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Waiting
patiently for the ritual to begin,
wrapped in her rough brown shawl,
she sits, placid, on plump haunches.
Sanctified
with holy water,
dressed in a robe of silver,
she enters the crucible of fire.
In
an hour her transformation is complete.
A
great cross cut deep into her belly,
she
is baptized with salt, sweet butter and chives.
"Take,"
she whispers,
"eat....this is my body."
Poem
copyright 2000 Dorothy Bates. Photo copyright 1998 Jeff
Booth.
Dorothy
Bates is a poet and songwriter whose work has been published
and performed in over 60 venues including New York City's
Town Hall. She
studied at the Spiritual Science Center of New York, served
as a listener for the Spiritual
Emergence Network, and started a group for people
experiencing Kundalini activity. This poem was published
earlier on Seeker
Magazine.
Seeker
Magazine
This
page contains more of Dorothy's poems and a short autobiography
of her.
The
Taittiriya Upanishad
This
ancient Indian scripture talks a lot about the spiritual
implications of food, and the second-to-last verse says,
"I am food... I am the First-born of the existence!...
Prior to gods, the centre of the immortal.... I, the
food, eat him who eats food..."
This
page was published on May 5, 2000 and last revised on
May 13, 2000.
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