On Holy Happiness, Mothers and Good Words for 2025

Giotto, The Nativity fresco, Natività, Date: c.1311 - c.1320

Location: Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy

It's been a while since I visited the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy, in 1988 I think... It was during the group pilgrimage led by my Godmother Sister Eia and parish Priest of St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Warsaw. I was so preoccupied with seeing the tiny shed of St. Francis's own chapel placed right in the middle of an enormous and ornate cathedral, so simple and so out of place among all this opulence, that I didn't even notice the amazing frescoes by Giotto. Here, the focus is on the mother and the baby swaddled in white clothes, held up admiringly by her outstretched arms, and adored by a humble cow and a donkey. Two groups of six angels hover inside the stable. St. Joseph's sits, worried ,on the ground in the left corner (well, they have no money, nor a decent place to live in, and the baby is actually not his, so what is he to do?). Another angel tells two frightened shepherds of a large floc of sheep the Good News. Below, in the center, two women wash and dress another, purely human baby without a gold halo of holiness (at first I thought it could have been an earlier scene with Jesus? but this baby has no aureole!). Finally, two choirs of angels hover in the midnight indigo amidst a desolate mountainous landscape. 

Mother Mary raises up her baby and directly looks at her son, without paying attention to either the angels or animals around her.  Madonnas do know something we do not... as I wrote in an old poem, inspired by a different image of a mother and her baby, a Gothic sculpture Madonna of Krużlowa.

Seeing Madonnas at the National Museum

Gothic Madonnas 

with down-cast eyes

demurely

look within—

the infinity of love

spreads out 

the galaxies of laughter

amidst nebulae of bliss

happy overabundance

marks their cheeks

with a half-smile

of knowing

Maja Trochimczyk, published in Into light (2016)

Madonna of Krużlowa from the National Museum, Kraków

The woman and her newborn baby are admired by "dumb animals" and angels first, while people are  too worried, too preoccupied with their own troubles and things, to notice the miracle of birth. Another person entered the world, opening up endless possibilities of creating and changing the world they visited. Thus, the Divine arrives, noticed and cherished first by nonhuman creation and spiritual beings from beyond, but invisible to always too-busy humans.... All these birds singing outside my window since the morning, all the trees stretching their leaves to catch sunlight or dropping them in a flurry of gold and carmine, so the bare trees can go to sleep for the winter. , , 

While Giotto's Nativity does not have a huge ray of light falling onto the baby from the heavens above (see below the drawing by Nicholas Skaldetvind for a modern interpretation of this Orthodox trope), it carries an important message of the enormous significance of mothers, motherhood, giving birth and babies in our word. Without this miracle of human-divine co-creation none of us would be here. The two women bathing and dressing the baby beow express this message ceary. We, all born of mothers, should cherish and appreciate the miracle that motherhood and childbirth are! living in strange times when a good messages are twisted and holy happiness of birth distorted or destroyed

Nativity by Nicholas Skaldetvind 

Even if we are non-Christian and unable to believe in or need "redemption" by Christ, the lamb of God, we are still able to cherish and admire the courage and perseverance of his Mother, who gave birth in a stable, and admired the baby, no matter how poor and displaced they were. The magic of incarnation took place right there and then. There is no reason to look back or forward and be worried by what was or what could be. In this magic moment of welcoming a new life into the world, nothing matters but the present - the baby and the light it brings. 

Timelessness

Yes, there is time

Yes, there is weight

of the rocks on the skin 

of the earth making

it harder to breathe 

for the beast of eons

Yes, there are clouds

Yes, there is air

cut with wispy stripes

of whiteness wishing,

willing itself into being,

into solid forms that 

dissolve in the merest 

breeze, flee into nothing

Yes, there we are

Yes, matter stays

atoms, prions, electrons 

dance in an endless cycle 

of DNA spirals, molecules, 

blades of grass and gravel

Yes, there is time to watch, 

to catch the transient beauty

of living in red harmony 

blood circling in our veins,

rock dust changing into stars

Maja Trochimczyk, from Into light (2016)

My two favorite Christmas tree decorations, lace snow star from Poland 

and a handmade felt poinsettia bloom by my daughter.

