back to the beginning

Back is the way forward—as T. S. Eliot so rightly insisted—but back as awake beings, exercising the proper choice of awake beings, instead of back to sleep: 

We shall not cease from exploration 

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time. 

Through the unknown, remembered gate 

When the last of earth left to discover 

Is that which was the beginning; 

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall 

And the children in the apple-tree 

Not known, because not looked for 

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness 

Between two waves of the sea. 

Quick now, here, now, always— 

A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) 

And all shall be well and 

All manner of things shall be well 

When the tongues of flames are in-folded 

Into the crowned knot of fire 

And the fire and the rose are one. 

(“Little Gidding,” Four Quartets, 1943)

To go back to the beginning

Begin and begin again

For the beginning lies its simplicity