Even in Sleep Your Life Will Shine

May 28, 2007 · by Christine

Camas Lilies

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground bulbs
for flour, how the settler’s hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed and
useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything,
leaving only a note: “Gone to the fields
to be lovely. Be back when I’m through
with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake.
Of course, your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

-Lynn Ungar from What We Share (Collected Meditations, Volume 2) (Collected Meditations, V. 2.)**

“Even in sleep your life will shine”–what a beautiful reminder that we need do nothing to earn our value.  I love poems that express this sentiment well, poems that celebrate being over doing. Mary Oliver writes often about her only important work being just to pay attention. Lynn Ungar asks us to consider “setting it all down—/papers, plans, appointments, everything,/leaving only a note: ‘Gone to the fields/to be lovely. Be back when I’m through/with blooming.’” 

The thought of writing such a note makes me positively giddy.  As I get older, I am slowly learning to take myself and my work less seriously. It is the fruit of embracing humility–that monastic virtue whose root is humus, meaning “of the earth.” 

At the same time, the more I let go of “paper, plans, (and) appointments” that don’t feed me, and the more I allow myself to go out to bloom, the more I experience a deep sense of peace within myself.  I am becoming the peace I want to see bloom in the world.

In a world of busyness and productivity, we need a lot more uselessness, more being, more poets, artists, and monks who remind us of the beauty we already are if we simply slow down long enough to breathe it in. I say this a lot on this blog in different ways, perhaps because I need to keep hearing it.

What is the note you need to write and leave on the door?  What is waiting to bloom within you given the time to wander the fields?

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

**I first discovered Lynn Ungar’s poetry through Panhala, when I looked earnestly for a copy of her original book of poetry Blessing the Bread: Meditations.  Sadly it is out of print and a used copy costs $50, although she does have a few poems in a collection titled What We Share (Collected Meditations, Volume 2) (Collected Meditations, V. 2.) which I do own and where you can find the above poem. I even emailed her to see about finding an affordable copy of her original book, but she doesn’t have any copies left.  I think she is quickly becoming my favorite poet, perhaps even narrowly beating out Mary Oliver for poems that make my heart sing.

(Camas lily photos taken on Saltspring Island)

Posted in Photos, Poetry, Monastic Spirituality |