On the surface, what looks like a brazen rebellion against the Christian reformations that swept New England in the 19th century could be misconstrued as a lack of spiritual inclination. If we look under a single appearance, we will undoubtedly find true spirituality at the heart of his endeavor; far from snubbing God, but simply insisting on nothing less than a first-hand experience of Him.
The poet shunned religious doctrine, but did she shun religion? Certainly not as a whole, and even then it may just be a matter of syntax. The words ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ can sometimes be used interchangeably, and at other times a fine distinction must be made. Charles Anderson chooses not to make a distinction, using the word ‘religion’ in its broadest, and perhaps most primitive, sense:
“The ultimate direction of his poetry, and the pressures that created it, can only be described as religious, using that word in its ‘depth dimension’.”
Emily inherited the Puritan traits of austerity, simplicity, and practicality, as well as an astute observation of the inner self, but her communication with her higher Self was much more informal than her God-fearing ancestors would have dared. The daughter of the ‘Squire’ of Amherst, she came from a line of brave and courageous pioneers, who carried what was almost considered the blue blood of America. Her family was far from poor, but she did not lead a luxurious life, for the Puritans abhorred luxury and waste (even waste of words, a trait the poet would have done well to inherit).
She accepted the Puritan ideals of being ‘called’ or ‘chosen’ by God, and fully embraced the merits of transcending desire, but not the concept of being inherently sinful:
“While the cleric tells the father and Vinnie that ‘this Corruptible will dress as Incorruption,’ he has already done so and they leave disappointed.”
She had faith in her own divinity, so perhaps she was even more sure of God than her peers. She didn’t claim to fully understand him, or even to have abiding faith in all of her ways (his poetry of hers carries a continual strain of doubt), but she certainly didn’t fear him. The inner freedom this gave her-rare for a woman of her time-drove her to the point of being almost shameless in her familiarity and certainty. This confidence richly fueled her poetry and gave it her well-known childlike quality. For her, the truth was in nature. In that beauty she could see and feel God directly:
“Some keep the Sabbath by going to church —
I keep it, staying at Home —
With a Bobolink for a Showgirl —
and an orchard, for a dome,
Some keep the Sabbath in a surplice —
I only use my wings.
And instead of ringing the Bell, for the Church,
Our little Sexton… sings.
God preaches, a leading clergyman:
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last…
I’m gone, all the time.”
In fact, Emily attended church regularly, sometimes traveling to hear some of the enthusiastic and charismatic preachers who made their mark in that era. She was often moved by these sermons, perhaps as she was driven by the speaker’s delivery and word-building as the message within them. But this was not enough to tempt her to succumb to the fierce religious revival. One by one, her friends received an internal call and were ‘saved’, officially accepting Christianity. Members of her close-knit family eventually followed her lead, including her strong-willed father and eventually her brother, Austin, perhaps her closest ally. Emily wouldn’t commit to something she couldn’t sincerely feel, even under the unthinkable social pressure that surrounded her.
Until the age of 30 she continued to go to church, although she was excluded from certain meetings and services open only to those who had been ‘saved’. She became increasingly reclusive throughout her 30 years. It is tempting to view her seclusion as further evidence of spiritual asceticism. Her spiritual path was no doubt intensely lonely in such a social climate, but she yearned more and more for solitude, and the isolation somehow formed a symbiotic relationship with her art. Increasingly, her art became an expression of her spirituality.
Immortality (“the flood subject,” as she called it) consumed Emily’s consciousness. Pondering death was natural in those times, as illness and general hardship often claimed lives around her, and her awareness was further heightened by the many years she spent in a house next to a cemetery. . But dwelling on death was also almost a spiritual practice, a ‘graveyard meditation’, a means of focus, breathing life into the concepts of Eternity, Infinity and Immortality.
The poet and philosopher Sri Chinmoy said of the poet:
“Emily Dickinson wrote thousands of psychic poems. A short poem of hers is enough to evoke sweet sentiments and bring out the divine qualities of the soul.”
“With a deep sense of gratitude, allow me to invoke the immortal soul of Emily Dickinson, whose spiritual inspiration impels the seeker to know just what God the Infinite is. She says:
‘Infinity a sudden guest
It has been supposed to be
But how can that be great?
Which one never left?'”
What constantly drove her was that she needed the truth, and at all costs. She needed to see it with her own eyes and feel it with her own heart, not grasp it with the words of a cleric but explain it to herself with her own words. She looks like she even she was ready to die for her cause:
i died for beauty
“I died for beauty, but it was scarce
Adjusted in the grave,
When one who died for the truth lay
In an adjoining room.
Emily’s search for truth was a spiritual search that governed her inner life and blossomed naturally through her poetic works. Her own words, in a letter to a friend, succinctly claim Eternity and Immortality as her own. Perhaps they also foreshadow the enduring spiritual appeal of her writings, well beyond the short span of her life:
“So I conclude that space and time are things of the body and have little or nothing to do with ourselves. My country is the truth.”