Meditation for the Fifth great O Antiphon: O Lux Oriens!

 Meditation on the Fifth of the Great O Antiphons of Advent, the invocation of longing chanted at sundown on the Winter Solstice:

Lux Oriens! O Rising Sun!

O Rising Sun!

On the day of the least light

and the deepest dark

we call you!

Come to us O promised light!

Gazing upon the eastern edge

of the world

we thrill,

as from our long benighted being

the first dayspring spark is cast,

and a red dawn heralds

a conqueror’s coming!

O Rising Sun!

You who are light from light,

scatter upon us

the uncreated light by which our dull eyes

may even now behold

the dawn of your presence!

Illume us as lanterns,

kindle us as fires,

breathe your flame upon us as beacons

in a world so cold,

and a winter of the heart so dark,

we oft forget the dawn that has come,

is come,

will come again,

needing our annual remembering

to rekindle our rebirth in you

O Son!

O Rising Sun!

We long for your dawn

down the dark and ancient ways of ancestry

Feeling in our old yearning

the gathering of ghostly generations

who followed their deepest knowing,

that map,

long inscribed upon the centre

of our being

but written in a sacred script

unknown to eyes lost to Eden’s light.

For they,

So desperate for the

warming of a presence

they remembered

but did not know

wrought stone,

and marked ways,

and offered song,

and told story,

and gathered green,

and even spent

blood,

to charm back an earthly sun

while truly seeking

for the Divine Son

who would warm

the winter of our heart

and make of Himself

the sacrifice that brings 

the light back

for an eternal day  

O Rising Sun!

We call you by our evening invocation!

Kindling our vesper candles and vigil lights,

wrapping the wreath of time

in flames of rose and purple,

we sing now the soul song of

the Lady of the Light.

She whose heart blessed beacon

shone so bright in love,

it drew you from

the realms of everlasting day

to that sealed chamber in which,

with quickening touch,

you, the dayspring and the morning star

both

bestowed your spark of glory

and found your home,

issuing forth

as Word and Light

to bestow the blessing

of a dawn from our Midwinter night,

that re-orients us to righteousness,

and reveals the Light beyond all night,

Bethlehem born and blazing,

as the true and victorious

Son.

"O Rising Sun!

Splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death!"

Our Lady of the Solstice; a Midwinter Meditation Poem

 Our Lady of the Solstice;

A midwinter meditation.

At the moment

of

the

deepest dark

and,

at

the sharp point 

of the

longest night,

at such distance from 

dawn

that we groan 

beneath

the burden of 

being,

and touch within 

ourselves 

only 

the winds of winter

and the

wild longing,

where 

light

is only a memory

long lost

and left behind in

summer sun;

then we,

suddenly,

and just for 

the merest of moments,

are hushed 

into silence,

as the turning 

of the 

ancient 

wheels of wonder

stop,

and sun and stars

all,

still their divinely 

directed dance

and take their 

yearly yearned for 

deep remembering

rest,

like lovers suddenly 

still, 

when struck

by desire's reverie; 

or dancers,

pulsing with passion,

awaiting the next 

beat 

of beauty's music 

to liberate life within.

They,

our elder siblings 

of the sky, 

recall in 

their

sacred stillness

that moment 

when 

once,

just once, 

their fiery song,

sung since 

first 

divine kindling,

was 

paused,

hushed,

stilled,

stopped;

just 

once,

long ago,

so as 

to 

listen to

a new note

joined to

the 

great hymn of gratitude

that all

offer

simply by their very being.

For in that 

moment 

of their listening

was revealed

she who is 

our true solstice.

The Woman;

that moment of 

perfect stillness

between 

divine in-breathing

and creation's 

exhalation of excelsis.

So they watched,

as she who is the 

stillpoint 

of

the dance of story,

and the sanctuary

where 

myth becomes flesh,

then,

before angelic emissary,

dropped the pebble of her 

yes,

in its utter simplicity,

longed for through the countless

ages of agony,

into the pool of our pain.

Behold the Solstice of the Lord…

Be it done unto me according to His Word…

Looking deep they

saw its 

ripples now run to the 

edges of existence

trembling them with 

the promise 

of a new

Spring.

 

And the Story became flesh…

And dwelt amongst us…

This young girl,

this Lady of light.

who is our solstice.

She, 

the perfect place 

of stillness,

so attuned 

to the coming of the Light

that in her 

all 

creation stills, 

the old cycle of sin 

is broken 

and,

even the deep dark 

of despair

must yield 

to glow of dawn.

