BY TORSTEN SCHWANKE
How did the rose obtain the noble diploma of beauty?
The Creator Himself conferred
The Nobility Diploma of Beauty on Evi!
The nobility of the divine Sophia
Is a divine nobility,
For she is one with God!
Mistress, your most humble servant desires
To praise you for the miracles and signs
That occurred when you attained
The Nobility Diploma of Wisdom!
I sing this in four cantos,
The first canto sings of your studies,
The second canto of your theorising,
The third canto of your written work,
The fourth canto of your oral presentation.
CANTO I
May has come!
May is the month of Mary
And the moon of love!
Mistress, how I must miss you in May!
You sit over your books
And study Pythagoras, Plotinus,
Hermes Trismegistos,
You study in the libraries of Atlantis and Alexandria.
But I am employed as your servant
To look after and feed your little son.
I know well that you conceived him virginally
In Advent four years ago.
My spirit was the procreator
Who begetteth in the womb of your beauty.
You are the Psyche,
And your Son is Imago Dei,
Your Son is a theophany,
You are the Madonna,
Your Son is the Child Jesus.
Four years old is the baby Jesus.
We live here in the Athens of the North,
Athena, the goddess of wisdom,
Looks down at us from all the palaces,
And from many a balcony Cupid looks down,
The little rogue Eros!
Tom, named after Saint Thomas,
The apostle of the Indians and Chinese,
And the angelic Thomas,
The greatest philosopher of the Middle Ages,
Tom was led around by me
In the Athens of the North.
First we went on a pilgrimage to St Mary's Church,
Lit candles before the great Mother of Sorrows
For Tom's soul and then sat on the three steps
Before the Blessed Sacrament,
Where Jesus is present in the flesh!
Then we sought out the museum,
And what did we see there?
The crown of Emperor Frederick II,
At whose court the sonnet was invented,
The sonnet in which form Petrarch
Made his Donna Laura immortal.
Golden crown with rubies and white pearls.
We saw the emperor's falcons,
We saw the peacock and the bird of paradise.
In the basement of the museum
We saw the heavenly Jerusalem,
A city made entirely of gold and glass and precious stones.
Crystal and jasper and sapphire and emerald
And amethyst and all the precious stones
Of the heavenly Jerusalem were gathered here,
And it was the emperor's treasure.
Then we sought out the prince in his castle.
We first prayed in the monastery
And looked at St. Catharine and St. Margaret
And St. Barbara (CMB),
We looked at the Mother of Sorrows
Wwith the dead Son of God on her lap,
The baptismal font, the incense burner
And the priest's vestments.
Then we marvelled at the knight's armour and the lances.
In the prince's living room we marvelled
At the beauty of the goddess of beauty Venus
With her little child Cupid.
Look, Tom, I said, the little Cupid is you,
And Venus there is Evi!
Then we went to the canal by the castle park
And rowed along the canal,
Accompanied by the water birds
With their beautiful necks.
But when I was alone in my hermit's cell,
I complained to Mary:
Oh, Mary, it's May,
And my maiden is not chatting with me in the garden!
What kind of love‘s may is it
Without a dame of love, O Madonna?
I miss her so sorely!
O Mary, you are a stern mistress!
You take me into the strictest monastic discipline,
Into the discipline of the Carmelite Order,
The strictest and most ascetic of all orders,
And teach me the science of the cross,
The mysticism of the vicarious sufferings
For the redemption of humanity,
The mysticism of the atoning souls
Who offer up all their sufferings to God
In order to console Christ's heart and save souls!
Austere Mistress, it is May,
Nature is like a Garden of Eden,
And I am locked up in the darkest
And most naked convent cell,
Meditating only on the bloody Christ on the Cross!
O Madonna, Lady of Wisdom,
What kind of May is this?
Outside, paradise smiles, but without Eve,
Paradise is no paradise for Adam!
Madonna, shall Adam occupy himself
With philosophy in the midst
Of the glory of Paradise?
Shall I study Asian philosophy in the may of love?
Save the wisdom of Lao Tse and Kung Fu Tse
For autumn and winter, Madonna,
But in the may of love give me my paradise wife!
