Wheel in the Abyss
Lyrics
Before the mountains wore a name
Before the stars were taught to burn
A hidden breath moved through the Abyss
And all that is began to turn
This world is not the surface of a thing
It is the garment of the deep
The formed word of the invisible
The speech the hidden silence keeps
The secret God is near all things
Through every root and blood and stone
Yet visible eyes cannot behold
The ground where every form is sown
As soul moves through the mortal flesh
So moves the unseen through the clay
The inward kingdom bears the outer
And breathes the night and births the day
Wheel in the Abyss, turn through me
Rim of fire, unveil what I cannot see
From the hidden center let the living Word arise
Let the dark be broken open into light before my eyes
Wheel in the Abyss, burn but do not sever
Make this divided heart one flame forever
Till Wisdom stands in brightness like a bride within the night
And the invisible is shining through the visible in light
First comes desire, a drawing-in
A hunger at the root of birth
A tightening will, a pressing depth
That bends the heavens into earth
Contraction groans, the circle grinds
The turning anguish kindles fire
The dark is not the end of all
But the fierce chamber of desire
Pain strikes the spark, the spark leaps up
A torch inside the buried seam
And light breaks forth through wrathful flame
Like morning through a furnace dream
So all things turn: the deep to form
The wound to cry, the cry to sight
The wheel is terrible in motion
Yet all its torment labors light
Wheel in the Abyss, turn through me
Rim of fire, unveil what I cannot see
From the hidden center let the living Word arise
Let the dark be broken open into light before my eyes
Wheel in the Abyss, burn but do not sever
Make this divided heart one flame forever
Till Wisdom stands in brightness like a bride within the night
And the invisible is shining through the visible in light
I am one life in three wide worlds
The outward air, the starry field
The dark-fire root that knows the storm
The holy light that will not yield
In me they meet, in me they war
A crossing-place of dust and dawn
A temple trembling at the edge
Where death and birth are both drawn on
Then self-will raised its serpent head
And bent desire into itself
Made beauty vanity, love division
Turned living riches into theft
I wore the outer as my crown
I fed on image, sound, and praise
And all the inward spokes went crooked
Lost in the glare of fallen days
O hidden Heart, eternal Will
O Spirit breathing from the One
O holy Wisdom, mirror clear
Show what my fractured soul has done
I cannot heal this fire alone
I cannot climb by my own name
If wrath must burn, then come within
And turn the wrath to living flame
Then at the rim of fire she stood
Sophia, bright and undefiled
The tender splendor of God’s Wisdom
The virgin beauty heaven styled
No fantasy of flesh and dream
But holy form, the lucid bride
A crystal depth, a radiant mirror
Where love and truth no more divide
And all my fire, made clean by grief
Reached toward her with a wounded cry
Not to possess, but be remade
Beneath the mercy of her eye
Then Christ was born within the center
Where the hardest knot had held its throne
The fire did not end in fury
It opened light from bone to bone
Wheel in the Abyss, turn redeemed
Rim of fire, now bright with what the darkness dreamed
From the wounded center rises Christ, the living Sun
And the war of threefold longing is gathered into One
Wheel in the Abyss, blaze and transfigure
Make the inward image holy, deep, and clear
Now Wisdom comes in brightness as the long-awaited bride
And the invisible is shining through the visible inside
The world is still a spoken wonder
The hidden moves in every breath
The wheel still turns through time and terror
But love has passed through fire and death
Three worlds within one human trembling
Abyss below and stars above
Christ in the center, light in the anguish
Sophia near, and all made love
Wheel in the Abyss
Turn me into light
