What Brings Us To God

The heat of midnight tears
 will bring you to God.

                                         -- Mirabai

     The personal pathways to God are unique, individual, countless, but in each there's a Turning Point--the Ancient Greeks called this Metanoia. Sometimes we recognize it instantly; or the discovery may only dawn in retrospect, after a lifetime   of experience and   reflection.   For me, the revelation was

instantaneous, mind-boggling, overwhelming! And as Mirabai understood so many centuries ago, it was "the heat of midnight tears" which brought me to God.

      In my early thirties I found myself "lost in a dark wood"--more specifically, I was

hunched up on a closed toilet lid one night wailing my guts out. All the unfinished deaths in my life up till then had finally coalesced into a monstrous abyss of anguish inside me which seemed bottomless. My sister's death, my father's death, and now the death of my marriage--there weren't enough tears to grieve them all at once, not after shutting out their reality for so long. I was stripped bare to the emotional bone, helpless, hopeless, bereft.



      One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

                            -- Joseph Campbell

     These words describe what happened then. In my aching despair I prayed for the first time in my adult life. But since I'd long abandoned any belief in God, all I could conceive to pray to were the sentient atoms of my own dead father, which I envisioned still floating around somewhere far out in the interstellar void. What happened then still staggers my being. Instaneously, I was catapulted from agony to ecstasy--as if my soul were a pebble pulled all the way down to the depths in a Cosmic Slingshot, then abruptly released and sent soaring into the Heavens! I was transfixed by a laser beam of invisible Light; embraced in a profoundly compassionate, transcendent Presence, and irradiated with an irrepressible, all-encompassing Joy!  Mere words simply cannot express it. I had encountered an unfathomable Reality beyond any I'd ever known--ever imagined even existed!--and I knew at once that my life was changed forever.

                   KANSAS CITY RENGA

April still conjures blossoms   but the house is long gone

where I prayed to the far-flung atoms of my dead father

glittering like a sentient constellation at the galaxy's core

instantaneously    from hair tips to heel ends    I was split

wide open    riddled by a blinding strobe of cosmic Light

that yanked me inside out      catapulting grief to ecstasy

I was sitting on the toilet lid weeping in a rickety house

while my hollow marriage collapsed around me    when

all heaven suddenly broke loose and everything changed

one timeless night     at 47th and Jarboe    in Kansas City

                              ***

     I wrote this poem earlier this year as my 10-line contribution to a 30-poet Renga titled Ghosts Over Water; and the Renga in turn was one facet of the AMERICA NOW AND HERE national celebration of all the arts which kicked off here in Kansas City. The unifying thematic thread for the Renga was Kansas City itself. But while most poets wrote more or less evocatively atmospheric urban slice of life pieces, I decided to go for broke and spectacularly fail by trying to compress into 10 lines--in a chain of 29 other 10-line links--the most overwhelming spiritual turning point and soul-transformative experience of my life. Impossible of course, but once the inspiration seized me, I felt I had no choice but to go for it.

      Since that astounding night so long ago I've amassed a whole collection of spectacular failures--poems which attempt to square the circle by presuming to put into words something that's truly unspeakable. Nevertheless, isn't it time we begin to risk more courageously the scandalous absurdity of such heroic failures by opening out our personal and literary dialogues to encompass the invisible, ecstatic, transcendent dimensions of our lives? We're so glutted with suffocating information, but so poverty-stricken for insight, wisdom, revelation! As Emerson wrote: "We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that Divine Idea which each of us represents."

                  SONG OF THE SUPERNOVA

FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME I TRY TO STAMMER THE INEXPRESSIBLE--

THE GREAT SUPERNOVA THAT BLOWS MY MIND, INUNDATES MY HEART,

CAPSIZES MY SOUL. NEVER HAVE I FELT SO UTTERLY INADEQUATE!

ALL I CAN DO IS BOW LOW--BLIND, CLUELESS, GROPING FOR GRACE.

I REALIZE I'VE FAILED. BUT I HOPE AT LEAST THEY'LL SAY THIS:

HE NEVER TURNED BACK. HE FACED WONDERINGLY INTO THE LIGHT

AND KEPT ON STUMBLING FORWARD, CONSUMED BY A TRANSCENDENCE

WHICH OVERMASTERED HIM, STRIPPING HIM DOWN TO THE NAKED CORE.

YOU CAN HAVE YOUR PRESTIGIOUS PRIZES AND GLITTERING AWARDS.

I JUST WANT TO FALL IN LOVE, OVER AND OVER, WITH THE MYSTERY.

SO WHAT IF I'VE HARDLY HAD A DIME, OR EVEN A POT TO PISS IN.

