NEW BLANK DOCUMENT
I have taken a kind of leave, repairing and re-creating (isn’t that the productive end of the normally aimless recreation?) myself, and to that end I spent this weekend on Ile de Re, finding great comfort in the healing light of that place. In fact, I will skip to the end, and mention that I had had a long conversation with someone about omens they had seen—and they had really encountered their own tarot in the woods. A fierce battle between two insects; a box turtle; a black snake. Well, if ever there was a time I was looking for a sign, a talisman, an omen, it’s this week. This morning, I awoke to report after echoing report—hunting season had begun and the chasseurs were after pheasant and rabbit. As the day took shape, the guns grew quiet, and the day was allowed to proceed: a gleaming example of what I have begun to cherish above all other times of year—late summer. The precious changing of the guard of the careless, blazing summer and the time of thoughtful preparation and reflection in the face of winter, mortal and dark. In fact, warmth is still the order of the day both on Ile de Re and in Seattle, to name two very different samples, until October. It’s just the filter it’s refracted through is so much more poignant, suggestive and interesting. The light gets longer, and thoughts start to take shape, find focus and bend over the length of the smoky, visible hills. In this atmosphere, this evening around 7pm, Dominique and I walked along the beach, through fields and amongst vineyards. By this time the birds were attempting to roost and the rabbits were attempting to feed. And thus the hunters set anew on them. So periodically our conversation was distracted by the puffy shocks of rifles, which truly sounds like the whipcrack of air being turned inside out rapidly. We passed an open field, and saw a rabbit in flight—a beagle had emerged from a stand of bamboo (this is a common windbreak on the island) and had smelled prey in the air. They sensed each other, but never saw each other. The dog turned to its right and searched for its master. The rabbit, 70 yards ahead and to the dog’s left continued on to some thick gorse. Luck was truly on its side. It was too early in the evening to be under the fatal jurisdiction of the owl, which was resting on a fence post, part of a fence long consumed by time, just a few wind-lathed posts in the middle of this field. I saw first the rabbit, then the dog, and then I saw a brown shape on the post—this was all visible as the field was a little bit lower than the dirt track Dom and I were walking along. I thought it was hawk for a second, but I have learned (from Dom) that when you see something you know is bird but is making you think cat it’s an hibou. Your brain registers the downy, triangular ears and the large, forward-facing eyes long before you are aware of what it is you are looking at. I immediately started towards it, going down the few yards of the grade and then I was crossing the field of dry grass and weakly interlocked vines. And after about 30-40 yards of progress I was looking at smallish brown owl. And of course, as owls will do, it looked back. I didn’t want to startle it prematurely from its rest, so I didn’t get closer than 15 feet (which is pretty close when you’re talking about wild animals). There I could see every detail: the eyes; the fluffy, huge, talons; the stripes down its chest. It was a perfect nut brown as to enable it to patrol with equal, easy command the charred grasslands of Ile de Re’s summer, the dead vegetable labyrinth of the salt marshes, and the autumnal fallow soon to come (or at least hide in those places by day—obviously, the owl is invisible and silent during the night when it is active). I observed it for a while, and made my way back to Dom. I prayed that no stray shot would take it. In fact, I was more concerned about a world without this creature than I was for a world without me.
Dom agreed with me that this was an omen of great fortune, and easy to interpret. The return of the stare, with soft, regular blinking, has long before me contributed to the nomination of the owl as a symbol of wisdom. And truly it is wisdom that I call upon in my journey through the thicket that I find myself navigating nonstop. Today in the Atlantic Ocean I swam about 400 meters, furiously, to a buoy and back, parallel to the shore, further out from the beach than all the swimmers and as far as a few kayakers, to prove to myself that I had determination and endurance in all my endeavors. With wisdom as my mark, I turn my bow towards it and marshal all the energies of my being, full steam.
Love
KS
On the train from La Rochelle to Paris
