An Invitation to Voyage with Baudelaire

Discovering a 19th century French poet, more than 150 years after his passing, must be more than some happenstance. One must find a symbol to mark the significance of this singular event. Where can I find such a symbol? Perhaps in Charles Baudelaire's own forest of symbols. My dream at Northstar is that everyone, once in a while, finds something so terribly beautiful that it stays marked in their memory forever. Like the yellow blossoms of the Amaltas in summer, the red canopies of Gulmohar, like the image of that woman in Homebound film where she gives water to the thirsty (when we saw the movie in Northstar film club), like reading the poems of Baudelaire. These moments of sheer force, sometimes tragic mostly majestic, create a mark so deep that one cannot help but cry. How many times can we find such moments of magic? How many times have we lost these moments of revelation, of numenous beauty, of diabolical ugliness - experiences that go deep in our soul.

I wonder if this stanza from Baudelaire's Invitation to the Voyage would do that to you - be a revelation or freeze you at the threshold of a revelation that never arrives.

Let me share the whole poem below:

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté, Luxe, calme et volupté.
There is nothing else but grace and measure. Richness, quietness and pleasure.

This Richard Wilbur translation is beautiful. Calm and lyrical.

This is what Northstar is to me and I hope someday to you. A forest of symbols, of grace, of measure, of richness, of quietness, of pleasure.