Monday, June 18, 2012
If You Want
By Dorothy Walters
(1928 - )
If you want to feel
the sweet light
flow over your body,
then give yourself to light.
If you want
to taste the secret honey,
you must allow your throat
to open.
Moth to candle,
straw to flame,
you are nothing but
materials for burning.
-- from The Ley Lines of the Soul: Poems of Ecstasy and Ascension, by Dorothy Walters
Amazon.com
The above entry was posted on Ivan Granger's Poetry Chaikhana site today, together with the following commentary:
Dorothy Walters is always a favorite with the Poetry Chaikhana. Like honey, this brief poem of ecstasy restores and satisfies, all with a sweet golden touch. Her new book Ley Lines of the Soul is a collection of "poems of ecstasy" by one who has lived for years with the sacred Kundalini experience. Rich material to explore here...
These images, light and honey, appear so often in the poetry and writing of mystics...
If you want to feel
the sweet light
flow over your body,
then give yourself to light.
Light imagery is used so often in sacred writings that it is easy to assume it is just one more airy spiritual metaphor, but there is a reason all traditions speak of light. Often, mystics in ecstatic states describe an awareness of light that is brighter than a sunny afternoon. This light is perceived as being a living radiance that permeates everything, everywhere, always. This light is immediately understood to be the true source of all things, the foundation on which the physicality of the material world is built.
This light is not merely a visual phenomenon, either; it is tactile, permeating, embracing, profoundly soothing, revitalizing, healing. Many experience the sense of being bathed in this light, feeling it "flow over your body."
But how do we come to experience it? It is not something we acquire. It is not something we hold. It is not even something, properly speaking, that we "experience." It is much too big to be contained by the individual. We can, however, participate in its radiance. We give ourselves to the light.
If you want
to taste the secret honey,
you must allow your throat
to open.
Sweetness too is often used in language of mystics. Not merely sweetness, but a sweet, vivifying liquid: honey, wine, milk, nectar... Again, this is not merely poetic metaphor; it is real. A subtle, though tangible, flowing substance is experienced as an ethereal sweetness upon the palette and in the back of the throat during some states of deep ecstasy.
In India this is often called amrita, in the Mediterranean mystery traditions it was called ambrosia.
But how do we taste this sweet nectar? We must open to our capacity for sweetness.
Moth to candle,
straw to flame,
you are nothing but
materials for burning.
These final lines can be troubling or supremely reassuring. They seem to evoke an image of self-sacrifice; worse: wanton self-destruction. So why then do we instinctively breathe easier reading these lines? The poem, up to this point, has been reminding us that we don't get the greatest gifts, we give ourselves to them instead. There is a terrible burden in constantly trying to buttress the petty self with experiences and acquisitions, when what we so want in our heart of hearts is to yield and open to our true radiant nature. The myriad ways we've learned to define and insulate ourselves, they do serve a purpose, however -- as fuel for that holy fire of self-liberation.
==
Dorothy Walters is a retired university professor who, at age 53, experienced a dramatic Kundalini awakening which, as she says, completely transformed her life. She had no guru or teacher to guide her through this process, navigating through the new world that opened itself to her by following inner guidance and instinct.
She wrote of her Kundalini initiation in Unmasking the Rose. She has several collections of poetry, including Ley Lines of the Soul, Marrow of the Flame, and A Cloth of Fine Gold. She also contributed to Kundalini Rising: Exploring the Energy of Awakening.
Ms. Walters lives and writes in Colorado.
Ivan
(For me, the images are more metaphorical than literal. Indeed the experience of actual light and the sweetness of "amrita" in the the throat are frequently reported by mystics, but I have not experienced them as such. The last stanza, with its reference to "material for burning," was actually intended to refer to the acknowledged end of the mystic journey, which is annihilation into the Beloved. However, as we know, poetry may be interpreted in different ways, according to the insight and associations of the reader.)
