Meditation Message

A crystal dish with a pewter lid
tarnished black with age.
The curved sculpted handle and carved violets
grace the heavy, domed cover.
The fluted, soap-sized bowl,
rests after 100 years of service
amid the bottles and brushes on dressing tables.

A Victorian powder box,
from my father’s mother and her mother before.
A graduation gift after years of admiring hints
holds fond memories of the women
who held it, used it, protected it.
I am one of them now,
placing it on a shelf behind glass doors,
safe, venerated.

In meditation class,
grieving a failed marriage,
a stranger to myself,
I caress this prized object
in the shell of my wounded heart.
A fascination beyond the
link to my dear grandmother
draws me to this little vessel.

Drifting deeper on
murmured images;
seeking the goddess, wisdom,
direction, contact.

I breathe, longing for insight:
a vision of Truth appearing
in orange and purple foliage;
luminous angels in lavender gowns
singing Wisdom;
a bearded sage in white robes
illuminating the Path with his candle.
But shy Persephone hides,
withholding her secrets in black silence.

I float back to the surface
on gentle guidance,
swallowing another futile attempt
to visualize, transcend, understand.
And from the emptiness within,
a new voice declaims:
“Take the lid off.”

Julie T.

Please send your poetry to blog@oasv.org. We look forward to hearing from you and to sharing your story of experience, strength, and hope with others on this amazing journey of recovery from compulsive eating through the Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous.