Seraphim's Wings

creative-nonfiction identity seraphim orthodoxy take-flight hawk ascent akathist

Finding a man who had taken his life in the woods; conversion to Orthodoxy; taking St Seraphim as patron; the flight of the soul and a red-tailed hawk — the other diptych meaning of Sweeney in Flight.

Death encountered in the forest; a name taken; Orthodoxy embraced; a hawk as witness to the soul’s flight.

Premise

This essay is the other half of Sweeney in Flight’s title — not only the mad king’s frenzy, but the soul’s ascent. It holds three linked turns: discovering a man in the woods who had committed suicide; conversion to Orthodoxy and taking St Seraphim of Sarov as patron saint; and the flight of the soul figured in an encounter with a red-tailed hawk. Together they earn the byline already waiting on the Sweeney page: S. S. Sweeney (Seraphim Scott Sweeney).

The hymn that names this piece is kept in the Eastern wing: Akathist to Saint Seraphim of Sarov.

What the essay will hold

  • The forest discovery — death at the edge of the path; what it did and did not resolve
  • Why Orthodoxy; why St Seraphim — wilderness watch, joyfulness, the hermitage as vocation
  • The name Seraphim as calling, not costume
  • The Akathist as prayer-form and title — Eastern wing prayer page
  • The red-tailed hawk — documented encounter; the feather or lure as possible closing image
  • Ascent up the mountain of the Lord — Isaiah’s wings, already epigraphed on Take Flight
  • How this panel rhymes with Take Flight’s keystone, Return of the Scriptorium: the practice of attention; here the writer both dies to an old name and begins the climb

Series position

Part of the Identity sequence of creative nonfiction. This panel belongs with Take Flight: death and rebirth, the name taken, the eagle of the Tetramorph made personal.