Vestments of the Light In the snare of heavenly jasmine and the musk rose I am caught In the smiles of men and angels and the demons I have fought In the seas of my becoming where I swim with guided hand In the forests of my memory, my youth's great hinterland, In the sweetness of a love that grows unsoiled by death and time The adventure of my consciousness, the soul's unerring climb, I am held in the arms of a Mother whose love encompasses my soul With Her golden chain around my heart, She guides me to my goal. She has called me from the depths of sleep and charged me with the task Of awakening the God within whose face I must unmask To

When the Door Unlocks Now am I closed to inward things Though often in my soul there sings An angel from Elysium, Telling of wonders still to come, Of Him who orchestrates the stars And breaks the boundaries and bars That pen the spirit's upward flight And in our darkness, God's delight. But when the door unlocks I'll see The heart of all this mystery That clothed in life unrobes for death And sweetly with the final breath Remembers love and why it came, Repeats again the secret name And with the briefness of a flower Sanctifies the final hour.

Beauty to Transform My Soul When mind is busy with its worldly things What wakens in vision are truths we cannot see, Our dreams are visions too on fragile wings Those covert glimpses of eternity. Of earth's demand for beauty I am moved And the latent perfection in all descended here, I see from an inner eye the golden-hooved Stallion bear the heavenly rider near. The forests call me to their dense retreat, The morning sings to me its hymns of praise And soft green swards beckon my pilgrim feet As sunlight bathes the world in lambent rays. Peace comes on me as a mother's gentle hand, An inner rapture steals my heart to

Forest Blessing In a forest free from sign of human trait By a fallen trunk I sat to meditate, Above me the protecting arms of trees Covered the skies in emerald canopies. I felt a stillness deep around me close. Before me fern-laced mossy carpets rose To pillow my head in cool and soft caress Like a silent prayer in pristine wilderness. With heavy lids in dreamless peace I slept. And in my sleep subtle visions leapt. My waking eyes a covey of quail did meet, Who unconcerned had gathered round my feet. Serene my soul in this vast woodland home Forever to recall in lives to come, Virginal in massive silence lay The dream of Go

The Entry of the Grace While the great body of life goes pulsing on Spinning through the cosmos like the stars In their predestined orbits through the night, O Mother of the worlds I muse on thee And breathe a now familiar air of bliss Where grief a foreign substance cannot lodge In a human heart grown full with gratitude. I am strong again to journey and to climb Above myself to meet thee on the heights Or seated in the uncorrupted shrine. I hold within the wonder of your eyes, In moments of a calm felicity, Recall as sunlight through a grove of peace The entry of the grace into my soul.

Faith In Time of Darkness Is there a soul-estrangement worse than this, To be adrift in a once- familiar scene, To have lost to death the sweet beloved's kiss, To have seen life's moments flicker as on a screen And missed the spirit-dimension wandering blind Among the thousand faces loved and known, The bright ideas that once had lit the mind Encased in silence now and still as stone; Caught in a vast penumbra of the sun Who once emerged from caverns of the night To gaze upon the million-bodied One, The plenary manifestation of the light. And of the inner life what can be said, There is no key or none can yet be found But faith i

Soul New-Formed She walks no more in beauty by my side As in the days when autumn's colours flew, Through all the seasons of her life denied No lovely thing its place and in the few And faltering moments when the cancer grew Consuming flesh, still she smiled through pain For in her spirit's secret heart she knew That love would last and joy be ours again. For death the temporal God gives us release From bodies worn that soul itself renew, Recharged in strength return from realms of peace New-formed in light and robed in golden hue.

Earth By Her Have I retained more than a minute part, A wandering mote of all I once had been, The protecting light in which my spirit grown Full with all the glory it had seen And the memory of stars I once had known? I heard a call within the silent heart That woke my soul from its long reverie, One came to me most terrible, most sweet And made my life and future lives to be A living base on which to place Her feet. Nature in her wise and varied art Attuned my eyes to beauty, God the rest, A music waits its moment close above, *The sacred gardens soon

Tehmiben The final flame has leapt to join its source Above the failing candle of the flesh, The spark of its sincerity so bright It flamed into a fire of the soul, Burning as a beacon in our night, A torch to guide us towards the coming Dawn. We who gathered round this blazing light Meet now in silence as once we leaned to her To hear the higher knowledge from those lips That at the last spoke only 'Ma, Ma'. Where now the reign of sorrow when the sun Of aspiration rises in all hearts Touched by one who lived for Her alone? O luminous soul could we forget your smile Or fail to hear eternal harmonies When from your lips 'Savitri' burst forth? Ev

Handmaid of the Truth I live in sanctuary of the trees Around me hosts of friends self-assured, Saved. A moment of conviction counts An eternity the faithful spend with God. Not so for those who walk diminished earth Slow to heal the million gaping wounds, Despoilment, denudation, once divine, But now contaminated, rape of soil, Polluted streams, no longer spacious skies Or oceans' purity and lakes pristine. O human soul from this mud house arise, The human beast transform to god-like mould Else world-iniquities shall scream your name, Blood lust and greed the tag of infamy, Slave of forces far above your fears Marionett