Blasphemy: A reflection
A crucial reframing
Process
This past November, I went away for a few days. I was looking for rest, to be in nature, and spend time in contemplation. After arriving at a Catholic-run retreat center, I was greeted in the parking lot by a smiling Catholic sister, took a short ride to a simple house in a Mule, and did a quick unpacking.
Settling into solitude at this point seemed aspirational. It’s not that I don’t ever get time alone. I travel frequently enough for work, providing a fair number of evenings alone in a hotel. And even with a family of five, with kids all in their teenage years and out doing teenage things, there are many times where I find myself at home alone. However, settling into solitude is not something that comes easily to me. I usually end up fighting a battle between allowing myself rest or acting in some productive way. I find myself alone, but with thoughts bouncing around my mind questioning my worthiness, it rarely feels like solitude.
The good thing is, there is something about being away from your normal environment that makes a posture of solitude easier to find. After an afternoon and evening of hiking, yoga, and reading, my mind began to quiet down. I got a short but good night of sleep, waking refreshed. Prior to arriving, I had decided I wanted to do a half day meditation session, so by mid-morning I was settling in for the first session of what would be five hours of sitting meditation, slow walking, and contemplative listening.
This was by far the longest uninterrupted meditation period I had allowed myself. As expected, it contained a little bit of everything…restlessness, guilt, pain, difficulty, ease, and calm. No huge breakthroughs or deep states of absorption arrived during those hours, but I finished feeling filled, in a way. The critiquing mind became quieter, and the body became more settled and present. This state felt very pleasurable, and it was a beautiful and cool November day, so I grabbed my water bottle, notebook, and pen, and headed out for a Garden Walk, my method of walking (most often in a garden) for a period of time, then sitting and writing based on what is in front of and inside of me. I love this method for its consistently changing inspiration and the natural metaphors for life that seem to be whispered so continually by anything not walled in.
An early rendition of Blasphemy emerged.
Themes
Verse 1 was written at the kitchen table prior to departing for this walk, reflecting on what I was feeling after this period of contemplation. The words instill a sense of readiness, of being primed for new layers of experience that will inevitably be painted onto anyone who leaves their shelter and heads into the world. But before we depart, we are bolstered when we look within and are reminded of the secret things we know.
These stanzas use a visual of water from an internal spring filling parched bones. This spring is silent yet speaks, and while a flowing liquid it is also the source of strength that feeds the next metaphor of a solid oak, an image that will also wind its way later into the poem in verse 5.
The section closes with an image of opening, pivoting between a door that is a threshold between shelter and the wild, and a chest being opened to free one’s heart.
Verse 1 uses biblical images that form an early theme that is used throughout, and eventually titled, this poem. First, the parched, dry bones from Ezekiel, but these bones are transformed through a practice not taught in my Christian experience, one of a source that permeates everything, not something that descends down to us. Then there is the picture of the breaking of ribs, not one rib that is removed and used as a story of power over another from Genesis, but a trinity that is slowly broken to free one’s spirit to experiences as they are.
1. Today, this day, this brilliant, blessed day I sat silent on a buckwheat cushion stock still to listen to the silent sound that bubbles up like a babbling spring, the spring I lean over to fill my parched bones, my hollow bones, now filled with clear water silence. Inside has spilled its secrets and I stand solidified, rooted and ready to grow another ring, stepping toward the oaken door I reach for the handle and turn three ribs till they crack, pull gently and open so my heart may cross the threshold to the wild outside.
Verse 2 begins to paint the experience of a melding of the person writing and the world they stepped into. It was written while sitting by a small pond just a brief walk from the cabin I was staying in. After a couple of laps around the pond, I walked to the edge and peered into the mirror-like surface. Blue sky, white clouds, and birds were reflected, and if I leaned over far enough, my face was there staring back at me. It was an experiential joining of things, erasing some of the lines between self and other.
2. Pond of sky, sky below and earth above, all is upside down, for where is my face in this pond of sky, clear, clear as can be, brown eyes reflecting all that flies above, and when I look up, I am not there.
Verse 3 was penned on the same bench by the same pond. The picture of the sky and the “upside down” continues, turning around the conventional notion of where the sun sets. The separation and uniqueness we commonly experience is not the only way of experiencing the world. There is something meaningful and practical about understanding that all things are interconnected and that boundaries between can actually disappear.
3.
The sun is low
in the eastern sky,
night comes,
truly, all
is not as it seems.
