Into Light - Poetry of the Spirit to Brighten October

Why is that that we find ourselves, when alone in a birdsong-filled forest, park, or garden? Is there a sound more nourishing and refreshing than the song of the nightingale by the running spring?  I still remember the first time I heard the real nightingale in Poland, walking at night by a hedge of lilac in bloom, suddenly surrounded by sounds floating from nowhere. No wonder Oliver Messiaen, the great connoiseur of birdsong and music, has called some of these melodies the "lunar phrases" - they sound like the are coming from afar, sliding down to us on rays of moonlight. I wrote a couple of academic studies of the song of the nightingale in music, from Beethoven, to Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok and Messiaen. Fascinating... 




Now I'm equally fascinated by light, its rays coming down to touch us, like the hands of Aten on the ancient Egyptian relief, giving us "ankh" - the spirit of life.  Here's a beautiful relief from the throne of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (or Tutankhaten), photographed by Jerzy Strzelecki:

Jerzy Strzelecki - http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagen:Tutanchamon_%28js%29_3.jpg

Since ancient times, some people lived on sunlight alone, the "sun gazers" they are called, and the energy they absorb from sunlight is the Qi or Prana energy of life.  Since they inhale and transform into their body energy the "breath of life" they are also called "breatharians." Read more about it or watch the documentary In the Beginning there was Light. 

I'm not going there, not yet.  I'll do it after I turn 90 years old, maybe. Or 100... then I'll live on sunlight and air alone... Meanwhile, my image from Descanso Gardens' birch and azalea corner, by a stream, captures some of these rays shining on colorful flowers in the spring. All we need is a unicorn coming out of shadows... and voila, a world of magic and wonder... I like this photograph so much that I used it for a "blessing of light" that was my Christmas wish one year:

May the blessing of light be on you

Light without and light within

May the blessed sunlight shine on you

and warm your heart

till it glows like a great peat fire

And, of course, there is the cover of my "Into Light" book of poems and incantations:

http://ww.moonrisepress.com/into-light-by-maja-trochimczyk.html

Another of my favorite "sun-ray" portraits is of a white camellia in Descanso Garden's camellia forest: Again, the straight white ray touches the heart of the flower, giving it life.

The Bluest

Oh, to float into blue distance —

a dream of weightlessness,

knowledge of nothing but the air

in the lungs, air carrying the limbs

from cloud to cloud into being,

into tranquility, into peace

All made of water, we live

in the Cloud of Unknowing

we breathe mist of a shroud

surrounding the mystical

peaks of the Ancient One

that will not be known

nor understood fully

We have to, we must fly

higher, we must grow wings,

strain in our childish hope

that we’ll find the brilliance

hidden beyond the bluest

blue of infinity, of time

(c) 2016  by Maja Trochimczyk, from Into Light: Poems and Incantations, first published in an anthology by Poets on Site, 2009. 

shadows recede

to the roots of new leaves - 

light blossoms

Why focus on light, when it is almost Halloween? Did you notice there are more and more ugly Halloween celebrations around? Dozens of horrid ugly masks in a local pharmacy, at a child's eye level, so they get frightened already... Fear, "loosh" is food for evil and generating fear is what humans are here for, on this dark energy factory, called  Earth... Or so they say. And then there are people who are psychic vampires, take our energy out of you, if you do not evade their attacks and avoid engaging in extended battles that nobody wins, except the vampires, of course.

So thinking about light, wrapping yourself in a cocoon of light is a way of protecting yourself.  Is it enough? Perhaps not, but if you cultivate the "right" kind of thinking, you may succeed.  First and last: avoid fear. As the famous man (FDR) said: "there is nothing to fear, but fear itself" - how true! Not just fear, giving in to any other darkness is to be avoided - worrying about things that do not matter, anxiety about the future, the yellow-eyed viper of jealousy, and the red-hot volcano of rage. Toxic emotions, toxic foods, toxic air, toxic thoughts - all to be avoided, replaced by the positive. Can't think of anything "light" - just laugh! The bubbles of air will lift you up! 

If the dark minions come anyway, avoid them, say "goodbye" and go on your way. Up and out: to the garden, to the forest, to the park... Among trees, listening to birdsong, walking barefoot on the beach, or digging into the soil to plant, move, trim, or care for your flowers and trees - that's where you will find safety. Breathe deeply and slowly.  Close your eyes, raise your face to the sun. When you go inside, turn off the TV. Listen to life-affirming music: classical symphonies, Bach's partitas for solo violin, Indian ragas, Native-American flutes, Ella or Frank or, even Celtic women.

Turn the music on and sit on the porch caressing your cat, if you have a cat. Let its purring be the afternoon's healing song. In short, make gardeners and musicians your best friends.  Of course, you cannot befriend a cat! Get a dog then, and stay in the light.

