Invisible Poems

As I sit and write, the music of Allegri fills the room, specifically his piece 'Miserere mei, Deus'. With its decidedly christian overtones the sentiments of mercy and benediction nevertheless find their way in to my heart, transcending, as they do, the confinements of religious tradition. It was the piece of music suggested to accompany the angel I drew today from my Oracolo degli Angeli del Karma deck, the angel Remiel. As I sit and listen to the haunting, spare shapes of longing and humanity my mind drifts and eventually settles on the poem of the day today from Rilke...

Breath

Breath, you invisible poem!
Pure, continuous exchange
with all that is, flow and counterflow
where rhythmically I come to be.

Each time a wave that occurs just once
in a sea I discover I am.
You, innermost of oceans,
you, infinitude of space.

How many far places were once
within me. Some winds
are like my own child.
When I breathe them now,
do they know me again?

Air, you silken surround,
completion and seed of my words.

from Sonnets to Orpheus II, 1

I like to think this 'invisible poem of my breath' is writing the song of my body as a continual offering of mercy, of compassion. These two qualities are also the first two names of God in the Islamic tradition that ascribes God 99 names. Ya Rahman - mercy, and Ya Rahim - compassion, begin the list such that God becomes a womb for these, such that breath becomes the birthing of them, such that we become the living of them.

My research on Remiel yielded a plethora of information, ascribing to him many different qualities ranging from the one who ushers souls through the doorway of death, to hope, to judgement, to mercy and compassion and even to the 'angel of joy for all women' taking the specific form of a woman to give out blessings which, to me, has a decidedly buddhist flavor to it. The Christian and Islamic tradition are in agreement on Remiel being the angel of mercy and certainly the root of his name rem is similar to the root for compassion Rahman and that has the most resonance for me.

He is depicted looming larger than life over a thin figure wearing only a loincloth, his feet are bare, his head is shaved, his palms are open in supplication. Remiel towers above him, his hands in the mudra of benediction, his gold wings prominent. He is dressed in a lovely rose-colored tunic over an underskirt of royal blue and draped in a shawl of the same color. There is a feminine influence here with such soft clothing. And with this question of compassion and mercy in mind I drew my two Tarot cards. The Seven of Cups and the Six of Cups.

This feels to me like another natural pairing...wishful thinking taken to the extreme, illusion, lost in daydreams, in what might be combined with the nostalgia, a wish for simpler times, of times that lacked ambiguity and complexity.

 This Seven of Cups shows us a woman robed in red with a white inner scarf holding a cloth filled with seven cups containing various situations or objects. Below the cloth three cherubs look on from either side. The rich colors in this card add a compelling atmosphere.

Here I'm being offered the opportunity to explore the role fantasies, hopes and dreams play in my life and to acknowledge them and look at which ones I might bring into fruition. In this sense the card might be viewed in a positive light, through the lens of creativity. In fairytales sevens represent an inner evolutionary process, the tension between the sacred number, three, and the human number, four. And I do feel the sense of tension here...sooo many choices, so many opportunities feel paralyzing. Rilke says it beautifully...

How many far places were once
within me. Some winds
are like my own child.
When I breathe them now,
do they know me again?

It feels like this card is asking me to consider the needs of the soul. There is the opportunity to bring into light the unmanifest qualities, the shadowy creatures that are keeping me bound up in the illusion of what might be rather than embodying the possibilities of today, of now, in the breathing earth of the body with the warmth and friction of passion, of interest. There is possibility here, yes, but it is the possibility of the transformational, less about the future and more about how I might dance with what is arising in this very moment, how I might allow the moment to shape me.

Next we have the Six of Cups, the card of nostalgia among other things. And what a lovely, idyllic Six of Cups this is! Two children sit in a walled garden, one reading a book to the other who is holding a cup filled with flowers. This child is looking up, rapt, at the reader and the reader's pose suggests absorption in his story. Behind them a castle rises up beneath a deep, blue sky and in front of them four cups sit filled with flowers. A little black monkey perches near the reader. It is a scene of safety, containment and peace.

