“The circle, Carl Jung once said, is the classic symbol for wholeness, or God, and the circular path an analogue for the way toward it. We are always being drawn toward it, says June Singer, and yet “to fly straight into it would be like a moth darting into a flame of the Earth hurtling itself into the center of the sun,” or a kayaker taking a hard right and heading straight for the center of Lake Superior. So we maintain an orbital tension, close enough to feel the heat, but not so close that we burn our wings. We can do no better, said that poet Rainer Maria Rilke:
“I am circling around God, around the ancient tower
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.””
-Gregg Levoy, Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, p. 158
