Night-Silence ~ Nachtstilte

Night-Silence

Hush now, hush: on feet of silver

Through the night see silence go,

Silence that from gods delivers

Greetings to the watch below...

What ’twixt souls could not be spoken

In the daytime’s empty din

From high realms that night has woken,

Into light star-bright now broken,

Sullied by no word or token

God speaks deep within.

*

Nachtstilte

Stil, wees stil,

Op zilv’ren voeten

Schrijdt de stilte door de nacht.

Stilte, die der goden groeten

Overbrengt naar lager wacht.

Wat niet ziel tot ziel kon spreken

Door der dagen ijl gegons

Spreekt, uit overluchtse streken

Klaar, als ster in licht zou breken,

Zonder smet van taal of teken

God in elk van ons.

*

Poem by the Dutch poet P.C. Boutens (1870-1953)

Translation by Emma & David Bergen

Painting: "Licht" - Juke Hudig

Conversation with a Butterfly

I am sitting relaxing in my garden. The day is warm, with a few fluffy sheep’s-wool clouds sailing through a sky of piercing lapis, although the shade of the young maple tree under which I am sitting offers me some relative coolness.

A butterfly alights on one of the maple leaves, close enough for me to reach out and touch it. I do not do so, of course, being glad enough of its company. Its wings match the blue of the sky: a little piece of heaven flown down from above. ‘How are you?’ asks the butterfly courteously. I feel the need to be honest. ‘A little down’, I replied, ‘but rather better since you have come to visit me. ‘Ah,‘ said the butterfly unsurprised, ‘that is to be expected. I tend to have that effect upon those whom I visit.’ I noticed that I felt better the longer the butterfly remained with me. ‘Perhaps you could stay with me, then I would always feel better.’ I suggested.

‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed the butterfly emphatically. ‘It just doesn't work like that. Were I always to stay with you, my attraction would diminish to the point where you would not even notice my existence, because you would then simply take me for granted. In my experience, that is what tends to happen, which is why I prefer just to visit, rather than remain.’ I had a mischievous thought. ‘Then perhaps I could capture you!’ I said. ‘That way you would have to stay with me, and I would always have you close by!’ The butterfly smiled knowingly. ‘No, that would not work either! As soon as I am captured, I change. I become something else entirely that you would not even recognise. So you see, there’s no point in trying to catch me.’

‘Then when you fly away, I will follow you wherever you go!’ I laughed, rather smugly pleased with my own persistent ingenuity. ‘That way, you would always be free, and I would always be near you.’ ‘Still no good!’ The butterfly patiently explained. ‘You may chase after me for as long as you want. But if you chase me, you will discover that I always stay just out of reach. Better to just be still in yourself. That way, if you are lucky, I will come to visit you as I have now. Besides,’ the butterfly continued with a flutter of its azure wings ‘my little life is over soon enough. My visits tend to be brief ones, sometimes short, sometimes a little longer. And sometimes those whom I visit do not even realise that I have visited them until after I have flown away. That is the way it is.’

The butterfly fluttered its wings more vigorously, and I felt that it might fly away at any moment. ‘Please wait just a little!’ I asked. ‘’Won’t you tell me your name before you go?’ The butterfly smiled. ‘My name is Happiness.’ It replied. 

Painting by Odilon Redon

Inanna and the Old Woman at the Gate

This is dangerous work, this thing we women do, feeling everything, passing through the gate that way. This is our play with the spirits: we gain what we risk. So it is with Inanna; what she would gain and therefore what she must risk is life itself. Inanna hears Ereshkigal crying, so she has to go. She has to go: after all, isn't Inanna a woman?

We stand on the crack between the worlds in our women's bodies. We look both ways on the horns of life, forward, to see our children through, backward, to remember. That's why our love takes so much courage. Inanna comes through here, asking me the way. I know her symptoms - haven't I seen them a hundred times before? I would have cried for her if she hadn't so many tears for herself already. I am Daughter of the Sun, Inanna says, but I am so wet, I am so wet, I am rain without a river to collect me, I am a flood with no banks to embrace me, and still I cannot stop crying. Old Woman, what can I do with all my water?

"You have the water of life itself in you", I tell her, "It is your responsibility to cry it home." How Inanna cries! She cries as if she has already become the wind: It's not enough, she says, the way I've made myself up, it's not enough; my crown and my kingdom, it's not enough, all my light - not enough, my stores of wealth - not enough, the soldiers who would trade away everything for one night with me - not enough. My sweet companion Ninshubah, who has stepped her path from childhood to womanhood alongside my own - not enough. Even Dumuzi, my king, flesh of my flesh, not enough. My own beloved sons - who are to me as life itself, not enough. There are some kinds of tears that cannot be wiped away. Like prayers, they announce us.

