A friend called this morning to read to me from Cynthia Bourgeault's wonderful little book, The Wisdom Way of Knowing. And the piece she read was just so beautiful and perfect that I had to share it here:"Conscience is the pearl of great price; it is both the instrument and the supreme realization of visionary seeing. It is the capacity always and everywhere to see the whole of God yearning to become manifest in all our human beings and doings, like the full of the moon faintly present behind the crescent.
"With the awakening of this eye, you no longer see Wisdom; you are Wisdom. You become a channel of God's peace, and the greatest of all artists as you dance with "the love that moves the stars and the sun."
I loved this; loved that she was reading the book, loved that she called to read me the quote, loved the quote, love that it resonates so beautifully with who she is becoming, love the imagery... And I love it, too, because it feels that in a way this is what I'm doing with this series of torsos I seem to be creating; it's a concrete, demonstrable way of saying what I have always believed: that there is beauty everywhere -- that there is divinity everywhere -- in even the simplest things, in even the most irascible human beings and the most challenging situations.
The image above (can you tell my back was feeling better by the end of the day yesterday? I LOVE this one!!!) had its humble beginnings in the upper right corner of the image shown here, shot on a gray day on the ferry last week. She is, in her way, a guardian angel, a visual reminder of the truth my husband so kindly shared with me yesterday, as I was giving voice to my discouragement about what seemed to be negative progress with my back. "The path to healing is not always linear." (Note: the image for today's poem started with the lower left side of this photo).We need to be patient with the times that are slow, or stopped, or that appear to be moving backwards, and trust that even in stepping back, room is being created for the divine to become manifest. Sometimes we, or our artistic spirits, or our communities, or our lives, or our hearts, need to curl up in a cocoon for a bit. It is only through that period of stillness and apparent stagnation that true metamorphosis can occur and the butterfly we were born to be can unfold her wings and fly.
2 comments:
Your images just amaze me. I love this one, too.
Like a lot the quote from Bourgeault (another book for the list).
Absolutely! I think I deal more gently with myself because I have watched my own mother be so harsh with herself so often.
I tell her, "When you are tired, that means you need sleep. When you feel pain, it means STOP! And when you are sad, you need to cry."
And I try to tell myself, but I don't always listen, "And when your creative well is dry, you need to prime the pump and have patience. The water will flow again."
I love the feminine images!
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