No Rack Can Torture me - Emily Dickinson

Happy Easter all. The implications of Easter in terms of humanity's relationship with the divine, our final destiny, and our human consciousness was captured by Emily Dickinson in this poem. While there is no indication that Emily Dickinson was particularly devout, nor even Christian, this poem captures a profound intuition of the meaning of Easter and the location of the risen body as residing now in all of humankind. The implications of a loosening of the bonds of death through a connatural relationship with Jesus, in a way that we are unable to through our natural existence, seems to be part of what she is saying. Although this theme is submerged under a humanistic understanding of the human person as self-transcendent, a theological meaning can be developed. But perhaps, Dickinson was, in fact, arguing for a completely natural anthropology as the human person as self-transcendent. Transcendence was a feature of the nineteenth century American poets. Furthermore, the early Greeks believed in an immortal soul apart from the body. But, where Dickinson differs, is that she specifically relates that there are "two bodies".

At any rate, Happy Easter and enjoy the day and the season!

No rack can torture me,
My soul ’s at liberty.
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one   

You cannot prick with saw,       
Nor rend with scymitar.
Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one, and one will flee.   

The eagle of his nest
No easier divest       
And gain the sky,
Than mayest thou,   

Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,       
So’s liberty.