Peace

I WILL WRITE 

PEACE 

ON YOUR WINGS 

AND 

YOU WILL FLY 

ALL OVER THE WORLD

PEACE

Counterpoint

 

Counterpoint

The others they talk

oh, they chatter

so much, so much 

to tame

their fear

In my cocoon

I may seem trapped

but I merely seek shelter

to listen to the voices of birds

spin their magic songlines

and the shrieks of ravens

in my Eden

shrieks that rip open my

oldest scars

The moon knows my every scar

and she has turned them into poetry

flutter flutter

go my wings

in the gossamer spinning

of the muses in my head

Euterpe and Erato

my very own muses

They like to dance

until the moon gives way

and they, like dust motes

in a pathway of moonlight,

finally unwind

in the swaying cradle

of my poem.

Artwork by Victoria Pettella

I Sought to Find Where the Deity Lives

 

I sought to find where the deity lives

It wasn't far yet rather remote.

She invited me in to be with her

And shyly she showed me three robes.

The first one was of red jacaranda,

a cloak for the wind and the weather.

The second was made from the feathers of doves,

pastel in hue and blue like flowing water.

The last of the three which the deity revealed

was purest white wool and so smooth of weave,

She allowed me to feel how soft this robe was

perfect and sewn without seams.

Then she laid her cloak over my shoulders

and let me return from where I had come.

Since then I am robed in her protection

and bloom like the red jacaranda.

Maria de Groot,

Dutch Poet & Theologian

Translation by me.

The Rose in Blessing

 

Flowering, immaculate

grows the winter rose

inside of you

Your soul, in wonderment,

expresses its form

But hush..

wait just awhile

for the soft breath of the merciful divine

is flowing within you

And a light will be lit that never dims

by day it illuminates your acts

by night, your dreams

Feel how the divine love enfolds you

Rest now secure in her arms

while your angel spreads her wings

above the Rose in Blessing

The Black Madonna Returns

 Virgin in the Basilica of Montserrat, late 12th century, in wood

The Black Madonna Returns by  Andrew Harvey - 2004

The entire world is now going through a massive crucifixion on all levels.  It's going through an environmental crucifixion. Hundreds of species are vanishing every month. It's going through a personal crucifixion. There are two billion people living on less than a dollar a day. It's going through a crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems. Look at Enron and what it has shown us about Corporate America. Look at the Catholic Church's scandals of pedophilia and what it shows us about authority. Look at the growing disillusionment with politicians of all kinds. All of the systems are  being exposed as illusory and fantasy-ridden, as deeply corrupt and exploitative.

There's another kind of crucifixion going on: crucifixion of purpose and hope. Everybody is totally bewildered. They know that the world is potentially on the brink of  apocalypse. There's a tremendous danger that as people wake up to the horror of what is going on, they will run into political extremism or into fundamentalism of one kind or another.

So it's extremely important that the wisdom of the 'dark night of the soul' gets across, because if people understand the necessity for this crucifixion, and understand that it's preparing a resurrection and empowerment, then they will be prepared to go through it without too much fear, trusting in the logic of the divine transformation.

The Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths shared with me his experience of the dark night of the soul. He said he was sitting outside his hut one day when he felt as if a hand hit him on the right side of his being. He had suffered a massive heart attack that destroyed what he described as his patriarchal mind and gave him access to a much deeper elaboration of Oneness with all things.  

He said, "It's a very strange thing, but when I thought of surrendering to the Mother I of course thought of Mary--I often say the 'Hail Mary'--but it was Mary as the Black Madonna that came into my mind. She is the mother of the earth as well as heaven, of the body as well as the soul, the mother of the subconscious, the hidden, of all those powers that the 'masculine' mind represses; the Mother of the sacred darkness. In Her the Western Christian vision of the Divine Mother and the Eastern one merge and meet; you can think of her as both Mary and Kali, both preserver and destroyer. From that time on, I have turned to Her again and again. Invoking Her strength and grace, I find, makes the 'birth' go so much faster and more cleanly."

The power that is doing this to us is coming towards us simultaneously with terrifying destruction and extreme grace and prosperity. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace. It's quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us. We have lacerated the sacred in others. We have betrayed the sacred in an orgy of fundamentalism. We have brutalized the sacred in nature. We are now terminally destructive.

