Thou Art God [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Thou art God,
who by Thy Divinity supportest all things formed;
and upholdest all creatures by Thy Unity.
Thou art God,
and there is no distinction between Thy Godhead,
Unity, Eternity or Existence; for all is one mystery;
and although each of these attributes is variously named,
yet all of them point to One
Thou art the Supreme Light [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Thou art the supreme light, and the eyes of the pure soul shall see Thee,
and clouds of sin shall hide Thee from the eyes of sinners.
Thou art the light hidden in this world and revealed in the world of beauty,
"In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen."
Thou art the eternal light, and the inward eye yearns for Thee and is astonished
-- she shall see but the utmost part of them, and shall not see them all
Thou Art One [Shelomo Ibh Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibh Gabriol
Thou art One, the beginning of all computation, the base of all construction.
Thou art One, and in the mystery of Thy Oneness
the wise of heart are astonished, for they know not what it is.
Thou art One, and Thy Oneness neither diminishes nor increases,
neither lacks nor exceeds.
Thou art One, but not as the One that is counted or owned,
for number and change cannot reach Thee, nor attribute, nor form.
Thou art One, but my mind is too feeble to set Thee a law or a limit,
and therefore I say: "I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue."
Thou art One, and Thou art exalted high above abasement and falling
-- not like a man, who falls when he is alone.
Shelomo Ibn Gabirol at the Beach
Essay: In Málaga, in a little park across from and down the hill from the Alcazar, stands—or stood, at least in the year 2000—a statue of a famous Spanish Jew from the eleventh century that seems the last remaining sign or outpost of a Jewish presence in this coastal city that for many tourists is the portal to southern Spain.
The statue commemorates, according to the inscription on the pedestal, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, “poet and philosopher.” Jews worldwide who attend synagogue services even occasionally, probably are familiar with the liturgical poem “Adon Olam,” generally attributed to Ibn Gabirol. Sephardic Jews may be familiar with his long poem “Keter Malchut.” A handful of literary scholars and some poetry aficionados may be familiar with the larger corpus of his poetry. Philosophers and theologians in and out of the Jewish world may be familiar with his Fons Vitae. All in all, however, Solomon Ibn Gabirol is not a household name, and his work is not so easy to find.
He was born in Málaga in about 1021, moved to Saragossa and then probably Granada, and apparently died in Valencia.
Like the man and his work, the statue was not easy to find, but once found, seemed in an obvious place—in what was probably the Jewish quarter in medieval Málaga; in a park, where statues of fallen heroes often are found; and near the beach, the transition between land and sea, a metaphorical transition, between the physical world of the poet and the spiritual world of the philosopher, worlds that Ibn Gabirol inhabited and wrote about. Yes—Ibn Gabirol, when he lived here, surely must have walked this beach on the same Mediterranean Sea that washed and continues to wash the land of Israel. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t even know about the beach, or perhaps there was no beach then.
Why is the work of this great poet “not easy to find”? Until the nineteenth century readers and scholars knew he was a poet but didn’t know the poet was the same as a man known by the Latin name Avicebrol or Avicebron, author of the well-known philosophical work known in Latin as the Fons Vitae, the “Fountain of Life,” a work offering no hint of its author’s Jewishness or knowledge of Judaism.
Like many of the other of the “big five” medieval Spanish-Jewish poets, Ibn Gabirol wrote poems that express, either separately or together, an unusual and complex mixture of humility, lyricism, religiosity, metaphysics, self-confidence, anger and cynicism, ego, and bitterness.
There is the extreme, almost swaggering self-confidence to be expected of a talented young poet, who is “only/sixteen years old but” whose “heart holds wisdom like/some poet 8o year old man” (“The 16-Year-Old Poet”) (all references are to poems found on the Ibn Gabirol page on this web site).
Later it evolves into an attitude that many writers possess but hold in check for fear of appearing childish. Not Ibn Gabirol, who asks:
Where are the men with the strength to be men?
Where are those who have eyes and can see?
And every one of these poor beggars
Thinks of himself as another Aristotle.
You tell me they have written poems—
You call that poetry?
I call it the cawing of crows… (“His Answer to the Critics”).
Along with such a blast of mockery comes, in “Earth’s Embroidery,” such deep regard for the beauty of nature, that “No artist could ever conceive the like of that.”
Ibn Gabirol is, as well, deeply attuned to the times of day and the sensibilities accompanying them. Like the Indian musician playing morning ragas in the morning and evening ragas in the evening, and of course like the religious Jew praying during these times in response to the requirements of the liturgy, Ibn Gabirol responds to these transitional times in his poetry as when he says, “Morning and evening I seek you” (“In Praise of God”).
He is especially fond of dawn, saying, for example, “I look for you early” (“I Look for You”), “Open the gate my beloved—/arise, and open the gate” (“Open the Gate”), “Come up to me at early dawn” (“Invitation”), and “Arise, O my rapture, at dawn I exclaim” (“Arise, O My Rapture”).
