And I found many poems

..including this short one you may like.

Your words
are your gifts to me
like windows lit
in a distant house;
at night the path is hidden.

Happy Feast of The Annunciation

I like to celebrate by reading my two favorite poems on the Annunciation. Both are by John Donne. And, while I am thinking of John Donne, I add his great poem on Good Friday.

Upon the Annunciation and 

Passion Falling upon One Day. 

1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today

My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.

She sees Him man, so like God made in this,

That of them both a circle emblem is,

Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day

Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;

She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;

She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall,

Her Maker put to making, and the head

Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;

She sees at once the virgin mother stay

Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;

Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen

At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;

At once a Son is promised her, and gone;

Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;

Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,

At once receiver and the legacy;

All this, and all between, this day hath shown,

The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one

(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)

Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.

How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,

Deals in some times and seldom joining these!

As by the self-fixed Pole we never do

Direct our course, but the next star thereto,

Which shows where the other is and which we say

(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,

So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know

And stand firm, if we by her motion go;

His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth

Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.

This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown

Death and conception in mankind is one:

Or ‘twas in Him the same humility

That He would be a man and leave to be:

Or as creation He had made, as God,

With the last judgment but one period,

His imitating Spouse would join in one

Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:

Or as though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,

Would busy a life, she all this day affords;

This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay, 

And in my life retail it every day.

Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is all everywhere,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie

In prison, in thy womb; and though He there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,

Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created, thou

Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;

Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now

Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;

Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,

The intelligence that moves, devotion is,

And as the other Spheares, by being growne

Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,

And being by others hurried every day,

Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:

Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit

For their first mover, and are whirld by it.

Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West

This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,

And by that setting endlesse day beget;

But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,

Sinne had eternally benighted all.

Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see

That spectacle of too much weight for mee.

Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;

What a death were it then to see God dye?

It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,

It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.

Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,

And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes?

Could I behold that endlesse height which is

Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,

Humbled below us? or that blood which is

The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,

Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne

By God, for his apparell, rag'd, and torne?

If on these things I durst not looke, durst I

Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,

Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus

Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us?

Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,

They'are present yet unto my memory,

For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards mee,

O Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree;

I turne my backe to thee, but to receive

Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.

O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,

Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,

That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.

(Update: someone asked on another blog about Mary being seen at the spinning wheel sometimes when the Annunciation occurred. Here is my comment on that blog.)

As to Mary spinning, three symbolisms I know of, from history, literature, and meditation…the first is that she is a spinster, which originally did not mean an old unmarried woman, but any unmarried woman and yet, one of marriagable age. So that symbolism is connected to Mary’s ever-virginity. This type of woman would be of a certain class, as well, not a peasant, but a skilled worker. Spinning is a symbol of good households, and, therefore, stability. Spinning women were a good symbol, as spinsters, not bad-a pure person with skill from a good family.

The second would be that she is the mother of Christ, who is of the Tribe of Judah, a descendant of David, on the “distaff” side. Jewish custom is still to take the ancestry from the mother, as one always knows who the mother is, and in this case, Mary as the Mother of God, is the primary source of His identity, not Joseph. The distaff, which Mary would have had, not a spinning wheel, which came much later, indicates this Woman’s role of power in the household of God–the Theotokos, the most powerful, yet humble woman in the world.

The last is that Mary is the New Fate, the Woman in charge of our destiny, like the Fates in Greek mythology and other mythologies, who wove history and personal destinies. She weaves mystically the new life of all the saints by her humility, example and intercession. Mary has woven the destiny of all mankind by saying “yes” to God, thus changing history forever.

I use to teach art appreciation and history of art, btw, as well as intro to art when I taught Humanities a long time ago.

Should have been a Catholic Mass planned

This King was not Anglican, of course...he would not have recognized the present monarch as queen, or as head of the national "church".

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/22/richard-iii-final-resting-place-500-years-bosworth

I am actually one of those doubters who thinks the story of the killing of the two princes in the Tower was made up by those who hated King Richard III and wanted to discredit him.

An interesting person, to say the least.

One has to chose between the White and the Red Rose. As much as I love the actual Rose of Provins, I fall on the side of the White Rose, an ancient symbol of Mary, recognizing her purity and and innocence and the fact that she brought Light into the world.

New readers might like my long poem on the white rose and more.


I repost it today in honor of a Catholic King of England, Richard III.

