' The Whole Flame '...

"What is this awesome mystery
that is taking place within me?

I can find no words to express it;

my poor hand is unable to capture it
in describing the praise and glory that belong
to the One who is above all praise,
and who transcends every word...

My intellect sees what has happened,
but it cannot explain it.

It can see, and wishes to explain,
but can find no word that will suffice;
for what it sees is invisible and entirely formless,
simple, completely uncompounded,
unbounded in its awesome greatness.

What I have seen is the totality recapitulated as one,
received not in essence but by participation.

Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive."



-Symeon the New Theologian
in _The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives_
Translated by John Anthony McGuckin
Boston: Shambhala, 2003