To me being born and raised an atheist, though converted to Catholicism at the age of 30, Christmas is the ultimate family and motherhood celebration. It is about mothers, babies, the magic of birth and new life. But also about preparing fantastic feasts at home... it is also quite childish with a the materialistic gifts and Santa stories - we never had those in Poland, no stockings no fireplaces... one gift each at Wigilia dinner on Christmas Eve... But the tree remained with its ornaments and lights at east to February, through the Carnival season, or even all the way to Ash Wednesday, sometime in March, at the true beginning of spring. 

If Jesus was born in the desert town under palm trees, why do we have fir trees for his birthday? That's Christianity in action - adapting to its northern European sites and their landscapes. Snow-stars on my tree and Santa's sled pulled by reindeer also stem from this adaptation. Santa, Mrs. Santa, the elves, the North Pole factory of toys are all quite cute, but while shifting the focus of Christmas away from the baby in the manger and the sweet Mother singing lullabies to accumulating tons of things via chimney delivery we did lose a lot - the focus on the miracle of life experienced in childbirth, and the primacy of the Mother giving birth, in that process. The female Mrs. Santa is just a housemaid, cleaning and serving meals to her tired husband. Mary is the Mother of God, Bogurodzica. Which icon of femininity is better for women to follow and admire?  Yes I do love my Christmas tree and colorful decor on my mantelpiece - but yes, I also have a small nativity scene carved from olive wood in the Holy land....

If we are observant enough, we can see timelessness in the limitations of time. If we are observant enough we can notice all the immense effort by unseen forces to twist and distort meaning of words, of mothers, of motherhood, of babies, of birth...  

Bishop John F. Harrell (also past president and current treasurer of the California State Poetry Society)  captured the problem of words in a brief poem published in the Spring 2017 issue of the California Quarterly. 

Recovering What Is Unclean

The words slip glibly, cleverly from my lips

And I am therefore sure I have won the day;

But my words are like feathers

From a pillow cut open in the wind.

They go off down corridors, paths and highways

On journeys so tortuous and tangled I can never follow.

If the words are true and just, and wise and kind,

I am fine with never knowing where they wander;

But if they are not true and just and wise,

Or especially not kind,

How will I ever snatch the feathers back to me?

John F. Harrell, from California Quarterly, spring 2017.

As John wrote, "The image of the pillow cut open in the wind was told to our class by one of the nuns who taught us the catechism in an old quonset hut at the edge of the bluffs by the Newland House in Huntington Beach back in the 1950's. It's still relevant, I think."  Obviously the meaning is Christian, but I found a similar thought in a non-Christian, spiritual text by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements. 

These four "agreements with myself" are based on Toltec teachings and summarize the principles of "right living" and proper conduct that so many other commandments, virtue teachings and catechisms capture... If one way does not work, try another, if the door is closed, go through the window...

• Be impeccable with your word
• Do not take anything personally
• Do not make assumptions
• Always do your best

So the four "Words" for the New Year 2025 capture the virtues of courage and moderation, justice and wisdom, or, to express it differently, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. We are talking here of  integrity, fairness, detachment, dedication.  I have written a poem about these virtues in 2007, in a set of poems dedicated to my Franciscan Godmother Elia (as in Elijah, the prophet). 

The Cornerstone of the Soul

Fortitude:

Keep smiling. Grin and bear.

Prudence:

Choose wisely. Think and be there.

Temperance:

Don't take more than your share.

Justice:

Do what's right, what's fair.

The Four Cardinal Virtues:

The cornerstone of the soul.

Once you've mastered the steps,

New ones appear:

Faith: You are not alone . . .

Hope: And all shall be well . . .

Love: Where we are.

From Glorias & Assorted Praises, 2007. https://www.trochimczyk.net/glorias.html

Another  four "Good Words" for the New Year 2025, are found in a newer poem

On Squaring the Circle

It is a simple square that contains the circle —

four ideas, four words —

— Sorry — Forgive — Thank — Love —

No need for explanations, 

long winding roads of words

leading into the arid desert 

of heartless intellect, auras 

of geometric shapes floating above 

your head — a scattered halo 

of squares, sharp-edged cubes

prickly triangles, and hexahedrons

No, not that. Instead let us find 

the cornerstone. Simplicity.