White Roses on the Shore: a Long Poem by Supertradmum

Posted by Supertradmum April 15, 2013

White Roses on the Shore: Sea, ships and the bend of the coast

Part One: Ancona-"A star rises in midwinter"

Here, at this Ancona

I am beginning to forget you,

like we forget the histories of towns,

or the names of beautiful harbours.

But, memory, say the ancient holy ones,

can either aid us or be great rocks

in the heart and the mind-who recalls

the Valley of the Brambles, or

the Broken Bridge, or the Land

of the Grand Master. The henge is wrapped

in bureaucracy and Glastonbury’s martyrs

forgotten in silly action and false colours.

“But love, when perfect, is so powerful,

that we forget our own pleasure

in order to please God, whom we love”

wrote the Great Teresa—but what should

we keep in memory and what forget, as

I am forgotten in these walls?  The sea and

the ships bring my heart back in waves to you,

in greys, whites, reflecting my Clairvaux moods.

How can I grieve, like Odysseus on Circe’s isle,

waking out of drugged slumber from the depths

of the Middle Sea? “They say the sea is cold, but

the sea contains the hottest blood of all.”  This sea

holds mine and if I could send Love like ripples

to your shore, like tides to all whom I love, these

would be small white roses, riding on the dark sea,

small tokens lapping up on the far shores….

moving through time and memory, tossed over

the largest heart of all with a memory as old

as the song it sings, but it cannot sing the songs

of purged memory, the nocturnes of this day.

No white prayers come up from the deep, only

the praise of being warm in the cold, cold sea,

under the sail boats, under the rain and mist, the songs

vary outside my door—do those creatures on board

praise Him with persistent longing as the whales

below? What do they remember and what forget?

We have the missa and Word Incarnate, to remind

us of who we are and what we should remember.

Part Two: Telemachus- "They took a terrible vengeance"

Persistent love cannot be false, purified in the

gem polisher, made into some perfect stone

not born of passion, but compassion and pity;

not lust, but a reaching of the heart for completeness.

The young prince’s beard made mater’s decision

strong in pain and promise, being queen true to

her word, watching, weaving, weeping in the night

weary of those burning in envy and hatred.

Greed pitted itself against her age of fast happiness,

she wanted peace;  but, cannot the past be washed away,

the blood purified cleansed by the Blood of Him

Who showed Himself to a tribe unknown to

Telemachus? “Love is as strong as death” could

have been mater’s song as well as the desert groom,

coming up from the sheepfold, coming into the tent

looking for her who was dark and comely. Remembering.

Youth’s ascendency tossed him into the sea of Mnemosyne,

into Menelaus’ grand company, but no wisdom there.

Sailors brought the son back to miracles and a goddess

he did not know.  He became a man, true, unlike others.

Wrapped in the courage of Pallas Athena, he did not see

like another youth of the sheepfold, He, Who broke the Seal of Death,

Ever-Young in the dawn of a foreign day. Did the bearded youth

look south, as I do today, towards the hot lands for courage,

missing the purple sea, far from this cold land of grey mist

this land rimmed by sunsets of orange and duck-egg blue?

Telemachus’ sun set quickly, like yours, fame for a thousand

years without a twilight, but there is no other way

than to be taught by one’s father the ways of war and wooing.

The Hyperborei knew this and blessed their bards, placing them

in the front lines of battle for fame and fortune. Such is the play

of poetry and war, youth and death, marriage and separation.

Part Three: Penelope- "How can I cherish my man?"

Orion’s Belt melts the clouds in this night’s brightness,

but Penelope’s constellation seemed smaller than mine,

this one who strides across the Bay and meets the hot

cliffs of the other lands of deeper waters and older tribes.

Memory and reflection were her gifts of love, she

affectionate emblem of faithfulness, like me, always

monogamous, notoriously faithful beyond waiting days.

A woman’s face grows old while the heart is purified.

She undid her weary work until minds of lust and greed

jackals, predators, circling her and showing themselves

not to be real men of the Middle Sea, but boys . While

she mourned the lion, the whelps played war.

Searching the shore in the grey mist of morning, she

with spring-love in her heart gave in for a moment, but

what we have is greater, stronger, divine Love holding

all in His Heart, Humanity reaching down to earth

like Orion capturing the sea. Penelope’s god was her

husband, but now God becomes the Husband, and even such

a man as her’s striving with Neptune to get home, could

not compare with the Crucified One.

Odysseus of collective memory regained his bride through

suffering, a man purified in water and wind, Poseidon’s

plaything, until humility was learned and earned.

