Mary
Mary
Praise to you
Spirit of fire!
to you who sound the timbrel
and the lyre.
Your music sets our minds
ablaze! The strength of our souls
awaits your coming
in the tent of meeting.
There the mounting will
gives the soul its savor
and desire is its lantern.
Insight invokes you in a cry
full of sweetness, while reason
builds you temples as she labors
at her golden crafts.
But sword
in hand you stand poised
to prune shoots of the poisoned
apple —
scions of the darkest
murder —
when mist overshadows the will.
Adrift in desires the soul is spinning
everywhere. But the mind
is a bond
to bind will and desire.
When the heart yearns to look
the Evil One in the eye,
to stare down the jaws of
iniquity, swiftly
you burn it in consuming
fire. Such is your wish.
And when reason doing ill
falls from her place, you
restrain and constrain her as you will
in the flow of experience until
she obeys you.
And when the Evil One brandishes
his sword against you,
you break it in his own
heart. For so you did
to the first lost angel,
tumbling the tower of his
arrogance to hell.
And there you built a second
tower — traitors and sinners
its stones. In repentance
they confessed all their crafts.
So all beings that live by you
praise your outpouring
like a priceless salve upon festering
sores, upon fractured
limbs. You convert them
into priceless gems!
Now gather us all to yourself
and in your mercy guide us
into the paths of justice.
Hildegard of Bingen
(1098 - 1179
Hieronymus Bosch
Where there is a woman there is magic. If there is a moon falling from her mouth, she is a woman who knows her magic, who can share or not share her powers. A woman with a moon falling from her mouth, roses between her legs and tiaras of Spanish moss, this woman is a consort of the spirits.
Enlosure, It seems I’m saying something foolish. For if this castle is the soul, clearly one doesn’t have to enter it since it is within oneself. How foolish it would seem were we to tell someone to enter a room he is already in. But you must understand that there is a great difference in the ways one may be inside the castle. - Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle
Klimt - The Kiss
“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked, when they had made camp that day.
“Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.”
“But my heart is agitated,” the boy said. “It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I’m thinking about her.”
“Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”
“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”
“That makes sense. Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”
“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?”
“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. ”
“You mean I should listen, even if it’s treasonous?”
“Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you’ll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them.
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist
Beautiful
I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there;
I went to the temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas,
but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere…
I searced on the mountains and in the valleys
but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him.
I went to the Ka’bah in Mecca, but He was not there either…
I questioned the scholars and philosophers but He was beyond their understanding…
Then I looked into my heart and it was there
where He dwelled that I saw Him,
He was nowhere else to be found… Rumi
Rise in love, do not fall in it