So I prayed, but the stern mistress
Would not be entreatied.
Instead of joking with the Madonna Venus,
However, I joked with her son,
The little boy Amor-Jesus!
He played Pharaoh,
Because Pharaoh is all made of gold
And lives in a huge pyramid.
Oh, Evi, you are Pharaoh's daughter,
Whom Solomon loved,
But I was tending little Tom,
Who was playing Pharaoh.
But in the midst of the game
The Holy Spirit fell upon Tom,
And while I was sorrowfully pining after the beloved,
Tom began to prophesy,
And I heard the voice of my Lord and God,
The Little Jesus, speaking to me:
What mournest thou?
The almighty princess loves you,
She has told you that she loves you boundlessly!
You are married to the almighty princess of the sun!
And who are you?
You are the king of the sea!
Just rest, I alone will conquer all enemies for you,
You don't need to do anything,
I'll do everything all by myself!
Thus said the Little Jesus to me,
And a smile appeared on my face.
Verily, verily, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
God prepares praise!
The mouths of babes speak truth!
But now Mary also spoke to me.
She had been silent for a long time,
But had listened attentively to my poems.
She always thanked me so politely and warmly
For my love poems to her.
Now she began to write her own poems:
The angels in their splendour
Are with you winter and summer, day and night!
They have grown in the earthly paradise,
The roses in the garden,
They are to be expected in summer.
Virgin Mary.
So, Madonna, I had to learn patience,
In summer comes the time of roses,
The time of love and beauty!
You promised it!
And never do you lie
And never do you disappoint the one
Who loves you unspeakably!
CANTO II
Lady, I will sing of your theory
Of sacred architecture.
Theoria, after all, means God-view!
You had the visions, the hunches,
Intuitively you recognised everything,
But you could not put it into words.
I can put it into words,
God has given me this gift.
A ninety-year-old Carmelite once wrote to me
From the Edith Stein Carmel,
The Lord has given you the gift
Of putting mystical experiences into words.
Thank the Lord for that!
I thank the Lord and thank the love of God
Tthat I may now serve my mistress
With this gift of grace.
I don't want to talk about how in eternity
The Eternal Father puts Himself into words in the Son,
Because the Son is the Word,
The unfathomable source of the Godhead
Puts Himself into words in the begotten Son,
That is the Logos, the Word,
The meaning, the reason of the world,
And between the source and the Word
Tthere is divine love,
That is the Holy Spirit, divine love.
But I wanted to sing about your theoria,
Which began with God's act of creation.
There you unfolded the doctrine of creation
Acording to Plotinus.
Mistress, I praised you before the Virgin Mary
And said to Mary: Mistress!
Do you see my mistress Evi?
She is studying the Neoplatonism of Plotinus!
Look around you, Lady Mary,
If you see a woman on earth like my Lady Evi
Who studies Plotinus!
I know of none, Mistress Mary,
Like my Mistress Evi!
And I love her so much for that too!
For the world came forth from the One,
In that the Divine Spirit begat in the world-soul.
The world soul, however, governs the universe.
The world soul, Anima Mundi,
I the divine wisdom that governs the universe.
The power effects of the divine wisdom
Are the energies of the Holy Spirit.
The energies of the Holy Spirit are power currents
Of the green power of love,
Which harmoniously rule in the order of God's creation.
Man of the archaic past lived subconsciously
Like a child in the womb of Mother Nature
And worshipped Mother Nature
As Great Mother and Great Goddess.
In ancient times, man learned to control
The forces of nature
And to make them serve him.
Among the Hebrews, Jacob's ladder to heaven
Was such a connection between heaven and earth,
And Jacob also erected a stone on the spot
Where he had seen heaven open
And poured anointing oil over the stone.
The prophet Ezekiel also saw the heavens open
And saw the four cherubim carrying
The throne chariot of God.
The Kabbalah speaks of this.
Moses looked at the Promised Land on Mount Nebo,
Where milk and honey flow,
But he was not allowed to enter!
Do you know, Evi, how often I have felt
That I am Moses, that you are the Promised Land,
Where milk and honey flow,
I look at it and am not allowed to enter!
