Byron's Babbles

“Look at him! Look at him! He has begun a story without a beginning, and it will never have any end. He! he! he! Look at him!” This was said by the thistles about Anodos in Phantastes by George MacDonald. This really made me think about whether our stories really ever have a beginning or ending. And does the beginning or ending really matter. This can be interpreted in different ways depending on the context. Yes, this quote is in a faerie tale, but if you think about it there is no true beginning or ending to any of our stories. Just try it – for every beginning you choose, you can go back just a little further. This symbolizes the endless possibilities we have. This is curious to me because Anodos, whose name means either “pathless” or “upward path” in Ancient Greek flits from possibility to possibility in Phantastes. Anodos is in more of a series of episodes in the book than a single narrative. If you think about it, that is more in parallel with our own lives.

This caused me to dive in further on my study of MacDonald. He didn’t strive for us all to make the same meaning out of his writings and faerie tales. In The Fantastic Imagination, he told us, “A fairytale, like a butterfly or a bee, helps itself on all sides, sips at every wholesome flower, and spoils not one. The true fairytale is, to my mind, very like the sonata. We all know that a sonata means something; and where there is the faculty of talking with suitable vagueness, and choosing metaphor sufficiently loose, mind may approach mind, in the interpretation of a sonata, with the result of a more or less contenting consciousness of sympathy” (p. 12). In the same work MacDonald also explained that “A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean” (p. 12.) That is the beauty of the great literary works – they can awaken different meanings for each of us. My meaning is just as right as yours.

I also really liked the metaphor of the butterfly or bee. We need to be like them and “sip from every wholesome flower,” taking advantage of every moment. We need to make sure we are not treating our moments as obstacles to overcome, but as precious moments to be sipped from, and “spoiling not one.” How many moments (flowers) do we miss because they don’t fit the plan, don’t fit the timeline, don’t fit with the so called beginning or end of a story?

“It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning.” ~ George MacDonald

Having just finished rereading The Chronicles of Narnia in published order, I really got to thinking about how C. S. Lewis did not start the story with the beginning of Narnia. That did not come till later. And in the end there really wasn’t an end. There is definitely symbolism there. This made me think of how we always get locked into thinking we need to live in some preset chronological order. Life really happens in more of a lattice-like way. For example, if predicting my own path, most would not have predicted the past two years of deep study of C. S. Lewis and being a Scholar in Residence at The Kilns. Had you told me three years ago I would be doing that I would have laughed. But because of the writing of author Patti Callahan Henry a “wholesome flower” was placed in my reach and another piece to my life’s lattice. Did it fit some “plan?” No. But I am sure glad I am adding this section to the lattice and “sipping from every wholesome flower” that has been made available. Don’t be afraid to jump of the horizontal and chronological timeline that we many times lock ourselves into. Sometimes we need to be more like Anodos and go where there is no path.