Sacred lines...

'This precious human body is a stem of gold.' -Lady of the Lotus Born (Shambala, 1999)

What can I say? I cannot add to or subtract from the thought and its expression. It comes from a translation of an ancient Tibetan Buddhist poem that is rich with tantric imagery.

'This precious human body is a stem of gold.'

I feel like the most exquisite and precious finely-wrought jewelry. I feel like a stem on a thousand petalled lotus, an image of enlightenment. I feel fragile and precious and like a swaying stem of gold in the wind. I feel like the stem on a goblet of gold pouring wine into your sweet lips. You are fragile and precious and pricelessly beautiful. A great artist crafted you.

Your precious human body is a stem of gold…

Can I lay down now and weep over the beauty of this simple line?

'This precious human body is a stem of gold.'

I read it again, silent in reverie. What is it about this line that moves me so? It takes me on vistas beyond imagining. I see reeds of the Nile and Egyptian princesses, and gold veins in the mountains of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhist queens, and the delicate filigree of the Renaissance artist with his rich mythologies, I see the Communion Cup and the Pagan Chalice of old, I see the intricate interlacings of Celtic motifs, I see sensitivity in the world, I see honouring the delicate system of gold that we are, our bodies flowing with gold light, and I am silenced by this line.

'This precious human body is a stem of gold' …