When You Need Comfort You Will Know Her By These
Our Lady of Bobcats, Our Lady of Bread Baking, Our Lady of King Tides
When the soul first put on the body’s shirt
the ocean lifted up all its gifts
When love first tasted the lips of being human
it started singing
- Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks in The Big Red Book* mary mary astonished by God on a straw bed circled by beasts and an old husband. mary marinka holy woman split by sanctified seed into mother and mother for ever and ever we pray for you sister woman shook by the awe full affection of the saints - Lucille Clifton, from two headed-woman (1980)
When You Need Comfort You Will Know Her By These November 2022 edition Our Lady of the mother bobcat and her kitten practice-hunting doves right ahead of me on the November road light eye, tuft of ear, plump tail of dappled velvet, paws too big for his body, all the winter light pouring down upon them both blessings on the wildcats Our Lady of the black bear who crossed the driveway when the moon was full, and whoever it was (animal or spirit) who took the clay vessel but left the candle the next morning who when I close my eyes I can hear, and feel her black fur against my hands, her paw to my heart the sway and heft of her burly form moving through the trees blessings on the black bears and their families Our Lady of the speckled, rose-colored clouds at sunset, just a little scattering like petals over the western ocean, and how even at this distance I can hear its cold winter booming I breathe the clouds in and for a moment I imagine that I can smell roses blessings on the clouds that turn a hundred colors while the sun sets Our Lady of the edge of the pinewood where there are still huckleberries and I and the dog like to kneel sometimes just before dark up where the houses end and the trail starts and whisper to the animal presences there forest animals, I love you, I say and the great horned owls start speaking back and forth like the most beautiful, deep-toned bells blessings on the life of the pinewood Our Lady of the varied thrush who sings after sunrise, long clear notes like light through water, the varied thrush who has flown a thousand miles south, from Alaska threading woodlands between here and there with her clear voice blessings on the migrations of thrushes Our Lady of the King Tides that flood the beaches with life's origins that chase me, hems wet, to higher ground that rise and rise along the bayshore as I'm driving home lifting the edges of the land with light-fathoming blue, with salt with living water blessings on the original ocean
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When You Need Comfort, You Will Know Her By These February 2020 edition Our Lady of the Warm Horse Scent of alfalfa, scent of hay, sweet fur At the heart of my girlhood: the breath of horses Our Lady of Sheep’s Wool Skin tanned to immaculate softness Wool white as morning, cleaned with soap Our Lady of Honeycomb Our Lady of Propolis Our Lady of Pollen Our Lady of the Beeswax Candle dark gold light, the scent as it burns Our Lady of Honey on the Tongue Our Lady of Warm Milk with Saffron Our Lady of Rain on Dry Earth and Pine Trees Our Lady of Tree Trunks which I embrace before bed Our Lady of the Wet Moss Our Lady of the Warm Hand Our Lady of the Warm Dog Our Lady of the Warm Fire Our Lady of Bread Baking Our Lady of the First Hot Slice Our Lady of the Ripe Quince in the Kitchen and the tree heavy-hung on the roadside Our Lady of an Armload of Quince Our Lady of Quince Skin sweetening in the oven Our Lady of the Inner Pink when it is cooked Our Lady of the Kiss of Your Beloved Our Lady of Miraculous Kisses Our Lady of Their Hand in Your Hand Our Lady of the Scent of the Beloved Our Lady of the Warm Bed of Lovers at Midnight Our Lady of the Warm Bed of Lovers at Dawn Our Lady of Sleeping Hand in Hand Our Lady of Sleeping Heart to Heart Our Lady of Mint Our Lady of Rosemary Our Lady of Oregano Our Lady of Rockrose Our Lady of Thyme Our Lady of Thermal Waters Our Lady of Lava Stone Our Lady of Laying Naked in the Sun Our Lady of the Scent of Your Warm Body in the Sun Our Lady of Wine Our Lady of Chestnuts, Roasting Our Lady of Woodsmoke Our Lady of Down Quilts Our Lady of the Silk Nightdress Our Lady of the Red Thread Our Lady of Roses Our Lady of Roses Our Lady of my Mother’s Roses Our Lady of the Warm Kitchen Our Lady of Deep Sleep Our Lady of Dirt On Your Hands Our Lady of the Hole I dug into the pine humus and spoke into, weeping, talking to tree roots talking to people I love and people I have lost through the root of the world Our Lady of the Waxing Moon Our Lady of the Evening Star Our Lady of Moon and Star in the West at Nightfall Our Lady of Going Out At Dusk With the Dog to Look for Venus Our Lady of the Fourth Vestment of Venus Our Lady of the Heart Amulet Bestowed whose meaning is yet a mystery to me whose scent is late winter, green things in the dark At the heart of my womanhood: breath of stars (c) Sylvia V. Linsteadt, 2020, forthcoming in The Venus Year
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the backstory
