“There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven.
What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to [the Son of] God fourteen hundred years ago if I do not also give birth to [the Son of] God?
We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.
Cherish in yourself the birth of God.
In this Birth, you partake in the divine stream. Christ is conceived in your core, your inmost recess, where no idea ever glowed.
In this Birth, God pours into you, and the light at the core of your soul grows so strong, it spills out. The light overflows into your body, which becomes radiant with it.
For the eternal Birth, which occurred at one point in time, occurs every day in the inmost core of the soul. ”
When I finally became my own temple, it was clear why my own religion, worship services and prescribed prayer had felt largely inauthentic, self-conscious or weird for me all my life.
Once one knows and understands that they are an embodied spirit temple, there is no longer a need for a facilitator or mediator to commune with the Mystery — with Source Consciousness.
Some of us are descendant of a conscious “Entity” — a “Beingness” — but our near-complete devolution and severance has us worshipping false gods and idols — whether old ones or new; following false prophets; and practicing hollowed rituals, meditations, ceremonies and sacraments.
a defiant trickster, an anarchist — exposing and destroying The System and its systems / Jesus, a beautiful, laughing Aeon.
This Understanding, this Knowing, this gnosis, is inherent, existent in every spirited being, and — by grace, by catalyzed re-memory, or by the cultivation of an intentional interior communion, we may enter and traverse the liminal space where we experience our origin, and recognize our true Self.
GOSPEL OF THOMAS
(28) Jesus said, “I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent.”
(3) Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living god. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.”
mass extinction by chainsaw, net, bolt-gun or bomb they said, “96% of children in Gaza feel that death is imminent” in Sudan, the famine is massive, oh, this reaper, he is very discriminate in Congo, there’s mass enslavement for minerals, see the phone in her hand?! her hypocrisy?! she can’t claim to be innocent! the Pacific’s so hot, that it’s killed 4 million murres while the Indigenous still invoke “cultural rights” to baby seal furs
therefore,
God is either male — or, truer, the God who created everything, was the very first one extincted, as Nietzsche, and the german thinkers before him, all, belatedly said,
A mother rabbit birthed at least three bunnies in a niche of the house – enclosed on three sides with only a northern mossy exposure – mostly safe and hidden from owls, hawks and coyotes. They nibble on young dandelion and clover leaves. They are joy.
My one and only baby’s very first Easter and Spring. A surprise of daffodils under a white oak tree at our first house and home on Grace Street in Chicago. Mother, son, full of grace.
I don’t know where the stuffed white rabbit with pink, acrylic eyes and pink, satin ears came from — exactly. But I’ve had it forever, before memory, so I pretend that it was presented to the baby girl born in late October, just before Halloween. Or gifted to the baby girl on her first Easter. Or won for the toddler girl at her first carnival.
Before I was a mother to a boy, I — an only child — was a teenaged auntie to a beautiful boy named +Tony+ [Giovanni Anthony Martinez] born in Spring 1986. I learned from him that I might become a mother to a son one day even though I was sure I was meant only to be a mother to a daughter. And that, was a wonderful revelation.
“We are all called to be mothers of God, for God is always waiting to be born.”
— Meister Eckhart, 13th century German mystic
madonna & child stained glass 2013, Portage Park, Chicago
The Christmas narrative speaks to us beyond a phenomenal story about Mary and the Baby Jesus. It tells us about an inbreak of God's consciousness into the world. Inbreaks of the Divine require a flexible mind capable of letting go of every acquired concept of God. God gnosis is quite different from religious, historical, and any other kind of knowledge. The first emerges from within, throwing open our inner gates; the latter comes from without.
In this piece, which is an interpretation of one of many universal myths which impart the water crossing and trek we all are to embark upon after death,
most of the departed climb up the steep, barren embankment and enter the tunnel individually, while a child and a dog are tenderly escorted — led by the hand or carried by chthonic monks into the tunnel leading to the
Underworld
the tunnel appears under geological strata — presumably the surface of Earth, with blue sky and forest in background above it
interestingly, the artist’s limited use of perspective also allows the sky and forest to be viewed potentially as the Great Beyond itself — as a Northern or Alpine “paradise,” a Valhalla, beyond the sojourn in and through the tunnel
a high, solid, wooden fencebisects the river, embankment and tunnel and prevents arrivals from observing the exiting monks — only one-way vision and traffic for the dead
and while the monks do not cast shadows, the human figures continue to be accompanied by their shadows; for those who subscribe to Jungian analytical psychology or gnostic texts, the physical shadow depicted may be interpreted symbolically as the anima/animus of the person — which would ultimately disappear during the tunnel upon the full reintegration of the Self/Soul/Spirit
through re-unification with one’s divine twin (which is sometimes also called the cosmic/celestial twin or daimon) after having been separated during human incarnation and birth.
author’s note:
i often and prefer to call the underworld aka afterlife “The Great Wide Open of the All” — which in my liminal gleanings is a supremely contented blackness of universal consciousness, devoid of thought or sensation — a perfected existence in the dark cosmic fabric of nothingness,
there may be levels in the afterlife which may manifest our own personal imaginal constructs of paradise — far beyond what our limited sensory perception and experiences of life on Earth are - such as, an Alpine Paradise upon emerging from the tunnel -
i know full well the breathtaking beauty and feeling upon exiting a scary and lengthy mountain tunnel where my heart and eyes are stunned by a grand vista of forest, peaks and sky — from my many road trips in the Western U.S.