But of course there is no day without night, and so he writes (“Night-Thoughts”): “Will night already spread her wings and weave/her dusky robe about the day’s bright form…?”
Could this interplay of light and dark have manifested in the dappling on the statue in the park? Could it symbolize the hide-and-seek readers have experienced with his work?
Ibn Gabirol wrote secular poetry, religious poetry, and liturgical poetry but probably is best known for his liturgical poetry. Can these poems be easily distinguished? Yes and no. Poems with God in them can be separated from those without, and editors and commentators have simplified the task by separating the poems into categories. However, when organizing the selections on this web site, I decided, with Ibn Gabirol, to mix things up to some extent, since, whatever the author’s original intentions for his work, like many of us, some poets tend to disdain categories for their work. And so sometimes an obviously religious poem can beautifully follow an obviously secular poem, and vice versa. Then again, perhaps none of these poems is “obviously” anything we think it is or can imagine.
In 2000 the park was being renovated, but oddly his image seems more renovated in Spain than in the rest of the Jewish world—oddly because Spain seems to be reclaiming its Jewish heritage while matters of poetry and poets are, except for pockets of exception in the world of Jewish scholarship, pretty much ignored in the Jewish world at large, just as they are in the general world at large.
Still, in 2001, the year after the statue was visited and photographed, the poet Peter Cole published a collection of English translations of Ibn Gabirol that is the first such collection published since 1923. And in recent years there also has been a spate of translations of Ibn Gabirol’s challenging philosophical-metaphysical long poem “Keter Malchut,” familiar to Sephardic Jews in whose High Holiday liturgy it may be included. This poem, which Mr Cole has translated, appears in the 1923 bilingual edition of Ibn Gabirol’s poetry and in recent translations by Rafael Loewe, David Slavitt, and Bernard Lewis.
It is odd that such a poem swings both ways, secular (philosophical-metaphysical) and religious, an example of the fluid poetic boundaries of the day or of our day, or maybe instead an example of migration from one sphere to another. Could this migration parallel that of Ibn Gabirol the poet from the small, hermetic Jewish world of religion and letters into the bustling modern Andalucian-Catholic world epitomized by a small park under renovation in a modern city that is a gateway to all things Spanish. Olé!
The statue of Ibn Gabirol photographed poorly and ended up dappled with shadows and framed by orange under-construction gates warning, if not in words, to keep out. Could these words also apply to “Keter Malchut,” translated twice as “The Royal Crown” and once as “The Kingly Crown,” “The Crown of the King,” and “Kingdom’s Crown,” for if expert translators cannot agree on a title for this lengthy, complex poem, how is the inexpert reader to pass beyond the gate of the title into the park of the poem itself?
And what about the Fons Vitae? How could a Jewish poet write such a seemingly un-Jewish philosophical treatise? Well, nothing wrong with being both a poet and a philosopher, is there? Think of Martin Buber, who collected and wrote Hasidic stories of rabbis in flying coaches and who also wrote sometimes impenetrable philosophic essays that explore universals that seem to transcend the boundaries of Judaism. The Crown of the King. The Fountain of Life. The expansive reader can, I suspect, move back and forth between the universal and particular in almost any line of Ibn Gabirol’s poems or in Buber’s works; the unsuspecting reader is, unintentionally, as expansive. Ross Brann explores other puzzles and shades of ambiguity in the work and lives of the medieval Hebrew poets in his subtle and sophisticated book The Compunctious Poet.
In “Keter Malchut,” a melding of poetry and neoplatonic philosophy, Ibn Gabirol straddles the worlds, as he did in his life. In this poem he is not a poetic philosopher or a philosophical poet; rather, he meshes the two roles. Contemporary philosophers believe today that to fully understand his philosophy, his poetry must also be studied for its presentation of philosophy. And yet surely this distracts from appreciating the poetry on its own terms, for let us not forget, in the face of readings of Ibn Gabirol’s poetry that seek out the philosophy, Robert Penn Warren’s famous question, “How does a poem mean?” Can a poem shorn of its metaphors, its rhythm, sound, its music, and most importantly its emotion, really mean much of anything?
The poetic imagery shifts between light and dark, dusk and dawn, standard dichotomies, it could be argued, bulwarks of Jewish liturgy, imagery found as well in the language of mysticism, some of it expressed in poetry and some in prose, in, for example, the Zohar, the writings of St. John of the Cross, of Rumi, Meister Eckhart—the list could be very long. Sure, the reader can view the basic concepts as conventional, but the way the concepts are expressed is unique to each writer, including Ibn Gabirol, and derive from personal experience.