THE EMPTIER I BECOME, THE VASTER THE UNIVERSE THAT FILLS ME!

STROKE YOURSELF, EVERYWHERE. KISS YOUR SHADOW TILL IT SHINES!

DON'T YOU KNOW? HAVEN'T YOU GUESSED YET? YOU ARE THE GLORY!

I AM THE SPLENDOR! WE ARE THOSE PRECIOUS PEARLS BEYOND PRICE!

ONCE THIS CAT GETS OUT OF THE BAG, ALL HEAVEN BREAKS LOOSE!

IF YOU SCRUTINIZE ANY ACT OF HATRED, OPPRESSION OR ABUSE,

YOU'LL DISCOVER IT ALWAYS SCREAMS "DENY YOUR OWN DIVINITY!"

DON'T. STAND FAST, WHATEVER THE COST. BELIEVE IN YOUR SOUL.

THAT STAR THAT EXPLODED? IT DECIDED TO BE REBORN--AS YOU.

                                          *** 

     Let's be talking more about this-- both the depths and the heights, and about how one can be threshold to the other. Let's break out of the toxic, soul-deadening trance to which our materialistic, post-modern dystopia addicts us. Let's swing the doors of our beings wide open once again to rediscover the vaster dimensions stretching beyond, around and within us. 

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

             Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

             Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across

  the doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

             Don't go back to sleep.

                                   -- Rumi

              

                     

Blessing The Tiger

 

     From the tireless labyrinth of dreams I returned as if to my home, to the harsh prison. I blessed its dampness, I blessed its tiger, I blessed the crevice of light, I blessed my old, suffering body, I blessed the darkness and stone. There then occurred what I cannot forget nor communicate. There occurred the union with the divinity, with the universe.

                               -- Jorge Luis Borges

      What does it mean to bless the tiger? It means to hold in precarious but impeccable balance my eternity and my mortality; my soul's transcendent Light and my blood's elemental Shadow, and to integrate these polarities into yet a greater, more empowered and enduring synthesis.

       Jesus said: "Be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove." That "and" is the crux of revelatory paradox. Through many years of trial and error, I've had to learn that neither an ecstatic mysticism, nor a nuts-and-bolts pragmatism, is sufficient unto itself. I need to fuse both intuition and instinct to become healed and whole. 

      Another way to view this: a key global challenge for the 21st Century must be for us to integrate the genius of Eastern religion with the genius of Western science. Each has its indispensable wisdom to offer; neither is complete or fulfilled without the other. To achieve the next transcending synthesis,  let Einstein dance with The Buddha, and Lao-Tzu cavort with Jung!

               THE GOLDEN MEAN

We can't breathe for long the stratosphere

of angels. It makes us giddy with height.

Feet floating too far above solid ground,

we lose our marbles. Fierce facts close in,

drag us down by our extravagant wings.

We can't survive for long the netherworld

of phantoms. Souls shrivel without light.

Heads buried too far beneath open sky,

we abdicate eternity. Despair stalks near,

eats us alive, sick dream by dying dream.

I have heard, though, about a third place

fit for humans--not all black, not all white.

Scintillating colors dance and play instead,

quickened at the hearth of a glorious sun!

There love laughs, blossoming like the rose.

                            ***

     There is a third place, a Golden Mean Pivot Point between the purely spiritual or totally animal sides of us. It is solar, adult, balanced, responsible, empowered, expressive, dynamic and loving. Some would call this the Inner Christ. It faces both inward toward the soul, and outward toward the world. The unique, focused, inspiring nature of this Divine Energy in our time manifests as a profound Call to Vocation. By recognizing and answering that Call, I accomplish the essential spiritual work I was born for, while simultaneously contributing the maximum possible loving service to the world.

     Here's a drawing I did a few years ago titled "The Sentinel." Truly this is an elemental warrior spirit with a Call to Vocation! What he guards is nothing less than a supernatural gateway, a threshold to the eternal country of the soul. The gateway itself is not only an ancient dolmen, but also the symbol for Pi--the formula for the radius of a circle, and thus for the axis of the Earth as well. Here both the eternal and the temporal are integrated, yet this synthesis is achieved by the creative power of a third place within me--that Golden Mean Pivot Point  of creative energy through which I express my Divinely inspired Call to Vocation.

    SONG OF THE SECRET TUNNEL

I have been traveling down it for all

my life--this strange, twisting tunnel

that draws me beyond, groping toward...

what? Something I can never grasp,

mysterious, pulsating like a seed

buried in the ripening fruit of death.

