Darkly Devotions

 

 

Lyric prose meditations that play with elements from evangelical Christianity, Buddhism, yoga, reiki, Tarot and “weird voodoo shit.

~by Cindy Clem

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Opening exercise:  Close your eyes. You are on a raft on a dark lake, floating. Breathe slowly until the water stills around you. Let your hand submerge, water rivering through your fingers. Float, breathe.

Feel your fingers touch what feels like fingers, what slides up your palm to become a hand, clutching. Clutch back. Pull hard, pull for your life, until it breaks the surface, dripping. Breathe. Calm your beating heart. The hand moves, wants to touch you. Do with it what you wish. It is yours now, and you are safer than you were.

Today’s passage:

There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.  Genesis 6:4, NKJV

Commentary:

There were giants on the earth in those days

a. “And there was no such thing as the Interweb or toys.”
~Grandpa

b. “They might be fake,
They might be lies,
They might be fake, fake, big, big lies”
~They Might Be Giants

c. Believe, without question. There were giants on the earth is too thrilling for cynicism.

 

in those days, and also afterward
This reminds me of the time I said, “I finished that book yesterday, and also today.”

when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men
Biblical language: master of the smoldering euphemism

And who were the sons of God? Oh, the theological debates! Princes of foreign lands? Demon-possessed kings? Most popularly, sons of God are believed to be fallen angels, angels who took the form of men, manifesting from their hermaphroditic state the correct organs for traditional copulation. This was the evil, it is said, that led to the Flood. But what an exciting time it must have been for the daughters—rock star sons of God, unearthly seduction.

and they bore children to them.
Seduction torn asunder.

Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown
This is not beanstalk. This is not Fee Fi Fo Fum or mutant Goliath. These are the children of women and angels. Nephilim. Of the several pronunciations, I encourage NEPH-ill-em for the soft feather of teeth against lips, the flutter of the tongue. Were Nephilim silver-eyed? Capable of flight? Sparkling like ice shards in sunlight? Evil, it is said. Yet even the writer—mighty men, men of renown—is clearly glamoured  enamored.

Closing prayer: Lend us a hand, O Lord, that we may stay the beautiful evil of the Nephilim. On the other hand, nevermind.

 

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Cindy Clem received her MFA in poetry in 2005 and has been writing non-fiction ever since. Her poems and essays have appeared (magically!) in Mid-American Review, The Normal School, Prairie Schooner, Memoir (and), Superstition Review, The Interrobang, Spittoon, and Michigan Quarterly Review (forthcoming).