Carolyn Brigit Flynn
COMMUNION
In Praise of the Sacred Earth
COMMUNION is Carolyn Brigit Flynn’s offering of love poems to the earth. The poems invoke the movement from an urban Catholic childhood into an embodied communion with the holy presence of the earth, addressed in these poems as Beloved.
Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours, each poem uses one of Rilke’s lines as its title and springboard. Communion moves through moments of spiritual awakening, longing and disconnection, into a vivid communion with the sacred earth that is resilient and integrated into the rhythms of daily life.
Carolyn reading from Communion, May 2014
accompanied by musician Shelley Phillips
Praise for COMMUNION
"The earth and its lives are grateful, I am sure, for a voice that so passionately takes their side."
— Jane Hirschfield, author of Beauty, and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World
"What gives these poems their essential quality is the development of consciousness and relationship. This collection is a verb. It is becoming. It is becoming aware, aware of the light on the leaves in the garden, and then suddenly there is light. It is daring. Daring to see what was, and what is, and what could be. This poetry moves from one moment into the dynamic of eternity."
—Deena Metzger, author of A Rain of Night Birds and Ruin and Beauty
"Communion ranges over the full extent of human experience in relation to the sacred. The poet’s personal journey from traditional Catholicism to a more widely embracing communion of, and with, the spirit is very resonant with a great number of people today. The German poet Rilke’s work deserves to be better known by English readers, and this collection is a wonderful bridge to his poetry." —Larry Moore, Broadstone Books
"Carolyn Brigit Flynn’s markings upon sky and shell will rock you like the pregnant sea, the waters you lay down upon, the deep cave in predawn, the waving tree over the headstone. The poet calls to us — of stardust and fire — seek the Beloved!"
— Pamela Eakins, author, The Lightning Papers and Tarot of the Spirit
"The heart is well in these poems. They are full of deep glad love, honest yearning–and yes, communion. They live up to their title."
—Alison Luterman, author, The Largest Possible Life and Feral City
"These poems are deeply congruent with my own spiritual experience. It is a little miracle to have someone give birth to that intangible burst of light where we find ourselves home, connected with the One."
—Lenore Friedman, author, Being Bodies and Meetings With Remarkable Women
"Carolyn Brigit Flynn's poetic voice is distinctly feminine (strong with inwardness, reflection and sensuous image), as she brings her response to Rilke’s voice into the American idiom."
—Connie Batten, Buddhist psychotherapist