Verse 4 was written the night I arrived at the retreat center as a short, stand-alone poem. As I was writing, this verse came to my memory and I decided it belonged in this piece. Aspects of Verses 2 and 3 continue here with odd images of the sky (blue sky / I see stars through). These short stanzas were a simple nod to the contrast of my feelings prior to my arrival at this retreat and what I knew was possible on the other side of burden. Again, different ways of experiencing the same thing.
4.
Yesterday, a gray sky
of two thousand pounds.
Today, a blue sky
I see stars through.
Verse 5 was written in the forest after walking the trails for an hour. The sun continued to set, the air was becoming cold, and in the quiet there were sounds of crunching leaves, skittering animals, and my breath. The whole experience felt as if it was a prayer. This verse attempts to paint prayer as a way of life and the act of holding ones experience lightly, not declarations made from a place of authority and power.
5. Autumn is not silent like snow in winter. The dense oak forest whispers in its bare top and squirrels skitter over an oaken ground, mystical prayers permeate my in and out breath not the prayers of the pious standing behind an oaken pulpit, but the decrepit cushioned in their walk on three inches of every brown-hued oak leaf.
Verse 6 came after a quick walk from the forest to a ridge looking west over a farm to watch the sun finish setting. It is a story of the loss of a mystical experience. The slow moves to a hurry. The sun is now setting where it should be, in the west. The sky is in its place. The author’s ego that had been softened is back in full force. The conventional reigns again.
6. I will hurry to the ridge, for the sun is almost touching the lips of the western earth. And there I am, west is west and sky is up, and my shamed ego is proud. Always proud, how quickly I find who I am, forgetting who I am.
Verse 7 was written while leaning on the fence that stood on the ridge that divides the retreat center from the neighboring farm as the sun set. It is a moment of remembering, of leaning back into the mystery that was uncovered in the day’s experiences, melding the Christian teachings that I was handed with the Buddhist practices that resonate with me in this stage of my life.
The nod is to the story of Moses and the burning bush from Exodus 3. Moses is being pulled to something bigger than himself, and questions who or what it is that is pulling him in that direction. The chapter is riddled with the phrase “I am”. Moses hears a voice and answers, “Here I am”. When he realizes what he is being called to, he questions it by saying “Who am I” that I should act, that I am one who deserves. And most powerfully, the voice that Moses is interacting with simply answers “I am” when Moses asks what his name is. The picture I was handed about this statement was a reference to God and his vastness, his power, his love, and all traits that one can ascribe to him, but also to something that is outside of, separate from, and above us. For me, it was a picture that created a profound feeling of alienation.
So the melding, the redemption in this verse is the final brilliant ray (burning bush) turning the question around, asking the question “what is your name” to the person standing in front of it, and the person realizing that they too, can answer “I am”. There is no separation from the source and who each of us are. No hierarchy.
Hence, Blasphemy.
7. The sun sets and in a final brilliant ray asks me What is your name? I answer I am.
Final thought
To be fair, this critique of how I experienced the Christian teachings is simply that…my critique. When I go back and read these stories, there are certainly other ways of interpretation where one sees themself not apart from the source of all things, but in it. There are many who claim the label Christian who practice spiritually in a way that bring the separate together. I’ve found this poem provided a map for me to go back to some of these stories and read with a different lens. I suppose that is the real purpose of quality poetry, folklore, and story…to be a guide along the trail on which one finds themself searching for a way forward, no matter where along the trail they are.
May you touch the guide within you…
Brian
If you missed the original “A Poem” post of Blasphemy, I hope you will read and enjoy! You can find it here.
I am Catholic too. I so appreciated your perspective! The breakdown was so calming.
"The whole experience felt as if it was a prayer. This verse attempts to paint prayer as a way of life and the act of holding ones experience lightly, not declarations made from a place of authority and power."
Brian, this is beautiful to see unfolding in your work. I feel like you've described the essence of a contemplative life. The question I'm always holding is how to extend the insights gleaned on retreat into the practice of my ordinary life, on an ordinary Tuesday. On one hand, there is always a long list of duties and responsibilities to be fulfilled at work and at home, and on the other hand, there is the driving force of pure poetry, art and pleasure. I see the balance of the two as contemplative life. Contemplative Christianity is possible. It has a long tradition dating back to the Desert Fathers & Mothers. I'm one who believes this was actually what Jesus modeled for us: prioritizing a life of love and compassion, retreating alone to quiet places to pray and recharge, prayers with few words . . .