I’m searching for my voice,
listen…is it here?
Mine is a voice of prosody, though
sometimes of verse
It has rhythm that often falters,
skipping, out of time
It meanders like a cat, its tail
waving
I have seen my voice in print, I
hope it sounds like me
I am looking for it here, it might
be lying in a notebook
or a scrap of paper, a random scribble on a page
What does it mean to be a farmer anymore?
Who owns that title?
Is it the…
Landlord-farmer, floating above
the loamy-green
Detached from the earth
The farmer who does not plant or
work in the soil
Absent from the field
Tractors driven by satellite, the
spring plantings
Artificial stars
Who is the farmer? The landlord or
the field-hand
The sewer, reaper
Crawling down the rows, fingers pressed
into the dirt
Seeds and prayers and hope
Is she the farmer; is he? The unnamed
hireling
Toiling in the sun
Sweat dripping from the brow, laborers
watering
Nameless boys and girls
People without a claim, or recourse
to the law
Dreamers without land
Dolomites crumbling
Shattered in the wind and rain
Jagged mountains fall
Icey fingers twist
Prying into limestone hearts
Ancient glaciers weep
Beautiful wreckage
Lifted to the morning sun
Countenance of stone
Today is the feast of Saint Patrick, today
we celebrate his sainthood, and the ascendance to heaven of a British man, of
Roman heritage, who lived sometime between the fourth and fifth centuries CE.
Patrick
is the Patron Saint of Ireland, but he was not Irish at all, he was a Roman of
the Patrician class, from a family of rank and privilege.
Patrick
(Patricius) is credited with converting the people of Erin to faith in
the Universal and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, in so doing he separated
the Celtic people from their Gaelic traditions, subordinating them to the
Catholic Church in Rome; he won with the Word what could not be accomplished through
war, by sword and spear, by fire and blood and for this Patricius was named
a Saint of the Church.
It
should be noted that Saint Patrick has never been canonized, or even beatified not
by any Pope, therefore Patrick is not officially a Saint of the Catholic Church;
nevertheless, he is recognized in the annals of the Saints of the Church of
England, I hope that all my Irish kinfolk appreciate the irony of this.
It
is an irony worthy of song.
History
tells us that Patrick was a humble man, a rare quality for those of rank.
History also tells us that he himself proofed the plan of spreading the faith by
converting the Irish chieftains first, this became the model for proselytizing and
missionary work throughout Northern Europe.
Patrick
was a politician of great skill. He spread the faith, established churches and earned
the rank of Apostle by popular acclamation.
History
tells us that his mother was a relative of Saint Martin of Tours, the Patron
Saint of Soldiers otherwise known as Saint Martin of the Sword, whose biography
was written by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, and history also tells us that
this a work of pure fiction; Saint Martin never lived, even so, his story gave
license for Christians to become soldiers, to serve in the army and as such his
story brought the Roman legions into the fold.
Patrick
was said to have had a “heroic piety,” praying day and night, in the mountains
and in the woods, he prayed through the rain and through storms of snow and
ice, he should be the patron saint of post men if this were true, but then
again…all hagiographies are lies.
His
story tells us that he spent six years as a captive and servant to a Celtic
Chieftain, the Druid named Milchu in Dalriada, where he mastered the language
of the common folk and learned all of their stories.
However,
if you appreciate history you will know that it is much more likely that he
fled his home to wander abroad in order to escape the duties that were expected
of him as the son of a nobleman. Such departures were common in his time, they
were referred to as the “flight of the curiales,” and you may conclude that Patrick
was no captive at all, he was just a boy running away from his
responsibilities.
Rather
than being taken captive it is more likely that he paid for asylum in Milchu’s
house, and that while he was there he paid for the services of tutors who helped
him learn the language. The Druids were great teachers and oral historians, this
much we know is true.
The
story of Patrick’s escape (if it was in fact an escape from servitude), and
subsequent journey were of his own account. He cast the entire experience in
dramatic, even biblical terms, which served both to cover up his crime of
abnegation and to establish his fame.
It
is said that Patrick escaped from Milchu and then fled to the mainland of
Europe where he entered the priesthood and became a missionary. On his return
to Ireland however, the first place he went was to his former home in Dalriada.
