William Blake and Beyond

"As a man is, so he sees." These words of mystical poet and artist William Blake are just as relevant now as they were when they were written in 1802 - perhaps more so. Throughout his life, Blake undertook a voyage beyond rationality and materialism to an interior, visionary realm where "all things appear as they are - infinite." Yet all human beings, he believed, are capable of opening their eyes to a fuller experience of life.

In this discussion, master poet and word-weaver Robert Bly opens windows into Blake's mythic world, sharing with us some of Blake's poetry as well as some of his own compositions and insights, inviting us all to awaken to vision, our own creative energies, and the Divine Imagination.

Poet, translator, and teacher, Bly is the author of many books including Light Around the Body (Harper & Row 1967), Loving a Woman In Two Worlds (Dial 1985), Man In the Black Coat Turns (Harper & Row 1982), The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations (Harper Perenniel 2005), My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems (Harper Perennial 2006). He is also author of Iron John (Addison-Wesley 1990) and The Sibling Society (Addison-Wesley 1996).

Hosted by Michael Toms and Marsha Newman. Topics discussed in this dialogue are: four steps toward mystical vision, the historically evolving view of the human psyche and its implications, the dynamics of revolutionary energy in the French Revolution and the American '60s, Blake's four zoas - or living beings, within humans and culture, that represent four ways of moving into creative consciousness, how Blake re-introduced the feminine into the male Christian model, the power of attachment to beauty and art, and how to deepen your own creativity.