In 1985 I studied T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and it became my bible. I have a paperback edition that has followed me into every classroom, that stays in my car when I'm not teaching, that is rarely beyond arm's length. The whole collection is always teaching me - and right now this is the passage from which I am learning, again.
"You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not."
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1 comment:
I used the original Eliot quote in an assignment on re-seeing and revision in memoir class! Extraordinary how our writer minds/hearts are in synch! I love your way with these words.
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