Last week we took a brief look at T.S. Eliot’s No. 1 Quartet of his “Four Quartets” and his poetic thoughts on linear time.
This week I’d like to take short snippets from his 2nd Quartet (East Coker) and his 4th Quartet (Little Gidding). Please keep in mind that I am sharing my interpretations and that I’m barely scratching the surface of Eliot’s writings. It’s my hope that you might explore, and interpret these, on your own; see where they take you.
Eliot began East Coker with: “In my beginning is my end” and he closed the poem with, “In my end is my beginning.”
In his 4th Quartet, he wrote:
“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.”
Pretty cool, right? On planet Earth, we can find that every ending makes a new beginning.
Every new beginning is because of an end.
So to have a new beginning, you have to have an end.
Empty Your Cup
As we work on healing and releasing our pasts, healing ourselves, healing our planet, we are working to create an end so that we can have a new beginning; a better beginning. In our lives sometimes something has to come to an end so that we can have that new beginning.
When learning about energy, the metaphysical and spiritual, we often have to let go of unhelpful-to-us-now habits and beliefs. Then we have to explore to see what we want to accept or create.
An old Zen saying goes something along the lines of: “You are like this cup; you are full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can’t put anything in. Before I can teach you, you’ll have to empty your cup.”
Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui wrote an article “Let Go of What Was to Make Space for What Will Be” for becomingminimalist.com/make-space/. The title itself says a lot.
Death of a Loved One
We are like the baby who feels the loss if Mom is out of sight…even for a game of peek-a-boo. The physical existence teaches us that if it’s no longer viewable or seen, it is gone…forever.
For example, when we lose a loved one, we feel the loss – the emptiness – where we perceived the deceased loved one once used to reside around and within us.
But that is a physical belief. Remember that we are spiritual beings having a physical life experience. We are energy beings ourselves, and when we release the physical game of life once again, we remember that energy is never gone – merely transformed. It doesn’t end…it just has a new beginning.
Our deceased loved one no longer exists in the physical body (aka meat suit) any longer, but they – their essence, their energy, their beingness – lives on in another energetic form. They did not, and do not, cease to exist. They ended their physical experience and transformed back into their non-physical energetic self. Yes, I agree, it is still hard to not miss their physical presence as we continue on with our own physical life experience journey.
Endings & Beginnings
Endings and beginnings aren’t just about physical life and death. There are endings and beginnings around us daily.
I challenge you to spend a week noticing the endings and beginnings in your life.
– The end of an awesome day or week and the beginning of a new day/week and its wondrous possibilities.
– The end of an old hairstyle and the beginning of something new.
– And so much more new beginnings that require and end for it to “be” – whether it’s something large or small.
Like an infinity symbol, as energy moves it can change its form, but it doesn’t cease to exist. And I believe Eliot was trying to remind us of this when he wrote:
“In my beginning is my end” and “In my end is my beginning.”
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by Jan Toomer
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