But Ezekiel saw in visions the future temple
That John saw in the Apocalypse
As the heavenly Jerusalem,
The cube city,
The Phoenix City at the end of the Milky Way,
As the Chinese poet called it.
But the true Axis Mundi is in the Church
Of the Holy Sepulchre and Resurrection of Christ.
Then the Roman Catholic cathedral building began.
The cathedral was the earthly image,
The heavenly Jerusalem was the heavenly archetype.
The great glory of the earthly image
Makes one shudder with delight,
Foreseeing the unspeakable glories
Of the heavenly eternal archetype,
The city of eternal paradise!
The holy city of the Roman Catholic Middle Ages
Is an image of Christ on the Cross.
Everything is governed by the harmonious laws
Of number and measure.
The number is everywhere
The Pythagorean number,
Which is the expression of the music of heaven.
The holy city is music,
The cathedral is music, music,
That is a cathedral spiritually
Built in invisible spaces.
O Chartres! That was my magic word.
I only had to say Chartres
And I saw your beauty, your wisdom,
I saw the musical cathedral,
I heard the angels of the spheres singing beautifully!
What is the sanctuary for which
Chartres Cathedral was built?
It is the dress of the Virgin Mary
Which she wore at Christmas in Bethlehem!
Chartres, my dear!
I am spellbound by the labyrinth of Chartres!
Chartres was built on the foundation stones
Of Pythagoras and Saint Augustine,
It is music made of stone
In honour of the Virgin Mary!
Kissing the hem of her dress reverently,
A cosmos of singing stones was built!
O most blessed Virgin Mary!
Chartres! O beautiful and beloved Evi!
From Chartres your theoria leads
Through the philosophy of the Occident,
The modern philosophy of German idealism
Up to our time, since natural science
Borders on divine wisdom!
When you speak of the places of power,
Of the sacred places,
I think of the word of my dear holy father
John Paul the Great,
I will traverse the earth
With a geology of prayer,
The spiritual capitals of the world
Are the places of pilgrimage of the Virgin Mary
On all continents!
Do you know, beloved Lady,
Hw I fared when you visited me at midnight
For common spiritual work?
I awaited you with joyful longing
And waited for the stroke of midnight,
Praying. I prayed the rosary
And asked Mary to draw the Holy Spirit down upon us.
Then, with these two eyes of mine,
I saw Mary, her image as Rosa Mystica,
As a mystical rose.
Her image was woven in a holy veil.
Her figure was young and slender,
She wore a long white dress with golden embroidery
And a golden belt around her waist.
On her right breast arched the white rose of Mary's joys,
Between her two breasts, in the valley of her breasts,
Arched the red rose of Mary's sorrows,
And on her left breast over her heart
Arched the golden rose of Mary's glory.
Her face was perfectly beautiful
And sweetly feminine.
But from her large warm eyes flowed tears of blood!
The red drops of tears flowed down her cheeks
And over the dress and dripped onto her folded hands
And continued to flow over the golden belt of loveliness
Into her lap.
Then with these two eyes of mine I saw Mary,
Her statue, she was a young girl
Of seventeen or twenty-two
And wore a white dress,
She was the mystic rose,
And from her eyes dripped tears of blood,
And from her forehead milk and honey came out
As sweat and ran down the figure.
The milk and honey of the heavenly Mother
Was collected by Indian priests in a silver bowl.
Truly Mary is the Promised Land of milk and honey.
Then you came, beloved Evi!
Your shirt was wet from the rain,
You took it off
And stood before me in a white vest,
Then you wrapped yourself in sheep's wool.
You sat on my sofa and studied,
I served you as your secretary.
You sat in the seat of wisdom
And I sat in the apostolic chair.
You dictated to me
And I put it into beautiful words.
And that is to write poetry and to be a poet,
Because writing poetry comes from dictating,
And it is the Muse who dictates
Ad the poet who writes poetry.
Muse of mystical wisdom,
You dictated and I wrote down as your secretary.
Then I stepped out onto the balcony
And looked up at the starry sky.
Orion and the Big Dipper
Of Our Lady's mantle of stars
Floated through the dark night
As Our Lady's protective mantle.
