Kundalini Splendor

How the Story Goes

It all depends on where you enter.

At first it is all roses and peach
ice cream—
you and your lover
picnicking on the lawn,
tantric moments in bed.
Surely this was the way.
Surely it would last forever.

Then devastation, loss,
abandonment.
You exist at the bottom
of a deep well where
light seldom intrudes,
there is little relief
from the sound of sobs,
which seem to come
from far down your own throat.
You never dreamt there
could be so much pain.
such suffering, as
if even god
had turned his back on you,

as if your mirror

turned grey.
You grow very thin,
for you reject
all comfort and nourishment.
Even if someone tries
to console you,
you will not listen.

Then one day, something unexpected,
a beam breaks through,

becomes a sacred image on the wall.
Someone (not a person)
is calling from above,

soft cathedral tones.
Slowly you make your way out.
You blink and look around at a world
which is still busily there
both strange and familiar
rushing to its elusive aims.
You rub your eyes.
You detect signs of beauty,
blossoms struggling into light.
Even the birds seem to be singing
lost hymns.
You pause, then stumble forward.
Your pace quickens
as you move.

Dorothy Walters
August 12, 2008

(This is a poem about the death and resurrection of the spirit, as life cycles through its inevitable changes. The "inner death" is especially poignant when it involves the loss of the "Beloved Within," that reality which formerly was a constant presence but now seems to have vanished. Evelyn Underhill in her great work "Mysticism" says this is the true dark night. It occurs after, not before, the initial awakening, when one endures a time of seeming separation from divine favor.)