Some of us, like the Poet, are “rememberers”,

the bards with bow and arrow in the line of honour,

passing on the muir Desunt caetera, repetition, memory,

love in names and titles never to be forgotten unless

carved in foreign lands. We forget to our own peril.

The missing have forgotten who they are and were and

what they were supposed to be. Like Adam, thrust out

of the green home, reflecting in nine-hundred years of

remorse, waiting for death, and then the harrowing.

Profane love, like coal, becomes a diamond heart over time

and heat and pressure. The God of History changed all,

for Penelope, for me, renewing hope in the heart

making one young in vision and mastery.

Without memory, there would be no people,

no poem, no bard in the front line of fire;

no children to carry on the reflections of the

mater and pater; nothing but death.

Part 4: Ithaca- "The soul of man"

I would sit quietly in the southern sunlight

and bring you tea, sitting not too close in

the heat of the day, in silence, where the

geraniums bloom under the low sierras

which hid the pain crying out for healing

and completeness. So much has been lost

in this generation lost to the confusion of

each Child of Our Time, like the sailors

stopping up their stubborn ears in order to reach

the wineskin of wind, of curiosity, destroying

years of peace and Odysseus’ domesticity, pushing

out again into the Ionian Sea; none returned but one.

Love and will were separated. We threw away chances,

for completeness, renewable, yes, but not the same, like

the queen’s lost years of childbearing.  But, there is

a greater mercy than Athena’ magic.  The shore is in view.

Ithaca’s rocky coast rises out of the sea a long way

from my cove, but love rides the white waves, regardless

of the temperature of the sea and shore. Odysseus’ soul

was healed before he found Penelope again.  So, climb

up and see the small raft and like the man of the Middle Sea

come home to who you are.  The New God is not Poseidon,

ruler of horses, but the One Who walked on the waves,

proving a new King of the blue sea not far from you.

The ships sail away. My heart stays with the Babe in the Womb

silent in waiting for the fullness of time, and here we have

our being, if we look in the same place for this healing God.

Find the raft hidden beneath the cliff and come home.

Part 5: The Unknown God-"I would know my shadow and my light"

The sons of Telemachus may have seen the sons

of the red-haired man,  in the market place of Athens,

speaking the words of Epimenides for we are indeed,

people of memory; “Men of Athens, I perceive that

in every way you are very religious,” or a varied translation.

Damaris and Dionysius  heard with the blood of Odysseus

calling them home to a different Love, choosing a Known

God faithful to time and memory, the One Who entered history

again and again and again, changing the darkness into dawn.

in a Resurrection some derided. The long song of Homer

created a space for a new mimesis, heart, home, memory, will,

understanding, for new descendants of the wandering man.

The Blood washed away the obstacles, the encumbrances,

the imperfections of the tribe, purging our own hearts so

that we could decide to do something somewhere, somehow.

The Vulnerable God gave us His courage.

Spousal love so praised by Homer and Solomon becomes

the norm for you, for me, for those who care to listen

to the song. Love is now my occupation-let it be yours.

Let the heart follow us home….

Per lumen gloriae fit creatura rationalis  Deiformis

Cum enim aligius intellectus creatus vidit
Deum per essentiam—ipsa essentia Dei fit intelligibilis

infellectus.

The waters by the dry sands will not let my voyage

be delayed—for we are humans, semper idem,

semper paratus waiting for God. And, “seven times

a day, I praise Thee for Thy righteous ordinances.”

Benedict took up the heart and home of the Known God.

“Let me live, that I may praise Thee.” And the God of

time and memory redeemed the grass, redeemed the springs,

redeemed the Middle Sea and this near sea, redeemed place.

Small waves like white roses on the sea gather on the sand.

I would send them out again, in wind and sun to the south,

to lap up on another shore, like small prayers in the dark.

Yield, bend,  gather the signs of memory at your feet in the waters.

copyright, 2013

Raissa's Journal Perfection Series VIII Part XXXVIII

Years ago, I wrote a chapter in a dissertation on this subject of the connection between contemplation and the artistic intuition which leads to the creation of poetry.

Jacques Maritain has a note on this subject from Raissa's insights on the subject.

Here are some bullet points.

• “...the end of contemplation is loving union with God in the silence bereft of concepts and words, whereas the end of poetic intuition is the work produced”
• “but what is the end of poetic intuition can be superabundance (and normal superabundance, overflowing from the possession of the end or from the movement towards it) for contemplation.”

