Purgatory

At the end of Purgatory X we get a new image of the conclusion of the Divine Process that crushes the internal distortions. In a way this becomes an expression similar to the three carvings of the Spiritual Life that open the whole Canto and the main part of Purgatorio. We’re seeing the pressure on the old distortions as “corbels”, and how they eventually all will “snap”, each and every one of them, from the sheer presence of a new and bigger full picture of Reality, that also accounts for the mystery and transcendent aspects of Being.

Come per sostentar solaio o tetto, 
per mensola talvolta una figura 
si vede giugner le ginocchia al petto,

Meaning: “As if sustaining a floor or a roof, as corbels at times a figure one sees, bringing the knees to the chest.”

So this is setting up an image with the idea of earlier sustaining assumptions, ideas or axioms – which will then be exposed as the distorted ones internally, that “held up” the old reduced outlook or world view. Dante is doing two things at once here, portraying them both as earlier supporting systems, but now increasingly under direct and overwhelming pressure from a new reality being present.

It continues;

la qual fa del non ver vera rancura 
nascere ‘n chi la vede; così fatti 
vid’io color, quando puosi ben cura. 

Meaning: “That which makes of non-truth Truth, births anguish in the one that looks, and such made, did I look at them, when I placed careful attention.”

So this is Dante commenting on the experience of looking more carefully and back at older assumptions and outlooks, about to be removed or crushed in the process. And note that the process does not cause any anguish or suffering in itself, it is the Pilgrim (or one’s consciousness internally), that feels a certain dread looking back at what used to carry one’s own earlier cosmology and assumptions about reality. At times it could even strike oneself as “Did I really believe that? How could I not see its shortcomings? Its insufficiencies?“. And also note the idea of trying to make Truth out of non-truth, in some ways this becomes clearer later when Dante describes more in detail how partial frames posing as overall frames is one of the key mistakes one quickly makes growing up and through early maturation, but often eventually discovers produces significant errors on the biggest questions.

And the image then concludes:

Vero è che più e meno eran contratti 
secondo ch’avien più e meno a dosso; 
e qual più pazienza avea ne li atti, 
piangendo parea dicer: ‘Più non posso’.

Roughly meaning: “True it is, that more or less they were contracted according to how they had more or less on their backs, and those who had more patience in their gestures, cryingly appeared to say: ‘I cannot anymore'”.

So this seems to point to the variety of natures and processes of the distortions themselves. Some are more squeezed than others if one takes a “snapshot” of looking internally, meaning they will be in different states and stages of the process, but even the most “patient” ones, those who might endure for the longest time, eventually too will fold and admit, “I cannot hold this up anymore”.

And with that, the Canto is finished.

The corbels presented as your inner distortions of various natures being slowly pressured into nothingness, by the new Reality that asserts itself when the Spiritual Life is reconnected and active again. When this new combination of the secular and spiritual grows and finds a generative and healthy new dynamic, the old symptoms of Superbia will dissolve and be healed. In short: they are healed not by “treatment” directly, but simply by the presence of the new spiritual life that comes with Gabriel, the Ark and Oxen, and the dynamic of Trajan and widow/Gregory internally.

That is the process overall, and this is how The First Terrace of Superbia will be healed and corrected.

Three images carved in marble, and the snapping corbels that selfdestruct over time.

This also makes this canto a tremendously important key to the whole Comedy. It provides the starting point of the whole solution to the “Dark Forest” in the opening. And it is something one can start working on for oneself, today. An open mind, moving forward by receiving “from the side”, gradually notice the oxen within steadily moving, and then the joyful change and healing, and infinitely rich experience and cosmology that will follow.

A pure gift from Dante to us. “Here is the process, here are the mechanics.”

And a final note: give it time. Give it five to ten years. This is not about “understanding” per se, but about changing the approach, the awareness, the relationship to experience itself. And then day by day, month by month, gradually discover a whole new way of Being. This is the journey that starts right here in this canto, and it is perhaps the biggest adventure one can possibly embark upon in life. And the rewards are again, endless.

After the warning of a mis-shaped spiritual life vs. the full fruition of a healthy and aligned ascent, Dante points to the nature of superbia again – this time showing us the similar cases of distortions with or without the spiritual present.

The warning here is prescient longer term: the spiritual can quickly be contained in strictly rational frameworks and thus result in the same condition: effectively a loss of connection to the transcendent. This is a constant temptation in our minds and psyche. Choosing own constructs over openness and receiving from the bigger picture and eternal transcendence.

Dante writes:

Di che l’animo vostro in alto galla,
poi siete quasi antomata in difetto,
sì come vermo in cui formazion falla?

Roughly: “Of which spirit of yours are you floating in high, so you are almost insects in defects, yes just like worms in which the formation fails?”

The insects are thus the restricted, contained condition of a spiritual life, compared to the “worms” of a life where the spiritual has not yet even started. And again: these are pointing to internal dynamics at the anagogical level. We have these inclinations within ourselves, to reject or to contain the bigger picture – and assuming a cosmology of one’s own constructs instead.

In some ways the main wisdom here is longer term, the gradual process of capturing one’s own spiritual life. And Dante himself probably met many people in this condition, during his own conversion somewhere between 1300 and 1308. Opening the spiritual as in Purgatory 10 and the Gate is a first small step, however gigantic it feels at that moment. Once through it, a new life begins with infinite richness but also new temptations, for decades to come.

