You Likely Need Vitamin D and a Poem -- Putting the Spring in Spring Holidays

Dear Bleaders,

Bored? Listless at the grocery story? Pale and beyond yourself? Perhaps you need a holiday.

Do I mean the tanning and nothingness holiday of “vacation”? Sure - but not only that. What I’m talking about is religious and cultural holidays. If they don’t sound appealing—that’s what needs fixing.

Historically, human beings live from holiday to holiday. A few days after one kind of traditional cookie disappears for a year, there’s a new holiday coming and it’s time to bake its traditional foods. And whether or not you get hot for hotcakes, something likely lights your candle. One of the regular features is rereading a poem, or some kind of short beautiful, stirring text.

But today we’ve got some impoverished holidays. It’s not just that we don’t believe in the supernatural stories that may be associated with the holiday. It’s that each holiday used to mean something specific. It’s a loss.

So when a penance and forgiveness holiday comes around, give some thought to the grudges you are holding, and consider apologizing to anyone you may have harmed. If you are in need of assistance with these things, I’d consider doing what so many have done before you. Most common for forgiveness is fasting and washing/bathing. Do the ritual from the religion you grew up with, or one to which you feel a connection.

I wrote The Wonder Paradox to answer some of the persistent questions from the Q & A of my Doubt talks. One thing I discovered was that a lot of people who no longer believe in God or the supernatural still take part in religion—and a lot of them feel guilty about it. Whether it’s as small a matter as showing up to a Christmas party, or attending a church wedding, or as large as taking part in many church doings, or even being the priest. As a historian, it seemed clear to me that unbelievers have also inherited these religious traditions, and their engagement with it is just as valid as is that of a stone-cold believer.

Still, we have to give some real thought to what these holidays mean, and we have to ask ourselves what words we repeat as part of their ritual. If no text in the holiday leaves you carbonated or at least gently stirred, than add a poem. Find one of your favorite poems, or go looking for a spring poem, and make a point of reading it on the holiday.

We’ve got a bunch of holidays coming up in the next two months. There’s Ramadan, Easter, Passover, and Earth Day. These include subholidays and traditions of fasting, feasting on meats, gorging on candy, and eating odd symbolic items, such as bitter herbs dipped in salt water, or chocolate eggs and bunnies. There is not much to say about Earth Day, as it is a young holiday and doesn’t have a ton of traditions. It’s a perfect moment for a poem.

Not that it’s spring yet in NYC which is where I’m at. One day it’s warm, and you’re sprung and springy living sigh to sigh, next day it’s frigid again and your soul goes rigid and you’re wry and dry again.

For that sense of almost being said, almost seen, here’s a classic spring poem by the great Philip Larkin.

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too,

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Maybe in my next post I’ll say a bit about why this poem is such a classic, is so beloved. Here I’ll just say that the strange second line is all potential energy, conjuring the almost spring place we are in now. It’s peculiarity stops us. And what of “Their greenness is a kind of grief.”? The word green has so many meanings and all of them can break our hearts, innocence, growth, watching growth from afar. Knowing that innocence will meet with grief, we grieve.

Any thoughts? Have you got a poem or lines of literature that you think of in spring?

Oh and one last thing. We changed the subtitle of The Wonder Paradox. It was

The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives

which I loved but is a lot to say, with

The Wonder Paradox: Awe, Poetry, and the Meaningful Life

which is shorter and somehow more to the point.

Of course a lot of holidays don’t go off the way we want them to and we can get the sads. Just remember there are a lot of people like you and we’re all boiling in the same cauldron, I’m sorry it gets so scorchy but there are so many of us that the water might lose its boil, if you see what I’m saying. It’s an anxious world out there and in here but when I try hard to believe in the inner lives of other people, and follow the circuit of the seasons, I survive. See you next Thursday.

love,

Jennifer

Party with the Interfaithless

Dear Bleaders (blog readers),

When I went to write this blog post, the website offered me AI to write it! I said, “Okay, write a post in my voice talking about my term Poetic Atheism.” Except for the my voice part, it did very well. I mean, it doesn’t even take a stab at sounding me-like, but it has an appealing clarity. I don’t use phrases like “At its core” for example because it feels wooden, overused, though I realize such phrases can make readers feel comfortable. You can relax when many of the words are not load bearing. I’m just a bird of another feather.

Here’s what the AI wrote for me:

Poetic Atheism, a notion I invented, seeks to reconcile the mystery and wonder of existence without the reliance on supernatural beliefs. As an advocate of reason and poetry, I find solace in the marriage of these seemingly disparate realms.
At its core, Poetic Atheism invites us to embrace the beauty of the natural world, the richness of human emotions, and the complexity of our shared experiences without the need for divine intervention. It encourages us to marvel at the universe's grandeur, to find meaning in the fleeting moments of existence, and to cultivate a deep appreciation for the interconnectedness of all life forms.
In essence, Poetic Atheism invites us to be present in the world, to engage with the complexities of existence, and to find beauty and purpose in the everyday moments that define our lives. It is a celebration of the human experience, a tribute to the power of language and imagination, and a reminder of the enduring capacity of the human spirit to find meaning and inspiration in a world that is both vast and unknowable.
As we continue to explore the boundaries of knowledge and understanding, let us not forget the importance of poetry in shaping our perceptions of the world and our place within it. Let us embrace the tenets of Poetic Atheism as a pathway to greater self-awareness, empathy, and appreciation for the wonders of the natural world.

“Let us not forget the importance of…” I don’t think anyone talks like this anymore, let alone me.

When I wrote The Wonder Paradox I’d started with a proposal for a book called Poetic Atheism. I’d been giving talks on poetic atheism for years. The point was, at first, to explain to the atheist community that science was great but we also need poetry, and to explain to the poet minded that beliefs and unbeliefs matter, to many of us, even if it makes one feel crass or adolescent to speak of these things. It matters keenly to the meaning of life and to the separation of church and state.

When talking about my book, people ask me about my own religious identity and I never know what I’ll say. Most often I start with “Well, I’m a Poetic Atheist, and Jewish. I made up Poetic Atheism. It means an unbelief that turns to the arts for meaning.”

Sometimes I say that I’m a member of the Interfaithless, another term that I made up and decided to go with because it makes me laugh and because the important part is the “inter.” The Interfaithless should be aware of one another, though we may each be alone at a ceremony, each not believing in our own religions, we are joined together if we want to be. I also try “Poetic Realist” because all the others posit a god and then reject him. But the quickest way to be understood is to say I’m a poetic atheist.

From the start poetic atheism was unusual in its friendliness to religious ritual, but as time has advanced, the idea of living a poetic life, partly through poetic ritual, has become key.

The Consciousness Paradox is that the meat, your brain, thinks. The Wonder Paradox is that your brain finds this universe and itself so amazing. It is amazing. Sitting with that amazingness, the awesome, the sublime, is not easy on your own; poetry can help supply the trick of it. It can help us get out of our selves and into the mind of someone else, and we can stay there, quiet a while.

I’m inviting you to meet me back here every Thursday for a little thought balloon, so I thought I’d better explain myself a bit to anyone new. I’m suddenly blogging again because my book The Wonder Paradox is coming out in paperback on March 5 and preorders can really get the ball bouncing. But I expect to keep going for at least a year. We’ll see. I suddenly feel capable, writing-wise, and I kind of haven’t for a while, so this is all a roulette roll, but obvs, at the moment I think the engine is up and running and I can talk about a year. Anyway, I’ll be here next Thursday and I hope to see you.

love,

Jennifer