I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I‘ve been circling for a thousand years and I still don’t know:
am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?—Ranier Maria Rilke
I find much comfort in and resonance with these words of the poet Ranier Maria Rilke. I too am one who has circled and circled around God and wondered where I will land. I too am one who has tried to name who I am and yet can’t quite fit myself into the right metaphor. Spirituality for me has always been about circling and pondering, and then circling and pondering some more. It’s been about trying on and discarding, and then trying on and discarding again.
In all of this circling, though, there have been three constants in my life that nourish, renew, and bring me closer to who God is, and so, who I am. I have never known a time when nature, creativity, and solitude weren’t life-giving and life-affirming for me. My earliest memories of the Sacred are filled with fields of wildflowers, pine forests, and starry nights. However, being taught as a child that God lived in a building, I didn’t know that these truly are my God places. My hands have always reached for fabric, yarn, paint, pens, or my camera when I need comfort or clarity. I now know that these are my way of prayer. When I am in my God places, when my hands are creating with prayer, mostly I am in solitude. God speaks to me in solitude by being present in the on-going creating of the creation around me and in my own much humbler creating. This is how I know best who I am and so know more who God is, even though this knowing is beyond images and words.
Rilke wrote the words above when he was in his early twenties. I am so much more than double his age. If he circled for a thousand years, how many years have I been circling the primordial tower? Do I still not know who I am? More and more I take peace and joy in the not knowing, in the sacredness of the circling. Rather than a dizzy spinning that hopes to land somewhere, I am caught up in a sacred dance with creation, creating, and the Creator.
—Deborah Hansen