from Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz on body, spirit and transcendence:

Certainly the old dualism that dominated my thought in the beginning has long since evaporated. I am no longer conditioned to celebrate the triumph of reason. I turn more and more to the old self, the buried self, the one that's "wild with years" when I am in need of understanding. Often in the workings of a poem the body and one's trust in the wisdom of the body supervenes, and one recognizes that reason itself is not the ultimate gift of humanity. Certainly it is one of the instruments of civilization; but body, spirit, the reason beyond reason, are the instruments of transcendence.

An NPR interview of Stanley Kunitz and his concept, "Wisdom of the Body" was the source of the title of my program at Clear Spring School and of this blog.