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
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.
willing itself into being,
breeze, flee into nothing
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
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,
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
Keep smiling. Grin and bear.
Choose wisely. Think and be there.
Don't take more than your share.
Do what's right, what's fair.
The Four Cardinal Virtues:
The cornerstone of the soul.
Once you've mastered the steps,
Faith: You are not alone . . .
Hope: And all shall be well . . .
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
It is a simple square that contains the circle —
— 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
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!
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