To Know William Shakespeare ...

The lunatic, the lover and the poet, at this point in the month of April, celebrate, honor and acknowledge the life and art of a man, William Shakespeare by name, whose impact upon Western literature and Western culture resonates more strongly year upon year. Shakespeare's art has also influenced culture in the East - witness the work of Akira Kurosawa.

In the West the phenomenon of the 'letters to Juliet' is a case in point for Shakespeare's influence. When I learned last year that a movie with that title was to be released I just shook my head. I figured the letters to Shakespeare's tragic fictional lover were meant to be only narrative devices to entice us. Not so.

I stumbled across a copy of the book of that title by Lise Friedman and Ceil Friedman and learned that letters to Juliet, all with love as their 'argument,' have been left at her tomb and mailed to the city of Verona, Italy for nearly 200 years. Veneration at a tomb reputed to be that of Juliet Capulet has, since early in the 19th century (early 1800s), attracted "an increasing number of pilgrims ... (Curiously, as the adoration of Juliet increased over time, Romeo's 'presence' was no longer required.)"

As I wrote previously, I believe Romeo to be William Shakespeare's alter ego, shall I say, so his presence is vital to an appreciation of Juliet's character and William Shakespeare himself. Some may ask why anyone cares anymore about "a pair of star-crossed lovers" who end their plight by taking their own lives. Many young women, in fact, dismiss Juliet for just that: "Kill yourself over a guy? That's just stupid."

As the centuries of veneration of and letters to Juliet attest, the story of these lovers has taken root in the world's imagination. Imagination has a vital influence upon one's heart and mind, thus whatever influences it deserves consideration and study. In this case the influence derives from the mind of William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon. Yet what can we know of the presence which considered Juliet's model and crafted this character? Nearly 450 years after his birth William Shakespeare's life is cloaked more in mystery than buttressed by material evidence. We ask, to borrow from Yeats, "Those masterful images because complete/Grew in pure mind but out of what began?"

Quite simply I believe that Shakespeare gave us clues about himself in his art, most especially in "Romeo and Juliet." To begin this study, however, I turn to Sonnet #76 because in it the reader learns that Shakespeare's love, the Dark Lady, is the ALL of his art. His verse is "barren of new pride," "far from variation," and all his "best is dressing old words new." He states that "every word doth almost tell my name." "O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,/And you and love are still my argument."

Read his work, read him.

The couplet concluding the sonnet packs in some significant information: "For as the sun is daily new and old,/So is my love still telling what is told." That pair of words 'my love' signifies two subjects - his love as a state of mind and heart; his love as the object of his love who is, herself, "telling what is told." The allusion to the sun in the couplet points our attention to Juliet, the light breaking the darkness, and indicates to me that the play is as much about Romeo's/William Shakespeare's mind as hers.

In fact what emerges is a portrait of two lovers who have become one love. Know one, understand one of the lovers, and the other is known and understood. There is an intimation of this in the dialogue of each. "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven/Having some business, do entreat her eyes/To twinkle in their spheres till they return." (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.15-17) "Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die/ Take him and cut him out in little stars/And he will make the face of heaven so fine." (Romeo and Juliet, III.ii.22-25)

Together, wedded, they are heaven's light, sun and stars. Romeo is to Juliet a face of heaven so fine, so to speak, and Juliet is for Romeo "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear." Heavenly love, a beautiful life - right? Love, heaven, beauty - what could go wrong? Such dear, rich beauty of body and mind - why end it in suicide?

This is the challenge of the play, I think. It is not easy to see love die - until one realizes that the death, the suicide, is symbolic. The deaths of Romeo and Juliet are tragic, yes, but beyond that they are a dramatization of verse 33 of the gospel of Luke, chapter 17: "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." Romeo and Juliet take their lives IN their own hands, demonstrating theatrically this teaching.

The decision to take one's own life in one's own hand, to guide one's life by one's own compass, was quite daring for someone living in the repressive society of Tudor England. There were any number of entities vying for authority over the lives of others (church, state, family, spouse, guild, censor). Every would-be authority had its preconceived notions about what should be and was willing to enforce them. Transgressors were stigmatized, exiled, or executed.

