The Promised Land Project: On the Trail of Dante: Surviving and Ascending in Hell

Turning Vision into Action....at least hypothetically

Strike up the music of the band
We're blazing a trail for the promised land
Heaven on earth is within you.

Through the writing of stories, poetry, essays, and a novel, I’ve creatively contended with the consumer culture and the problem of the ideal in the modern era. This preoccupation in time would lead to a vision of cultural transformation and where I believe our democratic society needs to go to truly progress beyond the modern era. Conceding my limited credibility, this blog provides a synthesis of recognized visionaries, poets, and writers with the objective of making a credible argument. Ultimately, it is a certain feeling the project strives to inspire and sustain on a certain level, making more vital use of poetry and the arts; consequently whether one agrees or not is less important than whether one senses it and feels it over time.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

On the Trail of Dante: Surviving and Ascending in Hell

In the previous blog I described how I found myself in hell. As a means to help survive hell on earth is Henry Miller's book, Tropic of Cancer. While I don't expect many pastors to recommend the book to their congregation, to me it's a kind of Book of Job for the modern era. For the suicidal, launching into the "to be or not to be", it's tough to kill yourself with the image of Henry Miller across the room laughing at you. Furthermore, it was through Tropic of Cancer that I came to the poetry of Walt Whitman, who in time would prove to be my Virgil. In Dante's epic, the poet Virgil represents human reason, and what I appreciate about Walt Whitman is that he never asks me to abandon reason (unlike some pastors). Finding my way out of hell would be through love but such a route is not always clear. After a personal crisis where I stood at the edge of the abyss and looked down, I began to follow Whitman. Through Whitman did I come to appreciate that love and happiness are not one and the same. Abandoning the pursuit of happiness, which proved to be ever elusive, I instead initiated the pursuit of love. In the pursuit of love, to love for love's sake, so I began ascending from the depths.