The goddess Kuan Yin
is a symbol for our time,
raped by the monks
from whom she sought protection.
We have sought guidance & protection
from our leadership
and found neither.
Our lives are a statistic
on the altar of money.
She is also a reminder
that it will not always be this way.
May 2020
Sorche Berry ©2020
Artwork by Sorche Berry/Sophia’s Grove ©2020
Arise, Saints of Scotland,
in strath and glen,
kirk, croft, and manse,
and where the rivers meet.
Arise, as the stag watches
at dusk’s end,
fixed by a distant bell.
As shadows fall, wind shudders
the silent thistle, and
Andrew’s flag drifts.
Arise, Fillan, Kentigerna,
Thaney and Mungo,
Ninian, Triudana,
Comgan and Oda.
Nature’s tired weal,
the dank pine grove,
wolf and ox, magpie and puffin,
the whale in the dark sea, wait.
Sorche Berry ©2019
Artwork by Sorche Berry ©2019
we are all
alchemists of spirit.
watch your vessel closely
for the ch-ch-ch-changes.
from black to red,
from earth to fire,
talamh à teine
follow sophia,
her winding, fractured path,
for she will
find me, find you.
This is the Work,
and there is always
much to be done
we are ripples on the lake,
condensation, distillation,
solve et resolve,
earth to fire,
talamh à teine
Sorche Berry ©2018
Artwork by Michael Maier ©1618
Emblem XLII, Atalanta fugiens
Refuge and sanctuary,
safe in shimmering woods,
my splintered walls
betray a jagged path
between faith worlds
A monk with a child,
Cistercian Buddha,
doubting Thomas, all
patiently thrust in
trust with his nurse
Eternal lines written here,
safe from passing pleasant fools.
Shame I couldn’t save you
from the shock
of vanished faith
Sorche Berry ©2018
Artwork by Sorche Berry ©2018
Sophia’s Call
I have never been unknown.
You have always known me.
I am Sophia of the eighth Archon,
Co-Creatrix of all the Worlds,
Lady of the Spheres,
Mistress of the Void.
If I have not been known,
That has been your choice.
You have placed a dark veil upon me,
Made me silent, forbidden.
But He knew me before Time,
Knew me well,
And He knows it is I who will
Draw down the last veil.
I am in all, your yesterdays and your forevers,
The whore and the queen, the bile and the blood,
Et Spiritus Sancti, your holy, equal third.
While I turn the constellations, I am your breath on a window,
A lost perfume, presence in an empty room,
As close to you, closer, than your faintest pulse.
I am Compassion, never-ever-ending Love.
I am poured out across a lake in sunlight,
I am the womb’s warmth; in wind, mist, moss
In fecund forest earth, a green thought.
I am mountain, ocean, leaf, and stream,
And you have always known this.
I am the swirl of dhikr,
The blessing of water,
The shoke at a wall,
Cantor, muezzin, the glistening choir.
Mother to Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad,
Always One, All in All.
These arms have held you all, and will always hold you.
I have bled with you, bled for you.
I have cried with, laughed with, and will cry again for you, my children.
I am Namu and Nous. Be held within my golden breath, radiant.
Choose to unveil me.
Many will slide or slouch away.
But for you, Soul of the World,
With Amazon stride, I will break Heaven upon you
And splintered you will scatter,
Joyous, One,
To meet the bright Abyss.
Sorche Berry ©2018
Artwork by Agnessa Kesiakova ©2018
Come here, and let me trace
The lines of love and anger in your face.
And let me touch the heat
Of hurt and friendship in the beat
Of life that courses there,
And tease the passion frosting in your hair.
Come, share those thoughts and, there so, sound
My heart; in you its fullness found.
Et adorent te
I will adore you.
I will love creation, with gratitude and dark wonder.
It will go out from me, with no expectation,
No watchful love.
My gift will be to know my grain of sand, my star, my salt breeze.
I had a mother once
Who sought loyalty in a threat, a steel look.
She had a prowling husband.
He looked past the child,
Watching, dark-browed, for the rising woman.
Days in avoidance (never a late show);
Nights, a tilted chair against the door.
I will adore you.
What does this mean?
An endless love for creation, full of gratitude and dark wonder,
For a grain of sand, a star, the salt breeze.
(July 2016)
A very good man died today,
Was gone on a breath of light.
He could not stay: it seems
There were other pressing tasks
Beyond our sight, souls to serve,
Somewhere we might, one day, know.
He will lower his head to those souls too,
And soothe hearts, sharing grace;
His hand at a shoulder, sharing care,
Facing with them, too, the question of how we live.
He, so rare, knew how.
Contemplation
My version of sitting quietly with God
Is no kind Eden.
Sounds, thoughts heckle,
Like skinheads in a bar,
Hating my couth look.
Stillpoint
Is a faraway shade moving in slow,
Ominous.
I dread the possession,
Yet seek it;
Eyeballs strain further within,
Socket flesh tight.
Like a dark whale rising
He comes.
And there’s no, no, no room for me.
I slap and flash and flail,
Occipital urgency
To get out, get out
Now.
Tendrils of dream climb my spine,
Like interweaving snakes,
Selfish helix, hemlock rising fast.
Did twin snakes coil Eve’s tree,
Not one?
I watch them come.
And plead for Him to find me
When they’re done.
Storm Rising
There’s a wildness in nature tonight
I cannot answer.
They say a storm is coming,
But I think these surging trees,
Beckon only to eternity.
You and I have known
The glistering cosmic draw
That counters with the urge
For peace, in careless complacency.
How better would it be to have left these things unknown, as before?
There’s a wildness in nature tonight
I cannot answer.
