Metaphor: A Bridge to Depth
“Dicky Dumpling silly bird,
Can’t you see. Can’t you see?
You can live without a word.
Who are we? Who are we?”
A few years ago, a client came bursting into my office, and, even before reaching the couch, excitedly announced, “the universe speaks to me in metaphor!” She had been working on an art project which included simple, humorous drawings, accompanied by sometimes caustic poems that were designed to help her process a romantic relationship which had ended very badly. Her child-like figure drawings included some quite funny caricatures of the guy she had been madly in love with, and, in the process of pulling him down from the unreal, heroic pedestal where her fantasy had placed him, she also came down, as if to earth, to a place of healing. I’ve remembered that session ever since.
Does the universe speak to you in metaphor? What does such a question even mean? Iain McGilchrist, who wrote “The Matter With Things,” and whom you will hear a lot about in this essay, says that we cannot speak, write or think without metaphor, but even if he is correct that we cannot speak without using metaphors, does it follow that the universe speaks to us in metaphor? I’m not aware of any reports from our astronomers that vocal cords have been discovered orbiting around planets in our solar system! And yet, my client’s excited announcement immediately invites us to something of an inner confrontation. In a sense, it’s a line in the sand, to use a Zen metaphor. Dare we believe that the universe can “speak” to us? Or does that seem like nonsense? That is the inner confrontation. If the universe actually can “speak to us” it means something extraordinary. It means that there is something in reality that exists apart from ourselves. But if it actually does speak to us in metaphor, who’s listening? According to another Zen saying, the answer is always in the question.
James Hillman, a brilliant Jungian analyst, once wrote, “We live in the kingdom of the literal.” What a metaphor! Those of us who live in the kingdom of the literal tend to take things, well, literally. The idea that a dream you had last night carries an important message will usually be discounted and forgotten out of hand if you take things literally. The idea that the child you once were still exists as a living psychic reality, perhaps even dominating some aspects of your life, may be interesting, but not processed as useful information, if you take things literally. Forget about the idea that archetypes such as the god of war, Ares, or the goddess of Wisdom, Sophia, or an entity that Jung called Shadow, exist in our deepest unconscious. Poppycock! to one who inhabits the kingdom of the literal. If you cannot see, hear, smell, taste or touch it, it does not exist.
In “the Little Prince” the prince meets a geographer busily notating all the important information about different worlds: a river here, a city there, a mountain here. Unfortunately, the only important fact the little prince can share about his planet is that it has a single little rose, which he carefully tends, and which certainly exists to him. The geographer dismisses this out of hand, explaining that a rose may be a fact, but it is of no consequence. “Why?” “Because it’s ephemeral,”the geographer pronounces. Facts and figures such as cities, mountains, and rivers are literal things and matters of consequence. One little rose may exist, but it obviously is unimportant. It’s ephemeral.
In “The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World” (what a title!), Iain McGilchrist describes a profound physiological - psychological shift that is presently occurring in our head (physiological) and mind (psychological). His “hemisphere hypothesis” suggests that the left brain is slowly gaining dominance over the right brain, especially in the last one hundred years, but essentially stretching back to the Industrial Revolution. In fact, he suggests that the Industrial Revolution was, perhaps, the “brain child” of the left brain. Let’s suppose that the kingdom of the literal is primarily based in left-brain functioning. From this perspective, if the left brain is slowly gaining dominance over the right brain, it follows that we are becoming increasingly more literal, more focused on concrete things, and, perhaps, more mechanical, like the robots our left brain seems obsessed with inventing.
Because nature, as well as Noah’s ark, seems to demand two of every thing, there must be a right brain. Right? The name for the right brain’s kingdom is the kingdom of the metaphorical. Art, music, religion, poetry, human connection and, perhaps, new experiences populate the kingdom of the metaphorical. If it is true that the left brain has come to dominate our right brain in this present age, it follows, as night from day, that the number of humans shouting excitedly “the universe speaks to me in metaphor” may be diminishing at an alarming rate.