In Jungian terms sixes represent the union of the inner masculine and feminine attributes. This card then, represents a more temporary union of these opposites, a resolution that is transitory. It is almost the half-way point in the suit and thus reminds me that there is more emotional work ahead. So with this card I'm being asked to tend to unfinished business, revisit memories from childhood that might be holding me back from a more authentic way of being, a way less encumbered by the trajectory of parents' hopes and dreams for me and because Cups are the suit of the heart of emotion I might look at how this is affecting my own sharing of my emotional body.

Bringing all three cards together I can feel a thread unspooling inside me as I allow the breath of Remiel with his offerings of compassion and mercy to touch the sense of overwhelm I sometimes feel inside in our world of So.Much.Choice combined with all my duties as mother and partner. The impulse is sometimes to want to return to that walled garden of childhood where there were cups of beauty and growth, where stories were woven and creatures rested at our feet all the while the big, wide world bustled on outside of us. And yet perhaps Rilke's words, with their intimations of interdependence and movement, with their witnessing of the visceral colliding with the unseen can offer me a more satisfying version of the truth I'm looking for...

Pure, continuous exchange
with all that is, flow and counterflow
where rhythmically I come to be.

Each time a wave that occurs just once
in a sea I discover I am.

Charged with the Transfiguration of All Things

 

Today Archangel Seheiah blesses us with his presence. He is the angel of longevity, protection and good health. The LWB describes him as "one who heals" and he is asking us to "reconnect with the original source". A rather vague and let's face it, vast exhoration but an intriguing one. He appears on a beautiful, buoyant cloud that pillows out to fill half the card. He looms large with his  gold wings, deep teal cape and pink robes belted with green at the waist. His left hand blesses and his right hand holds what looks like the golden spokes of a wheel at the end of which are three cherubs, just heads, auras and wings. Are these his divine messengers? His assistants? It's unclear what their role is but as they're cherubs being guided by Seheiah one might presume a kind of angelic teamwork here, a group of heavenly guardians overseeing one's physical well-being. It's a romantic and comforting thought. 

Today Rilke is my poet of choice and his words for this day are from a letter to Sophy Giauque  entitled, "Charged with the Transfiguration of All Things" which could very well be the title for this card given the gentle, missionary purpose it exudes....

How all things are in migration!
How they seek refuge in us. How
each of them desires to be relieved
of externality and to live again in the
Beyond which we enclose and deepen
within ourselves. We are convents of
lived things, impossible things; all that
is in awe of this century saves itself
within us and there, on its knees,
pays its debt to eternity.

Little cemeteries that we are,
adorned with the flowers of our futile gestures,
containing so many corpses that demand
that we testify to their souls. All prickly
with crosses, all covered with inscriptions,
all spaded up and shaken by countless
daily burials, we are charged with the
transmutation, the resurrection,
the transfiguration of all things.
For how can we save what is visible
if not by using the language of absence,
of the invisible?

And how to speak this language that remains

mute unless we sing it with abandon and

without any insistence on being understood.

 So many lines in this letter find a place in my body. And feeling them moving within I turn to my Tarot cards along with the question of where I might need Seheiah's blessings today. I draw the Three of Cups and the Wheel of Fortune, an enigmatic pairing. Every time I draw cards from this deck I fall a little bit more in love with it and today is no exception with both of the cards depicting a differently nuanced version of the card. And I notice the theme of three begun with the oracle card now echoed here in the Tarot card.

This Three of Cups is more sober and restrained than many other versions I've used with its themes of friendship, celebration, sisterhood and serendipity. I often call this card the Three Graces card. Here we see three young women dancing together, each holding a cup but only one has hers raised. Their faces show a quiet, modest joy, a sense of deep connection with each other and an understanding of grace and movement. In one sense they are the three faces of the Goddess dancing around the cauldron of life, the sacred vessel of transformation. So while on the surface this card appears to be full of gaiety and ease there is something much deeper at work here. True celebration arises with an awareness of our three-fold self and a rivering between those selves, not one or the other but all three simultaneously. Now that is cause for celebration.

