Week 10 Essay
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this week, transcribe a favorite poem, passage, or lyric, and embed it somewhere; practice aimless wandering
what did you choose and why? parting thoughts…
reading: https://www.verticaltimeyoga.com/X%20Supplimental/reflectionsonthe.html#Introduction
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Challenge accepted. I have done something like this in the past, leaving a favorite quote tucked into a library book. This time I chose a sentence by Rumi: “I wish I could show you when you are lonely in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” I painted a little disc with watercolors, a generic figure staring into a dark field of Paynes gray blue (with some salt sprinkles for texture), with a glowing Gamboge yellow field behind them. I wrote the Rumi quote on the back and tucked it tightly into a library book, one of ten identical volumes in a book club kit, that I returned to the library. I made sure to insert it firmly since I’ve seen library staff fanning pages upside down for inserts. I think there were some racist or political inserts found in the past that they are trying to catch.
So now what? That kit will go to the big central library book kit storage to await the next book club that checks it out. The book isn’t a new one, so maybe it will be some time before anyone is interested. I feel a secret delight that some far-off day (or maybe next week) someone whom I don’t know will be part of a book club, pick up their copy and right there on page 107 they will find my tiny painting. This is great fun! I see a new stealth hobby. And if the reader finds the message personally comforting, all the better. Or they may toss it out, which is also fine.
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Dear Sue Ellen,
that is beautiful! I love the idea, the quote and that you took the time to paint something for an unknown stranger. It will be a very nice surprise for someone one day.
(I recently went to a second hand book store and the first book I chose had the name of someone I knew written inside the cover. Even though that was nothing intentional or particularly rich in content, it already felt quite precious and special.)
“Purposeless” communication into the open; an intentionally not-to-be-requited offering.
Enjoy your new secret hobby! 🙂 -
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There’s a piece from a poem I love, called Desiderata that says, “You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with god, whatever you conceive him to be.” It tends to come back to me. The whole poem is beautiful, but I love this piece because it helps me remember my place amongst the whole of the universe, which is simultaneously humbling and empowering. I wrote it on a piece of colored paper and left it in the girls bathroom at the high school I work at yesterday. Beyond that, I do not know.
I have to share that I practiced the aimless wandering just now. It’s my break period at work, and I wandered in the grass and around a hill behind my classroom. The whole walk was lovely and I noticed so many things – the unique flowers and leaves on all of the different trees, the tiny almost invisible flowers in the weeds that inhabit the lawn, the tiny insects and the birds… But there was a moment when I encountered a little field (within the field) of small purple flowers (also from a weed, I think), and with the sun shining on them and me, they SANG… it struck me with awe. Wow.
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I wrote inside a card the following:
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy…I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder…that it would last throughout life…”
By Rachel Carson from the book: The Sense of WonderI put this inside a book that I placed in one of the small “free library” stands in my neighborhood while I was outside walking my dog on a most beautiful day.
Thank you for this exercise. Such delights I think are especially needed during these very troubling times.
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Dear Sue, Anna, Tracy and Betsy,
Just a quick note to say that your writings are lovely, inspiring, helpful! Thank you.
I’ll report back on what actions I get it together to take, in the midst of all of the aimless wandering.
Hearing the field of flowers sing! What joy!
Sending love to each of you –
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