I looked through the window from the balcony
Into the light-filled hermit's cell and saw,
And behold, I don't know how,
There sat not my Lady Evi,
There sat my Lady, the Virgin of Guadelupe,
Reading in a book.
Visitation of the Madonna at midnight!
Then I gave you, my Lady Evi,
My translation of a verse
From the Proverbs of Solomon:
Sophia speaks:
At Creation, I was with Him as His architect and favourite,
I was His voluptuousness every day
And always joked with Him!
I jested in the world of the earth
And had my lust for the sons of Adam!
(Proverbs 8:30,31).
CANTO III
I saw with these two eyes of mine
The Virgin Mary, a tall woman
In a long blue cloak studded with golden stars.
In her left hand she held a burning torch.
She smiled at me and said to me,
My bridegroom, I rejoice in the sacrifice of thanksgiving
You bring me, and I beg you: Continue!
So I will tell you, dear Evi,
About a wonderful night.
Those were the days when you were to present
Your written work on architecture
To the chair for examination.
You asked me to come to you in the evening
And to help you as a scribe.
It is a great honour for me
To be able to express my great love to you
Tthrough humble services of deed!
We worked and wrote all night.
You had hardly slept for many nights
And had reached the limit of your strength.
Three hours after midnight
You lay down in your bed for an hour to sleep
And to get new strength through holy sleep.
I sat down at the door of your house
And prayed the rosary for you:
Hail Mary, full of grace!
The Lord is with you!
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb: Jesus!
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us poor sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death! Amen.
You know, Evi, for a long time I prayed
This Hail Mary prayer in a slightly modified form.
In my modified form I chose a choice of words
Ccloser to me and also included my love
For you in the prayer.
For instead of the ecclesiastical greeting:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!
I prayed: Ave Mary, full of grace, God is with you!
You know, Evi, the Latin Catholics say
That the Ave is the inversion of Eve.
As Eve said no to God,
So Mary said yes to God at the Ave of the Angel.
Then the Church prays:
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb!
But I prayed: Blessed is the fruit of thy lap!
For I always wanted to go home
To my mother's womb.
Nor did I greet Mary as Mother of God,
But as Our Lady,
For she was indeed familiar to me
As my heavenly Mother,
But even dearer and sweeter to me was her love
When she chose me as her mystical Bridegroom
And is my mystical Wife.
Then I also prayed not: Pray for us poor sinners,
But: Pray for us banished children of Eve!
This formulation comes from another Marian prayer.
We are banished children of Eve
Because we no longer live in the earthly paradise.
But I am also an exiled child of Eve because you,
Evi, are my Eve
And because your womb is my Garden of Eden
And because I am excluded from you.
And I also prayed not:
Pray for us in the hour of our death,
But: Pray for us in the hour of our going home!
For in this way I wanted to overcome
All natural fear of death by remembering
That death is the going home
To the eternal home,
To the heavenly paradise!
But then once Mary spoke to me
Of the flame of love of her spotless heart
And came with the Archangel Michael.
And Saint Michael taught me that prayer
As formulated by the Church has more power
To defeat evil and to save souls and obtain graces.
Therefore, I obey the instruction
Of the great angelic prince Saint Michael
And now pray the Hail Mary again like this:
Hail Mary, full of grace!
The Lord is with you!
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb: Jesus!
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Thus I prayed at night in front of your house,
When the Virgin Mary came to me
And said with a smile, You are foolish
If you think that I have not heard your prayer.
For I had prayed the rosary for you, Evi.
The Virgin Mary asked me to let her into your house,
That she would now come to you and bless you.
Then I saw her enter your house
As a slender light virgin.
I followed her, for it was the appointed time
When I was to wake you from your sleep.
But you had not slept because of inner restlessness
And physical tension.
You did not want to get up from your bed.
I prepared a cup of Himalayan green tea for you
And cut an apple into slices.
I brought the tea to your bed
And you drank the green tea.
I knelt beside your bed
And was quite awestruck
That I was allowed to kneel in front
Of your bed in your bedroom.
You stretched and stretched
And said tiredly that you were all tense
In the muscles and tendons of your back and neck.
I offered to massage your back.
I hardly dared to suggest it to you.
But you happily accepted the offer.
