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In my book, The World’s Geography of Love, I detail what happens when we surrender our living to the influence of the feminine archetypal energies. Such a surrender balances the overdriven heroic masculine archetype that rules us and our world culture.
This blog is the first of a series of poem blogs that grapple with the symbols and images of the heroic masculine’s surrender to the love of the feminine as the glutinum mundi (glue of the world). It is my hope that this series will inspire you to find your own balancing relationship with the masculine and feminine archetypes in your life.
The poem series is titled Catch the Bride’s Bouquet in reference to Leonard Cohen’s song The Gypsy’s Wife (Cohen 2001). Gypsy’s husband is looking for her and when he sees her surrenders to her.
Ah the silver knives are flashing in the tired old cafeA ghost climbs on the table in a bridal negligeeShe says, “My body is the light, my body is the way”I raise my arm against it all and I catch the bride’s bouquet.
My Body is the Light, My Body is the Way
Poem # 1: Catch the Bride’s Bouquet Poem Series
She Will Have Faith in the World’s Renewal
by Geraldine Matus 2022
When the man-hero surrenders his pride
as a sacrifice on the altar of Her breast,
seeing it consumed by the fire of Her passion.
When the man-hero renounces his reason
as a sacrifice on the altar of Her mind,
suffering its annealing by the fire of Her wisdom.
When the man-hero comes unafraid
into the heat of Her thighs,
laying before Her the rawness of his desire.
She will have faith in the world’s renewal.
If She could,
without mercy for his suffering,
She would thrust him into the fires
of Her wisdom and Her thighs
each night from dark moon to dark moon —
until his shell of self-importance
burned into a breath of ashes,
revealing his purest love for all that is Her,
and all that is Her reflected in woman
along the chain of time.
Then She would,
with mercy, soothe his suffering
and would share with him
mystery tales borne from midnight
from Her lips moistened
by the dew’s promise of dawn
for him to drink,
and give him a heart that would bear all.
Then the world would change.
Then the world would change.
Cohen, L. (2001).
The gypsy’s wife. Field Commander Cohen: Tour of 1979. Recorded live at
the Hammersmith Odeon, London, on 4, 5, and December 6, 1979 and at the Dome
Theatre, Brighton, on December 15, 1979, Sony.I