Trinity

Revisiting Trinity

The open rose fades
and the wheel turns
Nothing stands
alone or still

Creation evolved us
who discovered rhythms
describing creation

The first realm is creation
from quarks to earth to cosmos
Why is there space
we ask the cosmos
Why should there be time

The second world evolved in time
Human consciousness has no stars
or quarks or quanta / We are not the stuff
any cosmos expected
Why am I aware / Whose presence is this

A third world maps the first
The mathematical forms that describe creation
are created within our consciousness
symmetries of beauty and grace
The circle is complete it seems

Are there other trinities 
calling to us
from the well 
of trust and presence

We remember that 
the rose fades
the wheel turns
and nothing stands
alone or still

Reflections and Connexions

While “open rose” is its own metaphor, it’s also an acknowledgement to my mother who took the photo and to Roger Penrose, the originator of what he called the 3 worlds. In the years since I wrote the poem, I have revised and added to it several times. I found that the Cappadocian Fathers of the 4th Century developed a similar theology of Trinity involving the concept of kenosis, self-emptying. In their theology the love of the Father is emptied into Christ, Christ’s love is emptied into the Spirit, and the Spirit empties her love into the Father.

In more recent times, Christian theologians have recognized trinitarian concepts in other religions. Consider also that Christian theologian Raimon Panikkar offers a triadic structure of Reality combining divine, human, and cosmic elements. He points out that none of these “parts” exist separately but only in their interdependence. This is similar to the internal structure of every proton and neutron in the nucleus of every atom, being composed of three interdependent quarks. The following is a list of a few more trinities:

mathematics / spirit / humanity

systems / souls / society

goodness / truth / beauty

Intelligence becomes faith. / Memory becomes hope. / Will becomes love.

My contribution to this edition of the trinity poem is the trefoil knot and its geometric construction with a reuleaux triangle. It is the mathematically simplest knot, other than the circle. Such knots were used in Celtic art in pre-Christian times. There are still holy wells all over Ireland. I imagine my trefoil design as one of these wells and the three-fold path around it. Each line of the haiku within the three paths begins with one of the words Thomas Merton used in his 3-word instruction to the novices in the Abbey of Gethsemani – Now / Here / This.

Grounding

You are not a drop
in the ocean, but a wave
of ocean itself.

In the beginning
God created; the Spirit
hovered. There was Light [Genesis 1-3]
Physics - in Greek meaning nature or origin -
gives us another Trinity,
3 principles grounding reality.

In the beginning was the Logos,
not necessarily reason or word,
not mythos either,
but a creative and formless mind
and source of all form and all love.
Nothing exists without Thou. [John 1/1-3]

The life/light came into being as Christ.
(13.8 billion years ago?)
This field flows and is fundamental,
a universal consciousness.
Darkness will not overcome it. [John 1/4-5]

The sand the life/light belong 
to everyone and everything, providing
a way to become and to change.
Like the Creation story, there is
appearance and differentiation. [John 1/9]

And through differentiation new structures emerge,
like space, time, matter, waves, and complex systems,
like roses, and like us. Human consciousness
is not separate from the whole.
It is a localized expression of a universal field,
full of waves like us in the image of God.
[Stromme, Maria (2025) Universal conscious as foundational field.
American Institute of Physics Advances, 15,115319]