The Dear Hollows of Home

Dear friends,

How could I know when I wrote my last post that I would need to “live into” this one – the one promised weeks ago?  I have been humbled to discover that my mind was too far ahead of my soul.  I have needed time to catch up to what I intended to share with you.

Of what has this time consisted?  I’ve travelled a bit, seen drawings by Michelangelo, and the astonishing color block paintings of Josef Albers.  I’ve reconnected with friends who live some far away.  I’ve been enthralled by Shakespeare and – equally – by a photograph of grazing moose a relation caught on her travels to Colorado.  I’ve read a few books, watched the Olympics.

In other words, I’ve flown hither and yon.

And now I’ve come home.  And here, I’ve been much taken up with conversations about attunement and centering.

These are some of the great gifts of Lent, if we know how to look.

For, what is attunement but our “centering down” into that state of being in which we let ourselves be led by the inner voice of truth, instead of by the voices of the culture (and our own ego) that keep us trapped in doing too much, in judgment, in frantic busyness – coerced out of our best selves into something less?

Attunement is knowing why we are saying yes, and when to say no; when to turn away from the marvelous midway of attractions — even those that come in the guise of “doing good” when it is more than we can do and stay centered.

Here, now that I have come back to my perch, the story that I had intended to use to illustrate this.

One day as I walked in the park, I happened to look up into an old pine that leans over my path.   I knew the tree well, and so I paused mid-stride.  One of the hollows seemed to have disappeared.

I stopped.  I squinted.  And then, something squinted back.

Somber and perfectly camouflaged, it was a small Screech Owl, looking out at the world.  I had discovered her home.

For the next month, whenever I walked, I made a point of passing that tree.  In the mornings she was there; if I came late, she was off hunting, or had burrowed deep into her hollow so that she became invisible.

Around this time, a friend, who knew nothing of my find, sent me an article about the high value that expert birders place on keeping the hiding places of owls a secret.  The reason is partly pride of discovery, to be sure.  But it is also partly not wanting the bird to flee if too many people crowd the privacy of its home.

How easy this is to understand!  Coming home to the place where we can blend with the surrounding scenery, inspect our finds and digest new experiences is essential – and so rare in these days.

I returned from my travels and, rather than take up my conversation here, I discovered that I needed to tramp around in my secret hollow for a while.  Mail had piled up, of course.  And the to-do lists.  But more than this, my momentum had gotten out of sync with my soul.  I needed to do a good bit of interior housekeeping, and this took time.

And so it is that I have come home to the wisdom of “homing” as a critical feature of our spiritual lives.

In our effort to attune ourselves to our deep selves, meditation is a good “hollow” to return to.  But so is knitting, making soup, raking up last year’s leaves…all of the activities that allow us, after days of hunting and flight, to land in the quiet place of home and hiddenness.   All of which I can recommend for having in the past two weeks indulged.

If flight is our yin, returning is our yang.  Balance is a spiritual value, because it enables us to grow wise from our lived experiences.   Otherwise, we are just flibbertigibbets.

May each of you find and settle deeply into your hollows so that your souls can catch up with you.