delight

progress again

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One of the deepest joys of writing is to put into language tiny aspects of experience which rarely make it into words. It’s like this with my progress in these summer days. There is such quicksilver uncertainty if something is being made, what exactly?, anything?, and then suddenly there is a recognition, oh yes, there. There is something. It’s the flicker of an inner truth that a perspective has enlarged, that something hitherto hidden has revealed itself, that meaning has, even if almost imperceptibly deepened and strengthened, and most of all, its heralded by the unmistakeable presence of delight, an ancient barometer that is very rarely fooled, and often announces some wonder before the rest of perception has caught anywhere near up.

It’s been a quite peculiar few weeks of arduous struggle, in a friendship, digging deep, into self, into past selves, refreshing in drenched delights and pondering. And this is important: All along I have known that I was also being brewed. Tomorrow I set off for an adventure that I know will be confronting, beautiful, wild, difficult, vulnerable and tender. I am afraid and overjoyed.

And I am thankful for my own persevering in progress making, however uncertain, however unmeasurable, because now as I teeter on the brink of departure and arrival, I know that i have been equipped, and that quite soon I will really be Ready.

double summit

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Yes, I am existing in the thrill of yesterday’s summit triumph.

It is rare in life to be able to revel in the joy of a coming victory without doubts as to whether it may occur, but I had the most luminous day preparing my work to be shown. Then, as it turns out, many many visitors came to see the summer’s work in the open studio; the first time this has ever happened to me. I was dazzled and dizzy with the sheer wondrousness of the warmth, joy and interest of the visitors, a delight it had never even occured to me to dream of in my old existence.

Yet the day held a slight surprise: a double summit.

It was like this: the day was scheduled with a friend also visiting, during which visit I was planning a daring act. But the friend came impossibly late for such a conversation. While I might have expected to be disappointed, it turned out that I had needed the whole day to prepare for the evening event and it would have been terribly compromising to it to curtail the getting ready work. While I might have expected to feel bereft, it turned out that the friend would be able to visit for the act of great daring on Monday.

All in all the dynamics felt like those of grace, but it does mean that the work of this weekend is not entirely completed. One summit has been surmounted, but what I had not grasped is that there were two summits all along, and the second is spaced from the first by two days of travel.

So although today is a moment of respite, it is not a moment of descent. Attention and focus need to be retained, along with the dynamics of trust, hope and grace.

It is bravery of another kind, and another call to patience. But I have the delight of the first triumph to sustain me along the way, what joy.

blows and beauty

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I was radiant with hope
delighting in the beauty
the truth, luminous over
my being, my story.

Blows rained down,
as if a cudgel to the heart
yet mere words.

You took my fears
as a script, copied
the old patterns
I thought I had, perhaps
eluded.

You crushed all joy from me
dismissing that it once
was shared, that depth,
the wonder of a true
communion.

Or was it? Certainty you
sowed with doubt, did you?
were you? how could you?
To our dreaming together you said,
no, alone.

An uncanny insistence
growls irritable from deep within me.
Trust your heart; your
own wisdom is truth.
Believe yourself.

What do I say to you now?
Can I undo myself from the
places you have
conveniently assigned for me
not to cause disturbance
not to trouble your
nice new story?
to elude the work
of making ground?

Can I heal from the idol
jailer of your own captivity?

My battle now is yours,
unfought.

I am not ruled by
convenience or comfort.
I seek truth.
Your blows have momentarily discouraged me
My wounds will heal
A mere skirmish, I will announce,
My laughter will return.
I will dance again.

I have lived this story before,
perhaps, yes,
some may say
but now I’m wiser

I untwist the events from your grasp
evil prophet,
I laugh giddy at my freedom, my knowing
this time the story will belong to beauty.

in the wordsmith’s workshop

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Following a magical visit to the goldsmith’s workshop, now it is the wordsmith’s turn.

The wordsmith had visited the goldsmith’s workshop to help her with some writing because she does not find it easy to tell her story.

The wordsmith took the tools of her own trade with her to see the goldsmith – just a little silver laptop computer and a warm heart.  As the goldsmith talked, the wordsmith captured certain phrases, facts and stories.  Using questions wrought from the wisdom of experience, the wordsmith tugged at tales and pulled at pauses, and waited patiently in silence, knowing that in time precious nuggets would emerge.

Which they did, sometimes one or two, sometime more, with their own timing and rhythm as the goldsmith remembered, lit up, hesitated and shared.

At last the wordsmith shut her laptop, said goodbye and left the goldsmith’s workshop, ready for her own process of mulling, refining, and seeing what remained.

The wordsmith allowed the goldsmith’s stories to swirl around her imagination, and at last, sat down again with the goldsmith’s words, ready to start work.

As she pondered, she let the most important themes come to the surface.  Then she worked with them, adding little facts here and there from her notes; unwinding and bending phrases to become small facets of love and delight.  She brought the goldsmith’s passions and heart for people into a setting where they could be more easily spotted.  She highlighted the goldsmith’s bravery and pioneering spirit.

At last the wordsmith was finished.  She did a last check over her work, and then ‘ping’ sent it to the goldsmith’s team.

And then today, she visited them.

The goldsmith had loved the finished work.  It had helped her to recognise her own self, remember her great joy in her own work, its value and many riches.  It had helped her to see past the struggles and weariness, to regain her vision and strength.

The praise from the goldsmith’s team delighted the wordsmith.  She too suddenly realised the treasure of her work, its power to make things beautiful and full of wonder.  She felt encouraged in the middle of a day of challenges, and renewed for her own adventures into the unknown.

And now the goldsmith and the wordsmith are hard at work, in their workshops and at their desks, making…