Sophia Katz

An Ongoing Revolution:

Cosmic Canticle, Changing, and the Problem of Broken Harmony

In the Book of Changes, the Chinese classic that was believed to encode all possible contingencies of human existence, the dynamic of ‘revolution’ is addressed by hexagram 49 革 (Ge). The literal meaning of this character is “the hide of an animal” (Huang 389). “In its verbal sense ge (hide) means ‘skin,’ ‘get rid of’ – certainly a radical change” (Lynn 449). Ge is also part of the expression 革命 geming, ‘shedding the mandate’. In modern Chinese geming means ‘revolution’.

In his Changing, Richard Berengarten translates Ge as ‘Shedding’ (391-398), Richard Wilhelm as “Revolution (Molting)” (Wilhelm 1977: 189), Richard Lynn as “Radical Change” (Lynn 444), and Alfred Huang as “Abolishing the Old” (Huang 389). In the first poem in the cluster associated with this hexagram, Berengarten summarizes the psychological makeup of persons involved in a ‘typical’ revolutionary movement:

Our self-appointed task

questioning, challenging myths,

based on our own longing

to see them tumble,

collapse, crumble, wither away –

towers of bricks brought

down by us – and what

pleasure to see this happen

before our very own eyes.        (49/0: 392)

In this poem, entitled ‘Revolutionary Cadre’, the individual voice is replaced by the voice of ‘collective consciousness’: ‘we’ is used in place of ‘I’, while ‘us’ is perceived in sharp opposition to ‘them’. Yet both the internal, self-searching questions and the external ones arising in the hearts and minds of individuals remain unanswered:

Our dreams? We invested them

in debunking, interrupting,

clashing. Why? Not to

put up with the blur and glaze

of half-truth?        (ibid.)

“Abolishing the old” (which is part of the ‘base-line’ of this poem) involves the wish to find the whole truth, believed to exist in an ideal world, as opposed to the half-truth of the current reality. The entire revolutionary procedure opens real dangers, all the more so because “catastrophe beckons us repeatedly”. Yet it also holds great potential, as “we remain a reservoir untapped” (ibid). In the hexagram Ge the lower trigram is 離 (Li) ‘fire’ and the upper, 兌 (Dui) ‘lake’. As this structure suggests, the uncertainty of this time is symbolized by the motif of fire burning under water, which itself epitomizes a dynamic state of accumulated energy that has not yet been expressed. The outcome is still unknown: it may turn out to be either “increasing light” and the reconstruction of “the entire state edifice” (49/2: 394), or “making mistakes and enemies” and total destruction (49/3: 395).

This tension between the search for truth, justice, and harmony on the one hand and fierce violence and intense pain on the other is at the center of my discussion in this essay. I explore these questions by specifically referencing two indicative poetic works: Ernesto Cardenal’s Cosmic Canticle (1993)¹ and Richard Berengarten’s Changing (2016).

Written from very different philosophical/theological perspectives and distinct in style, Cosmic Canticle and Changing nonetheless share many common characteristics. Both are ambitious book-length poems, composed of shorter pieces. Both are universal in the range of questions they address, and encyclopedic in their use of references. And both employ Eastern and Western perspectives, tightly interwoven. While Berengarten’s Changing intentionally follows the structure of the Chinese Book of Changes, it is nonetheless very personal and, as such, discloses the thoughts and yearnings of the author. Cardenal’s Cosmic Canticle employs the form of a Christian hymn of praise; yet, the textual themes of this work are inspired by science and various traditions, including South American, Chinese, and Indian sources.

Seen as wholes, Changing and Cosmic Canticle are both progressive and cyclical. As Berengarten’s comments in his ‘Postscript’ reveal (525), the structure of his work can be explained by that of the Book of Changes, in which the progression from one situation to another occurs due to the interaction of two opposing yet complementary powers, yin and yang. The double structure of Cardenal’s Cosmic Canticle, which describes progression from the ‘Big Bang’ (Cantiga 1) to ‘Omega’ (Cantiga 43), appears to stem from the author’s sense of poetic harmony and his integrative philosophical vision. This cyclicity is embedded in the book’s very structure. The first lines of Cantiga 1 and the very last lines of Cantiga 43 are connected: hence the conclusion of Cosmic Canticle is a ‘back-reading’ of its beginning (CC 1, 481).

Intriguingly, these two works exhibit very different approaches to the violence associated with revolution. Sharing the ideas of liberation theology, Cardenal perceives violence as an integral part of creation, necessary for breakthrough and the liberation of the oppressed (see Jimmerson 2009). Following the Chinese holistic worldview, Berengarten sees violence as a manifestation of excessive energy, often destructive, which needs to be harmonized through the balancing of yin and yang.