Breathing Light
for breathing in — breathing out

I am loved — I love

I am a gift — I give

I am creative — I create

I am beautiful — I share beauty

I am peaceful — I share peace

I am joyful — I share joy

I am patient — I wait in silence

I am kind — I spread kindness

I am strong — I share strength

I am wise — I share wisdom

I am Love in action

I am Light shining in all

Lovely words, poetic and to the point. I particularly like the shift in the line "I am patient - I wait in silence" - unexpected after the repetitions, and then, returning to the mantra-like pattern of reflected words, outside and inside, being and doing.

The Stream

I am the stream of Love

I flow towards the Divine

to all, in all, through all

I am the wave of Light

I move towards the Divine

to all, in all, through all

I am the cup of Love

I'm filled with Love Divine

for all, from all, in all

I am the spark of Light

I shine with Light Divine

for all, on all, through all

I am the sea of Love

I'm filled with Love Divine

for all, from all, in all

I am the ocean of Light

I shine with Light Divine

for all, on all, through all

Blessed be the stream

Blessed be the wave

Blessed be the cup

Blessed be the spark

Blessed be the sea

Blessed be the ocean

Now and Before and After

Now and Now and Now

I read these and other spiritual poems along with my friends, five poets  - Elsa Frausto, Joe DeCenzo, Marlene Hitt, and Ambika Talwar - during a special open and free reading during the Lit Crawl 2016 Poetry Festival in North Hollywood, on Wednesday, October 26, 2016.  The reading took place at XMA HQ, 5140 Lankershim Blvd., an unusual location for spiritual poetry, that suited us very well.  You may read the biographies of presenters and more about this reading on the Moonrise Press Blog. 

Marlene Hitt, Joe DeCenzo, Dorothy Skiles and Maja Trochimczyk

at the first reading from Meditations on Divine Names (2012).

The reading also included poems from Moonrise Press's anthology Meditations on Divine Names (2012), my largest "spiritual" project to date.  

http://ww.moonrisepress.com/meditations-on-divine-names.html

Let me end with one poem from this collection, a meditation on the distance between us and the divine, the distance that can only be breached by love.

Playful (Via Negativa)

Think what he think will; forevermore he shall find it

a cloud of unknowing that is betwixt him and his God.

                                           ~ The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 69

A seductress

Enveloped in her seventy-seven veils

Disappears like a bride, shy in a lace cloud

A misty mountain

That knows how to dance

And moves swiftly to the horizon, calling me

Higher – follow – don’t stop – follow –

You play with me

Reveal and hide your secrets

Lure me to ascend

With a promise

Of the light’s softness on my cheeks

The reassuring glow of comfort

Dazzling absence

You shroud yourself in darkness

I walk closer, the horizon moves back, receding

Your steps are solitude

I fall into the crevice of silence

Like a plum in a bowl of my grandma’s kompot

Tranquility sings

With the blood in my veins

Louder than the ceaseless chatter of the world

Where are you?

I dream of your snowy peaks

In crystalline air above your meadows

In the Helena Modjeska Historic Home "Arden" Modjeska Canyon, Orange County, 2016.

On Manna, the Dead Sea, and the Divine

My final project as the Sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga is an anthology of poetry on religious and spiritual themes, entitled Meditations on Divine Names (Moonrise Press, 2012).

Almighty, Loving, All-seeing, Compassionate, Silent, Omniscient, Forgiving, Knowing, Merciful, Graceful, Beautiful, Kind, Sublime, Absolute, Patient, Just, Wise, Awesome, Sovereign, Peaceful, Hidden, Perfect, Holy, Giving, Unknowable, Eternal, Light, Love, Life, Power, Supreme, Lord, Goddess, Mother, YHWH, Christ, Yehovah, Allah, Shekinah, Krishna, Lada…

The “divine” of the title is a word introduced into English in the 14th century; it stems from the Latin “divus” or “god.” This word, in turn, is related to the ancient Sanskrit term “deva” meaning “deity” and originating in the Proto-Indo-European “diwos” (“celestial” or “shining”). “Divine” pertains to, or relates directly to “deity.” The ancient Greeks and Romans had many different gods, who ruled over various spheres of existence. The 21st century world has many gods, too, though monotheistic religions predominate, at least in numbers.

The mystery of the divine may be approached from many directions. The heart of the visible matter is invisible. Science makes inroads into understanding how matter works, but the more you read about science —especially at the outer ends of the spectrum, in the areas of quantum physics and cosmology—the more it sounds like religion. This last word, oft maligned and distorted into fanaticism and hatred, actually focuses on connections between people, between humans and the divine.

