On the day when
the weight deadenson your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
-John O' Donahue
More then a few months ago, a friend in facebookland commented on one of my photos of Pax, my son, that I needed to get "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom" by John O'Donohue. A few months after that, I finally looked it up, as it had been buried in my subconscious all that time, in the inner world that O'Donohue and the ancient Celts speak of. I ordered at that time a book of blessings by O'Donohue, but not Anam Cara. It didn't feel that it was yet the time. I have long had a strange and mystical affinity with books. They show up when it's time, or if they show up before it's time, something deep within me tells me to leave it on the shelf.
On my birthday many years ago, after being told by many goddess friends many times that I should read Clarissa Pinkola Estes Jr.'s seminal work "Women Who Run with the Wolves," the book quite literally magically appeared. I went to a recycling center somewhat randomly on said birthday and teetering on the edge of the dumpster that normally held nothing but old encyclopedias and text books with broken spines and missing pages was a mint copy of the book glinting in the sun. On another occasion, Jaguar Woman by Lynn Andrews, appeared on a common area table in my apartment building where things were left to to be swapped. These two, and other books showing up just when they did, and just in the way that they did, had profound effects on my internal and external life.
Those experiences feel like lifetimes ago and it's been more then a few years since a book has called to me in a magical way. I read the blessings book when I received it right away, and loved it, using it constantly and carrying it in my purse and then leaving it bedside. Occasion after occasion would find me referencing it, reading a blessing a loud, taking screen shots and sending the poems digitally and copying them into cards for friends. I haven't loved a "prayer" book this much in a long time.
Two days ago I heard that voice, "now." And so I ordered the original book that was sacredly recommended to me and upon opening it and reading just the first few words, which I've included above, something ancient flooded back to me. I'm sure I'll be able to better articulate just what that is as I journey through its depths. Anam Cara calling to me certainly wasn't quite as ostentatious, but it was insistent. And two days ago, from somewhere deep within me, even in the midst of another activity I heard that small voice say, "now."
I have long wanted to resume my writing, and this blog. Motherhood has blessed me and now that Pax has passed the one year mark, that still small voice is nudging me to listen deeply to the innermost landscapes of my soul, and to share some of what I find there.
And in I go....
No comments:
Post a Comment