What I do

What I do: 

what I do is write, easy enough, simple really, and most especially as I have no idea as the what the very next word might be, or when inspiration will appear, even creativity itself is a mystery. My role is to write what arrives to me, arranging words on a screen until they please me in their structure and flow. None of the hard stuff is my doing, all of it's a gift, literally handed to my mind, every thought and word somehow finds its way to me. 

I try not to take any of this for granted. 

what I do is court this mystery, invoking inspiration to appear through rituals of meditation, a single cup of coffee, waking early in the morning to better hear the distinct sound of its arrival. My role is to be perfectly clear, or as close as I'm able, as I want words to find me as empty as any page, being a willing capacity to hold the meaning that they offer. That's all any writer does, each unique in their way, courting mystery to arrive and speak in a voice that they recognize as their own. 

and of course it's so often taken for granted. 

an artist is so intimate with mystery that it's easy to lay claim to what's been created, believing that it all appears completely from the mind, that we somehow willed each word to the page, guiding it here through some creative process special to them alone. It's easy to believe, easier still for the ego to claim itself as the author here, responsible for the magic of these words. And that's it really, magic, that words appear from the grace of inspiration, perhaps the process is a chemical reaction of the brain, neurons firing, thoughts gaining a subtle energetic form - but how all of this lends itself to poetry, a single line drawn, or a brushstroke laid on canvas, that's the mystery of it all...

that's grace. 

I wish to take done of this for granted. 

and that's the ritual for me, recognizing what a gift this is, each word, my time committed to writing, the urge to wake so early, sitting patiently for inspiration to appear, making my space inviting, holy, so that words will wish to find me here. What I do is wait, filling time with rituals until there's nothing else to do but surrender myself to the process of receiving, that I am now ready for the grace of inspiration, having promised that I'll take done of this for granted. 

but of course I sometimes do. 

~

Peace, Eric