Now I think I am caught by a maze,

labyrinthine, coiling and looping

upon itself--a great, restless snake

carrying me headlong in its mouth;

and my one chance is to balance here,

poised precariously between worlds,

neither swallowed up nor tossed aside,

but finding my grace, dancing purely

within these famished jaws, burned

and blessed by the journey, terrified

yet perfectly at peace, my whole being

cleansed in the white fires of praise!

We must learn anew to love danger;

to laugh serenely on the razor's edge,

transmuting all our anguish into joy...

                        ***

Here's a way Dante expressed it in the last lines of his Divine Comedy:

...already I could feel my being turned--

instinct and intellect balanced equally

as on a wheel whose motion nothing jars--

by the Love that moves the sun

                                    and the other stars.

      

        

            

Sophia -- Holy Wisdom

Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
   and the man who gets understanding,
for the gain from it is better
    than gain from silver
    and its profit better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire
    can compare with her...
She is a tree of life to those
   who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called happy.

-- Prov. : 13-15, 18

   There are many feminine aspects of the Divine, from Gaia to Kali, and all in between. Each at one time or another has changed my life. The evocation I want to focus on now is Sophia--Holy Wisdom. She's returning to us now--or more accurately, we're returning to Her. Sophia is the beacon of joy shining at the awakening center of a new paradigm.

     How do I experience Sophia? How has she changed my life? I encounter her as that still, small voice of intuition, a singing silence, a secret knowing who's guidance brushes lighter than a feather across my soul. And I encounter her as the ecstatic joy irradiating my entire conscousness on the heights of mystical rapture. She's the exquisite teacher of pure being, the eternal woman-child, the quintessence of rebirth. Her freedom is radical, her spirit universal, her delight serene, playful, innocent, inspiring, transformative, profound.

                     HOMAGE

to be mute    at this altar where words

impeccably chosen    even the simplest

only obscure the Reality they struggle

so vainly to express    yes    to be mute

truly that would be best    but if words

must be used    although they will fail

fail miserably to utter the unspeakable

let me offer these stammerings to you

Sophia     rarest Light of holy wisdom

exquisite teacher of unquenchable joy

still small voice who guides my being

peeling off its all-consuming shadows

surely you are the One instructing me

from the soul of every woman friend

                         ***

     In sexual relations with women I've expressed an initiating, penetrating, inseminating male energy rooted in instinct--one indispensable polarity. But at the opposite, complimentary polarity of transparent soul friendship, it's I who receive an initiating, penetrating, inseminating energy, except this intimate communion is a transforming infusion of Light, joy, freedom, understanding, unconditional acceptance and inspiring affirmation. This is the spirit of Sophia, Holy Wisdom. The genius of the Divine Feminine teaches me that there is no separation. We are all One.



     There are diverse ways to interpret this drawing I made several years ago, all valid. The one which strikes home to me now: two images of Sophia. Shown on the left is the tragic eclipse of her Light during the old patriarchal paradigm, when the female role was mostly rigidly defined by subordinate, essentially biological terms of male sexuality, domination and control. Shown on the right is Sophia's ecstatic rebirth and liberation, which is happening right now, wherever her joy, freedom, wisdom, openness and transparency shine forth anew from the feminine soul to illuminate a transforming communion between true friends.

    Here is the voice of Sophia, speaking through Lalla, a 14th Century woman mystic and disciple of Shiva:

The soul, like the moon

is new, and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean

continuously creating.

Since I scoured my mind

and my body, I too, Lalla,

am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,

"Live in the soul."

When that was so,

I began to go naked,

and dance.

*

    

The Clear Mirror

You who want
knowledge
seek the Oneness
within.

There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting.


-- Hadewijch of Antwerp
13th Century woman, Flemish Beguine and Mystic

     The hard thing is to try to use words to talk about an experience beyond words. Hadewijch did about as well as one can do. But always, when we try to describe the indescribable, the words become fewer, simpler, more mysterious, groping and paradoxical. I call it peeling the Infinite Onion. Each deeper peeling takes me closer to a Silence which is both the source of all speech, and its transcendence. In that Silence dwells the highest wisdom. As Robert Frost wrote: "We dance around in a circle and suppose./The Secret sits in the middle and knows."

      I wish I could say I'm always centered there, in the Secret which simply knows. Far from it. Most of the time I'm dancing around in that circle and supposing--supposing  this  desired  outcome  might  happen, or  fearing   

that undesired result.  But then somehow I manage to find my way Home again--to the Center, the Source, the Oneness within, where I find "the clear mirror/already waiting."