“In the Beginning”: Cardenal on the Poetic Word and Harmony

Elements inspired by the Chinese tradition appear as early as Cantiga 1 of Cosmic Canticle, where Cardenal connects the mythological story of Pangu (P’an Ku) with primordial oneness (CC 3). This oneness, as Cardenal suggests, was the Dao (Tao) itself, before it received its name:

[ …] Then the Tao had no name.

A name came and it was creation […]        (CC 4)

The idea of ineffable ‘namelessness’ here clearly refers to the opening lines of the Chinese classic, the Daodejing (Ivanhoe 2002). Basing his narrative equally on the Gospel of John, in Cantiga 2, ‘The Word’, Cardenal describes the appearance of the ‘Word’ as the primary act of creation, which is both poetic and dynamic in nature.

In the beginning

                        – before spacetime –

            was the Word

All that is then is true.

                                 Poem.                (CC 13)

Creation, bringing “the light out of the darkness” (ibid. 15), is a deeply poetic act. Yet Cardenal perceives the moment of creation not as a single centralized movement, but rather as “a simultaneous explosion on all sides, filling / the whole space from the beginning, every particle / of matter drawing away from every other particle” (CC 7). The continuous mutual interaction between these particles constitutes the cosmic song, “united by rhythm.” […] “In harmony”

           The cosmos sings.

                                       The two choruses.

“The yang calls;

The yin responds.”

                            Dialectically.                (CC 17-18)

The dialectical movement of yin and yang or, as Cardenal calls it, “the celestial dialectical dance (CC 16), is directed toward union of these forces. This union, in Cardenal’s view, is the essence of love, both as a physical act between lovers, and as metaphysical love between creator and creatures:

                  He is in that which each thing is.

                              And in that which each thing enjoys.

             Each thing coitus.

                 The entire cosmos copulation.

All things love, and he is the love with which they love.

“The yang calls;

          the yin responds.”        (CC 16)

The movement and copulation of opposing forces, yin and yang, as the movement of female and male lovers, creates harmony. This kind of harmony is rhythmic, poetic and musical:

                 The whole universe musical harmony.

Everything is number and harmony

                                       in music and in heavenly bodies.            (CC 46)

Cardenal’s description of a harmonious universe reaches its crescendo in Cantiga 20, ‘The Music of the Spheres’ (CC 187-196). Here, this harmony is described as cyclical and constantly changing:

A harmonious universe like a harp.

Rhythm is equal beats repeated.

The beating of the heart.

Day/night.

The coming and going of birds of passage.

Cycle of stars and maize.

Mimosa which unfolds during the day

and at night folds back.        (CC 187)

In describing the universe as “harmonious”, Cardenal makes it clear that in his understanding harmony does not imply uniformity. Rather, harmony for him is polyphony, “a music closer to jazz than to classical music,” “disorderly dance of things” (CC 188), guided by change:

The cosmos as change.

Its structure is change.

        Ever-changing spider web of light.

Meditation as contact with the rhythms of the universe.

        Returning is the motion of the Tao.        (CC 190)

It is noteworthy that in order to express the idea of change as a foundation of harmony, Cardenal employs explicitly Chinese philosophical concepts, such as the alternation of yin and yang as the principle of the Dao (Tao). Unusually for a Christian thinker, Cardenal perceives harmony not as an ideal ‘state’ of things, existing in “in the beginning”, that is, in the form, whether symbolic or literal, of a Biblical Paradise, but rather as a dynamic process associated with continuous creation, most notably exemplified by the Book of Changes.²

“Meeting Christ and Reading Marx”:³ Cardenal on Broken Harmony

Following this ‘Chinese’ line of thought, Cardenal extends the concept of cosmic harmony to the realm of politics, which in his view links cosmic and earthly orders. He claims that a close connection exists between political, social, and cosmic harmony:

                Political, moral and cosmic harmony:

Yin and Yang for the Prime Minister too.

The four seasons pass in order

when the right thing is done in everything.        (CC 196)

According to the Chinese understanding of dynastic circles, rulers have the legitimacy to rule as long as the right order is preserved. This means that order is based on the moral behavior of those in power. Yet when rulers’ corruption increases and the people’s hardships intensify, order is broken. The dichotomy between the harmonious life of the privileged minority and sufferings of majority of the people who remain oppressed constitutes one of the major themes in the Cosmic Canticle. The brokenness is expressed most strongly in Cantiga 25, ‘Visit to Weimar’ (CC 240-244). Opening this cantiga with the usual reference to the Biblical “In the beginning” and noting that the multiplicity of forms and creatures in the world is made of 92 atoms, Cardenal recollects his visit to this locus, which epitomizes German civilization and civility. The detailed and painstaking description of the interior of Goethe’s house, the milestones in the poet’s life, his intellectual search and contacts with remarkable men of his epoch, his belief in the healing power of poetry, and his vision of “a free people living on this earth” all add up to create a feeling of peaceful routine in the city that was “the intellectual capital of Germany” (CC 240-241). But this languid description then crashes headlong into a shocking later reality, half-hidden from the eyes of Weimar residents―that of Buchenwald:

And 15 minutes from there

                                            set in the woods

we enter the “Highway of Blood.”

