That remained my goal — to walk out every night and play as if life itself depended on my every note…. —Searching for the Sound, Phil Lesh

Sketchbook textures | Poem in two alphabets
© Laurie Doctor

Oh joy, oh grief
oh sister-shifting-sands
where shall I stand?
And you say:
sit here
take my hand.
–Laurie Doctor

I had a different beginning to this post, but this morning I first want to acknowledge the grief in this world. It is easy for me to feel overwhelmed and at a loss for what to do. I remind myself that there are many ways to participate. We all need water and food, and beauty. I return to the resilience that comes from the practice of making, the resilience needed to restore hope. As makers our calling is to bring our focus close in, to repair the part of the world we can taste, see, hear, smell and touch. As makers, we are called to hold vision for the world, no matter the circumstance. So much is required of us now.

In the last post Wordsworth spoke of making as a collaboration — and the change that happens to us when the muse enters the room. The experience of trying to make something happen becomes something happening to me, to the work. This presence arrives, like many good things, when I get out of the way. Presence is ever available as a source of inspiration, but awareness of presence is not a once-and-for-all-thing. Awareness needs continuous renewal.

How do you renew awareness? Each of you has your own way to restore a bigger perspective. Setting is important. What if the space you create in is sacred? And you are the guardian of your space and your work? To shift into an awareness of presence, I must listen to the painting, or tap on the blank page, or sit silent in the classroom to develop a sense for what is waiting to happen, no matter how long it takes. True listening suspends time and judgement. Some action is eventually required of me, just as Wordsworth took action with his pen: O welcome messenger! O welcome friend! A captive greets thee, coming from a house of bondage, he wrote, feeling trapped. You can listen while you feel trapped, while your tool scrapes across the paper, while you walk around your neighborhood noticing each step. Both writing and walking can move me out of captivity — especially if, like Wordsworth, I write without censorship to someone, present or absent, alive or dead: O welcome friend! Especially if I walk with the intention of noticing sound, sight, smell, touch and taste in the world around me. This kind of listening-walk is rare, and only possible without headphones (headphones make for a partial and specific kind of listening that blocks full body sound). There is a non-linear movement between stillness and action, between sitting in silence and picking up a tool, making a phrase or taking a walk.

Drawing table with sketchbook before I added text to the left hand page (top) | Sketchbook showing the full page spread (above) © Laurie Doctor

Since the muse cannot be rushed, and often appears while I look the other way, I must be open to boredom, discomfort and failure. Often a long time passes when nothing seems to happen (or I make a lot of things I don’t like), but when I persist in showing up, something eventually does happen. You receive a direct transmission. Boredom is a long corridor that can precede great pleasure, delight and surprise at what emerges on the other side. One of the necessities is steadfastness. It takes a kind of fierceness to vanquish all the interrupters in the form of beeps, screens and the restlessness of my own mind. I cultivate breakthrough by my faith in the process and re-kindling my blazing intention to make my very best offering. I feel the brush in my hand as if it has marks it must make. Phil Lesh, of The Grateful Dead, said it so well:

I knew in my heart that the infinite potential present in that moment was available to us all, if we could only reach out and grasp it. That remained my goal — to walk out every night and play as if life itself depended on my every note….
—Searching for the Sound, by Phil Lesh

The world depends on our participation. As the poet,Wallace Stevens, said: After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends. Every single thing is moved by one thing, by one yes, by playing as if life depends on one note. So many of my wise heroes echo this thought: Joseph Campbell said say yes to everything. William Stafford said welcome whatever comes. Br. Roger Schutz said To everything consent is given. An anonymous person said pray for what happens.

This is what Jorge Luis Borges meant when he said that as poets, writers and makers we must take everything that happens — even misfortune, humiliation and failure — as something that has been given to us for our art. Everything is received as a handful of clay. Borges wrote this just after becoming the director of the National Library in Buenos Aires, his lifetime dream. Shortly after receiving the coveted offer as director of the National Library and being in charge of almost a million books, he became completely blind. How do you make sense of this? He was determined not to let blindness intimidate him, to make use of the paradox of darkness arriving with all the beloved books.

Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable
circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so. — Jorge Luis Borges, On Blindness

The world depends on us to step in with acceptance and conviction. After becoming blind, Borges began teaching classes on Anglo-Saxon, an aural language, to young people at the library. His office was filled with enthusiasm and books in Anglo-Saxon, which his students pulled down from the top shelf and read aloud. When Borges looked into the history of the National Library, he discovered that the two directors before him had also gone blind. He said two is a coincidence, three is a confirmation of ternary order. This gave Borges a larger context for his blindness — being the third blind director was something more than a coincidence. He had to step into the new world of blindness with something to offer.

Now, how do I step into this new world of chaos? There is no right answer, only the need on my part for deeper listening. Even when I doubt myself, when I face what seem to be insurmountable obstacles, I must act as if my work matters. I must act as if I have all the time I need. I must act as if the world depends on my participation.