New Exhibition: Winter Seeds Promise
I thought about not posting today, not on this election day in the USA, (my practice being the first Tuesday of the month ), but then I thought what better time to hear Denise Levertov’s poem Concurrence that she wrote during another time of cultural upheaval — the Viet Nam War? What better time to be reminded that while there may be “madmen at the wheel” there is also the timeless faultless blue of a morning glory, or a bluebird, or sky. There is comfort in unexpected outbreaks of blue — like now, three bluebirds checking out the bluebird house — or a poem that takes hold, or returning to the mystery that holds us all on this giant ball spinning on its axis in endless space. There is comfort in the harvest moon that has returned for billions of years without hesitation or concern for our trials. There is possibility in every first sunlight.
Each day’s terror, almost
a form of boredom—madmen
at the wheel and
stepping on the gas and
the brakes no good—
and each day, morning-glories
faultless, blue, blue sometimes
flecked with magenta, each
lit from within with
the first sunlightConcurrence |Denise Levertov
“After the final no there comes a yes”
After the final no there comes a yes; And on that yes the future world depends.
— Wallace Stevens, Well-Dressed Man With a Beard
I am writing on the winter solstice, the darkest night. I have just awoke to the first snow and below freezing temperatures here in Kentucky. The bird feeder has been blown down with gusts of wind. The whole country is in this storm. It is time to plant seeds inside, to plant prayers for the coming light, for the new year.
It is time to do the thing you are afraid to do. It is time to do the thing I am afraid to do: send my book out to publishers. I am imagining that saying this aloud to you will give me courage.
Writing peels away layers, forms questions, what do I want for my readers? I see what is probably obvious, that all my writing turns toward what Robert Johnson called the numinous “slender threads” — fate, destiny, synchronicity, faith in what cannot be told, faith in the transforming ability to make a bridge between the visible and invisible world with your hands. Give your hands something to devote themselves to. Dream while you are awake. With this devotion and attention, work naturally becomes prayer. Every kind of mending is made possible.
Happy Being Small
This morning I looked out my window at the very small garden, well garden is still an imagined thing — but the new soil has just been added, and the string to determine what is level. I had no idea that this patch of bare dirt and string would be a playground for the baby birds! A fluffy fledgling Carolina wren is turning somersaults in the dust and then hopping up on the string as if it is her very own tightrope. When I sat down I was in a melancholy mood, but after watching this display, it is a very different sort of day.
Later I went to see Frankie York, the owner of New Editions Gallery. I told her stories of talking with other artists about how lucky we are to work with her. The privilege of having someone in charge of our work who cares about both the work and the artist who made it. Someone whose gift is creating the exhibit by transforming the atmosphere in the room until the space itself is also part of the art. Someone who is interested in each person that walks in the door. What Frankie said in response to my admiration was not what I was expecting…. “I think we are all tied together”, she said, “because we are happy being small.” This touched me, that phrase happy being small, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
The Revolutionary Act of "Doing Worthy"
Doesn’t everyone have a day when things fall apart? When it takes more effort than you think you have to put one foot in front of another? When even your technical devices seem to collude against you?
My reverie, pure joy, after my exhibit was done, ended abruptly with a letter from the IRS announcing they are coming to audit my business next week. On top of this, my intrepid father, at 96, fell for the first time and broke a bone.
So my retreat here at St Meinrad, scheduled so long ago, has been infiltrated with dread and piles of papers. The amount of sorting and retrieving of records is overwhelming, seven detailed pages of requests from the IRS … which calls to mind, once again, the old Greek story of Psyche. Her first impossible task was to sort seven different kinds of seeds, filling a gigantic room, floor to ceiling, before nightfall, before Aphrodite announces her time is up. I am thankful for these stories, and for the way a story puts the human dilemma in perspective. Just this morning, on my first day of this retreat, my son, who was born a muse, called. Ma, I had this dream. In a big room were all these small piles of seeds neatly sorted, and a spiral of seeds floating upward.
There are a few spaces in my classes at ABC 2020 in Alberta, Canada this summer:
Presence and Productivity
What I want to talk about today is how to find a balance between solitude and interaction, and how bringing presence to both cultivates productivity. Being a maker requires both solitude and interaction. Quality solitude awakens your inner life, your muse and your imagination. Meaningful interaction — a conversation with a fellow traveler — fuels creativity. Joseph Campbell said: “We may as well be with those who bring out the best in us.” How you spend your days, and who you spend them with, matters.
A full day of solitude is water for the thirsty maker…on these days, I often take a long time getting out of my pajamas. Breakfast is late too, but before noon. The length of time for dedicated solitude is less important than the quality of solitude. Quality is the renewal, the welcoming of a fresh horizon, that arises naturally from stillness. Yet stillness seems so distant to the restless mind. It’s as if everything is aligned in opposition to having an inner life. There is an aversion to boredom, a craving for stimulation, and a longing for the next shiny object. Let me give you an example:
There was a research study set up to examine our resistance to “doing nothing”. The participants were asked to sit alone in a room, without moving or having access to any devices, for 10 minutes. They were given the option to sit still, or to press a button that would give them an unpleasant electric shock. 25% of the women and 67% of the men chose to shock themselves rather than sit still.
It’s as if we don’t want to allow the presences tapping on our dark and luminous world of possibility, the images that are summoning us, to actually arrive and expand our being.