Things I didn’t know I loved
— Nazim Hikmet
Collage with stitching, canvas, Vogue pattern paper, walnut and sumi ink | © L Doctor Sketchbook
This morning, as Rumi said, I awoke empty and frightened. There is that word again, empty — vacuum, vessel, void — open, ready to receive.
To get through, or get back — to catch hold of this thread that gets lost now and then in the grief of the world, this thread that connects us all to each other, to every living thing, and to the stars (are they alive?) the moon, the planets and the sun — to get through and return to the deep place where the thread is always, and remains undamaged and unchanged — I must leave the noise of the world, even the joyful noise, for an uninterrupted while.
I had a series of dreams where I didn’t want to get my feet wet. I was standing in the middle of a wide river wearing my favorite cowgirl boots. What, I wondered to myself, am I afraid of? I took to heart Rumi’s words — Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer. Which I took to mean, forget your habit-duty. Forget what you usually do. Forget the feeling of not having enough time. What do you love? I love paper and pens and ink. I love music and stories. I love the shapes letters make. I love the pair of Carolina wrens that doesn’t leave in the fall, that stays with us all winter. Then, in the spring they build a nest in my daughter’s long-abandoned Victorian dollhouse, consistently choosing the kitchen with the bay window.
I went down to my studio where the presences have gathered and grown over the years. I got out some very thin pattern paper I bought from a sewing shop that has since closed. I didn’t love Vogue patterns back in the 60’s when I was a girl and made a mess of sewing the simplest A-line dress. I didn’t know I loved these patterns until I discovered the elegant thin paper is ideal for collage and writing practice.
Collage in process with Vogue pattern paper, graphite rubbings and sumi ink | © L Doctor Sketchbook
This feeling of early morning dread is not new; I have been waking with a weight for awhile. So this morning when I went down to my studio and it vanished, I felt so light and able to be in the world.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
— Rumi
A hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground — “ground” is a physical place, a temenos, a sacred place that I can touch and use my hands for searching, get lost, and find again what I love, or what I have forgotten. This got me thinking about the poem from Gregory Orr we talked about in my last post — one of his many untitled poems in Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved. In that poem he later recalls a Turkish poet in exile, alone on a train in winter. He has been vanquished from his home. He looks out the train window, making a list of all the things he didn’t know he loved, all the things that are suddenly precious, all the things he may never see again. Gregory Orr says:
As long as he keeps making that list,
He’s traveling toward the beloved.
Now I am thinking of the list of things I didn’t know I loved as a guide. As long as I keep making, noticing the things I love, feeling gratitude for the immensity of what I have been given, I am traveling toward the beloved.
In the video below you can see that I found my way back not by doing anything planned, polished or perfect, but by going to my temenos and playing with materials — and one in particular that I didn’t know I loved.
What have you discovered or re-discovered that you love in this time of so much loss? I’d love to hear from you.
I am delighted to introduce you to our featured artist this month, Marî Emily Bohley from Dresden, Germany. She will be coming to teach with me in Taos in March 2027. See more of her work and her contact info here.
© Mari Emily Bohley