It's October and there is a chill in the air. The leaves are turning color. Nature is settling down for its winter sleep. This is the time for walking and the time to curl up in a cozy corner and read. I still like to hold a book and turn the pages when I read. I have a library downstairs and have discovered that when I read a book for the second time after a number of years, it seems like I haven't read it before! A book speaks to me in the circumstances in which I find myself at the time of reading it. I have a granddaughter who grieves when she finishes reading a book she loves, because she can't bear it that the story is over!
Franz Kafka, (1893-1924), an Austrian-Czech novelist and writer from Prague wrote : "If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...We need books to affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into a forest far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
A book did that recently for me as I read it for the second time. I read it years ago.
Martel tells the story of a young boy who is in search of spiritual meaning, even though his parents are secular. He finds himself stranded on a lifeboat, the only survivor of his family who were on a ship headed for Canada. Some of the zoo animals his father had raised are also on the ship, and several end up in the lifeboat with him.
Having just experienced the loss of a partner of over fifty years, I identified with this boy and his struggle to face overwhelming fear and anxiety, while at the same time dealing with his grief. It was a cathartic read!
If reading and writing isn't your thing, there are other ways of telling and receiving a story. I have a brother-in-law who does intricate carvings from pieces of wood and acorns and seeds. The one below
he called Ein Spaziergang. (A Walk). He made it for me after Hardy passed away. The body is made from oak acorns Hardy and I picked up in Chortiza, Ukraine, while visiting the place where I was born. The base is made from a piece of shale found at Falcon Lake. My brother-in-law calls his creations J-Korns by Jansen. Each one is accompanied by an explanation. The explanation for the one below:
A J-Korn couple is enjoying a walk on a beautiful spring day in Kornucopia. He is supporting himself with a walking stick and she is carrying a parasol to shade herself from the sun.
One of my sisters creates beautiful quilts for her numerous nieces and nephews. She tells the story through symbols. The one below is in the process of being created for one of my daughters. The middle panel shows a church to indicate her calling as a pastor. The bottom panel has her and her husband's initials. The candles and the teapot show that they are relaxing together.
Nature tells its own stories.
I wonder what this tree is telling us?