He is at the beach, on the edge of the sea, the junction of light and dark, dry land and infinitely wet ocean, transitional zone between the safe familiarity of the city with the unknown depths of the sea. Then again, all of this may have had absolutely no effect on the poet-philosopher, since scholarship has shown that people’s attitudes toward beaches have changed radically over the years. In addition, modern scholars do not like to project modern-day sensibilities back into the past. Nevertheless, the modern reader with a poetic sensibility would like to think picture Ibn Gabirol at the beach and see in this picture some influence on his life and work.
As a twentieth-century poet once said, “Poets are the antennae of their race.” Perhaps Ibn Gabirol’s statue is a kind of antenna, reaching to the heavens, beseeching God, while at the same time conducting the energy of the imagination from above to below, the ground of Málaga, Spain, part of it beach, almost a thousand years after his birth.
ON LEAVING SARAGOSSA [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth,
my throat is parched with pleading,
my heart is loud, my mind confused
with pain and continual grieving.
My sorrow swells and will not bear
sleep’s gift to my eyes:
How long will this rage and yearning
like fire inside me burn?
Who could I turn to for help,
who could I tell of my plight?
If only someone would offer me comfort,
someone have mercy, take hold of my hand,
I’d pour out my heart before him
and manage to reach but the edge of my grief—
though maybe in putting my sorrow to words
my heart’s rushing would find release.
You who seek my peace, come near—
and hear the roar of my heart like the sea.
If your heart has grown hard it will soften,
faced with the hate that faces me.
How could you call me alive,
when you know of my distress;
is it nothing to live among people
who can’t tell their right hand from left?
I’m buried, but not in a graveyard,
in the coffin of my own home.
I suffer with neither father nor mother,
indigent, young, and alone—
on my own without even a brother,
not a friend apart from my mind:
I mix my blood with my tears,
and my tears into my wine.
I’ll be consumed in my thirst
before my thirst for friendship is quenched,
as though the sky and its hosts were arrayed
between me and all that I crave.
I’m treated here as a stranger, despised—
as though I were living with ostriches,
caught between crooks and the fools
who think their hearts have grown wise.
One hands you venom to drink,
another strokes you with words
and lies in wait in his heart,
addressing you: “Please, my lord . . .”
—people whose fathers were not fit
to be dogs to my flock of sheep—
their faces have never known blushing,
unless they were painted with crimson cheeks.
They’re giants in their own eyes,
grasshoppers here in mine.
They quarrel with all my teachings and talk,
as though I were speaking Greek.
“Speak,” they carp, “as the people speak,
and we’ll know what you have to say”—
and now I’ll break them like dirt or like straw,
my tongue’s pitchfork thrust into their hay.
If your ears aren’t able to hear me,
what good could my harmonies do?
Your necks aren’t worthy of wearing
my golden crescents and jewels.
If these boors would only open their mouths
to the rain that descends from my clouds,
my essence would soon come through them
with its cinnamon scent and myrrh.
Have compassion for wisdom,
compassion for me, surrounded by neighbors like these—
people for whom the knowledge of God
is a matter of spirits and ghosts.
Therefore I mourn and wail,
and make my bed in ashes,
and bow my head like a reed and fast on
Monday and Thursday and Monday.
Why should I wait any longer
with nothing like hope in sight?
Let my eyes in the world wander,
they’ll never glimpse what I want:
Death grows daily sweeter to me,
the world’s gossip means less and less;
if my heart returns to that path,
thinking its intrigue might offer success,
whatever I do will come round,
my scheming against me revolve.
So my soul refuses its glory
for its glory brings only disgrace.
I’ll never rejoice again in the world,
my pride will find there no pleasure,
though the stars of Orion call me to come
and take up my station among them.
For the world has always been
like a yoke around my neck—
and what good does it do me to linger
by blindness and grief beset?
My soul in my death will delight
if it leads to the Lord and his rest—
I’d put an end to my life,
an end to this dwelling in flesh.
My delight’s in the day of my downfall,
my downfall the day of my greatest delight,
and I long for heart’s understanding—
the exhaustion of sinew and strength.
For a sigh settles into repose,
and my leanness leads to my meat,
and as long as I live I’ll seek out in search
of all that the elder Solomon preached:
perhaps the revealer of depths, the Lord,
will show me where wisdom lurks—
for it alone is my reward,
my portion and the worth of my work.
HIS ANSWER TO THE CRITICS [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Where are the men with the strength to be men?
Where are those who have eyes and can see?
Looking around, I see nothing but cowards and cynics,
And slaves, slaves to their own senses.
And every one of these poor beggars
Thinks of himself as another Aristotle.
You tell me they have written poems—
You call that poetry?
I call it the cawing of crows.
It’s time for the prophet’s anger to purify poetry,
Left too long to the fingers of aesthetes and time-wasters.
I have carved my song in the high forehead of Time.
They know it and hate it—it is too much.
