Looming

Looming: 

some mornings used to start with what seemed a looming emptiness, having no ideas or themes to work with, just a wait for inspiration to whisper some sort of a beginning and then to fill the page with words. This used to be a cause of some slight anxiety, a writer's dread of not being able to fulfill a morning's worth of work. But no longer now, I see emptiness differently, more promising, and I'm willing to wait for inspiration's whisper, or even accept what few words might be given and call it finished for the day.  My writing is a practice, the same as meditation really, not meant to be perfected, only creative work that's crafted through the presence of silence...it seems that emptiness is filled with promise. 

and inspiration is always present.

what once seemed looming has now been transformed, or really, it's my own thoughts that have changed in this regard, emptiness itself has always been the same, with both anxiety and anticipation being equal in its hold. I have no idea what caused this transformation, maybe age and years of working through silence and finally surrendering an identity of a writer. It was never emptiness that loomed, but only my own sense of incompleteness transferred to the page. 

what's different now? 

it is hard to say, or at least to put accurately into words - and with this I again surrender my art to practice, to just do my best to offer some sort of description and leave the words behind to fill what was once an empty page, my morning's work completed. My best guess is that I simply grew tired of having to depend on thoughts and words to ease that morning dread, relying on inspiration to supply my self-worth as an artist, and that my best and only option was to just allow myself to be incomplete. The thing is, there's no true sense of self that will ever be completed, no finished product of an artist or work of art. It's all an ongoing process, beingness, emptiness in self creation with a willingness to begin again each morning. That's the dread that loomed before me, my own unfinished work was given a deadline and judged by its completion. And of course I'll always fail, I'm meant to fail, at least until that very moment of my surrender - emptiness is looming as my own realization, that's what's different now, seeing this, not being afraid to be broken, seemingly incomplete, simply allowing myself to be exactly as I am, however that might be in any given moment. 

this is where inspiration finds me, right here, every morning, incomplete in all but my willingness to be continued....and that's what looms before me. 

~

Peace, Eric