All people are called to contemplation in different ways, but this still is the normal way, outside of martyrdom to perfect union with Christ.

These times of crises are the times to ask God for the graces of contemplation and keen discernment.

Not The Same, But The Same

We are not all the same. Each one of us is a unique individual.

Yesterday morning, I saw the end of one of the largest rainbows I have ever seen. Now, every rainbow I have seen has been different. The last one I saw before Tuesday was a double one in Iowa in late July. The sky around it was a Chinese blue, marked with pink clouds. The double rainbow was "in the east" part of the sky. I think in 2014, I have seen more rainbows in one year than I have in any other year. I may have seen eight or nine this year.

On this day, the rainbow, or rather the end of it, grew like a plant out of the Mediterranean and ended in small white clouds. This rainbow formed over the sea, and the rain in that part of Middle-Sea, plus the sun, created this huge end of the rainbow. It, too, was in the east.

Same colors, same direction in the sky, but completely different in context, size, reference...

And, so as humans, we share some of the same colors, perhaps even the same brilliance, but our contexts, our placings, our sizes vary.

All the rainbows I have ever seen in my life have brought me joy, either a quiet, calm joy, or a rapturous joy.

On Tuesday, I was just happy to see one, coming out of the sea like some great stalk of hope for me, for Malta.

God gave us the rainbow as a promise. He gives each one of us a promise. If we follow His ways and obey Him in truth and love, we shall spend eternity with Him.

The goal of all humans is the same, even though our individual paths are quite distinct.

As I watched this giant fragment of color fade away, I realized that of all the people walking or running on the Promenade, that I was the only one looking at the rainbow.

Everyone else, about thirty people perhaps, were busy talking, walking dogs, jogging, running for a bus, and bustling along to work or shopping.

No one was stopping to look at something which will never be seen again, as this rainbow was created on this day, out of a combination of rain over a certain part of the sea and the sun shining in a certain direction.

I wanted to share this quiet joy, but no one was looking around, or even staring out to sea.

What is missed cannot be repeated. I was reminded that every day I must pay attention to God, or I may miss something. I have seen an English robin here, and I shall never see that one again, in that place by the sea. I was paying attention to its song and, therefore, I knew it was there, somewhere, and saw it.

To miss such a small thing would be important to me, like missing a grace in a moment of time.

I shall never see this exact rainbow again. I am grateful to have been in the right place at the right time.

Here, again, is one of my favorite poems on this point.

One of my few regrets in life is that I did not come to Britain until after David Jones had died. But, I did visit his grave in 1985, one of the first things I did when coming to live in Britain.

A, a, a, Domine Deus (1974)

David Jones

I said, Ah! what shall I write?
I enquired up and down.
(He’s tricked me before
with his manifold lurking-places.)
I looked for His symbol at the door.
I have looked for a long while
at the textures and contours.
I have run a hand over the trivial intersections.
I have journeyed among the dead forms
causation projects from pillar to pylon.
I have tired the eyes of the mind
regarding the colours and lights.
I have felt for His wounds
in nozzles and containers.
I have wondered for the automatic devices.
I have tested the inane patterns
without prejudice.
I have been on my guard
not to condemn the unfamiliar.
For it is easy to miss Him
at the turn of a civilisation.

I have watched the wheels go round in case I
might see the living creatures like the appearance
of lamps, in case I might see the Living God projected
from the Machine. I have said to the perfected steel,
be my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I felt
some beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a Domine Deus,
my hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible
crystal a stage-paste …Eia, Domine Deus.

And, yet another poem of place repost

The Sleeping Lady of Malta

Posted by Supertradmum

Thanks to Wiki for The Sleeping Lady of Malta, circa 1,500 BC

Of what does she dream, this heavy lady of Malta, resting on her hard bed,

hand under her head, like a goddess taking a break from listening to her votaries singing chants over the wine-dark sea?

Does she dream, or is her sleep dreamless, that of the dead, who no longer hold imagination or memory? Has she let go of the last images of the Middle Sea's ships bringing her necklaces of shells from Syracuse?

Is her dream one of the dancing star-skirted lady?

Did her dreams end abruptly, like one caught off-guard in the night, facing a soft journey into eternity?

Or, is she still dreaming, holding on to images which she creates for the people of Malta, who no longer know her name?

This lady wears the billowing skirts of many goddesses and reveals her breasts to the world, as if to say she is worthy of the worship from those who need fertility.