Where, after some period of conflict with his former captor (or patron) and the
affectation of some miracles on Patrick’s part, Milchu is said to have immolated
himself in order to make way for the upstart Patrick, throwing himself on a
fire after burning the collected scrolls and mysteries of his people.
This
event may be seen in metaphorical terms as Milchu offering himself as a human sacrifice,
at the foundation of the church in Ireland, that is how Patrick wrote it.
In
reality the whole episode denotes the ritual destruction of the Celtic people
in favor of the ascending Romano-British invaders.
On
Easter Sunday, 433 a conflict of will ensued between Patrick and the Celtic
Arch-Druid Lochru, historians mythologized it as a battle of divine forces like
the contest between Moses and the Egyptians or Elijah and priests of Baal, and
it ended with Saint Patrick magically hurling Lochru into the air, before he
broke the druid into pieces on a sharp rock.
It
was another ritual murder at the foundation of the Irish Church, another human
sacrifice to be sure; there is no other way to read it, this was a good
old-fashioned Roman slaughter.
On
a side note, while speaking of his vaunted magic powers, and not to be outdone
by Jesus, this same Patrick was said to have been able to raise the dead.
It
should be noted the Saint Columbanus, the Patron Saint of Poetry, who was the
most significant representative of the Irish Catholic Church after the Dark
Ages, who lived and wrote and sent missionaries from Ireland to Continental
Europe, where they built Churches and founded religious communities, Saint
Columbanus (otherwise known as Columba or Colmcille) makes no mention of Saint
Patrick in his writing, not once, not anywhere; on the contrary Columbanus
tells us that the Church in Ireland was founded by a man named Palladius.
I
think it may be said that the entire legend of Saint Patrick is little more
than a myth designed to subordinate the Irish heart to a British nobleman of
Roman descent, and a fictitious one at that.
Be
mindful when you celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day!
Rounded moments shift
Undulating curves, breathing
Aphrodite’s smile
There is nothing fixed
Curling waves, white with foam
Salt and sand are mixed
Wind strafes the beach-grass
Winsome reeds dance in the sun
Sighing in the dunes
Time is linear
Rising crest, falling trough
Crickets play staccato
#Poetry
#Haiku
#Senryu
#Tanka
#Haibun
#TheBookOfSparrows
The sky is powder blue
The sun, unnaturally bright
A silver disk of light
Melting the few remaining patches of dirty snow
There is a buzz in the air
And birdsong
The feeling of spring, and joy
At its early return.
Brenda lived most of her life writing and teaching in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the city where I grew up, and within a mile or two of where I have lived most of my life.
I
was well into my forties before I even knew who she was, and from the moment I
read her book: If You Want to Write I
knew that I had found a mentor whose simple prose and honesty could guide me in
the maturation of my own work.
Brenda,
taught writing at the YWCA, she published a memoir about her life growing up in
Minneapolis and she wrote as a columnist
for local newspapers and magazines, she wrote for national publications like Harper’s
as well.
Brenda
was born in Minneapolis at the end of the nineteenth century; she spent her twenties
in New York City where she was connected to various movements in arts, literature
and politics. She was a proto-feminist and a revolutionary thinker, and she
came to all of that with a simple self-assuredness that was her defining
characteristic.
This
is why she is a hero to me…her teaching, which she summarized in her treatise
on writing, provides the most simple and profound guidance: she tells her
students to find their own voice and write from there.
She
encourages people to simply be themselves, to tell their stories with the
written word as if they were speaking to their closest friend, to shout when
they are shouting, and to whisper in the time of whispering.
She
told them to be true to themselves, to write with authenticity, because she
says: the reader will know if you are faking.
She
encourages people to listen to themselves, and to become familiar with the
sound of their own voice.
Her
book on writing had been out of print for nearly forty years until, a few years
after her death in the 1980’s when it went back into production and became a
best seller.
Like
Brenda herself, her book was ahead of its time, and is the best treatise on
writing I have ever read.
