Home! Walking the familiar streets of Shelter Bay once again, the weather this morning much like Sitka, layers of gray clouds shifting like desert sands, the wind strong enough from the SE to keep the birds quiet and scatter seed from the fir trees as if to carpet the roadway underfoot just for my comfort. In fact, there’s been little sun but not all that much rain either, the weather people telling me that May in the NW was one of the driest on record. Yesterday, I saw some farmers beginning to uncoil their long water hoses, stringing them out along the furrows to bring needed water to their newly planted crops, the seedlings’ delicate green leaves barely visible above the level, well combed soil line, seemed to be pleading for a little relief.
One of the things I shared with one of my new friends in Sitka is the value to be gained by speaking-out your mantra, whatever it may happen to be, something my muse, Kornelia, urged me to consider, many months ago. I’m now catching up with the sense of it with respect to other, written, things like poetry. The Psalms, for example, (in the Christian Old Testament) were meant to be sung or spoken as part of the Jew’s oral tradition. The same would be true for Homer’s epic poetry. I know when I’m writing poetry, one of the ways I have for deciding on the appropriateness of this line or that is by speaking it out, listening to how the line or lines sound to my ear. What actually startled me last Sunday was how relevant, how important, this speaking-out is when reading Jesus’ words particularly when you’re playing his part as I did. Several other members of the congregation and I participated in what’s called Reader Theater, in this case retelling the story of Jesus’ curing of the blind man in the Gospel of John (9:1-41). Here’s what I wrote about it.
Speaking Jesus Talk (Gets me to where i want to be). ” Hearing my voice speak Jesus’ words to the disciples/ the combination of voice and word reaching my ear as one/ puts me one step closer to the scene/ one step closer to the disciple’s question,/ one step closer to the truth,/ one step closer to Jesus./ Looking at the blind man, the disciples had asked/ “Who sinned, the blind man or his parents?”/ Reading aloud Jesus’ answer,/ using my own mouth to shape the words,/ and my breath to give them sound,/ brings me right inside,/ Jesus’ answer becoming mine/. “You’re asking the wrong question./You’re looking for someone to blame,’ There is no cause-effect here./ Look instead for what God can do”. In speaking Jesus’ answer, do you see what happens?/ I have become part of a critical shift./ my own tongue, my own lips, my very breath ,/ has left the past behind,/ “Look instead for what God can do”/Reading Jesus’ words quietly to myself is one thing/. Speaking them out for my own body and the universe to hear,/ is something else./ I am right there, emotionally, taking ownership…..”
Back to mantras. The mantra I’m speaking out is very important to me now and is helping me to stay alive and alert. I live in anticipation because of it. The mantra? “Keep open for a miracle”.This mantra has been extended recently to include finding a partner who is “a perfect match” for me. It’s interesting. Once I quit trying to define what I wanted in a partner and let the universe decide, I’ve become much more relaxed about it. I don’t have to decide anything. All I have to do is let go of my desire to control and be open to receive and recognize my partner when it comes. I anticipate this happening at any moment, perhaps when least expected, and this makes my life now even more of an adventure. Could my partner have already arrived? I have to consider that, too. I could miss it due to my own short-sightedness.
Right now I’m beginning an exploration of Jesus’ probable partner, Mary Magdalene. It’s becoming clear that Jesus certainly recognized her as an invaluable part of his spiritual journey but the early interpreters of his story, all males, apparently didn’t want to go there and seemed to have minimized, or missed altogether, Mary Magdalene’s prominence in Jesus’ life and death. It’s interesting for me to see where I will come out as I begin my study, starting out with a splendid book by Cynthia Bourgeault entitled “The Meaning of Mary Magdalene”.
