Here is a Meditation I wrote (and performed) back in 1998. The painting I did a few years before that, and it was titled "past desire, ambition or grief, I rest in the Earth a seed." Another title might be "Incubation". The sleeping figure is entwined with all other life, and a shaft of water, or perhaps light, nourishes the dreaming figure that waits during Winter's long gestation and rest, for the season of new beginnings.
I reflect as always on the Sanctity of the cycles of the Earth, to which we belong, along with all other living beings. Perhaps that was the true "Original Sin", when the patriarchs began to invent religions and philosophies that somehow made us "apart" from the cyclical, magical animals we are, among so many other kinds of magical sentient beings. Yes, I think that is what "sin" means to me.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves
......Mary Oliver
RITUAL OF ENDARKENMENT
Close your eyes, and see a cord
a shining umbilical cord at your naval
that goes down,
into the dreaming Earth.
Into the darkness, the silence, follow,
that luminous cord,
un-becoming,
un-knowing
As you descend
into the warm darkness
one by one remove your masks.
One by one, take them off
feel the heavy weight of each as
you let it fall, as you descend.
Let each mask fall away, but
take a moment to see it before it falls
into the Earth,
into the darkness.
Take off the mask of competence,
the mask of your accomplishments.
what does that mask look like?
Take off the child's mask, the little one
laughing with delight,
the child crying helplessly in an empty room.
Take it off with tenderness.
The masks of relationship, the masks you wear with others,
the mask of the lover, the mate, the parent,
the mask of conflict, the mask of the warrior,
the mask of affiliation, of responsibility, of duty:
take each one off, hold it in your hand, let it go,
into the darkness, see them fall,
the question "who am I?"
falling soft, like a feather
And take off the mask of age
the accumulated years that whisper
I'm just a kid, I'm middle aged, I'm old,
I must, I can't, I will I should
it's too late, I can't.........
take them all off, let go, feel the weight leave you.
The masks of your parents that you also learned to wear,
their fears and dreams
embedded in the shape of your face,
remove them with respect
and with pity,
and descend
to the last masks, the shadow masks
the masks you do not look at, but always cling to,
see them in your hands
faces of despair, of rage, of helpless pain.....
and let them go,
into the darkness, into the dreaming Earth.
Rest, and wait.
Ask for the dreams
the unborn ones
that wait to be born in you
empty, and held in the womb of the Earth
invite them to come
the guidance and inspiration
that will infuse your new year.
Make that prayer of incubation
into the darkness,
feel it like a pulse among the roots,
that deep umbilical holding you safe.
Rest and know you are held,
a seed, a child, a hope, a potential.
Begin to ascend at last.
As you rise, see the masks you've discarded -
one by one, take them in your hands.
Perhaps some you no longer need;
some you will examine more closely in the future.
Perhaps some you discard,
release them and watch them fall away.
And some you wear more lightly. Feel their weight.
And as you emerge
into the sunlit world, feel that unbroken cord,
shining, unseen,
holding you to your origin.
And always, always generous.
(1998)
