PRAYING TO HAFIZ, OWL INVITATIONS, AND THE GIFTS OF PAYING ATTENTION

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A few nights ago, I went for a walk in search of owls and I prayed to the poet, Hafiz.

Wait. Am I allowed to pray to a long dead, slightly irreverent Sufi mystic and poet from the 14th century? I was taught that I could only pray to Jesus, or God the Father. You can’t just up and pray to, you know, anyone… right?

But then I thought, I have already broken the “whom I can pray to rule “I received as a child.  I not only pray to Christ and God. I have prayed to saints, my ancestors, and to the land. Amma is my name for God and Jesus has long been the dark-skinned middle-eastern revolutionary holy man of my heart. He is no longer the pale European blue-eyed baby I was bequeathed. And Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name, as my teacher Richard Rohr so succinctly puts it, but what Jesus represents. The Christ as the Cosmic Incarnation principle, “what all religious people eventually discover…that the material world reveals, manifests and hides the incarnate mystery of God.” But there was something about praying to Hafiz specifically that caught me off guard and immediately lit me up.  I’ve learned to follow those nudges.

But first, a strange segue…to Instagram. It started with my friend Jane who shared something from Nicky, who shared a poem by Chelan Harkin The poem touched me and I've learned that if I love something, you often will as well. So I tucked it away for the newsletter. Here it is:

Prayer Flags by Chelan Harkin

The work is finally moving out of your parent’s house to God’s house.

Pack up all the baggage, the loads of dirty laundry you collected there

and have dragged around your entire life

gripping tightly to your past

like a doctrine

and finally take it all over

to unload at God’s place.

The Beloved will unpack it with you,

shake it out, and you’ll both have a good laugh,

Where did you get this strange number?”

Then God will clean them off

and hang them to dry

on a line in the sun -

making them all prayer flags.

That poem made me curious to know more about Chelan’s work and Chelan herself. I discovered that she is poet who is deeply inspired by Hafiz. PING. As am I. I read Daniel Ladinsky’s translations of Hafiz almost daily. 

Next, I found an interview with Chelan where she tells a story of nightly walks and praying to Hafiz …what? Wait, what? Why had I never thought of that?  And in truth, I realized a few moments later, my heart has cried out to Hafiz in love and gratitude many, many mornings after reading his poetry. He is like a big brother and mentor and spiritual teacher all rolled into one. 

In Chelan’s story, she talks about how she basically buried her poems for 12 years, out of deep insecurity and resistance. She finally self-published her first book of poems but didn’t know what to do next. On her nightly walks, she began praying intently to Hafiz for help in getting her words out there. She asked him to round up all “the delegates on his side and hers “ as her marketing team, of sorts, because she had no idea how to get her work seen. She also reached out to anyone she knew who might have some publishing industry experience. Three weeks later, Daniel Ladinsky himself reached out to her. The man who has translated Hafiz’s poetry so beautifully. You really can't make this stuff up. 

Mystics, poets and owls can see in the dark.

I’ve been receiving owl images for a long time. But in 2021, I found myself drawn to them, dreaming about them, and actually hearing them in nature. They showed up in my journals and in random places. Suddenly, while say, shopping for a greeting card, there’s one with an image of an owl. I even found myself sketching an owls’ face on a drawing that became a sketch of Mary Magdalene. I know, random, or maybe not. Perhaps it's due to our RAS ( reticular activating system) and perhaps it somehow more than that, like meaning breaking through in the form of the owl archetype, but owls… owls owls owls …keep showing up everywhere.

On Monday night, I heard what I thought were pigeons or doves and then I remembered, wait, I live in Colorado now and close to the mountains… owls!

I stepped outside. Our backyard is fenced off but opens up beyond the fence to a grassy clearing with trees and the open sky. It's a lovely view at any time of day but sunset rocks.

