Leap
Discovering John Burroughs
In all honesty, I’m not sure where I saw it, although it may have been here on Substack in The Rational Act, but this adage made itself known to me recently:
Leap, and the net will appear.
This sentence - this promise - speaks to all of us who are sometimes paralyzed with indecision or fear. Others have expressed similar sentiments, some more direct than others:
“If you start to walk on the way, the way will appear.” - Rumi
“Make up your mind.” - My husband
“Shit or get off the goddamned pot.” - My father
It shouldn’t surprise you to know that I have trouble making decisions. Right now, in fact, I’m stuck on which direction to go with this article. I was going to write about the factors that make decisions difficult for me, and then share my thoughts on why some decisions harder than others, but that would be a waste of your time - a resource that is uppermost in my mind. 1
John Burroughs and “The Blue Bird”
Some basic research revealed that the sentence “Leap, and the net will appear” is attributed to 19th-century naturalist John Burroughs.
I hadn’t heard of Burroughs until now, so I did some digging on Project Gutenberg, where I was drawn to Burroughs’ book called Wake-Robin. In an essay from that book called “The Blue Bird,” Burroughs describes the birds as lively, bold, and dramatic:
“There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the male bluebird is. But among nearly all our familiar birds the serious cares of life seem to devolve almost entirely upon the female. The male is hilarious and demonstrative, the female serious and anxious about her charge. The male is the attendant of the female, following her wherever she goes. He never leads, never directs, but only seconds and applauds. If his life is all poetry and romance, hers is all business and prose. She has no pleasure but her duty, and no duty but to look after her nest and brood. She shows no affection for the male, no pleasure in his society; she only tolerates him as a necessary evil, and, if he is killed, goes in quest of another in the most business-like manner, as you would go for the plumber or the glazier.”
At the Dream Cafe
My last dispatch from the Dream Cafe, posted just a few days ago, mentioned the two bluebirds who have taken up residence in a bird house in a corner of the cafe’s greenspace. This is a big deal for me; I’ve only seen one other bluebird in my life. I come to the cafe daily, and every day my first action is to see what’s happening at the bluebird residence. they are protective creatures, hovering around anyone bold enough to near the nest.
All that to say, it was a remarkable experience to follow the trail: from a rare bluebird nest to the quote to the speaker’s works to the first essay I have ever read about bluebirds, to this post. The journey reinforced the concept of walking the way, of leaping and finding a net, of following the path -
And the path is a circle.
This kind of synchronicity is why I create. My experience supports the concept that motivation (or, in my case, inspiration) follows action. It encourages me to keep moving forward in my writing journey, just when I think I’ve run out of words. I will do the hard work of writing even when I’m not inspired, although I’m sure it won’t all be posted.
What path will you follow?
If you’re not already familiar with John Burroughs and his writing, I encourage you to check him out on Wikipedia and to click on the Gutenberg link I provided earlier. His prose is both fanciful and direct, and anything but dry.
Meanwhile at the Dream Cafe . . .
It’s evening again, the end of a warm sunny day, and I’m sitting on the cafe’s deck. I would be blinded by the sun which is sinking in the western sky, if not for the row of evergreen sentinels, those beautiful white pines that filter in just enough light to make their needles shine.
Also in the sun’s slanting rays, which are getting longer and more golden as I type, is a spider web that’s spun from the closest oak tree right up to the deck rail - a good four feet. Part of it’s floating free, unattached, so I suspect this is an older web. It’s still beautiful. The robins are singing, as are a pair of cardinals, and a mosquito just bit the back of my neck. (Not even the Dream Cafe can completely eliminate mosquitoes.)
And now my drink is gone, the sun has gone down and it is night. The mosquitos are growing bolder, and the baristas have told me there’s a surprise treat waiting for me inside - probably a muffin or a cookie from the day’s baking.
Should I try it? Of course I should.
The decision is easy.
Good night.
Other resources are also important: money, goods, our bodies - the list is endless - but time is measured in moments, and even as I think about a moment, the moment is gone.