EARTH’S EMBROIDERY [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
With the ink of its showers and rains, with the quill of its lightning, with the hand of its clouds, winter wrote a letter upon the garden, in purple and blue. No artist could ever conceive the like of that. And this is why the earth, grown jealous of the sky, embroidered stars in the folds of the flower-beds.
LORD OF THE WORLD [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Lord of the world, O hear my psalm,
And as sweet incense take my plea.
My heart hath set its love on Thee
And finds in speech its only balm.
This thought forever haunts my mind,
Some day to Thee I must return,
From Thee I came and backward yearn
My very fount and source to find.
Not mine the merit that I stand
Before Thee thus, since all is Thine,
The glorious work of force divine,
No product of my heart or hand.
My soul to Thee was humbly bent
Even before she had her birth,
Before upon the sphere of earth
Her heav’nly greatness made descent.
THE LAND OF PEACE [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Whose works, O Lord, like Thine can be,
Who ‘neath Thy throne of grace,
For those pure souls from earth set free,
Hast made a dwelling-place?
There are the sinless spirits bound
Up in the bond of life,
The weary there new strength have found,
The weak have rest from strife.
Sweet peace and calm their spirits bless,
Who reach that heavenly home.
And never-ending pleasantness—
Such is the world to come.
There glorious visions manifold
Those happy ones delight,
And in God’s presence they behold
Themselves, and Him, aright.
In the King’s palace they abide,
And at His table eat,
With kingly dainties satisfied,
Spiritual food most sweet.
This is the rest for ever sure,
This is the heritage,
Whose goodness and whose bliss endure
Unchanged from age to age.
This is the land the spirit knows,
That everlastingly
With milk and honey overflows,
And such its fruit shall be.
BEFORE MY BEING [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Before my being your mercy came through me,
bringing existence to nothing to shape me.
Who is it conceived of my form—and who
cast it then in a kiln to create me?
Who breathed soul inside me—and who
opened the belly of hell and withdrew me?
Who through youth brought me this far?
Who with wisdom and wonder endowed me?
I’m clay cupped in your hands, it’s true;
it’s you, I know, not I who made me.
I’ll confess my sin and will not say
the serpent’s ways, or evil seduced me.
How could I hide my error from you when
before my being your mercy came through me?
THE APPLE: I [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Take, my lord, this sweetness in hand,
and forget about all of your longing—
it’s blushing like a bride on both sides as her breasts
are first caressed by her husband.
She’s an orphan, and has neither father nor sister,
and she’s far from her home and kin.
Her friends envied her going the day she was stripped
from her branch and cried: “Bring
greetings to Isaac, your lord . . . Bless you—
soon you’ll be kissing his lips.
FROM THEE TO THEE [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
When all within is dark,
And former friends misprise;
From them I turn to Thee,
And find Love in Thine eyes.
When all within is dark,
And I my soul despise;
From me I turn to Thee,
And find love in Thing eyes.
When all Thy face is dark,
And Thy just angers rise;
From Thee I turn to Thee,
And find Love in Thine eyes.
NIGHT-THOUGHTS [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Will night already spread her wings and weave
her dusky robe about the day’s bright form,
Boldly the sun’s fair countenance displacing,
And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?
So a green wreath of mist enrings the moon
Till envious clouds do quite encompass her.
No wind! and yet the slender stem is stirred,
With faint slight motion as from inward tremor.
Mine eyes are full of grief—who sees me asks,
“Oh wherefore dost thou cling unto the ground?”
My friends discourse with sweet and soothing words;
They all are vain, they glide above my head.
I fain would check my tears; would fain enlarge
Unto infinity, my heart—in vain!
Grief presses hard my breast, therefore my tears
Have scarcely dried ere they again spring forth.
For these are streams no furnace heat may quench,
Nebuchadnezzar’s flames may dry them not.
What is the pleasure of the day for me,
If, in its crucible, I must renew
incessantly the pangs of purifying?
Up, challenge, wrestle and o’ercome! Be strong!
The late grapes cover all the vine with fruit.
I am not glad, though even the lion’s pride
Content itself upon the field’s poor grass.
My spirit sinks beneath the tide, soars not
With fluttering seamews on the moist, soft strand.
I follow Fortune not, where’er she lead.
Lord o’er myself, I banish her, compel
And though her clouds should rain no blessed dew,
Though she withhold the crown, the heart’s desire,
Though all deceive, though honey change to gall,
Still am I lord and will in freedom strive.
PRAYER [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Unto thy Rock, my soul, uplift thy gaze,
His loving-kindness day and night implore.
Remember thy Creator in the days
Of youth, in song His glorious name adore.
He is thy portion through earth’s troubled maze,
Thy shelter, when life’s pilgrimage is o’er.
Thou knowest that there waits for thee always
A peaceful resting-place His throne before.
Therefore the Lord my God I bless and praise,
Even as all creatures bless Him evermore.
