marie

“Que d'heures où je suis restée oisive, que de fautes dans lesquelles je suis tombée, moi qui suis abîme de pauvreté !”

“One of the first women to be condemned by the inquisition for her visions, the French-speaking prophet Marguerite Porete, was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310. The religious milieu in which she functioned, that of the lay convents known as beguinages, reveals much about the motivation of female lay mystics; its history informs us of the heritage of independent lay spirituality available to Joan [of Arc], whereas its face explains the paucity of the religious options left to women in her time. For about a century before Marguerite’s time there had been a noticeable spiritual restlessness among the urban women in northern Europe. Either unable to enter convents because they lacked the necessary dowry, or unwilling to submit themselves to the increasingly rigid control and narrow life style of those institutions, large numbers of spiritually gifted women had begun to form lay communities of their own. A lay, middle-class response to the great religious revival of the High Middle Ages, beguinages began to appear around 1200 in the cities and towns of Flanders and spread across northern France and the Rhineland. These devout women owed no obedience to outside authority, neither to abbess, priest, nor bishop, an independence they sustained through their economic self-reliance; being entirely voluntary and non-institutional, their spirituality stressed inner, personal forms… Out of this movement emerged a distinctive female spirituality and…a female subculture. When women created a space in which they could function autonomously, they did not simply replicate male culture but built distinctive communities…these female communities were less authoritarian, less structured by legal concepts and hierarchical roles than the male orders; conversely they placed more value on “the experiences of the heart,” on what we call mystical gifts. They produced leaders whose authority came from their visions, whose spiritual life was more mystical than that of men in religious life, with strong emphasis on paranormal experiences - visions, voices, stigmata, miraculous cures, even levitation and return from near-death. …these women’s mystical visions rendered them “chains linking others to God, mediators in whose merits others may participate…[who] are convinced of the necessity of teaching others the truths revealed to them in visions…” In short, they saw themselves as entirely orthy to be channels of divine messages, and as seers, fully capable of revealing to others the desires of their hearts. And many persons, including priests and the nobility, came to these gifted diviners for counsel. We can say there was, from the early thirteenth century on, a role in European society for the spiritually graced woman, whether lay or religious.”

“Thus this precious beloved of mine is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she is transformed into me, and such a perfect one, says Love, takes my nourishment.”

The word comes from ancient Greek zelos meaning “zeal” or “hot pursuit.” A jealous lover covets a certain location at the centre of her beloved’s affection only to find it occupied by someone else. If jealousy were a dance it would be a pattern of placement and displacement. Its emotional focus is unstable. Jealousy is a dance in which everyone moves.

“I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love, and this Soul is God by righteousness of Love. Thus this precious beloved of mine is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she is transformed into me, and such a perfect one, says Love, takes my nourishment.”

This is the condition called ekstasis, literally “standing outside oneself,” a condition regarded by the Greeks as typical of mad persons, geniuses and lovers, and ascribed to poets by Aristotle.

“Yet this Soul has been burning so long in the Furnace of Love’s fire that she has virtually Become fire, so she doesn’t feel the fire, because she herself is fire by virtue of Love, who has transformed her into Love’s fire.”

“He is my entire comfort. And thus, although I am forlorn because I miss him, I am still comforted because he misses nothing.”

“The world can only appear monochromatic to those who persist in interpreting what they experience through the lens of a single cultural paradigm, their own. For those with the eyes to see and the heart to feel, it remains a rich and complex topography of the spirit”

she was waiting for me, silent and longing (why was she waiting for me? why silent and longing?

Sometimes I think nothing makes sense. On a tiny planet, which has been running towards nothing for millions of years, we are born in the midst of pain, we grow, we fight, we get sick, we suffer, we make people suffer, we scream, we die, others die and others are being born to start the useless comedy again.

Many years from now, when I am a little mound of silent dust, play with me, with the earth of my heart and my bones. I had rather be dust that you play with on the country roads. Pound me, because I have been yours. Scatter me, as I did you. Stomp me because I never gave you truth entire and beauty whole. O, I mean, sing and run above me that I might kiss your precious footprints. Say a pretty verse when you have me in your hands, and I will run with pleasure through your fingers.