Below
is an essay I wrote as a response to her advice:
Inspiration and
Futility
Alternating
Between the Poles
This essay examines the role that inspiration has played in my creative
life; as a writer, as a thinker, as an academic.
Inspiration
is a broad and multi-faceted
subject, I focus on three aspects: the moment, the content, and the expression
of inspiration.
So that I may avoid engendering the
misperception that my creative life has been an extended moment of awe, mystery
and transcendence, I will also present a discussion of my struggles with a deep
and pervasive sense of futility regarding my creative mission, a negativism
that has dogged me like a cynic over the years.
I have a sharp sense for the inspired
moment, moments that come in many ways, and not all of them my own.
There are not enough hours in the day for
me to list the catalysts that have informed my creative drive, but when they
come together, those disparate things and beings, those moments when memories
interact with consciousness in real-time, when relationships become apparent
that had never before been discerned, when, like alchemy, or a flash in the
pan…wham!
The creative spirit comes.
In those moments, when my attention is keen,
my attention is singular, a path toward the end of a creative ambition becomes
clear, and my will becomes fixed on a specific set of steps, like the choreography
of a dance. That is the inspired state, when burgeoning insight is
precipitously balanced with a readiness to act.
These moments come to all of us, we sense
them when they do. The wise will seize them, dwell within them, and linger in
their space.
True inspiration
is more than a feeling.
The truly inspired moment comes into
consciousness with content, it is the flash that both illuminates and
enlightens. It is a flare in the dark whose sudden eruption points the way,
either out, or in.
When inspired content first springs to
mind it is like that brief look you are allowed, of the image you are trying to
construct from a jig-saw puzzle. There it is, in your mind, for a moment, and
now you have to put it all together with only the memory of that vision to
guide you.
The inspired moment is more than a
feeling, more than awe, more than a sense of mystery, or of transcendence, but
feeling is an essential part of it, and that feeling is not a tepid one.
Inspiration is light; yes, but not without heat. It
is hot with imperative, with the command to do; to write, to stand, to move.
Inspiration
is like the germination of a seed,
a seed that is fully formed in its flower, and expressed completely in its
fruit.
Inspiration is a force. It is dynamic. In a literal
way, inspiration is the movement of
the Spirit within us, enlivening, vivifying, it is as much a part of us as the
air we breathe. It is a “divine guidance or influence exerted
directly on the soul of humankind.”[1]
To speak of inspiration in its aspects,
or its parts, is somewhat artificial, perhaps impossible, as if when speaking
of a wave you can name its peak, and its trough, without acknowledging that the
two are essentially one, alternating and changing.
The inspired
moment must be followed by a genuine enthusiasm for the work that lies ahead,
enthusiasm which is itself synonymous for the indwelling of the divine.[2]
When the inspired moment comes we must find a way to let it be within us.[3]
Inspiration
is personal. It
occurs in the lives of real people, and though it comes with great power, it is
nevertheless subject to the cares and concerns of the individual, but the
caring for it comes throughout the course of our daily lives.
Brenda Ueland says this about inspiration:
Inspiration does not (in fact) come like a
bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving but it comes to us slowly and
quietly all of the time. But we must regularly and every day give it a chance
to start flowing, and prime it with a little solitude and idleness. I learned
that when writing you should not feel like Lord Byron on a mountaintop, but
like a child stringing beads in kindergarten – happy, absorbed, and quietly
putting one bead on after another.[4]
It may appear that Brenda has said
something different or contradictory to what I said about inspiration in part I of this essay, but she and I are not
necessarily speaking to divergent ends.
I have talked about the power of inspiration as a force, about its flash
and dynamism. Brenda says that inspiration
it is not that. I have been talking about the beginning of inspiration, she is talking about what comes after the inspired
moment.
Brenda is talking about living with
inspiration, about the inspired life
that comes after the vision, she is talking about the falling rain, after the
thunder claps and the clouds burst.
What Brenda is talking about is the
more important part of inspiration.
The inspired moment may fill us with vision and give us purpose, but nobody
(nobody that I know of) can live out their lives in that ecstatic state.
Inspiration is like electricity. There is so
much power in it. To stay in the inspired moment forever would burn us up.
