I. The Poet's Context: Body as Battleground, Language as Sanctuary
Brunilda Ternova writes from a unique position: she is an Albanian-Italian cultural mediator and translator working between three languages (Albanian, Italian, English), living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (Classic Hypermobile type)—a rare genetic connective tissue disorder that progressively deteriorates her body, including her vision. This physical condition is not merely biographical background; it is the existential crucible that shapes her metaphysics.
Her poetry emerges from what I would call "the liminal space of chronic illness"—where the body becomes both prison and portal, where pain creates a heightened sensitivity to the invisible dimensions of existence, and where language itself becomes a form of stem-cell therapy for the soul. Her work is not "about" her illness in any direct autobiographical sense; rather, her condition creates a perceptual frequency that tunes her into mystical, esoteric, and metaphysical frequencies that healthier bodies might miss.
II. Major Thematic Arcs
1. The Mystical Body and Sacred Geometry
Ternova's poetry is saturated with numerology and sacred geometry, suggesting her body—despite (or because of) its genetic fragility—has become a site of mystical revelation.
In "My Name In A Language Of Stars" (her signature work), she opens with:
"Come and see, / there are dimensions, / of nine, six and three, / concealed in me, / all immortals from antiquity."
The numbers 9-6-3 are not arbitrary. In esoteric traditions:
3 represents the trinity, manifestation, the triangle
6 represents harmony, balance, the hexagram (Seal of Solomon)
9 represents completion, the enneagram, the number of divine wisdom
This is Pythagorean mysticism filtered through a female body in pain. She is claiming that her disabled body contains hidden dimensions—that her genetic "mutation" is actually a concealed spiritual architecture. The "immortals from antiquity" suggest she experiences her body not as a modern medical failure but as an ancient temple.
The poem's structure follows an invocation pattern: "Come and see" (vision), "Come and stay" (presence), "Come life" (action), "Come love" (transcendence). This mirrors the fourfold path of mystical ascent found in Sufi, Kabbalistic, and Hermetic traditions.
2. The Alchemy of Pain: Transforming Suffering into Gnosis
"Solstice Of Mystery" is perhaps her most philosophically dense work, demonstrating what I call "the phenomenology of chronic pain." The poem's radical move is to privilege existential terror over physical death:
"The unhappy loneliness does not torment me... / but the self-induced withdrawal of the ego"
"The darkness of death does not frighten me... / but the frozen life of Me"
"I'm not frightened of the future... / but the human condition of the Self"
This is a three-stanza negation that follows the via negativa (apophatic theology) tradition—defining the sacred by what it is NOT. Ternova is not afraid of death; she is afraid of unlived life, of the ego's self-imposed prison, of the "frozen life" that chronic illness threatens to create.
The poem's title references the solstice—the moment when the sun stands still, the threshold between light and dark increase. This is her permanent condition: living at the threshold, in the liminal space where ordinary consciousness dissolves and "transcendent nature / who is not human" emerges.
The final stanza's revelation—"my transcendent nature / who is not human"—is crucial. Her illness has dissolved the boundaries of the human, revealing a "necessary multi-dimensionality" that sounds like quantum mysticism or string theory poetry. The "keys of perennial rebus" suggests she experiences reality as an eternal puzzle that pain has given her the keys to unlock.
3. Erotic Mysticism and the Beloved as Destroyer/Creator
"Metanoia" ("change of mind" or spiritual conversion) is Ternova's most dangerous poem. It begins with conventional romantic imagery—memories as anchors, searching the sky for the beloved's reflection—but descends into dark mysticism:
"I promised hell / that I will come back again, / in the time of no time, / where you ignite the chaos of my human being, / and I mold the madness of your Luciferian fire."
This is sacred eroticism in the tradition of John of the Cross's "Dark Night of the Soul" or the Sufi poetry of Rumi and Hafiz—but with a Luciferian twist. The beloved is not gentle; they ignite chaos. The speaker doesn't receive divine love passively; she molds the madness of Luciferian fire.
"Metanoia" implies that love has destroyed her previous self, forcing a complete psychic reorganization. The "time of no time" is the eternal present of mystical experience. Most striking is the gender reversal: traditionally, male mystics describe the soul (female) being penetrated by the divine (male). Here, Ternova actively molds the fire—she is the blacksmith of her own mystical transformation.
