The Moment
by Dorothy WaltersOriginal Language English
And not once,
but many times over,
again and again,
how we disappeared
into that deep well
of darkness, shuddering beneath that load of silence,
clinging to our narrow ledge.
Yet the darkness, sometimes,
unfolded as light.
Our atoms dissolved in it,
each separate molecule opening
into a radiant disk of feeling.
How still we became,
witness and thing seen,
spectacle and observer,
each point admitting an untrammeled flood.
 | -- from Marrow of Flame : Poems of the Spiritual Journey, by Dorothy Walters |
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This poem by Dorothy Walters so beautifully evokes the state of awareness of the sacred experience.
how we disappeared
into that deep well
of darkness, shuddering beneath that load of silence...
The silence she is talking about is a psychic silence, a stillness of mind and quietness of awareness that is so all encompassing that your personal sense of identity disappears. It can be like diving into a "deep well" of silence.
Yet, for many mystics, within that "darkness" we find ourselves infused with a dazzling light.
I especially like her description of how "our atoms dissolved" in that light, "each separate molecule opening / into a radiant disk of feeling." She's got it -- right there. Each part of ourselves, every cell and sinew, every tremor and thought, opens to itself in delight, and we discover that we are that which causes them all to shine and hum as a whole.
And the final verse: the stillness, the unity of observed and observer, the two recognized as one, sharing an "untrammeled flood" of bliss.
Recommended Books: Dorothy Walters