     I've written many, many poems which I consider my lovable failures. Each is a hopeless attempt to square the circle--i.e., to use words to express a deep knowing which is also pure being, the returm to a primal communion of unity, wholeness, Light and Joy which was, is, and will always be--before the first word was ever uttered, and after the last word will ultimately be spoken. Here's one such poem:

                       SANCTUARY

I crossed into the hidden sanctuary of Light

only one short step was needed     a turning

a choice with my whole being to break free

but that single step encompassed a lifetime

behind those shimmering   transparent walls

my dread sloughed off like outworn skin

I knelt at the center     in the cyclone's eye

where phantoms could never assail me

these are mere words    they can't explain

my knowing ascended to a higher sphere

beyond all speech    here's our true Home

no horror in the world can destroy it

                          ***  

    I could attempt to explicate this poem, but what's the point? For me, the language of poetry is as close as my words can come to the Silence at the core of my soul. Any additional words after that only wander further and further away.  Here's one more "lovable failure." I wrote it for a close friend who recently went through a painful personal trial:

                     SPIRIT'S SONG

rising above    soaring beyond   whatever horror

crushes you now    eats your lunch    makes you

lose heart     doubt your sanity    almost despair

one pure trumpet note resounds you cannot bear

unless you answer to nothing but its clarion call

I realize this must seem like the sheerest claptrap

especially when all hell breaks loose and you run

screaming    terrified    shuddering to your bones

believe me   I've been there   pursued by demons

caught in my worst nightmare     dreading breath

then something indomitable cuts through all that

what is it    what do I hear or sense or encounter

breaking free   with no fear   unshakable   serene

transcending even my own cringing helplessness

inspiring me to go on     lifting me to struggle on

invisible   yet the radiant source of all our vision

inaudible   yet invincible music flows from there

untouchable   yet its wisdom embraces us forever

immeasurable   yet so intimately loving and near

we are this!   incomparable!   greater than death!

                                ***

                                

     These are just two examples of how language stammers its witness to a Divine Mystery which dwells in the Singing Silence beyond any speaking. But even though all such attempts are fated to be, at best, lovable failures, we keep trying nevertheless. Therein lies our true nobility and our highest hope.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are a hundred ways to kneel

and kiss the ground.

                                     -- Rumi  

     

    



The Divine Light of the Soul

We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. From within or from behind a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.

                                                                      -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

    From here on this will be the theme of my blog--the soul, and the Divine Light which shines out from that secret Source deep within us and within all Creation. Nothing is more important now than our reawakening to this Mystery, which has been at the core of ancient spiritual wisdom throughout the ages.

    Our world is in a shambles. We've lost our bearings and we're heading for disaster. The causes seem infinitely complex and dauntingly intractable. But the roots of all the reasons lead back down to one essential truth--our secular, materialistic, uber-competitive, ultra-comsuming, hyper-individualistic, technology-obsessed, drastically atomized society has lost its soul. The oneness, community, compassion, cooperation, dialogue, understanding and commitment which only a communion of souls can create, increasingly are shunted aside by the division, selfishness, indifference, alienation, conflict, ignorance and irresponsibility which inevitably result when that soul connection is destroyed.

       But I don't want to harp on the negative. Unless you're sleepwalking through each day, you need no further reminders. What we all need desperately to be reminded of however, is the alternative--that Divine Light of the Soul which suffers such chronic eclipse because virtually all the energies and influences to which we're exposed every hour drag us away from our own spiritual center and addict us instead to smoke and mirrors, fears and illusions, desires and possessions. To counteract such deadly hypnosis, this blog now offers an oasis of light, a beacon of soul. 

       At least once a week, usually on Tuesday, I'll be posting an inspiring quotation; a prose commentary based on it; one or two of my own spiritual poems; maybe a poem I admire by someone else, and occasionally an artwork as well. With all the creative power I have, I want to stand up and speak out for the Universal Soul, the Divine Light, the Holy Source of all I am, all you are, all that is.

              HOLY COMMUNION

all at once I was there      the Presence

a  torrent of ecstasy seamlessly pitched

beyond our range of hearing    a Light

too blindingly pure--unseeable by eyes

I don't know why it descended on me

abruptly   out of nowhere   everywhere

splitting me open like a milkweed pod

piercing straight to my defenseless soul

snowy seeds of awe and pain    rapture

and longing   spilled into the drastic air

they're numberless   the names of God

who can say one's right   one's wrong?

each is born from ravished awakening!

the name that now    unerringly struck

transfixing me, was this: Infinity Holy

I felt this loved this died this knew this

This is what I am   you are   everything

no matter how outrageously we forget

I wept at human folly     the difference

between how we live and what we are

                         ***

Lo, "I am with you always,"

means when you look for God,

God is in the look of your eyes,

in the thought of looking,

nearer to you than yourself,

or things that have happened to you.

There is no need to go outside.

Be melting snow.

Wash yourself with yourself.

                               -- Rumi