Unveiled

Come little One, let me see your face. Come little One within my heart, no need to hide because you are afraid, you fear the roads, your eyes that cannot see, even signs and markers are a blur, to think of how you will see the roads. Come little One who drives with one hand because the other is not trusted, come here little One, let me see your face and let your eyes look into mine.

I do not know why but as I write these words I remember the story of Moses and God, when Moses went to the mountain top and saw God. His face became so radiant, so bright, so illuminated that no one could bear to look upon his countenance. They asked him to wear a veil. A face, a countenance, the form so transformed radiating the light he was, we are, could not be seen. And then I think of how art and literature has always been fascinated and drawn to the story of beauty and the beast. Of ugliness transformed into beauty or having such an open heart. The ugly duckling that becomes the swan. Phantom of the Opera, the frog that becomes a prince with love’s kiss. The old story of men camping in the forest on a frigid winter night and a “hag” appears asking for warmth. They shun her away, all but one who invites her to share his sleeping bag. In the morning she has transformed into a beautiful princess. Even the saints in religious paintings do not radiate they remain faces we recognize with a little halo around their heads. There are stories of beautiful ones, like Cinderella, where others are jealous and seek to kill them. But even then, the beauty that is seen is veiled; it is still a form, a face, a being we recognize. And then, there is the ancient and eastern art that portrays the gods with multiple eyes, legs, arms and mouths, even as animal shapes, trunks of elephants, snakes, unveiled of this human form. The western world is so uncomfortable with these images, the beauty and symbolism veiled in what is seen as grotesque, bloody, and inhuman. But none are the story of Moses, so radiant with the Light within, the chalice becoming the Chalice that human eyes could not look upon, and so he was forced to wear a veil as would a leper whose deformity had to be hidden.  We come so close to seeing such transformation in literature, religion and art but still we hang the veil of this form upon each painting and story and dream of what must exist and breathe within to create the beauty. We fall to our knees holding our faces to the earth afraid to look upon the face of the Divine.  

The Sufi poets like Rumi stripped away the veil. They became drunk in their divine madness.  Life became a dervish with the Beloved, to know the Kiss, to see the Eyes, to feel the Touch. They allowed no veils. Perhaps that is why lovers everywhere gravitate to their poems as perfect writings of love. But it was not to a human formed lover they wrote, though that is how we often read, it was to the radiant Beloved unveiled that transformed them, their hearts. It was the sight of the Beloved unveiled that penned such poems of Love. Having seen the face, having become drunk with divine madness, they poured and poured from their chalice the radiance, the beauty, the love, life, and oneness of all from the tiniest speck of sand to the glory of the Creator saying “let it be….” And even they have often been veiled as drunks, mystical status unattainable by normal people, or grandiose love poems embellished and beyond what we see in everyday love.

But why would the Divine, Life, Love, All That IS look upon us if not for the desire to have the gaze returned? Does not a lover look upon the face of his or her beloved longing to see the gaze returned? Are we not drawn to the stories and art longing to see the gaze returned? Do we not stand and look to the heavens seeking the gaze? Perhaps this experience in form is so that Source, the Divine, the Sweet Hands of Life can look upon Itself and experience the gaze returned.  In our essence, our light, we are Oneness, there is no separation, no gaze to be returned. In form, the gaze, the yearning, the creation, the emanation of Life created in the gaze the return is found. We experience the experience of creation, being and Being. Perhaps if Moses had not allowed the veil, others would also have seen the gaze and known the Beloved's Kiss of Life. It was not stone tablets we needed, it was the dropping of the veils.

And so little one, come forth and look upon and into these eyes. No veils this pre dawn morn that welcomes the new moon tonight. The New Moon that will leave the night sky dark and without light save that of the stars. Come forth little one, like the New Moon, and gaze into these eyes in the fullness of the Light seen, unveiled. Darkness made light. The Beloved’s Kiss of Life…unveiled.