I'm aware of the kinetic effect of the leg of the girl in white. Its outline is seen beneath her dress as she bends and sways to the music, the effect being of knowing when and how to surrender the body to joy. She sinks into the earth of it with ease. The right hand of her partner is open outwards in a lovely receptive gesture. Behind them the third girl raises her cup to the musicians in the background, two noblemen who are playing a lute and two flutes. They stand respectfully at a distance from the these three ladies but fully engaged and involved. The scenery is lush, green grass, large expansive trees and dog sits between the dancers and the musicians having his own canine experience of smells and sounds, the feel of the breeze gentling his noble snout, the peace of his surroundings. He has time to do this and that is the feeling this scene inspires, presence. Along with feelings of containment and embrace, quiet joy, ceremony and the healing power of the earth these are all cause for celebration.
 

In the Wheel of Fortune we have more cause for celebration in a nativity scene. With its muted tones and earthy but refined figures this card exudes mystery and wonder. A bit of a departure from the traditional Wheel card. And yet...My eye is first drawn to the large scarlet-rust coverlet that lies over the bed, such life-affirming color of vitality. Beneath the coverlet and sheets is a mother who has just given birth to her child. She cradles him to her breast and he returns the gesture snuggling sweetly into her neck. Below the bed the father works diligently to prepare a meal for his wife. He blows on a small pot of soup which is sitting over a fire, a bowl and spoon at the ready for when its done. His body is pleated in the mudra of devotion and effort. His brown boots and blue cap speak to me of balance and ease within the world of the heart and the body. Above the woman and child is a wooden wheel hanging on a wall. The LWB tells us it is surrounded by the four Evangelists, an angel, an eagle, a winged cow and a lion. Behind the wall a donkey and a cow watch from a thatched manger. Traditionally it is the four fixed signs of the zodiac. It is an interesting depiction of the Wheel of Fortune with these christian overtones of the nativity and the Evangelists perhaps speaking to the sacredness of all the points along the wheel, all the risings and fallings. Though we, with our limited perspective, don't generally experience the low points as sacred. A recognition of the universal cycles and our ability to adapt to them is what's being asked of us in this card.

Combined with the Three of Cups my interpretation would be that of fully embodying joy when it arises with the awareness that it's all coming into being and passing away...How all things are in migration!  There is only the present moment, this one right now as your eyes fall upon these words, as you take a breath, release it and then another, as you sigh or shift in your seat, hear a car go by, as your day runs through your mind like constant background music...How they seek refuge in us. And Seheiah with his blessings of health and wholeness, the ongoingness of Love is perhaps speaking to the deeper alchemy of the temporality of things...

How each of them desires to be relieved
of externality and to live again in the
Beyond which we enclose and deepen
within ourselves. We are convents of
lived things, impossible things...
Raising the cup of celebration, knowing we have only the present moment in which to truly embody it...

And how to speak this language that remains
mute unless we sing it with abandon and
without any insistence on being understood.

Miracle Signs

Here are the Miracle Signs

Here are the miracle-signs you want,
that you cry through the night
and get up at dawn asking,
that in the absence of what you ask for,

your day gets dark, your neck thin
as a spindle, that what you give away
is all you own, that you sacrifice belongings,
sleep, health, your head,

that you often sit down in a fire like
aloeswood
and often go out to meet a blade
like a battered helmet.

When acts of helplessness become habitual,
those are the signs.

Excuse my wandering.
How can one be orderly with this?
It is like counting leaves in a garden,
along with the song-notes of partridges
and crows. Sometimes organization
and computation become absurd.

* ~ * ~ *

This poem for the day of Rumi's evokes in me a mixed reaction. I like my sleep, my health, my head and a lot of my belongings. Which is to say, I like to rise after a good night to a hot drink, to feel the warm mug in my hands and watch the sigils of steam as they rise in the air offering their own prayers and incantations to the invisible but prescient realms that rest like soft clouds around my still awaking self. With a foot in both worlds, I stagger from one dream to the next. The thought of crying out all night and rising at dawn as a long, calligraphy of longing doesn't call to me in the same way it did in my twenties. And yet...the teaching is of surrender here, of immersion in the blaze of the faceless, meanwhile"your neck thin as a spindle", how poignant and vulnerable this feels. I'm not sure where to locate this poem in my body, it feels like a half-remembered conversation between lovers and that's where I'll leave it for now.

