That Fountain, Filling, Running, Although It Is The Night.

The sad news this morning of the death of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney.

I hadn't thought about it quite this way until this morning but I've been a reader of his for decades.  His voice has been a  steady presence in my life and I'm grateful for his writing and the witness of it, especially during the 'Troubles' in the north of Ireland.  

The eleventh canto from his 1984 poem "Station Island" is one of my favorite poems by him.  For me, it is a poetic meditation not only on the poetry of St. John of the Cross but on the fathomless depths of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, that overflowing wellspring of life and love. 

XI

As if the prisms of the kaleidoscope

I plunged once in a butt of muddied water

surfaced like a marvelous lightship

and out of its silted crystals a monk's face

that had spoken years ago from behind a grille

spoke again about the need and chance

to salvage everything, to re-envisage

the zenith and glimpsed jewels of any gift

mistakenly abased...

What came to nothing could always be replenished.

'Read poems as prayers,' he said, 'and for your penance

translate me something by Juan de la Cruz.'

Now his sandalled passage stirred me to this:

How well I know that fountain, filling, running,

although it is the night.

That eternal fountain, hidden away,

I know its haven and its secrecy

although it is the night.

But not its source because it does not have one,

which is all sources' source and origin

although it is the night.

No other thing can be so beautiful.

Here the earth and heaven drink their fill

although it is the night.

So pellucid it never can be muddied,

and I know that all light radiates from it

although it is the night.

I know no sounding-line can find its bottom,

nobody ford or plumb its deepest fathom

although it is the night.

And its current so in flood it overspills

to water hell and heaven and all peoples

although it is the night.

And the current that is generated there

as far as it wills to, it can flow that far

although it is the night.

And from these two a third current proceeds

which neither of these two, I know, precedes

although it is the night.

Here it calling out to every creature.

And they drink these waters, although it is dark here

because it is the night.

I am repining for this living fountain.

Within this bread of life I see it plain

although it is the night.

    

No Other Remedy

Of course, as I already knew yesterday, fortuna had really nothing to do with the setback I experienced with the halo of the icon of Christ. As is the case, inevitably, also in the spiritual life, it wasn't bad luck that was my problem but that I cut a few corners along the way.

So it was back to the basics. I ground the bole, first in water until it was smooth, then added the glue and ground it a second time.

I used a big brush --the biggest brush I could manage-- to float the bole on the icon. I don't know why exactly I held back earlier and applied it with a smaller brush, but I did and it made a difference. So the first layer of bole is back on the board and we'll see how it all turns out.

I keep a little collection of quotations by St.Teresa of Avila next to my prayer corner in the studio, open to this admonition of her's. It reminds me of my friend, the newly departed servant of God, Sr.Rosemary, who chose the quotations and designed each page with her friend Sr.Mary Grace at the Carmel of Terre Haute, Indiana.
When I look at her calligraphy I am reminded of her beautiful spirit. But I'm encouraged both by the words of St.Teresa and by my friend's example of perseverance in prayer and the hidden life of Carmel, not to give up on the 'one thing necessary', which is always communion with Christ in prayer.
My temptation in prayer which I readily admit to succumbing to more often than I like to admit, is to cut corners, to rush, to let my mind wander and then get so discouraged that I give up altogether.
So in the life of prayer, as in the work in the studio, there's no other remedy but begin again.

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