yet, i truly prefer the former — when i die, i want to rest for all eternity — although with just one desire, one sensation: warmth.
she sips a glass of wine and admits, agrees she too, doesn’t want to be
on this prison planet under these archons, guided and insulated by sadistic angels, both, in servitude to the demiurge
no escaping it, Them
even in Bucolia
she’s still plagued by the 24-hour news cycle, contemplation that often veers off into nihilism,
and, by bouts of suicidal ideation — but to go back around, back to another false birth in this Samsara, to start over? — no thanks //
perhaps crying in the wilderness, then.
where is that, exactly? the mountains, buttes and canyons also betray us — those ancient Watchers, the petroglyphs warned us of — and of shapeshifters cloaked in feathers, fur and scales ///
she knows she can’t save her Self, preserve her Pneuma and reunite with her Daimon, solely with an Earth-based practice of resistance
and, so begins the invocation, the genesis of her mission,
she supposes the element of surprise may be compromised by Their so-called omniscience
but who knows – what They actually know
even gods have blindspots even gods sleep and fuck — or mindlessly scroll and binge
we, Their creation, create Their content, after all
yes.
she will go to Them
traversing the liminal terrain
to find and kill Them in their confident repose in the Kenoma
The Gnostic is neither an ascetic nor a theologian and need not even be particularly religious in the conventional way. The Gnostic is an artist. The Gnostic's brushes, colors, and canvasses are her own body, his own psyche. The Gnostic's technique is one of living and observing life and recognizing it for what it is, without illusions of security, glamor, or despair.
The Gnostic continually explores, always seeking the core of the nature of things. But gnosis, like art, cannot be taught. The flame of living gnosis awakens and rises of its own accord. All we can provide is a nest within our heart, a sanctuary of repose where the breath of the Infinite may whisper its secrets.
—Rosamonde Ishvàku Miller, The Experience of Gnosis. Full article published in The Allure of Gnosticism, Pg. 203, ed. Segal et al, Illinois, USA, Open Court Publishing Company, 1995.
gnome (n.2) "short, pithy statement of general truth," 1570s, from Greek gnōmē "judgment, opinion; maxim, fthe opinion of wise men," from PIE root *gno- "to know."
kiss your Self awake | save your Self an all-time favorite by Saint Hoax 2015/2016
originally published june 17, 2016, revised june 11, 2023
* please visit the website/app Falling Fruit to add a fruiting tree that is located and accessible in the public way to the foraging database for others.
the author’s mulberry-stained fingers
A clear glimpse
A clear thought
on this clear June night
Of age,
and Alzheimer’s
the old-timer’s disease
A clear memory recorded and archived tonight
An acute awareness of myself
tonight, in time and place
a new track to play on loop for a listener in my future life
a husband, friend, or son
a caregiver, a kind one
a visitor, volunteer, or nurse,
a grandson, or maybe — no one
A reddish dog, eating mulberries
from the sidewalk in shadows
Mottled concrete in the dim light of a city street lamp
obscured by the canopy of that beautiful, June, fruit tree
Woody Guthrie, the mulberry forager
A woman, middle aged, seems so young, even a tad pretty, in her mind’s eye now
Stretching her still strong body upward for plump, dark berries
Reaching for branches trimmed too high by the urban foresters
or arborists or surgeons, I forget what they’re called
On her tippy toes
grabbing, pulling, picking
squeezing the dog’s leash between her thighs
don’t let him get loose in the dark, don’t let him get skunked in the dark
contorted mulberry tree at night
the same contorted mulberry in Sun’s light: wowowow
Some of the best ones are lost in the awkward tussle
before she can palm them, save them, taste them
She triggers a reverberative rain from boughs on high
That precise, delicate sweetness of the bounty in her mouth
The dog’s belly full of the ripe windfall
sustained by both gravity and this woman
His name was Woody, or Digby, I think
He used to climb into our sleep
Smashed and whole
The street, sidewalk and cars stained
by the impressive purple mess
the dark grass hiding perfect treasures for doves tomorrow morn
She and that dog,
They were urban foragers and gleaners in June.
All month long, her fingertips, feet and lips
tinted with their fuchsia dye, it didn’t even once occur to her to check his paws
A clear, recollection of acute melancholy:
this day — that day was also her son’s birthday //
The first birthday he ever spent away from home, away from her — in Nebraska, or was it Alaska?
That glorious tree, that good dog, that golden boy
The CruX: historically, continually, and invisibly stationed by, and on the crosses of, men
women, womxn, womqn, womyn and girls have been both the cross-bearers and the crucified – ever since the unnatural and unholy “conception” of the Roman Catholic Church and all its subsequent patriarchal, misogynist Christian derivatives.
mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos
As I sat on the maple floor of my kitchen in Chicago on a Thursday evening in 2017, voluntarily polishing my son’s chukka boots for the weekend — it became a meditation on my own father, who was actually my second father, who would often offer to polish or freshen up my scuffed, dirty shoes
— first, my white Keds-knock-offs from Zayre, Venture or Jupiter — the canvas stiffened bright white, an unnatural brand new/ the scent of that liquid polish and sponge instantly conjured/ me smiling/ did I remember to say thank you? did I know (how) to?
later, when I was in high school, he would clean and polish my beloved and preciously expensive pair of Stan Smith white leather Adidas /or were they leather Tretorns? then, when I was in college and always pressed for time or conversation, I began expectantly asking if he could please polish my black heels or black boots for work – but more importantly for the weekend — he always, obliging me.
she was not quite as good at it as he was, but she tried, and she got better, each time
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 