La Sacre de la femme -- Eve

I stumbled upon part of the poem below in a book on Rodin at a friend's home recently, and have had trouble finding it in English. The translated text below is a mix of a partial English version I found online, and a translation provided by iGoogle. (The robo-translated piece is the second section, in case you can't tell.) The original French follows for those who can read it.

Eve offered the blue sky of the holy nakedness;
Eve blonde admired the dawn, her sister rosy.

Flesh of woman! clay ideal! O wonder!
Sublime penetration of the spirit
In the silt that ineffable Being kneaded!
Matter where the soul shines through his shroud!
Mud where we see the fingers of the divine sculptor!
August dust drawing kisses and the heart of man
So holy that no one knows, as love triumphs,
As the core is thrust into this mysterious bed,
If this pleasure is not a thought,
And we can not, at which the senses are on fire
Hold beauty without embracing God!
Eve let his eyes wander over nature.

And beneath the green palms to tall,
Eve around above his head, the eye
Seemed to think, the blue lotus is collected,
The fresh forget-me remembered; roses
Sought his feet with their lips half-closed;
A breath came out of brotherly gilt lilies;
As if that would have been sweet to be like them,
As if those flowers, all with a soul
The most beautiful woman in flourished.

###

Ève offrait au ciel bleu la sainte nudité ;
Ève blonde admirait l'aube, sa soeur vermeille.

Chair de la femme ! argile idéale ! ô merveille !
Pénétration sublime de l'esprit
Dans le limon que l'Être ineffable pétrit !
Matière où l'âme brille à travers son suaire !
Boue où l'on voit les doigts du divin statuaire !
Fange auguste appelant le baiser et le coeur,
Si sainte, qu'on ne sait, tant l'amour est vainqueur,
Tant l'âme est vers ce lit mystérieux poussée,
Si cette volupté n'est pas une pensée,
Et qu'on ne peut, à l'heure où les sens sont en feu,
Étreindre la beauté sans croire embrasser Dieu !
Ève laissait errer ses yeux sur la nature.

Et, sous les verts palmiers à la haute stature,
Autour d'Ève, au-dessus de sa tête, l'oeillet
Semblait songer, le bleu lotus se recueillait,
Le frais myosotis se souvenait ; les roses
Cherchaient ses pieds avec leurs lèvres demi-closes ;
Un souffle fraternel sortait du lys vermeil ;
Comme si ce doux être eût été leur pareil,
Comme si de ces fleurs, ayant toutes une âme,
La plus belle s'était épanouie en femme.

On equality

From That Hideous Strength:

"Yes, we must all be guarded by equal rights from one another's greed, because we are fallen. Just as we must all wear clothes for the same reason. But the naked body should be there underneath the clothes, ripening for the day when we shall need them no longer. Equality is not the deepest thing, you know." ... "It is not your fault. They never warned you. No one has ever told you tht obedience--humility--is an erotic necessity. You are putting equality just where it ought not to be." ... "But you see that obedience and rule are more like a dance than a drill--specially between man and woman where the roles are always changing."

Naked vulnerability and freedom

The other day as I drifted off to sleep I visited our Lord under the waterfall, and He spoke to me of skin.

It was important and compelling, but given that I fell asleep, I lost what it was that He actually disclosed.

In contemplating it this morning, I thought about the skin being the largest organ of the human body, and I thought about how I climb on His lap and sit, skin to skin against Him.

There is more, much more, to explore on this. But what did hit me is that in nakedness, there is both vulnerability and freedom. And that the two, perhaps, go hand in hand.

Day 28: return to nakedness

I was looking at Genesis again over the weekend, this time at the story of the fall. The passage regarding covering the nakedness of Adam and Eve caught my attention. I thought about what it must have been like before the leather garments which God crafted for them.

It reminded me of how God strips away my clothing as I walk through the waterfall, so that I come to Him naked.

Francis de Sales, my patron saint, coached his protege Jeanne de Chantal about being naked before Him.

I think that in the fulfillment of time we will cast off all barriers to each other and to Him, returning to the nakedness of the garden, gloriously resurrected and unashamed.