Posted on September 4th, 2013 Posted by Suzanne Sterling
Please enjoy this powerful epic poem Suzanne Sterling wrote during her month-long visit to India with the Global Seva Challenge: India participants.
Suzanne and Seane traveled with Off the Mat leaders who had successfully raised $20,000 each to combat sex trafficking in India through the Global Seva Challenge program. Together, 200+ Seva leaders raised $1 million.
This is Suzanne’s reflection of her time in India.
I worship a Goddess who cannot be contained
no walls shall hold Her vastness
Temples erected in Her honor crumble to the ground
She is Rising
She is the earth stone that anchors all celestial beings
She is the chorus of birds at dawn
She is the curling breeze cutting through the wavering heat of midday
She is the flowing river speaking in ancient tongue
She is the inscription and the source of all spells
dropping veils to reveal Her radiance
She will not be confined
No temple can match Her splendor or honor Her power
If you try to constrain Her She will grow long sharp teeth that cut through to bone
She is fiercer than the tiger stalking with a cold and terrible precision
beautiful, deadly
She is rising
And you might feel that you have given Her everything
you have danced in the fire
I too, have heard my own bones clacking
I have seen the blue light illumine their white
I have smelled the sickly sweet scent that comes with death
I have felt my plans, ambitions and visions melt into Her heat
I have been Her bride and She has marked my forehead in a flash
Little did I know what would come of that
And now that I am older and filling the crone body year after year
I no longer wail and rail against Her
I can look upon the bones with dispassion even as I scratch and claw at the cracks in the stone
praying for the light to be revealed
and She asks, “are you ready to feel the true winds of freedom…to never be shown the way
but to take the terrible decision upon yourself in the most fallow moments?
Can you live with the isolation?”
Yes, I say, yes take me to the place where all that I have been given can be used in your service
See through my eyes and sing through my voice
Let us sit in deep and intimate conversation
but please, I ask you, I pray to you
O Great One
whose women and girls are standing up and finding their own teeth and their own claws
and their own wild words
Show me your face
Let me be your emissary of untamable song and ineffable wisdom
you know me mother
you know all that I have offered up to you
sometimes unwillingly
sometimes with a great fight or a deep misunderstanding
but I have never strayed and I have never wavered
and I did not play by any rules other than my own which are, after all, only yours
I ask for my gifts to be strengthened and refined
for my innate wisdom to be enervated
my body to shine with vibrant health
my words to speak truth and beauty
my songs to ring out in open doorways and unlock the secrets
of each listeners heart cave
I have been your faithful servant your good daughter
I have made mistakes, thrown my wealth away to those who could not see it
I have misunderstood the meaning of love
and I forgive myself
for I know I have always been held in your gentle guidance and strict burning hands
obliterating ego laughing at my arrogance
as you offer up redemption over and again
now I ask for a glimpse of your glory
I have seen it in the moon flowing light over rivers and pools
I have felt it in my own song
the voice that lifts inside me as you and I become one song rising
I am no longer afraid of this power
the way it frightens others
I have died and I have been alone
I have been told that I am too much
but I am nothing compared to you O mother
and I am your priestess and I am asking you to rise in me!
I will meet you
I will use my tools to handle the rejection, manipulation,
competitive machinations, out right evil demons of fear, guilt and shame
I will express my anger and speak truth to power and protect my art
like a fierce mother
I will ignore the ones who falsely claim you
I will stand in my own wild light only
I will sing your songs of freedom
I will sing your songs forever
I will challenge the ones who would contain any of us
I will call your strength and power untamed and free into my body and into my voice
every single day
so that I remember this sublime moment
in your world without churches
where I am utterly utterly free
I release the fears of my ancestors
who burned in the flames of ignorance
who were the sacrifice
I will honor their memory even as I release their terror
so embedded in my own
wonder of wonders that I call this forth from your roofless temple
singing to the sky
from the tops of Mt. Kailash to the depths of the Garb Griya
wonder of wonders that I have no choice here but to follow your river
the flowing sari over the landscape of your earthly body
wonder of wonders comes the twilight
stillness as the world settles into your dark embrace
the indigo of your wings brushing velvet skin
cool night breeze on the hills above the village
bright horizons of saffron and marigold
mysterious and invisible hands
I know this
I know this
I knew this before
unlock this threshold O joyous Dark Mother
reveal
penetrate
gently pry me open.
Suzanne Sterling, March 2013
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