So all three conditions are there in us: the self-contained insect, the unstarted worm, or, with work and gradual transformation, the angelic butterfly.

In short: Dante plants a little flag right at the start. The spiritual path is now open, but notice the inner impulse for containment. It might once again put oneself in a different “dark forest”, and block the real opening into fuller Reality and into the Heavens.

After the warning of spiritual distortions, Dante continues with an image of how it should be, when the distortions are removed and the will and being are aligned:

non v’accorgete voi che noi siam vermi 
nati a formar l’angelica farfalla, 
che vola a la giustizia sanza schermi? 

Meaning: “Does it not occur to you that we are worms, born to form into the angelic butterfly, who flies towards the Justice without shields?”

Intuitive interpretation: Dante addresses the internal impulse for spiritual distortions, control and containment – pointing to how one internally is meant to transform into a spiritually free and ascending being, that flies towards Justice without any shields, in the sense of imposed constructs of “walls”, delineations, “capturings” of one’s own making. Partly playing on the David as dancing theme; the receiving and responsive nature of much of the spiritual life, whilst learning and ascending.

The Justice aspect is harder to decipher at this stage – but it will be explained later in Sphere Six of Paradiso: Divine Justice in part as one finding one’s own mission as part of a much larger and cosmic force of Virtue, the Good, the maintenance of the health of Being itself. This comes much later on the spiritual path, but is still a part of the overall process over years and decades towards the “butterfly”.

So in short; Dante outlines the real outline for one’s inner Journey – from opening/beginnings, to growing ascent, to eventually finding one’s own being as an essential part of the infinite forces and nature of Being.

And now,
we well run the method for the more rational-analytic approach. This could be read either just for skimming, or for deeper study. It mostly maps – perhaps with the exception of seeing the “schermi” as a natural part of being built during the process. This is likely not Dante’s intention; the schermi  is the overreach – analyzing and processing the spiritual is good (and essential) for learning, but for adding insights, not for building an outer “shield” of containment. The result section however, is stunning in its conclusions.

Continue reading →

At this point in the canto, after the first 40 tercets and the opening and early familiarity with the Spiritual Life, and also now its beginning purgation – we get a stern and arresting warning: Do not think all is necessarily good, just because there is now a spiritual dimension in your life:

O superbi cristian, miseri lassi, 
che, de la vista de la mente infermi, 
fidanza avete ne’ retrosi passi, 

Roughly: “Oh Christians with distortions and superbia, wretched and weary, who from the outlook of a sick mind have trust in the backwards steps.”

From the anagogical it is immediately important to resist the temptation to externalize this. What Dante is referring to is the potentiality and presence of spiritual distortions within yourself. The “Cristian” can quickly be oneself, after an opening of the spiritual but then a closing and perhaps gradual impulse to control and contain the spiritual life and the Heavens again. Anagogically this is not about others, it is about you. And this trap can be very subtle and sophisticated. So Dante places it right at the start. Be aware – this can quickly happen to oneself.

As an aside, it is interesting how Isaiah seems to have exactly the same warning, of a distorted spiritual life and religious practices without a deeper relationship.

Running the new method is also fruitful, here are a few highlights:

Teleological direction: Everything serves the soul’s journey to God. The three carvings just established genuine spiritual content within the soul. The receiving was real. The connection is alive. And precisely HERE the warning must come, because the greatest threat to the journey is no longer the absence of the spiritual life but its distortion by the very apparatus that received it. “Superbi cristian” identifies the specific danger: not the secular mind rejecting the spiritual, but the spiritual mind claiming ownership of what it received. “De la vista de la mente infermi” names the mechanism: the organ of perception itself is sick, meaning the distortion operates at the level of how you see, not merely what you see. You cannot detect the disease with the diseased instrument.

As early encounter with the spiritual: Dante is warning me not to be arrogant about spiritual things. Even people who believe can go wrong if their thinking is confused. I should stay humble as I continue reading.

Reached Post-Paradiso perception: This is the Isaiah 1 dynamic operating at the soul level. The spiritual life ACTIVE but DISTORTED. Not absent but claimed. Not dead but performing. The sacrifices and rituals running at full capacity but disconnected from the living receiving.

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So right here in the first canto, with just five tercets left, another essential seed is planted: be aware of this aspect in your newfound spiritual life. Remember the distortions do not only come in rational, psychological or perceptual forms – they can (and often will) also infect one’s spiritual insights and experience.

And with that awareness, one is much better prepared for the actual real and true Journey, into the Heavens.

After the Pilgrim understands that something is crushing the distortions into the ground, Virgil tells him to take a closer look at what is actually happening:

Ma guarda fiso là, e disviticchia
col viso quel che vien sotto a quei sassi:
già scorger puoi come ciascun si picchia».

Meaning: “But look fixedly there, and untangle with the vision/face, that which comes under these boulders; already you can discern how each one is striking itself.”

So the intuitive reading: Consciousness is now guided by reason to notice in much more detail how the crushing pressure of the Divine Process is by nature exposing the distortions, and making them be exposed as self-defeating. Once the bigger picture is returning this becomes almost mechancial, and symbolically as them “striking themselves”. (Also note; the “beating of chests” as chosen in most commentaries is simply not there in the original.)

The method gives us: Continue reading →