Create for Your Life Now - Inspiration - Contemplation - Artistic Action
PRINCIPLES: Devotion Passion Courage Purpose Conscious Action
Today – Conscious Action
Nearly a year ago I wrote these words:
I pray to write.
I haven’t written much lately and as I sit, today, I mostly pray to write something worthy of being read, later.
Something worth following somehow, something connecting, not just ink sacrificed for insignificance.
A question begs to be asked: is ink, written, ever insignificant?
Given my limitations (granted, perceived) of writing amidst Summer schedules I have taken to writing haiku in my head if not on paper at least once a day.
It happens like this: I start to feel non-writing nerves tap dancing on my shoulders and I let the familiar form of five-seven-five float into my mind’s ear. Whispers in counted syllables, my haiku friends’ feet tread lightly compared to nerves rat-a-tat-tat.
A moment, an inhale, and exhale, held.
I write:
Predawn moves him
Tail straight against kitchen floor
Watching Hank’s breath speak
Haiku, for me, is a form of prayer. It soothes me in these dark hours of early morning when sleep escapes me.
I am reminded of a sanctuary before the church service begins, breath moves through me, a sole-soul moment of worship before the group experience takes its place.
A flood of word-memories gracefully flow into my consciousness.
Holy limestone squares
Silent tiffany glass art
Pipes ever singing
Pine trees congregate
Crisp air fills white wood space
Nature’s sentience
Sensory banquet
Can life get more beautiful?
Don’t compare with me
Blank pages await
Pencil moves in bold grey strokes
Heart song’s homecoming
Cinnamon kisses
Christmas snakes into July
Via coffee cups
This place, the page, white
Space where God always comes near
Leaves sacred traces
Annie Dillard wrote:
"When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it and it digs a path for you to follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year."
The question asked amongst the words written last year:
A question begs to be asked: is ink, written, ever insignificant?
Yesterday, we spoke of rocks (from DH Lawrence). Wild rocks, lava flowing, molten rocks. Today, in searching for examples of the miner’s pick in past writing – listen to this poem from a year ago. Hear the syncronicity – and allow that past moment to reach back into this present moment:
Egg-Shell-Opening"
His phone call
Broke open the
Egg-shell-covering
Of the time with
Katherine and Samuel
Hunting for Hearts
Among the river rocks
Along the still lagoon
Of "Our" Grove
(The Grove we share
With Meth-heads and
Joggers and the occasional
Law enforcement patrol)
Its been thirteen hours
Since Katherine and I
Kicked the stones to find
This exact stone
Once and now
Blackened flow
Made solid
Into metaphoric
Representational
Not literal
And we know it
Intimately, this one
The heart
The lava-flow
Movement filled
Solid rock
Heart
The one that rests
And waits to be
Discovered here
Among the river rocks
Along the still lagoon
Of "Our" Grove
Before
His phone call
Broke open the
Egg-shell-covering
© 2008
Julie Jordan Scott
We each and all have “egg shell openings” which the act of creativity opens.
Allow yourself to engage with this concept within you: the part of you which may feel fragile yet is simultaneously protective.
Create for Your Life, Now.
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