j_moody: i like this: divinity immune to human wrongheadedness

j_moody: a very well-placed image-- not sure how, but might try to enhance its verbal impact? I would like to feel this sense of the virgin burning through the stone like a kick in my gut, like she is very much alive. however, tempering the verse to have that kind of an impact can be a touchy affair. juxtaposition might work.

j_moody: all the above imagery is "dead" (in contrast, or to enhance, the image of the virgin burning through the stone-- dead in appearance but very much alive) and this leads us to an empty room (? no one there) and "those who lose themselves in dogma." following the thread of emotion leads me to feel the dogma is also dead, so maybe that might be pointed up? also, since there obviously are people who adhere to this dogma and worship in this space perhaps the contrast between the people (alive on the outside, yet dead on the inside due to allegiance to a dead dogma) and the virgin (dead on the outside, yet burning through the stone with the life-force of her particular truth) might be presented more overtly? I would stick with imagery like you have in the rest of the poem, but imagery that conveys this contrast between lifeless believers who worship in the presence of a deity who is very much alive. Of course I could be barking up the entirely wrong tree :)

lizzy: I'm doing something with this line and the one before, but I'm not sure what. Ideas?

j_moody: the sense I get is that their dogma has blinded and deadened them (splits, scandals, etc.) and yet they hunger for a divinity that is on the one hand right in front of them (the Virgin burning through the stone) as they cry out in desperation, and on the other hand is everywhere around them (omnipresent) as the divinity of the Universe. So they are kneeling down in the river water in front of a spiritual waterfall and begging for, of all things, water. right?

j_moody: linking of feminine (Virgin) with the divinity of the Universe-- good move, but my personal sense is that a little more separation of the ideas might be more effective. I guess I have a mental burp when I try to parse the "omnipresent Universe of women." There is the Omnipresent, the Divine, the Universe and this divinity is channeled particularly through women and the Virgin is the conduit of that motherly divinity-- a grace and generosity and sacrificial love that is everpresent in our lives, whether we recognize that or not. So the same idea, but with the steps left in (between "omnipresent Universe" and "women") maybe?

lizzy: See my above comment. I want to make a change because "sleepless dreams" is cliche, but I don't know how to better put it right now.

j_moody: sleepless dreams of scars long healed? maybe separate these ideas. imagery is always useful to break up the conceptual chunks and gesture toward ideas that are difficult to pin down with words.