Journeys of a Pregnant Virgin

It is a beautiful early Spring day in Zurich and I have just returned from the Hauptbahnhof where I purchased a large bag to hold some of the things I want to leave in storage for the next two months. On Wednesday morning I'll return to Vancouver for seven or eight weeks before coming back for the summer semester (and five exams) in the middle of April. It has been a very busy time as I've lined up examiners and scheduled the famous "Vorbesprechung" which each of them (one more to go, tomorrow afternoon), wherein they tell me what they will want me to know for the exam. So far I have been pleasantly surprised that there appears to be some regard for what holds particular interest for me, as well. I'm looking forward to writing the Ethnology and Comparative Religion essays that will constitute the basis of those two exams, and have begun to delve into some of the relevant materials, which are also related at some deep level to the Gypsy symbol paper. But more on that later.

While walking down the many steps and stairs toward the Limmat river this morning I thought again, as I so often do, how much I love this beautiful city. There is a calm gentility here that reflects both the conservative nature of the country and its historically neutral position in the heart of the European landscape. (Not that the Swiss don't have their own shadow traits, of which the lingering suppression of women's rights and their treatment of the Roma are only two examples). But I am grateful to have these months here with the natural beauty so essential to my soul in abundant evidence all around me.

Indeed, I am in liminal space yet again - one foot in Zurich and the other almost out the door as I pack up my little room and prepare to fly home to Vancouver. The Gypsy loves it. Hestia in me just wants to dwell solidly on the earth, tend the inner hearth, and cook soup. Maybe even sew another gypsy skirt. It has been many years since I created the last one, after all, and the Gypsy now has other colours in her soul.

I don't know if I'll manage that in Vancouver this time. My mother will undergo the first of two knee replacement surgeries on the very day I fly home and will require some care. I am scheduled to teach three courses as well, and Ursula and I have our weekend workshop for the Jung Society at the end of March. And of course I want lots of time with Steve - at the same time as I write those two papers and see a few friends. It sounds a little overwhelming in fact, but not impossible, I hope.

Yesterday a new friend at ISAP passed on this lovely poem by Rumi, and it is here that I will close for now. Perhaps its generosity will touch you as it does me.


ZERO CIRCLE

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.


How Rumi's words glide effortlessly past the rational evaluation of my intellect and flow directly into my heart and bodysoul. This poem itself is a mighty kindness.

Until next time, probably in April, I imagine, best wishes to all who visit here. Meanwhile, as the need arises, may we all be met by "Miraculous beings come running to help..."

Marlene