What can I say? I cannot add to or subtract from
the thought and its expression. It comes from a
translation of an ancient Tibetan Buddhist poem
that is rich with tantric imagery.
'This precious human body is a stem of gold.'
I feel like the most exquisite and precious
finely-wrought jewelry. I feel like a stem on a
thousand petaled lotus, an image of
enlightenment. I feel fragile and precious and
like a swaying stem of gold in the wind. I feel like
the stem on a goblet of gold pouring wine into
your sweet lips. You are fragile and precious and
pricelessly beautiful. A great artist crafted you.
Your precious human body is a stem of gold…
Can I lay down now and weep over the beauty of
this simple line?
'This precious human body is a stem of gold.'
I read it again, silent in reverie. Why does this
line moves me so? It takes me on vistas beyond
imagining. I see reeds of the Nile and Egyptian
princesses, and gold veins in the mountains of
Tibet and Tibetan Buddhist Queens, and the
delicate filigree of the Renaissance artist with his
rich mythologies, I see the Communion Cup and
the Pagan Chalice of old, I see the intricate
interlacings of Celtic motifs, I see sensitivity in
the world, I see honouring the delicate system of
gold that we are, our bodies flowing with gold light,
and I am silenced by this line.
'This precious human body is a stem of gold'…
©Brenda Clews, 2004
