CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS »

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

What you want is never what you really want... alternately titled: birds and prayers.

I paraphrased my post-title from another blog, and here is her post... in the interest of not plagiarizing, which i realize is dating myself quite seriously, but there it is. 
and while she writes beautifully and seriously, it is not really my bent to do it so well. so here is alltogether different take on the vaguely similar theme of how little we know ourselves....
or me, how little i know myself... I've been reading lately, gotten back into the habit of picking books at random off the shelf of the library and just plugging until i am done.  i like it alot. i tend towards the mystery and the fantasy, very little romance and mostly of a generation past, it seems.  Chakra C gave me a book on a 'Lost Mode of Prayer'... and I've been digging that too.... occasionally i will pick up a nonfictional guide of some sort and last month's was backyard birding and so i've become the birdlady of my acreage.  Someday I'd like to have chickens but for now I have some very fat squirrels, nuthatches, more than a few sparrows and a scrawny little sad goldfinch who pecks at the nyger seed all by his lonesome self. caught a glimpse of something red once, tho no definitive cardinal sighting as of yet. i've seen a woodpecker but only once.  we have many large hawks around here and I've tried to put the feeders near bushes so they can dart and hide when a shadow passes by but ... man, I fear the shadows passing by, my own fear utterly disregarding their very important role in the backyard birding empire i am building.  there is even fear for the runt of the wildturkey litter... poor thing. while the others are all now monstrous, the little guy still looks like a little guy.  my little guy wonders why there's only one baby and all grownups now, not putting pieces together... (in truth, i am thrilled to see the runt every time, they always say 'survival of the fittest' and all... but this guy is making it... rah rah!)
the bushes are literally teaming with small birds, waiting their turn at the birdfeeder. teeming! churning bushes of bird.
the irrationality of fearing the hawks? ah. they do have an awesome beauty in their efficiency... and still the teeming is unstoppable.

I've always prayed. For as long as I can remember, I felt just fine making lists of what I wanted or crying for people i knew to get better, get with it, what have you.  I have not lately been feeling very prayerful though*, been feeling limited by words and formats and all the language that I have.  Even during the quiet of Meeting (Quaker meeting, yo.), I've been too talkative, too busy identifying what kind of listening I'm about to do... blagh. irritation with self, here insert guffaws and hair-pulling.
*its more than just feeling not prayerful, i've been feeling downright petulant and childish and overly concerned with too many of my own mannerisms and blgahblaahg. looking for changes, as always, a deepening and thickening.
Is it the aging? the fear of the shadows passing overhead? Is there a secret part of me that is unsatisfied because things have not resolved? really? what a prick i must be. or a spoiled debutante. 

Oh to learn patience and some humility may be my biggest hurdles ever. I keep yelling at the kids about it. holy fruitless projection.  holy hawk amongst the birds of the bush.

2 comments:

amyontheroad said...

i really am always checking here and always enjoying what i read. even when there're no comments, you've got an audience. and a fan.

Kate Hall said...

thanks amyontheroad amy... it does make me feel better to know you read... as lame as that may make me, for needing feedback, it really does....