                            The prisoners themselves paved it.

[…]

Barbed wire within barbed wire within more electrified barbed wire.

             The horrendous watch-towers.

                And we saw the cremation ovens in red brick.        (CC 241-242)

“With as many inhabitants as Weimar”, this is “another city” (CC 242), and the site of horrendous atrocities, which did not result from disorder and chaos but from meticulously planned organization:

Everything well-ordered.

The name of each one who was going to arrive

sent beforehand to the concentration camp

with a copy to the Central Management of Concentration Camps

cc. to the Gestapo, etc.        (CC 242)

Describing the horrors of Buchenwald, the unbearable human suffering and dehumanized, cold-blooded actions of the Nazis, Cardenal makes it clear that this entire ‘machine’ was operated by people who continued to read books, write love poems, appreciate Goethe, and take pride in Germany’s cultural heritage:

Human skin was good for parchment.

        For writing poems on, love poems.

For binding books.

                    For lamp shades.        (CC 242-243)

The reason for this dehumanization, at least to some degree, is the failure of those in power to understand that all things in the world are interconnected, through “[t]he unity of humanity and the union / with all that surrounds it.” (CC 244). This is an ever-present theme. As Cardenal writes more explicitly in Cantiga 8, ‘Condensations and Vision of San José de Costa Rica’ (Cantiga 8, CC 60-65), human life can be meaningful and valuable only in community. Therefore, communism, with its emphasis on communal wellbeing, is perceived by Cardenal as the political system best able to bring about unity and harmony.

Nazi atrocities are not the only sources of suffering perpetrated by other humans. In Cantiga 16, ‘The Darkest Before Dawn’ (CC 132-140), Cardenal describes the terrors in Nicaragua:

I’m going to tell you now about the screams from the Cuá

                 screams of women as though in labor.        (CC 132)

[…]

Two girls told what happened:

They discovered a pistol on a boy from the neighborhood,

And they didn’t search anymore.

They pushed the women, children and elderly to one side.

Made the boys lie on the ground.

Three of their brothers were on the ground;

a guardia ordered them to look away.

After the shots they saw the bodies writhing on the ground.

They drove a tractor over the bodies.

The tractor then piled them up, a single red mass.        (CC 136-137)

Through detailed descriptions of victims’ suffering, the cruelty of oppressors, and the indifference of the rest of the world, in this part of his poem Cardenal portrays a situation of despair with no visible exit. Even so, he insists that neither individual nor collective pain is meaningless. Just as the suffering of a woman crying in labor will bring forth new life, so the collective suffering of humanity is a stage in bringing forth a new reality. As the title of this cantiga promises, darkness is not eternal. The oppressed will wake from their dreams and realize the power of community with the light of morning:

We’ll see the water deep blue: right now we can’t see it.

[…]

The shades fly off like a vampire before the light.

         Get up you, and you, and you.        (CC 139-140)

Brokenness and Tikkun (‘Repair’) in Berengarten’s Changing

One of the strongest examples of the theme of brokenness in Changing occurs in the poem-cluster associated with hexagram 23 剝 (Bo), ‘Peeling’ (CH 183-190). The title of this hexagram is a reference to peeling the “skin from fruit or vegetables.”⁴ ‘Peeling’ is intimately connected to the title of hexagram 49 革 (Ge), ‘Shedding,’ which is based on an animal image, and expresses the motif of ‘revolution’, as noted above. For Berengarten, bo ‘peeling,’ is concerned above all with archaeology: peeling off layers of earth and, by implication, whatever masks the darknesses buried deep within the human soul. Like the archaeologist who peels off layers of soil in order to discover fragments and so to reconstruct the past, Berengarten gathers evidence into a terrifying picture of a human reality that has been repeatedly dehumanized.