She, 

the light that glows before 

the rising Sun,

heralded by Robin 

and Wren 

and fluting Blackbird,

She, like that blessed moment

when Sun and Moon 

both

hang in the deep blue together 

and bow as they pass

gentling our hearts 

and 

drawing us from dreams

to welcome

the advent of the One 

who

IS 

Love's Light

and eternal Word both,

spoken now into time’s renewed turning

by the Yes of one who 

holds 

within her heart

the perfect emptiness of Love.

Treasuring in 

the holy dark of 

her womb the hearth

where Spring's spark is 

kindled

and brightens with beauty 

as a 

first place of 

promised Easter exhalation 

the cave of 

rebirth;

in which 

eternity and time 

are married,

and infinity will wed itself 

forever 

to clay's embrace. 

Here, in this 

sacred solstice place,

Eve's aching 

is healed,

and 

here, 

Adam's sin 

undone,

as from the dry root 

of the 

sundering tree 

a new shoot rises 

at the word of

one 

whose whole being 

is Yes

whose whole being

is 

Love,

And so, 

yearly

we sit,

rooting ourselves 

once again

in Mother Earth's embrace,

and while looking ever upwards

we find the still point 

of the skies

and yet

inwardly gaze 

into

the light of story 

long-kindled 

against the cold of winter, 

and so become

re-minded,

re-hearted,

re-souled,

by she who is our solstice,

whose self-forgetting 

Yes 

brought to us

the turning of the light

and blessed us

all

like barren trees 

brought to beauty

by a sudden

anointing 

of 

new snow.

(Pic found unattributed on the web please let me know if you are aware of the artist)

Meditation poem for the Fourth O Antiphon: O Key of David!

Tonight we meditate on the fourth of the Great O Antiphons of Advent:

O Clavis David!

O Key of David!

Opener of the way between the worlds

Come and open our tight locked hearts!

O you who make of your very self 

both the door and the key

make straight our path to you this night

and from the long winding of the ages

order us aright and 

set our feet upon the way of peace 

who long since left the path, 

and stumble blind in darkness 

of our own making!

O Key of David!

You who unlock the ancient temple treasury of Israel

come and liberate its golden light 

to illumine the darkness of the whole world!

Open the minds 

of all who seek truth and beauty 

to find their source and summit

in your mangered birth. 

Temper our being, 

O Sceptered smith 

of the heavens

by the hammer 

of your divinity 

until we are fit vessels for your sacred meal, 

tabernacles of your spirit, 

alloys rendered pure again 

and fit for the King’s own

birthday feast.

O Key of David!

Open the long barred doors of Heaven as you descend! 

Claim again the authority of divinity over humanity, 

and humanity in divinity over creation. 

Release the locks of longing 

holding the doors of limbo shut 

and quicken again the hearts 

of patriarchs and prophets, 

of the ancient fathers and mothers 

of all times and places 

who have kept faith with the promise 

of a freedom scarce imagined, 

yet desired of all the ages.

O Key of David!

Unlock in us the song of heaven

that sin strangled into silence 

so long ago!

Let ours be the song 

of the Woman

whose faith drew you down 

upon the earth

she, the thrice holy one, 

in whom the gift of grace

shone so bright 

that even the shadow of 

death 

was put to flight,

when you who are 

life unbounded 

and eternal,

key and door both,

dwelt sealed in her

three seasons long,

so as to unlock for all

and forever

the way to

the eternal 

Spring.

"O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;

you open and no one can shut;

you shut and no one can open:

Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,

those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death!"

Meditation for the Fourth Candle of Advent: the Candle of Love

With the fourth Sunday 

comes the lighting of the fourth candle, 

the candle of Love. 

Our wait is almost over, 

the circle is complete.

We have watched and waited, 

We have trodden the path of the four thousand year longing for light, 

for love;

and, 

at the darkest moment 

a spark is kindled 

as 

a pure light of love 

is born into our benighted world. 

The spark struck is Mary, 

The Woman 

whose name means 

full of light.

The girl 

who is our solstice. 

She is 

the perfect place 

of stillness,

so attuned to the Light

that in her all creation stills, 

the ancient cycle of sin is broken 

and 

even the darkness must yield 

to 

the Coming of the Sun of Justice.

Her womb 

is the first place of Easter;

the cave of rebirth and resurrection 

in which 

eternity and time 

are married,

and infinity will wed itself 

forever 

to clay's embrace. 

Here Eve's aching 

is healed 

and 

here Adam's sin 

is undone,

and from the dry root 

of the 

sundering tree 

a new shoot rises 

at the word of

One 

whose whole being 

is yes, 

whose whole being 

is 

Love.

"Behold the Handmaid of The Lord,

be it done unto me according to thy Word!"

Meditation poem for the Third Golden Night: O Radix Jesse; O Root of Jesse

 O Radix Jesse: O Root of Jesse

This evening we will meditate on the third of the great O Antiphons of Advent:

O Radix Jesse, O Root of Jesse!

