I recently received a print of Briar Cup, which David Jones painted in 1932. Even though this is somewhat of an extended meditation, it is quite simple. I do not pretend to be an expert on the imagery here, but I wanted to offer to you what I see in this dazzling picture. I’ve included the written “poem” meditation (below), in addition to the audio; take your time, and as they say, “sit with” his painting, and allow it to reinvigorate your imagination.
Meditation on Briar Cup
You are looking down
on a vase, a cup,
filled with wildflowers and briars;
and at the same time,
you are looking up
toward two other dishes,
a teapot and creamer cup;
you are both above and below.
To be able to look down and up
at the same time,
at the same objects,
is to be healed from the Break,
the gulf between us and the transcendent,
between us and our own world.
You are looking down at a table
and up at a table at the same time;
this table is the altar,
and when we come to Eucharist,
our posture must be to look both
down and up.
The one on the cross
looked down and up:
down to his disciples
and up to his Father.
You are also looking inside and outside,
for the outside has come inside,
and the inside has gone outside;
the walls or the window frame
lies defeated, better, prostrate on the horizon.
—the glass is shattered,
the curtain torn.
Birds are singing and dancing on the window frame,
banners of songs are coming out of their mouths,
for they are singing a new song of healing;
and if you look in the cup at the bottom,
there seems to be a bird within it,
as if to say, “When you drink this cup,
I will put a new song in your mouth, too!”
Gospel banners will unfurl from your own mouths,
recalling Isaiah’s unclean lips,
once touched by the burning coal.
The “echo” of the birds’ song
is made by the song of the tea kettle,
which whistles her song of praise in reply,
so that the inside and outside,
the higher regions,
the lower regions,
join together in songs of jubilation,
because of what is happening on the table.
The central cup is brimming
with wild flowers and briars;
those who were cut off,
who were wild flowers,
are made partakers of the covenant,
brought into the central feast,
the mystery hidden
before the foundations of the world.
Even though they have been cut-off,
they have been grafted into the true vine,
by their participation in the chalice.
The wild flowers drink the wine;
when animals and people drink,
they drink down,
as the fluid flows downward;
but when flowers drink,
they drink upward,
pulling-up the fluid with all their might,
illustrating their desire for nourishment
from the hand of their maker,
who feeds the birds of the air,
and clothes the lilies in the field.
In their midst are the briars,
which symbolize the fall of Adam
in the Garden of Eden,
where our labor was first marked by thorns.
But we also remember the crown of thorns
placed on the head of Christ,
for he became the “king of suffering”
for us, redeeming our suffering for good.
Saint Paul spoke of the thorn in his flesh,
a messenger of darkness,
put there so that he would not rely
on his own strength,
but on strength from above;
so he boasted all the more in his weakness,
for when he is weak,
then he is strong.
All of these ideas are gathered together
in these briars,
placed in this cup,
alongside the wildflowers;
they are all together in the grail cup,
rescued from the fire,
redeemed from futility,
saved from destruction.
Just as the holy grail floated
before Arthur and his men,
beckoning them to go on quest,
so does the Briar Cup seem to float,
inviting us on the quest.
The low things,
the despised things,
the painful things,
the things that cause us shame and uncertainty,
are gathered together in this unlikely bouquet,
the Briar Cup,
and put on display
on this table,
whose surface is glass,
for you can see reflections dancing
on its surface,
as if to say, “This is my throne,
encompassed by a sea of glass,
on which my eucharist,
my Good News,
my Briar Cup,
is lifted up!”
What else is on the table?
What else rests on the sea of glass?
What else shines its reflection near the throne?
There is an empty cup,
placed at your right hand,
inviting the viewer to participate in this meal;
the cup is both filled with the bird song,
and it is empty,
waiting to receive the wine offering
for you;
flowers and briars
dance on the cup, too,
for the content of this special cup
offered to you,
is the same medicine of reconciliation:
your thorns are healed,
your alienation, your wildness, is dealt with,
for you have been brought near,
invited to the table.
The host
invites you to sit and be served,
as in Herbert’s poem, Love III,
Love bids you welcome
and invites you to sit and drink;
he will serve you,
you do not serve him.
The pot itself is eager to pour itself out for you,
the pot has a little arm,
as if to say, “Nobody takes my tea,
but I pour myself out freely for you!”
this is no normal tea kettle,
but one poured and served to you by Love,
and you need only to sit and receive
the steaming offering.