A famous Buddhist metaphor says that one should not stare at the pointing finger (a literal endeavor). Imagine staring at someone pointing in your direction. You could be fixated on her pointing finger, even thinking she is pointing at you, but, if you turn in the direction she is actually pointing (behind you), you may avoid being squashed by a car careening out of control, or you might see and hear a gorgeously colored bird perched on a branch, singing for all its worth! McGilchrist called this “the petrifying stare of consciousness.” This is a Buddhist metaphor for words and how we can fixate on the literal meaning of words rather than what they point to. It is like reading the prescription on the label and confusing that with taking the medicine. According to McGilchrist, words tend to refer to other words, not to the mystery of the thing itself. “Love” is a word and poets have written about it for many hundreds of years. Musicians have composed songs and lyrics about it, but how can what it really is be captured in the net of words? And yet, just one glance at Michelangelo’s Pieta and we know more about love and sorrow than a thousand word-pointers. Perhaps the most powerful metaphors, the healing ones, are able to paint a picture in our mind, just as the Pieta speaks of a mother’s unfathomable love for her child. The Buddhist metaphor of a pointing finger suggests that there is a something Real that exists beyond the thousands of words and concepts trying to describe it.
“I agree with myself,” a dear friend once said in a stimulating conversation. After she said it, we both laughed uproariously. Who was agreeing with whom? But according to McGilchrist, the left brain really does agree with itself! This presents quite a problem. Over the course of time, the left brain has begun to ignore data from the more intuitive right brain, which it deems to be “ephemeral” and of no consequence. So, for many of us, the left brain has become both the judge and jury of our experience. This is particularly significant if, as McGilchrist says, the right brain is our “bullshit detector.” In other words, a skillful lawyer is missing in the court of our divided brain.
He offers a disturbing metaphor to describe a person who relentlessly agrees with himself: that person lives in a hall of mirrors. Imagine being lost in a hall of mirrors where everything you see is just a refection of you, and where there is no visible exit. This is an amazing description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which can drive “normal” people bananas. It’s not easy to feel compassion for someone who constantly sees his or her own image in a hall or mirrors. I suspect this is why narcissism can elicit such anger in some people. No one likes to feel unseen, and perhaps narcissism, so apparent in others, is a little too close for comfort. Perhaps we see a reflection of our own narcissism. One line from the ancient Brihadaranyaka Upanishad has been my mantra since I first read it almost 50 years ago: “Lead us from the unreal to the Real.” I believe that the Real is the only exit from a hall of mirrors.
Once in a session, I made what seemed to me to be a very insightful comment about a client’s dream. As I sat there waiting for her response, all the while terribly proud of my keen intelligence, she sat and pondered. Eventually, she replied, “I don’t have a peg in my brain to hang that on.” Her metaphor was worth a thousand intelligent words I might have conjured up. For one thing it knocked me off my high horse. For another, it reminded me that a person can only understand what she is ready to understand. It taught me to have patience and to wait for the client to develop the needed peg in her brain on which to hang an insight. Furthermore, I was reminded of the inconvenient truth that I might be missing more than one peg in my brain.
For a moment, let’s look at the literal pointing finger: Merriam-Webster defines metaphor as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.” For instance, a person “drowning” in debt. And from the Cambridge Dictionary, a metaphor is “an expression, often found in literature, that describes a person or object by referring to something that is considered to have similar characteristics to that person or object.” Yes, but surely you can feel how there is no “juice” in these descriptive words? A metaphor is a “figure of speech” that is “often found in literature”? This is like describing a fox by telling you where you can find one.
McGilchrist says that the word “metaphor” is itself a metaphor. One of its translations from the Greek language is “to carry across.” He continues by saying that a metaphor can carry us across “the apparent gap between language and the real lived world.” I must confess that, for a moment, my mind was slightly confused as I read his words. “The real lived world? Where is that?” Then I remembered, “Oh yes, that’s where I live!” I’m not kidding. For a moment, I was so stuck in my own hall of mirrors, while staring at the computer screen, that I actually forgot the “real lived world” outside the little room where I was writing this essay. I forgot that the great Pacific Ocean, just two blocks away from where I sat, is where a certain little sea gull was dipping and soaring above crashing waves. Living without a word.
David Whyte describes poetry, which surely is the nearest that words can come to conveying metaphors, as “language against which we have no defense.” Wow. What defense? Perhaps in the process of growing up, the adult part of us was no longer able to bear the tenderness of the child it once was, or the feeling of powerlessness against injustice or cruelty, or even what feels like the relentlessness of reality. For many of us, feelings became too painful to bear consciously. So metaphors are a stealth language against which we have no defense. They come unannounced and unexpectedly.
