As regular readers will know, my daughter and I have embarked on a little adventure together. We’ve gone back to grad school and, yes, we’ve survived our first (virtual) class. I won’t go into a whole lot of detail because we are also creating a weekly podcast that will chronicle our progress in more detail than anyone probably needs, but we’re waiting to launch until we’ve got a couple of episodes in the proverbial can.
Discussing our responses to the weekly readings has been a lot of fun (so far… ask me again how I’m feeling toward the end of the semester). And, being old and crotchety, I’m absolutely loving being unapologetically opinionated. Plato - mansplaining his way into a questionable analysis of the nature of love had me spewing complaints all over the podcast and my first assignment. False modesty and mansplaining are two pet peeves and Plato’s Phaedrus provided plenty of both. If Plato annoyed me and had me longing for the dialogues to come to a speedy end, I swooned over fragments of Sappho’s poetry and lusted for more.
For my written response to the readings (we have to provide one each week), I came up with a somewhat irreverent poem titled If Plato and Sappho Had a Soul-Baby. As you might expect, it’s frustratingly incomplete - fragmented, as are the few remnants of Sappho’s poems that have survived through the ages.
What the heck? I’m here to enjoy myself, read some stuff I’ve never read before, and am not really interested in being right or impressing anyone.
What did impress me about Plato, though, was his attempt to describe elusive concepts like the soul or the known limits of the universe using concrete imagery. As I was deciphering his analogy of the soul as a charioteer with two horses, or the birthing of a soul as if feathers were sprouting through human skin, or the way in which enlightened souls fly higher and higher (closer to the plane of being where the gods hang out), I found myself wondering what it would be like to try to draw or paint those images/concepts.
And so, there’s your explanation for the odd work that accompanies this newsletter.
Have you ever attempted to draw the soul? If so, I’d love to see what you came up with…
And, throwing all caution to the wind… here’s the fragmented poem as well… most of the words stolen from Plato and Sappho and reorganized a bit…
If Plato and Sappho Had a Soul-baby
perpetual flight
in ceasing from movement, perishes.
principle into being
at all. does not perish
First either be destroyed
come into being, or else the whole
universe collapse
immortal
no shame
essence of soul.
powerful winged team
dark, surly
all that is light and good.
travel above earth
borne aloft by wings designed
carry what is heavy upwards.
horses grazing in a meadow
there rose
the rattle of castanets
all the chariots
road to great Olympus.
Stand upon the outer rim of the heavens
turn gaze upon
what is unseen
but for Aphrodite.
Why come this time
to speak
reading, the ruin of memory
When you are dead you will lie forever unremembered
fragments.
Deathless Aphrodite, you asked,
what in my heart
longs for an orphan, ugly, weak
Draped in burlap
pull her rags
down over her ankles.
Come… walk with me
fairest of stars
gardens of letters.
wowwwwww. as always, am agog at your lovely sentences, brightness, quickness, and your art -- ! this is so good. Thank you.
Comment in Notes. I restocked--and I think you are doing terrific: always learning, writing, going forward. Amazing, Nikki.