Sorry — to erase the past

Forgive— to open a path into the future

Thank— to suffuse the way, each moment 

with the velvet softness of gratitude

Love — to find a pearl unlike any other,

a jewel of lustrous shine — incomparable, 

dazzling, smooth, pulsating sphere

A dot on the horizon grows

as you, step by step, come closer 

until you enter into the shining

palace without rooms

where inside is outside, 

the circumference is in the point, 

the point in the circumference—

where movement is stillness 

and stillness dances within —

traveling to a myriad planets, 

suns, galaxies, with unheard-of 

velocity, everywhere at once

Love everyone — Respect everything

*     *    * 

So that’s how you square a circle

By Maja Trochimczyk, published in Into Light (2016), reprinted in Altadena Poetry Review (2018)

And since this text started from Nativity and babies, here's the favorite photo of my grandson Adam in 2017 as a baby Santa... and, best wishes

​May your heart be light as a Feather

​May your Smile be bright as the ​Sun

​May your days be sweetened with ​laugher

Happy Holy days of ​loving kindness and fun​!

A Calendar of Readings from "Slicing the Bread"

I am happy to report that the publication of my book "Slicing the Bread: A Children’s Survival Manual in 25 Poems" will be followed by a series of readings, starting from a sample of two poems read at the Rattle Reading Series, Flintridge Bookstore, in January 2015. This reading is posted on the website documenting poetry readings by local poets, Poetry LA (www.poetry.la): Maja Trochimczyk. The previous recording, of "Three Postcards from Paris" was done in 2011 at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga.



The first poem was "What to Carry" reproduced below, and the second was the title poem "Slicing the Bread" - reproduced in an earlier issue of this blog.


What to Carry

You never know when the war will come,
her mother said. You have to be ready.
Most things are unimportant.
You must take your gold, your family jewels.
Diamonds will buy you food.
Gold will save your life. Forget silver, too heavy.
Take sturdy boots with two pairs of socks,
a warm, goose-down comforter on your back,
one picture, no books. Leave it all.
You will have to walk, sleep in a ditch, walk.
Pack lightly. What you carry, will protect you.
From starving, from freezing. That’s what matters.
Goose-down and gold. Hunger and snow.

She still has her goose-down coverlet,
useless in California. Her mother squished it
into a suitcase the first time she came to visit.
The down came from geese plucked decades ago
in Bielewicze, by her Grandma, Nina.
Diamonds? She sold her rings
to pay for the divorce, keep the house
with pomegranates and orange trees.
Her shoes are useless too –
a rainbow of high heels in the closet.


READING DATES AND ADDRESSES

FEBRUARY 2015

Friday, February 20th, at 8:30 p.m. Santa Monica Third Fridays at the Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading Hosted by Elena Secota Featured Poet, with Joe Camhi
The Rapp Saloon, 1436 2nd St, Santa Monica, CA 90401, https://www.facebook.com/events/332585603610874/

Sunday, February 22nd, at 4:30 p.m. Village Poets Monthly Reading. Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042. Featured Poet.

Thursday, February 26th, at 7:30 p.m. Ventura Ventura Poets Reading hosted by Phil Taggart “Voices of Survivors” book reading from  “Slicing the Bread” with Ed Rosenthal reading from “A Desert Hat” inspired by being lost and found in the Mojave Desert
E. P. Foster Library, 651 East Main Street, Ventura, CA 93001 Phone (805) 648-2716

Friday, February 27th, at 8:00 p.m. Featured poet at Poetry Open Mike, Host Victor Sotomayor, Sylmar
Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural, 13197 Gladstone Avenue "A" Sylmar, CA 91342
(cross street/210 exit: Hubbard) Phone:(818) 939-3433

MARCH 2015

Sunday, March 15th, at 4-6 p.m. Louis Jane Studio, Pasadena Poets And Verse – An Exploration Of Life’s Journey with Guest Artist: Lynda Pyka, and poets Cindy Rinne, Lois P. Jones, Deborah P. Kolodji, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, Gerda Govine and Kathabela Wilson
Louis Jane Studio, 93 East Union Street, Pasadena, CA 91103, (626) 796-8333
Louisjane.com

APRIL 2015

Sunday, April 5th, at 7pm (Easter Sunday) co-feature at Catcher in the Rye  for the  "Speakeasy Sunday" reading organized by the Los Angeles Poet Society.  10550 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake, CA 91602 http://www.losangelespoetsociety.org/#!speakeasy-sunday/c8wb