There I truly sat next to my reclining love
On her white canopy bed,
You turned your back to me
And I massaged your back and neck and shoulders.
And indeed, to give you even better relief,
I massaged not your shirt but your bare back.
You can't imagine the trembling shyness
And holy awe that gripped me!
I may have had lustful thoughts
Of how sweet it would be to caress your breasts,
But at the same time a scene from the Bible
Ran through my mind:
Moses desired to behold the glory of the Lord,
And God said, You cannot behold my face,
For there is no one alive who beholds my face!
But I will pass by you,
And you will see my back and my neck!
Thus God said to Moses,
And, O God, I felt more graced than Moses!
For I was not allowed to look
At the Lord's neck and back alone,
But to touch the Lord's neck and back!
What madness of love!
Then you rose up
And took a refreshing bath.
But I took the apple slices with me on a bowl
And sat down in the dark night
On the garden bench in front of your house,
Sat under the sacred oak
And the elder tree with the black pearls
And dined on the apple.
But I picked up some slices for you.
Then you stepped out of the house,
Your long black hair still damp and curly from the bath.
You sat down quietly next to me on the garden bench.
I offered you the apple slices and you ate them.
I felt as if I were Adam and you were Eve
And we were eating the apple in the Garden of Eden,
But without sin!
I was so blissful,
I really was in earthly paradise for a moment!
But soon I had to say goodbye.
And as I drove into my flat,
A grey cat scurried to the side as if shooed away.
I had to think of this when I soon read
In the Jewish Talmud book
How Adam, after eating the forbidden fruit,
Was chased away by God
Through the angel like a street dog,
Because as a sinner he was not allowed
To spend the night in the earthly paradise!...
The next morning I read in the Talmud.
The Jewish Talmud is considered by the Jews,
Along with the Old Testament,
To be the holy scripture and revelation of God.
I read, The day has twelve hours.
In the first hour the earth needed to create
The first man was gathered together,
In the second he was formed into a lump,
In the third the limbs were formed,
In the fourth the soul was breathed into him,
In the fifth he stood up,
In the sixth God presented the animals to him
So that he should name them,
In the seventh Eve was brought to him!
In the eighth they climbed into bed two by two -
And left it four by four (Eve's two sons),
In the ninth he was forbidden to eat
Of the tree of knowledge,
In the tenth he transgressed against it,
In the eleventh he was judged,
In the twelfth he was cast out of paradise!
For it is said in Psalm 49:13,
For Adam was not to abide overnight in his dignity,
But was driven from it like cattle.
Really, Evi, when I read that,
I was Adam, the first man in the world,
And I was chased out of the Garden of Eden.
And I wept and wailed for four hours
Over the misfortune of Adam
Being driven out of paradise!
I could not dry my tears,
And as the Psalmist says,
My soul would not be comforted!
I was inconsolable
And full of nameless lamentation
Over the fall and expulsion of Adam.
Only after four hours did I compose myself a little.
Then I heard the voice of Horeb praying.
Horeb is the mountain
Where God revealed himself to Moses
In a burning bush and said,
I am Yahweh!
My name is: I am who I am!
I am who I was and am and will be!
I am who I will be!
I am the I Am!
I am! Hallelujah!
I heard the voice from Horeb praying
The prayers to Christ on his way of the cross:
Christ, with the breath of men you created,
Men blaspheme you!
Christ, with the tongue of men whom you created,
Men mock you!
Christ, you fell three times under the weight of the cross!
Then you died the death of the cross!
O Christ, by thy holy cross
Thou didst redeem the whole world!
Christ, your body was laid
In the womb of your holy Mother!
Christ, your body was buried!
Then such passionate streams of tears
Rushed over me again
And I had to weep for three hours
Over the death of Christ on the cross!
They crucified my Lord!
My Lord died for me!
O what sorrow, what nameless suffering,
That the Son of God should be crucified
By His own, by humanity!
I wept for three hours until I turned
To a picture of the Virgin
Painted by Leonardo da Vinci.
It shows the nursing Madonna.
The bare breast is plump and filled
With the sweet milk of consolation,
And the naked Child Jesus
Is sucking eagerly at the breast.
