Jul 6, 2011

stillpoint


It seems many roads are leading me to acknowledge, embrace and accept that I am indeed where I need to be. And right now that entails non-activity, non-striving, non-productivity. Simply being, observing and noticing. 

This too is part of the creative and the writing process. Can I accept this? Not easily. Social conditioning, along with certain personality characteristics, do get in the way at times.

Last week one of our Wakefield Fringe guests, Alison Wearing ["Confessions Of A Fairy's Daughter"] talked about writing looking a lot like this:  and she slumped in her chair, gazing out into space. I recognized myself. I felt somewhat affirmed. 

Earlier today I had my first coaching session with Laura.  My homework challenge this week is to spend an hour a day this week not working on this illusive book project...and to journal about not working on it. Curious juxtaposition. Not quite sure what that will surface but I'm looking forward to seeing what does.

And just now I re-read a post I saved from Wild Artist and received another affirmation for me to be exactly where I am:

To sing, you must put courage behind your song. To be heard, you must put heart and time into your song. But first you need to pause. Power comes from the quiet inside. The power to paint.
Except for the point, the stillpoint,
There would be no dance,
And there is only the dance.
     - T.S. Eliot
Balance requires a still point. Everything unique and beautiful grows out of the still point; your dance needs to start first in a place of quiet reflection, meditation, prayer.


I can almost see myself see-sawing between my various wishes and paradoxes, swinging up and down, bumping hard each time one end hits the ground. I feel viscerally the chaos I've been experiencing as I struggle to choose something, anything...just get moving, doing, producing something!

But now these words, these gifts from others, are allowing me to see my daydreaming, my non-action as this still point, a possible birth place for something to be born. I am just a bit more able to accept that this non-doing, non-focused time is actually a necessary part of the process for me to move forward with ease and integrity. Eventually. When it's time.

Once again what is right now (when I stop struggling against it) is actually quite perfect.



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