Tumblr post by user Florence Leyret Photography captioned a post with the last line of Paradiso —Florence Leyret, “The love that moves the sun and the other stars…,” Tumblr, February 4, 2017 (retrieved February 29, 2024)
Dante’s Compass and the Mid-Life Course Correction
“Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest of dark
For the straightforward pathway had been lost” (–Dante)
“You had a plan. You’ve been moving down the path toward your goals, investing all the while. And then, somewhere along the way, something changed. You found the path was no longer the one you wanted to be on so now you’re navigating a mid-life course correction. This could be making a career change, getting divorce papers, selling/buying a business, or pursuing a passion. The good news is, studies show adults making a mid-life career change can be very successful and report making the move made them happier. Before you make the big leap, let’s go through some of the steps and questions anyone embarking on a major life change might consider to ensure a smooth transition to the next chapter of their life.” –Karyn Damschen, “Steps to a Successful Mid-Life Course Correction,” Retirement Evolutions (Retrieved on October 19, 2022)
Adults reaching the midway point of their lives look to Dante for guidance to avoid navigating themselves into their own dark wood.
Rodger Kamenetz, “Dante at the Gates of Hell”
“From time to time I will be offering examples of encounters with images from poetry. The point is to show what we might learn from the poets about how to better engage with images in our dreams.
“In the opening of Canto III of Inferno, ‘Dante’ and ‘Virgil’ stand before the gates of hell. The first nine lines are in capital letters.
PER ME SI VA NELLA CITTÀ DOLENTE
THROUGH ME ONE ENTERS THE CITY OF WOE..
“The gate itself is speaking to the poets (and to us the readers).
“This gate has spoken to me for 47 years, since I took the Italian to heart–memorized the lines in a language I do not really know. But I loved Dante and loved the sound, and I think part of the beauty of reading in a foreign language is you slow down, you don’t read it like you read the newspaper or the internet, you take time to translate the words and feel them.
“There is another language that has become foreign for too many of us, the language of images. We have forgotten how to read images, how to respond to them. To gain benefit from our dreams, we must learn how to stand before the images.
“I believe reading poetry written at a high level can teach us how to do this. That is what I hope to show in this series.” […] –Rodger Kamenetz, Encountering Images, Series 1: Dante at the Gates of Hell, December 23, 2020
