Drawing the soul

Plato made me do it

Apparently, going back to school is going to force me to think about the BIG QUESTIONS. [N. Tate]

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.

The dark horse keeps trying to drag the soul down towards debaucherous earthly delights… the other horse is doing its best to guide the soul skyward toward truth, knowledge, and enlightenment. The charioteer has his hands full… [N. Tate]

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.

My attempt to draw the fallen soul… one that has lost its wings. Words by Plato (“Phaedrus”) [N. Tate]

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.