(Sunday afternoon conversing with Oliver1 and Emerson2)
Sunday afternoons are quiet.
Well, quiet in the house but my mind is not at silent, for I just read invigorating poems by Mary Oliver and some essays of Ralf Waldo Emerson – one’s mind cannot be silent after a conversations with these two in the same day.
Together, we sat on the floor while the wind blustered around outside, and we gently conversed along with the wind. I began to experience a rift in “Mr. Death’s long black coat” as Oliver and Emerson leapt through the ink-stained pages into my bedroom.
They did most of the chattering, since they are long-time friends, and I did my best to listen attentively. Emerson talked about being “immersed in beauty” but our eyes had no clear vision of it. “How does one see the beauty one lives in?” I asked curiously.
“There is nothing more pathetic than caution when headlong might save a life, even, possibly, your own3” Oliver looked at me as one so much younger than her, “For how many years did I wander slowly through the forest. What wonder and glory I would have missed had I ever been in a hurry!“
Emerson adds, “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not“. He continues speaking about how a life cultivated with quality character is a masterpiece in an of itself. We are active agents of beauty in the world, not just as artists, but as people sharing in humanities greatest virtues.
Oliver nods along in meditative agreement. She adds quietly, “Everyone wonders about the questions that do not have ready answers. The roses say, ‘Forgive us, but as you can see, we are just now entirely busy being roses‘.
“In happy hours, nature appears to us one with art; art perfected – the work of genius” Emerson added on.
Peacefulness fills the room, outside my window I see a squirrel playing in the trees – jumping around with the birds, and I can’t help but laugh. The joy of seeing a creature in nature with no regard for anything else. And I begin to ponder how God sees me when I play around in the world He has put me in.
Emerson observes the same squirrel, then turns to me, breaking me out of my meditations, saying, “A squirrel leaps from bough to bough and making the wood but one wide tree for his pleasure, fills the eye not less than a lion – is beautiful self-sufficing, and stands then and there for nature.”
Together, sit admiring the beauty outdoors together. Their words fill me with a luminous hope, and I dare to ask a question again, “Tell me, how does one become a true artist?”
“Art is the need to create; but in its essence, immense and universal, it is impatient of working with lame or tied hands, and of making cripples and monsters, such as all pictures and statues are. Nothing less than the creation of man and nature is its end. A man should find in it an outlet for his whole energy.” He paused thoughtfully, then continued, “Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production a new and fairer whole. Thus in our fine arts, not imitation but creation is the aim.“
He looks over to Oliver with a subtle nod, an encouragement to add in. She smiles back, reminiscing of days long ago. “I wrote and read in a way to save my life.” She paused thoughtfully, then added softly, “Attention is the beginning of devotion“.
“Yes, the power depends on the depth of the artist’s insight of that object he contemplates“, Emerson affirms. I think he would agree Oliver had great power due to the depth of her contemplation, but he never said so explicitly during our afternoon.
Oliver looks at me grinning, “The one thing he is adamant about is that we should look – we must look – for that is the liquor of life, that brooding upon issues, that attention to thought even as we weed the garden or milk the cow.“
Then she turned to him and said, “Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.”
The shadow grew longer and I knew our time was coming to a close. I looked around, gratefulness and sorrow swelling in my heart. A plea arose and was given space, “Please don’t go, I still want to talk to you. There is so much… so much left unsaid”.
They looked between one another, already starting to fade into vapors and smiled. It was Oliver who got the last word, “We are always with you,” she looked at something imperceptible to me, and addressed something over my shoulder, “We have no trouble slipping out of your long black coat, oh Mr. Death”.
As quietly as they came, they left. Yet, left in their spot as the covers folded closed was a Presence sitting next to me, the friend who remains closer than a brother. And, on this quiet Sunday afternoon, I picked up my pen and wrote long into the night about the beauty I was immersed in, eyes opened by the Creator Himself.
Hannah Rachelle 
Leave a comment