The Italian version adds sonic density: "dove tu accendi il caos del mio essere umano, / e io plasmo la follia del tuo fuoco luciferino." The alliteration of "f" sounds creates an incantatory quality.
4. The Wounded Healer as Karmic Witness
"The Guardian" positions the poet as a secret observer of human spiritual failure:
"Without their knowledge / I observe the children of the earth, / probing every day in secret, / the human forgetfulness of wrongs, / like a messenger of karma"
This is Ternova as psychopomp—a guide of souls who watches from the threshold. Her illness has removed her from ordinary social participation, granting her a panoptic perspective on "human forgetfulness." She is a "messenger of karma"—not punishing, but witnessing, "notching their exaggeration in the unconscious."
The poem suggests her disability has transformed her into an archetypal guardian—like the Hermit card in Tarot, or the watchman in Kafka's parables. She probes "the transmuted archetype of the hesitant ego"—suggesting that human egos are failed transformations of deeper archetypes.
5. The Ethics of Mortality and Hypocrisy
"Drop the Act" is her most directly moralistic work:
"On your deathbed, hypocrite, will you still care, / For the arguments won, the pride you'd wear? / All the times you crowed, so 'right,' so 'bright,'"
This memento mori tradition—reminding humans of death—takes on special urgency from someone confronting mortality daily. The poem attacks performative righteousness—the "hypocrite" who values winning arguments over authentic being. The rhetorical question structure forces reader self-examination.
The phrase "so 'right,' so 'bright,'" uses sonic irony—the words that sound like virtues become accusations when marked with scare quotes. From her position, she can see through social performances to the emptiness beneath.
6. The Threshold as Permanent Dwelling
"The Threshold" (2015) and "To The Wisdom Of Pain" both explore liminal space—the doorway between worlds.
"The Threshold" is brief but haunting:
"Through a desolate expanse, / My weary steps trace, / A well-trodden path, / Where memories interlace."
The "desolate expanse" is both physical (her body) and metaphysical (existential isolation). "Weary steps" acknowledges exhaustion without self-pity. The path is "well-trodden"—suggesting she walks where many have walked before (the path of the sick, the mystics, the exiled), yet "memories interlace"—the personal and collective unconscious merge at this threshold.
"To The Wisdom Of Pain" is her most explicitly autobiographical work about romantic betrayal:
"'Keep a place for me too, / In the background of your life' - you said, / And I, unaware, / gave you a home and shelter for years, / inside the open wounds that will never heal."
The cruelty here is exquisite: the beloved asked for minimal presence ("background of your life") while the speaker gave everything ("home and shelter"). But the deeper wound is temporal: "Because we cannot redo the past"—the voice continues to echo "like a wave," suggesting trauma's repetitive, oceanic nature.
The "open wounds that will never heal" connects her romantic wound to her physical condition—both are permanent, both become sites of unwanted wisdom.
7. Courage as Active Principle
"The Beacon" (2012) is her most conventionally inspirational poem, but even here, Ternova redefines courage:
"Courage is not the absence of fear, / But the triumph of the will to proceed"
This is existentialist courage—not the elimination of negative emotion, but the decision to act despite it. The poem uses phoenix imagery ("From the ashes of what once was lost, / Resilience rises, a phoenix reborn")—cliché in lesser hands, but earned here given her medical reality.
The structure is interesting: four quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme that creates a lighthouse rhythm—steady, rotating, reliable. The final stanza's "beacon, strong, a steadfast mark, / Of who we are, of what we should be" suggests ethics as illumination—morality is not rule-following but becoming a light source for others in darkness.
