Fall from a Great Height

The lights went out, everywhere in my heart today. This for now, is over. I'm sorry. I'll be back eventually.

Precipice

I've decided to do something I've never tried to do before in my life, namely to devote a certain amount of time every day to the prospect of writing. Rather than allow for the build-up of five days of steam to be released in two or three weekly sessions, the idea of releasing steam every day seems absolutely the right thing to do. In small amounts of long sessions (3 per week), the idea of writing takes on an "event" feel to it, loads of ritual surrounding it and loads of pressure on results. Failing to produce means waiting several days for a chance to attempt it again. There is a build-up of ideas and a need to express that the expression gained cannot outpace. But smaller sessions every day allow for an almost trivial approach to writing. Fail to produce and you have tomorrow to try, or the next day, or the next day. 365 attemps versus 160 a year, leaving the longer sessions there to flush out ideas, or better still to get on with the process that feeds writing.

I've had this sort of thing in my head before, but it wasn't until now that I could personally see how to make it work for me. As Gail Sher says, it's all about attendance, the importance not being on what happens when you sit at the desk, but only that you sit there. It's a giving away of outcomes that for some reason I can finally grasp and apply. It has produced in term a shift of viewpoint about writing.

My shift of viewpoint here involves the fact that I am now seeing writing in its proper place, as a channel for expression, an arm of the larger mackial processes that is fed by it. In this position, writing serves in the role of translator. More important now is tending the fires of the larger process, having faith that the translators (among writing, music, movement, etc) or the expressive limbs as they were will continue to function as long as the source fire is burning hot, or the source well is easily flowing, whatever your choice of analogy. Focus on the expression alone, and diminishing returns will result.

This also accomplishes several other things at the same time. It gives me the impetus for developing a meditation/connection daily schedule, and also gives me "permission" to place tending the source higher than tending the extremeties, as well as giving me a reason to post to this blog from time to time.

Fade of Winter

I think at this point in my life, I'm finally learning something about writing. Change continues on all sides as Imbolc approaches and I've at last taken the position as student in many matters, completing this shift of perspective that has opened up my viewpoints. It doesn't hurt that the days remain light for a few sparce moments after I finish work, that the temperature rises into the low 50's and that crows and seagulls are again active and vocal. The sky hues itself in a bluer fashion now, the slightest bit displaced from the pitch black heaviness of the early and mid winters.

I'm looking forward to spending my alone moments at the zoo on on the shores of the lakes again, and devoting a certain amount of time and energy on the weekends to exploration and re-connection with the earth and the wind. But that is still a few months away, and I feel much has to be done before I feel free enough to enjoy the change of seasons fully.

The biggest change for me, though, continues to be in the way I look at, well, everything. I'm in the process of reading "One Continuous Mistake" by Gail Sheer, who brings a Buddhist thought to the subject of writing. And although I would consider myself along a different line of practice, the intersection of my own lifestyle with Buddhist principles is sometimes enough so that encountering enlightened statements will cause ripples that expand out from the impact. Such is the case here. A movement in one sector causes other things to move and so on. And I am finding myself ready to approach most of the big projects in my life with a fresh take on both the work and the play of them. I imagine that I might at last be ready for some of the daunting prospects, reaching out into the magickal communities, pursuing some personal learnings, and even actually starting and finishing a long piece of fiction.

At any rate, I feel the energy building now. I plan to ride it.

Wind

New Walkabout posted last night. I had an amazing discussion with my wife regarding the nature of writing fiction and the perspective in which you stand as an author, and this plus some recent events have fundamentally changed how I look at the process of creation. It was incredible to cement this new outlook only hours after Wind and Flame was posted. I hope it finds its way back here to influence what happens next sooner rather than later. But, that's not up to me anymore. Still, it's heartening to see movement on the Wind front already...

Welcome

Welcome to the Netherlist Blog, or the Netherblog, or whatever term you'd choose to use for it. Recently, I was pulled in to the world of the Blog very innocently and randomly, and since that time, I've come to discover that the Blog form is something I've wanted for Netherwhen for quite some time. In this space, I plan to post more daily or weekly thoughts or ramblings as well as site-updates and Windwalking.com related news.