Notes to Myself
Your real duty is to go away from the community to find your bliss. — Joseph Campbell
What part of myself, I wonder, am I trying to find, to save? The need to retreat from media, to regain something I once knew, has the urgency of survival. On the second day of my retreat here at Saint Meinrad Archabbey, stillness begins to win over the part that wants to keep up with people and news. That wants the action of entertainment. It is so easy for me to forget that stillness is a way of knowing, of apprehending presence, of inhabiting the room of belonging. Time spreads out for paper, pens, paint, books and walking. The refreshment of beech trees rattling their leaves in the winter woods. Reading and writing. Sorting my tools.
There is something so restorative about the physicality of a place and the reckoning that comes with being fully embodied and uninterrupted. I remember how the saving mystery breaks through at odd and unforeseeable moments. There are many thoughts on the subject of places having memory, of places remembering what people forget. But the first thing I noticed on my arrival was something I have never seen here before: about 100 black vultures and a few dozen crows circling the sky above where I am staying. The black vultures have only recently entered this area in such great numbers, and are more aggressive than the native turkey vultures. They have an ominous reputation that calls to mind the birds of Mordor. The second thing I noticed was the green sprouts of crocus already up in the woods. The dark and the light, the evil and the good, both ever present.
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“Our summer made her light escape into the beautiful.” —
On this side of the world, outward-looking summer has ended just as spring is beginning in Australia. Wherever we are, we feel the shift of seasons and time passing. Here, the equinox, the balance of days and nights, is a reminder that even the happiest life requires balancing success and failure, glad and sad, right and wrong, pain and love. The movement into longer hours of darkness turns us inward. There is often a sense of loss when the long days of light recede. What is lost has the possibility of being returned to us in a new shape; a recognition of something deeper — seeds hidden in darkness.
Isn’t this what creation, the occupation of makers, is all about? Finding a new shape? Or recognition of a shape that is both new and has always been? In this short pause of equal days and nights, what is it that we wish to bring with us from summer into autumn? Or, on the other side of the world, what sleeping promise is ready for a new beginning?
The world is still big.
I was lying on my back in the woods, watching the clouds. After some time the realization, simple as it is, hit me: the world is still big. This moment vanquished my anxiety and returned me to something I know and forget: There is something beneath and above all this noise. The world is not only this cacophony of chaos and disaster and busyness. How many days go by when there is just too much to consider, too much to take care of, too many dishes, too many emails, too much loss? The sky, when pondered long enough, brings back another order of immensity that puts all this too-muchness in perspective. When I stay in stillness, I feel myself a part of something much bigger. This is what can happen when I am working in my sacred space too — the sense of other intelligences, presences; other hands in the work — and the relief, the comfort, that I am not the center of whatever this is.
There is this saying: the path is already laid beneath your feet. I don’t mean pre-determination, or that it doesn’t matter which choices you make, but that the-something-you-came-into-the-world-with is still with you, waiting to open. There is something in you that cannot be taken.
Happy Being Small
This morning I looked out my window at the very small garden, well garden is still an imagined thing — but the new soil has just been added, and the string to determine what is level. I had no idea that this patch of bare dirt and string would be a playground for the baby birds! A fluffy fledgling Carolina wren is turning somersaults in the dust and then hopping up on the string as if it is her very own tightrope. When I sat down I was in a melancholy mood, but after watching this display, it is a very different sort of day.
Later I went to see Frankie York, the owner of New Editions Gallery. I told her stories of talking with other artists about how lucky we are to work with her. The privilege of having someone in charge of our work who cares about both the work and the artist who made it. Someone whose gift is creating the exhibit by transforming the atmosphere in the room until the space itself is also part of the art. Someone who is interested in each person that walks in the door. What Frankie said in response to my admiration was not what I was expecting…. “I think we are all tied together”, she said, “because we are happy being small.” This touched me, that phrase happy being small, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
Repertoire With Invisibility
This quote comes to mind:
Every journey has secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. — Martin Buber
I woke up this first morning at Ghost Ranch to the dream voice proclaiming: Take stock in invisibility. Take stock? One of the definitions of stock is repertoire. A repertoire with invisibility. I feel the power of darkness in the desert; there is nothing but starlight up here on the mesa. The imperative of trusting what I cannot see. Waiting for what wants to come. Taking stock in the unknown.
Here in New Mexico in the dark of the moon, the desert sky is dripping with stars. Just standing beneath such vastness brings back an immensity, a gap, a pause. A shooting star. A recognition of something you have always known.
Study in Blue
The first question from the students in my January online class was:
What do you mean, it’s the small things that are important?
I paused. This simple question struck unexpectedly deep. What I was thinking about was beginning the new year with something small, slender or secret— rather than pledging to do something big. Rather than make a splash, make an offering. Something you can hold in your hand, or your heart. After a pause I thought, that is where the power is.
What do you mean, it’s the small things that are important? She asked.
What I found myself saying was:
I just watched my father die. When someone goes, they leave a space behind. What does one who goes leave you? What memory strikes your heart? Is it their accomplishments, their possessions, their image? I saw clearly, it was not my father’s inventions or belongings, his work, or his beautiful hand-crafted Japanese knives. It was the small acts of kindness.
Think like an artist
An engineer recently signed up for one of my classes in Taos. I asked him what kind of work he likes to do, and he described an enviable picture of things he makes and builds. But really, he said, what he wants to do is learn how to “think like an artist.” This got me curious: What does it mean to think like an artist?
In the second month of being cloistered at home, I hear more and more people saying, What day is it? This reminds me of the long, long journey Frodo and Sam made to Mount Doom* — one day folding into the next, and the path seeming endless. With each step, the ring, that which must be given back to the mountain, becomes heavier with reluctance and doubt and the uselessness of the journey. It is so painful to let go. And so easy to give in, to just feel too tired to carry on. At one point, with miles more to climb, and little difference between day and night, Sam says to Frodo: Is it today or tomorrow?
Remembering the perseverance that was required of Sam and Frodo, I wonder, What is it that I must give up, and throw into the fire at the top of this mountain? What does thinking like an artist require of me now? What is this pandemic asking of me? There are so many things I hope it is not asking me to leave behind — like meeting in person with my students again, and celebrating the communion of making; or going to the small family-owned bar where Anna (who planted our dogwood tree) sings with her band; or the buffet at Mabel Dodge Luhan Retreat, where I can help myself to as much crisp bacon, eggs and fresh baked treats as I want every morning, without gloves or a mask. Or going to our locally owned, family-run art store. Or tasting samples at the Farmer’s Market. Or seeing my father. So many things.
I am sitting with this question of what needs releasing, because I think we are being asked to change, to find a new way of being. To let go so that something new can happen. And something new is happening.
Cloister
Cloister, as a verb, is what the whole world is engaged in: seclude or shut up in or as if in a convent. As a noun, cloister is a covered walkway, a colonnade, or a cathedral … this is our best option, to somehow make this time into a walkway or cathedral. Imagine, a worldwide cathedral.
I am writing a mid-month missive to cheer us up. Many of you have probably been introduced to the series of short essays by Ross Gay: The Book of Delights. And perhaps you have heard his interview on OnBeing? Steven ordered the book to cheer me up. I highly recommend it. In spite of the title, it is not lightweight. Ross Gay is aware of the proximity between death and joy, terror and delight.
His essays are well written, short and often humorous. They can be read as a meditation each morning during this time of being separated from people you love. I am now in the middle of his book.
Yesterday I was walking in my garden, trying to get in the frame of mind of finding delight in these sobering times.