Those yearnings of Maltese maidens lie in the dust of Ħal-Saflieni-few want offspring now.

This lady's hair was done by one of the ancestor's of the blow-dry experts of Valletta, and she does not worry about her bare feet, so broken, so lost in memory. Does she does dream of some one, some god beyond the walls of Athens or Kedash?

Does he dream of her, he, buried in a cave or sandstorm, with his arm under his head? Or did he find a lissome lass of Dalmanutha or the ancient springs of Achsah? Maybe he preferred dark, like the tents of Kedar?

His left arm is under my head and his right arm embraces me. Daughters of Jerusalem,

I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. And, so, perhaps, she sleeps into

this tumultuous century, dreaming of lost love....

copyright 2013 

More of my poetry of place

Friday, 8 November 2013

Poetry from Malta

Posted by Supertradmum

Autumn and a Lady in Malta

There are no falling leaves here

Desert plants do not acknowledge

Autumn nor reveal the pains of

Melancholia.

Yet, autumn it is, despite oleander

And cacti; the sunshine mocks

Those who are in mourning, those

Who do not come to these isles.

A woman sits in a darkened room,

With faded rose and pale green

Chairs, her head in black, her

Dress, black, and as the Irish

Companioni exclaimed, loudly, “I see

You are in mourning.” The black-

Laced lady is in mourning, and wears

A bishop’s ring, not noticing it

In her darkness.  Mysterious loss,

Hidden in time and memory, and

Memory she must deny, move on

As the Virgin Queen said to her

Executed lovers. No discussion, no

Tears are allowed in this hot country,

Where feelings fall like leaves in

Colder countries, but blow away

As fast, as if once seen in oranges,

Yellows and reds, now purposefully

Ignored. No country for old men

Or old women, just kind children.

The lady in lace, surrounded by

Grayness, knows now she is alone,

Like so many other women of her

Age and status. The curse of widows

Is that all seem to think that memories

Sooth, coddle, sustain, but that would

Be madness, not reality. She knows

This truth and knows she is alone with

No Ulysses desiring her after twenty years

Absence; no Orpheus willing to go into

Hades to rescue her from the fading fires.

No one but the New God, to Whom she

Turns. but when she turns, she sees

Only the painted Baroque cross.  This is her

Way now, and in the darkness, she

Acquiesces, joining with the Sorrowful

Madre.  Life was offered and she chose

Life, never death, for she knows the

Plant must die in order for new seeds

To grow; so she waits, in the land of in-

Between, like a holding area in an

Airport, she waits, like a child in

The care of a Father who allowed

His Own Beloved Son to die.

She takes her mourning memories, pressed

Like violets in the family bible, and puts

Them in her amethyst ring, symbol of

Lost power and lost tradition. She does not weep.

Another Poem of Place by Me

Soul Propriete No. 3

As I stand at the large, half-opened window in the convent,
facing ancient bits of walls and new Victorian additions,
the voice of some clerk in London, whose duty was
to mark the beginnings and ends of properties
speaks to me in the sunlight.

His statement, etched in stone, until the last days of London,
clearly show the sole proprietor. 
"Half the Thickness of This Wall is in Paddington Parish" 
How exact the English were then, which they are not now.
How comforting was the Georgian mind for details.

1806, 1826, 1866, 1886, 1906, 1966, 2006, 2012
His voice clears the centuries with clear early 19th century
feet and inches. Does Paddington Parish really care about
half a thickness of wall? Taxes? Wall maintenance? Sole proprietor
of a closed alleyway which no one sees

Except me and a robin, clearly not interested in the mind of 
this maker. But, I am. Wondering at the great interests of
the new industrial world breaking into new views of walls
and ownership across England, those satanic mills
conquering small alleyways and arches.

There is still conquest in these words, an old lettering
a new idea of propriete mocked much later by Dickens,
who most likely walked this way at least once or twice.
Who knows? The footsteps of the past leading me, as 
I stare at a wall separating sole from soul.

My ideas are elsewhere, but the clerk's words ring out
reminding me of the little world I am leaving for awhile, 
a world I shall not miss that much, or at least that is
what I think today, listening to the cheeky robin
mocking the past and reminding me that even

The birds of the air have nests. I know Who is in charge.

Eden and Gethsemane Part Three

Only three persons walked in Eden. God the Father and Creator, Adam and Eve. The Divine Person spoke with His creatures in joy and love.