ARISE, O MY RAPTURE [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Arise, O my rapture, at dawn I exclaim,
Go seeking the face of my love, the King,
I thirst at the thought of Him, burn as with flame,
And chatter like swallow upon the wing.
No gifts can I bring save of heart or of wit,
My cause to my lips I can only trust.
Desires my Redeemer a ritual fit,
How should I suffice who am based on dust?
When I with my self seek communion, I shrink,
Were I mightier far, I should still be small,
Soul and strength in adoring Thee faint and sink,
Yet sing Thee I must till the end of all.
A LAMENTATION [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Awake.
Your youth is passing like smoke.
In the morning you are vital
a lily swaying
but before the evening is over,
you will be nothing but dead grass.
Why struggle over who in your family
may have come from Abraham?
It’s a waste of breath.
Whether you feed on herbs
or Bashan rams
you, wretched man,
are already on your way into the earth.
INVITATION [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Come up to me at early dawn,
Come up to me, for I am drawn,
Beloved, by my spirit’s spell,
To see the Sons of Israel.
For thee, my darling, I will spread
Within my court a golden bed,
And I will set a table there
And bread for thee I will prepare,
For thee my goblet I will fill
With juices that my vines distil:
And thou shalt drink to heart’s delight,
Of all my flavours day and night.
The joy in thee I will evince
With which a people greets its prince.
O son of Jesse, holy stem,
God’s servant, born of Bethlehem!
OPEN THE GATE [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Open the gate my beloved—
arise, and open the gate:
my spirit is shaken and I’m afraid.
My mother’s maid has been mocking me
and her heart is raised against me,
so the Lord would hear her child’s cry.
From the middle of midnight’s blackness,
a wild ass pursues me,
as the forest boar has crushed me;
and the end which has long been sealed
only deepens my wound,
and no one guides me—and I am blind.
MORNING SONG [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
At the dawn I seek Thee,
Refuge and rock sublime,—
Set my prayer before Thee in the morning,
And my prayer at eventime.
I before Thy greatness
Stand, and am afraid:—
All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth
Deep within my bosom laid.
And withal what is it
Heart and tongue can do?
What is this my strength, and what is even
This the spirit in me too?
But verily man’s singing
May seem good to Thee;
So will I thank Thee, praising, while there dwelleth
Yet the breath of God in me.
I LOOK FOR YOU [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
I look for you early,
my rock and my refuge,
offering you worship
morning and night;
before your vastness
I come confused
and afraid for you see
the thoughts of my heart
What could the heart
and tongue compose,
or spirit’s strength
within me to suit you?
But song soothes you
and so I’ll give praise
to your being as long
as your breath-in-me moves.
IN PRAISE OF GOD [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Morning and evening I seek You, spreading out my hands, lifting up my face in prayer. I sigh for You with a thirsting heart; I am like the pauper begging at my doorstep. The heights of heaven cannot contain Your presence, yet You have a dwelling in my mind. I try to conceal Your glorious name in my heart, but my desire for You grows till it bursts out of my mouth. Therefore I shall praise the name of the Lord as long as the breath of the living God is in my nostrils.
MEDITATION [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
Three things remind me of You,
the heavens
who are a witness to Your name
the earth
which expands my thought
and is the thing on which I stand
and the musing of my heart
when I look within.
THE 16-YEAR-OLD POET [Shelomo Ibn Gabriol]
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol
I am the prince the song
‘s my slave I am the
string all singers songmen
tune my song’s a crown for
kings for ministers a
little crown am only
sixteen years old but my
heart holds wisdom like some
poet 8o year old man
Shelomo Ibn Gabriol Biography (ca. 1021-1058)
A Short Story: Statue of Solomon Ibn Gabirol in a park in Málaga, Spain, his birthplace. The park is down the hill and across the Paseo de Parque from the Alcazaba, the Moorish castle. In 2000, when the photograph was taken, the park was being renovated. The text on the pedestal reads:
EL EXCMO
AYUNTAMIENTO
DE LA CIUDAD
ERIGIO ESTE BRONCE
EN EL IX CENTENARIO DE
ABEN GABIROL
POETA Y FILOSOFO DE
MALAGA
(“The most excellent
city hall
erected this plaque
for the 900th anniversary of
Aben Gabirol, poet and philosopher
from Málaga”)
Little is known of Gabirol's life. His parents died while he was a child. At seventeen years of age he became the friend and protégé of Jekuthiel Hassan. Upon the assassination of the latter as the result of a political conspiracy, Gabirol composed an elegy of more than 200 verses. The death of Hai Gaon also called forth a similar poem. When barely twenty Gabirol wrote "Ana," a versified Hebrew grammar, alphabetical and acrostic, consisting of 400 verses divided into ten parts. Of this grammar, ninety-five lines have been preserved by Solomon Par'on. In these Gabirol reproaches his townsmen with their neglect of the Hebrew language.
