The Beginning

"Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?" 

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)

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

She suffocates in unspeakable loneliness.

Art: Cailleach Bheur by Victoria Ni Keltica