There is something else for you on the table:
the salt shaker,
and you oscillate between the cup and the salt,
being fed by the host,
and feeding those around you;
you are the salt of the world,
and just as the host gathered the salt from the earth
and placed it in this glass container,
so are you to go back to the earth
and return the salt to it,
in remembrance of him.
Take a moment to consider the briars in the central cup,
for one stretches upward,
the other bends downward;
the upward one is green,
showing that the person who reaches toward heaven
will find life;
but the one that bends downward,
who is concerned with the fleeting things of earth,
is brown, dead.
There is more nuance to be seen in the two briars,
for the upward, green one,
at its highest point,
right where it touches heaven,
is brown;
and the bent brown briar,
at its lowest point,
at its point of utter despair,
is green.
The power of the eucharist
is to have death in heaven,
and heaven in death,
brown in the green,
green in the brown;
the health of our salvation
is maintained in this tension of opposites:
rising death and lowering life,
the harrowing of hell,
and the eternal wounds in heaven.
A tea leaf is a perfect symbol for the dying life
of the eucharist,
for a tea leaf,
once green and vibrant,
must be crushed,
must be boiled,
so that its vitamins, minerals, and flavor are extracted
through the violence done to it,
even as it stains the pure water black.
A tea leaf is both a wild substance
and a human-crafted one,
just like bread and wine,
both the inside and outside must participate
in its making;
the lower things and higher things merge,
sin and sanctity come together,
anathema and anathemata,
offered up,
first for the Lamb to drink
from the boiling cup,
and then for us to enjoy,
as a symbol of happy fellowship with him
around his table,
which is his throne,
a tea party in heaven
for all the lost sheep.
And notice the curve of the briar
matches the curve of the handle
of the teapot;
if you put them together,
the shape of a heart is formed—
love is shaped from the briar and cup.
The birds are as sparkling and jubilant,
as are the colors,
dancing and swirling around the picture,
along with the light,
which seems to have no limits
or boundaries,
but flows in and out where it pleases,
penetrating walls and surfaces with ease,
like it did the face of Christ
on the mount of transfiguration,
or Arthur’s face in Jones’s poem The Hunt;
this painting is a sort of transfiguration,
a metamorphosis,
a transmogrification
of old life to new life,
of the way we are to look at
our old, unraveling world.
It presents a way of seeing
that we have lost,
for it opens up our spiritual sensorium,
the eyes of our heart to see the sparkling majesty of the divine in all,
the ears of our heart to hear the sweet music of kettle and bird,
the hands of our heart to take hold of the briars,
wear them as a crown,
the nose of our heart to smell the aroma of chalice flowers,
and the tongue of our heart to taste the salt,
the tea,
the bread and the cup,
and the milk of the Promised Land.
Yes! this is an invitation of participation
in the life of the transcendent all around us,
to become partakers of the divine nature,
slowly and deliberately
through the means he has left for us,
which are the bread and cup,
and creation, which shouts his name.
And as with tea,
the more you linger and meditate on the table,
the more you steep,
the stronger the infusion of grace becomes.
The birds,
which swarm, dance, and frolic,
are the angels in our midst,
singing-out the music of the spheres,
creatures of both land and sky,
hybrid wanderers,
who dare to travel up near the heavens,
yet who must be nourished by the things of earth,
worms sucked-up from the dirt.
If you look closely,
you can see a single, enormous bird
at the top left of the picture,
not as clear as the rest,
for this is the Holy Ghost,
whose right wing is brown
and left wing is green,
whose beak is pointing downward
toward the table;
she hovers constantly around us,
even though she is not always clearly seen,
for she prefers not to draw attention to herself,
but to draw attention to the table drama alone
at the center.
On the horizon
you find more birds,
and perhaps a few mountains;
but touching the mountains at their base,
is a lawn or lawnd, from the old Welsh.
The lowest impermanent thing, the lawnd
—for all flesh is grass—
reaches the highest permanent holy rocks of the mountains;
the lawnd has the penultimate spot in this scene,
and one can’t resist thinking of
the feeding of the 5,000,
where the disciples had all the lowly, hungry people
sit down on the grass, the lawnd,
as their rabbi taught and fed and prayed.
Briar Cup could be an extended meditation
on the feeding of the crowds,
for we are fed with the bread and cup
of the table,
we are given a spot to sit on the grass,
encompassed by wildflower and briar,
we are told we are the salt of the earth,
we are taught the way of life and salvation;
and when we leave,
we sing with the soaring birds and twirling teapots
about the love of God
to the broken world.
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