So only an almost terminal destruction that reveals to us the full extent of our responsibility in this destruction can wake us up. And that is what is happening, and it will get worse. It's bound to get worse. But it is only being done to us for our own redemption.

Those who turn to the Mother in total faith, those who turn to the Black Madonna in total admiration, those who realize the mercy behind the violence will be given extraordinary protection, strength, and revelation. They will be empowered in the core of themselves to become what everybody who has a heart and a mind must now become - a spiritual revolutionary devoting their entire life and all their resources to the preservation of the planet.

Finding the Black Madonna, in whatever form you want to find her, realizing the massive task that she's doing and turning to her for protection is now crucial to the preservation of the planet. It's extremely important that people really come to understand the feminine and turn towards it, because it's our betrayal of the feminine in ourselves and in the divine that has led to this crisis.

© Copyright Andrew Harvey 2004-All Rights Reserved

Image above: Virgin de Montserrat, late 12th century, romanesque, scultured in wood

Image below: Mare de Déu, Basilica de Montserrat

The Last Word

 

There will come a time

When the last spoken words

Will be heard by the gods

And their hearts will break

And descend in a green rain.

The accumulated anguish of the creatures

Will become a stubborn poetry

Rushing in like the swift wind

That replaces the lost songs of the dead.

These broken shards of sacred language

And persistence, these fragments

That defended what was threatened

What was going extinct, will become

Like the scatter of stars,

A delicate light sufficient

To illuminate the dark we have imposed.

Those who had no words

Will be given words like amaryllis

And sunflower, porcupine and flamingo,

Endangered words for their salvation

Like manatee and rhinoceros,

Or river and corn.

In other words, they will be given

Their own bodies to declare to each other

So it will be impossible to distinguish

Meaning from their particular lives.

Each will contribute only the single word

Of one’s body and soul,

So when one speaks a sentence

One will always have to speak

Of more than oneself.

To speak at any length

Whether in the eloquence of wolf howl

Or arpeggios of bird song, or

The chastened whispers of a new

Human speech will be to invoke

All that is living in one’s cogitations,

And so it will be

After the last words are finally spoken

That the first words will,

Once again,

Conjure Creation.

*

Deena Metzger - The Last Word part 3
from published Essay's & Poetry
Rattle 2004

A Time for Everything

 

   

There is a time for everything

 and a season for every activity under the heavens.

Ecclesiastes 3

*

We are familiar with the expression ‘quality time’, meaning time meaningfully spent, perhaps in the company of a loved one, or doing something which we value. But in our vocabulary there is only one sort of time, whether that is spent in quality time or doing some routine chore. That time is the familiar past, present and future of our everyday experience. To us in the 21st-century, it is all just ‘time’. The paradox here is that so many nowadays complain about having no time at all.

But the Ancient Greeks saw things differently, and their vocabulary expressed more, for they had two words for time: kairos and chronos. Kairos means the right or supreme moment. While kairos signifies a time in between ordinary time, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens, chronos refers to chronological or sequential time – the past-present-future time familiar to us. While Kairos is qualitative, chronos has a quantitative nature.

Kairos is about time that lies outside of ordinary time.  It is the space we experience when we turn inwards, the kind of time in which everything is absorbed. In kairos all pasts and futures are contained in every moment: an eternal ‘now’ of infinite possibilities. There is no judgement, only immense space and gentle awareness - and the realisation that everything is connected with everything else, and assimilated into the loving unnamable Mystery. We can turn ourselves towards this state of being, and make space for our soul, our wisdom and our compassion. Put simply: if chronos is secular time, the time of clocks, busy schedules, deadlines, and feeling like we never have time enough to get things done, then kairos is sacred time, in which we have infinite time to restore our soul and connect with the eternal. 

As Ecclesiastes the Preacher says: there is a time for everything. Kairos is the beautiful kind of time where the divine mystery steps in and changes everything. Experiencing kairos can prompt pivotal moments, crucial moments of great consequence for our life, moments which prove to be turning points in our life which can change the direction of our journey forever.

