Beginnings
on being a new (old) student, Sappho, and celestial mystery
To be able to withstand both the beginnings, and the endings, is how someone once described love to me. To be present for a person’s changing self seems like the ticket for relationships over time, especially a kind relationship with ourself, one of hardest tasks of all.
I am a new student at divinity school, and I can hardly say divinity school without smiling, since people immediately ask me if I’m training to be a minister, a priest, or a wizard. I’m not sure what I’m training for, exactly, but walking up the stairs on my first day, I saw a stained glass window where giant bees loom above flowers, circling a holy building. Inscripted there: finis origine pendet. The end depends upon the beginning. The end hangs upon the beginning. Non sibi. Not for self.
I’ve been thinking about these lines, walking back and forth from classes. And already, I’m grateful for my teachers. One professor says we’re here because the world is burning. Another professor says we must move at the speed of trust. Another else says, this is about transformation, not performance.
I’ve been trying to interrupt the ways I perform beginnings, by pretending I know more than I know.
Finis origine pendent is taken from the Astronomica of Manuilius, written about the stars and celestial phenomena, by poet Marcus Manilius, in 30-40 AD. The poet is pretty much a mystery, as is much of the manuscript.
“The fifth book contains a lacuna… some scholars have argued that whole books have been lost over the years, whereas others believe only a small section of the work is missing.”
I love that that Finis Origine Pendet is sourced from such uncertainty and mystery— from giant gaps.
I’m thinking now of Anne Carson’s translation of archaic Greek poet Sappho. I love how Carson emphasizes the gaps, the lost language, instead of replacing or ignoring or filling them in. The gaps become as essential as what is left.
If the end hangs upon the beginning— may both be filled with grief, wonder, awe. May we honor the gaps, instead of filling them in, and rejoice in what we don’t yet know. Here’s to making space for the mystery.
xoxo
Raisa