Gabirol's residence in Saragossa was embittered by strife. He thought of leaving Spain, but remained and wandered about. He gained another friend and patron in the person of Samuel ibn Nagdela, whose praises he sang. Later an estrangement arose between them, and Nagdela became for a time the butt of Gabirol's bitterest irony. All testimonies agree that Gabirol was comparatively young at the time of his death, which followed years of wandering. The year of his death was probably 1058 or 1059.
Between Going And Coming [Octavio Paz]
Octavio Paz
Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.
Octavio Paz Biography (1914-1998)
A Short Story: Octavio Paz was born in Mexico City in 1914 to a family of Spanish and native Mexican descent. He was educated at the National University of Mexico in law and literature. Under the encouragement of Pablo Neruda, Paz began his poetic career in his teens by founding an avant-garde literary magazine, Barandal, and publishing his first book of poems, Luna silvestre (1933). In his youth, Paz spent time in the United States and Spain, where he was influenced by the modernist and surrealist movements. His sequence of prose poems, Aguila o sol? (Eagle or Sun?, 1951) is a visionary mapping of Mexico, its past, present, and future, and Piedra de Sol (Sun Stone, 1957) borrows its structure from the Aztec calendar. This long poem, and Paz's sociocultural analysis of Mexico, El laberinto de la soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950), established him as a major literary figure in the 1950s. In 1962, he became Mexico's ambassador to India and resigned six years later in protest when government forces massacred student demonstrators in Mexico City.
His later work shows an ever-deepening intelligence and complexity as it investigates the intersection of philosophy, religion, art, politics, and the role of the individual. "Wouldn't it be better to turn life into poetry rather than to make poetry from life," Paz asks. "And cannot poetry have as its primary objective, rather than the creation of poems, the creation of poetic moments?" His various collections of essays engage culture, linguistics, literary theory, history, and politics with a level of originality and erudition that is unrivaled; these and his poems form a breadth of work that expresses, in the words of Carlos Fuentes, "the existence of a plurality of possibilities for harmony and truth, outside the limited range of our inherited dogmas." He was awarded the Cervantes Award in 1981, the Neustadt Prize in 1982, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. Paz died in 1998.
Let nothing trouble you [Teresa Of Avila]
Teresa Of Avila
Let nothing trouble you.
Let nothing scare you.
All is fleeting.
God alone is unchanging.
Patience
Everything obtains.
Who possesses God
Nothing wants.
God alone suffices.
I Will Just Say This [Teresa Of Avila]
Teresa Of Avila
We
bloomed in Spring.
Our bodies
are the leaves of God.
The apparent seasons of life and death
our eyes can suffer;
but our souls, dear, I will just say this forthright:
they are God
Himself,
we will never
perish
unless He
does.
Let mine eyes see [Teresa Of Avila]
Teresa Of Avila
Let mine eyes see thee, sweet Jesus of Nazareth,
Let mine eyes see thee, and then see death.
Let them see that can, Roses and Jessamine,
Seeing thy face most fair, all blossom are therein.
Flower of seraphin, sweet Jesus of Nazareth.
Let mine eyes see thee, and then see death.
Nothing I require, where my Jesus is;
Anguish all desire, saving only this;
All my help is his, He only succoureth.
Let mine eyes see thee, and then see death.
Shepherd, shepherd, hark that calling [Teresa Of Avila]
Teresa Of Avila
Shepherd, shepherd, hark that calling!
Angels they are and the day is dawning.
What is this ding-dong,
Or loud singing is it?
Come Bras, now the day is here.
The shepherdess we'll visit.
Shepherd, shepherd hark that calling!
Angels they are and the day is dawning.
O, is this the Alcade's daughter,
Or some lady come from far?
She is daughter of God the Father,
And she shines like a star.
Shepherd, shepherd, hark that calling!
Angels they are and the day is dawning
Laughter Came From Every Brick [Teresa Of Avila]
Teresa Of Avila
Just these two words He spoke
changed my life,
"Enjoy Me."
What a burden I thought I was to carry -
a crucifix, as did He.
Love once said to me, "I know a song,
would you like to hear it?"
And laughter came from every brick in the street
and from every pore
in the sky.
After a night of prayer, He
changed my life when
He sang,
"Enjoy Me."
I Would Cease To Be [Teresa Of Avila]
Teresa Of Avila
God
dissolved
my mind – my separation.
I cannot describe my intimacy with Him.
How dependent is your body’s life on water and food and air?
I said to God, “ I will always be unless you cease to Be,”
And my Beloved replied, “And I
would cease to Be
if you
died.”
If, Lord, thy Love is strong [Teresa Of Avila]
Teresa Of Avila
If, Lord, Thy love for me is strong
As this which binds me unto thee,
What holds me from thee Lord so long,
What holds thee Lord so long from me?
O soul, what then desirest thou?
Lord I would see thee, who thus choose thee.
