work

a glimpse of the summit – discipline

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I’ve glimpsed the summit, and yet I’ve not reached the summit. This is a moment where discipline seems somewhat unwelcome, yet it is essential.

Who wants to be disciplined when one can see dreams unfolding ahead, just beyond the summit in the realms of now-a-possibility?

Yet if the energy needed for the summit completion is dispersed into illusions, then the very possibility of the summit comes under threat.

It’s a work of wonder to hold steady with focus, diligence and discipline when under the surface thrills of delight are shivering too and fro in the inner waters.

It is strange that even this bit has its own difficulties and temptations, when so much hope and joy is present. But it does. You have not reached the summit until you have reached the summit.

Yesterday: lists. Today: chores, communications, work.

feeding perseverance

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Today there was a certain new joy in persevering with the rhythm that will sustain the studio inside.

Alongside other chores, yesterday I had two calls with old friends, and although in a way both of them were need and I was helping (listening, which I am not always good at), the quality of the (re)connection – (‘re’, because we have been so little in contact in the ferocious wildness of the last two years) was very deep. They’ve both known me a long time, and although there is a certain element of them knowing a me that I no longer am, there is also a knowing of a me that I deeply am and will always carry with me, that newer friends will never truly know.

Then I cycled to the seaside on my bike, taking with the picnic food that my mother always makes for my family’s seaside trips, simplicity itself yet with the soul of a thousand small memories.

It is not totally the case that I have cleverly made a joy happen; it’s partly the sheer fact that after persevering with so many chores and so much work, some of them are now done. There is a loosening into the necessary tasks of the day. I am at liberty to untangle thing more, to create more freedom. I note to myself the importance of not accidentally accumulating more.

Nonetheless, I am aware of a kind of deeper nourishment. My soul is resting. My perseverance can come from a deeper place, from the deep heart rather than from a certain kind of drier (yet for a time necessary) intention.

In the middle of my life I found myself in a beautiful garden. I’ve longed for one, and although I expected it to be in a more conventional house and of a more private nature, the one I have tumbled into is a continuing wonder; a collective small garden converted from a tiny park, in the middle of the city, with small allotment boxes with the growings of strangers who are becoming known, and a communal, collectively tended vegetable garden from which I can at will pick spinach, herbs, beans, potatoes.

I feed my perseverance by putting myself in the path of beauty and trying not to neglect the wondrousness of existence, by a collaboration.

Waiting

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I am waiting
for spring to emerge
from the pavement
laid for
work, business, invoicing,
fee discussions and
constant demand.

I am waiting
for cracks to widen
suddenly and maybe
even causing
horror filled with wonder
as I fall in-
side out.

I am waiting
for you and for them,
and for looking back
bewildered on
the past order,
full of tired and
worn-in happiness.

Note: This poem is from the ‘poetry retreat series’.  We read ‘I am Waiting’ by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and were asked to write a poem in six minutes about something we were waiting for. This is unfinished and I would like to go back to it and bring the image of ‘breaking through’ into greater clarity and power.

year of the poem – philosophy

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The writing and thinking about the (as yet unrevised) ‘washed up’ poem has left a domino rally of thoughts tipping over in my mind.  The idea that the poem was teaching me how to write it was phenomenal.  But the next thought topped it; perhaps it was true of all things.

Paying close attention is the essence, for me, of what it means to be a poet.  The poet leans in to the idea or thought or person or moment or object, listens intently with her whole being, and in that listening, the secrets of the poem are revealed.  No listening, no poem.  No attention, no inspiration. No patience, no-thing.

The idea that this might be true of all things did not itself come out of nowhere.  As I mentioned before, I read some lines a little while ago with the phrase ‘you are truly the poetry of God’. This idea of being poetry has lingered.  I have spent some of the time on the journey between my home and the café where I do my work pondering this; what if life was inherently poetic?  What does it mean to be the ‘poetry of God’ (whether or not one believes in an actual God)?  What am I learning from poems that is true of life?

In my (paid) work, there is a lot of time spent learning theory and models and then ‘applying’ it to people, to work with them better.  This has value, but recently it’s been making me restless.  What other ways might there be to learn better how to create together?

The idea that people (and projects, and all things) have a poetic nature is liberating because it simplifies things down to one thing; pay close attention; the person, thing or project (or self) will tell you who and what it is and is becoming. It will almost reel you in to its field so that you start thinking and acting in the way that will help create it. You do not have to be afraid that you don’t understand or know or have the skills yet, if you pay close attention it will reveal each step when you’re ready. It is beautiful.

This is also very helpful for me because I am continually doing work that I have never (or no-one has ever) done before.  I am constantly faced by projects which are an entire unknown.   I love this idea because as I lean into the project, listen carefully – even do actual listening to the people involved, it will tell me how to co-create it.

(A funny note:  I tried to make this thought process into a poem – I thought it would be fitting -but it would not go at all; it didn’t want to be a poem.)

Christmas exhaustion

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Eighty home-made
Christmas cards
for friends and clients
alike wing their way
across the world,
Russia, Poland,
Luxembourg, Italy.

Forty presents,
be-tissued, wrapped
with Father Christmases
on sleighs and in chimneys
carrying sacks, all
tied in (matching) ribbons,
cherry red and
snowy ice-blue.

Ill friends, one, two
three, visited with
cheer and gifts and
hugs (I didn’t lean
in too near).

Three family
dynamics
navigated, care,
honesty, tears,
grace and hope that
one day things might
change.

Four little niece-
and-nephews imagined,
researched, added to,
subtracted from, and
last-minute flash of
inspiration,
of course.

One carol service
invited to, sung at,
giggled in,
got distracted by
small children’s
wonder, and several
glugs of cooling
mulled wine in
too-warm weather.

Five invoices sent,
fingers crossed for
payment (no),
money switched
between accounts.
‘what d’you mean
five working days?’

One to-do list
half-crossed,
neighbours’ gifts,
tick, more ribbon,
tick, pine and
eucalyptus spray,
tick, but
packing, taxi,
picnic still to do
tomorrow morning.

One poem written.

My weariness
rests
on a bed of quiet
contentment.