Gathering my Thoughts

Instead of dissipating our life in mere commotion, let us endeavor to recollect it so that our activity may be more profound, more consistent and lasting, and directed to eternity.

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange

This weekend I had the unusual opportunity to be home and sit in silence for extended periods of time. Of late my thinking has been scattered and distracted, and I decided to take time to settle my mind. Today I share a few words I wrote a couple of years ago, in reflection on my need for a more disciplined curation of my thoughts. I was sitting at the time in the space pictured alongside, a small room in our home in which I like to write and rest.

The space is warm. I’d like to open the window to let in the breeze, but there are paper wasps hovering just outside. Last summer they started building a nest inside, and I now keep the windows closed. As I write I hear a tapping, like soft Morse code. I move the curtain aside. It’s a wasp, trying to get in. I watch as she helicopters near the glass, then moves away.

The slender-waisted, black-and-yellow striped tapdancer at my window is a member of an invasive species, the European Paper Wasp (polistes dominulus), named for the papery nests they build under eaves, in sheds and other outbuildings. Their nests are a honeycomb of hexagonal cells that hang facing down. The paper is made from wood the wasps chew, and the nests are light but strong, in a mottled grey that reminds me of egg boxes.

This wasp reproduces quickly – an excellent invader. Some females with no nest of their own sometimes wait for abandoned ones, or mount hostile takeovers from other queens (preferably those that are mature and can supply her with workers). These interlopers then consume the ousted queen’s eggs and younger larvae and install their own. The more mature larvae and pupae are left to develop, often assisting with the raising of the new queen’s brood.

The local, indigenous South African Paper Wasp does not have the bright, striking appearance of the European invader, and is smaller – brown with alternating black bands, rimmed with fine white lines. I think they are beautiful.

More of the invasive wasps hover outside, occasionally tapping at the window. I know better now than to inadvertently let them in. Can I do this with the thoughts that so often gather on the periphery of my awareness, attempting to find ways in, trying to dislodge the quiet I’ve so carefully nurtured and cultivated? Some days I succeed; some days I don’t. Often the bright, more strident voices in my mind start building nests and multiplying.

I acknowledge that some days are easier than others in these attempts at an inner tranquility, and that patience and kindness to myself is important. This week I wish you some time in which to still your own interior landscape, and find some quiet. (You can find a tongue-in-cheek poem on distracted thoughts in my latest Cloudlight post, here. You can find a reflection on stilling the mind - with some helpful words from Wendell Berry - here.)

With appreciation,

Carri.