What fears can yet assail thee now?
All that I fear is but lose thee.
Love's whole possession I entreat,
Lor make my soul thine own abode,
And I will build a nest so sweet
It may not be too poor for God.
A sould in God hidden from sin,
What more desires for thee remain,
Save but to love again,
And all on flame with love within,
Love on, and turn to love again.
Christ Has No Body (Teresa Of Avila)
Teresa Of Avila
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ's compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.
God alone is enough (St Teresa Avila)
St Teresa Avila
Let nothing upset you,
let nothing startle you.
All things pass;
God does not change.
Patience wins
all it seeks.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing:
God alone is enough.
St Teresa wrote several volumes of poetry her most popular (4) [p.33]
Teresa of Avila Biography (1515-1582)
Short Brief: St Teresa of Avila (Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada) was born in Avila, Spain on 15th March 1515. Her parents were both pious Catholics and in some ways inspired their daughter to take up a life of prayer. As a young child Teresa showed signs of a deeply religious nature; she would often retreat into silence for prayer and would enjoy giving alms to the poor. She was very close to her Mother, who provided a warm counterbalance, to the strictness of her father. However in her teens, Teresa’s mother passed away, leaving the young Teresa distraught at the void she felt. The young St Teresa tells of her despair and how she turned instinctively to the Virgin Mary for comfort.
"I threw myself down in despair before an image of the Mother of God. With many tears, I implored the Holy Virgin to become my mother now. Uttered with the simplicity of a child, this prayer was heard. From that hour on, I never prayed to the Virgin in vain." (1)
During her later teen years Avila lost some of her early piety and religious zeal. She recounted how she became interested in worldly matters and enjoyed the company of a wide circle of friends. She had a natural charm and found it easy to make friends. In return she enjoyed the compliments and friendships of others. However, she was not at peace, considering herself to be a miserable sinner; later she would look back in guilt at her early life. However this sense of being a “miserable sinner” was probably the result of a harsh self-judgement, encouraged by her fathers exacting religious standards. At the age of 16, her father decided to send Teresa to a convent school to be educated. This reignited in Avila an interest in following a spiritual life and after some deliberation resolved to become a nun of the Carmellite Order. At the time the convent rules were not very strict; it was probably more relaxed than living with her father. At the time the convent accepted many people into the order, often for financial reasons. The convent became overcrowded and people were often judged not on the basis of spiritual intensity but on material possessions. In this climate Teresa struggled to find time for quite reflection; although she did start teaching people on the virtues of mental prayer.
Shortly after becoming a nun, Avila experienced a severe illness (malaria), which left her in great pain for a long period. At one point it was feared that her illness was so severe that she would not be able to recover. However during this period of intense physical pain, she began to increasingly experience divine visions and an inner sense of peace. These inner experiences of joy and peace seemed to transcend the intense physical pain of the body. She describes in her own words her state of mind during these trials and tribulations
“I bore these sufferings with great composure, in fact with joy, except at first when the pain was too severe. What followed seemed to hurt less. I was completely surrendered to the will of God even if he intended to burden me like this forever..... The other sisters wondered at my God-given patience. Without him I truly could not have borne so much with so much joy.” (2)
When she was a little better she resumed her prayers with renewed vigour. However on telling others of her visions and spiritual experiences she was dissuaded from persuading them. Certain clergy felt they were just delusions of the devil. As a result, for many years Teresa lost the confidence to pursue her prayers and her spiritual life was almost put on hold. However, when Teresa was 41, she met a Priest who convinced her to go back to her prayers and implore God to come back. Initially, she had some difficulty sitting through prayers. She wryly remarked the end of the hour’s prayer couldn’t come soon enough. However, in the course of time, she became absorbed in deep contemplation in which she felt an ever growing sense of oneness with God. At times she felt overwhelmed with divine love. The experiences were so transforming, she at times felt the illumining grace of God would wash her soul away. She was so filled with divine contemplation it is said at times her body would spontaneously levitate. Teresa, however was not keen on these public displays of “miracles”. When she felt it happening she would ask other nuns to sit on her to prevent her floating away.
Teresa was not a just a quiet, placid saint. She had an endearing, natural quality; her life energy attracted and inspired many who were close. They admired her for both her outer charm and inner serenity. But at the same time her religious ecstasies also caused jealousy and suspicions. Unfortunately she was born into the period of the Spanish inquisition, during this time any deviation from the orthodox religious experience came under the strict observation and scrutiny. On one occasion Teresa complained to God about her mistreatment from so many different people. God replied to her saying “That is how I always treat my friends” with good humour St Teresa replied “That must be why you have so few friends”. St Teresa struggled because there were few who could understand or appreciate her inner ecstasies. However on the one hand she felt these experiences to be more real than ordinary events.
