JML STUDIO
The castle stands in silence under a heavy southern sky,
Built of pure crystal where the restless shadows try
To crowd the heavy gateway, where the surface worries wait,
And the gossip of the courtyard lingers early at the gate.
We walk with racing thoughts through the first stone-walled rooms,
Sweeping out the corners of the ordinary glooms.
But the hum of human judgment is a low and fading din,
As the soul remembers wisdom and the grace to look within.
Oh, Shekinah, lead us through the mansions of the mind,
Past the rooms of active striving and the things we leave behind.
From the outer walls of warfare to the quiet center floor,
Where the spirit drops its armor and the world can judge no more.
In the interior castle where the King has fixed His throne,
We find the secret dwelling where the soul is fully known.
The third and fourth rooms open where the waters start to flow,
Not from the straining aqueducts that human efforts know,
But a spring of quiet solace rising up from deep inside,
Where the heavy wheel of worry is completely pacified.
The silkworm weaves its coffin in the shadows of the fifth,
To die to all the stories that the world has bound us with.
It takes a patient waiting, just to let the old self fade,
To rise with silver pinions from the tomb our hands have made.
Oh, Shekinah, lead us through the mansions of the mind,
Past the rooms of active striving and the things we leave behind.
From the outer walls of warfare to the quiet center floor,
Where the spirit drops its armor and the world can judge no more.
In the interior castle where the King has fixed His throne,
We find the secret dwelling where the soul is fully known.
The sixth room brings the lightning and the trials of the night,
The isolation of the heart that walks without the light.
When the institutions close their doors and people walk away,
The strict and heavy boundaries are the price we have to pay.
But the wounds of love are tender, and they strip away the pride,
Till there is nothing left to defend and nothing left to hide.
We pass the final threshold where the two become as one,
Like rain into the river when the journeying is done.
In the seventh room of stillness, the center of the fort,
There is no longer ecstasy or sudden, sharp report.
Just a deep and steady marriage where the soul is put to work,
In the ordinary duties that the faithful never shirk.
We carry water to the fields and plant the broken tree,
Living out the hidden vows of quiet majesty.
The storm may rage outside the gates, the ancient feuds may roar,
But the peace within the center is anchored evermore.
Like rain into the river...
No more running from the courtyard.
No more walking from the door.
Just the stillness of the Castle.
Deep union at the core.