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Sparkle (9)
Third in a series of three.
Settling back down into my chair in the corner, I began to read Becoming Flame, a book authored by BlogHer's own Isabel Anders, an associate of Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time.
Ah! I thought. Some light reading. Something to take my mind off of the heavy, HEAVY spirituality of the Co-op. Surely this thin little book wouldn't take long to read. I figured I could finish it in the two hours I had to wait for my ride to arrive.
Just taking in the back cover gave me pause, however. Reading, "What could be more natural and timely than...A poetic exploration of the large and the small issues of women's life - nested, braided, interwoven, never fully unraveled - in precise language that retains the mystery but awakens the soul? "
I was taken aback and could only utter, "Huh?"
Becoming Flame is a book so rich with poignant twists
of common sense, it is hard to take in much at once.
Just as the Co-op had toyed with my sense of time, whipping me back and forth between 1975 and the present, the book began to play with my sense of spatial constraints. This thin little book began to grow, until I was, like Alice down the rabbit hole, shrinking and becoming insignificant next to it. The prominence of the pint size behemoth began to consume me. Like a scholar who studies to discover how much they don't know, I began to flip through the book, trying to take it all in at once, hoping to contain it as it continued to enlarge up and out of my hands and mind.
I tried to devour the pages, reading as fast as I could to get a sense of the largeness of this little book. I thought that if I could measure it, I could control it, keeping it within the bounds of what I could understand. I was undone, myself, however, as the book held firm, whirling and expanding while I was carried on high in a vortex of feeling, insight and expression. My chair began to raise off the floor and swirl around carrying me up into Isabel Anders' feminine domain, the vast group experience of women, the shared ancient knowledge passed down from Mother to Daughter.
With my head in danger of touching the ceiling, Becoming Flame became much like a fine wine. I couldn't just drink in the knowledge, but had to sip each phrase, acknowledging the bouquet, and swirling the shared images in my mind's eye. Here, I realized, was a book of deep thoughts to be savored. Here were collected vignettes of dialogue exchanged between a mother and daughter, putting into words things that, for the most part, usually go unsaid.
As I read Becoming Flame, the spiraling vortex of the
UofMD art student, Jenna Parry, painting on the wall
merged in my thoughts with the verbal images
presented by the book.
In her Introduction to Becoming Flame, Isabel offers that she has studied "the profound evocative legacy of Hasidic dialogue, or of a rabbi or holy man debating truth with his disciples." She shares she intended to "...employ the same conversational form, drawing from my experience as a women and a mother, and in a similar manner to convey some essentials of feminine collective wisdom, focusing on the process itself, as wisdom is 'kneaded' and 'made' like bread."
The title hints that the wisdom offered by Becoming Flame is enigmatic as is all knowledge and spiritual enlightenment. All great words of wisdom are not easily understood, digested and internalized without great study and sacrifice
"What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?," a disciple asks his master. The Holy One answered, "When you have knowledge, you use a torch to show the way. When you are wise, you become the torch."
So, we learn that words are not wisdom, but the transmutation of words, shining by the light of each person's soul and collective experience, are wisdom. The words are reflected by the soul and become flame and the soul itself, in transmuting the words into wisdom, becomes flame.