Referring to Vienna after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Berengarten describes the life of Austrian Jews, who overnight were turned from being respected citizens into ridiculed victims and outcasts:

‘March 1938: the most popular sport that

weekend was to round up all ranks of Jews

particularly middle class specimens

and make them clean streets

and scrub pavements decorated with pro-

Schuschnigg posters and slogans

and kick and beat them especially

older and feebler ones if they stumbled

or collapsed. The Jews were forced

  

to work with bare hands onto which

acid was poured. Meanwhile Viennese

citizens stood by jeering and laughing

  

and occasionally breaking into roars

of delight as they chanted: “Work for the

Jews at last! At last work for the Jews!”’        (CH 23/1: 185)

  

Resembling the twofold reality of Weimar described by Cardenal, where “no one knew anything” (CC 244), here the citizens of Vienna were ready to condone the barbaric treatment of Jews. Moreover, they took pleasure in humiliating their neighbors, many of whom were later transferred to concentration camps and perished.

The Holocaust is not the only zone of human suffering Berengarten confronts. In the next poem in this cluster, he directly quotes the testimony of Margaret Cox, a British forensic anthropologist whose job was “to locate, excavate and exhume mass graves believed to hold the victims of genocide” (Warner 2004; CH 545). In 1994, during the genocide in Rwanda, within a period of 100 days, hundreds of thousands of people were tortured and murdered at the hands of their former neighbors (see Gwin 2014 and Epstein 2017). Berengarten dedicates his poem to the memory of Annonciata Mukandoli, a young Tutsi woman who was gang-raped and then horrendously murdered:

In the area of Nyamata Church

atrocity was so widespread and

gang-rape so systematically

organised that men with

HIV waited their turn till last.

In a vault below that church

a particularly large coffin

was found, at least three

metres long. The body

inside was a woman’s

of merely average height. She

needed this long coffin

because she had been raped

with a sapling. The tree had been

forced right through her.

The local people

buried her with the

tree inside her.    (CH 23/2: 186)

The lines of the poem, written as a simple historical record, reveal the almost inconceivable reality of premeditated torture and murder inflicted by people of one ethnic group upon members of another, who only days before had been their fellow-villagers. The description of extreme violence within the grounds of the church, where people, old and young, desperately sought refuge in the vain hope of protection and mercy, leaves the reader with a sense of helplessness and despair: skulls crushed, clothes torn, human bodies burning alive―the graphic epitome of broken humanity.

The agony of meaningless suffering, which is all the more intensified by the calm discursive narration, is not, however, the final word. As the cluster of poems proceeds, it becomes apparent that, following the inner dynamic of the hexagram, tendrils of hope slowly manifest as a web of connections between past and present. In the third poem of the cluster, “the bespectacled young forensic archaeologist” reports finding “a silver chain [which] surrounded several joined vertebrae,” while she herself is “wearing a blue hamsah medallion around her slender throat” (CH 23/3: 187). The hamsah, possibly signifying the archaeologist’s belief that the amulet “will ward off […] Evil” (545) connects the living and the dead, the latter being directly embodied in the unearthed vertebrae of a person who was also wearing a necklace. The identical image is taken up elsewhere in ‘Words for a hamsah’ (31/5: 253). So, life continues. In the fourth poem, entitled ‘Language Palazzo’, continuity is epitomized by children “playing hopscotch” in the Campo de la Bragola in Venice, even after general destruction and the breakdown of language, when “[m]eanings / collapsed to rubble” (23/4: 188). Then, the need for meaningfulness, implied here, is taken up in the last poem in this cluster:

Enough of battering, blasting,

storming, excavating, carving.

Our job is to foster and grow

(a) coherent language, little

by little, in patience, in respect.

And how can this be but

by following the heart’s

paths and injunctions – to

reaffirm the dignity

 
of the dead, and reclaim,

recall, rediscover – or find for

the first time (a) language

 
fit for, capable of examining,

expressing, understanding, in

and through words, what had

been unsaid, unsayable, and

so mend and change the real,

regrow and rebuild hope.        (CH 23/6: 190)

Finding appropriate words to address the painful past and doing so “by following the heart’s paths and injunctions” is necessary in order to rebuild hope. For this reason, the initial act is to find “(a) coherent language”, which for Berengarten is, first and foremost, the language of poetry. Like Cardenal, who views the poetic word as the impulse of creation itself, Berengarten imbues poetry with the power of mending the broken world, the power “from depth of dark to confront and conquer evil” (36/5: 293; base-line), and so to prepare the way to repair the broken reality. Challenging Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), who claimed that “to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric” (551), Berengarten insists that the poetic word has the power to transform pain into hope:

I shall find words, my

own, after, despite and because

of this. And speak of it.

Your call, in words, to

silence, misconstrues what

poems are, do, are for.

