We underestimate and underuse our power, especially as women, to influence where life will take us—just by employing our thoughts, or what I call our best imagination (See Wife for Life: The Power to Succeed in Marriage, Chapter 29). On this blog, my Dream Team and I will regularly recommend to you inspiring entertainments that are conducive to a positive imagination: beautiful pieces of film, music, art, and literature that will orient your thoughts toward truly loving and respecting your man, toward crafting a Grand Marriage. As Thomas Moore writes in his book Soul Mates: “The difficult truth to learn is that change takes place in the imagination, and knowing [that] this has everything to do with developing a good, intimate relationship to our own soul and the soul of others” (p. 42). In this post, my daughter-in-law, Bri, shares her best imagination in a way that helps me to not only understand and appreciate an intricate piece of poetry, but, more importantly, helps me to think in a loftier way about my own marriage and how I “accommodate accomplishment” in my husband — which, I’ve learned, is key to accomplishing my own work and seeing my own Dreams coming true. ~ Ramona

By: Bri Zabriskie, Wife for Life Dream Team

Today, I hope you’ll permit me to share one of my delights and inspirations with you while also trying to illustrate the importance of certain Wife for Life principles. I studied English Literature at University, and I would like to share a favorite poem of mine with you. I’ll preface it by telling you what I imagine is the story between the lines of the poem.

I picture a man who travels for his work and has big dreams of changing the world. He does this for her, his one and only, because he craves her admiration. He does this for her, because she believes in him. He hates to leave her, but he also knows he can only change the world by going out into it and sacrificing some of their precious time together. He cherishes this woman. He has respect for and confidence in her, that she can handle his being away, but he needs to know that she knows she can handle it; that she has confidence in her own ability.

This is why he sits down to pen this poem for her.

It is not in the spirit of chastisement or out of condescension for her feminine tears, but instead because he too longs to cry when they part, but knows they must be strong in order to make a difference in the world. They must be different than the average married couple and he knows they are. He has confidence that they love each other more than any other couple ever has; that she honors him as much as he adores her.

And then I imagine the woman.

How it must pain her for him, her greatest support and champion, to leave for such long periods of time! How difficult it is at times to be strong, when she so longs to be weak and to lean on his comforting strength! But she wants to encourage him in his quest because she believes in it more than he himself does; because she believes in him! (She must’ve married the most capable, incredible man in existence – just look at how he writes!) When he is gone, she can feel his distant presence out there in the world, and she longs to pull him to herself; but she knows he can only be the man she loves if he is out there conquering.

This poem is their story. This poem is my story. It is your story.

Even when work doesn’t put long distances and hours between a couple, other missions, other activities, other responsibilities, and children will. As a newlywed, I remember feeling as though we could never be together too much and that every separation was agony. The couple in this poem has matured beyond this point. It is not agony to part, for no parting is total or complete. They have become so much a part of one another that they are connected even when apart. Your marriage can feel like that too; it is no fantasy reserved for fairy tales and poetry. It is possible to never endure alienation. It’s all about the “Road to Forever.”

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

by John Donne

 

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

  And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say

  The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

  No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;

‘Twere profanation of our joys

  To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,

  Men reckon what it did, and meant;

But trepidation of the spheres,

  Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love

  (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

  Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

  That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

  Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

  Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

  Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

  As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

  To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

  Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

  And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

  Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

  And makes me end where I begun.

For those unaccustomed to reading poetry, I will try to break down the poem a bit, as I also show how the poem illustrates the unchanging purpose of a Wife for Life (hereafter WFL).

The title of this poem, A Valediction, means a leave-taking or a farewell. With this particular farewell, the author is forbidding his lover to mourn over his departure using a beautiful and clever conceit. A conceit, as it is used in poetry, is simply an extended metaphor; it is an analogy that the poet just keeps building on and building on, like the layers of an onion (or a parfait). Poets of this period prided themselves on a well fleshed-out conceit. In marriage, there is nothing so common as the coming and going of one’s partner, and Accommodating Accomplishment (a principle Ramona discusses at length) requires that a WFL smoothly handle such partings. When she does, she shows that she can handle her husband’s absence like a true Pioneer Woman, while also encouraging his return to enjoy her affection.

The first stanza sets the tone for the metaphor as one of reverent parting. The speaker describes the parting of friends at the bedside of a dying man. At first, this may strike one as a horrific example of leavetaking to bring up when leaving your spouse, but the speaker exalts this scene over other partings by highlighting its sweetness. The poem uses soft sounds created by “wh” and “s” pairings in lines two and three, and words that elicit calm like “mildly” “whisper” “souls” and “breath”. The bedside friends from this scene seem to not be overly concerned with whether their friend stays (lives) or goes (dies) and by invoking the dying man’s virtue, the author implies that this goodbye is not an unwelcome one, but instead peaceful and well-timed.

