Episode 36: The Tower (Robert Frost's Fire and Ice)

An exploration of The Tower via Frost's Fire and Ice.

The Tower is an archetype which invites us to explore and consider sudden change, upheaval, and chaos in our lives, as well as a kind of revelation or awakening sometimes associated with the word "enlightenment" as it is sometimes linked to personal transformation.

This particular exploration of The Tower, we make together via the following cultural stepping stones:

• Irene Solà's novel When I Sing, Mountains Dance
• Nichiren and his Soka Gakkai chums chanting of Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō
• Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
• Robert Frost's poem Fire and Ice:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

• Sessions with my shrink "Magic Mike" discussing the end of a relationship
• Giant waterfalls
• Woody Allen's opening monologue to Annie Hall
• Mumford & Sons' cover of Bruce Springsteen's I'm On Fire
• Siddhartha Gautama's first "podcast" (The Four Noble Truths, with a focus on his "thirsting" (Second Truth) of Taṇhā
• Siddhartha Gautama's second "podcast" (the Adittapariyaya Sutta - The Fire Sermon) which has also been turned into the following poem:

ALL IS ARDOUR

All is ardour burning & blaze
Eye is ardour ear is ardour
nose lips tongue ardour
mind ardour body ardour
burning burning burning away.

Sound burning scent burning
taste burning touch burning
incandescent bone fires burning
burning pleasure burning pain