The word “religion” stems from a Latin root, variously translated as “respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,” or “obligation, the bond between man and the gods.” St. Augustine connected this word to “re-reconnecting” (“re-ligare”); contemporary theologians emphasize the connectivity inherent in all religion. Connection to what? Typically, religions connect like-minded people into groups sharing the same beliefs, languages, and customs. Their dogmas may become immutable, fixed, and hostile to everything and everyone outside the chosen group. Remember the wars between the Protestant and Catholics in Ireland? During the tumultuous period of Reformation the whole European continent was in flux. It still is...

Religions, at their core, also connect people with the Ultimate Source of Life, the Higher Being, the Absolute, the One... Here, despite the divisiveness of language, similarities begin to emerge. Poets, who belong to different religions or religious denominations, see the manifestations of the divine in many aspects of life: personal prayer, religious ceremonies, singing of psalms, family relationships, nature, sun, bread making, dying, loving, and love making. They admire the colors of the sky and the liquid nourishment of water. They praise the clarity of mountain air and the gentleness of human touch. They cope with the loss of a loved one and cherish the affection that reveals the essence of the Divine. From the four letters of YHWH to Lada or Pele, the anthology catalogs some unusual divine names. Poets reflect on the act of naming, describe the manifestations of the divine, and dispute the very possibility of knowing of our God(s). They give testimony to their hopes and beliefs, and share what they find beautiful and inspirational. There is darkness around and death, but the poets look for ways to ascend above the turmoil and dreariness of the profane; they seek illumination.

The 136 poems by 62 poets are arbitrarily arranged in ten sections: Naming, Names, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, He, She, Being, and Loving. Simultaneously, the Pythagoreans’ perfect number of ten is organized in five pairs: naming names, earth and water, air and fire, he and she, being and loving. The framework eschews conventional divisions into Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, or Light and Darkness. Similarly, there is no separation of poems into those belonging in different religious denominations and spiritual traditions. Yahweh, Christ, and Allah, or Father, Son and the Holy Spirit of the great monotheistic religions appear alongside less known deities worshiped by Hindus and followers of Kabbalah, Scientology, Wicca, and Sukiyo Mahikari. The Bread of Life, the Unnameable Absolute, and the Goddess… Themes are intertwined in each poem and new meanings arise from the juxtaposition of distant religious traditions. Sometimes, additional thematic threads arise within a theme—bread, light, birth, mountains, solitude, and joy... Many poems are about love and acceptance; many focus on creation, charity, serenity, gratitude, and contemplation.

This project, initiated in 2008, has grown to its final scope in four years, thanks to the contributions and encouragement by many poets. The original idea stemmed from a meditation during a workshop on Rumi and spiritual practice. For thirty minutes, under the guidance of a Sufi mystic, I meditated on a Divine Name I selected. Puzzled by the interplay of absences and revelations in my life, I thought of “Hidden” and came home with a very strange poem about the mysterious, unknowable God, Playful (Via Negativa).

Each life is different and each person has an individual way of experiencing the world and sharing this experience. My way to religion and to meditating on divine names was not simple. I was raised as an atheist, went through a dramatic and traumatic conversion in my late twenties, and was baptized at the age of 30. I was not born into my community of faith. I could have become Jewish, or Baptist, or Eastern Orthodox… Instead, I ended up as an usher in a Catholic church, attending the Mass every week. How on Earth could this have happened?

My path is unique and I feel an obligation to express it. Sometimes, I recognize an echo of my own spiritual experience in another poet’s words (T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets!). In turn, my experiential truth may resonate in someone else. It is good to know we are not alone. It is good to reach beyond “Either/Or” of Kierkegaard’s, stop seeking differences and divisions.

I am grateful to all the poets who shared their thoughts with me and who made this anthology such a special, light-filled volume. I am particularly glad that I managed to persuade members of my poetry groups to join me: the whole Spiritual Quartet (Taoli-Ambika Talwar, Lois P. Jones and Susan Rogers), and the whole Village Poets Planning Committee (Joe DeCenzo, Marlene Hitt, Barry Ira Geller, and Dorothy Skiles). I am thankful for their words and their faith in me.

As a sample of poems in the anthology, I'll use two of my own. The first poem, “Dead Sea Alive” describes a visit to a San Diego Museum where I saw an exhibition of fragments from the ancient manuscripts found near the Dead Sea. Having seen many medieval manuscripts and the Gutenberg Bible in the past, I was not prepared for the impact of the emotional encounter with shreds of papyrus over two thousand years old. The words are still alive, even though the material documents are barely there.

The second poem, “Manna” is about the experience of Communion, a ritual of Christians who are spiritual cannibals and eat their God to become fully Divine. Manna, of course, is the miraculous angelic food that Israelites found on the ground during their forty years of Exile in the desert. Each morning, they had to gather and eat it fresh. If they tried to store it, it went bad the next day. This manna is the symbol of spiritual renewal, the ultimate "refreshment." However, "manna" in Polish refers to "kaszka manna" - a wheat cereal cooked in milk for hot breakfast, and later served in cubes with fruit or jam. It is also used to give texture to Polish cheesecakes and, though kind of boring by itself, becomes indispensable and nourishing. "Manna" for Catholic is an image of daily Communion, the white bread that needs to be eaten each morning, or, at least, every week. This is our bread of angels.