Then I prayed in my lamentation
To the breasts of Mary:
O Mary, blessed are your breasts,
At which Jesus drank!
Let me also suck the milk of consolation
From your most blessed breasts!
Verily, no one ever calls in vain
To the breasts of Mary!
For Mary made me drink the milk of consolation
From her merciful breasts!
And when I had been nursed and comforted,
Like a breastfed child in its mother's arms,
You called me, Evi, with your heavenly-sweet voice,
If I would help you again in the night.
That is how Mary comforted me!
I was allowed to see you again, Evi!
I looked at pictures by Leonardo da Vinci.
I saw St. Anne, the mother of Mary,
With the young girl Mary
And the little child Jesus.
I saw the Madonna in the dark mystic rock grotto,
An angel sitting next to her,
The glowing cloth folded in her lap,
The little boy John pointing to the blessing boy Jesus.
I saw Jesus at the Last Supper.
Then I saw the housewife Gioconda,
Glorified by Leonardo in artistic work
Of ten years to the Mona Lisa
With the mysterious smile.
O Mona Lisa, O mistress Evi,
O enchanting smile!
And so I came to you in the evening,
And you were studying your notes
And smiling so blissfully and peacefully
And absorbedly before you,
I thought I saw the smile of the Mona Lisa,
I saw the smile of Evi,
I saw the smile of the Virgin of Guadelupe!
But at midnight, in my hermit cell,
I heard again the voice from Horeb.
It was the voice of my dear
Holy father John Paul the Great.
The holy old man in heaven
Murmured the Rosary in Latin
And the Lauretan Litany,
The great Marian praise, in Latin.
And I fell asleep with the prayer on my lips:
O Mary, I am all yours!
O Maria, totus tuus ego sum!
CANTO IV
Beloved, the Holy Spirit had pointed me again
And again during this time
To the biblical passage where Solomon
Is called to build the temple of God.
Watch therefore, for the Lord has chosen you
To build a house as a sanctuary.
Be of good courage and build it.
And David gave Solomon his son
A design for the porch of the temple,
And for the building thereof,
And for the chambers thereof,
And for the upper chambers thereof,
And for the inner chambers thereof,
And for the room of the throne of grace;
And also designs for all that came
Into his mind by the Spirit....
And David said unto Solomon his son,
Be of good courage, and do it.
Fear not and be not dismayed!
The Lord God, my God, will be with thee,
And will not withdraw his hand, nor forsake thee,
Until thou hast finished every work
For the service of the house of the Lord.
(1 Chronicles 28).
I went to church to pray for you.
At the sacrifice of Christ
I entrusted you to the Eternal
And at the food of the body of Christ
I asked God to give you divine wisdom.
The choir of the congregation
Sang three hymns to the Holy Spirit,
Te priest said, Receive the Holy Spirit,
The breath of God!
So I came to you to help you.
But it was so that the ideas and words
Just flowed out of you,
Because the Holy Spirit had passed over to you!
So you wrote until nightfall.
I just sat there and watched you
Becoming a Black Madonna
In the garden during the night.
All I could think of was the magic word: Chartres!
You were a beautiful shadow in the dark night,
I was filled with Eros.
You spoke, I am so tense in my back and shoulders!
I said, That's how Jesus felt when he carried the cross.
May I massage you?
You allowed it,
But when I had massaged you a little,
There was a thunderclap.
You flinched as if we had done something forbidden.
Because you flinched as if from something unchaste,
I moved away from you.
But you, filled with the Holy Spirit,
Continued to work.
The next day I gave you a beaded bracelet
From South America,
A bracelet of white beads with pictures of saints attached.
Pictures were of Jesus and Mary,
Of Saint Joseph and other saints.
You wore it for protection.
In the evening you put your little Tom to bed,
Whom I had looked after during the day.
He sat naked on my lap
And you stood in front of us
To put on his dressing gown.
Then the child said, Look and look!
I looked and looked and saw, behold, what I saw
Were your beautiful white breasts!
And that night I had a significant dream.
A man said to me, do I want to be a lover
And get married or do I want to be a devotee?
I said, I am a devotee, but still a lover!
Then the man said, I should pray to know my vocation.
