Womb of Darkness, Seeds of Light


Copyright Dr. Sabine Hannesen


Out of nothingness
I came,
and into nothingness
I will
go back.

Most probably,
it seems
to any sober,
honest mind.

What happens inbetween
is like a lotus,
blossoming
to greet the sun.

But never did
its whiteness flower,
its yellow
drink the light,
without the pain
of birth
and life
and death.

The most of life
must necessarily
be strained
by yearning.
And much of it
stays unfulfilled.

You just emerge
for fleeting times
of happiness
and peace.
And then you close
your petals,
waiting
for the next
unfolding.

But you will never
live the last.
Since conscience
is your nature.
You strive
for moments only,
when you can surface,
open up
and shine,
lit through
and through
by rays
of grace,
proceeding
by.

Wait for the next
to come,
submerged,
retired down
into the womb
of darkness.

Consider this
the price to pay.
No other way.
Without illusions.

But you can never say
on balance
if
you spent too much,
unless you violently draw
the bottom line.

So you may wait
in distant deeps,
detached
and quietly,
to rise
while you endure,
accumulating strength,
the budding force,
residing in your stem.

A force,
which is in evidence
in all creation,
behind the universe we know,
the force within,
that you can truly call
divine.



10.10.13

***

The above is my secularized version of the hindu-myth of Vishnu, dreaming up the next period of creation between two world-eras, reclining on the snake Shesha which in turn swims in a primordial ocean. So from his navel a lotus blossom grows, out of which the creator god Brahma emerges who then will bring forth the coming world.
   Lakshmi, Vishnu's consort, sits idly by, adoring and cherishing her husband's feet - clearly a myth from an already 'patriarchal' stage of human development, when not the womb of the Great Goddess is considered the origin of everything, but the visceral dreaming of a male god (however not yet the logos of a monotheistic controller of nature)...

The surrounding pictures show a lotus blossom, "as big as a soup bowl", photographed by Dr. Sabine Hannesen, and various representations of the described myth (mouse-over will show you the source).

Copyright Dr. Sabine Hannesen

http://www.lotussculpture.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/1-statue5.jpg, 13.10.13

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/0400_0499/pantheon/vishnushesha/vishnushesha.html; 13.10.13

http://documenta-akermariano.blogspot.de/2011/07/padmanabha.html, 13.10.13

http://orgvalmikiramayana.blogspot.de/2010/03/some-background-info-for-better.html, 13.10.13

If you think in christian terms you might also associate Christ's resurrection (see here!); but the orientation there seems much more otherworldly, than in hinduism, where the older, agricultural idea of a cyclical recreation of the world has not yet been abolished entirely by the logos of merchants, living a harsh live in the early cities.

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