Ever Once in on I Continue Circling

I have been thinking about circles lately,

where we find them in nature, how a heavenly body will travel around a bigger, brighter body than itself, orbiting forever, if it could.

I know that Newton's First Law of Motion is that an object in motion stays in motion and I guess if you're circling, you will continue circling—forever.

I have a deck of cards that I returned to every morning for a few months and on the inside is a poem written by a man named Rainer Maria Rilke that talks of living life in ever-widening circles, and

"Perhaps I shall never reach the final circle, but attempt I will.

I circle around God, the ancient tower,

and have been circling for a thousand years,

and still I do not know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a continuing great song?"

The poet knows what it is to stay in motion, eyes fixed on the body that pulls on you by some force.

I like to think of myself as a storm, a falcon, a great song. In my mind there is a tower made of dark stone, with dark windows, old, crumbling, and shooting into the sky and I am beyond it, above it, around it, circling ever-widening, eyes fixed on it.

Judee Sill sings,

Lopin' along thru the Cosmos,

And sideways I slide thro the square,

I'm hopin' so hard for a kiss from God,…

I'm lookin' so hard for a place to land,

I almost forgot how to fly

So keep on movin',

Or stay by my side, either way,

I'll tell you a secret

I've never revealed

However we are is O.K.

I remember a time in my life where I stood in a circle with people I felt were beautiful. We loved God, feasted in the tower, kneeled in prayer at the window. We stood in a circle, holding hands, singing a great song about the circle being unbroken.

I wanted a tattoo on my shoulder of a thin circle to symbolize that beautiful, unbroken shape.

In school, I would draw in the margins of my notes and textbooks, swirls that resembled tornados. An orbit that I would make smaller and smaller and smaller. I would start at the top, creating ever-narrowing badly drawn circles until I couldn't make them any smaller. One year during standardized testing I had a blank piece of paper I would pull out every time I finished testing with time to spare. I would draw flowers made of circles. By the end of the week I had filled the entire page with flowers of varying sizes. It was actually just a page full of circles.

I spent time in Hawaii recently and my friend and I would go out into the lagoon at night and sit in the still water. In the distance, we could hear the waves crashing as they naturally do. Over and over again the tide returns, circling the island, breaking on land, leaving and returning.

My friend got a tattoo of the Tower tarot card. It shows a tall tower on fire, struck by the lightning of a great storm. There is a person falling, having jumped out in desperation. She said the card represents radical change and the need to move on to a new set of beliefs, leaving behind what is no longer best for you, fearfully and painfully, but with certainty.

There is another song,

Well the night is gone

And the shadows clear

When I hear my song

The grave beneath

See what you want

But the rising tide

I'm a force of god

A thousand lives

I take what I want

'Cause I'm the frightening sky

I'm a selfish man

Designed to die

But is it heaven up there?

But is it heaven up there?

But is it heaven up there?

I have been thinking about circles a lot lately. The truth is, I can't think about circles without thinking of God as a great tower. I do not see circling God, as a great storm, a falcon, a sovereign song, as an act of love. I circle that which I cannot figure out, that which has a pull on me. The Heavenly Bodies do not feel anything for the sun, but they circle still. God has a gravity of his own. I circle, ever widening, but I circle still. I keep my eyes on God. A wary falcon, a strengthening storm, a selfish woman designed to die. And I wonder how

How am I supposed to stop circling

An object in motion, in a straight line, tends to stay in motion, in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force. It turns out, circles don't even count. Newton's first law of motion doesn't even matter. It's not even relevant. Plus, it never even happens in real life. We live in a world made of outside forces.

I did not know until now that Rainer Maria Rilke published his poem in a collection called

Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

ruddwhoween1950.blogspot.com

Source: https://ladyheaven.substack.com/p/ever-widening-circles

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