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.

*