I entered a church dedicated to the Holy Spirit.
On the altar, the body of Christ
Was displayed for adoration.
But I knelt before the altar of Mary.
There I saw three images of the Virgin Mary.
In the first picture, the Archangel Gabriel knelt
Like a beautiful youth before the beautiful Lady Mary
And paid her homage in adoring love.
In the second picture, Mary stood in a blue and white dress,
But with bare white breasts,
And invited me to be her lover.
In the third picture I saw the act of love
Of the Holy Spirit with the pure Virgin,
The Virgin was lying in her bed
And the white dove of the Spirit of Love
Recognised the Virgin,
I saw her bare breasts
And her face rapt with bliss of the ecstasy of love!
The next day I came to you again, Evi.
We worked together, but I was impatient.
You wanted to work slowly and calmly,
But I wanted to dance and race and storm.
You were like Pharaoh's black mare
From the Song of Solomon,
And I was your rider,
I wanted to spur you on to a fiery and stormy gallop,
And I drove my spurs into your sweating flanks,
But you rebelled with displeasure
And threw me out of the saddle!
Then you rose up before me
And shook your long damp black mane
Conciliatory and looked at me,
But I humbly begged your forgiveness
And stroked your back.
At midnight I went home.
It was the last day before your oral presentation
To the chair and the examination board.
We stood in a dark room,
There was no light but the light of our eyes.
I asked you to give me your hand
And gave you a blessing like a priest:
Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Through the intercession of Blessed Evelin of Liège
And through the intercession of all the saints,
May the all-loving God,
The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Bless, protect and enlighten you!
I left you under the sign of the cross.
But when I returned home to my hermit cell,
I drank my red wine and prayed again,
Through the intercession
Of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary,
Through the intercession
Of St. Quentin the Martyr
And through the intercession of all the saints,
May the all-merciful God,
The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Bless and protect you!
Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Through the intercession of St. Thomas the Apostle,
Apostle of India and China,
And through the intercession of St. Thomas,
The angelic teacher of philosophy,
And through the intercession of all the saints,
May Almighty God,
The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Protect and bless you!
Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Through the intercession of St. Peter, my patron,
And through the intercession of St. Evi,
And through the intercession of all the saints,
May the Almighty God,
The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Protect and bless you! Amen.
Early in the morning, after a few hours of sleep,
I awoke and read in the Bible,
And the Eternal said unto Abram,
I will bless thee,
And make thy name great,
And thou shalt be a blessing.
And I will bless them that bless thee,
And him that curseth thee will I condemn;
And with thee shall all kindreds
Of the earth bless themselves. -
Then, on my way to you, Evi,
I praised the omnipotence and tenderness of God,
Which was expressed to me in these words,
Yes, downright the divine omnipotence of tenderness!
But when I came into your garden,
The radiance of the purest summer morning sun
Lay over the green garden.
The trees and grasses and bushes were green,
Flowers were in bloom and berries hung on the trees.
The little birds sang and hopped merrily in the branches.
Then I entered your house and greeted you.
You were standing in the bathroom
In front of the mirror.
You were dressed all in black,
With a black shirt and black trousers,
A wide black belt with a silver buckle,
Your long black hair was still damp from the bath
And hung down long and curly.
You put black make-up on your long eyelashes
In front of the round mirror.
As I greeted you, you looked at me and smiled.
The whole bathroom was bathed in dazzling light.
I stepped back from the overwhelming beauty
And went into the living room.
Then it crossed my mind
That the inaccessible radiance of light
In which God dwells
Can also be expressed by the mysterious radiance
Of the Black Madonna.
The father of Western mysticism,
Dionysius, a Catholic Neoplatonist,
Spoke of the supreme vision
As the vision of the dark light of God!
This paradox of the dark light
Is the only appropriate way to speak
Of the indescribable primordial beauty
Of the primordial divinity.
Dionysius calls the highest Godhead -
Primordial beauty!
And truly, it seemed to me that I saw
The Black Madonna in a cloud of radiant light,
And she smiled lovingly at me!
I saw in a vision the dark light
Of the divine primeval beauty!