They, children of the earth but with souls made like unto God, had preternatural gifts. These flow from the fact that we were all made in the image and likeness of God, having, therefore, free will and reason.

These were sanctifying grace, bodily immortality, integrity, and infused knowledge. All these were lost in Original Sin. But, if I am to understand Eden, do I not need to understand these gifts, which are given again to men and women through Christ.

The first we can understand. It was a permanent gift, and if we continue without mortal sin, that is our permanent gift as well. 

The second we have gained through the Passion, Death and Resurrection, the sign of immortal life, the regained privilege to live with God forever. Connected to that was perfect health. This immortal life may be with or without God, but it is a gift and separates us, like knowledge, reason and free will, from the other animals. Our soul is immortal.

Parts of knowledge, the knowledge held by Adam and Eve, as the Catholic theologians teach us, were knowledge of regarding God, His attributes, (which may be learned again in contemplation at the stages of Illumination and Union),  the moral law involving man's relation to God, (what we would call understanding justice and mercy), and knowledge of science, which means knowledge of the physical (material) universe as well as the spiritual world, which now is mostly revealed to us through the teachings of the Church (Tradition) and Revelation ) the Scriptures.

Thanks to wikimedia commons..

Integrity, the third, means that the appetites were totally subjected to reason and free will. We can hardly, as creatures still burdened with concupiscence, a result of Original Sin, imagine what this state was like.

Those who are saints come very close to this on earth, outside the Beatific Vision.

Therefore, and I am working my way to the understanding of Eden as Gethsemane and Gethsemane as Eden, some of these gifts are renewed in the stages of perfection, but only with suffering.

But, the mystery remains...and what is obvious may be overlooked by me.

Again, three persons walked in Eden. Adam and Eve, husband and wife, walked with God.

Such is the mystery of an excellent marriage. Imagine a relationship with no tension!

What is obvious about Eden is that it was for our first parents, for their life, a place for them to be and have children.

Theirs....

Gethsemane did not belong to Christ as Man. He chose poverty and owned what he left to work for three years in His public ministry.

Gethsemane was a public place, with a cave where Christ could go with His closest friends and pray. They fell asleep, which so many Catholics are today.

God is saying that gifts are His to give and places are gifts. Pray for me as I continue to mull over Eden and Gethsemane. Once the light has come so that I truly understand what is happening through this meditation, if it is something I can share, I shall.

God makes new doughnuts everyday. And this meditation has levels of meaning, some I have not even begun to suspect.

to be continued...

Eden And Gethsemane Part Two

Eden, made by God, was perfect for plants, animals, humans. It was a "pleasant place", locus amoenus, in classical and Medieval literature, a garden with trees, grass, water and safety.

We all yearn for this safety, especially as the world crumbles around us. We are all desiring a safe haven.

Eden represents a place where God walked with man and woman, a meeting place of Divinity and humanity.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux in his sermons on The Song of Songs, is very aware of location and geography, tracing the comings and goings of both the Bride and the Bridegroom.

That couple is the idealized soul and Christ, or Christ and His Church. 

We humans need a place, a location to be. We are not and never will be in eternity disembodied spirits. That is a temporary state.

We need to be somewhere, as I remind God and my patrons regularly. Eden was a place, a real place, not merely a poetic metaphor for happiness in perfection.

Gethsemane is a place and we know where it is. The Franciscans discovered the ruins of an ancient church there and built a new one in the 20th century, marking the place of the Agony in the Garden.

But, we have no sure idea of where Eden was located. I learned that it was in the "fertile crescent", the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Some scholars think it was in Lebanon, and those who hate Revelation, Tradition and the Catholic Church put it in Africa. Black Liberation Theologians want it there, of course, as to them the Blacks are the chosen people of God, not the Jews.

Returning to my theme of meditation these days, Eden and Gethsemane were two places where God walked, as Father and Creator with Adam and Eve, and as Christ, the Second Person in the Blessed Trinity.

Therefore, God is trying to get me to think about a real place, not merely a symbol, or metaphor, for, let us say, the spiritual life.


Recently, I referred to Eliot's Four Quartets, which I love and have taught. Eliot is a poet of place. That is obvious in his two greatest works. His study of Dante, another poet of place, inspired him.

Another great poet of place is David Jones, my favorite, and yet another, is Shakespeare.

John Donne may be added to the list of these "incarnational" poets who understand the importance of place as well as the mysterious dimension of spiritual homes.

