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| Image by Lauren Raine |
You
who bring suffering to children:
May you look into the sweetest, most open eyes, and howl the loss of
your own innocence.
You
who ridicule the poor, the grieving,
the lost, the fallen, the inarticulate, the wounded children in
grown-up bodies: May you look into each face, and see a mirror. May
all your cleverness fall into the abyss of your speechless grief,
your secret hunger, may you look into that black hole with no name,
and find....the most tender touch in the darkest night, the hand that
reaches out. May you take that hand. May you walk all your circles
home at last, and coming home, know where you are.
You
tree-killers, you wasters - May
you breathe the bitter dust, may you thirst, may you walk hungry in
the wastelands, the barren places you have made. And when you
cannot walk one step further, may you see at your foot a single
blade of grass, green, defiantly green. And may you be remade by
it's generosity.
And
those who are greedy in a time of
famine: May you be emptied out, may your hearts break not in half,
but wide open in a thousand places, and may the waters of the world
pour from each crevice, washing you clean.
Those
who mistake power for love: May you
know true loneliness. And when you think your loneliness will drive
you mad, when you know you cannot bear it one more hour, may a line
be cast to you, one shining, light woven strand of the Great Web
glistening in the dark. And may you hold on for dear life.
Those
passive ones, those ones who force
others to shape them, and then complain if it's not to your liking:
May you find yourself in the hard place with your back against the
wall. And may you rage, rage until you find your will. And may you
learn to shape yourself.
And
you who delight in exploiting
others, imagining that you are better than they are - may you wake up
in a strange land as naked as the day you were born and thrice as
raw. May you look into the eyes of any other soul, in your radiant
need and terrible vulnerability. May you know yourSelf. And may you
be blessed by that communion.
And
may you love well, thrice and thrice and thrice,
and again and
again and again,
may you find
your face before you were born.
And
may you drink from deep, deep waters.
Lauren
Raine, MFA,
has been creating visual and performance art about the Great Mother
since the early 80's. She studied sacred mask traditions in Bali,
and exhibited at Buka Creati Gallery in Ubud, Bali. Her collection of
“contemporary Temple masks” devoted to worldwide stories of the
sacred feminine, The Masks of the Goddess, traveled throughout the
U.S. for over 20 years used by dancers, ritualists and storytellers,
and venues included the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, the International
Mask Symposium, the New College of California, and the Parliament of
World Religions. In 2007 she received a Fellowship with the Alden Dow
Creativity Center at Northwood University and a Puffin Grant for her
“Spider Woman” Community Arts Project. In 2009 she was resident
artist at the Henry Luce Center for the Arts at Wesley Theological
Seminary in Washington, DC. Currently she works in ceramic sculpture
and teaches at the Tucson Clay Co-op. www.laurenraine.com
www.masksofthegoddess.com
Very beautiful words.
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