This, then, is our ordeal.

 

The wildness here is like no other. Even in the wildest range of mountains, there is solid ground for us to put our feet on. Here, there is nothing solid.

 

No safety.

Only our boat.

 

Only our small cramped boat that is being tossed about in the wildness of solitude. Even in the sudden calm and doldrums of the sea, there is a wildness, a language that we know but can not speak. In this stillness, we languish, hoping for a wind to take us west, north, south, east. Somewhere. The horizon is everywhere. Distant; smudged and misty. No island. Nothing solid. Only the wild stillness and silence.

 

When the island appears, it seems as if it does so from nowhere. Perhaps it rose up from the bottom of the sea. Perhaps in our stillness we have moved more than we perceived. The island that called to us long ago, the island that has always called to us, has been reached.

We put ashore on the misty and mystical shore.

 

But even here, even on this island, it is as though we are on the wild sea. The island changes daily. Where yesterday a shimmering lake was to be found, today stands a proud mountain, defying our apprehension. For all of the comfort, friends and celebrations, we have not found safety. Even the wildest of seas is more constant than this island. We begin to wonder if this truly is the island that has called to us.

 

At this, suddenly, the call of return manifests itself with shocking clarity. We know that the call of return is the call to hear, and to sing, the song of the silver branch. We know, that indeed, it was not the island that has called to us, but the silver branch, whose song can be heard anywhere and everywhere.

We must put out to sea again, but this time we know the way. Thoughts of safety and of wildness are no longer important. We know that the music of what happens is in safety, is in wildness. The silver branch either sings or it does not. We begin our journey of return in earnest now. The winds, ever at our backs, will guide us unerringly in the direction of home.

We have returned home, but we are still on all of the seas and islands of our past. The memories of our journey are vivid. In the home, the memories of safety and of wildness become one. The silver branch sings the same song. It is here, that is both this place and that, both now and then, that we must tend our hearth.

This, then, is our ordeal…