Place of the sonnet, and the lion

In Madeleine L'Engle's luminous novel A Wrinkle in Time, Mrs Whatsit instructs the children that a human life, lived well, is like a sonnet. A sonnet (if we need reminding) is a strict poetic form that imposes demands of rhythm (iambic pentameter), rhyme, and length (14 lines). Depart from the form, and you may have something but you will not have a sonnet. In life, says Mrs Whatsit, "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."

This elegant analogy was in my mind last Sunday, since I had been re-reading A Wrinkle in Time in the middle of the night, prodded by a sequence of dreams and synchronicity I don't need to report here. The following afternoon, when the members of my circle at Mosswood Hollow shared the fruits of their homeplay assignment - which was to produce a creative act of self-definition - I was delighted when Lisa shared a sonnet she had composed in this cause:

With sleep come mystr'ies, dramas of the head
In language secret: diamond-laden code
Their stories unfold nightly in my bed
Their meanings caref'ly to the darkness sewed
The inner universe reveals such powers:
I fly, create, am rich beyond compare
O'er every enemy my presence towers
To my beloved I appear most fair
But what's the deeper meaning of these tales
That overflow my nights with filmhouse art?
The language of the daytime constant fails
I must relearn the language of the heart
The guide of dreaming points me toward the soul
And in the living of it, I am whole

- Lisa Fraser, Mosswood Hollow, November 15, 2009

Mrs Whatsit would most certainly have approved of this marvelous verse!

For my own contribution to our group essay in self-definition, I had decided to turn a big dream of my own into a mini-theatre, and I had no doubt now that Lisa should play the lion in this dramatic production. This is how I introduced the dream story to the group before we acted it out:

THE PLACE OF THE LION

You are at a zoo on a Sunday afternoon. People are wandering about, snacking and chatting as they inspect the animals and birds. As you approach the big cat enclosures, you are uneasy because you know that big cats don't belong in confinement.

When you come to the lion pen, you are disgusted because people are mocking the great beast, pulling faces - until someone screams that the gate is open and the lion could get them. Now all the people are running away.

Instead of fleeing, you step through the open gate, into the place of the lion. The great beast runs towards you and leaps up...and his great paws are on your shoulders...and he licks your face like a friendly dog. He wills you to turn around and look at the scene in the zoo in order to understand what is really going on here.

When you look back, you see that it is the humans that are living in cages. In the comfort of their suburban houses and malls and supermarkets they have failed to notice that they have walled themselves in places of confinement. When you look beyond the lion, you see there are no walls, only an open horizon of wild freedom and possibility. The lion says to you, in his gravel-ly lion voice, "You see, my dear, humans are the only animals that choose to live in cages."