Everyone,

I did the final edit of this old poem of mine (first written in 1975) last night, and after it was finished I sent it to Bishop Rosamonde Ikshvaku Miller of the Gnostic Sanctuary. I have known her for many years and often think of her as "the High Priestess." She replaced the old typo-ridden version in her Facebook note with my new restored version this morning.

I'll be posting this on my blog as soon as I can, but meanwhile I wanted to post it here.

--Linda


Sophia’s Song

O Light, have mercy upon me,
For there is no virtue in the cup of forgetfulness.

If chaos were only chaos,
I might in time fall asleep upon the green grass.
I might forget that perfect, symmetrical silence
Where the angels sing hymns to Thee,

Where every voice is a being, and every being a voice
Each tuned to its eternal note.
Where the harmony of the fullness is silence,
As the harmony of the rainbow is white.

Have mercy upon me, O Light:
For I have seen beauty by its own divinity destroyed
And love by its deepest desire betrayed.

Day and night all the lovely abandoned things
Of the holy city cry out for redemption,
And a lost god looks out of every living eye.

I will never fall asleep upon the green grass
While the earth rings with the cries of the exiles.

Hear my voice, mingled with every prayer:
O Light, have mercy upon me!


© 2010 by Linda S. Sang. Some rights reserved, but not very many.

This is the authorized liturgical version of a poem first written in 1975 by Linda S. Sang, and last revised by the author in July 2010. I have restored the title “Sophia’s Song” from my original draft, and also the stanza breaks, line breaks and punctuation as well as I remember them.

While I have not set this version of the poem up antiphonally, I have tried to make it compatible with established liturgical use in the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum by +Rosamonde Ikshvaku Miller, and in other Gnostic congregations worldwide. Antiphonal or responsive versions do not have to follow my stanza breaks, but I would prefer it if all printed versions would follow my line breaks and punctuation.

Rosamonde’s FB Note: This reading is used, like an antiphon between celebrant and congregation, during the Gnostic Sanctuary Eucharist every Sunday during the season between Pentecost and Advent and on all celebrations of the feminine aspect of Divinity.

quote:

I will never fall asleep upon the green grass
While the earth rings with the cries of the exiles.—Sophia

Strangely reassuring!
Seán

Sean,

Interesting that you should hit on that particular line.

"While the earth rings with the cries of the exiles" is the line that was omitted from the American Theosophist version, but was in the version Rosamonde copied from Stephan's lectionary, and then posted on Facebook on June 30th. I had completely forgotten it, although I knew something was missing. But I believed it was two lines, and it was driving me crazy because I couldn't remember what they were.

I enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame, but I am not a happy camper tonight. Something else happened on Facebook as a result of her posting the poem and the attention I got from it. It was something that looked very promising for a few days, but then almost immediately turned into a huge disappointment, leaving me more unhappy and ego-deflated than I was before.

I haven't been able to even think about writing a blog post to go with the poem. I can't "reconstruct" the way I felt when everyone was praising me, and to contemplate trying to write from that place feels like I'd just be creating an artifact. I can't do it. Maybe if I could evoke the days when the poem was written, when we lived on Los Feliz across the street from the Philosophical Research Society where Stephan lectured every week, I might be able to get back into the spirit of it. Those were good days, chaotic but immensely creative.

--Linda

I feel like I've gotten to know you and the gnostics a little after reading this. Its pretty. I don't write poetry much but sometimes. I liked the part about the voices blending into silence and had not thought about it that way before.

quote:

Originally posted by También:
I feel like I've gotten to know you and the gnostics a little after reading this. Its pretty. I don't write poetry much but sometimes. I liked the part about the voices blending into silence and had not thought about it that way before.

Thank you, Tambien. I'm so glad you like it. There was one correction I made after I posted this, and it was in that line you're referring to, i.e. "Where the harmony of the Fullness is silence,/As the harmony of the rainbow is white."

I didn't catch it until after the editing period, but the word "Fullness" should be capitalized the way I've done it here. The reason is because it's a translation of the Greek word Pleroma, meaning Fullness, which has a special significance in Gnostic cosmology.

The belief is that the primordial, original Godhead, which the Gnostics usually called "the Father," first emanated or you might say divided into a male and female polarity, like the Yang and Yin of Taoism. Then these two (who are really one) through their union emanated the twelve original Aeons, the personified qualities or potencies of God. They were emanated in pairs, a male and a female in each pair, just like their parents. The totality of the 12 Aeons is called the Pleroma or Fullness. The "youngest," or the last-emanated pair of Aeons, are named Will and Wisdom, or Theletos and Sophia in Greek.

So "the harmony of the Fullness" is the song of the Aeons when they praise the Father. It is more commonly known in other systems as "the music of the spheres." All of this is well known to the congregations that use this poem as a responsive reading.

Love and Light,
Linda

Bringing this back to the top because I want to do some work with it.

--Linda