My body! Inanna cries, this hopeless beauty of mine is like the skull of a melon. I don't know who has eaten my insides. This candle of flesh I carry only illuminates everything yellow as bones of sand. I know what Inanna is saying when she asks me how to get through that gate, when she asks me how to dream. Old Woman, Inanna says, teach me how to dream.

"Don't ask me that!" I tell her, "We all know how to dream. Just some of us listen to our dreams. So you just listen to whatever it is stampeding inside you, pulling you over. You just ride it where it takes you. Aren't you yourself the morning and the evening star? There's no woman can't walk through walls, navigating her dreams. There's no woman can't walk through time - don't you have two sons to prove it?"

Can't I give her something more? Inanna wants to know. Something to make it safe? But all I can give her are the words I keep as the witness at the gate: "Ereshkigal is your own sister, and all the scribes in Sumer haven't any more power than what's written in the mother's milk you shared: that's the ink that draws us into this world. And what draws us in draws us out again, both directions."

I didn’t tell her the rest. What good would it do? What must be, must be. But even the underworld rewards the courage of love.

Text: The Descent of Inanna ©Madronna Holden

Photo: model Anna Chipovskaya by Nicolay Biryukov

Love

Love is so very much more than an experienced emotion. It is a universal force of being. It cannot be destroyed. At times it might seem to us that this happens, when we feel that other forces overwhelm us. But even then - especially then - love transforms itself, finds new forms to replace those forms which, sometimes for reasons which are difficult for us to understand at the time, it no longer needs. No, love cannot be destroyed. But it can be transformed. And in that process of transformation it burns even brighter.

Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning’s early light,

meadow lark on the rise

cotoneaster, feverfew,

wild thyme and bramble rose.

Step by step, each to each

to where the other goes:

hymnals and unison

seated in rows.

And I who walk behind them

to the valley down below

must trust in common wonders

and hope that it might be so.

Noonday shadows at their feet

mistle thrush in the hedge

hillsides and riversides,

saxifrage and sedge.

Pace by pace, side by side

each trusting in the way:

parables and stories

in the highest light of day.

And I who walk behind them

to the valley down below

must hope for common wonders

and trust that it might be so.

Shadows of the afternoon,

fieldfare and sage

measure out the silence

of another time, another age.

Tread by tread, step by step

each timing with the other:

sister blesses sister soul, 

brother blesses brother.

And I who walk behind them

to the valley down below

must pray for common wonders

and hope that it might be so.

Twilight shadows lengthen

with the evening’s lowering sun:

veiled shades and violet shades

as the long day is done.

Step by step, each to each

to where the other leads:

beatitudes and blessings,

miracles in the meads.

And those who walk behind me

to the valley down below

place trust in common wonders

and know that it will be so.

Painting Sunday Morning by Angelo Morbelli

Spirit of the Samurai

From feudal Japan there comes a story of a young woman who, when the castle in which she had sought refuge had been overrun by the opposing clan, and knowing that her fate would be to be ravished by the victors, threw herself down the castle well. On reaching the well’s mouth, the clan leader discovered this poem fluttering weighted beneath a stone: 

"For fear lest clouds may dim her light,
Should she but graze this nether sphere, 
The young moon poised above the height 
Doth hastily betake to flight."

Using the moon as a metaphor for herself, the young woman had chosen for her own light not to be dimmed, to be sullied, by rough desires. Her action embodied the true samurai spirit more surely than the band of armoured samurai who had overrun the castle. For quite some time now, coping with the challenges in my personal life seem sometimes to be beyond my strength. When I feel that way, I usually go hunting for my power. Today is such a day, and I am finding my power among the examples of women who fought as samurai.

But as the story shows, being true to the samurai spirit does not necessarily mean to fight. The spirit shows that it is how we acquit ourselves, how we cope in a situation, that counts. When we find ourselves in a difficult situation to cope with emotionally, it is so easy to allow ourselves to fall victim to thoughts of desperation, of helplessness. We allow our inner castle to be overrun, and rather than standing firm, we succumb to feelings of powerlessness. The young woman showed that there is always a choice – although our own choice need not be as extreme as hers. But we can still choose. We can choose not to give way to despair. We can choose to go on trusting that time will change a situation, as, sooner or later, it always does. We can choose to keep our power for ourselves, for no one can take our power from us – although we can choose to give it away.

