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"I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. "
~Oliver Sacks
In Nature, I am always drawn to places of transition. I love the places where the ocean meets the shore, the forest meets the meadow, the mountains meet the valleys, and the night melts into the daylight. In this mortal life, I know the value of transitions, but that are often unsettling, which in a way seems only natural. After all, along that lovely shoreline stirs the sands of time.
I was recently described as a “relentlessly impermanent soul.” That description caught my ear and attention. It seems accurate for all of us really, but what is different with me is my constant awareness of impermanence. It’s why I never wait until “someday” and why I feel sorrow when the people I love so often do.”
There is no guarantee of “someday.” There is only now, and it becomes “yesterday” in “no time.”
This moment that I’m currently living – in between books that I have written and the one I am writing, is also a place of transition. There is a loyalty and love that you feel for the “soil” that is the work you’ve recently published and the ones that came before, but there is also the yearning need to walk into the “sea” of ideas and meanings that you know, deep down inside you… must be written. And because of your intimate understanding of entropy and the tides of time, you are torn between the soil and the sea. Which one is Home?
Life is a tragically beautiful adventure.
We can’t live life alone – although it often feels as if we do. We need the community of spirit that sustains us. We are a forest – not a tree.
And our lives are impacted by the choices, actions, and inactions of others. One foolish willow can become the doom of the woodlands.
A writer needs readers; readers need writers.
But there must be more than this simple equation to equal something of value.
The writer must have something worthy of writing. The reader must choose something worthy of reading.
In the shallow philosophical waters of today’s emoji and avatar humanity, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Camus might find themselves out of luck and out of work.
Timing is everything in this timeless human world.
So now I sit with my coffee and myself – only the song of wren to keep me company. And I open myself to the place of transition where inspiration becomes words on a page and meanings within so open mind and heart – perhaps halfway around the world.
When I begin a new book there is always the fear… “what if I have nothing left of value to say?”
So far, the universe has managed to inform my fingers where to type and where to pause. I am grateful for this smidgen of grace as I attempt to linger at the water’s edge.
Namaste’ Y’all… Live in the Now… But… Keep Casting Forward!
~ Steve
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