We cry out to you O Root from which all springs,

first fecundity of the Divine!

Come and restore our fruitfulness so long shrivelled and sin wintered!

For we, obsessed only

with the flower that blooms 

and is gone so quickly, 

spill our tears upon the soiled surface

of the fading petal 

and forget the virtue of the root!

O Root of Jesse!

Help us lest we forget that strong growth, 

must come from a strong stock, 

to come to know a flower that would 

outlast the frost 

must come from deep roots, 

long buried, 

and anchored in 

the warm womb 

of Mother Earth

resting down the long 

ages in the divine dark!

O Root of Jesse!

Speak to us of Spring!

Of that new life you bring, 

a quickening felt through all creation,

a gospeled spark,

begun in the deep pulse of a seed 

now planted 

in that gateless garden 

so long prepared!

O Root of Jesse!

You are the point of origin 

where all begins,

where from eternity time blooms; 

where then comes forth from

Now; 

until that sprouting moment 

where all begins in you anew! 

Save us for your harvest of hope!

O Root of Jesse!

Mixing your luminous seed

with the deep humus 

of our muddied being

you bring forth new life!

Heal us 

and raise us from our barren sleep 

of sin and self

inviting us to bloom again 

as first intended and

yet more so than even this, 

for now, 

our roots entwined, 

grafted to your Divine stock, 

made at last again 

one people, one plant, one garden

in which you will walk, delight and dwell.

O Root of Jesse!

We call to you in our evening song 

as Adam did,

our gardener father who knew the names of all 

and saw your face reflected in his own 

until our bloom withered in his hand 

plucked from its sustaining root

by selfish desire.

O Root of Jesse!

We sing you our Magnificat, 

first sung by Eve our earth Mother,

long silenced since the sundering of her stock,

until she who is Eve and Jesse’s daughter both

became the place of planting 

where you,

divine root, and seed, and stock,

now born in time and lulled by her hymn

to sleep before your sorrows 

renew in us your

love so radical that we are again

delivered into Eden, rooted in 

peace,

God-grafted into grace.

"O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;

before you kings will shut their mouths,

to you the nations will make their prayer:

Come and deliver us, and delay no longer!"

O Adonai! In the Fire of the Burning Bush

 Tonight we meditate on the second of the Advent O Antiphons: O Adonai! O Lord and Deliverer!

O Adonai!

We cry to you across the endless ages!

We call you by the name for the Name,

that only the One beyond all names may bear, O Hashem!

We seek from you our own exodus 

from the cold and hard world 

we have built within ourselves,

and hurt so many others by.

O Adonai!

We yearn for your deliverance! 

Free us from the slavery to that false self 

that is but a shadow of our souls

Let us put off the sandals that insulate us 

from the deep throbbing heart of Mother Earth 

and step into your Holy Presence 

which is everywhere,

and there,

bow down before 

the wonder of it all.

O Adonai!

Send to us the Angel of the Burning Bush!

May he call out to us, 

so lost in our own thoughts 

and worries 

and dreams,

that we may 

at last 

remember 

the holiness of the ground 

we stand on in every place 

and at every time

for our where and when

rests always in

your divine 

Now.

O Adonai!

Draw us to yourself, O Holy One!

Lead us on that pilgrim path

from the depths of our selfishness 

to the heights of the mountain of compassion

and emptiness.

Bid us enter into the cloud, 

that dissembles thought 

and pierces the proud heart 

so to open the soul to the 

truest of loves. 

O Adonai!

Let us hear the thunder in the void!

There at the summit and centre of our souls 

inscribe your new Law of Love 

upon the tablets of our hearts

in letters of divine fire!

O Adonai!

At hour of sunset 

and star rise we call to you!

Hear the chant of your Church,

echoing the long and faithful love

of Abraham, and Isaac and their storied

generations.

Listen to these ancient invocations!

Look not on us,

nor on our readiness,

Look instead on she who is,

the Lady of Israel, 

the Daughter of Zion,

the Queen of Heaven!

She who is 

our burning bush, 

always aflame

but ever unconsumed,

who holds 

within her sacred womb 

the mystery 

of the Name made flesh!

Hear us sing her new song of deliverance

Hear the mystery magnified in woman 

who in that holiest of births

brings about

our deliverer,

and invites

our exodus

home.

O Adonai!

"Magnificat anima mea Dominum!" 

We cry with her,

and in her holy 

burning words 

we hear the song of her people, 

our ancestors of spirit, echoed anew

"Ashira L’Adonai ki ga’oh ga’ah!"

And so we sing 

with all the generations 

this Advent night!

"O Adonai,

and leader of the House of Israel,

who appeared to Moses 

in the fire of the burning bush

and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us 

with an outstretched arm!"