The Fountain
by John of the CrossEnglish version by Willis Barnstone
Original Language Spanish
How well I know that flowing spring
in black of night.
The eternal fountain is unseen.
How well I know where she has been
in black of night.
I do not know her origin.
None. Yet in her all things begin
in black of night.
I know that nothing is so fair
and earth and firmament drink there
in black of night.
I know that none can wade inside
to find her bright bottomless tide
in black of night.
Her shining never has a blur;
I know that all light comes from her
in black of night.
I know her streams converge and swell
and nourish people, skies and hell
in black of night.
The stream whose birth is in this source
I know has a gigantic force
in black of night.
The stream from but these two proceeds
yet neither one, I know, precedes
in black of night.
The eternal fountain is unseen
in living bread that gives us being
in black of night.
She calls on all mankind to start
to drink her water, though in dark,
for black is night.
O living fountain that I crave,
in bread of life I see her flame
in black of night.
 | -- from To Touch the Sky: Poems of Mystical, Spiritual & Metaphysical Light, Translated by Willis Barnstone |
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/ Image by John Wilson /
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As we enter the Christmas season, my thoughts turn to one of my favorite Christian poets, John of the Cross. This is a relatively simple poem, but it touches on several key themes in John of the Cross's writings: a dark night, unknowing, and a fountain.
In this poem, John of the Cross is speaking of a secret fountain as if it is a divine, living being -- and it is. This isn't merely a poetic metaphor, it is a description of actual mystical experience rendered into the language of poetry.
Mystics throughout the world and in all traditions describe an awareness of a flowing of water, a water that is alive. Coming into contact with that water, touching it, drinking it, feeling it flow inside you and all around you, quickens a new sense of life within. Everything, yourself included, is suddenly seen as radically alive in a way that could not have been imagined before. It is this water that is the foundational "stuff" of the manifest world, all things are formed of it and exist within it.
Accompanying this is a sense of a rising up and overflowing of energy -- a fountain. This is felt as originating in the seat, beginning to spread out in the solar plexus, flowing generously in the heart, and anointing the crown with a glistening light.
John of the Cross refers to this fountain as "she," equating it with the Holy Spirit in Christian tradition.
And why is this fountain always discovered "in black of night"? Night, the dark night of the soul, is fundamental to the mystical language developed by John of the Cross. One way to understand it is as the disorienting space of initiation, when the awareness has released its identification with material creation, and waits uncertainly for the Divine. Understood this way, the night is the spiritual threshold. It is within this psychic emptiness that we discover the fountain.
May this Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, New Year be one of healing and renewal. May we all rediscover the spiritual light amidst the dark of winter. Sending love to you all.
Recommended Books: John of the Cross