To call out love and justice,

born of the heart’s oldest and

simplest imperatives – hope,

compassion, courage, truth,

and defiance of death-makers.        (CH 36/5: 293)

These lines imply the motif of tikkun תיקון, meaning ‘repair, restoration, restitution’. Berengarten relies considerably on this Hebrew word, “a fertile and resonant term in Kabbalistic thought” (545-546). He quotes Gershom Scholem’s explanation: “The task of man is seen to consist in the direction of his whole inner purpose towards the restoration of the original harmony which was disturbed by the original defect – the Breaking of the Vessels – and those powers of evil and sin which date from that time.” (Scholem 275). The same redemptive theme appears explicitly in the following poem ‘Tikkun, Majdanek’ (CH 36/6: 294).

Therefore, not silence, but rather the poetic word, according to Berengarten, is able to serve as the means for tikkun: restoring the broken reality, slowly and carefully, to the original oneness, to the wholeness of the Biblical “in the beginning”:

In the beginning was

Word – and Word was

wholly way why one.

Word was number

and unison. Word was

one and all. And

  

Word was not spoken

but heard. In silence.        (CH 20/5: 165)

Heard first by humans in the solitude of their hearts, this is the very Biblical “Word”, ultimately poetic, that can restore broken harmony.

Turbulence, Love and Harmony in Changing

Berengarten, like Cardenal, depicts primordial harmony by means of the image of copulation between lovers. Aspects of this motif appear throughout the poem-cluster associated with hexagram 44 姤 (Gou), ‘Coupling’. Significantly, Gou is structurally related to hexagram 23 (Bo), ‘Peeling’, mentioned earlier, by a double change: each hexagram is both the inversion and the yin and yang opposite of the other.⁵ This means that in Berengarten’s Changing, the poems describing brokenness (in the cluster associated with hexagram 23) and harmony (in the cluster for hexagram 44) are connected on deeper levels. Referring to the harmony of sexual union between lovers, Berengarten suggests that the “[e]ntire fabric / of the human orgasm / meshed of timeless / space and light” (44/0: 352), embodied in the unity of “I” and “you”, leads to the dissolving of private identity and the appearance of a “fourth / person singular”. This entity seems mysterious. Is the key to this idea, perhaps, the simple fact that procreation results from sexual union and that out of the state of the oneness experienced by two emerges a third, an entirely new being? So might the embryo in the mother’s womb then, perhaps, be this “fourth person singular” (ibid.), as both outcome and embodiment of physical love?

Another kind of intuitive and intimate connectivity also passes between mother and daughter, when it becomes possible to hear what otherwise would remain hidden: the ‘sound’ of ‘a silent smile’―a manifestation, perhaps, of what is described in the Bible as “the voice of finest silence” (Hebrew קול דממה דקה kol dmama daka; Kings 19: 12):

I’m pregnant,

she told her mother on

her (mother’s) birthday.

[…]

     In and through

the silence at each

end of the line

both women heard

the other smiling.        (CH 3/2: 26)

The image of a woman hearing a smile in silence, the interplay between birth and motherhood, giving and receiving life, not only enhances the sense of harmony, but also emphasizes the unbreakable power of life represented by hexagram 3 屯 (Zhun), ‘Beginning’.⁶ Intriguingly, hexagram 3 is the opposite of hexagram 49 革 (Ge), ‘Shedding’, by a double change in just the same way as hexagrams 23 剝 (Bo) ‘Peeling’ and 44 姤 (Gou) ‘Coupling’ oppose and balance each other. The connection between the two hexagrams emphasizes the importance of harmony as a healing power that can balance the crisis brought forward by revolution. As Berengarten emphasizes, the feeling of being embraced, “breathing gently”, being cared for and carried “away to dreamland” (3/5: 29), where one can dwell safely and in harmony, is the experience of an infant.

A perhaps comparable ‘quiescence’ can be consciously adopted by an adult too, to cope with uncertainty and instability, even in the most turbulent times:

The entire national economy has

cracked up. He has a job and works

hard but doesn’t get paid. […]

[…]

This isn’t his time or anyone else’s.

In the capital students and workers

demonstrate outside parliament.

 
With bare hands they tear down

walls. Pull up flagstones. Hoist parked

cars on top. Then torch the piles.

 
[…] He, meanwhile, stays

 
at home in his provincial town.

Borrows money. Tightens his belt.

