Last year, in one of our editorials, we talked about the journey of transformation that so many of us are on, the transition from caterpillar to butterfly. We talked about the idea that, before you can be a butterfly, you first have to go through the pupation stage, where everything you formerly were – the caterpillar – is turned to mush.
There is no way of knowing, during this phase of the journey, how long it will last, or what you or your life will look like once it is over. All you can really know is that your former shape is being taken away, everything seems dark, and this hurts.
But gradually, as you surrender to the experience, a new light begins to glimmer. Your outer shell – the pupa – becomes more and more translucent, and finally, you are free, and the winged being you truly are can fly at last. A new form, a new life, a new way of service to the Whole.
As she continued to face and allow herself to be carried through this journey, remaining ever alive and awake to its dark terror and dazzling magnificence, Jehanne Mehta – a singer/songwriter/poet/healer whom we much admire – was inspired to write these poems.
The Editors
After the Violence
Spreadeagled to the four quarters
stretched out as you are to the farthest edges
it’s hard to know that you are crucified
on yourself
and only now it sinks in:
where the long drawn agony tears you apart
in that middle place
just where the knife twists
THERE is love
growing
unstoppable
unwinding the tortured years
with the gentlest touch
reaching upwards to your heart
the way the first snowdrop spears
take their unerring aim for the sun
and every cell of you becomes heart
beating
beating
beating…
‘til you are nothing but a myriad of wings
heading into the light
and you are handfasted to the future
by a silver cord of blessing
that you will
never cut
After listening to Rumi I
When I say to you,
‘You are lovely’,
you do not believe me,
because of the blemishes
you know so intimately;
but those blemishes are the scars
of your sufferings
and they shine out of your soul,
radiating beauty,
the way the daisies do
in the long summer grasses.
So when I say to you,
‘Even with closed eyes,
I still see how beautiful you are’
it is true.
Believe it.
Believe it.
After listening to Rumi II
Evergreen Oak
(Recalibration)
Your inner teacher says:
‘Come closer.
Be faithful to the tree that you are.
Like last year’s leaves,
shed the old stories,
the ache of unfulfilment,
the pain of separation
from yourself.
Follow the fool’s tracks.
He turns himself inside out
and upside down
and all for smiles,
all for laughter,
that splits paradigms
and shakes you to your roots.
Come inside.
Summer is a wild rose,
though only for a little while,
but your heart is
a rose for all seasons
and wild
for love.
Do not be afraid to be
heart to heart
with yourself.’
Albion?
This model now, maquette of a masterpiece,
is bent out of alignment along the vertical axis,
the clay cracked, dry, crumbling.
It no longer serves.
Take a new baseboard,
take netting, pliers and strong wire
and build her anew;
but this time, around the armature, not clay,
this time build her, like Blodeuwedd, out of flowers,
bluebells, crosswort, lady’s smock
and the wild white cherry;
and set a bee house for her heart,
alive with summer harmonies.
She would be a passion of pollination.
You would sense her sweetness
long before you saw her,
her eyes awake,
alight with recognition,
and love would flow like honey
out of her palms.
Poems by Jehanne Mehta, ©2008-2010
www.jehannemehta.com
Buy Emblem, Jehanne Mehta’s latest CD of unspeakably magical songs, here
