Recently, a colleague shared with me a poem by Stanely Kunitz called “The Layers.” There is one line in it that stuck out to me, it says, “Live in the layers, not on the litter.” As I have been thinking about this line over the last few days I found myself having visions of mountains that have been blasted apart to create highways and the layers of rock which are visible in the walls surrounding me as I drive. The layers are a legacy of the history of that rock.
I remember a friend telling me about having a similar experience while in the grand canyon. Each layer tells a story about a different point in time in the development of this piece of nature. I have thought about trees and how there are layers that become visible when looking at a felled tree. Each layer is an important part in the life and history of the tree. Each layer tells a story about what happened during that time, what happened to that part of nature and what was done to it. The same is true for us.
Each layer of our life tells a story about what happened to us, the things we have done in our life and that which was done to us. There may be layers we appreciate and want to remember more than others, but each layer is important. We would not be who we are at this point in time if it were not for the meaning of each layer of our lives. For me, the litter becomes those layers we would like ignore and the things on our current surface level which are destructive and distracting. The litter in our lives is that which is currently keeping us from focusing on our life a whole and the wholeness of who we are.
When we live in the layers then we are embracing and appreciating all the layers of our existence and celebrating how each layer has contributed to who we are in this moment. Everything we have been through, done, or had done to us has helped make us who we are today. Every moment of our being has meaning in our understanding of our wholeness. This is why as Kunitz says we must live in the layers and not in the litter.
The Layers
by Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.