The Owl Returns
Map of Regrets, (in progress) detail 30 X 40, L Doctor
This morning before dawn, the owl returned. I wrote this haiku:
Morning draws near–
a barn owl calls from the dark
to one more sunrise.
How many sunrises have you seen? And how many millions have there been? Or billions? All of our ancestors have seen the same sun.
When you look back on your life and take the time to see what is important to you, are there images, themes, or ideas that recur?
It is the revisiting of an idea, a poem, a place, or a stumbling block– that deepens understanding.
I keep circling back around poetry, or even the same poem, because it’s the return that strengthens my ability to apprehend. It is the same thing with a special place in the landscape. For example, after many years of returning to Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, I had the sense that the open spaces, the buttes, perhaps even the stars and ravens, knew me. I can say this with confidence, because it restores the direct experience we all had as children– our senses alive with endless curiosity and possibility.
My friend, Amelia, who is seven years old, is the daughter of the millwright and a writer in the woods across the road. I fear she is a vanishing species of a child who plays outside in the woods, rather than on an iPad. She invited me to an exhibit of her paintings. We had lemonade and cookies. Below is one of her paintings:
Amelia Hassett, Age 7
A whole-hearted painting of the sea! The sense of immediacy and wonder for the ordinary is essential for igniting your work and balancing the overload of information and anxiety about the world.
Our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it. (Joseph Campbell)
I circle back to particular poems, landscape and stories– with their endless possibility for transporting me out of time and worry.
This poem from Rilke comes to mind:
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
(Book of Hours)
The German:
Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen,
die sich über die Dinge ziehn.
Ich werde den letzten vielleicht nicht vollbringen,
aber versuchen will ich ihn.
Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm,
und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;
und ich weiß noch nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm
oder ein großer Gesang.
Here we see Rilke's willingness to begin again:
I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.
Ich werde den letzten vielleicht nicht vollbringen,
aber versuchen will ich ihn.
What do you give yourself to wholeheartedly? What images, incidents, places or themes recur in your life? I'd love to hear from you.