The Preacher also says: There is a time for sowing and a time for harvesting. And so we need the time to ripen certain aspects within us before they can flower and be harvested. Here every moment is important in connection with the great Mystery which surrounds us. This is the true ‘quality time’: the time known as kairos. And it could even be true that every moment is the right moment once we accept and welcome what is - and the touch of love will be all that is needed.

Photograph: Planetarium of Eise Eisinga in Franeker, Friesland, The Netherlands.

Idun, Keeper of the Golden Apples of Immortality

 

Ramakrishna's Devotion

I learned about Kali from a written document about the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, a document called: The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna; published by the Vivekananda Center in New York, first edition 1942. 

Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, a Realised Master - born in 1836 - devoted his entire life to Kali - his Divine Mother, at first as a young priest in her service in the Kali temple in Dakshineswar, but shortly after his inauguration, things changed. He himself changed, for as soon as he sat before Kali's statue, something inside him changed. As if he were surrounded by a wall of fire which protected him from un-spiritual influences, and he felt the mystical Kundalini rise up through the different chakras along his spine. The glow on his face and the intense atmosphere in the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Goddess. He was her child. He cried for her...he cried so long for her...to manifest Herself to him.....and gradually he found himself captured in a web of her all penetrating presence. 

For most people she no doubt is the Goddess of Destruction, for him she was the compassionate, loving-all Divine Mother. In her he saw the seed of immortality. She was Shakti, the Power, undivided from the Absolute. But in all her divinity she seemed to reel under the influence of wine. To Ramakrishna that made sense: who else, he said, would create this mysterious, crazy world unless under the influence of divine drunkeness but the Goddess of destruction? To Ramakrishna she was the ultimate, highest symbol of all powers in nature, and the final divine form of Woman. 

Swami Vivekanda was one of  his disciples, and was sent to America to become a missionary, spreading the teachings of his Guru: the Ramakrishna Vedanta. Vedanta - a universal philosophy - teaches the presence of the divine in all mankind; the nature of man and of the whole universe simply is Divine. And the purpose of human life is to manifest this Divine nature.

Painting of Ramakrishna by © David Bergen 

Tree of Dreams

I am the tree of dreams

crows in my hair

children in my branches

lovers' names scratched in my bark.

In timeless times

and endless winds

my rustling leaves

are weary of singing

songs of times when I

was young myself.

Only the dreamers can

change the dream

so I am here till the end of times

to keep the dream alive.

Black Madonna

 

This is one of the strangest Black Madonnas. She wears a kind of turban, except that it is open on the top, revealing the Virgin's black hair. Brigitte Romankiewicz makes an association to the Buddhist world, where the top of the head is referred to as 'the gate of divine realization' - a gate you would want to leave open if you were the mystical bride of God. 

Indeed, this Madonna, who is obviously meant to look oriental, seems Buddhist in some ways. As opposed to most Romanesque Madonnas who look sternly ahead, both she and her son wear the peaceful little smile of a Buddha. 

Contemplate the hands! The Mother's hands are focused on Jesus without grasping him. They are open and empty, except full of love. The Son's left hand mirrors the same unusual posture, as if he were touching empty space. 

Perhaps their open, empty, yet aware hands are drawing awareness to the completely transcendent face of God, which Buddhists call 'emptiness'. Even the wall behind them is completely empty, just the bare, gray stone. Not a single piece of decoration, neither on the wall nor on the statue itself, none of the usual robes or jewelry, no legends or miracle stories either. To the modern eye this Mother and child are truly Zen!

We don't know what each peasant, monk, or alchemist might have seen in this Lady. What we do know is that she called her devotees to honor the 'other', the ones that look, dress, and behave differently. And she did this in the middle of eight centuries of conflict as well as cultural exchange between European Christians and North-African and Near-Eastern Muslims. 

Even today she seems to say: "Don't label your dark neighbors as strangers and enemies, for I am their mother as well as yours! Don't close your heart to people who look like me!"

- Ella Rozett

The Black Virgin of Meymac - The Egyptian; 

In the old Benedictine abbey called Saint-André Saint-Léger de Meymac (now the parish church), Corrèze department, Limousin region, 12th century, 48 cm, painted wood.