Goes on working. Bides his time.        (3/6: 30)

Berengarten dedicates this poem to his friend Paschalis Nikolaou (537). It refers to the 2011 anti-austerity protests in Greece, when thousands of young citizens of Athens and many other Greek cities occupied public squares and clashed with police, protesting for a better future. The fervor of the moment, generated in solidarity with others, may have been what propelled the young protesters to the barricades. However, for Berengarten, the Book of Changes espouses the wisdom of waiting, tending the fire rather than burning within it. This motif is evident in another poem, associated with hexagram 33 遯 (Dun), ‘Retreating’. During the Cultural Revolution, the Buddhist monk, Xiao Yao, “retreated” from his previous retreat, a monastery high in the mountains, to the city of Xiangtan, where he worked in a boiler room:

Calling himself Mr. Tan, he slept

on a mattress in the boiler room. So,

incognito, Xiao Yao retreated

from his mountain retreat to find

safer retreat in the city, by the river,

servant to the blazing heart of fire.        (33/5: 269)⁷

Retreating and tending the fire of life rather than running headlong into it is for Berengarten the appropriate way to act in such a situation of uncertainty and danger. Berengarten believes that genuine revolution occurs first and foremost within one’s own being. Before a person can revolutionize the world, ‘shedding’ the old and bringing forward the new, s/he must ‘shed’ her/his old self by transforming her/his own inner being:

Before Xiao Yao

effected changes in the world,

in others, he changed

himself. He went down

into darkness and silence,

where he shedded things,

spacetime, life-and-death,

even his own breath. Then

from that core that is

nothing and everything,

a fire inexhaustible flowed

in streams through and

  

along his fingers, to and

into whatever he touched.

Were you, who were

  

lucky enough to meet

him, charged through

his charge? Changed?        (CH 49/5: 397)

While “[i]ncreasing light” (49/2: 394) is often perceived by revolutionaries as their mission, according to the Book of Changes this process cannot be forced. Rather, changing the future for the better is possible only after inner transformation of one’s own self.

Breaking Through or Breaking Down? Cardenal and Berengarten on Revolution

The philosophical vision of the Book of Changes, which perceives harmony as dynamic process, is clearly manifested in both Ernesto Cardenal’s Cosmic Canticle and in Berengarten’s Changing. This process is portrayed as the movement of lovers, the mutual changes of yin and yang, and the dynamic oneness of musical sounds. Harmony reflects: “order, not only already / within, but discoverable and / not imposed” (CH 14/0: 112). It also demands unity, equality, and the well-being of all members of society. Therefore, as long as injustice prevails, as long as human beings are exploited or suffer, both the order of the world and harmony are broken, and still need to be restored. For Cardenal, restoration of the broken order is the function of revolution:

the whole of creation down to the hoardings groaned with pain

Because of man’s exploitation of man. The whole of creation

        was clamoring, clamoring in full cry for

the Revolution.        (CC 65)

Revolution is not merely an act of violence imposed by one group of people on another; rather, it is an existential necessity. Revolution is evolutionary, and therefore opposing it is perceived not merely as an act of counter-revolution, but as counter-evolution―an opposition to the entire existential order based on love:

       The enemies of evolution (Somoza etc.)

                Counter-evolutionaries.

How can there be unemployment on this planet?

But there is a tower we wish to build, Chuang-tse said,

that might reach to infinity.        (CC 72)

Referring to both Christian and Daoist sources, and perhaps being influenced by interpretations of Daoism by his friend Thomas Merton (1915-1968),⁸ Cardenal claims that the eventual extinction of selfishness and of capitalism is certain as the change of seasons. Building “the tower of the spirit”, based on the “entire sincerity of Tao” (Merton 134), is possible only by means of destroying selfishness:

Capitalism will pass away. You’ll no longer see the Stock Exchange.

– Just as sure as spring follows winter…

[…]

And if “the last enemy destroyed will be death”

selfishness will be destroyed before.        (CC 62)

Revolution is necessary for destroying selfishness and restoring unity. Yet Cardenal makes it clear that a single revolution may not suffice: “the battle’s already twenty thousand million years old” and will continue; “the revolution doesn’t end in this world.” As light and darkness alternate, new disturbances will appear, leading to new revolutions until death, the eternal “status quo”, will be defeated (CC 63-64).

Although Cardenal employs Chinese concepts, among them ‘dynamic harmony’, his philosophical vision is directed by his Christian faith: the final goal of human struggles and revolutions is the defeat of death. On the way to this ultimately Christian goal (1 Corinthians 15: 54-55), humanity will proceed in a spiral, through alternation of light and darkness, yet always progressing towards a better future:

Lying in my bed in Managua

I’m dropping off to sleep

                  and suddenly I ask myself:

                  Where are we going? We are

on the dark side of the earth,

                       the other side, lit up.

Tomorrow we will be in the light

and the others in darkness.

[…]

take it easy boys, we’re doing fine.

                  Spinning around in black space

wherever we’re going, we’re doing fine.

And also,

        the Revolution’s doing fine.        (CC 88)

Cardenal perceives revolution as ultimately positive, as the way in which harmony will be restored and community revived. Although he condemns violence associated with the broken order of things, he does not criticize violence associated with revolution. For Cardenal, revolution which sets as its goal the restoration of equality and the end of suffering is the manifestation of love, for “[o]nly love is revolutionary” (CC 60).