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

  And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say

  The breath goes now, and some say, No:

He goes on to request that his leave-taking be similarly received. He pairs “tears” with “floods” and “sighs” with “tempests”, contrasting them with “make no noise” and “melt” to highlight how these responses are “emotionally overwhelming”, one of the pivotal fears of men that Ramona highlights in her teaching. Further, he claims that to display their affection for the “laity” or the common people with tears and sighs would “profane” or defile that which is holy (their love).

So let us melt, and make no noise,

  No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;

‘Twere profanation of our joys

  To tell the laity our love.

He extends the conceit one step further, by conjuring even more natural phenomena than the previously mentioned floods and tempests: “moving of the earth,” here understood to mean earthquakes and “trepidation of the spheres,” meaning the movement of the planets or stars.  As the stars are elevated above the earth and above men’s concern, so he attempts to elevate their love above the earthly concerns of others (such as earthquakes).

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,

  Men reckon what it did, and meant;

But trepidation of the spheres,

  Though greater far, is innocent.

In the middle three stanzas, he refers to other lovers’ affection as “dull” (boring or not as sharp) and “sublunary” (meaning beneath the moon), extending the assumption that it is beneath or less than that of his own and his companion’s. These “lovers” “whose souls” are “sense,” meaning of the five senses of the body, “cannot admit absence because it doth remove those things which elemented it.”

Ordinary lovers, he implies, cannot stand being separated, because it means being apart from the things that created their love or fixation in the first place: their physical bodies. The senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch can no longer be employed to “love” the object of their affection. However, because the main couple’s love is elevated, pure, even “refined”, they are “inter-assured of the mind” (meaning they are of one mind) and do not miss the sensible parts (those parts of the body that experience the five senses). Thus, he says, their “two souls” are like “one” and when they part, it is not a “breach” or a break, but instead an “expansion like gold to airy thinness beat” – a simile that glorifies their separation as making something even more beautiful (thin gold) out of something valuable (gold).

Dull sublunary lovers’ love

  (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

  Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

  That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

  Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

  Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

  Like gold to airy thinness beat.

The last three stanzas of this poem contain the conceit that is the summation of what we’re working for here at Wife for Life. Though an elevated love hearkens of the Grand Marriage to which Ramona directs women, and less tears over your husband going out to do his work would certainly fall under several of the Laws of Attraction Ramona iterates in her book, the final three stanzas encompass the metaphor that best illustrates the kind of woman that is a Wife for Life.

Do you remember using a compass in math class to draw a circle? I’ve included a picture here in case your memory needs a little jogging.

When you use a compass, one “foot” stays “fixed” in the middle of the circle while the “other” goes round it to draw the circle. There’s SO ridiculously much symbolism here. The fixed foot stays “home” in the middle, but “leans and hearkens” after wherever the “other” foot goes. It even “grows erect” when the “other” foot “comes home” or back to it.

If they be two, they are two so

  As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

  To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

  Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

  And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

  Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

  And makes me end where I begun.

Circles are without end and are often symbolic of a protection or wall for whatever is inside them. The “run” of the circumventing “foot” could easily be the man’s quest. The fixed foot, woman’s “firmness,” or, in my interpretation, her ability to be a “Pioneer Woman” (in Wife for Life vernacular), both makes “just” (as in perfect) and makes “just” (as in justifies) the man’s “circle” or work. Thus, woman is absolutely essential to the work of man: she enables the work, she perfects the work, and she is the reason for the work (justifies). But the work of the man also serves to protect and provide for the woman. And this fixedness of woman is what “makes [him] end where [he began]” or draws the man back to her. It is the perfect symbol for the Dream Keeping relationship of men and women as defined in the Wife for Life universe.

It’s interesting to me that we still use the same instrument they were using thousands of years ago to draw perfect circles. Interesting and significant within the conceit included here. If the compass is the ideal relationship, the elevated love, then it’s still the only unit in which to accomplish our life’s perfect work today. You can still draw a circle without a compass. You can still accomplish much without a Grand Marriage. But you can draw a perfect circle and do your best work within the “confines” of a compass or Grand Marriage relationship.

As part of Ramona’s Dream Team, I believe that Grand Marriage, the legacy-type partnership that is so strong and so true that it blesses not only the couple, but everyone who comes in contact with it, are possible. I believe that Grand Marriages are what change the world for the better; and that these romances will be remembered for generations to come. Two people who work for each other’s dreams are able to accomplish so much more in the world because their positive energy gives them the stamina, gratitude, and desire to make the world a better place for others and/or for their posterity.

That’s what I want – a marriage that enables me to leave a legacy. If that means a little less nagging or crying when he goes off to do his work, so be it. I’ll be a fixed foot for him to be delighted to return home to.