Although D.W. Winnicott, was a brilliant child psychologist whose work influenced so many therapists, I think he was a poet at heart. He said that all a child needs is a “good enough” mother. In order to feel its own existence, a child must be able to see her reflection in her mother’s eyes. But the mother may have been long “gone” even before the child was born, already lost in her own hall of mirrors. Winnicott’s poem resonates through my being.
“Let down your tap root to the centre of your soul
Suck up the sap from the infinite source of your unconscious
And be evergreen ”
A metaphor must be felt and physically sensed (embodied) as well as “thought.” Winnicott’s poem evokes something that cannot possibly be seen: “the infinite source.” But does that mean it does not exist? Perhaps, if you are a certain geographer from a certain planet. Winnicott’s metaphor suggests that there is a “sap” deep within that can turn us, if for only a moment, evergreen. Have you ever felt evergreen? It’s like a gentle healing rain falling on what had been a long, hot summer. For me, it is a metaphor that evokes something completely beyond understanding, a moment of renewal where hope and optimism return. I have never sat with a client without believing that evergreen is always possible, and looking for tiny green shoots in our conversation.
Not only do I think that a metaphor is ephemeral, but I think it has “juice”. (You probably have figured that out already.) It paints a picture in our mind. Not simply an image, such as how the word “tree” might evoke a static image, but more like a picture with movement and feeling.
Remembering that McGillchrist says a metaphor “carries” us across the gap between language and the real lived world, I would add that a metaphor is a bridge that takes us from the flat land of the known to an unknown land of depth and evergreen.
Finally, I would add that a metaphor has power. Speakers from Churchill to Martin Luther King (not to mention Adolf Hitler) have stirred the hearts of millions of people with the stunning power of their words. Without a doubt, the metaphors in a speech, and not merely the words, carry an electric power from the speaker to his or her rapt listeners. And it is a power that can move us toward riot and chaos (as we are witnessing with passionate students from elite universities) or, quite the opposite, toward peace and understanding. The Buddhist scriptures describe how many hundreds of disciples sitting together experienced enlightenment when they heard the Buddha speak. One believes that, or one does not.
According to Emily Dickinson, If you want to speak truth, you must “Tell it slant.” My goodness! If you reside in a certain Kingdom that leans to the left, her words may sound ridiculous. How can truth have any shape at all? How can Truth be “slanted?” By now you may recognize that her sage advice is a metaphor. She then continues with a second metaphor, “success in circuit lies.” Carl Jung would completely agree. He spent his life analyzing dreams, both his own and those of countless others. His word for circuit was “circumambulate.” If a friend or client tells you her dream, you must “circle” it first. “Walk around it, even taste it, as you might walk around an ancient temple. With respect. And most importantly, you must resist the temptation to jump to any conclusions about it. In other words, you have to be able to tolerate the tension of not knowing. That’s not so easy for a therapist looking at the expectant, almost hungry face of a client who has brought a fascinating dream to his session!
In this essay, I have attempted to “tell the truth slant” by making metaphors more palpable, especially if you find the concept difficult. And I have had to circle the subject of metaphors for the simple reason that I’m stuck with a right brain approach to just about everything. Ask a southerner from Tennessee the question, “does the universe speak to you in metaphor?” and you will get a story. So I conclude with a story.
Near the end of my analysis with Dr. Edward Whitmont, he commented, almost as if musing out loud, that there were two very strong but opposing “forces” in my life. On the one hand, he saw that I was a devoted yoga practitioner and something of an acetic. By that time, I had been practicing yoga for 10 years while teaching yoga at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York. Each winter, I took a week-long yoga retreat in the Bahamas where a few of us fasted during the intensive yoga practice with the larger group. Also, by then, I had studied yoga in an ashram in India. But during all these years there was a very different “me” who was a working musician, who composed songs, entertained in clubs, and who was not exactly a vegetarian (to put it mildly.) I had quite a wild side.
After ending my work with Dr. Whitmont, I started meditating at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and I had already been sitting in silence there for many months, when this particular story occurred. One morning, my mind was deeply still in ways that I had never known nor imagined. Thoughts and images were infrequent visitors, and, at the same time, paradoxically, there was an intense alertness in the midst of calm. As I sat with closed eyes, I was startled by an image that unexpectedly appeared. It was not like a static image, but more like moving images. I saw a long and narrow bridge spanning a deep canyon. The bridge seemed ancient, made of wooden slats tied together with rope and with a rope hand rail. It was very narrow, barely wide enough for one person to cross, and it was swaying precipitously in the wind from side to side.