With those compelling miracle-signs in mind I drew my Karma Angel for the day...Nathaniel, the Angel of Fire, of Energy, of Purification. He is associated with the opening of the heart chakra. A construct if I ever heard one. Aren't all our inner angels ultimately working to that end? Still, the dance of fire and heart has a sympathetic feel to it and the sumptuous use of red on this card is compelling. So placing a fiery opalite beside this fiery angel I shall run with this association....

"Nathaniel encourages us to maintain a strong belief and faith in our dreams and aspirations so that he is able to help us to manifest them into our lives. Nathaniel’s fiery energy awakens our passions and desires, and encourages and motivates us to manifest our intentions. Archangel Nathaniel helps you to ignite the energy and passion within you and helps to fan the fire that dwells within to seek to transform it into something uplifting and wonderful. Nathaniel helps us to wake up to our own true power.

Archangel Nathaniel resonates with the element and energies of fire, which are purification, transformation, transcendence, prosperity, protection, cleansing, motivation, passion and enthusiasm. Archangel Nathaniel transfers the Divine energy of fire to our world where it is transformed and used to burn away misconceptions and our feelings of separation. Archangel Nathaniel instigates change on many levels and helps to overcome procrastination and assists with accepting change with grace. He helps you to accomplish more than you thought you could and imbues energy, enthusiasm and passion."

In this card we see Nathaniel sitting on a pillar of cloud or smoke high above a group of four people, three men and one woman. He holds in his right, active hand a central string from which four separate strings emanate, each attached to one of the figures. Presumably he is controlling the movements of the figures below and because his hand is in the blessing mudra one can assume his actions are of great benefit to them. They are in a circle, dancing together, going round and round, having to cooperate with each other. And in fact that is the 'challenge' posted for this card, that of knowing when to work with others. Here we see the element of friction/fire being used to burn away the feeling of separation as the figures are being pulled together whether they like it or not out of necessity of a "higher ideal" to use a cliched term that I like to replace with a "wider ideal". So with this feeling of working together in mind as well as the ideas of purification and manifesting dreams and aspirations I drew the Seven of Swords and the Six of Swords.

In many ways these feel like perfect cards to bring into the light of Nathaniel's healing presence. The Seven of Swords is deeply a card of the pain of separation.

 Here we see a figure cloaked in cream with a red hat and red stockings. This combination and placement of colors brings to mind for the me the idea of concealment fueled by the will and the vehicle. He holds five swords in his hands with two more resting in the ground. His load is heavy. His gaze is guilty-looking, sneaky and full of deception. But looking further into those eyes and with the presence of Nathaniel in my heart what I see is something very different. I see someone who feels so separate from love and life that the only way they know how to go about getting some of it is to steal from others who appear to have that very quality. In the hopes that by taking their possessions he will possess some of their connection. It is dark, a nighttime sky setting the scene for this drama, a time when the shadow blends thoroughly into its environment.




The second card I drew is one of my favorite cards in any deck, the Six of Swords. I love this card with its mysterious suggestions of travel, of departure, of watery passage and the protective embrace of the mother. This card is no exception and it hits all my requirements for a good Six of Swords.

 The mood is sober but loving. Sometimes I'm the child in this card, sometimes I'm the mother, occasionally I'm the steersman and once in a while I'm the boat or waters. Today I'm the mother and the figure in the Seven has become the little baby. The mother's dark blue cloak is gathered around her body which is pleated in the mudra of tenderness and warmth around her little child. We don't see the traditional refuge of a far-off island or shore in this card though there is the hint of shoreline at the bottom right. There is the sense of a journey here, of change and transformation out of necessity. The boatman rows and keeps an eye on his passengers while farther off two fishermen work for their catch on a boat suggesting nourishment and rebirth are to be found in the waters they travel.






