ADMONITION OF THE MARTIAN PROPHETESS

Women! Mothers! Sisters! 2045
How long shall we live like fond darlings?
To be a darling here is to be a victim,
to be a darling is to be dominated and deprived.
We idly comb out our tresses
and think of men as our prey; 2050
but man is a hunter in the guise of a quarry
and circles about you to lasso you.
His swooning ardours are but cunning and deceit,
cunning and deceit his anguish and agony and yearning.
Though that infidel makes a shrine of you, 2055
he causes you to suffer much anguish and grief.
To be his consort is a torment of life,
union with him is poison, separation from him sugar.
A twisting serpent he - flee from his coils,
do not pour his poisons into your blood. 2060
Maternity pales the cheeks of mothers;
O happy, to be free and without husband!
The divine revelation comes to me continuously
augmenting the delight I have in faith.
The time has come when by a miracle of science 2065
it is possible to see the foetus within the body;
from life’s field you may gather a harvest
of sons and daughters exactly as you choose,
and if the foetus accords not with our desire
it is the essence of religion ruthlessly to slay it. 2070
After this age other ages will come
wherein new secrets shall be revealed;
the foetus will take nourishment of another kind,
without the night of the womb it will find the day.
Finally that being utterly demonic will die 2075
even as died the creatures of the ancient days.
Tulips without scar, with skirt unstained,
not in need of dew, will rise from the earth.
Of their own accord the secrets of life will emerge,
life’s string will yield melodies without a plectrum. 2080
Oyster dying of thirst under the sea,
do not accept the scatterings of April;
rise tip and wage war with nature,
that by your battling the maiden may be freed.
Woman’s unitarianism is to escape from the union of two bodies; 2085
be guardian of yourself, and tangle not with men!

Rumi

Regard the creed of this new-fangled age,
regard the harvest of irreligious education.
Love is the law and ritual of life,
religion the root of education; religion is love. 2090
Love externally is ardent, fiery,
inwardly it is the Light of the Lord of the Worlds.
From its inward fever and glow, science and art derive,
science and art spring from its ingenious madness;
religion does not mature without Love’s schooling; 2095
learn religion from the company of the Lords of Love.