Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
“Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
William Butler Yeats’s poem, “The Second Coming,” was penned in 1919 amidst the ashes of World War I and the Russian Revolution as the Spanish flu claimed souls like a silent reaper. Yeats captured a moment when hope for much of the world had surrendered to despair. His lines, “Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer”—paint a vivid picture of disconnection, a bird lost in its own spiral, mirroring how societies can drift into madness. It is a cautionary tale.
The poem creates an eerie vision: a sphinx-like beast awakening after centuries, slouching toward Bethlehem not with salvation, but with a blank, pitiless gaze that chills the soul. It is an evocative, almost cinematic, blending of Christian apocalypse and pagan dread born from Yeats’s own brushes with loss—his wife’s near-death from the flu—and the revolutionary fires in Ireland and Russia.
This isn’t dull history; it’s a gripping tale of cycles, where Yeats’s gyres—those intertwining spirals of destiny—represent how civilizations can spiral into chaos before resetting: “mere anarchy… loosed upon the world,” and the “blood-dimmed tide” overwhelming innocence, while the worst of us blaze with “passionate intensity” and the steadfast lose their footing. He envisioned the Christian era crumbling after 2,000 years, giving rise to something monstrous and savage.
Fast-forward to Strauss and Howe’s 1997 work, “The Fourth Turning,” which continues the theme, shaping it into a modern narrative of generational cycles. Their saecula—80 to 100-year loops—move through peaks of unity, awakenings of self-discovery, periods of doubt, and crises that tear everything down to rebuild. We’re in that fourth turning now, a profound shift since the 2008 crash, where pandemics, wars, and an ideologically divided society feel like the stirring of Yeats’ ominous beast.
The parallels between then and now are striking. In Yeats’ era: millions were lost to the flu and war while revolutions dismantled empires and a world struggled for air. Today we live in COVID’s shadow, with economic upheavals and distant conflicts stoking local anxieties. And now, recent wounds: Iryna Zarutska, 23, escaping Ukraine’s devastation only to face a tragic end on August 22, 2025, stabbed on Charlotte’s light rail by Decarlos Brown—a man burdened by his own demons, with a lengthy criminal history, now facing federal charges. Her family’s grief, the video’s shock—both a call to address the cracks in mental health and justice, igniting heated debates but also shared sorrow.
Just days after the tragedy in Charlotte, the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University sent ripples through the nation. A single shot ended the life of a prominent conservative voice, Trump ally, founder of Turning Point USA, husband, and father. A suspect is in custody, but accusations and heated rhetoric are intensifying. This event has become a flashpoint in a series of violent incidents, ranging from targeted attacks on CEOs to threats against leadership, reflecting a society in disarray. While these stories dominate the headlines, they overshadow the relentless daily violence and despair in our deteriorating inner cities. They are part of a chaotic spiral, echoing Yeats’s forebodings and Strauss-Howe’s crisis theory, amplified by a media-driven hive mind that collects and recycles our fears, feeding a growing addiction.
Historical cycles don’t end in darkness. Yeats’s spirals contract; Strauss-Howe’s crises cycle back to unity. From Zarutska’s tragedy, calls for compassion and reform rise; Kirk’s loss urges us to dial down the venom. We are not breaking new ground here, but the record of tumultuous times that fits neatly between the covers of a history book does not convey the chaos and personal tragedy that accompanies a process that is messy and unpredictable.
Previous cycles were resolved in revolution and war. Our faith is that darkness is not the end, but at this point it is up to us whether the shared sorrow will prevail over the fear and the hatred. If it does not, then the beast will surely come.
Outside The Box 