Tag: poetry

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At the Cemetery Gate

Mary Elyn Bahlert

 

marypraying_grande

I stop at the statue of Mary,
white marble dedicated a century ago.                                                                                                           There I pause – something in me turning to devotion at the sight of her –                                                             to behold this stone-cold effigy.
Together, we continue the silence that attached itself to me when I walked among the graves.

From there, I enter the gate, walk into the noisy city.                                                                                A dark-skinned post-man steps down from his truck,                                                                       sees her, too.

He genuflects, ancient devotion repeated for this stone-cold effigy.

meb, 2/1015

 

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Shining Through

Mary Elyn Bahlert

This past week, I hiked with two other folks to Chimney Rock, from Ghost Ranch, NM in the desert north of Santa Fe. It was late afternoon, and as we walked, we moved from sun-sparked paths to shadowy places where the ground was covered with a layer of snow and ice, the dark side of the mountain that does not see the sun.

From time to time, we stopped to drink water at this altitude – over 6,000 feet – to stay hydrated and to chat about our rising view. It’s funny how close things look, and how far you have to hike to make it to the top. I didn’t know my companions well; we told stories about our lives as we walked. It’s good to have good companions on the journey.

Near the top, I stopped to take the picture that accompanies this post. I have an eye for seeing things that don’t seem to go together, but do go together. I suppose that’s also useful in life, because sometimes the strangest things actually work together! Still, when I stopped to take this photo, I couldn’t see what I was trying to capture, with the sun reflecting on the lens.

Even so, here it is!

IMG_0529

In the background, you see Chimney Rock, the object of our afternoon hike. In the foreground, you see the tree that has suffered from several years of drought in these Western States.

These days, I often reflect on how a long journey has led to this place in life, and how, as often as life has seemed a struggle, the journey has led me back to the place where I began: my true self, my true being, me being myself, all the while struggling to be myself.

It’s true for all of us. What we present to the world is often such a brittle piece of ourselves, a dried-out self, trying too hard to be good, to be nice, to fit in, to be what we think is expected of us. Or we present a fearful self, exposed to the elements from the time we were young, pushed into a shape that does not suit us, a shape that is in the minds of others, but isn’t who we really are. We think we are our accomplishments, or our goodness, or our strongly held beliefs or preoccupations.

We are so much more. We are so much more real. We are so much bigger and stronger and full of beauty and strength and glory. We’re made of so much more, more power and light.

All the while we are offering our smaller selves, our larger self – our True Self – is there, all the time, shaped by larger things, by wind and rain and experience and light, the goal that is not the goal, the One, the Only One, the one we are seeking and cannot seek, the One who shapes us, the One we have always been.

 

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Our Little Worlds

Mary Elyn Bahlert

 

universe-space-sound

We all grow up in Little Worlds, Little Worlds that begin with our families – for better or worse – and gradually expand into the world that surrounds us, that Big World, that foreign place.  For some of us, that foreign place intrigues, and so we spend our lives widening and widening the boundaries of the Little World where we began.

For some of us, Big World is a frightening place – which it surely is – and so we use our precious energy to make sure the boundaries of our  Little World are never broken.  We live within the confining – and supposedly safe – shell of Little World.  We take our Little World with us, wherever we go.

Our minds hold our Little Worlds, embrace our Little Worlds, surround our Little Worlds.  If we think we have open minds and still, our world does not embrace the wideness of the world and its varieties of thinking and people and ideologies and practices and dresses and rights and wrongs, then our minds are not open at all.  We are locked in our Little Worlds, the only worlds our minds can hold.  Whenever we think:  “how can they be that way?” or “how can they think that way?” we are living within the limits of Little World.   That’s how our minds think; that’s what keeps us in Little World.   Often our Open Minds are not Open at all, they are only the Little World, unable to give way to Big  World.

Experience teaches us – hopefully – that our Little Worlds are not big enough for life.  We try to control our Little Worlds, keeping the Big World away; sometimes we are startled awake, startled alive,  have our minds broken open.  When our minds break open the edges of our Little World gives way to  Big World.

Our minds are broken open when our hearts are broken open – by failing, by submitting our privilege, by addiction, by depression, by the truth that whatever rules we learned in the Little World cannot carry us in Big World.  Our minds are broken open when we realize we do not know, we cannot know what is right or good for another.  We learn that we don’t even know what is right or good for ourselves.  We learn that the rules we learned in Little World don’t work in Big World.  The rules we learned in Little World are meant to keep us small, and safe.  Big World is not safe; Big World is an adventure.

We – those of us who have  had our Little Worlds broken, are grateful for those things that have broken us, for they break the Little World.  And this, this alone makes the world a safer, kinder, gentler place, for all.  Big World is a place of love, of limit-less love.

When Little World is broken, Big World appears.

 

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The Star

Mary Elyn Bahlert

magiufolight650

I started to follow in my sleep,
touched by the star itself.
The star paraded over my head
night after night.

One night I sat on a hill and watched the star
until the morning.
Then I knew it would lead me,
if I chose to follow.

I did.

The route: circuitous.
The country: rugged.
The ruler: vicious.
The companions: odd, and wise.
The nights: cold, colder than in my land.

I followed.
I did.

Stories say the star led us to a Child, the Child.
This I know now:

It led to Light.

—meb, Epiphany, 2015

***

I choose to see the story for its mystical vividness, realness, and depth.

There are many traditions associated with the Magi, and traditions have broadened and deepened the story, through the years.  Many of the traditions have arrived via art through the ages.

***

“The three Magi developed distinct characteristics in Christian tradition, so that between them they represented the three ages of (adult) man, three geographical and cultural areas, and sometimes other things. In the normal Western account, 14th century (for  Caspar is old, normally with a white beard, and gives the gold;  Melchior is middle-aged, giving frankincense from his native Arabia, and Balthazar is a young man, very often and increasingly black-skinned, with myrrh from Saba (modern south Yemen).”   from Wikipedia