And neither do we need always to think of ‘winning’ in a situation. Perhaps the most famous work to be written, both in this period and from this place, is ‘Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai’, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. The book contains the wise comment that if we think only of winning, then our victory will be more wretched than a defeat. Neither defeat nor victory, but a simple acceptance, can bring change, can offer a measure of solace. ‘Hagakure’ can be translated as ‘hidden among leaves’. The typically poetic title contains its own wisdom: that it is in what is hidden, rather than what we can obviously see, where we can find the essence of the true samurai spirit. And this hidden essence cannot be taken from us, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves.

The Shepherd and the Shell

She has come from the sea, and he, all uncomprehending, can only wonder. His flock continue to graze on the salty grass of the coastal dunes, but he, the normally-attentive shepherd, has already forgotten their existence. Unawares, he sinks to his knees, suddenly suspended in a world between the commonplace of the everyday and a larger reality in which anything can – and does – happen.

She strides confidently out of myth, crossing the impossible space between the waves’ edge and the intervening sand, wading across a shallow lagoon to confront him. Her golden hair, decorated with strands of marine plants, flutters in the sea breezes as it must have fluttered in the more measured rhythms of the currents beneath the waves. She is no more aware of her nakedness than he now is of his surroundings. Her presence is more real than his reality. His water flask also lies forgotten on the ground at his side, and his shepherd’s crook, the emblem of his task, is grasped in his now-unsteady hand.

In her pale hands she holds a shell, and her simple gesture indicates that this is her gift to him. No word is spoken, for none is needed. Were she to speak, her language would perhaps be incomprehensible to him, as his earthly dialect might be to her. So she does not speak. And he cannot, transfixed as he has become by her miraculous appearance in his world.

All that he can do is extend his wondering hand to receive this offered gift from the sea, barely aware of his own gesture of acceptance. She smiles down at him, seeming somewhere amused at the consternation which she has caused, but comprehending as well, compassionate in her invasion of his reality. For a moment, for a brief sliver of time, her fingers brush his own as he takes the shell from her, and he feels an impression of pale skin more silken than human skin could be, like the smooth pelt of a seal.

Now she smiles at him, gesturing with her hands, cupping them to her ear to indicate what she wishes him to do. He obeys, holding the shell to his own ear. Entranced, he hears it: the slow murmur of the deeps, the tug and sigh of currents, the restless, wandering voice of the eternal ocean. He closes his eyes, surrendering to the sound, listening, listening. He has no wish to open his eyes now, understanding what will happen when he does. But he must, and eventually, he does so. She has gone.

Painting: The Sea Maid by Arthur Hacker.

The Loom of the World

Seeing patterns in things is a reassuring thing. It comforts us to feel that something, some experience, has an underlying purpose, even if that purpose is not clear to us at the time. We trust that it is so. All across the world, in different places and in different cultures, women are weaving. Women have been doing so for thousands of years, creating cloth from the wool of their herds or from other plants and animals to make into clothing, or baskets, or blankets. They might be spinning on a simple hand-held spindle while they watch over the same herds which provide what they spin, or they might be sitting outside using a portable back-strap loom, or using a large frame loom in their house. I myself have done my own share of weaving at the loom.

All of these women, wherever they live or have lived, are creating different things, using different patterns, distinctive to their times and cultures. But perhaps there is a sense in which they are actually creating the same thing. The activity is the same, however it is produced. What connects these women is that they are all weavers. They are all familiar with the warp and weft of the loom – the vertical and horizontal threads which create the weaving.

We readily recognise this warp and weft which creates the weave of our own life’s experiences:  pain and pleasure, loathing and delight, sorrow and rejoicing, regret and anticipation. Darkness and light are also part of this pattern, and the pattern tells us that the weaving would not be possible, would not even exist, without both of these experiences. But what is the weaving?

Perhaps a network, all-unseen, connects all women who weave, and who have ever woven. The common activity is in itself enough for a connection to be made. Perhaps through this connection one vast weaving is being created, a weaving whose mysterious form we might glimpse through the creative activity of all these individual women. And as long as there are women, the warp holds. As long as the warp holds, we can weave our world into wellness. We are all weavers, weaving at the loom of the world. From our sorrow and our love, from pain and forgiving, from all the darkness and the light, the weaving of love takes form.       

Copper Cascade by Donna Sakamoto Crispin

Ascension Day

Ascension Window Taizé.

Stained Glass made by Brother Eric.

In the story of my own soul, 
I can see the Light at work. 
Through stained glass it may sometimes appear 
to be patched and variable, 
but even so that Light is very real indeed.

Wishing you all a Happy Ascension day.

Emma

The Girl in a Kimono

She was born in 1877 in Zaandam, in the province of North Holland. When she was 16, Geesje Kwak moved with her sister Anna to Amsterdam to settle into the safe young ladies' profession of milliner. There, among the ladies' hats and bonnets, ribbons and bustling clients, she might have remained in obscurity, her name - and her features - unknown to art history. Except that one day her path crossed that of the artist George Hendrik Breitner.