III. Stylistic and Technical Analysis
Voice and Tone
Ternova's voice is oracular—she speaks as one who has seen. This is not the ironic, detached voice of contemporary poetry, but a prophetic mode that risks grandiosity for the sake of truth. Her tone moves between:
Invocatory (calling spirits, lovers, life itself)
Apocalyptic (revealing hidden dimensions)
Intimate (whispering wounds)
Didactic (teaching the ethics of mortality)
Imagery Systems
Her work builds several interconnected symbolic networks:
Aquatic: anchors, depths, submerged lands, deep waters, waves
Celestial: stars, sun, moon, sky, dimensions, light/dark
Architectural: temples, thresholds, doors, pillars, tracing boards
Fiery: flames, Luciferian fire, phoenix, ignition
Medical/Physical: open wounds, frozen life, weary steps, deteriorating vision
Syntactic Patterns
She favors:
Anaphora: "Come and see," "Come and stay" (creating incantation)
Negation: "does not frighten me... but" (via negativa structure)
Parataxis: short, declarative sentences that create staccato intensity
Enjambment: lines that break across grammatical units, creating breathlessness appropriate to her physical condition
Multilingual Texture
As a trilingual translator, her English carries Italian and Albanian rhythms. The Italian version of "Metanoia" shows she thinks in multiple linguistic registers simultaneously. Her English is slightly strange—not incorrect, but foreign in a way that creates defamiliarization. Phrases like "the frozen life of Me" or "keys of perennial rebus" have a translated quality that makes them more mysterious, as if filtered through another consciousness.
IV. Philosophical and Esoteric Frameworks
Ternova's work is deeply informed by:
Hermeticism and Alchemy
The "Emerald Tablet" reference ("as above, so below"), the focus on transformation, the union of opposites (sun/moon, Jachin/Boaz pillars), and the language of "transmutation" all place her within the Western esoteric tradition.
Gnosticism
Her distinction between the "human condition of the Self" and her "transcendent nature / who is not human" echoes Gnostic teachings about the divine spark trapped in material existence. Her body (the "flesh") is the site of suffering, but also the portal to "necessary multi-dimensions."
Existentialism
Her focus on choice, authenticity, and death as the horizon of meaning connects to Sartre and Camus, though she resolves the absurd not through rebellion alone but through mystical transcendence.
Depth Psychology
References to "archetypes," "the unconscious," "shadow," and "ego" show Jungian influence. Her illness has forced individuation—the integration of shadow into consciousness.
V. The Poetics of Disability: Illness as Mystical Technology
Ternova's work offers a radical model: disability as mystical technology. In a culture that views chronic illness as pure tragedy or medical failure, she claims it as initiation.
Her Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome—causing faulty collagen, hypermobility, progressive deterioration—becomes the physical correlate of her hypermobile consciousness, her ability to move between dimensions, her "elastic" perception that stretches beyond ordinary reality.
The "progressive vision loss" mentioned in her biography takes on symbolic weight: as her physical sight deteriorates, her inner vision expands. She sees "dimensions of nine, six and three" that healthy eyes miss. This is not denial but transmutation—the wound becomes the eye.
VI. Critical Assessment: Strengths and Limitations
Strengths
Authentic mystical voice: Unlike much contemporary "spiritual" poetry, Ternova writes from genuine esoteric knowledge and lived transformation
Thematic coherence: Her work builds a consistent cosmology across poems
Linguistic courage: She risks grandiosity, abstraction, and prophecy in an age of irony
Embodied philosophy: Her ideas emerge from physical experience, not mere intellectual play
Limitations
Occasional opacity: Some lines ("keys of perennial rebus") sacrifice clarity for mystery
Rhyme constraints: In poems like "The Beacon," conventional rhyme schemes sometimes force conventional phrasing
Repetitive imagery: The aquatic/celestial motifs, while powerful, could expand into new territories
Didactic tendency: "Drop the Act" veers toward moralizing rather than revealing
VII. Conclusion: The Wounded Seer
Brunilda Ternova belongs to the tradition of wounded seers—poets like John Keats (tuberculosis), Emily Dickinson (seizure disorder), or Frida Kahlo (physical trauma) whose art emerges from the crucible of bodily suffering. But she is distinct in her explicit esotericism, her trilingual consciousness, and her claim that illness itself is a mystical path.
Her poetry asks: What if the "mutated genes" are actually activated spiritual codes? What if the body that falls apart is revealing the dimensions concealed within? What if pain is not meaninglessness but gnosis—a difficult knowledge of the multi-dimensional nature of reality?
In "My Name In A Language Of Stars," she writes: "Come love, / that moves my sun and, / my other stars, / to honour ourselves, / again...in my name."
The final phrase—"in my name"—is crucial. She is not asking to be saved, to be healed, to be made "normal." She is asking to be recognized—to have her name spoken in the language of stars, to have her disability re-coded as celestial architecture, to have her pain transmuted into the wisdom that she generously, courageously offers in these poems.
Her work is a beacon in the struggle—not despite her condition, but through it, because of it, emerging from the very "frozen life" that threatened to silence her.
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