Devotion
“Devotion can look similar to submissiveness from the outside. The difference is that you get something from being devotional and you get nothing from being submissive”-Kuis Llorens, 2021.
We’ve been talking about devotion in my external house and inside my own soul for the past couple of days. Every year around this time I come to sit at the altar of devotion, not knowing what it means or wants from me, not knowing who I’ll find there. Sometimes it’s a surprise, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s a chosen enemy, sometimes a misfit of a lover, sometimes my own glaring gauzy reflection. Below are some poems and thoughts I’ve scrounged together during this prescient Virgo season.
We all have a devotee inside
somewhere
one who devotes themselves only for the sake of love
Even when they aren’t feeling it that day,
having the clarity of mind to know despite all fitful rebellious thoughts
that you are a servant of love.
A place and a path where only more love can be found.
Devotion is loving yourself to the edge of your existence
pushing yourself over the edge of the cliff
because you know the ego’s frail shell is not what devotion is about
You pray to the eagle that soars within you
building your strength to fly over the heavens
knowing then intimately the sound of your own voice
the way it weaves in with the wind on a summers day blowing through lavender
and the way it cries out in pain when your old voice goes silent
against the blackness of a dark night
and somehow-some small part of you stays with it- through the eye of the needle
a thread of devotion
For there is nothing else to hold onto.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Mary Magdalene doesn’t know what to do
but cry over your shoulder
asking finally for freedom to dive completely inside devotion
leaving behind every crooked road
that lead to crumbling statues inside of you.
Planting your feet firmly on the cobblestone streets
dancing with the winds of devotion
completely inside your unique new self.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
How do we stay devoted to the one inside that is alive? How do we devote ourselves to that which is alive in others?
Meaning you give all the things that are dead, decaying, excess cargo back to the earth- back to the other soul- because they will know how to transmute it. And you bow down to the other inside, and you take them to the secret place with the waterfall that you only see in your dreams. It is in this place you can devote yourself to one another. Drop to your barren knees, signposts on the road to devotion, and pray together from this place.