So, in this roundabout way, I can see that God is talking to me about a place, in fact one which is both Eden and Gethsemane.

I am a poet of place as well, and herein lies my difficulty in understanding God's message to me.

One of my friends, a very wise man, said to me that God always means what He says and that He is very literal.

We poets are not always so direct.

Therefore, I am still meditating, reflecting, waiting for that epiphany.

Here is a repost of one of my poems of place.

Monday, 15 April 2013

White Roses on the Shore: a Long Poem by Supertradmum

Posted by Supertradmum

White Roses on the Shore: Sea, ships and the bend of the coast

Part One: Ancona-"A star rises in midwinter"

Here, at this Ancona

I am beginning to forget you,

like we forget the histories of towns,

or the names of beautiful harbours.

But, memory, say the ancient holy ones,

can either aid us or be great rocks

in the heart and the mind-who recalls

the Valley of the Brambles, or

the Broken Bridge, or the Land

of the Grand Master. The henge is wrapped

in bureaucracy and Glastonbury’s martyrs

forgotten in silly action and false colours.

“But love, when perfect, is so powerful,

that we forget our own pleasure

in order to please God, whom we love”

wrote the Great Teresa—but what should

we keep in memory and what forget, as

I am forgotten in these walls?  The sea and

the ships bring my heart back in waves to you,

in greys, whites, reflecting my Clairvaux moods.

How can I grieve, like Odysseus on Circe’s isle,

waking out of drugged slumber from the depths

of the Middle Sea? “They say the sea is cold, but

the sea contains the hottest blood of all.”  This sea

holds mine and if I could send Love like ripples

to your shore, like tides to all whom I love, these

would be small white roses, riding on the dark sea,

small tokens lapping up on the far shores….

moving through time and memory, tossed over

the largest heart of all with a memory as old

as the song it sings, but it cannot sing the songs

of purged memory, the nocturnes of this day.

No white prayers come up from the deep, only

the praise of being warm in the cold, cold sea,

under the sail boats, under the rain and mist, the songs

vary outside my door—do those creatures on board

praise Him with persistent longing as the whales

below? What do they remember and what forget?

We have the missa and Word Incarnate, to remind

us of who we are and what we should remember.

Part Two: Telemachus- "They took a terrible vengeance"

Persistent love cannot be false, purified in the

gem polisher, made into some perfect stone

not born of passion, but compassion and pity;

not lust, but a reaching of the heart for completeness.

The young prince’s beard made mater’s decision

strong in pain and promise, being queen true to

her word, watching, weaving, weeping in the night

weary of those burning in envy and hatred.

Greed pitted itself against her age of fast happiness,

she wanted peace;  but, cannot the past be washed away,

the blood purified cleansed by the Blood of Him

Who showed Himself to a tribe unknown to

Telemachus? “Love is as strong as death” could

have been mater’s song as well as the desert groom,

coming up from the sheepfold, coming into the tent

looking for her who was dark and comely. Remembering.

Youth’s ascendancy tossed him into the sea of Mnemosyne,

into Menelaus’ grand company, but no wisdom there.

Sailors brought the son back to miracles and a goddess

he did not know.  He became a man, true, unlike others.

Wrapped in the courage of Pallas Athena, he did not see

like another youth of the sheepfold, He, Who broke the Seal of Death,

Ever-Young in the dawn of a foreign day. Did the bearded youth

look south, as I do today, towards the hot lands for courage,

missing the purple sea, far from this cold land of grey mist

this land rimmed by sunsets of orange and duck-egg blue?

Telemachus’ sun set quickly, like yours, fame for a thousand

years without a twilight, but there is no other way

than to be taught by one’s father the ways of war and wooing.

The Hyperborei knew this and blessed their bards, placing them

in the front lines of battle for fame and fortune. Such is the play

of poetry and war, youth and death, marriage and separation.

Part Three: Penelope- "How can I cherish my man?"

Orion’s Belt melts the clouds in this night’s brightness,

but Penelope’s constellation seemed smaller than mine,

this one who strides across the Bay and meets the hot

cliffs of the other lands of deeper waters and older tribes.

Memory and reflection were her gifts of love, she

affectionate emblem of faithfulness, like me, always

monogamous, notoriously faithful beyond waiting days.

A woman’s face grows old while the heart is purified.

She undid her weary work until minds of lust and greed

jackals, predators, circling her and showing themselves

not to be real men of the Middle Sea, but boys . While

she mourned the lion, the whelps played war.

