Woman

The following passage is from Guido de Giorgio, and is translated from Aforismi e Poesie (Archè, Milano, 1999).

Woman has sovereignty of love that man does not know, because she is receptive, and virgin, and mother, and, yes, naturally, Eve, but supernaturally she is Maria, and these two symbols of Fall and Resurrection are alternated in her bosom, lowering her and raising her up, making of her the guaranty [arra] of death and of life, of becoming like a beast and of the mystical union with God.

And this is the true mystery of woman, the ambiguity of Eve-Maria, flesh which is made spirit and spirit which is made flesh: in this double alternation, there is a secret that man does not know and that dismays him. Infinitely more free, more spontaneous, more decisive than man, the woman seems to surpass him in what man lacks, receptivity, but is surpassed by man in innocence, a childlike conscience, and spiritual clarity. When sex becomes unitary – in mysticism, in the saint – we can no longer speak of the antithesis because then Eve is no longer Eve, but Maria, Maria mother of the Christ through the work of the Spirit of God who inundates her with wisdom …

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