Is Nathaniel the boat here? His body made buoyant, crafted perfectly into a slim, wooden vehicle for the mother in me to tend to that aspect of myself who feels its separation keenly and calls out, sometimes skillfully and other times unknowingly in the form of envy, of greed, two of the more difficult children to love. Today this combination of cards feels like a doorway. My hand upon the key, I turn it, feeling the strength necessary to engage it and as it clicks open and I step through suddenly I realize that not only am I the doorway, the opening, the yielding, but more deeply felt...I am, in the words of Rumi, the miracle signs I want...

Inside This River

Inside this river there is a moon
which is not a reflection.

From the river bottom the moon speaks.
I travel in continuous conversation
with the river as it goes.

Whatever is above
and seemingly outside this river
is actually in it.

Merge with it, in here or out there,
as you please.

This is the river of rivers
and the beautiful silence of endless talking.

~ * ~ * ~

The above poem by the 12th century Sufi, Jalauddin Rumi is the poem for this day of June 24th. I'm struck by how it fits so seamlessly with today's daily draw of both oracle and Tarot cards.

 

The Angel Uzziel, with his message of "Caring Compassion" invites us to sit at the table with us him today. The LWB tells us his name means "God is my Strength". A further search on the web describes him as being the angel Jacob wrestled with before acquiring his new name, Israel. Elsewhere he is described as the angel of mercy and forgiveness which are more particular descriptives of Compassion. This feels especially apparent as I gaze at the picture.

Uzziel is seated upon a lovely, peach-tinged pink half-shell or lotus, it could be either, upon a beautiful lapis-blue sea full of waves and extending far backwards. My first thought, seeing him rising out of the half-shell is that of both Botticelli's Venus Rising and from another angle the shell took on the shape of the half-lotus so often seen in Buddhist thangkas where various buddhas or Taras are seeing sitting on atop it surrounded by the cosmos. This very much has those two influences in it.

Uzziel is dressed in graceful teal colored robes that drape and swirl around him. His feet are bare and earthy, a contrast to the watery element he appears in and my thought is that he knows how to walk upon the sacred drum of this earth while at the same time being at home in the realm of the heart. His right hand, his active hand extends out wards with his palm open and his left hand touches his heart, dervish-style, in remembrance of the perfection from whence he came. HIs wings are clearly visible and he gazes downwards with a look of deep compassion and tenderness. In front of him are four gold fish jumping out the water presumably to receive his blessing.

There is something so poignant about seeing these fish with their yearning for the blessings of love and care. For don't we all begin as fish swimming in the salinity of that murky, liminal narrowing where only the navel's coil remembers the mystery of our spawning?  I find it very easy to connect with Uzziel because of his beauty which combines softness and strength. All the water and the blue colors encourage my own watery element to respond in kind.

So with this teaching of compassion, mercy and forgiveness so gracefully portrayed in the card of Uzziel I draw my two cards for the day asking what areas do I need to bring the qualities of compassion to. I draw the Four of Pentacles and the King of Cups.

 I am immediately struck by synchrony between these two cards and Uzziel, as though he synthesizes them both, brings them together. The contraction of the four fish wanting, wanting something from Uzziel are those four coins beings so tightly held onto, the King of Cups amidst his watery realm feels like Uzziel in earthly form.

The figure in the Four of Coins holds a single. large coin in hid left hand while three similarly large coins sit at the graceful folds of his robes. He wears a small crown so presumably has all the riches he needs and yet he sits, isolated from the folk behind him, away from the bustling city that looms up behind her and rather in a quiet spot away from the fray with his book. The decorative piping across the heart and shoulders of his outfit suggest a subtle kind of imprisonment and yet his gaze to the right asks for something other than what he has right now in front of her. He looks longingly, it appears, at something in the distance. He has riches, certainly, but perhaps not the kind that satisfy him. The basket at his left might be filled with any number of things. What he doesn't realize is that the King of Cups is standing right there to his left, a master of the heart if there ever was one who might perhaps be able to help the figure in the Four of Pents.

Another favorite of mine from this deck, this King of Cups is sober but full of heart and feeling. He has a look of melancholy but with such eyes I like to think his melancholy is not a stranger to its wilder cousin, joy. HIs gold chalice sits upon the bedrock of the shore asking us to find that bedrock within us, where is that place where we can contain all the ambiguities of life, all the seeming polarities. They all have a home in this sacred cup tended by the noble King. A crab crawls towards the chalice reminding me of all the cancerians I know with their exterior shell hiding a soft interior. The quality of water, as in the card of Uzziel is pronounced and beautiful. Mysterious, accommodating and expansive the sea plays a key role in this card. A boat full of fishermen row either towards or away from shore.