My knees began to tremble
And I stepped into the garden of Paradise
In the radiance of the morning sun.
I sat down on the garden bench
And began a conversation
With the holy fourth century Doctor of the Church,
John Chyrsostomus,
That is John Goldmund.
He was called Goldmund because
When Mary kissed his mouth,
It was because he could speak so beautifully.
I said, Saint John Goldmund, you once said:
Three things are left of the earthly paradise,
These are the purity of the child's eyes,
The beauty of the flowers
And the glory of the starry sky.
Holy Goldmund, that is true,
But you did not know Evi.
She is also left over from the earthly paradise!
She is pure like the eyes of a child
Looking at a picture of the Virgin Mary,
She is beautiful like a salmon-coloured rose
In the dawn of a May morning,
She is splendid like the black Mother Night
In her diamond starry dress!
I mean, Evi is the Eve from the Garden of Eden
Who still walks among us!
Then Johannes Goldmund smiled.
I was back in paradise, in the Garden of Eden,
And a mysterious lust glowed through me
And I thought of the male sex of the serpent
And the female sex of the fig.
And I said fervently, yet jokingly in my mind,
Ah, Evi, you are my chosen fig!
But then I saw again the vision
Of the dark light of the divine primeval beauty,
The Black Madonna in the radiance of light
Before the immaculate mirror, then I said,
God, what I saw is the Glory of the Lord!
Lord, you yourself appear with your Glory!
Your Glory fills the dwelling place
Like a cloud full of the radiance of light,
I cannot enter the dwelling place
Because the golden cloud of Glory is in it!
And my knees sank to the ground,
For I was moved to adore the Glory of the Lord,
The dark light of the divine primordial beauty
Revealed in the Black Madonna,
To adore the beauty of God
Revealed to me in Evi!
So we went to the university
Where you wanted to pass your oral examination.
Before the exam I opened the Gospel
And read in the Apocalypse
That the seer John wanted to fall down
Before the angel who had shown him
The heavenly Jerusalem in visions
And wanted to worship the angel!
But the angel said, Do not do it,
I am your fellow servant
And the fellow servant of all your brothers,
The other prophets,
But worship God!
Then your discourse began.
You wore on your right wrist the white pearl bracelet
With the medallions of the saints.
But one medallion came loose when you began to speak,
Because at the same moment I began to pray
The Rosary in the Spirit.
It was the medallion of the Virgin Mary.
She was slender and young,
Perhaps seventeen or twenty-two years young,
Wearing a snow-white dress
And a long sky-blue mantle,
With a sky-blue belt wrapped around her waist,
Her face was feminine, oval,
Sweetly smiling, girlish
And yet with motherly-loving eyes,
But from her hands, like white rays of sunshine,
Poured out the heavenly graces
Which she pours out on those
Who call upon her for help.
And Our Lady poured out these graces on you, Evi,
And also on me, because I prayed the Hail Mary
In my spirit throughout the whole talk.
So you passed the test.
I said goodbye to you
And on my way home through the wood
I thought of the saying spoken by a priest in a comedy:
You can say what you like about the love of God,
But you won't have heartache!
And when I was back in my hermit cell,
I was taught by a Catholic scribe
About the beauties of the heavenly Jerusalem.
He spoke very seriously and wisely,
But for me it was the funniest joke
That God had ever played on me!
That he now spoke of the bride,
Of the woman who is the wife of the Lamb!
This is the heavenly Jerusalem,
The perfect city,
A cube of symbolic numbers of perfection!
Built by the Architect Christ in eternity,
This heavenly Jerusalem is built only of gold,
But not of profane gold,
But of gold that is transparent like glass.
Its walls are of jasper,
But the gates are open.
Each gate is made of a white pearl,
Twelve white pearls form the twelve gates,
On them are the names of the saints!
And this heavenly Jerusalem is the Bride!
This heavenly Jerusalem is the Lamb's wife,
And she is invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb,
The banquet of heaven!
And her Glory is as pure and clear and radiant
As a transparent jasper,
Her Glory, her doxa in Greek,
Is her ineffable beauty,
The ineffable beauty of God
Belongs to her by essence,
For in her perfect beauty dwells
The Divine Primordial Beauty!