“We are meant to know we have lived a life and not just done this and that.”
This time between Christmas and the New Year has always been a liminal time for me, a time to set down my ambition, my brushes and normal routine. I am reminded once again that awareness needs refreshing, that there is available all around us a source of wisdom and inspiration, if only we can limit the interference. How do I make myself more accessible to — what is your word — the muse, pure being, divine presence, the mystery, god? The something that is both inside us and otherness. Being a maker is my longing for this presence. I think it is what Rilke means when he says: Only in our doing can we grasp you. It is not so much about what we make as it is being an instrument that is ready for song. The instrument needs tuning. The vessel needs emptying. This is the hour of clearing and noticing signs. Yes there are the family and friend celebrations so integral and precious to this season, but the balance of time in silence is what prepares me for the new year. The openness to what wants to come leads me to a new focus for this threshold: listening, reading, walking and arranging.
“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.