Sunday, April 19th, at 2:00pm Moonday Poetry Hosted by Alice Pero and Lois P. Jones “Woman in Metaphor “Group Reading from an Anthology edited by Maria Elena B. Meyer
Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse, 1010 Foothill Boulevard, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 9101, Phone:(818) 790-0717 www.moondaypoetry.com

MAY 2015

Saturday, May 9th, 3 p.m. Saturday Afternoon Poetry, Pasadena, hosted by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Santa Catalina Branch of the Pasadena Public Library.
 999 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena (east of Lake Blvd).

Saturday, May 16th, 4 p.m. Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Venice “Crossing Dark Borders: The Poetry of Shadow, Shade and Long Night.” Lisa Cheby , Georgia Jones-Davis and Maja Trochimczyk celebrate the publication of their new chapbooks. Beyond Baroque 681 Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291 (310) 822-3006 www.beyondbaroque.org

JUNE 2015

Saturday, June 6th, at 4 p.m. Unbuckled Poetry in North Hollywood hosted by Radomir Luza. “Voices of Survivors” – a joint reading with Ed Rosenthal, author of The Desert Hat and survivor of being lost in the Mojave Desert. 10943 Camarillo Street, North Hollywood, 91602 818-769-1145
http://www.nohoartsdistrict.com/theatres/arts/theatre-unlimited-t-u-studios/6-unbuckled-poetry

Tuesday, June 9th, at 7 p.m. The Palace Poetry Group Presents "Slicing the Bread / Krojenie Chleba"
A Bilingual Poetry Reading  by Dr. Maja Trochimczyk at the DeWitt Community Library, DeWitt near Syracuse, NY 3649 Erie Blvd. East, DeWitt, NY 13214  Tel.: (315) 446-3578 www.dewlib.org

MORE ABOUT THE BOOK

ISBN-10: 1622296877 ISBN-13: 978-1622296873. Available on Amazon, Finishing Line Press, etc.
Published by Finishing Line Press (December 2014)
https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2149 http://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2014/07/finishing-line-press-to-publish-slicing.html

DESCRIPTION

This unique poetry collection revisits the dark days of World War II and the post-war occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union that “liberated” the country from one foreign oppression to replace it with another. The point of view is that of children, raised by survivors, scarred by war, wary of politics. Children experienced the hunger and cold, witnessed the killings, saw the darkening blood spilled on the snow and hands stretching from locked boxcar windows. Some heardthe voices of murdered Jews like “bees in the breeze,” others learned never to throw any food away, because “war is hunger.” The poems, each inspired by a single object giving rise to memories like Proust’s madeleine (a spoon, a coat, the smell of incense), are divided into three sections, starting with snapshots of World War II in the Polish Borderlands (Kresy) and in central Poland. Reflections onthe Germans’ brutalkillings of Jews and Poles are followed by insights into the way the long shadow of THE war darkened a childhood spent behind the Iron Curtain. For poet Georgia Jones Davis, this book, “brings the experience of war into shocking, immediate focus” through Trochimczyk’s use of “her weapon: Language at its most precise and lyrical, understated and piercingly visual.”

According to Pulitzer-Prize nominated poet John Guzlowski, Maja’s “poems about what the Poles suffered both during World War II and The Cold War afterwards are written with the clarity of truth and the fullness of poetry… Here are the stories of how the people she loved experienced hunger and suffering and terror so strong that it defined them and taught her, and teach us, the meaning of family.” A fellow Polish-American poet, Linda Nemec Foster praises the “unwavering honesty” and “stark imagery” of Trochimczyk’s poetry that “bear witness to the hate that destroys, to the truth that restores, and to the poetic vision that honors our common humanity.” The Tieferet Prize winner and Poets-Café host Lois P. Jones points out the “vivid and heartbreaking detail” of poems that “will move you to appreciate the simple privileges and necessities of life.” As Jones wisely observes “It is the duty of the poet to convey story, but it is the art of the poet who can transform our often cruel and brutal history and affect forever, the way we look and listen to the world.” Poet Sharon Chmielarz concurs: “You will remember the taste of this book.”