Feb 17 2023
Dorothy Walters – The Abundance of Brightness
The Abundance of Brightness
by Dorothy Walters
God is not unknown on account of obscurity
but on account of the abundance of brightness.
— St. Thomas Aquinas
1.
Dante Mounting to the Rose of Heaven
Not one of us
could breathe this air,
face this naked radiance
unscathed.
Here music turns to light,
a tone so sweet
that we, dulled by
our familiar calliope,
mistake its sound for silence.
Dante, mounting to tiers of
trembling flame,
found light. Light everywhere.
Circles, wheels,
light on light,
a dance of invisibles.
The flames pulsating, as if
measuring the breath of heaven.
At the last, he falls forward,
caught in widening rings
of implacable bright.
2.
At Eleusis
Even at Eleusis,
after the long journey,
the sea-bath among the sacred waves,
the accounts of the grieving mother
and her vanished child,
at the end
the shouts rang out
like birth-cries in the throats
of the startled pilgrims, blinded
by the flare of torches sweeping
from frames of darkness.
Then silence. Then they saw.
3.
A Celebration
And then quiet.
Someone who whispers:
now we are free.
Which was, almost,
true,
but only in the way
a bird,
leaving a limb,
goes freely into
a different realm,
an atmosphere
more pure,
more transparent,
but that, too,
maintaining its fixities.
4.
The Clinging
[for those who] have beheld the Tao… gems sparkle on dusty roads; puddles appear as pools of lapis lazuli; tough weeds acquire fragile beauty…
— John Blofield
The I Ching calls it clinging, fire:
“Fire has no definite form,”
it says,
“but clings to the burning object
and thus is bright.”
— from Marrow of Flame : Poems of the Spiritual Journey, by Dorothy Walters
/ Image by Jackson David /
I found out a few days ago that Dorothy Walters passed away at the beginning of this week. She would have been 95 next month.
Dorothy and I had been good friends for nearly 20 years. She reached out to me over the Internet in the early days of the Poetry Chaikhana, back when I had just put the website up and had begun circulating these poetry emails. At the time, she still lived in San Francisco but, as a retired professor, she had deep ties to where I lived in Boulder, Colorado and its university, and she soon moved back.
We liked to meet for brunch and far-ranging conversations. We also, for awhile, met together with a few others to read and discuss spiritual poetry.
Though a few decades younger than her, I was often in awe of her energy. She attended multiple groups exploring questions of spirituality, psychology, and human awareness. Invariably, everyone was drawn to her small frame and big heart. She contributed essays to a few different books on Kundalini experience, and she spoke several times at different Kundalini conferences. On top of all that, she maintained many rich, personal correspondences with people all over the country and the world who contacted her to discuss their experiences of spiritual and energetic opening.
She has been a special presence in the world — and in my own life. As I enter my elder years, I hope to follow her example of joyful, enthusiastic, and heartfelt service. She continues to be an inspiration.
Thank you, Dorothy!
Recommended Books: Dorothy Walters
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Dorothy Walters
US (1928 – 2023) Timeline |
Dorothy Walters, PHD, spent most of her early professional life as a professor of English literature in various Midwestern universities. She helped to found one of the first women’s studies programs in this country and served as the director of this program for many years. After an extended residence in San Francisco, she spent the later years of her life in Colorado, where she had a close relationship with the mountains as well as various streams and canyons.
Ms. Walters underwent a major Kundalini awakening in 1981 (a phenomenon totally unfamiliar to her as well as to most of her contemporaries at the time). Following that experience she devoted her life to researching and writing about this subject and to witnessing the unfolding of this process within herself as well as assisting others on a similar path through writing and other means. As someone who made her extensive journey without the direction of any external leader or guru, church, or established order, she was a strong believer in the “guru within,” the inner guide rather than the external authority figure or institution.
She felt that universal Kundalini awakening is the means for planetary and personal evolution of consciousness, and that evidence of planetary initiation is becoming more and more prevalent. Her Kundalini awakening and subsequent process of unfolding are described in her memoir Unmasking the Rose: A Record of Kundalini Initiation. Her poems taken from her four previous volumes are published as Some Kiss We Want: Poems Selected and New. Her article on “Kundalini and the Mystic Path” was included in Kundalini Rising, an anthology from Sounds True Publications. Her poems, which have been included in many anthologies and journals, have been set to music and sung at the Royal Opera House in London as well as Harvard University, used as texts for sermons and read aloud in churches, included in doctoral projects, been frequently quoted, and have given inspiration to many.
The Poetry Chaikhana publishes her best-known collection of poetry, Marrow of Flame.
She often gave counsel and referral free of charge to those undergoing spontaneous Kundalini awakening and/or spiritual transformation.
Dorothy Walters published her blog, Kundalini Splendor, at www.kundalinisplendor.blogspot.com.