The key to living with inspiration, to carrying out the
inspired vision we have received, is
to regulate that power. We regulate it through habit, ritual and disciplined
work, like stringing beads together in
kindergarten, Brenda says we must allow for some downtime, in order to give
our circuitry a break.
Having space, being quiet,
experiencing emptiness, these are essential for cultivating inspiration.
Doris Lessing, says in her Nobel
acceptance speech[5]:
“Have you found that space, that empty space, which should surround you when
you write? Into that space, which is a form of listening, of attention, will
come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas—inspiration.”
Like Brenda Ueland, Doris Lessing
is talking more about the care for, and the nurturing of, the creative-will
within us, what I would call the expression of inspiration and the cultivation of its content. This is something
that should be differentiated from the inspired moment itself.
In Part II of this essay, Nobel
Laureate, Doris Lessing strikes the most vital point. She addresses the need to
listen, to listen to one’s self.
It is altogether easy to listen to
our inner critic, that insipid, clamoring voice knows exactly how to get our
attention, but how much more important, and life giving is it to listen to our
creative voice, to hearken to it music, and care for it, like the gardener who
cares for the tender shoot as it pokes its stem up from the soil to unfurl its
fronds.
For art to find its expression we
must give our creative voice the attention it deserves, turn to it rather than
the noisome din of the inner critic?
We must listen to the clear pealing
of the bell, whether it is faint or loud.
Brenda Ueland said this in
reference to the power of listening in her essay Tell Me More:
I want to write about the great and powerful thing
that listening is, and how we forget it. And how we don’t listen…to those we
love. And least of all, to those we don’t love. Because listening is a magnetic
and strange thing, a creative force.
When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us
unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life…It
makes people happy and free when they are listened to.
When we listen to people there is an alternating
current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. Now
this little creative fountain is in all. It is the spirit, or the intelligence,
or the imagination—whatever you want to call it. If you are tired, strained,
have no solitude, run too many errands, talk to too many people, drink too many
cocktails, this little fountain is muddied over and covered with a lot of
debris. The result is that you stop living from the center…it is when people
really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention, that the little fountain
begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising ways.[6]
Take these words about listening,
about how we feel when we are listened to and relate them to our creativity.
If we can slow down, be fascinated
with our ideas, and attentive to our own needs, then we will have the time to
express our creative voice.
If we listen to the stirring of the
heart, that stirring will grow into a song, and then a chorus, with a symphony
to follow. It will expand and unfold within us encompassing both our heights
and our depths, extending itself throughout our lives while conjoining our
peaks and troughs, making of them a singular unbroken wave.
What we have discussed to this
point, in parts I – III of this essay, that is the flowering side of the
garden. It is the place where we love to be, when everything is growing well
and going right, but there are many times in our lives, countless times, when inspiration strikes and is not received.
when it is received and not acted on, when it is acted upon and is not
fulfilled.
There are many forces; both within
us, and without, that are opposed to the power of inspiration. They are the menial and the mundane, the day to day
duties that obscure our vision, the doubts that disrupt the voice of the muse,
the cold fingers of fear clutching at the heart, tearing at the will, and the
hand that stills them.
The death of inspiration comes through that inner critic, the one who tells us
that our work is futile[7], frivolous, and useless,
the one who spreads the debris and the clutter that covers the bright and
bubbling fountain within us.
The Spirit blows where it will, and
reaches everyone. The muses[8] sing to us all. Whether we
think of the force of inspiration as
divine, as a gift that comes from without, or as an innate power that is
inherent to our being, as our “true self” speaking to us. When the moment comes
we must, each of us, fit it into our busy lives, either that or forget about it
and watch it fade away.
Brenda Ueland says[9] that “the true self is
really the Conscience (or God)” not speaking to us about “morality or
convention” but daring us to explore the “truth (in ourselves) toward bravery
and the greater life.” When you find that truth, she says, your true self, “and
see how gifted you are, you can write as slowly as you want to.” You can let
the world be the world, and not let it set you off the course of fulfilling
your vision.
