Dear readers,
Having not grown up in a particularly devout family, I had only a secular understanding of the word “epiphany.” I knew it had religious roots, but only recently did I fully appreciate the importance of those roots.
Epiphany (from the Greek word “epiphaneia,” which means “appearance”), commemorates Jesus’s manifestation to the world. Christians celebrate it many ways: parades, gift-giving for children, blessings of water.
In Tarpon Springs, on January 6th of every year, the large Greek Orthodox community marks the day by holding a competition among young men: who will be the one to retrieve a cross thrown into the bayou?
That event inspired the following.
xox
M
Epiphany
A cross is thrown.
Crosses are always thrown.
It sinks into cold, dark water.
Any obscurity will do.
A young man dives.
All of us can choose to dive.
Of all the breath held that morning,
hands reaching, groping through murk…
instinct triumphs.
Blind fingers close ‘round,
and he surfaces, gasping,
cross held aloft.
Anyone could have found it.
He was just the first.
Epiphanies do not float
like cream
to be skimmed off the top,
are not handed out
like lollypops at a bank.
Effort is required, yes,
but not the kind you think.
A willingness to journey
to an unknown place—
The magi arrived after twelve days of travel:
field and fountain, moor and mountain.
—so very far
from the familiar,
the learned,
to open to a mystery
that swallows you whole
and spits you out
like Jonah
from the belly of the whale
onto dry ground.
There’s no knowing when a revelation will come.
It might be a decade, it might be three days.
Keep walking, seeker.
Keep diving deeper and deeper,
keep opening. Wider, and wider still
‘til your heart reaches out
toward the shining manifestation
that was meant for you to grasp.
It might be right at this very moment.
And then, if you choose,
raise it up high
for all the world to see.
Thank you for being here.
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As always, keep your light shining bright.
xox
M
Beautiful, Mary.
"but not the kind you think.
A willingness to journey
to an unknown place—"
So true and so often requires we abandon previous assumptions and 'knowns' that create patterns - holding patterns - that tie us in to limiting views of ourselves and the world.
Sasha did a recent post on how when we are locked in to a certain view of the world, we literally can't see what's right in front of us. Your poem was like a reverberation of that idea, but also the remedy. Dive.
Thank you. ❤️
beautiful and appreciated