I stepped outside and after squinting a minute, my eyes settled on two rounded shapes in the middle of a large limb on my neighbor’s tree. Set against the darkening evening sky two owls sat cuddled up, side by side. I did what most of us would likely do if you are enthralled by an owl sighting. I stood in wonder and awe for a few moments and then I did that dumb thing we also do next and reached into my pocket for my phone. One of them shuddered and shook the branches, opened her wings and flew over my head to another tree a few houses down to the left. It was magical. Almost nearly silent. The only sound came from untangling herself from the branches. I watched her open her wings, clear the branches and glide twenty feet above me. I knew the other one would likely follow soon so I lifted my phone and caught her flight on video. Yes, I could have just been present for the magic and not tried to capture it. But that's what I did at the moment. Since then, I have watched that video dozens of times. I looked up owl sightings and owl medicine and you can do the same if you want to know more. 

Blurry capture but a capture! Isn’t she beautiful?.

On Wednesday, I decided to go out on a night walk, an owl quest of sorts, and now inspired by Chelan, I also decided to pray to Hafiz.

I threw on my jeans and sweatshirt, walking shoes, grabbed my coat and told Ron I was going on a walk. Our neighborhood is nestled close to the mountains, with a butte in the middle of the area, so it's always a lovely walk no matter the time of day.  It was around 6:30 pm so the bare beginnings of the daytime sky melting into night had only just begun.

I intuitively followed the sounds of birds. They led the route and direction I took. I never saw my owl friends on the walk, but because I was looking, really looking while also praying to Hafiz and Christ, something magical happened. I’ll get into that in a bit.

So imagine me walking the streets of my neighborhood in the quiet of these dusk hours. The only sounds I hear are the occasional songs of baby birds in nests being tucked in for the night. As I walk in search of owls, my chin drawn upward, I pass under tree after tree, taking in thousands of mostly empty branches reaching for the sky. Beautiful in their reach and openness and emptiness and readiness to receive.

I am walking and I am praying to Hafiz. What am I praying, you ask? For his guidance, companionship, mentorship and support. “Help me, Hafiz. I have a story to tell and I want to tell it well and truthfully. I may not be writing poems but let me see with a poet’s eye. Let me feel and write with a poet’s heart.”

Being drawn in deeper and deeper by the branches reaching toward the sky, I find even my prayers go quiet. I settle into the coming night. I am learning to trust walking in the dark.

The sky is softening. So too, my heart. The limbs glow pink from the light. The fullness of my heart-prayer settles into my bones and I wipe tears of gratitude from my cheeks, smiling. No more words. Just noticing. Just presence. Just fullness. It's all so beautiful. This fragile life. This night. This walk in quiet. In darkness. The Universal Christ, the unitive mystery, radiating in and through all. Christ in Hafiz, which means Hafiz is also in Christ. Christ in me, me in Christ. Christ in the limbs of the trees. Christ in my limbs as I walk. Christ in the air I breathe. The sky. The mountains. My footsteps. It doesn't matter if I see an owl. I need no signs. The seeing itself is the gift. Being here right now is the gift. Being awake to the immense abundance of life in this moment is the gift.

Suddenly its not just a walk or a softening sky (daily miracles we so often miss) it's the interconnection, the resonance of it all in me, through me, with me, as me, beyond me. I am a part of it All. All is what I am made of. There is no separation. I AM. I AM is always with me. I belong. I am alive. I simply have to keep waking up and paying attention. And paying attention wakes me up. This is the joy of contemplation.

The poetry of living is seeing and being present. It is paying attention to life and seeing with eyes of the heart. Whether one actually writes poetry, or poetically writes, is a bonus. The gift is in the learning to see. The remembering to be. Right now. The gift is already here. We need only pay attention and wake up to it pouring out in all directions.

And with a smile, I add this. Thursday night, I passed a house on my way home and saw this funny little plastic owl on the porch. I told you… you cant make this stuff up.

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3 THINGS WORTH SHARING THIS WEEK:

1. Speaking of owls and intuitive wisdom: Seeing in the Dark: Myths & Stories to Reclaim the Buried, Knowing Woman by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Jungian psychoanalyst and bestselling author. She narrates her work and her voice and storytelling are half the magic.

   

2. A Poet
   
   A Poet is someone
   Who can pour light into a cup,
   Then raise it to nourish
   Your beautiful parched, holy mouth.
   
   ~ Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift

3. The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe by Richard Rohr

I hope you have a beautiful week. Stay curious and follow. Who knows what strands are being woven together for you and through you. Comment below and share what you’ve been noticing in your life. I’d love to hear.

xoxo Mary