For the Artist at the start of Day
May morning be astir with the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to a source.
May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners,
A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,
May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,
To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,
Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved
Until the veil of the unknow yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart.
---John O'Donohue
Relationship with the Unknown is where my thoughts lie as I'm writing this today. Isn't it uncanny how when you ask Source a question, the message - the answer - comes through in so many different ways? Or maybe it's just that we're so focused that we're able to see and hear exactly what we need.
My meditation practice includes writing; after a period of quiet when I have a strong connection to Spirit, I pull out my journal and ask a few of the burning questions "harvested in the night". I write the question from one part of me and it is answered from another. And the answers always surprise me with their wisdom, confidence, vision, and peace.
Today my question was "What is my purpose here, right now?" A familiar question, one I'm sure all of us have asked any number of times, each time as fresh and earnest as the time before.
The answer I got today, is that my purpose is to "abide in the mystery", in the place of "not-knowing", and to simply occupy that space, suspended like a cloud, until I am so full that a heavy rain of knowing falls within me.
That instead of searching for an answer, to shift my gaze to the layers of unknowing that are supporting me every moment, to hold my gaze with a soft focus and sense of appreciation, rather than a riddle I need to solve.
See what I mean? I had no idea that would be the answer to my question when I threw it out there in my journal this morning, it's amazing the wisdom, the answers floating around the Cosmos, just waiting for us to ask the questions, like beacons, leading them to us.
Eagle was perched above the river, watching for salmon and keeping an eye on us as we took our morning walk. I love their company and always sad to see them disappear the end of January, when the salmon run is over.
Next post, in a couple days, I'm going to giving away a couple of copies of my newly released book, Layered Impressions; A Poetic Approach to Mixed Media Painting, so I hope you'll stop back.
Namaste.
