 |
| Art by J Kirk Richards |
It’s the Feast of the Annunciation today. This potent moment has brought forth art that is compelling, inspiring, laden with mystery, grace, beauty, truth because it’s a living moment, a moment outside of the constricts of time, a moment that happens again and again not only within us, but more intimately *as* us. We’re drawn to what we know. And more potent still, we’re known by what we know.
I’ve written about the Annunciation in the past as the moment Mary confronts the magnificence and inviolate truth of her own creativity. The word, Annunciation, is rooted in the word, announcement, with close ties to the word, enunicate, all of which hold within them the power of voice.
To have direct access to our creative voice, to allow its birth, is to be birthed ourselves. And birth is...well, ask any mother. Birth is like nothing you could ever possibly imagine, a dance of extremes, pain and love, gravity and grace, a place where scream becomes song, where one brushes up against mortality and life, strength and vulnerability in equal parts.
I imagine all of these qualities to be present as Mary comes face to face with the inevitability of her own creative birth. I love this depiction by J Kirk Richards. There’s so much earth and fire here. Mary isn’t wearing the blue cloak we so often see but a brown one. Robed in the earth of her being she kneels. Her mouth is loose, slightly open, relaxed.
In the birth process, a relaxed mouth directly correlates to a relaxed cervix. And when the cervix is ready to allow the mother to begin pushing, she is called, effaced. Effaced, to make oneself inconspicuous, to withdraw. I think it’s no coincidence that effacement is a word to describe self awakening into the Beloved.
But imagine it. A moonless, starless night, a solitary Mary, a rush of wings, a blaze of light, a night-sky washed gold with radiance, an embrace at once fierce and tender, a confusion, a terror, a surrender as the sharp in-drawing of breath, of pneuma, of spirit is received. This is the moment she says Yes, accepts the imperative to create, accepts her soul’s fiat to bring the Beloved forth from the very heart of her being.
Our journey is Hers and she gives us an intimate map of that journey, whispers to us, 'we are each others' unfolding'. In our longing to awaken each of us must confront the fact of our own annunciation, each of us must come face to face with the fact of our own Gabriel, the inevitability of our own Yes. And so the Beloved meets each of us as She finds us bearing the good news that compassion with oneself is the midwife of creativity, that awakening and creativity inter-are. That we are God's love-drenched Yes.