The weal of our life will turn, our
inspiration will rise with it, if we let
it. We will lift from it, and jump off it, just as we reach the apex of the
curve, or the moment will pass, as we cling to the wheel, as it turns around,
and down we go, pushed into the ground of uselessness and futility.
I have been inspired, felt the
spirit of inspiration move within me.
I have been overcome by the hot flash of a great idea, felt the deep desire to
act, heard the voice within me speaking; slowly, steadily, quietly; and at
other times; fast, demanding, and loud. I have not always listened, but then
again, I have not always known how.
The moment of inspiration can be startling. As awesome as inspiration can be, it is not always brought about by the sublime,
the divine and the lovely. Truth, beauty, and goodness are not the only things
that catch my attention or make me want to do something.
Sometimes I am moved by what is
altogether mundane, human, and vicious, by evil, ugliness and lies. Sometimes I
am moved not to stand up, but to take a stand, not to move, but to be unmoving.
When inspiration comes, the heart and the mind must be open. Inspiration may be triggered from
outside of ourselves, from something we witness, such as the splendor of
nature, a grand view, or a shocking event.
Inspiration
may come from
something small and simple, from a conversation, or a question. The moment may
come, and go in an instant, leaving it up to us to make sense of its
significance, to the mediation of our genius,
or the daemon within us.[10]
There is an encounter that plays
itself out in my consciousness over and over again. The encounter between my inspiration, and futility, by which I
mean doubt about the purpose I feel that I am directed toward.
This is the dialog between my
creative self and my inner critic.
For instance, I have been, and I am
inspired to share with Christians the gospel as I understand it, which is a
gospel centered on the hope of universal
salvation.
My first encounter with this
doctrine came out of my own active imagination, a discourse with my daemon, if you will. It came by thinking
logically about some of the most basic claims that Christians make about God:
that God is love, and loving; that God is all-powerful (omnipotent), that God
has the perfect ability to accomplish God’s will; that God is all-knowing
(omniscient), that God knows us, understands us, even as we know ourselves;
that God is omnipresent (not, not-present in any space), that God is with us
and God wants us with God.
These claims led me to the logical
conclusion that, when all things are said and done, there are no barriers to God having God’s way in the
matter of our salvation.
If God truly wills the salvation of
all people, which Christian doctrine claims that God does, then God will save
all people.
My grasp of this argument came in a
flash. It came as inspiration. It was
both intuitive and revelatory, and it came when I was fairly young, at the age
of fifteen.
In the ten years that followed I
did not do much with this idea, except that I would using it in the occasional
argument I might have with a fundamentalist Christian.
In that period there were moments
when I would recapture that feeling of inspiration,
but not every argument I pursued produced those feelings. When I would argue
the doctrine with people who could grasp the logic, that feeling of inspiration would ignite inside of me, I
would want to linger in the conversation and explore all of its implications,
both in terms of human destiny, and in terms of the future of Christianity.
However, when my interlocutors
could not grasp the logic, I often felt like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing that great rock up the hill. The same
words and concepts that might delight me on one occasion, would on another
occasion come out sounding like a drone in my ears.
Or, what was even worse for me were
the occasions when I found myself talking and talking all night long, and really
enjoying the sound of my voice, exalting in the feelings I got from my partner
in dialog, or whoever else might be listening, but walking away at the end of
it thinking that I had accomplished nothing more than the self
aggrandized-stroking of my ego.
When I was twenty-five years old I
was beginning to organize a research paper for my undergraduate major in
theology. I deeply wanted to write about this doctrine. It was still inspiring
me, and now it was motivating me to do something, to write, to research to
demonstrate the validity of my claims in a formal way. I was moving beyond the
arm-chair, outside of the coffee house, and though I was merely an
undergraduate, I felt that I was doing real work in theology.
There was something else happening
inside me as well. I was learning a lot. I was encountering more people,
specifically, more educated people, people who wanted to argue with me, people
who could hold up their end of the argument much better than the street corner
variety of born-again-Christian.
I was also beginning to get a clear
sense of the weight of history, of the philosophy of Christianity, its
institutions, in its liturgy, and the power behind the traditional Christian
doctrines that were arrayed against my simple logic.
