Symbols and Signs

Sacred Geometry /
Sacred Geometry / (Photo credit: Sarjana Sky)
For the next few weeks, I will be teaching a class on symbols.  In preparing for the class, I came to realize that our life is deluged with symbols, but we don't even know it!

Like jumping head first into a snow pile, symbols surround every part of our life.  For instance, the shape of things are based on symbols found in Sacred Geometry.  Squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, etc. are in everything we touch...the keys of the computer, the computer screen,the speakers, the planter, the bottles of vitamins, the bits and pieces of paper and even the books all on my desk at the moment, are shaped based on these simple geometric symbols or designs.

Our alphabet is a series of symbols for the sounds we use to make words.  Those words can be linked together to make sentences, paragraphs and entire texts, which symbolize what we think and why we think it.

The other day, as I was preparing to find a poem on women for a service I am assisting in at our seminary, I had a sign - a symbol  - that my mother is very much still with me.  I had opened my poem file and typed in "Woman" into the search bar.  (Before I go on, let me share that I am one of those writers who does not remember their own writing.  Often I write things, find them months later and am amazed that I had written those words.) I clicked on the first title that caught my eye - Legacy.  When I opened it, I began to read, caught my breath and burst into tears.  

Legacy is the poem that I had written for my Mom after her death.  She died January 14, 2009 exactly four years from the time that I was sitting looking at the poem two weeks ago.  I was awed!  Why had I picked that particular poem?  I had, according to my computer written over 20 poems about woman...why had I opened THAT one?

For me, it was a simple answer.  My mother wanted me to know she was with me, still. 

Here is the poem, which will tell you a bit about how words can inform, enlighten and heal us, sometimes completely by surprise.



LEGACY

For my Mother, Anne Marie Neas 
April 21, 1928 – January 14, 2009

After your death, pages of paper -
yellowed, dog-eared -
are more precious than gold.
Your handwriting filling the lines
so carefully executed - “t”s crossed,
“i”s dotted - each letter an artistic feat
of pen and ink. Reading the words -
your words - I slowly complete the puzzle
of your life.  Filling in the blank
spaces where confusion or anger or fear
once held court.  Suddenly, I see
so clearly, the connections,
the similarities, and, Oh my, God...
the affinity which binds us, each to
the other.  The realization dawns that
you, too, were a woman...fragile...
whose heart could break,
whose dreams could be crushed, yet
whose tenacious spirit still lives.

by Linda M. Rhinehart Neas © 2009
 


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