Flesh and Soul
Listen Here
I would fill my soul with flesh, my flesh with soul.
Nikos Kanantzakis (Zorba the Greek)
I wake at the scent of dawn. Floating somewhere between body and time. My paddle breaks the surface of a new day as I gently cling to the driftwood of a dream.
I am on a journey from darkness to light. A circular yet a mysteriously never ending spiral. The seeds of possibility pull me from the bed. The sacred convergence of darkness with the loyalty of the light summons me to worship at this magical altar. Dawn.
Still naked I move from dream to awakening. From soul to flesh. I move from blanket to robe. I slip on the blue gray eyes of my morning gown. All ways the bridge between night and day. Knowing every inch of my naked flesh. The great indigenous Canadian writer Richard Wagamese wrote, “I used to believe my body contained my soul. That was fine for a while. But when I started thinking about oneness with Creator, I came to believe that it's the other way around. My soul contains my body.”
This way of meeting soul resonates with my bones and has me leaning into another way of seeing. Another way of asking. I live into the questions of being. Being a body in a soul. It “dawned” on me. This morning gown. These blue gray eyes. Wrapping and holding. Watching, warming and witnessing. Honouring. This man. This bridge. This morning gown touched skin and spirit. I wear it and it wears me. Caught between flesh and soul. Looking outwards and looking in. It takes on the form of my body and it takes on the shape of my soul.
It is Easter here in Canada as I write. I am not an overly religious man. I am spiritual. I grew up Greek orthodox. Church to me as a child was mysterious. A place to sit and not speak. The inviting smells of swinging incense. The chanting sounds of an ancient knowing. Lots of dark colours filling the kneeling pews. Church was a scent. Church was a sound. There were bursts of awe that seemed to be dressed in some kind of sadness. Remembering. What I found in the pews was an opportunity to get lost in my mind. Not needing to understand. Just to breathe and slow things down. I do believe in something beyond my “self”. Something connected to everything that leaves a shadow. Something that transcends this self. I know it’s presence. I feel it’s absence.
The closest thing to a bible or a holy book for me has always been Zorba the Greek written by the incredible spiritual priest we know as Nikos Kazantzakis. Life has filled my soul with flesh. As I have grown older I have slowly moved away from the doing of the intellectual to taste the being of Zorba. Slowly knowing how to fill my flesh with soul. Remembering.
Dawn is what I have come to know as faith. She loyally arrives in a consummation of colour. Every day. Faith just arrives. A knowing. Darkness releasing her light. Day born of night. Remembering.
Maybe that is the difference between hope and faith? A knowing versus a prayer? If hope is the thing, as Emily Dickinson wrote, with feathers, maybe faith is the thing with wings? Or is faith a morning gown always caught between flesh and soul?
A morning gown. Naked yet swathed. A presence and an absence. It feels like I have a place, an existence, in both. A paradox? This intense feeling of presence while watching the sunrise. This intense feeling of absence in my skin and bones longing for something that language has no name for. Remembering. Can there even be absence if there was no presence?
Maybe flesh is matter and shape is soul? A story has a beginning. Poems just begin. Poems start in the middle. Poetry. It goes backwards and forwards. Through time. In time. As time? Canadian writer Ann Michaels beautifully said, “some poems, emerge from silence, some from speechlessness.” Poetry just arrives. Faith.
Is faith about belonging or letting go?
Is faith about a deeper knowing?
A deeper knowing that doesn’t need a name or an explanation.
Remembering.
Maybe faith just needs a morning gown? We wear each other. Another way of asking. Another way of listening. To hear in our flesh the invisible calling.
To know our deepest essence and to surrender to soul.
Faith is a poem. A flower whose gaze I meet. I rest my head in her lap.
I let my mind fall silent and the words arrive.
Flesh and Soul You meet me naked. I slip you on. The blue gray eyes that know every inch of my soul. A morning gown. I wear your presence to taste the truth of dawn. Wrapped in wisdom left over from dreams. I feel your absence in every inch of my skin. Bones longing for the faraway nearby, I close my eyes and listen. To the raw page before the poem. Some poems emerge from silence, some from speechlessness. Not everything needs to be written, Some things just need to be felt. To lie down in the quiet. Just beyond the touch of words. To become one contemplation. Another kind of listening. To meet the gaze of a poem like a flower. I rest my head in her lap. Flesh caught in soul. Intimacy holding on, feeling everything all at once til the words let go. © Jamie Millard
Thank you for Being - Here.
May you find your own journey to faith. May you be a poem as the mermaid of mystery writes you as a dance between the presence and absence of flesh and soul. Spirit and skin. May you all ways follow the eyes of your morning gown home.
Have the best of days! Spring has finally arrived in Canada.
Lips, Flowers and Eyes.
Stay well.
Lots of Love,
Jamie
Gorgeous dawning, inviting a new day of poeisis to unfold.
"Church to me as a child was mysterious. A place to sit and not speak. The inviting smells of swinging incense. The chanting sounds of an ancient knowing. Lots of dark colours filling the kneeling pews. Church was a scent. Church was a sound."
I can very much relate to this. Growing up in the Holy Land, we used to go to many churches and sacred places, not just of 'our Lutheran denomination'. So I am familiar with the smells of frankincense evaporating from swinging brass vessels, the chanting in an unknown language, the flickering light of hundreds of candles. Greek orthodox, Russian orthodox, Coptic orthodox, wherever we went we'd most certainly end up in or pass through a place sacred to someone.
Faith is the thing with wings! A wholehearted YES to that. 🦅 🪶 🤍🙏 🎶 🕊️
Sometimes the soul needs those wings to lift that body (never mind her own spirit)
Reverie and your poem join us here. May this spring keep us in good company with your words and graceful poems. Yesterday I was at a funeral of a good neighbour; body and soul. A grandchild recited Christina Rosetti and the April wind passed by. Words in good faith can do.
I am reading carefully, and all the good comments.
Kazantzakis in the dawning light, perhaps at the corner.
PS Theodorakis I mention while the music lasts.