At the age of 43 St Teresa decided she wanted to found a new order recommitting to the values of poverty and simplicity. She wanted to move away from her present convent which made a life of prayer more difficult. Initially her aims were greeted with widespread opposition from within the town of Avila. However, with the support of some Priests, the opposition waned and she was allowed to set up her first convent. St Teresa proved to be an influential leader and founder. She guided the nuns not just through strict disciplines, but also through the power of love, and common sense. Her way was not the way of rigid asceticism and self denial. Although she underwent many tribulations herself, to others she stressed the importance of experiencing God’s love. As she herself says:
“You know, I no longer govern in the way I used to. Love does everything. I am not sure if that is because no one gives me cause to reprove her, or because I have discovered that things go better in that way." [p.657] (3)
“The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything." (1)
St Teresa devoted much of the rest of her life to travelling around Spain setting up new convents based along the ancient monastic traditions. Her travels and work were not always greeted with enthusiasm, many resented her reforms and the implied criticism of existing religious orders. She often met with criticism including the papal nuncio who used the rather descriptive phrase “a restless disobedient gadabout who has gone about teaching as though she were a professor" St Teresa also had to frequently contend with difficult living conditions and her frail health. However she never let these obstacles dissuade her from her life’s task. She eventually died on October 4 at the age of 67. A fellow sister describes the hours just before the death of St Teresa.
“She remained in this position in prayer full of deep peace and great repose. Occasionally she gave some outward sign of surprise or amazement. But everything proceeded in great repose. It seemed as if she were hearing a voice which she answered. Her facial expression was so wondrously changed that it looked like a celestial body to us. Thus immersed in prayer, happy and smiling, she went out of this world into eternal life.” (2)
St Teresa Avila was one of the great Christian mystics. Overcoming physical ailments, she became fully absorbed in her devoted to God. As Sri Chinmoy says:
“In Spain, Teresa of Avila offered to the world something profoundly mystical. Her mystical experience is the most successful culmination of the divine marriage between the aspiring soul and the liberating Christ, and it is here that man’s helpless crying will and God’s omnipotent all-fulfilling Will embrace each other.” (5)
Works of Teresa of Avila In 1566 she wrote Camino de perfeccion (Way of perfection) in about 1566, to tell the nuns how to reach their goal;
In 1580 she wrote what is considered her greatest work; the Castillo interior/ Las moradas (Interior castle/ The mansions) this involved describing the various stages of spiritual evolution leading to full prayer; she wrote Las Fundaciones (Foundations) from 1573 to 1582, so they would remember the early history of their order.
Her ways
Turmoil in your hearts (Ibn Arabi)
Ibn Arabi
Were it not for
the excess of your talking
and the turmoil in your hearts,
you would see what I see
and hear what I hear!
When My Beloved Appears (Ibn Arabi)
Ibn Arabi
When my Beloved appears,
With what eye do I see Him?
With His eye, not with mine,
For none sees Him except Himself.
Wonder (Ibn Arabi)
Ibn Arabi
Wonder,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.
Ibn Arabi Biography (1165-1240)
Short Story: Mystic, philosopher, poet, sage, Muhammad Ibn 'Arabi is one of the world's great spiritual teachers. Known as Muhyiddin (the Revivifier of Religion) and the Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Master), he was born in 1165 AD into the Moorish culture of Andalusian Spain, the center of an extraordinary flourishing and cross-fertilization of Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought, through which the major scientific and philosophical works of antiquity were transmitted to Northern Europe. Ibn 'Arabi's spiritual attainments were evident from an early age, and he was renowned for his great visionary capacity as well as being a superlative teacher. He travelled extensively in the Islamic world and died in Damascus in 1240 AD.
He wrote over 350 works including the Fusûs al-Hikam , an exposition of the inner meaning of the wisdom of the prophets in the Judaic/ Christian/ Islamic line, and the Futûhât al-Makkiyya, a vast encyclopaedia of spiritual knowledge which unites and distinguishes the three strands of tradition, reason and mystical insight. In his Diwân and Tarjumân al-Ashwâq he also wrote some of the finest poetry in the Arabic language. These extensive writings provide a beautiful exposition of the Unity of Being, the single and indivisible reality which simultaneously transcends and is manifested in all the images of the world. Ibn 'Arabi shows how Man, in perfection, is the complete image of this reality and how those who truly know their essential self, know God.
Firmly rooted in the Quran, his work is universal, accepting that each person has a unique path to the truth, which unites all paths in itself. He has profoundly influenced the development of Islam since his time, as well as significant aspects of the philosophy and literature of the West. His wisdom has much to offer us in the modern world in terms of understanding what it means to be human.
Ibn Arabi believed in the unity of all religions and taught different prophets all came with the same essential truth.
"There is no knowledge except that taken from God, for He alone is the Knower... the prophets, in spite of their great number and the long periods of time which separate them, had no disagreement in knowledge of God, since they took it from God."
- Ibn Arabi
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