angerThe following is a description of Cúchulain just before a fight. When the rage of battle was upon him. Sounds monstrous, but -- sometimes, anger can make a body feel similar!
The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front... On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child... he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat... The hair of his head twisted like the tange of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage. (Version by Thomas Kinsella)
In college, my first Brit Lit professor explained it as an over-the-top vision of extreme rage. At the time, I hadn't really experienced that kind of anger. It was long years before I discovered I had a temper, was capable of such strength of violence of feeling. I didn't truly get it.
Older, wiser, I have learned how one can indeed almost feel that ... malformed by rage. It requires great strength to control it. Strength of body and of mind. Discipline.
Anger isn't a bad thing. It can be useful. It can clear the mind, push aside peripherals, and harden one to things that must be done. But it needs always to be held in check so that one is not truly deformed by rage, internally. Rage is not anger. Rage is anger in violent motion.
For people, this can be dangerous. We cannot see the consequences of our actions. The Psalmist says: Refrain from anger and give up your rage; do not be agitated, it can only bring harm. People cannot be trusted with that kind of activity, though we are sometimes provoked to it.
I read so often of the harm unthinking rage can bring about. We do not always see someone in the throes of a warp spasm, though. We cannot always perceive the rage in a person. But we can and should be alert for it in ourselves. Anger, properly channeled, can be useful. Like a strong river current that carves pathways in the land. But rage can be like a tsunami, destroying lives in one devastating impact.
Older, wiser, I have learned how one can indeed almost feel that ... malformed by rage. It requires great strength to control it. Strength of body and of mind. Discipline.
Anger isn't a bad thing. It can be useful. It can clear the mind, push aside peripherals, and harden one to things that must be done. But it needs always to be held in check so that one is not truly deformed by rage, internally. Rage is not anger. Rage is anger in violent motion.
For people, this can be dangerous. We cannot see the consequences of our actions. The Psalmist says: Refrain from anger and give up your rage; do not be agitated, it can only bring harm. People cannot be trusted with that kind of activity, though we are sometimes provoked to it.
I read so often of the harm unthinking rage can bring about. We do not always see someone in the throes of a warp spasm, though. We cannot always perceive the rage in a person. But we can and should be alert for it in ourselves. Anger, properly channeled, can be useful. Like a strong river current that carves pathways in the land. But rage can be like a tsunami, destroying lives in one devastating impact.