It felt like that lil old ant, who thinks
he can move that rubber tree plant. I had high hopes, but those hopes, and
the inspired purpose that fueled them were frequently being assailed by a
deepening sense of futility.
The question that my inner critic
was asking me was this:
Is it possible for the most
crystal-clear expression of the logic in Christian doctrine that I could change
two thousand years of history and practice regarding the belief in hell and the
theology of damnation?
Possible yes (I guess), but likely,
no.
The creative spirit within me, my genius, was good at getting the last
word, “keep working” it would say. “keep producing, keep on arguing.”
As an undergraduate I wrote my
senior paper for my theology major on the topic of universal salvation, and then
I doubled down on it and wrote my senior paper for my philosophy major on the
same subject.
By the time I was done with that
work, my research had uncovered some things for me.
The twentieth century had given the
world many extremely intelligent, talented, philosophers and theologians who
had been writing about this same topic. They were Oxford Dons, and University
of Chicago Doctors, the alumni of one storied institution or another.
Their work inspired me. I wanted to
lend my voice to theirs, carry on the good work, fight the good fight. However,
the deeper I delved into the field, the more often I was faced with questions
like this:
What
is the point?
Why
do I care?
If
everyone is saved no matter what, why spend time and energy trying to convince
people who do not believe it?
If
in the end, it does not matter what a person believes, what church they belong
to, why even bother with Christian Doctrine?
This is the voice of futility. It
is my inner critic undermining me, attempting to convince me to give up, that
the question that had inspired me was meaningless.
I learned that I was not the first
person to be moved by this question, and not the first to resolve it. I learned
that I would not be the last person to struggle with it.
Most importantly, I learned that
there was very little that could be done to change the minds of the billions of
Christians, Muslims, Jews and others who think and feel differently about our
shared spiritual destiny. Most mono-theists, those who believe in some form of
hell, they do not believe that God condemns people to hell because logic tells
them so, they believe it because they want to believe it, because it makes them
feel good.
I learned that logic, by itself,
will not free them from those beliefs.
My education was doing two things,
it was arming me with more evidence, more arguments, more history. It was
preparing me with expanded powers to synthesize and communicate those ideas. At
the same time, it was informing me that no matter how great my dialectical
powers might become, I would have little power to persuade the hearts and minds
of the unwilling.
As for the willing, well, they were
already with me, and that is preaching to the choir.
This is the nexus where my inspiration and my sense of futility
meet, where my genius and my inner
critic were hanging out inside my head. What happens in this encounter is very
important, not just for me, but for everyone.
If you want to be true to the movement
of the spirit within you, you may be called to stay with it for a very long
time. You must listen to yourself, to the stirring in your heart, the choir
that is singing there, like the bubbling of a fountain.
I have spoken of inspiration as a flash, a flare, a fire
within, but it is more than that.
Inspiration is more than a vision that brings
a small bit of joy, a quick illumination, or a fragment of understanding. If it
were only that, then the vision would be a mirage, the illumination would burn
as quickly as lime, and the understanding it imparted would be superficial.
Inspiration,
when it is true,
is a call to action. Sometimes what the inspired moment calls you to do, can be
done quickly, and then it is over. Other inspired moments can call you to
rearrange your entire life, while you engage with the inspiration throughout. The longer the commitment, the greater the
temptation will be to yield to the inner critic and allow the inspired moment
fade away under the force of futility.
You cannot escape the forces of
futility. They work on the will and the imagination like entropy. Futility will
assert itself and be an active part of working out your calling. And here is
the thing, if you are dealing honestly with that force, if you grapple with it,
you will find renewed inspiration in that struggle.
When I was working out my master’s
thesis, and in the years since, I discovered that, none of my good ideas about universal salvation were new. I figured
this out early in my research, many modern philosophers and theologians had
written about the things that I was thinking about. I learned that every
generation of Christians since the time of Christ had someone in the global
community saying these exact same things.
The discovery I was making, each
new voice I found was met by me with a kind of joy. It was a comfort to read
their thoughts, to understand my own thoughts as an echo of theirs moving
forward in time. We were sisters and brothers in the struggle to share the most
poignant ppiece of the gospel, to tell the really good news: believe not so that you may be saved, believe
that you are saved already and rejoice.