Berengarten, perhaps disenchanted by the history of world revolutions, warns against the reckless actions of revolutionaries led by their ideas, no matter how noble, of truth and justice. He claims, again and again, that the goal cannot justify the means. This theme is particularly prominent in the cluster of poems associated with hexagram 49 革 (Ge), ‘Shedding’. In the third poem in this cluster, Berengarten elevates basic human compassion and sensitivity to the needs of one’s neighbor over ideology. When self-reflection is distorted by an individual’s sense of his/her group’s ‘unique mission’ combined with his/her own ‘personal purity’, then “making mistakes” and creating innocent victims are unavoidable:

In making mistakes

and enemies, we did not

do so languidly, but

  

deliberately and un-

hesitatingly cut competitors

and opponents down.

  

So we destroyed many

we still loved or once had

loved and many more we

didn’t give a damn about

who happened to occupy

any position blocking

our road to our goal – the

Road and the Goal. Those

we wiped out included

unwary, innocent and

ignorant passengers. We got

good at creating victims.        (49/3: 395)

The poem associated with the fourth line of this hexagram continues:

While we suffered

losses keenly, believing

ourselves sole

light spreaders, […]

[…]

we built on destruction.        (49/4: 396)

Building “on destruction” by means of intentional action, rather than slowly ‘mending’ the cracked world through the power of the poetic word and enabling tikkun and reconciliation, cannot and will not lead to creation of a better reality. Even though such an action may be victorious, the price of this victory, paid by all humanity, can be extremely high, and the result achieved, disastrous: the wish to find light may result in the most catastrophic darkness. After all, even the members of the Nazi party believed in their noble mission and perceived themselves as revolutionaries. Berengarten clarifies this point in the poem ironically entitled ‘Hail Victory’, associated with hexagram 58 兌 (Dui), ‘Joying. Enjoying’: “They staged vast processions / of party-followers to smile, clap, / march, stamp, cheer. Mystical / fervour glistened on uplifted / faces. Young and old, this was / their revolution, never-before- / achieved.” (58/6: 470). Unlike Cardenal, who perceives revolution as a breakthrough to a new and better life, Berengarten is concerned that the seeming breakthrough may well become a breakdown, when revolutionaries proudly enjoying their messianic role in changing the order of the world commit horrible crimes against humanity. The poem associated with the fourth line of hexagram 43 夬 (Guai), ‘Breaking through’, eventually asks:

Shall they be forgiven, mur-

derous revolutionaries who knew

they’d change the world – yet

perpetrated atrocities?

[…]

How mourn those proclaimed

and self-proclaimed heroes and

heroines who, possessed by

  

childlike angelic visions of

their own inflated importance

and genius, lacked one iota

of modesty or compassion?

Without fuss or compunction,

let’s tear their statues down.        (43/4: 348)

In this poem, as in many others, Berengarten reminds his readers of the thin line separating change and changing. The action in the name of “the Goal” (49/3: 395) can perhaps result in the former but not the latter. Changing is not a ‘final’ state but rather a perpetual and dynamic process. In this context, it is worth noting that for all his translations of I Ching hexagram titles, Berengarten employs the gerundive ‘-ing’ form, which itself implies process rather than solid or stolid stasis. As he testifies, “In modelling the sixty-four cluster titles, as well as the title Changing itself, I have consistently deployed English words ending in ‘-ing’ in order to reflect (refract, inflect), even if only in part, the complex polysemies of Chinese graphs that serve as hexagram names in the I Ching” (525). Changing, as process, requires sensitivity, patience and, above all, listening. And like changing, harmonizing too is not an ideal state of things to be found only in some Biblical Paradise. Its status as a gerund itself signifies a continuously adjusting and oscillating process between yin and yang, which slowly and carefully can bring human life, both personal and communal, to being-fulfilled. Significantly, when translating the title of hexagram 11 泰 (Tai), which is interpreted as ‘Peace’ by Hellmut Wilhelm (25) and Richard Lynn (205) and ‘Advance’ by Alfred Huang (117), Berengarten chooses ‘Harmonising, Prospering’. In this process, both the Book of Changes and the art of poetry – which join together in Changing – play a central role, as in this poem for hexagram 48 井 (Jing), ‘Welling, Replenishing’:

Consultation

of the diagrams

is helpful

[…]

[…] in all forms of

measurement and modes

of harmonising.        (48/0: 384)

Although Cardenal and Berengarten view revolution in different lights, they seem to agree that there is a connection between social change and inner cultivation. For Cardenal, the quintessence of this connection is overcoming self-interest and, following the Biblical message “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19: 18; Mark 12: 31), reaching union with others. For Berengarten, guided by the Book of Changes, self-cultivation is the continuous transformation of the self, which allows one to experience unity with nature and all of humankind.

