Praises for the World: Jennifer Berezon and Drew Dellinger

 

my religion is rain
my religion is stone
my religion reveals itself to me
in sweaty epiphanies

every leaf, every river,
every animal,
your body

(drew dellinger)

I first heard this poem spoken on  Jennifer Berezon's  2005 DVD PRAISES F"OR THE WORLD,  which I bought after seeing her perform it in 2008 at the Kripalu Institute in Massachusetts, where I was privileged to teach a workshop.  Dellinger read as part of an amazing  ritual performance in Oakland, California that featured  Jennifer Berezon, Drew Delinger, Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Joanna Macy, and many others, all within the container of Jennifer's exquisite  devotional song.  At the end, all voices rose to join her in its praise.    

Mr. Dellinger's poem, recited at the performance,  has haunted me ever since, especially after I wore the DVD out by playing it, and Ms. Berezon's music,  over and over again. So here is a link to a UTube video in which he recites it live, and I invite anyone reading this to as well to the music of Jennifer Berezon as well. For my own pleasure, I copy the poem below, and I also have copied the only video I could find on UTube of that extraordinary gathering in Oakland.

hymn to the sacred body of the universe

Drew Dellinger

let’s meet
at the confluence
where you flow into me
and one breath
swirls between our lungs

let’s meet
at the confluence
where you flow into me
and one breath
swirls between our lungs

for one instant
to dwell in the presence of the galaxies
for one instant
to live in the truth of the heart
the poet says this entire traveling cosmos is
“the secret One slowly growing a body”

two eagles are mating—
clasping each other’s claws
and turning cartwheels in the sky
grasses are blooming
grandfathers dying
consciousness blinking on and off
all of this is happening at once
all of this, vibrating into existence
out of nothingness

every particle
foaming into existence
transcribing the ineffable

arising and passing away
arising and passing away
23 trillion times per second—
when Buddha saw that,
he smiled

16 million tons of rain are falling every second
on the planet
an ocean
perpetually falling
and every drop
is your body
every motion, every feather, every thought
is your body
time
is your body,
and the infinite
curled inside like
invisible rainbows folded into light

every word of every tongue is love
telling a story to her own ears

let our lives be incense
burning
like a hymn to the sacred
body of the universe
my religion is rain
my religion is stone
my religion reveals itself to me in
sweaty epiphanies

every leaf, every river,
every animal,
your body
every creature trapped in the gears
of corporate nightmares
every species made extinct
was once
your body

10 million people are dreaming
that they’re flying
junipers and violets are blossoming
stars exploding and being born
god
is having
déjà vu
I am one
elaborate
crush
we cry petals
as the void
is singing

you are the dark
that holds the stars
in intimate
distance

that spun the whirling,
whirling,
world
into existence

let’s meet
at the confluence
where you flow into me
and one breath
swirls between our lungs

 

All artwork and text unless otherwise specified is COPYRIGHT Lauren Raine 2024

A Dog in Dürer’s Etching

 A Dog in Dürer’s Etching
“The Knight, Death and the Devil”

by Marco Denevi (1966), translated by Alberto Manguel

A brilliant, haunting response to the famous etching by Albrecht Durer.  I first heard it read back in 1988, and was pleased to remember it, and to actually find at least one reading on UTube. 

What is so extraordinary about this short story is that it is composed as one long sentence, that runs, like the stream of the writer's mind, as if he himself was riding along in the  procession of the knight and his horse.  And a dog.  As if the thoughts of the observing writer clip clop along, imagining and intersecting with the thoughts of the knight himself, who is  returning weary and changed to what was once his home, his youth, and his dreams from many years of war.  

 "THE KNIGHT (AS WE all know) is back from the war, the  Seven Years’ War, the Thirty Years’ War, the War of the Roses, the War of the Three Henrys, a dynastic or religious war, or a gallant war, in the Palatinate, in the Netherlands, in Bohemia, no matter where, no matter when, all wars are fragments of a single war, all wars make up the nameless war, simply the war, the War, so that although the knight returns from travelling through a fragment of the war, it is as if he had journeyed through all wars and all the war, because all wars, even if they seem different when seen from close to, seen from a distance 

only repeat ....."

 https://youtu.be/RlxcS4G0-W4?si=zoMPGGf4rSnjnOvA

 

To read:  https://www.101bananas.com/library2/dogdurer.html

The Tucson Sculpture Festival March 16 and 17, 2024

 

I will be there!  This year in addition to clay sculpture I decided to bring some masks which also can be presented as sculptures in their own rights.......... Masks are also wearable, and thus endlessly open for collaboration and story!  

                                              

                                                A Mask for the Shattering of Old Paradigms

Green Man

 

Butterfly Woman

 

Monarch

Persephone

                           All artwork and text unless otherwise specified is COPYRIGHT Lauren Raine 2024