The consequences of one's actions weighed heavily upon the mind even if the transgression was known only to oneself. It could be a bed of thorns, lying awake contemplating the regrets and anxieties of things done or not done, things said or not said. These two lovers, however, looked at what they truly were, not merely at their regrets or at what others held they should be.

As I wrote previously, Shakespeare portrayed his love, Romeo's Juliet, as living at a higher level of consciousness than he lived when they met. He learned of his Self, in part, from her, and I think we see evidence of her tuition in some of Juliet's lines, which echo some verses from St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. Compare, "Thou art thyself, though not a Montague./What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,/Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part/Belonging to a man," (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.42-45) with, "For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." ... "If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,' is it therefore not of the body?" (I Corinthians 12: 12, 15)

His love's singular point to William Shakespeare, as I see it, is that one aspect of one's self, one's experience, does not constitute the whole Self.

Shakespeare's allusion to this chapter of First Corinthians sheds light on the character of Juliet's Nurse and her influence in the girl's life. Verse 13 of I Cor. 12 instructs that all have "been made to drink into one Spirit." I feel strongly that it is that drinking of the one Spirit that Shakespeare intends us to understand in the Nurse's discourse (I.iii.18-53) about nursing Juliet as a babe.

As a babe Juliet, the Dark Lady, was fed upon the Spirit and grew with its nourishment into the woman who came to love William Shakespeare. Again, I Corinthians influences Will's art in offering an image of this nourishment and learning: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."

Juliet learned, as did Shakespeare, to examine all they had ever learned about themselves, all their 'methoughts,' to use some lines from Nick Bottom, the Weaver in "A Midsummer Night's Dream": "Methought I was -- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was and methought I had -- but man is a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had."

That reference to "a patched fool" calls to mind another teaching from the gospel of Luke, 5:36: "Then He spoke a parable to them: 'No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.'" Romeo/Will, it seems, looked at all the 'methoughts' he'd learned to apply to himself and realized, "Tut, I have lost myself. I am not here./This is not Romeo. He's some other where." (I.i.205-6) Juliet illumined his life and mind and he understood he needed a new garment of Self, not some foolish patch job that would disintegrate.

So, in what spirit does one reconceive one's concept of Self? As Juliet and love are all his argument he constantly thinks on truth and beauty because the Dark Lady, still telling what is told, taught him according to Philippians 4:8: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there by any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

They each considered these things and forged for themselves a 'marriage of true minds.' Romeo alludes to this when he says, in effect, that Juliet's eyes are stars. She sees as he sees, he sees as she sees.

In "Romeo and Juliet" we glimpse Juliet as a babe even as we see her as a teen. Further, as I

think the Dark Lady was approximately the same age as William Shakespeare, and that she was known to the theater crowd, I sense he wrote the part of Juliet at the behest of that crowd. I also sense he wanted the crowd to see Juliet and think of this verse, Philippians 4:9: "Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me (Juliet) do: and the God of peace shall be with you."

I have come to see this play as being existential, just as "Hamlet" is. Yet, lest we feel Juliet's death was an unnecessary end consider, please, Luke 8:52-55, the story of the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, thought to be dead: "Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, 'Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping.' And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. But he put them all out, took her by the hand and called, saying, 'Little girl, arise.' Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And he commanded that she be given something to eat."

[[Scripture verses: Luke 33:17 NKJV, Luke 5:36 NKJV, Luke 8:52-55 NKJV; I Corinthians 12, 12, 15 KJV, I Corinthians 12:13 KJV, I Corinthians 3:1-2 KJV, Philippians 4:8 KJV, Philippians 4:9 KJV. As I understand it, the King James Bible is the closest to the Geneva Bible, which was in use for much of Shakespeare's life.]]

[[Bibliography: Friedman, Lise. Friedman, Ceil. "Letters to Juliet." New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2006.

Yeats, William Butler. "The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats (Richard J. Finneran, ed.)." New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1996.

All references to Shakespeare's plays are to those published by the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.]]

[[Photos: Top - Homemade birthday cake for my son, April, 2011; Middle - the Sun on my courtyard wall, April, 2011; Bottom - roses in a McCoy pitcher, 2011 (all by Barbara Butler McCoy)]]

World Water Day 2011

"Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time
like dew on the tip of a leaf."