The differences between these two authors’ perceptions not only reflect their cultural identities, but also affect all the focal points of their poetic and philosophical discourses. Cardenal emphasizes social justice, viewing revolution as a breakthrough. Berengarten is concerned with the dynamics of changing, emphasizing the importance of harmonizing yin and yang, and warning his readers against acting with excessive energy. What is important for him is to find “the middle way” 中道 (zhongdao), as is demonstrated by repeated references to this concept in Changing: zhongdao appears as a base-line in five poems (see CH: 74, 82, 83, 90, 258, and also the note on 538).

For Berengarten, then, the Book of Changes offers a way of bringing together the deep desire for a brighter future and the understanding that changing needs to arise from within. Changing is an ongoing process, an ongoing revolution occurring first and foremost in the depth of one’s heart in the reality of the present moment:

                                Now

is time for this same primeval

struggle while deploying subtler arts –

magnanimous vision and patient

open heart    (CH 11/2:90)

References

Berengarten, Richard. 2016. Changing. Bristol: Shearsman Books.

Cardenal, Ernesto. 1993. Cosmic Canticle. John Lyons (trans.). Willimantic, CT: Curbstone.

Cohen, Jonathan. 2009. “Introduction: Songs of Heaven and Earth.” In Ernesto Cardenal, Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems. Jonathan Cohen (ed.). New York: New Directions, xi-xxii.

Cohen, Leonard. 2019. “Happens to the Heart.” Thanks for the Dance, Columbia Records and Legacy Records.

Epstein, Helen C. 2017. “America’s Secret Role in the Rwandan Genocide.” The Guardian (12 September). Online at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/12/americas-secret-role-in-the-rwandan-genocide

Gwin, Peter. 2014. “Revisiting the Rwandan Genocide: How Churches Became Death Traps,” National Geographic (2 April). Online at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2014/04/02/revisiting-the-rwandan-genocide-how-churches-became-death-traps/

Huang, Alfred. 2010. The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.

Ivanhoe Philip J. (trans.). 2002. The Daodejing 道德經of Laozi 老子. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing.

Jimmerson, Ellin Sterne. 2009. “‘In the Beginning―Big Bang’: Violence in Ernesto Cardenal’s Cosmic Canticle.” In Hawkins Benedix, Beth (ed.). Subverting Scriptures: Critical Reflections on the Use of the Bible. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 129-147.

Li, Chenyang. 2014. The Confucian Philosophy of Harmony. London and New York: Routledge.

Lynn, Richard John. 1994. The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press.

Merton, Thomas. 1965. The Way of Chuang Tzu. New York: New Directions.

Ooi, Samuel Hio-Kee. 2014. A Double Vision Hermeneutic: Interpreting a Chinese Pastor’s Intersubjective Experience of Shì Engaging Yìzhuàn and Pauline Texts. Eugene OR: Pickwick Publications.

Sandoval, Jessie (trans. and ed.). 2017. From the Monastery to the World: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Ernesto Cardenal. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint.

Scholem, Gershom. 1955. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. London: Thames and Hudson.

Shaughnessy, Edward L. 2016. ‘Preface’ to Berengarten, Changing: Bristol: Shearsman Books, xiii-xiv.

Warner, Harriet. 2004. “The Butterfly Hunter.” The Independent (18 July), Online at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-butterfly-hunter-553266.html

Wilhelm, Hellmut. 1995. Understanding the I Ching: The Wilhelm Lectures on the Book of Changes. Princeton NJ: Mythos.

Wilhelm, Richard. 1977 [1950]. The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. into German, and rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.

Published: Sunday 1 May 2022

[RETURN TO CHANGING]

Sophia Katz (柯書斐) is a Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies, Tel-Hai College, Israel, and Director of the Tel-Hai Center for the Study of Religions. She specializes in Chinese philosophy and literature. Her interests include: 11th to 17th century Confucian thought; the philosophical poetry of Chinese literati; and comparative philosophy, theology and religion vis-à-vis thinkers from China and other cultures. Her publications include: “The Way of Silent Realization: Ineffability and Rationality in the Philosophical Mysticisms of Śankara and Zhan Ruoshui,” (in Brahman and Dao: Comparative Studies of Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion, 2014) and “Free to Obey: Gao Panlong and Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Selflessness, Fate, and Freedom” (in Ching Feng: A Journal on Christianity and Chinese Religion and Culture, vol. 16/1-2, 2017). She is currently researching Chinese influences on the writings of Martin Buber.