Breitner, already something of a name in the art world of the time, had recently acquired a studio on Amsterdam's Lauriergracht (Laurel Canal), one of the prettiest spots in the city. In 1892 the artist had visited an influential exhibition of Japanese art in The Hague (which had also inspired Vincent van Gogh, among others), and had enthusiastically acquired several kimonos and some decorative room screens as a result. A year later, the artist's chance meeting with the young milliner seems to have lit a spark of inspiration, and Geesje found herself being asked - on a paid professional basis - to pose as a model in the kimonos. Breitner seems to have been meticulous about details. There is an existing notebook in which he recorded the various dates and hours when Geesje posed for him, and the amounts which she was paid for her time.

The notebook suggests a methodical, business-like approach to the model sessions, but the series of paintings which resulted reveal a special alchemy. Breitner's brushwork in the canvasses shows extraordinary verve and confidence, as if nowhere was it necessary to go over the same brushstroke twice. They are images which indicate that the artist knew exactly where he needed to go to achieve the required result, and what he needed to do to get there, and Geesje seems to have been the catalyst. Posed either in a red or in a silvery-white kimono, Geesje is there in the canvasses as a tangible presence, even when only her face and her hands are visible. Breitner never allows that presence to be swamped by the surrounding patterns of kimono, carpet and room screen which swirl busily around her; the balance between the naturalistic treatment of the model and the eddying patterns is always perfectly held.

Always a restless innovator, Breitner was among the first artists to use his own photographs as references for his paintings.  And indeed: among his collection we also come across his photographs of Geesje, apparently made by the artist for this very purpose. One photograph by Breitner in the Leiden Museum print collection shows a thoughtful Geesje posing hand-on-chin. This gelatine-silver print offers us perhaps our clearest look at the girl who inspired the artist. What must Geesje herself have thought about it all? Was she bemused? Was she flattered by the unexpected attention? In any event, she did not feature further in Breitner's work. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that, incomprehensibly, the series of paintings featuring Geesje met with either an indifferent or a scoffing critical reception when they were exhibited. The critical reaction was cold enough, apparently, to discourage the artist further in this direction, and he went on to other themes and subjects. The second reason is Geesje herself. Two years later she emigrated with her older sister Niesje to Pretoria in South Africa, where she sadly died before reaching her 22nd birthday. But this young death of the girl who became Breitner’s model and inspiration offered its own transcendence: the mysterious immortality which art can grant, even to a young unknown milliner. 

                                         

The Homecoming

Corals spread wide like open fans of lace, purple and red anemones unfold like flowers, reaching with delicate tentacles towards the dancing sun’s rays that filter down from above. And through these watery gardens swim schools of blue and yellow fish like flights of tropical birds. Long fronds of sea plants wave gracefully to the half-silent, half-forgotten echoes of sea shells: the music of the deeps… and I float between them, adrift from the world of the land, from the breathing of air, from the heavy and difficult walking on unfamiliar legs, from earthbound cares and sorrows.

Here, far beneath the surface waves, beneath the tug and turmoil of the world above, is where I was born. I do not know, cannot remember, the first moment of my existence. Perhaps my becoming was a gradual thing. What I do remember is a first awareness, a consciousness of my being. Perhaps I was created by an unknown other, or perhaps, in that new awareness, I created myself. I only remember those distant times as times of drift and darkness. Then later, much later, an emergence of a lesser dark as, still drifting, I rose slowly from the deeps.

For millions of years my body drifted. The seas around me changed, became less barren, were now sown with new growth: gardens and forests of sea plants that waved gracefully with the currents, amphora-shaped sponges that among the age-old corals clamped fast to their rocks in a world of muffled light and silence. Now the subtly-changing song of the sea shells tells me that I have reached another ocean, and I drift over gardens of flowers that are really animals: delicate sea lilies that turn their tentacles to the winds of this watery underworld, as flowers turn towards the sun in the world above.

This is my world: a world inhabited by water spirits and nymphs, sirens and sea maids: beings invisible to those of the land, as invisible to them as the pathways we travel across these great oceans, drifting in a deep sea dream of endless blue currents. I drift with them; am myself one of them, ever drifting in this world of blue silence beneath the waves. We never leave the sea, would never wish to, for the sea does not experience departures, only returns. Whether you believe in my existence, whether you believe or not in my slim and spectral sea maid body, one day you also will return, for our mother ocean is home to us all. And I and the others of my kind will be waiting to welcome you home.