Then slowly, inexorably the
weariness would set in. The resignation that came from the understanding that
all of these good people, all of us, we were all like exiles in Christianity,
just a tiny minority within the bigger movement.
The temptation to yield to futility
can lead you to a seed bed of new inspiration.
This is kind of like a buddy movie, where the two characters do not really get
along: your inner critic and your creative self, think of The Odd Couple, of Felix and Oscar, always on each other’s nerves,
and yet they are the best of friends.
At first blush, futility and inspiration seem like they are
diametrically opposed, one voice is calling you to action, the other is asking
you to sit down. Each would like to eliminate the other, but they are both a
part of what makes us human.
Futility, like drag, will slow us
down, this is not always bad, it can give us the time and space to rethink our
approach, to listen, and even give us insight into how to move ahead better.
Just because our inner critic is a critic does not mean that she or he is
wrong.
Remember the wisdom of Brenda
Ueland, when she said:
The creative power is in all of you (us) if you just
give it a little time, if you believe in it and watch it come quietly into you;
if you do not keep it out by always hurrying and feeling guilty during those
times when you should be lazy and happy. Or if you do not keep the creative
power away by telling yourself the worst of lies—that you don’t have any.[11]
Inspiration, if it is true, and we are true to
it, will continually assert itself in our imagination, it will demand its
place, find its voice, sometimes startling, sometimes quietly. That voice is
yours, and mine. It will lead us out of the swamp, transform it into a verdant
wetland, doing so in the light of our best expression, coming as fulfillment,
and the radiance of joy.
[1]
The American Heritage Dictionary,
Fourth Edition, Inspiration, “1. Stimulation of the mind or the emotions
to high level of feeling or activity. 5…Divine guidance or influence exerted
directly on the soul of humankind.”
[2]
Rollo May, The Courage to Create, p.
103 “Apollo spoke in the first person through Pythia…the god was said to enter
her at the very moment of her seizure, or enthusiasm,
as the root of that term en-theo
(‘in-god’), literally suggests.” W. W. Norton Company, New York, 1975.
[3]
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write, A
Book about Art, Independence and Spirit: pp. 149-150. “Blake of course
thought the imagination and inspiration (which we all have, as I have said)
came from God and through God’s messengers; psychologists tell us it is rooted
in the unconscious. But one explanation is as good another. I prefer Blake’s
better because it is much easier to understand and more plausible…and remember
the word enthusiasm means divine inspiration.” BN publishing, 2008
[4]
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write, A
Book about Art, Independence and Spirit: p. 47, BN publishing, 2008
[5]
Doris Lessing, Acceptance Speech, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2007.
[6]
Brenda Ueland, Tell Me More, Strength
to Your Sword Arm, pp. 205-210, Holy Cow! Press, Duluth 1984.
[7]
The American Heritage Dictionary,
Fourth Edition, Futile, “1. Having no useful result. 2. Trifling, and
frivolous; idle.”
[8]
The American Heritage Dictionary,
Fourth Edition, Muse, “1. Greek
Mythology Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom
resided over a different art or science. 2. A guiding spirit.”
[9]
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write, A
Book about Art, Independence and Spirit: p. 121, BN publishing, 2008
[10]
Both the Greeks and the Romans (as well as other ancient civilizations) had a
highly developed notion of the duality of human nature. They each believed that
our physical selves were accompanied by a spiritual being, coexisting with us
on another plane of reality. The Romans called this spiritual counterpart our genius, and the Greeks called it the daemon; from these we get our terms
“genius” and “demon.” A preference for Roman culture gave their word a positive
connotation, and a pejorative connotation to the Greek cognate. Classical
culture not only saw this aspect of ourselves as the point of contact between
us and the divine realms, but the Roman word for this also means “begetter.” It
is more than the aspect of ourselves that communicates inspiration, it is fundamentally the aspect of ourselves that
oversees the production or the carrying our of what we have been inspired to
do.
Barry B. Powell, Classical
Myth, p. 631, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1995.
[11]
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write, A
Book about Art, Independence and Spirit: p. 46, BN publishing, 2008