Looking at these three cards together I feel a sense of joy, of possibility for that part of me who identifies with the Four of Pentacles and I allow her to lean in to the gentle embrace of both Uzziel and the King of Cups rocked by the movement of the inner sea they both make their home in. Is this compassion, I wonder? Is this what it means to act "with-passion," with interest and heart towards oneself? Rumi's poem above suddenly swims into my awareness...

I travel in continuous conversation
with the river as it goes.

Whatever is above
and seemingly outside this river
is actually in it.

I end as I began, attuning to the words of this great mystic and allowing them an alchemy in my body...

This is the river of rivers
and the beautiful silence of endless talking.

Expansion and Contraction

Today's draw uses my Kat Black Golden Tarot combined with the Oracolo degli Angeli del Karma Angels oracle, both firsts for me. And a rather powerful daily draw it is....

 

 

We've got the angel Mitzrael, the angel of Truth and Teaching according to the LWB. With the presence of Mitzrael we are reminded that "truth will out". He brings our attention to falsehood, lies and deception encouraging us to clearly see what is in front of us rather than relying on how things might appear. I interpret these falsehood and lies as those we tell ourself each day, self to self so we're not really fooling anyone but therein is the deception being referred to. It's almost conscious but not quite.

He flies high above two embracing couples on either side of a stream that flows into the background and my eye is drawn right along with it. He holds a bell in his active, right hand presumably to draw attention to his qualities of awareness and clear sight much like the meditation bell used in various buddhist traditions. The bell itself is such a graceful symbol, its tone reverberating in the body long after the sound has ended. He holds his left, receptive hand to his heart, a beautiful and refined gesture, a gesture of humility, of remembrance that Love is the flower that blooms within our cellular longings. The gold foil on the upper portion of this card exalts the scene beautifully...

 

So with this blessing of encouragement towards truth, towards clear sight and awareness I drew The Tower and The Empress. This feels like quite a powerful and in many ways natural pairing. And my mind wandered towards the feeling of symbiosis, towards the polarities of dissolution and creation that the juxtaposition of these two cards inspires. One can't have one without the other is what came to mind as difficult as that feels.

In order to embody the fertility of The Empress, in order to become pregnant with the sacred pause she embodies one must, in the words of Rumi, "go sweep out the chambers of the heart". What is a womb if not a generosity, an accommodation, an offering of space. This is often how I felt when I was pregnant, that my body had become a widening generosity. This Empress is lovely and one of my favorite cards of this deck. She sits on a lavish throne surrounded by all the elements of fertiltiy--rabbits, lilies, fruit and a baby on her lap. She has not arrived here by accident. Her role is one of mastery, of matriarchal authority and she is very comfortable in this role. The graceful folds of her blue robe and her benign smile suggest further her ease in her position. The blue background accentuates this.

In contrast The Tower is filled with darkness, terror, a focus upwards and dissolution. Figures cry out, the Tower burns, a crown falls from the very top and a figure tumbles out and down towards the ground while an angel oversees it all. This is dissolution rendered in a stark, human portrayal. We see all the different ways there might be to respond to such a ravaging crisis---one figure prays deeply, another throws up her hands, a man looks resigned to his fate grimly, a nun watches and children cry out. It is a poignant picture of the spectrum of our own hearts when up against it. I don't know who I am in the group of people. I imagine it would depend on the circumstances but I've certainly experienced all of what they are portraying at various times in my life.

So I come away from today's daily draw with the inner resolve to see with more awareness and clarity what kind of truth I'm embodying and does it allow for both emptiness and fullness. Where can those two polarities dance, where is the point where one becomes the other? These are questions I'll continue to ruminate on for weeks to come no doubt but they've been seeded today perhaps thanks to the blessings of Mitzrael. I come away with this sobering truth...

"My life is my prayer, as I live, so I am."