Both poems have previously been published elsewhere (in an online journal Quill and Parchment and in my book Miriam’s Iris, respectively), but I like them, and hope my readers like them, too.



Dead Sea Alive


An archipelago of broken words
A mosaic of ill-fitting pieces
Torn ribbons with angelic voices
Coded by crooked signs

Scholars decipher, assemble patterns
The dust of ages obscures the meaning

Here: “Blow your trumpets, slay the guilty”
There: “He heals the badly wounded, makes the dead live”
I see: “YHWH” - four letters in an ancient script
I hear: “Halleluiah!”

Two thousand years, two hundred days
And two hours. I too offer a sacrifice
Of my mind to the eternal presence

The angels are here with us
Hovering on iridescent wings
Just above red boxes with fire blankets
Just beyond a row of glass screens
With miniature shreds of holiness inside

© 2009 by Maja Trochimczyk


 

Snow Alight

love falls on me

gently

like snow from high sky

I stand here

waiting for snowflakes

of communion

I look into the eyes

of the man

who holds love

my love

in his hand

abyss calls to abyss

ocean’s depth touches

the deepest core

of my sorrow

my bread and body

“Noli me tangere”

said the One called Rabbuni

my eyes close

whiteness dissolves

this love will shield me

I count my blessings

bless the Holy Name

NOTE: “Noli me tangere” = “Do not touch me” 

              (Latin translation of John 20:17)

© 2008 by Maja Trochimczyk
 
____________________________________

The text is based on the editor's introduction to the anthology. The Meditations on Divine Names, published by Moonrise Press, will be available in all major online bookstores. In the meantime, it is already available on Lulu.com The full list of poems is posted on moonrisepress.blogspot.com

Meditations on Divine Names

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

OF ORIGINAL POETRY

to be published in

MEDITATIONS ON DIVINE NAMES

An Anthology Of Contemporary Poetry

Edited by Maja Trochimczyk


Forthcoming in 2011

from the Moonrise Press

_______________________________________


Almighty, Loving, All-seeing, Compassionate, Silent, Omniscient, Forgiving, Knowing, Merciful, Graceful, Beautiful, Kind, Sublime, Patient, Just, Wise, Awesome, Sovereign, Peaceful, Hidden, Perfect, Holy, Unknowable, Eternal, Light, Love, Life, Power, Supreme, Lord, Life-giving, God of Gods, YHWH, Christ, Yehovah, Allah, Goddess…

_______________________________________________


New Deadline – August 30, 2011 ; Language – English;

Length – maximum 40 lines per poem, 3 poems;

Format – email to info@moonrisepress.com, poems and bio in the body of the email; no attachments; include the address and contact information for the author and a biographical note about the author (100 words).

No reading fee. Authors receive a copy of their contribution in pdf and a 30% discount off the price of the book.

Submit your contribution online through the contact form or by email to info@moonrisepress.com, or maja@moonrisepress.com

P.O. Box 4288 Sunland CA 91041-4288

info@moonrisepress.com

www.moonrisepress.com/divine.html

________________________________________


The 4th of July Parade is always fun in Sunland-Tujunga. Flag waving, marching bands, water guns and balloons, classic cars, horses, dirt bikes, Little Landers Society, churches, the Little League, Girls Scouts, Boy Scouts, and even the Oldest Rock of Sunland-Tujunga found their place in the grand procession along the Foothill Boulevard.

Entry No. 31, just after the Oldest Rock, and quite as quirky, was the Royal Chariot of the Poet Laureate - a Ford Mustang Convertible decorated with a scattering of letters, numbers and flags, and staffed with the Queen of Poetry's Court: Anna and Ian Harley-Trochimczyk, and Rosie Ramos who took most of the pictures.

Ms. Rosie came up with the "royal court" and "queen of poetry" labels. The following poems were distributed as postcards, illustrated with my photographs: two Haiku for the New Year (blue skies with white clouds), "Sunlight" (yellow rose), "On Bliss" (red rose) and "The Color Guard" (tri-color flag-waving parade picture) written especially for this year's celebrations and posted on July 1, 2011.

On Bliss

In a house of stained-glass cherries
you can hear a cat sleep
snoring into the comfort
of his hand-embroidered pillow.

In a house of fresh-cut roses
you can feel the air bloom
with the sweetness
of cinnamon and nutmeg.

You can taste love
mixed with raindrops
on the patio of my magic house
where everything you touch
changes into pure gold
of bliss, perfectly remembered.


(C) 2006 by Maja Trochimczyk


The photo album is available on Flickr: The Fourth of July Parade