisdom that she shares passionately in a commonsense way. [http://www.maggiedent.com/about]

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 15, 2014
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A Brief Discourse on the Reality of Love

Noun  An intense feeling of deep affection: "their love for their country".

Love isn't blind or deaf or dumb - in fact it sees far more than it will ever tell. It is going beyond yourself and stretching who you are for someone else. Being in love entails seeing someone as you wish they were: to love them is to see who they really are and still care for them. Love isn't bitter, but you can't have love without pain: sacrifice is the hallmark of love, the coin of love.

Being in love usually is used in a romantic sense when you meet your significant other transforming a normal relationship into a deeper one without further interest in others.

Love means that you trust the person, would do anything for the person, know that person is with you through thick and thin, isn't afraid to be seen with you. make sure they treat you right.

Source:  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_true_meaning_of_love_and_being_in_love

Is Love Losing its Meaning?

By Nathan Feiles

What is love?

This is a heavily debated topic. People often try to define love in terms of romantic euphoria; however, the word “love” generally is used so loosely that its meaning can become diluted. The truth is, “love” often is used to describe other emotions or strong feelings. Using the word “love” just saves us the trouble of having to figure out what we’re actually feeling. We can say we “love” anything, but what does love really mean to us?

Nathan Feiles is a counselor in New York City who specializes in relationships, fear of flying, life adjustments, anxiety, and stress & migraines. He is also the creator of Fear of Flying?...Not Anymore!, a unique program that helps people conquer fear of flying. Please visit his website and blog at www.therapynathan.wordpress.com for more information.

SOURCE:  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/07/30/is-love-losing-its-meaning/

Rog Walker New York-based Storyteller

The Meaning of Love

Broken promises surround those who look for love in the wrong places. When the person who promised to be there forever is not around anymore, when the pursuit of happiness loses its appeal, or when the passion that fueled your commitment cools, what then? Where is the meaning of love in those moments? Instead of looking for love, let's have and possess love; let's claim the love we've been shown and the love we've known. Claim the greatest, highest sense of love as your own, and then show that love to others.

As humans, we consistently take the infinite and subject it to our finite understanding. We try to know familial love, romantic love, infatuation, lust, passion, and desire, with the hope that true love lives around the corner. We try to divorce love from people by loving jobs, money, status, objects, and appearances. We try the opposite and look for love in people through relationships, friendships, socializing, and sex. We fail, spectacularly and repeatedly, to realize that none of those things are love. Even following your dreams, your heart, and your calling are merely noble ideas compared to love's great, uncontainable force. Sooner or later, the things we mistakenly call by love's name will reveal themselves to be incapable of holding that value.

Love is everlasting and seeks expression. Love is deep and incomprehensible. True love has eternal, unfailing depth and worth. Love with and through your art, your relationships, and your dreams, rather than seeking meaning in those things alone. To know love and to show love is to believe in eternal value.

Seek that which is enduring and everlasting.

Source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rog-walker/the-meaning-of-love_b_1274250.html

Everlasting Love: How do you know if it's for real?

by DiscoveryHealth.com writers

Your heart races every time he calls and your palms sweat whenever he's near. You think he may be "the one." But how do you know if this is the real thing?

Dennis Neder, author of Being a Man in a Woman's World (Remington Publications, 2000), says love has three stages: the infatuation stage, the bonding stage and the familiar stage. Dr. Neder, an ordained minister and doctor of metaphysics, says it helps to consider all three stages when determining if you have the real thing.

The infatuation stage is when you can't wait to be with the other person. This is the romantic stage of love, says Dr. Neder, who warns that this is the stage when people thinks it's "the real thing." But this stage lasts only a short time.

The second stage, says Dr. Neder, is the bonding stage. During this stage you get to know the other person and you start planning aspects of your life around them. If you continue through this stage you eventually enter the third stage, or what Dr. Neder calls "the familiar phase."

