Attention, Presence & Imagination
Grout Pond before sunrise
Alone in my canoe well before dawn. When I am silent, attentive, curious, and leaning into the world around me there is magic and mystery. The earth is alive and I am enfolded into this mysterious vitality.
I hear geese honking from afar. There is a dim light on the pond now with that mist that hangs just above the water. The geese, flying low through this mist as if they just emerged from the underworld, now have to veer from the bow of my canoe at the last moment and the tips of their wings float just a few feet from my paddle. I was awed because I had been attentive. I can’t count the times I’ve missed these encounters because of inattention, self absorption, or a conversation with others that one or both of us believed was more important than the beauty and mystery of nature around us. I wondered aloud, “Am I even welcome here when I’m not HERE“? Would I have had this encounter with the geese?
A beaver, just before the sun rose, slapped its tail into the water, gently startling me and shattering the silence. I followed it with my attention and curiosity. And what happened? It followed me with its attention and curiosity. We watched each other, captivated for 20 minutes - him swimming around me, me attentive to his space and home and paddling around him as well. Both circling in unison. The wild world around us is being true to itself all the time. Each frog, leaf, cricket, bear, and breeze is always offering itself as it is, yet it’s our attention and presence that allows us to receive their presence as gifts. And to go a step further, it is our imagination, with its predecessor attention, which intensifies the gravity of the encounter and has the power to give it meaning.
Perhaps an example of how attention and imagination hold this power would be helpful.
The day I was to be ordained as an Interfaith Minister I had been out on my deck having thoughts of whether or not I had truly earned this designation. Was I ready to be ordained a Reverend? I was wrestling with these thoughts when I noted a hawk circling high above my head being mobbed by a smaller bird. I felt this rush of chills and a confirmation in my body. “Yes Knowles, despite your doubts, you are worthy of this!” At that moment I understood that I had been ordained by Hawk. This was the highest ordination I could imagine; far superior to being ordained by an institution in my opinion. A year later, when I was about to officiate my very first wedding on a weekend in June, Hawk paid me another visit. I had just completed the wedding rehearsal and followed the procession out to the front of the Inn where we gathered in a parking lot. I stood there comfortably alone as the wedding party all chatted gleefully in anticipation for the following day. With one foot in confidence and the other with some measure of self-skepticism, I looked up into the blue air and saw Hawk again being mobbed by a smaller bird but circling much lower than before, perhaps only 40 feet above my head. No one noticed the hawk but me and the person I nudged to bring his attention to it. The significance didn’t occur to me right away until I drove home and was reflecting on the visitation. Upon reflection I said to myself aloud, “Maybe that was for me?” With that question I was overcome with that bodily knowing that grips us when we’re clear on something. And then, the tears of confirmation came; it was for me. I had been ordained by Hawk, but as if I wasn’t quite sure it could be true, Hawk came around again to say, “Yes Knowles, I’m here with you!” Attention and presence gave birth to the hawk encounter, and imagination, with its unmistakable feeling in the body that says YES, (sometimes followed by tears of confirmation) gave the experience meaning for me in my life.
How do we shift from our egocentric way of being in the world to an ecocentric understanding of our place in the great web? Go out into the woods and love the earth and its wild beings. Be attentive and present and give them the opportunity to love you too.
November 2021 addendum:
Unlike a book or a song or a poem, there is beauty in this opportunity to return to these posts at a later date and acknowledge where I’ve grown since writing them. I would like to add an evolving understanding here that has been coming into focus for me since I made this post. My trips into the woods have taught me many things so far. One of them is the understanding that the visitation by Hawk in June of 2020 was NOT a wild ordination conferred by the great bird. More than likely it was a confirmation from Hawk that my institutional ordination had been approved. AND, at the same time, it was an invitation from Hawk to seek a Wild Ordination. The confirmation & invitation was reemphasized at the wedding in June of 2021. If I hadn’t been so ego-eager to earn this designation from the wild, I would perhaps have imagined the visits probably went more like this:
“Now that the institution has ordained you Knowles, it is now time to seek ordination here from the wild. You have been properly prepared for this, now come out into the woods and we’ll make a real chaplain/minister out of you; perhaps even an Eco-Chaplain!”
And this continues to be my work as I apprentice with earth. I have so much to learn. I will be patient and let the slow process cook over a hot fire. I’m listening.
