Wild Mercy

Wild Mercy :  Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics is a book a friend recently recommended.   Even though it may sound like a "woman's" read, the author, Mirabai Starr, invites both men and women into the conversation.  I haven't gotten far in my reading and already I can't wait to share some of her beautiful prose.

For many years I have been drawn to readings on the contemplative lives of the Christian mystics, most of them men, especially St. John of the Cross and  Meister Eckhart.  However, there is one woman mystic who has always stood out for me and that is Saint Teresa of Avila.  She was a rebel in her own right.  I like rebels because they question the status quo, even though I have lived a fairly conventional life.  Saint Teresa renounced the dogma of religion and the belief in the need for an intermediary between God and man.  Her's was a journey of divine union through a "theology of innerness" of love and surrender.

In Wild Mercy Mirabai Starr writes, "The contemplative life is a tapestry of intention and surrender, of reaching out and letting go . . . It is not for the timid.  It's scary to be quiet, and it takes courage to be still . . . "  She draws us into the dilemma in which many women (and men) find themselves and illuminates the crazy making we call life. And then tenderly she leads us into the nurturing lap of the great Mother herself who relieves us of our burdens if only we will offer them to her.

Here.  Come Here.  Take a

moment to set aside that

list you've been writing in

fluorescent ink.  The list

that converts tasks into 

emergencies.  Items like

"feed the orchids" become

"If I don't accomplish this

by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow

morning the rain forests

are going to dry up and it

will be all my fault."  Or "If I

fail to renew my

automobile insurance I will

probably crash my car and

everyone will die."  Or "this 

friend just had her breast

biopsied and that friend's

brother-law-beat up her

sister and my aunt just lost

her  job with the symphony

and my nephew is

contemplating divorce and

I must call them all, and

listen to them for an hour

each, and dispense

redemptive advice."

Gather your burdens in

a basket in your heart.  Set

them at the feet of the

Mother.  Say, "Take this,

Great Mama, because I

cannot carry all this shit for

another minute."  And then

crawl into her broad lap

and nestle against her

ample bosom and take a

nap.  When you wake, the

basket will still be there,

but half its contents will be

gone, and the other half

will have resumed their

ordinary shapes and sizes,

no longer masquerading as

catastrophic, epic, chronic

and toxic.  The Mother will

clear things out and tidy

up.  She will take your

compulsions and

transmute them.  But only if

you freely offer them to her.