This Longing for the Village

 

This Longing For The Village

This longing for the village where everyone belongs, the trees, streams, wren and raptor, this yearning to be guided by the invisible presences  has been a thread of changing colors and textures, sewn stitch by stitch, curving, rounding, disappearing from sight beneath the ground in order to hold and protect and reappear unexpectedly again... always reappearing..

 

I think of the stitcher silently following the cues of the thread, a needle of precious silver, slipping with ease through the stretched canvas, not knowing,  really,  how the stunning beauty that is unfolding will look, when a silent interior voice gently says, "Stop."

 

This allowing and desire for the village of beauty was that day my little four year old hand was taken by my Dad's muscular hand and tender heart.  We walked silently, slowly, down the macadam street from our home, curling around the frequent pot holes, back to the middle of the narrow road, overhung by a protective canopy of trees to the beach of Lake Erie.

 

As I caught sight of the white sand and blue water my little hand wanted to run and the large hand of steadiness followed my cue and let go... so I ran across the hot, white sand and jumped, becoming a fish in the clear waters, and I found my belonging in the world of the fishes and dancing waters.

This longing to be one with all is the mystery beneath the ground we walk and the unseen presences around us, the silver needle holding the fragile thread of our lives, following our cues and lending shape and texture.

We allow the silver needle to guide our next step of belonging. 

Some days a fog descends around us and the stitcher may put down the needle and my thread and wait and listen.

This pause is a gift, this waiting until the stitcher picks up the silver needle and we move together into a deeper place of beauty, to be revealed to us both, on the far side of the horizon.

 

 

©John Holliger 2014

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