Sunday, May 4, 2008

Birthing a Book

I didn’t know anything about a book called The MoonQuest when its words began to flow through me.

I didn’t know The Voice of the Muse was a book when its words began pouring from me.

All I knew in both instances was that my Muse was calling me and that the only way to answer its call was to write.

As I wrote, the books took care of themselves.

One day’s writing led to the next. One draft led to the next. One book led to the next.

Each day, draft and book drove my pen. My pen, in turn, drove me.

My only job was to release all attachment to form, structure, content and outcome. My only job was to write and let the words go where they chose and create what was theirs to create.

As it turned out, what was theirs to create were books. They could have been short stories, articles, journal entries or exercises. They could have been anything at all.

My job wasn't to try to figure that out. My job was to write, to surrender to the imperative of my Muse -- a wiser soul in all things creative than I could ever pretend to be.

Life can be like that too. When God or our higher self or our intuition or our gut guides us in a particular direction, our responsibility is to surrender -- using our discernment, of course...a discernment that gets sharpened and honed with each experience.

We can no more figure out the bigger life picture with its infinite possibility than we can the bigger creative picture with its. In both cases, the full potential lies so far beyond our imagining that, truly, surrender is the only viable option.

What can you surrender to today? In your writing? In your life?

5 comments:

Kristofer James said...

What an inspiring entry. I have tried to write many times but I always seem to get in my way. Your words here have really put things in perspective and helped me to see that I need to stop trying and just let it flow. Thanks again for your words!!

Anonymous said...

Dear Kristofer,

Thanks for your comments. If I've learned anything on my spiritual and creative journey, it's that the most wondrous miracles -- in life and on the page -- occur when I step aside, shelve my expectations and simply allow.

Good luck with the writing...and please keep me posted!

Mark David

motherwort said...

Leave it to you to get to the heart of things. Do you have your antenna tuned to my current challenges or could it be that most of us struggle with this need to see ahead, to know where we are going, and to shape things into our image as opposed to what it needs to be? Jung said that in every acorn was the oak it was to become. We couldn't know what that oak would look like, nor can that acorn. All it can do is just grow and be what it is while becoming what it is meant to be.

Thanks as always for sharing yourself and your journey.
Sue

Anonymous said...

One of the challenges in creativity and life is to dissolve that "need to know" we all carry around as some sort of illusory security blanket.

Once we turn over our very human desire to control outcomes to God, our Muse, our Higher Self, Spirit or the Universe, or whatever higher power that exists beyond our personality self, we open ourselves to a world of wonder beyond any conscious imagining.

It's a scary step...but one with rewards more radiantly satisfying than any we could figure out.

MysteryKnitter said...

Just let the keyboard sing.