The Highest Wisdom (a Postcard from Ulysses to Telemachus)
The highest wisdom results in a rearrangement of the blood and guts. Your blood and guts don’t react the same way. If you are not fully developed, then when something terrible approaches you, you can feel your guts pulling and your blood freezing as all of you says, “No!” But I have discovered the most important word: Yes! When that Yes falls like a golden apple, your blood runs differently. The blood gives birth to the Yes and the Yes revitalizes the blood. They happen at the same time, the same movement, the start of a new life with no clutching. The clutching turns into an embrace and we become unclutched. We open our arms to embrace and we become embraced. The heart-mind drums the rhythm of the Yes which embraces all of Life. You not only accept any trial, you welcome it. This is not to feel mirth, but something beyond mirth which is a feeling of splendor even in the face of tragedy. If I saw my comrades cut down before me, I would shed tears as hot as any shed on the battlefield of Troy. But I would be lifted up by that splendor. My heart would be open and would embrace even the most tragic death, not loving it but blessing it like a temple priestess blesses that which she offers to the god. There are no words for this. It is like the story of Zeus and Semele: the light of all the gods shines through you, burning away everything but what is divine.