Mother Wisdom Speaks

Here's a poem that has meant a lot to me over the past few years. I've been thinking about it and my sense of the feminine aspects of the divine, nature, and reality quite a bit lately. Maybe it's the coming of spring.

I first encountered this poem on a monastic retreat while I was uncertain of my future and health. The possibility of life-risking surgery, not knowing if I could keel over and die at any moment, whether I was going blind, or might have irreversible brain damage.... All scary things. The high level of risk is over, but the knowledge of how fragile a balance life is has remained with me.

The line that helps me the most is: Nothing you need will be lost. This poem and that retreat reminded me that all I have now and will have in the future will be sufficient for my life. Faith, family, friends... and most importantly, God... my mother, father, mentor, healer, sustainer, friend, and guide.

Mother Wisdom Speaks
by Christine Lore Webber

Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will make you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.

I will hollow you out with knives.
I will not do this to make you clean.
I will not do this to make you pure.
You are clean already.
You are pure already.

I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you.
I will do this for the space that you will be.
I will do this because you must be large.
A bowl.
People will eat from you and their hunger will not weaken them unto death.
A cup to catch the sacred rain.

My daughter, do not cry.
Do not be afraid.
Nothing you need will be lost.
I am shaping you.
I am making you ready.

Light will glow in your hollowing.
You will be filled with light.
Your bones will shine.
The round, open center of you will be radiant.

I will call you Brilliant One.
I will call you Daughter Who Is Wide.
I will call you Transformed.