Sir Rabindranath Tagore

[[Photo: Dew on a hosta leaf, May 2008,
Barbara Butler McCoy]]

Chillin' Out

A bunch of flakes decided to combine their weight and drift into town with their wintery brand of chaos.

I've lived in Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and Wisconsin, among other places, so I am no stranger to winter weather. This feels pretty nice, in fact, especially since I've shaken the stomach bug that beset me in the middle of the night of the 8th, about 24 hours before the snow began to fall.

Life in this city is beginning to revive. I cannot almost hear the gears turning, looking for their rhythm.

I stepped out of my house several days after first snowfall and found these images.

[[Photos: My house, 01/12/11, Barbara Butler McCoy; Ice on the Street, 01/12/11, Barbara Butler McCoy; Sky on the Street, 01/12/11, Barbara Butler McCoy]]

On the Beach

On Thanksgiving Eve, before the arrival of dear friends and the 'Super Bowl of Cooking,' I wandered out into the ferocious wind for a solitary stroll to see what I could see. With the sun slowly sinking toward twilight the landscape in the shadow of the dunes looked a bit alien to me. Some of the things tossed up by the wild surf piqued my interest. The object resembling a boat was originally, perhaps, someone's lost sneaker; my curiosity compelled me to poke at the strange twisted object - someone's black sweater gone missing! As for the trio of shells and the tire track, I simply liked the juxtaposition.

[[All photos Barbara Butler McCoy, November 24, 2010]]

'Postcards': Wishing You Were Here

The days here in 'Barb-World' (as my husband calls it) have been busy - busy with a capital 'B'. The story pieces are accumulating like the leaves on the forest floor. While I cannot share what I am working on yet, I can tell you I am loving it. Time and again I remember something the director Baz Luhrmann ("Romeo + Juliet," "Strictly Ballroom") said in response to "Why Shakespeare?": "...if you are going to get up at five o'clock every morning for two years you have to have a hell of a lot of passion about something." Oh yea.

The passion I have for storytelling keeps me trying, digging, refining, heading back to the drawing board - and doing a triumphant solo dance when something comes together better than I'd dreamt. [So that explains the photo of my mp3 player and my eraser - because if you don't make some mistakes you aren't trying hard enough, eh?]

One of the really interesting aspects of 'Barb-World' is the occurrence of something called 'synesthesia.' One definition is as follows: A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. More often than not it is either the sight of color or the rhythm of music that sets me off spinning another web of story.

The past week or so I have been contemplating the work of two excellent dancers - our own Gene Kelly (born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1912) and Jean Butler (a native of New York). I fell in love with Gene Kelly's work when I was about twelve years old and, during my husband's naval career, I thought of Kelly's dancing whenever I heard "Anchors Aweigh!" I can easily imagine the work of this dancer from Pittsburgh, a dancer with a fierce work ethic, inspiring young people with a passion for dance,like Jean Butler.

To me they are to dance what William Shakespeare is to literature - so very good at what they do that I am inspired to go beyond "good enough." Maybe it is a matter of not being easily satisfied because if it is worth doing, it is worth doing well.

So, if you'll excuse me, I will leave you with some photos of the gorgeous leaves I see as I work at my desk or in my courtyard, and I'll get on back to work.

Dia de los Muertes

Poets and peacemakers

along the way

before me, behind me -

me in between.

No better than any, nor worse -

simply walking, begging

Your pardon for the curses,

Your indulgence for the slips.

In Your continuum I tread -

the lines, etched into my palm -

stepping with the pulse

echoing since dawn.

We will carry it through

round and round again,

generation upon generation,

until the dreaming is done.

Barbara Butler McCoy

[[Photo: Barbara Butler McCoy;
Bee foraging for pollen; zoo,

Columbia, SC; September 2008]]

Two candles I lit this morning after Mass, for the Ancestors and Ancestresses. Since then my thoughts have been with those who have gone before and those who are to come. This, my acknowledgement, my tribute, is how those thoughts resolved into a coherent piece. I was inspired in part by William Butler Yeats's poem "Pardon Old Fathers" (from Responsibilities, 1914), in part by a line from Prospero's epilogue in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" ("let your indulgence set me free") and a quote I found from Thich Nhat Hanh which is as follows: "If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people."

Blessings and peace to them.