In the familiar stage you've established a pattern that involves the other person. "Your lives become intertwined and merged," Dr. Neder says. "You know foundationally how the other person feels about almost everything. And interestingly," says Dr. Neder, "you also become refocused on you

SOURCE:  http://health.howstuffworks.com/relationships/love/everlasting-love-how-do-you-know-if-its-for-real.htm

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T.S. Eliot
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse      A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,      Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.      Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo      Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,      Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.* [If I believed that my reply were       A person who never returned to the world,       This flame without more staria shock.       But for they never have to this fund       I have not been any live, s'i'odo the truth,       Without fear of infamy I answer. *from Google translation] Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question… Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— [They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.      So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?      And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.      And should I then presume?      And how should I begin?           . . . . .

 Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
          . . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep… tired… or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
     Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
     That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
     "That is not it at all,
     That is not what I meant, at all."
          . . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Commenary by John Paul Riquelme

The complications of "Prufrock" involve from the poem's beginning a more direct transformation of the dramatic monologue than does "Gerontion" when the pronouns that "I" uses suggest the presence of an unspecified listener. In many dramatic monologues the listener is also not specified, and the reader is invited to take over the role of listener in a one-sided conversation. In "Prufrock," however, it is not clear whether a real conversation is being dramatically presented, whether the "I" is having an internal colloquy with himself, or whether the reader is being addressed directly. The "you" that is "I"'s counterpart stands in two places at once, both inside and outside Prufrock's mind and inside and outside scenes that can with difficulty be imagined based on the minimal details provided. The reader's situation resembles the position of the viewer of Velásquez's "Las Meninas," in which a mirror invites an identification with the observers of the scene depicted in the painting while the painting's geometry indicates that the illusion of that identification can be sustained only by ignoring obvious details. Reader and viewer stand both inside and outside the frame of an illusion that cannot be sustained.

Two epigraphs from Dante precede and follow the poem's title, one for the entire volume that takes its name from "Prufrock," the other for the poem itself, which stands first in the volume. Together they suggest the oscillation and indeterminacy of Prufrock's position and the reader's. In the first epigraph, Statius mistakes Virgil's shade for a "solid thing" and forgets momentarily what he himself is and can do. In the second, Guido da Montefeltro predicates his address to Dante on the opposite mistake, that Dante is not human and cannot carry his words further. Like Statius and Guido, the reader who tries to pin down the indeterminate identities and locations of "you and I" in the poem will always be mistaken. What is taken for a shade or a figment may be flesh and blood, and what is taken for living flesh may be only a figment in a perpetual instability that marks "Prufrock," like "Rhapsody," as the transforming end of a sequence of poems to which it can be said to belong but some of whose implications it subverts. The subversion occurs largely through the removal of those referential, seemingly stable elements of scene and character that contribute to making the illusion of hearing a personal voice in poetry possible.

Eliot's particular transformation of the dramatic monologue in "Prufrock" depends on the character of the pronouns "you" and "I," which linguists call "shifters" because they are mutually defining and depend for their meanings on the pragmatic context of the discourses in which they occur. Instead of naming something unchanging, these pronouns indicate positions that can be variously occupied.

From Harmony of Dissonances: T.S. Eliot, Romanticism, and Imagination. Copyright © 1991 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Roger Mitchell

J. Alfred Prufrock is not just the speaker of one of Eliot's poems. He is the Representative Man of early Modernism. Shy, cultivated, oversensitive, sexually retarded (many have said impotent), ruminative, isolated, self-aware to the point of solipsism, as he says, "Am an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress, start a scene or two." Nothing revealed the Victorian upper classes in Western society more accurately, unless it was a novel by Henry James, and nothing better exposed the dreamy, insubstantial center of that consciousness than a half-dozen poems in Eliot's first book. The speakers of all these early poems are trapped inside their own excessive alertness. They look out on the world from deep inside some private cave of feeling, and though they see the world and themselves with unflattering exactness, they cannot or will not do anything about their dilemma and finally fall back on self-serving explanation. They quake before the world, and their only revenge is to be alert. After Prufrock and Other Observations, poetry started coming from the city and from the intellect. It could no longer stand comfortably on its old post-Romantic ground, ecstatic before the natural world.

from A Profile of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Ed. Jack Myers and David Wojahan. Copyright © 1991 by Southern Illinois UP.

SOURCE:  http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/prufrock.htm

Stephanie Doty
Simply Amazing
February 14, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/