Today I am thirty. A week before Christmas. The darkness of this time of year, the birth of the sun coming up, but first the death of the sun, the darkest day. Feeling split open, feeling vulnerable, trusting that I will break through.
Reading, writing, meditation, practice.
I’ve been fascinated and appalled by this idea of giving up reading. It scares me. Reading even more than writing is my home base, my safe space.
So I’m not ready to give up reading for a week. But from what I understand, not yet having read The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s idea is that reading is an escape and fills up time that could be used more creatively. Creativity means to make new space, so perhaps there’s a little infinity in all this practice. So what I will do is to shift home base from reading – when I feel the urge to fill empty space with someone else’s writing, I’ll take out my notebook and write first.
Was thinking of Emily this week, and she recommended Jorie Graham, found this poem first:
Prayer
by Jorie Graham
Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
infolding,
entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a
visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by
minutest fractions the water's downdrafts and upswirls, the
dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where
they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into
itself (it has those layers) a real current though mostly
invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing
motion that forces change--
this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,
also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something
at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through
in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is
what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only
something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.
I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.
Fiction is where I’m headed, short stories and novels. Started a game with index cards to write short stories, but the critic’s voice is louder in the space of pure imagination. This blog, my daily writing practice, these are anchors to help me reach further into creative writing.
Finished Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.
The idea of space comes up: “Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say ‘I am free to write the worst junk in the world.’ You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination” (11)
Again the idea of creativity as making space, inviting emptiness and thus moving forward, making room for something new.
Writing practice: “It’s our wild forest where we gather energy before going to prune our garden, write our fine books and novels” (13)
“… it’s better to be crazy than false” (37)
Absolutely. Still takes courage though.
Thirty is like thirty days, like the moon, like my new moon practice. Being aware of the cycles, accepting the rhythm of things, synchronicity, coming together, falling apart. The moon is always full, sure, but the moment when we see the full brightness is complete.
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