A Fire in my Head

How do those of us with a "fire in our head" and a hunger in our heart fit ourselves to the "regular world"? Or do we?

I think this question is asked and answered somewhat in Irish poet William Butler Yeats’s poem “The Song of Wandering Aengus.”  When I first read this poem years ago, I loved it for its music and its fanciful, romantic quality.  It had lovely images and a magical aspect which was appealing.  I loved the way it sounded on my tongue when I read it aloud.  But now that I am older and just a bit wiser, I believe that I understand the poem in its fulness . . . what Yeats is saying through the medium of the poem is far more meaningful than the surface details which are fairy-tale like.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lads and hilly lands.

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

-William Butler Yeats

What could the glimmering girl represent in this poem . . . Yeats (or the persona of the poem) has grown older, yet he is still entranced with beauty and simplicity and rapture, and is still able to relate to what the girl symbolizes, the things of the spirit. Just because he has grown older, he doesn't feel he must give up enchantment.

Others may grow old in their heads (or spirits), but he still has a fire in his . . . and why not? Let the others settle, he will still pursue his dreams. He will be vibrantly spiritually alive until he dies physically.

If this "fire" is part of our very nature, what do we give up when we deny it or don't seek to assuage it with what we are longing for?

Where is your "hazel wood," that place apart where you can be yourself or even rediscover yourself whenever you are lost?   For me, it is usually out in nature that I find the harmony that is often lost in the "civilized" world . . . an elemental world filled with simple yet fanciful things . . . a place where goodness is possible . . . where beauty can restore and re-tune the spirit . . . where I only need a hazel wand and a berry to catch a silver trout.

Food for thought as to how the modern culture has it all wrong:

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards;  they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.    The way it actually works is the reverse.   You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do in order to have what you want.               

                                                                          ~Margaret Young


After you have taken care of things of the spirit, you will find that what you want will have changed.  And your chance of fulfillment and contentment will be far greater but with less cost.  


A person who isn't spiritual doesn't accept the things of God's Spirit, for they are nonsense to him.  He can't understand them because they are spiritually evaluated.
-I Cor. 2:14 (ISV)


Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.   -Proverbs 4:23

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