Today we are going to explore what I am calling the third arrow, that magic number three that is the number of movement and creativity. The number that is in the old stories: three wishes, three sisters, three chances… Three creates movement– it breaks up the stasis or duality of two.

This is the third in our series of “arrows”- the first arrow being the necessary suffering of loss, impermanence and death. None of us, no matter how “lucky” we are, escape the first arrow. Last week we talked about the unnecessary suffering of complaint, blame and bitterness that arise from the second arrow.

To the Buddhist story of the two arrows, I have added a third. The third arrow does not inflict pain. It is about taking aim: pointing yourself in a certain direction. You do this by accepting what is presented and releasing the second arrow.

III. Third Arrow: Finding Direction

The question that the third arrow asks is:

What is the coherence that transcends chaos and impermanence?

This is the perennial question. It is behind the deep longing to be near, to feel continuity in the midst of chaos, and to leave a trace, a footprint, a song– it is what impels makers of all kinds to turn to praying with their hands.

Last week we addressed the first arrow, which is a symbol for the initial pain caused by loss, chaos and impermanence. The first arrow strikes each one of us at different moments along the way.

How do you respond to living in times of great change and difficulty? How do you find your footing when the world seems to be spinning out of control?

This is the second part of a three part series, based on a Buddhist story using arrows as a metaphor. Today I will talk about the second arrow.

II. The second arrow

How do you react when things fall apart?

The second arrow is more painful than the first one, because our minds torture us with reactions against the painful situation. We are beset with what ifs, and why this and why me. Whatever it is, we want it to stop or go away or be different. Our experience of the first arrow is compounded further by blame of oneself or someone or something else.

Our resistance to pain can take many forms, and often goes unnoticed. We become unaware of how aversion works against us. Or, when we do notice our fear, anger or impatience in response to a given situation, we berate ourselves for being imperfect, for being insecure, tired, angry or fearful. The second arrow becomes a flame of blame. This behavior is destructive, and blocks our movement toward the door that opens with pain.

In my recent travels west, I gave a talk on the urgency of artists to be a voice of meaning, the need to articulate something that creates a space, a place amidst the noise and crisis in our world. Everywhere I turn I see friends overwhelmed from the relentless news wheel; people sensing a change is gonna come, yet feeling helpless to act.

I promised I would post this talk, which I have divided into three parts, or three “arrows”. Today I am posting the first part:

Part I: The First Arrow

Especially in times of great difficulty, there is a desperate need for the stories from deep time, the timeless truths that have nothing to do with facts (which are always changing), or measurements, or any one religion, culture or race…

We begin with the idea that what is needed in times of trouble is a story– something that takes us outside ourselves and re-orients our internal compass.

The creation stories around the world, which reflect the pattern of all makers, begin in darkness or void or chaos. And there was darkness upon the face of the deep. Or, as Richard Powers says in the first line of his novel, The Overstory: 

First there was nothing. Then there was everything.

Places have resonance, defined as the quality in a sound of being deep. Find out about classes in the states, and abroad in Italy, Switzerland and Germany.... And every year I return to Taos, New Mexico in March and June... Also, beginning in 2020, is the first advanced calligraphy retreat at St Meinrad Archabbey. In 2021, a lovely retreat in the Blue Mountains of Australia…..

I’d love to hear from you.

How do I find words or images that give form to a deepening sense that when Joseph Campbell said say yes to everything, that this is the same as God is everywhere – or, as Christian Wiman said– in every riven thing? In spite of my doubt about where I am headed, I reach for impossible things. I search for a less intellectual, more childlike immediacy. You may remember Alice, in a discouraged moment, complaining to the Queen:

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast...”   – Lewis Carroll

Inspiration comes unexpectedly, by taking risks, by trying out new ideas as an experiment. The experiment is about finding out what you think, rather than beginning with something you believe in.  You go where you haven't ventured.

What better image is there for spontaneity and structure than the birds?

Students often ask me about my practice, about what a day looks like. Last February I posted my Ten Principles for Teaching. This morning I will talk about my Six Principles for Daily Practice. 

There is much talk about the muse, about how to get inspired, and not enough about the structure that is required to make a place for her.

People think spontaneity and improvisation, even talent, spring out of nowhere. These qualities rise out of structure and practice. Freedom and play also emerge from structure.

There is too much emphasis on waiting for this "first" kind of Muse, the muse of inspiration. There is not something "out there" that will get us where we need to be.

This has me thinking about the second kind of muse, the one that prepares us for inspiration by providing structure.

Wendell Berry speaks of the second muse as the Muse of Realization…..

There is a saying most of us know, practice makes perfect. Perhaps it was our Victorian ancestors that dreamed up this saying, to promote good behavior and prolong suffering. Practice makes better, more skilled, but not perfect. Perfect is a faraway, abstract and even heartless idea. There is nothing compelling or alive about perfect. Practice is full of mistakes, of plunging in, and being willing to fail and learn.  As Greg Boyle once said: "Anything worth pursuing is worth failing at." And that is worth thinking about.

You can stumble and still be forgiven
– William Stafford

Everything is practice makes sense. I just discovered, while studying this last month with our American poet, Marie Howe, that Emily Dickinson did not see any of her poems as "final". She kept the handwritten versions beneath her bed, full of alternate words. They were on scraps of paper and envelopes. Another poet, Susan Howe, has written extensively on this aspect of Emily's work. The visuals of her "alternate words" at the bottom of a poem, with small "+" signs and her distinct handwriting is an exhilarating discovery.... the dance between the visual and the verbal in poetry making. But that will be another post....

And I said to my soul, be loud. – Christian Wiman

I opened to this line of Christian Wiman's this morning, and just reading the title inspired and frightened me. The title is, of course, a reference to T. S. Eliot's, And I said to my soul, be still. To name his poem, And I said to my soul, be loud, seizes my heart with the force of his bravery– as I could spend the rest of my days just trying to digest Eliot's Four Quartets, or even the one stanza this title refers to. Wiman's poem points us to a revered poet, while recognizing an inward need to give voice to something unconventional. He acts on this inner urge through writing, by being willing to expose himself. It is I think, through his craft of poetry, that he finds his way. 

I am filled with the pleasure of seeing the students' work. It reminds me of William Stafford saying it is not my job to praise or blame, but only in the end, to be envious of your work.

The theme for my workshops in 2019 is Quintessence: The Fifth Element.

We've all heard of the ancient Greek's four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. But how many of us know that there was also an indispensable fifth element, without which those four could have no ability to combine into the infinite variety of forms we see around us?  the The Greeks called the fifth element aether. The medieval alchemists had a different name: quintessence.

Makers are ignited by the "fifth element", the intangible something else that works through us. The Greeks provide a brilliant background for the origin of aether. Erebus, which means darkness, was the monarch of the realm of the dead. Erebus united with Nyx, the goddess of the night, and gave birth to Aether. Aether is translated as radiance: "to burn, to shine". In Homeric Greece ether meant "pure, fresh air" or "clear sky". It was "the pure essence that the gods breathed". 

The Goddess of the Night is also The Mother of Light. What an image for where inspiration and imagination comes from: emptiness, darkness, the night, mystery. Out of dark necessity Nyx gives birth to light, radiance, Ether.