"The Creative Journey"

On Tuesday afternoon, October 19, 2010, I had the singular pleasure of joining a few thousand people gathered on the campus of Emory University to hear the artists Richard Gere (actor) and Alice Walker (poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning author) in a conversation with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama about "The Creative Journey: Spirituality and Creativity." What follows is my synthesis of a number of points the trio touched upon during that presentation.

One question initiated their discussion: "Do the arts have a special role in deepening compassion?"

His Holiness speculated that such a role is possible for artists in that the performing arts (he mentioned music and dance specifically) are ways "to convey some message." His Holiness observed, however, that much of the media expends itself promoting instant gratification and distraction. As I consider that observation I agree that such practices in the media foster impatience and an inability to focus beyond surface qualities. This clearly is counterproductive to a depth of compassion, spirituality or understanding of truth.

For millennia sages the world over have taught that the 'greater path follows the heart as well as the spirit.' With that in mind, and as it is clear in my posts on this blog that I choose to follow the path of the heart, I take this opportunity to respond to the discussion of the arts as a vehicle for deepening compassion.

Quite early in the discussion Mr. Gere described his view of the divergent motivations for creativity of Westerners and Tibetans - dreams and a desire for clarity, respectively. As I listened I noted that the pursuit of art in an effort to express, fulfill, or share a dream could be followed in the service of achieving clarity. Ms. Walker agreed with the need for clarity. Art can "help us to see" and, one hopes, guide us to deal with compassion for others once we gain our sight.

Mr. Gere, echoing some assessments of William Shakespeare's work, opined that the arts hold a mirror up to our lives so "we can see ourselves truer and ... deeper within the human context." Much later in the discussion he pointed out that humanity is deeply interconnected, thus, "We are responsible for our world."

As I see it, if one accepts that each of us is responsible for our world the question is, "What, then, are an artist's responsibilities for which he or she will be held accountable?" Mr. Gere stated succinctly, "Creativity is essentially storytelling." I agree, and allowing that the responsibility

of art is to tell the human story the question becomes, "What stories will artists choose to tell, and why?"

For my part the range of human experience - the beauty and majesty, the horror and despair - appear infinite,

thus providing infinite stories to reflect upon all aspects of the truth of humanity and bring clarity to all of them. I offer the opinion, my own, that creative acts of artists can be acts of compassion. A definition of compassion is "sympathetic feeling"; "sympathy" is understood to be the capacity for entering into and sharing the feelings or interests of another.

A creative act can highlight and examine some portion of the human experience and, in the process, make sense of it for some or call it to the attention of others. Helping others to see more clearly does indeed engender compassion. "Until you see people," Ms. Walker asserted, "It is very difficult to have compassion for them."

Mr. Gere noted that, "Every situation is a possibility for transcendence," pointing out the "extraordinary levels of grace" writers in the Soviet Union evinced in their work despite the oppression they endured. His Holiness agreed with this, calling the "flowering of compassion" blooming from that oppression "a paradox."

In my mind, as I review my notes of the discussion I find myself thinking that the Creative Journey sounds much like Joseph Campbell's description of the hero's journey: a journey into terra incognita to return with a boon for oneself and the society. Here I point to another paradox of human experience: beauty and light may be terra incognita for some while darkness and horror are alien to others. To deny some part of the human story will leave some portion of humanity yearning.

In light of that I must share one of His Holiness' more emphatic points. He stated firmly that when you are about to embark upon something you must really examine whether or not this is for you. If you do not do this, and if you set out unprepared, you will leave behind you a trail of unfinished business.

At that point I recalled a statement by Mr. Gere, at another point

in the discussion, that His Holiness is someone who has to continually work to be who he is. I understand this to be an integral part of the Creative Journey as well - a constant assessment of consciousness and cultivation of clarity. To neglect this invites imbalance and pulls the artist from the creative and compassionate path. While His Holiness alluded to the wisdom of mental conditioning as a part of the process of cultivating clarity, he did allow that the ego plays an important role as well. He asserted that self-confidence, a "sense of a strong self," is important because, "If we don't have a sense of who I am or what I can do it wouldn't be much."

For two hours on Tuesday the evolving stories, the lives, of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, Alice Walker, and thousands of others converged on a southern academic campus. Whatever art springs from that experience is yet to be seen, but it will be central to humanity.