Almost three years ago, just before the start of the pandemic, I came up with a practice to remind myself of hope, and the presence of an unending love. I didn't know then how much more I was going to need it in the months to come. It was a very solitary period in my life, and a difficult one, made more so by the fact that I was living out in the wild pinewood alone, with all too much time to sit in close proximity to both my fears and neuroses, and my losses. I remember stepping out of the bath during that season (apparently a lot of sudden insights come to me in the bath) feeling an intense resentment toward life. An intense desire for more and better and different than what I had. A sense of unfairness, that things and people I had loved had been taken from me, had failed, had been lost. That it wasn't enough, what I had. That I wasn't enough. More more more, that hurt, hungry part of me demanded. It all felt too hard, too scary, too sad. Don't hurt me again, she demanded, shaking her fist at life. Do something. Make it better. And it was as if Life, Earth, a vast Eternal Divine Mother, turned her gaze slowly, kindly and steadily right upon me, and with terrible but utter compassion said to me, but I have already given you everything. I have given you life. I have given you breath. I have given you shelter, water, heat, abundant food, family, the intricate beauty of this forest. Look how I give, and give, and give, to you. Look how miraculous it already is. Look how I love you. Can you not see it? There was no irritation in that voice. No reprimand. Just absolute truth, absolute understanding, and absolute patience. It stopped me right where I stood. I felt wildly humbled, wildly ashamed, and also wildly tenderized. I'm pretty sure it was shortly after this that I sat down in the midwinter dark, tucked in with Runa among sheepskins, and wrote the first version of what I then called "A Litany for the Weary." I wanted to remind myself of what was already miraculous all around me, and also inside me. I was inspired by the countless chapels and churches in Crete and across Greece, dedicated to the many different faces of the Panagia. Panagia Kardiotissa, Panagia Faneroumeni, Panagia Fidiotissa, Panagia Myrtiotissa, Panagia Giatrissa. Our Lady of Heartfullness, Our Lady Who is Revealed, Our Lady of the Holy Snakes, Our Lady of the Myrtle, Our Lady Who Heals. There are Our Ladys whose names are connected to the specific locales where miraculous icons of hers were found. Our Ladys named for acts of mercy, for healing plants, for sudden salvation from invading enemies, for the sea-- both as its waters, and its vessels. And so, amongst the sheepskins in winter dark, I started to list the blessings that sat around me. Not in a gratitude list kind of way (nothing against gratitude lists, but they don't tend to bring genuine gratitude out of me personally, which possibly says more about me than it does about the gratitude lists, though what exactly it says I do not know...). Rather, I let the comforts of my senses and the simple things my body loved console me, and become sanctified, and it was a revelation. The sheepskin in itself is a gift and a comfort on its own, yes, but when I remind myself that it too is one of the faces of life's generosity, it becomes a kind of living altar. Everything around me does. Our Lady spoken in front makes a doorway of praise. Look how I love you. Can you not see it? I've come back to this original February 2020 piece over the years, and have been nourished again and again by it. Then, recently, I felt compelled to write another litany. This newer one seems to have taken more the form of a litany of praises to what is prowling and hunting and unfurling around me on the November land here in Point Reyes—blessings that, when spoken, make my own life feel more whole. When I write these praises, I cannot forget the miracles that are already here. I re-orient to them, like refocusing a telescope lens, and suddenly what was a blur becomes the "ermine-fur Pleiades" (as Robinson Jeffers unforgettably called them), blue and sparkling in the winter dark. So, please feel free to take the essence of this practice with you. Try it for yourself, let the writing of it wash over you, soak you through, bless the tides in you, move them, free them, soothe and hold you, and finally guide you onward with only more love.
Our lady of the internet connection,
Whose constancy in the vastness keeps us connected in the darkness.
Our lady of the word processor whose steadfastness holds us in language beyond time, space, and the vicissitudes of the cosmos.
Our lady of the nimble fingers,
Grant us the power always to write what we feel and share it in the world so that we might remember that we are kin.
Dear sister writer, blessings upon your task and on your going about on that land so far away and in the grace of She who keeps us all remembering that we are we, not only, and are ever held in love.
Thank you Sylvia for these beautiful litanies that inspire a refocusing in me of the hope and deep reverence for the land and life I inhabit.
When I first took your Writing Down the Stars classes in 2020, my life was forever changed, and this prayer you had shared at that time was truly a life saving balm through both personal and global immensely troubled times. The practice of writing my own litanies thereafter pulled me back from the edges of resentment and bitter sorrows. Opened my eyes and my listening heart. Sat me down in the rich earth with the wild plants growing up through the cracks in the concrete, and in turn cracked me open to that unending love.
Since first reading your litany, this prayer practice always arrives with a tender yet firm reminder just when I need it most. It is the hand that pulls me back into the wonderments of this world and the one that clasps me to all beings and the rooted earth once more.