the baby asked its mother. She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast, -- "You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling. You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then. You were enshrined with our household deity, in his worship I worshipped you. In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived. In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages. When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it. Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before the sunrise. Heaven's first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world's life, and at last you have stranded on my heart. As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine. For fear of losing you I hold you tight to my breast. What magic has snared the world's treasure in these slender arms of mine?" - Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
The Beginning
Thursday, February 13, 2025
WOMAN
In search of the desert witch, the shaman-woman,
Forget the archetypes, forget the dark and petrified profile,
Do not examine the clouds
Packed on the horizon, violet and green,
For her image, do not chase
The ready-made abstraction, do not gaze at symbols,
As long as you want her without a face, without a scent
Or voice, as long as she does not squat
To piss or scratch herself, as long
As long as she does not snore under her blanket
Or grin when she early in the morning
Grabs the stone-cold millstone,
As long as she does not have her own peculiar face,
With light bags under her eyes or with a stripe
Topaz shining in the black
Of an eye, as long as she does not limp
As long as you try to simplify her meaning
As long as she only symbolizes power
She is kept helpless and conventional
Her true power fled back, further into the past in,
We cannot touch or name her
And silenced by those who need her