MANTRA

[Guest guest]

Dear ones,

Following is the "Dhyan mantram" for mata Jagaddhatri(one who holds

the universe)

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Om simhasthaa shhashhiahhekhraa marakataprekshaa chaturvirbhujai-

Shhankhan chakrah dhanuh shharaangshhcha dadhatiim netraistrivi

shhovitaa..

AamuktaangadahaarkankanarwaNatkaanchiikwaNanNupuuraa.

Durga durgatihaariNi bhavatu no ratnollasatkundalaa..

 

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I meditate goddess Jagaddhatri ( Durga ) who sits on a Lion and is as

glamourous and gorgeous as the gem of Rubi; who holds

conchshell,discuss,bow and arrow in her four hands and who is

bedecked with precious jewlleries. We pray to her with a view to

having a peaceful world to live.

[Guest guest]

Nitish you have inspired me to share some of my own thoughts; perhaps you

also will resonate:

When we treat feeling states too analytically we rob them of soul, and poetry

is as much about soul as it is about subject matter. The poem wants to

main-tain a sense of mystery about itself. Therefore, I prefer to experience

the poem as a dream that is deeply symbolic, whose import is felt on an

emotional, intuitive level, but which somewhat defies attempts at completely

rational analysis. The goal of the poem is to bridge the gap between thought

and experience; the poem accomplishes this bridge by toying with and hiding

from direct thought in order to evoke image, feeling, silence. Image must be

experienced directly -- cannot be translated with its full immediacy into

thought. Silence is always relative if defined as the counterpart to noise;

instead, silence can be thought of as a spiritual quality -- as that which

allows image to flow; ideally, each word is shrouded in silence in the poem.

Thought is a veil between the human and the divine - a transition zone - the

uncrossable gap between human and divine. Thought is void, therefore, to

approach thought is to approach anxiety. Image bridges the gap. Music

bridges the gap. Silence bridges the gap. Being bridges the gap. Thought

falls lost in the void. Abstract thought can be profound and necessary, but

not divine sacrament. Image is sacramental because it bridges the gap; image

is ecstatic. Thought is where we go to discover ourselves in our mortality.

Image comes to lead us beyond ourselves. Thought crucifies image. Image

spontaneously resurrects. Word is Image. Pure Thought is Image. For a

moment, the void ceases to exist. Image becomes flesh and dwells in Word.

Word dwells in Thought and Thought in Text. In Text, the Ethereal Poem moves

around and breathes. The written poem is but one possible snapshot or

glimpse of this movement that is caught in a construct of words and images

and images as in a freeze frame -- the still-life of the poem.

 

moonlight falls

 

 

 

 

 

through the patio at night.

Elongated shadows cross the floor

swimming in this witness to wakefulness,

possessed of a subtle fear of

sinking into the same burlap chair,

on other nights inviting.

The clock keeps ticking.

Motionless cats; variations

on a theme of relativity.

There is no alternate opus.

There is no refrain. Or

endlessly refraining I from you,

there is no discernible definition

of leisurely air against my skin

between this pixel and the next.

There is no overlap and

this is a continuum,

a continuous enactment

of mothering, umbilical means

connected to (I cannot separate,

cannot distill myself from this dependency).

 

You, seem to be floating about, defined

at least in part by the subtle

surface tension reflecting

in the light of these moonbeams.

Haunting - impressing on my mind

a foot leaning with progressive weight

into the soft floor of the forest that

night of an elbow pushing back against desire

to fall yet not away, to fall forever,

to fall through the imperfect dark

through compromised light,

through a question always of

the exact nature of successive embodiments

of continuance, to fall into the wide

open. To fall back into the visual

that realm of experience where

outlines tease the eye and please

touch where words most accurate depiction

only frustrates and moves beyond.

 

I could begin with an attempt

to catalogue each particular

of each moment to give

the subtle impression of having fully

entered in. To create the illusion of

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Peace, Love and Poetic License,

Cathie