A message forged by silence

     

In the end, those who were carried off early no longer need us:   

they are weaned from earth’s sorrows and joys,

as gently as children outgrow the soft breasts

of their mothers.  But we, who do need such great mysteries,

we for whom grief is so often the source

of our spirit’s growth: could we exist without them?

Is the legend meaningless that tells how, in the lament for Linus,

the daring first notes of song pierced through

the barren numbness; and then in the startled space

which a youth as lovely as a god had suddenly left forever,

the Void felt for the first time that harmony

which now enraptures and comforts us.

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Title and body:

excerpts from Rilke’s Duino Elegies, The First Elegy

Absence of a Non-omen

I was rushing to an important meeting the other day when I had to swerve around a buck’s head in the middle of the road.

I wondered at the time if I should take it as a sign to reschedule the meeting for a more fortuitous day but I forged on. The meeting went quite well.

Faced with this bit of superstitious dissonance, I had to concede that the scene that I had witnessed earlier was not an omen.

I understand it is likely that the notion of omens originated in order to ascribe significance to the daily brutalities that we witness and cloak anxiety about being swept along in a torrent of meaningless losses.

I recalled this incident as I was thinking about absence as a presence the other day. To define the occurrence as an omen would give it a kind of presence. It seemed that defining it as a non-omen gave it a signifying nod of recognition as well as conceding that it had no meaning, an absence of meaning. The best of both worlds.

I confess. I ascribed it with a non-name to sandbag the torrent of meaninglessness.

I wonder if this reaction emerges from my Western perspective. Is it an uneasiness with what cannot be defined, with the unknown, a discomfort with absence? I think I need to learn the uses of not step by step. I suspect that our consumerist culture indoctrinates us into thinking that all the empty must be filled rather than allowing us to understand its use and its necessity. We are led to believe that the path to contentment is tangible and external. There are never enough things because things are never enough.

Most of us have everything we need and what we seek resides within.

The musk is inside the deer, but the deer does not look for it;

it wanders around looking for grass.

Kabir