The deep colors of the scene were like a dark Rembrandt painting; deep glowing reds in a blackened sky, while the bottomless depth of the canyon below reminded me of how I felt when I first stood near the edge of the Grand Canyon. An overwhelming feeling of awe before such grandeur. Imagine a rope bridge spanning the Grand Canyon!
On that narrow bridge, I saw a hooded figure trying to lead a jet black horse across to the other side. Of course the horse was extremely agitated by such a dreadful situation, not to mention that the bridge swayed ever more dangerously each time the horse fearfully lifted its hoofs, which could easily get caught between the spaces in the wooden slats. The hooded figure leading the horse seemed calm but insistent as he urged the horse to move forward. But with each pull on the reigns, the horse became increasingly agitated, lifting his legs even higher. As I watched the scene, I realized that the hooded figure was a monk.
Suddenly, the bridge snapped and the horse and the monk plunged toward the bottom of the canyon. As they fell, the horse had a terrified look on his face, and, as the monk’s hood fell away I saw that, even now, he seemed almost uninvolved, and accepting of what was happening. As they both plunged toward the abyss, with the monk’s robes flapping in the wind, they began to morph into tiny stick figures. Then I saw what looked like a huge eruption of fire rising up from the bottom of the canyon; actually it was like the eruption of a volcano. It seemed to rise up purposefully to meet the two figures as they disintegrated into the fire. Then the scene ended and there I sat quietly in the meditation hall, as if nothing had happened at all. I have no idea how long this experience lasted. It could have happened in a matter of seconds.
Was it a dream? How could it be a dream when the meditator was alert and wide awake? Could it be “active Imagination,” a technique Jung highly recommended for working with the unconscious? Perhaps, but that implies a conscious intention, even if ego consciousness is able to “power down,” so as not to interfere with unconscious fantasy. Whatever one would call it, I think the universe spoke to me in metaphor that morning, and I think it bypassed this writer’s ego sitting on a cushion. In other words, I do not think the ego “conjures” brilliant metaphors such as Winnicott’s, “evergreen,” or Emily Dickinson’s “slant”. Metaphors “come” to poets from Shakespeare to David Whyte. Music “comes” to composers such as Mozart, who wrote his first symphony when he was eight years old. And, perhaps, the Four Noble Truths “came” to the Buddha as he sat under the Bodhi tree.
But here’s the clinker. The bridge to the other side (which is basically a Buddhist metaphor for enlightenment) snapped in two! So does the metaphor imply that the wild, untamed part of us is not supposed to reach the other side of the bridge? Or perhaps it speaks of hubris in the acetic? An unwillingness to embrace his shadow side? In a war between Apollo and Dionysos, who wins? Although this experience with metaphor occurred nearly fifty years ago, it still lives with the same intensity and drama as when it first painted its Rembrandt colors in my mind. And it did move my life in very distinct ways. It was a bridge to depth beyond all words.
Dicky Dumpling
“Dicky Dumpling
silly bird
can’t you see
can’t you see
you were bent to be a bird
see see see
go to sea
little sailor
dicky bird
don’t you see
don’t you see
you can live without a word
who are we
who are we?
don’t you see
the morning rising
seas and suns are in its eyes
don’t you see it’s so surprising
everything is like a pie
I can see the silly lightening
Its so frightening
what to say?
I can’t tell just how to beat it
but I’ll meet you all some day
Dicky Dumpling
Silly boy
you can throw your toys inside now
wrap them up inside your clothes
you will see you feet are shining
soon
soon
soon”
Ephemeral
“My love was it of no consequence;
A foolish fantasy,
Like a dream, ephemeral
that vanished from me?
When you hold something ephemeral
In danger of going away,
Like a cloud floating, ephemeral
It wont even last one day.
Is that no matter of consequence?
Is that what people believe?
Is that no matter of consequence,
because one day it may leave?
I have a love ephemeral
Ephemeral.
Ephemeral,
And that is a matter of consequence
I think it is.
Love is a matter of consequence
Because it is.”
