Oracles of the Day

 

“One of the hardest things to make a child understand is, that down underneath your feet, if you go far enough, you come to blue sky and stars again; that there really is no “down” for the world, but only in every direction an “up.” And that this is an all-embracing truth.”

…It is also what “we grown children find it hardest to realize, too.”—Anne Gilchrist

 

Occasionally, I randomly open a book to see what it offers for the day. After the above I found this morning, I opened Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones, (1986) page 48 (30th Anniversary Edition), and this spoke to me.

“A writer must say yes to life, to all of life, the water glasses, the Kemp’s half and half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer’s task to say, “It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café’ when you can eat macrobiotics at home.”

Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist—the absolute truth of who we are—several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop those details from becoming.”—Natalie Goldberg.

At first I wasn't going to blog this week--declare Tuesday a day of mourning, but then I wrote my apologies, and now I can't help myself--well, I could, but I don't want to. In times of trouble, I turn to my computer and books for solace. I am passing on what I found this morning for the artists out there (all of you are) and those suffering for what they fear to come.

Before my last post, titled “I Apologize,” I began writing about writing and on being an artist, then decided it wasn’t addressing what I felt was important. I’ve changed my mind. Becoming an artist is important.

 Once, a prominent psychiatrist told me that writing is self-aggrandizement.

What an idiot.

I don’t care how many credentials he had, he still missed the point, traumatized me, and besmirched all literature.

If you have decided that you are imposing your great wisdom on someone, then you might be accused of aggrandizement, but if you want to become an artist—that’s a different story. (The psychiatrist disagreed with the writer of a book I was reading.)

An artist wants to express himself, which takes many forms—artistry is creative expression.

Art is where your heart is.

And HOPE is right beside it. We have to believe there is hope for the future. We have to HOPE that we aren’t all tied up in Plato’s dark cave, only seeing shadows, not the real things.

A scientist HOPES his theory is correct. A singer HOPES her audience likes her song. A songwriter, HOPES his lyrics ring true.

Every artist who sits down to his work begins the hero’s journey. Every time. Over and over. He leaves his comfortable ground to set out, not knowing what pitfalls will befall him. He or she HOPES they live to reach their destination, and they HOPE they have something to offer the tribe. 

The writer-artist doesn’t write to impart wisdom; he writes to find himself, and through that self-discovery, he HOPES to motivate others to do the same.

Who was it, Issac Asimov, who said “I write to find out what I am thinking?” Maybe it was Joan Didion who wrote a book with that title.

That is something my friend, the psychiatrist, did not understand, for if you follow Natalie Goldberg’s way of thinking that writing is a therapeutic experience, it might put him out of business.

Then there is old procrastination (Steven Pressfield calls it resistance) in finding something else to do besides THE WORK. THE WORK (your artistry) is scary, that’s the reason we put it off.

Hemingway said writing was opening a vein.

Liz Gilbert said to enjoy your creativity.

I enjoy writing. While writing, I am in the flow, and time is a no-thing. My demons aren’t as scary to me as Hemingway’s was to him. Or maybe he thought one must suffer for their craft. Published writers have an additional problem; they want to match or exceed their earliest work, which burdens them.

Steven Pressfield found that once he declared himself a writer (found his calling) and he sat down at the typewriter, typed out a few pages he later threw away—he was freed.  A few minutes later he was at the sink washing 10 days of stacked up dishes—and humming.

Suffering comes in the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

While hunting for a different picture I had recently placed in my files, I found this one. I hope that bull didn't land on his once upon a time rider.

P.S. Hey, it looks like I got my follow button back. How about a follow?

I Apologize

I do not want to trivialize what is going on this week by writing a blog unrelated to the pain many of us are experiencing.  

My first thought was not to blog on Tuesday, for Monday is Inauguration Day—a day of grief for many. And Tuesday would be too raw for many to go for trivial, myself included.

Instead, as a citizen of the U.S., I am apologizing.

First, I apologize to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that a man who seems to be the antithesis of what Dr. King stood for—non-violent resistance—is being inaugurated as President of the United States on MLK day.

I apologize to Dr. King that many people in our country do not know or care about the peaceful protests he so eloquently orchestrated to bring about civil rights. And to the people who believed that all individuals in our country should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

I apologize to Dr. King that his dream of the Promised Land, which I felt was within arms' reach, is being pushed further back.

I praise Dr. King, who adopted non-violent protesting from Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer who led the struggle for India's independence from British rule by using non-violent means and influenced modern civil disobedience movements across the globe. 

Second, I apologize to our Immigrants who work and live in our country, who came here because they believed it would give them a better life, for the fear they have and the possible deportation they face.

I apologize to the Roe vs. Wade lawyers and the Supreme Court of 1969, who upheld their decision that the performance of abortions deprives women and physicians of their fundamental rights of privacy and liberty in violation of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

I apologize to those who have stood their ground for Women's rights, that many of rights they fought for are in jeopardy.

I apologize to the women who have spoken out about sexual abuse only to see their issues swept aside.

I apologize to our children that we have birthed them under a democratic system and then elected a President who has little regard for the very system we thought we were giving them.

I apologize that we elected a President whose morals are not in keeping with basic decency, like not lying, cheating, bullying, degrading females or people of other races from ours.

I apologize to the children that we voted in a Commander and Chief who does not place much emphasis upon the planet upon which we live to see that it survives.

And I apologize to the plants and animals that their home is in danger because the up-coming President and his appointed cabinet do not see their livelihood as a high priority.