Searching the shore in the grey mist of morning, she

with spring-love in her heart gave in for a moment, but

what we have is greater, stronger, divine Love holding

all in His Heart, Humanity reaching down to earth

like Orion capturing the sea. Penelope’s god was her

husband, but now God becomes the Husband, and even such

a man as her’s striving with Neptune to get home, could

not compare with the Crucified One.

Odysseus of collective memory regained his bride through

suffering, a man purified in water and wind, Poseidon’s

plaything, until humility was learned and earned.

Some of us, like the Poet, are “rememberers”,

the bards with bow and arrow in the line of honour,

passing on the muir Desunt caetera, repetition, memory,

love in names and titles never to be forgotten unless

carved in foreign lands. We forget to our own peril.

The missing have forgotten who they are and were and

what they were supposed to be. Like Adam, thrust out

of the green home, reflecting in nine-hundred years of

remorse, waiting for death, and then the harrowing.

Profane love, like coal, becomes a diamond heart over time

and heat and pressure. The God of History changed all,

for Penelope, for me, renewing hope in the heart

making one young in vision and mastery.

Without memory, there would be no people,

no poem, no bard in the front line of fire;

no children to carry on the reflections of the

mater and pater; nothing but death.

Part 4: Ithaca- "The soul of man"

I would sit quietly in the southern sunlight

and bring you tea, sitting not too close in

the heat of the day, in silence, where the

geraniums bloom under the low sierras

which hid the pain crying out for healing

and completeness. So much has been lost

in this generation lost to the confusion of

each Child of Our Time, like the sailors

stopping up their stubborn ears in order to reach

the wineskin of wind, of curiosity, destroying

years of peace and Odysseus’ domesticity, pushing

out again into the Ionian Sea; none returned but one.

Love and will were separated. We threw away chances,

for completeness, renewable, yes, but not the same, like

the queen’s lost years of childbearing.  But, there is

a greater mercy than Athena’ magic.  The shore is in view.

Ithaca’s rocky coast rises out of the sea a long way

from my cove, but love rides the white waves, regardless

of the temperature of the sea and shore. Odysseus’ soul

was healed before he found Penelope again.  So, climb

up and see the small raft and like the man of the Middle Sea

come home to who you are.  The New God is not Poseidon,

ruler of horses, but the One Who walked on the waves,

proving a new King of the blue sea not far from you.

The ships sail away. My heart stays with the Babe in the Womb

silent in waiting for the fullness of time, and here we have

our being, if we look in the same place for this healing God.

Find the raft hidden beneath the cliff and come home.

Part 5: The Unknown God-"I would know my shadow and my light"

The sons of Telemachus may have seen the sons

of the red-haired man,  in the market place of Athens,

speaking the words of Epimenides for we are indeed,

people of memory; “Men of Athens, I perceive that

in every way you are very religious,” or a varied translation.

Damaris and Dionysius  heard with the blood of Odysseus

calling them home to a different Love, choosing a Known

God faithful to time and memory, the One Who entered history

again and again and again, changing the darkness into dawn.

in a Resurrection some derided. The long song of Homer

created a space for a new mimesis, heart, home, memory, will,

understanding, for new descendants of the wandering man.

The Blood washed away the obstacles, the encumbrances,

the imperfections of the tribe, purging our own hearts so

that we could decide to do something somewhere, somehow.

The Vulnerable God gave us His courage.

Spousal love so praised by Homer and Solomon becomes

the norm for you, for me, for those who care to listen

to the song. Love is now my occupation-let it be yours.

Let the heart follow us home….

Per lumen gloriae fit creatura rationalis  Deiformis

Cum enim aligius intellectus creatus vidit
Deum per essentiam—ipsa essentia Dei fit intelligibilis

infellectus.

The waters by the dry sands will not let my voyage

be delayed—for we are humans, semper idem,

semper paratus waiting for God. And, “seven times

a day, I praise Thee for Thy righteous ordinances.”

Benedict took up the heart and home of the Known God.

“Let me live, that I may praise Thee.” And the God of

time and memory redeemed the grass, redeemed the springs,

redeemed the Middle Sea and this near sea, redeemed place.

Small waves like white roses on the sea gather on the sand.

I would send them out again, in wind and sun to the south,

to lap up on another shore, like small prayers in the dark.

Yield, bend,  gather the signs of memory at your feet in the waters.

copyright, 2013

Eden and Gethsemane to be continued....